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sukunahs · 1 day ago

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to distant lands - ch.2: dirt | ryomen sukuna

pairing: ryomen sukuna x fem!reader (medieval fantasy au)

summary: The Knight who has watched over you since childhood is retiring and, much to your dismay, your father decides to put his best soldier on the job as his replacement - Ryomen Sukuna, the Kingdom’s most vicious warrior and far from your biggest fan.

Little did you know that Sukuna would end up tangling himself in your life in ways you never could’ve anticipated.

word count: 11k

fic content: 18+ mdni, smut, princess!reader, enemies to lovers, slow-burn(ish), forbidden relationship, medieval fantasy setting, fluff, angst, protective sukuna, fingering, spanking, sex dreams, violence, parent death, grief, confusing emotions, reader is chaotic, more tags to be added as chapters come out!

authors note: I feel like I keep making reader act like an evil little gremlin in this one I just can't help myself.

series masterlist | AO3 | previous chapter | next chapter (coming soon)

Sukuna was elated.

He’d expected this post to be boring, but you were certainly doing your best to keep him on his toes. The fact that you’d actually had the resolve to slip out of the castle last night had come as a surprise to him, he’d always figured that you were a little bit too meek for that.

Clearly he was wrong.

Through his eyes, you had been nothing more than your run-of-the-mill princess. Polite, quiet, lacking in any real knowledge of the world, and steadfast in your belief that everyone had to treat you with kindness just because you happened to be born in a position of high status.

For that reason, he’d never really cared for you. That first meeting between the two of you, where you’d been all wide-eyed and hopeful, had really pissed him off. He didn’t want the awe of some little princess who couldn’t live in the real world - it had no worth to him.

He’d grown up with nothing. His family was poor, and his dad was cruel. He’d stolen and he’d fought and he’d ended up in the army at sixteen to make sure that his twin brother didn’t starve to death.

So when you’d given him that medal, your soft hands brushing against his shoulders and your voice so melodic in his ears, all he could feel was rage. You were pretty, he’d noticed that instantly when he’d looked up at you, but there was no trace of age or weathering on your face, nothing about you that said you’d ever suffered for a single moment in your life.

And he hated that.

He despised the way you thanked him for his service, as though he’d done anything for you, like he would fight for the safety of some air-headed fool who knew nothing of the world beyond her own perfectly decorated chambers. He hated that you got to live such a lovely, pristine life, while he had scrambled around in the dirt for years. He hated you.

But there was something about you, in the way that you reacted to him, that had him going out of his way to bother you. Maybe it was the way that he’d seen the light die from your eyes that moment that you gave him his medal - he’d stolen away at least a shard of your innocence that day and the sadist in him wanted to keep taking more, wanted to drag you down at least part way to his level.

He’d gotten a reaction from you once, not long after he’d first met you. You’d pulled him aside and essentially screamed in his face. It had come as a major shock to him, he had been confident that you didn’t have such a thing in you, always coming across as the type of person who’d never hurt a fly. And yet there you were - the human embodiment of a baby bird, listing off some of the most heinous curses he’d ever heard.

That had given him a thrill like no other, and in that moment he had been resolved to get you to do it again. You were usually so practiced in your reactions, and it had become evident to him that you would absolutely never cause a scene in front of your subjects. But in private? Clearly all bets were off.

He’d tried his hardest over the years to rile you up, but you never pulled him aside again, always choosing to ignore him, treating him as though he wasn’t worth your time. That irritated him beyond belief.

He couldn’t really pinpoint why it was such an issue for him. He didn’t like you - that was why he tortured you in the first place, he just wanted to inject at least a little difficulty into the life of a girl who never had to want for anything.

And yet, every time you brushed off his attempts to bother you he felt a pang in his chest.

He just chalked it up to another thing that he hated about you, some stupid royal magic that you probably had where you could make people feel negative emotions whenever you wanted.

Yeah that was it.

But his own feelings aside, these little ploys that you’d been running recently to get rid of him were excellent. He’d really been trying to get you to yell at him again when he read that book aloud to you, but you gave him something even better with your grand scheme to run away. The game of cat and mouse that you’d set up for him was almost as good as being on the battlefield.

Who knew you had it in you? Thanks to your antics, this position wasn’t as boring as he’d thought - not that he’d ever be telling you that.

It was almost amusing, you’d been doing the absolute most to be a nuisance and drive him away, but playing these games with him was just having the opposite effect. Now he was curious to see what else you had up your sleeve.

Not before he played a little game of his own though.

He’d stayed awake in his chambers for a few hours after he’d tucked you into bed last night, considering what he could do for a little bit or retribution. It couldn’t be anything too serious or Kashimo really would get rid of him. No, he needed to do something that was reasonable for him as your Knight.

Thus, he had arrived at the perfect plot.

Sneaking into your room late at night he approached the windows, locking up each of them and taking away the keys that usually laid on the windowsill for you to use at your pleasure. There’d be no more sneaking out from you on his watch - he’s sure that your father would approve of that.

As he headed back towards the door, he found his gaze drawn to you. You were curled up in a ball beneath the duvet, a little drool dripping from your mouth onto the pillow below. Your plushie, Sir Bounce-a-lot, was clutched tightly to your chest, your arms shielding him protectively as though someone would steal him away from you.

Sukuna smirked as he considered throwing the ratty little toy out the window. It was quite the eyesore, and he was sure that you’d yell at him then. But the way that tears had sprung to your eyes when he threatened it before told him that it might just be a step too far.

Sure, he was mean, but he wasn’t downright heartless.

Besides, he had thought that the name was cute. He and his brother Jin had been a big fan of the Arthurian Legends growing up. His favourite had been the story of Sir Gawain of Green Knight - back then he’d hoped that he’d become just like one of those brave knights, striking out on noble adventures. But reality rarely lives up to the fantasy, and those Knights of old were no more than simple legends.

His gaze stayed on you for a moment longer, brushing aside the strange feeling that swelled in his chest at the sight of your sleeping form.

Making his way out of your room, he quietly closed the wooden door before locking it from the outside. He was pretty sure that you’d throw an excellent tantrum when you realised you were stuck in your chambers tomorrow morning. Maybe he’d even get to hear some begging from you for him to let you out, that would be a real treat.

However, the next morning you’d given him anything but a reaction. You’d slept in late, that wasn’t really new for you, he was used to you stumbling out of your chambers at 11am. Not to mention, your little midnight adventure probably meant that you were even more keen to sleep in than usual.

That didn’t explain why, when you did eventually rise from your slumber, you were surprisingly docile in your attempts to escape the room.

He’d watched with glee as you tried the door handle, snickering to himself when it didn’t budge. He thought he could hear you sighing softly behind the wood, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Please let me out.” You asked. Your voice sounded tired, as though you were completely uninterested in engaging with this situation.

He weighed up the thought of leaving you in there a little bit longer, stoking your frustration until you really lost it on him, or maybe until you were crying and begging for him to let you out. But, he supposed that would give you too much ammo to use against him if you were trying to convince your father that he was a bad personal Knight. It would become clear that he was taking this opportunity to torment you rather than simply keeping you safe.

“Just making sure you can’t run away again, princess.” He said as he unlocked the door. “Clearly I need to keep an eye on you now, since you’re so insistent on putting yourself in danger.” He didn’t really mean his words, he knew that you likely wouldn’t try running away a second time, considering the embarrassment that you suffered last night. He was only really saying it to rile you up.

He’d expected you to yell and scream at him once the door was open, assuming that your initial muted response had been because you’d thought he’d drag things out longer and keep you locked in there if you started throwing a tantrum while still stuck in the room.

Yet, as he released you from the confines of your chambers he was met with a sheepish look, an odd guilt-ridden expression that he wasn’t used to seeing on your face. You seemed to study him for a moment, as though you had something to say, before sharply turning away from him and heading down the hallway.

That was odd. Shouldn’t you be at least a little bit angry with him?

“Good morning to you too.” He said sarcastically as he caught up to you. You were striding quickly through the halls, as though you were desperate to put some distance between the two of you. That was easier said than done though, his legs were far longer than yours and the green velvet dress that you were wearing that day certainly wasn’t helping you move quickly.

“What’s good about it?” You mumbled in response. Your tone was surprisingly defeatist, leaving him at a loss as to what could’ve happened in the few hours you’d been apart.

—

The gods were sick. Of that much you were certain.

Because after you were tucked into your plush bed against your will, you were cursed with dreams that your waking mind would’ve never entertained. Those thoughts certainly didn’t belong to you, so some divine force must be inflicting this upon you for its own amusement.

That was the only explanation. Because there was absolutely no way that you chose to dream about Sukuna in the way that you did last night.

In this sick and twisted nightmare that had plagued your subconscious, you'd been thrown back to where you were last night: tossed over Sukuna’s shoulder in some dark alleyway. But instead of the reality of the situation, you were stuck in some little fantasy retelling in which Sukuna’s hand had found its way under your dress.

He had one arm wrapped around your waist, keeping you pinned firmly against his shoulder, while his other hand ran leisurely up your thigh, fingers finding their way to your panties, tracing the outline of your pussy through the thin fabric.

It was hazy, but you were sure you must’ve resisted somewhat, ever true to form even in your dreams, because you’d wriggled about so much that he’d firmly slapped your ass and ordered you to stay still before going back to play with your pussy.

There was no doubt in your mind that he had teased you, had mused about why you were so wet, about how he thought you hated him. But in his strong arms you had no choice but to hang there, gaze fixed on his back while his hand slipped beneath your panties, fingers brushing along your folds and dipping into you.

The rest of the dream was a haze, but you vaguely recall his fingers pumping into you with vigour as he mocked you for moaning and whining like you enjoyed it. And, if you were being honest with yourself, you had enjoyed it. You know he’d made you cum at the end, you recall clawing at his back and yelping out his name as your body shook, clenching around his thick fingers.

And just for a moment you were on cloud nine - the best you’d ever felt.

But then, you’d woken up.

Embarrassed. Horrified. Your panties drenched in slick, and need pulsing through your gut with the dream still clearly etched into your mind. All you wanted to do was forget about it, but that was hard when your own traitorous body was practically begging for release, desperate to be touched.

Gods, this was humiliating.

It wasn’t like you could even do anything about it. You could pleasure yourself, but Sukuna’s revelation last night about overhearing your conversation with Shoko gave you pause. If he could hear your hushed voices then who knew what else he could hear.

You were sure that you’d never be able to live that down.

So instead you headed into your washroom and drew yourself a cold bath, submerging yourself in the freezing water and expelling that burning need from your gut. You were not about to let Sukuna have any sort of victory over you, even if that victory was only in your own head.

Fuck him. He probably used some weird mind powers to make those thoughts manifest - he was the absolute worst.

Once you were bathed and ready to go down to the dining hall you found that he’d locked the door to your chambers. Now that you were thinking about it the windows were shut too which was odd, you’d usually leave them open throughout the spring and summer to let in a breeze - it always got way too hot in the castle.

He must’ve come in during the night to lock them, which you were not a massive fan of. A part of you wondered if he’d done anything creepy to you while you were asleep which might’ve led to the nature of your dream last night, but you knew in your heart that he hadn’t. He may be deeply unlikable, but there were lines that you knew he wouldn’t cross.

To get him to free you from your captivity that morning you’d stayed very calm, asking politely for him to let you out and choosing not to completely lose your shit. Not because you weren’t angry - you definitely were, but more because you were afraid of how your body would react if you interacted with him too long. You could only imagine how humiliating it would be if you went to yell at him only for your cheeks to involuntarily turn red at the sight of his frustratingly handsome face.

Avoidance was the best policy for today, at least until you could get a grip.

Luckily for you, avoiding Sukuna on that particular day was going to be easy.

He’d taken you down for breakfast as usual and you’d sat in silence, your eyes down on the plate of bacon and eggs that sat in front of you, unwilling to acknowledge his existence. You’d pushed the bacon around your plate, pretending to be unaware of the way that his red eyes were honed in on the side of your face.

Surprisingly, it was your father who had come to your rescue. Approaching your table and claiming that he needed Sukuna to assist him with something for the next couple of hours. He’d then given you a stern look and a full-blown lecture about staying put in the castle while Sukuna was away, no gallivanting about outside the walls without an escort.

You’d shrugged your shoulders apathetically and mumbled that he was free to keep Sukuna forever if he wanted.

Kashimo, in his advanced age, was certainly not sharp enough to hear that comment. The same couldn’t be said for Sukuna, who shot you a condescending grin. “Aww, don’t worry princess! I’ll be back later - try your best to manage without me.” His tone was so sweet that it made you feel a little sick.

You gave him a wholly unamused look before going back to your breakfast. It didn’t matter, you weren’t going to let him ruin this rare opportunity to be away from him. With him not constantly breathing down your neck, you might actually have the opportunity to dig up some dirt on him and get rid of him altogether.

Considering that he wasn’t going to quit of his own accord and that he was too good at the job to be fired for incompetence, you were running low on viable options to get him removed from his post. But you did have one more plan, and that was uncovering wrongdoing from his past. A guy like him, who revelled so much in feats on the battlefield, had to have a few skeletons in his closet. If he did, you were going to find them and proudly present them to your father - then maybe he’d think twice about leaving you alone with his favourite Knight.

The only issue with this plan was that you weren’t entirely sure where you could get dirt on Sukuna. You knew essentially nothing about him from before his appearance in your life four years ago. You were aware that he officially joined your father’s forces ten years ago, when he was just sixteen years old, but as for anything before that? You were clueless.

It did strike you that sixteen was exceptionally young to be starting out in the army, usually soldiers were at least eighteen before they got started. Maybe there was something worth digging into there? Perhaps he’d been a criminal in a different kingdom as a youth and had run to join your father’s forces to start over in a new life?

If there was such ugliness lurking in his past, then you were going to find it.

—

You started your search over at the Knight Barracks. Sukuna had moved into the room next to yours once he became your personal Knight, but for the ten years before that he would’ve been living in the pristine quarters located on the east side of the castle grounds. Perhaps his old room, or one of the other Knights living in the barracks, would be able to provide some insight into his past.

It wasn’t an area that you visited much, these days you didn’t really have a reason to. When you were young your mother would often take you out to watch the Knights engage in their weapons training on the field just outside the barracks. You had loved watching them partake in duels, the clashing of their wooden training swords an absolute thrill to your eight year old self.

You were less impressed by it now - in fact, you didn’t think you’d been impressed by a Knight in the last four years, Sukuna had completely shattered that illusion for you.

As you approached the entrance to the barracks, a couple of the Knights who were sitting around outside instantly dropped onto their knees, bowing their heads low as you walked past them. It made you cringe a little, as much as you were used to people showing you reverence at this point, you didn’t want too much attention drawn to you being here - that would make it much harder to effectively snoop.

“At ease!” You said softly, dismissing the Knights and hoping that they’d just go back to what they’d been doing before. Most of them did, going back to their books or card games.

Unfortunately for you, not all of them were so willing to dismiss your presence. Todo, another one of your father’s favourite Knights, towered over you with a grin. “Hey princess! Haven’t seen you around in a while!”

Todo was a more stereotypical Knight than Sukuna. A genuinely good guy, the kind of person who was endlessly loyal to you and your father and strived to make the world a better place. Unfortunately he had suffered from major injuries to his hands in the war four years ago, which had left him unable to hold a weapon properly. Your father’s respect for him meant that he always had a home here no matter what, and now he spent all of his time overseeing and training new recruits.

While you had great respect for Todo, you were also a little wary of him for two reasons - the first being the loyalty that he held for your father, he’d definitely rat on you if he caught you doing something suspicious or dangerous. The second was because of the loyalty he held for Sukuna. It was shocking considering their stark difference in nature, but Todo was a big fan of the tattooed menace - allegedly Sukuna had played a big part in ensuring that Todo made it home alive from the war and subsequently earned himself Todo’s everlasting allegiance. That was a major problem for you.

“Hi Todo. Doing well?” You asked, hoping that you could make a little bit of small talk and be allowed to go on your way.

“As ever.” He said with a smile. “You never come down here! Something wrong?”

You probably should’ve considered this possibility before you came out here and had a good excuse ready. It had been so long since you’d interacted with any Knight other than Sukuna that you didn’t really think anyone would pay you any mind.

“No, just a little bored. Besides…” You trailed off for a moment, trying to figure out how risky your next statement might be. “Sukuna mentioned that he’d lost something in the move over to his new quarters, figured I’d come over here and check out his old room to see if I could find it for him.”

“Oh, I see.” Todo said. “He couldn’t come and pick it up himself? Not very manly of him.”

Shit. You really didn’t want Todo bringing this up to him.

“I’ve been keeping him super busy.” You blurted out. “So he hasn’t had the time. I figured I’d do this for him as a nice favour in exchange for everything he’s been doing for me!” You had to carefully school your facial expression as that lie fell from your lips, it felt repulsive to heap such praise on Sukuna, but what choice did you have?

Todo nodded approvingly. “You’re so kind, princess.”

“Thanks.” You said with a nod as you moved to brush past him, but he stood unwavering in your path. “You probably don’t know which room was his - let me show you.”

He turned to the door and your shoulders visibly sagged. It was going to be so much harder to snoop with Todo there, plus now you were going to have to search for some imaginary item to bring back for Sukuna - great.

Following Todo in through the door that he held open for you, you snaked through the many corridors of the Knight Barracks. You’d never actually been inside before, and you were taken aback by the sheer size of it. There were halls leading off in every direction, massive open areas for dining and relaxing, and hundreds of doors opening up into dorms. It made sense, your father had accumulated a massive military force over the years, and over half of them resided in here.

There was a smaller barracks outside of the castle walls, located in the surrounding town. The forces who resided there were those who worked as the city guard in peacetime, taking down criminals and keeping the townsfolk safe. Whenever the country went to war, those guards would join up with the main forces from the castle and march to war alongside them, leaving only a skeleton crew behind to maintain order in the city while the war was fought.

Other than the city guard, there was another small population that didn’t live in barracks - Knights of noble status. Most of the soldiers in your father’s army were common folk who joined for various reasons such as stable employment and good pay, but there were a few who joined from the noble class, out of a desire to present themselves as great and brave Knights.

Yuki’s husband Choso, for example, was one of these Knights. He had come from an excellent family who owned significant packages of land across the Cerulean Kingdom. But his father had also been a Knight, as had his grandfather - it was tradition in their family and many other noble families to serve your time, to do your duty and protect your country in times of war.

These noble Knights didn’t tend to partake in the day to day duties like the common-born folk would. They’d remain in their own grand estates and generally learn to fight from a private tutor. Any menial labor that average Knights would partake in during peace time was completely below them. The only time that they’d really take up their posts was during big parades and banquets in which they wanted to be celebrated; and during wartime, when they’d ride off to battle like everyone else.

You’d never really respected those sorts of Knights when you were a little, you always saw them as being a bit false. You couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t dedicate their whole life to being a Knight like the ones who lived in the barracks. To you they were the real Knights, while the nobles were just playing pretend.

But who were you to criticize? It wasn’t like you were volunteering to go off to war, and you’d never done a real day’s work in your life - unless you counted undermining Sukuna’s authority over you as work.

Todo led you up several flights of stairs until you ended up in a hallway that was a little narrower than the rest. There seemed to be no more stairs to ascend so you assumed you must be on the top floor.

“These are the rooms for the highest ranking Knights. Unlike everyone else we get our own chambers.” Todo explained. “That’s my room there, Sukuna’s old one is just down the hall. We’ve left it as it is for now, we weren’t sure if his change in role was a long term thing…”

He pulled out a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door to Sukuna’s room for you, standing beside the door as he gestured for you to enter.

Sukuna’s old room was nice. It was relatively spacious, with a big window located on the slanted ceiling, allowing the sunlight to shine through onto the bed. You wondered if he had ever lain there at night and stared up at the stars - he didn’t seem like the type of man capable of appreciating such things, but with such a nice view it was a possibility.

The space was pretty bare. There were still sheets on the bed, but beyond that it looked completely unlived in. There was a desk pushed into the corner of the room with a rickety looking chair tucked in beneath it, a small wardrobe was situated along the back wall of the room and a meagre bedside table with a candle sat on the right side of the bed.

The bed was so small that you wondered how Sukuna had even been sleeping in it, you almost snickered aloud at the thought of his feet hanging off the end.

“So, what was it that he left behind?”

“A book.” You said, listing the very first thing that came to mind. You quickly got to searching, stalking over to the desk and pulling out the drawers, looking for absolutely anything that belonged to him.

“Hmmm.” Todo seemed lost in thought. “I never really took him for much of a reader.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t think it.” You agreed, pushing one drawer back in and moving on to the next, feeling a spike of frustration as you found that the desk was totally empty. You spun around and crossed over to the bedside table, repeating the same process of yanking out all of the drawers.

“What’s the book called?” Todo asked. “Maybe we can find another copy if it isn’t in here.”

Why did Todo have to be so good-natured and helpful? In any other scenario you would’ve deeply appreciated how much work he was putting in to help you, but right now you just wished he would just leave so that you could search in peace.

“I’m not sure what the title is.” You said finally, before a wicked idea sprung into your head. “It’s some romance book though, apparently it’s his guilty pleasure - don’t bring it up to him though, I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”

Todo was probably too nice a person to spread rumors around, but you hoped that there was at least one malicious bone in that body that would encourage him to share that knowledge with another Knight, you’d love that to become Sukuna’s reputation.

At least then coming here wouldn’t have been a total loss, which was how it was looking right now. You slammed the wardrobe shut, irritation running through you as you realised you’d searched the whole room. As a final gambit you lay down on the floor and checked under the bed, finding nothing but cobwebs and spiders.

“Sorry princess, looks like you’re out of luck.”

You sighed softly. “Yeah I guess so.”

If there was nothing worthwhile in here then you’d have to break into his current room, which was not ideal. You didn’t have the key so you’d have to either pick the lock or get someone to let you in, and unlike in this case, there wasn’t really any reason for you to be in his room without him also being there.

“Hey Todo.” You said, pausing for a moment as you considered your next question. “How long have you known Sukuna for?”

“Since he joined. I must’ve been twenty then - when I first met him he was still just this ratty little teenager, he was already tall but he had hardly any meat on him, I think the famine back then must’ve hit his family hard. It's weird looking at how massive he is now.” Todo had a fond expression on his face. “He was a nightmare back then, couldn’t get along with anyone - I’m glad that he grew up a bit.”

You rolled your eyes at that. You’re not sure that a man who threatened to throw your plushie out the window should be described as grown up.

“He was always a monster in the field though, even when he was skinny, he could fight like nothing I’ve ever seen before. No offense princess, but I have no idea why the King took him away from us, if war ever breaks out again we need him on the frontlines.”

You shrugged. “Sukuna said my father is paranoid - with discontent across other Kingdoms he’s afraid I’ll be taken for ransom.”

“I can understand his concern. I think this arrangement is fine, as long as he’s planning on returning Sukuna to us if there is a war.”

You nodded. You were confident that would be the case, your father wasn’t going to intentionally weaken his own forces by not letting Sukuna fight.

Should encouraging the breakout of war be on your list of plans to get rid of Sukuna?

Maybe that was a little too far.

“Do you know anything about Sukuna from before he joined us?” You asked curiously. “You mention the famine…”

“That’s just an assumption.” Todo clarified. “He isn’t the type of guy who likes to talk about himself, he spends a lot of his time alone. It's not like I’m going to pry, as far as I’m concerned he does his job and watches my back, that’s all that matters.”

“Right.” You try to hide how deflated you are by that comment. Although, the confirmation that Sukuna was unwilling to discuss his past was something, hopefully that meant that he had something to hide. “Thanks for your help, Todo.”

The barracks had been entirely unhelpful, which meant you needed to move into phase two of your snooping.

After you’d waved goodbye to Todo, you’d slowly made your way back to the main part of the castle, heading upstairs to your quarters. As you walked past Sukuna’s door you gave it an experimental push, just to see if the gods were going to grace you with a bit of luck today - unsurprisingly, it didn’t budge.

You entered your own quarters and flopped down onto the bed, staring up at the canopy. Asking someone to open the door was too suspicious and picking the lock would likely be impossible - you’d never tried doing it yourself before, and if someone walked past while you were trying to figure it out your whole operation would be done for.

Maybe you’d just have to wait until Sukuna was back, get him to invite you into his room somehow so you could snoop around his belongings like he did with yours. But if he did have anything to hide, you were almost certain that he wouldn’t be stupid enough to let you find it.

Why did this have to be so difficult?

Just as you were lamenting over how much of a struggle your life was, a gust of breeze came in through the window. You looked over at it, one of the servants must’ve come in and unlocked it during the afternoon, considering Sukuna had closed them all last night.

The open window presented you with an idea. There was a ledge just outside - a ledge that you could shimmy along to climb into Sukuna’s room.

It was risky. You’d have to bank on the hope that Sukuna had left his windows open. Plus, if you slipped you could easily plummet to your death, this wasn’t as straightforward as your escape down onto the ramparts - but when weighed up against a lifetime of dealing with Sukuna right at your side, you decided that it was probably worth it.

So, gathering up all the courage you could, you clambered out of the window. You dropped down onto your knees and crawled your way along the ledge. You kept your eyes on the stone platform before you, trying your best not to take a glance down at the drop immediately to your right. You knew how far it was - you’d spent years staring out of your window onto the garden below.

Moving slowly, you inched yourself towards Sukuna’s room. If anyone was looking up at your tower right now they’d probably have a heart attack, seeing the nation's princess commit such a dangerous act. You really hoped that everyone was too busy going about their usual day to look up - you definitely didn’t need anyone telling your father about this.

You crawled until windows came into view on your left-hand side, internally rejoicing at the realisation that Sukuna had left them open for the day. You supposed he couldn’t have anticipated that you’d try something akin to this.

He had no idea how far you were capable of going.

Carefully, you placed your hands on the windowsill, hoisting yourself through the opening and into Sukuna’s room. You stumbled a little as you hit the floor - the distance between the window and the ground was a little further than it was in your own chambers.

As you took in your surroundings, you found yourself a little surprised at how neat the room was. You didn’t take Sukuna for the type of person to be bothered with such things, but evidently you were wrong - there wasn’t an item out of place.

The quarters that he’d been given were lovely. They weren’t quite as big as yours - the bed was a little smaller and less grandiose than the one you had, the furniture in general had a more simple design than the elegance of your belongings, but everything was still very beautiful and expertly handcrafted.

Glancing around, it didn’t seem like Sukuna had many belongings at all - perhaps he simply enjoyed living a minimalist life? He had a few different pairs of black trousers, and a handful of tunics in a couple of colours in his wardrobe, and in the corner of the room he had a spare set of plate armor. This spare set of armor seemed more intricately crafted than the one you usually saw him wearing - perhaps it was only for special occasions? Or maybe specifically used in wartime?

Either way, his clothes weren’t of much interest to you. You poked around a little more, opening cupboards and drawers to thoroughly investigate the way that he lived - unfortunately, most of them were empty. It seemed like everything that Sukuna owned had been accumulated since coming to the castle, as though he’d moved here without an item to his name.

You’d left the most promising part of his room until last - the desk. It was the only thing that was even slightly cluttered, with a few papers and books spread out across it. You rifled through the items with interest. Much to your dismay, the books were all dry non-fiction tomes focusing on war tactics, and the loose pieces of paper were blank - the inkwell on the desk suggesting that the parchment was for him to write on in the future.

Frustrating. With this few possessions it was as if he had no life at all beyond bothering you.

You started frantically pulling out the desk drawers in the hopes that there was something there - and that’s where you hit the jackpot. In the bottom drawer you found a stack of letters, each with Sukuna’s name written neatly on the front.

As you sifted through each letter, you found that every single one of them was from a man named Jin. Each letter was just a single page long, with the dates on them ranging from ten years ago all the way up to now. Based on the amount of letters, it seemed as though Jin had consistently been writing to Sukuna once a month for years.

There wasn’t time for you to carefully read through all of them - you had no idea when Sukuna might be finished with his responsibilities, and you certainly didn’t want to be caught in here red-handed.

You did your best to skim through the contents. From what you could gather, Jin must be Sukuna’s brother. The older letters were him expressing relief over Sukuna joining the Kingdom’s forces, telling him that he was so happy Sukuna had gotten a ‘second chance’. That had confused you a little, but it never came up again in the later letters.

As time went on the notes grew more thankful, Jin expressing his gratitude to Sukuna for sending him money and telling him all about how his life was going. At some point, Jin had started studying to become a doctor, his letters suddenly all focussed around his studies, and how excited he was to be working in alchemy.

In the later sets of letters, those from the last four years, it was apparent that Jin had a child - the name Yuji started appearing regularly, and there were even some scribbled crayon drawings in the last two letters.

While this was all an interesting insight into Sukuna’s background, it wasn’t much of a help for what you were seeking.

Sukuna wasn’t really mentioned much in the letters at all, it was all just Jin talking about himself. There were several occasions in the early letters where Jin had scolded Sukuna for writing short letters, or for not writing at all. He’d also always ask how Sukuna was doing at the end of the letter, occasionally making a comment on the state of the Kingdom along with it. But nothing in his letters actually divulged any information about Sukuna beyond the fact that he had a brother and a nephew.

You grumbled to yourself as you placed the letters back into the drawers. You weren’t willing to accept that Sukuna was just an all-round good guy with no shady past - someone who loved bloodshed to the extent he did had to have something shady about them. Not to mention he was covered in tattoos, surely he didn’t get all of them by choice.

Either way, there was nothing worth uncovering in here, and you were likely running out of time anyway. So, feeling a little dejected, you begrudgingly accepted defeat.

You had to jump a little to pull yourself back out of the window in Sukuna’s room, almost messing it up entirely with your foot slipping on the rug as you leapt up. Luckily you managed to escape the situation unscathed, making it back to your own room in one piece.

—

You’d been getting ready for bed later that evening when there was a firm knock on the door. You figured it was Sukuna returning from whatever errand your father had him running, and subsequently you took your sweet time opening it.

What you weren’t expecting to see was the King himself staring down at you.

“Daughter.” he greeted gruffly as he stepped into your room. It was rare that he came to visit you like this - generally if he wanted to see you he would call you down to the throne room and talk to you there.

“Father.” You responded, a little on edge.

“I received some curious reports when I returned from my outing this afternoon.”

You tilted your head at him innocently. You knew that the silence was him giving you a chance to fess up to wrongdoing, but you weren’t sure what he knew yet and you didn’t want to confess to anything unnecessary.

He let out a heavy sigh. “Todo said that you went over to the Knight Barracks earlier, that you wanted to find something for Sukuna in his old room.”

“Ah yes. I was looking for a book he mispla-”

“And,” your father cut you off, “one of my advisors saw you crawling into Sukuna’s current room from outside the window.”

Well, that was damning. You wondered which of your father’s advisers had spotted you. Higurama’s study was in the tower adjacent to yours, so you supposed he could’ve been looking out the window and seen the whole thing play out. It felt like you just couldn’t catch a break.

“Do you even understand how dangerous it is for you to be playing around out there? What if you’d have slipped? What if part of the rock had crumbled beneath you? You would’ve been killed.”

You dropped your head, nodding along solemnly because you knew that was the reaction he wanted - it wouldn’t prevent you from going out there again in the future, but you certainly weren’t going to let him know that.

“You’re my only child. I have no other family, you’re it. Do you understand how important you are to me? To this Kingdom? You’re in your twenties now, you need to stop with these childish follies and start taking life more seriously.”

His lecture continued on for a while. It wasn’t anything that you hadn’t heard before - lots of talk of making sure that you were acting like a proper Princess, about how you needed to be sensible and presentable so that he could match you with a suitable husband. Your mind wandered over to Sukuna, wondering if he was aware of the sneaking that you’d gotten up to today.

“What were you even doing, breaking into Sukuna’s room?” The realization that your father had asked you a question brought you back to reality, blinking a few times as you comprehended his words.

“I was trying to gift him something - secretly.” You lied smoothly. Sometimes even you were surprised by how naturally a lie would roll off your tongue. You had no doubt that you’d picked it up from your mother, she had been a particularly cunning noble in her youth, always playing the social game with others in high society to get whatever she wanted in life.

“What?” Your father asked.

“He left a book in his old room when he moved out. I went there to check but I couldn’t find anything, so I got him a new copy.” Your father’s face remained skeptical so you decided to embellish a little further. “It would be embarrassing for him to know it was me, I don’t want him to think I care about him.”

A sickening thought, but if it helped sell the lie that was all that mattered.

Kashimo studied you for a moment, clearly unsure on the truth of the matter, before sighing and waving you off. “It doesn’t matter, just don’t do something dangerous like that again.”

“While you’re here…” You blurted out as he turned to leave. “On the topic of Sukuna, are you really sure that his skills are best placed here? I spoke to Todo earlier and it seems like they really miss him over there.” You hoped that the smile on your face was coming across as genuine rather than sly.

“As I told Sukuna, if war breaks out he’ll take up his old post, but for now the most useful place for him is at your side.” Your expression was obviously unconvinced, because your father elaborated further on his explanation. “In the Gojo Kingdom, one of Satoru’s high ranking advisors had one of his twin daughters kidnapped and held for ransom. I won’t have the same happen to you.”

Your brow furrowed at that information. You and Satoru used to be close when you were children - his Kingdom wasn’t far from yours, separated only by the mountain range that you could see from your window. The advisor that Kashimo was referring to was likely Geto Suguru, a noble from Gojo’s Kingdom who had adopted two young girls a couple of years back.

“When did that happen?” You asked. You don't get to see Satoru much these days - his father had died a few years ago and he’d taken over as King, since then he hadn’t had much time to go gallivanting about in the way he did in his youth.

“A few months ago.” Your father said solemnly. “They got the girl back, but it has us all shaken up - there were rumors that the captors were working for the Zenins, that their blasted nation has been recuperating their forces after their last loss and is looking to give expanding another go.”

“Why are you only telling me this now?” You asked. You’d gotten to know Suguru relatively well through Satoru over the years, you would’ve liked to be informed that something so tragic had befallen him.

“I didn’t want to scare you.” He paused for a moment to study your face. “But evidently you’re not scared enough, which is why I’m telling you now.”

That comment frustrated you a little, it made you feel like he was treating you like a kid despite expecting you to act like an adult. It wasn’t like you could really fight back against his comment though, considering that you had snuck out of the castle just the night before. All things considered, maybe you should take things a little more seriously.

Although, with Sukuna around and watching you like a hawk, you were confident nothing bad was ever going to happen.

Your father seemed satisfied with the outcome of the conversation and headed towards the door. “Oh, and please play nice with Sukuna. I’m not sure what you were doing in his room but I’m not buying that gift story, I know you’ve been doing your best to make his life miserable lately.”

You didn’t give him any response, waiting until he was out of the room until you let out a sigh. This was not convenient.

—

It was a few nights later and Sukuna was lying awake in his room, staring up at the high ceiling. He was bored - you’d been giving him the silent treatment lately, no more schemes to overthrow him since you’d snuck into his room a couple of days ago.

Yeah, he knew all about that little adventure of yours.

It hadn’t been hard to put the pieces together, between the stuff on his desk being out of place, the rug beneath his window being rumpled and the lecture that he’d heard your father giving you through the wall it was evident that you’d broken in and snooped around.

He almost respected you for it. The drop from outside his window was no joke, it would’ve taken a lot of courage for you to shimmy along that ledge without crying. Maybe you did cry - he would’ve liked to see that: you clinging to the ledge with tears and snot running down your face, but too determined to turn back.

You didn’t know that he was aware of your break-in. He’d planned to make fun of you for it at some point, but for the last couple of days you’d come across as oddly listless. Whenever he’d tried poking at you, or even just making conversation, you’d just regard him with this vacant stare as though you weren’t listening at all.

Perhaps this was another one of your schemes, maybe you’d gone back to your initial plan of boring him to death - but he was pretty certain that wasn’t the case after seeing how you were acting with everyone else. You no longer seemed to have any interest interacting with the palace staff that you were usually so friendly with, just barely muttering out a ‘thank you’ when one of the servants would hand you food before going back to staring into space.

It was a little unnerving to see you like this. Since he’d become your Knight he’d observed that you seemed to have boundless energy for your cute little hobbies and nefarious schemes, but right now it was as though you were an empty shell.

He didn’t like it. Seeing you so disinterested gave him an itchy feeling in his chest. You couldn’t even find the energy to glare at him.

In a moment of desperation, he’d even asked your handmaid Shoko if she knew what was going on with you. Shoko had regarded him coolly and shrugged, giving him nothing more than a simple two word answer of ‘Who knows?” That had been frustrating, since you seemed to trust and regularly confide in her, but it was evident that Shoko was not his biggest fan and would subsequently give him nothing.

So now here he was, unable to sleep because he was too busy agonising over what your problem was.

It felt a little bit embarrassing for him - he shouldn’t care, it shouldn’t matter to him at all. Yet, he genuinely enjoyed the way you reacted to him normally, he liked how you’d fight back, he liked that fiery little glare you’d give him when you pissed him off.

He hated this empty husk that you seemed to be right now.

Just as he was about to play out another theory in his mind, he heard the telltale sound of the door to your chambers creaking open down the hall. Even though he’d locked your door that first time that you’d snuck out, he hadn’t done it again - it had felt a little cruel, you were a grown woman after all.

He sat up abruptly, more enthusiastic than he should be that you were doing something. He wondered, with a little excitement building in his chest, if you had planned out another escape attempt and your recent behaviour had all been an elaborate act to throw him off the scent. He hoped so.

Dressing quickly in black trousers and plain white tunic, he pulled on his boots and headed out into the hallway. He didn’t bother putting on his full-set of armor, he doubted he was going to need it.

It didn’t take him long to find you.

He was a little surprised when he stumbled across you in the perfectly manicured garden. It was the first place he’d gone to look, assuming that you were going to try another escape attempt via the secret passage that you used last time - perhaps he should just be calling it a passage now? It wasn’t really a secret ever since he’d discovered it.

You were sitting on the marble bench beside the pond. You looked forlorn, gazing down at the lily pads that dotted the surface of the water. Your knees were drawn up to your chest with your chin resting on top of them, arms wrapped around your legs seemingly to shield yourself from the chilly night air. You were only wearing what he assumed was your nightgown, a long, thin, light blue dress that he’d never seen before.

It was clear that you hadn’t bothered bringing a torch or lantern out with you, instead opting to sit in complete darkness - an odd decision. He considered sneaking up on you for a moment, it would be easy in the darkness and with how lost in thought you seemed to be. The far off look on your face held him back though, you were clearly not in a place to be messed with.

Approaching you slowly, he made sure to make a bit of sound to alert you to his presence. You turned around to look at him for a moment - your eyes were puffy and red, cheeks stained with tears. It felt as though he’d intruded on a very private moment. He was expecting to see annoyance in your expression, maybe even humiliation - but no emotion registered on your face, instead you simply turned back to looking at the pond.

Considering that you hadn’t immediately sent him away, he took that as an invitation to approach, quietly taking a seat on the marble bench beside you. His gaze was fixed on you, but you wouldn’t even spare him a glance. He couldn’t understand what the problem was, you weren’t the sort of person who had an issue telling him to go away, you’d done it on several occasions over the last few weeks - seeing you like this was concerning.

“You’ll catch a cold.” He mused softly. Now that he was closer to you he could see just how thin your nightgown really was, taking note of the fact that you were visibly trembling.

“Like you care.” You mumbled in response. Hearing your voice felt like a joy to his ears, you’d been so silent lately that he was just happy to hear a response - even if it was a rude one.

“I don’t think your father would be happy if you died from exposure on my watch.”

You let out a deep sigh, hugging your knees closer to your chest. “I don’t think it would matter all that much, he’d be mad for a couple of days and get over it.”

He frowned at that response. He’d spent a great amount of time with Kashimo since he’d joined the Kingdom’s army, and one of the King’s biggest concerns was the safety of his daughter. His love for you was apparent to anyone who was close to him - you were practically all he talked about.

“He’d be devastated.” Sukuna said seriously, watching you closely - noting the flicker of irritation that crossed your features.

“It's not me he loves. He just loves that I look like my mother. He wants to protect me because he couldn’t protect her, not because I’m me.” You paused for a moment. “Sorry, that probably doesn’t make sense.”

Sukuna got the gist of it. He was somewhat fascinated by this confession, he hadn’t even had to push that hard to draw it out from you, it seemed like your guard was really down. Not to mention, you’d apologised to him.

“I just- I want to be my own person, I suppose? When my mother was still around, my father never really even bothered with me, he was too busy running the Kingdom - it sounds bad to say, but I liked that, I loved having my freedom. Ever since my mother died I’ve just felt like a trapped bird, with him always telling me how to live my life and excessively worrying over me.”

You peered at him cautiously, clearly trying to gauge what he was thinking. Evidently the expression he was wearing wasn’t sympathetic enough, as you looked away and started anxiously twirling your hair around your finger.

“Sorry, this probably sounds so petty to you - the little rich girl complaining that she has to spend all of her days in a grand castle.”

He couldn’t help but crack a smile at that, he was almost surprised that you’d so easily understood his initial dislike of you, it was a level of self-awareness that he found himself respecting.

“What brought this on?” He asked. “You’ve been weird for a few days - the silence is starting to creep me out.”

You shot him a look before turning back to the lake, taking a deep breath before you spoke. “It's the anniversary of my mother’s death today. This time of year is always a struggle for me.”

He nodded in understanding. That explained why the King himself had been so withdrawn over the last few days, locking himself up in his study and throwing himself into administrative work.

“I feel like I never get to openly grieve.” You continued. “My father loves to pretend that nothing happened, acts like she never existed. Instead of being sad about it like a normal person he heaps all of this pressure on me, it's stifling. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, about her, but he can’t even speak her name - the wound is too deep.”

“I’m sorry.” Sukuna said genuinely. He had joined the Kingdom’s forces after the Queen had already died, so he’d never known her. Most royals married for political reasons, he hadn’t been aware of Kashimo’s deep love for her, but it explained why he hadn’t married someone else and tried for a male heir.

“Don’t be.” You paused for a moment. “This pond was her favourite place in the castle. She used to love seeing all of the frogs in the spring - she’d always bring me out to show me the tadpoles, charting their growth as they developed into adult frogs.”

Sukuna smiled gently, considering the image of a miniature you stumbling around the edge of the pond and picking up frogs.

“I come out here on the anniversary of her death every year to honor her. I wish she’d been buried in this garden rather than in the family tomb.”

The two of you sat quietly for a moment, gazing at the surface of the pond. This was probably the longest he’d heard you talk without you insulting him. He didn’t hate it.

In that moment you seemed desperately lonely.

A deep feeling of sympathy settled in his chest. Perhaps you were more weathered by life than he had originally thought - just with more pressure on your shoulders not to let it show.

“My parents died when I was young.” His voice cut through the quiet. If you were going to share something about yourself, he would too. “I was only fourteen. My father was pretty into gambling and he racked up debts with too many people. Got himself and my mother killed when he wouldn’t pay up.”

He could feel your gaze on him now, watching with great interest as he spoke.

“Those debt collectors then took everything from me and my brother - kicked us out of our family home, left us on the streets with nothing.” Sukuna tried to keep his voice steady as he told the story - he hadn’t recounted this in a long time but he could already feel that familiar rage seeping into his bones at the thought of it.

“What did you do?” You asked softly.

“I did whatever I could to keep us alive.” Sukuna said matter-of-factly. “I stole food and clothes, sat on the side of the street and begged, tried scamming random people on the street out of their money. Eventually I ended up running with a gang, and that’s where things really fell apart.”

He chanced a glance over at you. Your eyes were wide with interest as you waited for him to continue. An intrusive thought about how cute you looked giving him your full attention flitted into his head - he was quick to shove it aside.

“The gang were a bad crowd, they’d done every bad thing I had and more. I won’t bore you with the details, but one time we were trying to rob this noble’s place and the guy woke up. He saw my face and told me he’d get the guards after me. I panicked and the next thing I knew, I’d killed him.”

You gasped and he felt guilt curling in his stomach. This was the first time since he’d known you that he felt like you were finding some common ground - telling you all this was almost certainly going to ruin it.

But he didn’t want to hide it either.

“I got arrested afterwards, the gang ratted me out straight away when the guards came knocking. I ended up in the dungeons and figured I’d rot there for the rest of my life.”

“But you didn’t?” You asked quietly. He looked at you in surprise, the fact that you were still willing to ask questions suggested that you hadn’t made your mind up on what you thought yet.

“No. Thanks to the King.”

You tilted your head in question.

“While I was in there, I’d gotten a reputation of being particularly…scrappy. The King came to my cell one day and gave me the option to join his forces rather than spending my life behind bars. Obviously I agreed - it meant I could live a life, and I’d have money to send back to Jin so he wouldn’t starve.”

You seemed to ponder that for a second. “He never mentioned that.”

“It happens more often than you’d think. A lot of the people in the Kingdom’s forces were former criminals. He’s selective about who he chooses, he’ll only offer it to people he believes deserve a second chance - those who are particularly young like I was, or people who were only criminals out of desperation.”

He wasn’t sure what you thought of that, watching the way your eyes narrowed as you seemed to process that information. He was surprised that you’d never been informed of that initiative, considering you were going to rule the country one day he figured you would already know.

“Are the tattoos from prison then?”

He almost did a double take. He was expecting judgement from you to some extent, perhaps even disgust. He wasn’t prepared for such a superficial question.

“Yeah…” You seemed to sit with that information for a second before looking up at him with a mischievous twinkle in your eye.

“So you do have a questionable past! Wish I could’ve found that out a few days ago. I couldn’t find anything in your stupid room, and I got in trouble for it.”

Sukuna did his very best to hide his surprise at that statement. You’d thoroughly caught him off guard. You weren’t scared of him? Disgusted at what he’d done? Instead all you cared about was that the information had arrived too late for you to use it against him? He felt an oddly warm sensation in his chest as he looked at you - you were wearing an expression that he hadn’t seen directed at him before, something akin to understanding.

It seemed almost like you were trying to lighten the mood for him. There was an urge to point that out and tease you for it, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment.

So instead he went along with it.

“You’re not very good at this whole getting rid of me thing, you know.” Sukuna spoke with a soft chuckle. “It's entertaining, don’t get me wrong, but everything you do just gets thwarted. I mean, you tried climbing into my room in broad daylight. Did you really think no one would see you? Besides, your father is well aware of my colourful past anyway.”

You blushed, evidently feeling a little embarrassed having your failures laid out in front of you - you’d clearly thought it was a decent plan. “Sorry, no one ever taught me how to come up with evil schemes, this is the first time I’ve tried anything like this. I never had the chance to learn it from a gang.”

He clicked his tongue. “Mmmm, you did always seem like such a good girl before, just a few weeks with me at your side and you’re thoroughly corrupted huh?”

You wrinkled your nose in disgust at his wording. “Don’t put it like that. I was just beginning to think you weren’t so bad.”

He let out a soft laugh, ignoring the way that your comment made his heart flip. “The King is beside himself you know, he doesn’t understand why you’re being so difficult - he keeps apologising to me for you making my life hard.”

You seemed to think about that for a moment before shooting him a serious look. “I’ll stop actively antagonising you for now.” You said decisively. “But I’m not going to make life easy for you.”

That didn’t come as a surprise to him.

“I’d never expect you to.” He said with a grin.

The two of you sat there in silence for a while longer, staring out at the pond, the stars twinkling in the sky above you. The quiet felt comfortable, as though you were almost enjoying his company at your side.

He knew for certain that he was enjoying yours.

a/n: hope you enjoyed! I really loved writing the final scene for this one.

planning to get the next update out in around a week.

reblogs and comments are appreciated as always <3

Taglist: @ccazimi @ryomeowie @qardasngan @poopooindamouf @pick-pookie @noooo-onee @ravenwitchh @wobblewobble822 @being-blue-is-better @sukubusss @kittsoraxx @lanaleanne

#sukuna x reader #sukuna #jjk sukuna #ryomen sukuna #jjk x reader #sukuna ryomen #sukuna smut #jjk au #jjk fanfic #jjk #jjk smut #sukuna jjk #sukuna x you #sukuna x y/n #jujutsu kaisen sukuna #ryoumen sukuna #sukuna ryomen smut #ryomen sukuna x reader

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slytherin-pen · 2 days ago

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pairing: Liam Mairi x Reader

word count: 1.1k

warning: smut, 18+ mdi, fingering

tags: fem!reader, no use of y/n

a/n: i couldn’t help myself. written for day 4 of Liam Week @empyreanevents

You are hanging on by a thread. You’ve barely slept this week and have subsequently been running on pure, unfiltered spite. The final for physics class is two days away and at the rate you’re pulling your hair out, you might just be bald by the time you take the test.

Your poor squadmates have been victims of your foul mood. Ridoc tried lightening up the mood with a joke, Rhiannon tried getting you to put your books aside in that kind, motherly way of hers, and even Sawyer had told you to give it a rest. You snapped at all three of them before storming out of the dining hall.

You’re not proud of it, but you don’t have the bandwidth to care right now. You just gritted your teeth, ignored the prickling behind your eyes, and dove back into your notes as soon as you found somewhere to sit down.

The only person safe from your wrath so far is Liam, but that’s only because he hasn’t given you the chance to take it out on him. He’s been quieter today. Watchful.

He doesn’t interfere when you pace around like a caged animal during your squad study session. He doesn’t comment when you huff and curse under your breath when you keep dropping your pen. Just raises an eyebrow and gives you that look. Like he’s just processing and storing it away in some mental file he keeps on you.

When it’s finally time to head back to his room, he slides a hand against your lower back and guides you there without a word.

The silence is almost suspicious.

You kick off your boots as soon as the door shuts, already reaching for your bag. “I’m gonna redo my flashcard set—maybe rewriting will help my brain—” When you drop your bag onto his desk and go to reach inside, Liam takes it away.

“What in Dunne’s name are you doing?” you snap, spinning around.

He just hums nonchalantly and tosses your bag on the floor. “You’re done for tonight.”

Your hands ball into fists at your sides. “No, I’m not. I haven’t even—Liam, seriously—”

“Up,” he says, ignoring your protest entirely and patting the edge of the desk behind you. “C’mon, on the desk.”

You blink. “What—are you kidding—”

His hands are at your waist before you can hurl a real complaint his way, and he’s lifting you with that effortless strength of his and settling you on top of the desk like you weigh nothing.

You sputter, flustered. “Liam.”

He leans in, eyes dark with something molten and murmurs, “Shh.” And then he kisses you.

It’s a hungry, claiming kind of kiss, slow but purposeful, his mouth fitting over yours like it was made for it. Your breath catches. Your fingers go slack where they’re gripping the desk. And you barely notice him undoing the button of your pants until his hands tug gently at your hips.

“Lift,” he says against your lips, voice low.

You pull back just enough to blink at him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m helping you relax.” He smiles and kisses your nose. “My girl’s been wound so tight lately.”

The way he says it—my girl—makes something flutter in your chest. But still, you shoot him a skeptical look, even as you lift your hips to let him tug your pants down.

“This isn’t going to help me study,” you grumble, breath already starting to shorten.

“You’ve done enough studying.”

He kneels just enough to ease your pants down past your ankles and toss them somewhere behind him. You don’t get a good look. You can’t, because he’s already coming back in close, his large hands bracketing your thighs, spreading you just enough.

His fingers find your clit.

You jolt. “Liam—”

But he pulls your mouth back to his in another kiss that’s deeper, filthier, heat pulsing in your core like a second heartbeat.

“I know how to take care of my girl,” he murmurs, words lost against your lips as he rubs slow, teasing circles over the thin fabric of your underwear.

Your breath hitches. Every nerve feels raw. You’re overstimulated from stress and he’s switching it, rewiring it. Turning every frayed edge of your anxiety into a place where pleasure could bloom instead. You barely register when he slides the fabric to the side. Not until his fingers touch skin.

You gasp into his mouth.

“That’s it,” he whispers, lips brushing your cheek as his fingers start to move again. “Just feel me, baby. You don’t have to think. Not right now.”

You moan softly, digging your nails into his shoulders.

Liam kisses you again as his fingers press more firmly, coaxing your body into tension of an entirely different kind. And then, without warning, he slides one thick finger inside.

“Liam,” you gasp.

“I’ve got you.” Another kiss. A second finger. “Let me make you feel good.”

It builds fast, your head falling back as your thighs tremble, your whole body tensing as his fingers curl just right and you come with a cry you can’t hold back. But he doesn’t stop. He keeps kissing you, holding you up, murmuring little praises in your ear as he rubs your clit again, drawing tight circles with the perfect pressure until you’re shivering, hips twitching until you come again.

“Please,” you whisper, breathless. You aren’t sure what you’re asking for. You can’t conjure a single, cohesive thought. You’re already boneless and flushed. He just shifts you a little so you’re putting all your weight on him, laying your head on his shoulder.

“One more, sweet girl.”

His fingers work again, gentle but steady, and you feel it building even faster this time. You’re gasping his name, moaning helplessly into his shoulder, clutching at his shirt like it’s the only thing anchoring you to this world. And when the third climax crashes through you, it’s nearly too much. You sob his name and shudder through it, trembling as he kisses your temple.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers, kissing you again, softer now. “You’re okay.”

Liam kisses you one last time, then pulls back just enough to reach for a soft cloth and gently clean you up. He picks you up in his arms like you weigh nothing again and carries you to his bed.

“You’re ridiculous,” you mumble, half-asleep already.

“I’m a wonderful boyfriend,” he counters, pulling the blanket up around you as he slides in beside you. “You needed that. You’ve been grinding your teeth in your sleep all week.”

You blink. “…I have?”

He hums. “Yeah. You’ve been running yourself ragged, stressing yourself out even when you’re asleep.” His arm wraps around you, tucking your head beneath his chin. His heartbeat is slow and steady beneath your ear. For the first time in what feels like days, your body isn’t buzzing with anxious energy.

You feel…calm.

“Thank you,” you whisper, eyes already fluttering shut.

His lips press against your hair. “Anything for my girl.”

#fourth wing #iron flame #onyx storm #the empyrean #rebecca yarros #liamweek2025 #liam mairi #liam mairi x reader #liam x reader #fourth wing fic #fourth wing x reader #liam mairi imagine

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icallhimjoey · 2 days ago

Note

Before Daybreak reignited my love for Bet!Joe, the little shit.

Could you write about them saying I love you for the first time? Would they somehow turn it into a competition?

oh so we big into the saying i love you trope at the minute arent we? goooot it got it got it got it WELL this is vastly different from that other fic i wrote the other day, even though essentially the premise is the exact same -- hope you enjoy this little slice of bet!joe <3 Wordcount: 2.6K

---

Said It Better

You were going to hold this over his head for a long time.

Forever, if you could.

Joe said it first. Sort of. He didn’t mean to say it, it just nearly slipped out, which is how you actually knew it was real, because Joe would never have said it first unless it gave him the upper hand.

If it made him win something.

And love? Love wasn’t a winning move, was it? Love was more a “lower your weapon and see if they’ll shoot and kill you” sort of situation, and the two of you weren’t really known for lowering your weapons.

You had your moments of ceasefire, sure.

Moments where you forgot that if you pronounced a word wrong, Joe’d repeat it for days.

Moments where Joe forgot that if he made a dumb mistake, you’d bring it up later at the pub for everyone else to make fun of him for the rest of the night.

Moments where Izzy would look at the two of you curled up on the sofa and would narrow her eyes before she’d comment, “You’ve been too normal lately, it’s scary…” talking about silences before big storms and what not.

It was in one of those unassuming moments that Joe accidentally nearly said it.

Nearly.

Joe accidentally just let his mouth say what was on his mind without thinking once, let alone thinking twice, and he’d caught himself when it was already too late.

You were both pretending to not be out of breath after what was only a very light jog home from the pub.

“Look how fast you can run when you’ve had a few!” you’d shouted, laughing, absolutely convinced you were sprinting down the street at fifteen miles an hour.

You weren’t, obviously.

“Try it!”

Joe had done, and then it became a contest, because things always did with the two of you, and you raced Joe back to his flat.

You made it there first, but Joe wasn’t far behind.

“Did you say you go to the gym three times a week?” you poked fun, leaning up against his front doorframe, pretending to be casually waiting for him whilst you were actively fighting to get enough breath into your lungs with every breath. “Maybe change to a different personal trainer, I’ve been waiting here for what, fifteen minutes.”

It hadn’t even been 10 seconds.

“I’m fine,” Joe wheezed as he walked up. “Absolutely fine. Didn’t even break a sweat.”

“Jesus Christ,” you laughed as Joe pushed you aside to unlock and open the door. “You’re leaking.”

“I’m not– oh, I am leaking,” he muttered, inspecting his damp hairline in the reflection of the glass pane in the door. “Why did we run? We didn’t have to fucking run. I hate that you make me do things. Physical things.”

You grinned and leaned in to kiss his cheek, mostly to feel how warm it was and see if you could leave a sweaty lip-print. “Shut up. You love that I make you do things.”

If it hadn’t been for you, Joe wouldn’t have come out tonight. You’d talked him into it and he’d finally reluctantly agreed, only to tell you after two pints that he was going for a third because he was having a great time.

“Yeah, well,” Joe sighed, musing “The things you do for the people you l–…” He caught himself just before he said it, but you’d both heard enough.

You stilled.

Stopped breathing as the key in Joe’s hands stopped halfway into the lock.

Joe stood still like he’d just pulled the pin from a grenade.

You narrowed your eyes at the side of his face, already humoured as the satisfaction of having the upper hand settled within you quickly. “Sorry, what was that?”

“What?”

“Were you about to say lo–”

“No, I wasn’t.” Joe turned the key and pushed the door open, stepping inside without looking back.

“Yes you were.”

He could’ve easily said yes. Years of friendship meant that the word love had been casually thrown around before. You had loved each other in a different way for ages.

It’s just that, now that things were different, this also… just, felt different.

And you both knew it.

The fact that Joe sort of froze the second he’d heard himself nearly say it was enough for you to turn it into a huge deal. Joe thought it was too, evidently, which was great, because you knew he was going to spiral now. You knew he was going to try to fix it, take it back, disguise it as a joke, or a trap, or a decoy… and you couldn’t have that. Couldn’t let it be that easy, because where was the fucking fun in easy?

You followed Joe inside the door and rounded him out to make eye-contact, sweet smile already on your face.

“So… that’s one point to me, yeah?”

Joe looked half like he didn’t know what you were talking about and half just absolutely appalled by what you’d just said. “Point to you?”

“Sure. You said it first.”

You loved the way Joe clenched his jaw. How he frowned which he then immediately eased to not give himself away, unaware he already had in so many ways.

“I didn’t say shit. I was out of breath! I was delirious! I was–”

“Drunk? In love?”

Yea, he wasn’t going to win this game, was he?

Joe pointed a dramatic finger at you, eyes narrowed. “Don’t turn this into a competition.”

“Oh, so you did say it, then?”

“I–” Joe blinked. “No. That’s not what I said. Factually, I never really said anything, did I?”

“‘The things you do for the people you love,’” you quoted back to him in your best imitation of his post-run wheeze. “‘People you love,’ was going to be the end of that sentence, and if I’m not mistaken, I’m people, aren’t I? I was actually the only people around when you said that.”

Joe groaned, already halfway to flinging himself onto the sofa and burying his face into one of the cushions.

“I take it back. I didn’t even say it but I still take it back. Rewind the clock. New game.”

It was too late, obviously. You’d tasted blood, and the temptation to rip him to shreds was too fun to not give into.

Joe fucking knew it, too.

Saw your face, smug little smile unable to be wiped away, and he knew that if he wasn’t smart about this, you’d eat him alive within a week.

He had to find his own ammunition. His own weapons. If he couldn’t find any, at least he’d have to find a way to make you turn yours around to have you aim them at yourself. And Joe wouldn’t be Joe if he wouldn’t have figured something out by morning.

Predictably, the next few days turned into a war.

Joe decided to play your game, and he played it with all the patience of someone who knew exactly how to win it.

Slowly.

With precision.

With cheek disguised as warmth that somehow lead you deeper into the trenches every single fucking time.

He started baiting you.

The first time he did it, you were already half asleep, curled under your duvet while he talked nonsense at you over the phone. His voice had gone low and soft in that way it always did past midnight, when everything felt too close and too honest.

It was one of those moments.

“All right,” he yawned when your answers had started becoming nothing more than faint soft murmurs. “Go to sleep. Sweet dreams. I lo–”

Silence.

Joe had hung up.

Cut himself off and woke you right back up again.

You stared at your phone like it had just sworn at you. Like it owed you an apology. And then the next day, Joe acted like nothing ever happened.

Which was even worse.

You felt like you couldn’t bring it up, because making fun of Joe for something he nearly said was funnier without letting him know how badly you wanted to hear him finish that sentence.

He didn’t deserve that advantage, you thought.

But Joe was already aware, unfortunately.

A small speck of tension grew between the two of you.

Izzy noticed it immediately when the three of you had dinner together at your flat, and there was some weird eye-contact happening across the table.

“Okay... I know I said I don’t like it when you’re normal, but this is worse. What’s going on? Wait– do I want to know?”

You kept your eyes on Joe as you said there was nothing going on actually, which Joe immediately confirmed.

Weapons had been drawn, but shields were held with tighter grips.

You had to be careful.

One misstep was one too many.

Another day passed when you received a text.

“Miss you. L”

You sat with it for a solid hour, refusing to be the one to chase the punchline.

When you didn’t bite, he eventually sent three more texts, revealing he was an active player in this game which you suddenly felt you were losing.

“ater.” “Later. I’ll see you later.” “Don’t make this about you.”

You hated that he’d been able to follow your train of thought so effortlessly, even though you hadn’t text back at all.

Made you want to scream.

Or kiss him.

Or both.

When you were over at his place a couple days later, there was the mug of tea that you didn’t end up drinking.

The weather had been miserable all day, it was late, and you were in a mood. You’d been curled up on the sofa under a throw blanket, vaguely grumpy for reasons you couldn’t articulate because moaning about the injustice of having to exist without a personal assistant made you sound like a dick.

Joe brought you tea without asking, set the mug down in front of you with exaggerated reverence. “Made this for the lo–,” he said, stretching the o, making eye-contact as he did.

You froze.

Love of my life?

The sentence bloomed in your chest like a blush.

But when you blinked up at him, heart already trying to fight its way out of your ribs, he finished, “...for the loveliest friend.”

“Friend?” you spat, unable to not bite, because what the fuck?! “Are you friend-zoning me?”

Joe smiled, kissed you on the temple and pointedly asked, “Are we not friends?”

Which, no, yes. You were friends. Had been friends for longer than you’d been anything else. Sure. Yea. Friends. Why not?

That mug of tea went cold untouched.

Joe wore you down.

Bit by bit.

You were no longer having fun playing this game that you’d invented.

Every action, every word. Every stolen kiss, every warm palm on your waist. Every single sleepy-eyed smile across the pillow was fucking laced with it.

Laced with love.

You could feel it, humming beneath the surface of everything he did.

Joe created moments in which it would be an expected thing for you to hear, and then, he wouldn’t say shit.

You tried really hard not to hear the unspoken words, but heard them every single time. You batted it back like a tennis ball, though. Refused to meet it head-on, because if you didn’t acknowledge it, he couldn’t win, and you couldn’t lose.

But the thing is: love makes you lose, doesn’t it? That’s the whole point. And some small, treacherous part of you was beginning to want to lose. At least to him.

Because it didn’t feel like surrender.

It felt like gravity.

And you were already more than halfway down, anyway.

So maybe it was inevitable, the way the next moment unfolded. The way the game stopped feeling like a game and turned into something else entirely.

Why had you decided that saying it first was losing?

Surely, if you really thought about it… beating him to saying it properly was actually going to pull the rug out from underneath both of his feet and leave him on his ass.

“Joe.”

He glanced up from sorting through his post.

“You don’t win,” you said, matter-of-factly.

His brow furrowed. “What?”

“You don’t win. You don’t get to make me feel bad just because you fumbled.”

“I didn’t fumble,” he said immediately, defensive.

You raised your eyebrows, and gave him a moment to rethink that.

To have another go.

He immediately did.

“…I might have fumbled a bit,” he admitted, softer now.

You nodded.

You could’ve pushed him back into the safety of the game. God knows he’d lived there longer than you had.

But something about this – about him, right now – made you want to end it. The game. The distance. The pretending.

You took a deep breath, and then super casually said, “I love you.”

His eyes widened with shock.

The tables had well and fully turned.

“No!”

How fucking dare you?!

“Yes.”

“Really?!” he made a choked sound. A laugh that never quite finished. “That’s so fucking unfair! Are you serious? You can’t say it first!”

And just like that, after feeling like you’d been losing for days, you came out the other end a true winner.

“Just did. Beat you fair and square,” you said with the easy confidence of someone finally stepping into the truth and finding it surprisingly comfortable there. “I would’ve said it sooner if you hadn’t been such a little shit about it. I was gonna do it all smooth and dramatic. Wreck your life with it, a little.”

“Like you haven’t just.”

You gasped into a smile, “Did I? God, I was hoping I would.”

Joe looked at you then, really looked at you. All flushed cheeks and disbelief, laced with a kind of breathless affection so raw you almost had to look away.

“You love me,” he said softly, wonder bleeding through.

“I love you,” you said, deliberately. Slowly. Like the words had been ripening behind your teeth this whole time.

He leaned in. Kissed you once, and then again, less careful the second time.

“Say it again,” he whispered, against your cheek.

“No,” you said, because of course you did, and that made Joe’s mouth pull into a grin that you felt against your skin.

“I can’t believe you took over a week to say it back to me after I said it first.”

“Okay, shut up. You didn’t really say it, did you?”

He laughed into your shoulder, full-bodied, holding you like he was trying to win at that too.

You let him.

“I will actually fully admit that you were right before. I said it first and then, you just said it back to me.”

“No. Shut up.”

“I said it.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

And he spun you in a ridiculous circle right in the middle of his kitchen, both of you laughing too hard, your limbs tangled, breath hot and silly between grins.

When he finally put you down, your face was flushed, and Joe didn’t let you go. Just looked at you with that same stupid look. The look he always got when you’d outwitted him, weirdly wounded at his loss but more proud at you for the unexpected twist he hadn’t seen coming.

Yea, he loved you, all right.

“You do love me,” he said quietly, and it wasn’t a question this time.

You looked at him.

Soft.

Sure.

Open.

“Yeah,” you said, weapons and shields casted aside entirely.

War was over.

And then, because you couldn’t help yourself, because old habits die hard, and because Joe was still standing there acting like he’d just won something–

You added, “But I said it better.”

---

The Taglisted

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@dailyobsession, @eddiemunsonsbabygirl, @eddie-munsons-balls, @eddies-puppet, @elvendria

@emotionaldreamer, @everythinghasafacee, @ferfan14, @figmentofquinn, @gri959

@hazelenys, @joesquinns, @keikoraven, @kennedy-brooke, @kravitzwhore

@lovelyblueness, @loves0phelia, @mandyjo8719, @munsonluvrr, @munsonssweets

@nadixq, @niallersfreckles, @overthinking-raccoon, @pepperstories, @pinchofhoney

@readergf, @royale1803, @sherrylyn0628, @shizlac, @solzi1420

@songforeddiemunson, @sweetberry47, @take-everything-you-can, @thebellenouvelle, @tlclick73

@werepartnersnow, @witchwolflea, @xxladymjxx, @yunirgo

add yourself

#joe quinn #joseph quinn #joe quinn x reader #joe quinn x you #joseph quinn x y/n #joseph quinn x reader #joe quinn x y/n #joseph quinn x you #joseph quinn fanfiction #joseph quinn fanfic #joe quinn fanfiction #joe quinn fanfic #icallhimjoey #said it better #bet!joe

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tttt06 · 3 days ago

Text

Bad Fight

Black Reader x Enhypen

Requests are open! I reply quickly. Masterlist here

Synopsis~ Enhypen getting into bad fights with S/O

Part 2

Warning~ No smut, angst, arguments, stress, depression, yelling

Word Count~ 2.5k

Heeseung

Fights with Heeseung were often. He has a habit of getting busy and never talking to you about it. He likes to bottle things up.

It was a day you had been practicing all day. Being the leader of your own group was taking a toll on you. Heeseung was coming home late, and you knew that, but you really needed him.

You weren't surprised that he was gone until 1 AM. You were already asleep in your bed by the time he came home. You had a schedule at 4 AM tomorrow. Filming your next comeback MV.

You felt your bed dip, and you stirred awake. The rush of rapid thoughts came flying to your head. You pushed them aside, "Hi, baby."

Heeseung grunted and cuddled you close. Your body relaxed in his embrace. You tried to talk to him. "Today was hard."

Heeseung mumbled, "Yeah?"

"Mhm. The girls got into an argument, and it made practice so much harder."

Heeseung softly hummed. You could tell he wasn't listening. "Hey, you listening?"

There was silence and a long sigh from his nose. "No, not really, Y/N. I'm tired." You asked, "Do you wanna rant about it?"

Heeseung turned his back to you and said, "Maybe another time."

You sat there, feeling shut out. "Hee?"

He didn't answer.

You huffed while getting out of bed. You were gonna sleep on Sunoo's floor. You didn't want to sleep next to Heeseung. As he watched you grab your things, Heeseung asked, "Where are you going?"

You sharply said, "I'm going to Sunoo's room. At least he'd actually listen to me."

Heeseung was at his feet in a second, "What? No, you're not."

You nodded in a matter-of-fact tone. "Uh, yes. I am."

Heeseung grabbed your wrist, "You're not sleeping with another guy. I'm right here."

You laughed, "Heeseung. I don't know if you've noticed, but you've been ignoring my texts and me, not coming over, and blowing off my problems. You treat me like shit. When I'm stressed, I don't do that shit to you."

Heeseung said with a rough tone, "I'm busy."

You smiled with disbelief, "Too busy for me?"

When he didn't answer, you were about to storm out. Heeseung reached, "Wait."

You shook your head, "I think we should break up."

Heeseung stuttered, his eyes widening. "What?" You nodded, "You heard me. I don't have time for this shit. I'm going home."

Heeseung ran to the door and locked it. He said, "Let's talk this out." You laughed, "Now you wanna fucking talk? I talked to you earlier, and you blew me off!"

Heeseung said, "You need space to think, and we can talk when we're both relaxed."

You shouted, "WE'RE OVER!"

You slammed his apartment door.

Jay

Jay was probably the biggest crashout you've ever met. His patience for people is at zero.

As much as he's confrontational and argumentative, you two seem to have slipped past your problems.

One significant problem was that you felt lonely in the relationship. Jay was nurturing and careful in the beginning, but now he treats you like you're not there.

It led to a fight at his guitar practice.

He was in the music room for practice, and you were stopping by to drop Jungwon's dance shoes off. He said he'd forgotten them at the dorm and asked if you could bring them on your way to work.

You wanted to see what your boyfriend was doing on the way.

You opened the door to see him strumming a four-chord. "Jay bear?"

He looked up to see your cute face, "Oh. Hi, honey."

He sounded so... far. Like he was mentally checked out when he saw you. NO excitement, no, 'HEY! I MISSED YOU!'

Nothing.

You sat down, and Jay asked, "What're you doing here?"

The tension was thick. You said, "I wanted to see you. It's been a couple days."

Jay said, "A couple days? You getting clingy now?"

You furrowed your eyebrows.

"What?"

Jay laughed, "I was kidding." You stared at him for over a minute. Jay asked, "Why are you looking at me like I just hurt you."

You took a deep breath, "You are hurting me. Where have you been? What have you been doing? Are you avoiding me?"

Jay just stares at you like you're crazy. "What the hell? Y/N? You interrupt my time and start coming at me. I don't really wanna talk to you right now."

You huffed and threw the bag at him. "Fucking fine. Don't come over, don't call me, don't text me, I don't wanna see your face."

You stormed out of the room, half expecting Jay to chase you. He didn't.

Jake

Ou, Jake had some explaining to do. He was on tour, and you were at home missing him. Only to see a viral edit of him kissing a fan.

Not even a peck. Full make out.

Your heart was pounding as you dialed his number.

The call went through on the second ring. "Hey, baby."

His raspy Australian voice came through the phone. It only heightened your anger. "Why are you making out with fans?"

His side went silent. You said, "Answer me?! I get you have to act single, but to this extent? How do I know you didn't have sex with someone to 'seem single.' At this rate, I should be getting checked for anything. I can't trust you."

Jake said, "Baby."

You shook your head, "No. Don't baby me. I'm seriously pissed off. I don't want to be with you anymore. This is the shit you pulled on me. It's disgusting."

Jake whimpered, "Let me explain."

You said, "I don't really wanna hear how your tongue ended up down her throat."

You were about to hang up, but Jake yelled, "So what?! You're just gonna break up with me?! Over some video, you won't let me explain?! This is why it fucking sucks to be with you. You're cold-hearted."

You said, "Cold hearted?! YOU KISSED ANOTHER GIRL! THERE'S NO FORGIVING FOR THAT."

Jake said, "Just drop it. I don't give a shit anymore."

You laughed as tears streamed down your face, "You don't care about us? Not surprising. Obviously, you didn't care about us when you kissed her."

Jake took a deep breath, "Y/N, I'll talk to you when we get home. I do agree we shouldn't talk for a few days."

You yelled, "Why? So you can cheat some more. I'd rather let you be free to..."

You couldn't even let the words out. You were sobbing now. Jake was your first everything. It felt like a different kind of betrayal.

"How could you think I'd have sex with anyone else."

You said, "You were kissing her!"

Jake said, "I wasn't!"

You hung up on him.

If he was going to cheat, at least be honest about it.

Sunghoon

He's the worst. When it comes to what he says, he has no filter.

He embarrassed you in front of your co-workers. He told them you weren't fit to be his wife. Everyone stared at you for something to say.

You had nothing to say.

You were in so much shock. How could Sunghoon ever say that about you?

After the DEAD quiet drive home, you walked straight into the shower. You wanted to avoid Hoon at all costs. You locked the bathroom door and showered in peace.

You started crying because you think this is your last straw.

He wasn't thinking about marrying you? Then what was he here for? Was he taking your relationship seriously? You don't even know anymore.

You opened the door, eyes red and puffy. Your shower cap was over your eyebrows.

You said, "Sunghoon, I really hated what you said today."

He looked at you, confused about why you were crying and why you weren't wearing your shower cap properly.

When it fell over your eyes, you threw it on the ground. Hoon's lip twitched as he asked, "What did I say?"

You said, "How could you not know!? Am I not fit for marriage? What? You never planning on marrying me?"

Sunghoon was stern, "Seriously? You're crying over that? Geez, sometimes I really hate how sensitive you are."

You froze. That actually hit a nerve. You've expressed in the past that you are insecure about how often you show your emotions. You told Sunghoon to never judge you for it.

He's saying shit without thinking.

"Sunghoon. Get out."

He stood up instantly. He's never heard you talk like that before.

He was walking out when he realized that he might've pissed you off for real.

"I'm sorry."

You shook your head, "No. Just go away."

You slammed the door after him.

Sunoo

You've had a stressful work week. Sunoo knew it was because when he'd come over, you were sleeping. He woke you up when the door opened. You had a pile of work documents surrounding you.

"Hi, baby." You said while rubbing your eyes. He smiled, "Have you eaten? Showered? relaxed?"

You scooted on the couch to check the coffee table full of more documents. Sunoo sat next to you and rubbed your back. You said, "Not right now."

You reached for a page and started reading. Sunoo said, "I love you, but you really need to take care of yourself."

You shook your head, "I don't have time. I'm the team leader, and they're relying on me."

Sunoo furrowed his eyebrows, "You can't always think of your team. You need to put yourself first sometimes."

You cut him off, "I am taking care of myself. Doing my job leads to my bills paying for another month."

Sunoo said, "You know I'm always open to helping with your bills if it's that serious."

You furrowed your eyebrows and shot up, "No, Sunoo."

You caught yourself about to start yelling, but you rubbed your nose bridge. Sunoo grabbed the back of your thighs and pulled you closer, "I'll run you a shower, and we're gonna have a serious talk."

That's what you did. Sunoo showered with you. You two sat on the bed, and Sunoo took a deep breath.

"I think we need a break from each other."

You furrowed your eyebrows, "What?"

Sunoo smiled, "Just a week or so. You're stressed out right now, and every time I talk to you, I seem to piss you off. I don't really wanna be around you anymore."

You started to tear up. Sunoo words cut through your heart.

"You don't wanna be around me?" Your voice cracked, and Sunoo gently pressed his hand to your cheek.

Your face was hot.

"Don't cry, please. It's only a week. You need to figure yourself out."

You said, "What if we have the break, and it doesn't work."

Sunoo said sadly, "We'd have to break up. I-... If I don't crash out on you when I get stressed, I expect the same back."

And with that, Sunoo stood up. "I'm sorry to drop this on you like this. I wanted to avoid this conversation, but after today, I don't think we can stay like this. You're not even taking care of yourself."

You cried, "Because I'm stressed! I can't just give up. This job is my livelihood!"

Sunoo looked at you as you got riled up, "So is mine, and I handle it peacefully."

Jungwon

What could an argument possibly be about? Commitment issues. It wasn't on Jungwon's end. It was yours. You weren't cheating, HELL NO. It was his patterns.

Jungwon was loyal, kept his promises, and treated you like a queen.

That was the problem. You weren't used to that. You were in unhealthy relationships. It was better to detach and not really commit because you always knew they wouldn't change.

If you told Jungwon something you didn't like about him, he'd change it.

It was a problem.

It was a date. You were eating at this expensive restaurant. The steak was huge, and you both shared it. Jungwon was joking around, "My girl-best friend is pregnant already. It's crazy to think I'll be an uncle."

You smiled as you played with your food. You knew what was coming, and you tried to brace yourself. After three attempts to change the subject, you were still talking about pregnancy.

Jungwon asked the bomb, "When we have kids, how many do you want?"

You looked up at him, and the world froze.

"Huh?"

Jungwon asked again, "How many kids do you want?"

You avoided, "I'd never thought that far." Jungwon tilted his head, "You want kids, right?"

The silence was loud, "A kid sounds scary."

He quirked his eyebrow and asked, "Okay, what about marriage?"

You laughed, "Let's not talk about all of this now."

Jungwon said, "I think we should talk about this. We're clearly not on the same page."

You said, "Wonnie, I don't wanna talk about this."

Jungwon said, "You don't wanna get married to me...? Is that it?"

Your eyes widened, "I don't wanna get married in general... it's too much to think about."

Jungwon looked at you like you were stupid, "When were you planning on telling me that?"

You said, "I'd figure we wouldn't be together by now."

Jungwon froze. He nodded slowly as he turned to the waiter and asked for the check.

Jungwon drove you home, and he didn't text you back.

Something about him leaving you hurt more than usual. You cried that night. You're not usually the type to cry over a guy. Jungwon felt like someone special.

Ni-ki

Another day of wanting your boyfriend, another day of him playing video games.

Ni-ki was yelling, "You suck literal ASS! God, I hope you drown!"

He was usually the type to say crazy shit like that in the game. The problem was his girlfriend was sitting on his bed, without panties on, and watching YouTube on his phone.

He didn't bat an eye.

Ni-ki was too busy shooting people.

He didn't stop, either. He'd play until 4 AM. He was crazy like that.

You huffed and stomped over to him. He turned around and said, "Lemme finish this battle."

You said, "Yeah, fine. Go ahead."

He heard your tone. The sarcasm and anger. He said in the mic, "I'll catch you guys later. I've got trouble with the wife."

He exited the game and asked, "What did I do wrong? Did I forget to take the trash out?"

You stepped back, "Look at me."

He started at your plush brown thighs. His eyes trailed to your face, and he asked, "What's the matter."

You said, "I've been sitting on your bed with no underwear on for the past 2 hours! Here, you are playing the game. Do you think the game is sexy?! That game ain't giving you kids and oral!"

Ni-ki's eyes widened, "Baby, be quiet."

You started grabbing your things in a huff, "Don't tell me to be quiet! I'm going home!"

You pulled on his pants and grabbed your purse. You stomped out of his room, and Ni-ki followed closely. "Fuck you, Ni-ki."

You stormed out as Ni-ki was left with himself, and Heeseung walked out of his dorm room. "Kids and oral? Ni-ki?"

Ni-ki turned around, and his eyes were red, "What the hell, hyung?!"

Heeseung reluctantly hugged him.

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shadyfestivalperfection · 2 days ago

Note

I loved your “Dating Loki” could you do one where him and the “reader” reunite during the Avengers? Nick Fury and the others won’t think he’ll talk until Thor brings the “reader” in. Loki thinks it’s Black Widow before he turns around, maybe he tries to keep his composure.

To Choose You Again~Oneshot

Summery: He let her go once in the name of power. Years later, broken and imprisoned, Loki sees her again—and this time, he’s the one who won’t walk away.

Characters: Loki x ex-girlfriend!reader

Note: Don’t worry, it has a happy ending 😉

||Main Masterlist|| ||Oneshot Masterlist||

Loki of Asgard sat on the floor with his knees drawn up, long fingers dangling loosely between them. His hair, longer now, curled slightly at the edges of his jaw, and the green in his eyes was dulled with something deeper than rage—fatigue. He stared at the far wall, unmoving. For hours, maybe longer.

He hadn’t spoken. Not to Fury. Not to Stark. Not even to Thor.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents watched him from behind mirrored glass, voices low and skeptical. Romanoff leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, her gaze cold.

“He’s not going to talk,” she said for the third time that day. “He’s waiting for something.”

“Or someone,” Banner murmured.

“Maybe a stage,” Stark quipped. “Guy always did love a dramatic entrance.”

Thor, standing slightly apart from them all, frowned in silence. His arms were crossed, and his brow furrowed with more worry than anyone present had seen since New York burned under the alien sky.

“He is… lost,” Thor said finally. “But not beyond reach.”

“Then who can reach him?” Steve asked, his tone calm but pressed. “Because we’re running out of time.”

Thor hesitated. “There was someone.”

Fury glanced over. “Someone?”

“She was once close to him. Before all of this. Before… everything fell apart.”

“Oh, here we go,” Tony muttered. “The ex-girlfriend bomb.”

“Her name is Y/N,” Thor said over the sarcasm. “An Asgardian by birth. Immortal. She left the realm generations ago. She chose Midgard—Earth. Lives in quiet. She is a researcher. A scholar. And she knew my brother better than any of us.”

Steve tilted his head. “Why haven’t we heard of her before?”

“She wanted peace,” Thor said simply. “And he let her go.”

“Wait,” Natasha cut in. “You’re saying Loki had someone he actually cared about? Enough to let her walk away?”

Thor’s eyes darkened. “Yes. And it nearly broke him.”

Silence followed. Only the faint sound of Loki’s breath through the speakers filled the stillness.

Fury crossed his arms. “You really think this woman—this Y/N—can get through to him?”

“I believe,” Thor said softly, “that if anyone can remind him he was once capable of love… it is her.”

—

The quinjet landed gently in a clearing surrounded by silver trees. Beyond them, nestled on the edge of a sheer cliff, was a small cottage with a moss-covered roof and a garden that bloomed wild and unbothered by human hands. It overlooked a stretch of sea so vast and calm it seemed the sky itself had poured into it.

Thor stood at the head of the team: Steve and Natasha behind him. No guards. No weapons drawn.

The moment they stepped through the trees, the front door opened.

Y/N stood in the threshold, still as the wind. Her long hair, loosely braided, hung over one shoulder, silver strands catching the fading light. She wore a simple sweater and linen pants—earthy, unassuming—but her eyes held a sharpness that hadn’t dulled since Asgard.

They were the eyes of a woman who’d seen empires fall and loved a man who helped break one.

“Thor,” she said evenly, voice like smooth stones in a stream.

He smiled, almost boyishly. “Y/N. You look well.”

“You didn’t come all this way just to flatter me,” she replied. Her gaze shifted to the two behind him. “Captain Rogers. Agent Romanoff.”

Natasha raised a brow. “Didn’t expect the welcome committee.”

“I’ve seen many things,” Y/N said. “But nothing surprises me anymore. Not even a god on my doorstep.”

She stepped aside. “Come in.”

—

Her home was filled with books. Stacks of them on tables, nestled beside vials of glowing plants and scrolls too old for even Steve to date. The air smelled of lavender and salt. It was peaceful. Still.

She poured tea without asking. The silence was comfortable… until it wasn’t.

“You’re here about Loki,” she said.

Thor lowered his cup. “Yes.”

“I figured.” She didn’t look at any of them directly. “Is he dead?”

“No,” Thor said quietly. “But perhaps worse.”

She didn’t speak.

“He’s in custody. After what he did in New York.”

“I heard.” Her voice tightened.

“He will not speak to any of us,” Thor continued. “Not even me.”

Y/N finally looked up. Her eyes had that familiar sheen to them—reflective, unreadable, and impossibly old. “And you think I can reach him?”

Steve answered this time, his tone careful. “He’s completely closed off. If there’s any chance someone from his past could draw him out—help us understand what he’s planning—it’s worth trying.”

“He’s always planning something,” she said softly. “That hasn’t changed.”

“But once,” Thor said, “he wasn’t only this. You saw that. You knew him before the fall.”

Y/N didn’t respond.

“I saw what you were to each other,” Thor added. “He loved you.”

She rose, walked to the window. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And still, he let me go.”

“Why?” Natasha asked quietly.

Y/N smiled faintly. “You’d have to ask him.”

Steve stepped forward. “We’re not asking you to forgive him. Just… speak with him. If you get through, we might be able to stop whatever’s coming.”

Y/N was silent for a long time.

Then: “When?”

Thor stood. “Tonight.”

—

The quinjet hummed softly as it rose into the clouds. Y/N sat across from Thor, her eyes on the horizon. The closer they flew to the helicarrier, the quieter she became.

Thor watched her with a heavy heart.

“You haven’t asked if he remembers you,” he said gently.

“I know he does.”

Thor nodded.

“And I know,” she added, voice barely audible, “that I never stopped remembering him.”

—

The S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier was cold and sterile, a place of harsh lights and harder edges. Y/N stepped out of the elevator, Thor just behind her, and immediately the chill of the place seeped into her bones. The smell of metal and ozone mixed with distant echoes of voices and footsteps.

They walked down the narrow corridors until they reached the observation deck, the glass cell standing silent and imposing.

Inside, Loki sat alone, his posture rigid, shoulders squared as if bracing against invisible storms. His back was to them, the dark hair falling messily over his shoulders.

“Are you sure he doesn’t know you’re here?” Y/N asked quietly.

Thor nodded. “He believes this is another attempt to interrogate him. He doesn’t expect you.”

They stepped closer, their footsteps muffled against the floor.

Y/N’s heart pounded, an old ache rising up—equal parts dread and longing.

“He’s not going to like this,” she murmured.

“I’m not here for his approval,” he said softly.

Loki shifted. “Another visitor,” he muttered, voice dry but edged with a trace of amusement.

Y/N cleared her throat. “Loki.”

He turned slowly. The moment their eyes met, the air shifted—charged with years of unspoken words.

His face was pale, a mask of cold composure. But his eyes betrayed him: wide, searching, almost disbelieving.

“…Y/N?”

She nodded, a faint, bittersweet smile curling her lips.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said, stepping closer to the glass, his hand rising to meet hers.

The world between them felt fragile—time stretched thin.

“I came because there’s still a part of you I remember. The part I want to believe is still there.”

Loki’s gaze faltered. “I buried that part deep.”

“Maybe it’s time to dig it up.”

Silence hung heavy, then he whispered, “Tell me… why did you leave?”

Her mind flickered back to a night long ago—stars above, tears streaming.

“Because you wouldn’t let me stay.”

He closed his eyes, the weight of regret settling on his shoulders.

“Let me try,” he whispered.

For the first time since his capture, Loki spoke—not with malice or riddles, but with the rawness of a soul seeking redemption.

Loki’s breath hitched as he stepped back from the glass, pacing the small confines of his cell. The shadows seemed to cling tighter to him, but in his eyes, a flicker of something warmer, something more fragile, lingered.

Y/N’s heart clenched watching him—this god, so fierce and broken all at once.

“Why didn’t you come to me sooner?” she asked softly, leaning closer to the glass.

He stopped and stared at her, jaw clenched.

“I was afraid,” he confessed, voice cracking like thin ice. “Afraid that what I’d become was beyond repair. That the man you loved was gone forever.”

She swallowed hard, remembering the bitter nights she spent wondering if he even thought of her.

“I never stopped hoping you’d come back,” she said. “Even when it felt like you were slipping away.”

Loki’s fingers pressed against the glass, fingertips tracing where hers rested.

“I should have fought harder. For you. For us.”

“You did what you thought was right. But sometimes, doing right means letting go.”

His eyes darkened. “Letting go of you was the hardest thing I ever did.”

They stood, separated by the thin barrier, but their hearts stretched across the distance like a fragile thread.

“Maybe this is our second chance,” Y/N whispered.

Loki’s lips curled into a tentative smile.

“If you’ll have me,” he said.

Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “Always.”

The hours slipped by unnoticed, swallowed by the quiet hum of the helicarrier and the steady rhythm of their voices.

Y/N found herself sharing memories she thought she’d buried—moments of laughter under Asgard’s twin moons, stolen glances during palace festivities, whispered promises beneath endless starlit skies.

Loki listened, his expression unreadable at first, but gradually softening like ice thawing under spring’s gentle sun.

“You always had that stubborn streak,” she teased, a small smile tugging at her lips.

“And you always knew how to challenge me,” he countered, eyes glinting with a rare warmth.

They spoke of things left unsaid—the fears, the regrets, the reasons that tore them apart.

“I thought I was protecting you,” Loki said, voice thick with pain. “But all I did was push you away.”

Y/N reached out, fingers brushing the glass between them. “You didn’t push me away. I walked because I had to survive. And because I believed there was still good in you.”

He closed his eyes, a single breath escaping him. “There is good. I buried it too deep, but it’s still there.”

She smiled through the tears threatening to spill. “Then let’s find it again. Together.”

Loki’s gaze locked onto hers, fierce and vulnerable. “I want to believe that. I want to try.”

Their hands pressed harder against the glass, desperate to erase the space between them.

“Soon,” Y/N promised. “Soon.”

As the conversation lingered, Loki’s guarded demeanor began to peel away, revealing glimpses of the man she once knew—and the one she hoped might still be there.

“I’ve been alone,” he admitted quietly. “Not just in this cell, but inside myself. It’s a cold place.”

Y/N’s heart ached for him, the weight of his solitude almost unbearable.

“You don’t have to be alone anymore,” she said, voice steady despite the flutter in her chest. “Not while I’m here.”

He looked at her then, truly looked—as if seeing her for the first time in years.

“You never left my thoughts,” he whispered. “Even when I told myself you had.”

She reached out again, pressing her palm to the glass. “Neither did you leave mine.”

For a moment, time seemed to pause. The sterile hum of the helicarrier faded into the background, replaced by the quiet resonance of two souls tentatively reaching out.

“I don’t know what comes next,” Loki confessed, “but I want to find out—with you.”

Y/N smiled, hope blooming like dawn breaking through endless night.

Walking away from the cell, Y/N’s steps felt lighter than they had in years. The walls around her seemed less suffocating, the weight on her chest easing with each breath.

Thor met her at the hallway’s bend, a knowing smile on his face.

“She is the light in his darkness,” Thor said quietly. “You gave him something I could not.”

Y/N nodded, wiping a stray tear. “He’s still lost in parts. But he wants to be found.”

Natasha approached, folding her arms. “He talked?”

Y/N chuckled softly. “More than that. He remembered.”

Steve smiled warmly. “Then we have hope.”

The team gathered around her as they prepared to move forward, their mission now carrying a new purpose—not just to contain a god, but to heal him.

Later, as Y/N stood by her window, looking out over the night sky, a single moonflower bloomed on her windowsill—a reminder that even in the darkest places, hope could still take root.

And somewhere, far away but no longer unreachable, Loki was thinking the same.

“We’ll find the path. Together.”

Loki was taken back to Asgard in chains. Y/N watched from the shadows.

He didn’t look back.

Not then.

But a month later, a letter arrived — in ancient Asgardian script, with his seal.

I meant what I said. I remember everything.If I ever find a way back to the light… I hope you’ll be standing there.

—

Three months passed. Then four. Then five.

Y/N accepted a quiet research post in Norway, studying Earth’s auroras — a nod to the skies she once knew. Her days were quiet. Her nights lonelier.

Until one stormy evening… the wind shifted.

She turned from her telescope, heart pounding.

He was there.

Not armored. Not kingly. Just… Loki.

Hair longer. Eyes tired. But real.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she breathed.

“I wasn’t sure you’d want me.”

She crossed the room and stopped inches from him. “Are you here to stay?”

“I don’t know what I am anymore,” he whispered. “But I know who I miss.”

He touched her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For all of it. I broke the only beautiful thing I ever had.”

“You didn’t break me,” she whispered. “Just my heart. But I kept the pieces. I was hoping you’d come back and help me put them together.”

He leaned in, slow, unsure.

She met him halfway.

Their kiss was not the burning heat of youth — it was slower. Wiser. Real.

They watched the auroras from the cliff, his hand wrapped around hers.

“Do you think they’ll ever let me live in peace here?” he asked.

Y/N smiled. “That depends. Do you plan to conquer anything else?”

“Only your attention.”

“That, you’ve already won.”

He looked at her, the glow of northern lights reflecting in his eyes.

And for the first time in years — he felt whole.

-the end

#marvel #shadyfestivalperfection #female reader #fanfiction #romance #avengers #mcu #Loki #Loki x Reader #loki x you #mcu loki #loki fanfic #loki x f!reader

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erikawrites13 · 19 hours ago

Text

"Fast Tracks and Hidden Truths" " - “Crossing the Line”

Part 2

So you know- "English is not my first language. I have dyslexia. Let me know what you think about it, please."

Young Sebastian Vettel x journalist (reader) Enemies to Lovers and Slow Burn

Part 1 here --> Part 1

The rain was relentless sheets of cold water pounding down on the Silverstone paddock, turning everything slick and slippery.

You pulled your jacket tighter against the chill and glanced at your watch. The afternoon press conference was running late, and Sebastian was nowhere in sight.

The Red Bull garage was chaos soaked team members scrambling to cover equipment, voices rising above the storm. You spotted him finally. Sebastian, helmet off, hair plastered to his forehead, pacing back and forth under a tiny awning, his face stormier than the weather itself.

You stepped closer, hoping for a quick comment before the press session. But as you opened your mouth, a sharp, irritated shout cut through the noise.

“Oi! Get away from the car!”

A mechanic’s voice barked from just behind you. You turned to see one of the Red Bull crew waving you off with obvious annoyance. “This area’s restricted during setups. Sorry.”

You frowned. “I’m just trying to get close for an interview.”

The mechanic scoffed. “We don’t need distractions. You journalists think you own the place.”

Before you could reply, Sebastian whipped his head around, his eyes landing on you.

“Look who’s still hanging around,” he said with that trademark smirk — but today, the edge in his voice was sharper, more warning than teasing.

You met his gaze, unwavering. “Someone’s got to keep you honest, right?”

His smirk faltered for the briefest moment, replaced by a hard gleam. “You’re walking a thin line, Y/L/N.”

You arched an eyebrow. “Since when do you care about my safety?”

He stepped closer, voice low enough that only you could hear over the rain. “I don’t. I care about people who get in my way.”

A flash of lightning split the sky, illuminating his face a flicker of something almost vulnerable beneath the bravado.

You swallowed the lump in your throat but pushed on, leaning closer so your voice was barely above the storm’s roar. “Tell me, Vettel, do you ever get tired of being everyone’s favorite punching bag? Or do you secretly enjoy it?”

He stared at you like you’d thrown down a gauntlet.

“Maybe I enjoy making people like you work harder,” he said, eyes twinkling with challenge.

You smirked back. “Good. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

For the first time, he didn’t have a snarky comeback. Instead, Sebastian glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Maybe… you’re not as insufferable as I thought.”

You almost laughed. Almost.

Some time later

Just then, a sudden commotion erupted near the pit lane, slicing through the usual background noise of engines humming and crews bustling about. You turned sharply, your eyes locking onto one of the other journalists a rival from a competing magazine who had made no secret of her disdain for your work. She was trying to sneak a photo inside a restricted area, camera raised with a determined glint, when a Red Bull mechanic stepped in, his expression grim as he shoved her roughly aside.

“She’s breaking the rules!” one of the nearby crew members muttered, but the shove seemed far more than a simple warning.

Without thinking, fueled by a mix of indignation and professional solidarity, you stepped forward. Your voice cut sharply through the murmur of the crowd. “Hey! That’s not fair! She’s a journalist too! You can’t just push her around like that!”

For a heartbeat, everything seemed to freeze the rain tapping steadily on the asphalt, the murmur of the crowd hushed into silence, the mechanic’s jaw clenched tightly. Then, from the corner of your eye, you saw Sebastian glance over. His usually composed face darkened instantly, his eyes narrowing as they locked onto you.

“Careful where you stick your nose,” he muttered, voice low and dangerous, meant only for you. “Don’t want you getting hurt.”

There was no mistaking the warning hidden beneath those words, but beneath the cold threat was something else — a challenge, a test. Your eyes met his, and in that charged moment, the air between you was thick with unspoken tension, electric and suffocating. Neither of you willing to break eye contact, neither of you willing to back down.

Suddenly, the PR handler appeared, pushing through the crowd with brisk urgency. His voice cut through the tension like a whip as he barked orders for Sebastian to move along time to get back to the schedule, away from distractions. Sebastian glanced at you one last time, his look unreadable equal parts dare, warning, and something else you couldn’t quite place before turning sharply on his heel and disappearing into the maze of paddock tents.

The rain kept falling, cold and relentless, drumming against your jacket and soaking into your skin. But despite the chill in the air, your heartbeat was loud, pounding like a war drum in your chest, drowning out the patter of the rain and the distant hum of the track.

In that instant, everything shifted. The fragile truce, the polite professionalism it all cracked and crumbled. What had once been a game of scoops and deadlines was now deeply, undeniably personal.

And with that, the real race had just begun.

#f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 fic #f1 smau #f1 fanfic #f1 smut #f1 angst #sebastian vettel one shot #sebastian vettel #sebastian vettel x reader #sebastian vettel imagine #sebastian vettel fanfic

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brodygold · 1 day ago

Text

The Perfect Wedding

“What do you mean he’s not coming, Barry!?”

“That’s what his text says, hon. Here, look.”

This was supposed to be the best day of our lives. Everything was leading up to today. First meeting Rachel at college, where we both studied mechanical engineering. Proposing on the two year anniversary of our first date, in the same restaurant, at the same table. Spending the next year meticulously planning every detail of the wedding: the perfect venue, the perfect catering, the perfect tux and wedding dress. I spent hours writing my vows, which were currently burning a hole in the pocket of my tuxedo pants. Everything had to be perfect.

So why in the world do I get a text from the wedding officiant, the pastor of our local church, 15 minutes before the ceremony starts saying he won’t be able to make it?

Rachel threw her hands up in frustration. “Ugh. Did he at least give a reason?”

I looked back at the text. “Nope. He just said ‘Sorry I won’t be able to make it bro.’” That confused me a little bit. Pastor Kenneth was a rather uptight old man. I didn’t think bro was even in his vocabulary.

I got pulled out of my thoughts with a strong tap on my shoulder.

Standing behind me was a man about our age, mid twenties I’d have to guess. He had deep dark brown hair with a golden streak in the front, combed neatly. His hazel eyes perfectly complemented his suit, and his gold tie was shiny and captivating, if a little casual for an elegant wedding like this.

“Are you two Barry and Rachel?”

“That’s us. Who are you?”

“Ken told me he was supposed to officiate your wedding today and feels bad that he won’t be able to, so I came in his place.”

I let out a sigh of relief, not even realizing he never introduced himself like I asked. The wedding proceeding as planned was great to hear. “That’s great. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t mention it. I just want you two to be happy today. I know weddings are stressful, but I want you to try to relax, okay?

Surprisingly, I actually did feel more relaxed when he said that. I could tell Rachel was the same. She had an almost blank look on her face behind her smile. I didn’t think about that too much though, relaxing was more important.

The man continues. “That’s it. Just relax for me. Everything will be perfect in the end.” He looked down at his gold watch. “It looks like we should go. Everyone is waiting for the big event to begin.”

—————————————————————————

I won’t lie, I felt incredibly nervous standing at the alter, my best man at my side, waiting for what felt like an eternity for it to start. But the man’s words resonated with me. Just relax, everything will be perfect. I can do this.

It wasn’t long before my bride to be was walking slowly down the aisle, guided by her father. Mr. Johnston had an air of authority around him even now. Stiff, formal, looking down on the common folk. I pushed that thought aside to continue admiring the love of my life walking towards me, ready to begin our new life together.

The new officiant began his speech.

“We have gathered here today for a truly momentous occasion. To celebrate the union and bond of two lovers and make it official. To share memories and make plenty of new ones for the future.”

“Marriage isn’t just about love. It’s a transformation. Bringing people together to become something bigger than the individual. Trusting one another. In essence, a team.”

Pretty standard as far as speeches go so far. This man seems to know his stuff at least. I can feel myself getting calmer and calmer already, and Rachel seems to be feeling the same way.

“Just like on a team, those in a marriage can grow. If they put in the time and effort, they can stand at the top together. They can score every goal.”

That makes sense. Reminds me of how I met Raychel, actually. I knew as soon as I saw her on the intramural soccer team our first year of college that she was the one. We went to the gym together as often as we could and really grew, both physically and as a couple. Made finding a tux for the wedding difficult, but it was worth it.

“But with enough hard work and dedication, they can succeed at anything. Even if they’re not the brightest bulbs in the box, the heart is what matters most. Who needs brains?”

Exactly! Who needs brains, anyway? Just because Raymel and I barely got out of school don’t mean we can’t do good! I remember meeting her at the gym where we work. I love a girl who can keep up at the gym with me! It’s just too bad we don’t have time for sports besides a weekly pickup game.

“And I can tell these two have heart and passion. I’ve seen these two dominate on the field, in practice, and in the locker rooms and showers of course. They’ll tackle any challenge thrown at them, jump over every hurdle, work together as a cohesive unit. Isn’t that what marriage is all about?”

“And as it is Pride Month, we must also be thankful this marriage is allowed to happen. Celebrate the happy marriage of two muscled bros, for all those who can’t. Shine like GOLD.”

Cheers to that! I’ll dominate anyone on the field and in bed. Bro, chick, it don’t matter to me. But being with my hot stud Raymond is enough for me. My golden bro for life, he is. I don’t know enough words to describe it, bro. His golden kit shows off every feature, just like mine. We just had to wear them for the wedding!

“But I’ve been talking for long enough. I know you’re all spacing out, thinking about the gym, the gains, the bros, and the gold. Now if you two wish, you may give your wedding vows.”

I knew I had dun somethin’ for this, but when I pulled out the paper from my pocket, it was, like, weird. There were all these squiggly lines and loops instead of words. I can’t read that shit! I just tossed it and said what I needed to.

“Raymond, bro… Before I met you, I didn’t even know what I was missing. You were like my missing protein shake, my gym partner for life. Every time I see you, my heart does like, a full chest day.”

“I promise to always spot you—physically, emotionally, and like, spiritually or whatever. I’ll flex with you through good reps and bad sets. Whether we’re crushing goals or just chillin’ in the locker room of life, I’m your man.”

“From now on, it’s just you and me, bro… two pumped-up jocks with one big golden goal—forever.”

I could hear several whoops and hollers from the crowd, all our golden bros cheering us on. My best man Ross clapped me on the shoulder hard. Raymond looked almost embarrassed, his cheeks redder than they were last night as we went to town on each other. He started talking not long after though.

“Barry, dude… ever since you walked into my life, it’s been total gains. You make my heart beat faster than any cardio ever could, and I actually hate cardio, so that means a lot.”

“I vow to never skip leg day with you. I vow to oil your back when it gets too hard to reach. I vow to be your number-one fan in the stands and your strongest rival on the field—’cause iron sharpens iron, bro.”

“Together, we’re unstoppable. I don’t need a playbook, ‘cause I already know the only move I wanna run… is the one that ends with us, side by side, forever jocks, forever in love.”

Cap smiled as Ray finished. I’m so pumped he could… “o-fish-ate” for us or whatever. I know he told us this big word for this, but my dum brain forgot it already. I’ll have to ask him later at the party.

“With the power invested in me, I now pronounce you husbands. You two may kiss and pump chests.”

And we sure did, bro, to the excitement of the bros. Seeing them all standing in the room, their golden jerseys proudly on as always, showing how much they have our backs. I knew we had something awesome here. There’s be plenty of time to celebrate later, and even more back at the hotel room of course, but I just had one more thing I wanted first.

Another kiss from my new husband.

I knew this was gonna be fuckin’ perfect.

#golden army #thegoldenteam #golden team #male transformation #jockification #male tf #jock tf #female to male #straight to bi #straight to gay #dumb jock #dumbing down #Golden Pride

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oneinnocentprincess · 1 day ago

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His response felt assuring to her, she did worry how he would feel with her not wanting to air out every single thing the advisors told her of him. He was certainly far kinder and more patient than what they had lead on. Part of her wished they would have simply told her nothing because all the worrying they gave her was for nothing.

Eleanor truly could not picture it. There was simply so much movement involved, even at the slow pace they were going, it felt like too much for a table to bear. Unless they built tables for just that. With everything Oscar has been telling her, she should not be surprised if that was such a thing. “I’m starting to think I had been kept out of certain rooms of my castle.” There were rooms she had been restricted from, but she never had thought too deeply of them when there were plenty of other options.

It was odd that something as simple as his reassurance to her that she did not need to describe what she felt meant so much to her. No need to explain or justify, simply just trust. “It truly is an odd feeling. It feels sort of similar to cramps…then again you do not know that either.” She still could not help still attempt to describe to him. “Does that book have any mentioning of the first time?” She decided to circle back to, along with trying to bring more light heartedness to the conversation.

Her eyes scanned the table, first trying to find what was familiar to her. It was not like she was on a completely different planet, there were things she recognized. Many, however, would have subtle differences because his cook and her cook were not the same person. She noticed what different sauces were set aside for certain foods, or how one appeared to be seasoned more heavily or lightly compared to how it was done back home. Breakfast food it was difficult to make several iterations of…but dinner food can easily be so different.

Eleanor first took the cup of wine, taking no time at all to have a sip from it. Shortly after she took the plate of food offered to her. While mostly it all did appear different than what would either be served or how it would be prepared in her kingdom, it all for the majority still appeared to be appetizing to her. “That is so odd.” She slipped bluntly when he mentioned his routine for where he would eat. “No offense!” Eleanor attempted to recover. “Simply just that I hardly ever had meals privately unless I needed to stay in my study for something, even then there likely was a guard or servant in the room… I guess I have gotten used to the staring and interrupting from staff.” She could understand why others would not like it, after all conversations would have to be more censored with staff in the room and that they would still need to play the part. Since it was something she’s already done for her entire life, she simply associated meals like dinner to be part of working time. “There were still evenings where I did hate having to follow some customs, not for malicious reasons, only because I was just so hungry and would want to skip the formalities.” But speaking of formalities, she had not yet touched her plate, it was still ingrained in her despite no other eyes in the room, to never eat before the king.

“I’m not sure I will do that.” She assured him regarding politics in bed, she tried to think of a situation where she felt the need to bring it up at that time of day. Never has she ever been heavily involved in political matters, outside being placed in this very marriage. Everything else her father had always handled and she never really heard of any complaints, she assumed it would be similar in some ways here.

It had occurred to her just then that there may be some difficulty in being completely honest with him. She thought and hoped what she said of her advisors was more than enough, but it was apparent that there still were details needing to be said. Not that she blamed him, she would also want to know every warning someone would receive about her. Still, things felt so new and delicate. “Well if it helps, so far what they have told me you have already proven wrong.”

Eleanor was ready to argue again to say that those activities were still nothing similar to sex, before she had a chance to speak up his additional comment stopped her. She could safely assume that he most definitely has experience performing such acts on a table. Her face still red from his comment, she looked at him in continued disbelief by his following words of such tapestries existence.

She did look forward to the soaps, even if it was such a minor detail. Eleanor did not hesitate in taking his arm to follow. “It hurts.” She finally confessed in a soft gentle voice, still not wanting to make a big deal of it. She did give a small pull to his upper just to tell him to slow down his pace, just by a little. “It’s an odd feeling. I do not even know how to even describe it and it’s not quite something you could relate to.” She whispered to him. “I do not hate it.” She quickly assured after realizing how negative her words were starting to sound.

Eleanor was surprise to see where the dinner was being held it was far different than from the day prior. Of course she did not expect every meal to be anywhere near the scale of their wedding, she still was used to dinners in her own palace being held in grand rooms with several observers. “Is this where you typically eat?” She asked, remembering once again they both were raised far differently—who knows what traditions were to be different here. “Thank you.” She told him with a small nod of gratitude as the seat was pulled for her. That was when she was reminded of her discomfort, when she had lowered herself into the chair. Her body tensed for a moment as she took in a sharp breath, noting to herself to request more medicine after dinner.

#isles of man

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mar64ds · 3 days ago

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So what now? What I’m working on next!

After finishing Friendship Test I wondered what would be my next project, I also wondered if I would take a break when Deltarune came out. Now we are here and I can say: I don’t want a break I want to keep working on my silly projects. So, what plan do I have? Well, I don’t! I just have a list of things I want to work on for the next years! Hopefully even be able to sell some of them, since I’m not doing very financially well it would be a lot of help (but you can pirate my games if you can’t afford to pay, even my $1 games, go crazy)

Anyway! Here is a list of my objectives. Enjoy!:

Friendship Test

Of course we’re starting with the big one, the one most people only care for. You can read this one and skip the rest, go crazy.

So! First of all, I would like to fix all typos the game has, I haven’t forgotten about this, I promise I will do it one day.

Second of all, any plans for merch? Well, I am not a very smart person and I have a lot of difficulty understanding how making merch works all by myself. It’s not very easy! I would love to make merch if I understood how I could. Maybe once I figure out something I can make anything, trust me it’s definitely not because I’m too lazy to do anything.

However!

I have an idea of making a 100 pages long comic with multiple shorts stories of the characters. It would be fully colored and present stories from pre-game, post-game and in between. I am not focused on this one right now, but it’s an idea I really like. I would sell it digitally so I don’t have to worry

But most important of all, where is this series going? Good question! So far, this game and all its post game art is all there is.

… However!

While the game is not officially on development, I’ve drawn a bunch of sprite work for Estranged Family, the spin-off game I’ve talked about before, as well as started writing a script. I do not see this project as being officially on the works, but I am testing (heh) the waters a little bit, it has a chance of going somewhere.

Aside from that, I have a little surprise I’m working on for Friendship Test. I can’t say what it is, but the script is fully written, most of the sprites are done and I’m starting programming today. I would like to have it finished by Christmas. So, even if I can’t reveal it yet, maybe look forward for that? Or don’t, Exe won’t mind.

Sam and Max

Sam and Max are a big inspiration for my work, they inspire me to create a lot, they also haven’t had a new official story since 2010 (if we don’t count the VR game), so it really motivates me to create my own stories for them.

Which is why I don’t have one but TWO projects related to them!

-Mansion Play

I’ve had the concept of this fake fangame since 2023, it’s practically the reason why I was motivated to make my own long projects like Friendship Test. There is a lot about it that I would like to rework, but it is an idea I like SO much. It would not be a game sadly, I would love it to be but it would take me 10 years and I would not make money from any of it and I do need money to survive. It would be what you have seen so far, drawings imitating a point and click game.

I’m excited to go back to working on it, however, it is still in a bit of a pause because...

-Sam&Max RPG

So, this one I already have a bunch of work done, it’s shorter and it is an actual game, which is why I’m prioritizing it before Mansion Play.

Sam&Max RPG parodies rpg games, but it is a passion project for character I really enjoy, and there might be more heart to the story than it might seem at first...

Obsolete Friends

This game is a bit of a challenge for me, it is very different from everything I create but I’m so fascinated by it, I like it a lot. I would REALLY like to make this game. It would be shorter than Friendship Test, I can imagine it being like 5 hours maybe, but it would have some better quality to it, at least I hope so.

This is one of the projects I’m most focused on right now, I haven’t done much yet, but I’m very excited to continue to work on it.

Short games

I have plans to make 1-2 hour long short little games, they will be free but will offer you the ‘name your own price’ for those who want/can support my work! These games will be related to some of my ocs you might already be familiar with:

-BreakTime

I have an idea of a short game where you play as a minion that was just hired and help out other minions that are going through some trouble today. You get to interact with a lot of silly minions and see how a regular day working for Lord Unicorn is like.

-How does it end

Short game about how Mask and Berry meet. You play as powerful ‘god’ Mask, doing simple tasks as picking up dirty plates or watering flowers while you slowly get to meet this simple but kind old man named Berry.

-Unlikely unlikable us

This one is very vague at the moment, it could possibly not even happen. But I really like the idea of a sam&max-like game with these two. Not my priority, but it’s very fun to think about.

A Loving House

I am very surprised how much people like this one! Aside from Friendship Test, everyone seems to like A Loving House the most out of all my OC projects.

It is a story I really like, and I’ve been reworking it a little on my mind lately and I like it more. Maybe not right now, but I definitely want to fully make this story. It could take years, but you WILL see A Loving House one day, that’s a promise.

Puppets

For those few that like my puppet work, I would like to train my puppetry skills a bit better, which is why I have a mini-series of shorts in mind with a certain character…

Dolly of course!

The idea would be that Dolly would have a youtube channel where she does ‘art tutorials’, even if she’s not really good at it. It would be silly and episodic, but with a running theme about being passionate about your hobbies even when you’re not good at them. Perhaps a certain question mark exclamation point puppet would also be part of the story...

I have other ideas for my puppets, but for now this is my only puppet objective.

Comics

Mar, weren’t you going to make that Laughing at Fear comic??? Weren’t you going to rework the New Mouse in Town story??? Don’t you never shut up about making BreakTime short comics?

Yes.

So… I REALLY want to make all of these, but right now I am in a bit of a block when it comes to my traditional drawings. Not an art block, because I know exactly what I want to draw, more like an exhaustion block. Making comics traditionally takes a lot of work, making five panels makes me want to cry right now, and I have so many other ideas that I would like to work on first that these are not my first priority. However, I will definitely work on them one day, ESPECIALLY Laughing at Fear, which is literally one of my favorite stories I have.

Undertale?

I would actually really like to fully create my story idea of Flowey deciding to leave the underground and meeting Echo and other monsters that still haven’t left the underground a reality. It is a very fun concept and I like Flowey and my cool oc Echo. Would it be a game, or a comic or edited screenshots with a lot of text boxes…? No idea! But I would like to make it.

Fanart?

‘Does this mean you’re not going to do any fanart?’ No, I still will from time to time! Whenever the inspiration hits me, they’re not going away.

Commissions???

I tried opening commissions one time and it was a DISASTER. I didn’t receive a single commissions even if they were open for a whole year, it was very funny but financially unproductive. Even if not right now, I would definitely like to try again, I really need the money.

---

And those are my objectives! I don’t know what my life will be like in 10 years, but I do know what my projects will be like in the next 10 years lol. Thanks for reading, I hope you look forward to some of these, and even if you don’t that’s awesome, thanks for reading anyway.

#my ocs

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lifblogs · 1 day ago

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It's Too Early for This

Week 1 of @summer-of-bad-batch

Bonus Prompt: "It's too early for this." Rating: General Audiences Word Count: 1199 Summary: Omega wants help picking out an outfit for a special day, and Crosshair is still working on waking up. READ ON AO3

“So which outfit should I wear?”

Crosshair looked up from his caf at Omega holding out two selections of outfits for school. He had been too busy slowly waking up to take in what she’d been talking about just before this.

“Hmm?”

She groaned, body slumping like her excitement or anxiety had been deflated.

“Crosshair, I really don’t know.”

“Ask Wrecker.”

She rolled her eyes (dear Force, teenagers were hard), and sat in the chair next to the couch where he was currently nursing his cup of caf.

He needed another sip.

His eyelids and body were heavy, mind foggy, and as usual, Omega was up with a burst of energy. She’d had several growth spurts, and her limbs were in that stage of being awkwardly long. Of course she was as beautiful as ever, though.

“He already left, remember?”

“No,” he answered, giving her a stare.

“It used to never take you this long to wake up,” she complained.

Her hair was up in a messy ponytail, and she was still in the turquoise sleeveless tunic and shorts that served as her favorite pair of pajamas.

“I’m retired,” he complained.

Omega snorted. “Sure. But please, can you help me?”

“What makes you think I know about fashion?”

Omega looked him over. “Good point.”

That stung a bit. He rolled his eyes at her, and drank more caf, enjoying the mix of sweet and bitter, the soothing heat.

“Why is this so important?” he asked her.

“Because I’m going out with Lyanna after school today.”

Crosshair rubbed at the bridge of his nose. For weeks Omega had been talking about Lyanna. It was always about Lyanna. He loved it, he was happy for her, but she simply could not make up her mind about whether to tell her she now saw her as more than a friend, and at the beginning of Crosshair’s day, it was a lot.

“It’s too early for this,” he complained, leaning back against the wicker back of the couch.

Omega relinquished one outfit to make a grab for his caf. Expecting it, Crosshair pulled it away. This was getting harder to do as she grew, though. At this point she was only several inches shorter than Hunter.

Crosshair thanked the Kaminoans for making him over six feet tall, but if Omega kept growing, he was not going to win these battles over his caf.

“It’ll stunt your growth,” he lied.

“Sure.”

“Just get your own.”

“I’m busy.”

“Uh huh.”

“Please, Crosshair, which one do I wear?” Omega asked, a note of desperation in her voice.

Crosshair sighed, had more caf, and then set it aside on the far end of the coffee table from Omega.

Crosshair considered trying to have her go to someone else, but Tech was difficult in the morning from chronic pain, and Hunter was taking Batcher for a walk. He looked over a dress she was considering, and then a matching top and shorts. The dress was in the sea foam green color she loved so much, and the other option was a vivid, deep blue. Hmm, he supposed the blue would like striking against her tan skin.

“The blue,” he told her.

Omega leapt up, and rushed him in a hug.

“You’re the best.”

Before he could raise his arms to hug her back she was already prancing to her room.

Curiosity overcame Crosshair, and the caf was beginning to wake him up, so he went to the hall, and leaned against the smooth, stone wall.

“So, is this a date?” he asked her, arms crossed, voice traveling down the hall to her room all the way at the end on the right.

“No!” Omega called. “Yes, I mean… Ugh, I don’t know. Did you ever have to go through this?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“It’s frustrating.”

Soon Omega was at her door to speak with him, looking beautiful in the matching outfit. She was brushing her hair, wincing at some stubborn knots.

“It’s scary,” she admitted.

Crosshair went over, and put one hand on her shoulder.

“Scarier than Tantiss?”

“Stop teasing me.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Fine. But… I’ve seen you face anything that comes your way. I’m… sure you can handle your feelings.”

“You try being a teenage girl.”

He laughed. “No, thank you. Being a teenage boy was hard enough.”

His chest felt warm, warm in a way that not even caf could give him, as Omega laughed.

“So… should I tell her?”

“Wait for the right moment,” Crosshair advised. “You’ll know it when it comes to you.”

“This isn’t about getting the right shot, you know.”

“It still applies. So where are you going?”

“Well, there’s this new place with fried desserts that opened up in lower Pabu. Lyanna said she’s dying to check it out.”

“Hmm, could be romantic.”

Now Omega was blushing, and Crosshair almost felt a grin slide onto his face. It was sometimes hard not to smile where Omega was involved.

“Shut up,” Omega murmured, smiling, ducking her head down.

Crosshair turned to hide his smile. Besides, he had to finish his caf before walking Omega to school.

He was more awake once he finished his caf, and the sunny day and blue sky helped immensely. He did have work he had to do, but he loved taking turns with Hunter to walk Omega to school. Sure, he didn’t have to, but he didn’t want to miss any time with her.

And he did his very best not to mention Lyanna at all, though he was dying to, just to tease Omega a little.

Once at the school, other teenagers milling about (a situation Crosshair did not want to wade into), he pulled Omega close to kiss her on the head.

“Don’t stay out late,” he told her. “You have your comm on you?”

“You’re being overprotective.”

“You’re…”

He couldn’t think of a rebuttal to that, or anything to really tease her about because when he looked at her he saw a girl becoming a beautiful, kind, brave, fierce young woman, and he was lost in the moment, wishing she could stay his child forever, even as he glowed with pride.

“Have fun,” he managed.

Omega looked him over, perhaps noting emotions on his face he didn’t wish to show. Yet it was impossible to hide from her.

She pulled him into a hug, and this was better than caf, this was worth getting up early for, being tired for. It was worth the whole galaxy.

Crosshair held her in his arms.

“Bring me back something?” he asked after a few blissful moments.

Omega laughed, and pulled back to lightly slap him on the chest.

“Get some yourself.”

“What?” he cried as she drew away.

Omega turned to leave, and waved. “That’s what you get for not letting me drink your caf.”

“Annoying,” he muttered.

“I heard that.”

“And?”

“Stow it.”

He shook his head, smiling.

“See you later.”

She waved again, and joined the other students milling about outside before their first class started.

And the wave of emotions building in Crosshair were more than he felt like dealing with at the moment.

“Yep,” he sighed. “It’s too early for this.”

#summerofbadbatch2025 #week1 #'it's too early for this'#crosshair #omega #star wars #the bad batch #tbb #tbb crosshair #tbb omega #fanfiction #writing #my writing

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jackactuallywrites · 1 day ago

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All Seeing, All Knowing, All Loving Part 25

Rating: No explicit sex or violence

Summary: you’re soulmates ofc I wouldn’t make you break up

Word count: 2,261

ao3 link

Helen had always been the staunchest man-hater of your little group, but even she wouldn’t defend your actions.

“I mean, he just got back from wherever the fuck, and you go off on him?”

“I didn’t go off on him!”

“To be fair,” Kate argued, “you did snap at him.”

If even your girls weren’t feeding your delusions, you were clearly quite deep in the shit. You poked at your Chinese with a fork, twirling the noodles around the tines. Nobody liked to admit that they were wrong, and you were no exception. Granted, you were lucky that you had friends who would call you out and bring you back to earth, but that didn’t mean you liked it.

“Yeah, you are gonna have to pull your head out your arse,” Helen commented, “suck it up, put on your big girl pants, and apologise. You throw this away based on your ego, and I will, in fact, belt you.”

“You two are my mates. Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”

Kate snorted, “Being on your side involves calling you a dickhead when you are being a dickhead.”

You waved away their words, not wanting to confront that truth just yet, “Alright, never mind my relationship drama. It’s film night! What we watching?”

It was a poor attempt at changing the subject, and they shared a glance, but allowed you to put it aside for now. You gave Helen the remote, allowing the pair of them to bicker while you stared somewhere past the TV, your mind on Simon.

Kate and Helen were long asleep as the credits of the last film rolled, but you were still wide awake. You’d tried in vain to get comfortable for the last hour, but all you’d done was shift from one side to the other, rolling to and fro like a pig over a spit. You would have liked to have pretended that this was due to the fact that the other two had taken each side of the sofa, leaving you awkwardly in the middle, but there was no point. It was solely due to the fact that you hadn’t spoken to Simon in days. This wasn’t unusual, of course, you’d spent the last few months barely speaking, yet this time, it was a choice.

It didn’t take you long to get sick of it. Very carefully, you extricated yourself from under the duvet and walked over to the hallway, where you’d left Price’s receipt on the side. You weren’t sure how many times you’d looked at it over the last few days, more than a dozen at the very least, but you’d never actually managed to suck it up and call. Sometimes, you’d gotten so far as to type in the numbers, but you’d never actually called.

Fuck it.

Tonight was the night. You grabbed your coat, sticking the receipt in your pocket, slipped your daps on, and slunk out into the hallway, taking your keys and locking the door behind you. Where you were going, you weren’t entirely sure, you just aimlessly wandered down the hallway until you got out to the stone stairwell, and you sat down on the cold concrete, digging the receipt out of your pocket and then typing the numbers in your phone. God, what you would have given for the old phones, with the cords, so you could soothe yourself by wrapping your fingers around the coils, playing with the twisted plastic. Unfortunately, you had a modern mobile, so you just fiddled with the receipt.

“Price.”

He’d picked up on one ring. Considering it was two in the morning, you were surprised.

“Price? You told us to give you a ring?”

“You made your mind up, then?”

“No.”

“What do you want then?”

“I want support, Price. Someone who actually knows what I’m going through, so I can actually sort my shit out.”

“Kingy will give you a ring. Sit tight.”

With that, he abruptly hung up. Prick. Even if he was helping, he could have had a bit more bedside manner. Well. It was two in the morning; if he was awake at this time, he probably had something serious going on.

It didn’t take long for Kingy to ring you, your phone buzzing with an unfamiliar number, and you picked up with a heavy sigh,

“Hello?”

“Alright, duck? Price said you wanted a ring?”

“What I wanted was support, with the whole ‘my boyfriend might die’ thing.”

“Ah. Gotcha. Still reeling after the whole hospital thing?”

“I mean, he was blown up. How am I supposed to take that on the chin?”

“He’s been blown up plenty, to be fair. It’ll take more than that to kill him.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better, Kingy.”

“Well, what do you want? I won’t lie and say it’ll be easy. My husband still worries every time I deploy, and he’s had to deal for a good few years now.”

You hadn’t realised anyone else even had a relationship. They all seemed like permanent bachelors to you. You folded your coat underneath you to take away some of the coldness that was seeping up from the concrete into your skin.

“How does he deal with it?”

“I dunno. Faith, I ‘spose. Faith that I’ll come back to him, that my lot will take care of me. Ultimately, I think it comes down to the person. He can deal with me being in danger. He doesn’t love it— who would— but he manages. And I think that’s about the size of it. You think you can manage it?”

It was a hard fucking question, and one you didn’t have an answer for.

“Tell you what. How about me and you get summat to eat? There’s a late night kebab place near you.”

You were well aware of that place, having ended many a drunken night trying to convince the manager to call you ‘boss man’. It hadn’t worked, but you’d never stopped trying.

“Alright, I could go for a kebab.”

Half an hour later, you were sat in the car park with Kingy and his husband, picking at chips as you listened to Danny,

“What Kingy forgets to mention is the therapy. A lot of therapy. Which is a weird, innit, you’d think it’d be them over there with the shrinks, but apparently they’re good for us waiting at home too.”

“And that helps?”

“Well, that and a bit of fluoxetine to take the edge off.”

You chewed on the chips thoughtfully as you considered Danny’s words. His husband was in just as much danger as Simon on the regular, but he seemed content with the situation, happy, even. Could that be you? Would there ever be a point where you wouldn’t have nightmares about Simon dying somewhere awful?

“-and there might even be a little one on the way next year.”

You tuned back in to the conversation, “You two having a baby?”

Danny grinned, “If they tire of making us jump through hoops. Honest, they talk to our mums, our mates, our bosses, I’ve got reference letters coming out my arse at this point.”

Kingy snorted, “Yeah, it is a bit full on. But we make it work. If you’re right for each other, you’ll figure it out. Don’t get me wrong, there’ll be some hard graft, but you’ll come out the other side stronger.” He put down his coke to look at you, “I really think Ghost would put the work in.”

“She dumped Ghost?” Danny cackled, “Fuckin’ hell. No wonder he’s been such a cunt lately.”

You arched a brow at Kingy, and he elaborated, “Our man might have been a bit on the grumpy side lately.”

“He made a recruit faint. And then bollocked him for fainting.”

“I think it’s more the crutches than anything. He doesn’t like being anything other than peak physical fitness.”

You must have looked guilty, because Kingy immediately lectured you, “Now, don’t be going back to him out of obligation. Nor pity, either. Ghost’s a big boy. The only one responsible for his mental health is himself; don’t you be taking that on. Not to be harsh, but he’ll be perfectly fine without you.”

You tossed a chip to a nearby pigeon, pondering Kingy’s words. What did you want? Well, dumb question; you wanted Simon. The dilemma was how much heartache would you be willing to go through for him? Would it be worth it? There was no comparing him to anyone else. He’d brought you stunning flowers, he’d given you cats, driven out in the middle of the night just to give you a lift home, watched Twilight with your girls, even called in the middle of a damn battlefield just to wish you a merry Christmas. Fuck. You’d never even come close to having that level of dedication before, and here you were about to throw it all away.

Kingy stopped bickering with his husband about mushy peas so he could instead prod you with his wooden fork, “Penny for your thoughts?”

“I think I made a huge cock up by leaving him.”

Danny muttered ‘I’ll say’ under his breath, and Kingy elbowed him in the ribs before continuing, “It’s not too late to fix things. Ghost’s been discharged to the watchful eye of the medics on base. Just say the word and I’ll take you there.”

Would it be rude to ditch Kate and Helen at your house? Probably, but they did both own keys to it, and were more than happy to make themselves breakfast rummaging through your cupboards.

“Alright. Take me.”

The base felt a lot spookier in the dark. You’d only ever been here during the day, when it was creepy enough, but now you half expected demons to leap out at you from every corner. Kingy didn’t seem so bothered, whistling to himself as he keyed in the code to the building, covering the keypad with his hand as he did so. You might have been offended if you hadn’t already broken into this very base twice before. Kingy pulled the door open, then ushered you through, his voice quiet, “Fair chance he’s asleep, given it’s about three in the morning. Mind you, he has been pulling all-nighters.”

He hovered at the door, and you looked down the hallway, then back at him, “Not coming?”

“He’s the only one sleeping in this building. Wakes at the drop of a hat, so he banned everyone else from sleeping anywhere near him. Guarantee he will have woken up just from me opening this door.” He pointed down the corridor, “Last door on your right. Have fun.”

With that, he left you, the door slowly swinging shut, leaving you alone with only the quiet sound of the halogen light bulbs buzzing overhead. You swallowed your nerves, walking down to the last door, wishing you were wearing something a little nicer than an oversized T-shirt and a pair of old leggings, as though you’d leapt right out of the late noughties. All you were missing was a statement owl necklace and a pair of uggs.

Simon’s door opened before you got to it. He hobbled out on his crutches, still wearing his cargo trousers like he had been in the hospital, though now his cast was decorated with both signatures and knobs. Typical. At least his arm wasn’t in a sling anymore, though now that he was wearing a regular T-shirt, you could see the bruises and scrapes decorating his tanned skin. His eyes were narrowed, a scowl playing on his lips already as he struggled with the door. For once, they didn’t soften as soon as he caught sight of you. You could practically see his guard being up.

“Simon. I came here to apologise.” Your voice sounded stilted and formal to your own ears, so you overcompensated, “I mean, I was such a dick in the hospital ‘cause you were injured and I was stressing about you being injured and I was tired, and they shut down the Greggs near me for refurb so I haven’t been able to just have a steak bake instead of cooking and I’m so knackered because-“

“Come to bed.”

“You what?”

He sighed, “I’m tired, love. My fuckin’ leg hurts, my arm hurts, and my sodding ribs too. Don’t make me stand around.”

Christ, he really was in a mardy. Not that you were going to turn him down, though. You took the weight of the door from him, letting him toss his crutches to the side and limp back to bed. You quickly took your shoes off and hung your coat over the back of a nearby chair, then pulled your leggings down, tossing them aside for now. He was already getting back in bed, pulling the duvet back up around his shoulders, eyes already closed. You hesitated for a moment before deciding to just go with it, slipping into bed beside him. Immediately, his arm snaking around you to gently pull you back against him, lips pressing a soft kiss to your shoulder. The tightness went out of your stomach as he buried his face in your neck, his fingers linking with your hand as he held you against him. You couldn’t help but speak again, not quite believing you’d been forgiven so easily, “I really am sorry, Simon. I do love you.”

His voice was soft and a little muffled, already sounding half asleep. “Suck my dick and I’ll forgive you.”

Shit, you’d take that.

“Deal.”

Simon’s snore was your only answer.

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