#but it might equally require a few hours' waiting

[icryyoumercy]

'please stand in front of this toilet in the most uncomfortable and counterintuitive position possible, and then pee in this cup while under direct video surveillance'

... and then the people making me do this wonder it doesn't work?

like. if you need to observe people peeing in a cup, at least you could set up the surveillance in a way that doesn't require them to stand sideways to a toilet while holding their feet uncomfortably close together, that shouldn't be that difficult

[nebulaafterdark]

The Rats

Aegon ii Targaryen x Velaryon(Strong)!Reader

Summary: Aegon attempts to make peace with Rhaenyra after being forced to usurp her throne. Lucerys’ death complicates things.

18+ ONLY, MDNI. Targcest, smut, angst, violence. S2 SPOILERS

“I can’t be ‘Aegon the Magnanimous.’ No one knows what Magnanimous means.” Aegon drawls, slumped over in his throne. The hour is late and there are many places he’d rather be. Namely with his beloved wife, who he’s scarcely seen, since taking on his duties. Their children will already be asleep, but if they wrap things up here soon, he may have a few moments with Y/N before bed.

“Aegon the dragon cock.” One of the piss drunk men raises his cup to the king.

“That’s more like it,” Aegon claps his hands together.

The men hoot and holler at the name. Dissolving into laughter.

“Speaking of,” Aegon rises to his feet, “I must get back to my wife. I did not wed her to admire from afar.” Aegon tosses back the remainder of his wine, throwing his gauntlet down beside the throne. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

He wastes no time, taking the stairs two at a time up to his chambers. His queen is already abed, waiting up for him with a bit of light reading. “What story is that now, my dearest love?” Aegon asks, pulling off his boots.

“It’s a book about the plague.” Y/N bends it open at the spine, setting the bound pages on the bedside table.

“Seems a bit morbid.” Aegon frowns, “especially in these times, wouldn’t you say?”

“Do you have something better in mind, your grace?”

Aegon doesn’t miss the bitterness in her voice. “You are my equal, here of all places. Don’t do this to me, please. Do not ice me out, I cannot bear it.”

Y/N sighs, crossing both arms over her chest. “Helaena is frightened of the rats. I’ve been looking into their behaviors and customs.”

Aegon flops onto the mattress, unceremoniously. “The rats?”

Y/N nods, “to be honest, I’m not particularly fond of them either. Although, they are interesting.”

“No vermin shall touch you so long as I live, darling girl. The only thing nibbling your toes will be me.” He wiggles his foot against hers for emphasis.

Y/N huffs a laugh. Allowing the silence between them to hang heavy.

“I am sorry about your brother.” Aegon says, despite ordering his own brother, Aemond, away at the news and holding her through sobs, he’s yet to say the words. “I cannot stand your suffering. It’s made it nearly impossible to be away from you to perform my duties.”

Y/N brings his hand to her lips, kissing the knuckles.

“I want you to attend the petitions,” he decides. “At my side, in my lap, seated directly on my cock; whatever suits you.”

“Directly on your cock?” Y/N chortles, “your mother would have my head.”

“She will do no such thing, you are queen. You may do as you wish.”

“You spoil me,” that’s what everyone says anyway.

“You’re mine to spoil. They’re jealous is all.”

“Shall we practice then? For the hearings?”

“If you wish.” Aegon rolls onto his back, sliding both arms behind his head.

Y/N grins, devilishly as she slides off his clothes, allowing his cock to spring free. Her own nightgown and small clothes follow before she swings a leg over his hips and slides down his length.

“Seven hells,” Aegon groans.

His wife leans forward, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips.

“A tenth of my flock has been taken, your grace.” Aegon tells her, repeating one of the smallfolk’s concerns.

“Your what?” Y/N blinks at him.

“Sheep,” he continues, “a tenth of them gone, taken by your guard, just before winter. What say you, my queen?”

“Give them back.” Y/N sighs as his hands finally land on her hips, guiding her movements.

“That’s what I said,” Aegon hums, thrusting up to meet her.

“Did they listen?”

“No.” Aegon purses his lips, “they might need them to feed the dragons.”

“It’s much harder to concentrate this way, my king.”

“I know,” he coos, “but you’re doing so well.”

“The dragons,” Y/N pants, “have never required sheep from the smallfolk before.”

“We have never been to war.” Aegon says, through gritted teeth as she clenches around him.

“My mother will want revenge for Lucerys.”

“And I want this matter resolved peacefully.” Aegon assures her, “still I cannot give my brother up for the slaughter.”

“I don’t see how this can end peacefully now,” Y/N laments, feeling the coil in her belly tighten. “It will end in fire and blood.”

“What would you have me do?”

Y/N shakes her head, “We must stop Aemond from claiming Harrenhal at the least.”

“Consider it done.” Aegon beckons her down for a kiss.

The clatter of metal against the floor breaks them apart, “what was that?” Y/N’s eyes search the room.

“Twas only the wind, my dearest love.” Aegon smiles up at his wife.

The hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention. “No. Something is wrong.”

“I agree,” Aegon takes her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it to a taut peak. “You stopped moving.”

“Aegon,” she warns, “please.”

“Shhh,” he gentles her back to a steady grind. “I’m here. You are safe.”

Y/N offers a shaky smile. Still something seems amiss, though she can’t think much more about it with Aegon’s free hand toying with her pearl.

“Cum on my cock, then we will look into it, if you feel so inclined.”

Y/N nods, bouncing faster, harder. Trying to ignore the worry twisting at her gut.

Aegon’s bottom lip is caught between his teeth. “Fuck, I love you.”

“I love you.”

“More than anyone or anything, save for our children. I want you to remember that…always.”

Y/N nods, feeling herself teetering on the precipice. “I-” she wants to say it back, only her brain doesn’t seem to be working.

“Hush, sweetheart.” Aegon groans, because he knows. Rubbing his fingers harshly against her pearl to push her over the edge. Shaking and crying her release as she milks his cock. “Good girl.” Aegon fills her pulsing cunt with his spend.

She leans toward her husband, capturing his lips as they ride out their high. Once she has caught her breath Y/N rolls away, off of the bed, shuffling back into her nightgown.

Aegon follows her lead, redressing in his tunic and trousers. “Head to the children’s room, wait for me there. I’ll have the guards help me search the floor for any sign of…rats.”

Y/N wrings her hands, knowing how silly it sounds. “Thank you, Aegon.”

He closes the distance between them, pressing his lips to her forehead and cheek. “You’re more than welcome.” He watches her leave the room before heading in the opposite direction. Where is everyone? The keep is never so quiet, even at night.

Y/N scampers down the hallway to the nursery, it takes a moment for her mind to make sense of the scene before her. Helaena with a knife held to her throat by a strange man. His counterpart hovering over the children’s beds with a blade at the ready.

“What are you doing?” Y/N breathes, clutching a hand to her chest.

The man holding Helaena shoves her aside.

Y/N catches the woman in her arms, smoothing down her white tresses. Helaena clings to her. “It’s ok.”

The children sleep better together, they always have. Besides the maids prefer Aegon and Y/N’s children close to Aemond and Helaena’s for practical reasons, until they are older.

“Which of them are yours?” The first man demands.

“All of them,” Y/N lies. “All of them are mine.”

“You have but four children,” Cheese insists. “Here lie six, tell me which are yours and I will spare them.”

“If I don’t tell you and you’re wrong, my mother will have your head.” Y/N clenches her jaw. “For all I know of our true queen, this was not her request. So who’s was it?”

“A son for a son, that’s what’s fair.” Blood insists.

“What did they offer you? Gold?” Y/N wonders, “I’ll double it if you leave now.”

The men look to each other, undecided.

“Or you could take me instead. I’m worth more to my mother than any bounty.” Rhaenyra’s eldest child offers.

————————————————————————-

Aegon completes his sweep of their chambers, along with the rest of the royal floor. Nothing is amiss. He moves to the children’s quarters and finds Helaena, curled up on the floor. “What’s happened?”

Helaena takes her brother’s outstretched hand. “They wanted to kill the boy.”

The boy? “My boy?”

Helaena shakes her head, “mine.”

Aegon looks to his nephew, still sleeping soundly. “Where is Y/N?”

“They took her instead.”

“Where the hell is Cole?” Aegon demands. “Where in the seven hells is anyone?”

“I don’t know,” Helaena sobs.

Part 2

[paarksunghoon]

May I request a jakey fic,,,, please ,, jake coming home after y/n had a terrible no good week.,,, some comfort from our favorite Aussie? 🦔

literally anything for You

***

It’s been quite the week.

You’ve been repeating this phrase over and over again for the past month but it doesn’t seem like things are faring any better. The days blend together until you find yourself unable to remember what day it is or the last time you ate.

Your boyfriend’s been unreachable for the past week because he’s been preoccupied with an important project at work that requires him to wake up before the sun rises and sleep for a few hours when he gets home. It’s temporary and you know it’ll be over soon, but the emptiness of his side of your bed feels like he’ll be gone forever.

The apartment has been too quiet. Jake comes over a few times a week and stays the night. He has his own drawer and toothbrush at your place and half of his things are in your closet. But even with the remnants of him scattered around you, it feels like Jake’s been gone far longer than he has. He might as well live with you anyway. You miss him.

Sunday evening rolls around and the empty apartment is too much for you to handle. Today is Jake’s last day working on the godforsaken project that has eaten up his time and weekends. You can barely stand to count the minutes until he comes home.

you: jake

He texts you back immediately.

jake: yeah, baby?

jake: you never call me jake…baby are you okay

you: hurry home please ):

jake: i’m on my way, pretty. stay awake for me. i want a kiss when i see you

His request alone is enough to keep you from falling into a listless slumber.

When the lock to your apartment starts to move, the sound makes your ears perk up and you’re on your feet before you can even think about it. Jake opens the door just as you reach him and he’s got his arms wide open for you to come into him.

The weight of his chin rests on the crowd of your head and suddenly the world doesn’t feel so hard anymore. Jake lets you push your body against his chest and waddles the two of you deeper into your apartment before kicking the door closed behind him. His arms come to encircle your body to keep you tight against him and he pushes the hem of your shirt up so his thumb can rub soothing circles over your skin.

This feels right. Being here with Jake, having him holding you like he’d carry you anywhere you asked, makes all of your worries feel like they’re far away.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks from above in a voice so delicate that it makes your heart lurch.

You don’t answer him verbally and he knows you too well by now. His hands don’t wait for your answer either. While you push yourself on your toes to press your lips against his soft ones, Jake’s hands cup your jaw and hold you in place while he pushes against you with equal want and force.

He feels you tugging on the bottom of his shirt like you can’t get enough of him. Jake senses the weight of his absence in your kiss and pecks your lips over and over again after you’ve pulled away to regain your breath.

“I missed you so much,” you whisper. He tucks you right back into him, kissing the top of your head.

“I missed you too, baby. What’s got you so worked up?”

The tears line your eyes. “Life is just really, really hard.”

“Can I do anything to make you feel better?”

“Watch movies and cuddle?”

Jake nods and you feel his smile against your hair. “Do you want to order takeout too?”

“Wow, it’s like you know me, or something.” Your sarcasm makes him smile even harder. A small part of the person he knows is reemerging.

“Go make yourself comfortable on the couch while I chance. I’ll be back on a second, I promise.”

[hauntedhowlett-writes]

title: miss me in your bones | chapter one

pairing: dad’s best friend!joel miller/female reader

chapter rating: PG13

chapters: 1/?

read on AO3 | masterlist

summary:

When Joel Miller started his own contracting business, he didn’t expect all the administrative tasks that came with it. As a result, his budding business is in desperate need of help.

Good thing his best friend’s daughter is home for the summer from college. And sure, he’s always been attracted to you, but he can keep that under control.

It’s just one summer, right?

author’s note: oh look, another multi-chapter joel miller au. this one will be a slower(er) burn than “cruel summer”, with more angst. i’m in my folklore era, sorry y’all. please consider leaving a comment if you liked the chapter! 💕

content warnings/additional tags: au - no outbreak, age difference (21f and 36m), mutual pining, dad’s best friend!joel, college student!reader, no sarah, brief mention of joel’s attraction to the reader when she’s 17.

“You still need help with your bookkeeping?” Joel’s best friend asks as they sip their beers, basketball game playing on the TV.

Joel has recently branched out and started his own contracting business, a dream he’s had since he started working fresh out of high school. He’s taken a few night classes and earned himself an associates degree in business administration from the community college, in the hopes that it might help him not drive his budding business venture straight into the dirt.

What he wasn’t prepared for was the volume of administrative tasks he’d have to take on. Invoicing, pricing, scheduling, negotiating, and the list keeps growing. Joel just wants to bring a vision to life with his hands. He doesn’t want to have to sit at a computer for hours a day before getting to the fun stuff.

He sighs. “Yeah, I’m drownin’ in all that stuff. Seems like there’s not enough hours in the day to be doin’ the dirty work and get all that shit done, too.”

“Well, my daughter’s comin’ home for the summer. She said she was lookin’ for a job so that she can save up some money before goin’ back to school in the fall. She could help you out. She’s good with computers,” his friend says. Joel swallows.

Joel’s lived next door to you and your dad for four years now. When he first moved in next to the single dad, you were seventeen, getting ready to finish up high school and head off to college. You were your dad’s pride and joy, a sweet girl with brains and beauty that he bragged about constantly. You’d gotten a full academic scholarship to UCLA, no small feat, but you’d been required to spend your first two summers on campus fulfilling a certain number of credits, which meant you hadn't visited home in some time due to the cost.

This also meant Joel got a reprieve from the inappropriate thoughts he’s had about you since the first time he met you. When you’d stood by the door with your dad, welcoming him to the neighborhood, but all he could think about was the curve of your lips as you smiled at him or the way you looked up at him through your lashes when he spoke, hanging on his every word like he was spilling the secrets of the universe.

For his first year in his new house, you were there when he came over on the weekends, watching football with your dad or doing homework at the kitchen table. Joel was there for your graduation party, and sang Happy Birthday as you blew out the candles for your eighteenth year. He helped your dad pack up his truck with your boxes of stuff and waved goodbye from the driveway as you set off to college.

And the whole time he had to beat the thoughts of pressing a hand to your thigh beneath the dining table or pulling you to the side to kiss you senseless. He was equal parts relieved and disappointed when your dad drove you over a thousand miles away.

Your dad is still waiting for an answer, and Joel can’t come up with a good enough reason to say no to his offer of your help. He needs it.

He can keep himself under control for one summer.

“Sure, that would be great,” Joel replies with a strained smile unnoticed by your dad.

“Great! I’ll let her know.”

________

You’re so excited to be home for a whole summer. Between your rigorous course load over the last two years and the cost of housing and travel, you haven’t been able to visit home. Your dad pays for half your housing on top of his own expenses, so you didn’t want to burden him more with travel costs.

“How was your flight, kiddo,” your dad asks as he wraps you in a tight hug.

“Went well enough. Definitely better than driving for two days with some stinky old man,” you tease. He pushes at your shoulder.

Your relationship with your dad is a close one, the result of being the only child to a single parent and all his efforts over the years to make sure he does the best job he can. And while he often had to work overtime, he was always there for you when it mattered and never made you feel like you weren’t loved.

“I’m happy you’re back, squirt. House is too quiet without you,” he says as he pulls away from the pick-up area and rejoins Austin traffic. His words make your heart clench.

“Just another year and I’ll hopefully be able to get a job closer to home,” you tell him.

“With that fancy degree, I’m sure you’ll be able to get any job you want.”

The fancy degree in question is in aerospace engineering. Ever since your dad took you to visit the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a rare vacation out of the state, you’d been hooked on the idea of helping get rockets to space.

“Hopefully. With all the private space exploration initiatives, should be plenty of jobs to go around. California is fun, but Texas is home.”

He smiles at you, a big wide grin that you’d missed in your time away.

“Listen, you know how you said you wanted to find a job for the summer while you’re home?” He asks. You nod. “Well, Joel started up his own contracting business and is hopin’ to get some help with the administrative work. Schedulin’, contracts, bookkeepin’. I know it’s not what you’re studyin’ or anythin’ but it might be nice to give your brain a break from all that fancy math you do.”

Your stomach erupts in butterflies at just the mention of your dad’s best friend and neighbor, Joel Miller. Ever since you first met when he moved in next door, you’ve been smitten. He’s a bit younger than your dad, somewhere in his mid-thirties while your dad has crossed the threshold to his forties. He’s tall and broad with muscles defined from hard labor, dark curly hair that’s almost always unruly, and kind brown eyes that have started to crinkle in the corners with a life well lived.

He’s so gorgeous it actually hurts.

You’ve spent a fair share of your nights away from home thinking about Joel Miller as you slid a hand into your pajama pants. Did he ever think about you? You doubt it, but a girl could dream.

In your daydreaming, you almost forget to answer your dad. “Oh, uh, sure. I can help out Mr. Miller,” you reply, clearing your throat.

“Thanks, sweetie. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the help.”

________

Joel is cursing up a storm as he tries to clean up the spare room he uses as an office and storage area these days. There’s papers everywhere, supply quotes and contracts and instruction manuals across every surface to the point where the old laptop he uses for work sits buried, battery dead from neglect. He tries to sort everything into a neat pile, but the pile is too big and scatters everywhere once more.

You’re supposed to start working with him at nine this morning. He’s got a consultation scheduled after lunch, giving him plenty of time to show you the nightmare you’re walking into.

There’s a knock at the door and Joel rushes from the back of the house to answer.

You’re standing on his porch, as you have hundreds of times, but after two and a half years away at school, the girl he’d waved goodbye to one August morning has disappeared. Your hair is drastically different and your face has lost the roundness of your teen years, but the smile that stretches your lips is all too familiar.

“Hi, Mr. Miller.”

________

You shift your weight from foot to foot as Joel’s gaze drifts over you, the feel of it hot over your skin. His forehead and neck are dappled with sweat, shirt sticking to his chest in a way that’s so inviting you have to clench your hands into fists at your side to keep from reaching out.

How is it possible he’s gotten more attractive?

“Hey! Welcome home!” Joel finally says, stepping aside and allowing you to cross the threshold.

His house has changed, yet feels overwhelmingly familiar all the same. He’s updated the flooring since you’d left, and you see the gleam of shiny stainless steel appliances in the kitchen.

“You renovated the kitchen?” You ask, stepping down the hall and into the living area to have a closer look. “The counters are pretty.”

He’s replaced the old dark cabinets with natural wood and the laminate counters are now a sparkling white quartz. He stands in the doorway, arms crossed over his broad chest.

“Yep. First project for my portfolio,” he says proudly. “Did the whole thing myself.”

“Impressive.”

You stare at each other for a beat before Joel clears his throat.

“You, uh, you wanna see the office?” He asks.

“Sure.”

He leads you to the back bedroom and pushes the door open. “It’s…kinda a mess.”

“Kinda?” You step inside, eyeing the haphazard piles of paper dubiously. “Mr. Miller, this is a war zone.”

He cringes. “Yeah. S’why I need help,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “Got so caught up with the networkin’ and job bids that I just let all this suffer for it.”

You huff a laugh, dropping your bag to the ground. There’s a desk in the middle of the room, covered in stacks of paper. A laptop sits open, screen dark, amongst the files. A bookshelf along one wall holds a printer and a number of large hardback books pertaining to business administration and general contracting guidelines. Along another wall are stacked boxes. You peek into one and find an array of tile samples.

“Think you can manage?” Joel asks.

You smile at him. “You know me, Mr. Miller. I’ve never backed down from a challenge.”

“Joel. Just…call me Joel.”

“Okay…Joel.”

He smiles, and the way it reaches his eyes makes your heart flutter. You swallow nervously.

This will be fine.

It’s just one summer.

Joel Miller tag list:

@huffle-punk punk @johnwatsn @hopelessromantic727 @whereasport @pedr0swh0r3 @yellingloudly @dragon-of-winterfell @thedeadsingwithdirtintheirmouths @mydailyhyperfixations @liati2000 @ghostofjoharvelle @cutesyscreenname @morgaussy @letsgroovetonighttt @endlessthxxghts @fake-bleach @brilliantopposite187 @mattmurdock1021 @str84pedro @justsomeoneovertherainbow @loquaciousferret @milly-louise @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @kirsteng42 @caatheeriinee07 @eternallyvenus @midnightswithdearkatytspb

Join a tag list

[jpitha]

Scientific Progress Goes Twang

"Why are we doing this again?" Del'rennian's tail flicked in worry.

"Because, if it works, it'll be really preem!" Rachel's voice was muffled under the machinery. Only her feet sticking out belied where she was in the room.

"Rach, that does not inspire the confidence you might think it does. I'm not a human, that doesn't work on me." Del's small hands were on her hips as she spoke with Rachel. Del'rennian grew up on a starbase that was equally populated with humans and K'laxi, so picking up their gestures and mannerisms was natural.

"Don't worry so much, Del. It's not like I'm modifying the main reactors. We'll be fine"

"No Rach, you're modifying one of the main batteries! You're messing with the weapons! I know how important weapons are to humans, you can't build anything without sticking a few exawatt lasers on it 'just in case.' I think your research telescopes have slug throwers on them even!"

Rachel slides out from under the weapons machinery. She's on a little board with wheels on it. Her face is smudged with... something. Del'rennian was pretty sure that human laser batteries didn't have oil, but maybe they did. "Del, this is the secondary battery, not the primary! I'm not an idiot."

Del's ears flicked. "That has not been determined with 100% certainty yet." Rach could hear the smile in her voice. She looked around the room. They were deep inside the battery, and were all alone. The lasers required only minimal maintenance and service after they were used. People would come once in a while to make sure everything was working, adjusting and collimating as necessary, but it's not like it needed a full time crew.

"Del'rennian, Rachel has explained to me what she is attempting, and I have given her provisional permission to install her modifications. Once we determine that nothing bad will happen, she will be allowed to test."

Del's ears rotated around, instinctively focusing on the source of the sound. Growing up on stations and starbases, Del knew that the AIs that humans put in charge of them were listening all the time, but she also knew that they mostly would wait for someone to query them before replying. It was a little unnerving when one decided to just jump in to a conversation. The AI that ran Reasonable Request was known to want to be a part of conversations and had a habit of butting in, but it was still odd. "You're telling me you're in on this nonsense, Request?"

"Yes Del'rennian. I think that Rachel's work could offer significant benefits to me in defense, as well as humanity as a whole. Ever since the convergence, we've had to increase our defences.

Del had to admit, Request had a point. Ever since the usurper Emperors Nick and Eastern did their little stunt to try and defeat Empress Raaden, things in human controlled space were much more... active than in decades previous. The influx of the Gren seemed to worry the K'laxi administrators more than she thought really was warranted, but they probably knew something she didn't.

Del sighed. She wasn't going to get anywhere with these two. A human designed AI was entirely too human to not go along with something that "seemed cool" when a human came up with the idea. "Fine. If you're okay with this Request, let's finish the install."

Two hours later, they were done. Del'rennian had to admit, it was more interesting that she thought it would be. She had never been that deep inside a laser battery, and it was - at the same time - much simpler and much more complicated than she expected. The actual laser part was incredibly simple. It was the power delivery that was complex. Rach's additions were made to assist with that.

As they put their tools away, Rach explained. "We've had wormhole generators for generations now and nobody has really done much with them. When the Others came over with their Flip drives, we were able to... er... borrow one and discover that while they concept was the same, the actual implementation was completely different! Theirs was more efficient, but ours was more accurate. Don't even get me started on the FlashWarp drives, I still have no idea how they work, and we've been warned against tinkering with them."

Without waiting to see what Del was going to say, she continued. "Anyway, it got me thinking. What if we used a wormhole generator to... boost the power delivery of the laser batteries! We could use a microscopic wormhole instead of superconductors and we'd be able to get a massive increase in power delivery in a much smaller package! With the generator that we installed, I should be able to increase the output of the laser by 3 or 4 times while making it smaller!"

Del'rennian's tail flicked. "Will it work?"

Rachel nodded. "Probably."

Request added. "Most likely."

Del crossed her hands over her ample chest. "So, when are we going to test it?"

Rachel looked around. "I don't see why we can't do it now. Request, what do you think?"

"I will query the commander."

They continued putting tools away for another three or four minutes when Request came back "The commander has approved a single firing of the secondary battery for testing purposes on my recommendation. She thinks it's 'a little strange' but I assured her that it was a routine test."

Del's fur bristles "Wait, you didn't ask the commander first?"

Rachel shrugs. "I asked Request. It's their body. I figured this was close to the same thing."

"But, you're messing with the weapons systems! What if the Gren attack?"

"We have the primary battery. Del, it'll be fine. Everything will work great. Request, please power up the battery for the test."

"Yes, Rachel. Powering up Secondary Battery."

While they watched, the laser battery powered on and warmed. Del felt rather than heard the emitter fold out of is storage blister on the side of the station. While she stood there, she heard a rising whine of capacitors charging and her fur began to stick out on it's own.

Wormhole generators are interesting things. They effectively punch a hole in space-time and allow things to pass between the two points instantaneously while the wormhole is open. For the majority of time that humans have used them, they have been used for spacecraft. Del couldn't remember a time when one was used in an atmosphere, or at least in a place that someone could hear them.

She had no idea that they made a noise.

When Reasonable Request fired the laser, the wormhole generator activated, punching a tiny hole in spacetime between the reactor and the laser. There was a noise that Del could only describe as a... twang.

Del'rennian and Rachel came to on the floor. Sirens were loud in her sensitive ears. As she sat up, her head pounded in protest. Rachel, who was closer to the laser, fared worse. Most of the hair on her head had flashed off, and she was unconscious on the floor.

"Request! Rachel is hurt!"

"Yes Del'rennian, I have already alerted the medical team. Quick Alert teams are on their way now, they'll be here in a few seconds. Are you hurt?"

"I don't know... I don't think so. My head hurts pretty badly though. Ugh, what happened."

"It appears that the secondary laser battery... linked away."

Del's eyes focused beyond Rachel. In the smoke and sparks of the room, she could see bare wires sticking out of the walls, mounting brackets sheared so cleanly as to shine like mirrors and a large empty space where the laser battery used to be.

As she marveled at what happened the Quick Alert team came in and rushed over to Rachel. They applied a heal pack to her and the Nanites within got to work. After a few seconds she groaned and tried to roll over. "No no, don't move yet. Let the Nanites do their work" One of the Alert team said as they touched Rachel's shoulder.

Del turned back to the door and saw Commander Hollister standing over her. "Del'rennian, kindly tell me what is going on here? I get a report of a wormhole generation inside my station and now my secondary laser battery is gone. What. Did. You. Do. "

Del stood up and shakily saluted. "I apologize Commander Hollister, Rachel was trying to... improve the performance of the laser batteries by installing a miniature wormhole generator." She intended to explain more, but that was as far as she got before she collapsed.

[aimfor-theheart]

Chapter Three: Anew

Masterlist | <- Chapter Two: Anything, Everything | Satoru's Interlude: Bigger God -> | Read on Ao3

Pairings: Satoru Gojo x f!reader

Summary: And the form leans down, closer, as their voice drops to a murmur, all honey and thorns, the promise of something far greater than you. A storm to come. The future that you will bear upon the slant of your shoulders. And when they speak, you know they’ve cursed you;

“I will teach you how to make a God.” 

(Arranged marriage, angst, hurt/comfort, dark content)

Warnings (specifically for this chapter): Parental abuse (emotional and physical), possessive behavior, unhealthy relationships, toxic dynamics, parental death, manipulation, smut; specifically, loss of virginity, first times, pushy Gojo? (Gojo is not as slow or empathetic as he perhaps should be/pushes the reader a little, but there is consent), oral (f receiving), mentions of shame/guilt in regards to pleasure and sex. Please be wary of overarching story warnings, too. Let me know if you think I should add any other warnings! **Please mind warnings overall and for each chapter**

Word Count: 21k......i am mentally unwell.

A/N: a day late but my apology is a huge fucking chapter. i wrote all this before i saw the leaks. i have many thoughts. but first, a huuuuge thank you to @lorelune for beta-reading this beast of a chapter and helping me through it. i feel like i struggled awhile and their feedback helped so much, as always. i also really appreciate your feedback! and would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! thank you all for reading and thank you for waiting for this chapter!! enjoy!

· · ───────── ·𖥸· ──────── · ·

“Gods require isolation.” 

In your vision, colors bleed and bend together in a waterfall of light. You can hardly make out the shape in front of you, can hardly make out the voice. It almost aches, somewhere in your teeth, in the core of you, to try and focus on them.

“Gods cannot have equals, otherwise they wouldn’t be Gods. Do you understand?” 

“But there are so many–” you have a hard time getting out the words, chewing around them strangely, like cotton in your mouth. Your voice is just a croak, “there are so many Gods.” 

“No,” there is a shaking, as if they’re denying you, “forget what you previously knew. Those are myths, not Gods.” 

You blink hard, as if you could clear your vision. You feel like you might be sick, stomach turning over itself, twisting and churning–

“Gods are alone.” 

“Lonely?” 

A pause.

“Yes, lonely, at the top of their world.” The voice hums, like bees in your ears, like the vibrating of cursed energy that simmers low in your hearing, that sizzles to life when used. The person almost feels like–like a curse.

“Gods are lone stars that gaze down upon the earth, they shine brighter, they guide and shower and collapse inwards to become something else entirely.” 

“Stars?” You garble.

“Gods devour everyone around them, so they are the only ones left. Do you hear me?” 

“Yes,” you say and you think tears are pricking your eyes. 

“Don’t cry yet,” coos the voice, lullaby soft, the way a mother sounds, the way you wish a father would sound. “Do you understand, then?”

“Yes,” you hiccup, “Gods are lonely. Gods are very, very lonely.” 

***

You know you will devour Suguru as he walks to you in the garden for a final time. 

The last time you see him before his betrayal, he is in a strangely amiable mood, one that you aren’t often on the receiving end of.

And just as strangely, you allow yourself to indulge him. You aren’t as snappy or harsh, you aren’t posturing and snarling. 

You’re just a friend for him, in his last few hours as a sorcerer and not a curse user. 

“I think I’ll miss visiting you like this when you get married to Satoru.” He says. 

“Satoru wants a garden when we move out. He’s fond of it now, too.” You tell him, “you can visit me in that garden.” 

You know he never will.

(Well—once, he will. But he will not be himself anymore, not really, not ever again. Suguru has always been the type to grow out of his own skin, always chased divinity down until he was stumbling and panting for it, like a starved dog on a futile hunt. 

And when he finally gets it between his teeth, he will have had to die for it, and it will not be him at all, but someone else. 

He will just be the conduit. The possessed. The hollowed out. He’ll gorge himself on it only to still be left starving.

Because maybe that’s all divinity is; the empty stomach, the eternal hunger for something more than yourself. The emptiness of being more than just yourself.) 

“Hm, I won’t have to deal with your father.” Suguru says and he sinks a little heavier into some of the taller, heather soft grass by the pond.

“Tell me about it. I have wanted to escape him for my whole life.” You say.

“Will you?” He asks.

Eventually, you nod. 

Then you admit, “I’ll kill him one day.”

Suguru’s brows dart upwards and he turns his face towards you, towards the sun. He has to squint when he looks at you, he has to shield his eyes a little. The sun hallows you, swallowing you up in its honey bronzed light. 

“You will?” He asks and there’s a strange note in his voice. 

“After he kills my mother.” You don’t know exactly why you tell him this, only that it bubbles out of you, only that you know you are supposed to. 

“How long have you known?” Suguru’s voice is almost gentle for you. 

“Years now. I knew he would kill my mother the moment I received Foresight. And a year or so later, I looked into his future, too.” You lean back on your elbows, tip your face up to the light. 

Suguru swallows. “Is he–I’ve always known he was controlling but–to kill your mother–” 

“He knows.” 

“Knows what?” Suguru asks. 

“That I’ll kill him. I told him after he hit me the first time.” 

You say it so plainly that all Suguru can do is stare for a moment. 

But then he sits up and there is something dark in his eyes, unfathomable, “does Satoru know? And he just let’s this–for all of his fucking power and–” 

A crackling sort of anger spits to life inside him. You’re so surprised that for a moment, all you can do is stare at him now. 

“Suguru,” you say softly and you stop him from standing by catching his wrist in your slight hand, you stop him from going to do who knows what, “Satoru doesn’t know.” 

“Why doesn’t he know?” Suguru hisses, “does Ieri? Anyone?” 

You shake your head. 

“Satoru would kill him if he knew. There is a version where he kills him days before our wedding.” You say and your own voice has taken on a hushed quality, stilling him. 

“A version?” Suguru asks.

You nod. 

“But I want to do it myself.” You admit and the confession is so raw and unkept that it startles you with its truth. “I have wanted to do it myself for a long time, I think.”

Suguru looks at you strangely, changed. 

But when he says, “I always knew there was something horrible in you.” There isn’t any malice in it, rather he sounds deeply fond, a little heartbroken. You sidle up to his side, scoot in close so you can feel the warmth of him. 

He drops an arm around you. He tucks you into his side. 

“Don’t tell Satoru,” you nuzzle down into him, surprisingly compliant. Whenever Suguru has tried to touch you before, you have met him with teeth and nails and all sorts of fight. But now, you melt easily. “Don’t do a thing.” 

You feel his fingers dig into you. 

“How am I supposed to stand idly by and allow you to be–” 

You turn your head against his shoulder, look up at him through your lashes, “please? I don’t ask much of you, do I?” 

Suguru shakes his head. “I don’t like this. Why does it have to be this version? Isn’t there another? Where you’re safe? Where you aren’t–” 

“I don’t think I would be so horrible if there was a different version.” You admit softly to him.  

Suguru goes quiet. 

Then, “I wouldn’t have you any other way, you know.” 

The admittance is surprisingly tender. Your eyes sting with it. 

He catches your chin between large fingers, tilts you up so you can’t hide your shining eyes from him. “Wretched as you are–I think you’re perfect. I only wish–” 

“Suguru,” you almost don’t want him to say this part. You can feel it pulling at you, tugging and tearing at your tender heart, plucking at your insides. 

“There was a version where you were safe. And you didn’t have to be horrible. And I didn’t have to be horrible, either.” 

You’re startled by the tears that he catches, one with his thumb. “What’s this? Tears for me? But you hate me so terribly.” 

You shake your head a little into his hands, “I don’t–” 

“It’s alright,” he hushes, and you think he sees you in a different light now, you think something has shifted massively between you. And so close to the end. “Just tell me if there’s a version where we’re safe and–” 

You swallow hard around the prickly lump in your throat, the sob trapped there. You feel more tears escape from the corner of your eyes, especially as they crinkle up into your sad smile. 

Your vision blurs with him, with the man who wanted to be a god. 

The lie comes easily, almost wistfully, to your trembling lips;

“Yes–somewhere out there is a version where we are safe. My father doesn’t hurt me. And Satoru is more than just a God. Yu Haibara lives. A Zenin boy doesn’t lose his father. Two little girls are not locked in a cage. And you don’t have to be so horrible, either.” 

***

Ieri comes to you in the middle of the night. 

You have not slept, because you know, and you’ve been waiting for her. 

You padded out into the garden, barefoot, awhile ago. The night air has a nip to it. Moonless night. Starless night. Endlessly dark in the heavens tonight. The world seems to be hushed with the violence that’s happened, with the betrayal that has taken place. You wonder if every betrayal made the world go this silent; Set and Osiris, Caesar and Brutus, Jesus and Judas. 

Ieri knows where to find you, knows you’ll know, knows you too well, and she joins you now in your garden. 

She’s been crying. Eyes glassy and lined with red, makeup smeared halfway down her face. 

You fold her into your arms and you can feel her shudder as she holds back another sob.

“You knew,” she gets out, “you knew the whole time.” 

“Yes.” You whisper, holding her tighter to keep her from freeing herself, as if you could wrestle her anger or heartbreak still. 

“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why wouldn’t you–”

“Was I supposed to condemn him?” 

“Couldn’t you have saved him? You knew–you know all of it.” Ieri is shaking, perhaps terrified, perhaps furious, “will you do this to all of us? What good is your technique if you don’t intervene?” 

“Not everything should be changed.” 

She grabs you by the shoulders suddenly, viciously, nails chipped with burgundy polished digging hard into your skin. She wants to leave torn little half moons. She wants to hurt you. But she’s a doctor. She’s a healer. 

Her eyes fly over your face, tears stream down her ruddy cheeks. Her gaze darkens, digs into you, tries to see what she perhaps missed in you. She tries to find her friend inside of you, tries to find your anguish or heartbreak, too. 

“What am I supposed to do with you?” She asks suddenly and it is not fond but, devastated, “how am I supposed to–” 

Her voice bites off into a strangled whine. 

“Trust me?” 

And when she says, “I don’t know how Gojo does it.” 

It isn’t heated or mean, it’s just–honest. Tired. 

And it hurts worse than you’re anticipating. The ache blossoms so fiercely that your breath catches with it, almost as if she’d struck you. It makes a lump form in your throat. Her eyes like dark moons look at you with a new form of disgust, mistrust. You want to seize her suddenly, you want to cry, you want to do what you do to Satoru where you cling and beg and whine. 

You know it won’t work on her, though.

So you swallow and say, “I loved him, too, you know.” 

And it’s the truth, more than you realized. 

“Then why didn’t you stop him? Why didn’t you save him?” 

Your mind catapults you into a memory of your own and you remember the ancestor of yours who looked too guilty to say he was trying to save you, but stop you. 

Perhaps it is the same, after all. 

“Ieri,” you whisper, strangled, “there was no stopping him.” 

There is no stopping me. 

“No,” she says and her eyes water, filling, “no. The Getou I know wouldn’t have–he killed his parents. He killed–” 

Her hand comes over her mouth and she turns away from you. She holds her stomach with her free hand like she’s trying to keep it all inside of her, like she’s trying to keep all her grief and anger from spilling out. 

You wonder how she will feel when you kill your father. 

Will she understand? Will she hold her stomach again like she’s going to be sick? 

Perhaps for both you and Suguru, you say, “I’m sorry.” 

Perhaps you are admitting to parts of it. “I’m sorry.” You say again and she finally turns to look at you. And then she is grabbing you and she is teetering in your arms as you whisper, “I am sorry. I’m sorry for all of it, I’m so, so–” 

A sob creaks out of her and she falls apart in your arms until Satoru walks to you on wary, unsteady feet, and does the same. 

The three of you don’t sleep and instead sit in a garden that once held four, and watch as the sun breaks over the sky like shattered, red glass reflecting hot and hazy. The day turns on.

Life continues, even if it feels like theirs have ended, even if it feels like you’ve lost something greater than you can name. 

Greater than you ever anticipated.

And you say to no one, perhaps the sky, your voice small like a child’s;

“I’m sorry–I’m sorry–” 

***

Suguru Getou is condemned to execution.

And for all his power, there is nothing that Satoru can do to stop any of this.

(To stop the future you have set into–)

When Suguru kills one hundred and twenty one people, you know why he does it. Maybe he even sees you in them, kept away out of fear of their technique, maybe he is just horrible. You think he must understand then, when you’d mentioned two, little girls. It must've all slid into place for him finally. 

You think he realized his fate in the blink of an eye, the inevitability; perhaps why you despised him and then loved him. He must realize what he is about to do to Satoru. 

Still, Satoru comes to tell you–to seek your counsel. You’ve never seen him quite so lost. So–

You know he won’t listen to you when you tell him, “you will have to kill him.” 

He looks at you hard and long, stricken like you’ve hit him or wounded him, like you’ve pulled a knife out and pushed into the tender parts of him. He looks at you like you’ve betrayed him. 

“How could you say that to me?” He hisses and you can hear it in his voice, thick with emotion, with tears.

“I don’t say it lightly,” you respond and you’re startled to find your own voice failing, the sudden tears you have for the man you apparently hated so badly are still fresh. You don’t know why you’re mourning him like this, why it hurts so bad when you knew–you planned–

“I’m sorry,” you tell him and when he sinks into your embrace, you go down with him, “I’m sorry.” you say again and again and maybe you sound like your mother. Maybe you sound like someone else. 

But you cradle his head to your beating heart, card your fingers through his hair, and let him be just a man in your arms. 

***

Everyone steps in to help Satoru with Megumi and Tsumiki. 

Nanami often is the one who stops by to drop them off to be with you in the morning or evenings, after the kids have gotten done with school. Sometimes Utahime, who is remarkably good with kids. She is also remarkably kind to you, more so than you’d ever imagined or thought. Ieri jokes that she pities you to have to marry Gojo, who is, to her, the most insufferable person alive.  

You think it’s something more, but you can’t place what yet. 

Megumi rushes past Nanami to disappear into the garden. Tsumiki lingers and greets you before loping after her brother.

“How were they?” You ask him.

Nanami pauses before saying, “they miss Gojo, I think. Megumi especially is–” 

His expression pinches for a moment, before he schools it. 

“Well, he’s acting out a little.” 

“I’ll talk to him.” You promise. “What has he done?” 

“He’s picking fights with classmates. His teacher told me and said–well, she said that it would do well for him to have a solid presence in his life and not,” Nanami is careful with what he says now, but it still comes out a little too bluntly, “rotating babysitters.” 

It stings a little, but you swallow, nod around it. You know it’s true. But as they say, it does take a village and you and Satoru are hardly adults yourself. 

You aren’t even yet, technically.

Still, you say, “I’ll see what I can do. Thank you, Nanami, I know it means a lot to Satoru, too.” 

Nanami’s usually stoic features soften barely, before he nods and says, “of course.” And then he inhales slow and asks, “how’s Gojo?” 

In truth, you’ve hardly seen him.

But you’d never let anyone know that, you’d never admit, in any way, that he is untouchable to you. So you look out into the garden to find the kid’s dark heads of shining hair under the sun, bobbing about, moving around the lush green.

The wind eases past you and finally, you say, “he’ll be okay.” 

Nanami seems to understand, so he swallows, and nods. “Tell the kids I’ll see them tomorrow.” 

“I will,” you promise and watch as he walks off, his figure in the spun gold light of the sun and seems to shine through him, almost, as if he were made of light entirely. 

It really is such a shame, you think, as tears prick your eyes, of what will happen to him. 

***

“The wedding is approaching,” your father says over dinner.

“And so is her birthday.” Your mother reminds him. 

They’re planned for the same day–the wedding has been planned for your eighteenth birthday since the vow was created. The days have unspooled before you and turned to years. You have seen how this wedding in too many little futures of others, have known and anticipated it the way hospitals often have temples and churches inside of them 

Your father pays her no mind.

“This is a huge moment for our clan,” he says, “and I have asked countlessly in the past but–” 

“I’ve already seen his future.” You say.

His eyes round with surprise and then hope. The sick sort of excitement that comes from a ravenous sort of hunger. 

“I can’t believe you–” he shakes his head, elated, “finally. What did you see? How can the clan–”

“Did you think I would tell you?” 

His face falters. 

“We want to destroy the clans. Why would I tell you anything that helps them?” 

Your father’s face goes pale. It goes slack with disbelief. And then anger sharpens his eyes, slicing to you. 

He stands from the table abruptly enough that your mother flinches so hard she nearly drops a bowl. “Don’t–” she whimpers, throwing her arm out in front of you to stop him, to keep him from grabbing you. 

It breaks your heart, to see her hand, outcast over you to protect you, trembling like a leaf in a violent wind. She is horrified, but she is still trying to protect you. 

You almost see red. You almost want to kill your father right now. 

“You cannot allow this.” Your father seethes, “did you hear her?” 

“She’s my daughter,” is your mother’s only response, half desperate, chest heaving. 

“Mom–” you beg, but it’s too late, because your father lunges for her first. When he grabs her, all of your world narrows, and her strangled, pained gasp is the only thing you hear. Your father throws her into the wall so harshly that it leaves a dent and he goes for her again, while she is a crumpled mass on the floor and–

And you reach for the knife at the table like it has always belonged in your palm

You grab your father by his hair and yank his head far enough back to expose the fluttering line of his vulnerable throat. You are certain you have looked like this to him before, eyes bugging with his fist in your hair, mouth agape. 

You put the knife to his throat and hiss, “I will do this now if you lay another hand on her.” 

Your father begins to tremble the way your mother did. The way you did as a child. 

“You won’t,” he croaks. 

He doesn’t mean it. 

“I will.” You vow. 

And you wonder how Suguru felt, with his parents or the others he killed in the name of trapped, hurt children, you wonder if it felt like this. If it will be worse or better. You want to run to him now, you think, and ask. Is it worth it? Was it worth it? Will I ever get the smell of blood out from under my nose? 

Your father goes slack, let’s you know he is done. Defeated for now, subdued enough that he will not hit her. 

Your mother watches in horror. 

He slinks away, muttering to himself, grasping at his head, his throat. You think you are driving him mad. You think you are haunting him, that you have grown into a curse and not a girl at all. 

You toss the knife away and throw your arms around your mother and you rock her the way she used to rock you as a child, trying to quiet her cries, trying to soothe what you know will never settle. 

***

Satoru hasn’t been the same since Suguru’s betrayal. 

Though you knew this would pain him, it bothers you that it is able to affect him so greatly. Still, you remain doting, loving. You let him lay with his head in your lap, on your chest. You let him squeeze you too tightly, you let him bruise you. 

Most importantly, you let him believe that you are all he can trust. Over and over again, you murmur it to him when he sleeps in the afternoon sun with his head in your lap, beneath you is a picnic blanket in the garden, you let it infect his mind. 

And still, he pulls away from you. 

He becomes more untouchable than ever. Distant to you the way that stars are, bright in your sky but unreachable, a thousand lightyears away. You sit by your window, waiting for him, hoping he’ll fall back down to earth sometime. 

You think he’s avoiding you. 

It makes you want to curse and scream and cry. It makes you want to throw a tantrum all over again and see if he’ll come running. It makes you want to tear down mountains and carve the moon from the sky. 

You know what you have to do; it will cause a great deal of trouble for you, but you will do it. You will take it for him. Always for him. 

You visit him at Jujutsu Tech for once. 

You show up in his dorm and are mildly surprised that Megumi or Tsumiki aren’t here. You thought you’d at least be able to see them, too.

So instead you sit and wait for him to return in the quiet of his empty room. One hour turns to two, then three. 

The sun settles high in the sky and then begins to sink. 

You doze on his twin bed, in the last rays of the sun that manage to steal through the window, cut through the blinds. 

When you wake, it’s to the shadow of Satoru in his doorway. You sit up, groggy, blinking sleep away. 

“Not that I’m mad to return to a girl in my bed, but, what are you doing here?” He asks and instantly, you can tell he’s tense, on guard. He shuts the door behind him, he wades into the room, avoiding you. He doesn’t greet you with a kiss to the cheek or a secret smile. He falls into the chair at the desk. 

“I haven’t seen you in over a week.” You tell him, voice still hushed with sleep. And then, “where are the kids?”

“With Shoko for a bit. She’s had them for the day, helping them study.” 

“You could’ve brought them to me.” You tell him and perhaps it pains you that he didn’t. 

“Your father let you out of the garden?” He asks in return, avoiding it. Avoiding you. You can feel the distance he is trying to force between you two. His voice is strange. 

You don’t heed his warning. You don’t bother to backtrack. 

“No. I snuck out. I’m sure they’re looking for me.” You tell him and in the dark lavender of evening, you catch a sliver of his smile. A ghost of himself. Your heart trips over itself in blind hope. You press on, “I missed you. I wanted to see you.” 

When he doesn’t respond to that, you add, “I’m worried about you.” 

Now he rises and finally comes to you. He stands, tall and towering over where you’ve sat up on his bed. He lifts a large hand, grown so large since you were kids, and carefully touches the apple of your cheek. 

“No reason to ever worry about me, darling.” He says, but you can tell, even with the blindfold, that his gaze has gone hollow, unseeing you. He pulls his hand away and your cheek tilts, chases after the warmth of his palm; he’s untouchable, so untouchable. “I’m the strongest. You should know better.” 

He turns away from you again, wanders to the window, gazes out at a dark courtyard. 

“Satoru,” you say as gently as you can. 

“I should get you back. Your father will be upset. I’ll take the blame.” 

“Satoru.” 

“I’ll smooth things over with him. I’m sorry to have worried you. Nothing’s wrong, though–” 

“Satoru.” You snap. 

He freezes, finally has the good sense to be quiet for a moment. 

You stand from his bed, rise like a ghost (maybe that’s all you are these days–a ghost of a girl, a vow he can’t shake, the pressing of time that he can only feel, but not see), and drift to him. Your touch doesn’t match your tone or your anger; you are gentle, when you put your hand on his back. 

“Look at me.” You tell him.

When he turns, your fingers skim over his ribs, all the way to his chest. 

You lift your hand to his face, to the blindfold and deftly, you pull at it. 

He frowns and for a moment, you think he might try to pull away and deny you, but he doesn't. 

He goes completely still. 

You tug gently, until the blindfold slips away and hangs uselessly around his neck. 

His eyes are much sadder than you remember, the blue of them all sapphire dark, nightened and deep. 

“Why have you been avoiding me?” You ask, now that you can see all of him. And he can see all of you. 

“I’ve been busy.” 

“Don’t lie to me.” 

A grimace drifts across his features. You have always been able to see through the lies, the masks, the godhood he wears. 

You wait with him, patient, and seemingly careful. You can feel the thrum of his heart beneath your palm, can feel the rise and fall of his chest, the simmer of his cursed energy. Of yours. You look at your hand, small against his broadening chest. 

“I’m not lying,” he murmurs, then tries to sweeten you to him by covering your hand with his. His hand has grown so large since he was young. It engulfs yours now. “I have been busy.” 

You think he realizes he wants affection, you can tell in the way he pulls closer. He’s deprived himself of it recently, so you aren’t surprised that a taste of it would make him suddenly hungry. But if he isn’t going to answer, you aren’t going to give into him. You won’t feed him. 

You slip away from him with a disappointed sigh. Coolness rushes between you, separating you, starving him. 

“You’ve always been busy. You always come to visit me.” 

His eyes flash in the darkness. 

“Have you considered that you can’t be the center of my life?” He asks and his voice is light, but barbed. He sounds like his mother. “That I have far more important responsibilities than visiting and playing house with you?” 

You don’t flinch. He’s being needlessly cruel. You know how this plays out. You always know. 

“Spare me,” you tell him, not particularly cruelly, but tired. “Don’t undermine me like that. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.” 

He bristles. Opens his mouth like he might say something, then firmly shuts it. 

Speechless. 

(How did you do that? Suguru laughs, how did you get him speechless?)

The memory rushes to you, of that warm day. Satoru must think of it, too. It must settle over him like a phantom, because Satoru goes perfectly still. You watch any anger or frustration seep out of him, like it’d been punctured. It leaks from him now, so that he’s deflated, just a shell of himself. 

“Is this about Suguru?” You ask him gently, when you think he can stomach hearing his name out loud. 

His lashes flutter, a muscle in his jaw feathers, but otherwise he remains unmoved. 

“Don’t you know everything?” He asks, voice cool, trying to remain untouchable, trying to remain frozen and far from you. 

“You know I don’t.” You answer gently and it’s only half-true. You turn back towards him, step into his orbit once more. 

“But did you know this one?“

“Yes.” You answer honestly, tip your chin up to look into his eyes, all dark heaven. 

He moves so fast that you don’t even catch it. You think he may have even used his technique, caught you so fierce and quickly that you gasp, feel the muscles of his hand jump as he squeezes your face in his large palm. 

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” He begs and he’s trying to shroud himself in anger, but you can hear the grief in its footsteps. The heartache wells inside of you. “Why wouldn’t you try to stop it?” 

“You don’t understand.” You hiss, “You have no idea–” 

“You should’ve told me!” Satoru’s voice catches, “maybe I could’ve–” 

“You couldn’t have.” You tell him. 

“You don’t know that!” He snaps, “he–we–I would’ve done anything–” 

His eyes well with tears and your hands instantly go up to his shoulders, his neck. 

“Satoru–” you try to soothe, but he’s still gripping you so hard you’ll bruise. 

“I would’ve done anything to stop him–” 

When he falls apart, it is always you there to hold him, to put the pieces of a God back together again. You hold him tight around the middle and he curves over you like a drought-driven plant, desperate, bowed. 

And you tell him again and again, that you’re here. He has you. He’s always had you. He always will. A vow made as children that is still carved into the both of you, written into your fates, and imprinted on your beings. 

Your own religion. 

You lay with him on his little twin bed. You run your hands through his hair. He soothes under your touch. He mouths at your throat in a way that makes you flush darkly, that reminds you you’re alone with him, for once. You’re alone with him in a little twin bed made for one, now holding two. 

And when he admits, “I know you did what was best, but I can’t help but resent you a little.” you almost, almost feel guilty. You feel the lump in your throat, the splintering of your heart, that has always been so painfully, willfully, soft and vulnerable for him.

You have half a mind to start wailing, howling like you’re going to shake apart.

“Some days I loathe you so much that I love you more, or love you so much that I loathe you.” He admits, fingers bruising into your ripe skin, into the softest parts of you. 

Instead you curl around him tighter, like a little asp constricting around its prey. You curl around him and think, I did do what’s best. 

I did what’s best for us.

***

Your father is furious, but Satoru takes the blame, as he promised. 

Your father wouldn’t dare lay a hand on you around Satoru. 

But even after he leaves, your father doesn’t touch you. 

He can’t even look at you. 

He flinches when he does. 

And you stand at the end of the hallway like he used to and you wonder if this is how he always felt. 

You wonder if this is how it will always feel to surpass your parents, to take what they were and be more, to swallow them whole. You wonder if you should feel worse for garnering his fear. 

But then you think of yourself as a child, looking up at him, desperate for his love and acceptance, and in the same way that he could not find sympathy for his own daughter–

You have no sympathy for the father that raised her. 

***

Preparations for the wedding are a nightmare for both you and Satoru. Between dealing with higher ups that both of you would rather overthrow, your father, and his mother, the wedding hardly begins to feel like a wedding at all. Just a spectacle, a feat of the century. 

It doesn’t help that in the midst of this, Satoru is still grieving Suguru, who lives and festers and grows. More than that, Megumi and Tsumiki also demand his full attention. Megumi is picking fights in school. Tsumiki is struggling in other, quiet ways. 

You’ve told him to focus on buying a bigger space for the four of you, that you’ll handle the higher ups and the wedding planning and his mother.

You went many years rarely seeing her. As a child, she watched you and Satoru, always gazed at you a little too intensely, followed you the way a predator must watch prey. Or perhaps the way prey must watch a predator– you never know anymore, which you were. Maybe some horrible beast of both; a rabbit with jagged canines, antlers cut sharp and protruding from your poor head, a wolf with large ears and soft paws, a fox, if nothing else. Both hunted and the hunter.

You don’t know when you became accustomed to the taste of blood in your mouth.

But when his mother pushes, you finally push back. No longer a child, no longer fangless.

You’re taking tea with her, discussing further wedding plans, when she says, “you may have my son fooled, but I see right through you.”

She says this very casually, like she might be saying, the sky is blue, or I am the mother of a god. Both, you think, could ring softly in her melodic voice. She does seem like the mother of a god, all icy hair, now going silver, like a star. And oh, her eyes, her eyes are just like diamonds. Like her son’s, the god.

The tea is scalding, you cup it in your palm and let it warm against your skin, wait to bring it to your lips.

“Oh?”

“The moment I saw you, I knew.” She says, eyeing you over the rim of her own tea cup. “I knew you’d be his downfall. A shame, really. It’s too bad I didn’t have a daughter, sons can be so–”

“I have no intention of being Satoru’s downfall. Quite the contrary, I have done everything in my power to ensure that he will not have a downfall.” You respond coolly and you can feel her gaze, the way it tries to dig down into the tender parts of you, like a hawk sinking its talons around the fleshy bits of your heart.

She doesn’t particularly scare you except–

You don’t know this conversation. You know her fate, because Satoru will feel it and you know him. But this is new territory to you.

“I knew when I saw you,” she repeats, “but especially after your binding vow to him, that you were going to burrow yourself underneath his skin. You were going to be his own fault. The only mortal part of him. That’s why you will be his downfall.”

It strikes you as strange that she believes this. Besides, you know you have only seeded him, twisted and molded and shaped him into the boy-god he is now. You know who his real mortal parts are, know who they will always be, and it is the children in his care.Perhaps, Suguru Getou, too.

No, you were never lovely enough to be anything mortal. You were never normal enough to be anything so simple.

“I think you’re mistaken,” you say and the words come to you the way prophecy does, “I shaped him.”

Her eyes flash like the too-hot part of a flame and she says around her teeth, like she’s biting down into it, “I made him. And he almost killed me.” She collects herself then, but her mouth is twisted into this sickle curve of a grimace, “perhaps one day you will understand, what it’s like to be torn in two, and love them either way.”

You think you must know it already, at least a little.

“Do you love your husband?” You ask. “My mother does not love my father.”

Like your parents, she was arranged to marry Satoru’s father.

And easily, she says, “no. I never did. I learned him.”

“My mother fears my father.” You tell her.

“Many women do.” She responds, “I think we are more similar than you are to your own mother. She was always a little too sweet.”

You hum lightly and finally, dare to take a sip of tea.

“I don’t believe we are much alike at all.” You say before finally setting the tea cup down onto the table in front of you, palm still hot from it.

“You have been scheming your whole life. You were never content to be anything other than extraordinary. Trust me, I was once young and full of the same vigor.” She says dryly, gently tossing some of her long, silver hair over her shoulder. “The only thing that makes you special is that you will be Satoru’s wife.”

You can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you.

“No,” you say.

“No?” she asks.

“Can you see the future?” You ask her. 

Silence. 

“I, too, have a technique–” 

“But can you see the future? Are you invincible?” 

She refuses to say no again. 

“You have a technique, but it’s not like ours. Satoru and I have always been different. I am not like you. I wish the only reason I am special is because of him. I wish all I had to do was learn him.” You think you must’ve always known him, anyways, some part of you. There was no need to learn, when you were so interwoven, so intertwined. 

“Spare me the self-pity, it’s unbecoming of a girl of your stature–”

“I love your son.” You say plainly, like one might say the sky is blue, or I am not only a god’s wife, but his godly wife. “And he loves me, too.”

“I didn’t think you were this naive–”

You set your hands against the table, lean forward in a way that must be vaguely threatening because her gaze sharpens. Predator or prey. Some wretched amalgamation of both.

“He’ll kill for me. That isn’t an exaggeration, that’s just a part of the future. He’ll do anything I ask of him. Would your husband, for you? Is he a god? Would a god do anything for you?” You watch her face carefully, the way it twists. 

“I’m his mother–”

Your voice drops to a hush and the light catches the mismatched color of your eyes;

“More than that, I have killed for him already and no one even knows it. I will again. And that is far, far worse than if I was just some scheming wife.”

She sits back in her chair with a look on her face that might be bitterness. You think she tries to swallow around it. Perhaps, it is more akin to hatred. Maybe even, fear.

“Now,” you continue, and with all the grace of a god, you sweep your tea cup into your hand and take another slow, easy sip. “You wanted to talk about the flowers for the wedding?”

And you think she is smarter than she looks because she does not look at you the same way again. If you thought there was contempt in her gaze before, you have never quite seen loathing like this.

You talk of flowers, like you didn’t just admit murder to her. You’d like something blue. It will look nice, you tell her, with gold and silver. 

When Satoru stops by later, with Megumi and Tsumiki in tow, you brush a kiss to his jaw in greeting in front of his mother. Perhaps to spite her. Tsumiki tucks herself up against your side and Megumi lets you smooth his wild hair down against his pouting face.

She gazes at the two dark haired children around you, at the way her son looks lovingly at the three of you and you smile, slow and knowing, asp-like.

“I will know, by the way, what it’s like to love them either way.” You tell her as Megumi tucks his face into your shoulder and you turn to kiss the top of his small head. 

Usurper that he is, you’ll love him either way.

***

Life keeps turning, but you find yourself clinging to the past in a way you aren’t prepared for. You know you must go on, with the wedding, with adulthood, with what you have made but–

But sometimes, when you touch Ieri or Satoru, you let it drag you into the past. Into sweeter memories and the ghost that now haunts the three of you. 

Suguru is there and he is lighter, before Haibara’s death, and he and Satoru toy and tease and play. 

They follow you and Ieri around the garden like shadows. You burn with these visions of him, can’t understand, couldn’t foresee, why you relive it so much. You knew you cared about him but–

You always thought it’d be easier, since you knew. 

You didn’t think you’d miss him or his half moon smiles. 

The past tastes sickly and in it, he holds a peach over your head and lets you reach and jump and squabble for it. He slyly nudges you right into the pond and then he follows you in a moment later. He stretches out in the tall grass beside you, he lays his arm over you, he laughs when you yell and huff and bite. He talks about your wedding and the bachelor party he will throw. A future you will never see. 

He simmers with a love for you and Satoru and Ieri that you feel as if you didn’t see in the present but can only see now, in Hindsight. 

He says things like, “you’re such a curse of a girl.” with the fondest smile on his lips. 

And he says–

In Satoru’s memories, he tells him–

Satoru asks him, “if anything ever happened to me. You’d look after her, wouldn’t you?”

And Suguru says, “of course. I’d do anything for her.” 

Satoru smiles, boyish, infinitely happy and it guts you so thoroughly for a moment that you forget how to breathe, you forget how to stomach this. 

“Careful,” Satoru laughs, “she is still my fiance.” 

Suguru laughs, low and soft and the memory is souring, curdling inside of you in a way that makes you want to throw it all up.

“I don’t think there’s anything in the world that could keep the two of you apart.” 

Except for you, you think, except for you, you wretch and cry and wail. 

***

Your wedding takes place on the eve of your eighteenth birthday. 

You wish you could say you’re prepared, in some way, for all of it. But you find that even a lifetime can’t prepare you for becoming the wife of a God. The ceremony itself is stuffy, rather tense, with uneasy truces between clans and political talk interwoven and murmured and laced into every other sentence. The only people there that you or Satoru genuinely want are his friends. Your mother. 

Who cried the day previous. She apologized again, that she couldn’t stop any of it for you, that it all turned out this way, like it was her fault at all. 

(Not your fault, it’s never your fault–you want to tell her, but don’t.) 

She said she’s only glad you’re marrying someone like Satoru, someone you know, someone you love. Who loves you. 

She said she takes great comfort in that, that at least you’ll know love like that. 

You have to bite back a laugh–love like this? Oh, what it’s done to you. And oh, what you’ve done for it. 

You are married beneath a setting sun on the top of their mortal world, high above the city. It is fit for what they believe are gods. 

“A monumental day, history being made in front of our very eyes. Two of the most extraordinary sorcerers in hundreds of years, now bound together.” The officiant rattles on and on. 

Satoru makes a face and even beneath the blindfold, you can tell it’s a rolling of his eyes. Your lips twist into a half smile. 

Vows are such a tricky thing, you think. 

There are the official ones they have you repeat. But then there are yours, his, ours that have always been there. The ones that have been etched onto your heart since you were a child. 

And the world as his witness, without an ounce of shame, like he is again a child, he vows;

“I will always have you.” 

And with a flash of your teeth, like you’re biting down into it, you repeat, you curse him, “I will always have you.” 

Easily, he promises, easily, he gives himself to you, “You will always have me.” 

Almost viciously, you vow, “you will always have me.” 

Murmurs ripple. His mother is white knuckled. Your father is lock-jawed in anger. Your clan worries and hushes. His does, too. But you don’t see any of it, just Satoru, when he leans down to seal his lips to yours. 

It’s a little harsh, vicious in the way that love is. In the way that your love is, horrible little thing you are, there is nothing and no one now–

Nothing and no one who will take him from you. Who will stop you now. 

***

The reception afterwards is mostly for politics. You and Satoru are supposed to play nice but–

He’s being a shit. Smarmy. You don’t ask him to stop, so he doesn’t. You don’t particularly care to be polite or good, to not frighten the other sorcerers and the clans. In fact, you think Satoru is flexing a little bit, as if to say ‘you wanted this, you wanted this our whole lives. As if to say, we will not be as obedient as you thought. As you hoped.’ 

In hindsight, you think they regret your arranged marriage. 

You don’t know what they expected, forcing two of the most powerful sorcerers together. Did they think you wouldn’t band together? Did they hope you would still hold loyalty to them above all else, and not each other? 

You spent your whole life being reared and raised to be their perfect weapon, their perfect wife, their perfect god. To fit alongside Satoru. Were you not groomed for this? Are you not perfect for it? 

You can’t fathom their shock. 

Still, you can tell he is trying to enjoy his evening, if only with you, if only for you. 

“It is our wedding,” he’d said to you just days prior. “It’s for us. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be,” he’d said, “but now it is.”

You can tell many disapprove of his blatant affection for you, disapprove of the way he’s teasing them to make you laugh. They hate that you laugh, that you won’t scold him. They hate what they have created. 

His arm has been around you nearly the entire evening. Whether on the crux of your waist or the small of your back, around your shoulders or fitting his fingers to the bend of your torso along the lines of your rib, he has clung impossibly close to you. 

“What do you say?” he asks, dropping kisses like falling stars over your cheek, your jaw, tickling along your neck playfully. “Should we find Shoko and Nanami and the kids? I don’t want to spend anymore time with these geezers.” 

“Yes,” you agree, letting him catch you in a fuller kiss, one that bleeds warmth into you, runs a thrill down your spine as you feel the soft brush of his teeth, a little tongue. 

You pull away before he can deepen and he grins at you, a little raucous, a little knowing, before you can pinch his side and get a little yelp from him, before you can spirit him away to where you know everyone waits for you.

“Finally,” Shoko says, leaning back in her chair, “I was going to die of boredom just watching you two greet all of them.” 

“It’s horrendous,” Satoru agrees before Tsumiki, who’d been in Nanami’s care for the evening, bounds straight into Satoru’s arms for a hug.

He laughs and catches her easily, picks her up even though she’s a little too old for it, and spins her around. 

Megumi leaves his seat next to Nanami to ease himself up to your side, wrap his arms around your waist and peer up at you with those eyes so deep. 

“You look nice,” he mutters into your hip and you know it means a lot coming from him. And then, he peeks up at you through his long lashes, “are you happy?” 

The question catches you by surprise, for some reason, and your heart suddenly swells. Tenderness bundles itself up, knots your heart over itself. You think about the question; are you happy? 

Can you be? 

Are you allowed to be? After everything you’ve done? After everything you will do? 

Tears prick your eyes. 

But you are happy, you decide, you are happy now. You are happy for tonight. 

And you nod to him, running your fingers through his unruly hair, “I’m very happy, Megumi.”  

He studies your face, squeezes just a little tighter around you, and says, “then I’m happy, too.” 

Satoru suddenly gets his big hand on the top of Megumi’s head. “Look at you, Megumi, you look so handsome in your suit.” 

Megumi starts to fuss, like he always does with Satoru, batting at his hand, trying to scrap with him, even when Satoru laughs. Perhaps especially when he laughs. Satrou pushes his little head around in his palm, tormenting him. 

Tsumiki eases up to your side as the boys scrap and you welcome her into your arms as if she could have always belonged there. 

When she looks up at you, you can tell she’s debating on saying something. You smooth out a piece of her hair, swiping it behind her ear, “what is it?” You ask and maybe you remind yourself of your own mother finally. 

“I don’t remember my mother’s wedding to Megumi’s father much. I was really young.” She frowns, “I wish–” 

“I wish I remembered more of it. Of them. I wish Megumi remembered them.” You can sense the tears in her before they even well. You can feel your own caught in the back of your throat for her. 

For everything inside of you, you cannot fathom how an unending well has opened inside of you for this child. For Megumi. You always thought, your whole life, the only space inside of you would be an infinite void and only the one who possesses Infinity could ever control that. 

But it’s as if they’ve made a new space. 

You swipe her tears away with your thumb before they can fall. “Tsumiki,” you try to soothe. What can you say? What would you want to hear? What will you want to hear when your own mother is gone? 

How do you not fall apart for her–for everything–of all that will happen to her, here and now? 

Instead, she says, “I hope we remember this one, at least.” And she gives you her best and brightest smile. The one that sparks and brightens a room. 

You hold her tight to you, you clutch to her, perhaps unsure if it’s her who needs this or you. You hold her until you feel as if you can pull away and won’t burst at the seams, until you are certain that you can smile back at her. 

“You will,” you assure her, voice thicker than you’d like, and then, “and it’s okay–Satoru has already taken far too many pictures.” 

She laughs then, overspilling from her in a way that is lovely and young and beautiful. 

You feel arms wind around you from behind, the smell of tobacco, of plum, and smile when you see Ieri’s manicured fingers fasten themselves around you.

She hooks her chin over your shoulder and smiles at Tsumiki, too. 

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” you respond, turning your cheek into hers. 

“What do you say, Tsumiki? Should we go dance the night away?” Ieri then says, her smile lazy but genuine and you think, perhaps, she sensed, or knew that Tsumiki was feeling tender. 

You find you are grateful for her, not for the first time in your life, but you realize how much and how grandly Ieri has been there. 

“I’d like to dance!” Tsumiki says and you smile as Ieri unwinds herself from you.

“I’ll get a glass of wine.” She says, “and then we can hit the dance floor.” 

“Do I hear dancing?” Satoru perks up, Megumi caught underneath his arm, kicking and thrashing a little. 

“Satoru, put him down,” you tell him.

“Oh, you’re lucky, Megumi, my wife has set you free.” And he sets the boy back down onto his feet, who looks ready to scrap again with the little scowl on his face, but you take hold of his wrist before he can.

“Come on, Megumi, we’re going to dance.” You say to him, tugging lightly and his frown deepens, but he does allow you to pull him towards the dance floor. 

No one is dancing because it’s a stuffy room of jujutsu higher ups, sycophants and clan leaders. There is music, but no one is dancing.

“Nanami, you too!” Satoru cries, throwing his arm around the poor young man. Freshly eighteen as well. 

“I’m going to need a drink,” he mutters and it makes you laugh, blossoming out of you. 

“Where’s Utahime?” Satoru then asks, “let’s get everyone.” 

It is a small struggle to grab everyone, but once done, the dance floor welcomes you. 

Nanami and Utahime need at least two drinks, before they give in and begin to dance, Nanami bobbing along and Utahime beginning to sway and move. Ieri, you think, has been tipsy this whole time and you don’t blame her. Megumi takes a little bit to drag out of his shell–

But you take his hand and you dance with him, letting him lead you, ducking beneath his arm when he spins you. You bring him out and back in, spin around the room with him until he’s cracking a smile, until you’re laughing, genuinely, with all the love inside of you. 

Murmurs spread around you, people gossiping, passing judgment at the group in the center. But Ieri pours wine into your mouth carefully, laughing when some gets on your chin, wiping it away quickly to not fall any further. You and Utahime work to get Nanami to loosen up–you make him dance with you, too, can see the flush of pink high on his cheeks as he looks to Satoru, who only laughs merrily in return.

 And suddenly two drinks have turned to four and perhaps people are scandalized.

By young people, being young for once. 

By the way the kids are running around, laughing, and screaming. Dancing and singing. You and Satoru let them terrorize the place. Satoru bends down to Megumi and tells him to go steal sweets for him, to go trip that man there, and go ahead and bump into her as well.  

They’re mortified by the way Satoru grabs you, curls a broad hand around your waist and pulls you close, sways with you to the upbeat music from the DJ Satoru specifically requested despite everyone’s disapproval. 

The night blooms. 

Your father tries to convince the DJ to stop. Satoru’s mother is scowling from across the room but–

When you catch your mother’s eye, she is smiling. Nodding her head along subtly. 

You pull away from Satoru suddenly.

It was never in your mother’s future, this moment, but you can’t help but feel like you need it now, more than anything. Maybe she needs it more than anything. There’s a questioning look on Satoru’s face, before he sees where you’re already headed off to.

And then your hands are in your mother’s and she’s shaking her head no a little, laughing nervously, but you don’t let her go. 

You don’t want to let her go. 

“I can’t–” she says to you but you don’t listen, dragging her out to the dance floor. 

You know her time is rapidly approaching, quicker than you could’ve ever realized. You’ve blinked and suddenly you are not just a child who knows what will happen to her, but a new adult, on the night of your wedding, not even a year out. 

All at once, you realize how rapidly everything has approached. The world turns and you just wish you could still it, place one hand over Time and capture it between your fingers, wrestle it still. 

Instead, you spin around the room with your mother. She’s shy and it occurs to you that she probably never got this at her own wedding.  

So you give it to her now. 

Satoru dances with her. Let's you dance with her until she laughs a little. 

And she tells you she loves you. She’s happy for you, if you’re happy. 

She still slips from your hands and recedes to the edges again, but she watches you with shining eyes, overjoyed and lovely.

You look at all of your friends as they dance and drink and shout and sing, watch Megumi and Tsumiki, and perhaps at the same time as Satoru, you realize there is one missing. 

(Perhaps three, in total, because you wonder about a future with Suguru and the two little girls. Two little girls like Megumi and Tsumiki. You think they should’ve been friends, that it would’ve been nice to have them around–)

You look at Satoru the moment his face falls a little, as his brows pinch into a sort of mourning that you know well. 

You slip your hand into his. 

“I wish–” he starts.

“I know.” You tell him, “me too.” 

He shudders a little, a rocky inhale, a slow exhale like he’s trying to stabilize himself. 

Grief lingers in both of you, stitched into your existences, melded down to your marrows. 

Perhaps for all gods, it is. Perhaps it is a requirement of godhood. 

You squeeze his hand. 

You pull him back into life, into your friends, and evermoving Time. The world spins and so do you, late into the night, when everyone has gone home.

When the stars sing and Nanami’s tie has been lost and Shoko’s hair is a mess and there are lipstick smudges on Satoru’s cheeks and the kids are tired.

Megumi is sleeping on two chairs put together and Tsumiki is trying her hardest not to nod off as well. 

“I’ll make sure everyone gets home safely,” Utahime promises, a little weary herself, but sober, and still walking. Which is more than the rest can say. And for once, she hugs Satoru and gives him a genuine smile. She tells him she’s happy for him; she’s glad he was able to have fun, at least, on his wedding night. She hugs you, too, and you don’t know Utahime well yet. 

But you will, when Satoru becomes a teacher alongside her. 

Nanami gently wakes Megumi, eases the drowsy boy into standing alongside his sister. Megumi is tired enough that he lets Nanami hold his hand to usher him out. Tsumiki tucks up next to him, too, and your heart aches watching them. 

Ieri kisses your cheek sloppily, and then Satoru’s, who laughs at her antics, who shoos her into Utahime’s waiting arms. 

Until they’re parading out and it is just you and Satoru, always just you and Satoru, at the end of a night. At the beginning of a day. 

Your shadows cast tall and wide behind you in the last lights of the venue. 

He looks at you and smiles and says;

“Let me take you home.” 

***

In front of you sprawls your new home. 

You have yet to see it in person, until tonight. 

Satoru had whined about wanting to surprise you, how it was impossible to do so, since you’d already seen the future.

I’ve already seen the home you will give me, you tell him and you want to tell him, I see it in my dreams. I see it in the softest, most shuddering parts of my heart. 

Still, it is hard to put into words what you feel as you gaze at the front door, at the windows that line the place; wide and glittering and will certainly let in enough light to drown the place in it. 

“Do you like it?” Satoru prompts, nervous, “the outside, anyways?” 

A laugh springs from you, “yes,” you gasp, “of course I do.” 

He unlocks the front door then and before you can take another step, you’re suddenly airborne. 

You yelp.

“It’s tradition somewhere, isn’t it? To carry you over the threshold of our new home?” 

This time your laugh is full and bursting, clutching tight to his neck, the silks of white that drape over your body flutter and twist in his big hands. It hikes up and you can feel the cool brush of night, just before Satoru kicks the door shut behind him.

And then he sets you down and–

You take a few, fawn-like steps, into your new home. It’s open with dark wood but he’s decorated it with soft creams and silky flowers on low tables. It’s surprisingly put together and surprisingly warm. 

Homey, almost. 

You think it looks nothing like his childhood home of marble and steel and clean, shocking white. Nor yours, brooding and stiff and vacant. It looks comfortable, like you build something here. 

It looks painfully, viciously, human.

Your chest tightens. Your vision blurs.

“There’s a garden out back, not quite as big as the one you grew up in but there’s a pond still and–and Tsumiki and Megumi finally have their own rooms upstairs.” Satoru says, watching, enamored, as you move about the space. 

It isn’t huge, not long and sprawling, but it isn’t small, either. And for this area, so close to the campus, you know it was no small lump of money. 

You have seen yourself here for awhile now, in Satoru’s future, living and sleeping and humming to yourself as you move about the space. You have seen your life here already but now it truly blossoms in your vision. 

You turn to him and you realize you’re crying, tears finally brimming over and onto your cheeks. This will be the first time away from your parents, from your garden, from the small world you’d been isolated to all your life. 

It will be your first night with Satoru, the first of many, of forever. 

“Don’t cry,” he hushes but you can tell, perhaps, that his voice has gotten thicker, tighter with emotion. He takes your face in his great, broad hand and curls it around you protectively. There’s an inkling of possession in the act, the sudden firmness, the way he guides your face up to his. 

Then, soft as midnight, dark as the sky, “I always told you I’d take you away, didn’t I?” 

You shiver, feel it race up your spine at the edge he has in his voice. Like he was always planning it, like he’d thought about it so often it turned him inside out, like it was an inevitable part of your future. 

You nod into the warmth of his hand, nuzzle into the cup of his palm. 

“And I have.” He says, “you don’t ever have to see your father again, if you don’t want to. Any of your clan.” 

You know you will see your father once more. 

Satoru swipes away a tear before it can fully cascade down your cheek. 

“Don’t cry,” he says again. 

You reach up to slip your fingers, cool and soft, against his cheek, to dip under the fabric of his blindfold. He wore it the whole night, you missed his eyes the whole night. 

You let your fingers explore the soft part of his under eye, careful as you feel his lashes tickle, as you creep up towards his brow bone. 

The blindfold comes off in a heap. 

His eyes are glassy, too, like he may cry. 

“I love you,” you say, perhaps for the first time so plainly. It falls from your mouth as easily as stars falling from the sky. 

He seems to shudder with it, before he eases forward, brings your face up like a flower seeking sun, and presses tender, little kisses to your cheek. 

I love you, too, they seem to say, to scatter like petals, I love you, too. I’ve always loved you. 

You turn your face, seeking, and his lips catch yours in a deeper kiss. Slow and warm like honey, ambrosia poured hot down the body of you, feeling it slither deeper. You have rarely been truly alone with Satoru throughout all your years; it didn’t stop you from kissing or touching, if not carefully, if not always with one eye open. 

But now there is no one but you two. 

And you feel confident in pressing closer, in tangling your hand in his hair, silky and soft between your fingers. You feel his hand flex, before sliding along your hips, pulling you closer still. 

A soft nip of your teeth, testing, letting you flex your nails in his shoulder. 

You feel his hitch of breath.

Your desire sharpens, digs its claws into you. You’ve always wanted him in some way; wanted him near and to be yours, wanted him weak and strong, wanted him desperate and assured. You have wanted him in the marrow of you, since you were a child. Since the moment he told you that he would always have you. 

“‘Toru,” you murmur and your voice is perhaps softer than you’ve ever heard it, higher in a way that is just shy of a whine. You flush with embarrassment. Heat burns your ears, your neck. 

For all your own strength, you are always rendered horrendously hopeless for him. It’s like an affliction, some illness you can’t shake, something that has overridden you your whole life.

“What is it?” He hushes back, lips hovering over yours, “what do you need?” 

It’s almost mocking, in that sweet, lullaby voice of his.

You seize him, by the hair, by the front of his clothes, “don’t be cruel.” 

Your voice wavers, though.

And he huffs out a laugh, reaches one hand up to untangle it from his shirt, soothes until you release the hold on his hair, too. “I’d never be.” He lies and then he ducks his face to the crook of your neck. 

You’ve felt him here before, felt him nuzzle and kiss softly, felt the tickle of his hair on your cheek. But now you feel the wet warmth of his mouth, open, tongue soft against your skin. The strike of teeth. You always knew he was holding back with you before; in fact he’d done so deliberately at points. 

If you’d crawled over him, he’d pause, and ease you off. His cheeks had always been so pink. He’d had to explain it wasn’t rejection but rather a thread of his control. 

Not to be a traditionalist, he’d say, but I’ll only have you when it’ll only be us and all the time in the world. 

You wish your technique was time bending, rather than sight. You wish you could manipulate it more than you do now, wish you could manipulate the actual length of it. Freeze it. Hold it. 

Rewind it. 

You push at him a little and for a moment, he doesn’t relent, and you are reminded of how strong he’s become. Broad and tall. Lean with muscles, grown into himself in a way that you have always known and yet, are still surprised to feel beneath your hands. 

Finally, he eases away from you and you step away, slip from him to wander further into the house without a word. 

He watches you for a moment, the way he always has, explore the garden, wander around a new place that is yours. His. Each other’s. It’s a strange dance you both know well, this sort of give and take, push and pull where you make him chase. You make him wait. You make him come to heel. 

You ease around the banister of the stairs and slowly begin to climb them when he finally moves from his spot. He comes to the side of the stairs and you are only just as tall as him, two steps up, with the railing between you. 

Just as he had earlier to you, you put your finger beneath his chin and lift his face, tilt it up into looking at you. Pretty boy that he is, he gazes at you from beneath lashes like snowflakes. 

“I want to see the rest of my house,” you say softly. 

His smile is fond, if not amused. 

“Yours?” He asks. 

“Mine.” You agree with a sharp, small smile of your own and his laugh is a welcome sound. 

“Everything is yours.” He agrees. 

“Mine,” you agree again and this time you kiss him soundly as a reward. 

Only briefly though, a lick of heat, before you slip from him and disappear up the stairs. Quicker than before, you take the stairs, as if to run from him. 

In the blink of an eye, Satoru shudders to life in front of your vision. 

(You know this moment, have cherished the memory in his future before it became a memory at all.) 

He catches you before you can get past him and you still yelp in surprise. 

Funny, you think, he’s never done that to you before. He usually lets you lead and run and stray from him. He follows dutifully. 

“Cheater,” you gasp, looking up at him in surprise. 

“I didn’t know there were rules.” He smiles, but you duck out from beneath his hold and he allows you to escape, wandering deeper into the hallway.

You know the first room on your left is Megumi’s. And then Tsumiki’s is on the right. You know they will share the bathroom beside Megumi’s room. And if you go straight down the hallway, at the end of it, will be your bedroom. 

So that is the first one you pick, it’s the first door you open. 

Dark wood and pale blue. Gold. Cream. The bed is set low into its frame, larger than you even thought they made. There is a balcony attached, draped with curtains of off-white, hiding the night sky from you, hiding the small table and chairs he’s placed out there, that you will spend many mornings and evenings on. The room is–

Perhaps a flex of his money, more than the other places of the house (despite the kid’s room, with all the toys in the world he could ever give them, with more than they know what to do with but Satoru has always been a spoiler, an indulger–)

And you can tell now that he is trying to spoil you. 

You turn to face him, just as he comes up behind you, and before he can ask another question, you pull him down into a fierce kiss. 

He makes a startled noise against your lips, before you taste the smile at the corners of his mouth, feel it, perhaps it’s smugness. Satisfaction that he’s pleased you. 

For a moment, you think you have the lead on him, but he suddenly nudges you backwards. Blindly, you let him lead you, steps tentative and small, but he demands more, and he takes the space that you relent eagerly. 

You pull away, to gain your footing, to slip from him again and this time, when you dart away–

You know he will warp in front of you, have seen this moment many times before, so you dance away from him, as if to prove something to him. 

He laughs, “cheater.” 

The smile you give him over your shoulder makes him follow, trail after you as you wander around the room. 

There is an attached bathroom, large and spacious. Luxurious. The tub is deep and wide, overlooking a window of the gardens. It’s beautiful. 

When you turn back to face Satoru once more, he’s seated on the edge of the bed. He’s loosened the top several buttons of his shirt. Opened himself up further to you. You keep away, as if to tempt him. 

“The bath is huge,” you say. 

“Needed to fit both of us.” He says so plainly it takes your breath clear from your lungs. The idea of it, the two of you, bare and in the tub together, force heat down into your face, your neck. 

He laughs a little and if his ears are pink, too, who's to say? 

“Are you shy about it?” He asks, and then, “are you scared?” 

Your fingers twist in the silk white of your kimono, the beading catching against your skin. Carefully, tentatively, you nod.

“Are you?” You ask.

“Not really.” And then, “a little. I want to please you.” 

For a heartbeat, you almost ask if it’s his first time, if he’s sure, since he’s not so nervous. But you know his future better than anyone. You know he means it when he says, “I want to–” 

He swallows around what could be glass or pride or rationality;

“I want to consume you.” 

He laughs but it seems strange, a little off kilter, “I want revenge, with how you make me feel, you know?” 

You can feel your chest quicken its cadence, rise and fall sharply, your heart squeezing and pumping as hard as it can inside of you. 

“I’m sorry,” he shakes his head, “I don’t mean to scare you more.” 

“I don’t believe you.” 

His left eye glints when he tilts his head back to regard you. 

A God will try to consume me tonight. 

A thrill goes through you, vicious and exciting in equal measure. 

“I’ll be good to you,” he promises. “I’d never hurt you.” 

You hum in acknowledgement, but you don’t promise it back, nor do you fully believe him. 

“Come here,” he says and he spreads his legs a little, perhaps subconsciously. 

You realize somewhere along the line he’d become a man. And he’s always kept his desires hidden from you previously, or perhaps far from you, almost untouchable. So to be confronted with them now, you feel a little unstable. Wobbly on your feet. 

You pull at your wedding garments, silky beneath your fingers, but aren’t brave enough to take it off. You swallow hard. You know if you go to him, you’ll be undone. 

“We don’t have to, either, if you don’t want. We’ve never done anything by the book, anyways.” He says and you feel as if he’s peering into you, into the squirming, soft, terrified parts of you. 

You realize you know intimacy with violence; you’ve only been able to express your desire for him with tooth and nail. You have never been able to melt or be delicate, but met his affections with violet bruises and tender-pink scrapes. 

You have never been able to swallow around gentle love. Or…pleasure. 

Shame seeps in at the idea of it, pleasure; your pleasure from him.

I want to please you. 

You always assumed when you had him, it would be a sort of claiming, you always saw it as another way to sink your claws into him. Of course, you want him, perhaps more than anything, but you never saw your own pleasure in it. Just, the pleasure of knowing he was yours, all yours. 

“No,” you blurt, “I want to. I want you.” 

“Then come here,” he says again, slower. 

And the way he says it, low and soft, lilting almost, turns you into just a girl. Disarms you so easily you almost sway with it. 

Instead, you drop to your knees, easy, and plant your hands on the floor. 

The moment you make the first move to crawl to him, he curses softly. You feel your cheeks burn and burn and burn. It isn’t like–

He’s seen you crawl a thousand times before, in the garden, over him and Ieri, roll around in grass and hill. He’s seen you be wild and untempered and free. 

But now you willingly follow his command, no less like this. You force yourself to pick your head up, to catch his eyes, to crawl easy and slow to him like you have a thousand times before. 

And when you get between his legs, he takes you by the face and kisses you fiercely, with more violence you’ve ever felt from him before. 

You rise up to twine your arms around his neck as arms band around your waist and just like that, you are in his lap once more. Just like that, you are kissing a god open mouthed and feeling it burn and twist inside of you. 

His hands slip up your sides, greedy in a way he has never allowed himself to be, catching on fabric and folds. He pulls you tighter to him, so you can feel that he’s–

You flush darkly. Moan softly with the realization and then feel the urge to hide in him, in the crook of his shoulder. He doesn’t let you, though, when you try to shy away, holds you still over him. So you have to feel him, so you have to try and keep from panting. 

“I had no idea you were so shy,” he breathes, almost laughing when you squirm, “I always saw you as unabashed.” 

“I never–” you don’t even know how to say it, and you hate how your voice pitches when you add, “I don’t have any experience with this.” 

“Neither do I, really.” He agrees, “but it’s just me.” He cooes, “it’s always been me.” 

This time he does allow you to hide in his neck, to duck down into him and let him soothe you with a big hand up and down your flank, your back. You’re near trembling with it and he must realize it, because he adds, “you really are nervous.” 

But he isn’t exactly being comforting. 

You sink your nails into him, “you’re enjoying this.” 

He laughs into your hair, “a little. I’ve never seen you this way before.” 

You nip at his throat a little, just the nick of your incisors, and feel him shudder beneath you. You feel his hips flex up into yours and with your legs spread, knees on other sides of his thighs, you can feel him, hot and hard at your center. 

You cling to him.

His hands flex around your waist, squeezing gently, before he suddenly urges the soft rock of your hips against his. 

It makes you gasp, it makes you terrified. 

Again, he moves your hips for you, guiding. Again, it’s startling to feel him, feel and know that there is so little fabric between you two. So little between you; no more clans or parents to stand in your way. 

He kisses you again, hard but sweet, still guiding you, moving your hips back and forth over him. Back and forth, until–

A moan startles out of you and this time, you feel yourself twitch your hips into him on your own accord. 

“That’s it,” he murmurs, “do what feels good. Doesn’t it feel good?” 

Another rock of your own hips, another push of his own and you nod, hovering above him slightly, lips parted over his. 

Then, you don’t need his hands at all, don’t need them to guide you at all. So he lets you learn and explore, lets his own hands wander over places he previously never allowed himself. He lets himself touch you in a way you have never felt; there is a sudden urgency to him now. 

You arch your back a little, encouraging, allowing, and his hands ease up onto your chest, all warmth from his palms seeping into you. It’s a surprise, almost, the heat of him, the way you fill his hands. 

He groans behind his teeth, squeezes lightly, as if afraid to hurt you and then bolder, harder. 

Your breath hitches when his thumb catches on the peaks of your breasts from over the fabric. So he does it again, firmer, and again, until you’re keening softly. Until you’re bucking a little more involuntarily against him. 

He suddenly pulls at the silk ribbon wrapped delicately around your waist, twists it around a hand until you feel the knot come away, feel the fabric give the way your stomach does, dropping slightly. 

You fist your hands in his shirt again, perhaps afraid. 

“Easy,” he murmurs, holding the front of your kimono closed still, if only for you, if only to give you a moment to adjust. The silk in his hands looks small, smaller than all of it swathed around you, drowning you in its starlight. 

When you’ve lessened your grip on him, he opens you up to him, painstakingly slow, bares you to him, pulls it down enough to pool at your waist. 

You feel the urge to hide again, to sink your nails into his skin, to fuss under his gaze. 

But then his bare palms are on your skin, warm hands, solid, real, burning hands that scorch up your torso to cup your breasts again. 

He watches your face now, lips parted, as his thumb sweeps over your nipples again, watches the way your features twist up. The feeling turns lightning hot, burns itself down to the wick inside of you, pooling low in your core. 

And Satoru is–enchanted. Enamored. Eyes a little rounded, hands eager. 

Without warning, he suddenly dips forward, lips parted, and fastens himself to the bud of your breast. 

Your hand disappears into his hair, shocked, fiending for an anchor and he groans against you when you tighten your hand into a fist. You pull, but it only encourages him, tongue laving over you, pink darting out against your flesh. 

You think he’s thought of this before, thought about doing this to you, wanted it for awhile now. You think it’s going to unravel you, as he drags his lips over to your other breast, as he latches on there, too. 

You can’t help but squirm in his embrace, pushing your hips into his, before arching your back into his seeking mouth. You can’t decide what you’d rather have, don’t think it matters because he’s the one in control now, holding you to his mouth, ducked down to your chest. 

You feel the graze of teeth. The sudden littering of kisses, nips. When his eyes flick back up to your face, he looks a little dazed, eyes all blue haze, glassy. 

He suddenly lays back, onto his elbows, hands falling back to your hips and you feel them squeeze, feel them guide you again. 

And he just watches a moment, with you on top of him, half bare, wedding silks petaled and pushed to your lower waist. His cheeks are flushed, lips stung pink, lashes fluttering as he watches you. 

He curses under his breath. 

You don’t think you’ve ever heard him curse this much before. 

“Angel,” he says, unbridled, from some deeper part of him, in a tone of voice that makes you flush. “Angel,” he says again, softer, more loving, breaking open on his lips like ripe fruit, “look at you, angel.” 

You tip forward, unable to keep from him, unable to remain up and so bare. So you press yourself to his chest, press your lips to his frantically, desperately seeking his solace, whatever comfort he’ll give you. Hide your bare chest to his, feel him hum against your lips, big hands all over your lower back, dipping lower still. 

“Lift your hips for me,” he says against you, rewards you by peppering kisses across your cheek, the corner of your mouth, your jaw, when you listen to him. He eases more of the fabric off of you, until his hands are running against pale lace, thumbing along the waist band of your panties. 

You shiver with more skin exposed, with your kimono gone. 

You pull at his own clothes desperately, if uncoordinated, just grabbing and fisting. You feel his laugh, taste it against your mouth, more than you even hear it. And his hands finally come up to help you, to ease off buttons, pull the fabric of his own out of the way until you can feel his bare chest. His bare arms. Muscled beneath soft skin. He’s so—

Sometimes you wonder, when he got so large. When did he become so strong? He was once so lanky. 

You keep pulling, until his entire torso is exposed to you, until you’re perched on his lap with your hands on his bare stomach. 

The dipping of his hips, the sculpted lines, draw your interest, eyes cast down as you finally take him in, too.

You inhale slow, grow brave enough to let your fingers brush against the button of his pants. 

“Go on,” he urges, watching you raptly. Eyes darting between your face and your nimble fingers.

You swallow hard and carefully pull the button through. Let it pop open easily with the tension there, can feel the heat of him, the hardness. Before you can falter, you take the zipper in hand and tug gently as well, until it reveals the dark briefs and—

The outline of him.

You look back up to him, perhaps for guidance, perhaps to gauge his own reaction, and he must sense your sudden uncertainty. 

“C’mere,” he soothes, bringing you to him in another kiss, heated and slow and deep. Tongue dipping against yours, licking softly into you until you’re distracted. 

Too distracted to notice where his hands are going, until you’re suddenly rolled onto your back, underneath him.

He slots his waist against yours. You can feel him more clearly through his briefs now, can feel the way he twitches as he pushes all tight up against you.

When he breaks from this kiss, it’s messier, spit dewy and wet between you. And his mouth eagerly trails down your jaw, sloppy kisses, and drags of his tongue down your throat, back to your chest.

He lingers here again, suckling, humming against you contently. Your hands sink back into his hair, moan bursting from you sweetly when he flicks his tongue just so. His eyes light up with the sound, working over the bud again and again, making your hips arch and ache.

He makes you sore with his own inexperience and eagerness, makes you fuss, until he relents and heads—

Lower.

“Satoru,” you call and the anxiety that picks up your voice doesn’t even make him pause. As if he’s expecting it.

His lips trail over your stomach, scattering wet little kisses.

You tug at his hair, trying to urge him back up, but he doesn’t listen.

He sidles down lower, manhandles you open so he can hook your legs over his shoulder. You try to shut your thighs but he easily keeps you parted, like you’re hardly trying at all.

“Satoru,” you say again, in warning, voice trembling, “don’t—please—“ 

He arches a brow, considers you, before completely disregarding you. 

You make a noise of irritation. 

“Stop being so shy,” he coos, “this is how I want you—this is—“

He glances down between your legs with a reverence that makes you hide your face in your hands, “this is what I’ve dreamt about.” 

He sets his lips to your inner thigh. 

“You’re so embarrassing!” You gasp between your fingers. 

He laughs and you can feel it, against the crux of your leg, so close to where you’re aching and hot and— “I haven’t even done anything yet.” 

He dots warm, open mouthed kisses to your skin, up and down your thighs. The sharp press of his teeth make you jump and squirm away from his hold, but he keeps you still and near. 

He takes his time, too much of it, as you begin to fuss again. You cry out to him, pull at his hair meanly, and all he does is muffle his laugh against you again. 

“I’m being cruel, aren’t I?” He says. 

You don’t know where he’s gotten his confidence, but it makes you want to hide or scream or drag your nails across his skin until it comes away torn and tattered. 

You think it’s something he’s always been rather content with, eager for, brave around—you. Your touch. Touching you. 

As if to say, since I am touchable to you, I will ruin you for any other touch. As if to say, well if I am not allowed to hide from you, you are certainly not allowed to hide from me.

You nod your head, bleary eyed.

“Okay,” he hushes, “okay.” 

The sudden hot press of his mouth to your core, through the pale blue panties, makes you gasp all strangled and tight.

“Satoru—“ you whimper in embarrassment, and you want to close your legs and just disappear. You want to twist away from him and hide. 

He hums against you, low and soft, and you can feel him mouthing and kissing over the fabric, where you’re most sensitive. 

He hooks a finger in the waistband of them and pulls, tugs gently and this time you really do sit up and try to get away from him.

“Calm down,” he says and there’s still an insufferably handsome smile at the corner of his lips, “it feels good, doesn’t it?”

“It’s so—“ 

Vulnerable, terrifying, horrible.

As if he can read your mind, as if he knows this moment the way you do, “what are you scared of?”

You swallow and look down at him and he peers back up at you, eyes all heaven blue, a little lovestruck, a little too hungry. 

You can’t even form the words, shaking your head a little, hands coming up to hide your face again. 

“Ah, come on now,” he muses and he sits up with you now, too. He pulls your hands away from your face and holds them in his, trapping them so you can’t run from him. “Tell me.” 

“Being bare.” You manage to get out, “being so—“

“Open to me?” He asks, “it’s a horrible feeling, isn’t it?” 

You realize he means that you have always been able to see every aspect of him; every aspect of his future and past and know it and have it and claim it. You know perhaps more about himself than he does at points. 

And maybe that’s all intimacy is, is knowing someone, very horribly, in ways that they may never know themselves.

You don’t know yourself like this, desire-driven, flayed open, a live wire of sensitive nerves and squishy, soft terror. You don’t know and won’t know what he sees or feels or tastes, you don’t know what he thinks.

In the same way that he has never known what you see or feel, what you tasted when you bit down on his future, what you think or know. 

I want revenge.

There’s a certain delight in his eyes, when he says, “I think you’ve gotten away with being very guarded for a long time. And I won’t have you guarded with me anymore.” 

You try to move your hands, take them back, or maybe suddenly cling to him and beg and simper and remain guarded. You want to try and manipulate him, you realize sharply, so that he’ll do this your way.

But he holds fast. 

“Lay back down,” 

“Satoru—“

“I’ll only ask once more.”

Tentatively, you lay back onto your elbows and he allows your hands to slip from his because you’ve obeyed him. 

You feel strange, experiencing this moment where you had previously only seen in the future, skipped over it almost, out of—

Shyness. 

He settles back down into the crux of your hips and this time, when he pulls the sweet, lace panties from your hips, all you do is let out a shuddering breath. Defeat, maybe, or anticipation, you can’t tell. 

His hand comes up, soothing, giving you the smallest comfort, before you feel his thumb, as careful as ever—

Slipping through ribbons of silky flesh, slick with desire, so sensitive that you squeeze your eyes shut.

He makes a soft noise, intrigue or affection, and adds a little more pressure.

“How do you touch yourself?” He asks and when you chance a glance down to him, you feel as if you’ll shake apart. 

His eyes are so dark and lust-blown, pools of blue ink. 

“I don’t know—“ you gasp.

His eyebrows quirk upwards in surprise, “you don’t know?” 

“Satoru—“ It comes out as a warning.

Don’t tease, don’t be mean, don’t be cruel.

“Don’t you touch yourself?” He asks and he glances back down to the way his thumb moves through you slowly, up and down, easy, with its slick glide.

In truth, not often. Or much at all. You explored, a little, you know, technically. 

But you just—neglected yourself. Your desire. You thought, in the scheme of things, there was so much more to worry about than pleasure. 

You don’t know when, but you became shy of your own body unless it was pain, unless it bloomed to bruise or fit to bleed or made you cry. You thought it strange to chase pleasure, especially at your own hands.

Did you even deserve it?

“Not really—“ you get out.

“You know what sex is, don’t you?” He teases and this time you flick his ear and make him laugh, warm and blossoming into the skin of your thigh. 

“I just didn’t—I don’t know!” You snap and now he sees that he’s pushing you perhaps a little too far because he softens. 

“Alright,” he says, “then we’ll find out.” And then his eyes catch yours, glittering in low light, “but you have to tell me what feels good. Can’t get shy on me.”

And then as gently as possible, you feel his thumb press fractionally inside you. His hands and fingers are bigger than yours so the sensation is strange and a little startling. 

You gasp.

He draws out, then gently back in. His eyes fixed on where your body swallows around his finger. 

Again, he repeats it and this time, pushes a little deeper.

To feel someone inside you is horribly vulnerable. Especially with his gaze fixed so squarely on where you’ve hardly seen yourself—

You always understood that this opening was a little unreachable. Even to yourself.

It’s why we keep our children there, isn’t it?

So as the feeling blossoms and Satoru murmurs softly to you, you find your hips twitching a little towards him. 

“There,” he coos, “does it feel good?” 

You nod, soft, small, and are rewarded by getting more of him. You throb, can feel it, the little pulse in your body and catch the cry that threatens to burst out of your throat behind your teeth. Trap it. You’re still scared to let it out or to give into pleasure. 

His thumb disappears to run outside of you again and you think he’s being a little indulgent now. He’s exploring, gently, watching, fixated.

Until he finds the bundle of nerves that makes you jolt.

He laughs a little, “right there?” 

“Yes,” you breathe, chest tight, knowing this is where, of any place you’ve felt pleasure, it was from here. And you know, technically, what he’s found and what he wants with how he sets his attention there now. 

Your body tenses but you don’t know—

When he dips forward to lave his tongue gently over your folds, you finally let go of that cry. 

You aren’t expecting it, can hardly process the wet heat of his mouth, as he makes another noise, low and needy and presses his mouth to you again.

Again, his tongue rolls out, and then he kisses, and then he’s open mouthed again and he’s experimenting. Tasting. Testing. And you’re just forced to bear it, your desire and his, in the small space between your legs.

You can tell he’s inexperienced, if not infinitely earnest and enthusiastic. And perhaps with your own inexperience and sensitivity, it makes it all worse. Or better. It feels—

You tangle a hand in his hair again and he groans against you when you pull on silver strands. You can feel the sound in your core and you tremble with it, shudder. 

His mouth is slick and shining and pink. 

He looks a little wrecked, a little uncertain and wobbly finally, too. 

“So good,” he murmurs, almost to himself, “you’re so good. Better than I imagined. How does it feel?” 

You whine a little, throwing your free arm over your eyes as you flop back onto the bed and he makes a displeased sound. You’re trying to hide from him. And he won’t stand for it, just like you never stood for it with him. 

“Use your words for me, angel.” He torments, he just about sings in that stupid, lovely voice of his. 

“It—“ you get out, “it feels good.” 

And then his mouth is back on you, bolder, a flash of wet tongue opening against you, messily devouring you as a reward. His eyes go soft lidded, desire-filled, all hazy newfound lust. 

You realize, dazedly, that his hips are pressing into the mattress, his own desire on a tight leash. 

“It feels good—“ your voice pitches, hips arching up into his grasp as everything turns molten and—and—

Good. 

It feels so good, you realize with a jolt, this strange heat. 

Like nothing you’ve ever felt before.

You feel his finger then, easy and slow, dip back inside you. Feel yourself cling to it. You can feel the way his tongue comes back up to that bundle of nerves to lick broad and slow over it.

Sloppy, but determined, eyes pitching back up to watch your face contort. 

You’re a fragile thing in his hands, you realize, teetering towards a precipice that frightens you, but that you know will—

It’ll feel good. 

“Toru—“ kitten soft, pulling fitfully at his hair, “I’m going to—“ you can’t even say it, can’t get the word to form in your mouth because it feels so strange there, but he groans against you and pushes a little deeper, gets a little more firm with you.

Your breath gets caught in the tangle of your throat, all knotted up, and the pleasure crashes on you swiftly and firmly. Takes you in it’s jaws and makes you squirm and cry out, whimpering as you feel—

You can feel the pulsing in your core against his eager mouth, feel the way it tightens and sucks at his finger. 

You try to shut your legs again, involuntarily, and he keeps you open.

Forces you open.

It is a horrible feeling.

Even worse when he’s being—lewd, licking broad stripes, letting translucent spit and, and—

Your desire drip and fall from his shining mouth.

You whimper, try to squirm away from him now as your pleasure gains a sharp edge and a vicious side to it. He must finally take enough pity on you or come out of his own haze, to notice, and finally draw away. 

And he looks at your face, perhaps disheveled, perhaps a little hazy in your own way, seeking and lost and desperate and he smiles. 

“Look at you,” he murmurs, coming up the length of your body, pressing his lips against yours before you can even think about it. Doubt it. Fret about it. You taste yourself on his mouth and it makes your heart trip up over itself, messy kiss that it is, it makes you shy again. But he doesn’t allow you to be. Still, you duck your face into his throat, peppering kisses there, nuzzling up against him, desperate for his affection suddenly. To be praised and stroked and adored. “So sweet when I strip you bare.” 

As if to counter him, you sink your teeth into his neck, and he laughs against your temple. 

You feel a little braver now or perhaps, needier, because you wrap your legs around his waist. Fix yourselves together like you were always meant to be, let him feel you, bare and warm and sticky, through the last bit of his clothes. 

He moans, a little shamelessly, and presses his hips into yours even more. 

And since he’s been so desperate for your desires, you murmur, “want you–I want you.” 

You can feel his chest heave a little with it, the weight, the sound of your voice against his ear. 

“How do you want me?” He murmurs back, though, as if to make it worse. “How did you think of this night?” 

In truth, you’ve always known it. So you know, when you twine your arms around his neck and hitch your legs a little higher on his waist, it will be just like this. 

Belly up and vulnerable, pliant on your back for him, for once in all your life. 

“Like this,” you murmur, pulling him in tighter, little vice grip that you’ve got, “just like this.” 

“Okay,” he breathes, maybe at the desperation in your voice, the sort of raw honesty that could break him apart, break him open. “Okay.” He says again, as if he could ever truly deny you. 

There’s some fumbling then, to get the rest of his clothes off, to reveal milky skin and the corded muscles of his thighs, his–

Your hands, uncertain, but desperate to please him, wrap delicately around his cock. 

He shudders a little, surprised, but hips push into your hand eagerly. 

He’s longer than you expected, but smooth in your palm, hot to the touch. 

“Getting brave?” He asks but you kiss at his jaw, his throat. 

“I want you to–” you unstick the words from your mouth, syrupy, and earnest, “I want you to feel good, too.” 

He makes a strangled noise, lets his head drop against your shoulder. 

“Listen,” he murmurs, “I’m not–” he laughs a little, trembling when you squeeze around him, when you fumble and stroke him. “I’m not going to last long.” 

And this time, you laugh, and it shakes some of  your fear off of you, opens you even further to him somehow. 

“That’s okay,” you sigh, wiggling your hips, suddenly eager to know he wants you this badly. You guide him until he’s found the heat of you, slippery and soft. “We have all night.” 

You can taste his smile, taste the groan, and can imagine the way his brows pinch together in pleasure. 

“We have our whole lives.” You tell him when he pulls away from the kiss.

“I have so much I want to do with you,” he says and though it makes you flush deeply, it also feels as if he’s saying–in life, I have so much I want to do with you. 

I have so much of you, and so much of life, and I want them both. I want it all. 

He takes himself in hand, lets your own hands fall away, slips himself, back and forth, between your legs. His face slackens a little, blissed out, and a higher noise gets pulled from him. 

“I’m really not gonna last long, angel.” He says again even as you let your head fall back, laughing, and his lips immediately follow to your throat. 

You buck your hips a little and the head of him catches and it makes you both freeze. 

You seize up. 

“Satoru–” you get out, nervous again, seeking, but this time he doesn’t deny you. 

“I know,” he hushes, “I know–you’re so tight. Just breathe.” 

You suck in a sharp breath as you feel his hips flex, feel the way you part around the tip of him, muscles so foreign, now being stretched, fitting snug around the shape of him. 

Your walls flutter.

“Relax,” he breathes, and it’s almost a hiss against your lips, and you don’t think it’s for you this time, but for himself. 

You try to breathe, though, in through your nose, try to loosen your legs a little around him enough to let himself press a little deeper. A hiccuped breath. 

Satoru kisses you hard, perhaps as a distraction, as you squeeze around him. As you feel the real burn and stretch of him, feel the way it carves inside of you and–

Tears prick your eyes. You don’t know how anyone does this easily or without someone like Satoru to you. Someone to call your own, who calls you his. Always has. 

He presses all the way into the hilt of him and you swear you can feel him in your stomach, feel your muscles clench and throb around him in painful little squeezes. He pulls away from your lips to let you breathe, to let his forehead drop to yours, his hair tickling against your cheeks. 

You whimper and he immediately coos at the sound, instinctive, as he’s done his whole life for you. You realize, perhaps dumbly, that this position is a familiar one in the sense that you bury yourself in the crooks of his body, cling to him like a child, and cry. And he has always soothed you. 

And right now seems, in many ways, no different. 

“Wrap your arms around me,” he murmurs and you wind yourself around his neck, wind yourself tight so that he might never untangle you. So that you might choke him.

And then he lifts you, sits back, and settles you gingerly in his lap. 

You’re stretched wide over him, holding yourself up desperately, and he’s aiding, hands at your waist. 

But then, gently, he lets you slip down. 

You hiss, but then find the back of your legs kissing his thighs, sitting snug.

“There,” he conjoles, letting you sit with him deep, deep inside you. Still. He kisses at your tear-stained cheeks, wet and soft, “that’s it. Just sit still for a moment.” 

You feel his tongue against your jaw, your throat, the flint strike of his teeth, of pain. You whimper into his shoulder and he continues to hush you, calm you, pull you closer so that he can run a broad hand over your sides, over your back. 

He pets through your hair, carefully, pushing it from your face to see your tears. The way you sniffle. He forces you to peer down your nose at him, lashes fluttering. 

You nuzzle into his cheek now, scattering wet, little kisses along his skin. He hums and you feel him twitch inside of you, feel the way his hands flex on your waist. 

“So sweet now, aren’t you? Usually so mean, suddenly so good for me.” He says against your jaw, “just falls apart in my arms, don’t you?” 

“Stop,” you mutter, pushing your face back into his neck to hide. 

“You just melt with my cock inside of you, huh? Is that it?” His voice goes soft and low and–

This time, you bury your nails in his shoulders. “Satoru!” 

But he can feel you flutter around him and he can feel the way your breath catches against his throat. 

“Why don’t you try moving, angel?” He coaxes, “just like earlier.” 

You shake your head, if only to spite him, so he begins to kiss you again. Hands dipping over your skin, moving up to your chest once more where he cups and squeezes. You can feel him again, deep inside you, throbbing. So desperate himself, held back by his own control. 

And then his mouth is again dipping down, to the peak of your breast, and he groans when he latches onto your nipple again. 

If you were braver, you’d have half a mind to comment on how he needs to keep his mouth busy. 

But for now, it only makes you loosen up finally, warmth a slow roll in the depths of you. 

You can feel yourself, dripping over him, rooted so deeply inside of you. It’s horrible but it’s–

It feels good, you tell yourself again, it feels good. 

Through the haze of the initial pain, there is pleasure that blooms. 

Your hips rock towards his, keeping him buried to the hilt, but you watch as his lashes flutter against your skin, cheeks hollowing with a suck that makes you keen and it’s–

It’s like lightning. 

You move again, squirm in his lap, until he pulls off your chest with a ragged groan, disheveled and half out of his mind. His hands help your hips, guide you slow, up and down over him until you’re dropping them all on your own. 

And he’s half mad with it, letting his head fall back, letting his hands grab and squeeze greedily. Greedy. 

Gods are greedy. And they will devour you.

You moan, clutching at his hair, his shoulders, feeling yourself become something else entirely–someone else entirely.

New being, new creature born out of something more than your pain, and the guilt, and the violence. New god, with the roll of your hips, and the way you feel him in the depths of you, all around you.

Satoru suddenly pushes you back again, so you’re belly up once more, finally sets his own pace and it’s a little more desperate. Teeth sink hard into your neck, capture you, make a high noise come out of you that you haven’t quite heard before. 

He grabs at you, pulls your hips up, hits somewhere deeper that makes you yelp. It makes tears well again and he can’t help himself anymore, hips beginning to stutter, lose their rhythm.

When you tip your head back, he suddenly grabs your face, bringing you back to face him. 

“Say it for more,” he gets out, voice wrecked and cracking at the end and–

Of course you know. 

“You will always have me,” you tell him, against his lips, spit slick and the whine caught in his throat. 

“You will always have me,” he promises.

You sink your nails into his shoulder as if to emphasize your next words, feel him keen now, “I will always have you.” 

And he gives you a harder thrust, as if to retaliate, just to feel you whimper, just to feel you cling to him. Settles himself deep inside of you, almost cruelly, as he gets out, his voice darker than you’ve ever heard it before;

“I will always have you.” 

Your cry is almost strangled, a hiccup of it, as you pulse and shatter around him like you were always meant to. 

He can’t help himself then, can’t help the bitten off groan that’s turned half into a whine, or the way he keeps himself buried, snuggly inside of you, as he fills you with warmth. 

It’s more soothing than you thought it’d be, the feeling of him like this. 

He leans heavier into you, mouths at your chest again, gentler now, more content. 

And he tips his head up, so you can see the catch of his starlight eyes, and he murmurs, “I love you. More than you’ll ever understand, I think. In a way I can’t even properly express.” 

But you sift your hands through his hair and look down at the man you’ve known all your life and think, I changed all of time for you. 

You smile softly, watery, and he leans up to clear your tears away again. And again. Like he always has. 

I did everything for you, you think.

Then you say, gently, and you think your voice has a newer quality to it, more honeyed–it almost sounds familiar to your own ears;

“I think I understand more than you’d know.” 

 And he laughs a little, but it’s off kilter all over again, and he’s kissing you and you swear you’ll let him devour you in every way he likes, for the rest of your life. 

You realize it isn’t so bad– to be devoured by a God. 

***

Your life has transformed before your eyes. 

At once, it was an endless cycle of your childhood home; your father’s violence and your mother’s scurrying and you, somewhere between them. You, some horrible form of both. 

But now you live with Satoru and Megumi and Tsumiki. And Ieri visits and Nanami pretends he doesn’t want to visit, but does, and Utahime brings flowers. 

Satoru and her become teachers together. 

And you walk Megumi and Tsumiki to school and walk them back home, too. You watch the sun in the sky and you think about trying to preserve this time forever. You think about trying to get the sun to stop. Or to swallow it whole. 

You fall into bed with Satoru, (in countless ways, over and over, like you’ve discovered a new world together, another part of yourself, of him, that yawns open inside of you), and miss him tremendously when he’s away. 

Megumi, as if he knows, always seems to ask for movie nights when Satoru’s gone, or perhaps he just misses him, too. You think Megumi struggles more than Tsumiki or Tsumiki is better at hiding it. You can only imagine, with what they’ve been through, how they’re doing. Their life has been unstable, uprooted, and now they finally have a home. A place that they will reside for longer than a few weeks, a few months, a few years. You know it might be hard, though, and you know they’ll struggle. You and Satoru watch them closely, perhaps too closely. 

“How do you think they’re doing?” You ask Satoru one night after putting them in bed, as you begin to strip your clothes of the day. Immediately, you feel Satoru’s hands sliding along your stomach, eagerly pulling you pack into his chest. He’s warm, his hands, his body. 

“I think Tsumiki is doing alright. Megumi is…” He trails off but you understand, “I don’t think he’s doing as well.” 

“He struggles with change.” You respond, “but I think it will be good for him, to finally have a stable home.” 

Satoru looks at you for a moment in his arms, against his chest, his eyes softened, before he says, “I never thanked you, you know.” 

“For what?” You ask, turning your face to find his eyes. 

“For taking them in, without a second thought.” 

“I’ve always known them, Satoru.” You tell him, “I’ve always known that we’d–”

He nods like he knows, but he still says, “it’s a lot to ask of you.” 

“It’s not a lot to ask to love them.” You tell him, “it’s hard not to.” 

“I know,” he agrees and he swallows around something. And then he asks, “you wouldn’t let anything happen to them, would you?” 

You tilt your head and hear the real question in his words, the way he trembles with it. 

“Never.” You agree. 

“Even over me?” He insists, “I want you to pick them–over me.” 

You think Satoru has always known more than he tends to let on. 

You swallow hard. You don’t even want to think of it, don’t want to think about–

“I won’t have to.” You tell him softly, shaking your head as if to clear your mind of the memory, the version of this life where you have to pick. But you’ve been so careful and you’ve played it all so well, so perfectly that there’s no way now. Is there?

You have the urge to suddenly reach for your necklace, swing the pendant in front of your gaze and tear through time, just to be sure. 

“Say you did,” he murmurs, “I want you to–I want you to say you’d pick them.”

“Okay,” you say, if only to get him to leave it, let it drop from you. You want to forget. You want to shake your head, harder, until it all rattles out of you.

“No,” Satoru says softly, holding you to him before you can dart away, “I need to hear you say it.” 

Something inside of you squirms. 

You glance upwards to find the mirror hanging across the room as decoration, catch the way he’s holding you, the look in his eyes. His reflection looks strange to you now, towering, darker than ever before. 

He fastens himself tighter to you, “I know that you’ve put me before everyone until now.” He says softly, “that between me or Suguru, it would always be me. If it came down to it, I think you would let everyone burn, so long as it saved me. I know it’s–” 

He stops himself. 

And then he says, “but it can’t be for them. Do you understand?”

You can feel tears welling in your eyes. 

“So just say it for me now,” he soothes, “promise me, you’ll put them first.” 

You feel as if two intrinsic things inside of you stretch and pull, struggle with one another. The urge to do as he asks, or the urge to finally, after everything, put others before him, when there’d been no one else. 

Both feel counterintuitive. Confusing. Your head begins to throb and if you didn’t know better, you’d think–it almost tastes like cursed energy, the air tangy with it, sharp. 

Satoru turns you towards him and he takes your chin in between his fingers delicately and forces you to look up at him. “Promise me,” he murmurs. 

You swallow around the hard lump forming in your throat. You don’t know why you’re crying. It’s not as if–

It’s not as if you don’t love Megumi or Tsumiki. 

It’s just–you’ve only ever known Satoru, in the deepest, most ruthless, most tender parts of you. 

“I promise,” you whisper, “I promise to put Megumi and Tsumiki before you.” 

“No matter what–” He urges. And even though it burns and aches, sticks like thorns in your throat, Satoru Gojo makes you give him your second binding vow;

“No matter what.” You choke out, “no matter what.” 

***

The day your mother dies, you spend the morning holding Tsumiki. She’d had a nightmare. She said she used to always sleep with her mother when she had this dream and now she is in your bed. And you are holding her the way your mother used to hold you when you had visions. 

Satoru has gone away on a mission. Your bed had been empty until she’d filled it. 

You try not to cry or let her know you’re crying, but you lay in bed with her beside you and you think of your own mother. 

And this was–the fixed point. The one you could never fix. In countless versions, you tried to stop this day, and in all, you failed.

You wonder then, if there are moments that are so certain, no one can touch. Not you, not fate, not a thing. 

You think the inception of you created her death, in the way that you are forcing it to create your father’s. 

If there is anyone truly damned, you think it must be your mother. 

You wonder if Tsumiki will think the same of you one day. If Megumi will look at you and realize, at some point, you were never going to be anything other than damned. 

After you walk the kids to school, you return to your childhood home. 

You stand outside its doors and know what will meet you beyond them. For a moment, you feel like screaming, screaming bloody and howling, wailing in the streets, crying out to the heavens. You think about what is on the other side of that door and you wish you’d never seen it all. Out of all the lives you’d peered into, you wish your mother was not one of them. You wish you had no idea what will meet you or what you will do.

You think of Suguru suddenly, if he stood outside his parents door and knew, too, that he brought death. That the creation of him, brought the death of them. 

You suddenly miss him so sharply and keenly that you want to run to him. You wonder if he would open his arms to you now, or if it’s all over, so torn to shreds that there is not anything he could want from you anymore. Perhaps not anything but your divinity. 

You stand outside their door like a reaper. 

You know you have to enter. And that time will not stop, you can never force it still. 

You inhale. 

You push open doors that have never felt heavier. 

The bloody tilt of your mother’s head makes you feel like a child again, terrified all over, and sick to your stomach. She is still alive now, gasping, and shaking. 

When she finds your eyes, she is almost relieved to see you, like you were the only and last thing she could’ve ever wanted to see. 

You feel something inside of you, already splitting, come away from its seams. 

“Mom,” you say, like you’re a child again, crawling to her on bloody floors. 

Still, she reaches her hand out to touch your cheek, as if she may comfort you. Even during death, she tries to comfort you. You choke hard on the sob working its way out of you. 

“You s-shouldn’t be here,” she whispers, mouth cut open with blood. “You need to–” 

She’s trying to save you from your father. 

But you couldn’t leave her like this, couldn’t leave her to die alone. 

You shake your head, cupping her palm to your face, keeping it there, “it’s okay, mom. I’ll be okay.” 

And I want you to be okay, you want to say, I want you to live longer. I want to have you for longer. You feel the tears rush hard and hot down your face.

At least you had longer than Tsumiki or Megumi. At least you had her this long. 

But for all your power, for everything that could’ve happened, you just couldn’t. Save. Her. 

You’ve known from the first moment you opened a gold bled eye. 

“I love you,” your mother gets out, as clearly as she can, as if she needs you to know, “I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” you whisper, squeezing tighter to her hand. 

You can hear your father’s footsteps, somewhere down the hall. As if you’ve heard them a thousand times and for this final time. 

“You are the best thing i-in my life. Always.” Her voice is hoarse, it looks like it hurts her, to get the words out, but for you, always for you, she does, “always.” 

Your mind burns and blurs and there are a thousand things you wish you could say to her now. A life that you wish you could unwind and reverse, a life you wish you could’ve saved, a child you wish you could’ve been. 

Your father opens the door to the living room for the final time.

And when he sees you, it’s as if he knows now, too, that it is the time. 

He doesn’t tell you he loves you, when you kill him, he doesn’t say a word, when you are covered in his blood, too. 

(You gut him, the way Zeus did to Kronos, and crawl back to your mother, bloodied.)

And all you can think to do is press up against her, like you are a child again in the home you grew up in. To be held by her for the last time of your entire life. 

You don’t know how long you stay like that, only that at some point, the sun is setting, and smolders bronze, casts all the world in a fiery glow. 

And eventually, your husband lifts you, bloody and silent, from your mother’s arms, to carry you out of that house for the final time.

You watch, quiet as the dead, in his arms, as it slowly rises to flames. 

(When the higher ups of the sorcery world investigate, they will say your father killed your mother, and then himself, by burning the place down. They will say he couldn’t handle your disgrace, that he was never well, anyways. He was a haunted man.)

And the garden you grew up in burns and the house you called a home cracks beneath hungry flame. Your father’s body burns away and releases you and your mother’s body falling to ash makes you want to tear out your own heart. 

It all burns and you watch, silent, knowing that your mother or father will never turn to curses now, they will never haunt you or hunt you again, knowing that you are the last curse left of that house. 

And it will be a long, long time until you are burned with them, too. No, now you are born anew, born again, covered once more in your mother's blood. You do not scream this time. The fire burns hot and bright in your vision.

Gods are very lonely, you think again, and you watch your childhood go up in flames.

***

Masterlist | <- Chapter Two: Anything, Everything | Satoru's Interlude: Bigger God ->

[sunsafewriting]

Do A Flip, chapter 6 excerpt: at last (i)

Whoever decided that dancing should be on the phys ed curriculum obviously hated ten-year-olds. Maybe they were attacked by a group of ten-year-olds once, and swore they’d get their revenge. Or maybe they were just born evil. Both options seem equally likely. 

Diego has his phys ed last on a Friday, which is normally awesome, because it means he ends the week playing capture the flag or soccer. Today was a betrayal of mammoth proportions, and he might never recover. 

He complains almost the whole walk from school to the apartment, which is maybe a little whiny of him, but he figures he’s earned it, after tripping over his own feet and being forced to awkwardly hold hands with eight different people. 

“It’s the worst,” he tells Ava. “And I’m the worst at it. Do you know how bad that is? I’m the most embarrassing person at the most embarrassing thing.” 

Ava grimaces sympathetically. “Yikes. At least it’s only for a few weeks, though, right? Then you’ll be onto a new unit.”

“Weeks, Ava. That’s forever. I fell over. And everyone saw.”

It’s not like Ava doesn’t fall over — more often than he does, really — but Ava can just laugh it off. And while Diego doesn’t mind accidentally doing dumb stuff around Ava or Beatrice, it’s another thing entirely to do something dumb in front of his whole class. Laughing it off is simply not an option.  

“Do you think Mother Superion would write me a sick note to get out of it?”

Ava pats him on the shoulder. “Not in a million years, bud.” 

Diego groans. 

“Maybe we can help you practice, though? I missed that unit — I can only do cool dancing. But Beatrice was made to do all that fancy shit when she was growing up. She could totally teach both of us if we ask nicely.” 

He doesn’t want to practice, or ever dance again for as long as he lives. 

He also doesn’t want to fall over in public for a second time, though, so he nods.

An hour later, when Beatrice gets back from university, they push the couch and beanbag to the side and clear an area in the living room. 

“I used to really hate dancing too,” Beatrice admits, after he sighs a bit tragically at the prospect of trying again. 

“You did?”

Even now, it’s rare for Beatrice to mention her childhood; he hardly knows anything about what she was like at his age, and it’s impossible to picture — he can’t imagine Beatrice as being any different than she is. 

But that’s not true, really, is it? Beatrice is very Beatrice, but she’s still changed so much since he met her. 

“Every second of it,” she says. “I didn’t like having to be that close to people I didn’t know, and I always felt like everyone was looking at me and waiting for me to mess it up.”

The only thing he’s ever seen Beatrice actually mess up is hot chocolate, and that’s because they have differing opinions about how much chocolate powder is required. 

“Did you ever mess up?” he asks. 

“Lots. But it was okay,” she promises. “And it got easier once I stopped thinking of it as a performance and started thinking of it more as a pattern. It’s like aikido that way. They’re just different kinds of movement.”

Diego stands on one side of Beatrice and Ava stands on the other and together they slowly step through the footwork for the dance he has to do for class. It’s much less stressful without his teacher and his classmates there. 

Plus, he’s better than Ava at it, so that doesn’t hurt. 

They run it through a bunch of times, until it feels like it’s slid from the front of his mind to the back, and he doesn’t have to whisper-count or struggle to remember what comes next. 

“There you go,” Beatrice says. “You’ve got it.” 

He preens, pleased with himself, and flops onto the couch. That’s more than enough learning for one day, especially now that he’s good at it. 

It leaves him watching Ava struggle, until eventually Beatrice adjusts her approach, and switches around so Ava is in front of her. She sets Ava’s hands on her shoulders. 

“Just like a mirror,” Beatrice tells her.

Ava improves almost suspiciously quickly, her smile bright as she moves when Beatrice moves. 

It’s kind of pretty, actually; the patterns Beatrice was talking about are easier to see from the outside. They’re not particularly smooth, but both of them are laughing, and he supposes that being smooth isn’t the point. 

“Why did you have to learn dancing?” he asks. 

“My mother wanted me to,” Beatrice says. “She felt it would — she was hoping it would make me more — well, it was important to her, so I went. I haven’t done this kind of dancing in a long time.”

“How long?”

“Years and years.” Another step, another step, another step: a new pattern. “It’s nice to try it again.”

Ava spins herself in a twirl that is definitely not part of the dance, but Beatrice goes along with it anyway before gently pulling her back in. 

[inkyearnings]

Being constantly exposed to relationships and romance, either in real life or in fiction, makes it hard to not be envious of what I have never had. Makes it hard not to imagine myself in that situation, makes it hard not to fall in love with a 'what if'. That might be the flaw of a vivid imagination. But it's not only envy I feel, or at least I wish to believe that, because envy is what bitter people feel, what ungrateful people feel.

I'm not ungrateful for my life; I quite like it, have fun in it most of the time, and strive to be the best of myself, but it doesn't take away from the fact that life is hard.

Sometimes, a project you work on fails. Sometimes, friends or family you wish would stay in your life, will leave. And sometimes, the stress or whatever negative emotion building up inside you gets you, like a snake waiting to pounce on its prey, unnoticed.

Usually, I can take it. I've taken much worse in the past than whatever I'm living through now, but it doesn't stop me from getting tired, doesn't stop me from wishing I wasn't alone through these.

To have an equal beside me, someone I can trust and who isn't supposed to leave me, would make all that easier. Even if all they could give me was their presence, I would know that person would be ready to stay beside me, listen to and help me if I needed it. What I long for, is someone more permanent than the friends I've had.

And maybe I'm wrong about this, as a friend told me, "It's better that you're single, being in a relationship makes everything more complicated." That might be true, in some, or even all, cases. It's true I tend to forget that being in a relationship requires a certain level of hard work, and obviously, vulnerability. A partner would have the power to hurt me; the reason they wouldn't use it against me is because they care about me, usually because of feelings. Feelings that I've never had reciprocated, or known that they were reciprocated.

Why is it that in the few friendships I had where I could envision taking it to the next level, where we spent hours alone either at a restaurant, in a metro, on a walk, just the two of us, the feelings never seemed to manifest in that friend? They either got a partner somewhere else, or we lost contact. Why did the 'something more than friends' always fail before I could try, leaving me to mourn a relationship I've never even had? Because goddamn it, my vivid imagination leaves me to hope for things that are too good to be true, but unfortunately isn't strong enough to give me the resolve to pursue the very people I imagine a future with.

Either way, I'm pretty sure love won't fall in my lap, but I can't force it. Oh, and love isn't necessary in life. So, I'm kinda conflicted about love right now.

[septusuki]

"Thinking we'll need three." Handler nurses her chin as she flips through the function files, a bored but grim look on her face that just wants it all over. "40 combatants. Maybe a mortar entrenchment. PR'll be hell but that's hardly our problem." Snapping her fingers, she clicks the pamphlet shut and comes to a conclusion she's already assured herself of. "Yeah, three. Load 'em up." With a crick of her jaw, Handler spins her finger in an elegant, but equally efficient gesture; we're done here.

This is Annette's first time working the Doll-Dispensor crane. She trembles, sweat sticking her leathery jacket to her skin through her button-up. It's just a crane, she tells herself. She's liscenced for things like this for a reason. Casting a needy look over at her ID, still face-down on the scanner, Annette searches her own photographed face for reassurance. After all, she certainly isn't getting any from Handler.

"Lieutennant." Handler has grown tired - exhausted - in seconds. With a sigh, she figures out what she needs to do. The pamphlet is tossed to the ground. Her excellently straight, golden blonde locks are tucked behind her ear. A few buttons on her coat are undone, and she leans forwards. "It's not scary, Annette. They're animals, they won't feel it, anyway." She whispers into the stunned lieutennant's ear, a hand on her trembling shoulder. With a puff of steamy, condensed air down Annette's neck, Handler smirks as she gets what she wants.

Beyond the control-cell glass, activity is whipped up in an instant. As if it just remembered gravity exists, a giant claw hums into life and descends - or just drops - ten metres in as many milliseconds. The tip of it's cold, unfeeling claw touches down on a foreign planet; flesh, soft and bouncy.

"J-Just... Animals." A still-shivering Annette Knox tries to convince herself. "Just... Bakery buns..." Her second guess is more accurate. Beyond the glass is an entire matrix of glowing, throbbing buns. Bun-dolls. Still strapped into their infinitely-flexible pilot skinsuits, an entire twelve-by-eight sheet of perfectly shaped, exquisitely glossy buns wait. They wait, gorging and being gorged by arrays of feeder tubes, for whatever might happen to their inflated bodies. For whoever might need them next.

"I think they look more like berries, personally." Clipping her unkempt outfit back into place after she was forced to ruffle it up, Handler giggles at Annette's demeaning remarks. "Well, that or pustules, but that's a bit gross." Anything but human. These pilots, these things, are not human. That is the only way the Handlers can justify doing this to them.

Turning someone into a 'proper' pilot requires enough operations to euthanize an untrained human ten times over. Somewhere along the line, they are overcome with SYNIST urges. Kill, maim and disembowel. So violent, sadistic and cruel that they needed to be sedated. Anaesthetized, or cryogenically frozen. The Handlers decided this was a better solution; ruined, instead.

The talons of the claw vanish as they find the fold between this pilot and her neighbour. It sinks and sinks until Annette commands it to grip, and lift.

A half-ton of thing emerges from the soup of sweat it's been submerged in. Her skinsuit, torn. Her fingers, useless. Her legs, atrophied. Her eyes? Giggling. Glossy and subdued, but full of humor. As she is hefted and heaved, she begins to full on laugh. Dripping all over, her cock twitches as it empties itself for the third time that hour. The stream drools down and drizzles over another pilot's splayed out body. The pilot-blob's legs twitch and strain with excitement. Tnrough the glass, Annette can hear it; KILL KILL KILL!

"N-Not H-Human..." Annette whimpers, on the edge of terrified tears. She can't be related, through any twist of the evolutionary tree, to something like this. This evil, soulless thing. Bun, blob, hunk of meat. Nought but a drugged-up brain, engulfed in fatty batter, that humanity parades around and lets do it's killing. "P-Please, Handler... I can't..." Annette squeaks as she lets herself think that thing met her eyes.

"Come on, Annette." The lieutennant's given name is like a command word for her. Handler doesn't bother with the rest. "If you keep this up, you know what happens." Another snicker, and Handler nods as she watches Annette's hands freeze, and then reboot. Annette works robotically, and automatically. BELBIC senses take over as the truth strikes itself home; this is Annette's last chance, before she ends up on the operation table.

Annette begins to sob, but that doesn't stop her hands.

[soft-persephone]

Captured by the Storm

Doug Renetti x Black!Female OC x Tina Lewis

Word Count: 1k

Warnings/Mini Summery: Melancholy, soft angst. Loss. Sad but not too sad. Funeral. Mourning. Grief. Light comfort. Tiny bit of longing.

Angel shifted on top of  the quilt that stayed with her through her youngest years of childhood. The heavily floral pattern worn with age brought back memories as stuffy as the room she was in. The good and the bad.  .  . . her mother. She could smell them all on the quilt, in this room, in the air, humid as it was.

The humidity captured her, holding her hostage to the little girl she used to be. To the time she spent in this town. It tortured her, leaving behind its evidence with a thin but growing sheen of sweat on her skin. The cup of ice water on her old nightstand was melting away into condensation within minutes. No matter how much she drank of the warm water, her tongue stayed thick and heavy in her mouth.

Her only comfort was the sound of the rain. The smell of it. 

It enraptured her in the  swaddling nostalgia that was home. Reminding her of the good, but left her equally as forlorn. Her comfort soon became another enemy. Torturing her along with the  humidity. Helping it rise higher and higher into the night. 

The moon itself was not in the sky, keeping itself scarce, leaving her in the dark with her capturers.

Everyone else was asleep. 

She would be too if it wasn’t the only time she could talk to Doug and Tina without being disturbed. 

She turned her head to face the clock. It was barely midknight. 

Tina said they would be working late tonight. They might be home around 20 past midnight or something like that. She couldn’t really remember. She tuned out after Tina said midknight. 

It was too long.

It was too long to go without talking to Tina or Doug. 

She was used to not being around them when they were all in the same city, but now, she was across the entire country without them. Her time zone was  an even two hours ahead. She was used to waiting hours upon hours until she saw them again, but now being so far away. .. made it completely unbearable. 

She never would have said it back in California, but she hated the high stakes reward nature of their job. 

Everything was a gamble with few guarantees. That meant an irregular unpredictable work schedule. She could go from seeing them everyday to not at all in such a short span of time. The rollercoaster of time they had to spend together was a nightmare for her clingy at heart nature. 

She was comfortable laughing it off with a joke about her mom passing away when she was young, but they didn't find it as funny as she did. 

She couldn't pretend it didn't bother her anymore. 

Licking her lips, she picked up the phone and dialed their number.

“Angel?” Doug's voice was warm and thick, adding to the unbearable humidity. Her skin felt stickier than it already was a moment ago, “Why are you still up? Are you okay? Did you want to talk about your aunt?”

“N- no. . .” That's why she was here wasn’t it? Her Mom’s sister had passed. The last of her grandmother’s children. They were all together now. That gave her some comfort. “I. . .I just miss you and Tina so much.”

“What about your family? It's been a while since they've seen you! All the way from California!”

“Yeah.” she replied weakly, not really sure what else to say. 

“That has to be exciting!” 

His voice washed over her in waves. Not loud, not a shout, he was mellow and refreshing. She  talked just enough. Saying the minimum polite requirement of words to carry a conversion, so she’d have the courtesy of just laying in the dark, listening to him. 

“Wh– What– what did you wear today?” she croaked out. 

He paused, but she could hear his smile. The sound of it brightened the room around her. It was her saving grace away from her captures in the night.

“The two piece blush pink suit.” He sounded a little deadpan but still utterly amused. “Sorry I didn't have time to find something sexier before you called.” he laughed, making the room grow that much brighter, making her feel less alone, “I thought I had more time.”

She laughed with him.

The heat and the memories fading away into the background. . .into a different reality.

“What about Tina? Angel smiled, pretty dumbly too if anyone made her admit it. The anticipation left her senses fumbling into stupidity. 

“Uhm,” his falter gave her pause, “A red dress. I think it's new?’

The darkness of the room was back, and she snapped back into reality. 

She was still far away.

Angel’s tongue darted along her lips and her eyes frantically searched in the dark. She already knew every little object in the room, but she needed to look at them all again. 

Words came tumbling out of her mouth, asking, begging, and pleading for the details, but her tongue felt thick and unfamiliar. It was hot and sticky in her mouth as her skin was from the humidity and sweat. 

“Woah woah, slow down.” Doug chuckled. “You're talking too fast and your accent sounds like it's gotten thicker since you’ve been home. I can't understand you.”

“Can you put Tina on?” 

Angel grabbed the glass for another sip of warm water before laying back down.

“Hey,” Tina said softly. Her voice was sultry and seductive. It was soothing. . . warm, “it's funny how lonely it feels over here when you're all the way over there.” She paused, “It's crazy to think how one person makes such a big  difference in our lives.”

Angel’s body was overwhelmed with heat. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything sentimental or sweet. It was breaking her, and it would only get worse when the sun came up. 

“Why. . .” Angel inhaled sharply, “did you wear it today? You know I'm not there?” 

Tina didn’t say anything and she started to feel a little agitated. 

“You know I wanted to see you in it first.”

"Maybe I wanted to hear you get upset,” Tina teased.

Angel laughed. Despite the hot humid room, it was cold, rueful, and dry. 

“Fine!” she managed to spit out, “Just wait till I get home! I’m not bringing you a surprise gift either.”

“Then I'd say. . .it was worth it.’

Angel huffed.

“I don't wanna hear you complain when Doug gets the biggest, most awesome gift.”

[blamkey]

yourroyalpenis:

gaezedkriel:

keylimepie:

accountant-in-a-can:

punkrockluna:

bubblegum-momoi-satsuki:

gouthesupermanager:

flameoflight:

well-metaphoricallyspeaking:

heruut:

i-aint-even-bovvered:

songofages:

I never understood why it’s an F if he gets more than half out of 100? Unless it’s more than 100. If you get more than half the answers right how is it an F?

You must not be from America. Here, grading is fucked up.

Average American Grading Scale: A+- 97-100 A - 94-96 A- - 90-93 B- 80-89 C- 70-79 D- 60-69 F- 59 and under

And in some places in America it goes by a 7 point scale, so it’d be A - 100-93 B - 92-85 C - 84-78 D - 77-70 F - 69 and below

Now you understand why American kid’s feel like there’s no point to school. If you have a 100 question text, and get 79 of them correct, that’s a C. That mean’s your Average Intelligence on this particular subject. And it get’s even worse when you have only like… a 10 question quiz. If you get two wrong? that’s a B. 80 fucking %. Now tell me again why American school’s are easier? 

No wait but whats the grading system in other countries?

UK Grading Scale

100-70: A

69-60: B

59-50: C

49-40: D

Below 40: F

next time you try to tell americans that we’re stupid

i’m gonna remind you

that our “average” is your “A”

#is that true? Yep I was shocked when I heard this in a different post but a Google search pulls up a ton of sites backing this up. Shit son I woulda passed College Algebra with an A in the UK. And I spent the end of the semester in perpetual fear that I would fail and have to retake the class.

And basically as an American you’re expected to get 80 or higher. Technically 70s are considered ‘average’ but there is such a level of pressure to get a B or higher, that Cs have become equal to Ds. Basically anything under 60 you might as well gotten a 0, and anything between 60-80 is considered practically failing. So basically schools have to be designed to make sure majority of students are getting 80s or higher on specific topics, which means you’re spending all your time going over a few choice facts a billion times and there is very little room to teach anything else. Which explains why American schools are of such low quality. The insane demand on the students ends up wrecking their education. Not only do you not have time to teach them anything, but they end up hating learning. Even outside of school your life is dedicated to memorizing these few dumb facts because your homework ends up taking hours of your time. A teacher from one subject says they expect you to spend 2 hours every night on their homework. And if you’re studying 5 subjects and they all demand that 2 hours? Good fucking luck, because if you don’t have straight all 80s or higher you’re not getting into a good college and college degrees have somehow become the minimum requirement for getting jobs.

I spent most of my junior year of high school in a state of constant panic that I was going to get a C in Honors Physics much less fail the class. If I got a C on my report card, I was grounded until the next one. I lost count of the times I’d wake up at five in the morning to take the early bus to go in for zero hour before school actually started for the day

File this under the exact reason so many Americans detest going to school.

Heartbreaking Simpsons Moments 1/∞: Bart Gets an F

[houstongolflesson1]

Frequently Asked Questions About Golf Classes Houston!

Golf is an easy-going game that can be enjoyed by people of all ages and fitness levels. Every coin has two sides, golf might appear easy on the outside but it requires precision, technique, and practice to truly master it.

Starting from seasoned players to a beginner, there is no better way to understand the basics of the game and refine your golfing skills than joining golf classes Houston.

Are you planning to join golf group lessons? Unable to make the final call because you have some questions in mind? If your answer is yes, then you have come to the right place! In this blog, we bring to you the most frequently asked questions that will help you in making the decision.

What are group golf lessons?

These lessons are ideal for players who are looking to learn the fundamentals of the game. Also, these lessons are equally suitable for experienced players, who want to learn more about the game and take their skills to the next level.

Typically golf group lessons near me may have somewhere between 4 to 10 participants. Players get to learn and grow under the supervision of qualified instructors.

The best part of these sessions is- they give you a platform to play and learn along with individuals with the same passion and enthusiasm for golf.

What is the duration of a golf group lesson?

Ideally, a group golf lesson can be of 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. As per your requirement and skill level, you can join programs ranging between a few weeks to months. Usually, classes are conducted twice or thrice in a week or over a week, to suit the busy schedules of participants.

What is the cost of golf group lessons?

When compared with private lessons, golf group lessons are much more affordable. Since the cost of group golf lessons for beginners near me is divided among all the participants. In addition to this, the cost also depends on various other factors such as:

Duration of the course

Qualification and experience of the instructor

Particular requirements of the participants

Can kids also join group golf lessons?

Yes of course! In fact, these sessions will prove to be extremely ideal for children to learn in a fun and social environment. Moreover, there are many instructors and academies providing specific sessions dedicated to kids.

Do I need to bring my own equipment to the class?

Many academies provide equipment to new players, but some require you to bring your own. However, it’s better to learn with your own set of clubs. Since you will become more familiar with using them.

What are the advantages of group sessions?

Cost-effective- you get to learn under the mentorship of qualified coaches but at nominal rates.

Multiple feedback- feedback is the most important factor, in helping you understand your game, strengths, and weaknesses. In a group setting, not only you receive feedback from the instructor but also from fellow participants.

Motivation- playing and learning in a group setting fosters a sense of motivation for you to play better and be the best version of yourself in the game.

Without any wait, just look for a group golf session near me and see the difference these classes will make in your game!

Source URL: https://medium.com/@houstongolflesson3/frequently-asked-questions-about-golf-classes-houston-596bc47af970

[certifiedlegalfunding]

Personal Injury Pre-Settlement Loans: How to Get Started

If you’ve been injured in an accident and are waiting for a settlement, you might find yourself facing mounting medical bills, lost wages, and everyday living expenses. Personal injury pre-settlement loans can provide the financial relief you need during this challenging time. Here’s everything you need to know about how to get started with a pre-settlement loan.

What is Personal Injury Pre-Settlement Funding?

Personal injury pre-settlement funding is a type of loan that allows you to receive money before your lawsuit settles. It is specifically designed for individuals who are involved in personal injury lawsuits and need financial assistance while waiting for the legal process to unfold. Unlike traditional loans, pre-settlement loans are repaid from the proceeds of your settlement or jury award.

This type of funding is non-recourse, meaning you don’t have to repay the loan if you lose your case. The lender only gets paid if you win or settle your case, making it a risk-free option for those in need of immediate financial support.

Why Consider Personal Injury Pre-Settlement Funding?

1. Immediate Financial Relief

2. No Monthly Payments

3. Access to Funds Without Affecting Your Credit

How to Get Started with Personal Injury Pre-Settlement Funding?

1. Determine If You Qualify

Before applying for a pre-settlement loan, you need to determine if you qualify. Lenders will evaluate the following factors:

The strength of your case: Lenders want to know that you have a strong chance of winning or settling your case. This usually means you need an experienced lawyer and solid evidence supporting your injury claim.

The estimated value of your case: Your potential settlement or award will play a role in determining how much funding you can receive. Lenders typically offer a portion of your expected settlement.

Your attorney’s involvement: Most pre-settlement funding companies require you to work with an attorney who is representing you in the case. The attorney may need to verify the details of the lawsuit.

2. Choose a Reputable Lender

Not all pre-settlement funding companies are created equal. Research and choose a reputable lender with transparent terms and competitive rates. Look for companies that offer no upfront fees, as well as those that are licensed and regulated by state laws. Reading customer reviews and checking for complaints with organizations like the Better Business Bureau can also help you make an informed decision.

3. Submit Your Application

The application process for pre-settlement funding is typically straightforward. You’ll need to provide information about your case, your attorney’s contact details, and the nature of your injuries. Many lenders can review your case within a few days and determine whether you qualify for funding.

4. Receive Your Funds

Once approved, the lender will provide you with the funds you need, which can often be delivered within 24 to 48 hours. These funds can be used to pay for medical bills, living expenses, or other financial obligations while you wait for your settlement.

Conclusion

Personal injury pre-settlement funding is a viable option for individuals who need immediate financial assistance while waiting for their lawsuit to resolve. By understanding the application process and choosing a reliable lender, you can secure the financial support you need without the burden of monthly payments or risk. If you find yourself in this situation, consider pre-settlement funding to help ease your financial stress and focus on your recovery.

Check out more contents:

Top Benefits of Pre-Settlement Accident Lawsuit Cash Advances

[primelaundrylondonsblog]

Dry Cleaners Complete Guide To Remove Soot Stains From Clothes

Getting rid of soot, oil, or grease stains from clothes can be tricky. The danger of damaging delicate fabrics remains unless done carefully with the right materials. If hesitating or in doubt, short of time or motivation, give the task to professionals like Prime Laundry. Once the dingy dress is restored to its original smart appearance by  aim for prevention in the future.

Soot originates from fire. Wood is often partially burned, and what is left contains ample soot. Kitchens and chimneys also abound in soot since flames are common there. Campfires are another occasion when soot may spread. Avoid such locations in delicate garment.

The burning of fuels and oil, plastics, and waste produce soot. Soot results from combustion and appears as a powdery or flaky black substance. Smoke is related to the soot that it generates. Essentially carbon, soot sticks to pipes, clothes, or walls. Soot is toxic and can cause difficulty breathing if inhaled. 

The kind of fabric affected by soot accumulation, like cotton and polyester, matters. Such materials attract soot and retain it to a greater extent than nylon and wool. The severity of soot deposits would be considered while planning the accumulation, gathering of the materials required. 

Consider a few options 

Baking Soda and liquid detergent

A few simple steps with commonly available products might solve most soil problems on clothes. Shaking the cloth gently outdoors gets rid of some of the flaky and powdered soot. A hose vacuum helps to remove some of the remaining soot but avoids the brush attachment. Now scatter talcum powder or cornstarch on the stain and let it be for an hour. Dust it off gently. Talcum powder or cornstarch absorbs oils. 

Now make a paste of baking soda and water for pre-treating the sooty stain. Apply it to the stained area and wait for an hour. Use cold water for rinsing to get rid of loose soap and baking soda particles. 

Make a solution of cold water and liquid laundry detergent and soak the cloth for 20 minutes. Now proceed with washing according to the instructions on the care label. Adding white vinegar helps to get rid of further oily substances. 

Check to make certain that the soot stain is deleted. Otherwise, the steps above may have to be repeated. The clothing may be dried only when the stain is gone. Finally, air dry the clothing. 

If it is a minor soot problem, deal with it personally, mostly with household materials. If soiled, or exposed to smoke and soot for years, refer it to dry cleaners London.

Using the soap method

Avoid using this approach on delicate silk and wool. Soap is truly universal and can remove the majority of soot stains. Soap alone may not be effective in removing heavy soil stains. Start by immersing the cloth in tepid water. Now rub liquid detergent into the cloth to create foam. Use a soft brush to clean the stained area. Rinse the detergent. If the stain remains, repeat the steps. 

Stain remover works in most cases

Upholstery could be cleaned with this method. Put the cloth in warm water and apply the stain remover to the affected area. Brush the stains and immerse in water with added stain remover. After soaking for half an hour, rinse and wash using the conventional method. 

Won’t it be a good idea to get the same-day dry cleaners near me expert services? Washing, dry cleaning, ironing, dress alterations, and shoe repairs are all available in one venue. 

Vinegar and water method 

This easy approach quickly removes soot, oil, and grease stains from clothes. In a bucket, mix equal parts of warm water and vinegar. Soak the cloth for 30 minutes or longer. Now wash the clothing as usual with detergent, preferably in hot water. Rinse well to get rid of remaining vinegar and dirt. Dry completely on a flat surface away from heat.  

Consider the diversity of fabrics. With cotton and polyester, lighter soot stains can be removed with baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. Wool and silk being more delicate, use a mild detergent and cold water. Regarding natural methods, lemon juice is effective too. Apply lemon juice to the stain, let it sit for some time, and then wash.

An Expert dry cleaner near London is always available, especially to help with heavily stained clothing. Home washing certainly helps get rid of milder stains with easily available materials. DIY helps with learning videos available online.

This content is originally published on Prime Laundry’s Website: Dry Cleaners Complete Guide To Remove Soot Stains From Clothes

[cmnoraiz]

Everything You Need to Know About Watch Chargers

Charging your watch is essential for maintaining its functionality, but not all watch chargers are created equal. Whether you own a smartwatch or a traditional timepiece, understanding the different types of chargers, their features, and how to choose the right one for your device is crucial. In this guest post, we’ll dive into the world of watch chargers, exploring various options, benefits, and tips for proper use.

What Is a Watch Charger and Why Do You Need One?

A watch charger is a device used to recharge the battery of your watch. Whether it's a smartwatch with a touchscreen or a more traditional analog watch with a few smart features, watch chargers ensure your device remains powered throughout the day. They often come with magnetic or port-based connections depending on the model. Without a reliable charger, your watch's battery will deplete, and you may miss out on its essential features.

Types of Watch Chargers: Wired vs. Wireless

When it comes to charging your watch, you have two main options: wired and wireless. Wired chargers typically connect through a USB port or specialized charging dock, while wireless chargers use magnetic fields or induction pads to transfer energy. Both options have their advantages. Wired chargers are often faster, while wireless chargers offer convenience and less wear on the charging port. Understanding the differences can help you decide which option suits your needs.

The Benefits of Wireless Watch Chargers

Wireless chargers for watches have become increasingly popular due to their ease of use. With a wireless charger, you simply place your watch on a charging pad, and the power is transferred through the air. This eliminates the need for plugging in cables, reducing the wear and tear on both the charging cable and the watch’s port. It’s a cleaner, more efficient way to keep your watch charged.

Choosing the Right Watch Charger for Your Device

Choosing the right charger is essential for maintaining the health of your watch’s battery. Consider the brand, model, and charging technology used by your device. Some watches, like Apple Watches, have proprietary charging systems, while others may use a more universal charging method. Always ensure the charger you select is compatible with your watch’s charging requirements to avoid damage.

Charging Speed: How Fast Should Your Watch Charger Be?

The charging speed of a watch charger is a significant factor to consider. Some chargers offer quick charging features, allowing your watch to be fully powered in just an hour or two. If you’re someone who uses their watch frequently, opting for a fast charger can save you time. However, if you don’t mind waiting a bit longer, a slower charger might be more than sufficient for your needs.

Magnetic Charging: A Popular Solution for Smartwatches

Magnetic chargers are commonly used for modern smartwatches. These chargers are designed with magnetic pads that attach to your watch’s charging contacts. This type of charging is convenient because it ensures that the charger is always aligned with the contacts, and it reduces the chances of damaging the charging port. It’s also easier to use because the magnet holds the charger in place automatically.

Why You Should Avoid Cheap Watch Chargers

While it might be tempting to buy cheap watch chargers, they can end up costing you more in the long run. Low-quality chargers can cause damage to your watch’s battery or charging port, leading to reduced battery life or malfunctions. Investing in a reputable charger from a trusted manufacturer ensures compatibility and safety, helping to extend the life of your watch.

How to Properly Charge Your Watch: Tips for Longevity

To maximize your watch’s battery lifespan, it’s important to follow the proper charging practices. Avoid overcharging your watch by unplugging it as soon as it reaches 100%. Also, try not to let your watch’s battery completely deplete before recharging it. Keeping your battery between 20-80% can help prevent wear and prolong the life of your watch’s power source.

The Role of Charging Docks in Watch Charging

Charging docks are a great option for those who want an organized and stylish charging solution. These docks can hold multiple watches at once, making them perfect for collectors or families with several smartwatches. They often have built-in chargers, so all you need to do is place your watch on the dock, and it will charge automatically. Some models even feature additional storage for your other accessories.

Portable Watch Chargers: Charge on the Go

For those who are frequently on the move, a portable watch charger is a game-changer. These compact chargers can easily fit in your bag or pocket, allowing you to recharge your watch whenever and wherever you need it. They are especially useful for travelers or outdoor enthusiasts who may not always have access to a standard power outlet.

Protecting Your Watch Charger from Wear and Tear

Watch chargers, like any other electronic accessory, can suffer from wear and tear over time. To protect your charger, avoid excessive bending of the cables and keep it stored properly when not in use. Additionally, using a case or protector for your charging cable can prevent it from fraying or getting damaged, ensuring it lasts longer.

How to Troubleshoot Common Charging Issues

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you may encounter charging issues with your watch. If your watch isn’t charging, check to ensure the charger is properly connected and the charging contacts are clean. If the charger is damaged, consider replacing it. Additionally, ensure your watch’s software is up to date, as some software bugs can interfere with the charging process.

Watch Chargers for Different Types of Watches

Different watches have different charging requirements, so it’s essential to know what your device needs. Smartwatches, for instance, often require specific chargers designed for their unique charging systems. Traditional watches, on the other hand, might only need a battery replacement. Understanding the type of watch you own will guide you in selecting the appropriate charger.

What to Do If My Watch Isn’t Charging?

If your watch isn’t charging, first check the charger and make sure it's securely connected. If the connection is fine, clean the charging contacts on both the watch and the charger, as dirt or dust can prevent charging. If none of these solutions work, consider using a different charger or contacting the manufacturer for advice.

How Long Does It Take to Fully Charge a Watch?

The time it takes to fully charge a watch depends on the charger’s speed and the watch’s battery capacity. Smartwatches typically take between 1 to 2 hours to charge completely, while traditional watches with rechargeable batteries might take a bit longer. Always check your watch’s user manual for specific charging time recommendations.

Can I Use Any Charger for My Watch?

It’s important to use a charger specifically designed for your watch chargers. While some chargers are universal, many smartwatches have proprietary charging systems that are unique to the brand or model. Using the wrong charger can damage your watch or result in slow charging times. Always check compatibility before purchasing a charger for your watch.

[autopulsehub]

Find the Best Car Denting and Painting Services Near You

When it comes to maintaining your car's look and value, regular denting and painting services play a vital role. Whether it’s due to a minor fender-bender or accumulated wear, your car's exterior may need a touch-up now and then. Here’s a comprehensive guide on why finding reliable “denting and painting near me” is essential, and what you should know to get the best results for your vehicle.

Why Is Denting and Painting Important for Your Car?

Car dents, scratches, and paint damage can impact both the aesthetic appeal and resale value of your vehicle. Here are a few reasons why regular denting and painting are beneficial:

Protects Your Car’s Exterior: Quality painting and denting repairs protect the metal body of your car, preventing rust and damage from exposure to the elements.

Maintains Resale Value: Cars with well-maintained exteriors have a higher resale value. Investing in professional denting and painting can yield returns when it’s time to sell.

Restores Original Look: Dents and scratches detract from your car’s look. Expert denting and painting services can restore its original, sleek appearance.

Safety: Certain dents or body damage might affect the car’s aerodynamics or even compromise safety in severe cases. Proper repairs ensure it performs well and safely on the road.

How to Find Reliable “Car Denting and Painting Near Me”

Looking for a nearby expert in car denting and painting? Here’s a checklist to ensure you select a skilled provider:

Look for Certified Professionals Not all denting and painting services are created equal. Look for certified technicians or services with proven experience. Check if they use high-quality paint that matches your car’s original finish.

Check Customer Reviews Reviews and ratings are valuable indicators of quality. Check online reviews and customer feedback to get a sense of the experience others have had.

Request an Estimate Ask for a quote based on your car’s needs. Reliable service providers should give a transparent breakdown of the costs involved in denting and painting.

Consider Mobile Services If convenience is your priority, mobile denting and painting services, like those offered by MyRaasta, provide repairs right at your doorstep. This saves you the hassle of driving to a garage and waiting.

Common Services Offered in Car Denting and Painting

When you search for “car dent repair near me” or “denter painter near me,” here’s what you can expect from a comprehensive service:

Dent Removal: Techniques like Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) are used for smaller dents, which do not affect the paint.

Painting and Color Matching: For larger damages, expert painters can match your car's exact color, ensuring seamless repairs.

Polishing and Detailing: After the painting, a polishing process restores the car’s glossy finish.

Panel Replacement: For extensive damage, the affected panel might need to be replaced entirely.

Why Choose MyRaasta for Car Denting and Painting?

MyRaasta specializes in offering convenient and high-quality car denting and painting services in various locations. Our professionals ensure that your car is treated with the utmost care, restoring it to its original appearance. Here’s why MyRaasta stands out:

On-Demand Services: Book a service with us and we’ll come to your location, saving you time and effort.

Transparent Pricing: No hidden charges—what you see in the quote is what you pay.

Trained Technicians: Our team is equipped with the latest tools and techniques to handle all types of car dent and paint issues.

Commitment to Quality: We use high-quality paint and materials, ensuring durability and a perfect finish.

Frequently Asked Questions About Car Denting and Painting

1. How long does it take to repair a dent and paint my car? The time needed depends on the extent of the damage. Minor repairs may take a few hours, while major paint jobs might require a couple of days.

2. Can paintless dent repair fix all types of dents? Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) is best suited for small, shallow dents. If the paint is damaged or if the dent is deep, traditional methods are more suitable.

3. How do I get an estimate for MyRaasta’s services? You can request a free estimate through our website or app. Our team will review the details and provide you with a transparent quote.

Book Your Car Denting and Painting Service with MyRaasta Today!

Don’t let dents and scratches ruin the look of your car. If you’re looking for “car dent removal near me” or “car denter painter near me,” MyRaasta has you covered with professional, reliable, and convenient services. Contact us today and let us bring the sparkle back to your vehicle.