#I am almost finished with the second part. I will send it to be beta read and then I will post it when the timing is right :)

[ohitslen]

✨New Vashwood fanfic incoming!✨

I just love the idea of Vash and his emotions being somewhat difficult to handle with all the bottling up he does and his plant characteristics impacting on his reactions :Dc

This fanfic has been beta read by the amazing @molten-rainbows ! (check his fanfics out too in here!)

Thank you so much for your patience and support man, without it I wouldn't have been improving so much ever since you read this and gave me advice for it <3

[scorchieart]

Beyond Seeing

Prompt: In a Flash CC hosted by @flash-exchange - July 2024: Screenplay Challenge

A/N: My entry for this round of the challenge! It is my first time writing and sharing a screenplay-style story, I hope you'll enjoy it. Big thank you's to @lorei-writes and @the12thnightproject for the beta reads, direction, and encouragement!

Additional Notes: Story will be released in 3 parts, all as reblogs to the same post. Slug line/setting is written in red. Staging is written in italics. Dialogue is written below the speaker's name.

Part I

INT.  CLAVIS’S WORKSHOP — MORNING

Drawn curtains cover the room in grainy darkness. Still visible; a complete mess. A snoring figure hunches over his cluttered desk, protectively clutching one end of a curious long, wooden contraption. This is CLAVIS (15), inventor, trouble-maker, self-proclaimed genius.

A loud BOOM sounds outside.

Clavis jolts awake.

CLAVIS Chevalier did it!!

He reaches underneath the desk for his sword, then halts partway. Embarrassed, he re-sheathes the sword and shakes his head to clear it when a second BOOM interrupts him.

He crosses through the mess of raw materials and half-finished inventions to open the curtains. Heavy storm clouds swirl in the sky, making him shudder.

Squeaky whimpers from a box on the couch catch his attention. He swims through more rubbish to reach it and carefully lifts the lid.

CLAVIS (softly) Good morning, my friends. I trust you slept well?

Pained squeaks respond.

CLAVIS I know, I know. I can’t sleep during storms either. But fret not! I guarantee good dreams tonight. That’s my promise to you as the Third Prince.

He thumps his fist on his chest. The squeaks continue.

CLAVIS Oh, I appreciate the concern, but I cannot allow you to join me. Try and get some more sleep and be rested for the big surprise when I return. Farewell, for now.

He blows a kiss into the box and closes the lid. Another BOOM of thunder rolls as he snatches a striped blanket from one of the piles and covers the same wooden contraption from atop the desk he slept on. He carefully heaves it under his arm and heads for the door.

Before he leaves he pauses in front of a mirror, fixes his bedhead, and puts on a dazzling smile.

INT.  PALACE CORRIDOR — MORNING

Clavis sprints through the corridor. Servants gasp when they spot him, dropping plates and laundry baskets and clinging to the walls in fear as he passes.

Clavis ignores them. He is almost at the main entrance when a purposeful whip CRACKS at his feet. He skids to a stop, protectively covering the contraption, and looks up, annoyed.

CLAVIS Woke up on the wrong side of the coffin, Four-Eyes?

Reveal SARIEL (20) from behind a pillar; tall, strict, and perfectly coiffed. He coils his whip into uniform loops then straightens his glasses. Not amused.

SARIEL Why is it that every interaction we have begins with you mocking either my age or my appearance?

CLAVIS Your hearing going, old man? Quite sure I did both. Not either. I should get a reward for efficiency! HAHAHAHA!

Sariel poises his whip for another attack but keeps his calm.

SARIEL At this point, eternal rest would be the greatest reward imaginable.

CLAVIS Well, don’t let me keep you from it.

SARIEL Would that I dream of a peaceful afterlife, I am positive you of all people will find some way to rob me of it even beyond the grave.

CLAVIS You flatter me, grandpa.

More thunder rumbles. 

CLAVIS (cont.) Send me the address, I’ll be sure to pencil you in my gravedigging calendar another day.

Clavis tries to sidestep to the door, but Sariel gets there first. The whip CRACKS mere inches from Clavis’s nose.

CLAVIS You know, the proper action when a prince is heading out is to hold the door for him.

Sariel readies his whip again and blocks the doorway.

SARIEL The proper action when a fool attempts to run headfirst into a storm is to keep out of his way. Unfortunately, it is still only drizzling.

Parts II & III

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 2.20.2024

Well, I had another very solid week. I hesitate to call it good, because I didn't actually enjoy it very much, but I did grind out 8,642 words last week. I finished Chapter 8 and made a solid dent in Chapter 9a. Basically, I just tried to write at least a thousand words a day, which I accomplished almost every day. Yesterday, I only did 800, but I did 2000 on Sunday, plus the 800 was the ending scene for the chapter, so I deserve a little grace there. And it was a three-day weekend for my kids!

I am at the stage of the fanfic where most of the ambiguity is gone--I know what scenes are left and I just gotta write them. It doesn't matter if I want to or not, the fanfic isn't going to be done until I write them, so I just do it. I always worry that writing in this mindset is going to produce bad, unlovable writing--like, if I don't love writing this, how is anyone going to love reading it? Historically, though, that doesn't bear out--big chunks of Call Me Back and What We Do with Our Hearts were written in this exact fugue state, and I often end up loving them after the fact, and they still contain parts that are really funny or insightful or heartfelt or whatever. I literally do not know how this is possible, it just is. Also, like: there is going to be editing. It is truly astonishing how hard it is to slap anything at all down on a page and then how easy it is to shape it up into something good later on. It is a lot like throwing flat colors down on a piece of art and then adding a little texture and shading later.

The other thing I don't like about writing in this mode is that it makes me actually insane, which I don't like. I just roll word counts and percentages around in my head 24 hours a day and I'm not really able to relax and do things that are not grinding away at my writing. I can do it for short periods of time, but I think I have too much of this story left to tough it through, plus, like, what's the point? This is the thing I allegedly do for fun, and even though I really really really want to be finished, I feel like I should actually try to enjoy the process a little, at least.

So anyway! My first goal for this week is to be less insane about my fanfic. My second goal is to finish Chapter 9a (I think I have about 3-4k to go). My third goal is to edit Chapters 7 and 8 and send them to the beta.

After that, I'll just have 9b (of which I've already written about 4k) and the epilogue to do. After that, of course, there's still more editing, a beta pass for chapters 8->the end, and then I may try to read the whole thing through again from the beginning. So, 3 weeks, maybe, give or take a little?

In the interest of trying to have a little fun, I think I'm gonna try to post some previews for the next couple weeks? In the past, people have enjoyed previews. Today's is a little long, but it's the opening to the whole thing. It's below a cut for those who'd rather wait until the whole thing comes out.

“I don’t know if they’re trying to capitalize on Boy’s Day, or what,” Rukia said, idly inching her hand toward the plate of hot, steaming gyoza sitting on the countertop next to Renji’s stove, “but they’re having some sort of Seafood Festival out in East Sixth.”

A dish towel appeared out of nowhere, the tip whipping painfully against Rukia’s hand.

“Ow!” Rukia howled.

“They’re hot! It’ll hurt worse if you jam one of those in your mouth whole like I know you were gonna,” Renji replied, stuffing the dish towel back into his obi, and juggling the pan of gyoza he was currently frying. “What about a Seafood Festival? Why the Hell is the East Sixth having a Seafood Festival?”

“It’s being put on by the Train Museum, I hear,” Rukia continued grumpily, rubbing at her hand. “I guess they’re hauling a bunch of spring fish up from the Shiranui Sea at the other end of the line. It only takes a few hours to get out to Six. There’s probably carts making the run that we could take, but I would honestly just flash-step, at least on the way out. I want to eat my own body weight in katsuo. Possibly your body weight in katsuo.”

“Mmm,” Renji replied noncommittally, dumping the rest of his gyoza onto the plate and turning off the stovetop.

“I was thinking of asking Hisagi if he wanted us to take some pictures and do a little write-up for the Bulletin,” Rukia went on. “Get us a little walking-around money.” Not that Rukia lacked for pocket money, but it was a little more expensive than their usual weekend activities, and Renji got a little cagey when she tried to treat him to things.

“That’s a bad idea.”

“Why? We had fun the last time we played reporter!”

“Grab the bowl of sauce, would you?” Renji gestured with his chin as he picked up the plate of dumplings and the teapot to carry them to the table. “Don’t you remember when they built that damn train line? Took ‘em over over thirty years, and there were three to four articles every single Bulletin about the delays, the graft, the politics, the environmental impact, whatever. People got so mad about the idea of a train inside the Seireitei that it doesn’t even go anywhere useful. I didn’t even know they used it for anything aside from twee holidays for bored nobles.”

“I heard a story from my friend, Lady Akizuki, that the old head of the Seshimo clan actually lives on the train! He hasn’t set foot outside it in fifteen years!”

Renji cocked an eyebrow at her. He looked like he desperately wanted to hear about the Train Noble, but also did not want to be a guy who cared about Train Nobles. “Anyway, don’t mention the train to Hisagi unless you got six or seven hours to kill. Preferably when I’m not there.”

Rukia picked up the big, fragrant bowl of ginger dipping sauce with both hands. “It was just an idea. So what do you think? Do you want to go?”

“When is it again?” Renji asked, frowning.

“It’s running for all of May, but the weather has been so nice lately, I thought maybe we could go next weekend,” Rukia suggested. 

Renji was quiet for a moment, but Rukia figured that maybe he was just focused on serving her dumplings, which was, in her opinion, very important. 

“Ru,” he finally said slowly, as he poured her a cup of tea. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Is it that you want to go to the Seafood Festival with me?”

Renji took a big breath through his nose and let it out again. “If things work out, I’d love to go later in the month. Next weekend’s not gonna work, though.”

“Oh.” Rukia frowned. “That’s fine. That’s no big deal.” She looked down lovingly at her gyoza and then up at Renji hopefully. “Itadakimasu?” she asked hopefully.

Renji blinked. “Huh? Oh, yeah, please help yourself. That… that wasn’t the thing I had to say.”

“Well, spit it out, already,” Rukia groused, her mouth already crammed with gyoza. “Why are you being weird?”

Renji still hadn’t touched his own food. He had circled his right wrist with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand and was rotating it back and forth. He used to make that gesture a lot when he was young, and Rukia realized that she hadn’t seen him do it in years.

“I’m having some surgery,” Renji finally said. 

Rukia froze. After a long moment, she slowly finished chewing her dumpling and swallowed it. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I’m getting my arm fixed.”

Rukia watched him rub his wrist for another few seconds. “Did it not heal correctly after the, um, accident?” “The accident” was when Byakuya had stabbed him through the forearm during a demonstration fight the week prior. Everyone was being very polite about it.

“Wellll…” Renji drew out. “I mean, no, that healed up fine. Very clean cut, Senbonzakura, as always. But, uh, while I was at the Fourth, the topic of my burnt-out kidou ducts came up. Captain Unohana thinks she can fix ‘em. And I’ve decided to, um, let her try.” “Oh,” said Rukia. Her chest was filling up with a lot of strange feelings. “Oh.”

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 215

Sometimes, Sophia needs support in a purely morale way, and can’t always get it from her partners.

And sometimes that support comes from a person that... isn’t unexpected, but certainly doesn’t rate in the Top 10 of people she usually turns to.

Thanks, as always, to @baelpenrose for his beta reading, and - in this case - also the concept of Alistair Worthington.  Just like I want to (and almost always forget to) thank @werewolf2578 for Maverick.

When I got back to my office, I sent everyone home for the rest of the day.  Housing assignments weren’t terribly urgent, and we had all just gone through a major emotional blow.  Tyche seconded it, shooing Parvati ahead of her as she left.  Alistair insisted on sticking around to finish the briefing for the rest of the Ark’s population, with the irrefutable logic that he wouldn’t get anything done if he went home, since Arthur would almost certainly be there as well.

He arched a questioning brow in my direction when I sat down at my desk rather than head for the door. “Same issue,” I sighed. “You, Tyche, Parvati, Hannah… all of your partners at least know what’s going on.  Mine won’t until you finish that release.  What am I supposed to do? Sit around and look at their smiling faces, listen about their days, and pretend none this - “ I waved vaguely “- is going on?”

That, at least, earned me a grimace. “Fair point.  Would you like me to wait to send this until you’re home, at least? So you can warn them?”

I shook my head. “That’s an abuse of power, and I’ve already used one today.  Just let me know when you’re almost done, and I’ll head that way. By that point, a run would probably do me good to burn off the frustration.”

“Ugh,” he shuddered. “Cardio.”

Rather than being irritated, I narrowed my eyes and rested my chin on my knit fingers. “I know you get frustrated - you literally were when I met you.  There has to be something you do to vent.”

“Very true.”

I waited for the rest of the answer, but he just continued typing, clipping audio and visual recordings, and attaching supporting documents. “And that is…?”

“You saw it. You’re watching me do it now.” His response was so calm that it confused me.

Watching him for another minute or so, it suddenly clicked what he was talking about. “Ohhh…. You’re one of those….”

He nodded, but kept his eyes on his task. “I am aware.”

“Hmm. Maverick’s like that.”

That stopped my assistant mid-gesture. “Is he really?” He glanced at me, suddenly skeptical that we were on the same page.

Chin still on my fingers, I nodded. “He’s a… I don’t want to say fusser or worrier, but he needs to do something he can control when he’s upset about a situation and can’t do anything about it.  Reorganize the silverware, re-fold the laundry… if Else and the Ark didn’t handle dust and whatnot, he would probably have a very serious vacuuming issue.”

“A do-er.”

“Very much so.” Leaning so that my head was supported on just one hand, I started drumming my finger tips. “Now that I think about it, I wonder if I should go ahead and take the silverware out and put it on the counter.”

Alistair shook his head and turned back to his task. “I don’t suggest it.  If Arthur did that, it would only upset me more, and at him on top of that.”

I nodded absently. “Good point. Besides, he was military.  He’s probably going to handle the news better than Conor or I, by a long shot.”

“Now, your Conor…” he trailed off before seeming to find a stopping point. Dismissing his datapad entirely, he joined me in finger-drumming. “Should I message Arthur to be waiting for a sparring match?”

It was my turn to disagree. “I am almost entirely certain he’s already down there, warming up and bitching.  He wasn’t part of the call when Charly contacted the S’crirs, remember?”

Alistair conceded. “True. Speaking of: is any of that conversation to be included in the release to the Ark?”

“Not at this time.” My knee jerk response was Absolutely The Fuck Not. However, we - by which I meant all ten thousandish humans on the ship - had decided that ‘state secrets’ were going the way of the dinosaurs. “I need time to process it and figure out a better way to put it than ‘by the way, we are all accessories to a war crime’.”

A righteous index finger flew up. “Not a war crime, turns out,” he corrected me. “Equivalent of a felony, at best.”

All I could do was blink for several moments. “Seriously?”

“Arson, vandalism, and murder. All of which are felonies,” he confirmed. “I am not passing moral judgment, just attempting to mitigate your tendency to judge yourself too harshly.”  He paused before adding. “Besides, they are fascists.  Human history does not deal kindly with such.”

“You’ve spent too much time around Arthur,” I muttered.

“And you wound me.  I was a professional researcher and archivist.  Farro knows he would be wasting his breath attempting to explain fascism to me.”

My eyes rolled so hard the left one cramped. “That has never, in the history of my acquaintance with him, stopped him from debating anything.”

“One cannot debate with an opponent who will not engage.” With a flick, his datapad was open again. “I would suggest you begin your journey to your quarters.  I am finalizing everything now that I am sure details regarding our negotiations with the pirates are pending.”

“Say no more.”  I stood and headed towards the door. “How long do I have?”

“Twelve minutes, I would say.”

I did the mental math. That was three minutes to message them to either go on shift late or come home early - whichever applied - and still make it home if I jogged.

Ten minutes later, I had never been so glad that my runs through the corridors were a common sight.  No one had panicked, everyone had either stood still or moved out of my way - just a normal day with a Councilor in scrubs getting her daily run in.

My leftover two minutes were spent collecting myself for the conversations I very much did not want to have. When I walked into my quarters, I was immediately sandwiched into a three-way hug. “Everything okay, love?” Conor asked, breaking the silence but not the embrace.

They both started to pull away, however, as I felt both my and Maverick’s databand go off. “Don’t check that yet,” I insisted softly, reluctantly letting them pull back so I could see their faces. “Let’s sit down first so I can at least try to brace you both.”

“That’s not helping.” Despite his concern, Maverick tugged me over to the couch to sit against his side. Conor took my other side, turning slightly to face us both and taking my hand.

I tried to keep it brief. “We got a warning from the S’crirs that our escort fleet is trying to permanently ‘protect’ us,” I gestured the quote marks with my fingers. “They included our possible legal courses of action.  The details are in the info blast that just hit your wrists, but short answer is that none of the legal options panned out.”

Expecting questions, I paused and ran my hand through my hair, making a distracted mental note that I needed to cut it. They both just watched me patiently, however, and Maverick took over playing with my hair while I forged ahead. “Instead, we’re going to cheat. And it’s horrible. I’m still trying to grasp the fact that it’s real, and the details aren’t in the blast only because I couldn’t figure out a way to explain it without being either pedantic or secretive.”

I felt more than heard Maverick’s heavy breath as he took in the information, while Conor just blinked at me.  Finally, he glanced up at my pillow and tilted his head. “Mav, love. Do you want to read through it first, or do you want to hear what we’re actually going to be doing?”

Light tugs on my hair indicated he was thinking hard - he liked to tap a pen or something on flat surfaces when he was deep in thought, and in the absence of that would tug on clothes or hair. “I want to hear the plan, then I think I want to fold clothes.”

“I’ll help you get them out and put them on the bed,” Conor offered. “Before I go to the gym.”

I nodded at the plan. “Arthur is probably already there. He was on the meeting call - it was all hands. He doesn’t know what the actual next steps are, though, so you can’t tell him while you’re there.  That’s Charly’s job.”

“Charly?” both asked in unison.

“Yeah,” I confirmed wearily. “She negotiated what I’m about to tell you.” A long blink and a couple breaths later, I clarified. “We - well, the S’crirs, on our behalf - are going to make the environment around the system look too dangerous for a quarantine patrol.  Specifically by destroying our escorts and making it look like they hit a microsingularity or four.” I couldn’t see Maverick, but Conor’s face was asking for clarification. “Micro blackholes.”

That earned me a nod. “There has to be a way to do that without all this.” He waved around us at the ship as a whole. “Don’t we have one of those in the engine?”

“I don’t know if that’s how the engine works, but to answer your other question, yes. Unfortunately. Charly seemed pretty sure, at least. Something about dumping antimatter into their drive, plotting a jump, and letting whatever happens happen.”

A low whistle sounded from above me. “That would blow up the ship, while it’s in relativistic space…”

“And that means…?”

“It would look the same,” he confirmed. “No debris, and I’m sure they have a way to check the radiation and gravity in the area, but unless they send someone to do it…”

Conor scoffed and rose to his feet, tugging my hand to move me off of Maverick. “They don’t care that much. They met the requirements, not their fault the convoy vanished - if they even find out it happened until they don’t show up for their next check in.”

“Pretty much what we’re betting on,” I admitted. “But that’s it. Charly negotiated, I stood by for moral support and to get her to a med bay if needed. No one else was there for that part, and it isn’t included in the blast. So, no talking about it unless Charly specifically brings it up with you or until a second blast goes out.” My hands spread in defeat. “That’s all I’ve got.”

Conor’s voice was steady, but I could tell he was hanging on by the last shreds of his composure. This wasn’t something he could fix, but I was proud of how much self control he had now. “I’m going to help Maverick yank all the clothes out onto the bed, then go pick a fight with Arthur. You look knackered, so why don’t you lay down under two or five blankets, turn the lights down, and try to focus on something else.”

“Hannah and Parvati think I should do a big family dinner thing.  Like, all day and floating. A potluck.”

He tugged my ankles to stretch my legs out while Maverick started shaking out a blanket to cover me. “That sounds like the ticket. Think about who could bring what. A theme, all that stuff you love.”

“Fine,” I sulked softly before giving Maverick the kiss he leaned over for.  After adding another blanket over me, Conor did the same and followed Maverick into our bedroom.

I could just barely hear the soft thumps of armful after armful of clothes being chucked at the wall with all the force someone could muster.

“Beats the hell out of cleaning up glass,” I mumbled before trying to figure out how does one make goulash portable?

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[sybaritick]

Writer asks! 😁 10, 12, 18? 👉👈

(for the weird questions for writers ask game!) thank you for sending 'em! 10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

There def pieces of writing that "haunt" me in the sense that they have stayed with me for being so darkly emotionally affecting: the lyrics of the climax of Joanna Newsom's Only Skin have been meaningful in my heart for over a decade at this point. same with Invictus, it's a cliche but I encountered it at a rough part of my life so it meant a lot to me. More recently it has been Salvage that keeps coming to mind: I feel grateful for it, for being so bluntly honest about a feeling that is so difficult to talk about.

My own writing? The one that I keep coming back to is HANDLED just because I think I did a good job explaining the "vibe" in a way that feels salient to me, though I'm not sure it's effective communication to anyone else!

12. If a genie offered you three writing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules

hm, what counts as a writing wish. did you know someone once asked me a "three wishes" type question on my old tumblr like 6 years ago and i said i'd wish to be omnipotent

i wish that 1) i eventually finish my long-form original, PRMH, to my satisfaction and edit it into something nice that my friends can read, and 2) i write a bunch more lyrics in 2024, i like writing lyrics, and 3) i get better at writing more and weirder kinks in my erotica (both fandom and original) :D

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

Let's steal something from the dinner from Tephra Year ch1 since that's fresh in my mind!

"This is all delicious," he commented after a second helping. "I almost want to ask if the chef is of Waterdhavian background, because from what you've said, you're a Baldurian to the core." Enver shook his head, amused. "My tastes are varied, but I'll admit your suspicions are correct. I only wanted to ensure they'd get a bit of practice. I wouldn't want you to get homesick.” He gave Gale a soft, modest smile. “You should let me know of your favorites." "You're too kind," Gale said, before realizing what a tremendously comedic thing it was to say without further context. "I'm happy to hear it. If you aren't being kept in greater luxury than you were accustomed to in your seaside tower, I've failed as a host." It was after Gale had finished his third glass of wine and his second story about Tara that a servant brought out a dessert— a beautiful tart, heavy with ripe, glistening slices of pear. Gortash took a generous piece for himself, and Gale felt permitted to follow suit. 

so the general vibe here is, of course, that Gortash is trying to get on Gale's good side very hard and make this little business arrangement feel friendly and enjoyable so that Gale lets his guard down a bit and is more cooperative instead of feeling like he's being forced (he's not gonna be as effective if he's thinking about "I am doing a horrible thing for a horrible man" the whole time!)

interesting notes: There used to be a line in here that literally said that Gale hardly noticed he was only talking about himself, which I was on the fence about including-- wonderful beta reader (@slipintosomethingsoft hi) encouraged me that it wasn't necessary and I could keep the show-don't-tell approach and add a couple more details like having Gortash smile after his comment about homesickness to make it all the more obvious he's being weird right now. also I love describing food (and i have a little bit of a thing about gale eating for the 0 of my followers who aren't aware). I wanted to have Gale cautiously surprised by the aggressively-pandering menu-- yet enjoying it all anyway! supposed to be a sort of echo of his general vibe of "i know i should be watching out, but i'll watch out, and in the meantime i can enjoy myself, right? might as well". gale, essentially, sees what's happening and thinks he's more than clever enough to manage to snap up the bait without setting off the trap. :3

[charlotterhea]

Wip tag games!

Rules: In a new post, post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Thank you for tagging me, @giosnape!

I was hesitating to do this game because, frankly speaking, I only have one WIP, two if you squint (the second one only needs to be betaed). 😂 I am one of those writers who work on one story at a time and don't start another one before they're finished. I've written some oneshots lately to give me some distraction from my major WIP (that's at more than 600k atm 😳) but I'm not writing one atm either.

So this would be a pretty boring game, I thought - until I remembered that I do have a lot of plotbunnies scampering around in my brain and although I haven't started writing a single one of them yet, I will absolutely do so at one point. Almost as good as WIPs, eh? 😆

So, my one (two) real WIPs, just to stay true to the game:

"For the Girl That I Knew" - That story is so huge and so detailled, that I don't even know where to start describing it, so I stick to the rules - just the title. ^^

"Flying to the Moon" - Part 5 of my Threesome-Series

For the stories I'm determined to write in the future:

Therapy group - Ginny/Severus

"Persona Non Grata" - Hermione/Severus/Sirius, a rewrite of a mess of an old story of mine; I will probably change the title, though, I'm past my Latin phase...

ISEM 2 - The Missing Years - 😁

Parts 6 and 7 of my Threesome-Series

Tagging: @cissykenway @echoofawind @frenchpresswriter @dilkinazm @naomijameston @dilute-flower

[keira0615]

Looking for someone willing to beta read something I'm currently in the process of writing. 18+ only please, there is the possibility of NSFW in many things I write.

I've never had anyone beta anything I've written, but I just got out of an almost 3-year-old dry spell of writing stories & feel I am in need of one. I've just been second-guessing myself on a few things & would appreciate a second opinion & pair of eyes.

I write for a multitude of different fandoms, but hardly ever end up actually posting, or finishing things, honestly. 😅

I have literally filled up my one google docs account with ideas for fics & probably a hundred unfinished ones. 💀

I know I'm probably not selling myself as someone good to beta for with all this, but I wouldn't want anyone to hit me up for it expecting a consistent schedule of fics to beta, because I am honestly the worst at that. As the 3-year dry spell probably shows, lol.

I tend to have issues with moving on in a story, I am the type to explain everything in a situation as it happens in the story & then end up writing thousands of words on one part of a story. I would just appreciate someone who could read through them & tell me if it sounds goods, or be honest & tell me I'm rambling on about shit that doesn't need to be talked about.

Like I said, I write for many fandoms & am a multi-shipper for many of them. I also tend to write an occasional rare-pair fic. I honestly can't name everything off the top of my head, but if anyone is interested, just send me a message & I will go over what fandoms & pairs I write the most. We can also go over what you are & aren't comfortable reading, so I know what not to write/ask you to beta. I don't tend to write anything overly extreme or out there, such as dead dove dne, just for the record.

[deliverusfromevillll]

A Sticky Situation [Mammon/F!Reader] [P2]

❝ Ya' wearin' my shirt with nothin' under? Seems like ya' were plannin' for something princess. ❞

warnings ⨾ swearing, arachnophobia (the irony once again), established prior connection, established relationship, soft mammon, mutual pinning, sexual content, cunnilingus, creampie, dubious consent, size difference, height difference, no beta we die like Adam, AFAB Reader

terms ⨾ ❝ Drakon ❞ the Latin word meaning "dragon."

notes  ⨾ Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of an update in like 3 months lmao I'm immunocompromised and was hospitalized with pneumonia: to make a long story short I got hit with that AO3 curse and almost died. This was literally a few days after I originally posted this and the combination of getting mega sick with a pretty gnarly hospital bill (woohoo America) waiting for me after kinda killed my motivation to do anything aside from work and pay bills. I've slowly regained motivation to continue this and some of the comments from AO3 have seriously gave me the kick in the ass I needed to finish off this draft. If you would like to be part of the process in between me brainstorming and posting ( as I am currently looking for beta readers ) and/or generally would like to see WIPs feel free to join my discord ( NgT88bybyY ).

[01]

As always minors DNI.| 5.1K words

Mammon shifted through a few sheets of paper, glossing over each of them without much of a second thought before setting them back down on his desk.

He sighed.

His eyes gloss over the infographic one of his servants delivered from [F/n]'s personal office. The margin of sales, despite positive, was not a big of a success as he had anticipated.

The twins, as kickass as they were, simply could not replace Fizzarolli.

Mammon rotates his chair around, looking at the mountain of moneybags he had stored. Well, rather piled everywhere behind him. He stands and walks over to pick up the closet one.

It jingles with every movement. Tossing the bag a small distance above his hands before recapturing it. The weight of it felt like a feather to him.

He grimaced. Dropping it with a loud thud.

Mammon turned back towards his desk, he swats some sheets of paper away as if it were a pest.

His fist slams onto a small button, watching the small bulb above it glow a gentle shade of green.

"'Ey." He grumbled.

There was radio silence on the other side. He gives it a second before leaning closer towards the machine.

"'Ey cunt, I'm fuckin' talking to you!"

There was an awful buzzing on the other side followed with a loud clatter.

"S-Sorry sir! Is there something I can help wi—"

"Send [F/n] into my personal office now before I come down there and snap y're worthless fuckin' neck!"

A small thump follows. Mammon would roll his eyes if he could, severing the connection thereafter.

He grabs a fistful of the various papers on his desk, opening a drawer attached to his desk and aggressively stuffs them inside indifferent with the fact most were crumpled as a result.

He sways gently in his seat, planting a palm over his face.

[F/n] groans as the buzzer interrupts her phone call. She paces away from it, cupping her hand over the microphone.

"Listen chiquita, it's harder to keep up with demand when we no longer have the support of Asmo—"

"You think your insolence is gonna blow over well with Mammon? You figure this shit out, fast."

The beeping loops louder, this time startling [F/n] as her stutter allows her phone to slip from her hands. It hits the floor with a thump, [F/n] quickly collecting it to see the call had ended.

"—is requesting your presence in his private office."

She blinks.

Then she sighed.

Shutting the door behind her, she crosses the hallway. Approaching the door opposite of hers, looking at the massive sigil glowing brightly on his door. She knocks twice before opening it without waiting for a response.

Mammon removes his hand from his face, observe meeting hers, as she approaches him with a short smile.

"You know you can just send me a text or come to my room right?"

"I like seeing you come to me." He huffs, waving and beckoning her closer as she treads past his desk.

Mammon extends his arms and lifts [F/n] onto his lap, slouching down to rest his head in between the crevasse of her neck and shoulder. He inhales deeply, groaning quietly as her perfume scent soothes his stress.

His lower hands planted firmly at her thighs while his upper pair held onto her arms. He rubs circles on her muscles, massaging her, earning that familiar purr he instantly fell in love with the night he first took care and tended to her. He smiles into her skin at the memory.

[F/n] drapes her wings around him like a small blanket, planting a kiss on his cheek. His chest rumbles in response.

"The fuck are we gonna do?" His voice was muffled in her skin, gently tickling her.

"Well at least you're in the positive, right?"

"Yeah but it's not enough."

She giggles at that. "It never is."

He grumbles something unintelligible, kissing her shoulder before rising to meet her gaze. His stare trails to the bend of her wing, seeing it extended as much as his webbing would allow. The web itself looks a little beat, almost as if she scratched it against something.

"Do ya' want me to replace it?" He asks with a pointed look.

[F/n] follows his watch, shaking her head.

"I was actually hoping to remove it today. I wanted you to have the honors."

Mammon released the drip on one of her arms as he brings it to stroke his work. He hesitated.

"Ya' sure? It really ain't that big 'o deal to just fix it."

She nods, angling it slightly more in his direction to make it easier to pull off. He does so, immediately inspecting it over to see her scales had regrown over the original injury.  [F/n] lightly pulls away her wing from his grip, flapping it in experimental increments before resettling over him.

"Definitely better, not being able to fly sucked really fucking hard."

Mammon pursed his lips. He looks at her unsure on what to say, or rather, unable to find the words for his next thought.

"I —uh— amped up the security. After... Y'know."

"It's fine honestly. They couldn't aim."

"It wasn't. I don't have the slightest idea what I'd fuckin' do if it were any worse." He adjusts the cloth underneath his chin. Mammon swallows thickly. "It's the only thing I could fuckin' think about with all this other worthless fuckin'..."

The hold on her thighs become tighter.

[F/n] instinctively brushes her hands against his, making him realize as he eases off and resumes pressing his thumbs into circles.

"Asmodeus bein' a fuckin' bitch."

She hums, resting her chin onto his chest.

"You know what would help?"

"What?"

"Getting out of here for a day and just taking a break. When was the last time we went out together and did nothing work related?"

He actually gave it thought, realizing he genuinely cannot remember. It must've been months, if not, closer to a year at that. He frowned.

"Y're right. Let's let these fuckin' unpaid interns take care o' the shipments."

[F/n] smiled wide, flapping her wings excitedly.

"You got a lot of faith in those interns y'know." [F/n] giggled.

"If they fuck up I'll just kill 'em."

Mammon stands. He watched her bounce off him, tail wagging as she soars before the door. She practically rips it open.

He follows after her, letting her pass through as he shuts the door behind him. His sigil glows brightly behind them as they walk along the hall.

[F/n] flies beside him, leaning on his shoulder slightly.

"Where do you wanna go? We should have dinner! I know of this really good, high end, restaurant for royals in the Gluttony ring too. We can also do a movie! Loo Loo Land? I feel like that'd be kinda weird though."

She floats before Mammon, grinning ear to ear as an abundance of things run through her mind. Mammon watches her, heart chirping at her enthusiasm.

"How about coffee? We could also just stroll down Ransom and kill sinners. Or—"

Mammon grabs [F/n] propping her under his arm like a football. Her wings trapped. Despite everything, he didn't want her to end up tiring herself out gibbering out random ideas.

"Dinner sounds nice mate." He stated happily.

The so referred to high-end restaurant she spoke of required a reservation. The waitlist on it was no joke, spanning forward for several months.

None of that mattered to either of them however, as being anything related to royalty meant you were basically free to do and go where appropriate. Mammon held his head high walking parallel to the massive line of sinners who'd presumably been waiting for hours.

[F/n] led themselves before the security, who had without question allowed them inside to be seated.

Their server, despite sweating bullets, had brought them to their most exclusive table away from a majority of the other patrons. The booth was placed before a large mural spanning across the wall accompanied with vibrant potted plants.

The server gestures towards the table with a deep breath.

"Your seat madam, sir."

Mammon plops himself down comfortably, stretching an arm out around the curve of the booth. [F/n] takes her seat some distance beside him, however short lived as he reached over to scoot her closer.

He looks stoically at the server who stuttered slightly while placing down the menus.

"C-Can I get you started on any drinks?"

[F/n] looked over at Mammon. "Champagne?"

He smiles at her, nodding once.

"I'll be back at once."

[F/n] watches as the server vanishes, immediately picking up the menu thereafter to peer through it.

"Isn't this nice?" She chimed.

Mammon hunches over slightly to read some of the things of interest she'd point at. Or at least feigned it, as he looked over the menu to see others and passing staff shoot glances at them.

He snakes a hand in between her thighs, grumbling as a certain level of discomfort washed over him.

He was used to being in the spotlight, reveled in it, enjoyed it in its entirely, but in this instance it felt as though he naked.

"Do you want seafood? Steak? Chicken?"

He snaps out of his trance.

"Yeah."

[F/n] looks up at him with a raised brow. "Yeah to what part?"

"Your champagne."

Mammon redirects his attention to the server, both watching as he poured the contents into their glasses before leaving the bottle aside. He pulls out a pen and paper. "Madam, are you ready to order?"

"Uhh—"

"Give us the best shit ya' got on the menu." Mammon cuts in, smiling wide as he waved the server away. He nods, scribbling something down. The server very quickly collects the menus before scurrying.

"I mean that also works." [F/n] laughed nervously, reaching down to place her hand over the one at her thighs. "Thank you for agreeing to come out with me."

Mammon softened at that, humming in content. "Ya'know I can't say no to ya' princess." He pecks the top of her head, running his extended arm through her hair.

"Y're mine." He quickly adds, saying it firmly. Mammon squeezes her thigh as if to emphasize it. [F/n]'s tail wags.

"How do you feel?" She asked.

Mammon mulled over his feelings. "Fuckin' starving princess, I might have to take a bite out of ya' at this rate." He cooed, bicolored tongue flicking her cheek. [F/n] giggles, pushing his face away.

It only resulted in him playfully licking her hands, to which she squealed.

"Mammon stop! I-I have to pee!" She said in between yelps. He ignores this for a few moments, continuing to toy with her.

Mammon gets dangerously close again, watching her squirm, before stopping abruptly and pecking the spot he licked on her features.

"Make it quick." He huffed.

[F/n], still giggling softly, nods as she leaves his side. The cool air brushes against the spot of saliva on her face, making her painfully aware of its existence if in case she forgot it even for a mere moment.

She rejoins the general population within the restaurant, eyeballing where the restroom might be.

The whispers around her grew, and amongst it all she could only capture a few words.

"That's a sin's bitch, can you believe it? Mammon is following Asmodeus' route."

Her lips form a thin line. It doesn't take her long spot it. She moves carefully through the crowd.

Pushing the door open, she treads towards the sink, turning on the fossette. She swats the cool water with a finger before cupping some of the liquid into her hand and splashing her face.

[F/n] looks at the mirror, letting out a long sigh.

Despite everything, she had secretly hoped that somehow her status as a knight would grant them an ounce of leniency when it came time to pass judgement. But even then— it was pointless.

The sins themselves simply cannot be compared.

She had done her best to feign ignorance at scrying eyes, however she knew Mammon would take notice. Mammon knew when he drew a crowd, it'd be impossible for him not to.

She only hoped he didn't regret coming out with her. Despite her encouragement to not be publicly affectionate for the sake of his image: he rebutted it with a simple, "I don't fuckin' care what these broke cunts think." And true to his word it was very obvious he couldn't keep his hands off her.

The last thing they needed right now is a tarnished reputation.

Mammon's reputation.

On top of everything, the thoughts of the overall net-loss and lack of sales have lingered within the corners of her mind. It bothered her more than she'd expect. More than she'd admit.

The journey to their current point was rocky sure, but none of it compared to losing Mammon's precious brand baby entirely. Even if Mammon refused to admit or acknowledge it, the impact of it was definitely noticeable.

She pursed her lips.

Maybe it was time to suck up her pride and reach out. This battle of egos was one not in their favor.

[F/n] takes small pile of disposable towels from the dispenser, patting down her features before tossing them.

She fishes for her phone, opening her messages with the ex-employee. The digital keyboard sprouts up. [F/n] paused at their final exchange.

Hey Fizz, Glam sisters are nearly finished with their act, please be ready in 10 to go next. Break a leg♡— SENT [5:19PM]

Fizzie?— SENT [5:28PM]

Fizz where are you? The sisters are wrapping up.— SENT [5:31PM]

I found your bodyguard and he told me you ran off. Are you okay??? Mammon is about to blow a fuse. I'm trying to stall him for a few more minutes. I'm sorry. Please be okay.— SENT [5:35PM]

Hey [N/n], I'm going now. Thank you for always being nice to me. Mammon could learn a thing or two about you~ (╹◡◠)— RECIEVED [5:37PM]

Their messages were always loosely professional. Though they were never exactly friends she would do him favors often he clearly appreciated.

And on the flip side, seeing as Mammon couldn't be bothered to do much himself, had [F/n] communicate plans and potential ideas to Asmodeus.

There was a certain level of sympathy casted towards the dragon, knowing full well that Fizzie being mistreated could only mean so were the rest of his employees.

Even if he wouldn't be willing to entirely return— it was worth keeping a good relationship to try and keep Asmodeus' labor force on their side.

[F/n] mulled over if she did enough to even be worth a response.

What would she even say?

What can she say?

Would Mammon even be capable of being cordial in this scenario? Probably very unlikely.

Another sigh rolls out. Impossible.

Food for thought.

She glances towards the mirror, standing straight as she feigns a smile: pulling unwanted wrinkles on her clothes.

No matter what, they'd have to figure this out together. They just had to.

[F/n] emerges out of the restroom, tracing her steps back towards Mammon. Their eyes meet prompting her to smile in his direction as he did the same. She never failed to notice how attractive he were.

All that interrupted as someone had bumped into her.

The lot of beverages stacked in his hold go flying. Sounds of glass breaking and clattering follow.

There was a pause.

Then a strong puff of green emerged before [F/n].

"'YA GOT A DEATH WISH OR SOMETHING CUNT?!" Mammon snarled, glaring down at the hound splayed on the floor between them. Larger puffs of green exit through his teeth menacingly.

The restaurant goes radio silent before a soft, "Ooo," from various patrons breaks the tension.

"I-I am so sorry sir, I-I-I swear I couldn't see her I —ohsweetLucifer— I am SO sorry!"

[F/n] flicked off the various types of alcohol from her arms, sighing. She forces a nervous smile.

"It's fine honestly, Ammo, it was an accident."

Mammon's attention is captured at her words, observing her try and swipe off the fluid from her body. The booze made her skin glisten and shimmer in the light, highlighting her smooth [s/c] skin.

She was glowing. Radiant. Hot.

Mammon's breath hitched. A wave of warmth meets his face as sparks emerge and trail randomly over his body.

[F/n] offered down a hand to the hellhound, who was rattling quickly glancing between them. He, with major reluctance, slowly reached out to accept.

A quick glare from Mammon causes him to change his mind however, as the wolf stumbled upwards to stand. Despite trembling, he does his best to recollect himself before twirling to look at the pair.

"I-I sincerely apologize for my incompetence, madam." The wolf bows before [F/n]. "I will ensure your dinner is on the house tonight, please forgive me."

They watch him scurry off, quickly refocusing on each other as [F/n] slightly trembled from the fresh alcohol stuck to her skin. Her tail swishes behind her. She folded her wings around herself.

The other sinners had no problem watching on however. Their eyes were glued. It was as if their whispers grew louder.

She seemed almost embarrassed to meet his stare.

"Y're shakin'." Mammon points out.

"It's just... the booze is kinda cold. I'll be fine."

Her reflection mirrors perfectly in his eyes.

Alcohol was dripping from the crevasses of her scales. Despite her effort there was no way she'd be able to dry herself off like this. As appetizing as she looked in her current state, he can't imagine how uncomfortable that must've been.

Mammon surveyed the direction the mutt stumbled in.

The spider crouched over to greedily steal a sweet peck from her lips in an attempt to distract her. He caressed her cheek. A reassuring squeeze on her shoulder.

"I'm gonna send ya' back to my room princess." He states. "Take a shower. Get real comfortable for me, yeah?" The tone in his voice indicated there was no room for protest.

She looks up at him, mouth slightly ajar, however unable to find the effort to defy him.

There's a dark, clouded, look in his expression.

[F/n] sighed, looking away while simultaneously closing her eyes. "I'm sorry this ruined our dinner."

Her claw comes up to rub her eyelids, attempting to mask the massive level of disappointment that washed over her. When there was no response she uncovered her features.

She's met with his room.

[F/n] blinks, gaze trailing the floor.

"Well... Shit." The volume in her words evaporates.

[F/n] spins to march in the direction of his bathroom. Rushing to rip off her soaked clothing, she tosses it rather harshly on the floor some distance away from herself. Hands shakily planting onto the granite countertop.

Looking herself in the mirror, she swallows thickly.

How humiliating.

She was considered a royal. A knight. No matter her retirement, she will keep that title forevermore.

Yet fighting exorcists somehow felt less stressful and much more easy to do.

As much as she wanted everything to go smoothly, mainly for his sake, feeling as though she'd disappointed the most important person in her life made her feel incredibly subpar.

A failure.

The gravity of it all comes crashing down on her.

Tears sting her eyes as she opens the shower, running the nozzle at the hottest setting. [F/n] stands idle. Hot water cascades over her body, washing away traces of alcohol and sweat from her skin.

She watches discoloration of the water go down the drain.

The aroma becomes less prominent, lathering herself in his eucalyptus scented body wash. She takes her loofa, dragging it over her scales.

[F/n] tries to scrub the stress out of her body. Efforts rewarded as the minty smell meets her nose. She puts aside the scrub, taking her own non-scented hair shampoo squirting a dollop into her palm.

She raked her claws gently through her [h/c] hair. Feeling the suds build up in between her scaled fingers. Her fingers continue to massage her scalp until she's satisfied, stepping back towards the running water.

Her tail swished behind her. Allowing the water to clear the soap from her body. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the embarrassment that floods through her as she's reminded of what just happened.

Though the water felt good temporarily, it wasn't enough to wash away her anxiety.

The water halts, [F/n] steps out after squeezing most of the water out of her hair. She pats herself down, hastily wrapping a towel around her body. Stepping out of the bathroom, she trails over towards Mammon's wardrobe.

Though his usual clothes were a size much, much too big for her he did keep some of his older shirts that no longer fitted him— having them tailored to fit more comfortably on [F/n] as well as accommodate her wings.

She recalled telling him how it saddened her she wouldn't be able to wear his clothes once and this was the solution he drew. It fitted her as a slightly lose larger shirt but she wasn't one to complain.

She sighed, breathing in his scent as if it were air. It was the single thing that put her more at ease.

Opening her wings, she slowly exists the room: dragging herself towards the kitchen. She glides towards one of the higher cabinets, fishing for a large pan.

Floating back down, she places it on the stove. Her hand grips the oven handle, hesitating as she even wonders if there was anything left within their fridge.

[F/n] walks over to open the fridge, glancing around. Nothing in particular stuck out to her, until she saw a few packets of eggs hidden at the very back of the shelves.

Bending over, she scoots some of the other items away to make a clear path to drag the eggs out of the fridge.

"Holy fuckin' shit." A voice quivered.

[F/n] quickly pulls herself out of the fridge, turning around to see Mammon with a fierce shade of green covering his face.

He shoved the bags of takeout onto the counter: as well as the random assortment of flowers and chocolates he brought with him.

"I-I, uh, was gonna make us something to eat, s-since I wasn't sure if you uh—"

"How about I eat that lil' cunt o' yours you just flashed me with princess?"

He grins mischievously. [F/n]'s cheeks flared. Like a deer in headlights she's frozen in place, unable to move as Mammon treaded towards her. Her heart beats in her throat.

"I... We can eat first if—" Her voice is quickly lost as Mammon's hand grips her chin.

"Shut it, I've been fantasizing about this since I first kissed ya'."

He breathed, pressing a kiss on her lips. Mammon grabs onto her thighs, spreading them around himself and he brought her towards the table.

Mammon breaks the kiss, allowing her to splay over the table as he bends down after her. His teeth nips at her lower lip, bicolored tongue prodding in between her teeth. [F/n] releases a hot breath as her tongue slides with his.

The spider holds both of her wrists still on both sides of her face, using his other pair to grope her breasts. It doesn't take very long for them to make way down. One stuck between the flesh of her thighs while the other hikes up her shirt.

A low groan follows.

"Ya' wearin' my shirt with nothin' under?" He chuffed. "Seems like ya' were plannin' for something princess."

His grin expands impossibly larger, tongue dragging across the skin in between her breasts as he drunkly takes in a large whiff of her scent.

The wet muscle comes all the way down before stopping at her sex.

[F/n] shivers, muttering out a low "Mammon."

"All this for me— all of you belongs to me princess."

"Yes Mammon." She sighed, tilting her head slightly down to take a glance at him, heart still pounding.

She never forgot their difference in size, but when he's crumpled over her like this it makes her feel even smaller in comparison. It was impossible not to drool over the thought.

[F/n] can feel the warmth of his breath against her sensitive skin, and it only serves to heighten the sensation.

Mammon's eyes meet hers for a mere second before he sunk his mouth in between her soaked folds, lapping up her nectar as if it were the only thing he'd consumed in days.

Out of pure reflex, [F/n] attempted to press her knees together, quickly forgoing that notion as his lower pair of hands grip down roughly at her thighs and forced them apart effortlessly. She moans.

Mammon flicked over her clit quickly sending waves of pleasure coursing through her body. She gasps loudly as he starts sucking on her sensitive flesh, drawing out a long moan deep within her.

"Ya' like that, huh?" Mammon asks, his voice low and husky. "Fuckin' whore."

He continues to lap at her juices, his tongue swirling around her entrance savoring the taste. [F/n] nods, unable to speak through her pleasure. His other hand slips between her legs, finding her swollen clit.

She lets out a moan as he starts to tease her sensitive bud, rubbing it gently at first before increasing pressure. His touch is electric, sending waves of pleasure coursing through her body.

"Fuck— Mammon..." She pants, voice shaking. "I-I'm going to..."

Mammon immediately stops his ministrations, tongue pulling away from her folds. His bicolored tongue slurped up the remaining slick dripping from his lips.

[F/n] let's out a whine, tugging at her pinned wrists slightly. Her brows knit together in slight annoyance at the loss of her high.

"Ammo what the f—?!"

Much like a rag-doll, Mammon flips her on her stomach in a quick motion and a small thud. Leaning over her as he exhales sharply. A puff of green smoke cloud her vision for merely a second. The hold he kept on her wrists tightened.

"Y're not gettin' off till I do bitch." He growled into her ear. Hot breath blowing against her skin.

"'M sorry." [F/n] mewls out.

"Good girl."

His weight kept her pinned against the wood as she squirmed slightly. Mammon drops his trousers, roughly grasping her tail to pull her closely against him.

[F/n] finally feels his swollen cock poke at her entrance. [E/c] eyes widen, unable to give it much of any thought at Mammon uses his hand to properly angle himself.

He sinks his hard cock deep inside with a single push, grunting hungrily. Granted his larger size would mean a bigger and fatter dick, but nothing could've prepared her for this.

She squeaked loudly. Eyes watering as she felt herself getting split apart.

"That cunt is so fuckin' tight..." Mammon muttered.

Her nails dug into the wood, peeling the material. The sudden fullness nearly knocked the wind out of her.

Letting out another whimper as Mammon withdrew, she's quickly appeased when he ruts back forward. Ramming his cock inside her.

The sound of the table creaking fills the air paired with the loud wet clapping that came with each thrust. The string of moans echo louder as she stares blankly into space with half-lidded eyes.

"Mammon it's too m—!"

Mammon bites down on her neck, sharp teeth sinking into her flesh to interrupt her as he continues to piston his hips against hers.

The taste of her blood meets his tongue as he soothes over the love bite. However hastily forgotten about as he moves his mouth over to bite down on her shoulder, leaving a trail of hickeys behind. 

[F/n] forcefully arched as Mammon angled her tail higher.

His movements become more erratic, hips drilling into her without mercy. She can feel his cockhead pressing against her spongy cervix, a fresh wave of pleasure runs through her body.

"F-Faster..!" [F/n] whimpers. His movement becomes labored for a moment before he complies.

"Needy whore." The grip on her tail falls as he moves both his lower hands to grasp her hips. His claws press into her soft skin desperately in an attempt to pull her closer.

He fucks her harder than ever, table cracking under pressure. Green bolts of electricity run down his arms and over her body, tickling her skin lightly.

The fullness and rapid pace of his thrusts into her sopping cunt was too much for her to handle. 

The sensation of it all was overwhelming.

 [F/n] cried out in pleasure as her orgasm washes over her completely. She convulses underneath him, chipping more of the wooden material from underneath her nails.

Her gummy walls squeeze down on his shaft hungrily. The tightness of her pussy wrapped around his throbbing cock in anticipation, craving.

"That's right, milk my cock bitch." Mammon growls, grunting loudly as his hips snapped flush against hers. Jolts and sparks of electricity fly out of his body excitedly.

A warm sensation spreads through her lower abdomen. His thick, creamy seed fills her bruised cunt painting her walls in white.

She rolls out another loud moan, trembling underneath him.

He continued to weakly thrust deep into her, sighing as he finally came down from his high and stilling inside her until he was finished cumming. Mammon released her wrists, leaning back to look at his work.

[F/n] was sprawled out panting quietly, [e/c] eyes peering over her shoulder to meet his stare.

A bead of sweat trails down her forehead.

Mammon paused, a shade of deep green spreading across his features. He pulls out slowly, watching her wince, breath catching at her throat, and a loud splat of their mixed seeds hit the ground. 

A strand of cum still connects his cock to her clit.

His eyes watch as globs of his cum seep out of her, lazily scooping some of it with his finger to nudge back inside. 

Mammon breaks the silence with a short husky chuckle.

"At the rate I'm gonna be fuckin' ya' all of hell wouldn't have to worry about drakons goin' extinct—"

A loud creak grabs both of their attention, eyes darting towards the door.

One of the robotic servants hum entering the room with a mop in hand, freezing upon seeing their scene.

Mammon immediately glares at the maid, low growl pitched at his throat as the robot rushes out the room.

"I'm gonna fuckin' destroy that worthless piece of metal!"

[F/n] pushes herself up, wobbling to stand with wings coiled over her naked body. Slowly but surely she turns to face the sin, swallowing thickly as she felt more of their nectar dribble down her thighs. 

"It's just a robot..." [F/n] giggles. "Plus we kinda made a, ah, mess."

Mammon huffs. 

"That ain't the point." 

Looking over at the stuff he'd brought, she was surprised seeing some of it survive.

Granted the drinks tipped over the table and spilled all on the floor, the takeout itself along with his gift was still mostly alright.

"So... Flowers? Chocolate?" She grinned at him, Mammon mutters something under his breath as a deeper shade covers his expression.

He hands her a wad of napkins to clean herself up as he picks up his pants. [F/n] fixes back down the shirt she was wearing.

"Don't be coy with it otherwise I'll pull my fuckin' pants back down 'nd stick my stiffy in your little mouth." He grumbled. "I'm still half hard."

[F/n]'s smile grows bigger.

The stern look Mammon gave her melted into a laugh.

"Fuckin' whore." 

"You're the one who offered~." She purrs, tossing the used napkins aside.

"Now how about dinner then a rinse? I'm starving!" Her tail wags cheerfully as the savory smell meets her nose upon ripping open the plastic bag, stomach growling.

"Just cause y're off the hook for now doesn't mean ya' will be later princess."

"Oh?" 

Mammon kneads her ass as he lifts her off the ground to plant a kiss on her lips. She places a hand on his chest, snuggling closer into his warm figure.

He nuzzles the crook of her neck, pecking some of the hickeys.

"When did I give ya' the green light to cum?"

"Oh." Her lips pursed, [F/n] hums out. "I guess you didn't, did you?"

A sly, toothy, smile grows on his features.

[aimfor-theheart]

COIN TOSS– PART I

(18+ MINORS DNI)

PAIRINGS: Tomura Shigaraki x Reader, a little Shouta Aizawa x Reader

SUMMARY: As you fall asleep, you wonder faintly, almost sadly, if you’re the first thing he’s fully touched without losing in a long time.

You are Eraserhead’s troubled protege with a Quirk that cancels out others the moment they touch you. Tomura Shigaraki takes great interest in you.

(Enemies to lovers, a lot of angst, some hurt/comfort)

WARNINGS: Unhealthy/complicated relationships, age gap/power struggle, violence, gore, Tomura’s trauma specifically, (in later chapters) murder, heroes’ abuse of power, smut, some blurred lines, rough sex, a smidge of a spit kink, a smidge of somnophilia (let me know if I’ve missed anything!)

If you are under the age of 18, you should not be reading or interacting with this!

A/N: oof it’s been a hot second. this became way, way too long. and i cut A LOT out, too! i struggled through it greatly and almost gave up several times but i finished it! and i am proud of myself if only for that! this will end up being 3 parts! it's already fully written, so i'll post the next two chapters soon! i tried to keep tomura in character but MAN was it HARD!! i’m always open to constructive criticism/feedback! let me know what you thought!!

thank you again to @randomrosewrites for beta-ing this!! i really appreciate your help!!

Read on Ao3

***

The first time Tomura sets his eyes on you, it is against a bleak, grey sky. You are a dramatic slash of movement against it, all bared teeth and scorching eyes, vivid in your darkness. He thinks of Renaissance paintings- the dynamic body, the tragic face. He thinks of the jagged cut of a lightning bolt. The sea when it’s surly and blue-black and hungry. You’re a gash, a striking, open wound against the pale sky behind you.

There is something so youthful in you, too, so viciously full of life, of vitality. You’re all heat, all fight. All living, breathing, messy life.

(He doesn’t want to admit it, but you’re a siren song. The moment he laid eyes on you, he knew somehow, someway that you were different. Some part of you calls out to some part of him, lures him in, ensnares him.

He gets his answer in just a moment, but he likes this part, when he doesn’t know a thing about you, when you haven’t completely flipped his world on its head.)

You favor close combat, he realizes. Close enough to cut, to strike, to touch. He does, too. He watches you slide beneath the explosion of blue flames that Dabi sends careening towards you. You are so swift that he nearly misses how you latch onto Dabi’s wrist- his flames gutter out like they’ve been doused- and use your momentum to knee him in the chest, sending you both rolling backwards.

You end up atop him, three, gleaming blades between your knuckles now pressed up against his throat. Dabi lifts his hand again and Tomura almost winces, prepared for the flames, the blast of them, the heat of them that will incinerate you.

But they never come.

“What the fuck?” Dabi curses, flexing his fingers like he’s trying again. You dig the sleek little knives deeper into his throat and blood wells up. Tomura sighs. Is he really going to have to save Dabi from you?

He lopes closer, comes to stand behind you, has every intention of simply letting you fall away into nothingness. He doesn’t have time to deal with you. Doesn’t care– no, no matter how intrigued he’d been, he doesn’t care. That’s what he tells himself, at least, when all five fingers close around your shoulder.

And absolutely nothing happens.

What the fuck?

Tomura squeezes, as if that will trigger something. And when it doesn’t, when you don’t fall away into dust and bone, he nearly panics–

“I see you’ve met my new protege,” A low voice comes from a little too close, before pain explodes in the side of Tomura’s head.

He drops like a stone, teeth clicking together, jaw lancing with pain at how hardly he clamps down. His temple throbs. He thinks he can feel blood trickle down the side of his face.

When he turns, Eraserhead is already a flurry of movement. His capture weapon nearly snags Tomura, before he manages to roll out of the way.

Why didn’t you decay?

Was it Eraserhead?

Tomura rises back to his feet, swiping blood from the side of his head, “So it seems,” he agrees on a rasp, “How’s the elbow?”

Why didn’t you decay?!

All he gets from Eraserhead is a scowl, just before he catches movement towards you and Dabi. Tomura’s eyes follow, and he watches as Dabi finally manages to get you off, shoving you off so that you roll into the stone wall. And the moment you’re off of him, his flames come roaring back to life.

“Void!” Eraserhead shouts and his capture weapon is so fast that it’s just a blur, it snags you, draws you to him so he can throw an arm around you, hunch over you to keep you safe from the flames.

How sweet, Tomura thinks bitterly, glaring at you just as Eraserhead’s eyes flare crimson and Dabi’s flames are cut out again. Dabi curses, looks at Tomura. They share a silent conversation.

They hadn’t intended on dealing with Eraserhead. They hadn’t intended on dealing with you, either, but you were just a runt compared to your mentor.

His mind is all unsettled now, like a broken record asking;

Why didn’t you fucking decay, though?

Regardless, they needed to get out of here. They could use a portal.

He barely catches the quiet murmur of Eraserhead, “–just like we practiced.”

And then you’re a streak of darkness rushing for him. Eraserhead’s capture weapon is tightened around your torso, wrapped around your waist. You feint, to dart around Tomura, and then back around so that he can feel the weapon near his calves. You’re wicked fast, a sly little thing as you try to wind it around him, to trip him up. But all it takes is Tomura snagging a part of the capture weapon. Immediately, it begins to crumble away, spreading out slowly but surely.

You lurch for him, your little hand closing tight around his wrist, and your eyes flaring into a bright, feverish pink. His Quirk stops in its tracks. Gone.

Tomura snarls, trying to lurch away from your hold, but you claw into him. What’s left of the capture weapon snags, pulling so that the two of you end up falling.

For a moment, time feels suspended as he falls with you. Your lips are pulled back to bare teeth, vicious little thing that you are, growling in his face, wild and untempered.

(He’ll remember this moment– he’ll think you looked perfect and horrible. It’ll haunt him.)

Your eyes are startlingly bright, burning. Your grip on him is tight and there is nothing in the pit of his chest where his Quirk usually rests, like a cemetery behind the gates of his ribs. There is no fizzling, creeping decay, no hungry destruction ready to spread from him onto the rest of the world. Nothing. Just a void.

Ah, so that’s where your name comes from.

He lands hard on his shoulder as all of time rushes up to meet him. You’re on him in an instant and he scrabbles for you, sinking all five fingers down again on your wrist, only for nothing to happen once more.

What the fuck?!

“She can nullify Quirks with a touch,” Eraserhead says and his eyes are still on Dabi, capture weapon finally pulling away to go after the arsonist. “She’s probably the only person you can touch without decaying, ever.”

It’s supposed to mock him, maybe. Boast. Clearly, you’re Eraserhead’s favorite pet.

But that sentence rattles around inside Tomura’s head, sinks down into his bones. It distracts him, allowing you to gain an upper hand on him, another small knife sliding from your sleeve, to press beneath his chin.

The blade is sharp. His vermilion eyes slash to yours, meeting the scorching pink of them.

“Is that so?” he rasps, prompting you as he looks up at you, stupidly wishing to hear you speak.

To hear you speak to him.

Your knees are on his chest. He doesn’t care, the weight of you solid and one of his hands is still gripping your wrist, small and seemingly fragile in his hold. He wants to inspect you, take you apart, lay all five fingers along your rib cage, your spine, over your face just to see, just to check if you’re real, if it’s true.

He could break your wrist, he even considers it. Are your screams as pretty as you? Do you whimper? He doesn’t think so, maybe he wants to try and pull the noise from you, though.

“That’s so.” you finally speak and he hates that you have his attention. Hates that your voice does something to him, touches some part of him that is hidden and trembling. “Meet your match, Shigaraki Tomura.”

(He loves how you say his name. He hates that he loves it.)

And he can’t decay you, can’t decay anything with you atop him, but he grabs for the knife, trying to wrench it away from his throat, from your grasp. He slits his palm for the trouble, but he manages to twist it in such a way that you yelp, and he can toss it away from your grasp. He hisses through his teeth, cut stinging, just as he surges up to to knock you from him. You both go tumbling, rolling with each other. It’s more artless than he cares to admit but at least he’s got you under him for a moment and he doesn’t need to decay you to wrap his hands around your throat and squeeze—

A portal rips open in the alleyway.

“That's our cue,” Dabi says, and then, “Move, Shigaraki.”

He lurches away the moment Dabi gives the order, leaves you gasping and heaving for air. He rolls towards the portal, just as blue flames sear towards you and Tomura thinks you’re toast for a moment, you’re gone, in and out of his life as quick as a lightning strike.

He only glances back when he’s near the safety of Kuogiri’s portal. You’re back beneath Eraserhead’s arm, your clothes singed. The blood from his palm is smeared in a messy dash, the shape of his hand on your throat. You look half feral.

You wear the shape of him, the blood on your neck, well.

The two of you watch him and Dabi disappear. The portal closes behind them.

Kuogiri returns them to base.

“What the fuck was that?” Dabi snaps at him, “You let some sidekick nearly kick your ass.”

Tomura heaves a rattling sigh, “I think I stepped in to save you from her in the first place.”

“I didn’t need you,” he responds and Tomura only rolls his eyes.

Still, he doesn’t like how heavy you’re weighing on his mind, how he can still feel your skin beneath his hand. The searing pink of your eyes, the snarl pulling at your lips, flashing your teeth. All volatile and hungry. All that brutality, all your vitality.

You’ve left an imprint on his mind, like an ink blot, haunting and twisted.

Eraserhead’s words wind around his mind, clinging to them, like they’ve seared themselves to his brain.

She’s probably the only person you can touch without decaying, ever.

Ever.

The word feels like a death knell, rattling around inside of him, all echoing and final.

***

Shouta is careful with your bruised throat as he wipes away the drying blood that has clung to your skin. You think maybe you should be more grossed out, but you’re exhausted and sore, and the cloth he uses is warm, surprisingly soft.

“You shouldn’t have rushed for them like that,” Shouta scolds softly, wedging himself further between your legs so that he can peer at your neck better. He doesn’t need to do this, you’d told him so. But when you’d gotten back to his home, he’d only given you gruff instructions. One worded. Terse.

Bathroom.

So you’d gone. He’d followed you in a moment later.

Sit, he’d said, nodding to the sink counter. You’d done that, too. And now here you are, with him fretting and fussing over you in his own way. He takes care of you after patrols, it's become habitual. So long as you don’t need more medical attention, he’s the one bandaging you up, the one taking care of you.

Shouta has always cared for you like this. He’d taken you under his wing, guided you. You think he feels responsible for you, in some way.

A little over two years ago, freshly eighteen and just trying to get by, he’d found you. You’d stolen from the gas station and just so happened to be in his line of patrol that night. You had put up a fight, trying to cancel his Quirk as you pawed at his hold on you. He’d only realized you’d manage to cancel his Quirk when he couldn’t use it on you while you touched him. He’d almost been amused. How’d you manage to erase Eraserhead’s Quirk?

Other than that, you don’t know what he’d seen in you, don’t know why he decided to change your life— pity, maybe, looking at you, so youthful and frail. So hungry and angry, hissing and feral, maybe just to mask all that fear. He’d offered to just walk you home. You told him you didn’t have one. Parents? In and out of foster care your whole life, just some orphan that aged out of the system on your own. Someone society forgot.

You had no one.

(Later, you’ll hear everyone say it— “You like strays, don’t you, Aizawa?”

He has three cats. All strays, once ill-tempered and now docile. Loving. A little wary of strangers, but adoring of him.)

He hadn’t been certain what to do with you at first— too old to go to UA, his school. At first there were mentions of college but you’d barely made it through high school. Not because you weren’t smart, only because you’d barely done the work. Barely went.

Besides, you decided quickly that you wanted to be a hero. Like him.

(Maybe it was just because he was the first person in your whole life who gave you any sort of attention— who cared what happened to you. Maybe you didn’t want to part from that, wanted to hold tight, take all that he would give you.)

Reluctantly, he’d agreed to train you.

He had asked a favor of Principal Nezu, set you up in a tiny studio dorm that was beside his. Right next door. Your very own space for the first time in your life.

But you often stayed with him. Nearly attached at the hip. You often crashed on his couch.

(Or in his bed— the nights that you’d fall asleep watching movies in his living room, only to wake up curled in his bed, and find that he’d taken the couch. Sometimes you nap there, while he’s teaching. His cats join you, curled by your legs, sprawling and taking up space.

He never wakes you when he finds you like this.)

And your training had been non-stop for those two years, a rush to get you your provisional licence so that you could patrol with him and then a rush to get your official hero licence, too.

They needed heroes now more than ever. Especially with the fall of All Might. The rising of the League of Villains.

Two of whom, you’d just run into.

Shigaraki Tomura’s blood is currently being cleaned from your neck. It should frighten you more. He should frighten you more, but he doesn’t.

He’s only two or so years older than you. You feel like you could’ve known him, could’ve seen him in and out of orphanages and foster homes with you. You feel like maybe you would’ve talked to him. Another young face forgotten by society.

He can’t hurt you, not with his Quirk anyways.

“I didn’t want them to get away,” you finally answer him, your voice raw, probably from nearly being strangled. .

Shouta sighs, dragging the cloth over your neck gently, like you’re something fragile, “You can’t take two of our most notorious criminals on by yourself.”

“I wasn’t by myself,” you counter, tilting your head off and to the side, offering up your throat. It feels vulnerable, with him so near.

This is how things usually go. Shouta fusses. You give him a hard time. He’s always scolding you for some reason. And you’ve never had that attention before, never had someone that cared about what you did or how you acted, never had anyone to care if you rushed into danger. No one has ever reprimanded you the way he does.

You like it. You crave it.

And it’s not like he can ground you or stick you in detention. You’re not one of his little students. You’re not his daughter. You’re an adult, so all you get is a stern talking to while he cleans you up.

You like to remind him of this a lot.

What are you going to do? Ground me? You smirk when you say it, lift your eyes up to his, I’m not your daughter, Shouta.

Maybe you say it too often. More than you should, almost calling attention to your relationship with him, what it might be, or is not.

Not one of your students, either, you tell him slyly.

There is an eleven year age difference between you and Shouta.

You don’t think eleven years is so bad in hindsight. But you can’t decide if you’re too fresh faced for him, can’t decide where you sit in his eyes.

He takes care of you like a child sometimes, takes care of the child in you that was never cared for. He looks after you, cooks you breakfast– knows your favorite foods, knows what you won’t eat. Sometimes, he will swipe those foods from your plate and bring them to his. He dresses your wounds. Makes you ice your bruises.

He also lets you sleep in his bed. His clothes, too. He’s bundled you in coats and sweaters, you have at least two of them sitting on the floor of your bedroom now. His eyes linger on you, on your form in your catsuit that you wear for hero work.

He practically comes home to you.

You can’t decide if he sees you as a child or an adult. Can’t decide if he sees his students in you, someone to be nurtured and encouraged, or if he sees you as mature, as his partner.

You don’t think he can decide either.

“You know what I mean,” he responds slowly and he’s so close that you can see his dark lashes fanning across his cheek. His scar is a crescent moon on his angular face. You can smell teakwood, mahogany, a little lavender, maybe. Some sweat. It’s familiar. It’s his.

It’s a comfort, you realize, your muscles finally easing. Adrenaline slowly begins to slide away from you, leaving you a little bereft, a little cold, so you cling to the comfort of Shouta. His large, rough palm at your throat, his low, rumbling voice.

“You’re too reckless still. I know your Quirk requires you to get close, but you can’t just go barrelling for enemies and hope you’re strong enough to hold tight to them.” Shouta tells you, “And you need to remember people can hurt you without their Quirks, too.”

Now the cloth falls away and Shouta leans away fractionally to observe the ring of bruises in the shape of a hand on your neck. He takes your chin in hand, tilts it off to the side to see your throat more clearly.

He sighs lightly, wary, “I’ll get you some ice. Does it hurt?”

He finally steps away from you and you have the absurd notion to bring him back. You think it’s the adrenaline wearing off, the sudden neediness, the buzz in your brain slowing, fizzling out to a whine.

You turn to face the mirror behind you, to examine the bruise.

It’s almost perfect, the press of his hand into your skin. Marked. Like a collar of fingers, the shape of his palm.

Anyone else would be dead.

His eyes were so red. You can still see the tilt of the scar on his lip, pulled into a sneer.

You can see the shape of all five fingers pressed deeply into your skin now, a reminder of him that will linger for awhile.

You reach up with a careful hand to press experimentally against the mottled skin, hissing a little at how tender it is.

“It’s a little sore,” you tell him, turning back around, but he is already disappearing from the bathroom.

“Shower,” he commands over his shoulder, “I’ll make us food. You can ice it after.”

“I need clothes,” you call back, but in a moment, he has already returned with a sweatshirt of his, like he knew you would ask– it’s black, crewneck, soft on the inside. Grey joggers, the ones with the tie at the waist, so that you can fit them to you.

You’ve worn these clothes before. They’re familiar to you in the same way your favorite book is, in the same way your pillow is.

And then Shouta is gone again, bathroom door clicking shut to offer you privacy. You stare at the door for a moment, at where he once was. And now you’re alone, with your draining adrenaline, and his clothes in your arms.

You turn on the shower, strip carefully. There is some blood soaked into the collar of your hero uniform.

When you shut your eyes beneath the scalding stream of water, you see the silver dash of his hair. You see the look in his eyes, after Shouta had told him that you could nullify Quirks with your touch– that strange expression, half curious, half wild.

Like he couldn’t believe you were real.

His hands were warm at your throat.

You fit your hand against your neck the way he had.

You wonder if it’s the first time he’s touched anyone with all five of his fingers. You wonder if anyone ever touches him willingly.

You wonder about what it must’ve been like, as a child, to not hold your toys or your pets or your parents with all that you can. With tiny, frightened fists.

You used to cling to anything, anyone.

You’d learned the hard way, but you couldn’t imagine–

You shouldn’t be sympathizing with him. You should be frightened. You should be worried about what he wants to do next, what he’d been doing that you hadn’t been able to stop. You take your hand from your throat like it’s burned you.

You scrub hard at your skin, as if it will clean away your thoughts, as if it will all just rinse down the drain in a swirl.

You shut the water off. You dress in Shouta’s clothes. You are careful not to find your reflection in the mirror, lest you see those bruises again. When you emerge from the steamed bathroom, you wander, bare foot and quiet to the kitchen.

Shouta stands at the stove, shoulders slumped slightly, hair pulled away to expose the curve of his neck. He stirs something at the stove. One of his cats, the sweet calico, Kyoko, is rubbing her head against his shin in a desperate plea for attention. Her tail is botched and she’s missing a bit of her right ear, but you still call her pretty when you rub your finger to her cheek.

She chirps at him, before throwing her head into his legs again.

You watch as Shouta murmurs to her, glancing down, you think he asks if she’s hungry. Maybe something about how sweet she is, too.

The window above the kitchen sink glows softly with the light of night in a city. Gold streetlights. The dash of the moon. The occasional, meandering car on the road. The lights in the kitchen are warm and muted, too. It’s cozy, something you never had growing up but always dreamed of.

You don’t know why, but an ache settles somewhere inside of you. A little bubble of happiness that is twinged with melancholy. You want to go to him, to push your forehead into his chest for attention, too, want to be wrapped in the warmth of his arms. You suddenly feel deeply understanding of the little cat at his feet, can’t stand to hear her small cries for attention anymore.

You move to snag Kyoko, who immediately begins to purr once her little head is tucked beneath your chin. You hold her tight, cradle her to your body to soothe her. Her happy purrs rumble against your chest. The two of you peak over Shouta’s shoulder at what he’s cooking.

Soup with mushrooms and green onions. Steamy and savory smelling.

You realize he made something easy like soup for your throat and that ache inside you only grows, takes root until you think it will spread through all your limbs, all your body. And you will just be a girl with a pit inside her, with the roots of joyful melancholy. Maybe it will bloom through your skin and you will be consumed with flowers.

“Smells good,” you tell him and he glances down to you and Kyoko. You catch the faintest lift of his lips into a smile. He has such a nice smile, if he’d ever share it.

How selfish, you think, to covet such a thing.

“Will you feed the cats? They haven’t had dinner yet.”

You nod, looking down at Kyoko as you ask her if she’s hungry. You set her down again, but she quickly weaves between your legs as you go to the fridge to pull out the cans of food.

The moment a can is opened, the other two come from their hiding places, dashing for the kitchen. The other girl, Yuki, whose a sleek white cat with a missing eye, twines herself around your legs, too, when she realizes you’re going to feed her. Her one, shining blue eye peers up at you expectantly. And finally, Kitaro, the tomcat of the house, whose lithe and black like a little panther, but covered in scars, saunters over.

He is the most temperamental of the cats. He usually swats and hisses at everyone, including Shouta from time to time, but he is terribly fond of you. He chitters at you, flashing sharp little teeth and you smile down at him.

They’re eager when you finally get the food into their bowls and set it down for them.

And the night progresses quietly. Shouta showers as the soup simmers on the stove. When he returns, hair damp and messily braided away from his face, you eat together at the kitchen island, sitting on stools. Your throat does hurt, and you’re thankful for the gentle heat of the soup.

Shouta also makes you ice it after you’ve both eaten. You settle on the couch afterwards, curling up into one corner. Shouta sits at the other end, glasses perched on the strong bridge of his nose, laptop on his thighs, school papers spread out across his coffee table. You share a blanket, one that you’ve pulled up to your shoulders as you lay down, but only reaches part of his legs. Still, if you moved too much, you could probably feel the press of his legs to yours. You could tangle them together.

You don’t. Instead you curl your legs into yourself, even if it jostles Kitaro a little, who is laying in the crux of your knees.

The TV plays softly in the background. The rustle of papers, the quiet clacking of the keys on his computer, the occasional scribbling of pen all soothe you, lull you gently. You doze, eyelids growing heavy.

You curl a small fist around the blanket– it’s your favorite of Shouta’s. It’s soft beneath your touch, the fabric bunching between your fingers and you think of him again.

With his startling eyes and wiry frame. With his warm hands.

As you fall asleep, you wonder faintly, almost sadly, if you’re the first thing he’s fully touched without losing in a long time.

***

It has been weeks since Tomura met you and he is still dreaming of you.

He is already a fitful sleeper, but now that he sees your face behind his fluttering lids, he has resolved himself to staying up most nights. When he does sleep, unconsciousness sweeping in to claim him, he sees you there; dark and harsh and brilliant in his mind’s eye. Sometimes you are moving, a slash of brutality against his hazy dreams. Sometimes you sit in front of him, cross-legged, your face surprisingly calm.

The world around you is falling apart in these ones, the very fabric of the sky decaying, splitting at the seams to crumble away. It’s all muted, smoky grey and pale blue, watercolored to bleed together.

He hates these dreams, where you lift your hand up, palm open to him. Fingers spread wide.

“Give me your hand,” you say, voice coaxing, almost sweet. Your features are relaxed, gentle in a way he shouldn’t know. Shouldn’t envision.

Tentatively, he offers up his hand to you, watches as you reach out to flatten your palm to his. The touch is a little surprising to him, your hand soft, almost ticklish against that sensitive skin that is so rarely touched. His hollow chest is heaving as he feels it, feels you.

Then, as carefully as possible, you let each of your fingers press to his. His thumb to yours, his pointer, yours. Middles next. Ring fingers pressed like a steeple. Then, finally it’s just both your pinkies, hovering away from each other.

He doesn’t know why, but he grows scared. He can feel the way his stomach rolls sickly, the sudden lurch of his heart as your pinkies come together like a promise.

Nothing happens, except you smile fractionally.

“Your hands are so big,” you tell him but his heart is still thundering in the cavern of his chest, still rattling around inside of his treacherous body.

“They’re so soft, too.” you tell him and you tilt your head, eyes cutting to his, which shine like twinkling rose quartz with the use of your Quirk, “Like you’ve barely used them.”

“I-I can’t,” he gets out, “I can’t without decaying something.”

“You’re not decaying me,” you say, your voice barely a whisper, eyes lifting from the two of your hands pressed together to find his face.

“No,” Tomura agrees shakily, swallowing, “I’m not.”

“When was the last time you could do this?” you ask softly, but the moment you do, your features always begin to shutter, blur. Your voice grows strange, layered with a child’s. One that he has not heard in many, many years.

And then it’s his little sister’s tiny, fragile hand against his.

He tries to lurch away from her but it’s too late. It’s too late and all of that gore seeps into the grey washed world, bleeds vibrant, horrible color into his dreams. He hates that the image of her falling away into horror, crimson and thick and sickening, is still so sharp in his mind. He hates that he has not been able to fill it with time.

He hates that his brain has not allowed him to forget it, has not repressed or shoved it away for his safety and well-being. He thinks his mind is a traitor.

How is he supposed to live with this?

Some nights, he doesn’t think he can.

He clings to his Master’s words, though, the ones that he takes comfort in. He repeats them like a prayer, a slithering whisper about how he should hold fast to these emotions. To the guilt and the rage and the festering anguish.

He thinks it’s burning a hole through his chest, corrosive and flesh-eating, taking out the tender parts of his body so he is nothing but leanness. So that he is nothing but hollow and starving, crooked and desperate and hungry like some hyena, half deranged with its sloped back and mad yelps and cries. Salivating over scraps.

He thinks of you, wily like a coyote and vicious, small and sharp-toothed and nimble.

Scavengers, the both of you.

He wonders if it hadn’t been the heroes that got to you first, would you be like Toga? Or Twice? Dabi? Some marooned child of society, looking to sink their teeth into anything. You had too much grit to be a hero, he thinks.

You would’ve served better here, with him.

The moment he thinks it, he wishes he hadn’t. Wishes he could rip the thought from his own skull and decay it himself.

But he can’t.

And it sits there, like a tombstone, like a garden bed.

(If he isn’t careful, it will take root inside him and grow. And there is no space for life in a body like his.)

***

You’re not even patrolling when you catch a glimpse of a black hoodie, a flash of icy silver hair again. One of your hands had been tucked into your own coat pocket, the collar of it upturned to keep out the early autumn chill.

The coffee in your other hand, warm, freshly bought, drops sharply as you watch Shigaraki Tomura round a corner, blending into the people going about their everyday lives. Coffee splatters on the sidewalk. You curse, others glance at you, but dart around you, continuing about their day.

You scoop up the now empty cup, breaking into motion. You shove the cup in the nearest trash, snapping your eyes ahead to try and find his form again. You pick up your pace, trying not to sprint, lest you give yourself away, but also trying to keep up with his long strides.

You round the corner, catch sight of him again. You try to force yourself to not break into a run again.

You knock into someone in your haste, brushing past them. They grumble at you.

You manage a vague apology, eyes ahead, on the back of one of the most wanted villains in the country.

Faintly, you hear Shouta’s voice in the back of your mind, urging you not to run straight into danger.

You fish for your phone in your pocket blindly, and you’re about to thumb out a text to him, warn him that you’ve just spotted Shigaraki again.

He’s in class now, though, you know it. It’s doubtful he’ll see it. It’s doubtful he’d see a phone call, too, and the closer you get to Shigaraki, the more that would give you away.

You know Shouta would want you to stay a safe distance away, not to engage. He’d want you to follow as far as you could and then contact him, return back to UA, return back to your little apartment safely. But then this will be the second time that Shigaraki has slipped from your grasp.

You watch as he slyly ducks into an alleyway.

Shit, you curse. You can either try for Shouta or follow.

Your body moves before your mind does. You follow, disappearing down the yawning mouth of the alleyway, too. You try to be silent, your phone still in hand. But the alleway is quieter, darker, especially the further in you wade. You don’t miss that you have now lost the safety of people nearby, too.

Briefly, you wonder which hero is on patrol now for this area, wonder if they could somehow reach you–

Just before he rounds another corner, he glances over his shoulder.

It seems natural for him, like he’s always wary, always waiting for something to catch up with him.

You freeze as the red slash of his eyes cuts to you.

He almost could look normal, without the severed hand clutched to his face. In the simple, black hoodie. Black jeans and red sneakers. He looks your age. A year or two older. You could see him in college, overworked and exhausted. You could see him at the movies, at the mall.

Once more, you are painfully struck with the idea that he could’ve just been some other teen with nothing to their name. Maybe he was like you, wandering in a world that didn’t want him.

But he isn’t.

For a moment, neither of you move. His chest heaves strangely, rising and falling rapidly. His eyes are a little wide, almost as if he’s terrified of you, like you’re some ghost come to haunt him.

But then his eyes narrow, a sneer pulling at his lips to reveal the flash of white teeth in the darkened light of the alley, “It’s you,” he hisses, and you are almost surprised that he recognizes you.

You glance to your phone, fingers suddenly twitching. You need to call Shouta, someone–

The moment he realizes your intention, he lunges, a blur of movement. You try to sidestep him but he is fast, blindingly so, and his body collides with yours. He’s all harsh angles, so sharp you could get cut on him if you’re not careful.

You take the brunt of the fall, the wind leaving your body the moment your back hits the pavement with all his weight on you. Your head snaps against the cement and you’re lucky you don’t pass out, not as black stars flutter to life in your vision.

Your phone clatters noisily out of your hand, skidding onto the pavement. You’re certain the screen is at least broken. Still, you force air into your burning body, scramble for your bearings.

You bring your knee up hard into his stomach, using your momentum to shove him enough to get out from beneath him. You twist, crawling towards your phone. Your knees and palms get cut up against the gravel, but you manage to get your phone in hand again.

You scramble to unlock it, to get to Shouta’s contact, messages, anything—

Your ankle is grabbed, lurching you sharply back to him. It scrapes your chin against concrete, making you yelp as your teeth click together. Blood stings to life, slipping down your chin and to the line of your throat.

You grapple with Shigaraki and it feels childish for who he is. Who you’re supposed to be. You’re both just wrestling for the phone in your hand. It feels absurd until you’re on your back again, belly up and vulnerable, and his body is digging down into the soft parts of you.

You growl in frustration as you stretch your arm away from the two of you, as if that will keep your phone from his grasp. You’re kicking futilely, too, desperately flailing and wriggling under his weight.

Frantically, you try to find a way out, your body and mind screaming. Think! You demand desperately, come on—

The line of his neck is by your face, the bend of his shoulder. He’s stretched above you, reaching for your phone. His teeth are bared in effort as you clutch as tightly as you can, covering as much as you can so he can’t get all five of his fingers in it.

You don’t have any of your knives on you, no weapons or tools, but something inside you snaps, some survival instinct that lurches forward, yanking free of its bonds. It’s a violent, twisted thing, ugly and shameless and desperate.

You reach with your free hand to lay fingernails into flesh. You will become your own weapon.

You feel his hiss more than you hear it. You dig in deeper, scrape sharply and roughly, tearing up skin beneath your nails.

And then you sink your teeth into the vulnerable juncture between his neck and his shoulder.

A bark of a laugh ruptures out of him.

It’d be ridiculous if you weren’t so maddened, so full of fear and white hot adrenaline.

You feel half wild, forcing your teeth into the meat of him, harder, deeper—

The warm, copper tang of blood begins to blur into your mouth and you force yourself to stay, to bite harder—

He growls now, though, in pain, in frustration. You can feel his hands clawing at your fingers, trying to force them up so he can get to the phone.

You don’t let go of him, jaw locked, as more blood fills your mouth. You feel part animal, near frantic—

His fingers, strong, dexterous, shove at your wrist and you yelp as it twists dangerously.

“C’mon,” he rasps, “Let go and I won’t break your wrist.”

You kick uselessly, but stubbornly don’t let go.

He makes a sharp movement and you jolt beneath him as vicious, searing pain rips through your wrist, up your arm. Your hand goes limp with the burst of jarring pain.

But you bite down harder, screaming between your clenched teeth, between all the blood in your mouth, and into his shoulder. It’d be disgusting if you weren’t in so much pain, if your brain wasn’t quick-wired to survive, to fight.

The moment your phone is out of your grasp, he wrenches himself away from you. A noise of pain is forced from him as your teeth rip through his flesh, as he tears away from you.

Once your touch is gone, your phone slips to dust between his fingers.

Fuck.

You scramble up, too, spit his blood out from your mouth and at his feet. You’re sure you look insane, all horror and heat, lips dashed with crimson, teeth flashing dangerously when you level him with a glare. You’re sure your eyes are feverish and rosy, the color they bleed into when your Quirk is being used.

It’s strange, though, the way he’s regarding you, like there is something in you to be picked apart. His eyes are garnet, flashing as they fly over you, searching, searching, searching— like you have the answer to a question he’s been asking his whole life.

You take a sick pride in the gash at his slender neck, the open wound from your teeth, your strength, your terror.

You’re both a little breathless, as still as predators, as still as prey with your heaving chests. You have your broken wrist, which throbs painfully, cutting through your adrenaline addled mind to warn of your danger, curled into your body protectively.

You should run or shout for help. No phone to call Shouta, to call for anyone. Broken wrist. Facing off with one of the most dangerous and wanted villains. Your odds aren’t good.

But your odds were never good, life never threw you luck. You got by with bared teeth and wit and your sharp-toothed instincts.

You wipe your blood-slick mouth with the back of your good hand and decide you’re not done with him. You lunge for him. He sidesteps, nimble and lean, grabbing your arm to swiftly wrench it behind your back at an odd angle.

You cry out, the pain lancing up your arm, ringing through your broken wrist in a way that damn near makes you sob.

“Should I break your arm, too?” he asks and there is almost glee in his voice as he twists sharply, pulls you into his chest and wrestles you still. The pain makes your vision blurry and wobbly, tears pricking to life.

He is solid behind you, his chest pressed to your back, with your twisted arm between you two. You dig for training or rational thought, but all that’s coming up is your fear and pain. All that’s coming up is the instinct to thrash, to escape.

“Careful,” he hisses in your ear, his grasp on you tight, unforgiving, “Or you’ll break it yourself.”

You don’t heed his warning and the moment you squirm again, fighting and thrashing in his grip, there is a sickening snap that rattles through your arm.

Your cry is piercing, guttural, echoing down the alley. Bouncing off stone.

Shigaraki drops your broken arm, “I warned you,” he scolds, loping around to watch you fall to your knees, to try and bite back sobs and whimpers that are forcing their way out.

“You’ve a lot to learn, don’t you?” he asks, observing you, the tilting of his head reveals the sharp line of his jaw as he gazes down at you.

Still, you try to force yourself up, stand on shaking legs. Your arm is limp at your side, the pain seering, nearly overwhelming.

But you stand.

Shigaraki snorts, half amused, the scar on his lip hitching upwards.

You’re prepared to fight again, when a figure appears in the mouth of the alleway.

“What’s going on over there?” they shout, “We heard screaming.”

It’s police and before you can even open your mouth, Shigaraki is disappearing, melting into the shadows and easing away silently.

He gets away.

Shouta is livid with you. He chews you out the entire time that Recovery Girl heals your broken bones. By the time she’s done, you’re still a little sore and Shouta still isn’t done lecturing you.

He makes you dinner, though. And after falling asleep on his couch, you wake up in his bed by morning.

And there’s the remnants of a dream caught in the back of your mind, thin like cobwebs, translucent and shimmering like glass and gossamer. It slips from you the way water does, the way Shigaraki did– silent and deadly and leaving you with something broken, misplaced.

***

Shouta is harder on you in training lately. You can’t tell if he’s punishing you or trying to teach you a hard lesson. But he’s rougher when he spars with you, he doesn’t hesitate to make it hurt more, to show you that you have to think.

“Your instincts are sharp— you fight dirty when you need to, but don’t lose rational thought in the process.” He tells you after he’s knocked your feet cleanly from beneath you and you’re staring, dizzy and winded, up at the ceiling. “It could be the difference between life or death.”

And then his hand is being thrust into your vision, large and scarred and strong. You blow your hair from your face and reach up to take his offered hand. It’s warm. Rough. He pulls you up to your feet easily.

For a moment, your breath is caught in your throat and you’re looking up at him through your lashes. His hand is still wrapped over yours, dwarfs it completely. You think he even pauses, glances down at you like this, tousled, with your chest rising and falling.

He drops your hand, “Let’s go again,” he says, giving you space. You let loose a breath, watch him as he turns from you, as he puts distance between you two.

He kicks your ass. Again and again and again. You’re well acquainted with the floor at this point. Your body is littered in bruises. You’re aching and exhausted and can hardly think straight. Your legs shake with effort when you whine, “Can’t we be done?”

“No,” is his clipped response as he settles into another loose fighting stance.

“Shouta, I’m tired–”

“Is that what you’ll say to villains when you don’t want to fight anymore?” he asks, just before he moves, a flash of darkness, swift and sure. You barely dodge his fist, the second strike to your stomach makes you twist away, trying to keep on the balls of your feet. Nimble, quick.

You huff, “Yeah, I said that to Shigaraki and he let me go.”

You don’t catch the quirking of his lips in slight amusement, not as you leap to latch your legs around his waist, hooking your arms around his neck to pull and throw all your momentum into flipping him onto his back, onto the ground.

He grunts as you exclaim in victory, “Hah!”

It’s short lived, though, because the moment the two of you are on the floor, he’s grappling with you, twisting until he’s got you under him.

His knee digs into your stomach to keep you down. You wheeze, struggling, worming a hand to fist in his hair and pull in some petty attempt at getting out.

Shouta makes an irritated noise, before reaching around to seize your wrist, fingers digging into a pressure point to make you yelp and let go.

You thrash, just as he wrestles your arms down onto the ground, straddling your hips. Pinned.

You groan in frustration, giving up, kicking childishly as you say, “Let me go.”

“You’re a brat,” he responds, squeezing your wrists, “And no. Figure it out. I’ve taught you how to get out of this. Think, instead of pulling my hair like a child.”

You push against the hold he has on your wrists, trying to dislodge him. But his weight on you is too strong, too heavy.

“Shouta–” you whine.

“Figure it out and we’ll be done.” he responds, laying his weight into you more.

You suck in a breath, forcing yourself to look up at him, the lines of his shoulders. His arm. Sluggishly, your mind works something out.

You shove your hips up into a bridge, sending him forward, destabilizing him just as you slide your arms down against the floor to break his hold. You latch tight to his middle. Tight so there’s no room, tight so he has to focus on balancing himself with your weight. Your temple digs into his chest, just as you trap his arm.

You twist, he goes rolling onto his shoulder without the support of his arm. You shove him onto his back.

Then you’re seated atop him, chest heaving, hands at his throat, one twisting his face away threateningly.

He smiles finally, small, but enough to have you easing up.

“Good,” he says, voice low, and the praise turns warm inside of you, gooey. He taps your thigh in request to be let up.

You ease off him, rolling onto your back again. Tired. Your whole body feels like it’s throbbing, like it’s all one tender bruise. You sprawl out on the floor.

“C’mon,” he murmurs, easing up and once more offering his hands to help you up. Reluctantly, you take them, but you make him do most of the work in pulling you up to your feet. He huffs at your dramatics, especially as you go limp, forcing him to take your weight. You slump against his chest, letting your knees give out so he has to hold you up.

“Carry me,” you whine and he snorts.

“No,” he says but there’s something amused in his tone, maybe fond, “I’m going to let you go and you’re going to fall.”

“No you won’t.” you respond, perhaps a little too arrogantly, because he does let you go a moment, just to scare you. You yelp, but before you can drop, he has you again, strong arms hoisting you back up.

And he laughs, low and soft, as you claw at his shirt, as he forces you back up onto your feet.

You could almost feel the sound rumble inside his broad chest and it makes you want to cling to him. It makes you want to be close, to be held tight in his arms. Something about it makes you desperate for his touch, for his smile, for his praise.

You feel young, holding him like this, looking up at him with wide eyes. You feel small and vulnerable.

But he rights you and you finally force yourself to stand. He lets you go. You wish he wouldn’t.

“I’m showering first,” you declare, reaching for your water bottle, heading for the door of the training room.

“You have your own shower, you know.” he responds dryly, but you shoot him a frown over your shoulder and he rolls his eyes. It’s half-hearted. He doesn’t fight you on this more. No, you think he likes having you around.

For entertainment, in the least.

And that’s how most of your evenings go– there’s a routine in them that is comforting. It’s yours and his. You two also patrol together, sometimes eat late dinners and become night owls. Sometimes you catch lunch with him and you sit perched on the corner of his desk until his students trickle back into his classroom.

They’ve come to like you, mostly because you give their teacher a hard time. Your banter with him amuses them.

And maybe there’s something about him when you’re around, a little more open. Gentler. Perhaps more agreeable.

Sometimes you drop by to disrupt his class momentarily. His students try to take advantage of it, try to get you to hang around longer. Shouta always ushers you out, though.

You don’t see Shigaraki again, not for a few more weeks. But strangely, when you’re out on your own, you look for him. Sometimes you think he might round a corner, in that black hoodie. With red sneakers. Sometimes you think you’ll just turn and see his eyes, so ruby, catching yours.

You’re not scared of him. You’re not looking over your shoulder like you’re frightened he’ll be there, he’s not some monster in the dark. Just an itch you can’t scratch, an unanswered question. You have a curiosity for him that you can’t shake.

What’s someone so young doing with so much spite he wants to tear the world apart with it?

So you let yourself look for him when you’re all alone. When you’re on patrol with Shouta.

But time goes on and your life feels normal, almost simple. Stable in a way you have never known. It almost makes you apprehensive.

A change finally happens in the form of a student following Shouta into the training room one afternoon. His hair is a messy tuft of indigo, his eyes lidded, the same shade of purple. He’s lean, though relaxed. He almost looks as exhausted as Shouta. There’s something a little comical about it, the two of them, tired-looking and fixing you with similar stares.

“This is Shinsou Hitoshi,” Shouta introduces, “He’s a student from the General Department who I have agreed to train. He may eventually shadow us on patrols but will not be able to use his Quirk, since he doesn’t have his provisional license yet.”

And then Shouta gives your name as an introduction, “She’s my,” and there’s a fraction of a pause, a minute debate in his mind before saying, “Partner. You’ll be training with her most often.”

I’m your sidekick, you think, but you don’t dare say it. Something inside you twists, warms slightly.

You ask about Shinsou’s Quirk, who seems reluctant at first to say it and once he does, once he tells you that he can brainwash people, you understand why. That is a Quirk that you’re sure people judged him over. You’re certain that society has not been kind to a Quirk like that. You can practically hear their sneers, their whispers.

But when you don’t give any adverse reaction, he seems to loosen up a little. Even more when you inform him you have another Quirk that nullifies others.

Shouta doesn’t waste time and he throws the poor kid into training with the two of you. And just like that, it then becomes the three of you. Shinsou joins each of your training sessions after school. You end up sharing snacks with him during small breaks, trail mix and granola bars. You bond over how stern Shouta can be. He snorts at your teasing.

He’s a good kid.

You think even Shouta is pleased, you think there’s something fond in him, when it’s just the three of you. You know he loves his students, despite seeming so aloof and guarded, but he seems more open in these moments. He laughs a little easier, though it’s still rare, but the sound is sweet to your ears. You love having someone to bond with, to roll your eyes to when Shouta is being a hard ass, to torment, too.

Plus, it’s not so bad to win more sparring sessions finally, even if it’s a little cheap since Shinsou is only fifteen. Still a student, still training. You’ve never officially beaten Shouta, just gotten the upper hand for a while. Still, you take what you can get with him.

You always take what you can get with Shouta.

But this part of your life, when you’re busy, when you spend your afternoons with Shouta and Shinsou and your evenings patrolling, are peaceful. Whole and warm and simple. They’re golden in your memory, almost sweet, like the halcyon rays of sun before the hungry, hurting storm clouds roll in.

You just wish you hadn’t needed to go and ruin it.

You wish you could even say that you take it all back, everything that happened after this time, wish you could say you regret it.

But you don’t and maybe that’s the worst part of it all.

***

The next time Tomura sees you, it is mid-morning. There is a chill in the air, a bite of the cold to come. The sun is out, though, bright and casting you in its brilliance. You’re not on patrol. You’re just walking, with your hands tucked into your coat pockets, all alone.

The city’s quiet bustle is enough for him to blend in, but not enough to bother him. He needs to go to the store to steal food again. He and the rest of the League are practically homeless. Foodless. Penniless. They’re all growing thin and wane and snappish.

They’re hungry– for opportunity, for more than this society will allow.

He has no business watching you from afar, not when he still needs food. Not when he could be spending his time and energy elsewhere. As it stands, he has no idea what he’s doing when he begins to trail after you.

You’re oblivious, brows furrowed lightly on your otherwise peaceful resting face. You dip your chin, burrow down into the warmth of your scarf against the wind that picks up. Tomura shivers. His hands are near icy despite the partial gloves he’s wearing to keep himself from decaying anything.

He shouldn’t but he follows as you walk into a nearby park. Every step towards you is another further from the store, further than what he should be doing.

He’s careful, keeps his steps even and sure, far enough away so that you don’t notice him. Is he stalking? Is that what this is?

His stomach growls. His teeth chatter as his body wracks with another shiver.

You look so warm, so sweetly oblivious.

He feels like an animal, watching as you settle onto a park bench. The tree that arcs above your head is filled with sun kissed leaves beginning to melt into shades of yellow and orange, little dashes of red. It casts playful shadows over you, scattering you in it’s light and dark. You’re like a painting, lively and entrancing, this slice of something beautiful and surreal. Too bright and vivid for the real world.

He feels himself scowl.

What does someone like him know about beauty, anyways?

He traces the curve of your cheek with his eyes, the gentle lines of your lips. The arc of your lashes. The way the light makes your eyes glimmer and he thinks of you in the dark with him, with your eyes blazing fuchsia, all sharp and defiant.

(He’d thought you were beautiful then, too, the same way catastrophes are. The chaos of you is sweet to him.)

He watches you pull out a phone– shiny and new– and smile at the screen for a moment. Just a small tilting of your lips, something he bares his teeth at.

Something he’s seen in his dreams.

He hates you, he tries to tell himself, he hates you and he wants to tear you apart. He wants to wipe that smile from your face. He thinks of your scream– thinks of you beneath him, livid and thrashing.

He thinks of your teeth in his skin.

Tomura watches you tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear delicately.

He thinks of you in his dreams, with your palm up and offered to him. Your fingers are gentle when they press against his, when you compare your hands to his. You are caught in his misty dreams, tucked away in a place of his mind he wishes he could rip out.

He stands, rooted in place, observing you.

His stomach cramps with hunger again, desperate and aching. Another painful shiver wracks through his body.

He wants to put his cold hands on you, leech the warmth from your body. He wants to sink his teeth into your skin.

Your phone gets tucked away and you pick your eyes up suddenly. He isn’t expecting it, but as if you can feel his gaze on you, heavy and blazing, your eyes cut to his.

He watches your face, the way your mouth falls open in slight shock, the rounding out of your eyes. But then all that gentleness sharpens– your brows furrow, your lips pull back to reveal teeth. You raise your hackles.

He doesn’t know why, but he smiles.

The sickle curve of his lips slices across his features and you jolt into standing.

He arches a brow, challenging.

You glance around the citizens milling about, the peacefulness of this park. You glance at the phone in your hand, then at him.

He could almost laugh because he watches you try to decide what to do– you’re too expressive, he wants to mock. It’s all written right there on your face. You’re too inexperienced, too, unsure how to handle situations without your handler to guide you. Are you going to cause a scene? Would you endanger a civilian by rushing for him now? Going to call for help?

What’s the heroic thing to do?

In your indecision, Tomura allows himself to turn away and it is supposed to be offensive to you. You’re not much of a threat to him, not when you can’t decide what to do. Not when all you know how to do is bite and kick like a child.

He heads back to the store. He doesn’t have to look behind him to know that you’re following him. That’s fine. He’s gotten away easily each time he’s encountered you and this time will be no different.

When he walks into the store, he’s blasted with warmth finally, the artificial, stale kind. But he’ll take what he can get. He notices that you follow him but surprisingly, you stay outside. He can see your form by the shop windows.

He steals what he needs to; quick, small foods that he can shove into pockets. He tries to get as much as possible. In the least, so he can share with Toga. He doesn’t care about her in any substantial or friendly way, but he cares less for the likes of Dabi or Spinner.

(Besides, there’s an unspoken agreement between all of them that Toga eats before them. Maybe it’s because she’s a kid, he doesn’t care.)

And when he exits, you’re right outside– on the phone, though, and it almost seems normal. You cooly follow after him, lest you frighten the poor citizens around you. He thinks he can hear you quietly arguing on the phone with someone.

He isn’t foolish enough to lead you to where he’s going, so he leads you elsewhere. Down a few alleyways, some twists and turns. When he gets tired of your stalking, he finally stops, looks over his shoulder at you.

“Made up your mind yet?” he asks and he can faintly hear the tinny, faraway voice on your phone shouting at you to do not engage, do you hear me?

Your name is said over the phone when you don’t respond.

That piece of information settles into him for a moment. He wished he’d never heard it, never learned your name.

You have the audacity to end the call you’re on. The voice scolding you now gone, forcing the silence of the alleyway to stretch between you two. He knows he needs to get away soon, before all your reinforcements arrive.

He isn’t surprised when you rush for him with a vengeance. He does a lot of sidestepping, quick dodging from your swift attacks.

He feels as if you’ve gotten faster, keener.

You land a succession of jabs– they’re not particularly hard or debilitating, but it takes him a moment to right himself. However, when you dance away from him, you hold something up–

It’s one of the granola bars he’d stolen, one from his pocket. You blink at it. Then at him.

At the same moment that you realize he’d only stolen food, he realizes that you’re an excellent pickpocket. He narrows his eyes at you.

An expression flickers over your face. A wince, almost. He doesn’t understand why.

You toss the granola bar back at him. He catches it quick, reflexively keeping his pinky lifted away, despite his gloves.

And you don’t rush at him again. You frown.

He bares his teeth to hiss something at you– is this your idea of kindness? Is this your idea of being a hero? Being oh so benevolent to the starving villain? Do you think that’s going to change him?

The sound of feet on pavement growing near makes him pause his suddenly violent need to teach you a lesson. He shouldn’t waste time with you. He’s already wasted too much.

You don’t follow him when he finally turns to leave, to slip away again. You stare after him, he can feel your eyes pressed between his shoulder blades. He disappears and no one follows him. It feels strange, he feels cagey and pent up. He tears at the skin of his neck with his fingers, opening cuts, lashing out on himself in frustration.

He hates you, he seethes, scratching furiously, he wishes he could destroy you.

However, what he won’t find out until he’s returned to the runned down place they’re pretending to call homebase for awhile, is that you also swiped his phone. Just a burner phone. There’s nothing on it that will aid you in your search for him. He’s too careful. But it’s annoying nonetheless since he needs to get his hands on another one.

More than that, it offers him another piece to the puzzle of you that he did not ask for.

You’re a thief, he realizes. Or perhaps were one, at some point.

And though you’ve only taken his phone, it feels as if you’ve stolen something else from him, too, just left him with this new facet of you.

This new piece of you that he didn’t ask for, that he wishes he could stop thinking about.

You had let Shigaraki get away.

And when Shouta had gotten to you, eyes flying over you wildly to make sure you were okay this time, you’d had a pained expression on your face.

He’d been about to scold you again, really lay into you for directly disobeying him and hanging up on him.

But you’d reached into your pocket and held up a cellphone, old, somewhat outdated. “I stole his phone,” you’d told him, but there had been a wobble to your voice. Something he caught immediately.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” he’d asked, coming around to face you, to place two, large hands on your shoulders.

You had swallowed hard.

“He just wanted food.”

“What?” Shouta had asked, ducking his head down in an attempt to force you to meet his eyes. You’d felt like a child again beneath his gaze, beneath those warm, heavy hands.

You had blinked, tried to force away the feelings rising in you like a swelling bruise. You’d felt tender, suddenly fragile and aching.

“He’d stolen food. Just food.” you had answered. And Shouta had understood then, drawing in a slow breath.

You hadn’t been expecting it, but he’d pulled you into a hug then, pulled you right into his broad chest. His arms had gone around you, slow but tight, broad palm moving against your back soothingly.

You’d ducked your head, let yourself fall into his comfort, his safety. You’d sniffled, tried not to suddenly burst into tears– because of Shigaraki or because Shouta had treated you so gently in that moment, you hadn’t known why.

Only that Shouta had said, “Let’s go home,” and you had.

And he’d been quiet with you the rest of the day, soothing and coaxing, his voice a soft rumble.

You’d fallen asleep against his shoulder that night, feeling as if there was something squirming in your heart. Something you were too scared to name.

But you’d dreamt of him again, of his hungry, scarlet eyes and wiry frame. Of the way he’d watched you, envious of your warmth.

And not for the first time, you’d wondered about him, wondered why it was you, now, tucked away in the world of heroes, while he slipped away into the underbelly, hiding from a world that wouldn’t accept him.

A world that wouldn’t feed him, the same one you’d been pulled from, just as desperate, with stolen food stuffed into your bloated pockets, and so much bitterness you could almost taste it between your teeth.

***

Tomura doesn’t know what he’s doing as he stares at the library computer with your name typed into the search bar. He tells himself he’s just curious. He just wants to see what he can find on you for his next encounter with you.

But there isn’t much known about you, just a small town news article about your debut as a hero, as Eraserhead’s sidekick. The article says remarkably little; your Quirk cancels out other Quirks with a touch. You show a lot of promise to become a hero that works behind the scene, like Eraserhead. It suggests that perhaps you’ll even follow in your mentor’s shoes and become a teacher at UA eventually.

There’s a photo of you; it’s while you’re moving, presumably fighting, because your smile is sharp edged and victorious. Your hair is a dramatic splash behind you, mussed with battle. There’s a scrape on your cheek. You look every bit like one of their newly sculpted heroes.

Tomura scratches at his neck, eyeing your face; the one that has come to haunt him. That has made him desperate enough to search your name, search for anything about you.

You smile back at him, like you’ve won something.

He growls in irritation, standing from the computer and stalking out.

He tells himself his little interest in you is harmless, something that he can drop whenever he wants. It’s not a problem.

But it’s the same way he tells himself that he’s not stalking you when he watches you through the window of a cafe or ends up discovering what store you favor and what path you like to take through the park when you aren’t patrolling.

It’s not stalking when he even figures out your usual patrol schedule or how you take to the roofs to watch the world from above like a bird.

It’s harmless, he tells himself, harmless in the same way hungry dogs are– whining and crying and begging until they decide to bite.

***

There is a distinct shift the next time you encounter Shigaraki.

It is often easy to forget that villains are human. Many heroes do it– it’s probably easier that way for them. It allows them to focus, to not feel remorse if they hit a little too hard. They can forget if they’re a little too rough.

Or why they are the way they are. Everyone likes to condemn the thief, but not wonder why they were stealing. It’s easier that way, when everything is clear and cut cleanly between good and bad.

You’d steal, too, if you were hungry, you’d told Shouta, morals are a privilege– you can have them when you’re fed.

So it’s easy for you, horribly easy, to see villains as people, to not see them as singularly evil but a culmination of their tragedies.

Monsters are made, not born, and everyone likes to forget who is making them.

Shouta used to tell you that it wasn’t a fault of yours, to see people as people, no matter how terrible. He thought it was a strength, that it was admirable. Every hero should do it, perhaps it would teach them something.

But you don’t think the strangely playful tone of your next encounter (or the next or the next or the next) with Shigaraki is what he was referring to. The trouble with seeing him as just a person, is that then he seems like just a man around your age, then. You forget who he’s supposed to be, what he’s supposed to have done, when you’re trading quips and catching hits.

You think he allows you to spot him, since no other hero has had nearly the amount of encounters that you’ve had with him. Or maybe he’s following you. The thought crosses your mind and it should frighten you– you should mention it to Shouta. Especially since it almost seems like you’re crying wolf at this point.

For a while you don’t call for reinforcements as quickly as you should. Maybe you let him get away each time, you don’t fight as hard as you could. And you don’t think he’s fighting as viciously, either. He’s not trying to kill you. You’re not trying to capture him.

You don’t play nice, though. He’s not gentle with you. You’re not particularly careful with him, either. But it’s exciting, the rush of adrenaline, the sharp lilt of his smile to counter the mischievous glint of your eyes. It feels like an unspoken game of cat and mouse, following each other around until you both collide like reckless stars.

You separate sharply, too, all of it brutal– the coming together, the falling apart.

You both speak the same language, you think, something about the violence of it all, the fight of it all that’s familiar and knowing. Like there was never any choice in your lives, like it always meant to be spitting out blood and getting back up.

Eventually, you stop calling for reinforcements at all. At some point, you stop telling Shouta of your encounters.

You don’t linger on it, don’t dare contemplate it, lest guilt latches onto you, weighs you down, drags you into crawling. You feign some foolish form of ignorance, like you don’t know what’s happening during these encounters. You’re still fighting, aren’t you? It’s not like you’re helping him in any capacity.

You pretend not to notice the thread between you and Shigaraki that you’re pulling on, pretend not to notice the way it’s tethering you to him. You pretend it’s not going to eventually suffocate, that it’s not dangerous.

(But some days you have a hard time looking at Shouta, especially after everything he’s done for you, everything he does for you–)

Your teeth click together when your back is slammed against the drywall of an abandoned store. It cracks beneath your weight slightly, just as Shigaraki’s forearm bares down hard against your throat.

You gasp and wretch for breath, your toes barely on the ground as he keeps you pinned with his arm. You claw at him, fingernails digging into flesh.

He leers closer, “You don’t learn lessons, do you?”

He’s smiling, though, regarding you in amusement as you squirm and struggle.

You manage to knee him in the stomach, enough for him to drop you, so you can suck in large lungfuls of air.

If you were really fighting to hurt him, fighting to win, you’d kick him while he’s doubled over, move fast so he can’t get back up. But it’s more fun when it’s close– like little kids wrestling, you feel young and dumb with him. You feel reckless in the same way you did as a teenager, playing chicken near the train tracks with a bunch of other lost kids, when you used to dare each other to walk on the edge of high bridges and buildings. Everything was cut to close.

You had nothing then, so there was nothing to lose.

You try to tackle him instead, sending you both rolling onto the floor filled with debris– you hiss in pain as your palm catches on a spare shard of glass. Your palm opens with hot blood, runs rivulets down your wrist.

But you’re too busy wrestling with Shigaraki, too busy trying to get the upper hand to notice much.

There is a strange moment, though, when you end up atop him, straddling his stomach. A beat where you’re both breathing hard, staring at each other.

His hair is spread out around his head, like a halo of silver. It’s getting longer, you think, which is a dumb thing to notice about him.

He narrows his eyes at you, just as he catches your wrist before you can strike him. It’s the hand streaked with blood.

Reflexively, he holds a finger away from your wrist.

But then he stares at it, at his hand now slick with your blood, wrapped around your wrist. His fingers dig into your pulse, like he’s looking for your heartbeat.

Then, almost curiously, his last finger comes down to join the others against your skin.

Nothing happens. He knows nothing will happen and yet, each time he’s able, he seems to try again and again.

(You don’t think he actually wants his Quirk to work on you, only that he can’t fathom otherwise, so he has to try and prove himself wrong–)

He squeezes tighter, before those ruby eyes flick back to your face.

“Funny, I was always told I was a fast learner,” you finally answer him.

It takes him a moment, a beat where he watches you and you become aware of your position– of him, warm and lean beneath you. Of his hand, lithe and large, still wrapped around your wrist. Something inside of you shivers, makes your cheeks flush hot and prickly.

He snorts then, but he doesn’t seem very amused anymore, before shoving you off of him.

“You’re naive then,” he sneers, standing easily, apparently done with you.

Maybe you are, you think, standing now, too. You clutch at your bleeding hand, wrap your own fingers around your wrist now to cradle it to your body.

You try not to think of his touch.

He turns his back on you, evidently to leave, which makes you bristle. You don’t think, you just let that irritation bubble and fizz over and out of you, so that you rush for him again. You wrap your arms around his neck, use your momentum to flip him over again, onto his back. And this time, you use all of that training that Shouta has beat into you and you grapple with him seriously this time.

But he manages to catch your arm, force you onto your stomach, with it wretched behind your back. His other hand shoves your face into the ground. Even now, you can feel only four fingers on your head.

“I’ll teach you, if that’s what you want,” he snarls and you feel panic flood your veins, feel the white heat of it, the shaking that overcomes you. You thrash, hard, but he only shoves your cheek down harder, “You naive, stupid little girl–”.

You cry out– it’s a smaller noise than you’d like to admit.

And then he’s gone. All of that weight and pressure leaves so swiftly that it almost gives you whiplash– too sharp of a contrast. Even his leaving is brutal, somehow.

He has disappeared by the time you’ve picked yourself up from off the floor.

It’s raining, cold and hard, when you walk back to UA.

You lie to Shouta for the first time that night– a real, spoken lie, rather than just omitted truth.

You tell him you cut your hand cooking earlier, not wrestling with Shigaraki Tomura in hollowed out buildings, where the prying eyes of society can’t touch you.

You feel sick, when he rewraps the bandage around your palm. He’s careful with you, gentle in a way that Shigaraki isn’t.

You don’t sleep that night.

You just keep thinking about the look in his eyes, when he’d dropped that final finger against your pulse, and the concern in Shouta’s voice, when he’d asked what had happened to your palm.

Shouta had held your wrist, too, fingers against your heartbeat.

But it hadn’t beat the same and you can’t stomach looking in his eyes for the rest of the night.

***

Tomura dreams of you in soft light now, the red heat of morning, maybe the lullaby violet of evening.

He hears that little cry of yours– but now it’s sweeter, more desperate.

He hates you, he thinks, even in his dreams, all warbly and tender, as he presses two of his fingers between your plush lips. He presses them down against your tongue and you whine, turn wide eyes on him–

You’re so eager and soft in these dreams, which feels ridiculous for all your sharpness. He doesn’t know you as compliant or sweet like this, and his mind feels traitorous for imagining it. You wouldn’t take this lying down, wouldn’t take his fingers in your mouth, or let him fall into the crux of your body.

You’re so vivid, so warm and alive to all his cloying decay and death.

He wants to hurt you, he tries to convince himself, but he never does in these dreams. He can never make himself, not when you’re laid out beneath him, offered to him like sacrifice, slick and too-warm.

He wakes aching and livid. Doesn’t rest until he puts his hands on himself, touches and strokes and catches his groans behind his teeth– it’s a broken, frustrated sound, rattling around in the cage of his chest.

He thinks of you spread out beneath him, above him with your hair tickling his collar bones. He thinks of his hands on you, spread wide, all five of his fingers grabbing and squeezing and possessing you.

He thinks of that stupid little cry you’d given him, the one now that haunts him–

He doesn’t feel shameful when his hands end up sticky and he’s bitten his lip so hard it’s started to bleed to keep back a whine, doesn’t feel shame when he thinks of you, a little hero, welcoming the likes of him into your body.

It’s not shame, he thinks, with his chest rising and falling and the sweat cooling on his skin, it’s not shame just–

Irritation. Infatuation. Infection.

You’re a fucking disease, he decides, and he’s blistering with you, sick with you.

He wants to vomit you up, purge you of his body and mind.

But he can’t, so maybe the thought of you will just fester and rot inside of him.

Maybe he’ll just wander around this world, feverish and longing, like an open wound, like a walking corpse.

***

Shouta usually keeps a careful distance between the two of you. He isn’t afraid to touch you– he can’t be, as your mentor, as someone who has trained you and taken care of you. His hands know correcting; they have laid flat against your back to correct posture, or curved along your shoulder to guide you, they have molded you and shaped you. They have also stitched you up and soothed you, swept blood from your skin, pressed ice to inflammation.

But those touches have always remained somewhat professional, somewhat formal. Clinical, at times. Almost fatherly.

Even when he’d needed to cut away your hero suit to get at a wound you’d received while patrolling. Even when you’re sprawled on his bathroom floor, half bare for his eyes to assess– there has always been a careful distance between you two.

But lately, that distance dwindles, slips away like thread between your fingers.

The other night, he’d tucked a strand of your hair from your face.

Your legs now tangle with his when you both occupy opposite ends of the couch.

He lays his hand on the small of your back as you walk beside him. He ducks his head low for you, so that you can speak into his ear and he can murmur back to you.

But it’s a careful dance, one that you’re unsure of. He remains distant with you around others, especially his class. Especially Shinsou. You suppose you can’t blame him when students like Kaminari start rumors that you’re his teacher’s girlfriend.

Shouta always corrects him, grits out in a low voice that you are not his girlfriend and some part of you begs to ask, would it be so bad if I was?

Especially when you sleep in his bed. In his clothes. When you occupy some unnamed space in his life that seems to only be growing.

You suppose you don’t know a lot about relationships– you’ve never had one. There wasn’t much time to find love when you were just trying to find something to eat, when you were just trying to find somewhere safe and warm to sleep for the night. And now, with Shouta, you feel like you’re grasping at something you can’t quite reach.

You can’t decide if he knows what he’s doing or not, you can’t decide if the shift in your relationship is intentional on his part or not.

But you’re nothing if not curious, maybe a little too desperate for even the potential of his love. You’re so eager for it that it almost hurts, that you’d take nearly anything. And the idea of his rejection is a bitter weight that lies atop your chest.

(Looking back, you think this could’ve been the point of no return. This could’ve been your damned moment, the precipice of your fall. Maybe if the night had gone differently, if you hadn’t been such a child–)

There is an evening when Shouta stumbles home, with a gash ripped across his chest, near soaking wet with the icy rain that has just begun outside. He’d gone to work alone, working on an undercover mission that you know little about. Such is the nature of Shouta’s hero work, sometimes.

The Hero Commission expects you to follow in his footsteps. One day it will be you with secrets, slipping through shadows, moving through the underground world of the city. You know it well already, was born and reared down there, so it makes sense that you would return to it one day. But now in the form of a hero, some force to be reckoned with.

But looking at him now, bloody and exhausted and freezing, you wonder why everyone ever thought there’s glory in hero work.

You rush to him, Kyoko being dumped from your lap in the process, rushing off because of the commotion.

“I’m fine,” Shouta says quickly, the moment he sees the concern on your face. “It’s not that deep.”

Still, he looks wane. He looks tired. He looks cold.

You usher him in and he lets you. It’s your turn now to get the medical supplies, to grab a rag and have him rest against the bathroom counter.

“I can do it,” he tells you when you gently reach to begin cleaning up the wound, but you shake your head.

You don’t know why, but you want to prove you can care for him, too. You want to prove you’re like him, maybe, that you’re an adult with careful hands.

“Let me,” you reply, perhaps quieter, more tentative than you intended.

And he does.

You gently pry away his hero suit from the wound. Shouta only hisses quietly through his teeth at the pull, but otherwise remains still for you. He was right, it isn’t a deep wound, you can see that now. Just a long, drawn out graze that was just deep enough to bleed.

It’s over his heart and your hands flutter there, to and fro, gentle with him.

You can feel him watching you, dark eyes heavy and soft on your face. You look up through your lashes at him, just for a moment, and you feel suddenly nervous, suddenly small standing in the shadow of his large frame. In the shadow of his eyes.

You focus on cleaning the cut on his chest, listening to the way his breath stutters when it stings. You focus on bandaging him up, making your hands busy, watching as the red pricks through the white cloth.

“What happened?” you ask and your voice is hushed in the small bathroom. You don’t dare look up at him again.

“Nothing terrible,” is his short answer and you know he can’t tell you much about the mission, or what happens on these nights when he’s all alone. You can’t help but feel somewhat excluded, though, like you’re only a part of fragments of his life. Still, like there’s a distance he holds you at, so impossibly careful.

You don’t want to be careful anymore.

You want him like this, near and warm and beneath your hands.

You don’t know why you say it and the moment you blur it out, your cheeks flare into warmth, “I don’t like when you go out alone.”

The corner of his lips tick upward in amusement. He reaches up, nudges your chin with his knuckle gently, almost playfully, “Now you know how I feel.”

His voice is low, rough and warm, like the crackling of a smoldering hearth. Soft thunder to lull you to sleep.

You pick your eyes up finally, peer up into his face.

“How you feel?” you ask, voice just barely above a whisper.

He lets his knuckle brush lightly against your jaw, slow, smooth strokes as his features soften up, as his dark eyes flicker in the low light of the bathroom.

“Hm,” he hums softly, “How I feel.”

He tucks a strand of your hair away from your face delicately– you’ve never been treated so gently than when Shouta is touching you like this. Like you’re spun glass, something lovely in the palm of his rough, broad hand.

“Thank you for patching me up,” he murmurs then, his voice just a soft rasp.

And you think he’s going to pull away again, he’s going to ease away from you and you–

You feel your heart splinter, you feel the childish urge to latch on tight and not let go of him. You don’t want the distance, you don’t want to watch his features slide back into stoniness. You want to be his– oh God do you want to be his.

And you don’t want to be careful anymore, not when the risk is worth so much reward.

You press up onto the tips of your toes, let your stomach barely touch the hard lines of his, lean into his orbit carefully. Everything feels as if it could shatter at any moment.

He freezes beneath your hands.

You tilt your lips up in offering, parted soft, parted sweet.

And he let’s you–

He lets you lean in the rest of the way, press your warm lips to his. It’s a tentative kiss, almost unsure, like you’ve never done it before (you have but– but it’s never been like this). You’re lamb soft and unsure, moldable.

He kisses back.

You can feel his stubble scrape against your upper lip, can feel the exhale he gives against your cheek. The way you melt, silken and bending to what he wants of you.

His hand is large, chilled against your cheek.

You try to bite back a noise, a small thing that he ends up swallowing, as you eagerly push towards him. But that slight roughness, that desperation, makes him pull away suddenly.

His hands come down on your shoulders, holding you away, holding you at that distance and you–

“Shouta,” you breathe, almost whine.

But you watch as the walls rise, watch as all that softness slips from him, reveals only cold stone. “No,” he says, firm but gentle for you, “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that–”

You feel heat rise up, the shameful, bitter, angry kind. You feel it swell inside of you, sickly and horrible and vicious.

Your lip wobbles suddenly.

“What do you mean?” you hiss quietly, frustrated with the sudden sting of tears that you refuse to let fall.

“I shouldn’t have done that.” he says again, stoic and calm in the face of all your furious shame and anger and it just–

It makes you livid.

“Why not?” you ask, sharp, trying to keep the hurt out of your voice, “Y-You wanted to!”

When he’s silent, your eyes turn almost pleading, chest heaving. Your voice is small and uncertain when you ask, “Didn’t you?”

Your throat feels tight and choked, a lump forming there that hurts. One you can’t swallow down, not when you feel like your heart is on the outside of your body, like you’ve got all the most vulnerable parts of you bare and exposed.

Shouta exhales hard, squeezes your shoulder and you can tell he’s warring with himself. You can tell he wants to comfort you, assure you otherwise but he can’t, shouldn’t.

“It’s not that,” Shouta says, soft now, “It’s not that. It’s just inappropriate–”

“I’m not a child!” you snap and the tears finally break over the line of your lashes as if to contradict you, falling hot and angry against your flushed cheeks.

“I’m your mentor.” Shouta responds, almost soothingly, almost like he’s trying to placate you. Especially when he reaches out, goes to brush a tear from your cheek as if he isn’t the one who caused it.

You jerk away from him, waving away his hand, “Don’t–” you say, voice breaking, “Don’t do that.”

Shouta swallows, “I’m sorry,” he says again and you can tell he means it, feels like he almost means he’s sorry for more than just this. Like he’s sorry for not giving in, sorry he won’t let himself have what you’ve offered.

You have to look away from him, have to look away from his concern and defeated shoulders. More tears slip down your cheeks, quick and furious, and you wipe at them with the heel of your hand.

You want to say something– you want to scream or shout or fight him. You want to cry. You want to throw a tantrum, you realize, with all of that prickly embarrassment and knife sharp rejection gutting you seamlessly. You want to throw it up at his feet to see what he’s done and how bad this hurts–

But all you do swallow it all down, it goes down like needles, like splintered glass to tear up your pink insides somewhere.

“I-I’m going to go,” you say instead and you turn away from him. Turn to leave the bathroom, to shove your shoes and coat on despite his gentle protests.

Shouta catches your wrist in your flurry of movement and you have to keep back your sob behind clenched teeth.

“It’s raining, you’re just going to your apartment, right?” he asks, still worrying about you, still trying to care for you and it makes you see red.

“Yeah,” you lie, lurching out of his grip, ripping your hand from him, and finally wrenching open the door only to slam it shut behind you.

You don’t go back to your own apartment.

You go out into the night, into the freezing rain, which comes down in sharp, stinging pelts. Feels good against your overheated cheeks, though, almost feels good with your pounding head, like it’s icing your bruised and tender spots for a moment.

It soaks you quickly and down to the bone and eventually all that soothing chill becomes icy cold, seeps beneath your jacket, burrows down into your body that aches with a sudden loneliness.

At first, you don’t know where you’re walking to, aimless as the rain slants against you. The streetlights are like lanterns in this weather, glowing fuzzy and all alone in the streets save for the occasional car.

When you get into a busier part of the city, anyone who is walking has an umbrella, huddles beneath it, trying to keep their hands warm. A couple walks past you, huddled together and giggling, their breaths puffing out in front of them in this cold.

You wipe at your eyes, turn away so that no one sees the way you try to keep your face from crumpling.

You keep walking and walking and walking until you realize you’ve carried yourself to a part of the city you used to frequent; before Shouta, before becoming a hero, when you were nothing but a thief, some scavenger that society would rather not have.

It’s filled with abandoned warehouses and rundown drug stores, a seedy motel and dilapidated apartment complexes. It’s removed from the eyes of the main city, so they don’t have to look at the orphans and beggars.

But it’s familiar to you.

You wish you could say it still feels like coming home but it isn’t home anymore– no, home is Shouta’s bed, and the couch you spend evenings on with him while he grades papers. It’s the window in the kitchen, right above the sink. It’s training rooms and the walk from your apartment to his. it’s him and his stupid cats and violet-haired kid.

You bite back a groan, maybe another sob. Your teeth are chattering violently now with the freezing rain, your arms wrapped tightly around yourself as if you’re trying to hold all of that heartache on the inside of your body.

Even in all your frustration, though, you force yourself to glance around, to peer through the rain at your surroundings. It’s second nature at this point, since Shouta started training you, because you’re his good little–

You jolt in surprise when you see him standing behind you in the rain. His silver hair is plastered to his face, to his neck. His hood is thrown up to try and block out the rain, but he’s also soaked, red eyes gleaming in the lowlight.

It’s almost comical, you think, the both of you standing out here, shivering and soaked in this downpour like drowned strays.

Shigaraki Tomura eyes you warily.

You don’t think either of you were expecting to see each other.

For all your earlier anger, you don’t have a lot of fight in you, don’t want to fight. Can’t fathom trying to use your brain enough to battle him off. And Shigaraki, for reasons beyond you, has yet to really harm you every time he’s come across you.

You feel strangely casual, strangely unguarded and wavering.

“What are you doing here?” he finally rasps, glaring at you.

A broken laugh ruptures out of your aching ribs, between your chattering teeth.

“What are you doing here?” you counter and he clearly doesn’t care for whatever strange humor you’ve found in this situation.

He lopes closer, though, almost tentatively, watching to see if you’re going to make any sort of move. You remain with your arms hugged tight to your body, shivering in this cold.

He doesn’t answer you. His hands are tucked away into his pockets. You can see him trying to hold back shivers, too, can see the way his shoulders tense, the way his jaw grinds together.

“I used to live around here,” you admit for some reason, out into the alleway space between the two of you. Maybe if only to say it aloud, to say that you were someone before Shouta, maybe just to spite Shouta, to tell Shigaraki Tomura a piece of you that is personal and kept inside your heart.

The rain swallows your words, though, and for a moment, you think he’ll ignore you entirely.

But he asks, “So you decided to visit in the freezing rain?”

He’s not being humorous, but you smile anyways and it feels wobbly, a little bit absurd– the kind of smile that comes after crying, when you feel half-mad, when everything is a mess and your emotions are an overflowing fountain, spilling out in any way it sees fit to drown everything in sight.

You shrug, open your arms out to the space, looking around for a moment, as if it will back you up when you ask, “Why not?”

Shigaraki’s next few steps towards you are almost cautious, like he can feel your fragility from here.

Maybe starting a fight would do you well. Maybe you want to taste blood. Maybe his eyes on you will keep you warm out here– will make you forget about Shouta, which strikes you with another sharp and buzzing pang.

And somehow, someway, when he steps close enough to touch, he manages to hit the one spot where you’re hurting the worst;

“Don’t you have a nice warm home to be in?”

You wince like he’s struck you, face falling for a moment, arms collapsing back down to your sides.

You think of Shouta, back in his apartment, with his cats and his blankets and the fond way he’d always look at you–

All that frustration keens at the thought, though, flares quick and hot inside of you. That urge to scream and sob and fight comes back with a vengeance. When Shigaraki gets too close to you, you lash out, shoving him backwards.

It’s artless, but he stumbles a half step back after your palms had pushed against his chest.

Unknowingly, you hit a nerve in him, too, when you ask, “Can’t you leave me alone? You’re always fucking stalking me!”

“I don’t waste my time stalking bratty, useless little heroes.” he snaps, biting out the words.

You don’t know why that stings, too. Maybe it’s the way he said ‘useless,’ or the mockery of ‘hero.’ Maybe it’s because that’s how you feel, like some bratty child, scorned and angry and bitter. Maybe that’s why Shouta doesn’t want you–

You shove at Shigaraki again, acting as the child you feel like. He almost snorts, except you do it again, and again, until you’re shoving against his chest with everything you have.

And strangely, he lets you for a moment, watching your face, watching the way your lip trembles and your eyes grow all glassy. He can’t tell with the rain but–

He grabs your forearm, tight and firm to stop your sudden shoving. He keeps a finger lifted away from you naturally. He doesn’t need to, you think dimly, but he does.

You beat at his chest with your free hand before he snags that one, too, grips you to haul you closer to him, to peer down into your face with blazing red eyes.

When you look up at him, it’s through angry, indignant tears.

“Let go,” you hiss, trying to jerk out of his hold.

He bares his teeth in some semblance of a smile, “What makes you think I’d listen to you?”

You thrash harder in his hold, but he just yanks you closer, until you lose balance and stumble into his lean form. You can feel his chest against yours, the line of your torsos, your hips.

You look at him through wet lashes, and there’s something strange in his expression now. It freezes you, stills you against him. You can feel his chest rising and falling rapidly, can feel the sudden shuddering of his body– you pretend it’s from the cold. But you suddenly can’t feel the cold anymore, can’t feel the breath in your lungs.

Hunger, you finally place the look in his eyes, just before he pulls you up to meet him halfway in a kiss that feels more like a car crash.

It’s jarring, shocking to you the way impact is, like free-falling and finally hitting the ground.

His lips are rough around the edges, you can feel the indent of his scar at the corner of his mouth, but the center is warm and almost soft. Wet, between the rain that turns everything slick and the way he parts his mouth against yours.

It should be gross, you think, it should be horrible– you should try to pull away, but he’s clutching you tighter, crushing any possible distance between you two, shattering it with a vengeance. And it’s–

It’s everything you wanted from Shouta, maybe, that closeness, the grabbing of his desperate hands. The vicious wanting, of being wanted so viscerally, so tremendously.

And maybe it’s to spite Shouta, too, a bad decision for the books. You haven’t made one of those in awhile, have you?

So you fist your hands in his cold, wet hoodie, and throw your other arm around his neck to drag him down into you, deeper into the kiss.

He makes a noise, something like a groan, a growl that splits off into a whine at the end. You swallow it, open your mouth to let him into you. Your teeth clink together, it’s messy and hard and fast, all heat and desperation.

The absurdity isn’t lost on you, the strange irony that comes with kissing in the rain— it isn’t romantic. It doesn’t cause your heart to flutter but full on stop. It’s freezing and rough and brutal.

You’re not kissing the man of your dreams (but you have dreamt of him, haven’t you?), you’re not kissing some dashing hero, there’s not going to be a love confession after this.

You’re kissing one of the most wanted villains in rain that hits you like ice, surrounded by a place you used to call home.

You could laugh, if you weren’t so busy trying to claw at him, to get more.

He kisses like he’s trying to tear you apart. You can feel the sting of his teeth, the hungry push of his lips into yours. He’s all scavenger, he’ll take everything you give him and more—

And you feel him, the hard line of his desire for you, digging roughly into your stomach and that’s– that’s finally what shocks you. It’s what forces you to lurch away from him.

He lets you go, surprisingly, but you both stare at each other, wide-eyed and shocked.

The irony of you stuttering out the words, “I-I shouldn’t have done that–” is so cruel and hysterical that you feel like you’re going to split apart at the seams.

But he doesn’t look upset. No, he looks like he’s won something, like he’s snapped a piece of the puzzle into place. Like he knows something you don’t.

You shove past him.

You run home, force your body to move, to breathe hard and heavy, to try and forget the way he’d felt against you– or the way Shouta had cradled your cheek or the way you’ve never known something like either acts. Never been treated so gently. Never been wanted so badly.

When you get to your apartment, you slam the door shut behind you. Throw the lock into place and let your chest shake and heave and breathe, forcing in huge lungfuls of air. You’re so soaked that you drip all over the floor.

You shuck off your cold clothes in the living room because you can, because you feel like you’re going crazy, feel like you’re unraveling.

You take a shower so hot that it hurts, trying to scrub him off of you, or trying to remember the heat that he’d forced into you.

You sleep naked for once, something you don’t do often, but need to feel the sheets against bare skin, need to know that you’re alone and with yourself.

But you lie awake, twisting and turning and restless all night.

You refuse to let your hands wander, refuse to give in to whatever spark that had fanned into a flame in the low parts of your stomach. Refuse to picture red eyes. Refuse to imagine raven hair between your fist, too.

You refuse it all, try to force it down into the depths of you to never see the light of day again.

You end up getting sick from the rain– feverish and woozy and exhausted– but you also think you’re sick with something else, something that’s wormed its way into all the secretive, vulnerable parts of you.

Something that makes you furious and flushed in the lonesome hours of the blue-dark night.

***

PART II

[messwriting]

THE SMUT PILE SECRET SANTA

Golden Eyes

Demon!Kuroo Tetsurou x Female Reader  

Rating: E for explicit | Don’t read this if under eighteen.

Note: HOE HOE HOE INDEED! HAHAHAHA 

This is my secret santa gift for my dear elf Alisha -- @rivendell101​! I do hope you enjoy, I just tried to channel all of Kuroo’s wicked energy into this and sprinkled it with our beloved monsterfucking. Sorry for all the questions, I just wanted to surprise you but also include only things you’d like. ;-; Hope you enjoy and MERRY SMUTMAS <3

Big thanks and lots of kisses to my dear Tay @deathcab4daddy who read this, betaed, and said it wasn't the train wreck I thought it was 😂🥺😘💕

Warnings: This is loosely inspired by the manhwa DEAR DOOR, by Pluto, from which the art above is also from (Satan is fucking hot)! Monsterfucking - Demon. Use of tongue and tail in a very uh naughty way. Magic makes you horny at some point (tho i don’t think is dub-con?), but just to be sure Magic Manipulation. Assplay with tongue and finger penetration. Denials, oh so many denials. Sprinkle of spanking. Soft pain play. Overstim. Oral sex. Rough sex. CHOKING. BITING. MARKING. Demon uhhhh lure? aijaisajisj He’s seducing you with his devilish powers. CORRUPTION. RELIGIOUS BLASPHEMY (sorry jesus).

Word count: ~7.4k. I can’t write anything short, why?!

“So… you’re a demon?” You ask, weirdly not completely panicking over the fact that this brick wall of a man showed up out of nowhere in the middle of your living room as if this were just another Sunday night. The stranger smiles your way with a lopsided grin and the shivers that run through your body seem to support his affirmation.

“Did the horns give it away?” The dark-haired demon asks, with a smile that could make him the single male model of some sin’s propaganda. Your eyes flick to his tail, long and thick, moving calmly in waves behind him, and come up to the unbelievably wide black wings sprouting from his back and threatening to blow a hole in your ceiling. 

“Sure,” You say while your eyes come back to his face, taking a second look at the long, twisted black horns sprouting from his high forehead and mixing with his thick raven hair. “Let’s say it’s the horns.”

He snickers but his golden stare is very much sharp on you. Even before it pinned you in place you had found that your legs had begrudgingly refused to move in front of the massive presence in your living room. 

“You’re an interesting little thing, aren’t you?” He muses out loud, his arms crossing in front of his body while one hand cradles his own face while he looks down at you. The gold irises glint in the dark like a beacon, the small crystal-like black pupil like that of a wild animal. “Normally people would have been screaming by now. Or passing out. Maybe running.” He doesn’t move from where he stands, but his sentient tail floats over to you, lightly caressing the side of your face as a child stroking their pet; it moves under your chin, over your jaw and cheekbone, pats your hair back, and comes to circle your throat. 

It doesn’t squeeze -- but the threat is pretty much clear.

“I don’t think my legs can move.” You tell him in a breathless voice, panic eating away at the corners of your sanity the more you stare at the insanity in front of you. A monstrosity of man with a tail and wings to crown it swaying in your living room as if it’s all okay, as if this is real life. You shudder in place, a whole-body wave of dread that moves along your body and makes you tremble as all the hair on your being stands in place. He grins down at you, wicked and pretty, a cheshire air of mischief in the way his golden irises glint in the dark background of his eyes and mingle with the dim lit room to go with the roll of white pearls of sharp-looking teeth in his mouth.

“Am I dreaming?” Your thoughts escape from your lips in a breath as his tail grounds you to reality, burning hot and heavy around your neck. It contrasts awkwardly with the image in front of you, which your brain keeps trying to deny as true, but the weight of his tail pulls you from the edge of disbelief and pins you in place, your limbs turning cold as you feel unable to move. “Or am I going insane, somehow?”

“Do you think your brain is failing you, little one?”

“Well, seems like the logical reason why there’s a winged man in my living room. With horns and-- a tail.” Your voice stops and you gulp right before your eyes snap once again to his devilish black and golden eyes. “Wait. Are you a demon? Is… a demon in my living room?” The more you speak the least sense it makes. The thing in front of you seems to be very amused by the twinges of panic and disbelief coloring your voice and expression. “Why?”

He smirks and his wings do a fluttering thing before they curve inside his back, two massive black things even when they’re closed. “Must be your lucky day.”

You snort even through your scared haze. “Not exactly what one thinks when considering demons.”

“Ah, bad rep.” Kuroo says and he floats as if he’s sitting on a chair, his legs crossing as he supports an elbow on his thigh and his face on his hand. It’s both parts unnerving and enthralling, and you’re struck with the fact of how big he is once again. “God’s marketing team is hella good. We get the rep for everything going on now-- the crops died? Oh, the devil. Psycho kid? Demoniac. Fucked up government? Send from hell. Sex? Devilish.” He sighs, his pretty lips jutting in a pout as his beautiful face falls into a tired mask. “It’s tiresome to be the poster-boys to all things wicked.”

“Well, seems like you do the part just fine.” You hide yourself through some small sarcasm, as you grumble the remark.

“Hah.” His sharp teeth flash in the dark at the barked laugh, a gasped sound as if he truly found your remark funny. “We get used to it,” He nods your way and then shrugs, a never-leaving smirk on his lips. “And I like the style.”

“Sure,” you say, despite the clear unconvinced tone of your voice as your eyebrows shut up slowly, eating the distance from your hairline until you blink and tiptoe around your next words, “not to be rude, Mr. Demon--”

“Call me Kuroo.” He cuts you off charmingly, as one would in flirting; a playful arch in his brows as his smile spreads just that bit more over his face. You just now realize the appeasing traces of it, the sharp angle of his jaw, the high of his square cheekbones, and the elegant line of his nose; then your eyes fly over the protruding circles of his horns, and your eyes go round almost involuntarily. 

“Okay…” It breaches your lips along with a puff of breath. You blink a few times before continuing, still doubting your own eyes as they thread over the massive monster in front of you. You wonder if he’d look better if he’s bent to your height, but then again that wouldn’t do much about those broad shoulders, engulfing your wall where he stands. “Not to be rude, Mr. Kuroo, but…” you steady yourself with a deep breath before continuing, your hand flying to press against your eyes before you can reopen then and see the exact same thing from before -- a demon in your house. “What the fuck you’re doing here, exactly?” 

He smiles, pleased with your cussing, apparently. Then his eyes turn focused, predatory,  and they’re locked on you.

“I’ve come to offer a deal, little one.”

“A deal?” You parrot, lost in the pull of those golden eyes.

“Yes,” Kuroo smirks, lips splitting unnaturally over sharp canines. He keeps floating in his position, face supported on a big, clawed, hand. “And a quite good one, too.” 

“You… You’re at my home, to offer me a deal, right after the small rant on Devil’s bad marketing.” You list the things, doubt thick in your voice.

Kuroo smiles, but it looks wrong. “Yes, dear.” 

“Okay,” You risk, though it comes out as a question. Kuroo seems pleased, though. “Go ahead, I guess?”

“I need something from you.”

“Oh shit, is this the soul thing?” Your eyes widened again, hands coming to stand protectively in front of you even as you doubt you could do much to fend him off if he wanted to do you harm. “I’ve seen Supernatural, I’m not selling my fucking soul okay?!”

“Chill, kitten, I don’t really mind your soul.” He’s rather nonchalant, golden eyes completing a circle along his eyeballs before they fall once again on you while Kuroo comes out from his floating position to pace calmly over to you. Then, his sharp teeth split his face wickedly in two, an alluring characteristic in the way his lips form an overconfident grin as he bends over you in your place on the couch. “It’s your body I’m interested in.”

“My… body?” 

“Have you ever heard of hell portals?” His face engulfs your line of vision as his tail angles your head back to look up at him, a clawed finger gliding over your jawline at that.

“No? Should I? Who do you think I am to know about hell doors?” It happens again, your thoughts slipping through your lips at the same rate as you think them, the sarcastic tone of your mind also dripping out much as if that had been your intention all along. 

He seems rather happy at that, too.You wonder if he’s prying the truth from you somehow. “Well, you’re one.”

“What?” You ask, stupidly, as his face gets further from you and he straightens back into his full height.

“A door, to hell.” Kuroo finishes, cheerfully. It looks, once again, wrong on his face, as if it's more of a threat than a joke. 

 The seconds pass by as falling rocks over metal, loud and rattling, a restless moment in which you keep staring at the monster --demon-- face and even as his horns stay in place and his curved wings twitch, it stills feels wholly detached from reality; an insane, out of this plane moment in which you doubt your whole being - your eyes and your ears and your brain and your skin, where the weight and warmth of his tail still surrounds your neck.

“Now I know I’m losing my mind.” You murmur to yourself as you can’t make peace between reality and, well, this reality. 

“Ah, you humans are such disbelievers. I’m here in front of you, saying you’re a portal, and you still doubt your own eyes as if they’re the origin of your offense.” Kuroo mocks you, crossing his arms in front of his body and for a second your eyes linger on the blackness of his clawed hands, the weird way they’re shaped as if something is enveloping them, elongating claws on the point of his fingers with the color of a moonless night. Still, the acidic tone in his voice makes you perk up with infuriating annoyance, and it seeps from you at the same rate as it fills you. 

“Well, sorry if it’s hard for me to believe I’m a fucking hell portal.” You sass him, fiery eyes closing on gold. It’s even more annoying that he smiles through your taunt. “Ten minutes ago I didn’t even believed in hell.”

“You can keep doubting if you want. Aren’t you doing so even when you see me here? All I need is passage and then you’ll be free to doubt once again,” his eyes glow brighter as he closes in on yours in a way that has you swaying in place, a vexatious air around him that’s unmistakable; but then again he is a demon, so maybe that’s just the norm. “That is… if you want.”

A shiver runs down your spine at the promise in his voice, and your own trembles when you ask, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That this can be a one-time thing -- or not.” 

You blink, a bit lost. 

“What’s this, exactly?” Your brain pulses in pain at the quantity of information it has to make sense and still try to understand. It’s too much and soon you’re pressing your hands on your face in frustration, “Dude, you’re not making sense.”

“It’s easy.” Kuroo says and suddenly you’re yanked up by thin air, floating in front of his fingers at his will as he twirls your body in the air as if you’re some sick kind of roulette. “Inside you, there’s a portal. I’ll activate it, and go to hell. In exchange, I’ll give you something.” As he speaks, clawed hands slowly and maliciously thread over the valley of your breasts and then down your middle, his golden eyes like a lighthouse to your wandering attention. “Something I know you desire, but you may not even know so. May not even accept yourself.” As his fingers approach the appex of your sex, you’re rounded in the air abruptly and set right on your feet in front of him, safe and sound and dizzy, feeling like prey to those eyes. “It may be this single time, or, if you accept my deal, it can be more.”

You breathe some big gulps of air before speaking in a wavering voice, “Something I wish? And you won’t tell me what that would be?”

“Essentially, you know. You just may be in… denial.” His eyes flash that golden glint once again, twirling molten pools of liquid sun on his face. Their constant, slow motion never-ending circles seeping inside your consciousness, making your mind blank, slowly flowing into a haze in which you feel lost but safe; warmth flowing from it over you as if you’re being dipped in melted honey, weighted down but comfortable, as moving against warm waves in a tropic beach. 

It tips from your mouth as you’re swimming in the molten pools of gold, pulled out from your body as the warm breath from your lungs, heated and pliant. “Okay.”

The spell crashes as his grin spreads through his face, the self-satisfied smirk of a cat who got its prey. Just as you’re burning in embarrassment and ready to cancel whatever that was you just said yes to, a sudden wave of warmth spreads from your face to your feet, your hair undulating at the force it hits you, and travelling so quickly you can feel the way your toes curve while a buzz crosses them, a pleasant but foreign thrill settling in your bones. You send him a nasty glare. 

“The fuck have you done to me?”

“Me? Nothing, kitten.” Kuroo tells you but everything from his expression, to his stance and the fucking satisfied smirk he sports tell you it’s a lie. Your glare turns worse. His lips are curved up in a telling manner but he concedes with a tilt of his head.  “I just lowered your inhibitions, relax.”

“Why would you do that?” The questions zap from your mouth just as you think it, and in a fleeting thought you wonder if that isn’t exactly what he meant. 

“I told you, I’m going to give you what you want.” Kuroo says as he stops in front of you, a sexy, powerful sway in the way he moves and towers over you that you can’t help but appreciate. “But I need you to accept your darker wishes,” It’s a murmur, raspy in his deep voice, and you breathe the words in as the indecent, luscious feeling swell inside your being and seems to find it’s home in your chest-- and drip from your sex. “And then embrace me.”

“I don’t want you.” You tell him, but it comes breathless, weak, and as Kuroo’s golden eyes pierce yours, you can feel as he pinpoints your lie. 

“Then let’s change that, shall we?” 

He wastes no time in maneuvering you into his arms, pulling you through thin air until his feral hands close around your middle and neck. Kuroo tilts your head back while grazing a single clawed finger over your pulse-point and up to your jawline, and then his breathing comes loud and misty against your bared skin. 

“Wait--” You plead as your breath comes in long puffs and when you wet your lips before continuing, a freakishly long, wet and hot tongue comes to lick a big stripe of your skin and you yelp loudly, “-- the fuck!” 

Kuroo, on the other hand, literally hums approvingly and brings his nose to glide over your skin, soft breathing as his hands pull you closer into his massive chest. You realize now, at the proximity,  just how big and broad he is, somehow between terrifying and uncanningly acceptable. 

His body runs hot, the temperature difference between yours quite clear when your skin feels so heated by his touch, clothes you found nice now feeling constricting the more of you that touches him. 

The planes of his chest are hard and toned, lean muscle and strength as he moves you up without effort, your feet dangling way above the ground and still no hint of struggle as he supports your weight. As you get closer, those yellow irises centered in black globes seem to pry inside your mind, big and all encompassing; it makes something coil in your chest, much like panic but tame as agitation.

“Wait--” You breathe out and look down, shocked at the distance you found yourself from the ground. Something crawls from your chest as a distressed groan, “I--” 

Kuroo tilts your head back and -- not without sending you a smirk -- delves down to close your lips together.

Whatever you were expecting, it wasn’t this -- you’re swept away by the kiss, amazed at how well your mouths work together, how perfectly plush and soft his thin lips feel on yours, how pleasing the motions of his tongue are against yours, how tasteful his movements are, and before long, you’re breaking the kiss but because you need to breathe, to pull some air inside yourself to battle the haze settling in your mind.  

It does nothing to aid you though.

Your body feels achingly flushed, avid, weirdly pliant and it is with mild surprise that you feel yourself drooling inside your panties. Something tells you to be indignant, to kick him, to bite and claw, but instead you’re sighing the weakest of noises, spiralling back to his expert lips, falling deeper inside the slow seduction that this demon offers.

Kuroo moves you calmly, his big, searing hot hands threading across your body and working goosebumps in it’s trail even as all he does is touch you over your clothes. Your hands, previously abandoned by the side of your body start to move up his body, spreading your small palms over his chest, and instead of pushing him off, you’re pulling him closer, opening your mouth wider, your legs hiking over his side as if you’re begging for the moment he’ll pick you up.

“Hmm, what a nice little thing you are.” Kuroo murmurs over your lips, taking in the wrecked expression you sport with just a kiss. “So honest, too.” His claws glide over your thigh, hiked on his side. It doesn’t hurt, but the feeling of something sharp sliding against your skin makes your heart rate pick up and your panties grow wetter.

“You’ll like this too, kitten, don’t worry.” His syrupy voice enchants you as he hooks a razor-sharp claw on the side of your shorts, threads up slowly and precise until the ripping sound breaks through your haze. When you look down, your hooded eyes turn wide, taking in the fact he just ripped your shorts and how easily they slide to the ground once they’re free from your hiked leg. The panties stay, but they’re not exactly much. 

“Hey!” You turn to look up at him, puffed cheeks in indignation, and one of his hands yanks your head back, angling your body in a arch as his other hand glides over your thigh to your lower belly, sharp thumb swiftly climbing up your body and with such, ripping your comfy t-shirt. The feeling of something scratching along your middle and the valley of your breasts make your breathing catch up on your lungs, too afraid it will press enough to hurt if you move. You never knew a menace could be this seductive.

Still, the anticipation coils inside you, pours from between your legs as your skin feels too small to hold all the feelings cursing to you, your breasts heavy and your lips falling open in a breath that Kuroo drinks from your lips, attentive and dedicated as his tongue comes out and slides over your lips.

His eyes glint in the dark, sharp and focused. 

“You know what? I think I’ll like you.”

 The air feels cold on your heated skin, especially when he holds you so close. Small trembles pass through your frame as you melt inside his kiss, falling deeper inside the pleasure he offers you and Kuroo barely started. Your nipples perk up without attention and when his rough palm rolls over them, their new-found sensitivity makes it impossible for you to not let out a sound. It’s something meek and surprised, but Kuroo seems proud of it and decided to pull more out of you. 

Magically, you’re yanked up, floating until your middle is at the height of his neck. 

“Hey! What are you doing?” Your head is millimeters from hitting the ceiling, your hands touching it as a way to protect yourself, you throw a nasty glare down at his face just for him to make a half-circle in the air and your upper body be launched behind. 

“No!” You’re laying on thin air -- your heart beating so fast your blood pulses in your head as you look over your shoulder and notices just how impossible is the situation going on, where you’re levitating a few meters from the ground. 

If he stops now, would you go down crashing? Would you die from such a fall? Questions swirl in your mind enough for you to forget whats going on - the way a sharp claw swiftly cuts the side of your panties - until something wet, firm and long prods on your dripping folds.

“What--” Your first action is to hitch your neck up so you can confirm that it is what you think it is, and, granted, Kuroo is slowly prying you open, his huge tongue threading on your most sensitive parts. As he laps a long stripe down your pussy, he looks up at you in flashing gold, seeming extremely pleased. 

Kuroo winks at you, depraved.

Your blood is rushing through your veins at such a haste that you feel dizzy, and your whole body is fervent as something very loud breaks through your lips as Kuroo’s tongue moves and presses on your slit, circles your clit, and moves in serpentine movements along your puffy cunt. 

You didn’t realize before how the texture of his tongue was a bit rugged but now you’re suffering the full extent of its benefits as he eats you out sloppily, enough that you’re dripping down on the carpet as his monstrously long and dexterous tongue plays with your cunt as if that’s his sole mission on earth. Kuroo hums against your clit, makes your whole body tremble with it, and at some point, he manages to press his tongue flat against your clit and still reach enough that it dips softly inside your entrance, slowly and deliciously prying the inner ring of your sex open, then broader.

You can’t help the noises falling from your lips and when one of his rough, clawed hands close around your breast, the pressure inside you peaks and you’re panicking at how close you are to your first orgasm, from his tongue alone, at an impossible long and sentient… demon tongue. 

But he retreats just as your mouth falls open, your throat constricted by the scream that instead becomes an indignated gasp. “Fuck--! I was--”

“Hmmm, I know.” Kuroo answers you, his hands coming to hold your thighs open as you tremble from the effort. His thumb pulls your cunt lips apart and his golden eyes glint, fierce and pleased at the same time. “Aren’t you an interesting plaything? Skyrocketing into pleasure head first when I was just getting a taste.” He licks his lips, his canines making an appearance as his ridiculous long tongue cleans his face and chin where your juices have leaked to. 

His grin should be illegal. “Delicious, by the way. But I’m not ready to end this so fast.”

“End this… fast?” You ask, still having difficulty in thinking straight when you’re floating up in the air with your legs spread open in front of his face, his thumbs spreading you open as if you’re his meal and he likes to play before eating.

“Maybe we should go somewhere more comfortable.” Kuroo muses out loud and before you can blink you’re falling, screaming in your surprise until you bounce on the comfortable cushion of your bed. The air is knocked out of you in a oof, but Kuroo just looks down at you happily, his smile still looking mischievous as if that’s his whole personality trait.

You know what, maybe it is.

“Warn a girl.” You tell him, and he winks your way, just as he pulls your naked body to the edge of the bed.

“Consider yourself warned: i’m about to eat you up.”

His massive hands engulf you and arch your body into his eager mouth, where his tongue lavish at your sex in a way that has you feeling as if they everywhere and at the same time. The muscle is thick and long, firm as it presses from your entrance to your clit, as it rounds your sensitive spot and slithers down through your pussy lips, slurping it with his lips as his wicked tongue never stops its prodding.

One of his hands circles your body, closes around your breast and tweeks your hard nipple between his thumb and forefinger, painfully, deliciously, something obscene curling inside you at the way the feelings mix, the pain and the bliss and it doesn’t help that Kuroo moves his mouth to the sensitive and fragile skin of your inner thighs and build a whole trail of bite marks and throbbing hickeys. 

Something firm, large and hot slither up your body, circling a breast but finding it’s home at a circle around your neck -- his tail -- and the more vocal you become, the more it seems to close around your throat, your heart beating on your fingertips as they claw at anything of Kuroo’s you can reach, hazy and breathless at the way he discloses your wicked desires so plainly, the way his every move seems to discover layer after thick layer of temptations that you have hidden so deep with partners before.

“Such a pretty little thing you are,” Kuroo coos to you when he presses a thick finger past the tight ring of your cunt. “So honest and eager,” It moves, prods, another one joins and soon they’re scissoring against your walls, opening your tender flesh so he can sink himself in further. 

The mere thought has you moaning out loud -- unbelievable and yet, you feel how your arousal drips from your cunt to your thighs.

 “Ahhhh~” Kuroo exhales as his tongue laps a long stripe of your juices. “So pure.” He says against your pussy lips, kissing them and then letting his long tongue slide further until it prods between the cheeks of your ass, immediately falling into circular motions on the furl of muscle. You yelp but midway it becomes an embarrassing moan. “This just makes me wanna ruin you more.”

It’s too much -- he has to know it’s too much, and as Kuroo curves his fingers just right inside your sloppy cunt and his tongue breaches just the tiniest bit the resistance of your ass, your eyes are falling open in huge plates, a long moan of his name on your tongue as you’re so close to cumming you can practically taste the high already.

“No, not now.” Kuroo chastises you as he retreats his tongue and fingers from you, the arch of your body ready to snap curling in a tremble of a denied release.

“Too soon, kitten. I want to savor this.” His tone comes out between pleased and patronizing, and it makes your cunt clench, empty. 

You heave, unfocused eyes blinking the wicked golden away. “What--” A deep breath. “What do you want from me?”

“Wrong question, kitten.” Kuroo tells you just as his massive frame bends over you, the wicked eyes seducing you in once again -- not that they ever stopped. “Now that I got a taste,” He murmurs practically against your lips, and you lick where his breath hits, captivated, “I want all of you.”

 He lets you fall on the bed once again and maneuvers your body without difficulty until your ass is high in the air and your thighs are spread, his tail lighter around your throat, fondly slithering on your jaw. His knee presses on the mattress until it squeaks and his hands massage from your thighs to your ass, prying it open and kneading it with hard, powerful hands.

“Beautiful.” He praises you and you swear your pussy throbs and flutters hard enough to make a gushing noise. By the way Kuroo snickers, it may be true. 

His tongue is the first thing you feel right after his laboured breathing on your cunt. It pries you open, thick muscle sliding inside you, big and wet and dexterous and you’re moaning against the mattress in seconds. 

Kuroo seems pleased even though all he does is hum, his large hands press on your back and the other opens your cheeks wide for his assault. Something hot prods your asshole, and you’re surprised at how careful his fingers can be while maneuvering the wetness left by his tongue there. They move slowly but surely as he presses and retreats, opening you from two fronts and still seemingly not enough.

He decides to change, his tongue coming out of your sex and then sliding to your ass as his thumbs open your lips for him to watch as he dips two big fingers inside your cunt. The stretch, the massive pleasure of being assaulted by both ends make you clench and cream around his digits, once again climbing up the familiar euphoric road. 

This time, however, Kuroo stops you differently.

His hard, heavy hand falls on your ass cheeks forcefully in what must be his intention of being light. You yelp loudly and groan, somehow caught between winding down and flying right over the edge. 

“Oh, hoho~” Sounds from his voice and he descends his hand once again on your ass, heavy and startling. It sounds so loud and so lewd in the empty room, your whole being burns in place, trembling from the effort of holding yourself in all fours and the pure elation growing inside you, spreading from your fingertips to the depraved center of your being. 

As the sting settles in your senses, it winds down your orgasm but makes a renewed wave drip from your cunt and down your thigh. You’re surprised at how it excites you, the pain, but fuck it still stings. His hand falls on your ass a couple more times but then his hot palms knead the stinging flesh, an exquisite feeling spreading over you as it throbs and burns and you melt.

“Ugh! Fuck!” You groan, biting the mattress, unable to tell him to stop and too embarrassed to tell him to keep going.

“You really are a nice plaything, aren’t you?” Kuroo asks but it seems as if it's more for himself, his digits collecting your wetness as he dips once again inside your cunt, spreading his fingers apart and sliding a third inside just as his thumb circles your clit lightly and you howl, sensitive and wanton, too eager into tasting bliss.

This time, at least you’re half-conscious he’s not letting you cum. Kuroo stops, leaving you clenching for something, anything and gives you nothing. His immoral smirk seems to sound in the air, much as the way his tail leaves your throat to circle your hair and yank you back, stuffing your open mouth with the fingers that were just inside you. You lap obediently at them and he groans in your ear, teeth nibbling at your skin. It’s almost as if he’s tempted.

“We’re almost ready, kitten.” He tells you with a hoarse voice, all sin and flames, “Hold on.”

“Ready?” You question poorly with a mouth stuffed of fingers, but he understands and nods your way, his tongue licking the spit that starts dripping from the corner of your mouth at how broad his fingers open it. 

You don’t see if Kuroo undress or if he just magically gets naked behind you, the startling thing being the incredible feeling of his hot skin on yours, the dazzling feeling of his hard planes of muscle on your back, the sublime sight of his skin marked by faint scars; When you feel the scalding, throbbing thick member at the side of your thigh, however, you have to look back. 

“Oh my God,” You murmur at the sight of his cock. It’s proportional to his form, but that just means it’s ridiculously big, a veiny, swollen thing that seems looming as it stands close to you, and it clicks in your slow mind just what he meant by almost ready.

“Nope, I’m on the other team here.” Kuroo grins at you as he turns you with your back on the bed, spreads you on the cushion until your thighs hurt from the effort. His tail sways behind him as if to paint a scene, and you realize his wings are nowhere to be seen now, “Though I do think it’s some kind of poetic justice to have you screaming and blaspheming jesus while I fuck you silly.”

The higher part of your cheekbones alights with flames at the implication and you gasp back the words you planned on speaking when Kuroo’s hand pivots your lower back up to his mouth and closes his efforts on your neglected clit as his freak thick tongue enters you in one go.

You cannot explain the sensation of such a soft muscle invading your walls, or the way in which it seems to focus so expertly on your weak spots, but you’re too wound up not to fall head first into rapture. 

When he stops this time, you actually curse him, in the most wrecked sound that has ever left your lips.

“Ughhhhhhh--Fuck you!”

The bastard laughs, debauched, then deposits a kiss over your pussy as his golden eyes fix on you. “Now you’re ready.”

Kuroo adjusts until you’re both at the bed, pulling you up on his powerful thighs until his cock bounces over your navel and reaches way too high for you to actually be calm. But then he retreats his hips, bent over you so his lips can steal the air from your lungs just as his large hand palms at your breasts and his tail slither by your side. 

“Try not to cum too fast, kitten.”

“Easier said than done,” you grumble back against his lips and let yourself fall into the ruthless ecstasy of being spread open on his cock. His lips thread on the side of your jaw, under your neck, biting and sucking on your skin as his hands divide themselves between holding you up and pawing at every bit of you they can reach.

Everything feels so good, as if he knows your inner thoughts by hint alone -- your toes curl at each newfound area that receives his onslaught, you’re contorting at how good his mouth feels on your pulsepoint as he slowly starts to sink his cock inside you. It’s a weird feeling, to feel so full and yet still so eager, but you’re welcoming him at each torturous inch he manages to squeeze inside your tight walls. Your body trembles from the effort, Kuroo’s tongue slides from your neck to your nipple as his hand climbs up and settles around your throat, his fingers enveloping your neck.

Your heart picks up enough that you feel it beating on your ears as you search for his eyes and finally you’re pinned in place under the sharp gold and their twisted intent. 

“Scream for god if you want me to stop.” Is the warning he gives you before his fingers start constricting around your neck, your airways blocked as your chest starts to heave. And in between the small twinge of anxiousness and alarm, you realize just how much that entices you, how much it makes you burn and crave. Somehow you feel corrupted, falling into desires that threaten to peel you apart and leave you exposed.

Kuroo’s cock keeps slowly stretching your insides and his tongue twirls your nipple, your lungs burning for air and your eyes rolling inside your skull as you skyrocket into blissful free-fall. 

“Oh, hell yes.” You listen but don’t register as your body seems to be crushed under the massive pressure of your climax, burning and bright, sound ringing in your head that you come to find out it’s from your hoarse moan, your breathing laboured as Kuroo allows you to suck in air during your peak.

It dawns on you as you’re coming back to your body that theres a twinge of soft pain indicating Kuroo has bottomed out, his muscular thighs pressing flush against yours, the feeling incredible but fuck so much right now. 

As Kuroo nestles himself entirely inside of you, you feel as if your focus shifts, the task to not concentrate all of your attention on the massive hot cock spliting you in two is difficult. Your body feels tight, and not just from your fluttering walls that are constricting around him.

Kuroo sends you a big smile above your head, twinkling eyes in the dark. “Now, hold on.”

You do your best to do so, your arms latching onto him with all the strength you can muster as his hips retreat and then slam back inside you. You’re jolted at each push and pull, the sensual motions so depraved as the noises echo in the room, and you’re dragged into the ferocious pleasure that threatens to overwhelm you, and despite the fact you’ve cum just few moments before, as his tail slides between your bodies and circles and pats at your clit, you’re screaming and, quite unbelievably, cumming again.

“Now we’re very ready.” Kuroo says in a grunt above you, shameless grin as his eyes do their golden thing once again. He lets you stop trembling, peppering small kisses along your collarbone until you’re breathing normally again, but something tells you you’re just being fooled. 

“What?” You tiredly question, the feeling of dread confirming your suspicion.

“We have the whole night ahead of us, little one.” Kuroo nudges at the side of your face, bites softly at the junction of your jaw. “Or we could have more. All you need to do is say yes and i’ll mark you nice and easy here--” His teeth softly nibble on your pulsepoint, “and you’ll be mine.”

“Oh, god.” 

“Haha, wrong again.” His eyes pierce yours, swirling gold as molten honey dripping over your body and weighting your mind down. “Go ahead, tell me what you want.”

It tips out, softly and raw, and you have to close your eyes to hide your emotion. “To belong.”

“Oh, my little thing.” Kuroo softly murmurs on your ear, “Belong to me, then.”

You’re swaying despite lying down, something big and heavy coiling inside your chest as you blink, “I don’t want to belong to someone who isn’t mine.”

It’s a big truth to leave out -- the need for companionship, but a mutual one, a lasting one, a trusting one. You don’t want to be alone, but you also don’t want to have someone who doesn’t belong to you, too. 

Kuroo just smiles, golden eyes on yours, melting you from the fierceness alone. “Exactly,” he speaks against your lips, the taste of his breath on your tongue and you eagerly gulp it down, wickedly licking at his lips. “But i’ll be yours, too.”

In your hazed state, that’s all you need to hear, so you just shyly nod -- and Kuroo growls, angles your head to the side, and sears a marking bite on your neck -- deep, and painful. You mewl, body arching into his touch, and his tongue laps at the fresh wound, making it nice and numb.

“Now, let’s go to the main course.” Kuroo gives you no rest, retreating his hips and slamming back inside. “Don’t forget to breathe!” He teases between your moans. 

Once the fucking starts, it’s a frantic mess, and it goes on forever until the mere feeling of Kuroo’s cock leaving your heat is enough to make you whimper at the loss. The feeling of him inside your walls, a thing that mingles with your being, seares your memory until you cannot remember the feeling of not being split open on his thick cock. As you melt away from the overstimulation of having no rest while Kuroo contently and incessantly keeps pistoning inside you, your painful pleasure mixes until you’re climbing into something that feels weirdly uncanny, your mind -- or is it your body? -- twirls inside itself as if there’s something more than just sweet release ready to burst out. 

Kuroo has made you both teeter on the edge of pleasure and fall into it so many times you can’t differentiate the feelings that come now, this sensation of something being pulled out of you like the many orgasms he caused.

“Hmmm… Yes, my time is coming.” Kuroo groans, his hips movements turning sloppy, apparently displeased with his fucking being cut short while you very much suck a thankful breath at being able to rest. Kuroo’s teeth descend on your neck once again, his hot tongue over the pulsating mark of his bite and you feel him shudder and groan your name as he finally - finally - peaks, the feeling of hot spurts spreading inside you. 

As he cums, Kuroo brings a finger to rub over your abused clit softly and between your oversensitivity and the fact he angles his fat cockhead to softly pound over your sweet spot as he sails his own climax, there’s very little you can do but be ripped apart in bliss, once again, by him. This time is weird. Even as pleasure keeps swirling inside you and building up with the eerie sensation, you can do very little but hold on and wait until the waves crash and pass and you can blissfully surrender into the darkness of exhaustion. 

However, the freakish sensation twirling inside yourself builds and builds until you’re light-headed from the feeling and you just then realize how you’re shining, and how Kuroo has disappeared.

You don’t even have it in yourself to panic. Your body feels heavy and used, spent in the best way possible, but still completely unused to such a frantic session as every muscle in your being throbs, and your eyelids weigh the world as they fall closed and you’re engulfed by darkness.

-

[bonus scene]

 When you wake up in the morning, you are engulfed in a nice blanket, dressed in some mismatched set of pajamas, feeling as if you just had the best sleep of your life - and a weird vivid dream to go with it. You’re blinking up to your ceiling, stretching on your bed and satisfied with how the knots break in small noises as you sit up, when you feel just how sore you are, how your body is heavy despite satisfied, how your thighs burn and your sex throbs. 

Everything crashes up on your mind way too fast, and you’re suddenly torn between passing out and bolting up, but as you try to get up your body falters and a big, hard, hot hand plants itself over your middle and pulls you right back at the bed. 

Of course, you scream.

“Shh, kitten, there’s people trying to sleep here, y’know?”

“What--How--What are you doing here?” You shriek, looking at what is definitely the demon you thought you dreamed, but in a way more humanized version if the absence of his horns, claws and massive wings are anything to go by. The golden eyes are sharp as ever, but no black background to them, and you can infer by that much that his sinful tail probably isn't around too.

The grin he sends your way gives you war flashbacks that make your skin prickle with goosebumps. 

“Well, yesterday was quite nice.” He tells you and you can feel your whole face burn from his tone alone. “So I decided that hell can wait a bit more while I have more fun with you.” His eyes flash with a weird energy, and Kuroo brings his fingers to glide over his bite mark at your neck. The throbbing mark you had forgotten about until now. “After all, you’re mine now.”

“Oh, fuck.”

You’re doomed.

[swcetnight]

It’s Definitely You || kth (m.) 1

synopsis:

Working as a barista in NYC has its perks, but when your ultimate dream of being on the Broadway stage tends to come crumbling down, the only thing that raises your spirits is the comfort of a complete stranger… who seems to have known you for far longer than you thought.

masterlist here

→ pairing: taehyung x barista!reader (also musical theatre performer cause I had to)

→ genre: fluff, angst, future smut | strangers(ish) to lovers… i won’t give the truth away... gonna have to read and find out for yourself ;))

-> warnings: self doubt, adorable plant names... there's really not many warnings for this chapter!

→ word count: 7,973

authors note:

alrighty everyone... here we go! (i’m so nervous) this is the first chapter of this series (which it took me 50 years to figure out whether I wanted this to be a series or a two shot... lets just say that it's gonna be a long one, so I think that a series is the best way to go)! this story is really near and dear to my heart, so 1. I really hope you enjoy it and 2. I hope all of you know how hard it was to write this into words... my goodness. now, make sure you look for clues throughout this series... there's a secret in here that won't be revealed for a while ;)) but if any of you have ideas, please be sure to send an ask while we wait to find out together! anyways, I hope you enjoy !!

authors thanks:

a HUGE thank you to @hantaev and @monvante for beta-reading and being so so supportive of me and this little (but not so little) story... y'all truly have no idea how helpful you've been and how thankful I am to be friends with both of you! forreal, y'all are the greatest and I'm sending you all my love!!

also, if you are enjoying this story, please don’t hesitate to send me an ask (on or off anon) and let me know your thoughts, feelings, theories, etc!! i would love to hear from all of you 🤍

If time-travel existed, you would be on the first time machine and head back to 2 years ago. A time when you had a free schedule and were able to go out on Friday nights. A time when you felt confident in yourself and were raring to pursue theatre. A time when you didn't have this job (cause apparently, theatre is impossible to get into) that forces you awake at 4 in the morning for the opening shift.

You can't say you don't love your Barista job because you do. Still, when your alarm wakes you from the beautiful dream of performing on the big stage, you have to use everything within yourself to crawl out of your sheet cocoon… and that is unacceptable.

What's even more unacceptable is the fact that your co-worker, Jimin, hasn't arrived at the Academia Cafe yet. You have about 30 minutes to prepare for the morning peak; brew coffees, set up the bakery items, clear the boards "coffee of the day," etc. The problem is, it takes up all of the 30 allotted minutes— and you can't start prepping early because Jimin has the keys to the cafe.

You’ve worked at the Academia Cafe for about a year now, taking a break from your endless theatre audition schedule— since that was getting you absolutely nowhere. No matter how badly you want it, nothing seems to work. No matter how many times you practice, it never seems to be good enough. Let’s just say, you took this job at the cafe because you were over the repetitive let downs.

… But here you are, with a “Jimin being late” let down.

[To: Jimin ☕️] hey, you almost here? times ticking, keys!

You stuff your phone into your winter coat pocket, the brown material catching snowflakes as they fall gently from the cloudy sky. You love this weather; it's always been your favorite. When you were little, you used to pretend to be a dragon; running all over your front yard and releasing heavy breaths that chilled in the air and spread like smoke. You don't enjoy the cold, but the entire feel of winter has you cozying up in a blanket with hot cocoa and a good book… nothing could beat that.

A buzz in your pocket catches your attention.

[From: Jimin ☕️] Hey! Look up.

Your eyes immediately lift to see Jimin smiling a few feet away, shuffling through the snow as he drags the keys out of his pocket. He's sporting a heavy blue coat that reaches down to his knees — making his short stature appear even smaller — topped with a matching blue beanie. Despite his tardiness today, you’ve always been fond of Jimin. He's like a ray of sunshine, beaming through the skyscrapers of the city and making everyone around him happy just by flashing a single smile. Honestly, you wish you could sneak some of that happiness from him and lock it somewhere safe... so you can save it for a time when you need it most.

"Your timing is impeccable." He laughs, gently placing the keys into the front door lock. "You texted me right as I was rounding the corner."

"I'm telling you, Jimin; we're always on the same wavelength."  Smirking, you make your way through the doors of the cafe, greeted by the warmth that surrounds you like your sheet cocoon did this morning, but accompanied by the smell of fresh coffee. "Except for the fact that you, my friend, are late, so now we only have twenty-eight minutes until opening."

Old, rustic book pages litter the cafe's dark walls, executing the dark academia theme flawlessly. You have to give the interior designers a hand, what with the black stools and high dark wood counters etched with different story pages. You wonder if anyone took the time to read the stories that covered the cafe; maybe the stories moved them in a personal way. Maybe there was a reason why they read them, a part of the butterfly effect of their life.

With a quick survey of the main room, you shuffle into the back to put your belongings away. "You would think it would be less busy on the streets because of the snow," Jimin calls, already working on the first batch of light roast coffee. "But unfortunately for me, that was not the case, and I nearly lost my life multiple times on the way here because of how slick it is."

A laugh emits from your lips, echoing in the backroom as you throw your apron over your head.

You begin with date labeling all of the pastry items, placing them accordingly onto the pastry cart; croissants, muffins, scones, etc. Then, you move onto organizing syrups and setting toppings along the bar where drinks are made. Bar is your personal favorite position-- since you're able to make the drinks… Plus, you're so busy that your shift goes by way faster. The sooner you're done, the sooner you get to go home and sleep.

“All set?” Jimin questions when you finish setting the steaming pitchers next to the espresso machine, tossing the rag he used to wipe down tables into the sanitizer bin. You give him a nod, taking a quick once over of the bar. “Alright,” he claps, “let's do this.”

This morning runs like every Friday morning, busy and fast. The sounds of coffee glasses clinking and the calling of customer names at the hand-off station echoes through the air.

Ahhhh, the scenery in coffee shops; the quiet hush over the room as soft jazz plays over the speakers. It’s soothing, all encompassing, and extremely helpful for motivation… You used to go to a local cafe for homework when you were still in school.

You take a breath, relaxing against the back counter as you overhear a conversation a group of regulars are having. It’s the usual small talk: the weather, families, sharing pictures of recent events. Coming up with questions of the day for customers becomes easier after knowing their stories, so you subconsciously listen in often.

Because of this, you almost don't notice the man waiting at the register, wholly delved into the neighboring conversation— only looking over when you hear your name called.

"Y/n?"

You turn your head, catching eyes with the stranger behind the counter who holds his credit card ready. The first thing you notice is that he's young, probably around your age, wearing a brown turtleneck and white slacks. His eyes are dark, standing above his perfectly sculpted nose and lips. His hair is dark as well, forehead drowning within the wavy bangs that fall over his eyebrows as he takes you in. To be completely honest, he's probably the most handsome man you've had the pleasure of seeing… is that weird? You don’t know him… maybe that is weird.

The second thing you notice is that he looks completely anxious, hands grasping the edge of the counter like there's a thousand-foot drop below him. Why is he looking straight at you while doing that? Maybe you should call Jimin to take ove-

“Is it really you?” He questions, taking you aback.

"I-" You clear your throat, walking forward to meet him at the register, "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

With an intake of breath, he releases the counter as he studies you. Was he… crying? You swear his eyes were not this bloodshot three seconds ago.

"You-" He pauses, taking another sharp breath and running a hand through his hair. If you thought he couldn't get more attractive, you were wrong. "Do you know me?"

Attractive? Yes. Psycho?...possibly.

You shake your head slightly, “I… I’m sorry. I don't-"

Wait… is he a regular? You swear you haven't seen him come into the cafe before. Shoot.. What if he is? The number one thing your boss has made perfectly clear: remember the regulars, so they come back and feel at home; recognized. Customer connection was the most important thing at the Academia Cafe… He's probably a regular.

“I’m so sorry, there're so many people that come to visit us and sometimes I forget the regulars!” You apologize. “That’s my fault… remind me of your name again?”

He's staring at you. Full-on staring, jaw slacked. Shifting uncomfortably in your keds, you eye beside you to see Jimin working away at a macchiato. You consider changing places, nearly walking over to him before the customer speaks again.

"It's- It's Taehyung."

You force a smile, nodding while he continues to stare at you. He seems a bit more hesitant, his eyes looking in different directions but ultimately falling back onto your own. Even if he tried, he couldn't hide the rosy color that spreads onto his cheeks. What was this guy's problem?

"Taehyung! Awesome, well, what can I get for you today?" You chirp, attempting to brighten up your increasing discomfort. He might have mistook you for someone else, you decide, jumping back into your customer service personality: kind and quick to the point.

Taehyung doesn't move, training his eyes on you. You've never had a man's undivided attention before, since boyfriends were never an option. When you were a teenager, you stayed home most of the time in your hometown, and the boys there were all just in it to take your pants off. You avoided them and never really caught their attention, so you can't help the uncomfortable blush that grows on your cheeks. It’s short lived though, your nerves dissolving as soon as you notice a single tear fall onto the front of his shirt.

Oh. Okay, he’s definitely crying.

"Sir..." You begin, leaning in closer to avoid drawing attention. "Is everything alright?"

"I…" The shake in his voice is evident as he puts his credit card back into his wallet, still refusing to break eye contact. “Excuse me." Without another word, he turns on his heel and rushes towards the exit, clocking a customer in the shoulder in his rush. He apologizes quickly, bowing to them before glancing behind to make eye contact with you once more.

You wish you could read minds, wondering what the hell is going through his brain… but you notice the tiniest gleam of a hopeful smile that hides on his lips.

And then he’s gone.

“I swear it was the strangest thing, Jimin.” You speak nervously, tugging at the strings of your apron and lifting it over your head. It had been busy all day, despite a quick thirty minute break when everyone had left and the cafe was suddenly a deserted island. You appreciated the busyness, it made your shift go by faster. Right now, all you wanted to do was go home, eat a fat bowl of icecream and distract yourself from the events of today with a movie. Thank God your shift was over.

“Maybe he thought you were someone else?” Jimin insists, taking a bite into the extra Blueberry Muffin you’d accidentally heated when you were distracted by the events that occurred earlier.

“Yeah? Well, I must be the spitting image because he was totally freaked out.”

“You never know, y/n. Or, maybe he just used that as an excuse to talk to you.” You could hear the smirk in his voice, throwing your rolled up apron at him harshly before you grab your belongings.

“Ha, ha, you’re hilarious. This guy looked like he had seen his ex… He was crying. I don’t think he was into me.”

“Maybe his eyes were watering from the cold wind?” He offers.

“Enough to cry actual tears?” You scoffed, “C’mon Jimin.”

He shrugs defensively, picking up his things so the two of you can head out a few minutes earlier than usual. Whenever the baristas have a chance to leave early, they take it. “If he comes back, then ask him: hey, dude, what’s your deal?”Jimin works his way through the cafe, throwing an excess chair upside down onto the table with the rest of them.

You hold your hand above your heart, which is still beating at a faster pace due to this discussion. Can hearts even beat this fast? This can’t be healthy… “Oh wow, you have such a way with words. That definitely won’t make him feel uncomfortable!”

Yes. Sarcasm coping mechanism.

“Y/n.” Jimin meets you at the door and puts his hands on your shoulders, making extra sure he has your attention. “Go home. Don’t think too much into it… He was probably high or something and mistook you for his ex that dumped him and now he’s moping through the city and getting into all sorts of trouble and he’ll forget that he even came here tomorrow morning. Okay?”

You nod slowly, exiting the cafe with Jimin on your tail. "Don't worry, y/n." Jimin adds, "He probably won't even come back." He locks the door and gives you one last thumbs up before heading in the opposite direction, calling out at the last second. “See you tomorrow!”

The forced smile on your face appears again (looks like this was a regular occurrence today), waving him goodbye.

Yeah… tomorrow.

Jimin was right. The handsome crying stranger was probably never coming back.

It has been a few weeks since you met him for the first time. Now, it feels like a distant memory. He hadn’t shown up to the cafe the day after the encounter, or the day after that, or the day after that, and eventually you’d come to the conclusion that he was probably never going to show his face again out of pure embarrassment. You can’t say you blame him. You’d be embarrassed too if you stared at and cried over a random stranger.

Still, you couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment... You'd kind of hoped you could figure out what his problem was, maybe ease his mind a little if you really did look like a past lover. You would make sure he knew that it wasn't you. What if he was avoiding the cafe because he literally thought you were someone else? Great… now you just feel bad.

"Y/n? Are you listening?" Jimin beckons over the phone.

"Huh? What?" You bounce back to reality, the soft comforter of your bed lying beneath you as you stare out the window. Thanks to your wonderful apartment search, you have a beautiful view of the city. Jimin had helped you find a place when you first moved here. The two of you had met when you visited to check out the first apartment options; he even took you out for a drink afterward to celebrate the first days' completion. Jimin had immediately clicked with you, as he does with everyone-- he was the kind of person to make friends insanely quickly. He must've been super popular in high school... unlike you.

"Y/n Y/l/n. I am giving you a chance to meet more people, and you're not even listening to me!" He cries, a light smack coming from the other end (probably from him slamming his hand on the table).

"Okay, okay-- I'm sorry. I'm listening now; what's up?"

With a deep sigh, he speaks again. "Party. My house. Tonight. It's not gonna be wild, don't worry... it's just a get-together with some of my friends, and you can have a few drinks if you would like to."

Gnawing at your bottom lip, you look over towards the clock on your nightstand. 5:00. "I don't know..." You begin, the bed shifting as you raise into a seated position. "I have to work tomorrow morn-"

"Already got your shift covered." He deadpans.

"What??"

"I already got your shift covered, so you have no excuse."

This sly guy.

"Who covered it?" You question, setting the audio to speaker-phone as you rummage through old text messages you haven't gone through (to prep for your "thank you for covering my shift" text message).

“Jin.” Noted.

“So…” Jimin continues, “are you coming?”

You can't even remember the last time you met new people, let alone gone to a party. Parties weren't necessarily your thing, especially with your busy schedule of workdays and auditions-- you just never had the time. You should be excited, right?

Well, you aren't.

"Jimin, I don't know… I'm not really a huge fan of parties." You mumble over the phone, picking at the lone string that popped out of its stitch on your comforter.

"Y/n, it's a small get-together, and it's not gonna be that kind of party. Believe me; it'll be really chill. It's just me, you, a few other coworkers, and some friends from my journalism class."

You chew at your bottom lip, looking over at your closet to see a single green cocktail dress that you hadn't worn in years. The memory of the dress was a good one… you had just finished up curtain call for The Addams Family and wore that dress to the after-party. It's a short sleeve, layered green dress that flows just over your knees, the same color sash tying the waist in a floppy bow. You blush at the memory of winning best dressed.

A pause, “Okay.” You conclude. “I’ll go.”

Jimin was honest about how chill it would be; soft music plays in the background as the group sits around the table playing cards. A basketball game is playing on the TV, desperate for attention as a player scores a 3-pointer, but no one is watching. Shuffling of cards is the only sound heard in the room as the game continues.

The atmosphere is calm… quiet…

“BULLSHIT.”

The immediate crumble of everyone’s mood causes the loud “HELL YEAH” that makes you jump in your seat.

"And that is how it's done, Ladies and Gentlemen." Jungkook (your fellow coworker) claps, his smile brighter than the sunset that seeps through the curtains on the opposite side of the room.

"And that's on cheating!" Jimin picks up the cards in the center of the table, gathering them clumsily back into a pile.

"It's called having skill," Jungkook replies, holding his hands up as he smirks at his opponents.

"No, it's called luck." Yoongi finalizes as he puts his hand of cards down on the table with a roll of his eyes. You haven’t met Yoongi before until tonight. He’s one of Jimin's friends from Journalism Class.

When you arrived, you decided to sit out of this round and learn to play before joining the game-- knowing you; you would've been crushed within the first minutes of playing. Card games weren’t exactly a skill of yours— board games on the other hand were where it’s at! That, and charades. For the sake of the party, a card game didn’t sound too bad this time around— so you poke at Jimin to give you the hand as he serves cards for everyone else.

“Wait, wait, wait—“ Jimin pauses, his hand disappearing beneath the table to grab his phone. “Hello?”

“I’m not Irish, so does luck really count?” Jungkook questions in a hushed whisper, nudging Yoongi in the side.

“Oh hey...yeah... it’s apartment 205.” Jimin continues.

“You’re so funny, Jk. Maybe you’ll actually become successful if you choose stand-up comedy rather than becoming a musician.” Yoongi replies nonchalantly, his cat-like eyes staring at the abandoned pile of cards before he seems to come to the decision to shuffle them himself. He gives you a small smile when you hold your hand out to signal that you’re joining in this round.

“Mhm, you can just walk on in! Doors unlocked… okay.. alright, see ya in a minute.” When Jimin's phone is down, Yoongi passes a hand of cards to him.

“Think you can beat me, Y/n?” Jungkook asks,”Since apparently these four can’t?” He motions to Yoongi and Jimin, glancing at the other two players of the game: Hoseok (Jimins other classmate) and his girlfriend, Faith.

“I think I can.” You say, smirking at the determined expression on Jungkooks face. Even if you weren’t very fond of card games, there was one thing you were even less fond of: losing.

“Mmm, might want to rethink that, but okay.” Jungkook replies. The two of you are death staring when the sound of the front door creaking open catches the attention of everyone else at the table. Jimin shoots out of his chair.

“Taehyung!”

You freeze.

"You-" He pauses, taking another sharp breath and running a hand through his hair. If you thought he couldn't get more attractive, you were wrong. "Do you know me?"

Attractive? Yes. Psycho?... possibly.

“I’m so sorry, there're so many people that come to visit us and sometimes I forget the regulars!” You apologize. “That’s my fault… remind me of your name again?”

"It's- It's-."

“Taehyung, you just missed me creaming everyone in bullshit.” Jungkook boasts. Your eyes are glued to the side of Jungkook's head, not daring to make eye contact with the source of your nerves the past few weeks.

“Oh did I?” The familiar, deep voice utters.

Okay.. you can’t help but look…

Holy—it’s actually him.

Immediate regret sinks into your soul when you see him. God, he’s even handsomer than you remember. A white woolen sweater hangs over a pair of his black pants, matched with white sneakers and accenting the head of dark wavy hair you’d been thinking about since you last saw him.

“Yep!” Jungkook continues. “And now Y/n’s about to get shitfaced too.”

The moment his eyes swiftly glance your way is the moment you crumble and turn your head back to Jungkook. You had hoped to make a sly remark, something along the lines of “in your dreams,” but you’re caught breathless from the tension in the room. The tension only the two of you are aware of. He must be tense too, right?

“I wouldn’t underestimate her.” You hear out of Taehyung's mouth, stealing a look at his face once more. He’s smirking at Jungkook, hanging his coat on the hook beside yours, oblivious of the way you’re basically dissecting his every move.

“Have you met Y/n?” Jimin questions, provoking Taehyung's eyes to fall back onto yours. This time, you don’t look away.

He doesn’t answer right away, making you more nervous than you should be— the silence deafening as you make to explain, “We-“

“No.” He states plainly, cutting you off. An innocent smile plays on his lips as he looks at Jimin and places his messenger bag beside the door.

No? Uhhh, was he not the guy who pretended to know who you were and cried in front of you without even explaining why? Nope, it’s definitely him.

“I’m Taehyung.” He calls in your direction, offering you a boxy smile and a small nod, “Don’t let Jungkook fool you. A girl pinched him when we were in grade school. He barely lasted five seconds before running away screaming.” Taehyung moved to the table, sitting beside the man he just brutally embarrassed.

“That girl was terrifying. She was way taller than all the other sixth graders. It was an unfair situation.” Jungkook protested, sinking in his chair as he shuffled the cards he held in his hand.

You couldn’t help but stare dumbly at Taehyung. Was he embarrassed of his outburst at the cafe that he just hopes you forgot about him? You guess you didn’t exactly meet each other, other than a few words exchanged before he disappeared out the door. He probably doesn’t want his friends to know about what happened. Or did he not recognize you and completely forgot about the whole ordeal?

Okay, it’s fine… totally fine.

“I’ll have to keep that in mind,” you laugh, “no more coming in late, Jk. Or I’ll have to pinch you.”

Jungkook merely rolls his eyes, taking a sip of his beer. You see the crinkle in Taehyung's eyes as he laughs, the boxy smile taking root on his face again… a smile you’ve begun to enjoy the look of.

Hey. Snap out of it. This guy is so confusing. That’s a red card.

You straighten up in your seat, catching Jimin's attention when you move towards the kitchen, motioning with your hand to signal that you’re getting another drink. You have a feeling you’re gonna need some more alcohol to get through the evening.

Jimins place is clean, every knick knack placed neatly where it belongs; accompanied by the smell of potted plants that he keeps by his windows. Little name tags are attached to the plant stems: Flo, Sprout, Bob. He names his plants. Sweet.

He, like you, has a great view of the city too, a mid-size window perched above his breakfast nook where a small potted plant (quotabley named “bean”) grows. The city is bustling below as you reach for a beer, shrugging off the fact that you hate beer, but at least the taste will distract you from Tae-

“Hey.” You hear a soft voice call from the kitchen archway. When you turn you nearly drop the bottle out of your hand. Taehyung gives you a soft smile.

“Hey! Uh.. did you want a beer, or are you a wine guy?” You question, cringing at how much higher your voice sounds at his close proximity.

“I— Sorry, neither.” He starts, shoving his hands into his pockets as he makes his way around the island. “I uh- I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

You nod slightly, “Yeah of course… what’s up?”

“Um,” he’s nervous, you notice. “I just wanted to apologize about the whole thing at the cafe a few weeks ago.. I was— not in the right state of mind.” He meets your eyes hesitantly, “you just look like someone I know from a long time ago and it kind of.. took me by surprise, I guess.”

Jimin was right. You offer him a smile, shaking your head in disbelief, “You know what, I truly thought that was the reason… It’s totally fine. I’m not who you think I am, by the way.”

A flicker of something crosses his features at your comment, something you can’t quite pick up, but he changes it quickly to a smirk. “Obviously.” He laughs, “I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.. I’m not weird, I swear.”

“Mmm, that’s what they all say.” You tease.

He laughs, a soft sound that you want to hear over and over again. “You’ve got me there.” He takes a pause, placing his hands on the island countertop. “Let’s start over? If that’s okay? I didn’t want to mention it when I came in because I wanted us to have a fresh start.”

You push down the questioning thought of who this woman he mistook you for was, not wanting to overstep any boundaries. “That’s totally okay.. clean slate?”

“Clean slate.” He finalizes.

“Straightforward,” You add, “I like it.”

He gives you a warm smile, the same edge in the way he looks at you dances in his eyes before he breaks it off, sliding the bottle of beer out of your own hand. “Actually, I think I will have a beer. You don’t seem like a beer drinker, anyway.” He turns quickly, smirking at you before striding out of the room. “Thanks, Y/n!”

Protestations die on your lips as he disappears from the room, your beer along with him. How rude. You can’t help the smile tugging at the corners of your lips as you turn back to the cupboard, skipping the beer and pouring yourself a second glass of wine. You weren’t a beer drinker, after all.

Although you weren’t one for parties, you couldn’t help but admit the fact that you were having a good time. No, a great time. All of you are seated in Jimins living room; a plate of chips sits on the coffee table, which was the hot spot of the night (considering there’s hardly any remaining). Others in the group still have a glass of alcohol in their hands, the tipsiness evident by the slurring of their words. You had stopped yourself after half of your second glass, playing it safe since you still have to walk home after the party. You weren’t much of a drinker anyway-- your family history being the root of this decision.

It isn’t the games that made the night this enjoyable, or the food, or the movie that is currently playing over Jimin's television (which, by the way, is Moulin Rouge, because half of the room enjoys musicals, and the other half enjoys regular movies. So, you decided to settle on a movie musical). None of that matters, except the fact that you’ve never felt this carefree in a long time.

For one night, you can put aside your cafe job, auditions, and never-ending to-do lists and just have fun. Real fun. Even in the audition rooms, it has never been fun for you. It’s been nerve-wracking to a fault and always ends with a “thank you for taking the time, but we’ve decided not to accept you this time around,” or a callback, which ultimately concludes with the same grueling fate.

But this is different.

This is a group of people who genuinely want to spend time with you and get to know you… with no “not this time’s” or open-ended questions.

Especially with Taehyung. You’re surprised at how quickly the two of you seemed to hit it off, despite the awkward introduction. Now, it feels like he’s known you for years… in the best way. You’re comfortable talking to him, chatting together during the movie about the plot points or songs you find specifically endearing. You had initially planned to sit next to Jimin… but ended up next to Taehyung on the couch.

It just happened.

He enjoys musicals as well, you learn. Maybe not as much as you do, but at least he doesn’t despise them. He’s one of Jimin’s friends from their shared art class. He loves the color brown. His favorite food is watermelon. He does illustrations for Jimins journalism projects (which, in your opinion, are exceptional from the photos he showed you during the movie while the others were engulfed in the film). He wishes to pursue traveling journalism, where he draws what he sees rather than taking pictures. His whole aura is warm… like a heated blanket that envelopes you whole when you feel him shift beside you on the sofa. A small reminder that he’s still there.

Okay, you’re liking his presence way too much.

He finds romance movies corny but a guilty pleasure nonetheless. This, the reason why he agreed to watch Moulin Rouge despite the cheesiness in the beginning. In the end, it was anything but cheesy.

"Well, that was stupid." Jungkook scoffs, slamming the remote onto the neighboring loveseats' armrest. The once loud room filled with music is now quiet from the after-effects of the movie.

“I told you it was sad!” Jimin exclaims. The two of you had seen this movie before in theatres… and this was nothing compared to how the ending hit the first time. “Y/N was nearly choking. She was crying so hard when we saw it.”

An immediate blush rises onto your cheeks as you shake your head in defiance, trying to hide the tears that had been stinging your eyes for the last thirty minutes. “Who wouldn’t cry at that??”

“Taehyung probably didn’t. He never cries.” Hoseok deadpans. Ha. You can’t help but remember the tear that ran down his face in the cafe… He never cries?

With a quick look over your shoulder, you find that Taehyung is no longer seated on the couch. When did he get up? You attempt to shrug off your curiosity, pivoting back towards the chip table where only sad little crumbs remain. You were worrying way too much over a man you quite literally just met tonight… even if it felt like you’ve known him for much longer.

Taehyung eventually reappeared, stating that he had to use the bathroom— you ignored the fact that it took him a solid 30 minutes to get back to the party. It wasn’t your place to ask any questions, especially since he lifted a smile onto his face the second he reentered the room. See, y/n… nothing to worry about.

It wasn’t long before you insisted you head home, knowing that you’d curse yourself in the morning if you stayed out past the sunrise. If you did, you’d sleep through tomorrow, and that would be awful. You’ve done this a few times… and every time, you felt like you had wasted an entire year of your life.

You move to grab your purse and jacket, which are hanging comfortably on the hook beside the front door. With a small smile, you bid everyone goodnight— smiling as they resume a card game around the table at one o’clock in the morning. It’s nice to know that the group of you hit it off… now; you can look forward to plenty of get-togethers in the future.

Your mind is bustling with all kinds of ideas: picnics in central park, late-night broadway shows, hangouts at the caf-

“Y/n!” The soft calling of Taehyung's voice causes you to halt near the exit, turning on your heel to see him jogging towards you. He had haphazardly thrown his jacket over him since it’s still being tugged onto his body as he runs. His hair becomes even more chaotic in his haste… Why do you want to run your hands through it?

“Hey!” You squeak, interrupting your thoughts before they trudged down a guilty road. “What are you doing? Weren’t you going to play another round?”

He gives you a smirk, catching his breath as he holds out your house keys. “You forgot these! You were really moving fast… sick of us already?”

“Wh— oh my god, thank you!” With a quick swipe of your hand, you’re stuffing your keys into your pocket with a grateful smile. “Also, hardly.”

You admire the way his eyes light up at your confession. “Well.. since you don’t want to leave us so quickly.. how about I walk you home?” He seems almost hesitant asking, but you can’t help but applaud him for actually taking the initiative to inquire.

You shake your head, pulling the strap of your purse farther up your shoulder. “You don’t have t-“

“I want to!” He cuts you off quickly, catching you by surprise as he moves past you to open the door. He glances back, taking in your reluctant expression, “It’s not safe this time of night Y/n… You shouldn’t be alone.“

You know he didn't mean anything by that statement… But the idea of someone genuinely caring and not wanting you to be alone makes your heart swell. Jimin cares about your safety of course, but this feels… Different.

This is the reason why you allow him to walk you home.

The snow crunches beneath your feet, like a symphony that beckons you home. You’ve been feeling exhaustion seeping into your bones for the last ten minutes, but Taehyung's occasional brush of his arm as he walks beside you keeps you wide awake. He doesn’t think to apologize for accidentally touching you, but you blame it on the time of night. Delusion.

“How long have you lived in New York?” You question, wrapping your coat tighter around you to kick out the nipping air.

“About a year now,” He responds, shuffling his feet, “though it feels like way longer. You?”

“Three years.”

Taehyung turns his head towards you, eyes wide. “Wow, way to one up me.” With a teasing smile he continues, “You must know this city like the back of your hand.”

The truth is… you don’t. You came here for the sole purpose of making it on Broadway... you never really took the time to focus on anything else. Part of you wishes you had learned more, craved more, wanted more with your life—then you wouldn’t be so miserable when the one thing you do want doesn’t work out. “Yeah… kind of.”

If he hears the somber tone of your voice, he ignores it, turning against the wind as he walks backwards down the sidewalk. “It’s overrated in my opinion.”

You raise your head at this, “Why is that?”

“Everyone here has dreams… and those dreams get crushed more often than not.” He shrugs, “No one cares if you want to succeed, only if you already have.”

You stare at him for a moment, awestruck by the weight of his words. “But,” he adds, turning back towards the wind, “the ones who never give up and continue to chase that dream can become successful. Despite all of the no’s they might face, they always hold on till they hear a yes. That sounds like true success to me.”

Turning your head, you stare at the side of his face— admiring the way his hair tosses back a bit against the harsh winter winds. His words hit you way deeper than he probably realized, sinking into your chest with an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. You’ve been contemplating recently on whether or not to give up on your dream… that maybe it just wasn’t going to work out for you. You have been trying for so long, and have repeatedly been let down. There was no way Taehyung could have known, which is why his words hit you as hard as they did. Despite the hardships, you’ve been here for three years and you’ve never given up or stopped trying to chase your dream.

That was an achievement, right?

“To be honest… I've heard a lot of no’s in my three years of being here.” You speak softly, tucking a fallen strand of hair behind your ear. “Sometimes it feels like there will never be a yes… but here I am. At least I'm still working— at a coffee shop, not on the stage.”

“It’s admirable that you keep going.” Taehyung glances at you over his shoulder. “It makes you different from a lot of people who have left the city when they faced failure. It’s something to be proud of. Plus, coffee shop or big stage, you’re in New York City and pursuing your gift. It’s special.”

When your eyes meet, you smile at him, feeling a sense of victory the longer you hold his gaze.

“Don’t give up, Y/n. No matter what.” He speaks genuinely, leaning towards you to nudge you gently on your shoulder. You can’t help but laugh at his playfulness, giving him a nudge in return before your eyes downcast to your winter boots. The snow on the ground is fresh, powdery and sticking to the toes of your shoes. “Plus,” He adds, sucking in the chilly air, “you've got what others don’t have…”

This time when you meet his eye he has a serious expression, making sure he has your full attention as you round the corner towards your apartment building. His gaze is genuine, captivating… and a part of you hopes that the close proximity of your apartment wouldn’t cut this moment short. Finally, he speaks.

“You have passion.”

Taehyung's words weigh on you for the rest of your night. It started off as something simple, looking up audition songs for an upcoming off-broadway show your agent was telling you about. Then, you went to learning it. After that, putting on makeup. And finally, completely forgetting about your sleep schedule and filming an entire audition tape in your room at 2 in the morning (and you were belting… your poor neighbors). It wasn’t until four that you finally turned in for the night, not bothering to take off your makeup or get changed-- simply falling onto your pillow and blacking out the moment you hit it. You were definitely sleeping the next day away… but at that moment, you didn’t mind. Having a day off from your busy schedule wouldn’t be so bad.

“I sent in an audition tape two nights ago.” You speak confidently, wiping down the back counter that’s littered with coffee grounds. They stick to the rag like glue, tiny dots scattered along its white surface. If it weren’t for your apron,

and your expertly rolled up white turtleneck sweater, you would look alot like this rag right now.

“Did you?” Jimin questions from the bar, sleeving the cup before placing it on the handoff counter.

“Christopher! Medium cappuccino!” He calls, multitasking while he cranes his neck to still hear you.

“I did. I feel really good about this one..” You add, meeting him beside the bar as he lifts the pitcher up and down to create the latte-art of a flower in the center of the mug. You have tried sooooo many times to make latte art… and every time it ended up looking like a glob. A big, distorted snowball. Jimin was the master of latte art, always finishing it off beautifully with a whip of his wrist. The foam atop telling a story. “It was so late-- I was totally out of it… and yet I actually enjoyed myself while filming it. I just imagined being there.. In center stage.”

“I’m happy for you, Y/n!” He smiles, turning to place the hot mug next to the cappuccino.

“Caleb! Medium caramel latte!”

He was only half listening to you. The cafe was bustling, so it truly wasn’t Jimin's fault that he was sidetracked— but nothing could hold back the small smile that played at the edge of your lips. You had actually enjoyed singing for the first time in a while.. all because of Taehyung's Academy Award winning pep talk. Who knew that all you needed was for someone to tell you like it is. With a minuscule smile, you turn back towards the counter and lift the latte you’d whipped up this morning to your lips. Your distorted snowball is fully on display at the top.

Despite the busyness, the front register is deserted, giving you time to think for a moment about the pep talk... or rather, the person who gave you it.

“I think Taehyung likes you.” Jimin deadpans.

Uhhh… You nearly spit out your snowball at that— clearing your throat as you set it down slowly onto the wooden countertop. He speaks as if this is a natural conversation starter… it’s not.

“I’m sorry?” You croak.

“Taehyung.” He repeats, turning his head in your direction with a knowing smirk. “I think he likes you.”

You give him a scoff of disbelief, watching as yet another group of regulars enter through the door. “That’s not true, he just doesn’t know me… so he made an effort to talk to me.” If you weren’t studying the group, you would've seen Jimin giving you a scrutinized look.

So, now you have his attention.

“Y/n. It’s so obvious… He spent the entire night talking to you, he left moments after you did to give you your keys and he never came back. If that isn’t someone who’s interested, I don’t know what is.” Jimin is an expert at multitasking, finishing off two drinks at the same time and calling them out.

“Well, Jimin, when people don’t know each other, they get to know each other. It’s this thing called talking and becoming friends.” The sentence hangs in the air as the doorbell chimes, signaling that yet another customer has entered the cafe and into the swarm of regulars, but the two of you disregard the sound and continue on through your bickering.

“I’m just saying, Taehyung doesn’t usually talk to girls.” Jimin adds, wiping his hands off on the white rag seated beneath his espresso machine. “Even if they wanted his attention, he didn’t give it to them. I mean— he’s nice to girls, don’t get me wrong.. but he’s never talked to them like he did with you on game night. I don’t think he’s dated anyone since he got here.”

“He’s career driven.” You say quickly.

If you thought his smirk couldn’t get any wider, you were wrong. “Yeah, girls don’t know that about him— meaning he told you, and not other girls.” Jimin deadpans.

You stare blankly at him. There’s no way. No way that a guy as attractive as Taehyung would even think about looking at you like that. There’s just no way. You’ve never had a boyfriend... or even a guy friend, until Jimin. Eventually, you’d accepted the fact that maybe you just weren’t that interesting. Maybe you weren’t pretty enough. Maybe you couldn’t flirt…. okay, you definitely couldn’t flirt— but that’s besides the point.

“He’s not interested in me.” You conclude.

“He is.” Jimin counters.

“He’s not.”

“He so is.”

“He’s so not.”

“Y/n. I swear to you. He’s interested and you need to shoot your shot.” He whisper-screams, throwing the rag in his hand onto the bar.

“Taehyung is not-“

A clearing of someone’s throat from beyond the register cuts your argument short, nearly making you lose your balance when you see who the source was.

You’re fairly certain you’ve turned pale.

Taehyung stands in front of you, eyeing between the two of you with an awkward expression. God, how long has he been standing there? “I figured I should step in before the two of you start fist fighting.”

“Hey!” The shrill of your voice causes you to wince.

“Hey.” He says with a smile, folding his arms in front of him and raising his eyes to the menu above your head. You can’t help the glare you send towards Jimin, who's notably holding back his laughter as he moves to the blender, the station farthest from the register. Ridiculous.

“What can we get for you?” You ask routinely, trying not to make it obvious that you were just talking about him… and praying that he wasn’t there to hear what the two of you were talking about.

“Hmm…” He looks especially good today, wearing a brown, long coat and a brown plaid scarf around his neck. He wasn’t kidding when he said his favorite color was brown, that’s for sure. It suits him. His hair is wavy, flowing to a point just under his eyebrows with a split off center, giving you the tiniest glimpse of his forehead. “How about an americano with hazelnut, and some cream?”

“We can do that for ya!” You have to force yourself to stop looking at him, pressing the buttons to ring up his order before you forget. You nearly overlook ringing up the hazelnut syrup. Why were you so dazed? He’s already placed his credit card into the chip reader, but your foggy brain asks anyway. “Anything else?”

“Yes, actually.” He speaks as you move towards the bar beside the register. Grabbing an empty pitcher, you pour the milk inside and reach for the steamer. He drops a dollar into the tip jar, not giving you enough time to thank him for the unnecessary effort before he speaks again. “Are you free later?”

NEXT CHAPTER

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[phoebe-delia]

could u write a drarry oneshot inspired by sweet creature of harry styles? :)

Hello Nonnie! I absolutely can. This is a great suggestion, I love this song for Drarry. I hope you enjoy it. Warnings: injury, drinking, attempted sexual assault that is VERY QUICKLY STOPPED and NOT H/D!!! Thank you to @apr1cots for the beta!

3 Times Harry Brought Draco Home...+1 Time Draco Brought Harry Home

1.

The first time, Harry found him in the cafe near their flat.

He sat down in the chair across from Draco, who glared at him over his cup of tea. "I thought I told you not to follow me."

"I waited three hours. I figured that would be enough time for you to come to your senses, but you didn't come back, so I got worried."

"I can handle myself, thanks."

"I know you can. But you didn't tell me where you went."

Draco's eyes flashed. "That was for a reason, you imbecile."

Harry shook his head. "Flatmates don't do that—disappear for three hours after a fight without saying where they’ve gone."

"I'm an adult. And you're not my father or my boyfriend, so back off."

"No, but I am your friend. And your flatmate. And I don't want to be worried sick for three hours when you fuck off to Merlin knows where because you're feeling pissy!" Harry snapped, letting his anger creep into his voice.

Draco sighed. He took a moment to sip his tea, and then he looked at Harry. "I'll tell you what. If we fight, and I don't return, send an owl, Floo or contact you in some way within six hours, you can send out a bloody search party."

Harry shook his head. “I will give you three hours.”

“Five”

“Three and a half.”

“Four and a half.”

“Four is my final offer.”

Draco scoffed. “Is that so? What are you going to do, show up with half the Auror department?”

Harry pursed his lips. “Not if I don’t have to. But I would.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“Care to find out?”

“You’re mental.”

“Maybe,” Harry shrugged. “Trouble is, I don’t care. Now, will you be here for a while, or are you coming home with me?”

“I suppose I'll go, but only since I've already finished my tea,” Draco said with another sigh, which Harry ignored as they both rose from their seats. While they walked to the Apparition point together, Harry replayed in his mind the flicker of emotion on Draco’s face when he said “home.”

2.

The second time, Harry’s glass nearly shattered in his hand from how firmly he was gripping it.

He ignored Hermione’s knowing gaze and Ron’s eye roll as he unabashedly stared daggers at the bloke practically groping Draco at the bar. Harry saw Draco’s eyes widen imperceptibly, noticed his smile falter and his cheekbone twitch.

Yes, he observed this from across the room. You get to know a bloke after living with him for almost a year; besides, Harry was very perceptive—constant vigilance and all that.

Speaking of being an Auror, Harry was pretty sure this prick was breaking some sort of public indecency laws by the way he was sliding his hand further and further up Draco’s leg. Draco gently pried the man’s hand from his thigh, only for the stranger to laugh and reach over again, gripping it even more firmly.

Harry didn’t think beyond getting up from his seat and striding toward the bar, quickening his pace when he saw Draco’s eyes widen in panic. He barely registered the look of horror on the stranger’s face when he grabbed the hand gripping Draco’s thigh and pinned the man face-down on the bar.

“He said no,” Harry said through clenched teeth, ignoring the man’s grunts and protests.

“We were just talking!” The man sputtered, his cheek pressed against the counter as he twisted and wriggled to get free.

Harry tightened his grip. “Conversation’s over. If I catch you trying to ‘talk’ to him again, I’ll make sure you have a nice chat with the Wizengamot about sexual assault. Now, apologize.”

“But—”

“Apologize!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry.”

Harry smirked. “Good.” He released the man’s arm and let him right himself. The man froze, looking between Harry and Draco expectantly.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Leave. Now.”

The man nodded, scurrying out of the now silent bar, the bell attached to the door tinkling behind him.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know.” Draco’s face was blank other than a raised eyebrow.

Harry shrugged. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not. But I am glad you’re okay. You are, right? He didn’t hurt you?” Harry’s chest tightened at the suggestion.

But Draco shook his head. “No, I’m fine. But I think that’s my sign to head home.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to. I’m fine to Floo.”

“I want to.”

“What about your friends?”

Harry cringed and turned back to face the table to see Ron and Hermione looking at him, expressions full of nausea and amusement, respectively. He held up a hand in a small wave. Hermione shook her head and smiled fondly.

Harry grinned and turned back to Draco. “They’ll be alright without me. C’mon, let’s go home. I’ll make us some tea, yeah?”

Draco hesitated at first, but he nodded. And if Harry let his hand linger lightly on Draco’s back when they headed toward the Floo, they could both chalk it up to a safety measure.

3.

The door to Pansy Parkinson’s flat swung open before Harry could knock.

She took one look at him and rolled her eyes. “Could you have taken any longer to get here?”

Harry bristled. “I was—”

“Don’t care. Get in here, he’s on my couch.” She turned and walked away purposefully, and Harry trailed behind her.

“I thought you two were just going for drinks?”

Pansy sighed. “We were, but then we came back here for a few more, and he got into my tequila when my back was turned.” She shook her head. “Tequila is his one weakness—well,” she smirked. “One of them, anyway.”

Harry furrowed his eyebrows and opened his mouth to respond when a shout sounded from the living room.

He looked over to see Draco sprawled across the couch, an empty glass in one hand and the other nearly touching the floor, his leather-clad legs spread wide.

Draco grinned at Harry. “Harrryyy!!! Come to join the party?”

“He’s come to end it, more like,” Pansy crossed her arms. “It’s time for you to go home, love.”

Draco let out a high, keening whine and burrowed himself further into the couch. “Don’ wanna. Tired. Stay here.”

“No, Draco, we’ve got to go home,” Harry walked up to the couch. His breath caught when gray eyes blinked wide and pleadingly up at him.

Draco held out his arms. “Up.”

“Er, what?”

Draco jerked his arms up and down, keeping them in the air. “Up! Help me up, you great oaf!”

Harry sighed and bent down, taking Draco in his arms and nearly stumbling when the blond let his body weight fall into him.

Draco smirked lazily. “Oops,” he said with a grin in his voice. “Guess you gotta carry me.”

Harry scoffed, looking to Pansy for appeal.

She waved a hand dismissively. “He’s your problem, now. Just get him out of my flat and back home intact, will you?” She didn’t wait for him to respond, walking away into another room.

Harry sighed. He wasn’t sure about the safety of Apparating or taking the Floo with someone in your arms, and the twists and turns of the Knight Bus could make a sober person sick up. With a grunt, he hoisted Draco up and into his arms bridal style, and the other man yelped and then giggled wrapping his arms around Harry’s neck.

“Home,” Draco said softly, and affection spread through Harry’s chest.

“Okay, Draco,” Harry whispered as they made their way out of the flat. “I’ve got you.”

+1.

Harry woke to the sound of muffled voices shouting at each other and the constant beep of a monitor.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, wincing as a sharp pain exploded in his side with the effort. Memories came rushing back: the raid, turning his back for a split second to shout something at Ron, blinding pain, then darkness. He tried to sit up in the hospital bed, but he let himself lie back down when his side throbbed once more.

Suddenly, the door was opened and then promptly slammed shut. “Honestly, the nerve of these people. If he needs bed rest, then where is better than his own bed? Is my Healer degree rendered meaningless the moment I’m off the clock?” Draco muttered, running a hand through his hair as he paced the room angrily.

“Draco?”

Draco jumped and turned to Harry with wild, startled eyes that made Harry laugh, and then wince in pain.

“You’re awake, thank Merlin,” Draco approached the side of the bed, relief replacing the shock on his face.

“How long have I been out?”

“Two days. You were hit with a rare curse that caused an ever-bleeding wound in your side, and the healers had to put you in a magically induced coma to reverse it.”

“That sounds good. Do Robards and—”

“Yes, Ron gave Robards the full briefing. You’re not expected in the office until a Healer permits it.”

“So, can I go home?”

“Yes, now that you’re awake, you can go home. I’ll monitor you from there.”

Harry frowned. “You don’t have to.”

Draco let out a short, humorless chuckle. “You were in a coma for two days, Harry. The only reason they’re discharging you is that you’re going home with a Healer.”

“But you don’t actually have to stay and watch me all day, right?”

“What part of ‘I’ll monitor you from there’ don’t you understand?”

“But I’m fi-!” The last word was cut off as Harry hissed through another spark of pain.

“Fine, are you?”

“Shut up.”

Draco smirked. “Not likely.”

Harry scowled, eliciting a real laugh from Draco, who moved to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Flatmates don’t do this, y’know.”

Draco’s eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“Take several days off of work to care for the other when they’re injured. I’m not even sure friends do that.”

Harry noticed Draco’s jaw tighten. He ached to reach up and relax it with a gentle touch, but he kept his hand at his side.

“What are you saying, Harry?” Draco asked, his voice low and even.

“I’ll tell you what,” Harry swallowed. “I won’t argue about you wasting days away from work if you let me take you to dinner when I’ve recovered.”

The beginning of a smile curved Draco’s lips. “And what will we do in the meantime?”

Harry waggled his eyebrows. “I can think of a few ways to pass the time.”

Draco chuckled. “If you think I’m missing work just so you wind up back in here because you restarted bleeding during sex, you’ve another thing coming.”

Harry pouted halfheartedly. “Apparently I won’t be coming at all.”

Draco mimicked his petulant frown. “Aww, ickle Harry, being waited on for days by his flatmate-turned-boyfriend.”

“I’ll tell you what—”

“Didn’t we already make a deal?”

“I’ll tell you what: I won’t argue about you missing work or not having sex until I’m recovered if you let me take you to dinner once I’m healed and if we can snog as much as we like.”

"What makes you think I’ll agree to those terms?”

Harry shrugged. “If you don’t like those terms, I can come up with more. Now that I’m on bed rest, I’ve got plenty of time to think.”

“You’re not supposed to strain yourself,” Draco smirked when Harry glared at him.

Harry huffed. “You need to work on your bedside manner, Healer Malfoy.”

“I’ll get plenty of practice this week, then, won’t I?”

“Yes, you will. Now, can we get out of here? I want to start my healing regimen right away.”

Draco laughed and laced their fingers together. “Alright, Harry. Let’s go home.”

Send me an ask about Harry Potter, broadway/musicals, The West Wing, and/or Taylor Swift! Or just about life in general :).

Also, I have a playlist of my 99 most listened-to songs of the year so far. Pick a number 1--99 and send me an ask and I'll write you a fic based on it!

[pixcldust]

𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞 ;

pairing | rich!kuroo tetsuro x f! reader

wordcount | 1.1k

warnings | slightly suggestive

tags | rich boy x poor reader, love confession, one night stand/fwb to something ✨more✨, no beta i never have beta lmao

a/n | i dont really know if anyone is still here but this was part of a series i planned out ages ago about a rich kids au. never fully finished the series (idk i would love to pick it up again) but it’s been collecting dust in my drafts for ages. also i miss this account 🥺 love u, pls hydrate

matutine (adj): of or relating to early morning; occuring in the early morning

When your eyes blink open, the hotel room is dark and you are alone in the big big bed. For a brief, sleepy second, you think that he has already left. You feel a tired pang of happiness when you see that he hasn’t.

There’s a warm glow from the lamp in the corner that illuminates a figure standing by the window. You can smell the smoke from his cigar; a little sweet but mostly pungent, in your opinion. He doesn’t even like to smoke -- he told you that the first time you met -- but he’s always puffing away on his Cuban cigars. The logic behind that evades you, but you can always guess why. He smokes because he’s bored. He buys and hoards more tobacco than he should because he’s bored. He stays with you because he’s bored.

The last sentence wasn’t just a guess.

You crumple the sheets a little, as you move to sit up, and he turns to look at you. Cat eyes blink, backlit by the view only the top floor of a luxury penthouse can provide - neon car lights and tiny windows all blurred into a mess of light. And above it all, a starless night sky. The view is beautiful and unreal from here.

“What time is it?” your voice is a croak, swept over by tiredness. 

“It’s 3:30 am,” he replies, putting the cigar into the ashtray. “Sorry. I know you hate this kinda stuff.”

Being the only son of the president of one of the biggest conglomerates in Japan, Kuroo Tetsuro was first in line to claim the company after his father stepped down. And yet here he was putting  out a $70 cigar early because a part-time waitress, whose closet was half-filled with thrift store clothes, didn’t like the smell. You’d be flattered if you didn’t know that $70 was almost nothing to him. He would pay over $100 for a smoke without batting an eyelid. You know that far too well.

“It’s only three thirty? I shouldn’t have woke up,” you sigh, brushing a hand over your face. “I don’t know how I’m going to go back to sleep again.”

A sly grin appears on Tetsuro’s face - it’s familiar and annoyingly sexy. How dare he look like that? You can’t help feeling a bit bitter.

“Want me to tire you out a little?”

You roll your eyes even as you smile, as he climbs back into the bed to rest both arms on the headboard. Caging you in, under his shirtless body. He smells fresh, like he’d just step out of the shower, despite the underlying scent of his cigar smoke. “Once a night is quite enough, thanks. I’ve got a morning shift tomorrow, and I’d like to retain my ability to walk.”

When you first met Tetsuro, at a shitty hole-in-the-wall bar that you never returned to after, he’d said all the right things in the right way. You didn’t even know he was one of the richest 20-something year olds in the country when he laughed at your sarcastic jokes, when the conversation somehow turned to kissing. You thought he was just another bar fling. Watching his lips quirk up into a smile, there’s a sense of relief that washes over you; you’re glad that he’s become more than that, as loathe as you are to admit your feelings to yourself.

His laughter shakes the bed beneath you. After months of this - this strange relationship where the both of you are something more than friends, but not quite lovers - you’ve learned to tell the difference between his mirthless chuckles and his genuine, albeit ridiculous, laughter. It’s nice that he’s been carrying out the latter more frequently around you.

“That should be flattering, but it doesn’t sound as kind coming from you,” he drops his arms and roll to the side, one leg draped over yours. Only the blankets keep your skin from touching his. “Want me to send you there? I’m free all day tomorrow.”

It’s sweet of him to offer, but the mental image of his red Rolls-Royce pulling up to the tiny neighbourhood diner, and a waitress in patched up jeans stepping out was too amusing. You tell him as much, while he trails a hand up your bare arm to tap your shoulder mindlessly. “I’m pretty sure it’d end up on the news: president’s son drops off minimum wage waitress at tiny diner. Your dad would probably murder you.”

He pinches your shoulder, playfully, moving his hand to your chest. “He can try, but am I really at fault for doing a favour for my favourite person?”

“Your favourite person, huh?”

“Yeah, of course,” he laughed, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. His breath is warm. “Hey Y/N?”

Your hands move to comb through his unruly hair. “What?”

“Don’t freak out, but I think I love you.”

Oh. Your fingers froze. There it was.

After the first night, when you woke up to find empty sheets and a neat white business card on the bedside table, you googled him. He scribbled a little message under his name and his position as Supervisor for Kuroo Group -- one of the richest conglomerates in Japan that so happened to share his last name. You’d read the message so many times, you could recite it by heart now -- ‘Thanks for last night. Call me whenever you feel like. I had fun.’. 

The Internet told you he was a notorious playboy with a personality that endless wealth always seemed to incur: confident, detailed and bored. So so bored with his flow of gold and his shiny toys and all his different suits and ties. There are accounts, from other alleged one-night stands and business partners. They all say the same thing: that he could charm the pants of anyone and that his words dripped like honey - thick and sweet, boasting the kindness of a saint and the slyness of a sinner. 

As his dark eyes bore into yours, waiting for a response to… whatever the hell that just was, you think that maybe the Internet has lied. His words aren’t honey - they spill like expensive champagne, Dom Perignon Rose, bubbly and valuable. Something you find yourself drowning in often, although you don’t know if you could ever admit that to anyone but yourself.

“Y/N? You okay? Look, I’m really sorry if that weirded you out but I just thought that it would be unfair to act like I don’t feel anything for you.”

You don’t want to admit it but fuck, he just might be worth drowning for. 

[thisisthehardestthing]

тоска, Tanaka x Reader, 18+

Written for The Smut Pile Server Collab: Mafia AU | MASTERLIST HERE.

тоска tus-ka: Russian, noun It is a dull ache of the soul, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases, it may be the desire for somebody or something specific, nostalgia, lovesickness.

Russian Mafia AU: Tanaka Ryu x A Reader OC Rating: E for explicit Warnings: Violence, Blood, Death, Oral sex, Public Sex, Grinding, Cheating, Denied Orgasm, Manipulation, YEARNING Word count: 11,752 Part 1 | Part 2

GLOSSARY

This is my baby. I have spent so much time writing this. I won’t give too big of an intro. Please enjoy.

Special thanks to: @joyousandverywarlike​​​ for being my ride-or-die beta,  @pleasantanathema​​​ , @present-mel​​​​ and @linestrider​​​ for hosting this collab, and everyone in the server for being amazing friends. I would not have been able to write this without any of you, and I truly mean that.

1.2

Part 1 - Valentina

The room is all rich browns and leather, an oiled hardwood floor, mahogany furniture and taxidermied bears. Against the wall, watching over everything with a bored expression is Daichi "The Bulldog" Sawamurov, Mafia Boss of the Bashkortoskaya. His brown eyes inspect his nails as another grunt echoes in the room. Beside him, you, Valentina Sawamurova, stand tall, a well-manicured hand hooked onto his bicep. In a neat line with arms clasped behind their backs stand six bratji, 'brothers', the hitmen of the Security team. They all watch as a shaved-haired man beats the shit out of a pariah.

Tanaka "Khazak" Ryunoslav wipes his tattooed knuckles, alternating X and O’s, onto a white handkerchief pulled from his neatly pressed slacks, staining the fabric red with blood. It is not his. In a simple chair at the centre of the room, a man -no, he doesn't deserve to be called a man- a boy slumps forward. His head hangs low as blood seeps from his brow, nose, mouth. A tooth lays in his drenched lap. Shivers run down Tanaka's spine as he takes in the defeated form of one of his boyevika.

"Huh? Nothing to say for yourself, predatel?" he questions, bruised knuckles tugging the fallen head of his ex-comrade up to peer into their eyes, almost swollen shut.

"I did not betray the Bratva, I swear on my babu-" 

"You only swear on God and the Pakhan, traitor." Tanaka interrupts, releasing his grip so that the boy’s head falls back down in a large swing before lifting up with a painful groan. The Bulldog sighs, checks the time on a glinting gold Rolex. Your fingers slip from the bulging bicep to cross in front of your chest. He nods to you, keep watching, and you smile back, wide, catty, red lipstick violent against white teeth.

"Tanaka, enough. Finish him and dispose of the body. I am tired of his crying. Like a baby. Ha!"

"Da, Boss."

"Make sure his friends are sent a message, also."

"Of course."

Tanaka doesn't take his eyes off the trembling informant but acknowledges the Boss's departure with a casual wave. Most people wouldn't have the audacity to be so lax to the Head, but he isn't just anyone. He's the most trusted. More than you.

"Nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet!" the rat cries, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth and splashing onto the floor as he struggles against the bonds. Filthy. Fuck, how Tanaka loves it. He holds his hand out and a more competent, loyal, brat hands him a gun. His fingers curl around the weighted metal of the handle with a sigh, cocking it, and without hesitation, pulls the trigger.

.

.

.

There are only a few seconds of silence after the bang, just enough for Tanaka to relish in the feeling of complete calm after the storm. The hole between the eyes spits blood onto his crisp white shirt, before the lifeless body is untied by his boyevika in the room and dragged out to be 'made an example of'. One by one, the men clean up. A mop, bleach, breaking down the chair for firewood later. No loose ends, including The Khazak's shirt as he unbuttons it to be burnt with the chair. All the while, you watch from the sidelines, against the wall, as the wife of the Boss should.

Your toes tap rhythmically against the floor, the clackclackclack of your stilettoes a steady beat for the men to work to, but your eyes are on Tanaka's back. So muscular, so supple, still shivering from the endorphins of taking a life. The twin pistols tattooed on either shoulder blade seem armed, willing to fire again. 

You watch as he drops down fluidly with crossed legs to sit on the floor in the very spot he killed the predatel with no remorse, taking deep lungfuls of air to relish in the feeling. He can feel your eyes on him, a smile threatening to spread across his lips as he turns his head over his shoulder to peer at your scrutinising gaze -which is very careful not to let your lust show. But he knows it's there. He can taste it on his heavy tongue.

One by one, the men walk from the room, leaving only the two of you in your husband's office. The oak door shuts.

"Tell me, Gadyuka, how was I?" Tanaka enquires, eyes closed and head straight so that you can see the back of his scalp move as he speaks. The shorn hair shimmies and waves with his words, washing over you in the vast expanse of the room. Your pseudonym, 'viper', poison in your veins.

"Same as always: bloody," you hum, pushing off the wall and walking in front of him to lean against the broad desk. "You enjoy making a mess, don't you, Ryu?" you use your nickname for him, not his name, or his pseudonym, but something more intimate. He barks out a laugh, chest shaking as he examines the backs of his knuckles with gleaming eyes.

"Blyat, you know damn well that I do."

Like a gunshot has just echoed once again, the silence in the room is deafening. Your gazes lock, his ocean-grey ones with your cat-like stare. From his position on the floor, he looks up at you. Your stocking-clad legs are inviting his hands to stroke up them, and he's lucky enough to see the hint of the garter strap under your short skirt. He licks his lips. You tap the desk behind you impatiently, nails clacking against the glossy hardwood.

"My husband is going away on business in a week."

"I know, I arranged security."

"You're not going with him?" you ask, eyebrow quirking, no longer tapping the table. Tanaka shakes his head, a coy smile pulling at the corner of his lips, dried blood cracking on his sharp jaw.

"Then where will you be, Khazak?"

The grin almost splits his face in half with his reply, "in your bed, Gadyuka."

His bluntness never fails to shock you, to send heat pooling between your thighs and your heart spasming beneath your ribs. You almost want to have him right there, on top of the ledgers and documents of the many businesses Daichi is in charge of. Tanaka places his strong hands on the floor, easily dragging his body to your feet where he sits once more, staring up with eyes cloudy like the spray of a hurricane. A palm wraps behind your right leg to pull it close to his lips, kissing the lycra, the apex of your kneecap. His touch ripples through your skin so that your chin tilts up, breaking the gravity of his eye contact.

"Careful, Ryunoslav, not here."

His teeth nip at the fabric.

"I can not wait a week to taste you, Val."

"The cameras-"

"Are off because of the interrogation. Only I have the code to enable them for this room."

Calloused palms drag up the backs of your thighs, the stocking tugging slightly as it catches, until they pass the band where they wrap around your thighs, secured with a garter. You almost beg him to feel higher, to grab the fold of your ass, instead, you bite your lip between your teeth in thought.

"Then we must be quick, get under the desk." 

You don't tell him how unusual it would be if you were found to sit in your husband's chair, but with lust swimming from your thighs to drown your mind, it's not important. 

Tanaka is always rowdier after a kill, high off adrenaline, energy flowing in his veins that wants to devour everything in its path. He prefers to devour you. To savour your taste with his head between your supple thighs, to feel you come undone around his quick-witted tongue. With you balancing so precariously on the edge of the leather office chair, he can barely contain his onslaught of touch, desperate to hear you moan in the sound-proofed room. He's tucked so tightly between your knees, his broad yet lean shoulders spreading you so that he sees the dampened lace beneath your skirt.

It never takes much to arouse you. He likes to think it's only him that can pull forth your wetness from your folds like the moon coaxing the tides. He doesn't waste time, doesn't stop to watch the string of slick connecting the fabric to your cunt as his thumbs pull it to the side. He licks a long stripe up your slit and moans into the taste like a man starved. It's times like these when you wish he had hair for you to grab on to, so you settle on gripping the edge of the mahogany desk until your knuckles pale and forearms burn.

His tongue dances between your folds, lapping up each new wave of wetness that touches the shore of the muscle, only nudging the bundle of nerves at the top with a slight jostle.

"Don't tease me, Ryu, not in here," you breathe out at him between his licks, to which he chuckles, head turning to muffle the laughter against your inner thigh.

"Prosti," he apologises, the grey in his eyes glimmering with childish glee, "I can't help it sometimes." 

But he doesn't give you a chance to reply before his lips attach once more to your throbbing skin, wrapping around your swollen clit to suck greedily. Finally, he hears you moan, the sound kissing his sensitive ears like cool ocean spray. It's not loud, more constricted, but it's for him, because of him.

You feel how he sucks you into him, swallowing your heat and lust and desire with his mouth, having it all flow back into your body to stir at the whirlpool between your legs and behind your eyelids. It's torrential, dizzying, you're dragged beneath the waves, chest heaving as if you're drowning, 

but then it stops 

and the sea dies down, leaving your battered body behind.

Tanaka pulls away, silently. His palms close your legs, knees knocking together, his thumbs teasing circles against the bone. You're aching from your denied orgasm, the pained moan in your throat cutting off as a knock sounds in the room.

"Come in," you clear your throat, repeating the command.

One of Daichi's body guard's strides into the room, a look of shock on his face at your seat before he masks it quickly. His long brown hair is tied up neatly into a bun, a slight stubble on his chin tells you he hasn't slept properly in a few days. You can feel the heat radiating from your cheeks, feel the static in your hair that you smooth down. Tanaka keeps tracing shapes into your thighs, keeping the fire in your gut from extinguishing.

"Yes?" you thank Saint Mary that your voice doesn't tremble, "what is it?"

"Mrs. Sawamurova," he nods a greeting, "The Boss says he will take you out for dinner tonight and has sent me to escort you back to the main estate in preparations."

"Of course, I look forward to it."

You kick away Tanaka's hands, standing at the same time to walk around the table and follow the guard you know as Alexei Asahi from your husband's office. It means leaving The Khazak under the desk, along with a piece of your dignity.

***

Dinner is the kind with clinking glasses and soft chatter. The lighting is dim, intimate, with a soft glow that bounces off the crystal and silverware. As usual, the two of you are seated in the middle of the restaurant, the surrounding tables strategically blocking the view of you and Daichi from all the windows and doors, as well as the bodies seated in them. You can never be too careful, even if your husband owns the restaurant -or the entire town. To your left, behind Daichi and closest to the door, sits Tanaka.

"You look beautiful tonight, darling," Daichi says, taking a bite of his steak.

You do. The black silk dress lays flat against your chest, the deep v tailored perfectly. The tie behind your neck falls softly to your waist. Against your skin is a gold pendant, a coin pressed with the Sawamarov crest. Sleeveless and backless, the dress shows your beautiful viper tattoo curling down your right arm as though protecting you. It’s jaw opens near your wrist to bite anyone you may touch. You hold your glass of wine, swirling it before you sip.

"Thank you, my love. You bought me this dress for our first date."

"And that engagement ring on our second."

You swallow down your guilt, thighs clenching together, the silk fabric teasingly softly against your still-ignited skin. You give him a pointed stare, leaning forward ever so slightly to whisper over the table.

"I wouldn't call that a second date. We never left each other after the first."

Daichi laughs heartily, waves for another bottle of wine, eyes shining with the memory of the very active week in a skiing lodge. He hopes he can recreate some of it tonight, knowing he's been neglecting you, ignoring your needs. He glances down at the subtle curve of the fabric around your slight breast, the hint of the peony tattoo peeking under the edge of your neckline, low on your sternum; it’s the only delicate thing about you.

Daichi watches as you excuse yourself to use the restroom, the way your hips sway beneath the silk as though you have a secret. He frowns when the door closes, checking his watch for the time and pouring a shot of vodka to swallow down. You do have a secret. The waiter takes away the plates, bringing a simple dessert to share with the wine, and when you sit back down with a happy sigh, The Bulldog tries to sniff it out. He taps the table with two fingers and the nearest bodyguards turn slightly away to give you both privacy.

“I was told you were seated at my desk.”

A bite of mousse passes between your red lips with a small smile, eyes penetrating his gaze and not faltering. 

“Can a wife not sit in her husband’s chair?”

“Nyet, you know this. Why?”

“Calm down, my love.”

He fixes his cuff links, leaning back in his chair so that the gold chain around his neck glints in the light. His strong brow shadows his darkening eyes, lips pressing into a thin line, and, true to his nickname, it seems as though his muscles inflate. It makes you melt to see him hard, pectorals and biceps wanting to burst through the fabric of his Armani shirt. The spoon clinks against the plate and you reach across the table, viper stretching to grab his hand and bring it to your lips with a soft kiss, red lipstick on his jewelled knuckles. As much as you want to flicker your gaze to the man behind your husband, you hold firm.

“It’s embarrassing, but I’ll tell you. Come closer so I can whisper,” you usher him in, and Daichi grunts but follows your suggestion. He has no reason to doubt you, yet his gut is telling him you were doing more than just resting your heeled feet. He watches your pink tongue lick your bottom lip, teeth cracking between them with a coy smile.

“As you know, it has been quite some time since we’ve, how should I put this, made love.”

“I know.”

“Had I known we were going to dine tonight, fuck tonight, I would not have.”

“Your point, Gadyuka.”

Your whisper turns into a low hum, right hand squeezing his and your left hand toying with the coin pendant around your neck. Butterflies swirl in your gut, but you kill them swiftly with venom. He can sniff out any insecurity.

“I was masturbating.”

“What?”

“I was masturbating. Touching myself. In your chair, by your desk, thinking of you. I was almost finished but then Alexei had knocked on the door and stopped it.”

The look on Daichi’s face can only be described as speechless, which he is not often. His mouth opens, eyes stormy as he pictures your flushed face. He remembers that glassy look your eyes adopt when you're close, far away in bliss. Your delicate palm touches his clean-shaven cheek, drawing his attention back to the restaurant, to you.

“How about we go home and finish what I started, huh?”

Daichi didn’t need to be told twice. Standing fluidly, everyone around him follows his movement. Your fur coat is draped over your shoulders, thick and warm, a crisp white. His hand is on the small of your back, leading you out of the restaurant with the haste of a man collecting a prize. The air is cold, snow shovelled aside as you climb into the car to feel heated lips pressing to your neck instantly. You laugh, locking your wrists behind his neck to capture his mouth with your own. Men are so easily convinced.

Part 2 - Tanaka

The frame rattles as Tanaka slams the door closed behind him. He tracks melting sludge onto the thin, rust-coloured welcome mat, the tip of his nose red with more than the kiss from the windchill. The heater of the cabin is turned on, the warmth a welcome refuge from the thick snow outside as he shrugs off his coat.

Tanaka doesn’t hide his thoughts and feelings. He’s the kind of guy that wears them on his sleeve, bares it all out there for everyone to see. When he’s angry, you can see the tips of his ears burn. When he’s thrilled, that shark-tooth grin spreads so wide across his face, his eyes close. And when he’s murderous, nothing and no one can stand in his way.

“Cyka blyat!” he shouts, punching the wall of his residence, missing the mirror by mere centimetres, his already bruised knuckles stinging with his rage. A slew of curse words tumbles from his lips, both from searing pain and soaring anger. The eyes on the back of his hands stare at him, judging.

Seeing Valentina out at dinner, looking so delectable, so sinful, Ryunoslav felt ravenous for just a taste of her skin. It was bad enough that he never got to feel her convulse on his tongue earlier, he had to watch her flirt with her husband. He knows the deal, that nothing can ever really happen between the two of them outside of sex, and if they were both to get caught, it would be his end. He understands, yet he can’t help his rising natural anger. The buzzing in his pants pocket pulls him from his internal struggle, and he relaxes his hands, feeling the half-moon indents in his palms hiss in relief.

“Da?" a pause, "I’m on my way.”

Daichi wants to see him; did they finish their ‘love-making’ so quickly? Tanaka catches his reflection in the mirror, massaging the centre of his furrowed brows to try dissipate some of his frustrations before grabbing his thick coat and making the five-minute trek to the main estate. He’s frozen to the bone by the time he arrives at the large mahogany doors, but his anger keeps his blood warm. He needs to be careful, to calm down.

***

The Boss is waiting for Tanaka in his oversized office, the door open ajar, letting a soft yellow light stream into the hallway. This one is different from where the interrogation took place that afternoon, yet it is decorated almost identically. A shiver runs down Ryunoslav’s neck as he remembers Valentina’s sumptuous taste, the supple skin of her thighs brushing against his jaw and the way her lips sighed his name. Fuck, he takes a deep breath, pacifying his licentious thoughts before rapping on the door with his knuckles. Daichi’s deep voice tells him to enter.

He sits there, behind the desk, the white shirt he wore to dinner wrinkled, half unbuttoned to show a burly chest. A gold chain with a coin and two wedding bands glints from the curled chest hair.

“Vodka?” Daichi asks, doe brown eyes glancing up, already pouring both him and his head of security a shot of the clear liquid.

“Spasiba,” Tanaka’s voice is a grumble, deep in his chest as he tries to warm his body but cool his temper.

The Bulldog leans back. They toast, downing the drink with a casual swallow. As per usual, Tanaka automatically refills the next round for the both of them, but it remains untouched. Instead, Daichi opens a ledger, fingers curling up the pages as he flips through the numbers and accounts.

“Sergei has told me we were underpaid last month.”

“Mm, I will talk with Yuuri to find out who.”

“Make sure you show them the repercussions.”

“Always.”

Tanaka cracks his knuckles, excited to teach yet another lesson in punctuality. Daichi eyes his most trusted brother, the way that cocky smirk appears at the thought of fists colliding with skin, but there’s something else underneath.

“Khazak, you’re angry,” Daichi concludes, reaching across the table for the vodka, motioning Ryunoslav to sit down across from him. The shorn-haired man shrugs, slinking into the leather seat, removing his black beenie to run his hand through the trimmed hair. He can’t lie to the Boss, but he can’t tell him the truth either.

“I am… frustrated.”

The pair cheers, the glasses clinking before thudding onto the leather ingrained into the top of the desk.

“Why?”

"Ha! Please, I do not know, Boss.”

Daichi lets out a hum, shifting forward in his chair so that the wheels creak beneath his weight.

“I think I know.”

Tanaka stays silent, keeping his stare level and curious with the Bulldog’s.

“You need a woman!” Daichi barks out, smacking the desk with a flat palm, laughing deeply so that it echoes in the quiet room and probably through the manor. Tanaka can’t help but join in with the infectious laughter, the vodka soothing his nerves, relaxing the tension in his jaw.

“You’re right. It’s been too long,” since I fucked your wife.

They pour another shot, the buzz of the first two beginning to hum pleasantly through their bodies.

“Next week I go to Georgia to see the business there. While I’m gone, bring a whore to your bed. You have my permission.”

“Thank you, Boss.” Tanaka says, his cock twitching at the thought of Valentina in his residence. She’s never been there longer than a few minutes, and never without Daichi in the ten years Ryunoslav has been working for the Sawamurov family, and the two he’s been fucking her. He can't help but fantasize about it.

They catch up in light-hearted talk, about the state of Russia and the business, that they don’t see her peer around the corner of the heavy door, black silk nightgown wrapped loosely around her frame to show the lace of lingerie beneath.

“Daichi, are you coming to bed?” Tanaka hears her say, Valentina’s voice caressing his sensitive ears, but it’s not for him. He turns around, both men shocked into sobriety when they see her leaning against the now open door. 

“Ah yes! Sorry, my love! We lost track of time.” Daichi says, pushing up from his seat. Tanaka swallows, watches as her gaze floats from her husband’s to his own. He can see the pale blue of new bruises around the column of her throat, where Daichi probably sucked into the skin. Tanaka can’t help his smirk. She always did like it rough, and it means he can leave his own over those later.

“Khazak,” she greets with a curt nod, fixing the dropped shoulder of the gown to make herself more modest. “Don’t keep him too late, okay?”

“Mrs. Sawamurova, as you wish.”

Daichi chuckles from behind the desk, walking around to clap Tanaka on the shoulder.

“I may be the Pakhan, but Gadyuka here always has the last say, huh? Good night, Ryunoslav. Don’t forget to talk to Yuuri. And don’t forget what I said you can do.”

“Da, spakoyne noche, Boss.”

With a two-finger wave, Daichi walks out of the room, his hand travelling to the small of Valentina’s back as he leads her back to the bedroom. Tanaka takes one final shot, pulling his hat low over his ears as he prepares to walk back to his house.

***

“He said what?” Nishinoya Yuuri exclaims, cackling inside Tanaka’s small living room. His shorter counterpart smacks the armrest of the chair, the sound against the leather cracking like a whip.

“I can entertain a whore this weekend.”

Yuuri can’t believe his ears, face red with laughter, the file of the business owner coming up with short change forgotten on his lap. His bleached bangs hang in his eyes and he pushes it up, wiping tears with a deep breath. 

Together, Ryunoslav and Yuuri make up the Elite Group within the Bashkortoskaya, Daichi’s most trusted men. Each one runs their own Brigade: Nishinoya the Support Group and, by default, oversees the entire Workforce, while Tanaka is head of Security and keeps everything running smoothly.

The Khazak’s sharp jaw pulses, cheeks red to resemble a heart as it beats in humility. He clenches and unclenches his jaw.

“In the years I’ve known you, you’ve never had a prostitute.”

"I've never needed one," Tanaka shrugs, stealing the manila folder to flip through the details. Simple enough. His men were already bringing the tinted black SUVs around for them to make a ‘house call’ to Ukai Keishin. He shrugs on his thick coat, the kind that’s easy to clean, and black leather gloves onto his hands, slipping knuckle dusters into his pocket. Just in case. He doubts he’ll need them. He waves Yuuri a goodbye as he hears the tyres crunch over the sleet of snow.

“Remember to pick up condoms while you’re out!” He hears his brother call out to him as the door closes and ice invades each inhale.

Tanaka grumbles under his breath, fiddling with the direction of the hot air coming through the car’s vents. Just what he needs is word getting around that he would be fucking someone while the Boss is gone. These kinds of things never stay quiet, and he knows it will reach Valentina’s ears within the day. He shivers to think how she will lash out at him if he actually invites one of Daichi’s prostitutes back to his bed. The girls at those establishments can’t even hold a candle to her beauty or skill.

Prostitution is a lucrative business and one of the main sources of income, other than drug smuggling and the many (legal and illegal) casinos and tech companies owned by the Sawamurov’s. Ukai's particular business—and why The Boss is so invested in it—is a front for a prostitution call-centre. According to performance, they should've made a profit for the month past. Usually, Tanaka wouldn't make an appearance personally, delegating the task to his experienced team members, who might even give the order to the security brigades that they run. However, he is glad to get out of the estate grounds and think of something other than Val’s voluptuous lips and the swell of her breasts from beneath that black lingerie last night.

***

The Sawamurov's reach controlled all of Bashkortostan, a republic within Russia nestled between the picturesque Ural mountain range and the Volga river. Tanaka watches as the trees surrounding the estate give way to highway and grassland before the small town of Belebey comes into view. It's all Daichi's, and in turn, all Val’s.

The town is quiet, the late morning sky a dark grey with clouds that make the winter more formidable. Tanaka wouldn't have it any other way. They pull up to the slightly rundown storefront, graffiti against the wall with crude swear words act as a greeting. He snorts, watching as the glossy black SUV's reflect in the windows as though looking into a parallel world. Inside he can see movement, a tall man in a white apron walking around the counter to open the door. Confident. 

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Ukai shouts out, arms crossed over his chest to protect his fingers from the stinging cold. Tanaka doesn't answer, tucking his chin into his scarf as he observes the man. He's older, bleached blonde with honey eyes that seem more solid, hardened. On his forearms are scars, his flannel shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal a tattoo of a web with a downwards facing spider: recovered drug addict.

"We've come to collect," one of the lackeys says in his boss's place.

Ukai steps aside to let them in, sighing deeply, flicking a cigarette to the moist ground, and leading them to a back room where there's a round table with a few wooden chairs. Papers litter the room, boxes of unpacked stock are piled in a corner. The place is a shithole.

"Can I get you anything? Vodka, cigarette?"

"Sit, Ukai." Tanaka speaks, gesturing to the nearest chair, unbuttoning his coat to drop it onto the table, his beanie and scarf piling on top of it. "We're here for business."

Ukai collapses down, slouching casually as he stares at the leader of the men. Ryunoslav drags a chair in front of the debtor, spinning it on a single leg so that he leans against the backrest as he sits with his legs spread out on either side. A sliver of gold chain catches the fluorescent lighting under his simple suit shirt, matching the multiple piercings in Ukai's right ear.

"You did not pay the full amount of February."

"Correct."

"Why?"

"I couldn't."

The man's blunt lie is shocking to Tanaka, refreshing from the usual quivering imbeciles, and he feels the need to suppress a smile that threatens to reveal itself. Instead, he keeps his tone cynical.

"Was the month not profitable, Ukai? Men get lonely in February, their beds cold."

Ukai shrugs, smoothing out the wrinkles in his apron, eyeing the handsome shaved hair man with intrigue. Tanaka feels a ripple down his spine. "For the whores? Yes, it was profitable. But my business was not."

"So you used the money for the Bashkortoskaya to save your ass from bills?" Tanaka begins to laugh, his wide mouth swallowing the sky as his chin tilts up. He stares straight at the man once more, "you should've paid us first."

"Ah, but then I wouldn't have had the pleasure of your visit. I am touched an Avtoritet will come to see me personally. You are better looking than I thought you would be, younger."

Tanaka raises an eyebrow at the flirtatious comment, a very open individual. He sees some of his subordinates shift uncomfortably in his peripheral, unsure of how to proceed. He drums his fingers on the back of the chair, the beat steady like his heart.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, I'm not one of your kind."

"And what kind is that?"

"Gay."

Ukai chuckles, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his apron pocket, offering one to Ryunoslav who instead takes the full box, holding it up for someone to confiscate. He stands, walking to inspect the stacked boxes around the room. Ukai swallows; he knows not to push his luck too far.

"Are you going to kill me if I don't pay?"

"Hm, nyet, not yet. Are these fresh?" Tanaka holds up a dozen eggs, the green carton sickly. He doesn't wait for the reply, tearing it open and tossing one to the ground with a resounding crunch, the yolk bleeding into the tile grates.

"Listen, Ukai," splat, "you will pay the balance," splat, "by the end of this week," Tanaka walks closer with each drop of the egg until he's next to the grocery store owner. Ukai sits upright, a cool gaze on Tanaka's tattooed hands as they stroke the shell of the brown eggs. The crosses and circles are targets, his hands the weapons.  

"Or your head, will look like these eggs." Tanaka drops the entire carton on the ground, the bright yellow spilling out and pooling beneath Tanaka's black boots. "Vy ponimayete?"

"Da, understood."

"Good. I hope I will not need to see you again."

On his way out of the store, Tanaka picks up a box of condoms from the aisle.

Part 3 - Valentina

Friday cannot come fast enough... so that you can throttle your lover. 

The double-pane french doors to the balcony shine with frost, the sky beyond dark and unforgiving, much like the irritation boiling inside you. It’s the last night; Daichi leaves on the first flight to Georgia tomorrow morning to meet with the Vashadze, your father and owners of half the Casinos under your combined empire. Your marriage three years ago was the biggest news since the raid on the Uhaluba club in Prague, 1995. Together, your families control prositution, drug smuggling, money laundering, the list goes on. Behind the scenes, of course. 

Up front, Daichi is a wealthy investor of tech: Facebook, Tesla, oil companies in the Middle East and Serbia, whereas your father is a top Politician and Minister in Georgia, maintaining his position with dirt he’s collected on those with darker tastes and kinks in the underworld.

“Supply snakes with a meal, and you’ll have them all by the fangs,” your father regularly told you over dinners since you were thirteen, when he began to show you the truth behind his wealth, once your mother passed away.

It’s how you got your nickname. It was the first thing you said to Daichi, before he took you out, before he became The Boss . You were eighteen when you laid eyes upon that hulking mass of muscle. He asked how you could be so beautiful, and you parroted your father’s words. He knew from that moment on that you were dangerous, poisonous, and he had to have you.

When you were twenty-one, you met Daichi again, this time in an underground gambling soiree. You were the host, of course. The felt green betting mats stood out in stark contrast against the white dress code and the dark wooden tables. You wore black. Translucent red dice swirled between your fingers expertly before you rolled snake eyes.

“Bad luck,” Daichi commented over your shoulder, spiced wood and tobacco tickling your nose. You sipped a vodka martini with a twist. There was always a twist with you.

“It’ll be fine, I own the club,” you shrugged, cashing out with the chips you owed and strolling back to the bar where another drink awaited you. Even now, you could remember Tanaka Ryunoslav hovering behind Daichi, drinking in the sight of your curves, the red of your lipstick and the wit of your tongue. A lot less subtle then than now. 

If you closed your eyes, you could very easily conjure the tapping of his heels, the eager look in the Young Khazak’s eyes at being surrounded by some of the most powerful men in Eastern Europe. You could even taste the vodka on his tongue that you sucked down your throat in a supply room all those years ago.

Back then, that bout of casual sex meant nothing. You married Daichi four years later, when your paths crossed once more at twenty-five, the turf wars between neighbouring families becoming too much to bear for Eastern Europe. You were lucky Daichi was--is so exceedingly handsome. Interesting. Smart. Powerful. However, so is your father. And you never wanted to marry your father.

“Darling?” Daichi’s voice calls you out of your pacing when he walks into the room, the silk of your dressing gown swooping around your feet as you stand still. “Everything alright?”

“Da, sorry, you know I get nervous when you fly,” you lie quickly, easily, turning your back on him to close the curtain and shut out the irritation of outside, the faint golden glow of Tanaka’s cabin sealed away. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Mm, yes, I know. Relax a little. When I am back we have that gala. Is your dress finished?”

You give him a pointed glance, turning down the bedsheets and unravelling the delicate bow of the robe to climb under the covers with bare skin.

“Weeks ago, Daichi. You were at the final fitting.”

He nods as if he remembers, but you know his mind is elsewhere, much like your body would rather be.

“Are you coming to bed early tonight?”

For several days, weeks, months, Daichi has been sneaking into your bed too late in the evening. Or early in the morning. The business is doing fine, there’s no cause for him to spend some nights not even at home. Some part of you--a small, small part--misses his thick muscles wrapped around your body.

“Later, there is something I have to do first.”

You merely hum, settling yourself down and dimming the lamp beside the bed until the room bathes in a soft glow. With your eyes closed, you don’t see him leave, the door clicking shut. Instead, you picture red, your empty bed, and across the snow, a cocky smile letting a too thin, sallow-skinned blank face past their threshold. He will have to have a hooker, Daichi will ask him all about it. Motherfucker. You turn the light off.

***

The Bulldog kisses your forehead when he wakes, sleeping behind you for a total of an hour. You’d woken up slightly when he clambered into the bed, smelling freshly of his cologne from a recent shower, at three in the morning.

“I’ll be back soon,” he whispers into your ear, not staying to hear your ‘be safe’ in response, still mumbling from a fitful night’s sleep. 

However, you don’t drift off again, eyes suddenly open and staring into your nightstand where a cool glass of water rests. It’s still, silent and calm. You turn over to the right, seeing the empty space where Daichi’s body barely left a mark, his lamp still buzzing. It isn’t until you hear cars pull away in the driveway that you sit up, wiping the remnants of sleep delicately from your eyes to sigh. It’s going to be a long day.

Dumdumdum, three quick taps echo in the quiet, the door creaking open as a curious head peeks around the side. Ryunoslav smiles when he sees you perched in bed. His eyes drift from your face, down your neck and to your breasts, the skin pricking up under his sharp gaze. You could strike a match and it would erupt into flames.

“What are you doing here, Ryu?” you ask. It comes out more accusatory than you would’ve liked but he just grins, teeth ready to bite any jab you throw.

“I told you I’d come, didn’t I?”

For a raucous man, Tanaka moves stealthily across your floor, kicking off his boots before planting two large hands onto the edge of the mattress. You can feel it dip with his weight as he crawls, veiny forearms caging in your legs, trapping you. He sways side to side, spine rolling like a panther about to pounce. You kick his left hand out so he falls, crashing and rolling to the spot where Daichi laid with a laugh, peering up at you with fervent energy.

“His bed isn’t even cold yet.”

“Ha! He barely slept here, Val.”

“And you will?” Skepticism laces your words, the irritation of last night seeping into your thoughts once more. His smile finally drops.

“Nyet, of course not. You know that.” Tanaka twists around so that he’s cross-legged, facing you fully, eyes searching your own. “I’ll just fuck you.” You scoff.

His hands plant themselves on your thighs, the eyes tattooed on the back staring at the ceiling, observing the heavens. They travel gradually up to where the sheet lays scrunched around your waist, fingers pinching the edges.

“Give you more pleasure than he does before going back to my lonely bed. Without you.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’ll be lonely for much longer, Ryunoslav.”

Tanaka chuckles under his breath, shaking his head as he pulls the duvet down to unveil you before him. His chest rises and falls so fluidly with his deep breaths, a movement so calm, yet he freezes when his eyes rake over your luscious figure.

“How the Boss does not have you under lock and key astounds me.”

Your hand slaps across his face, a fire burning from your palm down to your groin.

“I will not be someone’s pet.”

Lust overcomes Tanaka’s pupils, his lips curling up in ecstasy at your stern tone, his cheek pounding along with his heart.

“No, you will not.”

Then, his mouth captures yours. 

Hot, hungry, the spring in his spine expands so that his chest presses against yours, jaws stretching up. Desperate hands clutch at your neck, the fold of your hips, anything to pull himself tight to your body, anchored to your skin and bed. It’s sinful, even whores refuse to do something so intimate. You feel that heavy tongue drag against your bottom lip, asking your permission to enter. You welcome it, savoring the taste of Ryu’s desire, his burning passion. His hands drift to tug at the firm muscle of your ass, hauling you to kneel over his lap, supporting and kneading it to a rhythm that you’ve come to know so well.

Your fingers clumsily unbutton his pants, slipping under the fabric to feel your undoing. Tanaka moans into your mouth, growing harder, fiercer in his touch with each stroke up the length of his cock. He wastes no time, patience not his strongest virtue. You detach from the kiss with a heavy sigh, forehead pressing to his as you melt over his fingers. Both your hands press into his shoulders, stabilising your vibrating body from how he rolls your clit between his fingers. He’s too clothed, not enough of his skin available for you to stroke and scratch and bite. You claw at the back of his long-sleeved shirt, he rips it off.

With the shirt discarded over his boots, Ryu’s warm hands wrap around your waist, tilting you back until you lay open for him. His pants come off next, flung haphazardly to the floor so that he kneels before you shamelessly, eyes raking down your naked body. By now, he’s committed every curve, every artwork on your skin to memory that he can draw you with his eyes closed. The peony tattoo at the base of your sternum a siren’s call for his mouth to taste. The heat of his body is a furnace, flames licking your skin as he kisses down your chest, inhaling your intoxicating scent.

“Why don’t I finish what I started, huh?” he parrots the words you whispered to Daichi a week ago. Your gut clenches, your cunt tightening to know he heard that. You almost want to beg him to devour you, but that’s not who you are. Your hand strokes over his shorn hair, his eyes closing as your nails rake against his scalp. Savagely, you squeeze his jaw, fingers pursing his lips, the viper tattooed near your wrist ready to strike.

“So snarky. I can think of more important uses for your tongue, Ryunoslav.”

He grins, the round of his cheeks tensing in your clutches before he turns his head to nibble at your thumb, sucking it down.

“As you wish, Valentina.”

Tanaka kisses down your stomach to the apex of your mound, squirming until he nestles between your outstretched legs and his arms wrap themselves under your thighs, an iron grip on your hips. You brace yourself to feel that vacuum, that eternally deep suction that clings onto your soul and merges it with his, but all you can feel are soft exhales. He stares up at you, an indiscernible look on his face.

“Ryu?” you come onto your elbows. The very sight of the man between your legs is enough to make you shiver. He plants a kiss to your thigh.

“You know I will do anything for us, for you.”

“I know.”

“Even fuck a whore once if it means I get to stay with you for just another more day.”

You grit your teeth, knowing it’s true, and although he shouldn’t be saying such intimate things—that you can never truly be together—it’s what you needed to hear. You remain silent, watching him as he lowers his mouth to your seeping skin, licking languidly to taste you on his entire tongue. It’s flat, wet, heavy, pressing into you so solidly you fall back down, eyes closing as you capsize. Tanaka demands whimpers, his name, with his touch. He’s insatiable, greedy to feel you come undone completely, this time with no interruption.

Two fingers test your waters, slipping between the waves of your folds while his tongue drags you under. You know his ocean-grey eyes never stop watching as you writhe under his ministrations. You can barely move, clenching around his skilled hand as though keeping him anchored in place. You want him, need him. The first pulse of your walls spurs him on, stirring the storm in your groin, until you can barely contain your moans for him. Your orgasm batters against the shores of your body, powerful waves washing over you and dissolving all your stress and irritation, leaving you gasping and heavy, weighted down and sluggish.

“Fuck, baby,” Tanaka swears against your skin, still pumping his fingers against sopping skin to feel how you contract around him. The stimulation almost has you in tears and you grab his wrist to pull him away, closer to your lips. You swallow down your tang, the kiss passionate yet lazy as he ruts against your tingling clit, hands wrapped around your head to almost cradle you against him.

“You were very loud,” he chides, but you know he loves it, the danger. “You are lucky no one is in the house tonight.”

“Do you want me to keep quiet, Ryu?” you moan into his mouth, biting his lip against a particularly rough thrust.

“Never,” he grins, sitting back so that he can observe your glassy look, you pout at the sudden chill. There’s a moment of protest, his body too far away, before your eyes roll back and you’re stretched out, overflowing with the feeling of him, your vision black.

Part 4 - Tanaka

Ryunoslav wishes he could lay behind Valentina eternally, watch as she wakes and stretches, but he knows he can’t. He unfurls his lithe chest from her back, and stands to dress before sneaking back to his cabin. The cold air nips at his cheeks, but it would take a snowstorm and him being naked to freeze over the warmth radiating from inside his chest. Under the cover of dark, even at 6:00 am, Tanaka makes it back without being seen, like he always does.

He winces as he shrugs off his coat and scarf, the scrapes on his back from her nails stinging beautifully. His thoughts drift: what she must think when she wakes up in the mornings to find the bed empty, either without him or Daichi, and whether he’ll ever see her under his own covers, laughing while sipping a coffee on a summer morning. Ryu shakes his head to absolve those thoughts, it’s dangerous to linger on dreams for too long.

The box of condoms on his dining table stand out like a sore thumb, and he shoves it into the closest drawer, the eyes on his hands giving him a mocking stare. ‘What would your mother say?’ it blinks at him, pulling his mouth into a scowl. Turning the kettle on, he pulls up Sergei’s number on his phone.

“Khazak, it’s early.” Sergei’s morning gruff is thick, coughing lightly as he clears his throat.

“Dobre utra, Sergei, sorry, I know.”

“What is it you need?” Tanaka can almost picture the cool gaze, the pinched brows beneath silver hair that the bookkeeper has on whenever speaking to the head of security.

“Ukai, has all been fixed?”

“Uka– Ryunoslav, could this not wait until a more reasonable hour? Yes, it’s resolved. The guy wired the remaining amount last night. God knows where he got it from but I don’t care.”

Tanaka opens his mouth to speak, but Sergei cuts him off.

“I swear, call me this early again and I’ll hang you from your ears.”

The Khazak laughs, wishing the old ‘friend’ a good day as he hangs up. That clears up most of Tanaka’s schedule, and he falls onto his bed, groaning when the whistle of the kettle rings loud in the room. It’s too similar to the alarm bells in his mind when he thinks about the call he has to make later.

***

Ryunoslav shivers, peeling off the used condom to tie a knot in it. It wasn’t too bad. With the prostitute's ass in the air, he could almost picture it was her. He watches as she pulls up stockings and a dress, her only layers beneath a thick coat and hat. The prostitute looks over her shoulder with her hand resting on the door, appreciating the view. Tanaka sits on the edge of the bed, naked and bored.

“This was fun. Call me anytime,” she purrs with a wink, pleasantly fucked, before leaving. He grumbles, falling backwards so that air whooshes past his ears as the mattress creaks under his body.

She’s going to kill me, he thinks, picturing Val’s face with the disapproving glare that always seems to rile him up. A part of him wonders if he went through with it purely to piss her off, make her mad with jealousy, just like he can be.

***

Tanaka must’ve dozed off because he wakes to the sound of his front door being pounded, the clock next to it showing quarter to midnight. He swears, scrambling to toss the condom he left on his thigh into the open basket bin and pull on the nearest pair of pants. He has just finished tying the drawstring when the door swings open and Valentina strides in, arms crossed in front of her chest, white flakes of snow on the Hermès scarf wrapped around her hair.

He’s frozen, a deer in headlights, silent at seeing her standing in his doorway, both beautiful and deadly. He watches as analytical eyes scan the single-roomed cabin, finally taking it all in. For some reason, he feels shy, a blush creeping up his neck. He has always wanted her in here, but now that she is, he feels like it’s not good enough.

Tanaka follows her gaze: sweeping from the small kitchen, to the two person table and chair, in the corner are the leather armrests and a coffee table. Directly by Val’s right is a mirror and coat hook, the wooden-heated walls sparsely decorated with a map of old USSR and new Russia, along with a single lily in a simple frame. He sees her stare past him, to the arch that separates his bedroom, analysing the unmade bed. Tendrils of cold sweep by him from the still-open door. She does not move a muscle.

Valentina opens her mouth as if to say something, then closes it, walking to the kitchen counter where a half-finished bottle of vodka sits. Tanaka’s door shuts with a click, and when he turns, she has already pulled out a shot glass. 

Has she been drinking? he thinks, rubbing the goosebumps up his arms, the callouses scraping some still-healing scabs. He gets his answer when she barely winces her swallow.

“Do you want to sit down?” Tanaka asks, approaching carefully, gesturing to the sofa; she’s a cornered viper. Val turnz, leaning against the marble top, coat still wrapped tightly around her body. Her lips purse, and he stills, knowing she’s either trying to put together a sentence or hold back uttering one. But Ryunoslav doesn’t know her to hold back often.

“Did you do it?” 

He didn’t expect the question to flow from her lips so calmly, hushed and smooth like an expert interrogator; the way he would speak. There’s no point in lying.

“Da,” Tanaka steps closer, reaching past Val’s head for a second shot glass. She makes no effort to hand him the bottle. “It’s just sex.” 

He almost recoils from the daggers in her stare, pupils shrinking into slits that can cut through him. I should not have said that, but if he lied, he wonders if she’d be just as furious. Valentina looks down and spots the discarded condom, sighing while twisting open the cap of the bottle to drink straight from the lip, past the point of using a glass.

“I thought of you.”

A faint flicker of relief, but then she laughs, curt and cold.

“I’m so flattered, Ryunoslav, thank you.”

He feels his heart tighten, forehead pounding, with more than guilt.

“Blyat, what the fuck else was I supposed to do?” he snorts, storm brewing in his eyes, fists clenching. His face is so close to hers, he can smell the alcohol on her breath. He can see her searching for answers within his own.

“I don’t know, but,” her eyes close, the small wrinkle between her brow dissolving with an inhale. The exhale has them open, blank, her lips in a neutral line. Somehow, this scares Ryunoslav even more. He feels his heart hammer beneath his ribs, either trying to escape or to jump into her palms. The bottle is no longer in them, but the belt of her coat, pulling it loose so that it unfurls from her chest. He see’s skin, a clavicle, ripe mounds of breasts. The flower tattoo peaks out from the shadow until it disappears and the top of underwear wraps around her waist. She’s not wearing the Family pendant. When the coat drops off her shoulders--the wool scrunching into a thick pile at her feet--he notices she is still wearing boots, but legs bare; she used the underground passage to get to his cabin.

“If you prefer to fuck a shlyukha, you just had to say so.” Valentina says, fingers trailing up the skin of her waist while keeping his gaze. Tanaka can’t respond, doesn’t want to, anything he says is fuel to her wildfire. “I can be a whore.”

She’s raging, the very air around her too thick for Tanaka to breathe easily, and when she takes a step forward, he imitates backward. He’s controlled by her until he collapses into his leather armchair and she towers over him, bare-breasted and deadly.

Valentina’s fingers tug at the knot of the scarf, slipping the silk through her fingers as she regards the man before her, twisting it into a tight coil until ready to spring, like her.

It’s those eyes, she realises. Stormy, grey, like a tumultuous ocean swallowing her body whole, ravaging and cleansing her all at once. She can’t stand to see them now. Tanaka doesn’t protest when she leans over him, unfurling the scarf to tie it around his head, blindfolding him. Ostensibly for control. She knows otherwise that his eyes will make her crumble down, dissolve into their depths.

Tanaka’s heart thumps, pressing against his ribcage furiously enough to shake his chest. Any argument cut off in his throat when he feels Valentina’s lips against it. His body begins to cover in a cold sweat, confused with the hurdling emotions inside: panic, guilt, anger, and underneath it all, arousal.

“Have you even showered yet,” she whispers against his skin, “or is this taste hers?” A hot tongue drags up the side of his neck until it touches the puff of his earlobe, teeth nipping. If Tanaka looks down past the tip of his nose, he can see her palms gripping the arms of the chair, the plush leather folding in. He can see the curve of her shoulder and the tail of the snake as she leans into him. And he can feel the warmth of her skin when she straddles him.

It’s not tight, her ass seated on the edge of his knees, but he feels heat anyway. It rolls off Valentina’s body in waves, washing over him so that he begins to pant. Nails rake up his chest, goosebumps pricking on his forearms which he keeps still, away from reaching out to wrap around her and bring their bodies together.

“Did she touch you like this?” Valentina’s hand wraps around his throat, the other drifting to the tent in Tanaka’s sweatpants. When she stops moving, he realises she expects a response.

“Nyet,” he grunts out, erection twitching beneath her palm, the vein in his neck swelling. 

A brisk exhale fans over his face, then he smells the peppercorn and vanilla of her skin as she lifts from his knees. She must be close, the static between his lips and her stomach electric. He bites his tongue to stop from tasting her skin. When she falls, her hand had shifted his erection from the loose constraints of his pants, free and standing to attention. There’s fire and rain, and Tanaka peers down to make out the black of Valentina’s underwear clinging to her slick folds, nestled against his groin. It provides slight relief, knowing she is aroused like him. 

She begins to roll her hips. On instinct, Tanaka shifts down into a slouch to bring her higher, to feel more friction. His fingers jump where they rest on the chair, fighting not to grab at her, palms sweating. For Valentina, this is easy. Men are so responsive, so easy to lead and dissuade, and fuck. They treat sex as though it is nothing.

It’s sex, Ryunoslav’s words echo in her hazy mind, her hands flying to his shoulders as though to bring her back to her actions. Focus on the movement, it tells her, and she grinds down onto him. She feels as he pants against her neck, her breasts moving to press against his chest so that he can feel all of her at once, reminded of what he missed. The jealousy in her heart pains her, knowing that it’s irrational to feel ownership over a man that is not truly her’s. But she feels it regardless. She wants him completely.

His neck is thick beneath her palm, veins beating steadily in time with the grinding of her hips. The line of her folds wrap around him, dragging up and down his length that when she looks down, she sees it weep. The tightening of his gut tells her even more and she grins almost wickedly.

“Does it feel good, Ryu?” she whispers against him, lips hovering teasingly above his own. Tanaka tries to close the gap. She’s near, yet so far away, unreachable in her anger.

“No, you don’t get to kiss me. Not when I’m your whore.”

He moans then, shamefully turned on by the hard edge of her voice and the soft skin wrapped around him, coaxing something out from within. 

“Val,” he utters her name under his breath, the fog in his mind not clearing as it builds higher, tighter. She can feel the storm brewing. His shoulders tense, forearms hovering as though-

“Do you want to touch me?” she bites at his ear, one of his most sensitive features. It takes Tanaka everything to hold back, his hips thrusting up desperately.

“Yes. God, yes.”

“What’s stopping you?”

Valentina watches as the gold, browns and pinks of her scarf wrinkle with his frown.

“You never said I could.”

She falters for a moment, taken aback by the worship and strain in his voice. This is why she covered his eyes, she never knew she had to gag him as well. Some of the ice in her heart begins to melt, dripping down her chest like the sweat on Ryunoslav’s forehead.

“Touch me.”

His hands are on her instantly. With her back under his calloused palms, he can feel every movement of her waist, her hips. He strokes up, her body memerised so thoroughly he can paint a replica of her in his mind. With the eyes tattooed on the back of his hands, he sees her. It was the last push he needed, the rain clouds in his mind bursting as he spills a storm over his abdomen, finding clarity. 

It’s wet, warm and cold simultaneously. He feels Valentina’s forehead fall to his shoulder, her spine shaking. There’s a sniff, the smallest of tears leaking into the dips of his muscled shoulders. With one hand, he presses her tightly, his ejaculation spreading messily between their bodies, the other rips the scarf from his eyes so he can drink in the sight of her, his nose nuzzled into her hair.

“Val...” he mumbles against her skin, fingers combing through the hair at her nape, lips finding contact with her neck, then temple. “Look at me, pazolvste.”

And when she does, the world stops. He tries to read the swirl of emotions in her eyes. Is it exhaustion? Arousal? Defeat? All three? Tanaka brushes sweaty strands from her neck, forehead, smoothing down the hair. Valentina glances at his lips, or her eyes drop, either way, with the next inhale, their lips meet.

Part 5 - Valentina

Tanaka tastes different. Tangy and bitter, the kind that makes you want to tear away, only to constantly come back for another sip, addicted. You’re sticky, the sweat from his chest and the spill of his seed spreading against your stomach, screaming at you to separate from him. Everything is telling you to stop.

But you can’t

And you never want to. His tongue swipes across the seam of your lips, and you happily oblige, too weary from the rollercoaster of emotions that had ripped through you to fight for dominance. Tanaka, however, doesn’t seem to mind, your tongues intertwining so seamlessly, you briefly wonder if you’ll ever separate them again.

He pulls apart to breathe, chest still heaving from his orgasm and your mind games. Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, you realise what you’ve done, how full of blind rage and hurt you were. Tanaka registers the panic in your eyes, the way your mouth opens to say,

“I’m sorry.”

You’re suddenly smaller, eyes downcast to stare at his chest, tracing the outline of the Georgian cross tattooed over his heart, the eight point star on each shoulder beneath his collarbones, reminding you that you’re in a world of thieves. That you yourself are one, and you crossed a boundary tonight that you’ve never crossed before. In his residence. He lifts your chin with a steady finger, forcing you to stare into still, open waters.

“It’s okay.”

But it’s not, you’re not okay. Tanaka must’ve sensed the growing unease as you shift on his lap, knees still pressed tightly to his hips, his softened dick lazing against your groin.

“I would’ve stopped you if I didn’t want it,” his voice is a hushed whisper, washing over you.

“I should not have come here tonight.”

“I’m happy you did, Gadyuka.”

For some reason, you believe him, the tides in his eyes pulling you closer so that once again your lips melt into his and your heart drums in your throat. Ryunoslav unzips your boots, letting them drop unceremoniously to the floor. His hands find purchase beneath your rear, and he stands, lifting you so easily as he carries you through a small door and into the bathroom.

It smells like him: salty, humid, yet crisp, like cold mist when the seasons change. You reluctantly break apart when your feet touch the cool tile, and you look around while Ryu draws a bath. There’s no mirror over the sink--instead on the tiled wall opposite the shower--just a shelf with his electric razor, toothbrush and some creams. The thought that you’d like to shave his head flits across your mind, but you shake it out, turning to watch him fill a simple wooden bathtub with steaming water.

“Are you going to wash me like a child?” you ask, eyebrows raising to show your amusement. He chuckles, his eyes matching your teasing tone, the tension of before dissolving with the mist in the air.

“Nyet, unless you want me to,” he muses, eyes drifting across the splattered cotton against your skin. “You are dirty.”

You lick your teeth, taking in how he’s seated on the edge, sweatpants still haphazardly down his legs to show a hint of the tattoos and scars on the tops of his thighs, “so are you.”

He holds his arms out and you move to stand between his knees, warm hands trailing up your hamstrings, over the cups of your cheeks and peeling down your soiled black thong. You feel… calm, the rage and guilt subsiding to leave an empty stillness in its place, in your gut, where he rests his forehead and your fingers scrape his scalp.

You bathe first, Tanaka’s rough hands scraping away grime, before you switch and run your hands over his corded muscles. The moment is too intimate to speak, both of you barely even breathing as he wraps a towel around his waist and pulls a too long t-shirt over your head. It’s only when you’re out of the confines of the bathroom that he breaks the silence. 

“You’ll have to destroy the shirt when you leave,” Ryu observes, tugging at the shoulder seam so that the neckline centers on your body instead of dropping over one shoulder.

“Do you want me to leave?” you counter, crossing your arms over your chest, fingers drumming in a quick beat against your forearms.

“Never.”

Shrugging, you turn on your heel and stride to the messy bed, ignoring the way your stomach flips as it remembers who was the last woman to touch it--that it wasn’t you--and climb onto the mattress. For the first time, you see Tanaka completely taken by surprise. He’s close to asking you ‘why?’ but thinks against it, hurtling after you to pull you into his arms, against his chest.

This is unchartered waters, the bed a dinghy and in his room are endless possibilities. But that’s where it starts and ends. You drag your fingers lazily up his forearm, over a few scars, tracing the bouquet of lilies drawn in thick black lines that stand off his skin; prison tattoos seldom heal flat.

“What does this mean?” you stare up at him, curious as you’ve never had much time to talk with him before, to delve deeper past your lust for each other. Ryunoslav clears his throat.

“It’s for my home,” he mumbles, nose moving to your hair, his eyes clouding over as he watches your fingers. “And my mother.”

The way he explains the beauty of the wild lilies in his home village of Kazakhstan, the bouquet his mother would pluck and keep on their table, sends shivers down your spine. Why would he ever have run away? You learn he has a sister, Saeko, who left with him and fell into the life of the thieves before him, and instead, he went to prison.

In this little bubble, you feel inexplicably warm, cosy, like the world has fallen away. You tell him about your own mother, how her eyes were incredibly warm and the colour of amber, but she never smiled. About how you grew up in Georgia surrounded by powerful men and strived to be just as important one day. Ryunoslav smiled at that, kissing your wrist where the fangs of the snake bit into.

He tells you about the years he spent in and out of juvenile prison in Moscow, unfurling the duvet to explain that each cathedral dome tattooed upon his leg meant time served. He had four. The rose on his left bicep meant he turned 18 in prison.

“The Boss found me a month after,” he recalls, eyes far away, “I’m forever thankful. I was very sick from the tattoo and I would have died if he didn’t take me away.”

Daichi, a part of you whispers. With the thought of your husband, you tense up, shifting until you’re sitting with your hand pressed to Tanaka’s beating heart.

“Ryunoslav,” you call, looking past his head and into the grain of the wood. “What are we going to do?”

“Mm?”

Your eyes snap to his, a cold sweat tickling your spine. You’ve crossed lines tonight, and not by a little. You’ve run so far past it, you can’t even see it if you turn back.

“He’ll know.”

Tanaka straightens up too, attentive to your words but eyes calm with a lazy smile.

“He won’t.”

“He will. Ryunoslav, I can’t keep this a secret now.”

Beneath your palm, you can feel his heartbeat, slow, while your own pounds in your ears.

“You have to. He’ll kill us.”

You stay silent, mulling over the sincerity in Tanaka’s statement. He says it nonchalantly, like it’s the only fact that matters. You want to tell him that you love him. You don’t. Instead, you lay your head back to his chest to listen to that steady, strong drum beneath his ribs. After a few seconds, you inhale deeply.

“I think Daichi is having an affair.”

“I don’t want to talk about him.” Tanaka says instantly, arms wrapping so tightly around you, as if you’ll vanish if he can’t feel you.

“Ryu-”

“Valentina, please. God knows we never get to be alone like this.” That brash, harsh tone you’re used to finally edges it’s way back into his voice. It should scare you, instead you huddle closer to him while he continues. “Even if he’s having an affair, aren’t we doing the same? Let us just be in this moment.”

Tanaka tucks you beneath his chin, the heartbeat in his jaw syncing with yours against his chest. You murmur a ‘fine’, mind still reeling from the evening's events and the intoxication of his lips.

You’re not sure when you fell asleep, but you know he didn’t at all. Ryunoslav shakes you awake, whispering that you have to go, that Daichi gets back in the late afternoon. When the coat is wrapped around you and your fingers hover over the door, you look at him as he frowns at you.

“We should not see each other for a few days,” he states. Although his voice is calm, his chest vibrates with nerves. You know it’s the last thing he wants. You agree anyway, with a slight nod of your head.

***

NEXT CHAPTER

Thank you for reading.

taglist, ask to be added

@dee-madwriter , @pleasantanathema​​ , @lookslikeleese​​ , @linestrider​​ , @hisoknen​​ , @mindninjax​​ , @whats-her-quirk​​ , @messwriting​

[mrskodzuken]

pairing: Kozume Kenma x f!reader

genre: SOFT. AND. PURE. FLUFF.

wc: 975

warnings: alcohol, some product placement ads (lol; not sponsored by Tanduay and Sprite), slightly suggestive cheverlu (c/o the English translation to APO Hiking Society's "Yakap sa Dilim"), Kenma being so sweet to his s/o, a bit ooc-ish?

note: this fic was inspired by my last week's *coughs* spicy *coughs* interaction with my second visiting (fifth overall smh) Kenma anon here on my blog. Then the song "Yakap sa Dilim", originally sung by APO Hiking Society, came into my mind because it's so damn seggsy tbh *fidget fidget* At first, I thought of doing a bit smutty fic to complement the song but... siiigh, I'm still nowhere as good as by the likes of my other moots who write smut almost on a daily, weekly basis. Plus I have a good, if not great, imagination when it comes to writing fluff, so... ^^;;

another note: that part about Y/N mixing her alcoholic drink with clear soda and experiencing full-blown redness and itchiness from head to toe while drinking was based on my experience drinking alcohol straight away. And no, I'm not always drinking on a regular basis, just whenever there are family get-togethers and like New Year's Eve parties.

another ANOTHER note: this is my first entry for @lumpiang-toge 's Piliin Mo Ang Pilipinas server collab event. Huuuuuuge thank you for beta-ing this @/lumpiang-toge @love-amihan @imo-chan-imagines @kousukii @manjirosday @abuliawrites I LOVE YOU ALL MWAH <3 *headpats*

see also: listen to the original version of "Yakap sa Dilim" by APO Hiking Society here-

[00:45 am]

——— 💙💖

"...and that's all for tonight's streaming! Make sure to follow me on all my social networking sites, they're on the description below! Well then, this has been your favorite gamer cat boy Kodzuken, logging out!"

Kenma then removes his headset and closes his stream, stretching and yawning a bit in his gaming chair, before standing up and heading towards his and your shared (bed)room.

"Y/N~ Y/N, are you still awake? Y/N-" he opens the door to your room, only to find it silently empty.

Hmm... where did she go? Kenma then searches the kitchen. "Y/N?" And the bathroom. "Where are you?"

He taps on his phone and checks his contact list for a possibility of you being online at the moment. And sighs. Nothing.

"Y/N! Y/N-chan, where are you?"

"Kitten, I'm on the back porch!"

Kenma finds you sitting on the porch, chin up, your eyes watching the numerous stars twinkling, shining, across the wide clear night sky, and smiling.

"I just finished my stream earlier and was checking up if you're awake or not but-" He sits in beside you and snuggles a bit but then notices a slight flush in your cheeks, and spies your hands cradling a glass of familiar reddish liquid. Beside you stands a half-empty bottle of Tanduay Ice, its opened bottle cap sitting askew on the lips.

"How long have you been drinking, Y/N? And straight-up drinking a bottle of Tanduay Ice Red Mirage?"

You turn your slightly flushed face at Kenma, a goofy smile escaping your lips, and raise your glass. "Not about half an hour ago, and don't worry about me getting all red and itchy all over my body from too much drinking! I mix it up with some Sprite to lessen the alcohol intake!" You fish out a 2L bottle of Sprite, also half-empty, on the ground, to prove your point.

Kenma sighs exasperatedly and smiles back at you. Lovely and stubborn you, who isn't the type to back down from an argument and stuff.

Shit.

You gently place your drink on the wooden floor and suddenly stand up and walk. "Ah, you want something to drink? I can get you some can of beer if you-!"

You feel the grip on your wrist as he grab your hand before you go inside, and look at him.

"Kenma-"

"Please stay."

Kenma then brings your hand near his face and tenderly kisses your palm, looking you in the eye, the action making you more flushed but not because of alcohol. He smiles at you again.

"I love you, Y/N."

Steam runs off your ears, your face a full-blown tomato face. "I-I-I love you, too, Kenma!"

The former Nekoma high school volleyball setter and now-YouTuber can't help but softly chuckle. Kenma can't really resist teasing and making you blush.

Because he finds it very cute. And endearing.

He hangs his head down a bit. "Sorry... I forgot about our date earlier.”

"Eh? W-why are you saying sorry...? I should have known you'd have a busy day yesterday! Two 4-hour streams, company Zoom meetings, a date with Kuroo-san in the office-"

"-it's a meeting with the Japan Volleyball Association for an upcoming proposal, stop calling it a 'date'!"

Your boyfriend then pulls you closer and wraps his arms around your waist, his head being buried on your chest. You could hear his muffled sigh and voice from within while he speaks.

"I'm such a terrible boyfriend to you, kitten. How can I make it up to you?" While looking at you, pout on his lips, his golden cat orbs a puppy-like glance at your face.

A look that sends your heart aching with cuteness.

"Hmm..." You pull away from Kenma's embrace and grab your phone to scroll and tap on something. A smile creeps across your face as you place your phone back from where you got it earlier.

The first few notes of your favorite song start to play in the background. You offer your hand at a slightly confused Kenma.

"Would the great Kodzuken care to dance with me?"

Hoping that you lay your head on the pillow

Your body, I'll cover like a blanket.

Problems you will forget

As long as we embrace in the dark

He accepts it, grinning, and finds himself swaying his body alongside you, your hands around his neck, his hands perching on your waist.

Don't stop if you feel like you have to cry unexpectedly

Hoping what you feel is relaxation

If you want, we can take a cigarette first

Before we embrace in the dark

"I'm so lucky I have met you, Y/N. I really am~" He places a kiss on your forehead before nuzzling your cheek, his nose wrinkling a bit. "You still smell of Tanduay Ice, kitten. Hope you won't experience an incoming hangover later."

"Kenma!!! I won't, silly! And I'm also lucky that I'm here, cuddling with you, dancing... it makes me happy!" You kiss his cheek and hug him closer.

This is something that we have been waiting for

We're right at this moment embracing in the dark

Oh, the satisfaction from the quick, stolen moments

While we embrace in the dark

"I love you, Y/N..."

"I love you more, Kenma..."

Come on and lie down by me in bed

Let's savor the good times together

To our love that we hope for

While we embrace in the dark

As the song ends, you find yourself yawning, sleepy. He notices this.

Kenma kisses your forehead again, snuggling you at his side. He yawns also. "Maybe we should go to bed now, kitten. It's getting late."

"And we can cuddle while we sleep?"

"Mhmm~ yes, we can! C'mon... but first, let's brush your teeth and get rid of that alcohol smell..."

"Kenma!!!!"

DO NOT REPOST/EDIT WITHOUT PERMISSION. PLAGIARISM IS A CRIME, KIDS. LIKES ESPECIALLY REBLOGS ARE HIGHLY APPRECIATED. ALL WORKS © angrymongol01/kirakirasaku - 2021.

My Masterlist

[dapandapod]

Lambert needs a hug

@permanently-exhausted-bitch I don’t even know if you remember prompting me this for almost over a year ago, but it has finally been written! And finished! And even beta read by the wonderful @jaskierswolf! 

Sorry it took so long and thank you for giving something to write when ideas ran low!

Warning: Lambert is very drunk. And Aiden reads a steamy book. That is about it.  Oh, and swearing, because come on, it’s Lambert.

Please enjoy!

On Ao3 here!

Everything is shit. Shit, shit, shit. The trees are wobbly, the ground seems to be unconvinced of its firmness, and Lambert's own sense of balance seems to be taking a break.

It all comes down to one thing, if one were to think about it:

Lambert is drunk off his ass.

There are of course reasons that Lambert is drunk today. This is not his normal state; certainly not. It’s far too expensive to be drunk on a regular basis, or rather stay drunk, if you are here to mark words. Getting drunk is easy, but the alcohol just burns right out of his system. The curse and the blessing of fast metabolism and poison immunity. Yes, staying drunk takes hard work.

He is not sure where he is going, but he sure as hell is not staying at the keep. It’s barely past noon, the sun is peeking out behind dark heavy clouds. You can still see patches of snow here and there, the ground wet and frozen in all it’s early spring glory. Anger thrums through his veins, no matter where he goes, what he does, it’s always there.

It’s frustrating. He takes a swig at the bottle he brought with him, leaning his head so far back he almost loses his balance.

The gods' damned bottle is empty.

He tosses it carelessly away from him, disgusted with it’s betrayal.

“Lambert?” the bottle asks him. Wait, no, not the bottle. That sounded like the bard Geralt drags with him everywhere. Lamber squints, willing the trees to be still long enough that he can locate the voice.

A very, very tiny version of a cliff juts out in the gently leaning slope. On it, despite snow and ice and slush, sits the bard and Geralt, the first one sending him a confused look, the other a confused frown. What is there to be confused about?

“Jas-...Jaslert?” Lambert asks, and then breaks out in giggles. This is why alcohol is fun, he can make angry giggles. “Jaslert. That’s tha best.. Best thing I evher said.”

“I agree,” Geralt said with a smirk. Bastard.

“What are you up to?” asks the bard, Jas-something, ever pleasant.

“‘M drunk,” Lambert tells him, how is that not obvious?

“Yes, but why?”

Ah, the lovely why.

“Wude,” Lambert mutters, then turns and walks away. He doesn’t want to talk about why, that is so rude of the bard. Here he thought Jaskier (JASKIER! That's it!) had manners.

You drink to forget why you are drinking, why the fuck else?

“I'm betting Aiden. Or Vesemir.”

The forbidden names. Charge.

Lamber twists around, infinitely more graceful than that stupid cat swaggering around up in that fucking keep, and pounces.

Not at all like a cat, thank you very much.

Geralt catches him, interestingly enough, how did he see that coming? They fall back to the stone, which for some reason is pleasantly warm despite the season. Geralt is such a cheat. They wrestle for a while, Lambert baring all of his pretty teeth.When he tries to bite Geralt, it seems that whitehaired pompous arse has had enough of Lambert’s struggles. Thick, stupid arms wrap around him, trapping his own arms uselessly at his sides. Geralt holds him still by pressing Lambert against him. Like he weighs nothing.

So fucking undignified. He strains against the hold, feelin all blood rush to his face in effort to break free, but Jaskier just laughs. He leans forward and pets his head like he is a dog.

“So feisty,” Jaskier chuckles, and scratches behind his ear.

Alright, just because that feels nice it doesn’t mean he is a dog. Right?

“Jus’ because that feel nicies doesn’t mean I'm a dog,” Lambert squeezes out.

“Absolutely,” Jaskier agrees, agreeably, still scratching behind his ear. “Is that why you are angry?”

So what if Lambert relaxes in Geralt's grip? It’s got nothing to do with anything.

“No.”

“So yes. Want to talk about it?” Jaskier asks him, now petting his hair instead. Geralt doesn’t let go, and Lambert totally isn’t happy about that. At all.

Lambert stays silent and lets the petting continue. He is helpless, restrained and tortured. He can endure. Also, the trees seem to be dancing, and it is a bit funny to look at.

“So no. Want me to keep petting you?”

“Tortururer,” Lambert mutters. Close enough.

“So yes. Geralt, did I tell you about that time when-” and Jaskier goes on to completely ignore him. He touches his hair, his ears, pinching his very cold nose, how very dare he do that actually. But Lambert is stuck, can’t fight it, and so the stupid, evil, meanie, tortururer bard keeps doing it.

He is not taking comfort from this; not at all.

They sit there for a long time, enjoying the cold sunlight while it lasts. Jaskier rambles on and Geralt is slowly lowering Lambert towards the stone, but not letting go of him.

“Jaslet? How’s the stone warm?” Lambert asks the both of them.

“Oh, it’s brilliant!��� Jaskier beams, pinching Lambert's face together so that his lips sticks out in a pout. Geralt grumbles somewhere above him, and that usually means that he is embarrassed. Nice.

“The stone was all covered in ice and snow and stuff, and Geralt did this sign thingy with his hands and blasted fire all over it. Such a gentleman.”

Ohohohoo, Geralt is going to hear this. The alcohol is leaving him, damn it all, and the nausea and headache is settling in.

“Well. How about we return to the keep?” Geralt suggests, tightening his grip on Lambert.

“Oh, splendid idea!” Jaskier abandons Lambert's face, clapping his hands together. “We should let the kitty-cat take up the cuddling.”

“What? No!” Lambert protests, legs kicking uselessly as Geralt stands up and throws him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Oh yes!” Jaskier smirks, and how did Lambert ever think this man was agreeable? Evil, meanie bard.

“Evil, meanie bard!” Lambert complains, his headache not getting better at all from being upside down and his nausea being a right pain with Geralt's shoulder in his abdomen.

They don’t care in the least about what Lambert thinks.

Jaskier opens the door to the 'kittycats' room, and Geralt tosses Lambert on the bed where said kittycat currently is reading a book. Aidens knees are fucking hard.

“Cuddle him. He’s sad,” Geralt tells Aiden, and Jaskier smirks behind his back.

“I'm not sad!!” Lambert protests, trying to detangle himself from kittycat limbs.

“Aiden. Cuddle. Now. Or I won’t get you the second volume of the steamy book you are reading,” Jaskier threatens and Aiden gasps.

“You wouldn’t!” And wow, feels nice to be wanted. Lambert makes an attempt to crawl away, he is sure there is some booze in Eskel’s room. He is always hiding the good stuff in the chest under the window.

“Oh no you don’t” Aiden catches him, and it seems it is the second time today Lambert is losing a wrestling match. “I am so getting the next volume. Cuddle me, you prick!”

The ‘why’ Jaskier was asking about before?

This may or may not have been a part of why Lambert was angry. He doesn’t know how to ask for things. It may or may not also be the reason why he is “losing” the match.

Maybe the booze can wait.