#It helps make him more intimidating
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cryptidcalling · 10 months ago
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Chibi Vesper doodles so y’all can see his hat!
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rambles-about-minecraft-ocs · 8 months ago
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one of my favorite things about zedaph is that on a server full of people that find strange and oft-overlooked minecraft mechanics or rare events and then see just how far they can push them in the name of spectacle or efficiency or world-breaking, zed is over here finding these mechanics in order to do the weirdest things he can think of in as entertaining a manner as possible
like i 100% have faith in zedaph's theoretical ability to be just as efficient or spectacular or world-breaking. if he wanted to do that stuff, i trust that he absolutely could. but thats so far from being his priority. instead, hes going to spend around a week of irl time focused entirely on eventually having the good luck to spawn in something insanely rare so that he can convert it into something even rarer, the result of which being something that 99% of the server reacts with complete and utter shock that it even exists in the first place, just because its zany and funny and he wanted to. and i love that
#zedaph#hermitcraft#genuinely i adore the clucky few project im not even done watching the episode and i had to pause and make this post#i saw impulses video first and went ''that HAS to be some sort of datapack or something-''#only to immediately go ''no. no it cant be. because this is zed#and its practically a trademark of his to push the limits of the game as far as possible in the direction least expected#not for the purpose of efficiency or spectacle or intimidation or whatever like some players who push limits#but purely for the purpose of making something so funny you cant help but laugh at whats going on#and maybe being a bit impressed that he ever thought of it in the first place''#at which point i went ''holy shit. since its zed doing this. somehow he ACTUALLY got a villager on a chicken. with no cheats. thats INSANE'#i was relieved when i checked my subscriptions to see what the next video i had to watch was and saw he would be next in line#bc if i had to sit through 19 other hermits videos before i could watch his and find out what the fuck he was doing i would have been so sa#sidenote but i feel like a zed video where he interacts with this many other people all in the same video is so rare#idk i didnt watch season 9 and i know he started collabing a lot more w/ other hermits then#so maybe its not nearly as rare these days#but like the last one that *i* saw where he interacted with this many people at once was towards the end of season 8#when all the people he experimented on earlier in the season came back to experiment on him#and like i would like zeds videos with or without the collabs. but its a lot of fun to see him interact with people#so its very cool to me when he does it with a lot of people all in the same video
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sysig · 1 month ago
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Can I request a pokemon drawing? Was thinking mewtwo but idk whoever whatever!
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Day 11 - Quiet pls
#My art#Requestober#Pokemon#Whismur#MewTwo#I'm pulling out my excuse from a couple years ago - I may have gone overboard but in my defense I really wanted to#Lol#Of course I had to!!! My beloveds!!!!!#Whismur's been on my mind again lately - thinking again of the little doodle of me holding one among others things haha#And I mean if you're going to specify MewTwo who am I to say no <3#So both! Both burple babies! Although Whismur is classified as pink?? Mm???#They're more purple than MewTwo arguably??? He's more grey due to the alien influence - that scrembaby is purple#I really wanted to lean a bit more into MewTwo's catlike traits and have him nosing around lol#Sniff sniff what are you identify yourself#Couldn't swing the posing >:P He's too dignified to lie down completely but how do support himself on those legs!#If not for his tail he'd definitely fall on his face haha#Well I might try again another time - and it's not like I'm DisPleased with how it turned out!#I didn't re-line Everything but I did a lot of it........I actually like lining a lot now........it's fun lol#His little body expression differences were very fun haha especially his tail - an agitated thump in the last one!#MewTwo dearest you're very intimidating to the little speaker just turn down the glare#Being screamed at doesn't help the glower lol#Poor little Whismur haha just not used to MewTwo yet! He's fairly friendly to most Pokemon...now#He'll still probably just make a clone and leave the original be at this point lol#As least that one won't cry at the sight of him! Probably! Maybe! Haha <3
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samarecharm · 6 months ago
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People who really like shuake also seem to write themselves into a corner wrt Akechi and his relationship to Akiras team. Contrary to popular belief, the team, including Haru, does not hate Akechi. At worst, they tolerate him and deal with his attitude. Hes a good teammate and respectable fighter and the team recognizes that at the end of the day, he was a teenager who was manipulated and abused by a man who saw him as disposable. Just about every thief understands this intimately. They have the same mindset wrt adults who take advantage of the people beneath them. Under different circumstances they wouldve been friends. And if u approach it from that angle, it becomes less about Akechi being the sole person who ‘gets’ Akira, and more about the thieves being the only people in the world who ‘get’ Akechi.
When you expand your thoughts to include the thieves as members of his Team and not roadblocks that get in the way of your ideal shipping dynamic, you allow urself to give Akechi and Akira more depth and nuance to their own relationship.
Akira and Akechi are wildcards; both of them struggle with the face they choose to display to the world. Its the first time Akira interacts with someone who is, at a literal, technical level, his ‘equal’. But Akechi is one of many firsts for Akira yeah? Every thief has their bond with Akira thats completely unique and personal. Akechi will never be the person who witnesses Akiras Awakening, hes never the person who watches Akira have his restless nights alone in the attic, and hes never the person who realizes in real time that the teenager hes housing is just Some Kid, not the delinquent hes been warned about. Hes not Ann or Yusuke, or any of the thieves; he doesnt have the time or experience that they have with Akira, and I think its interesting to explore that part of their relationship, shippy or not.
Akechi is someone who is incredibly lonely and self depreciating despite his cockiness and attitude. He has no positive bonds to speak of save for his connection with Sae. To have him see a team that works together and cares for each other, how do you think he would feel? Out of place? Inferior in some way? Angry about how hes been alone for so long in this single minded quest for revenge? Wouldnt that be a point of struggle between the two of them? I think what makes shuake good for me is knowing that Akechi needs alot of time to heal, and the thieves would want to help with that process. They do it bc they care, bc Akira cares, and bc they trust Akiras opinion (and he trusts theirs in return); if Akira feels like Akechi is someone who can be trusted Now after everything thats happened, then the thieves would do their best to help. And how would Akechi feel about that? Angry about the show of pity? That even now, he has no real say in what happens to him? Or begrudgingly grateful that they are cordial with him? Because they do care, he KNOWS they care, they care TOO MUCH actually; but the one thing he values over brawn and wits is honesty- fighting for what you believe in without having to use soft words to justify it.
#chattin#also like. as an aside#my hcs regarding these two is like. they could not date. theyd kill each other lmao#and like TOTALLY by all means i am obsessed w unhealthy dynamics for shipping#let ur boys be toxic. let them be messy and loud and violent. its like crack to me#but just like fandom as a whole; fanon interpretations are prevalent and LOUD#and so trying to interact with it is like pulling teeth#personally. i think too many of them think of Akechi as like. the Rude one of the bunch#when i like to think of Akira as rude and full of himself when its deserved#and man. being able to outwit Akechi makes it Fully deserved#and i like to think Akira would remind him of this when he tries to intimidate or degrade his team#like. i have a short wip i never finished (basic sketches)#of Akira pulling him aside and grilling him#‘youre here because I Want you here. youre here bc i Allow you to be here’#‘if youre going to stoop low and play petty i can do the same. if theres anyone on my team whos a fucking idiot; its you.’#‘dont make me reconsider having you on the team.’#and akechis like okay great does ur dick feel big trying to pull rank on me?#but really hes fuming. hes MAD. like feral dog mad. bc akira is RIGHT. like he is most times as akechi starts to see.#he has enough of a mind to recognize that hes lashing out bc of his own shortcomings; even if he refuses to admit it out loud#its beyond infuriating. its degrading. its a little 😶.#never had to deal w anyone that rivaled his own brawn and wits. and now theres a TEAM of them#just humbling him time and time again. it sucks. he stays bc he cant help himself 😭#he needs to see more…#also#shuake#for blacklisting
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cogneartive · 2 months ago
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visualising the man i have to become
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headfullof-ideas · 2 months ago
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I was gonna respond to @httyd-nerd in the reply section of my last Httyd/The Deep post, but it was getting long so I’m just putting it here where I can further elaborate on my frustrations and dilemma.
Part of writing this crossover is figuring out how characters from opposite shows will react and get along with one another. And to the surprise of who knows who else but absolutely not me, Alpheus has been a bit tricky in figuring this out. This might be a tangent on how I view his character, especially in how I write him, but partly to demonstrate how FRUSTRATED he’s making me.
Alpheus is not my favorite character. He’s not my least favorite, not by far. He’s just not my blorbo like I know he is for others. But he is an interesting character to write entirely because of how layered and flawed he is. He’s the epitome of an unreliable narrator, he thinks fairly high of himself and his own abilities, and has a lot of unresolved issues he refuses to resolve because he’s way too paranoid to get help. This makes for interesting relationships with other characters.
Except I’m really struggling with figuring out how he may get along with Dagur. It doesnt’ help that Dagur in this story, specifically the start, is a mix of his later RTTE counterpart, and his early version. He’s still deranged, but he’s enthusiastically optimistic to the point of coming across as insane too, and a bit softer because he grew up with Heather, and started dragon riding WAY earlier than he did in the show. Dagur and Alpheus are a bit similar to me in that they’re both the slightly mentally unbalanced enemy to the main protagonists, who are redeemed later down the line. Unfortunately, to me, I feel that’s where similarities wind up ending. They’ve got different personalities and goals and ways of going about them. They’ve got different backgrounds, and talents. And in some ways I can actually see them clashing. And it’s mostly because of Alpheus’s own flaws, for me at least.
Alpheus is an interesting character, and the few times I’ve written him he’s always been really fun because of how I dive into his psyche and how he perceives things. He’s a dramatic loser who instigates a rivalry with a thirteen year old, naming the thirteen year old his nemesis, and then loses to said thirteen year old hundreds of times. He’s probably wanted for a few felonies because of all the times he’s hacked the WOA and who knows who else, and might not even exist in the name of the law because we don’t know how long he was with the Guardians. This guy might not even have a birth certificate. Alpheus is an interesting character, and I’ve grown to like working with him…thing is he’s got a bit of a stick up his butt in regard to himself. He’s arrogant about his own intelligence, certainly being very intelligent, running his sub and modifying ARIA with little issues from a relatively young age, and evading all authorities for a very long time. But he’s socially stupid because he was raised by the Guardians, and I don’t think he was ever faced with the challenge of learning something from someone smarter than him, let alone interacting with someone as smart as or smarter than him. I think for the longest time Alpheus was the smartest person in the room, and never had to deal with someone actually challenging his own intellect. This isn’t helped with him not having an idea on how to respectfully talk to other people either.
Connected to that, Alpheus kind of brushes off anyone he doesn’t deem worth his time. His main focus was always finding Lemuria and getting the device (as he never actually learns what it is) to control the Monumentials, and also his somewhat one-sided rivalry with Ant. Ant was the only character I really remember him actually acknowledging. When he first met Fontaine, he just brushed off her attempts at breaking into his sub like she were a tiny, pesky fly, and he never really acknowledged her beyond being a nuisance through the rest of the show. I remember when Kaiko was mad about something (i don’t specifically remember the episode) he just commented ‘Mothers. So emotional.’ Didn’t really acknowledge her. I don’t even really remember any interaction he’s had with Will, which just adds to this. When they’re dealing with the Jellyfish Monumential, he brushes off everything Kaiko says, which can be alluded to spending a few months alone and losing his mind trying to escape, but there were other times he doubted her skills and abilities, specifically her piloting maneuvers when it came to escaping the Jellyfish. Even though, with his stalking tendencies, he had to know she was an accomplished submarine pilot. But he couldn’t do anything to escape, so why should she be able to do anything? Whenever Ant or anyone else opposed what Alpheus said was fact, he always kind of dismissed them, because I think in his mind there was no way they knew better than him. He only ever focused on Ant because he said himself that Ant was worthy of being his nemesis, or something along those lines, i don’t remember the specific words. But to me, he just always brushes off anyone he doesn’t see as worth his time and effort, doesn’t take them as seriously.
Which is where it’s hard for me to figure out his dynamic with Dagur. Dagur is an accomplished warrior, and certainly no idiot. He’s smart in his own right, and proved to be a real problem for Berk and the Riders many times. He was no Hiccup in regard to intelligence, but he’s not stupid. He’s got a bit of a temper, an obsession with being obsessed with everything he does, and doesn’t really give up ever. Man hounded Hiccup for four years to be his brother until Hiccup finally accepted the adoption. But he’s got Deranged in his name, and I just can’t help but think that Alpheus might not think too highly of him. Dagur’s plans are a lot more thought on the fly while following a loose rubric he came up with five minutes before hand, with a lot more brute strength, whereas Alpheus plans with his head and ahead of time. I just can’t help but think that Alpheus wouldn’t immediately respect Dagur, thinking he’s a crazy lunatic who doesn’t think anything through (which isn’t entirely wrong), and isn’t smart enough to understand anything Alpheus says. I think he’d just dismiss anything Dagur says about anything going on, especially when it comes to planning, which would drive Dagur insane, as he is quick to rise with a temper sometimes. I see them clashing at first, because Alpheus is still Alpheus and is obsessed with Ant, except by that point Dagur has claimed Ant as his brother, and he was there first(which now that I’m thinking about it, opens up some interesting potential for Alpheus and Viggo interacting. Viggo is essentially an older, more experienced, and grounded Alpheus after all, who also has prior interaction with Ant). I think it would take Dagur coming up with something that forces Alpheus to acknowledge that no, he’s not actually stupid, for things to change, but where they change I don’t know, because Alpheus is filled with pride and an inability to admit he’s wrong, and Dagur is a proud Berserker, in every aspect.
I do see Dagur getting a kick out of messing with Alpheus, which just pisses Alpheus off.
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radioconstructed · 9 months ago
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// Slow burn radioapple where Al keeps being a menace because that's the best way she knows how to cope with being in crisis, her local Lucifer pushes back bc he shouldn't have to deal with this shit, they keep getting into beef,,, if he's not aware already, he becomes aware that she doesn't get this triggered by anyone else and wonders what the fuck her problem is with him,,
maybe he'll ask her. maybe she'll tell him half. she won't tell him the other half.
maybe he'll figure it out.
#// just thinking as I'm trying to fall asleep. idk if im gonna do an offscreen ship tho idk.#the half of her problem with him she WILL talk about is that he greenlit the extermination (she lived through like 90 and lost friends!!)#he talks to disparagingly of sinners like he's better than everyone else when he's down here too. you're down here too motherfucker.#it took him five months to show up at charlie's project. after CHARLIE invited HIM. charlie may be delusional to Al but at least she's#trying to do SOMETHING for her people! unlike her dad who greenlig a genocide! people don't have to be perfect to deserve not beiny#genocided by a belligerent military power wtf. Al's not a Believer in redemption but she HAS been with Charlie from the beginning#and she has helped A LOT! Regardless of her intentions she's materially helped and invested her time & effort into the hotel! And then#Lucifer WALTZES IN with OPINIONS? and wants to help NOW that its a functional hotel? That's how Al sees it. Like joining a group#project that's mostly done and hijacking it. BITCH! That's HER project! Her + Charlie + Vaggie. And THEN it takes Lucifer ages to show the#fuck up to battle and only for his daughter! So go worry about her don't act like you care about the hotel!! That's how Al feels.#The part she WON'T share? She's intimidated. She's always been. She's aggro to him because she's intimidated.#And she's SCARED. Of being replaced. He can fix up and staff a hotel too. He's more powerful than she is! Everything she has going for her#that makes her Useful as a facility manager? He can do 1000x times over. Charlie doesn't keep Al around for her PERSONALITY!#And NOW? She got her ass handed to her by Adam. She lost a lot of her power. Lucifer kicked Adam's ass. That's HUMILIATING.#(The only saving grace is that her babygal Niffty ended Adam.)#SO YEAH AL is MAD at her local Lucifer for legitimate extermination & hotel stuff but she's also super on edge and easily triggered by him#specifically because she's intimidated and scared and humiliated and grieving her loss of power. So she lashes out.#maybe he'll figure out why.#mun post.
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time-is-restored · 2 years ago
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i have literally nowhere else to put this i apologise for the spam. the absolute best thing to come out of s3 trent is without a doubt the fucking earnestness... like in s1-2 he always came across as a very self-assured kind of guy, who knew how he came off (ie: intimidating) and enjoyed it. but seeing that paired with him being silly + completely relaxing in certain company??? pulling ridiculous faces at vodka + scrunching up his nose when he smiles @ colin + making the most ABSURD 'i really wanna say something right now but i feel like im interrupting' noises ive ever heard in my fucking LIFE??? its like. he is cool as shit and he is self assured AND he can make dumb fucking sherlock holmes jokes and dance ridiculously. its like!!!! he's lame but he's also not bc he's exactly as confident in being lame as he is being cool. do u see the vision. he has killed the part of him that cringes!!!! its just.. that unshakeable self confidence that u see in his fucking swaggers into frame includes all of himself + his different moods and eccentricities and that's just so based to me idk. unironically live ur best life wear the loudest combination of prints and patterns and primary colours uve ever seen in ur life while espousing the virtues of extended museum hours!!! contain multitudes! get silly with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#ted lasso spoilers#combined with james lance's hc abt trent's past its just. like!!#the growth from 'i can't be what you want me to be so im going to be Better than them + tear them down'#-> 'i know my reputation so im going to lean into that + be ruthless + intimidating' ->#'actually fuck this? fuck this! im just gonna be me and if anyone has a problem w then L To Them I'm Actually Living'#also this is just my hcs at this point but like. i do think ted helped a lot w the latter part of this process in so much as. ted embodied#someone who was Visibly weak + vulnerable and had no armour/no sense of self preservation#(the opposite of trent's persona) and made no effort to change anything abt himself to prevent attack. obviously ted has a lot of social +#class advantages that make that less risky for him than it would be for others but like. u get the drift#and i THINK. seeing how without that armour/facade ted was able to be rlly direct + earnest w connecting w ppl#like asking an interviewer 'what do u love?' and rlly genuinely wanting to know the answer#and bc TRENT was specifically in the position of 'i could fucking destroy u rn and u wouldn't put up a fight'#that kind of. shifted his perspective a bit? like. damn what would that say abt me if i wrote a hit piece on this guy rn#i disagree VERY strongly w the idea that trent's more positive character development moments happened ONLY bc of ted (i don't think that's#true for anyone in the show tbh) BUT i think ted's presence at a pivotal point in his life was what helped him confront the fact that#at this stage in his life all his intellectual armour was doing was making him into someone Mean rather than just incisive#like. 'is this a fucking joke' is not cutting journalism. u get me??#and arguably that's a fine and even safe choice to make when ur younger and have no support/reputation backing u up#but after decades? its like man wtf are we doign here if were literally just living preventatively#smth smth i hope i am not just a tumblr blog to u but a blog who is inventing the brain chemistry of a sitcom side character#w each new episode they watch. trent crimm is my best friend irl i know he would have scorching hot takes abt each new season of survivor#and would earnestly heckle the jury and final 3 alike
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johnnyreincarnated · 2 years ago
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its shedding season and he's NOT happy
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crowcryptid · 2 years ago
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worlds most unrecognizable odst helmet
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arytha · 1 year ago
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i've had era and lorne for like two years now...... amazing o_o it doesnt feel like its been that long. i need to draw them again
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beej-hunnicutt · 2 years ago
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H*rry J*mes & Fr*nk S*natra's version of 'My Buddy' C'MON— NEED I SAY MORE???????????????????????
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#yes i am absolutely saying John would like this#a song hed keep to himself.....#(m.iii)#j.d.#also dont laugh at me tagging this with#l/j#sksksksksk its my side blog where i get to be mushy#and i mean technically this makes sense for them in the main sense of the song and but also ♡#okay cause i dont think ppl will be seeing this again allow me to continue rambling#this version came out in '39!! (john would only have been 6!!) (i think hes born '33) so he definitely could have stumbled into this#while in high school or whatever and as i think he would be quite a fan of fs he would definitely pick up the record#and just him laying in his bed maybe one day; skipping his church responsibilities and just quietly listening#its from a ww song but of course this resonates with john in such a different degree#hes a kid hearing this intimidate moment sung by another man for anothet man; even if he knows its not suppose to be romantic#hes just in shock...in awe...as he keeps listening and listening in some ways he feels guilty#hes been raised a religious boy....this isnt right especially hes taking a WAR song and making it abt this#b4 anyone comes home he tucked it away safely away from prying eyes#getting ready to explain to his mom why hes home; swim ran late; he decided to help out; yada yada#also i think this would have happened when stuff has already came up before making it that much more scary but that much more fulfilling#and special#i think john is a very interesting character and i truly appreciate how emotional he is and i think you can just do a lot with him#idk i rlly hold close to me this hc bc i rlly like it & see it for john and so much comes with it especially growing up in this time period#so yeah a lot of him in his head i feel as home wasnt too good hed have his mother but not with stuff like this#as i feel shed be far too religious#ummmmm okay i think i got this out of my system#oh one thing like yes hes over emotional but also my god would he still have been a little asshole while growing up and have that#like snarkiness to him but ohmygod thsts still so painfully john /affectionate
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nezuscribe · 22 days ago
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𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
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pairing: gojo x fem!reader
summary: gojo satoru was the most notorious man across the land. he was the strongest soldier the north had ever produced, the most brilliant of minds, and somebody who slept his way through the noble ranks. his parents set him up in a marriage agreement with you, hoping that a tie with a ring would help save his image. you know gojo never wanted this, and you try to act as if that was normal. but soon, without you or even him realizing it, he comes to the conclusion that while he never wanted this marriage - he's beginning to want you.
warnings: 18+ mdni: arranged marriage, angst, slight no comfort, gojo is emotionally constipated for a bit, heavy making out, eating out (fem! receiving), fingering, (naoya)
word count: 19.7k (sorry)
note: inspired by this drabble. i'm so happy this behemoth of a fic is done!! art credit: _3aem
jjk masterlist + series masterlist
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Gojo Satoru was the most powerful man alive. 
Not only physically, though some people chalked him up to being half god, but his name held even more control. The Gojo family of the North was as old as the gods themselves, and they’ve been making sure it’s been kept that way. They owned so much land that you would walk to the ends of the earth and circle back around and it would probably still be theirs. They had armies of unfathomable sizes under their command, so much riches that they could probably buy an entire nation and still have plenty to spend. 
His presence was just as large as his name created him to be. Any ball he went to, all eyes would fall on him. On the battlefield, men feared to see the flash of white hair, knowing that his strength was unbridled. 
And his physical beauty? Most people assumed he was blessed by the gods himself. Gojo had a certain look that just made your knees weak, your heart palpitate, and your cheeks heated up. The handful of times you’ve seen him from afar you’ve been able to understand why all the girls (and some of the guys) yearned for his attention. His eyes were a piercing blue as if somebody had held a mirror to the sky when creating them. His hair had grown whiter with the years, as white as the snow that sunk deep into the grounds of the north. Gojo had the build of a soldier, and he towered over most people. His bulky build was intimidating, but you heard some girls whisper behind their hands about how he must look underneath all those ceremonial garments. 
The lord of the North was power itself. 
Which would make you, by martial association, the North's most powerful lady.
And for somebody who grew up with the same respect as a stable boy, it was all too much too soon. 
And yes, while on paper you still had your father's last name and legacy tied to it, you weren’t really a daughter to your parents. Your mother, though you had to call her by her name whenever you weren’t in public, seeing how she wasn’t really your mother, made sure it was kept that way. Your other three half-sisters should have been in your spot, either one of them more true to the family name than you. But seeing how they’re already married, you were the final resort. 
Gojo Satoru, though you’ve seen him countless times (something common because of how close in ranks your families were), had only acknowledged you a couple of times. You didn’t care much, never did, because that's what you were used to. After all, it was a common fact that you were what they nicknamed “the bastard daughter” of the West.
But it didn’t seem to matter much to his parents, as they offered their son up to you in a marriage arrangement. 
And who were you to turn that down? 
They, his parents, assured you that their son was looking forward to this union. He was the one to offer it, they said, which you were skeptical of but weren’t stupid enough to question. You knew how much Gojo Satoru was tarnishing their reputation with his promiscuous ways, but as long as he was okay with this arrangement you couldn’t find any part of you that would disagree with it. 
After all, you knew that this marriage wasn’t out of love, fascination, or even a mutual understanding, but because of the strength your own family (more so your father) held, and how you were the only feasible option for a bride. 
So, after weeks of rocking back and forth on agreements, paperwork, dress rehearsals, and grueling dancing lessons (and still no sight of the man himself), you found yourself standing at the end of the aisle, your arm linked around your fathers as a large smile plasters itself on your face. 
Ever since you were young you had convinced yourself that the only man who would want to taint his name enough to marry you would have to be either a troll or an ogre, so that fact that your future spouse was human was better than anything you could have asked for. 
And you’re not daft. As your heart hammered loudly against the limited space of your chest, waiting for your cue to start walking, you reminded yourself that this was just a mutual agreement. It’s hard for people at your level to marry for love, but even then, you can’t help but hope that you can make a decent friendship out of this. 
You glanced at your father next to you, catching his eyes as he nodded once, staring ahead of him into the small crowd of just your two families, and patted your arm. 
You still remember the music playing, the instruments harmonizing together as you took a tentative step forward, feeling warm under the eyes of people you didn’t know, but you kept reminding yourself that this was the best thing that could’ve happened to you. Either you died as an old maid in the little room you had near the kitchens at your old home or got married to some warlord who wanted an entire village as family. 
The orchids that surrounded the venue still infiltrate your nose as you think about it, the way the silk of your dress felt against your skin that had been scrubbed raw earlier that morning. 
And there you saw him, standing at the end of the aisle. At that moment you realized how much of a mistake this was,
Because the man that stood there, the man who you were about to marry, seemed like he’d rather be dead than be your husband. 
You blink out of your trance, sitting up straighter in your seat as you mindlessly stop tearing up pieces of your bread, rubbing your fingers together to get rid of the remnants of flour. 
The dining hall was huge, far bigger than the one back home. Though you rarely ate there, you could still remember it, and it definitely wasn’t as big as this. Yet, despite its size, you felt like you were a little grain of rice in its vastness. 
The Gojo estate itself was humongous. His parents resided in a smaller house near the ocean now that you’ve moved in, but you would bet that the word humble they used to describe it was anything but humbling. You’ve been here for weeks and yet you feel like you’ve only discovered half of what this place has to offer.
There were guards at every corner, but at this point, you’re convinced they're just for decoration. If your husband is as decorated a warrior as they say he is, he could protect this entire estate with no help necessary. 
You stare at your plate, at the array of food prepared just for you, different sorts of cured meats, loaves of bread, cheeses, fruits, and juices from all over, and still, you feel no hunger. 
Months ago you’d be ecstatic to see how much your life has changed. You get new clothes that fit you, food whenever you desire, people at your beck and call. Your room is no longer that cramped space you’d been given to hide you away from the rest of your family, but twice the size of your father's old bedroom. You wake up earlier and sleep later, do whatever you want, but none of it feels deserved.
The only thing you can bring yourself to think about is how the last time you saw your husband was the night of the wedding. The look on his face when you made your empty vows to one another, his faint lingering kiss on your cheek. You can blink your eyes and still see the way he left, his jaw clenched as he ignored the calls from his parents. How, even here, rumors seemed to follow you. 
Safe to say, you spent your meals alone. 
Not only that, but your rooms were entirely separate as well. You were told that you had to consummate the night of your marriage, but from what you’ve heard, your husband sleeps in an entirely different wing of the estate, with walls and corridors between the two of you. 
You tried taking your mind off of things, pretending as if this was normal. 
Most days you’d walk around, trying to familiarize yourself with the layout of the grounds. You’d walk the gardens a couple times each week, try to memorize the way back to different places, and stay in the library the other half of the time. 
A part of you was happy to at least be away from that miserable home, but it felt like swapping one prison for a slightly better one. Your maids were kind, of course, but you didn’t know anybody here. They treat you like a lady of noble ranking, as expected from being the wife of the Lord in the North, but you’d rather be given an apron and start working around instead of this mind-numbing boredom of just sitting around. 
You stare at your plate, chewing on a grape slowly. 
Looking up you see the sun filtering in through the large windows, illuminating the long table that sits like an empty grave. Clicking your tongue you pick up another grape, slumping in your seat as you look up. 
This is just the way things will be.
“Alina?”
You call out from your vanity, staring at your maid as she’s picking out different earrings for you to pick from for dinner. 
It’s a couple of days later, and still no word from Gojo. But that doesn’t mean that you haven’t stopped for a single second to not think about your supposed husband. 
You try not to care, pretend that you’re lucky that he’s not bothering you or going out of his way to remind you of this unfortunate situation, but above anything you just feel alone. 
The maid looks up, a curl falling from her tight bun as she smiles at you in the mirror. 
“Yes, my lady?” She stands up straighter, flattening out the wrinkles from her apron tied around her waist as she begins walking towards you with the jewelry. 
“Is this…is this normal?” You crane your neck around to look at the different pairs she’s holding up, nudging your head to the red ones that shine bright, and watch as she sets them down on your desk, resting her hand on your hip as she stares at you quizzically. 
“What do you mean?” She asks as you begin taking your earrings off, putting the new ones on yourself. In the beginning, she protested, saying that a woman of your caliber shouldn’t have to do such measly tasks. But the more you protested, she eventually gave up. 
“Do husbands and wives usually sleep separately?” you say, feeling your chest contract in embarrassment at the stupidness of your question. 
You watch as she swallows thickly, avoiding eye contact as she sets on fixing some parts of your hair. 
Staring patiently through the vanity mirror as you watch her work, Alina wets her lips, her eyes downcast as if not wanting to answer. 
“Was there somebody else he preferred to marry?” You decide to ask, twisting that knife that you knew was lodged in her side, one that was stopping her from talking, and watch as her eyes widen slightly in shock. 
“If you don’t answer I’m just going to keep asking more uncomfortable questions,” you warn and Alina snorts softly, shoving your shoulder a little bit as you crack a smile. 
She moves around, picking up a necklace, and begins clasping it behind your neck. 
“I…I don’t know. He’s always been pretty secretive and,” she looks at you briefly, “Selective. I don’t mean to speak ill of my lord but it would be stupid not to acknowledge his old ways. But we never heard of a specific girl.”
Alina places a gentle hand on your shoulder, a sad smile on her face. 
“You’re lucky my lady,” she says, her voice hushed, “Most wives don’t have the freedom to say their husbands don’t care what they do. Had you married that Zenin, you’d be pregnant by now.”
You shudder out a breath, nodding once more. 
“I’ll see you after dinner, my lady,” she says, moving out of the way as you stare quietly at the floor before leaving silently. 
—-
Tonight for dinner the cooks made you a wide array of different dishes, all from the Northern shore. There are different types of fish, each cooked in various ways. It looks delectable, a feast fit for a king. 
You feel awful, though, seeing that you can’t eat any of it. 
The last time you had fish your face swelled up and couldn’t breathe properly, so that family physician told you to steer away from it. But you’re here now, and it somehow slipped your mind to ever mention this little fact to them, so you’re awkwardly poking around some of the vegetables under the fish, looking for something to eat. 
You pile some potatoes and carrots on your plate, scraping off any bits of fish on them as you hold this wasn’t your last meal. 
The only sound that fills the room is your fork and knife sometimes hitting the porcelain plate, and you look up every now and then as you chew, looking at the paintings on the wall. 
You’re so focused on a portrait of an old man that you don’t even notice the figure standing at the entrance of the dining hall, not until you hear a muted curse. 
You look up instantly, your fork and knife dropping to the plate as you stare at the man in front of you, eyes wide at the sight of your husband. 
He stands there, blinking slowly as you stare back. 
You could swear time has never moved so slowly before. 
You can hear him mutter a quiet shit under his breath, not knowing if he should make this worse by turning around and leaving or if he should join you. 
He’s wearing a simple tunic, his face a little flushed, hairline beaded with sweat. Did he just come out of training? He must often do that, you decide, seeing how he must’ve felt comfortable enough walking in here without any clothing of import. 
His eyes seem to track your little movements; the way your chest rises and falls in a slow movement, the way your fingers have frozen in mid-air, lips slightly parting. Your eyes dart around the room, everybody seeming to have tensed up.
You open your mouth to say something, anything, but you’ve never been so moved to silence. It seemed as if years of learned vocabulary slipped your mind within an instant, and no matter how hard you tried, nothing was coming back.
Gojo looks behind his shoulder, at the large double doors he entered through, deep in thought. This would be the first time the two of you had seen each other in weeks, and his tirade of avoiding you has come to an end. It looks like an entire battle is being fought in his mind, and you don’t know what to do.
Suddenly, you watch as he shakes his head, deciding to give in and join you for dinner. 
The seconds go by like hours as he walks up to the seat at the other end of the table, staring at his seat for a brief second before he pushes it out and sits there. 
You don’t know what to do. 
Servants and maids quickly swarm the room, setting up his plate, cutlery, food, and drinks. It was all so hectic and rushed, but you were glad that it offered some sort of noise in the drowning silence.
A part of you wants to say something about the fish but you know this isn’t the right time. 
In the flurry of movements you allow yourself to discretely look at him a little better, seeing how the last time you saw him was so brief and hurried. 
The man radiates a different sort of aura you’ve never experienced before. While your father was one of the most powerful men in the West, Gojo was the strongest throughout the majority of the North and East. His frame took up the entire chair, his muscular shoulders and arms visible even through the loose fabric that was draped over him. You feel a little disappointed, knowing that if you were a different girl you’d probably be able to enjoy all of this. 
You try to make yourself seem indifferent, moving some of the vegetables in your plate around, but secretly just trying to shovel them down as fast as humanly possible to get out of this thick atmosphere. 
One of the men who was setting up some of the plates in front of Gojo takes notice of this, a smile overtaking his face as you briefly look up from your plate, startled to see the man walking closer to you.
“My lady, I’m so happy to see you enjoying our Northern delicacy!” He claps his hands together as you stare at him with wide eyes, your mouth still full of potatoes as you try chewing faster to get it all down before he gets closer to you. 
His eyes wrinkle around the edges, his graying mustache trimmed ever so carefully, and you can tell he’s trying to loosen up the tension, but you stare in abject horror as he stands at your foot of the table. 
“Would you like some more?” He motions to the fish that lay untouched in front of you, and you glance over to Gojo, hoping that maybe he is focused on his meal, only for your heart to sink at the fact that he is staring at you. 
“...y-yes,” you croak out, wiping some of the carrot remnants from the corners of your lips as you give him a wobbly smile, “It’s alright, I can serve myself,” you exclaim, trying to thwart him off as he quickly waves this aside, shaking his head as he grabs the tray, beginning to portion some hefty pieces of fish onto your plate.
You don’t have the heart to tell this jolly man that this amount of fish would kill you within an instant, or even that he was wasting this all on you, so you just sit there, giving him a tight-lipped smile as you try not to breathe it in too much. 
“Is that enough, my lady?” He asks, setting the tray down as you look at your plate now full of different sorts of sea creatures you swallow slowly, looking back up at him as you give a wobbly smile. 
“This is great,” you muster up and watch as an even larger smile takes over his face, and you feel awful for it, “Thank you so much,” you tell him, watching as he bows lowly, excusing himself as he, and the other servants, leave the room,
Leaving you and Gojo alone. 
You’re grateful that he’s already dug into his meal, not looking at a struggling you that’s moving the fish around with your fork as you try to find the last bits of vegetables you had saved up for yourself. 
The smell itself is enough to make your stomach turn, and you wince, reaching for your cup of wine to wash some of the nausea down.
“You have very good wine,” you say suddenly, against your will, and have an out-of-body experience as you realize what you just did. 
Gojo looks up from his plate, a little startled as he looks at you and the goblet in your hand, his white brows furrowed. 
He nods once, not saying anything, and you feel the strange need to continue, somehow enjoying the feeling of stabbing yourself in the foot.
“Our wine back home tasted like cow piss,” your eyes widened at your slip of crass language, “Er - not piss, um, urine…?” You wince even more, feeling as if a ghost with awful intentions had taken control over your body, “Not that I’ve had cow piss - urine!” You correct yourself, “But I imagine that if I had…that, um, it would taste like o-our wine back home...”
He’s staring at you, unblinking, and you smile awkwardly, raising the cup to him as a sort of cheers gesture. 
You count twenty seconds of silence in your head as you set the cup down, playing with your fork as you glance back up at him. Gojo looks as if he is regretting his decision to stay, his fingers tapping on his knife in a hurried sort of way. 
“I don’t really like wine,” you continue, feeling like the only thing that could stop you now was if somebody were to bludgeon you to death, “I like juice more. Oh, well, but I guess…wine is juice…?” you mutter to yourself, contradicting your own words mid-sentence, “Back home we had this mulberry juice and it tasted nice. Kind of like your wine,” he’s not even looking at you and so your words die, quieting down as you sink back into your seat, hoping it could eat you entirely. 
“Do you like wine?” You ask, tilting your head to the side, smiling faintly, awkwardly, “Or juice? Or… mulberries…?” 
He shakes his head, still not staring at you. 
“Did you have a good-”
“I prefer eating in silence.” Gojo finally said, raising his head slightly as he stared directly at you, watching as your mouth clamped shut. 
Your smile grows small, eyes falling to the table to hide the embarrassment in them. You give him a brief nod, mumbling a quiet apology under your breath as you begin moving some pieces of carrot around on your plate. 
You can hear the clinking of his utensils against his plate, wishing you could somehow fit an entire fish down your esophagus to escape this moment. 
You give it a couple of seconds, counting the groves in the wood of the table, and rise, stomach empty, heart churning as you finally excuse yourself. 
It only takes you minutes to find your room, quicker than last night, and allow yourself to sink against your bed, rubbing your skin raw of the rouge Alina had applied an hour earlier. 
—-
You don’t tell anybody of the awful encounter with the man that’s legally your husband, but you’re sure that those there to observe have already begun talking about it. You try to pretend nothing happened, but Alina could pick up on your closed-off demeanor that night, her hands gentler than usual when helping you take off your garments, her eyes filled with concern. 
“How was dinner, my lady?” She asked, staring at you as you waved off her worries, mustering up a lame excuse of a smile as you took off your silk shrug, avoiding any sort of eye contact as you slipped into your nightly garments. 
“It was good,” your words are void of emotion, “I had fish.” 
The following days are empty of any sight of your husband, but you’ve grown to find that normal. It doesn’t help that you can’t stop thinking about how idiotic you acted, your big mouth never knowing when to stop, tossing and turning in your bed at your excuse of an interaction. 
You continue with your old routine of walking around the estate, sometimes trying to track down Alina and your other maids, seeing if maybe they had some free time to spend with you. You know there’s a town nearby, the girls often talk about how they go there sometimes at night, but you’re too afraid of going out alone, not used to that sort of thing. 
Sometimes you sit out near the fields with a book, twisting the ring that’s searing into your finger, mindlessly taking in the words on the page. Other days you walk around the gardens, picking out some flowers for the vase in your room. On the days when you’re feeling really adventurous, you’d go near the east wing, where you’ve heard Gojo’s room is, and look at what sort of things lie there. But most times you chicken out, going back near your side just as quickly as you went.
You never see him at dinner again, knowing he wasn’t about to put himself through that torture again, so you go back to eating in silence, sometimes pretending that the chairs were full of people and that you were in one of those balls you longed to go to as a kid.
They seem to keep bringing fish out for you, and it’s in so many days deep that you’re in this sort of limbo where you can’t tell them you’re deathly allergic to it without feeling awful for all the work they’ve put in just to realize it’s gone to waste, so those nights, tonight, for example, you try finding as many vegetables as you can. 
The roasted asparagus and beets are lovely, but there was only so much of it. And you find yourself getting a little bit sick of it too, your stomach-churning as you try to chug as much water as you can to get rid of the dirt after-taste that the beets have.
You thank the cooks and the servants as you leave for the night, your stomach still relatively empty as you get to your room, telling Alina to leave early for the night as you get ready for bed by yourself, wanting to be with yourself just for a little bit. 
You lay on your bed, staring emptily at the ceiling, one hand on your stomach as if gurgling, still hungry for more. You try to sleep, trying to pretend like you were at your old home, those nights when this would be normal, but it’s no use. You’ve been too spoiled at the Gojo estate, and no matter how much you try to ignore the pang of hunger, it continues to bite you back. 
So you find yourself twisting off of the warm comfort of your bed, sitting in silence as you contemplate what you’re about to do, but give in, lighting a candle as you slide into some slippers, leaving your room as you try to find your way down to the kitchens. 
Thankfully, it’s well into the night when everybody is asleep, so this embarrassing walk of shame is only seen by the guards on duty. You walk down the testing staircase, careful to look around the corners for anybody there, but you’re alone. 
You make your way to the kitchens, not hard to find seeing that they’re near the dining hall, and you peep your head inside, a sigh of relief escaping your lips to find that it’s completely deserted. 
At your old home, your room was behind the kitchens. You grew up in a small room, nearly the size of a broom cupboard, but you made do with what you had. One benefit of this situation was that you were raised by the smell of different sorts of food, by people who specialized in the art of cooking. You knew how to make meals that nobody else in your family could even imagine, which you’re grateful for right now as you fumble around the kitchen, trying to find where they put different ingredients. 
You rummage through the cupboards, finding some eggs, bread, cheeses, and seasonings. You’re able to find the pots and pans a few feet away and start assembling everything for a little omelet.  
In your hurry of trying to be quiet and careful, you somehow manage to miss the large shadow figure that’s standing near the doorway, observing you. 
You crack the eggs into a bowl, beating them together with a fork you found, too tired to look for an actual whisk, turning around to throw the eggshells away when a cry of surprise escapes your lips. 
“Oh!” Your heart nearly falls right out of your ribcage, your hands flying to your chest as you find yourself staring at him, cheeks heating the way they seem to do whenever you’re looking at your husband. 
His blue eyes are tracking you, watching what you do, brows furrowed slightly as the two of you can’t do anything but stare at each other. 
“I…” You can’t find anything to say, looking at him and then behind your shoulder, to the things you have found, and swallow thickly, wetting your lips as you straighten your back up, suddenly aware of just how flimsy and bedroom-worthy your outfit is.
You can only stare at the ways his arms are crossed over his chest, biceps bulging, and lips pressed into a thin line. It seems like he wasn’t planning on seeing you here, yet another moment in which he’s probably going to regret somehow finding you in such a large estate.
“I’m making an omelet,” you finally say, your words falling like a whisper from your lips as you point to the eggshells now discarded in the trash, “I tried to be quiet…” you shake your head, eyes dropping from his heavy gaze for a second as you glance back up at him, lips upturned in an apologetic smile, “...sorry.” 
Gojo doesn’t say much, you’ve noticed that, but now you’re wondering if he has some sort of impediment that stops him from speaking to specific people. 
His chest rises briefly as he inhales, his white hair a little tussled as if he were sleeping. It doesn’t make sense why he’d be awoken, though. The kitchens are a far walk from the east wing…?
“I wasn’t asleep,” he finally says as if reading your mind, his voice deep as you feel it rattle your bones.
You nod once, not knowing what to do with the information. 
“Well…um,” you fidget with your fingers, “good, that’s good.” You nod once, as if that was all you were going to say, and look at the slight wrinkles in his clothes, crossing your arms over your chest, feeling naked with the way you’re not wearing any undergarments under your little nightly dress. 
“I’ll call for a cook,” Gojo murmurs, looking you up and down one final time as he turns to leave, seemingly done with this conversation. 
You sputter, shaking your head as you watch him turn to look at you through a confused stare. 
“No! Sorry…no, no need,” you say quickly, taking one step forward as if to stop him, “Please, it’s alright. I can cook myself,” you motion once more to your eggs and little station, noting the way he’s looking at you strangely, and so you feel the need to continue talking, perhaps one of your worst flaws.
Gojo looks at you finally, his fingers tapping on his arm. 
You notice that he’s not wearing his wedding ring, your chest filling with a strange feeling as you try to hide your ring-clad finger. “Do you not like their cooking?” He asks, and it takes a second for you to blink out of your stupor, a weird sensation in your throat as you shake your head slowly, trying to pull your eyes away from his hand. 
“I do,” you assure him, the words falling thickly from your lips, a lump in your chest, “I just feel bad waking them up right now,” you shrug as if you weren’t feeling any of these strange emotions, “And as I said, I can cook…so…” 
He nods, seemingly not believing you, not picking up on the storm that happening inside your head at the fact that he’s not wearing his wedding ring. You have to remind yourself that this isn’t an actual marriage, the ring was only for show. 
“Did you not eat dinner?” He continues, pressing, and your eyes widen slightly. 
You’ve always been terrible at lying, never able to do so. Even when your father's wife continued to drill you on who ate the candies from a party when you were younger, showing her your chocolate-stained fingers that you had hidden behind your back, not even a minute into the interrogation. 
“I did,” you say slowly, rubbing up and down your arms to warm them up from the chill breeze that seems to have picked up from the open windows, “The beets and asparagus were very nice,” you agree, not knowing what else to say without blowing this weird secret you’ve been holding onto. 
His brow raised slightly, lips pursing slightly. 
“And the fish?” 
You swallow once again, fidgeting with the fabric of your slip, your hands, your ring, and you don’t notice the way his eyes fall to the gold on your finger, darting back to your face when he notices you staring at him. 
“I…” you feel your face heating up beyond human measures, laughing awkwardly as you tug at your necklace chain, wishing that you hadn’t made that stupid decision to leave your comfortable bed, should’ve listened to your gut instead of your stomach, cursing your past self for being so rash, “I, um, I can’t…eat…fish.” 
Gojo’s stoic face, so sure and confident, seems to falter for a brief second.
His arms tighten over his chest. 
“...what?” He eventually asks after a couple of seconds of mind-bending silence, his head tipping in utter confusion as you sway from side to side on your feet, chewing your lips raw as you wish the ground could open up and never spit you back out. 
“The fish always looks great, don’t get me wrong,” you say quickly as if that’s going to do anything, “But I can’t eat fish. Otherwise I’ll swell right up and um, die…probably,” you wince at how bad you are at talking to people, your husband especially.
He lets out a little puff of air that sounds like a shocked scoff, eyes falling to the floor as he shakes his head, not understanding what you are saying. 
“But they’ve been cooking fish almost…four times a week?” 
You nod, smiling awkwardly, looking at the painting of a fish on the wall as you look back at him. 
“They have,” you affirm, leaning against a counter as he stays frozen in his spot at the door. 
“And you…you can’t have fish?” Gojo questions incredulously. 
“I’ll swell right up,” you repeat with a little smile that he doesn’t mirror, clearly not a man of humor, and you drop your hands to your side, “...kind of like a pufferfish.” You add quietly, looking at the ground as you say it. 
He coughs, his hand covering his mouth as you glance up at him, only to see him trying to hide the shocked laugh that had escaped him.
“Why didn’t you tell them?” He finally continues, and you hate the way all your hard work of just saying quiet isn’t working and is in fact, coming back to bite you in the ass. 
You shrug once more, shoving a grain of rice that was on the floor with the tip of your shoe.
“The first time it happened I figured I’d just tell them next time, but then that man kept on giving me more fish so I felt bad and I just never said anything.” 
Gojo stares at you, his eyes squinting together as if he were figuring out an enigma, a war strategy that even his best generals couldn’t get a grasp of. 
You look away, feeling like a fire was being lit under your skin. 
“Alright,” you say, clapping your hands together as your stomach grumbles once again, reminding you that it is still in desperate need of food, “I’ll be done soon. And I’ll clean up,” you promise, but you doubt he even cares as you begin to inch away from him. 
You watch as a strand of hair falls into his face, watch as he goes to move, never breaking his eye contact with you, until he looks behind you at the eggs and bread, and then to the window behind you, the moon as bright as ever.
He nods a final time, looking over you a final time before he exits. 
You make sure he’s far gone, letting out a heavy breath as you hold yourself up by the table, eyes wide at the fact that you had spoken more than two words to the man who seemed to despise your entire existence. 
You go back to your eggs, whisking them in silence as your mind reels. 
Gojo is there, for dinner, the following night. 
You enter the dining room to see him at the end of the table, already eating, and glances up briefly when he sees you walk in. 
Trying to hide the shock on your face you quickly look away, finding the way to your side of the table as you look around to see what they’ve given you tonight. A sigh of fleeting relief escapes your lips at the lack of fish, glad you’ll be going to sleep full of food tonight. 
You serve yourself, piling roasted meats and potatoes onto your plate as you fill your cup with water, not trusting wine after the last time you had it in his presence, and pretend that everything is normal as you pick up your knife and fork. 
His words rang in your mind from the last time, the fact that he ate in silence, so you forced yourself to clam up, knowing that it was probably from the best and save you from any more mortification. 
Your eyes fleet up now and then, grateful that he’s never looking up when you do, and give yourself some time to really take him in. Maybe in another universe where everything was normal, this could’ve just been another regular thing, and you try pretending that it is.
He’s probably only here because of a timing issue, you tell yourself, maybe this was the only time in the middle of training, state affairs, or other things that he was able to have dinner tonight. Yes, yes, that has to be it. 
You look back down at your plate, chewing as quietly as possible, missing the way he lifted his head to look up at you. 
Dinner with Gojo becomes a strange weekly occurrence.
The two of you eat in silence a couple of times a week, and every time it happens you’re so sure it’s going to be the last. 
On one of the nights you find yourself accompanied by the man you decide that the silence is more choking than whatever it is you find yourself saying. 
“Have you been notified about this…gathering in a couple of weeks?” 
This gathering was something you were told about that morning by Alina. One of the smaller families allied to the North, the Tokoshi’s, had invited you and your husband to join. 
“Yes,” Gojo says, and you’re a little surprised that he didn’t just give you a faint nod, “It shouldn’t be too big.” 
He cuts off a piece of his lamb, dipping it in some of the gravy as he glances up at you. 
You try to hide your excitement, not only from the fact that he’s spoken to you but also from the fact that this was an actual ball you would be able to go to. You knew that marrying him meant attending more of these sorts of events, but seeing how this was your first one, it was hard to not act a little giddy. 
“You have a lovely library,” you speak after carefully chewing through some of your food, your pointer finger resting on your fork as your legs crossed. 
Gojo glances up at you, those mesmerizing blue eyes finding yours from across the long table. 
“At my old home,” you pause briefly, wondering how he feels when you refer to his estate as your other home, “I wasn’t allowed to go into our library unless my tutors asked to have some of our sessions there. So I just wanted to say thank you for letting me - um, go there,” your words quiet down at the end, looking at the roasted pig in front of you momentarily as you wonder what you were even trying to get. 
He takes a sip of his wine. 
“The grounds are as much mine as they are yours,” he says, but his words sound rehearsed as if he were told to say this. 
“Even the east wing?” 
You regretted it the moment you asked it. 
Shit. 
Gojo opens his mouth and then shuts it. You chew on the inside of your cheek, waiting for him to speak, to say something, anything, but it reverts to that same silence that floods your senses and makes you aware of every other sound in the room.
Your burst of what you attempted at comedy seemed to keep coming back instantly in your face, a form of punishment for somebody who never knew how to make uncomfortable situations better.
Suddenly, all of your appetite is lost. Stupid, stupid, stupid, you can only chide yourself, the food in front of you, no matter how good it looked, felt like it would taste like ash on your tongue. You kept feeding this burning fire that was your marriage, expecting your hay-like words to act like water.
There’s a thick tension in the room, and you look around, blinking slowly as you fidget with your fingers. 
You try to go back to eating. 
You were wrong,
That initial silence was better. 
—-
That night you found yourself back in the kitchens. 
You’re wiping at your cheeks, hoping that the therapeutic motions of baking can help alleviate some of your many turmoils. 
When you were younger, you were used to silence. People normally avoided you, and those who didn’t weren’t ever your age. The cooks at your old estate were kind, but they were usually too busy to entertain a little girl. You would usually help the maids out with their washing and folding, rather doing something than nothing. You would listen in on their gossip and stories, always happy to be included. 
You assumed that it would be the same here. 
But the maids assured you that a lady of such high rank shouldn’t be meddling in such lowly tasks, and the cooks here were cooking for such a larger number of people that you knew you couldn’t bother them the way you used to. 
So you find yourself with a lot to say but nobody to say it to. The jokes and ideas that pop into your head fall flat because the old ladies who helped clean the bedsheets and used to laugh hearing them are no longer here. In those moments you’re with Alina or your other maids are sparse, and so you sometimes imagine that if you speak more when Gojo is around, he might warm up to you. 
You also had to remind yourself that your track record with men wasn’t the best either. Those fleeting crushes on some of the other boys who you’d see at balls always ended with them scurrying away from you as if you were the plague. The only other marriage offer you’d gotten was from a man who had struggled with finding a woman who could keep up with his awful ways. So the fact that Gojo Satoru, the most well-known man in the realm, didn’t want much to do with you wasn’t shocking. 
And Alina was right. A lot of wives aren’t as lucky to say their husbands don’t care, but you wondered how it would’ve been if he did. You exclaimed to her a couple of nights ago that you should’ve just married Naoya, but deep inside you knew that’s not what you wanted. A part of you knew ever since you agreed to this arrangement that you wouldn’t be getting an actual husband out of it. 
You sniffle, your eyes blurry. You don’t like crying in front of people, and so you allow yourself to do so in the pale moonlight of the kitchen, the only sound other than your ragged breathing being the repeated sound of flour falling softly in your mixing bowl. 
Baking was something that nobody ever could judge you about. You were good at it, and you knew you could do it with no error. Your cakes and pastries always turned out well, save for the minor problems you ran into as a kid, but you sometimes act like you’re baking for a group of people, about to take it out to see a sea of smiling faces who are happy to see you and your deserts.
“I thought you only cooked when they served fish for dinner.” 
A voice, one that’s seared into your memory, says from behind you. 
It takes everything in you not to jump from surprise, and it takes even more willpower not to turn around. 
You quickly wipe at your cheeks, breathing in to make sure your voice won’t come out in bits and pieces. You keep your back to your husband, continuing to sift your flour in the bowl, a continual motion like waves hitting against the dock.
“I’m baking,” you specify, cringing at the way you sound like you’re fighting a nasty cold. 
Gojo doesn’t say anything for a beat and does nothing to move. You’re glad he doesn’t, too scared that if he saw your puffy eyes or your tear-stained cheeks he’d begin to think that you have no backbone at all. It felt almost pathetic to have the world's strongest warrior see you recover from crying alone. 
He hums in the back of his throat at your words, and you wonder what he looks like right now. 
“I doubt these walls have seen a lady of such high rank before,” he comments, and you look up briefly from the mountain of white building up in the bowl, “They must whisper to themselves once you leave.” 
You let out a little puff of air, something resembling a soulless laugh. 
“Everyone whispers to themselves after I leave,” you say, reaching for a whisk, “I’ve heard more whispers than my own name.” 
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and you hope he doesn’t notice the way you quickly try to wipe at the corners of your eyes.
“You come down here a lot,” it’s posed as a question, but Gojo says it like a statement. He must have eyes everywhere, reporting to him what you’re doing. You wouldn’t be shocked, but you just nod, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you begin to whisk your dry ingredients together. 
“I hope it’s okay,” you throw in a pinch of salt as you mix, “I like the kitchen.” 
He let out a little breath as if he was about to chuckle, but then he got confused. You decide to spare him the endless questions that must be going on in his head, wondering why somebody in your position would prefer the kitchens rather than anywhere else. 
“My bedroom used to be behind a kitchen. I’d have to go through the pantry just to reach it,” you turn briefly to grab your bowl with the wet ingredients, pouring it slowly into your flour and sugar mixture, mixing it in slowly and carefully. 
“My father’s wife wanted me out of sight. That estate had never used one of its actual bedrooms to sleep the daughter of a whore,” you can hear him inhale sharply, “I woke up to the sounds of people shouting for different ingredients, to pots and pans clanging against each other. I learned how to cook and bake when I was young, and I usually helped them cook the food my family would eat for dinner.” 
When your batter is all mixed through you go to find the pan you have buttered and dusted with sugar, pouring it in as you wipe off the side of the bowl that had some remnants of batter dripping from it.
“They never asked me to, but I liked it. I liked feeling useful,” you peek over to your side, seeing him leaning against the wall adjacent to you, silent as a mouse. 
You walk over to the other side of the kitchen with your pan, careful with the lid to the brick oven, heated with the fire you had lit an hour ago, and slide your cake pan into it, closing it shut as you stand up straight. 
Finally, you look over at him. 
His eyes rake over your face, lingering on the circles underneath your eyes, the redness that stained the whites of them. He’s clad in the simple tunic and breeches he had worn to dinner hours ago, his large shoulders leaning on the wall as his arms lay crossed over his chest. 
“I won’t go to the east wing,” you say in a whisper, your voice quiet but heavy as it falls from your lips as a promise, trying to muster up a smile but it comes out wobbly, “I was just trying to make you laugh.” 
His lips looked pinker than usual as if he had been chewing on them, something you often did when you were deep in thought. His white hair had been messily pushed back as if his fingers had been combing through them continuously. 
“These grounds are yours,” Gojo says, his words thick from his throat. His exhale and inhale mirror the way you breathe, your two chests rising as though living with the same lungs.
You shrug, a melancholy look on your face as you shake your head. 
“Maybe if I was your wife,” your words are said without any malice, “But I’m just another person who sleeps here.” 
Gojo tilts his head slightly as if your statement had somehow wrenched itself into his mind, weighing it down. Even in the limited light, you could see the way he looked at you, an unreadable expression on his face.
“I’m sorry about all of this. I know I took away your chance to marry somebody you actually wanted, but my father told me you were okay with the arrangement. I wouldn’t have agreed to it otherwise,” you twist your wedding ring around your finger mindlessly, a little habit you’ve grown over the weeks here, “I never wanted to be selfish, and I truthfully never wanted a husband. I just wanted a friend.”
Ever since that night, you eat your meals in your room. 
Alina protested, saying it’s not right to eat alone, but you told her not to think about it, saying how you liked the silence. 
You mustered up the courage to ask some of the coachmen to take you to the nearby town, starting by looking around at the little shops, keeping a hood over your head in case somebody saw a new stranger.
Sometimes you’d go inside the shops, finding little trinkets that you thought your maids might like, or ornaments that might help fill up the empty spots around your room. You’ve never been able to decorate before with how small your old room was, so you decided to take advantage of its space.
When you’re walking around you sometimes see Gojo, either in the training yard or walking around with one of his advisors. There have been moments when the two of you catch each other's stares from across the room, but you’re always the first to look away, making sure you’re going in a different direction than him. 
You knew that you’d have to talk to him eventually, especially with the gathering that was coming up at the Tokoshi manor, but each night you pretended it was another day away, instead of one day closer. 
Your maids came bustling in and out of your room more often than usual with preparations for the night that was closing in, shoving you into different dresses, not satisfied until they found the right one.
Alina noticed your shift in demeanor, never picking and prodding at it, but silently observing. You could tell she knew something was wrong, but you didn’t know how to put exactly what you were feeling in words. 
It didn’t help that the closer you got to the night of the event Gojo seemed to be everywhere you were. The gardens, the library, the field, the stables. He probably just had business to attend to, but it didn’t help that whenever he saw you it looked like he wanted to say something. It also didn’t help that you’d scurry away when you saw him open his mouth. 
The weeks turned into days, the days into a day, and that day into hours and you found yourself perched uncomfortably on a chair as three different women attended to your face, hair, and accessories. 
You watch them work silently, taking in all the jewelry and makeup that you’ve been looking forward to wearing. It’s nothing too drastic, but that 
girl who longed to wear pretty things inside of you is gleaming right now. 
“…Lord Gojo requested for her to wear another pair of earrings,” one of your maids says, looking at the earrings Alina had picked out for you. 
Your ears perk up at the mention of his name, watching Alina as she perks an eyebrow up. 
“When did he request that?” 
The older lady looks at you in the mirror and then at Alina. 
“A couple of nights ago,” she shows Alina another pair, a sapphire one that seems to gleam brightly, “he dropped them off when she was…away…” the maid trails off, noticing the fact that you were eavesdropping.
Your eyes dart away as if that would help, but she quickly changes the topic, and you huff in annoyance as Alina sends you a knowing look.  
“Your husband is a strange man,” Alina mutters in your ear as you giggle quietly, rolling your eyes as she playfully shoves your shoulder. 
You don’t say anything in retaliation, and sit back as you put in your new earrings, grateful that they still complimented the color of your dress, and try to pretend you are going down for dinner rather than a gathering with people you didn’t know. 
You’ve been learning this entire week how to properly hold a spoon and fork, and how to cut your food appropriately. You’ve been taking dancing lessons, discovered how to properly greet people, and even learned how to gracefully enter and exit a horse-drawn carriage. All things you should’ve probably learned earlier, but were never able to. 
Alina helps you out of the chair when they are all done, giving you a second to look into the mirror. The dress they had wrangled you into was beautiful, your hair done in the way you liked. You thanked them all, expressing your endless gratitude for their hard work. 
You take a deep breath as you exit the room and go out into the hall, leading yourself down the stairs and through multiple corridors, trying to calm down your palpitating heart. 
It takes a few minutes but you find yourself at the front of the manor, standing alone and looking around, trying to see if you were at the wrong place. But in the distance, you can see the coachmen and the carriage, the door shut, still waiting for you. 
You take a tentative step forward, nearing the entranceway that leads outside, but feel a soft touch hovering above your elbow. 
It’s strange how he usually finds you before you find him, but as somebody who’s trained to know and find things before others do, you suppose it makes sense. You glance to your side, already expecting to see those cerulean eyes as you look up. 
Gojo looks good, somehow better than usual. 
He’s clad in dark blue garments, intricate with Northern design, and your eyes look up and down his entire body. His usual muscular build seems to be outlined by the stretch of his overcoat, the way the fabric is sitting snugly over his chest. 
He seems to be doing the same, though. You can feel his gaze drop to your dress, to the way your lips are a little redder than usual, your hair done in a way that suits your face. His eyes linger on your ears, and there’s a small, barely noticeable tug to the corners of his lips. 
“Ready?” Gojo asks, the first time he’s spoken in a couple of weeks, and you hum. 
He takes his hand away from your elbow as he rests it on the small of your back, and you feel heat travel from his fingertips through the fabric, through your corset, your undergarments, and straight to your skin. 
They bring the carriage out a little closer, a coachman opening the door for you. You brace yourself, heaving your dress upwards as you go to grasp the rail on the side.
But Gojo moves swiftly, offering you his glove-clad hand as you look over at him in surprise, taking it after a moment of hesitation, and haul yourself inside. 
It’s far bigger than the one you usually take to town, and you settle for a corner on the left-hand side near the window. The walls of the carriage are lined with this sort of fabric that feels like it’s lighter than a cloud, colored the traditional blue of the Gojo family. You’d guess it could fit at least an entire family comfortably, so you’re not too worried about the underskirt of your dress taking up too much space.
You watch Gojo follow you in. He looks around, having to duck his head (and a lot of his back) as he sits in front of you, pushing the strands of hair that had fallen into his face.
The two of you sit in awkward silence, your gaze settled on the door that they shut after Gojo entered, and your eyes quickly fall to your hands resting in your lap, neatly folded.
The carriage starts a little bit later, the wheels humming to life as the coachmen yip at the horses to start. The sudden rocking movement that you’ve become familiar with sways you side to side, and suddenly you're totally aware of the fact that you’re alone in a limited space with the man you’ve been avoiding for the better half of two weeks. 
You can feel his stare boring into the side of your head, can hear the way his breathing is coming out strangely as if he wanted to talk, but kept stopping himself off before he could say a word. 
“Did you like the earrings?” Gojo finally asks, and you glance up, eyes narrowing for a second in confusion as realization suddenly comes rushing in. 
“Hm? O-oh, yes!” You quickly stutter out, your hands flying to your ears as if you forgot they were there, “Yes, thank you. They were beautiful. They kind of looked like the inside of a belly button,” you say.
Your husband blinks, brows furrowed slightly as you think about what you had just said, eyes wide in shock.  
“Er…well, gods, no, not bellybuttons,” your head falls to your hands as you shake your head profusely, “Sorry, they don’t look like belly buttons-” 
But you stop when you hear a small laugh from him, quiet as he looks away for a second, a tiny slightly visible grin on his face as he looks back at you. 
“Did you know that sometimes,” his eyes are a little upturned as if he fighting back an actual smile, “I make a bet with myself about what you’re going to say?” 
You smile slightly, your head cocking to the side. 
“Have you ever won?” 
Gojo chuckles, and your eyes suddenly fall to his hand, at the way he’s fidgeting with his ring, his wedding ring, the same way you seem to do whenever you’re thinking about everything and anything all at once. 
“Not once.” 
You grin, and though you still feel this heavy weight of unspoken things resting in the middle of you two, you decide not to acknowledge it at the moment. Things unsaid, unheard, weaved through the air, tying you and him together like a tapestry. 
You fidget with your skirt, looking out the window at the moving scenery. 
Gojo breathes deeply through his nose, his pointed finger tapping on his thigh. 
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he finally says, and your eyes dart away from the trees and the sky to look over at him. 
His bottom lip is caught underneath his teeth, his blue eyes shining with a different hue. He takes up a lot of room with just his size alone, but it looks like he’s trying to make himself seem less intimidating, less of a warrior, and more of a…person.
You don’t say anything, opting to stay quiet to see what it is that he is trying to formulate into words. 
“That night,” Gojo twists his ring back and forth with his thumb, “I…” It’s weird to see somebody so sure of themself struggle to speak, and your brows crease in the middle, not knowing what it was he was trying to get at. 
“I wanted to tell you that you too had a right to a good husband. Somebody who didn't rush you into a marriage because of his own mistakes…somebody you wanted.”
Where is he going with this?
You suddenly feel your throat dry up, swallowing thickly as Gojo looks out the window momentarily before looking back at you. 
“My parents never told me who I’d be marrying,” Gojo explains, his voice hoarse, “I figured out the day of the wedding,” he twisted his wedding ring, looking at the way it shined, “And I wanted to hate you,” 
His words punch you square in the gut, but you can only bring yourself to keep on looking at him.
“I wanted to hate you so much because it would be easier to act like this wasn’t my fault if I could…but,” he sighs, his chest rising and falling, “I don’t think it’s possible to hate you.” 
Your lip trembles slgihtly, a sheen over your eyes. What is he doing?
“I’ve been raised in a way most people our age aren’t. My parents wanted me to be the strongest so was put into training since I was four, and I think this entire time I’ve been trying to approach you like a…military strategy. You were this map in my head that no matter how I approached it nothing made sense. But that night, in the kitchen, everything finally did.” 
Your eyes flitter downwards so that he couldn’t see the waver in them
“You didn’t deserve how you were treated in your old life, nor this new one,” his hand covers his chest, and you feel lightheaded, “And I promise to you I’ll do everything in my power to make this one better. If you don’t want me as a husband, than as a friend.
“I’d like to be your friend, if you’d allow me,” he whispers thickly, his voice heavy. He fidgets with his fingers, moving them together and back out again, and you notice how he does this a lot whenever you’re near.
Your heart is beating so quickly that you feel like it's going to stop, and your mind is working so hectically that you don’t know what to think. This is the same man who looked at you as if you had torn down the moon and stars when he saw you the first time, the man who never seemed to be that interested in what it is you had to say. The very same person who would’ve rather married a broomstick than you. 
…right? 
And yet he’s here, asking to be your friend. Something that nobody has ever asked before, something that people wouldn’t ever dare to murmur out loud to you. He had no beneficial gain from doing this, no ally that he would please if he offered to be your friend.
Your heart twists because why does he look like he cares about what you say? His eyes are creased slightly around the edges, his lips pressed together as if he were preparing for whatever outcome it was to what you said.
Nobody has ever told you those things, the things that made years of pain and hurt strummed into one beat that your heart never wanted to drum to. This man, your husband, Gojo, was supposed to be another cog in that old machine, one that hummed and spurred like it was about to eat you alive. 
But the more you look at him, the more you let your unspoken words speak in silence for you, you realise that he isn’t lying.
You open your mouth to speak but are cut off when the carriage comes to a sudden halt. 
The two of you look at each other and then to the door, watching as it opens up, greeted to the sight of a large manor with multiple people walking in hand in hand. You swallow your bile, not knowing what to say, deciding to flee instead of face him like you should’ve. 
The gathering itself was far more boring than you imagined it to be. 
You and Gojo had the mutual understanding to act more…well, like a couple, than you actually were. You didn’t comment on the way his arm circled around your waist a couple of minutes into making your rounds talking with people or the endearing way he referred to you as my wife. 
You’re glad that he doesn’t do anything to talk about what he had told you in the carriage whenever the two of you were alone, acting like nothing was wrong and everything was normal as he inquired about your day. 
You told him brief things, still trying to shove his words out of your mind, but it was no use. I’d like to be your friend, your mind kept repeating, and you were too scared of brining it up in case he had changed his mind in between those minutes of quiet.
People you had never seen before congratulated you on your new marriage, their brows raised in that excited way as they motioned to your stomach, hinting at a special little someone who might be joining your lives soon. 
“Soon!” You said with a curt laugh, glancing momentarily at Gojo only to see him already looking at you, a light blush dusting his cheeks.
He made sure not to stay with people who were strangers to you for too long, not wanting to bore you to death, and allowed you to take in more of the well-lit and vastly decorated manor. 
Though its size was incomparable to the Gojo estate, it was still massive. The Tokoshi family had been a family with the Gojo one for centuries, so there was no question that the riches they had amassed over the years by being trading partners with them had culminated in this. 
Gojo told you earlier in the carriage, before everything else, how the young Tokoshi couple were good people. They liked to throw parties a couple of times a year, inviting only a select few. He liked them far more than a lot of the other people he had been forced to grow up with over the years. 
You look at the dining hall, at the corridors with openings that allow you to look outside without the glare of glass. His arm never left your body, holding you close to him as he let you walk around, your mouth hanging open slightly as you craned your neck to look at everything. Candles were lit everywhere, the bouquets of different assortments of flowers decorating the stone flower holders carved into the walls. 
You mentioned to him in the privacy of the carriage, that you hadn’t ever been able to experience a party of this sort of caliber before. You could see how he wanted to ask more questions, but you could see the answers already formulating his head as to why.
“We probably look like one of those couples where the wife’s dying and the husband takes her out to see the stars one last time,” you whisper to him, still looking around in a stunned sort of way at the beauty of it all. 
Gojo’s head ducks down a bit, trying to hide the chuckle that had broken out and made its way onto his face. He coughs into his fist as if that was the issue, but you look over at him to see the humor in his eyes. 
“Did you lose your bet again?” You ask, glancing at him from the corner of your eyes as he looks like he’s fighting the grin that’s threatening to take over. 
“I’m always losing that bet,” he tells you.
Though he doesn’t do anything to bring up his conversation, you can see it in the way he looks at you, as if he’s still teetering on an edge, wanting to know what you were thinking in that frazzled mind of yours. 
You decide to push past it.
“Can I get in on it?” You ask, turning slightly so that you face him, very aware of the fact that his hand hasn’t moved from its spot on your waist.
You try not to think about it, reminding yourself that it’s just for show, but you can’t stop the feeling of heat that travels wherever it is he seems to touch you. His hand is larger than an average one, his fingers moving mindlessly up and down on your corseted stomach. 
“Do you need the extra coin?” His voice is carrying a strange tone…is he teasing you? 
But again, you try not to think about it, it’s all for show, (you also try not to think too much of the fact that you’re pretty separated from everybody else).
“No, I just need coin,” you explain, fixing one of the medallions on his chest that had been slightly slanted, “I have nearly nothing left.” 
Gojo moves barely away from you, his eyes searching yours as if to find the joke. 
“Have you run through my family gold already?” His voice is still toying, but now it’s filled with a little confusion. 
“No, of course not,” you snort, rolling your eyes as you tilt your chin up to look at him better, “I haven’t touched any of your gold. I just ran through mine.” 
His brows quirks upward, mouth parting slightly. 
“You’ve emptied the gold your family sent up?” 
It’s your turn to be confused. 
“What gold?” You ask, moving away from him, his hand falling to his side, and you suddenly miss his warmth. 
You remember your father talking about how the Gojo family had rejected your initial dowry, saying something along the lines of outlandish practices, but aside from that, you weren’t told about any other sort of money that was supposed to be sent with you. 
He pinches the bridges of his nose, sighing deeply. 
“The gold that they sent with you? It wasn’t supposed to be a lot but it was supposed to suffice for the journey here.” 
You blink owlishly at him. 
“What gold have you run through?” He specifies, plastering on a fake smile when he catches the eyes of somebody behind you, but then focuses his stare back to you. 
“Well…” you shrug, “My gold.” 
Gojo looks like he’s about to make a new bet, one that’s with every time you’ve almost given him an aneurysm trying to figure out your strange riddles and rhymes that are supposed to be actual words. 
“I used to make some gold at my old home,” you explain, keeping your voice low in case somebody was somewhere that you hadn’t seen, but realizing that Gojo was lost, you continued, “The stable boy gave me some of his salary if I took care of the horses and cleaned the stables. Sometimes he’d give me extra if I could haul in the large bags of hay.” 
He scoffs, shaking his head slightly. 
“Why?” That seems to be a question he’s been asking lately. 
You shrug again, feeling his hand circle back around your waist as some people come near you, 
“I needed new clothes and my shoes had holes in them. My father’s wife didn’t let him give me much, so I tried to fill in the gaps.”
You smile at one of the couples that are coming near you, going back into your other persona as you begin chatting with them. Gojo pulls you in tighter to his side, staying silent. You don’t notice the way he hasn’t stopped staring at you, nor the way his heart seems to have churned so painfully in his chest. 
The night progresses and you find yourself inside the dining hall, being shown to your seats by one of the maids, finding your name next to Gojo’s on a name card. 
The two of you sit down, watching the people the file in, the sound of laughter filling the room, the clinking of china against each other filling in the rest of the silence. You take it all in with a smile, looking every and at everyone.
“I hope I’m not embarrassing you,” you whisper as you lean closer to Gojo, an apologetic smile on your face as you sit further into your seat, “This is all just so new to me.” 
You don’t see the ways his eyes soften, his hand inching closer to yours as he shakes his head. 
“You’re not embarrassing me,” he murmurs back, leaning his head closer to yours, wanting his words only to be heard by you, “I’m glad you’re enjoying this.” The smile that makes its way onto your face could power the universe, and Gojo feels like the wind had been knocked from his lungs, far worse than in training when somebody's foot slams into his chest. 
“I am!” Your enthusiastic and hurried words are hushed, but he can still hear the way you’re trying to hide your joy. The small talk is horrific,” he laughs a little bit, “but still I love it.” 
He opens his mouth to speak but is cut off by the sound of a knife hitting glass. 
“Everyone! Give me your time, just for a moment!” Miyo Tokoshi, whom you spoke to briefly, stands up, his chair behind him.
All eyes in the room fall on him, people still smiling, their teeth glimmering in the light. 
“I cannot express my joy to be in a room with you all tonight,” he says, looking around the room, making sure he saw everyone for a split second. “And my wife and I couldn’t be more ecstatic to host the first gathering of the season!”
You look at the woman sitting next to him, Lana, who you had also met momentarily, is gleaming at him, her face full of genuine adoration. She, along with everybody else, claps, laughing joyfully. 
You wonder if this is what a real husband and wife should look like, and you look briefly over to Gojo, your mind reeling with the charade the two of you have been playing this entire night. 
“And we couldn’t be happier to welcome the first couple of the year,” he exclaims, pointing his glass over to you and Gojo, saying your name and then your husbands as he claps his hand softly against his wrist, “May every moment you spend together be better than the last. We wish the two of nothing but a lifetime of happiness and prosperity. 
Gojo raised his glass to him, his hand grasping yours as he lifted it to his lips, planting a kiss on the back of it. 
You feel like you’ve stopped breathing with the linger of his lips on your skin, the last time that happened on the night of your wedding, and watching him grasp it even tighter when he sets it back down, weaving his fingers through yours. 
Stop, you chide, raising your glass as well, a shaky smile on your face, it’s just an act.
He winks at the two of you, nodding once more as he focuses his stare somewhere down the table, obstructed by where you are sitting.
“And to the future couple! Naoya and Freya!” 
Gojo turned his head immediately to look at you, watching the color drain from your face, and before you knew it, the man, Naoya, was standing up, a hand over his chest in faux gratitude as he thanked the host. 
You could never mistake that hair, the feline look in his eyes as he scanned across the room, a slimy smile on his face. You watch as it grows even wider when he finally catches his prey when he finally sees you, and you feel nauseous, like you’re about to throw up all those little crackers they had given you earlier that evening. 
The hand holding yours squeezes, knowing he can’t say anything right now, and you swallow thickly, eyes darting over to his as you feel your head about to sway. 
Naoya’s here. The man you turned down for Gojo. 
The rest of Tokoshi’s speech is muted to you. It feels like your head is being held underwater, and you feel sweat dotting your forehead, your chest, and your palms. You can feel Gojo’s eyes on the side of your head and can tell he’s trying to tell you something silently. 
The clinking of glass brings you out of your haze, looking up mindlessly as you haphazardly clink yours against Gojo’s, rubbing a hand down your face as if that would help. 
You're grateful for the flurry of movements and noises, everybody talking to somebody, the people beginning to serve themselves the wide array of food places in front of them. 
Gojo squeezes your hand one more time, and you finally look over at him, trying to muster up a smile but with how queasy you feel and the way your head spinning, it probably looks like you’re about to be sick all over him. 
“I’ll be okay,” you say through clenched teeth. 
Gojo nods, his thumb rubbing up and down your hand in a soothing way. It’s just for show. 
“I’m sorry my palms are sweating,” you laugh mirthlessly, and he squeezes it again, you’re sure he’s only doing this because of the extra attention of the two of you ever since they realized you and Naoya were in the same room, “you don’t have to keep holding it.” 
“Do you want me to let go?” He asks, and you stop poking around at the turnips on your plate. 
No. 
“N-no,” you croak out, desperate for his touch that’s grounding you, “No, please.” 
Gojo nods, his thumb not stopping its comforting motion of moving up and down. 
“Don’t worry,” he mutters, leaning closer to you as you duck your head so that your ears are near his lips, “My hands get sweaty too.” 
You laugh quietly and it sounds like wind chimes. You look at Gojo and watch as his lips tug upwards into a soft smile, one you had never seen before, and one you thought you never would. 
You tried to hide away the rest of the party, but Gojo didn’t seem to mind. 
When it was time to leave you accepted the gracious hug of the hosting couple, promising them that you’d come back for a more private dinner, and let Gojo lead you out into the courtyard where all the carriages were held. 
You slept the entire ride home, not wanting to mess anything up by taking, and you’re happy that Gojo didn’t bother you. You felt groggy when you returned to the estate, grateful for Gojo’s steady hand as he helped you out of the carriage. The two of you looked like you wanted to say something, but couldn’t, so you bid each other good night and went your separate ways.
Separate except for one brief moment. 
You were walking away and up the stairs when you suddenly stopped, remembering what it was that you wanted to tell him. You call out his name, watching as he turns, white brows slightly furrowed. 
“I…” you start but realize you didn’t exactly have a plan for what you wanted to say. He gives you his patience, not looking annoyed or frustrated when you try to think of the right words to string together. 
“I…I would like to be your friend too,” you finally say, and watch as a smile forms on his face, his pink lips tugging upwards in a way that made his eyes shine, the way your earrings did in the candlelight. 
He rakes his hand through his snow-white locks, pushing them away from his face. 
“I’ll see you at breakfast then,” Gojo says, and you dip your head down in a small smile. 
You give him a small wave, disappearing as you round the corner.
And since then, you found him joining you not only for breakfast or the sparse dinners but for any meal he possibly could. 
Gojo talked more, about anything and everything, and you did the same. 
You realized that he was actually an open person the closer you got to him, seeing that he too was capable of laughing and making jokes, his teasing eyes growing more frequent the closer your chairs got to the dinner table until you eventually just sat side-by-side, growing tired of shouting at each other across its length. 
On the days he wasn’t busy with strategizing or talking to other lords, he’d walk around the estate with you, telling you stories from his childhood, the times he’d run amock around the halls. Other times the two of you would go into town, looking at the different stores together. 
You could tell he was trying, could see it in the way he glanced at you from time to time to make sure that you were doing well. 
He’d accompany you to the library if you asked him to, and you’d go down sometimes to the training yard just to see him. Gojo would never tell you how much he tried to show off when you were there and knew he never had to. You could see the way he tried to appear even stronger when fighting with one of the other men, the poor soldier coming out with bruises and cuts all over his body.
Over many weeks, you find yourself looking forward to spending time with him, and a part of your cracked self begins mending itself again. 
It felt like after years of searching for somebody, somebody found you. 
On one of the nights when his sparring had gone on for far longer than it usually does, you decided to head down to the training yard after your night bath, tugging on a large robe over yourself as you walked the familiar stone steps down to where you knew he was. 
You could hear them before you saw them, a cacophony of fists hitting skin, groans, shouts from one another. There was a little perch from where you could watch what was happening below, and you usually hid yourself in a corner so that they wouldn’t see you. 
You’d rest on a pillar, arms crossed over your shoulder as you looked at the men below. Gojo was always easy to find, the flurry of white hair a tall-tale sign of where he was. You had watched him before, but you never got tired of it. You found it almost inhuman the way his movements seemed to flow like water, the way his hits were precise and direct. 
Gojo truly was the best warrior the North had ever seen, and sometimes you forget that you’re married to a man who brought down entire armies with just his bare fists. 
You watch as he jests with one of his friends, his chest rising a little bit at an irregular pace, slightly out of breath, but happy to be there. He turns to one of the guys behind him to say something, but his eyes immediately track upwards to the figure trying to stay hidden, you and a wide smile break out on his face. 
He waves at you, and it gets the attention of the other men there. They all turn to see where you are, their boyish grins and calls making you roll your eyes at their antics, your face heating up slightly as you wave back at them. 
Gojo says something to the person next to him, and you hear the man shout at the other ones to wrap it up for the night. Some of them wave goodbye to you as they begin exiting, going back to their common rooms. 
You make a move to lean slightly over the railing, your arms crossed over the wood as you peer down at the ground where Gojo remained alone, finding him to already be looking up at you. 
“Care to come down?” He juts his chin at the staircase to your left, the one that leads down to the courtyard, and you nod, disappearing behind the stone pillars as you take the steps leading downwards. 
You’ve been here a couple of times, as per your own request. You wanted to see what they did during training, what the training yard actually looked like from the ground. You lift the ends of your dress up slightly as you near the bottom, rounding the corner to see Gojo standing in the middle. 
He’s waiting for you, his eyes tracking your movements as you come near to him. 
His nose twitches slightly, his eyes squinting as he lifts his head in the air, suddenly picking up the scent of something unusual. 
“What’s that smell?” Gojo asks as you come to him, his eyes looking over your body as if it were emitting from you. 
You scoff, appalled, and then suddenly remember that Alina had applied some lavender oil to you after your bath. 
“If it’s a good smell then me,” you cross your arms over your chest, nose wrinkling in disgust as you take in his smell of sweat and grime, “If bad then you.”
Gojo snorts, coming closer to you as he continues sniffing, exaggerating the sound. You step away from him slightly, the smell of sweat overpowering, and he takes notice of this. 
“What?” He inquires, annoyed that you are moving away from him, and he takes a step closer. 
“What do you mean what?” You tease, moving again as he tries to smell the air, “You smell like an army of unshowered men. I just took a bath.” 
Gojo seems offended at this, trying to move back closer to you but you side-step him, apparently serious about this. 
“You really won’t let me come near you?” He sounds like you’ve kicked him down, his cheeks stained pink from earlier, and you laugh slightly, shaking your head. 
“I really won’t,” you affirm, shoving the back of your wrist to him to show him that what he was smelling was in fact you, “See? Lavender oil.” 
Gojo just seems to be getting more annoyed the more you try to evade him, his blue eyes swirling with an idea as you look at him in worry. 
“No, the smell is coming from somewhere else.” He argues, changing his footing so that he stands right in front of you and you let out a shocked laugh, not expecting this as you take a step back. 
You don’t know where else he can smell the lavender oil. Alina dotted it to your wrists and your neck, but surely can’t differentiate the difference in location…right? 
“Come here,” he almost whines, “I’m not going to rub off my smell onto you.” 
You laugh again out loud, picking up the skirt of your dress as you try to outrun him slightly. 
“You will!” You insist, motioning to the sheen of sweat on his body, “You reek of sweat. I swear it’s just lavender oil!” 
He groans, his eyes rolling to the back of his head at this inconvenience. 
“You’re killing me right now,” Gojo dramatically grabs his chest, “You won’t let me smell this strange aroma and it’s killing me,” his face breaking into a little pout as you laugh even louder, shocked at how petulant he was being. Your laughing seemed to spur him on even more, running towards you as you ran backward, hoping you didn’t trip on the fabric of your dress. 
“You have a plethora of bottles of lavender oil in your own room,” you argue, “this isn’t something innovative that you’ve never smelled before.” 
Gojo shakes his head, and your heart flutters at the way his smile is so playful and teasing, the way some of his hair falls into his face in that messy way when he’s usually training and not caring about his appearance. 
“It’ll only take a second,” he reasons and you shake your head no, your eyes both shining with playful laughter. 
The courtyards lead out into the large fields of the Gojo estate, and you look behind yourself at the opening. It’s night, there’s nobody around. Nobody would judge you for running away from your sweaty husband. 
You look back at him, see the gleam in his eyes, and know that he’s not going to back down. 
He can see the thoughts forming in your head, can assume them before they’re even created, and so he’s straight on your heels as you sprint away from him, a large smile on your face as you squeal out loud. 
“Please!” You shout over your shoulder, running down the little hill as the moon lights the way for you, “I just took a bath! Leave me alone!” 
You can hear the grass rustling beneath your feet, your screams of laughter contagious as you try to outrun the fastest person ever, and try not to slow yourself down by looking over your shoulder to see where he is. 
But after a couple of seconds of running you realize that the only footsteps you hear are your own, and you pause momentarily to look behind you and are surprised to see that he’s not there. 
Did he not come after you? 
You look around the field, the large blades of grass looking like waves that move with the wind, and whip your head around every time you hear a twig snap. 
You're a little bit further away from the manor itself, and the only thing you can see besides its large stone walls are the torches lit outside. You can make out the guards who are standing outside, but no sign of Gojo. 
You try to catch your breath, confused as to where he could’ve gone when a force stronger than a horse running at full speed slams into your side. 
The scream you let out echoes around the field, and you brace yourself for the harsh impact of hitting the ground. With your eyes squeezed shut you wait for the flash of pain, but peek them open to see Gojo framing your head with one of his hands, his body shielding you from the impact as he lays on top of you. 
“How…?” You scream, your chest moving up and down with your fit of giggles, trying to push him off of you, “You’re a beast!” You cry out, moving your head to the side as he laughs along with you, his chest rumbling with the movement. 
You shove his face away with the palm of your hands, shoving your wrist into his nose as if that would satiate him. 
“I took a bath you behemoth!” You whine, thinking about the dirt and mud that must be staining your skin and dress right now, “Are you so void of any good fragrance in your life that you must hunt me down for it?” 
Gojo tsks, shaking his head as he swats your wrist aside. 
He’s also slightly out of breath, most likely because he ran across and entire field from another entranceway that you weren’t aware of to catch you off guard, and you’re suddenly very aware of just how close to two of you are together. 
His hand is still cradling your head, the other one holding your hips. Truthfully he doesn’t even smell bad, which is frustrating that it’s just another one of his many talents. 
He judges your jaw up with his nose, and you helplessly comply, your heart hammering wildly as he leans in closer to the skin of your neck, taking in a whiff as he looks back up to you, his eyes gleaming. 
Gojo’s hand on your hip moves up slightly to hold your waist, not hard, but to stop you from squirming around. 
“It smells different here,” he nudges your neck with his nose again, and your breathing hitches, “Smells sweeter.” 
You swallow thickly, blinking slowly as you crane your neck slightly upwards to give him more room. It’s like your body is moving on its own, and you’re not to sure how you know what to do, but you just do. 
“That’s not possible,” you try to argue, trying your best to keep your voice from wavering, “You just lack the nose for good oils.” 
Gojo laughs lowly, shaking his head at your antics as he braces his knees on either side of your thighs, caging you in. 
“I have a very keen sense of smell,” he boasts and you snort, looking away as he pinches your hip to which you yelp.
His hand moves away from your head and to your shoulder, to where your nightgown had slightly slipped off and runs a thumb down a patch of your skin where it was slightly raised, a faint scar on your collarbone. 
“Where’d you get this?” His voice is slightly hushed, and you look down from your chin to where he is talking about. 
 “Hm?” You look around, see that he’s pointing to the tiniest little scar, and chuckle slightly, “Oh, that?” Your eyes squint as you try to remember, “I tried to climb up a tree once when I was little and fell.” Gojo huffs out a little laugh, his eyes still focused on your skin as you chew on the inside of your cheek.
“It probably looks far worse compared to anything you have,” you say sarcastically, “The family physician kept saying I wasn’t going to make it through the night.” 
He scoffs, rolling his eyes at your antics as he raises himself, moving away from you as he sits back down on the grass. You miss his warmth, the way his heat radiated onto you like a furnace. 
“I don’t know how you keep surviving between your inability to consume fish and your near-death occurrences,” Gojo’s voice holds a teasing tone and you smile, moving up so that you’re facing him. 
You rest your weight back on your hands, kicking your legs out in front of you as your skirt flows around the grass. A while ago you would’ve felt improper sitting like this in front of anyone, but you don’t seem to care all that much when it’s Gojo. 
“I showed you my battle would,” you say, putting one leg on top of the other, “What’s your worst one?” You ask, tilting your head to the side in questioning. 
Gojo purses his lip, thinking. 
You imagine that he’d tell you or probably motion to where it was, but a second later you watch, shocked, as he tugs his tunic upwards, your face heating as he rises it slightly so that you can see a part of his stomach. 
You hate how utterly built he is. 
His skin is pulled taught over the smooth stomach of his abs, his chest huge with pure muscle, his arms, bulging through the sleeves. It’s something you thought you’d get used to, something you told yourself to stop ogling at, but never could.
But you shift your focus to a large scar that runs across his chest, from the bottom of his hip under his arm. It still looks relatively new, and the scar itself still pink. You could see the way it was jagged, not one smooth line, and gods, fuck, why do you want to touch it?
“Well,” you try to think of something witty to say, seeing the way he’s looking at you as if waiting for it, “Clearly not as bad as mine, but it comes in as a close second.” 
He throws his head back as he laughs, his muscles contracting as he does so. You feel flushed, not able to look away from the scar, knowing that you were merely compensating for not knowing what to say. 
“I know,” he says eventually with a shrug, looking down as he surveys the scar, “It’s not as bad as it could’ve been.” 
You pout slightly, thinking. 
“Does it hurt?” 
He looks up at you, at the way you can’t take your eyes away from it, and shakes his head. 
“Not anymore,” he sits up a little straighter, closer to you as you watch him move, “Sometimes I can feel it sting, but it’s barely noticeable.” 
You beg to differ. 
The two of you don’t say anything and a part of you has decided that silence is bad for you. Because before you can really think about what you’re doing, you push yourself upwards, leaning in closer to him as you try to get a better look at it. 
He doesn’t say anything, but if only you could see the way he could barely use his lungs to breath right now you’d make some sly remark about how the best warrior of the North was growing shy from just a look. 
But suddenly you’re not looking anymore as you shuffle in a little closer, your fingers reaching upwards to touch the skin. 
You can hear the wind move around you, the grass rustiling as your fingers run across the scar. His abs flex at the coldness of your hand, but he doesn’t tell you to stop. You’re studying it intently, wondering what sort of weapon could’ve caused this. 
Gojo’s size dwarfs over yours, but you don’t seem to mind. Your lips as slightly pursed as you take it in. 
“Did you fight a bear?” You finally ask, peeking up to look at him. 
You’re startled by the way the flush on his cheeks has grown even more red, or the way you can’t see the blues in his eyes anymore. Has he always looked like that?
Gojo shakes his head, taking in a shaky breath, looking at the top of your head as you go back to looking at the scar. 
“Nearly,” he tries to joke, but his voice is weak, laced with need, “But I doubt a bear would even want to be compared to the man who gave me the scar.” 
You look up, your brow quirked in curiosity. 
“Who?” You ask, shocked at how quiet your voice came out. 
Gojo smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. His tongue clicks against his teeth, his hand rising up to grab yours, pulling it away from his chest. He can’t bear to have you touching him like that anymore, not trusting himself to restrain the pure desire that bubbling inside his veins. 
“Naoya,” he says hushed, watching as your lips part and eyes widen. 
There’s a beat of silence, a moment when you think you can hear your heart beating in the same rhythm his is. 
Your hand curls into itself, shock taking over your features as your eyes drop to his scar and then back up to him. You find yourself wanting to say everything and anything, but can’t somehow find the words that you’re looking for. Gojo beats you to it, thankfully. 
“I’ve been having this recurring dream ever since I fought him of that same moment over and over again when he cut me open. But it’s changed, recently,” He sits up straighter, so close to you that your chests are almost touching, “And I keep seeing him marrying you, what would’ve happened if you had said yes.”
“And gods, fuck,” he ducks his head down, raking an agitated hand through his hair, making it even more messy, “I…” He chokes on his breath, looking back at you, and suddenly you see the glossiness in his eyes, the way that tears brim his waterline. 
And suddenly you see the Gojo Satoru, the Lord in the North, the most powerful man alive, cry. 
“I keep reprimanding Naoya in my head about how awful he is, about how I’d kill nearly every person alive if he ever touched you, b-but I was just as awful. I think about the first time I saw you, about the first weeks you were here. I think about how you must’ve felt, how alone you were. Every day…” he wipes messily at his cheeks, his lips wobbling, “Every day I wake up and think of you. I think about your face, your smile, your eyes, your lips, the way your nose scrunches, that line between your brows when you're confused, and every night I go to sleep hoping that this was all an awful dream and I haven’t ruined your life, but then I wake up, and it starts all over again.” 
“I know I’m a selfish man,” Gojo says with a wet chuckle, his cheeks wet with tears, “I know I shouldn’t, but I want you to myself, I want you forever. I want to be your friend, I want to be the person you sleep next to, the person you go to when you want to talk about your little stories. I want to hear your jokes and I want to see you laugh. I want to hold your hand, I want to put that ring on your finger every morning, and I want to propose to you each night.”
He shakes his head, swallowing his cries down, the moon lighting the tear tracks that start from his eyes and end at his chin. 
“But I know you don’t want that. You told me that you wanted a friend, but…” he shrugged, his smile sad, aching, longing, “I think along the way of being your friend I realized I wanted to be your husband too.” 
“I understand if you want to leave. I’ll tell my parents the truth, they’ll understand. I have a house ready for you near the sea, one away from your family, where you can start over.” 
The wind rustles the hills, and you look at the field, watch the way it moves in tandem with the life around it. 
You can feel the tears forming in your eyes, and know that even if you blink them away it’ll do nothing to actually hide them. There’s a burning feeling in your chest, one that you’ve never felt before, one that rings with Gojo’s words. 
You run your fingers through the grass, looking up at him with a certain fire in your eyes.
“What if I don’t want that?”
He blinks slowly. 
“I,” Gojo sniffs, nodding profusely, hoping you don’t see the way he crumbles, “I understand, I promise I do. The house is a couple days-” 
“No,” you cut him off firmly, wiping your palms furisuly across your cheeks, to rid them of the pesky tears, shaking your head, “What if I don’t want that?” You move up to him, reaching your hand down his tunic, your fingers moving against is chest as you dig out the gold chain that’s wrapped around his neck. 
The one that holds his ring, the one he told you about one night that keeps it safe whenever he’s training. 
“What if I want this?” Your voice is cracking, and you tug the chain tighter.
“What if I want all those things? What if I want you to love me?” The ring shines in the moonlight, mirroring her pair thats wrapped around your finger, “I want to be your friend,” you stress, your brows strewn together as tears overflow from your waterline, “And I want to know what things you like. I want to walk with you all around the earth and walk back home again. I want to sleep next to you. I want to make you laugh, and I want you to make me smile. I want you to be my husband so that I can be your wife,” you cry out, your chest heaving up and down as he wraps his arms around your back, pulling you into his lap as he tries to quickly wipe your tears away. 
“I want you too, Satoru,” you whisper, broken with your wet sniffles, a wet laugh escaping your lips when you see him crack at the way you said his name with so much care, your thumbs gliding across his cheeks. 
You slide closer into him, your legs splitting across his huge thighs as he hugs you tenderly to him, his head resting on your chest so that he can hear your heartbeat, make sure that this wasn’t just another dream.
“I don’t deserve you,” he murmurs against your bosom, looking up at you with glistening eyes. 
“Then fight for me,” you whisper, your hands on either side of his face, “Give me all those things. Give me more,” you smile when his arms wrap around your waist a little tighter, his hands holding you up, “And I’ll do the same.” 
He nods, holding your hand that was still holding onto his ring to his chest, one hand moving to your back, and in the mess of tears and broken laughs the two of you seem to move together, meeting each other in the middle as your lips find each other in the dark shadows of night. 
You gasp when his lips capture yours, and he moves towards the sound, wanting to hold it, keep it forever. 
Gojo moves slowly, knowing that this is your first time, and cups your jaw, helping you move along with him as you lips slot and lock against each other. It’s messy and with no order, your chin staining with sweat as you moan against him, feeling delirious without the touch of him. 
You know this isn’t the easiest position for him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He groans against you, his eyes squeezing shut, trying to memorize your taste in case the world ended tomorrow and this was his last meal. 
“Is this-” You cut him off when you swoop in again, his laughter cut short by your needienss, the way you paw at his chest, your hands winding up to his hair as you tug harshly on the soft strands. 
He moans at this, at the way you grind mindlessly on his thigh, your need for each other bleeding out into the open. 
“I love you,” he murmurs against you, kissing down your chin and then back up to you, his tongue swiping against your lips, savroing your whine, “I love you so much,” he says to everybody, hoping even those on mountains oceans away could hear, “I love you, my wife,” and you giggle, eyes bright when you hear those words. 
“Say it again,” you ask, your nails drawing little shapes on his nape, and you see him break into a smile. 
“My wife,” he repeats with a peck to your cheek, “My beautiful wife,” he kisses the tip of your nose, smiling at the way it scrunhed up slightly, just the way he adored, “My wife,” he kisses your jaw, “My wife,” your giggling nonstop and he hopes to bottle up the sound and hear it on his deathbed.
His hands travel back down to your hips, adusjsting you slightly so that you wouldn’t feelt he embarrassing hardening of his dick just from kissing you, and moves his lips down to your neck, hearing the way there’s a hitch in your laughter. 
“Why’d you stop?” he nudges his nose at that spot pf your neck that still smells like lavender, his favroite scent in the world, “Hm?” Gojo hums against that spot, licking a wet stripe up it, sucking at the skin, feeling the way you arch into his chest. 
“Y-your reeking s-scent infiltrated my nose,” you murmur, biting on your lip as he pinches your waist. 
“Yeah?” Gojo continued to tease you, sliding the sleeve of your dress down, giving you more access to the skin of your collarbone, “Want me to stop?” 
“No!” You cry, totally against your better judgement, moaning when he sucks another mark into the skin, biting it, and then presses a soft kiss to it as an apology, “Please, please, don’t stop.” 
He chuckles darkly, shifting you around so that you are lying back down on the ground, his body framing yours as he continues tugging down your dress, going slow in case you ever wanted him to stop. 
His fingers are quick at untying the string that holds you bodice together, unravelingit all until it falls off and he’s greeted to the sight of your heaving chest, the way your naked breasts rise and fall. 
Gojo blinks for a moment, forgetting how to move. 
“W-what?” You ask, a little self-conscience as he continues to stare at your chest, “Do they look wonky?” You move your hands to cover up but a deep gutteral growl escapes his lips, pinning your hands back. 
“Beautiful,” he bites out, moving his head down, pressing a wet kiss in between the valley of your breasts, “You look like a fuckin’ statue,” he says, “You’re s-so beautiful.” Gojo repeats, and you can’t protest with the way he praises you, nor the way his lips hover over a nipple, finally leaning in fully as he sucks on it. 
“F-fuck!” You cry out at the sensation, your fingers lost in his hair as you keep him there, back arching off the ground, “That, that feels…good,” you can’t speak, not with the way his tongue slides across your nipple, pressing little kisses around you areola. 
His other hand goes to your other one, making sure she’s not feeling lonely, his thumb flicking over your sensitive nipples as you whine even louder. 
Gojo switches and you feel your breath shudder in an embarrassing whimper, your eeys squeezing shut when he bites at you, wanting to mark you up for those wretched gods to see and feel humanly jealous over. 
“So soft,” he murmurs against your skin, almost in awe, “feels like silk.” 
You would’ve had a witty joke about this, you know you did, but you can’t fathom to think about anything other than the way his lips feel on your tits, the way he seems like he’d die had he not been here sooner. 
But he then raises his head, and you whine in protest. Gojo almost break at the way you’re looking up at him, the way yor lips tremble from sheer desire. 
“Want more?” He presses, his hands, warmer than the fire that’s burning in your belly, trailing down, down to where your dress was slightly parting, “Here?” 
“Y-yes, fuck,” you moan, parting your legs to make room for him, not knowing what this feeling was but knowing that he was the only one who could soothe it, “Need it so bad Sa-satoru,” 
His eyes roll back, swallowing his primal groan at the way you plead for him, and nods, pressing a kiss against your stomach before his hitches the fabric upwards, sliding down your body so that his face is closer to that heat. 
You know you should feel more shame, but you feel like you’re going to die if your husband doesn’t do something soon. 
Gojo’s hand travels up your calf, trailing up your thigh, and suddenly stops. 
You go to beg, plead, for him, but cut yourself off when his lips find your inner thighs, pressign wet and messy kisses to them, getting dangerously close to where you felt like you were leaking. 
“You’re divine,” he whispers against your skin, hands wrapping around your thighs as he pulls them apart, “Fuckin’ divine.” 
His lips suddenly find there, you glistening cunt, and you mewl out for him. 
“Satoru,” your chest is heaving like you can’t find any air, “T-there, please, there,” and fuck the way you’re begging him is so sweet that he can’t find it in himself to tease you. 
His fingers seperate your wet lips, groaning when he sees just how much you’re dripping, and licks a tentative stripe upwards, your surprised gasp at how good it felt going straight to his cock.
Gojo carefully slides a finger through your tight walls, feeling the way you tighten around that, and lets his lips travel to your clit, pressing small kisses to it before he begins to suck. You clench around him, and your toes curl at the way he begins to pump it in and out, your essence soaking his skin. 
“So wet sweetheart,” he groans swapping his finger for his thumb at your clit, his tongue diving into your walls as he nearly cums from your saccharine taste alone, “S-shit, fuck, you taste like fucking heaven.” 
Your thighs tighten arund his head, but he craves the feeling, his tongue eating you out at such a fast pace that you begin to wonder if you need this more or him. 
“O-oh gods,” your grips his head tightly, can’t find the sympathy in yourself to feel bad, “‘Toru, oh, oh my, don’t stop! 
That coil in your stomach grows more taunt with each second. 
He alternates, adding in another thick finger, feeling the way you try to stretch for him. He glides in and out of you with ease, but he wonders what you’d look like on his thick cock, how you’d preen as he split you open with his girth. 
“Sweet,” he moans against you, his voice vibrating against your pulsing walls, “You’re so fuckin’ sweet.” 
You nod at something, whatever he just said, not fulling understanding anything around you as he continue to stimulate your clit, sucking on it, his teeth gliding across it with a little bite, and you moan out even louder. 
“I…” you can’t think, can’t breathe, “F-fcuk, ‘Toru, something, something’s happening,” you don’t know what this feeling is, this electric, all-consuming feeling that’s zapping through your body, making it numb yet aware of everything at the same time. 
“I know, I know,” Gojo praised you, one of his hands holding your stomach down, the added pressure making you whine, “You’re doing so good for me, you’re there, come on come for me,” his hand travels up your body, finding yours as he weaves your fingers together. 
“Shit, shit,” you mewl, “I’m coming, fuck, c-coming!” You cry out, your back arching off of the ground as your legs grow slack around his shoulders, your walls pulsing around him as that string tightens for the final time and then finally breaks. 
You can see white as your eyes rolls back into your head, squeezing his hand as tightly as you can, your yes dotting with tears. Your climax was all consuming, making you gush around his fingers and tongue, seeming to be never-ending, your body shaking in his hold. 
Gojo presses one final kiss to your cunt, licking off your release from his fingers, groaning at the taste, and lets you catch your breath. 
When you’re finally able to crack your eyes open, you peek them over to Gojo, seeing the way he tilts his head back, your cum still glistening on his chin and cheek, and whine out in embarrassment. 
“What?” He asks, eyes teasing when you go to hide your face in your hands. 
“I can’t,” your words are muffled, “I can’t believe I just…” 
Gojo kisses your forehead, wiping some of the tears from your eyes away as he kisses your brow bone. 
“How do you feel?” He asks, his eyes scanning over your body, glistening with sweat, and you take in a gulp of air. 
“Good,” you say finally with a soft smile, “Really good.” 
You look from his little grin, one that you peck at, your thumb rubbing up and down his jaw, and then look down, to the obvious bulge that’s hiding behind his training trousers. 
You’ve never seen a cock before but fuck he’s massive.
“What…” you trail off, sitting up slightly, and he helps balance you, “What about you?” you paw at his stomach, right before it leads down, and he lets out a shuddered whine. 
“As much as I-” he bites his tongue, feeling like he’s going to cum if you continue to look at him like that, “As much as I want to…not here,” he looks around at the field, shaking his head as a definite no, “Not here.” 
You go to protest, but he stops you, biting your fingers gently as you yelp, shoving his head away with little force as he chuckles. 
You let him wrap your dress around you again, tying some of the knots so that it doesn’t open up when you’re standing, and let the silence wash over the two of you calm your beating down heart down.
He plays with the ring around your finger, and you watch as the ring around his neck moves with his little breaths. 
“I want to sleep in your bed,” you say, and his blue eyes find yours. 
“You’re crazy if you don’t think I’m letting you sleep anywhere else,” he says in a shocked sort of way and you laugh, looking over to the side for a brief moment, and then look back at him. 
“Do you really love me?” 
Your words as whispered, but it feels like the wind picked them up and scattered them all around the field, around the river, the ancient stones, and right into Gojo’s heart. 
“I really love you,” he whispers back, kissing your eyelids, in between your brows, your forehead, the back of your hand, and murmurs the words, “my wife,” to nobody and to everybody at the same time. 
You smile, pulling him down by that necklace of his so that you can plant a soft kiss against his lips.  
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sttoru · 3 months ago
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⠀ 𝝑𝑒 ⠀⠀ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒. you’re heavily pregnant with sukuna’s child and so desperately need to have your specific pregnancy cravings: mangoes. when you realise you’re out of them, you turn into an emotional mess.
tags. true form!sukuna x wife!female reader. fluff, sfw. pregnancy. size difference (reader referred to as small). reader gets called ‘woman, brat’ wc: 1.8k
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you’re crying in your chambers, the volume of your cries overshadowing sukuna’s arrival at the estate. you hiccup and sniffle as you sit in the corner of the master bedroom. there really doesn’t seem to be an end to your mental breakdown.
you’re prone to mood changes because of your pregnancy, already being seven months along. your belly is as round as a globe as it sticks out from under your kimono.
you hold onto your lower abdomen while mumbling to yourself. “not fair,” you rub your blurry eyes with your free hand.
the bedroom doors suddenly swing open. you lift your head from your knees and make eye contact with your husband who looks rather . . . upset. more upset than you are at the moment, that’s for sure.
you whimper as his big and intimidating stature dwarfs over yours while you’re stuck in the corner. when you look up at him, you cry even louder. seeing that familiar face after two whole days of suffering in this place alone gets you even more emotional.
after sukuna entered the room, his gaze had immediately fell upon your quivering figure. he raises an eyebrow as you cry louder once you spot him, the sound breaking his ear drums. he lets out a sharp exhale, a hint of annoyance seeping into his tone.
“enough with the tears,” sukuna grumbles as he crosses the room in a few long strides. his presence is both imposing and protective as he looms over your small figure.
his eyes flicker over your body—taking in the sight of your round belly. he can’t deny that the view makes his shoulders relax, relieved to see his wife do well after two days without seeing you.
sukuna kneels down before you, his eyes narrowing as he notices the tears running down your cheeks. who knows how long you’ve been sobbing? the realisation that no one has checked on you while you’ve been crying like this irks him.
the king of curses will make sure that every single servant - and especially the ones assigned to you - pay for not noticing your sour mood sooner.
“damn it, woman,” sukuna curses under his breath, his words laden with both irritation and a sense of concern, “what’s gotten into you now, hmm? why the blubbering mess?"
you hiccup, gasping for air as sukuna kneels down to your level, something he rarely does. one of his hands reach out to wipe a tear from your cheek, his expression stoic and unreadable while he does so.
“welcome home,” you utter, remembering to greet him properly. you wipe your own tears away and try to explain the situation without it sounding absurd. “i—i went down to the kitchen to get som-something,” you stammer, trying to spit it out before sukuna’s irritation spikes.
“but they didn’t have the food i craved—they’re out of mangoes,” your wailing starts again just at the thought of your non existent fruit. it felt like the most devastating moment in your life when the maids told you that they were out of mangoes.
sukuna’s annoyance quickly dissolves upon hearing your explanation. the revelation that you’re crying over mangoes seems so unbelievable, so absurd, that he couldn't help but let out a dry huff of laughter. an amused smirk tugs at the corners of his lips.
the pink haired man brushes the remnants of the tears away from your face. his rough fingers pause at your chin, giving it a light tap. “mangoes, huh? y’re out here bawling y’r fucking eyes out like a baby for some damn mangoes?”
despite his tough exterior, sukuna knows that pregnancy hormones often amplified emotions, making even the smallest things a cause for crying. and right now, you’re stressing and sputtering over some mangoes.
“mangoes,” you nod and cry softly, watching as sukuna rubs your cheeks with his manly fingers, enjoying his rough touch. you easily guess by just the increased toughness of his calluses that your husband has worked hard while he was gone.
though, mangoes are your current pregnancy craving and not having them meant war to you. it’s all you can focus on—even if your beloved sukuna is right in front of you.
“i need them,” you whine and pout. your hormones made it difficult for you to calm down.
you do, however, try your best to stop crying. you clean your face with the sleeve of your kimono and bite on your bottom lip to refrain from bawling your eyes out for the nth time. “i want my mangoes,” your voice is hoarse as you glance up at sukuna, “please?”
sukuna hates to admit it, but his expression softens upon hearing the hoarse tone of your pleading voice. the view of your tear-streaked face and the knowledge that you’re experiencing pregnancy cravings makes it difficult for him to maintain his usual firm demeanor.
the king of curses sighs, his annoyance replaced by a reluctant acceptance of your plight. “tsk, damn it,” he mutters, lazily resting his head against the palm of one of his hands, “y’re really gonna make me fetch you some mangoes?”
here you are, a grown woman crying and begging like a kid for a sweet, juicy mango. he’s seen you in many states - happy, sad, tired, excited - but never quite as emotionally overwhelmed just for a piece of fruit. sukuna’s large hand reaches out to pat your head in a surprisingly gentle manner, a rare display of his softer side.
you pout at sukuna and lean into his touch as he pats your head. you come up with something witty to say, as you always do. “well, you’re the one who got me pregnant,” you comment in a teasing way, sticking your tongue out at your husband.
no matter what sour mood you’re in, you can still be sassy. though it doesn’t last long before your bottom lip trembles again. “i can’t do anything about it. the baby craves mangos,” you whine as you rub your baby bump to emphasise your words.
you are eating for two people after all—for you and the baby.
sukuna’s smirk widened at your retort and the playful gesture. even in your distraught state, you had the audacity to sass him. damn cheeky little woman.
the pink-haired man chuckled darkly, his hand clumsily ruffling your hair again before pulling away. “‘n i don’t regret a thing. even if i gotta put up with y’r cranky ass.”
you roll your eyes at sukuna’s reply. you know you’re an emotional mess, but you couldn’t care less. anything for your mangoes—those juicy ones that you could eat a dozen of in one sitting.
“the maids said that the mangoes were out of stock in the towns ‘nd villages nearby,” you continue while you carefully stand up from the corner. you’re trying your best to stay rational. you’re extremely hungry and haven’t eaten ever since breakfast. that’s how stubborn you are being.
“but i’m hungryyyyy. want my mangoes,” you sigh and nearly stomp your feet out of frustration.
“yeah, yeah—fuckin’ hell,” sukuna groans, watching you slowly stand up, your pregnant belly protruding like a perfect sphere. it’s a constant reminder of the effect he has on you, and somehow, it makes him proud.
he helps you stand up by holding onto your arm, sharp eyes focused on your body to make sure you don’t strain a single muscle.
after you manage to stand up straight, you walk with sukuna to the kitchen to find something to eat—perhaps some other fruit will satisfy your cravings for now.
sukuna follows behind you, his steps long and leisurely while your shorter strides keep the pace with him. as the two of you walked towards the kitchen, he continues to listen to your repeated mantra. it’s driving him insane.
“mangoes, mangoes, mangoes. i get it, brat,” the king of curses swears he can feel the vein in his forehead throb. you’re lucky that he . . . tolerates you as his wife.
it’s something more than just ‘tolerating’ you, of course. but openly admitting to loving you, even in the slightest, is something sukuna would never do.
if someone would ask him why he goes the extra mile for you, his answer would be that it’s simply because you’re carrying his heir. however only sukuna knows the full truth, the sappy secret he’ll forever keep to himself.
before you arrive at the kitchen, you bump into uraume. they glance from sukuna to you and bow. “good day,” they greet you with as much respect as they do to sukuna. they’ve been doing so ever since you gained your title as his wife.
the king of curses folds all four of his arms over his chest. his lower pair of eyes are still focused on your impatient self, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. he just knows you’re holding yourself back from asking for your active pregnancy craving again.
sukuna clicks his tongue and nods his head at you while he speaks to uraume. “keep an eye on her while ‘m gone. feed her what she wants,” he says in his deep voice, his tone commanding and firm.
uraume remains quiet for a second. sukuna had recently came back from a mission and is once again heading out for some ambiguous reason, but they know better than to question their master.
“where are you going, hubby?”
you of course, get a free pass. you don’t hesitate at all before questioning your husband. sukuna scoffs when he hears your voice ask him that in such an oblivious manner. you should’ve known where he was departing to.
“where’d you think, smartass?” he pinches your nose, causing you to swat his fingers away out of instinct. he gives up on your nose and moves to squeeze your cheeks together in a gentle yet firm manner.
you huff at his antics. sukuna grins at your frown and pout before releasing your jawline with a faint push.
“you better hold on ‘til i come back with y’r stupid mangoes,” he scoffs while turning around to walk to the entrance, “and when i do, i don’t wanna hear ‘nother squeak, understood?”
sukuna seems to have made another mission for himself; find his heavily pregnant wife mangoes before she goes absolutely insane.
your face lights up and you nod repeatedly. your heart melts when you realise that sukuna is actually putting effort to satisfy your needs. he may be harsh and stern at times, but his actions speak louder than his words.
“okay! love you, ‘kuna!” you call out to your lover while he disappears behind the gates. as expected, your words are met by silence.
that’s fine with you. not hearing an ‘i love you’ back doesn’t hurt you as much as it did at the start of your relationship.
you know sukuna cherishes you in his own special way. if he didn’t, you’d be dead long time ago. on top of that, he would not go out on a hunt for mangoes right after coming back home if he didn’t like you.
you know sukuna would let the world burn for you.
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luveline · 6 months ago
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hotch's little sister x spencer perhaps?
—Hotch’s sister graduates college, and Spencer is immediately smitten. fem, 1.6k
“She’s pregnant.” Emily shakes her bag of chips around. “But it’s not his baby.” 
Spencer frowns down at his sandwich. Rye bread is hard to cut, and the plastic knife isn’t putting up a good fight. “That’s awful,” he says. “He must be heartbroken.” 
“He’s distraught. Now he can’t decide if he wants to stay and raise the new baby with their first, or leave her and have split custody.” 
“What channel did you say it was on?” 
“It’s on NightDrama. I’ll find out the number.” 
Emily folds the empty packet of chips into a rectangle, then that rectangle into a triangle, folding the edges inside of a fold to create a parcel perfect for flicking at him. Spencer waits for it, tensing, but what he sees behind Emily steals his attention. 
She whips her head to follow him. 
You are, as Spencer watches you walk in, without a doubt one of the prettiest girls he’s ever seen. And it’s not like you’re a model, you don’t walk with any such confidence, but it strikes him immediately. You’re pretty. And he’s never seen you in the office before. 
They get visitors occasionally but the majority of people so deep into this office would've been checked at security and cleared to come up here. You hold a visitors badge in your hand, which you promptly clip onto your shirt when you see people looking at you. Your frown makes you prettier. Something about the way you stand seems familiar, but Spencer can’t put his finger on what it is. 
“Should we go help?” Emily asks. 
“Who do you think she’s for?” Spencer asks back. He’s thinking you’re here to speak to JJ. They have people like this occasionally who JJ knows from past cases, drifting in on a hope that there’s more detail to be found. 
Emily stands up from her chair. Spencer follows suit. When you see her facing toward you, some of your apprehension melts into relief. 
“Hi,” you say breathily, summoning a smile that, again, seems familiar. Not in looks, but practise, maybe. 
“Hi there, can we help? You look lost,” Emily says. 
She sounds more friendly than Spencer could’ve hoped to achieve. He doesn’t even wanna think about it, from how pretty you are he would’ve stumbled over even the most basic hello. 
“I’m here to see Aaron Hotchner. He told me his office is up the stairs, is that still one of these ones,” —you nod gently at the stairs that do, in fact, lead to his office— “or somewhere else?” 
“That’s the right one, the very first door.” 
“Okay,” you give a soft laugh. “Thank you. This place makes me nervous.” 
You leave to travel up the steps. Emily and Spencer watch without any casualness as you approach Hotch’s office door, and give a little knock. 
It’s more surprising to see it tugged open so quickly after. Hotch usually says, “Come in.” 
“Oh, you’re here,” Hotch says. It’s to Spencer’s shock and Emily’s clear joy when he leans in for a hug. The bearhug kind, no politeness or manners about their intimidating boss as his arms cross behind your shoulders and he pulls you in. “You’re late.” He squeezes you. 
You let it happen. “I hate your building.” 
“What the hell?” Emily whispers. 
“I’m so happy to see you. Come on, come in, I ordered lunch for us already.” 
Emily is shameless. She takes Spencer by the wrist and encourages him to the wall below Hotch’s office as he ushers you inside. The door remains ajar, perfect for snooping, and Spencer doesn’t know what it is but he lets Emily drag him forward anyhow. 
“If that’s his girlfriend, he should be ashamed,” Emily whispers. 
Spencer raises his brows. “Did you think that was romantic?” 
“I’ve never seen him show affection to anyone who wasn’t Haley, and when was the last time she was here?” 
Spencer tosses it around in his mind. Sure, it was quite affectionate by Hotch’s standards, but the hug was so… uncareful. He’d grabbed you and hugged you like he was gonna shake you around for fun, like a dad hugs his daughter. “How old is Hotch?” Spencer asks. 
“You don’t think that’s his secret kid.” 
“No,” Spencer says, though he sort of does. 
Emily gestures for him to hush as your laugh drifts down from the office. “You did?” you’re asking. “It’s so nice to be home.” 
“Of course I did. It’s like I promised, okay? You finished college like I asked you too, you’ve done so well, and now I’m gonna make sure you’re happy. Like I tried to do for Sean.” 
“Sean,” you sigh. “He didn’t even answer my grad card.” 
“I don’t know what to say about him, I really don’t.” 
A small pause. “Well, at least you answered.” 
“You know I would’ve come to watch you walk–”
“But you couldn’t. It’s fine, Aaron, I wasn’t really expecting you to make it.” 
“I’m sorry. Really. And I’m proud of you, after everything.”
“Thank you… The bag was better than you being there anyways. Coach?” You laugh breathily. “My friends keep asking me if you can be their big brother too.” 
Emily and Spencer turn to each other, mouths agape, Emily slapping his arm as they struggle to make no noise. Since when does Aaron have a sister? A young sister freshly graduated? 
Hotch laughs too. “Come and sit before your lunch gets cold.” 
Emily gets out her phone to text Morgan, she and Spencer pressed to the wall with their heads ducked. Hotch is a total enigma, because what the hell sort of secret is that?
When Morgan appears, it’s with all the answers. He rolls his eyes at their clear position of eavesdropping but leans against Emily’s desk to give them the information they’re craving anyways. “She’s adopted. Hotch was already in college at the time, but they’re close. They get along a lot better than Hotch does with Sean, that’s for sure.” 
“He sounds protective,” Emily says, side-eying the office. 
“Look, it’s not my business, but I just know it was bad when she was a teenager. Hotch is a drill sergeant for a reason.” Ah, Spencer thinks. The Hotchner father. 
Spencer picks at his hands. It explains the conversation he shouldn’t have been listening to, to a degree. He feels the guilt of knowing something he wasn’t meant to like a sodden weight, retreating swiftly to his desk and his forgotten sandwich.
It’s nice to hear Hotch laughing, but it’s your laugh that draws him in again while he tries so hard not to listen. It’s as attractive to Spencer as your frown had been when you walked in. He thinks about how you finished college, how you’re here, and he wonders if he’ll see more of you —how often will you come in for lunch? Spencer checks his hair in his sleeping monitor and feels like an idiot. 
“I’m sorry,” Hotch says a little while later, elbowing open the door with his back to the office, “we’ll have dinner soon, honey, I promise.” 
You reach up to give him another quick hug. “It’s fine. It’s just nice to be in the same city again.” 
Hotch guides you down to the bullpen with the same pride with which he introduced Jack. It’s unmissable, the love he has for you in just one touch against your shoulder. “Y/N,” he says, pausing at the bullpen, “Derek Morgan you’ve met. This is Emily Prentiss and Spencer Reid.” 
“Spencer Reid?” you ask suddenly, looking up into Hotch’s face like he’s lying, your brows pulled together in indignation, before you turn back to Spencer reverently. “You’re Dr. Spencer Reid?” 
He gets caught on his own breath. “Uh, yes?” 
“The Dr. Spencer Reid who wrote Methods of Continued Fraction Expansions?” 
Spencer feels heat like a kiss to each cheek. “Yes.” 
You turn to Hotch with a suspicious pout. “When I told you about the paper I was reading by a Dr. Reid a few months ago, you didn’t stop to think it could be your Dr. Reid? Or you just don’t like me?” 
That’s a sister’s scorn if Spencer’s ever heard it. 
“I thought you said Rain.” 
“I don’t think you did.” You turn back to Spencer. “I can’t believe it, I emailed you about Jacobi elliptical functions, you were so helpful, I owe you my degree.” You put your hand out with a beaming, beautiful smile, Spencer’s stomach totally flips. “It’s amazing to meet you in person.” 
He’s a germaphobe, he is, and that doesn’t just go away when you meet someone lovely, but he shakes your hand. You surprise him too quickly to think beyond taking your hand letting it happen. You’re, like, glowing. 
Hotch gives him a funny look. Mostly impassive, but not quite. 
Spencer abruptly lets you go. “I don’t think you would’ve needed my help to get there in the end. You clearly knew what you were doing.”  
Hotch’s eyebrows silently rise. 
You turn back to Hotch again, your smile catching. “I like your friends.” 
He smiles. “Let me walk you down to the lobby, honey.” 
You let him guide you away, giving the present members of the BAU a wave with just your fingers before you go. 
Morgan and Emily look at him heavily. “Spencer,” Emily says. “What was that?” 
He doesn’t want to say what he thinks it was, so he doesn’t. “She was nice.” 
Morgan’s laughter is immediate. Spencer has to walk off to the kitchen for a cup of tea he doesn’t drink to escape him and the connotation of his laughing. Spencer hopes he’ll see you again soon, though if he’s half a good a profiler as he thinks he is, he might end up in trouble with your brother.
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cumikering · 6 months ago
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Ghost x plus-sized reader
2.1k | fluff, drink spiking Did you just call Simon weak? The rest of the 141 didn’t like that
“Can I carry you?”
At the pub table, you almost spat the last gulp of your drink at the question. You turned to the source of the gruff voice, meeting the man’s chest before craning your neck up to his eyes. He had to be over 6 ft tall.
You set your glass down. “I’m sorry?”
“My mates are betting I can’t get anyone to piggyback.”
“And you picked me?”
He nodded at your top. “Skulls are sort of my lucky charm.”
You scoffed, looking past him at the other ladies in the room. “Are you serious? There are plenty who weigh far less.”
His brow rose. “Are you calling me weak?”
You took in the width of his shoulders, how his loose black shirt couldn’t hide the thickness of his biceps – the left one inked. He was handsome, rugged with the scar across his cheek, his short blond hair and light scruff, but his stare and bluntness made him beyond intimidating.
How could you get out of this situation with the least fuss?
“N- no.”
His eyes softened a touch. “May I? Please?”
Playing along and getting it over with should be the safest bet. “Okay... But-”
He turned his back and squatted slightly. “Hop on.”
“Wait- are you sure you can?”
“Hop on,” he repeated.
At that point, it was not your fault anymore if he ended up embarrassing himself. So you gripped his hard shoulders and did as told before he swiftly hooked his large hands under your jean-clad thighs. He didn’t grunt or strain when he bounced you to position and straightened up. As if you weighed nothing, which was a feeling you never thought you’d experience.
You had to give it to him - his strength was impressive. You chuckled to yourself, seeing the top of everyone’s head amused you. Across the pub, the table of three men grinned at the massive stranger. The one with the mohawk was very much entertained as he gave him thumbs up.
It was then that Simon groaned, because his team was embarrassing the hell out of him. That, and he finally got to feel how soft and warm you were pressed up against him. A little creepy, but a man was allowed to fantasise about a birdie he’d been eyeing, right?
“That’s all, yeah? You just have to carry-”
He stepped towards the bar, making you latch onto him.
“Oh! Where are you going?
“I’m getting you a drink.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Please, I insist.” When he flagged the barman down, you held on tighter. “It’s the least I can offer for getting you involved.”
You laughed, your breath warm against his ear. “Are you going to set me down or am I having my drink on your back?”
“Don’t give me ideas.” He chuckled as he lowered you to your feet.
He leaned against the bar, arm folded as he stared at you on the stool, downing your shot before looking at yourself on your selfie cam.
“Would you… like something as well?” you asked after you tucked your phone back in your pocket.
He shook his head.
“Okay. Well, thanks for he drink. You could get back to your mates if you want.”
“I’m Simon,” he mustered instead.
“Hi.” You shifted in your seat. “Is something the matter?”
“No.” He frowned. “Why are you asking?”
“It’s just you’ve been staring, and there’s nothing on my face. I checked.”
Bloody hell, could he be any more awkward? He just wanted to ask why you were alone without being weird about it.
He looked away. “I didn’t mean to.” You make me stupid. It didn’t help that your previous drink had tinted your lips, looking even more kissable up close.
“I think your mates want you back though.” You chuckled, nodding at his table.
When he turned to them, they immediately busied themselves with their drinks, averting their gazes.
“They’re a nosy bunch, they are.” He inched closer to you. “The one in the beanie, that’s our captain. The other two are my sergeants.”
“You’re the lieutenant?”
He hummed. “The one with the mohawk is the prankster. He’s a bad influence. He’ll talk you into doing anything.”
“He put you up to this then?”
He shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips.
As if on cue, Soap looked up with an uncontained grin, only to look back down when he realised eyes were on him.
”Seems like he can’t wait to say hi.” He swiftly picked you up off your seat, bridal-style. “Is this enough to show you weigh nothin’?” he asked, fighting the urge to grab a handful of your soft thigh and waist.
“Oh- oh dear!” You laughed, arm wrapping around his neck, pretty fingers grasping his bicep. “Wait, wait, put me down!”
When you were back on your feet, you pulled your phone out of your pocket. “Sorry, I’m actually meeting someone. He’s almost here.”
So that was why you were alone. You were waiting for someone. Disappointment anchored at the bottom of his chest.
“Right. Okay.”
You smiled. “Thanks for the drink, Simon. I’ll see you around, yeah?”
He grunted and you headed to the end of the bar. He stood umoving for another second before retreating to his table like a kicked puppy.
“L.T., wha’ happened? She was havin’ so much fun!” Soap shot as soon as Simon took his seat next to him.
“She’s meetin’ someone,” he said quietly.
“Aww… Sorry, Ghost,” Gaz said. “But hey, she let you carry her!”
With your back to him, you looked at your phone whenever a man walked in.
Huh, first date?
You flagged down some other blond man who walked over to you with a smile. The barman took your order before you chatted with him with a polite smile, keeping a respectable distance between the two of you.
Simon was in no place to watch and invade your privacy – he really should look away. But what was it that simmered in him when the bloke scooted closer, his arm along the back of your chair?
He laughed, pointing at something on the TV. You looked up, and your hand deftly covered your drink, like an instinct.
He smirked. Smart girl.
“I know she’s with someone, but I can tell she likes you more,” Price said, and Simon finally tore his gaze away from you.
“Ye should fight ‘im, L.T. He dinnae stand a fuckin’ chance.”
“You can knock him out with a slap,” Gaz quipped.
He chuckled, blatantly looking over Price to you again. “Rather just look.” While it wasn’t for him, at least he could watch your pretty smile from here and quench his thirst a bit.
With the bloke’s drink in hand, he wrapped his arm around your shoulder, his other hand inching to your covered drink now. He tipped his glass over you, causing you to jump and grab serviettes to dab yourself with. Just as fast, his fisted hand opened over your drink before helping you.
“No fucking way,” Simon said out loud.
“What?” Gaz followed his line of sight.
He marched over, yanking the man around by the shoulder. “What the bloody hell did you just do?”
He stumbled off his seat from the force, making the lieutenant tower over him even more. “What? Who- Do you know him?” He turned to you.
His finger jabbed the man’s chest. “What. The. Fuck. Did you put in her drink?”
“Nothing! What are you accusing me of?”
Simon didn’t miss the crack in the man’s voice. He raised your drink to the man’s face, a tiny white tablet swaying at the bottom of the glass. “Empty your pockets.”
“Simon, what’s…”
“I’m not repeating myself.”
The man fished out his phone, wallet and keys with trembling hands.
“That’s not all.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing else, mate!” he said exasperatedly.
Simon’s patience ran dry. He patted his front pocket, hand bumping over something. “You need to see this,” he said quietly to you.
You hesitantly stuck your hand in the man’s left pocket, coming up with a bag of white tablets.
The man smacked the bag out of your hand. “You planted that, you slag!”
“If you didn’t do anything, drink it.” He spat, holding out your drink to him, now cloudy and fizzing.
He stared at the glass. “Fuck you,” he said, pushing it onto Simon’s chest before dashing out of the pub.
“Did he…”
“The fuck was that, Simon?” Price questioned from behind him.
“Fucking piece of shit spiked her drink.”
Price turned to you, a hand on your shoulder. “You got his name and number, love?”
“Yes.” You blinked. ”Yes, his number and dating profile.”
“I’m sending the coppas his way.” He picked up the evidence on the ground with a serviette. “Simon, get the details and make sure she gets home safe,” he said before approaching the barman.
You dried his ruined shirt with a wad of serviette. “I can’t even begin to thank you for your help, Simon. Really, thank you so much. I wouldn’t have-”
“You did good.” He squeezed your hand over his chest. “You covered your glass when you weren’t looking, but spilling his drink on you was something else.”
When you looked up at him with wide eyes, he dropped your hand.
“Would you like me to send you home?”
“I don’t want to trouble you. I don’t even live nearby.”
“Would you let me, if I want to?”
There was a pause before you smiled. “I think I’d like that, actually.”
When he grabbed his jacket from the table, Soap patted him on the back.
“Good catch, L.T. What a fuckin’ disgrace, the lad.”
“Have fun, Ghost,” Gaz teased.
Outside the pub where the streets were quieter, you forwarded the profile and chat screenshots of the man from your group chat to Simon.
“Can’t be too cautious. I’m not surprised if that’s not even his name honestly.” You shrugged, stuffing your phone back in your pocket. “I knew it was dodgy he insisted on meeting here when I said I’d rather somewhere in the middle, in broad daylight. That, and he was half an hour late too!”
It was disheartening to know this was the reality of dating, that all sorts of people lurked online, sometimes not with the best intentions. He’d show you his ID just to prove he wasn’t a creep, just someone smitten with a staring problem if any.
“If it was me, I’d have taken you anywhere you wanted.”
You chuckled.
“On my back too, if you prefer. I think you quite enjoyed that.”
“I did, actually,” you teased. “Is it a bad time to tell you I’m starving?”
“Yeah? That’s good news, because I’m always hungry. A kebab sounds about right at this hour.”
“Extra chips?”
“Extra chips,” he affirmed.
“You know what, I think this is my sign.” You pulled out your phone again, deleting an app. “Don’t think online dating was ever my thing.”
Is a stranger at a pub who shamelessly stares at you more your thing?
“Going out with someone who offers to carry me around is more like it.”
He bit back a smile. “So? Another ride on my back?”
You chuckled. “Next time,” you said, taking his arm instead.
As much as he enjoyed your touch, he couldn’t do with your fingers over his jacket. He needed to feel you. When he held your hand in his, you smiled up at him.
Simon had to thank his team for painstakingly convincing the stubborn lieutenant to approach the lady he’d been staring at. You didn’t have to know there was no bet, that asking to carry you was his own idea, an outrageous excuse to talk to you. But he wouldn’t complain if he ended up helping you, taking you for a little supper and even got to send you home.
“When’s next time?” he asked at your door, squeezing your hand.
You really shouldn’t have said it, because he was going to make sure there would be one. It had become a goal to show you how you deserved to be treated on a date.
“Is tomorrow too soon?”
“Right now isn’t even too soon.”
You laughed, pulling him down by the shoulder to meet your lips.
For @glitterypirateduck ‘s Ghost Challenge :D check out her page for fic recs!
Neighbour Ghost AU if he still had his family
Ghost's online fantasies came true Masterlist
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