#Scar Gamble

[monstersinthecosmos]

do you ever stop and remember that the Galra had extremely advanced medical tech and the only reason Shiro came away with scars was because they chose not to heal him because im

[quietwingsinthesky]

what if. Amy “fix-it” because hallucifer makes sam so paranoid about dean leaving for no reason that sam gives in and follows him and is witness to the whole thing

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Further ideas for Marvelous Bats AU (Freddy and Black Adam centric)

I said before how I like the idea of the magic putting them in their physical primes but there’s an obvious limit, like to regrowing limbs isn’t possible and scars linger on their older bodies. I mean that’s how it works in other DC medias, Captain Thunder from the Flashpoint timeline had scars that stayed from a battle with Diana and Apokolips War had Marvel with a blinded and scared eye and missing leg with a lightning construct to replace it. The magic doesn’t fix everything with their champions bodies. Sure those injuries might not translate right back to them detransformed, it’s a hypothetical older them sustained by magic, but anything from the real body should always stick to the magic one right?

Touching on Freddy, he shouldn’t be able to walk on his bad leg. The invulnerability and flight sure make the hero gig with it easier but any pain or discomfort that would come internally should still occur. The magic Shazam’s him up but he’s ultimately trading one crutch for another.

Same with Black Adam since in the current idea of him he was a slave almost his entire life up until he became Khem-Adam and never turned back he should have his own issues too. Poor guy may age a few thousand years the minute he turns back but until then he still has the pains he left his mortal body with, which is probably something akin to a lot of chronic pain from years of hard labor and a ton of back pain from the business end of a whip. If there is some way to help him through some sort of pain medicine powerful enough to affect someone whose basically a god he’s taking it, if not then he’s in constant pain and incapable of getting help for his situation by being too late by thousands of years for some sort of magical/medical treatment.

I’ve never been a fan of disability’s being swept under the rug or retconned into oblivion, I don’t want Freddy’s to be forgettable half the time and I wish people would acknowledge how much Theos newer backstory would affect him as an antagonist to the family, man, and leader of Khandaq.

[sarcasticsouthernbookworm]

Who let him do this? Some enabling mother fuckers that’s who y’all are

[trashyandtiredsol]

The jist of my fainting experience in the tags here!! Long as hell

Feel free to tell me more about it

[wickedzeevyln]

Vessels

Walked under a band of candy floss clouds dusted with ash from the weather’s sorrow-lit cigarette, not far, a gutter, a snare drum for the rain beats, and the day marches on. As any child would, we played with paper boats and guided them down the storm drain, and we saw tomorrow unfold before us, who we are and where we are going to be. Our homes walked away where they once stood, and the waves…

[valleydoli]

ʚɞ Gojo Satoru Fic Recommendations ʚɞ

J’adore (O)

Scars don’t fade (C)

August (C)

Sincerely Not (C)

Sincerely Yours (O)

Everyone’s Doll (C)

Missed Connection (C)

Confessions (O)

Confidential (O)

Violet Lights (C)

Starboy (C)

The Twist of a Knife (O)

A Dangerous Game (C)

Fate’s Gamble (O)

All I Need (C)

Baby Steps (C)

Finite (C)

Sensual Epiphany (C)

Two Lines (C)

Changes (O)

Infidelity (C)

The Fuck List (C)

In Other Words, I Love You (Dead Dove: Do Not Eat) (C)

Permanent Mark (C)

Sundered (C)

Infidelity (C)

Kick Off (O)

The Unfaithful (C)

I Still Want You (O)

Concern and Control (C)

Symptoms and Causes (O)

One Moment Was All It Took (Dead Dove: Do Not Eat) (O)

Fuck The List (O)

My Love Note (O)

As You Like It (C)

People Would Assume (C) (Dead Dove: Do Not Eat)

Break Free (O)

Limerence (O)

In Memory of You (TBD)

Motherhood and Matrimony (O)

A Fairytale Wedding (O)

Untameable Waves (please come back)

[hauntingblue]

YES SHIROHIGE MAKE TERROR PUMP INTO THAT MOTHERFUCKERS VEINS

[theworstcreature]

No you don’t understand I can’t simply wear the blorbos outfit I need to BECOME the blorbo from my shows

[hurlingdown]

WITH MY HANDS AROUND YOUR THROAT — TOP MALE READER X SUKUNA

synopsis. taming the king of curses is one thing. making him beg is another. since it's either fuck him good or get your throat slit anyway, why not take a gamble and achieve both? wc. 2.6k

tags. sub! sukuna, soft dom!reader. can be read as cock or strap. brat taming, choking, begging, hair-pulling, belly bulge, heavy praise kink, pet names (good boy, sweetheart), porn with feelings, this turned out way more intimate than i intended it to be

His back arched away from your chest as you slowly pushed your cock inside him, stretching him wide open. You could feel his every ragged breath from the hand you wrapped around his throat, silent for once, and you knew he was eager. 

“Good fuckin’ boy, Sukuna,” you muttered lowly into his ear.  

You barely heard the warning growl. He turned his head abruptly, teeth snapping together in an attempt to bite as you jerked away, barking out a startled laugh. 

“Aw, that was cute.” And as though the bite wouldn’t have torn flesh, wouldn’t have scarred your face for life, you smiled down at his scowling face like it was a pretty thing. 

“I am not your pet,” Sukuna snarled, and he sounded angry, something akin to a wounded animal. You hummed non-committedly, continuing to push until you were snugly seated inside him. “Fuck—the n-next time you call me that, I will bite something more than your face.”

“How tempting.” Despite his threats, his legs were trembling with effort to hold himself up, and he pressed his throat into the cup of your hand, willingly submitting to your touch. You squeezed lightly, just enough to press into his windpipe, and watched as all four of his eyes rolled to the back of his head. 

It was funny, really, how he was using violence to disguise what a whore he really was. You counted to five before you let go. 

Apparently, you stopped too early for his liking. He was panting, his glare wet with tears, biting down a moan with bared teeth as the fat tip of your cock caught on his rim before easing in again. You were moving at a lumbering pace, deep and hard inside him but too fucking slow and rubbing at all the wrong places. 

He was growing frustrated by the second, and he finally barked, “Get on with it or I’ll kill you! Do you want to fuck me or not?” 

“I am fucking you, Sukuna.” 

“Not like this! Fuck—fuck you!” he half-hissed, half-whined, nails digging into the soft mattress. ‘More’ and ‘faster’ were on the tip of his tongue, but he took pride in his title of the King of Curses, and naturally his ego kept his mouth sealed shut. “Do really think I will hesitate to kill you just because I let you inside me? Are you that much of a fool?”

“Nah,” you replied nonchalantly, rolling your hips inside him to jolt out a startled moan. “You can kill me, but I don’t feel like catering to you today.” 

His words exploded into a string of expletives as he slammed his hips against you, shuddering as it only dug deeper, missing his sweet spot by far. 

Sukuna wanted to scream. 

Hand sliding up from his throat to firmly seize his jaw, you turned his face to meet you. “D’you need a reminder, sweetheart?” Your fingers dug into his cheek, taking extra precaution in making sure he wouldn't suddenly rear up and bite you. 

You needn’t have worried, though. He was way too desperate to care about the pet name or comprehend your question at that point, and he bucked his hips impatiently against yours, letting out a displeased growl. “What? J-just fucking fuck me already, brat.” 

You ignored him, continuing to move into him at a languid pace. “If I just give you the reward every time you ask, you’ll turn spoiled. How about you show me that you’ve earned it first, mm?” 

“What,” he lets out a shudder, breath bordering on a sob because why couldn’t you just give him what he wanted? He was so good for you, all patient despite his arousal, waiting for you to take him like you had promised, and yet you were being so mean and unfair to him. “What do you fucking want from me? You are just—fuuuckk, you are just human—so fucking weak, comparable to an insect! What makes you think you have the right to demand that of me? I am your king.”

He wanted to rip that smirk right off your face, punch your pretty face in. Dine in your blood. You didn’t deserve him. 

“I don’t have any right, I know,” you agreed, “but you aren’t entitled to everything, either.”

“Your ways of insinuation are pathetic—”

It hit him then, like a thunderbolt splitting the earth apart, and he gave a violent shudder.

The past twenty minutes had not been for nothing. You weren’t just toying around with him. You wanted him to see him crumble from his want for you. You wanted to hear him beg for it.

“No,” he gasped, shaking his head wildly. “No, fuck you. I am not going to beg.” 

You felt a sadistic smile creep onto your face. Seeing him deviating from his usual cocky self, now a babbling, incoherent mess, gave you a strange sort of pleasure. “I didn’t ask you to beg, though, did I? But now that you mention it…” 

You wanted to break him. 

Not that he wasn’t breaking already.

Sukuna was trembling with the effort of not giving in, sharp teeth digging into his bottom lip so hard it tore through skin. Blood trickled down one side of his chin, and you wanted to lick it up. 

“I am your king,” he repeated, a tremor in his voice betraying his want. “You offer to me. I do not beg.”

“Well, king, you’re holding up all the fun,” you taunted, voice sickly sweet. “Don’t you wanna be a good boy for me?” 

He shook his head again, this time with less force. Tears were welling up in his eyes again, and he didn’t even bother to blink them away, too occupied otherwise. They dotted on his lashes, threatening to spill. Where were his promises of ‘biting something more than your face’? What a little liar. 

“I’ll make you feel so good you’ll be feeling it for days,” you purred into his ear, “in exchange for one word. That’s all I’m asking for. You can do that, can’t you, sweetheart?” 

You watched in triumph as his eyebrows furrowed, as though carefully contemplating his answer. It was far too generous of an offer—he would be a fool to refuse. You made sure he knew that. Just one more little push, and he would topple over the edge and become putty in your hands. One more push. 

Kissing your way down his spine to plaster yourself to his back, you reached a hand down his abdomen with your free hand, pressing into it where your cock rested within him. It was too much, and you knew it. You were heavy and thick inside him, filling up every inch of his tummy, and he hadn’t stopped clenching around your girth since the first time you pushed it in. Then you moved your hand, feeling him up until you found the thing you were looking for. 

You heard his breath hitch. 

Beneath your fingers was an obscene swelling high up in his abdomen, protruding from the hard lines of his stomach. A bulge that made for clear evidence that his insides were carving out a space for you. You should have known there was no way it would fit so innately. No matter how disagreeable his personality was, his body was so good for you, as always. 

You gave the bulge a little squeeze, and Sukuna let out a choked whine, mouth gaping as though trying to form words. 

You pressed yourself to his back, kissing his shoulder. “What is it?” 

He shook his head, continuing to whine softly, no longer as petulant as he was desperate. You were almost afraid you had broken him. 

You decided to take one more step. Flattening your palm on the bulge, you carefully pressed it back into his stomach. “What do you want, Sukuna?” you whispered. “I’ll give you everything you want.”

He tipped his head back to glare at you with the corner of his eye, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Give me more,” he gritted out, helpless. “Please.” 

Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?

Without warning, you pulled back and rammed yourself into him in one go, angling your hips to pound right into his sweet spot, making him cry out in surprise. “W-wait, wait, ahh!” he screamed, the hand on his neck forcing him to stay in place. “Slow down, ‘s too much—” 

You continued to slam your hips against him, hitting his prostate with every sharp thrust, drinking in his whines and complaints and ignoring all of them. “You’re so good, so fuckin’ good, Sukuna.” 

He whined loudly in response, hands grasping for purchase on the sheets as you railed him into oblivion. “Not good, no,” he sobbed, shaking his head, his protests falling on deaf ears. “Bastard, slow down…”

You let go of his throat to grab the back of his neck, shoving his face roughly into the mattress as he cried out. “Fuck, how do you feel so good?” you muttered mindlessly, taking more rapture in looking at his pleasure-addled expression (eyes squeezed shut, drooling onto the bed, moaning loud and clearly in ecstasy) than the fact that you were inside him. “I could do this all day long, y’know?” 

The tip of his erection grazed against the sheets with every thrust, and he wanted nothing more than to grab it and jerk off to your pace, but you kept his hands so busy, either trying to knock off his balance or brutally pound his entire body into the bed. 

“Ah, ah, sh-shut up! Keep talking and—I’ll twist your head off!” he threatened with a whine, desperate, but you continued to talk, embarrassing him further. 

“Look at you,” you cooed, “you were making a fuss earlier, and look at you now, taking me so well. Fuck. You look like you’re made for this, Sukuna. Made for taking my cock.” 

He seized up at that, hole clenching around your girth obscenely, making your pace stutter. 

“What was that?” you laughed. “Was that a turn on? You’re too cute, really.” 

Sukuna tried to morph his face into a look of disgust, but all he succeeded in doing was have his eyebrows pinched up in a look that resembled pure bliss more than anything. At some point he gave up struggling, arms going slack as he allowed you to pull him back against your cock by the hips, fucking him onto your lap as lewd ‘ah, ah, ah’s escaped his lips. 

You were pounding into him like an animal, treating him like one, and yet your pathetic, ingratiating words never failed to make his heart cramp up with a strange sensation, heat spreading from his face to the tips of his ears and down his chest, painting him a pretty red. 

You were just another lowly human, he reminded himself, someone to fuck and forget, but at the moment Sukuna found himself wishing to get lost in the stars that erupted around the edges of his vision every time you hit his prostate, found himself wanting a second time, even if the first hadn’t ended yet. You drove him insane, and he loathed how good it made him feel. 

“Brat,” he heard his own voice, wrecked by how much noise he had been making, and you leaned forward to kiss his spine, letting him know you heard him. 

“What?” you murmured as he didn’t continue, slowing down your thrusts. “D’you need something? Does it hurt?” He bristled at how tender your words were, how you acted like you cared about a bloodthirsty curse like him. 

“Did I give you permission to stop?” He pushed his hips back against you with a growl, forcing you to pick up your pace. “Just wanta let you know—after this. You’ve got—hnngh, ahh, fuuuck! Nowhere to run. So don’t even think about i-it.” 

You blinked, equal parts amused and perplexed by his sudden threat. You dared not stop, though, even as he started to pant and whine heavily into the mattress, body shuddering with the gradual approach of an orgasm. “I’m not going to run from you, Sukuna. Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

Why would you run, when he was right under you, pliant and wanting for you to satisfy him? Did he not understand how much you’ve yearned for this? 

“Good choice,” he moaned, “don’t you dare fucking stop until you make me cum.”

You sped up your thrusts, snaking a hand back onto his neck and up to fist into his hair, wrenching his head up to smother him with a filthy kiss. It was rough, and more teeth than tongue, and at some point you could taste the sharp tang of blood from the cut in his lip earlier. You lapped it up along with the saliva that trickled down his chin, hearing him let out a needy whine. 

“So close, ah—so damn close, please, please, fucking please—” he begged shamelessly between loud moans, stripping himself naked of all dignity as he spent the last of his energy to bend his back into a vile arch, pressing his ass against your crotch as you slammed yourself into his swollen sweet spot in one powerful thrust. 

A scream ripped from his throat and he came untouched, staining the bed with white, at the same time clamping down on you so hard you jerked to a sudden stop. You collapsed onto his back, panting loudly as you tried to catch your breath. 

“Fuck,” you groaned. “You okay?” 

He refused to respond, keeping his face buried in the mattress. You took the opportunity to pull out, hearing him let out a soft whine, cold and aching and suddenly empty. 

“Fuck you,” you heard him mutter. 

That was good. He was still alive. 

You slumped down onto the bed next to him, kissing his shoulder to try and get him to turn, and he raised a shaky hand to flip you off, mumbling something you assumed was a profanity. 

Biting down a grin at how utterly adorable he was being, you found yourself overwhelmed by a sudden rush of affection. 

“What, are you shy?” you teased. “Don’t be.” 

He scoffed, the tips of his ears reddening. “Brat, I am not shy.”

He didn’t have any reason to be shy. Not to you. After all, you had long mapped out every inch of his body, from his prominent features to his most vulnerable. Made him want to bare his throat for you to make him feel good.

But nothing could have prepared you for the way Sukuna slowly flipped himself onto his back, levelling you with a sleepy, half-lidded gaze instead of his usual hard glare, muttering something under his breath. He watched you quietly, placing his hand next to yours on the bed, the position far too intimate for your comfort.

“Hey,” you blurted out, feeling your heart skip a beat. You knew you were risking everything, and that he could kill you in the blink of an eye, but you couldn’t stop the next words from coming out. “You were really good today.” 

Good.

Sukuna had been called many things in his life before, but ‘good’ was not one of them. Good men did not dirty their hands with the blood of the innocent for fun. Good men did not sit on a mountain of bones and call themselves a king. Good men did not grow six arms and four eyes and look like monsters, and Sukuna was a monster himself.

There was a long, awkward pause, and his eyes were wide with a look you couldn’t decipher—one of disgust or mockery, maybe, and you were already regretting it. But to your utmost surprise, it started with a light blush dusted high on his cheekbones, before it bloomed into a dark red that spread across his face. The corners of his lips twitched, and then lifted, ever so slightly. He immediately fought to replace it with a scowl, but you had already seen it. 

He had smiled. Sukuna had smiled at you. A genuine, almost soft smile, as though he cherished the way you told him he was good, had longed to hear it for centuries of living.

“Quit smiling, brat,” he huffed, but his voice lacked any real venom, more exhausted and content than anything, and made no refusal when you leaned in to kiss him.

Sukuna would later realise that he was neither good nor man, but if you were ever so willing to embrace a curse like him, he supposed he could be good to you, for you.  masterlist! # and here’s to introducing me and my delusions to the jjk fandom… also i feel like my tags r getting a lil repetitive lol

[peachdues]

COMPASS

bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW

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

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

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

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

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

MASTERLIST HERE

There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.

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

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

Life debts.

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

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

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

He will never be able to wash them clean.

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

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

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

This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.

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

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

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

They were late.

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

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

The stupid, greasy fuck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You got someplace I can hide?”

——-

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

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

Sanemi Shinazugawa.

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

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

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

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

Hence, its presence in the Silo.

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

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

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

But you owed him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—-

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

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

Right in front of two, marked cop cars.

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

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

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

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

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

Take your trouble somewhere else.

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

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

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

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

Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.

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

The Kizuki.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.

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

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

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

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

Or so he tells himself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—-

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

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

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

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

Step.

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

Step.

The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.

Step.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your restlessness boils over. “What?”

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

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

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

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

“This can’t be your dream life.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

Return-exchange only. No refunds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Read that.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

——-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

“You look like shit.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.

—

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

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

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

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

“Dunno. Curious.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As long as it was more than this.

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

———

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

To wake up in the morning, Princess.

He’s full of shit and you know it.

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

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

He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.

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

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

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

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

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

He wants out. Dreams of it, even.

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

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

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

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

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

A cop-out, is what it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

True love.

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

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

He wants out.

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

And, above all, he dreams of love.

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But, you’re only human. And as the months passed by, and your friendship with the scarred mobster grew, you found yourself sneaking the odd peek every now and then. A glimpse of pectoral here; a hint of his rigid v-line when he stretched his arms over his head there.

And now, here he is, sitting in your small kitchen area awaiting the relief of the icy hot clutched in the tub that grew more slippery between your rapidly sweaty palms, every mouth watering inch of his upper body on display.

Beautiful. Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Sanemi is unbelievably beautiful.

“Need ya to rub it into my shoulder, if you don’t mind,” his voice is muffled against his arm. “I hate asking, but I dislocated the damn thing and had to reset it — fuckin’ hurts, now.”

You know better than to suggest he go get an x-ray. No hospitals, he’d once explained. Not unless you’re bleeding out.

You also know better than to ask how he dislocated it, and so you only pad silently over to him, grateful he’s turned away from you so he cannot see the tremble in your hands or the blush creeping across your cheeks.

Eager to give yourself something to do besides ogling, you focus on unscrewing the lid on the jar of liniment, your nose wrinkling under the burn of its stringent odor. You scoop a generous amount of the salve into your palms and warm it between your hands.

“Motherfucker,” Sanemi hisses as your hands spread gently across his shoulder, your fingers gingerly massaging the topical into his swollen joint. “Shit stings.”

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” you chide, carefully prodding along the joint in search of anything that may be amiss — an odd lump or gap, signaling something hasn’t been reset properly. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Your medical expertise is astounding,” Sanemi drolls, but he winces again as your fingers press against a particularly tender spot. You step away from him with a huff and fish your phone out of your pocket, hands still slathered with ointment.

“I’m not a doctor,” you shoot back. “And since you refuse to go see one, the best I can do it give you the advice of the internet.”

You ignore his grumblings as you search for treatments for dislocated joints. You tap on the first link that appears and scroll, eyes narrowed as you read.

“You’re in luck. It seems like you won’t die,” you say dryly. “But you’re going to have a nasty bruise.” You purse your lips, eyes scanning the article on your phone. “And this says you’re supposed to rest — not overexert the joint.” You reach to tug playfully on a lock of his hair. “I don’t suppose you’re actually going to do that, though.”

He twists and flashes you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “You know me too well, Princess.”

You roll your eyes and snort, tossing your phone onto your table in favor of reaching for a discarded kitchen towel to wipe off the excess icy hot from your hands.

You’re about to tell him to put his shirt back on and stop flaunting the muscles he just can’t seem to help but show everyone he has when your eyes snag on a mark that rests squarely between his shoulder blades.

You wouldn’t have noticed it but for the shiny redness surrounding it, a clear contrast to the rest of his skin. But the longer your stare at it, the more clear its abnormality. The mark is puffy and raised, but there’s a distinct pattern to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck curl.

A brand, you realize with horror. Someone has branded him like cattle.

Your finger reaches to trace over the ridges seared into his skin before you can think the better of it. Sanemi twitches under your touch, a small shudder skirting down his spine as he tilts his head back toward you.

“Ugly, ain’t it?” His tone is unreadable. “Like a collar, ‘cept it’s permanent.”

Though he tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to discussing the Corps, you at least know what is role is within it. He told you: debt collector. Mostly monetary debts.

But the brand has nothing to do with money. No, the symbol burned into his skin — the one that stands for Kill — is a neon sign of a reminder that Sanemi’s duties can and do entail another kind of collection.

A chill snakes down your spine. You’d had your suspicions, of course, you’re not stupid. But seeing it confirmed by a brand of all things is a lightning rod through your chest.

Sanemi must sense your stare against his back, and you hear his rueful smile though you can’t see his face. “Guess it’s fitting, since I’m their dog.”

There it is; confirmation of what he is, as though it were possible to forget. You don’t know why you’d held out in letting its weight settle over you. Nor do you know why your brain had refused, for a moment, to reconcile the Sanemi who brought cheap beer and greasy fast food to your apartment for a night of trash television and book reviews with the one before you now, branded with inexorable reminder of what his duties are when he steps outside and debts go unpaid; when scores go uneven.

Your eyes slide to his gun, resting atop your table. It may has well have been smoking.

“It’s barbaric,” you murmur. You never offer much of an opinion on the tidbits of information about his life he shares with you, unwilling to make him feel as though you aren’t someone he can confide in.

But the sight of the brand scorched between his shoulder blades stokes something ugly and angry within you. You’re grateful his back is to you so you can furtively rub your hand over your prickling eyes before he can see you do something stupid, like cry.

He tilts his head back until it rests against your abdomen. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.

You freeze for a moment, your anger temporarily suspended against your uncertainty of whether you should step back or remain. You’ve touched Sanemi a thousand different ways — you’ve grabbed his arm, smacked him upside his thick head, and elbowed him more times than you can count.

But this; this is something far different from your teasing nudges of the past. This small gesture feels infinitely more tender. Gentle.

Intimate.

Sanemi has never not been the picture of cocky brashness, especially around you. His priggish smirk was a constant, only ever dampened by the occasional alert on his phone — the one that meant he had to stop being yours for the night, and go be theirs.

But this Sanemi? This peaceful, eased, vulnerable version of your best friend is wholly uncharted territory. And perhaps it’s because he looks so unguarded this way, his face relaxed and his eyes closed, that you feel so flustered.

You brush his hair away from his forehead. At the first graze of your fingers along his scalp, Sanemi leans further into you with something akin to a moan.

Hot; everything feels so damn hot, the air in your apartment suddenly too thick. Too oppressive.

Yet, you don’t stop; your fingers keep raking through his hair, surprisingly silky.

You think he may have fallen asleep in your chair, but after another moment of your hands carding through his hair, Sanemi stands. You step away instantly, and you avert your eyes while he pulls his shirt back over his head, cursing softly as he works it over his injured shoulder.

Sanemi turns to you and clears his throat roughly. “Thanks again. Don’t know what I would’ve done without ya.”

You wave him off with an exaggerated eye roll, eager to conceal the redness in your cheeks. “Oh please, I’m just your neighborhood book supplier and occasional first aid nurse.”

A sudden sobriety passes over his features, clouding over that all too familiar smirk with something heavier.

“No,” he murmurs and his hand absently lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “No, you’re more than that.” His palm lingers against your cheek and his voice quiets to a hoarse whisper. “Much more.”

For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lean in; if he’ll show you whether his lips are as warm as his touch.

His eyes drop briefly to your mouth and your stomach somersaults at the thought he might be considering it, too. But the clouds part and Sanemi withdraws from you with an affection flick against the tip of your nose.

And then he turns and leaves.

You sink back against your door after you close it behind him and slide to your floor. You remain there for a long while after, your mind little more than a gnarled tangle of brambles you can’t begin to pick through. But even despite the complicated mess of thoughts and emotions knotted together in your head, one thing stands clear: you’d wanted to kiss him.

And for a moment, you swear he’d wanted to, as well.

An old rumor, one you hadn’t considered since your very first interaction with him, resurfaces in your mind. The one that had less to do with him in the Corps, and more so involved his activities outside of it.

The rumor that he cycles through the bodies he uses to warm his bed more frequently than you change the sheets on yours.

Your cheeks heat, and you shake your head to clear away the sudden, intrusive images of Sanemi tangled in the throes of passion with some faceless stranger that fill your imagination. You don’t care what those blasted rumors claim; you know him. And what’s more, you know that what you feel for him is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt toward anyone.

You’re in love with Sanemi.

It is his face you see at night before you fall asleep; it’s his touch you imagine in those secret moments in your bed or in the shower, when you’re desperate and aching.

It’s he who makes you feel most at ease; the one person you feel truly sees you, thinks you’re actually worth something.

You’ve never really known love before. But it’s because you’re such a novice that you know your feelings are true; powerful. You know what he is — what he thinks he is. And you know that you will never want anyone else; you can’t.

You won’t.

—

Three rules. That’s all he had to do, was follow three simple fucking rules.

Don’t speak. No patterns. And don’t get overly attached.

It had been easy, so easy, to follow them. If there was one thing Sanemi believed he could pride himself on, it had been his steadfast adherence to the Corps’ rules. Number three, in particular.

Until you. Until the day he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in.

Because that was when Sanemi decided that those rules were really more like guidelines; malleable. He’d let himself cast them aside out of a desperation for human connection. And he’d justified his carelessness by convincing himself that as long as he maintained some semblance compliance with the unspoken code of the Corps.

Sanemi had built his own set of rules around the foundation of his friendship with you, a wall of stone around the glass castle meant to ensure you would not be cut by its shards should it ever shatter.

He would not be your liability, nor would you be his.

But now, he’s too deep; Sanemi knows he’s gotten in way too fucking deep with you.

Until this moment, he imagined he’d managed to toe the line of this internal code that applied only to his relationship with you, save a handful of instances when he’d let himself blur it.

As it turns out, he’d been dead fucking wrong. Because he’s pretty sure you just asked him to cross the last major boundary he’d set for himself when it came to you.

So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”

You huff, impatient. “I want you to fuck me.”

You say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world — as though you haven’t just ripped the floor out from beneath him and sent him falling directly on his ass.

If he didn’t know you were dead serious, he would’ve laughed in your face. And that’s how he knows he’s fucked.

You’re a virgin; he knows that, because you’d drunkenly confessed it to him two weeks prior, tipsy on the cheap beer he’d brought over for your weekly movie night together.

Admittedly, he’d been surprised. You were beautiful — not that beauty was a requirement for a good fuck, but you didn’t seem the type to go for random hookups, unlike him. Still, he would’ve thought you’d had some prior relationship where the opportunity would have arisen.

As it turned out, you’d never been in a relationship, either.

Between long gulps of your drink, you’d asked him to fix it and he’d turned you down — his tolerance for watery beer far surpassed your own, and Sanemi Shinazugawa wasn’t the type to sleep with someone who couldn’t fully consent.

So he’d let you down — but not before he kissed you. It was only once; soft, the way you deserved to be kissed. His lips met yours and suddenly, the gaping hole in his chest felt smaller; fuller. Kissing you felt like coming home, even though Sanemi was sure he’d never fully known what home truly felt like.

And then he parted from you with an affectionate flick on your nose to cover the way his heart clenched at the visible disappointment in your eyes.

He’d boldly kissed you twice more after that night — one a quick, cheeky peck when you went in to hug him, an act done more to fluster you than to sate any desire of his, no matter how he craved more of you.

The other happened only three nights prior, and it was anything but soft and sweet.

One of Sanemi’s fellow Hashira, Kanae, hadn’t been seen in several days, and no one had been able to get in touch with her. When she’d missed a scheduled patrol of one of the neighborhoods in the Silo, he and another member, Iguro, had been sent to check on her.

They’d found her in the kitchen of the small home she’d shared with her two sisters with a hole in her head and her brains splattered across the floor.

Curled under the protective stretch of her limp arms, had been her two sisters, both bearing matching bullet wounds to their skulls.

Kizuki, most likely. They were the only ones brave enough to target someone as high ranked as Kanae.

Their blood had still been fresh, and the stench of decay and rot hadn’t yet set in, which only told them that the girls had been held for several days, forced to endure unknown horrors at the hands of their murderers.

He hadn’t been particularly close with the woman, but as his rank equal, she’d had his respect. But now she and her adolescent sisters were nothing more than smears of brain matter and skull fragments to be scraped off the linoleum of their kitchen floor and quietly buried. Forgotten.

The hours passed by in a blur once Kocho’s death was called into the higher-ups, and Sanemi didn’t remember cleaning up the scene anymore than he remembered the solitary trek back. His mind and his body disconnected, and he only snapped back to reality when he realized he was standing in front of your apartment, unsure of how or when he’d begun walking in its direction.

He knew he should turn around and go home; there was nothing you could do for him right then, he shouldn’t bother you —

His fist was pounding on your door before he could think better of it.

Despite the late hour, you’d greeted him with a broad smile and a shy hi. Your hair had been damp, and he could smell the floral sweetness of your shampoo still mixed with the steam from your shower as it spilled into the hall.

Safe; you were safe.

Your door had still been hanging wide open as Sanemi surged forward, trapping your face in his hands to crash his lips down against yours, his kiss heavy and hot.

You’d broken away long enough to ask, “S-Sanemi — what —?”

“Shut up,” he’d snarled, slanting his mouth back over yours, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip. He’d half expected you to shove him away, perhaps to even aim a knee right at his crotch, yet you’d only buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him closer.

He backed you up against the wall opposite of your entryway, though he’d moved his hand to cup the back of your head to keep it from banging against the exposed brick.

You moaned into the kiss and Sanemi lost whatever shred of sense he’d managed to cling onto. His tongue swept along your bottom lip, and the hand cupping the back of your head loosely pulled at your hair, tugging your head to the side and signaling you to open up — to let him in.

And you did. And the first brush of his tongue against yours as he licked into your mouth ignited an inferno within him that he did not know how to tame.

His hands pushed under your sweatshirt, seeking out the comforting warmth of your skin. Higher and higher they rose, until they came to rest against your ribs, and Sanemi realized you were bare — completely bare — beneath your hoodie.

That you’d allowed him to toe so dangerously close to a line neither of you could cross had clouded every bit of his judgment. The thought that he’d only have to move his hands mere centimeters to touch you in a way no other had before had sent him reeling, and his hips were beyond his control when they pinned yours against the wall and ground into you.

But your single gasp into his mouth broke the spell, and with more regret than Sanemi knew he should feel, he broke away, leaving you both breathless and panting.

Without a word, he’d turned around and stalked right back out of your apartment, closing your door firmly behind him.

He’d sent a text only a few minutes later — a single, ominous reminder to you to lock your door, deadbolt and all.

He hadn’t the stomach to explain his cryptic warning; not as the sight of Kocho remained burned into his retinas.

So, yes, he’s blurred a few lines when it comes to you. But those had only been kisses; heavy touching aside, he’d never allowed himself to go further than that.

No matter how much he wanted to.

And it’s because he knows he can’t cross this last line — can’t open you up to risk more than he already has, that he meets your expectant stare with a rueful smile.

“You’re better off asking someone else, Princess. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”

Never mind that you’re already tangled up with him — but he’s managed to uphold this last boundary, and Sanemi has convinced himself that as long as it remains in place, he can’t ruin you the way Kocho and her young sisters were ruined.

“I don’t want to ask someone else,” you fold your arms across your chest and cock your hip out, defiant. Normally, Sanemi finds your stubbornness endearing, if not adorable, but not now; not when you should know better.

A low growl of your name is his warning. “You don’t know what you’re asking —“

“It’s you I want. I don’t care what the rumors say, I don’t care what anyone thinks — including you.”

The sincerity in your eyes nearly scalds him. “And I am not asking as a friend. You and I both know this is more than that.”

He wants to throttle you. Not literally of course, he could never — but he wants to shake the sense you’re so clearly lacking back into you until you see; until you understand.

Of course he wants you. He has wanted you for months — so much so, he hardly can focus on anything else. And he’s pent up. He hasn’t had the stomach to fuck anyone else. Not since he began falling asleep and waking up to thoughts of you and your touch, of how you might look under or above him, wanton and desperate. Or how you might feel in his arms; on his tongue.

Really, it’s been quite a blow to his rather wild reputation throughout the Silo. But God knows he has tried to fill the you-shaped void in his heart, but nothing — no one — has come close.

More than anything, he wants you to be his, and for him to be yours. He longs to be the Sanemi who takes you out on dates, who kisses you freely without the compulsive need to check over his shoulder, to make sure there aren’t any enemies watching and plotting to strike him right where he’s weak. He wants to be the Sanemi you come home to after a long day at the bookstore. The one with whom you plan a future, utterly and completely yours.

But he can never be just Sanemi. He is nothing more than the property of the very organization he’s sworn allegiance to; the group whose brand he bears on his skin.

He is not good. He is a curse that will infect you, a poison to your life.

He will rot you from the inside, out.

His friendship with you is selfish. He knows that — he’s always known that, and yet he did not stop. It is selfish because he deluded himself into believing he could actually be someone else when he was with you. Someone worth befriending; perhaps someone worth a little more.

You were right to call him a thief, that day. All he does is take your time and affection when he knows damn well he won’t give you anything in return, no matter how he wishes he could.

Sanemi won’t label that thing he holds deep inside his heart which is formed in the shape of your name; not when it could so easily doom you both. But he knows his feelings for you are dangerous, and he cannot allow you to sniff them out.

Because if he does, then this only ends one or two ways: either he lets you in only for you to abandon him once you realize the truth of what he is, or you’re used as a weapon against him.

In either event, he loses you. So it is better to cut this off now, to force you away before either of you become more invested than you already are.

He will not hurt you, but neither will he allow himself to be hurt by you.

You take a step toward him, and the soft whisper of his name sounds like a holy prayer on your lips and that’s how he knows this is wrong.

Your obstinate refusal to recognize him for what he is is a needle digging into his skin, one that whittles away at every wall he has managed to build around his heart, that damnable, soft, dangerous thing that he will not allow you to find; he cannot.

You’re confusing your roles. He is the vulture and you are his prey, not the other way around. he is not here to give. He is here only to take, and you will let him and then he will leave.

And he will not be the carcass you pick clean only to discard once you’ve had your fill.

(A lie, but it’s one Sanemi almost believes. Almost.)

But Sanemi knows you; he knows you better than he knows anything else. You are a constant he has become far too dependent upon, and you are precious — far too precious to him to continue to indulging.

He knows you are too good, too loyal in your feelings to forget about him, even if he disappeared from your life entirely.

A clean break. it is the only thing that will force you to forget him and move on, find another, someone good and whole and not a broken, misshapen thing like him.

He will show you who he really is. He will show you that he could never be just Sanemi, and he sure as hell can’t ever be yours.

Better; you deserve better, so he will become worse.

He advances on you, his step heavy and imposing, and you have enough sense to scurry back from him. But he is too quick and soon he has you caged against the wall of your studio, literally backed into a corner.

“You want me?” He is scathing and he loathes himself for it, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s desperate to save you from the blight of himself.

You shouldn’t; you can’t.

But you nod, damn you. Wide-eyed, you nod and he resents the certainty reflected in your gaze.

His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. “You want to say you’ve had a taste of the lowlife, huh?“

Your eyebrows knit together. “Sanemi, that’s not —“

But he can’t stop his venom. “Bragging rights, that’s all you’re after, right? You want to be like one of the characters in your stories — the good girl who makes an honest man outta the good-for-nothing villain.”

“Stop it,” you bite, and your eyes harden. “You’re acting like an asshole.”

You’re angry. Good. Sanemi knows how to deal in anger.

“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I’m not acting like an asshole. I am one.”

Your hackles raise, and you step away from the wall and toward him, bold in your fury. “I know you want to believe you are, but you’re not —“

Sanemi’s hand shoots out to grab a fistful of your hair. “Is that so?” You yelp as he wrenches your head back, your neck straining. “Then maybe I oughta bend you over and fuck you like I would any other cheap whore. Then you can tell me what you think I am.”

Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.

Good, he thinks savagely. Let you see the monster he truly was, let you know he was his bastard father’s son, and that he’d be no different, no different at all. He’s a brute, and you don’t want that, you don’t want him —

“You can do whatever it is you want,” you manage, you throat tight. And Sanemi’s eyes blow wide at the soft, watery smile that forms on your lips despite the tears that escape the corners of your eyes. “Do to me what you like; I don’t mind, as long as it’s you.”

All at once, his ire with you and your bewildering devotion to him melts away, leaving nothing behind but a deep well of guilt, bitter and acerbic.

It isn’t that you think he might take you forcefully and harshly; after all, he’s only shown you he’s entirely capable of doing so.

It’s that you would let him. Without a shred of doubt, he knows you would offer yourself to him to use however he wants, and that you’d do it with a smile not unlike the one you’re wearing right now, soft and earnest.

Fuck, you just did.

And it’s that realization that has Sanemi’s hand loosening from your hair, his eyes softening. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and he moves to brush it away, but you close your eyes the moment you spy his knuckle nearing your face.

You do not flinch, but you are steeling yourself in anticipation of expected cruelty, and the front he’s put forth crumbles to dust.

He is a monster, but not for the reasons he’s used to justify this ugly display of his. He’s a monster because he has made you believe that this treatment is acceptable — an unavoidable cost of intimacy, no matter how fleeting.

Worse, he’s done the one thing he’d sworn never to do to any woman, let alone someone as good and as dear as you.

He’d only wanted to disgust you; enrage you, so that you would kick him out of both your apartment and your life, right out on his sorry ass like he deserved.

But this is worse. He has frightened you.

He recoils from you like a kicked dog. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stands awkwardly as you stare at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, and each second that ticks silently by only amplifies the oily well of guilt in his stomach.

He clears his throat. “I’ll go,” he says roughly, too ashamed to meet your eyes. “‘M sorry, I didn’t —“

Your hand grabs his bicep, anchoring him in place. “I want you to stay.”

“You don’t owe me anything —“

“It’s not about owing you,” you interject, lifting your hands to take his face between your palms. “I want you. I want this.”

You prove your point by taking his hand and guiding it to your waist. You hold it there, mouth set in a determined line as you inch closer to him.

“You deserve someone else,” Sanemi can’t stop the admission from rolling off his tongue. “Better.”

But you’re already shaking your head, as though you somehow know different. “There is no one better; I only want you.”

Idiot, he thinks as you rise up on your tiptoes, your arms winding around his shoulders as the distance between your bodies grows narrower. You’re an idiot.

You can’t possibly believe he’s as good as it gets. He’s used you as a distraction this whole time, a chance to forget the things he’s done and what he’ll be required to do in the future. Surely, you must know that.

He will hurt you; it’s in his nature. It’s unavoidable. He can’t be what you deserve.

But then your lips brush gently against his and the last of his resolve crumbles.

Sanemi melts into your kiss. He brings one hand to cradle the side of your face as the one braced against your waist shorts, until he wraps his arms around you and tugs you closer to him.

This kiss is gentle in every way the last was not. Sanemi’s lips are soft moving against yours, his hands almost hesitant in how they hold you. For a moment, he imagines himself not as the selfish, hard brute he knows he is, but instead as the gentle, giving lover he wants so desperately to be. One who is worthy of someone as kind and vibrant as you, and not the trash you’d be better off leaving out on the street.

The tentativeness with which he kisses you tempers some as his tongue flicks out against your bottom lip. You answer his silent request with enthusiasm, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as you haul yourself closer. The moment Sanemi’s tongue sweeps into your waiting mouth, you buckle against him with the sweetest sigh he’s ever heard. One of pure relief, as though you’d been burning and he was your balm.

Ironic, considering he’s only adding gasoline to this fire between you.

But there’s nothing he can do now except allow the flames to consume you both.

Soon, the shy curiosity with which he explores your mouth gives way to a mutual hunger, evident by how he feels as though he’s boiling alive while you gasp and sigh into him, your fingers tugging pleadingly at his hair.

You want more, and he needs you, too.

His nose nuzzles against yours as he bends down, his hands running along the bare expanse of your legs. The ground beneath your feet disappears as Sanemi gathers you up easily into his arms.

One of your arms is looped around his neck while your other hand cups his face, turning it toward yours as he carries you to your bed. Your thumb smooths absently over the scar that cuts across his cheek and then your lips seek out his once more. His kiss is as gentle as the hand squeezing your waist, his fingers slotting into the gap between your sweatshirt and the top of your sleep shorts, stroking your skin.

He lays you out upon your mattress, grateful you’d at least purchased a full bed rather than some shitty twin. Your hands untangle themselves from his hair and instead seek out the waistband of your sleep shorts, but Sanemi covers them with his, halting you.

“Don’t,” he murmurs between quick, messy kisses. “Let me — please.”

Before you can respond, Sanemi sits back and grabs a fistful of his own shirt, yanking it over his head.

Your pupils blow wide at the sight of him and he feels himself hesitate. Sanemi has always felt an easy self confidence when it came to stripping in front of his partners for the night. He’d always been quite proud of his physique, relying on his considerable muscles to mask his deep loathing of his scars.

But in front of you, all sense of self-assuredness goes flying out the window, and suddenly he feels too exposed. His eyes drop to scour the planes of his chest — have his scars always been this prominent? This thick?

“Holy shit,” your soft sigh snaps his attention away from the howling inside his head. For one, petrifying moment, he thinks that you are as disgusted with his body as he is, but then he sees the pink flush staining your cheeks.

Your eyes roam hungrily over him and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. You meet his gaze and your pupils are blown wide with desire — rich, hot need for him.

Your voice is little more than a sultry whisper. “Come here.”

He moves eagerly to cover your body with his, his hair rumpled and his eyes bright as his lips press hurriedly against yours. Your hands smooth over his pectorals and tease down his abdomen until he’s panting, but the moment your nails rake along the skin on either side of his navel, Sanemi moans.

More. He needs more.

He hauls you up from the bed, straddling you across his lap, his hands notched behind your knees as they press into the mattress. You reconnect your lips in a heated kiss, one hand playing with the ends of his snowy hair, the other dropping down his back, settling over the brand seared between his shoulder blades. Covering it.

Yes, he thinks as he nips your bottom lip, urging your mouth to open so he can slide his tongue in to dance with yours. Yes, this is fitting. Because in his ideal world, his life with you would come before any other — including his with the Corps.

Sanemi’s lips begin trailing hotly down your jaw, pausing when he reaches your neck. He finds a particularly sensitive spot with a nip of his teeth that he soothes with his tongue, and he hums in approval at the faint, breathy whimpers that squeak past your lips as you tilt your head, offering more of yourself to him.

The ache burgeoning in his groin in response to your display is enough to drive him insane; he has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants this — you.

As his mouth continues its heated path, his hands find the hem of your hoodie. With a gentleness that surprises even him, Sanemi begins charting your skin with his fingers. With every new plane of your body he explores, he pushes your sweatshirt up, up, up, until he guides it over your head.

He tosses it to the side, not caring for where it lands. His attention is focused solely on you as you fall back against your bed, now bare from the waist up.

“Beautiful,” he marvels, eyes running over the slope of your shoulder and tracing the curve of your breasts. “So fuckin’ beautiful.”

He savors every hitched breath, every chill that ripples over your skin as he explores your body with his mouth and hands. Over the years, Sanemi has become well acquainted with the magic of the female body. He’s always liked how soft women were compared to him. He isn’t a picky man; he’ll celebrate them all, regardless of their shape or size.

But you? Celebration isn’t enough; you deserve nothing less than outright worship.

“You feel so damn good,” he mutters against your breast before closing his lips over your nipple and sucking hard. You bow off the bed with a keening moan that gutters out into something more ragged as his hand covers the other, pinching and rolling your stiffened bud between his fingers.

He could spend all night like this, lavishing your soft mounds with his mouth. But Sanemi knows that won’t be enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at both of you, so with a tinge of regret, he forces himself to move on, descending your body in alternating kisses and nips.

He reaches the waistband of your shorts and his eyes flash to yours as he tugs on it with his teeth. The hot exhale of his breath below your navel sends goosebumps across your skin. Sanemi’s fingers inch below the hem of your shorts until he loops his hands around the waistband, and he yanks them down your legs in a single, fluid motion.

His eyes rake down your body, taking in every beautiful inch. A blush forms on his cheeks as he realizes all that separates you from him is your simple pair of black underwear.

He sits back, eager to join your near-nudity. His hands are quick, if not a little clumsy, as he finds his belt buckle. The instant the metal clicks and the leather around his hips loosens, Sanemi shoves off his pants, eagerly kicking them off your bed until he is left in nothing but his briefs.

Your eyes fall to where the evidence of his desire protrudes stiffly from between his legs. Sanemi watches your throat pulse as you try to stifle your small gulp, your thighs tensing beneath him in an effort to press together.

He can sense your nerves; can see by the way your eyes dart anxiously between his and the rigid tent in his briefs.

With a gentle smile, Sanemi leans in and soothes your unease with his lips. “We’ll take it as slow as you want. I’m not in any rush.”

“N-now?” You murmur between kisses, and he nearly seizes at the hesitant, questioning brush of your fingers against the underside of his shaft.

“Not yet,” he groans against your mouth. “I gotta make sure you’re ready first.”

“I am ready -“

“Not like that,” he cuts off your protest by ghosting his fingers up the covered seam of you. Sanemi circles his finger around where he thinks your clit is, and he smirks when your head tips back against your pillow, your mouth widening in a silent o.

“Found you,” he croons, repeating the movement again until your legs begin to twitch beneath him.

He makes quick work of your underwear, tossing them over the side of your bed without much thought. The sight of you bare beneath him nearly stops his heart dead in his chest. His eyes drop to the neat thatch of curls resting at the apex of your thighs, and his mouth waters.

You blush under the intensity of his appreciative stare, and your legs twitch, as though you mean to close them.

A hand sliding between your thighs restrains you from doing so. “Uh-uh,” he tuts. “Can’t hide from me now, sweetheart’.”

He smooths his hand down the length of your leg until it hovers just outside where he’s most eager to explore. The heat radiating from sends his pulse skyrocketing.

One, tentative finger circles your entrance, testing. Sanemi leans in to capture your lips with his as he pushes in, swallowing your soft gasp with his tongue that he slides into your parted mouth.

A moan vibrates in his chest in time with a faint whimper that sounds in the back of your throat as Sanemi begins exploring you. You’re tight; almost impossibly so, clenching and pulsing around the single finger he gradually sinks inside you, pushing deeper with every gentle pump of his hand.

The thought of your tight, wet heat constricting around the aching length of him just as you were around his finger makes him dizzy with want.

He won’t go down on you, he decides. Not tonight. Not when he’s throbbing this badly after just a couple of fingers; not when your breasts are so plush and soft pressed against his chest where you’re already arcing up into him, sending his mind wild with thoughts of how you’ll move under him; how you’ll moan.

His lips are hot against your neck, trailing down past your collarbone. Left behind are a series of purplish-maroon whorls blooming beneath his mouth, your skin quickly becoming a tapestry for him to display how badly he wants this. You.

You cling to him, one hand buried in his hair, pulling and tugging at him as the other clutches wildly at his shoulder, your fingers digging hard into his muscles. Your teeth are buried into your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your whimpers, but a needy whine slips out as Sanemi sucks one, soft breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking out across your pert nipple.

Another finger slides into your entrance as his thumb works your clit, and before long, you’re vibrating beneath him, unrestrained in how you moan and cry out for him so beautifully.

“Sanemi! I think — oh, I think I’m -“ but then he crooks his fingers, brushing against a rough spot deep within you that makes you writhe. You thrash back hard against the bed, your hips grinding against his hand with abandon.

He smothers a curse into your skin. You’re close and he knows it; can feel it in the way your walls flutter and pulse around him. And as desperate as he is to study how you fall apart, it’s too soon.

“Not yet,” he pants against your breast, circling your nipple with his tongue before imparting a final nip at the soft flesh and drawing back.

Remorseful, he pulls his fingers away from you, leaving you panting and flushed under him. But the hot, searing flames of desire burning beneath his skin intensify still, as he takes your hand and guides it between your legs.

“There. Feel how wet you are?” His voice is husky with want. You peer up at him through heavily lidded eyes as you nod, a whimper vibrating in your throat as Sanemi grinds your hand against your sensitive flesh.

“For you,” your voice is syrupy and warm, and damn if Sanemi doesn’t feel like he could get drunk on it. “It’s all for you.”

His tone sharpens into something possessive; hungry. “That’s right,” and he pushes your hand firmly against your clit and rotates it, eliciting a deep moan from you. “Because you’re mine.“

It’s not fair. But he wants to pretend like it’s true, if only for a while.

Once your fingers are sufficiently shiny with your own wetness, he brings your hand to his mouth, his tongue peeking out from between his lips. Slowly and languidly, he drags it up the side of your digits, and his eyes burn into yours as he slides your fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.

It takes everything in him not to moan at the sweet taste of you that floods his tongue.

He’d made the right decision in not going down on you. If he had, he’d never be able to pull away; not until his face had become so adorned with your essence that he could not comprehend anything that wasn’t you. Not until you were trembling under him and begging for a break.

The first time you cum will be on him; with him. So as much as it pains him, he resists your temptation.

But not before you know; not before you understand exactly how wild you drive him. How much you threaten his sanity.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasps as he pulls your hand away from his mouth. “Here.”

His hand his gentle but firm as he grips your chin, squeezing your jaw until your mouth parts. The question in your gaze dissolves, your eyes instead rolling back into your head, as Sanemi slides the two fingers he’d just had between your thighs, still covered in your wetness, past your lips.

“Go on,” he orders, his other hand brushing your hair from your face. “Taste how fuckin’ perfect you are.”

The moan that slips free from your lips is one he wishes he could bottle up as your tongue caresses his fingers, your cheeks hollowing so fucking perfectly around him as you dutifully clean yourself from him.

Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

But some of the burning he feels ebbs as the sobering weight of what’s to come settles over him; the magnitude of what he is about to do. Because no matter what happens after, nothing between you will be the same. Whatever else you are after tonight — whether that’s something or nothing — you will never be just friends again.

Sanemi supposes the punishment fits his crime; this is what he gets for getting in too deep with you, even if it means losing you entirely.

He chases away those thoughts by running his hands down your sides before he pulls back, leaving you in favor of shucking his briefs down his thighs.

Finally bare, he’s quick to drape his body over yours once more, his hands smoothing up and down your sides, unable to quench his need to feel your skin against his. But a foreign uncertainty stills him, and his eyes flash to yours, hesitant.

“Are you sure?”

You answer only by reaching to grip the back of his neck, tugging him down to meet your lips, your kiss feverish and urgent.

He doesn’t have a condom but he’s in too deep now to stop. In a way, what is about to happen is new to him as well. He’s never fucked anyone raw before. No matter who he’d had in his bed, no matter how much they begged him or assured him they were on birth control, he’d always been sure to have protection on hand.

Children are a gift, but he’d be damned if anyone tried to come after him and demand he raise one in his fucked up world. Either Sanemi got out or he never became a parent; there was no middle ground.

But once again, he is blurring boundaries where you were concerned, and Sanemi doesn’t think he knows how to stop himself from having the full taste in the indulgence that was you.

“It might hurt a moment,” he admits against your mouth, his voice raspy. “But I promise I’ll be gentle — as gentle as I can.”

You stretch to kiss him again, your lips soft and warm and everything he loves. “I trust you.”

You shouldn’t, he wants to say. You shouldn’t, and you should run far away from this — from me.

But Sanemi knows you won’t just as much as he knows he doesn’t have it in him to try and chase you away, and so he only kisses you back, slow and indulgent.

He breaks away from you with a soft groan and sits up on his knees. His back straight, Sanemi’s hands curl around your hips and he tugs you forward until your backside is flush against his thighs.

The heat radiating from you pulls him in like a magnet as he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. A vein above his brow ticks, the only outward sign of the battle raging within him as his self restraint wars with his tantalizing urge to impale you on the thick, throbbing length of him, desperate for the sweet relief only your body can give.

Every inch of him trembles as Sanemi presses his hips forward. “Fuck,” he exhales shakily, pushing his tip past your entrance. “Fuck.”

His head falls back and the muscles in his throat strain. Some small, needy sound leaves him and the fingers on your hip tighten nearly to the point of pain.

The noise registers in the back of your mind, and vaguely, you recognize it as a whimper. You wonder whether he makes that sound for the others; somehow you doubt it, given that he does it again, only now in the shape of your name.

The rumors always said he never asked for names; he was a one-and-done kind of man. A great fuck, but not someone to go to if you were looking for comfort; softness.

Once again, Sanemi is nothing but a collection of contradictions, especially where you’re concerned.

Sanemi hisses as he slowly eases into you. Despite your wetness, you’re impossibly tight, and your body is a live wire hell bent on pushing out his intrusion.

With a deep groan, he falls forward, one arm shooting out to land near your head to catch himself before he can crash into you. His weight carefully braced above you, Sanemi shifts, widening the stance of his knees. Your legs slide up his waist, locking at your ankles at the base of his spine.

His cock is barely a quarter of the way inside your heat when he pulls out. A whine of protest mounts in your throat, but it quickly flickers out when he presses his leaking tip to your clit and grinds. A soft moan slips out of you when he repeats the movement again, and your thighs widen, your hips tilting up to allow him easier access.

Sanemi circles the head of his cock once more against your sensitive nub, coating himself in more of your sticky wetness, before he slides back into your entrance. This time, your body parts more easily around him, sucking him in rather than trying to squeeze him out.

“There you go, that’s it,” his breath is hot against your ear, his lips trailing silkily across your jaw. “That’s my girl.”

Halfway in, Sanemi brushes against that thin barrier that separates him from the rest of you, and he stills.

He pulls his head back from your neck, and moves his hand out from between your legs to cup your cheek.

“Ready?” His thumb strokes over your cheekbone, tender and soft.

There is a tightness building in your abdomen, a foreign pressure that isn’t entirely unwelcome, but neither is it wholly comfortable. You brace a hand at your side, balling your sheets into your fist as you steady yourself, flushed and panting beneath the scar speckled man holding rigidly still above you.

Your eyes flick up once, and you see the tightness in his jaw; the tremble in his limbs as he fights against the urge to relief the friction mounting where you are joined.

You swallow around the lump of anticipation lodged in your throat. Your breath is shaky, but at last, you manage a single “Please.”

With a groan, he grips himself around his base and slowly, he presses forward. There is a sharp prick that shoots deep in your lower abdomen as Sanemi surges past that thin inner wall.

You cannot stop your cry of discomfort from ringing out anymore than you can stop the surprised tears which escape the corners of your eyes as the sharp pain between your legs intensifies.

But then Sanemi’s lips are there, kissing away your tears, and the hand he’d used to guide himself into your body skims along the outside of your thigh, hiking your leg higher up his waist before it drops to rub gentle circles into your hip.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between soothing caresses of his lips against your cheeks and across your eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He coos his string of apologies as his cock continues to push into you. On and on he sinks, his length endless, and you begin to think your body will split in two before you find the end of his.

Just before you reach your limit, Sanemi stills, fully embedded in your heat. He pants through gritted teeth, his jaw locked against the way you’re constricting around him so tightly it’s nearly painful.

It’s unreal; not only does Sanemi realize how much fucking better sex feels without the restriction of a condom, but he’s also bashed over the head with the realization that you were made for him. For nothing, no one has ever felt as incredible as you.

Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.

Sanemi has always been someone who fucks fast and hard. He’d had no objective other than to escape for a few, blissful moments in the body of another as he pretended not to feel the hollowness in his chest, or the throb of his own self-loathing.

With you, however, he wants nothing more than to relish every movement of your body against his, to savor your every gasp and sigh; to learn what makes you lose control.

You are no temporary distraction; he wants to know you.

He drops his forehead against yours and waits, allowing you to adjust to the intrusion of him.

He trails his lips across your collar bone and down to the twin swells of your breasts, sucking softly at your plush skin as you fidget and squirm beneath him. One broad hand skirts down the outside of your thigh until he finds your knee, and gently he guides your leg around his hips. The other he leaves relaxed against the bed, your foot resting somewhere against his calf.

When your eyes flutter open and find his, he knows you’re ready. So he moves his arm out from between your bodies and winds it instead around your waist, deepening the arch in your back until his chest is flush with yours.

His lips press to your forehead, a silent warning that he is about to move.

And then Sanemi begins molding your body to the shape of his.

He starts slow. He doesn’t withdraw far from you, instead focusing on rolling his hips against yours. Each churn of his groin pushes his cock deeper into your warmth, and soon, your timid whimpers melt into soft moans as your initial discomfort gives way to pleasure.

Encouraged by the way your body starts to relax in his embrace, Sanemi tests drawing his cock out a few inches before plunging back into you.

Before long, the room fills with the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin, and Sanemi’s moans join yours as he rapidly becomes lost in the euphoria of your wet, tight heat.

One of your arms jumps to lock around his ribs, your nails sinking into his skin as you anchor yourself to him.

His hand snakes across the sheets in search of yours. When he finds it, fisted against your sheets, he pries your fingers loose, winding them with his and he wraps your arm around his shoulders.

“Tighter,” he gasps. “Hold me tighter. Please.”

Your fingers dig into the muscles of his back and Sanemi groans his approval.

And then he’s rolling to his side, pulling you along with him until you’re stretched out across the length of your mattress, chest to chest.

His hand grips under your thigh, tugging it over his hip as he rocks harder into you. “Talk to me, angel,” the hand under your thigh moves to splay across your rear, pushing and pulling your hips in time with his as he grinds. “Tell me how you feel — tell me what you want.”

You cry out, mournful, as Sanemi draws out his cock nearly to its tip before he plunges back into you.

The fullness you feel is overwhelming. You can’t stand that empty feeling, even for a moment. So you hitch your leg higher around his hip, and dig the heel of your foot into the firmness of his ass, limiting his movements.

“Closer!” You gasp. “I — I need you closer.”

He needs that too, he decides; craves it. He doesn’t want to feel any space between your bodies. He wants — he needs — to be so enraptured with you that there is no point in trying to separate. That way, he might get to keep you for just a little longer.

Sanemi’s hand massages your backside, his cock throbbing with every push into you. “Deeper,” he confirms between throaty groans. “You want me deeper?”

You bury your face into his shoulder. Your teeth sink into his skin and with a moan, you nod.

He can do that; is more than happy to, as a matter of fact.

So, with a faint snarl, Sanemi grips the fat of your ass and spreads you wide, and he begins thrusting, hard.

The new angle allows the tip of his cock to bump up against a sweet spot deep inside you. Sanemi’s eyes narrow at the way your head drops back, a loud cry tearing from your throat.

Determined to hit that point within you again and again, he shifts his hips under you while hiking your leg higher up his hip, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass.

It’s a success; soon, your wails echo throughout your studio, punctuated by every punishing slap of his skin against yours.

Really, he can’t give less of a damn at how thin your apartment walls are. The sounds pouring from your mouth are the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever heard.

Something hot and electric mounts quickly in your stomach with each of his frenetic movements. You’ve come before with your own hand, but this — this is something different. Something far more intense, something that threatens to rip you apart from your very sanity until you know nothing but him.

You try and tell him you’re losing control but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.

But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you.” And with that, Sanemi rolls you back underneath him, settling into the cradle of your thighs and pushing his cock faster and deeper into you. His arms gently unwind yours from his shoulders, and he brings them up over your head, one large hand pinning them down.

“I’ll take care of you, sweet girl,” he promises, and he weaves the fingers of the hand keeping you pressed against the mattress with your own. “Just keep your legs around me.”

Your thighs squeeze his waist in silent answer, your mind far too suspended in the throes of your pleasure to do anything else.

With his lips trailing along your neck leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses in its wake, his free hand slides between your sweat-slicked bodies. He wedges it between where his groin is pressed to yours, and he searches along your sensitive, swollen folds, seeking the spot between your thighs that made you tremble and whine for him earlier.

You jolt under him as his fingers find you again, that foreign, electric sensation sparking deep in your abdomen. “Sanemi —“

“It’s okay,” he murmurs sweetly, pressing down on your clit until you arch further into him with a gasp. “It’s gonna feel so good, baby, I promise. Just focus on me.”

Each rotation of his hand against your sensitive bead matched the deep, pointed roll of his groin, with Sanemi capping the end of every powerful thrust with alternating pulses of his thumb. The pressure he uses mounts with every churn of his hips, and the moan vibrating in your chest as another surge of sticky wetness gushes from your thighs is the sweetest sound he thinks he’s ever heard.

A broken chant of please please please stutters its way out of you, spurning him to go faster; hit deeper.

And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.

“You’re doing so fucking good, sweetheart. Just keep letting me take care of you —- that’s it.” He curses as you clench down around him, crying out in approval at his praise. “Yeah, yeah. You’re my fuckin’ girl, aren’t you?”

A single wail of his name is your only response, but it’s enough of a confirmation to damn you both.

“You are,” he affirms, his voice taking on the timber of a growl. “Mine. You’re fuckin’ mine.”

His thrusts grow sloppier with every second, though each is punctuated by a silent, recurring chant of mine, mine, mine. Though your eyes are closed, Sanemi can spy a faint sliver of white peeking out from between your eyelids.

You’re close; he can feel it. And he knows, as the walls of your cunt flutter and tighten around him, that your climax will be his undoing.

The hands he has pinned against the mattress over your head flex as you twist and writhe beneath him. your head tosses from from side to side, and the vibrato of your cries rises octave by octave. Every muscle in your body is tense; you are a live wire thrumming with a need to come apart that he knows you do not fully understand.

Sanemi grunts as he fucks you harder into your bed, no longer concerned with keeping his weight off you. He will show you; he will show you how to shatter, and then he too, will break.

But he needs to see you, first.

“Look at me,” his voice beckons you back from the precipice of ruin. “Look at me, Y/N.”

Your eyes open to meet his and suddenly you’re right back at that edge, only this time, you’re falling freely over it, plummeting down a drop that has no end.

“S-Sanemi —!” It’s all you can manage before the knot steadily building in your stomach unravels. Your back arcs sharply away from your bed, and Sanemi ducks his head to smother his own cry against your breast as he takes its tip into his hot mouth.

Your hips jerk and twitch against his, your cunt seizing around him with force that threatens to squeeze the life out of him. Above you, your arms strain and pull against his grip as you writhe and sing for him.

“That’s it baby, that’s it,” Sanemi’s praise is muffled against your sternum, though it is strangled as he nears his own end. “Fuck!“

He’ll have to buy you the morning-after pill tomorrow, he realizes as you continue to come apart so beautifully on his cock, a soft chant of his name the only thing on your lips. He will not force you to bear the consequences of his own selfishness; he will not saddle you with his burden.

But he’s also not strong enough to pull out; not when your body feels like it was made for him, not when your sweet cunt is gripping him this hard, is this wet — all because of him.

He is selfish and he is weak; it’s a toxic combination, and yet he knows cannot stop.

Sanemi’s hips snap a final time against yours, pushing them up and away from the mattress, pressing deeper than he thought possible. His eyes roll back as his own orgasm rocks through him, powerful and blinding, and the growl that built in his throat melts into a strained groan.

He holds you in place, his cock pulsing in time with your cunt while the two of you ride out the waves of your climax together, his cum steadily filling you with his warmth. Your hands skirt down the length of his arms, blindly searching for his hips. When you find him, you pull and tug, a faint whine sounding from the back of your throat. Sanemi answers your plea with a broken moan of his own and he rocks against you, your hips circling with his until he finally lets you collapse against your mattress, limp-limbed and exhausted.

He follows you down, smothering you with his weight as he clings to you like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of your neck.

“Fuck, you did so good, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good.” He moans into your ear before he pulls back, his eyes searching your face as he pants.

One hand cradles your jaw and his thumb strokes repeatedly over the flushed curve of your cheek. “You okay?”

You don’t answer right away, your eyes shut tight, and Sanemi feels panic bubble hot in his stomach. The hand cupping your face tightens with his worried call of your name, his fear rearing its ugly head, ready to rip him apart, to turn him into the horrid monster he’s always known he was —

“I love you,” and then you’re peering up at him, eyes round and shining with emotion he does not deserve to feel. “I love you, Sanemi.”

It would’ve hurt less if you’d shot him.

Whatever wall remained around his heart cracks and crumbles under the weight of your confession. Sanemi does not answer, cannot find the words to adequately capture the depth of his feelings.

Instead, he snatches you up into his arms, crushing your body against his.

He kisses your lips and then your cheek. One hand cups the back of your head, his fingers burying into your hair as he presses your face into his chest. His arms tremble as he holds you close, every hard ridge of him cradled against your soft curves. He feels your smile against his collarbone, and the way your fingers dance up and down his spine that makes him melt.

It hits him, then. You aren’t waiting for an answer — you said it only so he would know, and you’d not expected anything in return.

All you’d done was give while he took and took. Your body. Your love.

He doesn’t deserve any of it.

Whatever or whomever came after this would never compare to you. Truthfully, Sanemi doesn’t think it would be worth trying anything different. Everything now began and ended with you — including him.

He twists his head to kiss you again and again, your lips meeting his with a sleepy enthusiasm.

He pants as he breaks away. “‘M gonna pull out — might be uncomfortable for a second.”

You wince at the sudden stab of cold left behind by Sanemi’s retreating warmth. He shifts back onto his knees and slides his hands down your thighs, parting them.

A low whistle blows past his lips. “Damn, I made a mess outta you.”

For a moment, Sanemi can’t tear his eyes away from the sight between your legs; the sight of him trickling out you, staining the sheets below. But some of that hot, possessive pride that wells in his chest tempers at the small smear of blood staining your inner thigh.

His fingers massage your legs in silent apology. “Let me clean you up.”

Your hands shoot to grasp at his shoulders, a pleading whimper on your lips. “Don’t leave — not yet.” You bite your lip, your eyes wide and anxious. “Please, can you just hold me for a bit?”

Sanemi’s eyes soften and his heart throbs painfully in his chest. He can’t imagine leaving you; not now, not ever. No matter how stupid and selfish that makes him.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know the source of your anxiety — or that you didn’t have reason for it. Sanemi isn’t known for lingering.

But this is different — you’re different. You’re not some temporary distraction. You’re everything. His everything.

“Shhh,” he maneuvers you easily atop him, settling you in against the length of his torso, his hands smoothing up and down the column of your spine. “I’m staying right here, sweet girl. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He seals his promise with a gentle kiss against your forehead before laying his cheek against your temple, cradling you to his chest.

Finally, you relax against him, convinced. He lays with you for a long time after, one hand on the back of your head, his fingers rubbing against your scalp until you fall asleep on against him, safe and sound and warm.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours. But Sanemi’s head does not quiet, not even under the soothing sounds of your deep, slow breaths as you dream.

He must have lost his mind. There is no other explanation for the way he’s disregarded every rule, every boundary he’s ever made sense of, all in the name of you. In a single evening, you managed to obliterate every last defense, every barricade he’d safely cowered behind, and now that the castle has fallen, he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with the rubble.

What he does know is that there’s no putting things back to how they were.

His eyes search your sleeping face because if you were able to make him question nearly everything that made sense in his life, then surely you must also have the answers he needs to re-strike balance in his tilted world. Maybe they lie among the lashes that tickle your cheek, or in the occasional twitch of your mouth between your deep inhales.

But Sanemi is only left feeling more confused the longer he watches you. Because, despite the way he feels vulnerable and exposed at how easily he has been stripped of his guard, he can’t quite bring himself to believe it was entirely your doing.

His eyes widen. There’s his answer.

Perhaps you are not trying to sink your nails into his flesh to peel it back, to demand he be stripped to the bone for you to inspect, to scrutinize and use as you please.

Perhaps that is what you’ve done to yourself, and you’re waiting to see if you will join you; to know if he can volunteer his vulnerability, rather than wait for someone to come and force it from him.

He cannot make any promises. He has spent so much of his life cowering behind the armor he crafted out of his scars and his sneers and barks that were always more ferocious than his bite, that he does not know how to take it off. He does not know how to navigate the world without its weight, both his safety net and his chain. And there is an understanding in your eyes that signals you know that, too.

But he can try.

He mouths I love you against your hairline — he does not voice it, not yet, though it’s what he feels. But your love is a compass that just might point him down the road the leads to a life he so desperately wants; to you.

And he’ll get there, maybe.

In time.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

[sunflowerwinds]

hers | s.a

summary: your bright personality unexpectedly draws in sevika and she can’t help but fall for you. when finn makes a comment that he can’t take back, sevika reminds him and you how much you mean to her.

pairing: fem!reader x sevika arcane

contains: mature language and content (18+), set sometime between act 1 and act 2 of season 1, established relationship, sunshine!reader, sensitive!reader, reader is described to wear more feminine outfits and makeup, finn being a WEIRDO to reader like omg, minor violence to men who deserve it, smut including — no foreplay, strap-on (hex-strap <3) r!recieving, sevika calls reader pet names such as sunshine, pretty girl, baby, sweet girl, angel, rushed ending.

word count: 4.4K

a/n: i’m ready to bear her children. a little treat before what we might endure in act 2. muah muah i love you angels <333 i am so sorry for posting this so late within the day. i had a hectic day at work but i pushed through for yall!

Sevika would never be described as a bright person.

Her position as Silco’s right-hand woman made her eerily unapproachable. She wore a poker face, gambled with ease, and was expertly skilled in combat. Fear struck in those who dared to try her.

Except, well, you.

When you first took the position as a waitress at The Last Drop, you were immediately drawn to the so-called scary woman. You heard whispers amongst the customers of her actions but all you saw was a tall, gorgeous woman.

Chuck, at least you assumed that was his name as the little 12-year-old girl with bright blue hair repeatedly called him in when she was lingering around, noticed your longing gaze at the woman. He warned you that someone as preppy as you is not someone Sevika would enjoy in her presence.

You were aware of your bubbly personality that, to most, was a bit overwhelming to be around. Your outfits drew attention as you enjoyed more frilly and bright things, always wearing jewelry or makeup or both to color coordinate with your outfits. It brought you joy and you weren’t ashamed of it.

You ignored him as you thought he was being ridiculous. How could she judge you so quickly without even getting to know you?

“I’m going to say hi!” You state with a nod to Chuck. “Do you know her favorite drink?”

You lean against the counter, beaming charmingly at the man. He hesitates as he doesn't want you to get yelled at or scoffed at for even trying.

“I-I don’t know. Sevika’s not… fond of being interrupted during her poker games.”

You blink as you turn back around to watch her shuffle the cards with one clawed and flesh hand, a cigar hanging from her beautiful lips. As much as you wanted to go over there and admire her up close; Chuck was right.

You didn’t want to be rude.

“I’ll just wait until she’s done then,” you nod to confirm.

And that’s what you do. You watch as her opponents angrily toss their forfeit onto the table, muttering curses at the woman. The larger woman keeps her cool composure, a winning smirk on her face. You grin happily at her now empty table, grabbing the drink Chuck had reluctantly handed you to deliver to the woman.

You control the pep in your step as much as you can as you didn’t want to spill the drink. Sevika gathers the coins into her leather pouch when you first approach her table.

“Hi!” You smile warmly.

Sevika, much to your surprise, doesn’t ignore you as Chuck made you believe she would. In fact, she sits back in her seat, her gray eyes trailing up and down your figure as you set down the drink.

“I thought I’d bring you a celebratory drink and introduce myself,” you beam as you clasped your hands behind your back. “You’re Sevika, right?”

And she was even more devilishly charming up close. That was a given but you were able to admire her little marks much closer now. You even noticed blue scars running up the side of her face, trailing down the side of her mechanic arm.

“You’re new, aren’t you?” Sevika hummed as she moved her gaze to your awaiting eyes.

You nod, trying not to burst out with excitement so you wouldn’t scare her.

“I am! Just started a week ago, I think. I saw you when I first started and wanted to go say hi and Chuck told me not to,” you wave off like the man was ridiculous with a lovely chuckle. “Everyone says you’re scary but you don’t seem scary to me.”

Sevika’s eyes had flickered over to the bar where Chuck was avoiding her sharp gaze as you unknowingly ratted him out. She decides to let whatever he said slide and focus on the vision that is you right in front of her.

With one more once over your frame, Sevika actually grins at you.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to scare someone as pretty as you, angel.”

Sevika takes her cigar from her lips to blow out the smoke away from you and reaches across the table to grab the drink. You were obsessed with the way she called you ‘angel’, wanting to hear her voice on a loop forever.

“You think I’m pretty?” You swore your face was stretching due to how much you were smiling.

Sevika hums as she takes a slow sip from the slightly rusted glass.

“The prettiest,” she affirmed your question before leaning in close so she could look you in the eyes, admiring the shimmer over your eyelids. “I hope to see you around.”

You nod with an overwhelming flushed face, practically bouncing on the soles of your shoes. You left the table with an overwhelming amount of confidence. Sevika watched you walk back to the bar counter to gush to Chuck about how nice she was.

That was only the beginning of Sevika’s infatuation with you.

She tried to ignore the bubbling feeling of yearning for you but every time she came into the Last Drop, you were just the sweetest girl to her and never made her feel like just a crime lord. Every outfit you wore had her on the verge of begging on her knees for you to let her make you feel so good because that’s what you deserve.

You asked her random questions about her and her life when you would bring her drinks, slowly emerging into Sevika’s life. Sure, it was the bare minimum and you acted this way with most. But when you stared at her as she spoke, nodding to show you were listening and taking in every word with those lovely eyes, she knew she was fucked.

Within the first month of meeting, Sevika built up the courage to ask you out after your shift at the Last Drop. You, of course, were as sweet about it as ever. After that first date, everything shifted in the bond that you two had made over those weeks.

You quickly learned how obsessed and protective Sevika would be over you. Her arm — mechanic or not — would be draped over your soft hips, signaling to everyone that you were hers.

Word quickly spread about you and Sevika’s relationship.

It seemed like out of the blue the men and women would give you dirty looks and make passive-aggressive comments in the Last Drop became significantly nicer to you as well. When you would beam to Sevika how you all of a sudden started getting tipped more at work, she would congratulate you, showering you with kisses.

Little did you know it was because everyone was afraid to rub you the wrong way and that you would tell the intimidating woman. If you were upset, which was rare, you could guarantee Sevika would be just as upset if not more than you.

Just as she had treated you like the princess she saw you as you were just as loving to her. There was no shocker there as you didn’t seem to have one malicious bone in your body. When you weren’t at work, you were right next to Sevika. Whether it’d be at Silco’s office or helping her babysit Jinx, you’d happily be right by her side to help or just be there for support.

The little blue-haired girl would constantly tease Sevika about being a ‘big old softie’ when you came around. You thought she was the cutest thing and Sevika would simply tell her to shut it.

Like any other day, you were sitting on her lap during her poker games, leaning over her shoulder to stare at the hand she had. The opponents across the table were gawking and staring at you, clearly getting distracted by your beauty and outfits. Even after almost a year of being together, Sevika would get so flustered when you would place a kiss on her cheek or jaw when she won a match. She couldn’t — and would never even try — to hide her love and admiration for you.

She called you your good luck charm as if she hadn’t already become a pro at poker before you popped out of nowhere.

This particular match was different though. Her opponents were ones that you knew — Finn and Smeech. You had seen them a few times when you swung by Silco’s office to drop off some treats for your girlfriend and whoever wanted some as well.

You didn’t mean to but you made eye contact with Finn while you were simply gazing around the surrounding space. His bright luminescent green eyes catch yours and you immediately look away. Sevika notices the tension in your body and clears her throat, her strong arm settling around your waist to try and ease you.

“Your eyes are getting away from your cards, Finn,” Sevika quipped, eyes narrowing for a moment before focusing on your breathing that was picking up.

Her thumb rubbed at the revealed skin. You place a gentle hand on her larger one, trying to distract yourself. Most that were played against Sevika didn’t even dare to look you in the eyes; you were Sevika’s and they knew better.

Turns out, Finn was not aware of this.

“Well, something is distracting me, Sevika.” Finn’s off-putting comment made your stomach turn, looking at you with an almost predatory look.

Sevika’s nostrils flared for a moment, puffing out some of the smoke from the cigar dangling from her lips. Your hand tightened on hers, blinking and looking away from him.

“You sure picked a pretty one,” Finn continued and you looked up at him to see him wink at you. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

You are taken aback by the question, glancing at Sevika as you mutter out your name. Usually, you were able to converse with the opponents to distract them from Sevika with your effortless charm but you wanted to do anything but talk to Finn.

“Focus on the game or get up from the table,” Sevika warns the man.

You hated seeing Sevika get angry as you knew her as anything but. Sure, she was grumpy and had a stone-cold face but she was the most attentive and loyal girlfriend to you.

“Sev,” you whisper to try and ease her clear anger with the man.

Finn chuckles at her obvious irritation with him. Sevika’s lip twitches at the sound and she sucks in a deep breath, glancing down at the hand of cards.

“Are you done or can we get this going?”

You look back at Sevika with an awkward smile. You felt like you were on display at an exhibit with his eyes on you and not in the way that Sevika looked at you.

No, she was so tender and loving with you.

“You know what? I, um, I forgot the muffins I made in the office. I’ll be right back, baby,” you pat her hand that was gripping onto your torso.

Sevika’s gray eyes found your gaze, watching as they anxiously darted from eye to eye. You were uncomfortable. Finn made you feel uncomfortable. From the moment you weakly smiled at her, Sevika knew she had to deal with him the moment you were out of her eye-line.

“Okay, sweet girl. Be quick. Need my good luck charm,” Sevika curtly nodded, plastering on a grin for your sake.

“I’ll be quick. I love you,” you ignore the obvious stares from the two across the table as you lean down to place a lovely kiss on her lips.

The taste of your lips fogs Sevika’s brain for a moment, reluctantly releasing your waist so you can leave her presence. “And I love you.”

You send her one more darling smile before keeping your distance from the two opponents as you make your way to where the office is located. You wave to Chuck as you pass by him handing a drink to Jinx at the bar in her signature cup.

You pat her on the head and flick one of her collarbone-length braids, watching her whip her head to find your awaiting grin. She leans forward to capture the straw between her lips, waving to you. You chuckle at her mean face before she realized it was you.

Sevika watched you walk away until you were completely out of sight before she reached over the table to grab onto the hair on Finn’s head and slammed it down thrice onto the wooden table. Her large hand held him down, watching him struggle to let himself up after the impact it had on his head.

The thud mixed with his pained grunt echoed, the few people within the bar pausing their movements. Objects clattered and chairs scooted to see where the sound came from. She uses her mechanic hand to take the cigar out of her mouth to rest it on the little ashtray that you sculpted for her.

“You really just couldn’t keep your damn mouth shut,” Sevika snarled at the man who was getting small splinters embedded into his skin from the old wood.

“He didn’t mean it,” Smeech proposed after being silent throughout the entire match up until now. Fucking coward, Sevika thought to herself. “We could… work out a deal to make this go away.”

Sevika scoffed as she started up her mechanical arm, the blade within it revealing itself and extending to push against the small jaw of Smeech’s fury face.

“A misunderstanding is all,” Smeech sputtered out, glancing at Finn’s smashed-in face.

Sevika stood up from her seat to grab onto Finn’s hair and ram him up against the nearest wall, head pounding against the tough wood. The man had yet to say a word about his over-the-line actions. A bloody smile was all he wore. Her hand held him up against the wall, her chest heaving from anger and her hand tightening to watch him writhe under her touch.

“Complete forfeit and that’s it. We’re gone. We’ll never look at her again,” Smeech rushed out

“And what would Silco say to this reckless behavior? We’re partners, you know?” Finn coughed out, spitting some of his blood out onto the ground. “Would not be too keen on that now would he?”

Sevika glanced over at Smeech’s trembling figure, carefully lowering her blade. He was right. As much as she wished she could beat his face until it was black and blue, nearing death, Silco would have more than a few words for her. She retracts the blade back into the arm and releases Finn from his throat, watching him pant and rub at the sore area.

“Leave the money,” Sevika grabbed the still-lit cigar and pressed it onto Finn’s free hand when he wasn’t paying attention. He gasped at the burn seeping into his skin, unable to react as Sevika grabbed him by the collar to push him toward the exit. “And get the hell out here.”

Smeech kept his distance as he nodded in understanding of Sevika’s anger. He released a frantic chuckle as he, along with Finn, left the building without looking back. Sevika shook out her hand and stretched a bit. When she takes a look around, the paused customers instantly continue their previous actions.

“Sev?” She hears you call from behind her, your footsteps growing closer. “Wait, what happened?”

Sevika shook her head as she turned to face your confused expression at the now-empty table. She glanced down at the small tray of muffins that you and Jinx made.

“They had places to be.”

“Aww. I was going to give them a muffin to try before they left. They’re not like ones that’d be up in Piltover but I think we did a pretty good job.” You motion to the berry muffins. “Have you tried one yet? I can’t remember.”

Sevika hums with a shake of her head before grabbing one off of the tray.

“Let’s go home, yeah?” She insisted with a hand out for you to take.

You nod happily at her suggestion, intertwining your fingers with yours as you leave out the door of the Last Drop.

Entering Sevika’s apartment, you rambled about the muffins you made. You were yet to notice Sevika practically undressing you with her eyes.

“I just think if you know if I was able to get a different kind of fruit,” you examine one of them in your hand, letting Sevika lead you by your hip around to the kitchen so you could set your muffins down on the countertop. “You know? Next time you have a transportation, can you stop by a fruit vendor or something up there so that I could—”

“Baby,” Sevika chuckles at your rambling as she rests her hands on your waist, squeezing the plush skin to grab your attention.

“Oh, right. Tell me about the rest of the poker game,” you shook your head and patted her bicep, looking up at her with a sweet smile.

Sevika could take you right there and then. She presses a loving kiss onto your lips before using her non-mechanic hand to cup the side of your face, keeping her hunger for you at bay for now.

“Did I ruin it when I left? Is that why everyone was gone when I came back?” You question, your face wincing at the idea that you may have altered the game. “I-I know I was… being distracting to Finn and I didn’t mean to.”

Sevika shook her head at your words, shushing your insecure thoughts creeping into your head.

“No. No, you did nothing wrong. Finn was the one out of line,” Sevika sneered, rubbing her thumb along the apple of your cheek.

“Are you sure?” You checked in one more time.

“Yes, angel. I mean it,” her voice is assertive but reassuring.

You nod, sighing as you lean into the comforting feeling of her palm. The feeling of discomfort from half an hour ago still lingered in your mind. You release an awkward chuckle, staring up at Sevika’s comforting gray eyes.

“I’m sorry. I just never felt that weird before.”

Sevika’s brows furrowed at your confession. Once you realize how depressing you sound, you shake your head as you reach up to cup her stern face, running your thumb over her blue scars. She wished she would’ve just finished Finn off right there and then seeing you contemplate who you are because of him.

“You… are perfect. Everything about you,” Sevika breathed out, leaning in to place kisses on the under of your jaw.

You gasp softly at the feeling, running a hand over the length of her shoulder. Her hand cupped at your neck, her thumb pressing underneath your to get you to tilt your chin upwards. You pant as her lips trail down the length of your neck, barely ghosting her lips to draw the neediness out of you.

It didn’t take much for you to get riled up for Sevika. Because, well, it was Sevika. She learned every spot that drove you wild and made it her mission to take advantage of that.

“I-I’m really okay, Sev,” you assure her but your slack jaw gave away how much you wanted this.

“Do you want me to stop?” She questions, pausing her movements but still heavily panting against your neck.

You shake your head rapidly, hand cursing up the back of her head into her hair.

“No, no. Please don’t.”

And how could she not give you what you want? Especially when you’re so sweet.

“Such a sweet girl, baby,” she breathed out before backing out of the comforting crook of your neck.

You preen at the praise, looking up at her with dazed-out eyes. Your hands were clamped down on the counter behind you, the ledge digging into your back. She traced the wet mark on your skin before delving back into your lips.

You ‘hmph’ at the attack on you but recover quickly, falling into a rhythm against her. Her hands settle back on your waist, her real hand sneaking up your top to run her fingers over your ribcage. You shiver against her, the sound of your lips smacking and the feeling of her tongue grazing over your bottom lip increasing your arousal.

“Wanna get up on the corner for me?” Sevika hums between kisses, her hands gripping at the meat of your thighs.

You nod with a hum, releasing the counter. Sevika lifted you with ease, hoisting you up on the counter. You couldn’t but giggle at the motion, still not being used to the fact that she was that strong. Her muscles were a constant reminder but when she was able to effortlessly move you around, you swore you were on top of the world.

“Need you, Sev,” you whisper against her lips, a smile creeping onto your lips.

Sevika's eyes shut at the sound of you asking for, needing her.

“Say that again, pretty girl,” she mutters as her grip on you tightens.

You smile against her lips as you peck them a few times before tilting your head up at her.

“I need you, baby. Please.”

Sevika released a near growl at your begging for her. She nearly knocks you back onto the counter as her lips find yours once again. Your bodies press up against one another, grinding your crotches. Your eyebrows raise at the bulge in between her legs.

You were not expecting her to be wearing the strap-on around. A pleasant surprise, nonetheless.

Sevika must've noticed you slowing down, pulling away with a slight smirk.

“You want it?” Sevika hummed, slowly grinding the bulge against you once again.

You nod again with greed, clawing at her back. With quick and hurried movements, you helped her move your panties down from underneath your rather short skirt. Sevika runs her hands up the plush of your thighs as her lips kiss your collarbones.

Growing impatient, you take matters into your own hands and reach for the button of her pants. Sevika hummed at the feeling, in fact pushing your hips into your hands to encourage the neediness. You took the strap out of her briefs, not wanting to take the time for foreplay.

You were positive that you were wet enough for Sevika to just ease into you. She chuckles at you angling your hips so she could line herself up to your aching pussy.

“Needy girl,” she teases.

You flush at the mocking, loving any sort of attention she was giving you. Your mind had completely blanked on why you were feeling so weird in the first place. Sevika was all that was able to make its way through your thoughts.

Her rough yet tender hands, her addicting lips, her toned waist, her ever-so-loving voice.

Just Sevika.

“Should’ve killed him for staring at you,” Sevika mutters against your skin. “For talking to you like that, angel.”

You shake your head at her words. “Just want you, Sev.”

Sevika nodded, knowing how much you hated seeing the violence. You, of course, knew it was a part of her job but when you saw people physically get hurt, you could feel it too. You would hate to know someone got hurt on your account.

“I’ll take care of you,” Sevika says out loud as if she’s trying to get herself back on track.

You were a waiting mess for her and she was thinking about killing that fucker. She blinked and looked at you, really admiring every curve of your body. Your hands were running over her broad shoulder, glancing down at the dildo in between you two.

Her hands push your legs apart, a smile growing on her face. You pant as your patience is wearing thin, watching her grab the base end of the strap to glide the tip through your folds. She was still teasing you, an evil smirk on her lips.

“Baby, don’t be mean,” you whine, looking up at her with desperation written all over your face.

Sevika whispers an ‘I’m sorry’, placing a kiss and soft bite underneath your dropped jaw. She held your hips still in place as she carefully inched herself into you. You gasped and moaned at the stretch inside of you. Sevika’s head tilts back as she curses under her breath.

You swore at times she acted like she really could feel you through the strap.

“Fuck,” she groans, humming as she bottoms out inside of you.

Your nails were digging into the scarred skin of her neck, emitting another moan from the woman. Without wasting another second, Sevika, once she was sure you were okay, began thrusting inside of you.

Your tits bounced with every thrust, nearly popping out of your top from movements. Sevika shamelessly watched your face twist in pleasure, your beautiful skin glistening with her saliva from her wet kisses and your sweat.

“Baby,” you moan out, shivering when she thrusts hard up into you.

Sevika grabbed underneath your jaw with her real hand, making you make eye contact with her as she fucked into you.

“My perfect girl,” she praises as her thrusts continue, slapping against your inner thighs.

You preen at the praise, wanting to look away but Sevika wouldn’t let you. Your stomach tightens at your overwhelming fast orgasm approaching. It was creeping up your spine, burning in the best way possible.

“Just like that, baby,” Sevika nodded as she released your face to focus on your soft hips.

Your breathy and whiny moans drive Sevika to speed up her thrusts into you. Your legs were hiked up around her toned waist, brushing deliciously at her v-line.

“Sev, please,” you beg.

For what? You weren’t sure anymore.

“Say you’re perfect. Say it for me, angel,” Sevika groaned as she continued her thrusts inside of you, one of her hands cupping underneath your jaw.

Your mind was foggy, barely able to focus on what she was asking you what to do. Your hips stutter as you try to match the pace of her thrusts.

“I’m… p-perfect.” You sputter through your heavy breathing, reaching and holding onto her strong forearm.

The metal of her mechanic arm made your skin shiver as she shifted your legs to somehow reach deeper into you. Your painted nails dug into her skin as you tried to adjust to the angle change.

“You’re my perfect girl. My angel, my sunshine,” Sevika praises you as her thrusts become sloppier, a shiver running down her spine.

Nothing, not even Shimmer, could compare to the euphoric feeling of being with you like this. Nothing was as addicting as you.

“Yours,” was all you could whimper out.

You were sure your makeup was smudged, most of your eyeshadow faded from the heat exuding from your body. Sevika wouldn’t let you even try to think about anything else but feeling good.

“‘M yours too, angel. Don’t you forget it.”

TAGLIST: @eilishxo @prettydeeryess @hauntedclaudio @maaaaaaaaaaari @prettysuplicant @twlaei @soodle-noup @xayn-xd @fict1onallyobsessed @lamiadrowned @asmrgirll @lovinglynny @kylorey25 @kissyslut @archangeldyke-all

[fakevalentine]

— FLUSH ! 🃁 🃊 🃋 🃍 🃎

female reader x sevika

cw — nsfw. public sex. exhibitionism. oral ( sevika ). finger sucking. spit play. humiliation?. sev has body hair!

disclaimer i have no idea how to play poker also this is kinda long i just love sevika so much i had to put my whole pussy into her!!!

no matter how many times sevika literally sat down and explained the rules of poker, you never understood. she told you step by step what to do, even a lost a round while letting you take her turn to practice.

but no avail. you remain clueless and, well... useless.

sevika drags you to the last drop every friday, and tonight was dragging on for an annoyingly long period of time. she enjoyed gambling and won a lot, spoiling you if you acted right. you didn't want to take that away from her— even if you were bored out of your mind sat beside her.

she had sent you up to the bar with a handful of coins for 'a whiskey and whatever you want.'

thieram (or chuck, as jinx calls him) the bartender, knows exactly how to pour her drink. he's nice to you, offers some small talk and maybe a friendly compliment, but doesn't let his eyes linger on you for too long. and that's about it.

you take her whiskey over ice from the bar, not bothering to get yourself anything since you were still sipping on your beer you got an hour ago. you keep forgetting to drink it.

sevika drinks too fast, you tell her all the time. but it takes a whole lot to get her drunk, she wasn't even tipsy yet.

her attention is solely centralized on her cards splayed out between her metal fingers and held in place by her thumb. you glance at her face as you sit down and slide her drink over; she's unreadable as ever. her poker face is impressive.

her flesh hand reaches over to pat your thigh in thanks before wrapping around the glass of whiskey and taking a gulp, sighing and sitting back on her chair. her legs are spread wide, and you're suddenly distracted by her thick thighs.

and she's fully aware. "bored?"

you look back up at her face when her deep voice rings through your ears. she's looking at you now, her piercing bright eyes basically staring through you. "no. just thinking." you reply.

she raises an eyebrow, not believing you, "about...?"

riding your thighs— "nothing important. are you winning?"

she huffs at your question, "guess." she wins every round, and has. her pile of winnings only growing higher, and you know you're eating good for at least a month.

you smile softly, looking around the poker table at her men that were clearly distressed. it wasn't looking so good for them, their wallets collecting dust every time they played against sevika— and yet they came back every friday and threw their last coins on the bet in hopes of suddenly getting lucky.

"i know you're bored." sevika murmurs, and you feel a little guilty because you know how much she genuinely enjoys playing poker. but it was boring you to death.

you frown and look up at her, "sorry, babe..."

she shrugs, her hand finding your thigh again as she looks back down at her cards, "i got an idea."

"don't tell me you're gonna make me play again.." you giggle a little, and the corner of sevika's mouth turns up just a little at the familiar sound.

"fuck no," she squeezes your thigh, your muscles flexing under her grip, "not a chance, girl."

you reach for your beer as she talks, taking a few sips and admiring how the low light of the bar highlights the scars decorating her brown skin, "so what's your idea, sev?"

"get on your knees."

you choke on your drink, eyebrows scrunching together as you stare at her for a few seconds. "seriously?"

sevika shrugs nonchalantly, "it'll keep you busy."

she barely blinks before you're setting your drink down and slipping under the table between her legs on your knees, always eager to please her. the men at the table look up from their cards, watching you scramble under their table before exchanging looks with eachother.

"keep your eyes on your damn cards." sevika snaps, spreading her legs a little wider as your hands slide up her thighs and finds her heavy belt buckle, the metal clanking as you undo it. you then pop the button on her pants and pull her zipper down.

you know her boundaries, and you know better than pull her pants down any more than needed— even though you want to. so you shimmy then down along with her boxers just enough.

her boys aren't completely stupid, they know what you're doing under the table. but they also know not to mention it, not wanting to piss sevika off, paired with them being used to the very little decorum you and her have. anytime, anywhere.

so of course this wasn't the first time you knelt at your girlfriend's feet on the sticky bar floor, hence your lack of hesitation.

sevika's hand comes down to your face, squishing your cheeks before easing two of her thick fingers into your mouth, pushing them further until you gag. you know she would be smiling that pretty tooth gap grin if she wasn't putting on her poker face, but admittedly, both were hot.

she presses her thumb against your chin to tilt your face up, putting pressure on your tongue and sliding her digits along your muscle. she's doing this for a few of reasons, the main one being to get herself wet— and to torture you, of course.

she fucks her fingers in and out of your mouth and you probably should be embarrassed by the nasty gagging, clicking sounds you're making. you know the people around you can hear, and you should be ashamed.

she sees your thighs press together, shoving her fingers down your throat with a groan. "fuck is wrong with you?" she scowls, waiting until you gag again before pulling her soaked fingers out, smearing the slobber over the bottom half of your face and smudging your lipstick.

well she's soaked now, fucking your throat always works a charm. you can see the hairs on her mound glistening with arousal, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth at the sight.

she pulls your lip from your teeth with her thumb, sliding the pad over it. "c'mon, get to work."

you scoot closer to her, lowering your face between her thighs and flicking your tongue out to taste her. sevika just takes a deep breath, her thigh twitching a little.

you latch your warm mouth onto her, moaning against her clit at her taste as you suck on her gently. she hums in approval, reaching her hand down to thread through your hair to shove your face further into her cunt.

you happily oblige, looking up as you mouth at her messily. your hand slides up her body to slip under her shirt, feeling the slight contractions of her abdomen, her happy trail tickling your fingers.

the only thing you disliked about doing this was that you didn't get to see her pretty face scrunch up, or her head fall back as she pants heavy and tries not to let out little high pitched moans. but you also don't mind her cold stare, barely acknowledging how your tongue pressed against her hole, humming when you taste her arousal leak out.

she just grunts, letting go of your hair and grabbing a cigar, shoving it between her teeth and lighting the end of it— mostly to keep her own mouth busy to conceal the moans and groans brewing in her throat.

"keep goin'."

that's your sign that she's close, and you knuckle down, moving your head up and down slightly. her right leg jerks, smoke blowing out of her nose as she exhales deeply and tries to keep her composure.

you smile against her at the sight, and her eye twitches in annoyance. she knows you know— both that she's close, and the way you make her feel. it drives her insane that you know her so well, that you can make the most feared woman of the undercity a puddle in your mouth.

sevika grunts, shifting her hips and looking down at you. "come on." she mumbles, smoke escaping between her teeth and making you a little dizzy.

you shake your head slightly to heighten the friction, her clit throbbing against your tongue as her jaw clenches. her leg jerks up again as she cums, her knee knocking against the poker table and making the chips jump. you flinch a little but keep sucking as she grips your hair, keeping your mouth on her as her head falls back on her chair.

she lets out a huff, rubbing her hand over her face and pulling your face away from between her thighs. she scans your face, taking in your pussy drunk expression, her slick covering the bottom half of your face.

you smile up at her, and she smirks. both at how cute you look, and how god damn slutty you are.

one of her men clears his throat awkwardly, shifting in his seat. "you two need'ta get a damn room."

[strawberista]

⚅ — @abstractreign asked: — ⚅

⚅ — Dark secrets/’skeletons in the closet’ !! — ⚅

Character Headcanons

— ★ ⚄ ★ —

⚀ I'm not sure if this counts, but Hanekoma usually doesn't let anyone know when he's going gambling. He has no trouble saying he's a gambler and isn't afraid to talk about his addiction, but should he actually have a bad night where he's relapsed he doesn't want anyone to know how it.

⚀ Similarly, Hanekoma really doesn't like displaying or talking about relapses or depressive episodes at all. He wants to deal with them alone and keep his friends and family out of it. His therapist is the only exception to this, obviously.

⚀ Hanekoma has scars from violence and combative situations while he was living on the streets and in the deepest ends of his addiction. Primarily from stab wounds, these scars aren't very big or garish, so it's not something that would be noticed unless one had the ability to closely inspect them. Generally speaking Hanekoma doesn't really like allowing this, and the only people who have seen his back have been people he trusts or used to trust with that information.

⚀ Hanekoma will never be able to forgive himself for allowing Joshua to die. No matter how much he's assured that it wasn't his fault and that there was nothing he could have done, he doesn't believe it and he'll carry that burden forever. He's gotten better these days about just not thinking about it, but during relapses it can be something that haunts him.

⚀ Despite smelling mostly like coffee, Hanekoma usually can only smell the stink of garbage on himself. He knows it isn't real so usually he can ignore it, but during relapses it can get particularly bad, to the point that it makes him nauseous.

[seelestia]

cw. the aftermath of a physical altercation (implied), hurt with comfort, one mention of his real name utc. you're patching him up! 200+ wc.

“you're the first one, you know.”

the epiphany relayed to you falls softly from aventurine's lips, offering itself up for your listening ears as you dab a cotton over his scarred cheek. whatever residual from the prior scuffle must've stung, but he doesn't flinch one bit. you frown at the thought that he might've been so acquainted with pain that he coats every wound using numbness as a gauze. still, your touch on him remains gentle.

“what do you mean?” you ask.

“the first one to touch me without wanting to hurt me,” he confesses.

you don't make a remark but he doesn't mind at all. he finds that your actions speak louder than your words do; how you don't pull away from him, how you let him. . . to have this, to savor this instead. how strange, really, never in his life has permission ever tasted this sweet before.

(in his mind, he distantly recalls the calloused hands of those who held him before—his family—but it's been so long, too long since he was last held so kindly. you're the first to do so in a long while.)

you feel him lean into your hand. on purpose, perhaps. whether to prove his point, a daring gamble for you could easily strike him at his lowest (you didn't) – or to relish in the taste of comfort you're providing him, something he has been denied of by both destiny and himself (for comfort only tastes acrid when it comes from someone like him).

like a pair of arms open to embrace, like tears ready to be brushed away, like an unspoken invitation of: come rest, i'll be here.

(he sees them in your eyes, feels them in your touch.)

“. . .thank you.”

kakavasha whispers, almost reverent and bursting at the seams with gratitude, against your hand.

[millersfinest]

two truths & a lie | e.w

tlou!ellie williams & tlou!reader

wc: 5.1k

blurb: the three run-ins you had with your favorite person didn’t always end in good form: the two times a truth was told, and the one time a lie was made (out of order). but, hey, it was all in good faith, right?

warnings: angsty teenager!ellie and reader, cat beef, vulgar language, friends to lovers, lots of exposition, holidays mentioned but barely focused, fluff, mentioning of drugs and alcohol, lots and LOTS of corny lovey stuff.

note: i genuinely love writing sweet ellie, i feel like there’s not enough of her for my liking. please enjoy, little ellie williams!! ps. this was already long enough, so i left out the new year’s party. if you wanna see that… let me know ;D

⋆·˚ ༘ *

I

The thick rubber soles of your boots creeped along the wooden floors of your friends’ lodgings. A lamp dimly lit up the corner of the room, but it’s warm brightness didn’t spread far. The closer you shifted toward her bed, the darker it got. Light poles from the street, and the moon, illuminating the side of her fatigued freckled face.

Lightly, you sat on the edge of her mattress, leaning over her. Before your fingers danced along her shoulder, to wake her—you admired her daintily scarred features. The strip of missing hair in her eyebrow, a scar. The freckles dusted along her skin, reflecting the stars in the sky. It made sense why she loved astronomy so much; she was the personification of it.

“Ellie. Ellie, wake up.” You shook her, gently.

Instead of stirring, she jolted awake. Green eyes snapping open, reaching for your forearm with a vice-like grip. Noises of fear falling from her dry lips. “Woah… Hey, it’s just me.” You placed your hand over hers, caressing her fingers. “S’Just me.”

She sat up against her pillows, sighing. “What the hell are you doing here? How’d you get in?” Ellie rubbed her eyes, sleepily.

“You left your window unlocked.” You state, plainly. “Pack a bag— we’re sneaking out.” Reaching over to her bedside table, you switched on the lamp. Ellie looked at you with narrowed eyes. “There’s a patrol post not far from here. And I heard, there was an arcade in the basement.” A grin stretched across your face.

Ellie looked at the alarm clock on her bedside table. “It’s twelve in the morning. We have a shift at the stables at seven.”

“We’ll be back before then.” You shrug.

“What if Joel finds out? He’s already causing me enough problems—“

“He won’t! If we leave now. So, pack a bag, and put some clothes on.” You trot to the window you entered from, swinging each leg out, carefully. “I’ll be waiting out here.” You whisper from the windowsill. The auburn-haired girl rolled her eyes, as she dug through her drawers for clothes.

Respectfully, you averted your eyes. Keeping watch to make sure everything was going according to plan. You had been planning this spontaneous getaway for days; in honor of Ellie’s upcoming sixteenth birthday. Joel and his protective antics weren’t going to stop you from having her to yourself for a little while. It was getting harder to find time to hang out. She was either with Cat, flirting and getting her tattoo completed, or training with Joel and Tommy.

Sometimes, Tommy invited you because of your excitement for patrols, but it was rarely just you and Ellie; like it used to be. When you both, somehow, wound up in the same place—Jackson, Wyoming.

Eventually, she jumped out of her window. In a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and boots—dressed for the cooling, autumn weather. “I swear if we get caught for this…”

You chuckle, rolling your eyes. “Don’t be such a goody-two-shoes.”

Sneaking out of Jackson was made easy by your effortless planning. The guards at the front gates were too busy drinking and gambling to pay attention to the two teenagers sneaking out in the dark: with a horse. The lights attached to the straps of your backpacks illuminated the way through dense wood.

Ellie’s arms held onto your waist, comfortably. As you engaged in friendly conversation. “What’s it with you and Cat? The two of you seem… Cozy.” You spoke, raising an eyebrow that she couldn’t see. She leaned her head on the blade of your shoulder, humming in thought.

“Define cozy.”

“She likes you, Ellie.” You snort. “That’s my definition of cozy.”

She tightens her arms around your abdomen. “Well, I think you’re unfamiliar with what the term cozy actually means— because Cat doesn’t like me.”

You sigh, wistfully. “I wish I was as naïve as you.” Partially, that was true. Things would be easier if your own naïveté blocked the feelings you had for your friend. But, instead, you stayed a platonic pretender.

A few minutes later, you arrived at the patrol post. Ellie hopping down first, keeping her eyes diligently peeled. As you pull your feet out of the bronze stirrups, a hand gets offered to you. “M’lady,” She perks her eyebrow, smirking. Faking a thick southern drawl that resembled Joel and Tommy’s voice.

Shaking your head, you take her hand to dismount from Hickory. “Thank you, kind… Gentlewoman.”

Ellie boisterously laughed, keeping a hold on your loose hand. “Gentlewoman?”

“Oh, my God! Forget it.” Your cheeks flush with warmth, slipping your fingers from hers. But a small smile, still stretched onto your lips in amusement. “Come on. We do not have all night.” Entering the building, you didn’t take the time to tour the post. You ushered her with your arm around her shoulders toward metal double doors. Leading to the most anticipated room—the basement.

“Should I be nervous that you’re bringing me to a dark room?”

You look into her earthy eyes. “It won’t be dark for long…”

Pushing open the doors, you run down the cement stairs, toward the generator. You pulled the cord until the lights flickered on and the games began to speak. Theme songs and fanfares playing aloud, embracing the silence. Looking over toward Ellie with a grand smile, she mirrored you. Releasing a laugh of excitement.

“Happy early birthday, El!” You wave your hands.

She sighed, happily, approaching you. “You did all this for me?” Her thick eyebrows furrowed.

“By all this if you mean turning off this generator just so I can turn it back on to create this… Light show— then, yes, I did all this for you.” Abruptly, Ellie tackled you into a firm hug, wrapping her arms around your neck. You return the sentiment, holding onto her like it was your last day on Earth. And it very well could be.

“Ugh, I love you!” She exclaims in a fit of joy, before even realizing her words. However, you stiffen, subtly. Ellie certainly noticed, but she didn’t change her demeanor much. “Let’s play Pac-Man first— I’ve been wanting to play that for such a long time.” She pulled you by her hand toward the bright machine.

Fingers ready on the red start button.

“Good luck.”

“Don’t need it.” You grinned, preparing to put your everything into that game. It was her birthday present, but that didn’t change the fact that you are competitive as hell! And so is Ellie; it’s like a match made in heaven.

II

Christmas used to be the most exciting—and expensive— part of the year, according to Tommy and Maria Miller. Jackson had a barter system, and everyone worked to keep the community afloat. So, the holidays in Jackson were always filled with loads of joy and spirit. And, usually, you found yourself involved in the many festivities occurring. However, this year, something’s changed.

It was just after thanksgiving when the atmosphere shifted for you. Joel was iffy when it came to holidays—hosting a family dinner a full five days after the original date. December 3rd. Living with Tommy, you were expected to be there. Running late from work, you arrived during dinner. Still, in your comfortable work clothes.

Walking into the dinning room, you expected to see every face minus one—Cat. The edgy tattoo artist sat beside Ellie, in the seat typically reserved for you, with a kind smile on her shiny lips. Joel stood from his chair, welcoming you with a firm hug. “You made it just in time. Cat’s telling us about the new project she’s working on— she’s a great artist.”

You weren’t sure if he was laying it on thick for the new guest, or what—but his tone irritated you. Peering to the side, you met Ellie’s apologetic eyes.

The both of you had gotten even closer after gifting her that arcade. In ways that would consider your relationship to be complicated. Between October and early November, you shared secrets, trinkets, and even, kisses. Mostly under the influences of alcohol or weed—but that didn’t make it any less real. Or did it?

Since then, you and Ellie have barely spoken. The only times you’ve shared more than a greeting with her was when you were forced to go on patrols together. Joel and Tommy were uncertain about sending you both out with other people—they could only trust that the two of you could handle yourselves properly—so they say.

Word travels fast in Jackson. And, when Ellie and Cat went official—everybody knew. But you had your suspicions prior to. They were obnoxiously confirmed when Jesse and Dina came banging on your front door; during a movie night you were having with Maria.

When Christmas came around, there was a party every year. Children had fun in the snow, while the adults danced and drank so much the cold no longer bothered them. The only thing you were excited for was the alcohol, because you knew one thing was for sure—Ellie and Cat were going to be galavanting in front of you all lovey and annoying. And you needed something absorb the pain of it.

Dodging the genuine compliments from Maria on the way out of the house, you stalked toward the Tipsy Bison. It was decorated with holiday-colored lights from the roof to the ground. You helped put some of them up, but when your old friend came to join you; you bailed the last second.

Every time your eyes met hers—your insides crumbled all over again. It was impossible for you to understand what Ellie was to you. More so now than ever. It wasn’t the fact that she lied about her status with Cat—it was the fact that she was her fucking girlfriend in general!

You were selfish. You wanted her all to yourself, and for some reason, the universe didn’t want you to have that. The universe didn’t want you to bathe in your selfishness—even if you deserved to.

“Merry Christmas,” A young girl at the entrance of the tavern, smiled. “Don’t forget to put your ornament on the tree.” She hands you a handmade ornament, dressed in shimmery twine. The kids at the daycare were told to create ornaments for the community christmas tree. Their names were written on the back of it—Billy, spelled out sloppily, was on the back of your ornament.

“Merry Christmas.” You smiled, tightly. “Need any help around here?” Your eyes looked around the tavern, acknowledging the decorations inside. There wasn’t any work to be done, but God, did you wish there was. Distracting yourself was your favorite past time.

“Nope! Everything’s all set. Unless Maria told you otherwise…”

“All she told me was to have fun.”

The girl smiled, no younger than fourteen, playing with the pile of paper ornaments. “Then, have fun!” She teased, averting her eyes to the next guest entering the building.

It was much warmer the deeper you strolled into the bar. Jesse and Dina have yet to arrive—of course, you were too early. Waiting for them, you walked to the bar top, leaning your elbows against the surface. “Can I get a hot chocolate? No whipped cream.” You ask, kindly, to the woman on the other side. She nodded, quickly working behind the counter to get your drink prepared.

Waiting patiently, your mind wandered. You only wished you could be celebrating the holidays how you originally planned—with your best friend. Maybe you were acting out of turn; throwing a tantrum over your best friends' relationship wasn’t something a friend would do. You should’ve been happy for her. But that would mean the moments you had together didn’t mean anything to you—when it meant so much.

“Merry Christmas, y/n.” Her raspy voice spoke, sliding into the stool next to you. The short strands of her hair were released from her usual ponytail. Parted to the side and pushed behind her ears. You met her eyes, halfheartedly. Barely giving a long enough glance to fully take in her appearance. It was intentional.

Making the choice not to respond, you looked forward, watching as the bartender made your drink. “Where’s your girlfriend?” You muttered, lips arching in distaste.

Ellie frowned, boring her bright eyes into the side of your face. “Working late. She won’t be here for awhile…” Her words came from her full lips like an offering. But, you were planning on taking her up on whatever it was.

The bartender handed you the warm mug with a festive grin. Greeting the girl next to you, casually. You have her a final look before, leaving the bar without a word. The Tipsy Bison became stuffy all of a sudden, so you left through the back door. Staying close by with your hot drink clenched to your chest. The brisk coolness of the air brought you back to your senses. But you still reached into the pocket of your insulated coat for the tiny bottle of vodka you took. Pouring the entirety of it into your chocolate beverage.

Sipping your drink, you didn’t realize the auburn-haired girl had followed you out. Rounding the corner of the building just as stealthily as you did.

“Can we talk?” Heat smoked from her mouth as her body heat juxtaposed the cold weather.

You sighed, pressing your lips into a stubborn line. “Talk about what?”

“…Us. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” She shrugged, helplessly. Eyes glistening in remorse. Ellie stood awkwardly in front of you, playing with her fingers.

“What part? You and Cat… Or me and you?”

She paused. “Me and you…” You scoffed, eyes welling up in tears. “Let me explain—“

You stood up, still holding your mug. It was the only thing keeping you warm. “I really couldn’t care less, Ellie.”

Grabbing your wrist, covered in a fleece glove, she pleaded. “Please!”

Sighing, you shook her grip off you, caving to her plea. You gestured for her to go on, with a frown on her lips. “Just tell me whatever we had was a mistake so I can move on…” You voice cracked ever so slightly, exposing your stress.

Her thick eyebrows deepened. “What? No, y/n, no— of course, not.” Ellie shifted. “I didn’t think any of that mattered to you…” She mumbled mostly to herself.

“Ellie, we made out on your couch every other night. How could that not matter to me?” You paused, stepping closer to her. “We told each other things our other friends know nothing about—“ You cut yourself off, glancing down at her covered forearm. The one covered by the tattoo Cat did for her. “Does she know? About your chemical burn?” Indirectly, you mentioned one of the most significant secrets you shared—she shared.

She was immune to the cordyceps virus. The tattoo that covered a chemical burn, was really coverage for the scars of the bite from infected.

Her lips tightened. “No. She doesn’t.”

“What do you even talk about then?!” You throw your hands up, frustrated. “If you talk at all.”

“She likes me, okay!” Ellie exclaimed, balling her hands up by her side. “Things are easy with her… I don’t know.

“Easy?” Your heart beat in your ears.

“I mean, things are easier with her. I don’t have to worry about ruining a friendship if things go south.”

A snicker fell from your lips. “How worth it was that?” Her shoulders slumped, running her hands over her hair.

“I just miss you, y/n, okay… I miss you.” She moved closer to you, trying to reach for your hand. You let her, but only for a split moment. Feeling the warmth of her skin through her fleece gloves. You missed her, too. You missed playing video games at her place, watching movies, running your fingers through her auburn hair—

Pressing your lips into a line, you frowned. “Well… I don’t.” You slipped your hand from hers, leaving her out in the cold. It wasn’t easier to lie, but you did anyway.

III

“So, they used to drop balls when the new year came around? Like… Any type of ball or…”

You laughed as you tended to your patrol horse, Hickory. Her deep-colored fur was softer than anything you’ve ever felt—softer than a baby’s bottom. “No, Tommy said it was some structure in New York City. And they filmed it nationally; it was a whole thing.” You explained, glancing up at the boy outside of the stable. He worked with the horse's day-in and day-out—and he worked the stable a like a military camp.

He leaned on the post of Hickory’s area, crossing his arms. “I’m throwing a party later at my place— to bring in the new year… You should come.” He offered, raising his eyebrows. “It’s no national ball-dropping thing, but there’ll be booze. And a friend of mine’s bringing some other stuff.” His fingers motion smoking a joint.

Grabbing the saddle off the hook, you threw it over Hickory’s sloped back. “Sounds like fun…” You sigh, peering over at the boy. “I’ll drop by for a little while.”

You still weren’t in a partying mood, since your last conversation with Ellie. Lying certainly didn’t make the situation between you too any easier. In fact, it made it worse. Your avoidance for her increased by a thousand. And, to make matters worse, she hated you, too.

Patrols became much more difficult. Like the one you have today…

“Awesome! See you later.” He fist pumped, walking backwards. “Oh, and don’t forget to log Hick on the sign-out sheet!”

“Yeah, yeah.” You waved a dismissive hand at the stable hand. You were far from forgetful.

After attaching all the garments to your horse, you led him out, cooing at him. You led him out to entrance of the community, where your ex-friend impatiently waited on you. Tommy stood in the supply room, stocking up your bag. Dropping the halter, you walked into the wooden box that was storing patrol supplies. “Ah, there you are. I was about to consider you late.”

“I’m never late.” You chuckle, reaching for your bag. Although, wallowing in your own nerves, a subtle smile spread onto your lips. Reaching for your bag, he stops your hand.

“I don’t know what going on between you two…” He glances at the girl lingering by her horse. “But this is the chance to fix it. I don’t like when you girls fight.”

You pressed your lips into a firm line. “Is that why you keep sending us off on patrol runs together? So we can kiss and make up?” Snorting, you looked to the side with guilt-ridden eyes. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

Tommy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, whatever’s goin’ on— don’t let that get in the way of safety. Keep an eye on each other. You’re partners.”

Partners.

“Right… Yeah. We haven’t had any problems, though… So…”

“Still, be aware. Infected wander in the winter.” He reminds, handing you the backpack. Then, giving you a handgun to secure on your waist, and a much larger gun to hook to your bag. He walks you out to where Ellie stood, adjusting the bridle on her horse. The crunching of snow under your boots caught her attention.

She barely spared you a glance, before looking at Tommy. “Joel and I are allowing the two of you to venture out a little further this morning— don’t make us regret it.” He stuffed his bare hands into his pockets.

“We won’t.” The both of you drawled, rolling your eyes.

You mounted Hickory, watching as Ellie did the same with her horse. “We’ll be good, Tommy.” Giving a tight-lipped smile, you mentally prepared for the trip.

The gates opened up, letting the two of you trot out into snowy wood. Higher in the air, it was cooler—brisker. It was no match for the teenager trotting a few paces ahead of you, though. You’ve ridden in silence before, but it was worse when she had a reason to be upset with you. Ellie’s anger was unforgiving, to say the least.

And you thought you were bad.

It was about a forty-five-minute ride of nothing but the whispers of the wind and animals jolting at the sound of their horses' feet. When you got to the post, you dismounted, jumping into the snow. “I’ll be back soon, Hick.” You whispered, kissing his jaw, sweetly.

Inhaling deeply, you were the first to enter through the buildings broken windows. The actual post was on the upper level because it actually had a working door. Ellie walked in after you, immediately beginning to survey the area. Her switchblade was clenched in a fist as she picked up miscellaneous objects.

Sighing, you began to do the same. Being sure to stay on opposite sides of the first floor. Even so, you couldn’t help but glance at her ever so often. A knit beanie was tugged over her ears, her ponytail peaking out from underneath. Thick eyebrows pushed together, focused; or still, tragically, annoyed with you.

Ugh, what should you care? Ellie was the one to walk away first… Or was she?

This place must’ve been a media store or something. It had lingering records scattered along the scruffy wooden floor, comic books, CDs—the works. The first floor had basically been picked clean. You only hoped when you made it upstairs, there was more.

“All clear…” Ellie spoke, lowly. Opening one of the heavy metal doors to the short stairwell. She let it slam behind her as disappeared to the upper level.

You frowned, tears welling up in your eyes. “I got what I wanted… Didn’t I?” You mutter to yourself, following her path. But, on a shelf, your gaze caught something of importance. It was the fifteenth edition of Savage Starlight. How could she have missed this? Not only was it one of her favorite comics to read, but it was edition that had limited in the top corner. Very few had this one.

Chewing on drying skin of your bottom lip, you swung off your bag, pushing the comic snugly inside trying to preserve it from wrinkles. The timing couldn’t be estimated when you’d give this to her. Maybe one day, you’ll leave it on her porch without a note.

Then, you navigated to the upper level, shutting the door behind you. It was more insulated up there than the first floor. The windows were still intact, and every door was shut or bolted shut by furniture.

Immediately, you approached the sign-in log. Writing your name just under the messy handwriting of your partners’. Smacking your lips together, you peer at the auburn-haired girl. Ellie was stood by the long, frosted window with her arms crossed. It looked as if she were leaning on words to say but choosing otherwise.

You fiddle with pen, rocking on your feet as you eyed her. The feeling of missing her was prevalent, again. It was intense as your eyes bored into the side of her delicate face. Her emotions were worn on the hems of her sleeves—negative or positive. But even with her features pinched, she was just as beautiful. It just sucked that you were the reason behind it. You wanted to feel her arms around you again—even if it was platonic. You wanted to hear her laugh; see her smile.

Just as she turned to meet your eyes, you began to wander around the room. Looking at the books and comics scattered around. Perhaps, you could find some other reads. Keep you busy while you were on lookout. It’s not like you talked to each other anymore.

You fingered the dusty shelves, not seeing anything worth taking back to Jackson. In the corner there was another metal door—singular with a silver handle. The door was labeled ‘other goods’. Which only made you think about what you could be missing you didn’t check it out.

Ignoring the flipped over note taped to the threshold of the door, you entered. Expecting to see boxes of comics, mangas and magazines. However, instead, you greeted by a vicious runner. Your reaction was slowed, due to the many things running through your head. Roughly, your back hit the ground, inadvertently smacking your head against the flooring.

It screamed at you, chomping violently. Strands of its hair fell onto you as it thrashed, hungrily. Moaning and groaning between every convulsion. The red veins on its skin exposed the stage of the infection—little mushroom-like structures beginning to form at the tips of its bloodshot veins.

You fought with it, yelping like a hurt dog. A glimmer of the ridged knife you cared shone from the corner your eye. It had fallen from its holster—too far for you to reach. If this was your karma for lying, then it came quick.

Only focusing on the deadly being atop of you, you couldn’t hear the rapid feet of your partner sprinting to help you, calling out your name, shakily. Using the switchblade Ellie always carried with her, she began to defensively stab the runner. Repeating the action until its body dropped atop of yours. You groaned in disgust.

Ellie helped you roll the body off you, and quickly began to search your body for bites. While your puffer jacket was soaked with blood, you were completely fine. But Ellie didn’t know that she she checked, anxiously. “Are you okay? Did he bite you?” She asked, rambling more questions. Enough to overwhelm you.

She patted your covered arms, reaching for your blood-splattered face to check for any marks. “No. I’m fine—“ You mutter.

“He was really fuckin’ close—!” She still patted you down like a nervous security guard. “Fuck! I should’ve cleared this level—“

“Ellie!” You exclaimed, grabbing her roaming hands, looking her in the eye. “He didn’t bite me— I’m okay.” Endless worry had filled her earthy irises. Flushed nose, touched by the winter, sniffling. This was the first time you were this close to her in awhile—staring intently at her. Somehow, trying to convince her without words that you were okay.

Her eyes were fixed on you, just before her arms wrapped around your shoulders, thoughtfully. There wasn’t an attack of warmth—a hug she’d given before—it was contemplated, debated, decided.

Without a thought, you returned it, wrapping your arms around her. Leaning your head on her shoulder, furrowing your eyebrows. Enveloping her touch, senselessly. Remorse revved up inside of you, prodding at your muscles. “I thought I was gonna lose you…” Ellie muttered into the hoodie of your coat.

“I thought I was gonna lose my chance…” You related, pulling back to look at her once more. Tears had welled up in her eyes, she was trembling. You both were. Reminiscent of the runner and the fear that caked up inside of you. “Ellie…” You breathed. “I lied to you.”

“Huh?” Her eyebrows deepened.

“I lied to you. At the Christmas party— you told me that you missed me, and I said that I didn’t miss you. That was a lie!” Lowering your head, you shook it, disapprovingly. “A stupid fucking lie.”

Her cold hands drifted to your frosted cheeks. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry— I’ve missed you so much I can barely breathe. If you’re happy with Cat… I should be happy for you regardless of anything. I wasn’t being a good friend—“ It was your turn to wearily ramble, fidgeting with the material of her jacket. Shaking like a flimsy sign in high winds.

It was the softness of her lips that interrupted you, warming up your skin. It was buttery sweet and chaste, pulling you from the intensity of your thoughts. Ellie tugged you into another embrace, somehow warmer than before. “I should’ve never got with her to begin with.”

“Past tense?” You raised an eyebrow.

She pulled back. “Past tense.�� Taking a seat in beside you, she leaned on one of the shelves. Following her, you did the same. Scratching the back of your head, feeling the slight throb that came from the collision. “She broke up with me a few days ago… I kept bringing you up— it was annoying the shit out of her.” Ellie chortled, propping up her legs to lean her arms on. “I was so mad at you… Because it just didn’t make any sense.”

You looked down, at your crossed legs. “But then, it did. Everything did.” Ellie added, peering at you. “I love you, y/n.” She spoke with such conviction; your eyes grew hot with tears. “I was just scared to see it through— and I should have seen it through, instead of getting with someone else.”

A beat bounced between the two of you.

Shrugging off the backpack you almost forgot was on you, you dug inside, a grin painted on your face. You clench the Savage Starlight comic in your hands as you abruptly stood up. Ignoring the soreness in your muscles from being attacked. Ellie looked up at you, watching you move swiftly. “This is the part where you say you love me back.”

“Give me a second.”

You trot to the sign-in sheet, using the pen to write inside the comic: I LOVE YOU, EL. In capital letters, on the title page. She’d gotten up, following you to the countertop the sheet was on. Turning around, you thrusted the comic from your chest, smiling. “Savage Starlight?!” Ellie joyfully laughed, taking the comic in her hands.

“Limited edition.” You pointed to the cover. “I found it downstairs… You’ll never forget how much I love you because I wrote it on the first page.” Ellie flipped open the page, musing at what you wrote. “Everytime, you read it, you’ll remember.”

Her eyebrows furrowed, emotionally. Tossing the comic book to the side, she pulled you into another kiss. Less sweet, more passionate. You giggled against her lips, unabashedly opening your eyes. She pulled back, analyzing your flushed features. “Maybe, you could… I don’t know… Write it on every page? Only after I finish it, though. My memory’s a little bad.” She joked, caressing your face.

Rolling your eyes, you pushed a piece of her straggling hair under her beanie. “Sure, whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want?”

“Ellie…” You warned, but there was nothing that could wipe the foolish expression molded onto your features. Therefore, she was far from taking you seriously.