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noxturnalnymph · 7 months ago

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Devotion 🖤 III. Path to the Future (Ch 10)

CultLeader!Joel x OFC!Reader

Series Summary: When is it enough? When is it too much? When does Devotion become Obsession?

Visit the Series Masterlist for series warnings, cult info, timeline info, and HCs on ages. Reader has a nickname and some minor physical descriptions - is an OFC from Reader POV.

*This series is 18+ MDNI. I will not be listing individual chapter warnings as I don't want to spoil the plot of each chapter. Please see the series masterlist for entire series warnings to decide if this is for you.*

⚠️PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE SERIES WARNINGS, ESPECIALLY: canon-typical violence/death, guns, blood/injury⚠️

III. Path to the Future

CH 10 (7.1k) Joel’s head snaps up, waking him from the sleep he didn’t realize he had fallen into. He looks directly across from him and meets Skinny’s sleepy-eyes, seemingly having just been woken up as well. They both sit frozen for a moment, startled still by the noise that woke them up. There are muffled screams coming from behind where Joel is tied up. Your screams.

Another beat passes and Skinny jumps up, grabbing the knife - Joel’s knife - off the ground, running back behind Joel’s chair. He hears grunting and cursing, a nasally voice hollering Mike, hey, Mikey, and then your panicked cries. What the fuck is happening? Joel tries to turn in the chair and look behind him but his bindings are too tight to move. He tries to move his hands towards his pants to reach for that knife he has tucked inside them but goddamnit, he’s tied up so fuckin’ tight his hands don’t budge at all.

More shuffling and crying behind him, Skinny cursing and shuffling around, then the slapping of bare feet on the wood floor, and you appear before him. Holy shit. You’re covered in blood. Not just a little bit, but an entire body’s worth of blood. You’re wearing an oversized t-shirt and a pair of underwear. Every inch of your exposed skin is tinted red, your hair and clothes still wet, the bottom of the shirt dripping onto the floor, pooling at your feet which have left a trail of bloody footprints behind you. Only the whites of your eyes stand out, wide open in horror.

“What did you do?” your voice trembles.

“W- What?” Joel sputters. “What th- are you okay?”

Skinny’s shoes come squeaking up behind him, Joel can hear him panting, and can feel the kid’s quick, panicked exhales blowing hot on the back of his neck. He checks and rechecks Joel’s bindings, pulling and pushing on all of the ropes. Joel can see his hands are shaking and stained with blood.

“It wasn’t him, he’s still tied up. Besides, I was watchin’ ��im,” Joel hears Skinny say in a quivering voice, conveniently leaving out the part where he fell asleep in his chair.

Except Joel knows he didn’t do anything, he has - in fact - been strapped to this chair for hours. Where is the Big Guy? Jesus Christ, is that whose blood you’re wearing? He looks you up and down, trying to make sure you’re not wounded and the blood isn’t yours. You’re twitching and hyperventilating but you don’t look like you’re in pain. You suddenly still, and grab your head, horror washing across your crimson face.

“Oh my fucking god, he didn’t come here alone!” you screech, finally waking the sleeping couple on the other side of the room. You point your red finger toward Joel’s face. “Who’s out there?”

“I don’t know what you-”

You slap your open palm across Joel’s cheek, hard. So hard you have to shake your hand afterwards from the sting. The metallic smell of blood overwhelms his senses and Joel’s cheek bites with the sharp pain.

“Quit fucking lying and tell us how many people you brought here,” you hiss, inches from his face now. Your terror-filled eyes bore into his and he remembers how much he missed that wild look you used to give him - but not like this. You look half mad. Joel just stares at you in confused silence.

“You guys need to check the fucking perimeter,” you scream at the kids standing in the middle of the room staring at you slack-jawed. “Now!” They stumble over chairs, the legs scuffing on the floor as they hastily make their way out of the building. You turn back to Joel but address the silent figure behind him. “Why are you just standing there? You need to get this fucking asshole to talk before they kill us all.”

Skinny rounds the chair and stands in front of Joel, looking much less menacing now that the shit has apparently hit the fan. He’s pale as a ghost, the dark red blood smeared on his still-shaking hands and up his arms making a stark contrast. His Adam's apple bobs in his throat as he swallows down nothing, trying to gather courage. Hurry up, you whisper behind Skinny, you gotta hurry up. He hesitates in front of Joel, wringing his hands and patting his pockets for his knife.

Then Joel sees the knife, glinting in the moonlight just behind Skinny. In your hand.

You move quickly, drawing the knife deftly across Skinny’s throat, a ruby line forming along his ghastly complexion. Skinny’s eyes go wide as he clutches at his wound, the line dripping and then pouring blood, all over his neck, all over his hands, all over the floor. Several spurts fly out and hit Joel square in the chest. You cut deep. Shallow sounds come out of Skinny’s mouth - no words, just air - as he sinks to his knees. Joel watches him slide in the pool of blood forming on the floor and tip over onto his side, time moving in slow-motion as the life drains from the boy’s eyes in under sixty seconds.

He’s so caught up in watching the light leave Skinny’s eyes that your hand on his arm startles him. He didn’t even notice you’d moved next to him, and he watches you silently cut away several ropes with the bloody knife. He shakes his stiffened shoulders, shrugging off the restraints and pushes his body off the chair, fighting the tightness and pain from sitting tied up for hours. He turns to check on you but he’s immediately distracted by the blood-curdling scream you let out. Instinctively he ducks and swivels, looking around for the threat.

He feels you thrust the knife handle into his hand and he takes it with shaking fingers, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He wipes the handle on his thigh to make sure his grip isn’t compromised by all the blood. You’re still screaming but he can’t see what you see, even with the moonlight illuminating the darkened room he doesn’t see the danger. The two kids come running back into the building and stop short, halfway across the room. The boy slowly raises a rifle up. Joel looks left and then right… then down. Oh. Skinny lies dead at his feet in a pool of blood. Joel is covered in blood spray and holding a knife while you scream bloody-murder behind him.

He’s the danger.

He looks back up at the couple and sees the boy aiming the rifle at Joel’s head with a tremulous grip. Great, he’s probably gonna miss his head and shoot him in the gut, and Joel’s gonna die a slow and agonizing death by his own fucking rifle at the hands of a chubby-cheeked teenager. What the fuck have you done? Wait, what the fuck are you doing? Joel sees you walking a wide arc around him, skirting towards the couple in the middle of the room, towards your friends. Your friends?

They’re not even looking at you, their focus solely trained on Joel, who has dropped the knife and stands with his arms raised in surrender. He watches you get closer and ease the rifle out of the boy’s hands - which he eagerly allows - happy to give the responsibility of taking a life to someone else, to anyone else. You check the chamber and tuck the rifle butt in the crook of your arm, but instead of turning the gun back on Joel you swivel it right back at the boy and shoot him directly between the eyes. His body falls to the ground with a sickening thump.

The girl yelps from the noise and then - realizing what you’ve done - takes a breath in to let out an anguished cry. Only she never gets the chance. You’ve chambered a new round and aimed the short distance to your next target. Joel hears himself cry out as you pull the trigger, the girl’s body immediately falling over, slumping down onto the ground next to her boyfriend.

You swing the rifle around now and aim it at Joel. His hands go higher in the air. He can’t remember if you were a very good shot when you lived with him, but you’re at a distance now where it would be difficult to miss him either way. He also just watched you murder three people in front of him, so he doesn’t doubt your commitment. You stare down the barrel at him, eyes black and grip steady. Your breathing is even, your demeanor is calm and calculated. You’re still dripping scarlet but gone is the terrified creature from moments ago. Then again, why would you be scared?

You’re the scariest thing in this room right now.

You hold the gun there, aimed at Joel, and he isn’t sure if you’re going to pull the trigger. You didn’t hesitate when you shot the other two, so maybe if you were going to shoot him you would have done it by now. Or maybe you’re doing it on purpose, drawing it out, making him sweat. He watches your face, passive and unblinking. Maybe this is payback for the way he treated you and all the shit he put you through. Maybe the bullet will be your final revenge. He can’t say he wouldn’t deserve it.

“You didn’t have to kill those kids,” he says, working to appeal to your humanity. “They’d already given you their gun.”

“I did them a favor. They were never gonna make it. They were soft. Weak.”

“So were you, once,” Joel coos.

“Is that what you think?” Your voice is even as you take steps forward until the barrel of the gun touches his chest, right over his beating heart. “I think I just trusted the wrong person.”

You see fear flash in his eyes. Good. He always had a way of underestimating you, of treating you like a delicate little thing. You tried to be good for him, wanted to expose your soft underbelly, felt an unhinged desire to please him, wanted to earn his love and affection. But you weren’t fucking weak, not after everything you’ve been through. It was this man - insistent in his tenderness - who wormed his way past the defenses around your heart, only to turn into a venomous serpent once your walls were down.

“You gonna shoot me, baby?”

Your eye twitches.

“Stop calling me that. I’m not your fucking baby. I saw you holding your baby.”

You jerk the gun away from his chest, stalking past him and pushing open a second door that had been behind where he was tied up. He turns and watches you walk out into the moonlight, dropping the rifle in the grass as you head towards the lake, stripping off your soiled clothes as you go. You reach the water’s edge and although he knows it must be close to freezing, you march in without hesitation. He watches you until you sink beneath the rippling blackness, bubbles rising where you once walked.

Once you’re submerged in the frigid liquid you let out the scream you’ve been holding in all day, forcing all the air in your lungs out, watching it rise and break at the surface. Fuck this day. Fuck Roy for his sadistic cruelty, your lip stinging again - reopened from your underwater wail. Fuck Mike for trying to put his hands on you in the dry-storage room. He was supposed to help you, not help himself. It could have gone down differently for him. Fuck those kids for blindly trusting you, making it too easy to see your plan through. Joel was right, they were innocent and would have easily surrendered. But it was all fucked, wasn’t it?

In fact, fuck Joel most of all. Fuck him for putting you in this position in the first place. Fuck him for drawing you in and then betraying your trust. Fuck him for continuing to think he deserved you, his obsession with you making it impossible to stop thinking about him. Fuck him for getting whatever he wants, for screwing anything that moved, for putting a baby in Bianca, for wanting anything that isn’t you. Fuck him for driving you away from the only place that felt like home in a very long time, forcing you into this cursed circumstance. Fuck him for every minute of today you had to endure.

Fuck. Him.

You come up for a breath, the chill in the night air sending goosebumps all over you, making your skin sting. You draw your hands across your body, washing the evidence of your violence off of you, before you walk back out of the water. You stride naked and dripping, cold and shivering across the lawn back into the side door of the dining hall. Joel stands right where you left him and watches you pass by him, moving to the dry storage and grabbing your clothes off a high shelf. You get redressed as he watches in silence and then grab the remaining jerky and half jar of pickles from your pack.

You share the midnight snack spread out on a table with Joel among the bodies littering the floor like some kind of macabre picnic.

“Did you know these people?”

“Oh yeah, we go way back,” your voice dripping with sarcasm.

“But they trusted you. They knew you-”

“They knew what I wanted them to know,” you bark.

“And what was that?”

“I told them I could get them to safety, get them fed. I told them I could help them.”

“But why would they believe you?”

“Because it’s exactly what they wanted to hear, Joel,” you laugh. “You spend a lot of time talking. I know people like you and all, but you don’t do enough listening. I listen to people, I pay attention, and if you listen well enough people will tell you precisely what they want. You can use that to your advantage if you know what you’re doing. You can convince them the thing you want is the same thing they want.”

When you look back at him you catch him looking at you with his mouth ajar. He’s taking in everything you just said and piecing together things in his mind bit by bit. Slowly, an entirely different version of you is coming into focus. He’s been working on manipulating people for years, honing his skills and constantly making adjustments to build up his community for protection. Meanwhile, you’ve done the same thing in under a day. You had these people wrapped around your fucking finger.

Effortlessly.

He remembers the lengths Tess went through to protect you from him, even going so far as to call her loyalty to him into question. Now that he thinks about it, sending you away to the farm behind his back was probably the only move Tess ever made against him in their entire relationship. Sasha once told him she felt bad for you, since you were so helpless. But you weren’t helpless. You were calculating. Oh my god, was everything a manipulation? Was every tear you shed just a carefully planned design to tug on the heartstrings of those around you?

“Did you listen to Tess?” he asks.

You slowly nod your head.

“What did she want?”

“Someone to take care of,” you reply.

Well, shit. You gave Tess what she wanted, didn’t you? And Sasha, what did she want? Probably someone to teach. Raw clay to shape into the huntress she had been taught to be. Based on your performance tonight it looks like that was also a success. He thinks about Amber, bragging about how proud her father Hank was that you were living with them, even if her mother was less than impressed. What were you doing for Hank? Jealousy flares up in his gut, licking like a flame at his insides.

“What about Hank?” he mutters. “What did that holier-than-thou old fool get outta you?”

A sideways smile forms at your mouth at the implication he’s made. You stare dead-eyed at him and let him await your answer, let the possibilities race through his mind, a hot flush creeping up his chest at the idea of another man’s hands on you. After a long pause, you speak.

“A son.”

“A- a what?”

“He had a daughter, made in her mother’s image. He didn’t have a son to work the farm with him.”

“You did that?”

“No,” you laugh to yourself. “But he thought I did.”

“Who did your work if you didn’t?”

“The farmhands,” you shrug. “And before you make another gross insinuation, I didn’t blow them either.”

“And they helped you because…”

“I don’t know,” you sidestep the truth, shoving the last bite of the last pickle in your mouth. You let the sour, salty liquid flood your mouth as you think it over in your head, how much you should tell him, if it’s a secret worth keeping. Finally you come back around to honesty. It doesn’t matter anyways, you don’t live there anymore. “They’re gay... Danny and Diego, they’re gay. They were afraid I’d out them or something so they did all my work for me.”

There it is, more manipulation. You’re like a fucking puppet master, everyone dancing from your hands. Where does it end? Where did it begin, he wonders? He remembers how he found you, clicker on your heels and bleeding out after barely escaping what looked like a hell of a fight. If only you could have convinced the clicker to feel bad for you, it might have been a different outcome.

“Where were you before I found you half-dead at the bottom of a mountain?” Joel asks.

“Why does that matter?”

“I’m curious. You never told me much about your past, but it feels like you wanna open up tonight.”

“That’s not something I’m lookin’ to open up about, Joel. They were very bad people and I was lucky to get away from them.”

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “Good thing you escaped.”

“I didn’t-” you pause. “I didn’t exactly escape.”

“What?” His brows knit, deepening the line between them.

“They let some of us go scouting so we could find other places to raid,” you explain.

“And who, may I ask, convinced them of this idea?”

He already knows the answer.

“I might have brought some of the finer points of the plan to the table,” you shrug.

This is it. This is how you’ve survived the last nine years. You refuse to carry a knife, you can barely cook a meal without cutting or burning yourself, he doesn’t even think you can start a fire on your own. But you’ve gotten other people to take care of you, feeding off them like a little parasite, intertwining their survival with your own.

“You’re-”

Genius. Maniacal. Sensational. Devious. Fantastic.

You’re everything he’s been trying to be.

“I’m- …what?” you ask him to finish his thought.

“You’re more like me than you’d like to admit,” he teases.

“I’m nothing like you, Joel. I’m just trying to survive.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do too, baby.”

“Cut that shit,” you slam your hand on the table, the noise reverberating in the silent stillness. “You’re a controlling maniac, lying to people so you can get your dick wet. So you can have women barefoot and pregnant in your kitchen.”

He laughs. That’s not who he is. Maybe the lying part but not the rest of it. You make him so goddamn crazy. He’s had his head in a fog for months, lost in his thoughts of you and now it’s like he’s seeing you for the first time. The new you. No, the you that was apparently always there, the you that you’ve kept hidden from him. Mouthy, capable, and fierce. In your eyes he sees fury and passion. Damp hair tied in a messy little ponytail, dried blood under your nails. Fuck, he doesn’t think he’s ever been more attracted to you.

“I love you,” he blurts out. The first time he’s said those words out loud in nearly a decade.

“That’s not gonna work on me anymore, Joel,” you sigh.

“I’m not tryin’-,” he huffs a deep breath in and out. Then he says quieter, almost to himself, “I shoulda said it before. A lot a’ things I shoulda- shoulda done different.”

“You shoulda said that shit last year,” you chuckle darkly. “I was over the moon for you. Out of my mind… stupid…” You grab a bite of jerky and chew on it slowly. “You know, I spent my whole life being mediocre. Good at some things but never great at anything. Not smart but not stupid, not ugly but not pretty, not useless but certainly not useful. I used to think about my purpose in life and wonder if anyone would remember me after I died. I’d think about if my life meant anything at all to anyone else, if anyone would miss me when I was gone.”

You pause to take another bite. Joel sees another metaphorical wall coming down between you. You continue your thought. “And then… one night I was washing dishes with you, and you told me about your daughter. When you looked at me - the grief in your eyes - I felt your sadness like I was washed in it, like it was poured over me. It wasn’t just your sadness, it was our sadness, like we were soaking in it together. In that moment, with your eyes on mine… I felt like maybe I had a purpose.

I felt like if my purpose was to rescue you from that sadness, then I’d do it. If my purpose was to drown with you in it, then I’d do that too. The more I let you in, the more sure I was of my feelings and the night you went down on me it felt like it was all made clear, everything was revealed. I thought we were united. I thought you felt it too, our bond, my purpose. That maybe I was only put on this earth for you, to be yours. To love you and be loved by you. If that was my purpose; to only live for you, to only matter to you, for you to be the only one to remember me… If true, that would be enough for me.”

Joel watches a single tear fall out of your eye, which you quickly swipe away, muttering stupid again.

“I didn’t know you felt like that,” Joel says, his voice a whisper.

“You knew what you were doing,” you level at him. “You brought me into that house to be just another toy on the shelf. Just another broken girl to add to your collection. You didn’t care about my feelings as long as you had my devotion.”

“I was trying to help you.”

“Stop lying to me Joel. Or are you still lying to yourself? You were helping you. And the worst part was, that after everything you did to me I still felt your hands around my fucking neck when you stood up there with Bianca and your-,” you wipe another tear from your cheek. “Your goddamn baby. You still had me in a chokehold and the shattered pieces of my pathetic broken heart just turned to dust.”

“Bianca’s baby-”

“I don’t wanna hear it, Joel. I can do math, I know it was before I got there but I don’t give a fuck, ‘cuz you’re still a liar. I couldn’t stand to be there for one more day watching you with anyone who wasn’t-”

Me. You stop yourself from finishing your sentence. You’ve spilled enough of your blood on the table. He doesn’t even deserve the honesty you’ve given him, and you’ve given him all of it. You take deep breaths and long quiet stretches out between you.

“I’m an asshole…,” he breaks the silence. “...and a liar.” You make a face that tells him you’re very much not impressed by his admissions.

“I know. You already know. None of it was your fault. You know that too. I’ve been doin’ this for a long time, been usin’ people and doin’ whatever it takes to keep myself from-,” he takes a deep breath. “I pretend it’s to keep me alive but that’s not the only reason. It also keeps me detached from formin’ any real relationships. Keeps me from carin’ about anyone that I could potentially… lose.”

He sees your face melt, just for a moment. Hitting you right in the soft spot you must still have for him deep inside. You shake your head slightly.

“I’m sorry, but… that’s just not an excuse.” you say softly.

“I know. It’s not,” he affirms. “It’s just the why, doesn’t excuse anythin’.”

“Why are you tellin’ me this? It doesn’t change-”

“Bianca’s baby is not mine,” he interrupts.

Your eyes snap directly to his, narrowing in suspicion. He knows this is what seems to bother you the most, even more than his one-night indiscretion with Kerri. It’s the truth but he’s not sure you’ll believe him.

“You don’t honestly expect me to believe your bullshit now, do you?” you toss out, a cruel smirk on your lips.

“I thought she was your friend. She never told you it was mine, did she?”

“No, she-,” you suddenly feel awash with guilt. She didn’t tell you anything. Literally. She hardly ever spoke a word. You think back of all the time you spent together. You were content to sit with her in silence, daydreaming about Joel and assuming her quiet nature meant she was okay not talking about herself. But maybe you just didn’t ask. Turns out you just weren’t a very good friend. “She was pretty quiet,” you finish.

“Yeah, ‘cuz of what she went through,” he says as if you should know.

You shake your head. You have no idea what he means. “I guess we weren’t that close,” you admit.

“She wouldn’t ‘a told you either way. She was basically a mute… PTSD the doc said. We rescued her from some very bad people,” he says, copying your earlier phrase. “They were using women for their bodies, doin’ horrible things… Bianca was pregnant when we found her. She didn’t trust anyone but me ‘n Tess, so we took her in. She was too scared to be touched and I never laid a fuckin’ finger on her, not once.”

You nod your head slowly, absorbing the information he’s provided and replaying things over in your mind.

“Why did she have to leave the house?”

“Tess thought it’d look like it was my baby, that it’d look like I had some kind of ‘harem’ goin’ on at the house.” He meets your eyes and you exchange a knowing glance. “I know, but still, she thought some people wouldn’t like the idea of it, regardless of what was true and what wasn’t. Plus, she said it’d be best if Bianca had a ‘better environment’ to raise the baby in.”

You nod and then a thought pierces your mind like a needle.

“Why… why didn’t you just tell me this the other day when I asked you if it was your baby?”

He looks down, averting himself from your scrutiny.

“I wanted to hurt you,” he whispers.

He’s still looking down so he doesn’t even notice when you jump up and dive across the table, knocking him over in his chair and scrabbling your hands to his neck. You’re screaming at him, telling him he’s an asshole, telling him he ruined you, telling him you hate him. Even though you got the jump on him, he’s easily keeping your hands from squeezing too tight around his neck, gently prying your fingers off and pushing you back off him.

He gets up off the ground, hauling you up with him - thrashing and screeching - pushing you up against a column by your shoulders and waiting for you to calm down. There’s not tears in your eyes anymore, now they’re filled with fire. You grit your teeth and continue to claw at the air, trying to pluck his eyes from his head. He’s apologizing, softly repeating over and over that he’s sorry, saying it so many times that it starts to lose its meaning.

“Hurt me?” you say hoarsely. “All you ever did was hurt me.”

“I know,” he closes his eyes. “I’m sor-”

“I hate you.”

“I deserve it.”

“Fuck you. I hate you,” you seethe.

He lets you go, expecting you to attack him again - which would be justified - but you just stand there with your fists balled and your eyes aflame. Maybe you’d feel better if you hit him, if you made him bleed. Maybe he’d feel better.

“I love you,” he whispers.

“I hate you.”

You collide like two stars, your heart orbiting around his until they burn supernova hot. Your cores are drawn together by the laws of the universe until they collapse, creating a black hole where your bodies once existed. All the air in the room disappears, as does every thought and doubt in your mind. Gravity itself seems to fade away until you’re nothing but a weightless void, floating through space or floating underwater. Either way his lips are on your lips and you can’t fucking breathe.

You feel his hands everywhere, hot and rough, grabbing onto your flesh like he’s going to tear pieces off and take them as souvenirs. Your tongue wraps around his, seeking his taste, craving the feel of him. His warmth, his scent, his desire. It’s there, low in your belly, the effervescent feeling of being the object of his affections. You hate him. You miss him. You hate yourself.

You shove your hand down the front of his pants and without preamble, grab his half-hard cock in your hands. Joel jerks away slightly, causing you to lose your grip, your hand slipping out of his jeans. Your faces pull back from each other and you stand there in the moonlit room, staring into each other’s eyes, the only sounds the racing of your heartbeats.

“You don’t want me?” you ask, panting.

“Of course I want you,” Joel answers.

“Then what’s the problem?

“Did you fuck that guy?”

“You think I fucked the stranger who kidnapped me?”

“I heard-”

“He was dead before you heard anything,” you let your words sink in. “Do you want me or not, Joel?”

“You’re all I want.”

“Then take me, Joel. I won’t ask you again.”

Joel grabs you by the back of the neck and pulls your face to his, making you whole again. You go for your own pants this time, unbuttoning and unzipping while he follows your lead and does the same. He pulls back to remove his shirt but you yank him back towards you, biting his lower lip and then licking your tongue across it to soothe him. He responds exactly how you’d hoped, wincing and then retaliating.

He quickly turns you around and pushes you bent over, face down onto the table, yanking your pants below your ass. You’re not wearing underwear and a vision flashes in his mind, the reminder of what happened to your underwear and what you’ve done here tonight. He resists the instinct to look around the room, to survey the carnage. This is inappropriate. This is the end of the world. This is - apparently - what you want.

He grabs your arms and crosses them over your back, your hands resting together at your lower back and with his other hand takes out his cock, now rock-solid and leaking precum. He runs his tip up and down your wet seam a few times before notching himself at your entrance. He doesn’t move his hips forward despite the burning desire to do little else. He leans over your back, bringing his mouth to your ear and gives it a few gentle kisses before you try and shrug him off of you.

“Let’s go already, what are you waiting for?” you goad him.

“Do you want this?” he whispers, placing another kiss just behind your ear, his stubble brushing your neck and causing you to shiver.

“Come on. You waitin’ around for me to change my mind?”

You try to move your hands, to reach for him, but he holds you in a firm grip.

“Tell me you want me,” Joel huffs in your ear, no more than a murmur.

“Shut up and fuck me already-”

“Please,” he begs.

“I want you to fuck me Joel, please just fuck me,” you drag out the last word as he pushes himself into you.

Every shallow thrust of his hips drives him deeper until he’s finally home, his hips meeting your backside in perfect harmony. You feel fucking amazing.

“This cunt is so fucking perfect,” he grits his teeth, head tilted back and speaking to the ceiling.

He lets go of your arms and grabs the flesh at your hips with both hands, pulling out and slamming himself back in. You reach back and clutch the edge of the table and he takes it as his sign to set a rough pace, slamming himself into you again and again, driven on by your satisfied moans. He leans over you again, puts one hand down on the table next to your head and tangles his other hand into your hair, pulling back your head to expose your neck to him.

“Tell me again,” he commands. “Tell me you want me.”

He runs his lips down your neck, nipping your tender flesh with his teeth when you don’t answer.

“Fuck,” you yelp. “I want it Joel. Give it to me,” you repeat the last sentence over and over, babbling into the table.

He places more kisses on your neck, down to your shoulders and across the top of your back before he stands back up resuming his thrusts, gentle at first. He feels you squeezing his cock as tight as a fist, feels your wetness coating him, mixing in the coarse hairs at the base of him. He grabs your hips again, driving himself harder into your center, feeling what you denied him all this time. This is what he’s needed, what he’s wanted for so long. You. You and him. This is how it was meant to be. He’s half out of his mind, grunting, wishing he could keep doing this forever, knowing he’s not going to last much longer.

He can’t wait to get you home and have you in his bed, can’t wait to properly have his way with you. He’s going to lie you down and lick you until you shake, to fuck you until you can’t walk. He’s going to take his time with you, make you come, make you scream, make you cry, make you forgive him, make you love him again. The thought nearly drives him over the edge and he lets out a long whine as he stutters his hips, quickly grabbing the base of his cock to stop his release.

“You close, baby?”

“Don’t stop,” you reply.

“I know but I’m gonna-,” he moves his hips again, slowly at first, feeling your fluttering cunt around him. God, you’re gonna be the death of him. “Are you close? Do you need me to-”

He lifts your hips up with his left hand and moves his right hand to snake under you, to rub circles around your clit the way he knows you like except you slap his hand away before he can get it under you.

“Don’t-” you snap. “Just keep going.”

You feel him grab you firmly back at your hips and resume his thrusts. He resumes grunting and groaning, muttering filth to himself about your perfect cunt and how you were made for each other. You bear down, grabbing the table edge harder and squeezing his cock in a tight clench. A noise begins in the back of his throat and builds as it comes out of him as a wail. He must be about to come. One of you should.

Not you. This feels good but this isn’t intimacy. This isn’t love. This isn’t forgiveness. This is goodbye.

Joel’s hips come to a halt and he moans over you, cursing and shouting noises you’ve never heard him make before. He’s muttering apologies in your ear, repeating that he loves you, the same shit over and over. You’re half-worried he’s going to start crying.

Joel steps back, pulling out of you slowly to admire his spend spilling out of you, unable to temper the fascination of marking you as his. This isn’t about that, the rational part of him thinks, this is so much more than that. He reaches out to help you up off the table but you’ve already pushed yourself up and are pulling your pants back up over your hips. Joel does the same, a satisfied grin plastered on his face when you turn around to face him.

“Your guns are in the kitchen,” you say. “In the freezer.”

“Oh- thanks,” he murmurs, feeling the awkwardness of the deliberate topic change.

“Are you heading out now or are you gonna wait ‘till sunrise?”

“Am I-,” a shadow is cast over his face at your wording. “What do you mean am I heading out now, why wouldn’t we walk back together?”

“Because we’re going in opposite directions.”

What the fuck? He can’t help the gamut of emotions that run across his face, exposing his vulnerability to you. Confusion, Anger, Pain. Oh, the pain. You’re rejecting him, again. All the walls that fell down over the last several hours were just built back up - and in fact - built back up while you were fucking him. How did you do that? Why did you do that?

He didn’t think you forgave him but he thought this was going to be a new chapter, that you were letting him back in and giving him another chance. Does he deserve it? Maybe not but he would do anything to get it. Anything. Give you anything, give up anything. But you never even intended to give him a chance.

You-

Did you even come?

He reaches out to you but you pull back, increasing the distance between you.

“Baby-” he whines.

“Stop it,” you say, voice even. “Nothing changed Joel.”

“But… we had sex,” he whimpers, and as it leaves his mouth he hears how pathetic he sounds.

“It’s not a big deal, Joel,” you say, mirroring the words he once said to you when you’d caught him giving himself to any willing mouth on their knees.

God, he underestimated you.

He had no idea how strong you were, how fucking hard you could grab his heart and rip it to shreds.

“Please,” he begs. “Wait… Just- please.”

“Goodbye, Joel,” you say, grabbing your empty pack off the table and brushing past him towards the door.

He grabs your arm as you pass him, placing your palm over his heart. He doesn’t speak but when you look into his eyes you see tears spilling out over his cheeks.

“I gave you everything you ever wanted Joel, how can you ask for more?”

“I need-”

“You need to let me go. In fact, I’ll give you the last piece of the puzzle.” You pull your hand back from him and take a step backwards, towards the door. You speak your name. The one you never gave him. The piece of you that you kept to yourself. A name only spoken by people who loved you, by people who are dead now. The name you wanted him to earn. It hangs between you in the screaming silence. “Now you have everything. You’ve taken every last piece of me. So just fucking let me go.”

You take another tentative step backwards and when he doesn’t move, you turn on your heels and walk out the door, grabbing the rifle off the lawn where you’d dropped it, and jogging off into the coming dawn.

---

The birds start singing before you see the sunrise peeking over the horizon. There are clouds moving in from the west and judging by the smell in the air, you’d guess rain is coming. You can weather the storm, your canteen is full and your pack is heavy. You’d found another summer camp at a different lake further south and were able to scavenge some supplies to help you in your journey.

You briefly thought about Sasha, and how she would be proud of the way you found a tarp and a bungee cord and immediately thought it would make a good raincoat, or the way that you checked the barn to find edible oats when the kitchen pantry had already been picked over. The old you never would have thought of those things.

You’re walking just in the treeline and past the overgrown grass you can see the road to your left, an abandoned vehicle scattered here and there, but otherwise empty. And still. It’s so quiet out here, the air is almost heavy with the silence. You turn down a country road as the clouds move in, attempting to go around a village ahead and avoid the chance of meeting with any more unwanted company. As the sky turns gray and the damp moves in, you spot a covered bridge on the road ahead, not an uncommon sight in these scenic New England towns.

Just as the first fat raindrop hits your head, you duck under the cover of the bridge and take a few steps into the dark. You shrug your pack off your back and begin to fish out the tarp you’d tucked away so you can cover yourself from the incoming downpour. You don’t hear any noise above the splatter of rain on the old bridge’s roof but you feel a sharp pain at the side of your skull and the world goes black.

---

Joel eases you to the ground once you slump backwards into his waiting arms. He sees some dark drops hitting the ground, running off from your temple. He rips off a strip of his shirtsleeve to wrap around your head. He swung too hard. He didn’t want to hurt you but he had to be sure to incapacitate you, he had to be sure you wouldn’t take off on him again. You’ll be alright, he’ll take you to the doc when you get back and get you all patched up. Maybe he’ll even read to you while you heal up. He still has that copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide in his desk drawer. It’ll be just like old times.

He brushes your hair out of your eyes and says your name, kissing your forehead.

“I already told you baby, you can’t run from me.”

🖤

I miss you Iris 💐 Thank you for helping with this series. Thank you SO MUCH to my darling Beef and Bug for helping me to edit this bad boy. Cult Joel (CJ) loves you!!

no taglists going forward - follow @nox-notifs & turn on notifs🫶

TAGLIST (lmk if you wanna be added or removed) @strang3lov3 @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @covetyou @iamasaddie @sr-lrn @clawdee @theywhowriteandknowthings @beefrobeefcal @merz-8 @pinkypromisepascal @alltheseperfectimperfections @survivingandenduring @afraidtofear @millennial-teenybopper @missladym1981 @xdaddysprincessxx @lumoverheaven @ghoulettesinspace @brittmb115 @wintersquirrel @obscurexsorrows @littlevenicebitch69 @lulawantmula @pedroswife69 @joeldjarin @heimtathurss @untamedheart81 @pixielou5 @feel1n-h1gh @elegantduckturtle @koshkaj-blog @vickie5446 @lilipads

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lalunanymph · 6 months ago

Text

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝟏: 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐇

after a scandal that rocks the entire nation, itadori 'ryomen' sukuna is forced to marry a girl chosen by his brother in order to straighten him out. but, what jin doesn't expect is how much he's willing to destroy everything he knows just to get his freedom back—even at the expense of breaking his wife's soul.

warnings: misogyny, talks of ageism, unrequited love, dubious cheating, gaslighting, mentions of a/nal, e/xplicit smut, mentions of w/eed, mentions of a/lcohol, substance a/buse, toxic family dynamics, class differences, sukuna is anti-noveau riche, sukuna is a walking red flag, jin itadori supremacy, hiromi and nanami duke it out in court, exposition, mentions of a m/urder, negligence, court cases, MDNI

masterlist | playlist

Treading the world of marriage as a woman past her prime in a judgemental upper class society was a dance that left you exhausted and skittish; wishing you could put an end to its haunting melody.

As you were ticking fast past the rotten age of twenty-seven, your family’s empire hung by a thread as nervous investors and stakeholders started to ask the golden question: When will your only daughter get married, Jiro?

Suitors knocked on your door, only to be turned away by your snobbish mother and your equally weak-kneed father who tried to appease her. None of them good enough for you; handsome enough for you or rich enough to grow your family’s vaults.

That was until Itadori Jin reached out to your family with an offer your father could not refuse.

His older twin brother, Itadori Sukuna, has just been released from an investigation and needed a bride to save the family name.

They wanted to paint him in a good light to the press: partying bad boy turned a charming, married man who was now working towards building a family with another girl of his standing.

And, that was when you came into the picture.

The first time you saw Itadori “Ryomen” Sukuna was a moment you would never forget.

The tattoos swirling around his face should’ve given you pause; made you backtrack on the idea of marriage to the Itadori house the second it left your father’s lips—especially when it came to a man like him.

In his neatly pressed white button-down which strained over his (admittedly) impressive pecs, and pair of expensive Bottega slacks, he would’ve been the picture of sophisticated upper class if it weren’t for the tribal lines on his face and arms—the sight almost making you high tail it out of the cafe you were both seated in.

It was the first time you were meeting him without your parents to chaperone. Bodyguards stood by the doors, stationed close by in case the press got too nosy.

With this being the first time you were talking to him without your mother lingering in the background, you were free to eye him up and down, unsure of what to make of the disdain setting his mouth into a hard line.

He was different from the men you had encountered before. Tall in an imposing way and with his shock of pink hair, you could spot him from a mile away in the middle of a crowded room. Sukuna carried himself with an air of princely cruelty, often staring down the line of his nose; astride the white stead of his borned privilege and high position in society.

But, the one thing that stood out were his eyes.

The warmest brown dissolved into a shade of vermillion which shone blood-red under different lights.

You couldn’t quite keep your eyes off them or stare at them for too long, and you sensed rather than knew how much he enjoyed your discomfort.

He swivels his coffee, spilling some down the pristine white cup. Somewhere behind him, a guard stifles a yawn.

“So… what do you like to do for fun?”

You sit up straighter, practiced to perfection with your reply. “I love watching horse races, Itadori-san. On some days, I prefer pottery and painting. I’ve always wanted to open my own art gallery.”

He glances at his nails, looking almost bored. “And why didn’t you open your own gallery?”

It’s a cordial question at best, but you bristle as if he had just mocked your interests.

“I… don’t have the time,” you mutter meekly.

He looks up at you, and you think he might finally unleash the scathing remark he’s been holding back for the last few minutes.

“What does a prissy girl like you know about not having time? I thought you thrived on wasting your life away with hot pilates classes and private-jetting to islands?”

You bite back your fuming reply, masking your discomfort with a bright smile. “Itadori-san, you judge me so harshly. I only attend one hot pilates class per week.”

What you hoped was a light-hearted reply dissolves into a sour note when he sighs and sits back, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look, sweetheart. I know this can’t be easy on you, too, but you don’t know what’s at stake here.” Sukuna leans forward, invading your space with the spicy sweetness of his cologne. “I have a reputation to change and you have daddy’s money to keep. We’re both each other’s salvation from the shit our family put us through so I need you to work with me here.”

You frown, unsure of what he was trying to get at. “But, I am trying to work with you. I’m here on this date, aren’t I?”

“You gotta look decent,” he doesn’t beat around the bush. Gesturing to your modest midi floral dress and neutral beige Mary Janes, the look of disgust on his face breaks something in your chest. “You’re dressed like a goddamn Mormon college girl. For someone very rich, you sure don’t have taste.”

Offended, you stared at him, unable to fathom what he had just said—how he had just insulted you unprompted and in broad daylight.

But, Sukuna doesn't give you time to revel in his words. He grabs a cigarette from his pocket, ignores your wrinkling nose as he smokes openly in this establishment. The waiters don’t dare to cross him, pretending the smell of tobacco doesn’t faze them.

You, however, were finding it harder to mask your disgust. For the sake of your mother’s excitement at finding you a suitable match, you tried to tame down the anger frothing in your veins, slapping on a sweet, yet sardonic smile.

“And what is your definition of ‘taste’, Itadori-san?”

He peers at you over the veil of smoke, taking his time to piece together his reply. “Plunging necklines. Satin. Bows. Thinner heels. I need a mature woman by my side, not some plain old maid playing dress up as a prepubescent girl.”

His words stung, and you leaned back, suddenly feeling too small. The cafe lights felt like a pair of microscopic lenses studying your every move, highlighting your discomfort and sudden unease. Your skin flashed hot and cold, the anger cresting and ebbing. Whenever you were upset, you didn’t lash out or cry, preferring to fall silent until the storm passed.

Despite a tiny voice in the back of your mind telling you it would be useless to try, you attempted another shot at winning his validation; hoping Sukuna would bestow it unto you readily and without mockery.

“Then, why don’t you come and shop with me? I’m sure a man of your taste would help my image.”

He stares at you for a long moment, unblinking. You’re reminded of a snake—its tongue scenting the air to determine whether to strike, unlidded eyes locking onto its target.

Sukuna thaws, tapping off the excess ash onto the floor. You try not to cringe at how the poor waiters would have to sweep all of that up once he had left.

“Fine. I’ll help,” he says like it's the biggest feat in his life to perform. “But, on one condition.”

Eager, you nod, not wanting to turn him off or jeopardize a moment with such a handsome man who wouldn’t look twice at you if it weren’t for your last name.

“We push the wedding back by a month.”

Flashback: One week ago

Tensions were running high in the courtroom.

Rows of judges and the impassive jury hollows out in shades of gray, fading into the white buzz of his mind as Sukuna glances at his brother’s ashen face. Outside, the hungry press waits, sharks roaming in deathly waters waiting for the first drop of blood.

Itadori Jin clenches his pen in his white-knuckled grip. Their defense attorney, Hiromi Higuruma leans close to him, whispering something under his breath.

Sukuna can’t hear him from his vantage point on the testimonial seat, but he can venture a guess when his younger twin nods, pushing his glasses up the sweaty bridge of his nose.

“Higuruma-san, please take the floor,” the judge intones, allowing for their docketed defense to play out.

The ruthless, cold lawyer clears his throat, and stands.

He turns to face the jury, those soulless eyes sparking with a passion Sukuna has never seen before in all his twenty eight years of knowing the old lawyer.

“Your honor—Judge Itachi. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. How many of us have often mistaken goodwill for evil? We don’t bite the hand that feeds us and yet, we have every right to question when something isn’t as sanctimonious as it seems.” He turns his dark gaze to the rows of people.

“Itadori Sukuna has devoted half of his life to the bolstering of young athletes. Football is one of his biggest passions and he often pays meticulous attention to the facilities that nurture the talent of our future sportsmen. The sole person to be blamed for the murder of young Masamichi Ryota isn’t the man sitting on that podium—it’s to be found in the coach who pushed him beyond his capabilities and forced him to play even with a ruptured spleen—”

“Objection, your honor.” Nanami Kento, an unctuous piece of shit in a neatly-pressed suit who thrives on taking cases pro-bono to bolster his spotless reputation, stands. He adjusts his tie, looking at the plaintiff’s family—the coach’s great mustache trembling as he holds back his anger.

“The post-mortem report submitted shows that Coach Tanaka has explicitly asked for a leave of rest for the star player. But, the rejection letter—traced from Itadori Sukuna’s hand, I might add—explicitly denied that request on grounds of the millions of yen he has betted on that poor boy’s success.”

The crowd moves, a great sea snake whispering, scales rustling. Unsure of whether to attack or stand down.

“Your Honor, that is a stretch,” Hiromi drones. “The young man was known to have a history of smoking and a regrettable habit of shooting ecstasy. A fact, we found out later on, that was unearthed in the same autopsy reports you had just shared, Nanami-san.”

This time, the two attorneys stare each other down.

Sukuna fights back a smirk at the blonde man’s narrowed eyes. Beside him, Tanaka, the coach, hangs his head.

“While his death is very regrettable and a horror to his family and loved ones, Masamichi was not known for reigning in his… impulses. He has a weak will and a fondness for abusing substances.”

“Objection,” Nanami raised his voice. “Defaming the deceased’s name is a violation of—”

“Order, order,” Judge Itachi bangs his gavel, shaking his jowls as he glares down from the stand. The room quietens. Nanami takes a deep breath while Hiromi glances at his watch.

“Nanami-san, the Defamation Act 2013 does not apply to this situation as Masamichi is not a minor. A lawyer of your caliber should know this.” Nodding towards Higuruma, he says, “Continue.”

This time, Sukuna can’t help the chuckle slipping from his mouth.

Hearing him, Jin shakes his head with a glare, hazel eyes drilling Now’s not the time, asshole deep into his skull.

Higuruma, having heard his slip, also narrows his eyes.

Nanami uses this moment to pounce on Sukuna’s perceived indifference.

“He openly mocks the death of one of Japan’s brightest football stars, and yet, we’re supposed to believe in his goodwill? If you were to speak of my client’s dead prodigy, you should take into account what kind of man Itadori Sukuna truly is.”

Commanding the floor, the sharply-dressed blonde man takes center stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Judge and jury. Itadori Sukuna hails from an affluent family, but do not let that distract you from how he uses his position in society to silence those lower than him.” Looking straight into Sukuna’s eye with that infuriating, righteous stare these bootlickers always had, Kento seethes.

“He is a drug-addled playboy who spends his time exploiting young talent for his own gain. These young men under his program are little more than betting fodder for him and his other rich friends. Wouldn’t you say that is correct? How many times have we seen him in the news because of his drunk folly? If he were an actor, we would’ve banned him from screens, and yet, because of his standing in society, we commend him for exploiting our sporting talents—and ultimately, playing in the negligence to cause someone’s death.”

Higuruma bristles, not expecting his opponent to pull out his client’s reputation and smear it across the courtroom floors.

“You claim defamation is uncouth, and yet, you’re doing the same thing to my client, Nanami-san—”

“Order,” Judge Itachi bangs his gavel again, this time looking irritated at how this case had turned.

Sukuna suddenly catches sight of a woman from across the room. She’s glaring at him with unabashed hatred, her dark eyes swollen and red-rimmed, lower lip wobbling. Beside her, the man he assumes is her husband wears a stony mask, his gaze locked on the floor, completely still except for the rapid rising and falling of his erratic breaths.

They were both clad in a dress, shirt and slacks that looked like they belonged to the 90s—neat and clean, but shabby in a way that only these lower class scum could pull off if the dress code given to them was business casual.

These must be Ryota’s good-for-nothing power hungry parents who threw him into the harsh pits of Japanese football in hopes of improving their standing in society. How plain and old they look. Sukuna fights back the urge to sneer at them, keeping his expression neutral.

It’s like Jin’s voice is in his ear: Do not misbehave. Do not give them more reason to already hate you. Remember—Jin’s infuriatingly kind eyes were unflinching and serious. They’ve just lost their son. Have some compassion and remorse.

“Attorneys, return to your seat. The jury has already made their decision and I, for one, can vouch for it.”

Sukuna feels his palms going clammy, and suddenly, the idea of investing in sports from Ino’s advice was making his stomach turn.

I’m going to kill that bastard once I’m out of here.

Removing the slip of paper from the white envelope of justice, Judge Itachi clears his throat.

Higuruma sits back down, his viper-like eyes locked on the judge’s face. Trying to predict the outcome.

“The court today has deemed the case Itadori v Japan’s Football League a negligence in duty of care concerning Masamichi Ryota’s untimely death.”

No one is breathing, all attention on the judge with his pockmarked face.

Sukuna is fixated on Jin, whose head is bowed, eyes closed. If this blew up in their faces, a case like this would cause Itadori Enterprises to suffer a major investor fallout.

And once again, the blame of their family’s bad fortune would be on him.

Sukuna swears the last time he was this nervous, he was waiting for Este’s pregnancy test results to come back negative.

It was one time, ‘Kuna! She had tears in her eyes, the stupid white stick clenched in her hand. Can you lay off of me and take responsibility for once in your goddamn life?

He should call her after this—apologize to her. God knows it would be his last fuck before he has to spend half of his life behind bars for the death of some schmuck kid whose name he had already forgotten.

Judge Itachi speaks again, knocking him out of his reverie.

“Therefore, the jury and I have come to the conclusion. In the case of Itadori Itadori-san, we find him—”

The clock ticks. Every lung is constricted—jury, attorneys, a few press members who had managed to bribe their way in. Sukuna recognizes them with their obnoxious yellow press tags; thinks how many of these leeches would get a raise once they broke the scoop on him.

Oh, the irony, he muses. His downfall being their salvation to fighting back against the rising cost of living.

“—not guilty.”

…

Sukuna is unsure if he’s heard it right.

Not guilty.

He doesn’t react immediately, blinking slowly like a fish caught out of water. The oldest son of Itadori Wasuke tries to meet his twin’s eye, but Jin is as shocked as he was, frozen with his laser-sharp focus trailed on the stand—trying to digest this turn of events.

Higuruma is the one who finally breaks the ice, standing and bowing to Judge Itachi. On cue, the rest of the room follows suit, getting to their feet and showing the retreating judge their begrudging respect.

Sukuna bows jerkily, unused to such a humble gesture he had almost forgotten how to do it.

In front of him, the brat’s mother starts to bawl, her husband’s arms coming to wrap around her as they both shuffle out of the courtroom, looking older and grayer than when they had entered.

Sukuna doesn’t have much time to force a lick of sympathy for them, not when this farce of a trial was over and he was late for Ino’s party.

He hops down the stand, ambling easily to his younger brother who was whispering in low tones with their lawyer. A few feet away, Nanami Kento reassures the coach and his family, painting a picture of trying to achieve righteous justice for that good name—a feat Sukuna knew he would never achieve.

After all, the Itadori empire wasn’t built on rainbows on sunshine but pure, hard grit. And a little bit of blood and here and there to get what they want.

Jin looks up, frowns. “Let’s catch the sedan and have a smoke. You and I have a lot to discuss about.”

The way he said it made Sukuna feel like a kid again, about to be chastised for peeing the bed or killing off the pet goldfish.

Higuruma packed up his briefcase of documents, and a pack of bodyguards stationed around the different points of the courtroom swarmed to the middle, shielding the two brothers and their lawyers the second the doors opened and the press descended on them.

Flashing lights went off in a wave of clicks, the vultures with their cameras snapping his humiliation at every angle for their publications; boldly throwing their questions at him without fear now that the great Itadori “Ryomen” Sukuna was knocked down a peg or two.

Itadori-san, can you comment about Masamichi-san’s death at length?

One woman with a silver bob shoved a mic in his face. The guard on his right quickly elbowed her out of the way, throwing his arm up to hide Sukuna’s visage from the bug-like chittering click of these press leeches and their expensive cameras.

Itadori-san, this news must come as a shock. What does this mean for the future of Itadori Enterprise?

Will this affect any future mergers, particularly a rumor circulating about a potential collaboration with Nara Corp?

Itadori-san, do you ever regret investing in football?

A few sport reporters were also seen trying to push their way through the crowd, recorders in hand to glean some golden nuggets for their pathetic column.

Itadori-san, what does your verdict mean for the future of the Japan Football League?

Itadori-san, did you know that Masamichi-san was about to prepare for his university entrance exams? How does his death make you feel?

“No comment,” Higuruma intones, taking Jin and Sukuna both by the elbow to steer them towards their waiting car like they were teenagers again; back when he had to bring the twins straight into Wasuke’s study to discuss their future inheritance.

A fresh-faced rookie Sukuna had never seen before stumbles in front of their entourage, and he’s mortified to see a pink lipstick print on the front of the intern’s tag.

Royale News' first appearance in such a serious case.

“Itadori-san, you’re already approaching the ripe age of thirty," the dim-wit says. “Do you have your eye on a woman who can domesticate you? Can you ever be tamed?”

Amidst the overlapping voices and chaos, that question sticks to Sukuna like sweat on skin during an unbearable summer heat, unsettling him until he sinks into the sedan with Jin beside him and Higuruma on the opposite seat.

The door closes shut, bodyguards standing in front of the heavily tinted side windows to keep the press from clamoring after them.

Once the chaos was left behind on the freeway in a cloud of smoke and ashes, did Jin lean forward to raise the privacy screen. With the driver unable to hear them, his younger twin reaches for his packet of Montecristos, lighting three of them up and passing one to each man.

Higuruma accepts his offer with a nod, while Sukuna grabs the nicotine-laced vice from him with a ferocity that takes his brother aback. He inhales deeply, exhaling rings of smoke which fogs up the car, tasting cherries, cedarwood, tobacco and his freedom.

“Easy, ‘Kuna,” Jin mumbles tersely. Sukuna resists the urge to flip him off.

Instead, he drags his gaze to the lawyer smoking quietly in front of him, smiling sleazily in triumph. “You did a good job, Higuruma. If I were you, I’d ask for a raise.”

The Itadori scion expects his brother to join in the jest meekly, like he always does. Not glare at him with pure vitriol in his eyes, the kind Sukuna had never seen Jin harbor for him.

“You scumbag,” Jin mutters hotly. His brother half expects him to throw a curse word or two with how riled up he was. “You were supposed to dump this stupid hobby. I gave you the money to start a foundation for good press. Not throw it all into some useless human betting ring. Are you an imbecile?”

That was a new insult. Jin rarely ever threw him a good verbal uppercut, and Sukuna must’ve really fucked up to earn this side of his younger twin brother.

He plasters on a sleazy smile, giving his otouto a once over.

“Well, aren’t you a fucking ray of sunshine? You should be glad Higuruma managed to avert the crisis and get me out of it. Or, are you going to piss in these blessings?”

“I would rather you didn’t embroil yourself in such a shit show in the first place.”

Jin sighs, sags into the seat and massages his temple. “One day, Sukuna, you’re going to give me a heart attack and you’ll have to take over oto-san’s company. Then, you will know true responsibility. True suffering.”

Sukuna hums, staring outside at the scenery flying by.

“Neither the company nor its investors would last a day with me at the helm. So, for your sake and mine, I’m going to ask the doctor to keep the life support machine going even if you’re hanging onto your last breath, dear brother.”

“Good luck with that,” Jin refutes with a slight snarl. “I would explicitly mention it in my will to refute your efforts at reviving me.”

“Then, I will rebuke your will.”

“You can’t because I actually have a son to execute it.”

“Yuuji is two. He can’t even hold a pencil.”

Any insult towards his beloved son would never be tolerated by the famed Itadori family man. Jin puffs out his chest, about to berate his older brother, when Higuruma stops them both with a sigh.

“If only your parents could see the both of you now. How disappointed they would be in you, Sukuna.”

Hiromi sucks in a deep breath of the sweet cigar, turning his head and exhaling lightly out of politeness for smoking in his employer’s car.

Despite his hulking muscles and blase attitude, Sukuna can’t help but glower in petulance at any mention of Wasuke and Kasumi’s disappointment in him. Growing up as the black sheep has casted a permanent cloud over him—his best efforts were seen as second tier in comparison with his perfect, golden brother. And Sukuna resents any mention of it.

Their family lawyer continues on, as if he hadn’t made two of them heel to an uneasy stop.

“At your age, you should be taking over Jin’s part. But, your brother is too nice. He took up the burden so you could do what, exactly? Party every night? Sleep with models? Get involved in scandals?”

Hiromi sighs, and Sukuna turns his glare outside the window, unwilling to take such a personal beat down.

“Your mother had hoped you would snap out of your selfish streak. She even thought you would settle down and give her some grandchildren by the time you turned twenty five. But, you had to be pictured… fucking… the mayor’s daughter during a gala. How crude.”

“Stop talking down to me like you’re even at my level, Higuruma.” Sukuna snaps and something in his tone catches the other two men off guard. “You think just because we employ you in our good graces, you have the fucking right—”

“What Hiromi is trying to say is this,” Jin interjects before this could escalate into a full fist fight. “Both of us have come up with the best way for our family to get past this scandal.”

Sukuna has heard this a thousand times before. The Itadori pockets were bottomless when it came to preserving their good name.

“How?” He sneers, dismissive and mildly insulted that the two of them had made a decision for him without his input. “Don’t tell me you’re going to flush out more money to keep the press quiet. We can’t keep using the same strategy over and over again.”

In answer, Hiromi and Jin share a look. Sukuna suddenly feels like the car seat he’s on is about to be pulled from under him.

Wilted ash drips from the tip of his neglected cigar. He tenses, darts his vermillion eyes between his two conspirators and wardens.

“Hiromi and I have come up with a better idea,” Jin begins his pitches like he always does—with a little smile and a sniffle. “The idea is—”

“Marriage,” Hiromi intones, taking one brother aback and the other on a guilt trip.

Jin grimaces. Sukuna stumbles with the words stuttering out like a reckless oil spill.

So, the only thing he could spout was, “M-marriage?! What kind of trickery is this? Jin—” He looks to his otouto, hoping against hope his ears are just fucked up and he didn’t actually hear Hiromi saying the tragic, forbidden ‘M’ word.

“—this has to be a mistake.”

“No, it’s not,” Hiromi steps in to cover Jin’s ass, placing himself at the front to take the bullets of rage that would no doubt rain down on him once the whole plan was laid bare to the older, hot-headed twin.

“We believe that with your souring reputation and increasing questions surrounding your perpetual bachelorhood, settling down with someone would be in the interest of the family business. And of course, your inheritance.”

Hiromi makes sure to dangle the most effective carrot in front of him; that sadistic bastard.

Sukuna seethes—confusion, anger, disappointment and fear coalescing to overtake his first instinct to run. Numbing him with his inaction of thoughts and body.

Hiromi lifts his heavy-bagged eyes, pinning him right to the spot. The knife slices deeper, cutting him from the inside out; hammering in this decision he absolutely had no say in unless he would want to kiss his lavish lifestyle goodbye.

“We need to get you married off by the end of the year.” A death sentence knells right into his chest; Hiromi digs the pain deeper.

“In fact, the sooner, the better.”

Sukuna remembers the very first time he had seen you in your wedding dress.

It was a chance encounter as he passed by a Morinaga boutique in downtown Shibuya; his brother having orchestrated the entire meeting so Sukuna would catch a glance of his future bride trying on her custom-made dress.

With her head bowed, and shoulders bare under the light, the older Itadori twin thought her figure was appeasing and pleasing to the eyes. That is, until she turned around with her naked face and he had to physically stop himself from recoiling.

“Is that her?” he demands, unwilling to believe Jin would sell him out like this. Shades of disgust lines his tone, and he tries not to put his stupid twin in a headlock and break his neck.

Jin notices his reluctance and makes a face. “She’s unlike the girls you whore yourself out to, that’s for sure.”

The more he looks at you, the more Sukuna is starting to think this was a mistake.

“She’s so… boring. Vanilla. Are you sure this is what you think is best for me?”

Since their father passed on and the business went to his younger twin, Sukuna was often painted in their society and by the media as the irresponsible Itadori—the audacious older brother, the partier.

The playboy.

Often having a gaggle of girls at his mercy, he was not exempted from warming beautiful model’s beds, and having flings with other trust fund babes—bad habits his younger brother was desperately trying to get him to shrug off to take on more of the family business mantle.

“You’re almost thirty, ‘Kuna. It’s time to act like it.”

Jin sighs, removes his glasses. The action reminds him so much of their father that Sukuna pauses for a second, blinking away the mirage of that senile, old man.

Sukuna hadn’t noticed just how old his younger brother had gotten.

Dressed in a sleek trench coat costing four times more than a McDonald workers’ monthly salary, Itadori Jin was quiet and unassuming, yet only his twin brother knew that still waters ran the deepest.

An inch shorter than him and with a kid from his old, dead wife, Itadori Jin was the antithesis of Sukuna’s recklessness. Where the older twin was all hulking machismo and a massive ego, his brother was soft-spoken and with a sharp mind that was always one step ahead of his, bringing their father’s company back from the brink of bankruptcy and launching it into international waters from his sheer will.

Sukuna respects the guy, and as much as he wants to rile Jin up and pop a vein on his younger brother’s temple, he tempers down his sarcasm, preferring to roll his eyes.

“Whatever. So, her daddy wants the merger money and you want me to settle down with some ugly chick?”

Jin winces, wishing his brother wasn’t being this curt and lewd.

“Her father wants an heir. And he wants 40% of our shares. That’s a whole different game.”

“He can’t have those.” Sukuna was irresponsible as they came, but even he understood the basic math of divesting half of your company’s assets to a party other than your stipulated stakeholders. “The Nara family already holds 22% of our board and the Ikina’s are up close with 15%. If those vultures take 40, how’re we gonna break even in the next quarter? We’ll be bleeding red if we give into their whims.”

In answer, the corners of his brother’s mouth twitches. “I see you’ve been doing your homework. Impressive.”

They both have stopped in their tracks, standing a little ways on the sidewalk where prying ears couldn’t hear their discussion.

Jin suddenly turns serious. “L/N-san has struck gold with new fintech models. We need to curry his favor if he wants to reduce the patent price for us to move on with Project Armstrong. I hope you understand the gravity of this situation.”

Usually, Sukuna prefers not talking business with his brother in such broad daylight without a drink in hand. But, seeing as how Jin has left him no choice, he relents to this impromptu exchange, feeling more and more like some wild stock being sold in a farm the longer he speaks to his brother.

“And she’s nicknamed the Wisteria Woman because her entire family latches onto fame and power like leeches,” he bristles, catching Jin by surprise.

See? Even a useless ass like him could bother with basic research. And the rumors were nastier than he imagined.

“I already don’t like the sound of that—of her.”

The younger Itadori cocks his head. “Then, I think you should be honest with her if that is how you feel. That this is a business arrangement and nothing else.”

Sukuna flicks a cigarette from his leather coat’s pocket, sticking it between his teeth.

“Say I agree to this plan. What’s in it for me?”

Without a beat of hesitation, Jin replies:

“110% of the profit.”

Sukuna nearly spits out his stick.

The amount yawns before him, looming zeros and zeros staring him in the face.

“What? Cat got your tongue?” Jin teases, though there’s tension crinkling in the corner of his eyes.

Switching gears, Sukuna turns mellow; even slaps on a smile. “I see. Interesting.”

“So. Are you on board with this?”

In the distance, he sees your silhouette exiting the bridal shop, bags in hand with your maids or girlfriends following behind. The sunlight does little to bring any depth to your expression or features, but he appreciates that you look semi-decent from his vantage point.

“Fine,” he says, clicking open his vintage Dupont to light the tip of his cigarette. “Count me in.”

He supposes that even with such an embarrassing family background that will drag the Itadori name through the mud, the high stakes more than made up for such a lackluster wife.

His favorite whore sighs right into his shoulder, the smell of his cum, sweat and her expensive perfume strong on her skin.

After ejaculating right onto her tits and smearing it everywhere down her belly, Sukuna was exhausted and in a need for something stronger than nicotine. Rolling over, he picks up a joint Ino had passed to him as congratulations for making it out of that nasty as fuck trial, lighting it up and inhaling with a tremendous sigh.

Este’s lips are right on his shoulder, kissing a path from his deltoid to collarbone. Sukuna wraps a hand in her soft, brown hair, holding her firmly in place as he makes a move like he was about to kiss her; her lips parting and smoke pouring into her waiting mouth, her hitched inhale pulling a cruel smile across his own lips.

She turns her face away, eyes watering and fighting back a coughing fit. “Asshole.”

“An invitation for anal? Gladly, baby.” He turns her onto her belly, peals of laughter muffled by the pillow, strong arms holding her down as he positions her on her hands and knees, joint stuck in between his teeth.

Este turns her face to the side, catching his eye. Mascara smudges around her eyes, her red lipstick feathering at the corners of her impishly smiling mouth.

“What’re you doing, ‘Kuna?”

“Y’know what I’m doing,” he murmurs, cock stirring at her wiggling hips and devilish grin.

“Are you really going to take my ass?”

He sucks in another inhale of the joint, feeling the high slowly unlocking his muscles and turning his brain fuzzy. “Scared? Afraid daddy might find out his daughter is going around offering her virgin hole to any rich man who’s on the marriage market?”

Condescension drips in poisonous tendrils, and she bristles. “Fuck you, ‘Kuna.”

In one swift motion, he’s sheathed inside of her, feeling her walls choke down on his cock. His head tosses back, sweat glistening off the tribal tattoos on his chest, hips drawing back and snapping forward in languid thrusts.

The moon shines strong. Cheap Southern alcohol pumps in his blood, his sweat soaks through her skin and hair, damp skin illuminated by the ember tip of his joint.

“Isn’t that what I’m already doing to you?” He drawls, and her body starts to shake.

“We still—mhm—h-haven’t talked about your m-marriage…”

Her voice fades; cracks on the reality of him no longer sharing a bed with her.

Jesus. Does everyone know about this?

Sukuna doesn’t do anything to comfort her, except for slipping a hand between her legs to rub soft circles on her clit as a flimsy apology.

She keens, white-knuckled grip fisting the soft blankets. Her mediterranean mix shows under the weak light, tan skin stretching over defined back muscles, dark roots growing past the brown dye job she gets done once every two weeks.

In another life, Sukuna thinks he could’ve been in love with her.

Este screams his name as she shatters around him. Sukuna tosses the half-smoked joint back on the side table, not caring if it would catch on something and burn her room down. He’d just fuck her through the flames until she asphyxiates and succumbs to both the lack of oxygen and her orgasm.

She clings onto him, a second layer of skin he wants nothing to do with.

Sukuna pushes her away not so gently, grabbing his joint and snuffing it out with the heel of his palm.

“I gotta go,” he mumbles, reaching for his shirt, pants. She watches as he dresses, still dazed and starry-eyed from her release.

“Are you going back to her? To Y/N?”

Sukuna crinkles his nose, as if the mention of your name was enough to make him lose his appetite. “Don’t be stupid. No. I’m going back to my place for a shower and a nightcap. I’ll see you around.”

Tossing her a nonchalant wave, Sukuna leaves Este’s sheets, knowing that in a few more days, he would be back here again.

That’s the thing he likes about Este Nara—she’s easy. Not just to get in bed, but to get away from. She doesn’t bitch or moan about him being distant and aloof. She takes his cruelty without much flinching, seeing the dangerous man lurking under his tattoos and barely thinking anything of it.

If she even had half a brain to think.

He revs the engine of his Ducati Superleggera, hightails it past her condominium with his helmet buckled haphazardly around his neck; not slowing down, wishing he could leave his problems in the dust being kicked up by his tires.

“What do you mean he’s trying to push the marriage to a month later?” your mother seethes over her coffee, glaring at you.

You shrink from her anger, pushing around a soggy banana with your fork tines. “It’s what he told me,” you argue back weakly. “What was I going to say?”

“What about actually standing up for yourself and doing what is best for our agreement?”

She arches a perfectly groomed brow, waiting for you to respond. You cast a despairing look to your father who picks up his glass of bourbon, sipping on it while he listlessly scrolls through his iPad.

“Listen to your mother, my little light.”

“I did,” you tried again, willing them both to understand. Bunching your fists over your lap, you take a deep breath, hoping they would listen. “I did everything you asked me to: not interrupt him. Let him talk. Laugh at his jokes. Everything,” you emphasize. “And yet he asked me to consider pushing the marriage back by a few weeks. What else could I say?”

You reiterate your question, growing hotter in the cheeks. Finally understanding why some people could have a heart attack in the middle of dinner when the entire situation was spun around to paint you as a villain when you had tried your best to be as cooperative as you could.

A grimace stretches across her plastic-filled cheeks. People often said your mother could win a beauty pageant on her worst days; rising above other beautiful women with her wit, charm and charisma. Of course, she was also the daughter of a department store king, so the money graciously ‘donated’ to these glittery showcases put her many steps forward compared to other contestants.

“I don’t know where I went wrong in raising you,” she sighs, dramatic as always. “Jiro, please. Can you speak to Itadori Jin-san and tell him what our daughter told us? There is no way his brother can resist this offer.”

Offer. Like you were a cow to be traded in the market.

“Lia, I told you, Itadori Jin-san has no control over Itadori-san. That’s his nii-san. It would be a perversion of authority if he forces Sukana-san’s hand in any way.”

Her expression sours. “Well, isn’t there some way we can orchestrate a reunion, perhaps? A dinner or getaway to officially welcome them to the family?”

You blanch at the idea of seeing Sukuna again, stewing in your mortification and humiliation when he had already made it clear how distasteful he finds you.

You’re about to say you don’t mind going with Sukuna’s timeline when he sets his glass down with a pensive look on his face.

Ten years older than your mother and with a brilliant mind born from the best business school in Tokyo, your father was not a man to be played with; his word was law, and that was how he spearheaded the tech scene at the tender age of twenty-five with nothing but a dream and his gritty determination.

Knowing he had to prove himself to your grandfather—your mother’s father, on his capabilities to build a home and a better life for a woman who already had everything—made you wonder how he did it.

From nobody to somebody. It’s why no matter how he treated you, he would always have your respect.

“A getaway?” Jiro murmurs, an idea darkening his thoughts. “That could be interesting. Very interesting indeed. I’ll make some plans and we’ll play it by ear.”

He went back to scrolling, ignoring his smugly beaming wife.

Pacified that she had gotten what she wanted, your mother turns nurturing once more, cooing and touching your shoulder.

“We should get you a spa treatment and a light makeover before Itadori-san sees you. Do you have something to wear in mind?”

As if you were a doll whose only purpose was to be dressed up, this was the reality you were living in for the past twenty-seven years of your life. If Itadori-san didn’t want to marry you fast enough and get you out of your childhood home, you were sure a swift bullet to the head would be the best alternative.

Plastering on a smile, you ponder for a second on your choice.

“I want to try something new,” you decide. A furrow appears in her brow.

“What do you mean by new, my dear?”

“Something Itadori-san would like,” you try to curry her approval, feeling lighter and happier when her solemn face breaks into a knowing smile.

“He says he loves dresses with satin and plunging necklines. Thinner heels. I think Okuta-san would understand.”

Referring to your personal stylist, your mother nods her approval.

“That’s perfect. I’ll get her to do some digging on some of Itadori-san’s past girlfriends and see what they wore.”

Unruffled by how audacious that statement was, you were truly reminded that this marriage was a cruelty of convenience when her smile deepens.

“I’m proud of you for taking this step, my dear,” your mother’s voice warms, though the implications of them make you freeze.

“You’re finally proving your worth to the L/N family.”

a.n. OKAY WE'RE SO BACK. ive deleted the first chapter due to low interaction and decided to give this series a second chance by starting with y/n's pov !! this series will rely heavily on feedback and reblogs (my adhd ass cant work on something if i and other people dont care for it) or else it'll be scraped and we keep things moving (i sincerely hope u loved this <3)

#🦢 writes #sukuna x reader #sukuna x you #sukuna x y/n #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #sukuna angst #sukuna smut #series: hopelessly devoted

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