#do not tell him his husband annoye him

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Talking kakagai...

Kakashi loves to play small pranks on Gai. His lover is just so straight forward and earnest, that seeing that moment where he realizes he's been punked is just SO funny to Kakashi.

But he absolutely can not stand actual bullying/ mean things being done to Gai. I can see a group of students actively planning a malicious prank when they attended the academy, and asking Kakashi to be in on it, because they thought since Gai "bothers" Kakashi the most, he would love to get some revenge.

Kakashi not only turned the prank around on them, but TRIPLED up the punishment they recieved, and never made it aware he was the one who did it. Those kids became the laughing stock of the academy and Kakashi never let on that he was the 5 year old that ruined their lives.

(And Gai never knew he was ever targeted and kept living his best life.)

Ok honestly, Kakashi’s a rude but to kids (*glares at the genjutsu he put Sakura in day one*) so i can see it

Also he’s so annoyed when people think he’s annoyed by Gai. GAI of all people!? He adores Gai. Gai is the brightest part of his life. His smile makes Kakashi think nothing can go wrong ever again, even just for a little while

How dare anyone think that Gai annoys him

Gai is the least annoying person in all of Konoha 😤😤😤

He’s going to make them pay and Gai is going to scold him for going that hard on the kids, but he does not care

Anyone who says Gai annoys him deserves it

[obsesssedblerd]

You look up from your book to see your husband standing over the bassinet with his arms crossed, his brow raising as he looks down inside of it with a tiny scowl. He stays like that for about a minute. You sit up in your shared bed, then call out to him. “Ryo.” 

“Hm.” He doesn’t look up. 

“May I ask what you are doing?” 

“The little brat is staring,” Sukuna says matter-of-factly. “I am simply staring at her in return.” 

Inside of the bassinet, your baby daughter coos. Her scarlet eyes—exactly like her father’s—glitter with interest. You hear her giggle, and you scoff lightly and return your gaze to your book. “She thinks you’re playing a game.” 

“I am doing no such thing.” 

You flip a page. “Put a hand over your face for a few seconds.” He doesn’t respond, but you know he listens. “M’kay, now lift.” There’s silence for a few seconds, then your daughter bursts into a fit of giggles. 

Sukuna rolls his eyes. “I do not understand what is so entertaining about that.” When you look up again, you see that he’s covering his face again, then revealing himself to get the same reaction from the baby.

“It’s called peek-a-boo. It’s a game most babies love to play.” 

The little princess babbles as she lifts her arms up, and Sukuna tilts his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

You snicker. “One: You’ll figure out what she’s saying the more you talk with her. Two: She wants you to pick her up.” 

He sighs dramatically, then reaches into the bassinet to pick up the small girl. Though she has her father’s eyes, she has your hair, the shape of your nose, and your ears. She also has your fearlessness, because she smiles directly in the face of the king of curses. Now at his eye level, she reaches her arms towards him excitedly. “What is it now, you brat? I’m already carrying you.” 

He looks over at you in question, and your smile grows. “She wants to touch your face,” you say. 

“Why?” 

“Because she’s a baby, and she’s curious.” 

Sukuna pulls her closer, and once in range, his daughter lays her tiny hands against his marked face. She giggles more, and you can see his eyes soften. “Hmph. You have your mother’s smile.” 

— — — —

The next morning, you walk into the kitchen where you hear Sukuna speaking with someone. When he turns to the side, you see your daughter nestled in the crook of one of his muscular arms, staring up at him as he concluded whatever story he was telling her. 

“...At the end of the battle, only I remained. Victory was mine.” 

The baby babbles excitedly, and Sukuna scoffs. “Ha, you will do no such thing. How do you expect to join me in battle when you aren’t even a year old, brat?” 

Her face scrunches in what looks like annoyance, and she repeats to him what he taught her the night before. “Hmph.” 

You burst into laughter, and Sukuna raises a brow at the little girl in his arms. “Great. Your mother’s smile, and her attitude.”

[gojonanami]

❝ 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐘𝐎𝐔, 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐔𝐏 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐘𝐎𝐔 !! ❞

❝ WHEN YOUR EX HUSBAND FINDS OUT YOU'RE DATING AGAIN, HOW DO YOU END UP FUCKING HIM IN YOUR BED ?? ❞

✧ pairing: ex-husband!satoru gojo x f!reader

✧ summary: satoru gojo is the man everyone wants, except you -- well you married him and you wanted him, but when he pushed you away after you had your daughter, you had no choice but to divorce him. so what happens when he comes to pick up your daughter for his weekend, and he finds you ready for a date? and how is it you always end up under him?

✧ warnings: 18+, nsfw, so much smut, exes to lovers, modern au! (no curses), gojo is a CEO of a company, gojo has a daughter with you, divorced, some angst, switch! gojo, nipple play, oral (f + m), fingering (f! receiving), handjob (m! receiving), semi public sex (near entryway), semi exhibitionism, sex (p in v), creampie, swearing,

✧ wc: 8,271

“You were supposed to be here at 6:00 PM,” 

Satoru Gojo stood in your doorway, as opposed to splashed on the covers of magazines and countless front page articles — you would think it would be business magazines, but you would only be partially correct — he made the covers of business, fashion, health, entertainment, and even a few women’s magazines. 

And what every single one had made apparent in their colorful print was that Satoru Gojo was anyone’s ideal man — the CEO of the wildly successful Six Eyes Corp, a philanthropist in his free time spent mentoring children and teenagers through establishing proper programs, and he was flawlessly beautiful — ocean blue eyes you could drown in, porcelain skin seemingly without a blemish or scar, and pretty lips that were a weapon when curled in a smirk. 

Just as they were now. 

“Well,” he smirks, leaning against your door frame, “I’m sure it’s 6:00 PM somewhere,” 

“Well, I’m not concerned with somewhere else since you daughter exists here, not elsewhere,” your words lacked their usual bite, only tinged with annoyance rather than cutting anger, “but good thing I told you to be here an hour and half earlier than I needed you,” 

Needed him as just as you did before you had divorced — just as you asked him to be. But he only grew more distant by the day — and soon he was already out the door when you had served him with divorce papers. 

And now, you can almost forget how it used to be — your eyes catch sight of the picture on your mantle of the two of you with your daughter, Satoru’s lips pressed to your cheeks as yours were pressed to your little angel — almost. 

He gapes at you as you walk inside, as he follows behind you, the click of the door closing overshadowed by the sound of his voice. 

“How could you lie to me, sweetheart? Thought we had a bond of trust,” you don’t have to look back at him to know he has a pout on his lips that would quickly melt into a grin if you conceded. 

“Bond of trust ended when you showed up two hours late to pick up our daughter,” and he grumbles, cheeks tinged with pink. 

“That was one time! I’m never that late. And it’s only on a Fridays when I have—“ 

“Meetings all day,” you finish with a sigh, “I know, Gojo, I know it’s not on purpose — but I know you’re always late on Fridays so I found a solution,” your lips curl, “anyway, our girl is napping still, so give her a bit before you wake her, but you can stay here until she does,” you’re shrugging off your bathrobe, littered with flecks of makeup, only to have a gorgeous black dress underneath. 

One that he very much hadn’t seen before — and he would know, he’s explored every centimeter very intimately of each one of your dresses, but this is new. His eyes skim down the exposed skin of your thighs — very new, but very familiar. 

He’s running fingers through his hair, not bothering to hide how his gaze rakes over his body, “Special occasion? Don’t tell me your birthday suddenly moved months, or I forgot our anniversary,” 

You scoff, as you pick out earrings from your jewelry box,  “Does an anniversary count when you’re divorced?” you can’t hide the hint of bitterness in your voice, and he’s stepping closer as you look in your vanity to put your earrings on, only to meet his gaze in the mirror, deep blue sucking you in as it always does. 

“But you’ll always be mine,” and you roll your eyes, expecting a cheeky grin, but find genuine longing in his expression, before it's hidden away behind a frown, “but you still haven’t told me where you’re going, sweetheart,” 

A sigh stuck in your throat, ignoring the use of your usual pet name that he had lost the rights when the ink dried on your divorce, as your teeth graze your bottom lip, “I have a date tonight,” 

He tilts his head, “A date?” and you can already hear it in his voice — ice creeping over usually still waters, “who’s the lucky guy? And do I get to meet him?” 

“And have you scare him off?” And he only grins in reply, hands slipping into his pockets. 

“If he’s intimidated by me, isn’t that more on him than me, sweetheart?” His footsteps only grow closer, as you turn to look at him, his hand on the wood of your vanity, nearly caging you in on side, “after all, he may be your date, but I’ll always be your husband, and the father of our daughter,” 

You didn’t know whether you wanted to kiss him or slap him — slapping him was self explanatory, but the want to kiss him was a lingering feeling, one that you couldn’t shed — no matter how much time passed. But that was the thing about Satoru Gojo — it was easy to fall in love with him, but even harder to fall out. 

And a part of you could never admit to yourself that you never did. 

No matter how hard you try.

“You haven’t been my husband for a year and half now, Gojo — a year legally now,” 

And he’s changing tactics, “You still haven’t answered my question, who are you going on a date with?” And you already can feel the beginning of a headache throbbing in your forehead, and you know why no one could say no to Satoru Gojo — because you’re sure he’s never understood it. 

“Why do you need to know?” And he's tilting his head, a small scoff parting his lips. 

“I need to know who you're potentially bringing home, don’t I?” and he’s far too close, and you don’t know why you’re not pulling away — his breath warming your skin, as he drags a finger down your cheek, “The man who might step foot in our home, might meet our daughter,” and his thumb brushes over your lips, “might kiss my wife—“ 

“Gojo—“ 

“Satoru,” he corrects you. 

You rub at your temples — yup, you definitely have a headache now. You brush past him, heading to the living room to pick up some of the mess, hoping your ex would somehow fall and hit his head on the doorframe and forget this conversation.

“And this dress?” Ah, no such luck, “did you buy it for the date?” 

“Do you keep a catalog of my wardrobe?” you scowl as you pick up the strewn about toys and things to collect into your daughter’s toy bin, and he’s bending down too to pick up your daughter’s things in his hundred thousand yen suit. 

“So you didn’t deny it,” and you sigh again, but grit your teeth all the same, his sharp words finely grating on your nerves. 

“This isn’t a business negotiation, you don’t win just because you use my words against me,” you stand up after picking up the last of the things, “yes it’s a new dress, and yes I bought it for the date since this is my first date in years, happy?” 

“Thrilled,” he says flatly, and you know it’s not the end of the discussion, “remember our first date?” 

And how could you forget? But you decide to humor him, if only for a break from the interrogation. 

“Which one? Because one was a date, and the other—“ 

He raises an eyebrow, “It was a date too, I asked you out—“ 

“You asked me to hang out—“ 

“And we kissed—“ 

“Only because I told you how I felt first—“ and he smirks again and you know you’ve dug yourself into a hole, cheeks burning at his stupidly smug face, “shut up,” 

“And what did you say again?” He slips the things you have in your hands into the toy box, his fingers brushing yours, and his touch is the same as you remember, even the barest brush was enough for your traitorous soul to yearn for more. 

“You know what I said,” his lips curl, the same smile he had given you all those years ago that made you fall for him in the first place, but his raise of his brow tells you he’s not going to let it go until you say it, “I told you that I liked you for a long time, and I was tired of waiting for you to make the first move. Because maybe by then it would be too late,” and his fingers brush against your cheek, featherlight — just as the bunches of butterflies that bloom in your stomach. 

“And you say that wasn’t a date,” and you scoff, biting back the small smile on your lips, “will any other first date compare to that?” 

“Gojo—“ 

“Satoru,” he corrects, and you know his brow is furrowed without having to look at him, “do you have to call me by my last name—“ 

“I do, because Satoru was my husband, and Gojo is my ex—“ 

“I’m still your husband—“ and you give a bitter chuckle. 

“In what world? We’re divorced, it’s over,“ 

“It doesn’t have to be,” 

“But it does. This isn’t me confessing to you on a movie night curled up on my twin bed. This is my ex-husband asking me to give him another chance far too late,” you slip past him, but he follows behind anyway, as you stand near the entryway to your home,  “it’s time to move on,” and you’re stepping from your bedroom and only reach the doorway when he speaks. 

“How can I move on when I never wanted to?” You still yourself in your tracks, fingers curling into a fist. 

Not this right now. Not now. “Gojo—“ you sigh. 

You’re so tired. You were hoping you wouldn’t have to have this conversation. You never had expected to have this conversation, not when you wanted to only marry one man your entire life was the one to break your heart. 

“It's almost two years too late for this conversation,” you willed your voice not to break — not when your heart was long broken by him, and you wouldn’t allow him to do it again, “you should have had it with me before I filed. When I asked you to spend your time with us, when I asked you to take time off, when I asked you to be present in our lives—“ 

“Sweetheart-“ and you snap. 

“Don’t call me that,” your quiet words hang in the silence, the wedding bells he heard in his head were nothing more than the sounds of bells drowning out the mourners screams, “don’t call me that when you don’t get to anymore,” 

“I’ll always be yours, sweetheart, a few papers don’t change that,” and he’s stepping towards you, but you’re rooted to your spot, and you want to say it’s stubbornness, but you know what it really is —weakness, because Satoru Gojo was your one and only weakness. And even now, walls raised and erected against him came tumbling down with one touch. 

Because he knew exactly where to touch and what to say. 

“Do you think any other man could please you the way I can? I know every place, every sound, every inch of you — inside and out,” he’s nearly against your back now, “are you going to let a stranger do that? Let them learn how to please you, but knowing your husband knows how to do it better,” 

“Ex-husband,” and he’s leaning down to press a kiss to your bare shoulder, “we shouldn’t—“ 

“And yet you’re letting me,” his nose brushes against the soft skin of your neck, warm breath sending a shiver down to the tips of your toes, and his words sending a wave of need right to your core, “because you know it’s true,” his hands tentatively brush against your hips and when you don’t resist, he squeezes, drawing a gasp from you, lips curled in a smirk, “more sensitive than usual, Princess? Been too long?” 

“I swear to god—“ he’s cutting you off with a bruising kiss, a rubber band snapping back against your skin, and now it’s taut against you, ensnaring you in its grasp. And yet, his kiss is so sweet, affection dripping from the slide of lips to the caress of his fingers against your cheek, and it reminds you of just why you don’t want to let go. 

“You don’t have to swear yourself to me, but I’d appreciate it, Princess,” and his mouth reminds you of the reason you (and that you don’t). 

“Gojo—“ and he’s placing more kisses along your jaw now. 

“Shouldn’t you at least call me Satoru now that we’ve kissed?” 

“You’re impossible—“ 

“And yet I’m here,” his teeth nibbles at the juncture of your neck and shoulder, tongue flicking over the blooming love bite, “almost forgot how sweet you taste,” he’s humming, as he kisses along your shoulder before he toys with the strap of your dress, “almost,” his large palms slide down your body, skimming your bare thighs as he’s pressing you against the walls, “but your skin isn’t what I want to taste,” 

You gasp, “we can’t—“ but why were you letting him? Irritation overrode by lust, and he knew the spots to make you bend to him, his hands squeezing your hips, “fuck you,” you wonder if his touch are phantoms engraved against your skin and muscles, forced to repeat the same patterns again and again — and a hand slides back up to cup your cheek. 

“That’s what I’m trying to do, sweetheart,” his lips find yours again, his tongue dragging against the seam of your lips, before slipping inside. His hand is lifting your thigh around his waist, as his lips part from your own, eyes raking over your pretty, bitten red lips, “do you know how much I missed you?” 

“No, I don’t,” and his smile slips from his lips, as he cups your chin, “Satoru—“ 

“Even all the days I was gone, there wasn’t a second I didn’t think of you,” you waver a moment at the sadness rippling through his gaze, “I know I wasn’t there—“ his lips press a kiss to your forehead. 

“Why weren’t you?” 

And that’s when there’s a knock at the door that makes your heads snap over to stare at the door a good four or five feet from you, the shadow of feet visible through the crack at the bottom of the door, and you were sure it was your date. 

“Fuck,” you whsiper under your breath, “you have to go—“ your palms pressed flat against his chest, but Satoru doesn’t budge, “please, I have to get the—“ 

And his hand is slipping up and under your dress, hiking the material higher, “do you really want to go on your date like this, sweetheart?” His fingers graze your soaked panties, a gasp pulled from your lips, lithe fingers rubbing and pinching your clit through the thin fabric, “gonna go see him when you’re this wet?”

“Please—“ and his fingers snap the elastic of your underwear against your skin, drawing a squeal from your mouth, “fuck—“ 

“Any louder, Princess, and he might hear us,” he’s leaning down to press his forehead to yours, forcing your gaze to meet yours, “but maybe I should let him, let him know who’s the only one who can make you feel this good,” his words only make your cunt flutter, as if your body was in agreement, even if your mind was still in denial, “you’re much more honest down here, Princess, but you always were,”

Another knock as your attention is being tugged only for him to yank it back as his finger slips inside you. You’re burying your face in the crook of his neck to stifle your moans — his fingers were so much longer than yours, reaching places you could only have dreamed of — when you had dreamed of him. 

His finger squelches as he fucks you open, walls squeezing around him as your molten insides cling to his touch desperately. Small whines and pants are muffled against your hand as you clamp it over, your phone vibrating uselessly with your date’s messages inside your purse. 

“Please, Satoru let me—“ and he’s ripping your underwear, as he’s forcing your dress higher, “I have to tell him—“ 

“Tell him what?” His eyes are nearly glowing in the dim light of the fluorescents leaking in from the living room, “tell him you’d go on your date with him but you’re too busy being finger fucked by your husband?” And he’s sinking another finger into you, making your head loll back against the wall, “tell him that you’d let him fuck you in our bed, but you’re too busy letting me?” 

“Sa-toru—“ you’re biting back your whines, glancing at the door, but he’s forcing your gaze back to him, his thumb pressed against your chin, “just let me—“ 

And he’s turning you in front of the mirror near the entryway, forcing you to look at yourself — your lips kiss bitten and ruined, your dress hiked up and mussed, and underwear tugged down to your ankles. 

“Do you want him to see you like this?” His breath is hot in your ear, a soft murmur that makes your knees nearly buckle, “want him to see you how much of a mess I’ve made you?” His fingers sink into you again, a third finger with the other two. The lewd squelch of your cunt rings in your ears, your eyes catching sight of your own moans and pants in the mirror, your walls squeezing around them, “I’m the only one who gets to see you like this, sweetheart, and now you can watch too,” he’s guiding your gaze back to watch yourself, watching him knuckle deep in your sweet cunt, “gonna make you watch your tight pussy break my fingers,” he spreads his fingers inside you, letting you watch your slice drip down his fingers and wrist and splatter on the floor.

And your head falls back against his shoulder — he’s thrusting into you faster, your walls working deeper and deeper into you — fingers curling against your molten insides, until he’s finding that one spot that has your lips falling open, “I’m so—” your voice is a broken whisper, and he’s pressing a kiss to your jaw, “Please—“ 

“Cum f’me baby,” his thumb rubs at your clit, and you do, walls clamping down as you cum, his fingers relentless as they fuck you through your orgasm, a wordless moan of his name on your lips. He’s holding you up as he does, your body buckling under the pleasure, blood roaring in your ears that slowly ebbs away, as his fingers slow, and you’re shuddering under his touch, “good girl,” and your walls flutter as he pulls out as if they want him to stay, and he’s tilting your gaze, “watch,” your eyes open reluctantly, a small moan on your lips as you watch him carefully each one of his fingers clean, pink tongue darting out to lick at the trails of your juices that had dripped down his palm and wrist, “still the sweetest thing I’ve had, princess,” 

And there’s another knock, as he clicks his tongue, “Doesn’t give up does he?” and he’s pressing a kiss to your neck, “must have really done a number on him and he’s willing to wait this long for you, huh?” he hums, nuzzling the hollow of your throat, “but I can relate. So, should I let him down for you?” 

Your eyes fly open, meeting his cheeky gaze with a glare, “Don’t you fucking dare,” 

“What? You still want to go out with him? Be my guest, but,” and he’s pulling at your ruined underwear until they rip under his touch, “can’t wear these, can you?” you gape at him as he pockets the ruined panties with a shit eating grin, “for later,” and you’re scoffing, and you hear a call of your name through the door. 

And you take a better look at yourself — completely disheveled and marked up along your neck from his kisses and nips, your skin shiny with a sheen of sweat, and your lips obviously bruised and bitten from his treatment. 

“Fuck,” you can’t go out like this — it looks as if you’d spent the morning before getting ravished, panic sets in as you hear his voice through the door. 

“Want me to send him on his way?” Satoru’s hands curl around your waist, “our angel’s still fast asleep, and that means we can spend some time together—“ 

“Fuck off,” you hiss, walking over to the door, “Atsuya, I’m sorry I can’t go out today. I’m not feeling well,” 

“Eh? Are you okay? Do you need anything?” And Satoru steps forward to speak but you cover his mouth with his hand. 

“No, I’m fine, but I have the flu and I’m still contagious, so I don’t want to get you—“ Satoru drags his tongue between your fingers — this fucker, “sick,” 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay and take care of you?�� Satoru’s hands are dragging over your sides, squeezing your far too sensitive hips. 

“Hear that?” Satoru’s whispering to you between the gaps of your fingers, “He wants to take care of you. Should you let him? Maybe he could fuck you better in the home we bought together and in the bed we shared,” 

“No, I’m fine, really, I-I—“ and Satoru’s sucking at your finger, tongue curling around the digit, and you grit your teeth, “I’m going to rest. I’ll text you later, I’m sorry—“ and you don’t get to hear the rest of what he says, as Satoru’s pulling your hand away, and finding your lips in another kiss. 

You hate how good this man is at kissing, his lips and touch must have the ability to leech sense from your brain, and leave lust in its place. 

“What’s wrong with you?” you mumble against his lips, as his lips burn a trail of kisses down your jaw, a smirk against your skin. 

“Nothing’s wrong with me, except that I love you,” he’s pouting again, “you think that guy could please you the way I could?” 

“No, but maybe he would actually be there,” you bite back and his kisses pause, smirk slipping into a frown. 

“I know I’ve made mistakes—“ 

You give a bitter chuckle, “Mistakes? You left us,” 

He opens and closes his mouth, “you’re right I did, and I’m sorry,” his words are slow, but so is the anger building inside you, “but I’m asking for a second chance, begging for one more chance—“ 

You finally turn to face him, and you can only hope the tears welling in your eyes weren’t noticeable, “You don’t get to beg, when I already did,” your voice finally breaks, as your clenched fist shakes, “where were you? After our daughter was born, you were gone. You kept saying you would make time for us, you would be there for us, but you just busier and busier, and the only time I’d see you were the nights you made it home to crawl into bed,” 

“I—“ 

“No, I’m tired, I’m tired of waiting and being upset, I’m so done—“ and he’s pulling you into his arms, and the familiarity of his grasp is nearly enough for your defenses to crumble, but you can’t, “Satoru” 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know I did wrong. I know I don’t deserve you or our baby, not after all I did,” he’s murmuring, “but it was never because of you or her,” 

Tears spill from your eyes, streaming down your cheeks, “I used to cry, thinking that not only that I wasn’t enough, but your daughter wasn’t enough either—“ 

“You weren’t the ones that wasn’t enough,” he cuts you off, “I am,” the last words come out a whisper, as he runs fingers through his hair, “I’m the one who wasn’t good enough,” 

You stare at him, “What do you mean?” 

He’s scrubbing a hand down his face, “I don’t know how to be a husband, much less a father. I didn’t think I even wanted to be either, until I met you,” his voice softens, “and then I wanted it all if it was with you,” 

“Satoru—“ and he’s shaking his head. 

“I thought I could handle it — but when I saw you two — the two most important people in my life — how much you were counting on me, how much you needed me to not fail — I threw myself into work,” he’s swallowing, “I thought if I could support you both, things would get better. But it only made things worse because I pushed myself away,” 

“Why?”

“Because I thought I’d mess it up — I don’t know how to be a father. I didn’t even know I wanted to be a husband until we got married,” and you swallow, “I thought I never would after watching my dad neglect and abuse me and my mom,” you knit your brow together, “and there were so many nights when you were sleeping, I got so frustrated with our angel. She wouldn’t sleep, she screamed for hours, and I just felt like I had failed her. And I would just fail you too,” he scrubbed a hand down his face, “so—“  

“So you ran away,” you finish, voice caught in your throat. 

He gives a curt nod, “And when you filed, I knew it was coming, but I thought you both would be better off. I thought even if I was miserable, it would be worth it to see you two happy—“ 

“Satoru, do you think I would be happy without my husband?” Your sigh stuck in your throat as your fingers find his cheek, featherlight, but he crumbles and melts against it, as if he was a statue made to wait for your touch, “you’re nothing like your father. I see you with Satomi, I see how much you love her — you dote on her, you know what she likes — she gets a cut and you’re panicking,” you chuckle as he huffs, a cute blush settling over his cheeks, “and you were a good husband, when you talked to me and didn’t run away,” 

“I know,” and the question unspoken hangs in the air, “can I be again? Your husband,” and your instinct is to pull him into your arms, where you wanted him to be, where you always wanted to be, but your instinct is tangled in fear, barbed wire dragging you down and digging into your skin. 

“I want you to be,” his eyes light up, hope flicking across his gaze like a comet tail, until it burns out with your next words, “but I’m scared,” you swallow, arms crossed, hoping if you physically hold yourself maybe you could hold yourself together, “I don’t want to get hurt again,” 

“I won’t, I promise,” he’s cupping your cheek again, and you find yourself leaning into his touch, “every night I only thought of you and Satomi — there’s no one else that matters,” he’s drawing closer again, it makes you want nothing more than his touch again — it had been too long — too long without him. 

And your lips find his again, it’s a chaste kiss at first, a breath shared a centimeter apart, as his eyes find yours, brow furrowed, “We have a lot to talk about,” you murmur, as your lips graze his again, and he’s chasing your lips, “but it’s going to take time,” God, you want to kiss his knowing pout away, as you drag a thumb down his lips, “a lot of making up to me and our angel,” He’s nodding obediently, a complete puppy under your touch, as he shivers as your fingers run through his hair before tugging, “are you ready for that?” 

“Yes, baby,” he’s biting his lip, fingers twitching wanting to touch you. 

Your lips curl, “Good boy.” 

“All that big talk and now look at you, Toru,” Satoru’s white knuckled fingers fisted at the sheets of your shared bed, as your own fingers teased the head of his leaking cock through his boxers, “such a mess for me,” 

You kneel at the foot of your bed, settled between his thighs, and though you were on your knees, you were the one who held the power. Fingers tracing the trigger right within your grasp, his cock twitching against your hand. 

“Please, sweetheart, fuck,” he’s hissing when your lips lean down to press a kiss to his clothes weeping slit, the wet heat of your mouth seeps through, making him twitch against your touch — a spark of need that burns against his skin and boils his blood underneath with need, “please, don’t tease me,” 

“Well that’s not fair,” you hum, as your fingers toy with the elastic of his boxers, snapping the elastic against your skin, sending a shiver up his body along with an ache that reaches his bones — and he wondered how he had let your grip on him grow this deep — and how he had ever let it go when it felt this good, “when you’re being teased I’m supposed to relent, even though you made me cum downstairs in my entryway?” 

And he’s swallowing thickly, Adam’s apple bobbing just as anticipatory as the rest of his body, a bow string drawn tight just waiting for you to release it. But you wished to toy with the arrow more. 

“I have half a mind to make you clean my cum off the floor with your tongue,” you click your own tongue as a taunt, but that only makes him squirm, “but maybe I’ll spare you since you’re being so good for me,” you’re dragging your fingers down his boxers, freeing his cock— already far too hard, flushed and dripping with precum as it slaps against his stomach, the flared head nearly begging you to touch it, “tell me what you want,” his cock is far too gorgeous, you thought that from the first time you saw it  — long and curved, and the veins that ran along it were so pretty— just like the man himself. 

And a whimper escapes his lips, “sweetheart, please, touch me—“ 

“With what?” you thumb his tip lightly, smearing the cum down his shaft, “my fingers? Or my mouth,” and your lips lick the pre that clings to your thumb clean, dragging your thumb down the flat of your tongue. 

“Y-Your mouth,” and you’re smiling, your lips curling as his pretty gaze pleads with you, “please,” 

“Imagine your subordinates saw you like this, begging your ex-wife to blow you, nearly ready to blow your load already just from fingering me,” your fingers toy with his balls, while you leans down to trace the tip of his tongue up the bottom of his cock, “what do you think they’d say?” And your lips part to let his engorged tip enter, as his head falls back with a groan, the wet and warm mouth, as you start to bob your head up and down his length. 

“Fuuuuck, pretty,” and you’re pausing as you wait for a reply to your question, his own tongue tying itself in knots, “think I’m down bad for my wife,” he’s grunting, the words ‘my wife’ and his groans sending white hot arousal to your needy cunt, “think I’d let her fuck me anyway she wants and they would be right, sweets. I’d let you use me,” your tongue is wrapped around his length, as his dick sinks deeper into your mouth, nose brushing against his pubes, his hips held taut as he forces himself not to face fuck you. 

And his eyes flutter down to meet yours, only to find your eyes drowning in lust, molten with need that nearly burned him with want, lips sloppy and dripping with a mix of precum and your spit out of the corners of your mouth, and your fingers —buried deep in your cunt as you sucked him off. 

Fuck. 

With the nasty way you slurped at his length, the noise ringing in his ear as your fingers begin to squeeze and stroke his balls, he wasn’t going to last much longer. His hips bucked against your mouth, and he’s muttering apologies but you let him, moaning as his tip hits the back of your throat. 

“I’m close—where—“ and you’re sucking hard, tongue flicking against his slit and when he fucks your mouth once, twice — he’s gone. He’s cumming down your throat, hot spurts of cum painting your lips and mouth, his head falls back, fingers gripping the sheets as his eyes flutter open. And he watches you pull away from his cock, sticky strings of cum and saliva connecting you to his length still, “fuck, sweetheart,” his softening dick already twitching at the sight of you — your pretty tongue darting out to lick his cum from your lips. 

“You taste as good as I remember, Toru — always so sweet,” and you’re pulling your own fingers from inside your tight pussy, and he snaps. 

You’re on your back on the bed now, flopped down against the mattress as his hand closes around your wrist of the hand that was just inside you. Your words are lodged in your throat but come out a shiver when he brings your soaked fingers to his lips, he kisses each one before sucking and licking them clean. 

“Toru—“ and he pulls away from the last finger with a pop, eyes clouded with need, “I—“ 

“And you say I taste good?” he’s humming, as he leans over you, “wait until you taste yourself, Princess,” and his mouth is insistent on giving you an entire course of your taste on his tongue, mapping out a detailed cartography of very crook and crevice of your mouth, “aren’t you so much sweeter?” He’s pulling away from your bitten red lips, spit connecting your lips still, “and that taste is all mine, just like you, wifey,” 

The pet name sends a fresh wave of desire coursing through your veins, stoking the burning need already threatening to consume you both, “Toru—“ and he’s already stripping your dress away, pulled away up and over your head, thrown away like every thought of why this was a bad idea. Your nipples perk in the cool air of your bedroom and under his hot gaze, standing at attention as if they’re begging for his attention. And he’s more than happy to oblige. 

His fingers toy with the buds, rolling between your forefinger and thumb, until he’s bending down to take one in his mouth, and you’re arching into his touch, your fingers finding purchase on his shoulders. 

“Bet Atsuya would love to see you like this, huh?” He’s switching to the other side, teeth dragging against your nipple to draw a gasp from your lips, “Would love to see you such a mess like this, spread out and needy,” and he’s spreading you with warm palms, his half hard cock brushing against your thigh, “Were you gonna let him fuck you on this bed? Our bed?” 

He doesn’t allow you an answer as his fingers spread your dripping walls, “Gonna let him taste you like this?” His lips warm your fluttering pussy, nearly begging for his touch and to swallow you whole, “when I already said this pretty cunt was mine,” he clicks his tongue far too close, making you whine, “g’nna have to answer my question first, Princess,” 

“No, I wouldn’t,” and he presses a chaste kiss to your dripping pussy, making you whimper, your walls spasming around nothing, “Toru,” 

“Remember when we moved into this home?” his lips are teasing your inner thigh, teeth dragging against your hot skin, “we broke the bed in all night long,” he’s looking up through half lidded eyes, “think he could please you like that? Make you moan his name?” 

And you’re growing desperate as his lips draw close to your clit, tongue dragging against it, only to pull away to your thighs again, “no, no, only you, Toru, please—“ 

“Only I what?” oh you know he’s goading you, but your want is drawn taut like a stringed instrument, tweaking your strings when you’re dying for him to play you — “c’mon sweetheart,” 

“Only you make me feel this good — fuck, Toru, I swear to god—“ your head falls back into the pillow as his face buries itself in your cunt, his laugh vibrates against your walls, pleasure rising faster than smoke from a burning building. His fingers dig into your hips as he holds you in place now, settled between your legs. 

“You swear to me what?” and you swear his god complex gets worse and worse, and the way you moaned with his head between your legs wasn’t helping, “sorry, Princess, I have my mouth full,” and his tongue as silver as his words were, parting your folds with ease, as his lips slurped at your folds messily. 

Fuck, he was too good at it, and he knew it, smirk on his lips as the wet, nasty noises of his mouth wrapped around your cunt and your bordering pornographic moans filled the silence. Pleasure ribboned up your body, mixing with the sharpness of his fingers pressed against your plush thighs to keep you in place. 

“Gonna make me cum before I even fuck you, Princess,” and you hear the telltale squelch of his hand around his weeping dick — the shudder of your groan making him moan all the same, “taste so fucking good, never gonna go a night without tasting you again,” he murmurs far too reverently with his tongue dipping back into your folds for more of your juices, “you know how many times I fucked my fist to the thought of eating you out again? Never gonna spend a second without burying myself in this cunt,” 

“Toru, I’m close—“ and you are, greedy tongue flitting over your clit, his nose bumping against his folds, and the practiced ease of his touch — he knew just what to do to make you cum. And he did, his mouth closing around your clit, before sucking harshly. 

You cum on his face, swallowing your slick with the thrust of a desert weary man, his eagerness apparent on his soaked face, as you finally came down your high. He doesn’t waste a drop, only pulling away with a pop when your orgasm ebbs away, licking his lips clean of your juices. 

“Still dripping even after I licked you clean?” He clicks his tongue as he watches your slick soak the sheet, “gonna have to find another way, maybe you need something bigger,” he hums in fake contemplation, “what can we use?” 

“I have some sex toys that might do the trick,” and he scoffs, as he kisses up your body, before pressing his hard erection against your thigh. 

“Don’t think any toy you have compares to me,” and you’re gasping as he drags the head of his cock against your puffy clit, “nothing can fill you up like I can,” and he groans as he watches your releases mix, “just for that, g’nna make you beg for it,” 

“Toru,” you’re whining, but he’s only teasing your entrance with the head of his dick, your walls fluttering, already begging for him to sink into you, but he’s waiting for your mouth to do the same, “please, fuck me, I need you inside—“ 

He grins, “Well how can I deny my pretty wife when she asks so nicely?” And he’s splitting you open with his thick cock, balls deep with only a thrust of his hips. Your hands are grasping at him for purchase, needing to hold onto him as his cock stretches your walls out. It’s as if you remember him, walls sliding to accommodate him as they always did, but clinging to him desperately, a grunt parting his lips, as if they never wanted him to leave again. And you didn’t. 

“So fucking tight, Princess,” he’s groaning in your ear, a swallow roll of his hips drawing a chorus of moans from both of you, “don’t have to break my dick off to keep it — I’ll take you anytime you want,” and he’s pressing your thighs forward, slinging one over his shoulder, as he presses himself even deeper. 

A whine leaves the back of your throat, “too deep, Toru,” and his cock twitches inside you at that, “fuck,” and it takes everything in him not to blow his load there and then, 

“You love it when I fuck you like this, Princess, or do I have to remind you?” And he does, beginning to piston in and out, the lewd slaps of skin and moans filling the air of your bedroom, “be careful or our daughter might wake from the sounds of her mommy getting fucked,” he clicks his tongue, “maybe we should give her another sibling?” He’s watching the way your cunt eagerly welcomes his cock, sinking in and out with ease, “fuck another baby into you, hm? Would you like that princess?” 

“Toru, ngh,” your walls flutter at the thought of a kid, of his seed filling you up, “please—more—“ 

He gives a chuckle, “I’ll give you everything, sweetheart — fuck you so full that you’ll be dripping with my seed for days,” he’s grunting, legs trembling as his thrusts grow more sloppy as his orgasm begins to build, “fuck, you feel so good for me, “gonna give you another baby, make sure everyone knows you’re mine, my wife—“ 

“G’nna cum, Toru,” you’re falling back against the mattress, as he bends down to press a messy kiss to your lips, all tongue and teeth, before his fingers reach down to rub at your clit. Your eyes finding his, face flushed a pretty pink, eyes shrouded in a deep lust that was reserved only for you, and as he bucks into you even deeper, he brushes against that spongy spot that has the taut string snapping as you fall apart. 

“Cum on my cock, sweetheart,” he’s grunting, as he grazes teeth along your neck before biting. And you cum hard, toes curling as your mouth falls open with only moans of his name on your lips. The way your walls squeeze around him has him only rutting into you harder, deeper, messier — as he watches the ring of cum pool around the base of his cock, fucking you through your orgasm, “g’nna cum—“ and you’re pulling him into another kiss, legs wrapped around him as he falls over the edge with you. Hot cum spills in ropes inside your walls, his hips rolling as he does, if only to fuck his cum deeper inside you. 

“Toru, s’good, I—“ you’re incoherent nearly under him, soft kisses pressed along your jaw as you both come down from your highs, cock softening inside you only him to pull out, another groan of your name on his lips when he watches his cum drip from inside you, staining your thighs along with the sheets. 

And you whimper when he’s gathering his spilled cum on two fingers only to push it back inside, “can’t let you waste a drop, can we, sweetheart?” 

He’s finally pulling away, his other hand cupping your cheek, as he finds your lips in a lazy but far too sweet kiss, “Toru,” you mumble, “I never stopped loving you, because I don’t think I ever could,” 

His eyes grow glassy, his fingers finding the back of your neck, “I know nothing I’ll do will make up for what I did — to you and Satomi, but,” he presses his forehead to yours, “if you both let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you,” 

And tears burn at the corners of your eyes, “Just stay with us, and promise to never leave — that’s enough,” and your lips brush his, “you’re more than enough for us, Satoru,” and he kisses you again and again and again, nearly climbing on top of you again, when you both hear a tiny gasp from the door. 

Your heads both snap over to your baby daughter leaning against the door, badly hidden behind it, as she pokes her head in, “did mommy and daddy make up?” 

Your cheeks burn as you cover your face — you both had checked on Satomi before but she was fast asleep still, and now — you checked the time — 9:30 PM, you were sure she’d be up all night. 

“Yes baby, mommy and daddy had some stuff to talk about,” Satoru grabs your robe for you, handing it over as he pulls his discarded boxers on under the sheets, “come here,” and she squeals as she runs into her daddy’s arms, Satoru scoops her up before pressing kisses all over her face, her giggles and his grin nearly too much for you. 

“Now she’s gonna be up all night,” you murmur to Satoru, and he’s smiling. 

“I can tire her out,” he grins, and then he adds with a whisper, “and then I’ll tire you out,” and you flush, shoving him playfully, “come on, my love, let’s go play for a while and let mama rest,” and he’s sliding out of bed, carrying her out of the bedroom, and you watch him, lying on your side, with a smile on your lips.  

Maybe it wasn’t so bad having a husband — especially when it was Satoru Gojo. 

Satoru lets you and Satomi sleep in the next morning, making a smoothie for himself, as he starts to prepare breakfast. He did tire you both out last night, especially you — and you did some exhausting of your own, his fingers running over the hickies you left all over his neck and collarbone with a slight hum. He tied your apron on himself, only boxers and a sleeveless tee on. 

He started to crack eggs into a bowl with one hand. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes again — he meant what he said. He would make it up to you, or at least he would try — and he would spend the rest of his life treasuring you and his kid — and maybe another if you let him have his way, he thought, biting back a grin. 

You had turned him down last night when he asked, 

“Don’t you think it’s time we try for another one?” His arms are winding around you, half hard erection already pressing into you, as the two of you stood right outside your daughter’s doorway, watching the angel sleep, “we did do well with the first one,” 

“Toru, we just got back together, we’re not having another kid,” and he’s already pouting, you know without looking at him, “but that would be nice — for our daughter to have a sibling,” and god, it made him to take right there (which he did), but he couldn’t wait until all three of you were ready. Because he wouldn’t dare to miss a second of it — never again. 

And then a knock at the door pulls him from his thoughts, and his brow furrows. Who could it be this early?

He walks over, checking through the peephole, a grin growing on his lips, oh, perfect timing. Satoru opens the door, leaning against the doorframe, “Yes?” 

Atsuya Kusakabe frowns, jaw nearly dropping as he attempts not to gape at Satoru Gojo standing in his date’s doorway, nearly dropping the bag of medicine and soup he had packed up for you, “Uh, sorry, I was looking for—“ 

“My wife?” He raises a brow, and Kusakabe’s face blanches, as Satoru only smiles with a shrug, “sorry I should say ex-wife, we did get a divorce,” and Kusakabe’s mouth opens and closes, “but you know, she never stopped being mine,” 

Kusakabe clears his throat, rubbing the back of his neck, “where is—“ 

“She’s sleeping still,” Satoru’s lips curl, as he sighs, “she wasn’t feeling well yesterday, but I think I made her feel better last night,” and he’s rubbing the back of his neck, movement drawing his attention to your marks littering his body. 

A flush crawls up his neck and ears and he clears his throat, “I-I see,” he thrusts the bag into Satoru’s hands, “could you please give this to her and let her know—“ and he’s shaking his head, rubbing at his temples, “tell her whatever you want.” 

And he’s gone, door slamming behind him, click of the lock. He holds the bag behind him, only to walk forward to see you peeking from the bedroom, his button up shirt thrown over your head, as you rub your eyes,  “who was it?” 

He only smiles at you, dropping the bag in the trash, “No one important,” and he’s finding his way to your side, arms winding around your waist, “I made us breakfast,” 

“Oh really?” You hum, as he buries his face in the crook of your neck, pressing sweet kisses that only makes you sigh contently, “what’s the occasion?” 

“Oh, just the first day of the rest of our lives, nothing too big,” he hums, and you laugh, his favorite noise that only makes him fall deeper in love with you, if that was even possible, “have to treat you right don’t I, wifey?” 

“Yes, you do,” and your lips find his again, “my husband,” and the word sticks in his chest, a missing piece that fits right back into place, and fixes a hole that had been aching for far too long, “should we go wake up our daughter?” 

He presses a kiss to your forehead, “Together.” 

✧ a/n: so i didn't think i'd finish this week with being at my sister's and having a con this weekend but i found the time! i hope you enjoyed this one. this is my reality for gojo i'm living in :) fun fact, satomi and satoru both mean enlightenment! :)

✧ taglist: @jasminelee324 , @forest-hashira , @spider-fan72 ,, @rougebrainsludge , @theshylittleelfgirl , @ririchurl , @johannakhalafalla , @hanlay , @fawnlikelore , @vickkysthings , @dead-kats , @hantaslittlearsonist t , @being-me-is-not-a-sin , @augustwinesworld , @forest-fruits-jam , @kirashuu , @catsgomurp , @daddytojji , @notgoodforlife , @hyori2 , @shrimpy109 , @goddess-ofthe-godless , @i-spilt-ink-on-my-phone , @sunamatic , @rougebrainsludge , @redmangotango , , @psychxbby , @nakariabnrb , @mua-for-now @dazailover1900 , @alwaysfreakingout , @yamaguccitadashi , @equikaz , @gojosatorubrainrot

[carebearbussy]

𝙨𝙖𝙡𝙩𝙮 & 𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙩

ᥫ᭡ 𝙨𝙮����𝙣𝙤𝙥𝙨𝙞𝙨: 𝙞𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝… 𝙨𝙪𝙠𝙪𝙣𝙖𝙨 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙣𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙜𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙘𝙧𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨.

ᥫ᭡ 𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: 𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙧𝙖! 𝙨𝙪𝙠𝙪𝙣𝙖 𝙭 𝙛𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚! 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧

ᥫ᭡ 𝙘𝙬: 𝙋𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙡𝙪𝙛𝙛 <3

ᥫ᭡ 𝙬𝙘: 1.3k

𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙖 𝙨𝙚𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚? 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙨 𝙢𝙮 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 .

Your cravings have been going wild.

Ever since you had fallen pregnant by an absolute gargantuan of a man, you are forced to carry twice the amount of nutrients and food stored in your body. The local doctors had recommended that your usual meals be doubled in size, in order to support the extra weight it carried by having a child under Sukuna. And even Sukuna had chimed in, adding that maybe his diet would work for you. But you quickly declined the offer, taking into consideration the life growing inside of you. You did not want your child to grow up to be a cannibalistic monster, much like his father.

But your food choices have been much more bizarre as of lately. Things ranging from huge one course meals that could feed a family of 7, pickled everything, anything covered in cheese, and any regular foods you ate had to be made a specific way, or served in larger portions. Which is why you had decided to wake Sukuna up in the middle of the night, one of the cravings you had pondered on being at the top of your to do list.

Every now and then, your cravings would get really bad. To the point where it was now everybody else's problem. But you truly couldn't help it.

"Kuna, 'Kuna wake up!" You whispered, as you lay spooned beside him. You shook his body from behind you as you spoke, making sure he could hear you. You felt him stretch awake with a low groan, letting you free of his grasp. "Are you awake? Its important..." you ask, awaiting a response out of him. And to your avail, he is awake, but not with the attitude you were initially hoping for. He seemed annoyed that his rest had been interrupted, but those concerns were to be put to rest, as you stepped out of bed, sliding your slippers on by the edge of the bed. He looks at your standing form with half lidded eyes, clearly making the first of many signals of his annoyance with you at the moment.

"What is so important that you wake me from my rest, woman? Im giving you six seconds to speak." He says, as he props himself upwards, sitting at the edge of the bed. With you standing near him, he seizes your hips with his lower set of hands, forcing you into his proximity. "I'm not waiting all day." He ushers you on to speak, but as you think about his possible answer, you start to rethink telling him what you truly want. You look away, clearly starting to get nervous with the attention. But as you do, he grabs your chin, forcing you to look down at him, as he searches for answers. "Go on."

"Well... i've been having cravings lately, and I wanted to know if maybe the kitchen could make me something..." You say, fiddling with your thumbs, as you feel your stomach start to growl lowly. He looks down at your stomach, as you quietly protest his decision to be made. He closes his eyes for a couple seconds, before responding.

"If this is what you really need, then I will indulge this once, brat." He says with a low sigh, as he lets go of his hold on your waist, getting up from his spot on the bed. You look up at him eagerly, silently squealing to yourself as you jump up and down slightly. You wrap your arms around your husbands neck, as you reach up on your tiptoes to pepper kisses all over his defined face. He looks down at your cheerful form, looking unaffected by the attention you give him, but deep down is smiling on the inside. He knows that as long as you stay his sweet, happy wife, then he can get a good nights rest after this.

He picks you up by the back of your thighs, as you are lifted off the ground what seems suddenly. He hoists you on his left side, one hand holding your ass up, the other acting as a back rest. Letting yourself be carried, he opens the door with his right hand, walking into the large hallway to your favorite place since becoming pregnant, the kitchen.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 .

It seemed as if you had started a national crisis.

With the way you had Uraume, as well as a team of the estates chefs working like dogs in the kitchen. All that could be heard from the upper left wing of the estate was the clinking and clanging of pots and pans, as well as chefs scurrying to prepare the food you had requested. Because it was well known that any request of yours, was to be taken as seriously as if it were from Sukuna.

Uraume seemed to be the only calm one, with them being used to your shenanigans. They were the head of the kitchen, as they lead all of the preparations for the 'big feast', as they like to call it. That big feast being for your pregnant self, of course.

As the kitchen was torn shred by shred trying to prepare you the perfect dish, you stood by the entrance and watched, one hand on your stomach. Standing besides you was Sukuna, with lower arms crossed, as his upper arms conducted the kitchen staff with whats right and wrong. Your eyes lit up with excitement, as you watched all of these people cater to your needs.

"Kuna, how about... chocolate filled dumplings?" You asked, looking up at your focused husband. He was busy keeping an eye on everything, making sure not to mess up your multiple requests you had made in the past twenty minutes. He looks at you with upper set of eyes, his lower ones hyper focused on the kitchen staff.

"That sounds disgusting. But if that is what you wish, so be it." He tells you, scoffing at all of the ridiculous things you had said so far. He then watches as Uraume heads your way, a silver platter in hand, holding what seemed to be at least thirty pieces of bacon, covered in chocolate and sea salt. To any sane person, this would look downright vile. But to you? Sukuna watched as your mouth practically dropped. You squealed in excitement, looking at the dish in hand. "Please enjoy, my lady." Uraume says, still holding out the dish to you as you happily devour it.

But you pause as you look over at Sukuna, still looking down at you. And thats when a lightbulb flicks in your head. You grab a piece of bacon from the tray, as you step in front of Sukuna. He looks down at you, wondering what you're up to, when you reach up on your tippy toes to try and pry open his mouth. "Pleaseeee try it!" You say, pouting your lips, still trying to open his mouth with your fingers. He looks down at you as he furrows his eyebrows, curling his lip upwards. "No, that is repulsive."

Your pout lowers into a full frown, your eyes glossy with the want for him to try what you are offering him. He rolls his eyes, as he picks up the piece of bacon you are holding with two fingers. He looks at it, as he scoffs, swallowing it in one go. "See! Its good right?" You ask him, a smile crossing your face. He looks at you with a 'are you serious?' look, before ruffling your hair, amused with how happy you were that he divulged you.

"It was horrible. Never again are you going to make me do these kinds of things for you, brat."

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 .

[tender-rosiey]

Your husband, sukuna AU, is driving me crazy. That's like my 1st time ever experiencing what a comfort fic was. I have been re-reading them like crazy 😭

If it's okay with you, can you do a husband sukuna AU but with whatever scene you want? I really love the way you write him,,, it's just so perfect 🥹

dry your tears — ryomen sukuna x f!reader

a/n: i am so glad you like them omg srsly you're too kind <33 i really hope you like this too 🥹🫶🫶

“my lord, her highness requests your presence in the garden.”

said man’s eyes open slowly, and he narrows them at the servant who instantly kneels to the ground. he scoffs, “requests? she sure has become impudent.”

the servant trembles, “that’s how she worded it, my lord. I swear I have no role in it.”

“I didn’t speak to you,” sukuna replies as he gets up as places his foot on the servant’s head, pressing into the ground a bit more.

the servant whimpers but tries to be as quiet as possible.

sukuna warns, “and you’re to address her as ‘her highness’ or ‘the queen’ only. do you understand?”

“but—but I did?” he splutters.

“ ’that’s how ‘she’ worded it?’ ” sukuna sneers.

“I didn’t mean it that way! I am sorry! I am sorry! my apologies, my lord!” the servants chokes out, and sukuna takes it as the cue to kick him out of his way.

he starts walking towards the garden, while stretching and examining his surroundings.

the palace hasn’t changed in the time he was gone which was good. at least the human servants are capable of doing one thing right.

the gates to the garden open, and they reveal you.

deep down, the sight brings a bit content to sukuna’s heart, seeing you alive and well. however, that is a vulnerability that he would never admit, so he gets closer to you.

you’re giving him your back despite, definitely, feeling his presence.

he groans, “what do you want?”

“where have you been?” you reply with the same tone.

he rolls his eyes, arms folded on his chest, “fighting, obviously. I was passing time.”

he hears you take a deep breath before you speak up, “and you couldn’t tell me in advance?”

he can tell that you’re trying to sound calm and collected. yet, he still can’t pinpoint whether you’re angry or sad. either way, he believes that your attitude is unacceptable.

he chides, “don’t blow it out of proportion, and you have the nerve to ‘request my—"

“you have been gone for a month.”

the edges of sukuna’s lips quirk up just a little as he starts to understand why you’re acting like this.

“not the first time,” he hums.

he sees your shoulders raise slightly, and they seem to get tenser by the second. you speak lowly, “but you usually tell me before you depart.”

he closes his eyes in annoyance.

this looks like it will drag out longer than he prefers. what he expected when he returned was him spending time with you, his wife, not you giving him your back and seemingly lecturing him.

“stop beating around the bush,” he commands, “what’s wrong with you?”

you grip your kimono tightly in your fist and squeeze your eyes shut as you exclaim, “you had me worried sick!” your voice is watery and is shaky, but you couldn’t help it.

you had spent the past month alone, nobody knew of sukuna’s whereabouts not even uraume. were you supposed to just calmly wait for his return?

he may be strong, but is it always guaranteed? especially considering how the sorcerers are always planning a way to lead him to his demise.

you bite your lip as you hold back a sob. meanwhile, your husband quirks a brow, “you crying?”

you open your eyes and stand up abruptly, “no, I am not!”

throwing the hood over your head, you turn towards the other entrance and announce, “I am going inside!”

you start your march with determination, but as you get close to the gate, you hear your husband sigh and stop you by the arm. he pulls you towards him, tearing off the hood to take a good look at you.

your tears are not plentiful, but he can see their traces.

you frown and try to pull back, “let go, sukuna!”

he raises a hand to cup your cheek and squishes your cheeks like a pufferfish. your eyes widen, and you furrow your eyebrows in frustration.

“stop this,” you shoot.

he looks silently at you for a few moments, and it starts making you nervous. you finally decide to ask, but then he starts wiping your tears.

you blink in confusion as he lightly scolds you, “foolish girl.”

you register the insult after a few seconds, and it makes you frown and look away while grumbling, “shut up.”

you sniffle lightly and pull away from him. he looks down at you, silently watching you. you try ignoring his gaze, but then you just snap your head at him and huff, “what are you staring for?”

you study his face for bit then falter, “if it’s about yelling at you then I am sorry, okay? I was frustrated and—”

he pinches your nose, making you yelp.

“your worrying is unnecessary,” he says slowly, “I will always come back.”

sukuna, you realize, is comforting you. he lays a hand on top of your head and commands you, albeit gently, “so stop crying.”

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copyright © tender-rosiey

do not copy or plagiarize or I will send my cat after you

[januaryembrs]

TROUBLE ALMOST ALL MY LIFE | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader

Description: The ONE time the BAU needs you + the FOUR times you need them.

word count: 24k (what on earth was I thinking)

trigger warnings: mentions of spencers addictions + use + side affects. MOMMY ISSUES thankyou ambassador Prentiss. hostage scene + injuries. mentions of forced/pressured marriage. fem!reader. reader and Emily struggle to bond.

authors note: We never meet Emily's dad nor do we see a picture so while reader is given a nickname of Bugsy, she still keeps her real name (no use of y/n) and is given ZERO physical descriptors. ALL of my fem!readers should feel included here, let me know if this is not the case! also I don't speak any language besides English however she does speak many because of her mom, so I really tried to get it right, message me if I'm being stupid!!

series masterlist | next chapter

[this] means its spoken in another language.

—

‘trouble on my left, trouble on my right,

I’ve been facing trouble almost all my life’

1. the one where you become a translator.

“I’ll make some calls, I may still have some friends in the Eastern countries,” Ambassador Prentiss announced to the room, standing from her place on the plush sofa. 

A case had landed quite literally in Emily’s lap when her mother had come by that morning asking for Hotch, a Russian migrant looking for her father with a ransom note and a sliced off finger shoved through her mailbox, wedding ring still attached. 

It wasn’t every day Emily wished she’d brushed up on her Russian, but today of all days she was struggling to keep up. 

“We don’t have much time, we need a division of labour,” Hotch’s serious face settled, the time constraints making him just that bit more dictatorial, “Morgan, someone needs to go to the Chernus’s house in Baltimore in case they are contacted again,” 

“What about the language barrier?” Derek raised, smoothing a hand over the short scruff of his beard, “We can’t have the unsub speaking with the family directly. He could say anything to them without us knowing,” 

Bugsy would hate to admit she fit the criteria for youngest daughter of a workaholic mother and distant father to a tea, but Emily would say different. 

Elizabeth Prentiss had never been a warm woman; Emily used to tell her the scowl was a side effect of the overplucking of her eyebrows, not the serious nature of her job. Her youngest girl once said her mother’s lips looked like she’d sucked a lemon. Of course they admired her work, but world peace meant jack shit to a little girl wanting nothing more than a mother’s hug. 

Despite the fact she’d pushed away her husband and both her daughters in favour of her career, the one useful thing about being the Ambassador’s daughter wasn’t just the money, but the widespread culture the girls had been crammed full of since they could so much as beg for a sippy cup. 

“Baltimore, you say?” Emily asked Hotch with a somewhat doubtful wince, “I mean you could always-”

“Absolutely not,” Her mother cut her off, rubbing the stress lines already creasing her forehead at the very notion of her other daughter, despite the fact Emily hadn’t even finished her thought.

Emily’s sigh was a reflex, the years of her mother cutting her off sparking the frustration on instinct. 

“She lives right in the city, Mother, it can’t hurt to have her just talk for them-” Emily tried to bargain, only for the sharp mouthed Ambassador shoot her a frown. 

“End of discussion, Emily,” Elizabeth snipped, her manicured fingernails twitching with annoyance, “Your sister is much too young for an assignment so serious,”

Emily rolled her eyes with a scoff, as if the two had slipped back into the role of rebellious teenager and scathing mother without much thought. 

“She's twenty-two, mom. She’s getting her masters degree for Christ sakes, she’s not ‘too young’,” The dark headed woman fought back, clicking her pen a few times as if the spring loaded ink would take away some of the temper Elizabeth seemed to flare up. 

Her mother’s lips pursed, in the way Bugsy hated, in the way that meant she was going to be mean.

“Immature may have been a better word, then,” She replied, and Emily seemed to pause. She couldn’t argue with that. “Or perhaps lazy, or puerile; callow, wild, irresponsible. Would you like me to name more?” 

“Asinine would be a good term; deriving from the Latin asinus it not only means foolish, but to be stubborn and lazy like an ass,” Spencer input helpfully to the Ambassador, only for his bright smile to fade when he saw the daggers Emily stared at him with, “Sorry, I love word games,” He muttered into his lap. 

“Asinine. Perfect, Dr Reid,” Elizabeth said, and Emily could only roll her eyes harder.

Hotch huffed, the victim’s daughter watching between the two women’s quarrel with wet eyes, the ice box with her father’s finger clenched tightly in her lap, the cold of the limb bleeding into his own gaze.

“Unfortunately, Ambassador Prentiss, despite just how asinine your daughter might be, Morgan is right. Having the Unsub possibly speaking with the family without us understanding what he’s saying could prove fatal,” He explained, ignoring the way the older woman’s mouth scrunched in bitterness. They didn’t need to be profilers to see that despite how tempered the relationship between Emily and her mother was, a tension seemed to fall between the women the moment the younger Prentiss was mentioned. 

Spencer was sure he was the only person who even knew Emily had a little sister. 

“Very well, but don’t be surprised when you find your hands full of the girl,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head as she led the victims, a mother and daughter that seemed to cling to one another for comfort as if to rub salt in her matriarchal wound, into the break room to get away from the frosty atmosphere that now lingered around the table.

Emily sighed, picking around her fingernails the way she did when she was bothered. 

“I’m going to hate these next words that are gonna come out of my mouth,” She started with a long exhale, “But my mother’s right. Bugsy is a handful. Just try not to get her wound up, that girl smells fear,” She looked to Reid who seemed none the wiser, “I’m talking to you, wonder boy. She’ll eat you up and spit you right back out,” 

Spencer gulped quietly. 

Derek only chuckled, slapping a hand down onto Emily’s shoulder, “Relax, Prentiss. Your mom’s just got you all worried. Need I remind you I grew up with two sisters? This will be a piece of cake,”

–

Those were the famous last words of Derek Morgan. 

Loud, heavy metal music jumped through the wooden door, so loud Morgan worried his three polite knocks would go unheard as the two of them waited outside her dorm for her to answer. Morgan was about to knock again, figuring the music had drowned out the first lot, when the door swung open and a frown the spitting image of Emily’s stressed expression met their gaze. 

She looked so different to their Prentiss, but the way she seemed already scorned by the two of them told them they had the right woman. 

“Miss Prentiss?” Morgan asked formally, though he felt the warmth grow when he caught sight of a beat up friendship bracelet around her wrist amongst newer gold chains, five white blocks spelling out her sister’s name pulling tight on her skin, as if she’d quickly outgrown the thing but hadn’t the heart to remove it. 

It was then that he and Reid seemed to both reel back slightly at the fact she was standing in a large shirt, ratty around the edges, and what seemed to be a pair of men's boxers covering her bottom half, clearly not suspecting particularly important visitors. 

She looked him head to toe with a frown, a dozen piercings in her ears, her hair highlighted with streaks of cardinal red, as if he was the one confronting her in his underwear, before she moved onto Spencer, who’s face seemed to be getting hotter by the second as he forced his eyes away from her bare legs. 

“Are you guys strippers? Did someone send strippers to my door?” She asked, strawberry gum smacking between her lips as her gaze seemed to finish mulling over Spencer’s tall form and returned to Morgan.

“Emily sent us.” Reid said shortly, the music blaring in his ears making it difficult to focus on what it was she was saying, “As co-workers, no-not strippers. We’re with the FBI,” 

He hated loud noises anyway, cringed at the sound of particularly cutting rock songs, but since he’d developed his … problem, the dilaudid had him feeling like someone was clawing at his skull, tugging his brain through his ears.

“Emily sent you here?” She asked with a scoff, looking the two up and down again. They both easily caught the way her face hardened, “Are pigs flying today or something?” 

“We’re here to ask for your help on a case,” Spencer rushed through a sweaty brow, “Emily said you’d be able to act as a translator for us and some Russian citizens who are being targeted,” 

She sighed sceptically, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame, “Any strippers or non-strippers can fraud an ID. Emily’s name was in the paper just the other week. I’m gonna need a little more than that,”

She keeps track of her sister despite the supposed distance between them. Spencer was quick to profile, his mind whirring at all the ways she reminded him of her sister down to the way she raised her eyebrows expectantly at them. 

“Emily was born October twelfth, 1970 at 7:12am, graduated from Garfield High School in 1989,” Spencer said as if reporting the weather, her eyes narrowing in on him all the more coldly, “She attended Chesapeake Bay University and speaks six languages, as I expect you do from moving so often with your mother. She coined your nickname Bugsy from your childhood love of ladybugs, which she said you grew out of by the time you turned eleven yet the name stuck, though you still like counting the spots to identify their species. Your parents split when you were five and your father moved in with his now wife, born September ninth-”

“Alright- alright. What are you, living in her walls?” She interrupted incredulously, before turning her attention to Derek who seemed to hide a chuckle with a cough. “Either you really are a stripper or you’re a terrible friend,”

“She loves Kurt Vonnegut,” Derek held his finger as if to prove her entirely wrong, although not much else came to him. Maybe he was a bad friend, he thought guiltily, or maybe he simply lacked an eidetic memory like the wonder boy next to him, who had been about to tell her how old she was when Emily’s pet betta fish died, “Slaughterhouse 5?”

Rolling her eyes, she grunted at them, kicking her door open for them to enter. 

“Everyone loves Vonnegut; only losers under a rock dislike Vonnegut,” She drawled, edging back into her room, the heavy bass rock growing in volume as they followed her in, “I’ll be ready in a second- Emily’s always bugging me about wearing pants,” She said vaguely, scanning around the dirty dorm, until she found one particular pair of jeans laying half under her bed, quickly yanking them up her legs. “Come in, come in.” 

She flicked the speakers way down to which Spencer took a breath of relief. His eyes fell to the laptop that had been set up on her desk, the five different textbooks littered around the spare space, energy drinks and empty mugs filling the cracks where he could barely see the generic white of the table top, his nose crinkling. About as gross as he’d expect from a college student. 

“Emily said your Russian was pretty good,” Derek made conversation, his eyes wandering over the various posters plastered over her walls, some fraying round the edges from where she had likely been moved from bedroom to bedroom when the Prentiss’s inevitably had to move country again. 

“Yeah,” She snarked, pulling a nicer top over her head, “Kinda tends to happen when you live in Russia,”

Morgan raised his eyebrows to Spencer who seemed to give him the same look back, though the latter was biting back a snicker at her words. 

How in the hell was she the Ambassador’s daughter?

–

“This all involves Russian Mafia, it’s really beefed up here the last ten years or so,” Agent Cramer, a tall, slim man who looked entirely overwhelmed by the workload on his shoulders reported, as she listened intently. 

She had been somewhat de-briefed in the car, Emily messaging her for the first time since Christmas, the message a simple: “Have you met with Morgan and Reid yet? Make sure to put on pants,” to which she sent her a thumbs up emoji. She didn’t have much to say to her at the moment, barely even knew her sister anymore. 

“It started off mainly in New York and LA but they send lieutenants from the old country,” Cramer went on, and she caught Reid scratching his arm beneath his shirt. She knew it was mozzy weather, and he was already under the blaring sun in a little sweater, it wouldn’t surprise her if he felt a bit prickly. 

“Pahkans,” She interrupted, the man named Gideon shooting her a glance as she dug through her purse. 

“Your Mom do much work about the Mafia?” He asked, as she produced a clear nail varnish. 

“Here and there, I had to sit with her in her office for a whole Summer once when I got caught sneaking out. Picked up a few things, though,” She said, holding the polish out to Spencer, nodding to his arm, “Here. Supposed to help bug bites,”

He looked at her as if he wanted to say something, perhaps question her sources for such an old wives tale, but he stopped himself quickly, taking the varnish out of her hand with a dejected nod. 

“Thankyou,” He muttered, shoving it in his pocket. 

Three months he’d been in this rabbit hole. She had noticed it in a matter of hours. 

“They open up branch offices in other cities. Baltimore, Saint Louis, Chicago, Dallas, the list goes on,” Cramer added, nodding at her words, “They’re mainly offshoots of the Odessa Mafia and they’re especially tough to crack from a law enforcement standpoint. I mean beside being well organised with sophisticated technical equipment, there’s Vory v Zakone to contend with,” 

“The thieves code, eighteen principles they live by,” Reid jumped in before she could, to which she nodded as Gideon looked to her for more. 

“It means ‘thief in law’, or ‘thief with code’. It's a system of repeatedly jailed convicts that have been crowned or ‘made’ with a strict list of ideals, breaking them usually means death,” She explained, kicking a stone between her feet. 

“It’s like bible to these guys. We’re not gonna be turning any of them informer anytime soon,” Cramer said. Gideon seemed to tune the three of them out however, his gaze locking on the house across the street, where a curtain twitched, and a man’s face appeared in the window, watching the crime scene with guilt. 

“Then we’ll need a witness who will talk,” Gideon replied, heading straight towards the neighbour who seemed just a little too invested in what was happening, much more than a concerned third party should be. Though, she had barely noticed, digging through her purse once more for chapstick. 

“So, you study Russian or something?” Cramer asked as she applied it gently, Spencer swore he could smell the cherry flavour from where he stood beside her. 

“I lived in Moscow until I was six, moved back to France, then back to Italy, then Algeria for a bit. Bounced around Europe for a bit longer, but I still speak better Russian than anything else,” She clarified, and she saw Cramer’s eyebrows shoot up, “Military brat except I don’t get the cool discount at the store,” 

“You must have had a lot of friends though, going to so many schools,” Spencer added, and though there was nothing teasing about his tone, she laughed sharply anyway. 

“You’re funny,” She snarked, but smiled at him anyway.

Spencer had never been called funny in his life. ‘Funny looking’, ‘funny sounding’ maybe, but never funny. 

In fact he was so confused by what she had meant, whether it had been a taunt or genuine that he almost missed the sound of the whole street locking their front doors, dead bolting their lives away when a black prius, an expensive one at that, pulled through the street and swerved into park next to them. 

“Guess who,” Cramer bit, her eyes ripping away from where Gideon had the door slammed in his face. 

Detective Cramer aged by about five years when two tall men got out of the luxury car, opening the door for a shorter man in the back seat, their faces thunder. 

“You familiar with them?” She asked, shoulder brushing against Spencer as she turned to watch the men approach, entirely aware of the .9mm on each of their hips. 

“Arseny Lysowsky,” The detective identified, his voice cold, eyeing the two men who flanked the leader, towering over them. 

“Agent Cramer, how are you?” Lysowsky smiled at him, which oddly enough seemed somewhat real, as he also took stock of the three other people around him. His eyes lingered on her for a moment, noting her lack of gun and badge, trying to decipher if she was local or just a very unprepared fed. 

“Lysowsky, what brings you out?” Cramer asked, a tightness to his tone, his hand all too eager to grab his own pistol. 

“I heard Chernuses had problems,” He kept it vague, didn’t reveal too much, and looked back at the victim’s house with a scorned frown. 

“How did you hear that?” Gideon challenged, stance unwavering as the mob leader turned to meet his cold gaze. 

“And you are?” He asked, a sinister smile on his face that flipped her stomach. She didn’t like the tension that had overcome the little patch of sidewalk they took up, and she was quick to notice how Spencer moved towards her. 

He, by far, wasn’t the best shot on the team, but he was sure Hotch and Prentiss would have his and Morgan’s heads if any harm came to her. 

“Churneses said they hadn’t told anyone,” Agent Gideon ignored his question, hands firmly planted on his hips. If he was unnerved by the criminal in front of him, he never showed it, not even when Lysowsky’s grin widened horribly. 

“It is a small community. Word gets out,” He said simply, looking past him to the neighbours house that had kicked Gideon to the curb, “Are you a friend of Gorban’s?”

A second of silence passed between them, neither of them backing down from the moral standoff they’d engaged in. 

“Mr Gorban wouldn’t talk to me,” Gideon admitted, and Arseny only smiled again, flicking a look at the house behind him, as if hearing his dog had obeyed without command. 

“Would you like me to talk to him for you?” The threat was there clear as day, clear enough to have Gideon’s eyes narrow, “I can’t promise something will come of it,” 

“You!” In a second, Natalya, the victim she’d briefly met when Morgan had pulled up around an hour before, had stormed out of her house, her black kitten heels clicking against the concrete, “Where’s my father? He has my father!” 

“Wait a minute,” Derek called, restraining her where she stood, trying to pull his muscled arm from her shoulder, “Do you know he has your father?” 

“He’s responsible for all of this,” She spat, her eyes cold as she glared at the three men with vitriol hate, “Why everyone’s afraid, him and his animals,” She threw a hand up to his bodyguards that seemed barely contained by Cramer’s silencing hand. 

“I am only here to help,” Lysowsky replied, confident and calm in his words, though not as taunting as the agents would have thought, as if he truly cared for her.

A vast difference to the sadistic mob boss Cramer’s team had painted him to be. 

“Help?” She laughed woefully, tears in her eyes, “You’re a dog,” 

“Natalya,” Arseny said in a warning, the way a teacher would to a student, as her breath rattled in her chest through a weep. 

“How exactly can you help them?” Bugsy braved to speak, Gideon and Reid both flashing her a look. She’d always had trouble holding her tongue. 

Lysowsky turned his attention to her then, his eyes running down her figure, still deciphering whether she was armed; she looked much too young to be an agent. 

“In any way that they’d like me to, darling,” He replied, the disdain in her frown clearly not deterring him in the slightest, though again the act of concern held up in his own grimace, “As I said this is a small community. If one is in pain, we’re all in pain.”

Natalya weeped behind Morgan, sniffling as the boss made his way over to her, “Natalya, [you didn’t have to bring in outsiders],” 

The younger woman’s ears pricked up as he spoke in his native language, Spencer’s eyes flicking to her from behind his sunglasses. 

“[Let me help you],” He continued, taking a step towards Natalya, unthreatening yet she saw Morgan tense, his fingers twitching towards his gun. 

“[My family will never come to you for help],” Natalya hissed back, also in Russian, her face contorted in disgust, “[Get away from my house],” 

“[You are not right, Natalya],” He replied, yet again the concern in his eyes was either genuine or very well faked, “[You have made the wrong decision],” 

Taking a step away from the victim that wept with a scorned sneer, he looked back to the agents, noting the way the youngest of them glared at him hotly, before retreating to his car. 

“What did he say? Did he threaten you, Natalya?” Morgan asked, the woman watching the group of men drive away, as if Mr Chernus wasn’t still missing and they hadn’t just bumped themselves up to number one of the suspects list. “Talk to us and we can do something about it,”

“He said I made the wrong decision,” She said wetly, frustration turning on Derek as he pushed her for an answer, “I hope I didn’t,” 

With that she stormed off back into her house, the same stomping of her kitten heels in her wake, leaving the agents to all look between one another before they simultaneously turned to look at Bugsy, questions hovering on all of their lips. 

“What did he say exactly?” Gideon asked without frills, a hand rubbing his brow. Relaying the information, the men’s faces all drew into frowns as they heard Lysowsky’s parting statement. Gideon huffed, turning to Morgan and gesturing for him to follow Natalya inside. 

“Morgan, keep an eye on her, Reid and I are going to Cramer’s office to look over the files,” He looked at her then, worry lines littering his otherwise friendly face, damn near scowling as she looked over at him, “You are here to interpret, you understand? You do not speak to the suspects, that’s our job.” He growled, watching her with disappointment, the same tone a father used when scolding a petulant child, “Do you have any idea how much danger you could put yourself in? These guys won’t hesitate to take you out the second we’re not around, kid,” 

“But-” She started with a bite, though her whole fight left her when he silenced her with a raised hand. 

“Buts are for cigarettes, kiddo,” He interrupted, and Spencer winced slightly, knowing he’d heard that one a few hundred times when he’d first started under Gideon and had yet to mature entirely. Reid watched something rebellious flare in her eyes, and he worried for a moment she might just slap his boss for the patronising tone he took, “Just keep your mouth shut, you’re doing great so far,” 

She opened her mouth to protest, only to then register his words entirely and stay silent once more, appreciating his praise with a guilty smile. For once, she listened. 

–

The grandfather clock chimed to tell them it was merely 11am; two hours until the unsub would start cutting more if they didn’t get the ransom fee, two hours to figure out who wanted Natalya’s family to suffer. 

Said woman paced her living room at the sound of the hour, as Bugsy picked over the knick knacks on her fireplace, a small smile teasing her lips when she saw a picture of three small children grinning toothily at the camera. 

She had never gotten any photo’s similar, Emily being fourteen years older. The majority of their childhood photos consisted of a very grumpy teenager holding her baby sister that seemed to squirm in the tight, formal dresses Elizabeth Prentiss had forced them into, identical scowls on their faces as they were made to sit for the picture. 

There were some good memories, ones where Emily let herself be a sister and not a mom, where she would put makeup on her for fun and do her hair, let her have all the clothes out her wardrobe she thought looked nice, reading to her before bed, even letting her sister keep her pet corn snake when she left home for good. 

But now, it seemed like she was too caught up in her super serious grown up job to give a shit that her sister lived just an hour away. Still messaged each other for holidays, but the last few times she’d braved a call to the eldest Prentiss, it had gone unanswered. They argued the majority of the time they spoke, or there was an awkward long silence in between words, whichever was worse, but they each knew the other would come running if they were to ever need them so desperately. 

“Are you hungry? I could make something?” Natalya offered kindly, Derek having a poke through her collection of books that sat on the end table, though he’d have a tough job reading them as she’d already caught most of them were in her home language. 

“Oh, no thanks. I’m fine,” He replied with a small smile, putting down the books to calm the clearly on edge woman that looked to the twenty-something year old hopefully. 

She shook her head, “I’m good, thanks,” which seemed to deflate her entirely as she sat next to Derek with a sigh.

“I guess I’m like my mother. When she’s upset, she cooks,” Natalya said with a sad huff of a laugh, running a hand through her short, dark hair. 

“Yeah, mine does too. I think that’s just a mom thing,” He replied, and Bugsy felt the two of them look at her as her finger traced the old brass ornaments gently, “How about you, baby Prentiss?” 

She snorted, “You’re kidding, right?” smiling bitterly, “My mom never cooked for us, she said we needed to figure it out for ourselves rather than relying on the staff. Didn’t stop her from trying to end world hunger though,” 

It wasn’t lost to Morgan the way her eyes trained on the picture of Natalya and her mother, cuddled together with genuine love in their embrace, the snarky humour as she spoke, the same longing Emily seemed almost too good at hiding from them. 

“Your mother is a great woman,” Natalya complimented, though she missed the way the girl’s face steeled over, chewing her bottom lip as if to stop herself from snapping at the woman who meant well. She said nothing. “Where is your mother?” She turned her attention back to Derek who seemed the more talkative of the two of them. 

“Chicago. That’s where I’m from,” He replied, watching Bugsy turn away from the two of them to inspect more of the Chernus’s trinkets on their walls. 

“I’m from Dolgoprudny. Just North of Moscow.” Natalya replied. Opening her mouth to add something else, she was cut off by a knock at the door and the three of them froze in their place. 

“Are you expecting someone?” Morgan asked Natalya in a hushed tone, reaching for his gun and heading for the door. 

She shook her head, “No,” She whispered back. Morgan pulled the curtain back the smallest inch to see a small blonde boy staring back, a box in his hands and a bored look on his face. 

It all happened too fast from there, Natalya opening the door for the neighbourhood kid, opening the box to see a decapitated ear, the blood fresh and pooling in the bottom of the box. It couldn’t have been taken longer than an hour or so ago, unless they were keeping the parts on ice. 

Bugsy’s hand slapped over her mouth, Natalya’s scream piercing through her as she shoved the box into Derek’s hands, fleeing to the toilet, and she heard the woman retching. Part of her felt the same nausea settle in her stomach, looking away from the body part with a wince as Derek got straight on the phone to Gideon. 

“They didn’t wait, man. They sent a box with-” He swallowed thickly, “With Mr Chernus’s ear inside.”

Gideon replied, and whatever it was, it had Derek looking back to her. He agreed, hanging up the phone and rooting through his pockets, producing a set of rattling keys, holding them out for you between the tips of his fingers. 

“Gideon wants you, kid. He said they’re at the Little Kiev restaurant, they’re going to talk to Lysowsky,” Morgan said, grimacing as he held the ear away from her, “You sure you’ll be okay to drive?” 

“I’d rather be on the road than look at what’s in that box,” She said in disgust, taking the keys and heading out to the car.

She thought it best for everyone she didn’t tell him she hadn’t yet got her licence as she made her way over to the restaurant. 

-

“Reid and I will do the talking, just see if anything he’s saying connects with Vory v zakone, think you got that?” Gideon instructed her the second she got out of the car, taking the keys and handing them back to Reid who gave her a small nod. 

“We think the reason it was Mr Chernus who was targeted has something to do with the code,” Reid explained, his hands in his pockets as the three of them approached the restaurant, “You said earlier you understood the tenants,” 

“Why me, though? I thought I was just translating?” She repeated Gideon’s earlier words, almost cocky that they needed her.

“Lysowsky would feel the need to show face in front of men like Morgan and Cramer, even in front of Natalya since she lives locally. Between the three of us, he had less reputation to uphold, less so with a young woman like yourself,” Reid added, holding the door open for her to go in front. 

And so there she was, trailing behind Gideon and Reid over to where Lysowsky sipped a spoonful of borscht, as she tried not to marvel at the grandeur of the establishment inside. Clearly, Arsney had money to build a place like this, and wasn’t afraid to be flashy about it either, that much was apparent from the other clientele that tended to their beers around their own tables, Rolex watches and designer shoes adorning nearly every one of them. She hated to think of how many ears or fingers those suits had cost. 

“Would you like something to eat?” He asked, a chunk of bread in his hand dipping into the thick sauce, seemingly unbothered that they were there, “This borscht is exquisite, it’s my mother’s old country recipe,” 

“Didn’t you forsake all your relatives when you swore the thieves code?” Reid asked, which she guessed was hit foot in to get Lysowsky to talk. 

“I didn’t forsake her recipes,” Lysowsky replied with a shrug, looking to her where she seemed to be staring at his plate, “Borscht?” 

She shook her head, her nose wrinkling, “Much preferred stroganoff, mom used to force me to have borscht to make sure I ate my veggies,”  

His eyebrows raised, surprise written over his face, before he gave a short laugh. 

“[Where are you from]?” He asked in his mother tongue, gesturing for the three of them to sit down, though his eyes lit up as he watched her carefully. 

“[I was born in DC, but my mother worked in Moscow for a few years],” She answered shortly, and he seemed to find it even funnier that the near child they’d brought along on their case spoke as fluently as he did. 

Laughing with a heavy hand smacking on the table, he gestured to a nearby waiting staff to come over. 

“What are you having then, borscht for the gentle man?” He looked at Reid and Gideon, the former shaking his head while Gideon nodded with an awkward smile. 

“I’d love a taste,” He said, though any enthusiasm seemed to have drained out of his voice. 

“And what is the little lady having?” Lysowsky asked, his eyes falling back to her, as she straightened in her seat. 

She chanced a quick glance to Gideon, who nodded at her to play his game. She had not expected to be so deep in criminal territory when they’d said they needed a translator, and truly they hadn’t planned on getting her in the field until they realised she would know much more about this than they would.

“Do you have sharlotka?” She asked, returning his smile wearily as he clicked at the waiter who all but bolted to the kitchen. 

“A sweet tooth. I like it,” Arseny replied, shovelling a heap of beets into his mouth, “Our favourite was always Leningradsky,”

“Ours?” She prompted, giving a polite thanks to the waiter who returned too quickly with a slice of cake. She caught Spencer glancing at the bowl with intrigue, the hunger clear on the quiet man’s face. Gently pushing the bowl and clean spoon towards him, he flicked a look up at her, “Apple cake,” She whispered, sending him a small smile, “Really yummy with the sugar on top,” 

“Mine and my mother’s,” Arseny replied, though Gideon and Reid both caught how he paused before he replied, as if he had to think about the answer he was giving; the oldest tell that it wasn’t entirely true, “We didn’t have much when I was a boy, but that was always our dessert of choice,” 

She stopped for a mere second, missing the moment when Spencer spooned the tiniest bite of the cake into his mouth, trying to ignore the way his tongue exploded in the sweet, fruit taste. He hadn’t eaten anything properly in days, and maybe that was why it tasted so good, but more likely it was just the fact that everything sweet tasted even better when he was on his come downs. 

“We need to talk, Arseny,” Gideon interrupted, ignoring the way Spencer pined to go back in for a second mouthful, but chose to hand the bowl back to her with a small smile. 

“We are on first name basis?” Lysowsky asked, shaking his head, and she took a small bite of the sweet cake for herself, “I still don’t even know who you are,” 

“I think I understand something about this,” Gideon replied, his thumbs tapping together, the waiter returning with his borscht, “You have a problem,” 

“I do?” The pahkan titled his head at the agent, the annoyance clear on his face. 

“That’s why you came to the Chernus’ house this morning,” Gideon answered, unbothered as he began to scoop the borscht onto the spoon, the apple cake in her own mouth going down a treat. 

She kept her head down, took tiny bites of the dessert that certainly tasted like a fresh baked sharlotka. But her thoughts lingered on what Lysowsky had said, about his own favourite pudding. 

It made no sense that he would have ever tasted Leningradsky shortbread, not for the time that he was born, nor with the amount of money he claimed his family lacked. Infact, the way he fully pronounced his vowels, the akanye, the stress he put on certain parts of his words, all pointed to the same dialect you’d heard back in Moscow, more central than anything else. 

So how on earth would he have eaten the so-called ‘Royal Cake’ that had only been made eight hours from there, in the town it grew its name from. 

There was something glaringly obvious about his story missing. 

“A man like me?” She tuned back into the conversation, swallowing another mouthful down as Gideon took another bite himself, though it seemed the topic had turned sour as Arseny wiped his mouth with the corner of his napkin. 

“Four watchtowers and a convict signifies a stay in prison,” Spencer cut in, nodding towards the tattoos branded across his knuckles, “Each one of those crosses symbolises an individual sentence,” 

“Twenty three years in prison in the Ural mountains,” 

But she was still stuck on what it was she was missing. It had been such an odd thing to lie about, particularly when he’d even admitted himself that they hadn’t had much money, so he clearly hadn’t been lying to fake a reputation. 

So why lie?

She was ripped out of her stumped silence when Natalya entered the restaurant, her voice grabbing the men’s attention immediately. 

“Mr Lysowsky. You said you could help me,” She said, her purse over her shoulder and her own car keys gripped tightly in her hand as if she’d all but thrown herself out the vehicle to get there faster. 

“Don’t you already have help,” Lysowsky snapped, clearly Gideon had dug under his skin enough to garner a reaction. 

“I made a mistake,” Natalya replied, barely meeting Bugsy’s gaze as she stared at her from her seat at the table. “I talked to my father on the phone,” 

The girl frowned at her, “That’s a lie,” It came out before she could hold herself, brows furrowed at whatever it was she was trying to pull. Gideon said her name in a reprimand, though he too was looking at the woman as if she’d grown a second head. 

“Thankyou for coming, but I don’t need your help,” The woman met her confused look with a saddened expression, nodding to her solemnly. 

Leave it alone, she seemed to be saying, there’s nothing more I want you to do. 

And with that, the two of them left the restaurant, Natalya walking by his side obediently, her purse tucked in close under her arm, as Morgan and Cramer filed in from the parking lot, watching their only leads drive away without a fight. 

–

The team were quick to head back to Natalya’s home, only to find the ear missing and the finger gone too, the only evidence left of any crime being committed leaving with the victim’s daughter herself. 

“She’s not here, and the garbage was never taken out,” Morgan said with a grimace as he walked down the front steps to meet the four of them on the sidewalk. 

“Her dad just went missing, surely we can cut the girl some slack-” Bugsy words were hidden in a huff, rolling your eyes at the man who cut a glance to her. 

“No, no. When Hotch first talked to us, he said she noticed her father’s car in the driveway when she took the garbage out,” Morgan explained, his shades blocking the way the cogs turned behind his dark eyes. 

“Right?” Reid asked, his own sunglasses now covering his eyes that winced at the brightness, surrounding them.

“Garbage can in the kitchen is completely full, she never took it out.” 

“She lied,” Gideon said with finality, the penny beginning to drop for him too. 

“She could be half way back to Dolgo-whatever by now,” Morgan scoffed, his arms smacking against his side as the lightbulb went off over her head, the final puzzle piece falling into place. 

“Dolgoprudny?” Spencer asked, exchanging a glance with Cramer, “Isn’t that where Lysowsky’s from-”

“Yes, YES, of course!” She exclaimed, grabbing onto Spencer’s arm as he spoke. 

He looked at her with wide eyes, not that she could see since his shades blocked the way, only to feel her shake him harder in the midst of her enthusiasm. Part of him wanted to rip his arm out of her grip, waiting for the sickness to crawl up his throat at a strangers germs touching him, but the oddest part of him reasoned she had the same germs as Emily did, that the fifty percent DNA the women shared negated the fact she was a stranger, just as it did when he met Jack. Jack had Hotch germs. Bugsy had Emily’s. He didn’t feel so sick thinking of it like that. 

“I knew I was missing something,” She said, turning to Gideon, “He was lying before, about his favourite dessert. There was no way he could have had Leningradsky with his mother. Given his age, at that time in Soviet Russia, shortbread was incredibly expensive, only extremely wealthy families could have eaten it. That, and given the Central dialect he speaks in, I’d pinpointed he lives somewhere near or around Moscow, which means there was no way he was eating that cake considering it was only ever baked in one shop at first, one way up in Leningrad, where St Petersburg is now, like nine hours away from Moscow-” 

“What’s your point?” Cramer asked, tired of the somewhat slew of thoughts she’d been saving until she knew for sure what she meant. 

“Before when he said it was ‘our favourite’, I don’t think he was talking about him and his mother,” She explained, looking to see if Spencer at least understood what she was getting at. 

“It was him and his own child…” Spencer finished, as Morgan’s phone began ringing.

“Yeah, what?” He asked, the frustration clear in his tone that they were all still without the evidence needed to pin it on Lysowsky, “You’re sure? Uh-huh. Okay, thanks doll,” 

The four of them looked at him expectantly as he nodded to her, “Garcia just got into the bank’s system, somebody wired 500 thousand dollars into the account ten minutes ago,”

“Who wired it?” Spencer asked, though he was still reeling from the way she’d touched him, the way her voice went up about five octaves and a dozen decibels.

“She didn’t say, but the name on the account is Lyov Fulenko. She says that’s Lysowsky’s wife’s maiden name. Fulenko.” Morgan replied, and her brows furrowed. 

“Why did she bring us into this?” Gideon asked, though the solemn look on his face said he already knew, “Because she needed to put pressure on the other victim,” 

Gideon headed towards Mr Gorban’s house once more, though it was clear he had already sketched out in his head who was their unsub and Natalya’s involvement, he simply needed the confirmation. 

Morgan clapped a hand on her back, “Nice job, baby Prentiss. Those were some mean profiling skills out there,”

She frowned at him, scoffing,  “I’m not a profiler, that’s Emily’s job. It was just basic linguistics really; more a display of how I need to lay off cake for a while.”

The man kissed his teeth with a grin, “Don’t put yourself down. What’s your degree even in?”

She shrugged, picking under her nails for something to do, “Individualised genomics and health.” She said as if it were child’s play, though Spencer’s head shot to her. 

“Biotechnology?” He asked, and she glanced at him with a nod, “What’s your thesis on?” 

Gideon had returned by the time he’s asked, and began corralling the two of them back to the car, “We’re heading back to the restaurant. We need to speak with Lysowsky again,” 

But it had fallen on deaf ears as Spencer looked at her expectantly. 

“Just some new research into prenatal screening, nothing too fun,” She simpered, climbing into the back seat as he nodded with her. 

“I read a fascinating paper on the uses of hCG in a woman’s body-” 

“Reid,” Gideon cut him off with a short glance from the front seat, “Continue this conversation once we’ve found Mr Chernus alive,” 

Spencer blushed, feeling like a kid caught in the cookie jar, “Sorry, sir,” He looked over at her, only to see her hiding a smile to herself. 

He thinks it was then he’d decided Emily had been wrong about her.

-

“You paid the ransom already,” Gideon said plainly, the four of them trailing behind him as he followed Lysowsky to a small seating area in the front of the restaurant. She could tell the whole way Spencer had been itching to ask her more questions about her paper, barely contained as his fingers had twitched in his lap, but he seemed to straighten himself out once she’d reached the restaurant, “You paid all the ransoms,”

“Sit,” The boss ordered, barely glancing at them as he held his strong whiskey up.

“Are they going to kill Mr Chernus?” Morgan asked, cutting to the chase as Lysowsky spared him a bored glance.

“No,” He replied shortly, the look on his face about as grumpy as when they’d left. 

“The account is in the name of Lyov Fulenko. Lyov is a man’s name.” Spencer input, crossing his arms as the boss glared at him, “A son’s name. Vory v Zakone. Never have a family of your own. No wife. No children.”

“Lyov,” He looked at her then, gesturing to her with the glass of strong liquor, “You know what it means?”

“The Lion,” She replied gravely, steeling herself against his dark eyes. 

“No one else would be so stupid,” Lysowsky ran a hand over his weathered face, swigging his drink as if it was the only thing keeping him talking. “At first it didn’t mean much. It was a way of letting him earn his own money. I could afford it, it came from the fund. And no one questions the use of the fund-”

“Where is he?” Gideon asked, his elbows on his knees as he leaned in.

“What else could I do?” He was ignored, “I couldn’t admit I wasn’t blessing the kidnappings, I couldn’t even admit my son existed.” He huffed when he saw Gideon’s face unmoving from the glower, his question still unanswered, “Chernus will be home in a few minutes. You should be there, he will need medical attention,” He shooed them away, with his final words, drink sloshing in his hand. His face darkened, impossibly so, and the five of them looked at him, something sad and remorseful shining back. 

“What are you gonna do?” She asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer. 

“Vory v Zakone.” He said heavily, nodding to her, “We take care of our own troubles.”

It was a silent journey back to the Chernus’ house. 

-

Morgan and Reid pulled up to the campus, the younger girl in the back seat almost dozing off with the rhythmic hum of the engine, the evening sun much nicer on Spencer’s sensitive eyes. 

“This is you, baby Prentiss,” Derek’s voice jolted her out of the half sleep she was in, straightening herself from where she had her head pressed against the window. 

“Thanks,” She muttered, rubbing her eyes and unbuckling herself as they did the same, assuming they wanted to walk her back to her dorm since it had gotten dark, “I’ll be okay on my own, campus security should be out by now,”

“You sure?” Reid asked, flicking his watch up to his eyes to see the meagre 6:13pm staring back at him, “I thought they started at 7,”

She blinked at him, her eyebrows quirking for a moment, “How do you know that?”

“Johns Hopkins was my backup option- well actually it was my third, I much preferred Caltech’s curriculum, Yale was my second-” He started, flicking a glance to her where she waited for him to finish, “Not that Johns was bad, there were just better- alternative options out there-” 

“Don’t shit your pants, I’m hardly the dean of the university,” She chuckled indignantly patting them both on the shoulder before sliding over to open the door, “Nice meeting you both, I’ll just get back to my mediocre college with my poor curriculum, nothing like the solid gold bathrooms at Caltech-”

“I never said that!” She laughed again, with her whole chest, at his defensive tone as she stepped out the car, hand on the door to shut it behind her. 

Leaning down to give them both a wave goodbye, Derek’s voice stopped her again, “Baby Prentiss, do us all a favour and enrol yourself into forensics, we need more people on our team,”

Smirking at him, she shook her head, “Very funny. Never gonna happen. I like my little slides and samples, thankyou,” 

Slamming the door on the two of them she headed for the front gates, swinging her purse over her shoulder. She was stopped by a hand on her shoulder, and she quickly realised she’d been too tired to even realise a set of footsteps jogging after her. 

Maybe she should have taken that walk home after all. 

Whirling around, her eyes widened as Spencer had clearly not been leader of the track team as he was half out of breath just from the few feet he’d covered, though she reckoned she could have guessed that seeing his lean ribs beneath his shirt.

He shoved a business card in her face as he caught his breath, though it was more just his name and credentials followed by a phone number. 

“I-I don’t have email otherwise I would-” He huffed, scratching his forehead as she frowned and looked at him.

“I’ve never been hit on via business card before,” She bit her lip with a smile, reading over the card again as he choked on his words even more than before.

“N-no, I-” He spluttered, ignoring the way Morgan beeped the horn for him, seemingly in a debate with a ticket metre that had caught him parked on yellow, “If you needed us for anything, or if you needed a second pair of eyes for your thesis, I’m happy to help,”

“You don’t have faith in the dummy that got into Johns?” She asked, and his head couldn’t shake fast enough, though he seemed to catch her teasing and shared her smile, “Thanks, Dr Reid,” 

“Spencer’s just fine,” He said, giving her a small nod and a wave as Morgan’s palm bounced on the horn a dozen times. She flashed him one more smile, pocketing his number and heading back to her dorm, wondering what the doctor would think about the paper due in tomorrow she’d yet to get started on.

+1. The one where you get arrested.

The case had been heavy. They’d felt it in the car on the way back to headquarters. A little girl, molested and groomed by her own uncle, his own wife covering for him. 

His mother always told him love makes you do crazy things, but Spencer hoped that whatever part of him worth loving would at least stay sane by the time he found the one. He was loyal to his team, to his mother, but that was where he drew the line. He was loyal to his family, undoubtedly so. 

Yet so was Emily. 

The call came to the second SUV, her phone set up to hands free mode, quickly flicking to answer the call on speaker, the other half of the team ahead of them on the freeway. 

“Prentiss, speaking. Who is this?” She spoke clearly to the unknown number, her knuckles going white at the wheel when she heard a nervous laugh.

“It’s me,” Her sister mumbled through the speaker, “You wouldn’t by any chance be near DC would you?” 

She huffed, cursing the knack Prentiss women had for showing up at the worst times. 

“Can’t this wait, I’m on the clock,” Emily hissed, her finger edging towards the ‘End Call’ button, “I’ll call you after,”

“Wait, wait, don’t hang up!” As if sensing her movements, she all but screeched, “This was my one phone call, they won’t let me have another,” 

The car went silent for a moment, Spencer’s eyes narrowing on the dash from his place in the passenger seat, JJ also leaning forward from the back with a frown. 

Emily grit her teeth, her upper lip twitching the way it did when she was mad. 

“What do you mean by one phone call? Where are you?” She bit in a cautious tone, though knowing how reckless Bugsy tended to be, she had a pretty good idea. 

The hesitation on the other end of the line was palpable, as was the way she awkwardly cleared her throat. 

“Fairfax County Jail,” She murmured sheepishly, “But it wasn’t my fault, these assholes don’t know what they’re talking about, I swear-”

“Stay there and keep your mouth shut,” Emily ordered, her expression furrowing into a sneer, “And for the love of god don’t antagonise the officers,” 

The agent didn’t even wait for a response, knowing it would probably be something snarky, her mind already racing at what the hell her sister could have done this time, every worst possible explanation jumping to the forefront. 

“I’ll call Hotch and tell him to turn around,” JJ offered, her fingers already searching her contacts for their boss, as Emily sighed through her nose. 

“Tell him not to worry, I’ll drop you guys back to headquarters, make my way there myself,” She said, picking the skin of her nail softly with her thumb. 

“By the time we’ve reached Quantico, visiting times will be over and she’ll have to stay the night,” Spencer pointed out, his own surprise evident. Sure, she had certainly been a personality when they had met, but a criminal seemed a stretch. 

“Maybe it would teach her a lesson,” Emily mused, shaking her head to herself, “Who am I kidding, that psycho would Shawshank her way out of there by dawn,”

“You don’t actually think she would hurt anyone do you?” JJ said, the dial tone ringing out from the phone she held to her ear. 

“Wouldn’t put it past her. She once cut a girl's pigtail off for wearing the same dress as her on her birthday,” Emily winced as Spencer’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. 

“I thought getting swirlied was bad,” He muttered, watching out the window as Emily made a U-turn at the traffic lights. He and the now twenty three year old had been bouncing research papers back and forth for a few months, the odd one every week, Bugsy even once joking it was much more interesting and riveting than foreplay, which had his face red hot at his desk.

She was like that, he’d quickly realised, had a vulgar sort of humour about her, yet he couldn’t help the snigger that came out whenever he’d receive one of his papers back through the mail with pink writing scrawled all over his ideas. The little hearts that dotted her exclamations whenever she wrote “AMAZING!”, the odd time she’d written “sexy ideas, doctor Reid” which he’d come to understand meant it was really good. He’d even gotten back the drawing at the end of the paper of a stickman of the two of them, his hair a curly scribble and a purple tie which told him immediately who was who, her line of a hand pointing at his caricature with the speech bubble, “everyone point and wave at the smart man,” which had made him laugh. 

She was odd, toeing the line between childish and witty, nothing like the scholars he usually worked with, and the writing he usually sent back on her papers were all in standard black ink, his own pharmacist handwriting staring back at him as he crammed in his every thought of her research into the margins. If she couldn’t read it, she hadn’t said, but he liked to think she took notice of it all, even if it wasn’t strewn with stars and doodles and the occasional flirt he knew meant nothing. He knew her from her writing, knew her from her ideas that sometimes kept him up at night thinking more about them, but the two of them hadn’t spoken directly, most certainty hadn’t seen one another since that day with the Chernus’.

Emily hummed, fingers drumming on the wheel, entirely unaware of the thoughts rattling around in Spencer’s head, then again that’s how it always was, “I just pray to god she’s listened to me for once in her damn life and keeps quiet,”

-

“Fucking bitch. The nuns in Moscow hit harder than you,” She spat, blood dribbling from her split lip. She wasn’t entirely lying, but god did her mouth sing with pain as she tried to muffle a moan. 

“You got jokes, pig lover?” The other woman asked, a tattoo covering half her cheek, her nose crooked from the shiner the Prentiss girl had already given her. “Won’t be fucking laughing when I’m done, bitch,” The woman was quick to tackle the girl around her stomach, slamming her into the hard concrete of the holding cell. Bugsy felt her skull rattle, the wind whooshing from her chest as rough hands grab her shirt and pin her down harder. 

The younger girl reached the nerve under her opponent's armpit, the soft of her ribs, twisting until the woman gave a bark of shock, and she took the opportunity to shove her off, climbing on top of her as they both scrambled for some sort of control.

“I got one for you. What’s got a broken nose, a black eye and doesn’t know what’s good for her?” She swung twice as hard, the other women in the cell rattling against the bars as if watching a matador taunt a bull, the air thick with excitement as the two of them cursed eachother out.

Emily’s sigh was audible across the room as the wardens separated the cat fight, the largest of the officers all but grabbing her sister by the scruff of the neck like a feral beast, dragging her over with stubborn feet to where the BAU stood in the lobby, eyes widened at the state of her. 

“You better start acting your age, little girl. Mommy’s not gonna be around forever to save you,” The officer hissed in her ear, manhandling her over to where Emily glared daggers into the side of her head. She knew that look, it was eerily similar to mom’s that time she’d been caught sneaking out of the house, something in the warm brown of Emily’s eyes frosting over into a cold blackness. Fury. 

She chewed her words for a moment, waiting until the man had turned around with a grunt of acknowledgement to the badge Emily had flashed to get his attention, before she spoke. 

“She’s not my mom, she's my sister, dumbass-” Emily slapped a hand over her mouth, gripping her shoulder with the bear-like strength her jagged nails possessed when she was mad, the scoff of disgrace leaving her mouth as her team trailed behind the two of them. 

“What the hell happened, baby Prentiss?” Morgan asked, ignoring the way Emily’s heated gaze turned on him, “What’s got you so worked up?”

“Don’t entertain her, Morgan,” Emily seethed, all but shoving her into the back of the SUV. She looked up at her sister with an open mouth, the guilt flashing in her eyes as she wavered under the pointing finger Emily jabbed in her face, “Don't you even dare,” 

“But-” She stammered, cut off when she saw the glare intensified, if that had even been possible. 

“I don’t want to hear another word from you for the rest of the day unless you’re prepared to give me a good explanation why I’ve dragged my team out here to save your sorry ass,” Emily hissed, and the girl’s mouth bobbed a few times, feeling the rest of the team watching as she got thoroughly chewed out. 

“Wait-” Emily’s hand lingered at the car door, ready to slam it in her face as she rubbed her cuff over her chin, mopping up the damage. Her head tilted for a moment, hoping her sister had something good to say, only for it to be; “He just called you old, I hope you realise that,”

Emily’s gaze darkened, slamming the door shut with an anger she imagined her mother had kept warm for the past twenty three years, whirling around heatedly when she heard a snigger from one Derek Morgan. 

“Damn, mama, hear the girl out.” He said, slapping a hand on the woman’s shoulder as he passed, heading back to their own SUV, “Maybe she’ll surprise you,” 

If Emily was going to bite anything back, she didn’t. Instead she ran a hand over her brow, the group disbanding to their cars now the problem child had been picked up from daycare, except for Hotch who watched the older Prentiss with a scowl, despite the worry in his eyes. 

“Hotch, I’m so sorry, just take it off my timecard, I’ll cover all the costs,” She said shakily, her own frown adorning her face as she felt herself blush from embarrassment under her boss’s gaze. 

“I understand she’s your sister, but this was a gross misuse of agent time and resources, Prentiss,” He said, his gaze drifting to where Spencer sat next to the girl, pulling a packet of tissues and hand sanitizer out of his satchel while JJ rooted through her own purse for a plaster, “Don’t let it happen again,” 

Emily nodded vehemently, flushed with anger, her palms sticky as she wiped them on her jeans. 

“Absolutely sir. Believe me, this ever happens again, she’s on her own,” She replied, though they both knew she didn’t mean it. Emily would never. 

He nodded stonily, deciding quickly that it was punishment enough that she felt so ashamed, he knew from his years of arguments with Sean what it was like to have a sibling stray so far. 

“We can fill out reports in the morning, just get Reid and JJ home,” Hotch said, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder as he passed her to head towards his own vehicle, “And try not to kill each other in the company car. It doesn’t look good on paperwork,” 

She beat off the smile on her lips as she got back into the driver's seat, the air that engulfed the four of them foul as she glared over her shoulder and into the back. Spencer twitched in his seat uncomfortably, his hand still passing over tissues to the bloodied girl. 

“So, you gonna tell me what that was about?” Emily asked, her tone brittle and warning, not in the mood for any snarky response she could give, “Or is this old lady going to have to lay into you some more,” 

The smell of strong ethanol engulfed her nose as she held the soaked tissue to her face, frowning into her lap silently and avoiding the burning stare as Emily stuck the keys in the ignition and started the car.

“Let’s start with why you were there,” JJ input, the same tone of voice she used as when talking to victims, calm and motherly, unlike the pissed off snarl Emily gave, “You wanna tell us why you were arrested?”

“You two really gonna pull the good cop, bad cop on me?” She snapped, her lip swelling around the wound, tongue grazing it softly despite the heavy taste of the sanitizer.

Emily said her name in a warning, her last warning, and she knew better than to push her luck even more, the SUV pulling out of the station and onto the road. 

“I was just shopping for groceries,” She started, fiddling with the bloodied tissue, wincing under her tongue stroke, “Store clerk made a pass at me, I told him I wasn’t interested. So he put a pack of smokes in my handbag while I wasn’t looking; the alarms went off. I didn’t even know what was happening until security grabbed me at the door,” 

JJ flashed a glance at Emily, like two parents deciding an appropriate punishment, the brunette’s lips straightening out into a line. 

“You’re telling the truth?” She asked cautiously, glancing in the rear view mirror to see how her sister balled the mess of paper between her palms. 

Rolling her eyes, she gladly accepted the other packet of tissues Spencer slid over the leather seat between them. 

“I went out for milk and oranges, I was not looking to get picked up, Em,” She bit back, groaning when she felt it jostle the cut, “And certainly not for cigarettes, you know I only smoke on New Years,” 

Spencer looked at her with a frown, and she caught his confusion quickly, pulling another leaf of paper from the packet. 

“Emily and I had a rule after she caught me smoking when I was like fourteen, that we could have one cigarette between the two of us on New Years eve,” She explained, JJ also perking up to hear it, “So that by the time morning came around, it would be last year’s mistake, and it would be like it never happened,” 

JJ smiled to herself, remembering the time she caught Roz sneaking one of her dad’s cigarettes on the back porch back when she was just ten. She remembered the little secrets the two of them kept back then, held them even all these years later. 

“So how did that lead to, well,” JJ gestured to her lip, “That,” 

“Yeah, didn’t I specifically tell you to not antagonise anyone?” Emily chimed in, signalling she was changing lanes as they headed down the freeway for a second time that day.

“Technically you said not to antagonise the officers,” She pointed out, before Spencer had the chance to, shutting his mouth as he caught the glare Emily shot through the mirror.

“Keep talking,” The older Prentiss ordered, as Bugsy sighed and blotted her lip some more. 

“That woman, Mira I think her name was, anyway, she recognised me from that picture mom had us take on Independence Day, the one they put in The Hill, and she asked me if it was true my sister was a fed,” 

Emily’s fingers twitched at the wheel, knowing the status agents and even people associated with agents held in prisons; knowing just being a Prentiss in a jail cell held a big, dazzling price over her head that said ‘kill me, kill me!”

The air sucked out of the car, a look passing between JJ and Reid as they thought the same thing, waiting for her to go on. 

“So then you hit her?” Emily guessed, the bitterness slowly ebbing as she understood maybe her sister wasn’t as unruly as she thought. 

“No, I told her to leave me the fuck alone, but she said you guys sent her brother down for something a while back, and she asked again if my family were all Pigs,” She picked her nails, the blood stain on her sleeve staring back at her, “I told her if she didn’t stop calling you a Pig, I’d make her squeal like one. And then I hit her,” 

Emily tried to pretend she didn’t smile hearing that, her cheeks tightening, lips pulling down as she fended it off. 

“Is that good enough, officers, or will you be needing fingerprints?” The girl chimed after a moment, a weight seemingly lifted from the car as Emily quickly realised she had, for once, not been entirely at fault. 

“I want a handwritten apology to my boss for wasting his time,” Emily demanded, her unforgiving gaze softening when she saw her smile, “And you owe my team coffee,”

“I can do coffee, coffee coming right up,” She agreed, shoving the used tissues into her purse with a crooked smile, “It’s a date,”

Spencers ears turned red, looking over the seat at where she dabbed at her lip gently. She didn’t look much older for six months, but she had gotten her nose pierced since the last time he’d seen her, unless he just hadn’t noticed it before, and the streaks of red were slowly fading out into a blush pink that said it was old, and he wondered if she’d done it herself in that tiny little cubicle bathroom of hers she shared with the four other girls in her block. 

“You finished your stats papers yet?” He made polite conversation, though part of him was dying to know out of curiosity if she could crunch numbers and equations as well as she could in her own labs. 

“Got two more this week, they’re kicking my ass man,” She replied with a huff, and he didn’t think he’d ever been called ‘man’ by a woman before. He knew if he’d known her in college, ignoring the fact he would have been twelve, he would have thought she may just be the coolest person alive, “I miss my labs with my microscopes and watching all the little baby cells move around in the ethanol. Stats are like, just not sexy,” 

He smiled at her as she stared out the window, unaware of the way she’d managed to make DNA sound like a play pen full of kittens. He held off from telling her he found stats really quite sexy, knowing it would never sound the same coming from his mouth.

He pulled a leaf of the tissues from the packet, producing his own pen from his pocket and began doodling carefully so as not to rip the delicate canvas. 

Sliding it over to her after five minutes as Emily and JJ made conversation in the front seat, she didn’t care that the grin tugged on her split lip, the reaction was instant, she couldn’t stop it if she tried. 

Two stick men stared back at her, her hair a close match in texture and a childish triangle drawn as means of a dress, a very tall stick figure next to her patting her metaphorical head, a speech bubble coming from his mouth. 

“Maths is fun!” It said, and she flicked a glance at him, her smile the most genuine he’d seen yet. He just smiled back. 

+2. The one where you graduate

Emily felt the looks on her the moment JJ had mentioned Maryland. The case was a little under their pay grade, nothing more than a stalker, no bodies or bloodshed, but one very rattled woman that had turned to the communications liaison with fear for her life. 

With Hotch and Rossi in Boston helping a case of their own, the rest of the BAU had been twiddling their thumbs waiting for something to come across their desk. 

“This case is in my hands now, and if we do nothing and something happens to her,” JJ took a heavy breath, her eyes lingering on the three names Keri had given her in case of her untimely death, “I’ll be the one notifying her family,”

Derek, despite his own hesitations about using their time for a case like this, caved the moment he saw the guilt on the blonde’s face. 

“Okay,” He shuffled the papers into a pile, Emily and Spencer gathering their own resources on the case and standing from the round table. 

Luckily, one government SUV was more than enough to carry the four of them for the hour drive North, all of them well aware Hotch would flip if they used more funds than necessary.

JJ piled into the front beside where Morgan climbed into the driver’s seat, leaving Emily next to a particularly fidgety Reid. It took all of fifteen minutes of the man flicking a glance at her, his mouth quirking as if he were about to use it, before he thought better and looked out the window, and the whole thing would start again. 

Derek, the less shy about his thoughts of the two men, even glanced at her through the rear view mirror, before he too returned his gaze out the window silently. JJ shifted in her seat, knowing she had to tread carefully around mentioning Bugsy to Emily, particularly after the last time they’d seen her. Emily had said they’d grabbed coffee once or twice since then, but that was all she spoke about it, which left her team walking cracked eggshells at the thought of bringing her up. 

It seemed the three of them were bursting at the seams with the same thought, and it wasn’t until Reid cleared his voice, his puppy eyes stuck in his loop, that she had had enough. 

“Does anyone here have something to say?” Emily huffed, Derek immediately reaching to turn the radio up the same time that JJ flicked the AC on for something to do. Realising they weren’t easily broken, she turned to Spencer who already looked slightly guilty, thumbing at his sweater, “Reid?”

“Did you want to see your sister?” He asked without hesitation, as if the words had fallen out of him, “You know, since we’re so close on this case. It would be a good excuse to-”

“You did say she owed us a coffee,” JJ pointed out, spurred on by Spencer’s nerves, “Wouldn’t mind cashing in if we’re coming all this way.”

“Morgan, do you have anything to add?” Emily asked with raised brows, though she already knew what was coming.

Derek chewed over his thoughts a second, “I’m just saying, you only get to see your baby sisters grow up once- you know, and it couldn’t hurt to see her even if she runs rings around you with that smart mouth-”

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the case?” Emily cut him off incredulously, but received three knowing looks back. She met JJ’s gaze where the woman had swivelled in her seat to talk to her, and Prentiss was fast to catch the buried grief in her best friend’s eyes. She knew it pained her to even bring up sisterhood, let alone watch Emily throw hers away for the sake of a decade and a half between them. It was the desperation in JJ’s face that did it, knowing she would give anything to spend just an hour with Roz one more time, that had her drawing her cell out her pocket and calling the contact with the little ladybug next to it, “Fine,”

As a profiler she would have been tempted to ignore the way Spencer smiled into his lap; as a sister, her eyes narrowed at him.

The phone rang surprisingly only once before she answered, and she heard an unnaturally tame version of her sister answer.

“Emily?” She asked, her voice hushed, worried almost, “You okay?”

Her brows furrowed, “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?” She got no more than a hum in return, somewhat agreeing though Emily could tell clear as day she was holding something back. “Look, we’re gonna be in Silver Spring, I was thinking tomorrow we could grab lunch-” 

“Can’t, I’m busy, it’s an all day thing,” Her sister cut her off, yet it wasn’t rude or demeaning like usual. Nervous almost, sad, “Sorry,”

“What’s an all day thing?” Emily asked, the concern matching her words. 

Her sister swallowed on the other end of the phone, before she found her words, or maybe even the balls to actually speak, “I’m graduating tomorrow,”

Emily’s face lit up, the smile spreading fast on her face, ignoring the way Morgan’s words seemed to ring true in her ears; she was growing up too fast. 

“Graduating, why didn’t you say!” She asked, the joy in her tone unmissable, “How’d your papers go?”

Spencer held himself off from correcting her that she’d only done five papers, that the rest of her results had come from theory and labs, thinking better than to interrupt the one conversation they’d had where there was no underlying argument brewing. 

“Full honours, obviously.” Bugsy drawled with a snicker, and Emily shook her head, the smile never dimming. 

“Look at you, y’little superstar,” Emily bit her lip, ignoring the guilt that tore at her when she realised she barely knew what Bug spent her days doing, “Did Mom and Dad get good seats? Oh god, dad’s not bringing Stephanie is he?”

The silence on the other end had her halting, the light in the conversation wavering for a second, before she understood the nerves, the quick defence her sister had been on the moment the call had been answered. 

“Bug-”

“They’re not coming,” Her heart ached in her chest hearing it, “I sent Mom the details, she said she’s in Ukraine this week settling some papers. Didn’t even get a chance to ask Dad before he and Stephanie were off on their fifth honeymoon in the Bahamas until October,” A painful laugh echoed down the line, as if she were holding back the gravity of the situation. 

“Bug,” Emily tried again, picking her thumb viciously, punishingly, hating herself for being so blind to her sister’s troubles, “Why didn’t you invite me?”

“I figured you’d be busy,” Came the reply, sad and tender, the most honest she’d heard in a while, “You’re always busy,” 

“Never too busy for you,” Emily’s guilt tripled when her sister didn’t answer, knowing if she were to counter the statement with hard evidence it would only hurt both of them, “Look, I have some time today, probably,” She didn’t, not even a few minutes, “Why don’t we get that coffee, you don’t even have to pay,”

Bugsy gave a sad laugh, “Sorry, Em, I gotta get my dress fitted today, and some of the lab techs invited me to a party later. Maybe some other time,”

“A party with biology nerds?” Emily asked with false excitement, the air turned stagnant between them now, “Well, rock on, science freak. Don’t leave your drinks with strangers, and don’t walk home alone, and for god sake use protection-”

“Bye, Emily,” She said with a chuckle, the older of the two gracing her with the same, as they put the phone down. 

The car was quiet, waiting for Prentiss to speak, none of them missing the way her lip pulled between her teeth, a bitterness on her face that told them she was holding in something close to sadness. You’re always busy. It echoed around her head, stabbing at her chest to think her sister was graduating alone, no one to congratulate her, no one to pat her on the back and tell her how clever she is despite the fact Bugsy would happily tell anyone just how smart she was on her own. Never too busy for you. 

“She’s graduating tomorrow,” She said to the three people waiting for an update, Spencer’s brows shooting to his hairline. He hadn’t heard from her since her last paper got sent off, and why would he? They had exchanged a few little anecdotes and doodles, sent each other research papers to be graded like teachers exchanging lecture notes, “She didn’t even tell me. She’s gonna be alone,” 

JJ grimaced, “What? What about your mom- or, or your dad, an uncle, someone-” 

“Mom and dad are out of the country, Mom’s brother lives in Mexico with his seven kids, he can barely get a night’s sleep let alone a day off to travel up to Maryland. Dad’s sisters passed away when I was a kid,” Emily explained, running a hand over her face, “I can’t let her go up there alone,”

“So we don’t,” Spencer said, as if he’d never been more sure of anything in his life, “We don’t let her do it alone,”

-

“Graduating with Masters in Biotechnology; Jasper Adams, Tom Adamson, Kristen Afkins, Gavin Agriths-” 

The dean read off the names of the students as she fiddled with the hem of her dress. 

The dress fit beautifully, her make up done to near perfection, her hair styled neatly, she was graduating with full honours for christ sakes. Why couldn’t she just be happy with what she had? Why had she got to be so spoiled? 

Lots of peoples parents missed their graduation, lots of people her age didn’t even have parents anymore, she ought to be grateful her mother was increasing famine aid in foreign countries, all the lives she would save, or even be happy her father had found a pretty, rich new wife to tour every known vacation destination with. Or even that her sister had called her just yesterday and told her in a few words she was proud of her. 

But none of them quelled the feeling of loneliness that blossomed inside Bugsy. The kind that had always been there, the kind that just wanted someone in her corner, telling her she was doing pretty good for a kid who raised herself in all those big houses they’d moved to, who saw the au pair more often than her own mother. 

All those rooms were so empty, the houses so quiet besides for her. It was like living in a cemetery. 

“Robert Lewsinsky. Marcus Linford. Tara Lorence. Katie Macauley.” 

P would be up soon. Each name of her classmates drew an applause, some whoops and screams, one family she swore there must have been ten of them in the back row cawing and howling like monkeys at a zoo, proud of their son for making it. 

She willed a smile on her face, hearing Orla Parkins get called up, and she knew just by the steward that directed her where to stand in line she was close. 

“Kenneth Patterson. Joshua Perriman. Harriet Pimms. Lauren Pintons.”

She held a rattled breath as Renly Prackett walked ahead of her, strolling over the stage to collect his degree, flashing the crowd a wide smile and a fist pump. She had always liked Renly, having been his experiment partner for a year, despite the fact he never washed up after himself in the lab. 

Then it was, her name was called. The one no one but her mother and Stephanie ever called her, she solely went by Bugsy courtesy of Emily. It was a family name, a nice one at that. Maybe it had been the fact she had been eight and her cool big sister crowned her the new name, or maybe it just rolled off the tongue better, made her feel less like a Prentiss, that she chose to go by her monika. 

She tried not to think about where or what Emily was doing, only hoping she was safe, as she began walking over the stage, her heels clicking loudly with her hesitant steps. 

To her utmost surprise she heard a loud whistle echo through the auditorium, a group of jeers and screams of her name, even an air horn signing off that had her almost tripping over her own feet turning to see who it was. 

Surely it was a joke, a cruel prank, she barely had any friends in her class. Acquaintances sure, but no one so bold as to make such a fuss over her. 

Squinting down at the audience, her cap nearly slipping off her head as her head turned to the source, she felt her chest burst when she saw the dark hair and bangs, her sisters butchered fingertips in her mouth with a loud cattle whistle, screaming like a firework right to the stage where she graciously accepted her award, despite the fact she barely paid any attention to the dean anymore, more to her sister who smiled at her widely as she clapped. Behind her, her team she’d met on the off chance, the pretty blonde, JJ, who pressed the air horn a few more times, cheering just as loud for her. Morgan, the handsome one who had stood himself on top of his chair, cupping a hand over his mouth to scream “Kicking ass, baby Prentiss!” at her, ignoring the way other people stared wide eyed at them. 

And Spencer, tall enough to be seen over the crowd even without the help of a chair, who smiled at her, clapping those big hands of his loud enough to reach her, his own whoops never ceasing even as she stepped off the stage to head back to her seat. 

The rest of the ceremony dragged, a speech from one of the alumni and the exit music playing, but she simply grinned into her hand, where her degree smiled back at her, counting down the moments she would be allowed to stand. 

And then she was fast walking down the stairs, amongst the bustle of students, the black gowns flurrying around her as she burst out into the square where parents, fiancees, brothers, sisters, cheered their loved ones, pulling them into tight hugs. 

Her eyes scanned the wave of black hats, landing on two dark eyes, the thick sable hair framing the dazzling smile that awaited her with open palms. All but shoving her way through the crowd, she stopped in front of her sister, the urge to jump at her with a hug shying the moment she got close. 

“Told you. Never too busy for you, Bug,” Emily said, pulling her in by her shoulders for a tight hug. She knew her sister wasn’t one to beg for affection, wasn’t one to let her guard drop so soon, but she also knew she’d needed it by the way she melted against her, the way she chuckled into her hair, pulled her closer. 

“Do I owe your boss another letter of apology for this or do I get you guys for free?” The girl asked, as her sister pulled away, keeping an arm around her shoulder as they turned to the rest of the team. 

“No, this one is entirely on us, promise,” JJ said with a smile as she saw Emily beaming maternally over at the girl, the flat of the cap knocking against her cheek as she squeezed her in once more, “We’re very proud of you,” 

She heated under the woman’s words, wriggling in her shoes as bad as Emily did when she felt awkward, Derek chuckling and taking the degree out of her hand. 

“Alright, lets see the creds, Prentiss,” He held it up next to her face as she shrugged, the ‘4.0’ clear as day next to her name, “Good looking, and smart. Those boys in the lab ought to watch out,”

She grinned under his teasing, “What can I say, I got the deep end of the gene pool,” She teased, feeling Emily swat her ear, her eyes falling to where Spencer held a plant pot with a poorly wrapped bow of twine around it, the soil a little displaced from the journey.

“This is for you,” He said, handing her the small green sproutling, his cheeks blushing as her face lit up, reading the small inscription on the front, “It’s-”

“Dionaea muscipula,” She said, biting her lip as she smiled at him, “This is so cool! Where on earth did- I had a paper last semester on the ways to study their electrophysiology you just have to read- oh thank you!”

“English, please?” Emily asked, though the warmth flooded her chest when her sister threw her arms around a very rigid Spencer. 

Thinking she should grab her and warn her the man disliked touch almost as much as she does, she was surprised to see him give her a small embrace back, smiling proudly the way he did when he’d made someone happy. 

“Piège à mouches Vénus,” Her sister responded cockily, tugging herself away from the tall man, to inspect her new plant, well aware that Emily rolled her eyes at her use of French, “Venus Fly Trap. I’ve never seen one so young, still I should be able to pull some slides on the Rhizomes in the soil-”

Emily put a hand to her temple, JJ smiling widely as she saw for once Spencer be the one on the receiving end of an earful, chuckling to himself when she began dishing out name ideas for the sapling. 

“Holy shit, there’s two of them,” Morgan grumbled, nudging his shoulder into Emily who simply sighed, her migraine already starting as Reid began jumping in with his own thoughts, which didn’t take much effort.

“Don’t even,” 

+3. The one where you’re taken hostage

“Tell us about the 911 call,” Spencer requests, flicking through the file himself beside her in the back seat. She had her own set of paperwork in front of her, her pen attached to a clipboard the lanyard around her neck reading her real, honest credentials, unlike the fake ones Emily and Reid were given. She’d been to one of these sects before, invited kindly as part of her research on the effect isolation has on cultivation of crops, knew one of the mother’s well from her last research paper, and had managed to get the group a foot in the door to entering the Separtarian Sect with little fuss. 

Hotch, usually hesitant to allow outsiders in on the job, especially as young and spirited as Bugsy, had to admit it would calm any potential unsubs and make them see the team as unthreatening if they had a friendly face there. He’d signed the papers with a frown that morning, and they were on their way to the little apartment the girl occupied just outside Baltimore, sample tubes stuffed into her pack ready. 

“I believe the he that they refer to is the church’s leader, Benjamin Cyrus,” Nancy, a woman from child protective services, replied from the driver's seat, Emily thumbing through her papers as they neared the compound. 

“Benjamin Cyrus, no criminal record; no record of him at all actually,” Reid replied, watching Bugsy scribbling notes into her lab book, perfecting her report before she had even begun, “What else do you know about him?” 

“The sect I spoke to before, the one in Utah, said he was rumoured to be practising polygamy and forced marriages,” The younger woman said, looking back at him with a frown, “They were much more modern in their beliefs than these guys. Last time I spoke to Marina she was happy there, I can’t see why she would want to move here,” 

Spencer looked as if he were about to answer, perhaps to tell her he was sure her contact would be just fine, when Emily shrugged and turned to Nancy. 

“Do we know who the caller is?” She asked, sipping her now lukewarm coffee out of the disposable cup. 

Nancy’s head tilted in a so-so motion, “Uh, Jessica Evansen is the one who the age fits, but we can’t be sure.”

“Well given their view on outsiders, it would be best if you didn’t identify us as FBI.” Emily instructed, handing Reid his new, fake credentials and his gun she’d kept in her bag through customs. “Just use our real names and introduce us as child victim interview experts.” Nancy nodded, the compound coming into view, the dust flurrying under the car wheels as the road turned into nothing more than a sandy path. 

A guard seemed to be expecting their arrival as he stood, unarmed at the main gate, unlatching the bolt in the middle and opening it wide for their vehicle to pass through. She nodded in thanks, her eyes flicking out the dirty window to see a collection of mobile homes surrounding a large church, a few smaller outbuildings dotted around the compound. It was quiet, not full of laughter like the last group she had been to, the children nowhere to be seen, only a few of the handier members of the flock that were either fixing up walls, trimming trees besides a man sprawled too casually on the steps of the chapel, a bible in his hands he seemed to be catching up on. 

The car pulled to a stop in front of the man that barely batted an eye at their arrival, the safety locks flicking off each of the doors, Nancy collecting her briefcase and exiting the car first. 

She had all but reached for the handle when Emily stopped her, swivelling in her seat to look her dead in the eye. 

“Your job is mediator, you got that?” Her sister had never looked more serious, but then again she did know her almost too well, “You and your field research are a… buffer between our investigation and the unsub. Just try to take the focus off what we’re doing, but do not provoke anyone,”

She raised her hands in innocence, “Got it, jeez, what could I possibly do that could ruin this investigation?” 

Emily stared back at her blankly, unnamused, as if they both knew there was a lot she could, and would, do that would blow the whole thing. 

“You look like mom when you give me that look,” She bit back, leaving the car, as Nancy spoke to the man laying on the steps, “It’s terrible,” 

“I’m looking for Mr Benjamin Cyrus?” Nancy reported, her tight, knee length skirt and blouse entirely out of place amongst the dirt track. 

“You found him,” The man replied, still not so much as granting them a glance of interest as he flicked through his passages. 

“I’m Nancy Lunde, we spoke on the phone regarding the allegation,” She replied, which was the only thing that garnered his attention as he looked up at them behind slightly bent reading glasses. 

“Savages they call us; because our manners differ from theirs,” He said, though it was clear it wasn’t entirely his own words, more likely a segment of his preach he’d repeated a handful of times. Bugsy tried to hide her disgust behind her hand tightening around her lab books she kept tightly to her chest. 

“We didn’t come here to hear you cite scripture, Mr Cyrus,” Nancy snipped as he approached the group, pocketing the glasses though he kept hold of the bible in hand as if it was part of his own arm. 

“Actually it’s Benjamin Franklin,” Spencer murmured to the woman, which had Cyrus’ cold brown eyes narrowing at the tall man, assessing for a motive.

“Emily Prentiss, Spencer Reid. They’re child victim interview experts,” Nancy introduced them quickly, the two of them flashing their badges, the unofficial ones at least. Gesturing to the youngest woman, she introduced her with her real name, his gaze flicking to her as he seemed to recognise it.

“Marina’s friend? The plant lady?” He asked, face half amused as she fought her lip from twitching into a sneer. Instead she smiled, holding out her hand. 

“That’s what they call me,” She said, shaking his hand, ignoring the way he flashed her a cheshire cat smile, “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by, Marina said I could take some samples for my research,”

He laughed, shaking his head, looking at Spencer, “Women and their flowers, right?” Spencer swallowed back a retort, shrugging his shoulders, though Bugsy’s eye twitched. Benjamin patted her on her shoulder, “Of course you can honey, I’ll find Jared, our head gardner, and you can run along for your research,” 

He said it as if she were lying, that her degree and endless hours of work would only ever chalk up to a few doodles in a notebook, or a garden full of hydrangeas, or tulips, or roses, because she couldn’t possibly care about anything else but pretty flowers. 

Nodding her head graciously, choking back the hateful response she wished to spit in his face, she gave him a polite thankyou, feeling Spencer’s eyes burning into the side of her head. 

“The children are in the school as I indicated,” Cyrus said, turning back to the other three, Emily and Nancy taking off in the direction he pointed, the former knowing her sister was at risk of blowing a fuse if they were here for long. 

Spencer hung back, partially because he had a plan of distraction in mind to allow the women a chance to speak with the children whilst Cyrus wasn’t around, partially because he didn’t want to leave Bugsy anywhere on her own. Sure, Emily had said they were both trained in self defence when they were kids, but with no weapon of her own, he was reluctant. 

“You're using solar power?” He prompted, gesturing towards where the eight blue panels warmed under the Colorado sun.

“We’re completely self-sufficient,” Benjamin nodded along, catching the impressed look on both their faces, “Electricity, food, water. Ben Franklin said ‘God helps those that help themselves,’ you look surprised,” 

“No, impressed actually,” Spencer replied, and he wasn’t entirely lying. The system was incredibly complex, particularly if they received no help from outsiders, for as many people as there were in the compound. 

“Thankyou; for admitting that,” Cyrus said earnestly, flicking his gaze back to Bugsy who studied the solar panels, “I’ll go find Jared, he can take you to the greenhouses,”

Thanking him again, he led the way towards the school where Nancy and Emily had headed, as the two of them exchanged a look, Spencer smiling half piteously, wishing he could shake her and tell her just how smart she was and that Cyrus knew absolutely nothing. 

He didn’t miss the way she walked closer to him, or how she thumbed the corner of her notebook, or how she looked back at him, biting the inside of her cheek. He thinks he might get slapped if he pointed it out, but Emily had the exact same tell when she was nervous, which is why he bumps their shoulders together in means of reassuring her he was still there. 

It was only then she gave him any sort of smile back. 

-

Jared, as expected, had been just as condescending and patronising as Benjamin whilst she slipped on her latex gloves, scooping no more than a handful of homemade fertiliser into one of her test tubes. It had been a partial cover, their story, but she had been telling the truth when she’d contacted Marina and asked if she could drop by. She’d been meaning to expand her field research in hopes of stumbling on a job opportunity since she spent most of her postgraduate days reading while her cat pawed at her leg for more treats than he deserved, the odd phone call with her sister much more common than it had been before. 

She didn’t miss the way Jared’s hand fell into the small of her back as he led her back towards the school, after having noted down a few more readings, fussing over the state of the carrots that seemed to grow entirely naturally thanks to the systems they’d been smart enough to set up. He seemed rather bored by the whole thing, for a head gardener, more interested in staring at her legs as she leaned down to identify the fat black beetle that crawled along the rockery. 

It wasn’t until they were halfway to the school that the sound of tyres on a dirt path met her ears, and she saw five armoured SUVs out the corner of her eye. 

She hadn’t even the time to question what was going on, before Jared’s face dropped, the hand gently holding the soft of her back grabbing on her forearm hard enough to leave bruises, as he was dragging her to the chapel they had seen when they had pulled up.

 Emily had said the rest of the team stayed in Quantico, if it wasn’t them, who was it. 

“Whats going on- who is that?” She asked him lamely, her feet stumbling as she half fought his heavy hand off. 

That was when the shooting started. 

She thinks it came from the compound first, she’d seen two men stationed on top of one of the outbuildings, thinking nothing much of it, until she saw clearly now the assault rifles they bore, pointing it straight at the vehicles that drew closer. The whistle of bullets, bangs of the chambers emptying their artillery, and it wasn’t until she heard the doors to the SUVs start opening, more gunfire began hitting the wall ahead of them that she started running. Running fast, for the cover the church provided until she figured out just what the fuck was happening. 

Jared all but threw her past the chapel door, where Cyrus and four other men were waiting, a heavy barricade in their hands, her chest pounding with adrenaline, she couldn’t help the yelp that left her as Cyrus whirled on her, grabbing her shoulders firmly and looking her dead in the eye. 

“Did you know anything about this?” He asked, his calm demeanour cracking when she scrambled for a response, “ANSWER ME,”

“No-no not at all.” She shook her head, voice weaker than she’d like, but the sight of more guns in the men’s hands twisted any resolve she had, “Where are the others- the- the experts-”

“Take her into the tunnels,” Cyrus ignored her question, nodding at one of his men to grab her as Jared armed himself. She felt another callused hand yank on her upper arm, and part of her wondered if that was how men handled all women here, as if they were herding cattle, as she was dragged down into the catacombs below the church. 

They’d made plans for a day like this to come, she realised. 

Her heart constricted at the sound of bullets rattling above them, she hadn't been able to tell in that last moment whether Cyrus believed her or not as, nor whether she was being taken to the tunnels for her own safety or to be questioned harder about the gunmen. 

She could only hope Emily was safe. 

She felt her tongue too big for her mouth as the man all but shoved her into the bunker, the nervous chatter of women and children, some of the more elderly men, as they clung to one another for safety, the scathing remark she would have usually made about his heavy hands failing her as she scanned the room for her sister. 

Emily was faster however, and she nearly yelped again as two bony arms yanked her into a hug, a rare one, and she knew by the blazer and the sigh of relief in her ear it was Em.

Usually she would bat her off, tell her to stop fussing like a mother hen, but today she embraced her right back, trying to note if her sister had any bullet holes in her before she allowed herself the same relief. 

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Emily asked, the whole thing coming out in a slew of worry, and she nodded, pulling away as if she needed to see the proof in person. 

Bugsy’s eyes were wild, as if she were a doe in a meadow hearing a rifle cocking near. No scratch that, she was a doe being chased and shot at and hunted, narrowly escaping being mounted on a wall. 

“They were all shit shots,” Bugsy said, through a laugh she didn’t quite mean, “You would have done much better.” 

Patting her sister on the shoulder, Emily finally released her when she realised the humour meant she at least had her head on her shoulders. Spencer watched her with meticulous eyes, knowing the shock that registered on her face, knowing it was the same one he wore when he first had shots fired at him. He saw her own eyes quickly check him over, satisfied with a breath of relief when she saw they were both fine. 

“Where’s Lunde?” Emily asked, and she realised then Cyrus had followed her down into the shelter, two of his men grabbing handfuls of guns she had never seen before, likely imported out of country, and returning to the ground level, preparing for more shooting. 

“It wasn’t us,” Cyrus replied, as if that negated the fact their recklessness had gotten the agent killed. 

“What? You can’t shoot it out with the cops, you have children in here,” Emily seethed, her voice harsh and incredulous.

“I didn’t start this,” Cyrus bit back, looking towards his men as they grabbed boxes on boxes of ammunition, “I’ll take the front, you take the roof,” 

And with that they stormed their way back through the tunnels, leaving the three of them to look between each other, knowing this could only end badly. Knowing the only people that could figure out how to get them out of this mess was the BAU, all 1,700 miles away. 

–

They’d been in the bunker for fourteen hours when there was finally movement. The shooting seemed to have quietened down, in which Spencer whispered it was around 11pm and it was likely neither party had a clear shot. She’d managed to fall asleep leaning against the wall, Emily’s blazer draped over her legs. She’d regretted wearing cropped pants, despite how the shade of green complimented her eyes nicely, and she’d been shivering by the time she fell asleep, Emily’s hands stroking her hair gently as if she knew she was struggling to relax. 

She hadn’t realised she was staring at her little sister, frowning even as she slept, which made part of her want to laugh, until she caught Spencer’s tired eyes looking between them, something knowing and warm in his gaze. 

“You know, she’s always scowled in her sleep, ever since she was born,” Emily said, quiet enough it didn’t interrupt the hum of small snores, the odd baby cry that filled the bunker, but loud enough for him to smile at her, “She used to sleep walk terrible too. I’d find her in the kitchen trying to make pancakes with a cheese grater. It’s like that big brain of hers doesn’t know how to shut off,” Emily shook her head with a fatigue, rubbing her eyes. 

“Was it weird? Being fourteen years older?” Spencer asked, his own hands shoved into his sleeves to try defend from the draught. Emily thought for a moment, her hand slowing for a second on her sister's hair, before she answered. 

“I felt guilty leaving her in that house with my mom when I went to college,” Emily answered, Bugsy unconsciously tucking her face closer into the jacket, “I think part of her kind of hated me for it for a while.” She went quiet, the shame in her voice thick as the silence that encompassed them, “She’s never been very affectionate you know? Before her graduation I don’t think I’d hugged her in twelve years,”

Spencer held himself back from pointing out that she had been just as touchy with him since they’d met, and that maybe it was Emily’s own regret that seemed to shut the both of them down. He wasn’t one to rub salt in the wound, not since he’d gotten this job and learned to watch what he said. 

He didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to give her advice, knowing the whole subject of their slowly repairing relationship was a sore one. He had no siblings of his own, had a mother who loved him despite how much she grappled with her own mind, and he had only known the girl briefly enough to consider her a friend at a push. 

“I always thought the two of you were similar,” Emily chose to continue, offering him a small smile. He returned it, his face blushing at the fact that was a huge compliment to him, “Granted, you roll your eyes at me less and don’t act like I’m dumb, but you remind me of her,” 

“Thankyou, I wish that were true,” He replied, eyes flicking to her sleeping form, the way her eyebrows were indeed scrunched in a permanent frown. He wondered if she was actually angry, or if she was just thinking hard, perhaps her dreams were full of equations or labs she needed to sort through. Either way, he wanted to know. “She’s much cooler than I’ll ever be,” 

Emily snorted, shuffling against the wall to cosy herself, “That’s one way to put it,” She said, smiling over at him as he did the same, his head resting against the wall, Bugsy’s legs stretching out to knock against his feet, and he didn’t mind that she scuffed the bottom of his already dirty trousers. “Get some sleep,”

And so they did. 

–

Cyrus had corralled the whole flock into the church, where the shooting had stopped and the bodies had been removed, stating at the break of dawn that there was a hostage negotiator coming in to make sure everyone was safe before they made any deals. 

She sat next to Spencer, the three of them stiff from their sleeping arrangements, and her stomach churned with hunger. It had been over 24 hours since they’d gotten here, and besides the small bit of bread and water Cyrus gave everyone for breakfast, she was starving. 

“Remind me to never leave the house, ever again,” She grumbled, as everyone waited in the pews for the negotiator to arrive, “My cat is gonna be pissed I’ve not fed him,” 

“Since when did you get a cat?” Emily inputted from the other side of Reid, keeping one eye on the door in case any agents start shooting again. 

The girl shrugged, “I got lonely, there’s not much to do now I’m not studying anymore,” 

Reid watched how she clutched her stomach, feeling his own complaining at the lack of nutrition, “Morgan wasn’t lying when he said you should sign up for the academy. We could always use the help, we wouldn’t have solved that case in Baltimore without you,” 

She snickered, nudging his foot with her boot, “You’re being modest, you would have done it just fine,”

He was a little, wasn’t surprised she called his bluff either. “Okay, so probably yes- but it would have taken us a whole lot longer. Mr Chernus likely would have died,” 

She shook her head, glancing at Emily who watched her carefully, “That was all you guys. I just translated.”

Emily and Spencer exchanged a glance, leaning back in their uncomfortable seats calmly. 

“You’re probably right,” Spencer said, dusting the dirt off his trousers, “Probably couldn’t handle it, high intensity mind games and such,”

She blanched, looking at him as if he’d grown a second head, not knowing him to be so brutally honest, realistic yes, but not bordering on rude. 

“And it’s a lot of work,” Emily jumped in, her mouth a straight line, “I don’t know if you’d be dedicated enough,”

Bugsy scoffed, indifferently. “I have a masters degree, I was offered a scholarship to do a PHD, asked to be an assistant professor at Yale, I can work hard, Emily,” She snipped, and perhaps she was particularly just hangry or they had struck a nerve with their doubt, “and I could do it if I wanted to, I’d have the best shot they’d ever seen, guaranteed- mom made me take lessons when you left- trust me I could do it-”

She shut up when she saw their small smile exchanged, as if she’d told them a joke, or moreso they’d had the same identical thought and that alone was hilarious. 

Scowling at them, she looked from where Spencer looked almost, almost, guilty at making her the butt of the joke, to where Emily had a ‘told you so’ smirk, and she kissed her teeth at their childishness. 

“Are you guys reverse psychology-ing me? Seriously, so original guys,” She snapped, crossing her arms and straightening herself in her seat, ignoring the snigger that passed between them. 

“You’re not wrong though,” Emily replied quietly as Cyrus walked past them, his eyes falling to them with a frown. Bugsy kept her head down, heeding Emily’s warning of not provoking anyone, and Spencer eyed the way she leaned closer to him.

If she was going to retaliate, whether agreeing or not, she stopped herself, the doors the church opening and an older gentleman walking through the doors, arms full of supplies she’d figured must have been part of the negotiation. He was patted down by an armed guard, searching for his own weapons do doubt, or a wire perhaps, as he handed the box over to another who took it without a thankyou. 

“Rossi,” She heard Reid whisper beside her, and from the look he shot Emily and Spencer she gathered he was from the BAU, just as they’d expected. His eyes fell on her, softening as alot of Emily’s team did when they saw the two of them, as if they were picking her face apart for the tiny ways in which she resembled their Prentiss, or maybe it was the way she curled up in her seat, tired, hungry, on the defence. He just looked sorry for her. 

 “The children,” Cyrus said with no greeting, the air between them particularly frosty. He gestured towards the three of them, though Rossi had already clocked their tired faces staring at him with worry, “And our guests,”

She saw him trying not to react, guessing they had not let it slip to Cyrus he worked with the two undercover FBI agents, looking away from them as if the sight of their forlorn figures was enough to turn him sick. 

Judging by the way Cyrus and he spoke quietly, tensely, Bugsy just hoped they had a plan to get them out of here soon as he soon left with a rigid handshake to the man keeping them hostage. 

–

The three of them had been moved to a backroom a few hours later. Her stomach ached, the little sustenance Rossi had brought being distributed to the community before they’d been offered anything, which hadn’t left much. Reid and Emily had tried to get her to take some of their sharing, and despite how her insides cried out for it, she declined, stating they would be more use than she would; that they needed their strength more than her if they were going to get out of here alive. 

The two of them hadn’t liked that answer judging by the frowns on their faces, but they sat in their seats with little fuss as they waited for things to quieten down after Cyrus’ staged “mass suicide” that had turned out to be nothign more than a test of loyalty and grape juice. 

They had been sat in silence, aside from her foot bouncing on the floor impatiently, as she picked at the threads on her pants, the material uncomfortable on her skin after a day of wearing it. The door slammed open, Cyrus entering the room with nasty scowl. She didn’t know what had changed in the man in a matter of hours as he stormed over to them, two of his men behind him, loaded rifles in their arms. 

This was not good. 

“Which one of you is it?” He asked almost too calm for his demeanour, his eyes flicking between the three of them, where Emily attempted to brush her hair using her fingers, Reid played with the hem of his cardigan, an she sat beside him, resting against the cold stone wall behind them, her eyes narrowing at his furious expression. 

The three of them remained silent, waiting for him to explain more, though clearly it was not the answer he was looking for as he threw his jacket open, revealing a loaded pistol tucked into his jeans. Drawing it into his dominant hand, her body tensed up, her back straightening like a rod as she looked up at him through fear. 

“Which one of you is the FBI agent?” He repeated in that same calm tone, and her heart fell through her stomach. 

She opened her mouth to say something in retaliation, though the way she saw his hand shaking with fury, she knew it was better to stay quiet in case her voice would be the final straw that made him trigger happy. 

“Why do you think one of us is an FBI agent?” Spencer replied softly, and if he was panicking even a fraction amount she was he held it back, though his eyes flicked to Emily. 

But it was a tell. The smallest movement alone was a tell he was lying, or perhaps it was the fact he’d answered a question with one of his own, distracting from the attention on them with the unsubs own answers. Maybe his quiet and calm showed how trained he was for a situation like this, showed he had gone up against bad guys before and won. 

Whatever it was about him, it had Cyrus cocking the barrel of the gun straight at Spencer’s temple. 

“God forgive me for what I must do,” The preacher murmured, his finger moments away from the trigger, when she lurched forward in her seat, hand shooting out to grab his wrist deathly tight. 

“It’s me,” 

She hadn’t realised she’d said it until the room went quiet. She thought for a moment it had come from Emily, Emily had always been the braver of the two of them, but it wasn’t until Cyrus’ unforgiving, dark gaze fell to her where she froze in her spot, that she understood her mouth had been the one moving. 

Emily looked as if she was about to vomit, Spencer looked dumbfounded, but all she could do was stare back at Cyrus as if to will herself not to back down, knowing all three of them could fall victim if she gave them reason to doubt her; he could kill all three of them just to be sure the mystery agent was dealt with.

“It’s me,” She repeated, voice stronger this time, and she felt her chest relax just the tiniest amount as he turned the gun away from Spencer’s head. 

He stared back at her for a moment, before the weapon smacked across her face in a sharp whip, her cheekbone crying out in a sting she knew was going to bruise. 

He grabbed her hair at the nape of her neck, yanking her into a stand hard enough she yelped, despite not wanting to give him the satisfaction of the torture. 

“Watch the other two,” Cyrus barked, dragging her out of the room as she squirmed under his hand, feeling it only tighten into an unforgiving pull. 

She barely caught Emily bolting out of her seat to yell at the other men, all but fighting in their heavy grasp to follow wherever it was he was taking her, only for the door to be slammed shut behind them. 

It was only then she realised how fucked she truly was. 

–

She struggled to breath through the blood clotting in her nose. She didn’t think it was broken, not that she could check where her hands had been tied to the bedpost, tape over her mouth to stop her calling for help, her feet bound. She’d done nothing but give him hell as he’d been laying into her, keeping her cries and groans of pain silent as he’d kicked her in the ribs hard enough to know he’d damaged something at least. 

She’d not made it easy for him to tie her down, worried about what they were planning next, she’d managed to headbutt him in the mouth, and the way he clutched at his jaw when he’d left gave her a sick satisfaction, though her temple now hurt more than she’d like to admit. But they’d only covered her mouth after she’d screamed obscenities at them for an hour or so, hoping to attract attention, hoping if the BAU were on their way, Emily and Reid would be able to find her fast before they could dispose of her. 

Bugsy didn’t want to go like this. Tied up like cattle, gagged and beaten, the spirit kicked out of her as the dehydration gnawed at her limbs, making her too weak to even try wriggling out of the binds. 

She felt herself dropping off to sleep, or maybe it was a concussion, he’d slammed her face into that mirror quite viciously, she wouldn’t be surprised if it had rattled her head around. Fighting with her eyelids to stay open, she jumped in her battered skin as the door unlatched, and she thrashed on the rickety bed to get away from the impending second beating. 

But it wasn’t Cyrus. A fawn haired woman entered, her eyes falling on the girl on the bed, where blood trickled down her cheek, pouring from her nose like a thick liquor. Frowning, she was on high alert as the woman approached, a small, damp cloth in her hand. 

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you honey,” She hushed, approaching the young girl. Bugsy didn’t believe her for one second, her head pulling away from her as far as it could, her eyes wild and distrustful as the woman kneeled down beside the bed. “I’m Kathy,”

Bugsy debated jabbing an elbow in her face then and there, telling her in few words to stay as far away from her as possible, that the moment she was free she didn’t care who she hurt; she was getting out of here even if she had to crawl. 

“That woman’s your sister right?” The blonde said, and the words stopped her heart for a moment, giving the woman the chance to run the cloth over the dribble of blood, “Emily,”

“Where is she?” She tried to ask, but the gag made it little more than a muffled cry, the woman’s eyes turning down in sadness. Pity. Bugsy hated every second of it.

“She’s okay, she’s worried about you though,” Kathy said, wiping under her nose, making her wince at the feeling, “Put up a hell of a fight after they took you away,” 

She must have rolled her eyes, or perhaps it was just telling on her face that that didn’t surprise her as the older woman wiped over the superficial cut on her forehead she hadn’t realised was deep until the cloth went over it and she yawped like a dog having it’s tail pulled. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Kathy cooed, and she seemed genuinely guilty as she did. She tutted, shaking her head, fighting the urge to smooth the girls hair down the way she did when her own daughter was upset, “Emily said they’ll be coming for us at 3am, Cyrus has a mass suicide planned but they think they can stop him, you just have to hold on a little longer honey,” 

“I want to see her,” Bugsy tried to talk again despite her mouth being covered, only for it to come out unintelligible once more. Huffing, she resigned herself to glaring at the ceiling, biting back frustrated tears. Kathy seemed to want to say something else, but thought better of it as the twenty something year old turned away from her to stare out the window, as if she were being dismissed. 

Sighing, she rose from the bed and headed for the door, praying the FBI would get them out in time, before Cyrus put his plan into action. 

–

Bugsy didn’t start panicking until it hit 2:50. She’d managed to kick the small analogue clock on the beside into working, the red numbers seeming to take a millenia to change over. 

Yet it wasn’t until 3am neared, and the hallways remained silent, did she start to wonder if Kathy had been telling the truth at all. What if they had found out Emily and Reid were FBI and not her? What if they’d already been caught?

She really had wanted to see Emily, wanted to scream at the woman, who had meant well, to bring her sister to her or she would make every damn bible basher in this compound regret the day they were born. She felt helpless. She despised feeling helpless. 

It was only when she heard shots rattling from outside did the cold fear set in. 2:52. Any minute now. 

It was then an even worse thought struck her. What if they didn’t bother to come for her? Reid and Emily were safe downstairs, at least that was how Kathy had made it seem. If they got the women and children, the agents out first, she wondered if they would leave her for last since she wasn’t their top priority. 

2:53 stared back at her. 

At least Emily would make it. She was more important, had more going for her. She was supposed to be an only child anyway, mom had said it herself. Bugsy was the product of a failing marriage and a shared bottle of 1896 Bourbon that had been a wedding gift they’d never opened. 

2:54.

She could have sworn she tore something the way her head snapped to the door as it swung open on its hinges, as if two large men had thrown their weight into it. But it wasn’t two men at all, just one frantic Derek Morgan with an FBI grade assault rifle. 

The relief in his eyes was immediate, and he pulled a pocket knife from his boot, rushing over to where she lay, almost in shock, wondering if he was real at all, her heart pounding as she heard shouting in the corridor. 

“I’m gonna get you out, kid,” The man promised, slinging his gun over his shoulder as he sliced through the rope on her ankles, her eyes trained on the 2:55 that watched them as if to laugh at them. 

She whimpered, cursing behind her gag when she heard footsteps pounding through the hallway, and she was sure they were going to get caught. She thought then it would have been better if they’d forgotten about her, that at least Derek would have been safe, and he could have made sure the children got out safely, could have gotten Spencer and Emily medical. 

Derek whirled on the doorway the same as she did as a tall figure all but skidded around the corner, his legs weak as hers felt, too long and not at all built for running. Clumsy almost. 

Spencer. She should have known from the way he looked white as a sheet the moment he saw her it was him, but maybe she really did have concussion, as it seemed within moments he was fussing over her face, tearing a little too sharply at the tape over her mouth. 

She thinks she groaned, or maybe cursed him out, as he started apologising immediately, his eyes a puppy kind of sad as she stared up at him, Derek handing him the knife to cut her arms free. 

He was talking, but she couldn’t make a lot of it out, just that he was really sorry, it was 2:56 now. It was like her brain switched itself back on when she realised she was free, and the two of them were trying to haul her to her feet. 

“Come on, princess, we gotta get out of here,” Derek said, as Spencer looped an arm around her waist, helping her limp across the room where her weak limbs did little to hold her upright, her ribs throbbing with every step, “We managed to stop Cyrus from detonating it manually, but the circuits are all still live,”

Morgan took the lead with the rifle, knowing some of Cyrus’ men had stayed to look for them, that they would go down with the building even though he’d already shot their leader the moment they’d breached the front door, because that was how loyal they were. They’d proven so already with the wine. 

She kept her groans behind tight lips as they made it down the stairs, knowing Spencer didn’t mean to hold her bruised bones so tight, that he was just worried and her legs were doing the bare minimum to keep them both moving very fast. It wasn’t until they made it within a few feet of the door that they seemed to pick up the pace.

And she saw why. 

Jesse, Cyrus’ child bride that had been the reason they’d come here in the first place was holding the detonator, her face tear streaked at the sight of her husband and prophet dead on the floor, the people responsible all but dragging a lame girl through the foyer and to the doors as if they hadn’t killed a handful of her flock tonight. 

Bugsy saw the moment Jesse decided she wanted vengeance on them, but then, she guessed Spencer had already acted as he slung one of her arms over his shoulder, yanking her out the front door in a matter of seconds as Morgan pulled up the rear, and the two men shoved her down behind the small wall outside the church steps. 

Bugsy expected the bang to be louder as the rubble flew over their heads, the floor shaking with the impact of the bomb detonating, and it was then she realised one of Derek’s large warm hands held her head into his shoulder, protecting her already rattled skull as best as he could. Spencer had done the same, throwing half his body over her back as he covered his ears, the two men tucking into the wall tightly and waiting for the dust to settle. 

Spencer started coughing first, though his position over her never faltered, and she heard his chest wheezing, and knew they needed to move away from the thick smog that blew into their faces. Morgan released her ear, tipping her head back to check her over once more. 

“Kid! You okay?” He fretted, noticing the way her nose had started bleeding again from all the movement; the way the bruise had already started blotching her cheek from where Cyrus pistol whipped her. 

“I didn’t think you’d come for me,” Was all she could say, and Derek thought it was the saddest he’d ever heard her. 

Reid was pulling her to her feet then, where he was still hovering over her, despite the fact the blast had already cleared,  still sputtering and hocking up a lung, but it didn’t stop her from throwing herself at his middle, burying her face in his dusty sweater, not caring one bit if he jostled her aching ribs. 

He was trying to be gentle with her as he squeezed her back, but she knew by the way he pressed his face into her hair he needed it just as badly. 

“You saved my life,” He said, his long arms wrapping around her waist, hauling her whole body against his. 

She laughed through a cough, their cheeks brushing past one another as she pulled him in tighter, thankful, relieved. 

“You saved mine,” 

And then she heard Emily. Emily, who sounded frantic and heartbroken as she called for her, her voice breaking as if she was crying, or atleast on the verge of, and as comforting as Spencer’s long arms around her cracked ribs were, she needed to see her sister was okay. 

Ripping herself from his embrace immediately, she tore off after the sound, and there she was. Her older sister, who had always seemed immovable, like she wouldn’t so much as budge for a bucking horse, like water couldn’t drown her, or however many unsubs she’d faced could stop her from catching them. Her older sister, who looked like she’d taken a few punches of her own, judging by the blood on her blue blouse, that looked around the crowd of fleeing people with watery eyes and a shaking bottom lip.

“EMILY,” She yelled, her voice a bleat, a lamb calling for its mother, as she sprinted down the steps, whatever strength she had left carrying her to where Emily was rushing towards her, taking the stairs in threes, “EM-”

She crashed into her sister’s chest, and it was only then she started crying. 

“I swear I’ll never give you trouble again, I’ll never talk back, I’ll never be a bitch ever again-” It was all a slew of mumbles against her sisters shirt, that was beginning to wet through at the rate the tears were coming, “I thought he was going to shoot you-”

“I was so scared, Bug, oh my god,” Emily murmured into her hair, squeezing the life out of her baby sister that sniffled and sobbed, “You don’t ever, ever do that to me again,”

Bugsy shook her head, clawing at Emily’s back as she pulled her closer, feeling Emily stroking her hair softly to calm her even in the slightest. They stayed like that until she managed to wrangle her sobs into little sniffs, the fire burning her eyes where it burned the rest of the church to ashes. 

She stayed with Emily for a month after that. 

+4. The one where you leave the altar. 

She knew she was turning heads, walking down the street of a drizzly day in Virginia, hair wet and sticking to her face, makeup running down her cheeks, and the sodden, dove white wedding dress clasped in her hands as she paced towards the government building. 

Whether the guards recognised her as the Ambassador’s daughter, or whether they really didn’t want to get into it with a bride looking like that on her day, she didn’t know, but they opened the door for her nonetheless, exchanging raised brows as a trail of wet followed her gown over the marble floors. 

Heading up the desk, she flashed her driver's licence, which was enough to gain her a visitors pass she didn’t bother putting to use as she headed for the elevator, her ballet pumps squeaking under the body of the dress. Waiting for the doors to start closing when she finally let a few tears slip, burying her face into her cold, drenched palms, undoubtedly making the mess of mascara even worse. 

Her heart gave a leap when she heard someone stop the doors, hoping she could get to her sister with little delay, and she quickly wiped her face with whatever was left of her pretty, dobby cloth shawl she had yanked on before she’d ran. 

Whatever excuse she was about to give, whatever one liner she was about to drop to clear the awkwardness this agent was about to walk in on was sucked out of her when she saw Spencer staring at her, his briefcase in his hands he’d used to hold the doors, a wide eyed look plastered on his face as soon as he saw her state. 

“Bugsy,” It was somewhere between surprise and sadness, jumping into the elevator before the metal could shut again, the button for the sixth floor already lit up in a ring of red, “What are you- I didn’t even know…”

“Spencer!” As seemed to be a common occurrence between them now, she threw two very cold arms over his shoulders, tugging him for a hug he quickly reciprocated, feeling like she needed it in the moment, “It was so awful, I just couldn’t all those people staring at me, and he- I just feel so-”

“Hey slow down,” He soothed, slipping his favourite cardigan off his body to put over her shoulders, ignoring the way he cringed as it quickly got sodden, “Let’s get you to Emily, I’m sure we can fix this,”

She nodded, though he could tell she was still shaken up, the elevator dinging to a stop on the fifth floor where an agent looked ready to step in, his face dropping when he saw the sight. 

“Sorry, we’re full,” Spencer said, with little room for discussion, pressing the button to close the doors once more, and taking her by the elbow as she began shivering, “We’re gonna be just fine, you look beautiful,”

She laughed sadly with a roll of her eyes, the tears sticking to her cheeks. She knew she looked no better than a drowned rat, windswept and disgruntled, her dress full of muck from the street. 

“Thankyou, Spencer,” She mumbled, the door sliding open to the sixth floor, where Penelope and her everlasting smile greeted her favourite boy genius. 

She almost dropped her glitter pen when she saw the woman stood next to him looking like Dorothy dragged through the twister. 

“Oh you poor little lamb, what has happened to you honey!” She all but cried, the cute little pom poms in her hair bouncing as she brought Bugsy closer, taking her hands tightly. “Your hands are ice! You’ll catch cold with that wet hair, and your gorgeous dress-” 

“Garcia,” Spencer cut her off, though the woman didn’t seem to mind being manhandled into the kind grip, he guessed her state had her letting her guard down, “This is Bugsy, Emily’s little sister.”

Penelope gasped, her ponytails swishing around some more, the gems on her glasses as bright as the light in her eyes as she yanked the younger girl in for a tight hug. 

“It is so nice to meet you! Emily talks about you all the time,” She said, pulling away and fumbling through her pockets for her fresh pink handkerchief she always carried around, mopping up the girl's eyeliner. 

“She-she does?” Bugsy asked, sniffling, her body trembling as the AC beat down through the water ladened on her body. 

“Of course she does, come on, let’s go get you coffee, I have a new machine in my office that makes the best espresso-” Garcia grabbed her hand as if they were kids in the playground, as if she’d known the girl years, which she sort of had. She had, of course, stalked every single one of Emily’s known relatives, even a distant cousin that never left Europe, and that had thrown up the quiet corner of the internet that Bugsy took up.

“I needed to talk to my sister, if that’s okay,” Bugsy braved enough to say, the swishing of her dress on the carpet making her wince, practically hearing the gallon of rain that soaked the expensive fabric. 

“Ofcourse! How silly of me, I’ll bring it out right to you, little bug. You just go with Spencer,” Handing him the handkerchief, she set off towards her ‘bat cave’ in search of a hot beverage for the shivering woman, “Spencer, clean her makeup!” 

He did as he was told, dabbing the water off her face as he led her to the BAU, where Emily and Morgan sat on their desks, chatting as they finished off lunch, Emily flicking through photos on her phone of baby Henry that JJ had sent over to her that morning from maternity leave. 

“He’s just the sweetest little boy, he’s got the biggest blue eyes just like Jayj,” She said through a smile, “You know Will even said-”

“Holy shit-” Morgan cut her off, and she glanced at him, wondering about his use of a curse. Following his eyes over her shoulder, she swivelled in her position to see where Spencer led a very wet, shaken version of her little sister through the doors of the BAU, a snowy ball gown hanging off her, a veil clinging to her hair that had seen much better days. 

“Holy shit,” She agreed, immediately darting for the girl that tugged Spencer’s cardigan tighter to her body, “Bugsy,” 

“Emily, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t take up too much time- I just couldn’t do it- and I know mom’s always saying ‘Bring home a doctor, bring home a rich man,’ but I just couldn’t no matter how rich his daddy is, he wasn’t even too bad-” It all came out in a slur, not making too much sense, and she didn’t stop until Emily held up her hands, as if easing a wild dog. 

“Woah, take it easy, kiddo,” Morgan hushed, as Emily brought a hand over her sister’s cheek, wiping away the last of the mascara, “What happened?”

Bugsy took a deep breath, looking between Emily and Derek, feeling the rain drip down her back. 

“So a few weeks ago, Mom made me go to that stupid debutante ball,” She started, rolling her eyes already as Emily winced, knowing Elizabeth loved any excuse to dress her youngest up like a Barbie doll. 

“I hated those things,” She confessed, shaking her head, “I thought you’d agreed you didn’t have to go to them anymore,”

“That was while I was in college, she said at least I could focus on my studies,” The girl explained, as Garcia tottered back through the office, a steaming cup of coffee in her beloved Bratz mug. Taking it from the chirpy woman, she took a deep gulp, not caring if it burned her mouth as she wished for the damn chill to go away, “Thankyou- But she made me go to this one on the condition she would pay off some of my college loans, and I was dumb enough to fall for her bribe,” 

She huffed, taking another sip, her stomach warming with the hot liquid settling through her throat. 

“You know how she is at these things, she knows everyone, and everyone knows her. I had four guys asking for my dance card within minutes of arriving there, it was like trying to walk through a dog pound wearing a meat suit, all the hand holding, trying to touch my waist- one guy even called me Madam Prentiss,” She grimaced, shuddering at the thought of it, “Madam? No one even calls mom that-”

“Focus,” Emily reminded gently, and she seemed to nod to herself, setting back on track.

“Right. And then he was there. Byron Hastings.” Bugsy said, wrapping her hands around the mug some more. 

“Oh, isn’t he that super yummy bachelor that just inherited his fathers business?” Garcia jumped in, not noticing how it made her wince, “I hear his dad totally owns a bunch of shares in Facebook and as like just signed a deal with a new company that will change the future of computing-” 

“Not now, baby girl,” Morgan said calmly, patting Penelope on her shoulder when she saw the bride’s crestfallen face.

“Right, sorry. Your turn, little bug,” She said, shaking her head and fiddling with her dozen rings. 

“Yeah, that’s him.” She replied, running a slightly warmed finger over her eyelash where rain even collected there, “And you know, I wasn’t complaining, he was certainly easy on the eyes, and he smelled nice, like he just smelled rich, but man alive he was so boring,” She sighed, “I like computers as much as the next girl, no offence, but he didn’t once ask me what I was into or, and when I tried to bring up my degree he just patted me on the head and said ‘That’s nice’ like I was some child that had brought him a pretty colouring or something,”

“Ouch,” Emily grimaced, rubbing her arms over the cardigan to warm her up a little more, “And then?” 

“And eventually, his dad and my mom cut a deal that we’d make a good pair. He said we could be married within the season, and suddenly everyone seemed up for it, and it was like no matter how hard I tried to dig my heels in, no one would listen, and mom just seemed so pleased with me-” She spluttered, sipping her drink to catch her breath, “I just let it happen and just thought, you know, maybe we could learn to like each other, or we could just be like mom and dad and separate in everything but paper,” 

“It’s your life, who is she to tell you how you’re gonna live it,” Emily was outraged, the tip of her nose pink, her dark eyes stormy as her hands fell to her hips, huffing as if it had been her backed into a corner, “I can’t believe she would do this to you,” 

“I was fine with it, really. It's not like its the fifteenth century when I’d be forced to consummate- anyway,” Bugsy rubbed her face, “I just got there, and mom put on my veil and told me I’d make a lovely Mrs Hastings, and just the sound of it- I couldn’t-”

“What on earth is going on?” A new voice cut through the BAU, and the group disbanded like kids caught trading answers to the homework. Rossi and Hotch stood by the unit chief’s office, brows furrowed at the wet bride and his team that tended to her as if she were a princess. 

“Should we be expecting four wet bridesmaids too?” Rossi asked, the two of them making the steps down to the floor, approaching the guilty faced woman, noting Spencer’s cardigan wrapped over her shoulders. 

“Nope, just me,” Her joke fell flat as she met the stony face of Aaron Hotchner, who looked thoroughly unimpressed, “Nice to see you again, Mr Hotchner, sir,” 

His gaze slid to Emily, mouth opening to share whatever scathing remark bounced around his mouth, but the younger girl beat him to it, everyone’s eyebrows raising when she all but cut him off. 

“This wasn’t on Emily, sir, I just showed up out of the blue, I can go- I’ll go- I just need to figure out where I’m staying since I left my purse at the church- don’t you worry I’ll be out of your hair, Aaro- sir,” Bugsy stammered, plonking the mug onto Emily’s desk, backing away to the doors of the office, clutching her visitor pass tight in her fist. 

Maybe it was because she looked so hopeless, or maybe it was the way his team shot him the same look of horror he would be so regimental, or maybe even it was the fact part of her reminded him of Sean, only his brother wouldn’t have had the courtesy to apologise for his mess. 

Sighing, he gestured her to come back, “Wait,” He said her name, her government name because the other one didn’t fit right in his mouth, “Reid, get her some clothes out your go bag. Emily, tell your mother she’s safe and will be staying in Quantico until you can figure something out,” 

Heaving a sigh of relief, she launched her still sodden form at the chief, wrapping him in a stiff hug, bolder than anyone else on the team had ever dared to be. 

“I swear to god, Mr Hotchner, the next letter you're getting will be the best one yet,” She mumbled into his hard chest, and he fought off the way the corners of his lips twitched upwards. Patting her on the back gently, he ignored the way his dress shirt wet through. 

–

let me know what you think! mAYBE A FEW MORE PARTS COMING UP ??

Edit: This is a part one of 3 or 4 I have planned, thankyou so much for all the love on this I did not expect the reaction 🥺🥺

SECOND EDIT: part two and three are out now!! Have a look at the top where it says ‘next chpt and it’s there bbys!!

THIRD EDIT: we are now balls deep into this universe here's th link for the masterlist

[lilacgaby]

6:21 a.m

husband!bakugo experiences one moment of what you deal with everyday with your kids.

you were currently cuddled into katsuki's chest, fast asleep.

in between taking care of your newborn son and your toddler daughter, he knew you were exhausted out of your mind. he already had to return to hero work since he took a month off for your last few weeks pregnant, but he wasn't home all day besides the weekends. like today.

speaking her into existence, his toddler daughter slowly waddled over to your side of the bed, about to pat you on the back and awaken you.

"tsk. hey, no." he whispered, making her pout. "i wanna play." she said, crossing her arms. she rubbed her eyes, obviously still a bit sleepy herself.

"mommy is sleeping, she can't play it's bedtime. go back to bed." he said, hoping to every single deity that'd hear him that she wouldn't start crying.

she pouted even more now, before stomping her feet over to his side of the bed and pulling on him. "nooo, i dont wanna sleep!" she said, her voice getting loud.

"don't yell at me missy, use your inside voice." he rolled his eyes, paying attention to your body that seemed to always be on high alert stirring slightly. he soothed you back to sleep, before untangling himself from you and sitting on the corner of your shared bed, now face to face with your daughter.

"we're going to your room and you're going to sleep, unless you want to be put in time out." her eyes widened, her crossed arms dropping as she decided to start negotiating.

"two bedtime stories, go fish, and uno."

"one bedtime story, one go fish game, and i won't tell your mom this happened."

"and pancakes for breakfast." she ordered.

she nodded to herself, seeming happy with the arrangement. she grabbed onto his sweatpants, trying to pull him off to her room already.

"i'm going, im going."

he was heading out, until he heard the whines of his son start sounding out from the baby monitor, making both him and his daughter freeze.

she tugged on his pants, "the baby's crying."

he sighed. "i know." he was squinting his eyes in the dark environment trying to see if you had woken up. after he saw no movement, he ran to go get your son.

he picked him up in his arm and then followed his daughter to her room across the hallway. he proceeded to play go fish one handed, occasionally asking his son, who was drinking a bottle of formula, for 'help', which made his daughter say "you're cheating!"

he read them 'goldilocks and the three bears', which he kept having to reread pages because he 'wasn't doing the voices good enough' in his daughter's opinion.

his voice, still husky because he was half-asleep, soothed his son to sleep in his arms, and his daughter back to sleep.

he layed his son down in the cot in your shared room, too lazy to go back to the nursery.

like puzzle pieces, you fit back into one another, your head back in his chest and his laid on top of yours. he was glad you got to sleep the entire time, even though he knew you had woken up because of your daughter's loud nature, you managed to go back to sleep.

a win was a win, he thought as he went back to sleep.

and woke up with his daughter hugging your back, sticking her toungue out at him when he asked why she was even there again. making you laugh when you woke up to his scrunched up face of annoyance.

as he made the chocolate chip pancakes, your daughter clung to your side as your son laid in your chest, he thought about how having kids was one of the best decisions he'd ever made.

"hurry up and give me more! you always give mommy the better pancakes!"

most of the time.

[2cupids]

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓𝐘 | 𝐤. 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐨 𝐱 𝐟!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

warnings — lactation kink, mommy kink, choso cums in his pants <3. mdni (17+).

choso loves holding your heavy, swollen tits full of milk for your newborn baby. you saw this as your husband being thoughtful and caring, thinking he was always gently massaging them because you mentioned how it felt a bit uncomfortable at times.

when in reality that’s far from the truth.

choso kept his hands glued to your boobs because he couldn’t get enough of the way it felt when your tits would leak, seeping through the fabric of your shirt and wetting the material along with his hands in the process, resulting in him getting hard within a matter of seconds.

even when he wasn’t touching them, the moment he heard the annoyance in your voice of having to clean yourself up again, his eyes were fixed on your blouse. he felt bad knowing there was nothing he could do to help, but it was an extreme turn on for him.

his heart ached every time seeing that it was all going to waste as your top drank it all up instead of him and his mouth. he sneaks off the bathroom everyday and wraps his hand his thick cock, jerking it to the thought of you, and your milky tits every time.

he knows it’s wrong, taboo really, but he so desperately wants to drink from your leaky tits, stealing his little son’s nutrients.

how selfish.

tonight, it’s choso’s turn to go take care of the screaming baby that just woke up and get him back to sleep. after nearly an hour, choso finally drags himself back into the bedroom after putting his son to sleep. again.

you’ve got your back pressed against the headboard as you flip to the next page in the book you’re reading, grinning at him as he walks towards the bed.

although he hasn’t mentioned it, he’s been extremely needy and as a matter of fact, you’ve been too. choso takes this opportunity before the baby possibly wakes up again to have an intimate moment with you, and to his delight, you’re not against it. you don’t resist as choso initiates it, leaning in to press his lips against yours.

instinctively, his hand trails up your shirt to play with your tits. he squeezes them can feel the milk squirt out even through your bra, causing him to moan into the kiss as his dick stirs to life.

choso pulls away and breaks the kiss, much to your dismay. before you can even open your mouth to object, he’s got your shirt pushed up and is tugging your nursing bra down to fully expose your chest to him.

his mouth waters as he gives your breast another squeeze, watching the milk leak out and he could almost cum right then. choso locks eyes with you as he brings his mouth close to your chest, closing the gap between him and his meal, making his intentions crystal clear. your fingers run through his thick head of hair and grab a handful, pulling him away.

but choso refuses to let a chance like this slip through his fingers, so he pleads with you to let him get what he wants. “please m-mommy, just one taste.”

you can never tell him ‘no’ and he knows that. a faint smirk appears on his lips before his mouth latches onto your right boob, sucking like baby.

shocking, is the only word you can come up with to describe the scene unfolding in front of you. you’re not complaining though. your panties are stuck to your core as sticky arousal seeps out from between your pussy lips the longer you watch the grown man underneath you nurse himself on your breast.

choso squeezes your boob again, allowing more milk to come out and he hollows out his cheeks more, making sure he doesn’t miss a single drop.

he starts to hump your leg as he drinks, the stimulation to his cock matched with him finally getting to indulge in his taboo fantasy is enough to send him over the edge.

only now does he take his mouth off your nipple to focus all his attention on cumming, huffing and panting as he continues grinding his clothed dick against you.

“s-so good to me … mommy,” choso whimpers, looking up at you with watery eyes.

a couple more rolls of his hips and he’s done for, eyes rolling into the back of his head as hot cum shoots out, ruining the inside of his sweats.

[aegonstradwife]

conception | aegon targaryen x reader

summary: anonymous requested; you and aegon have 4 daughters. while aegon is in a meeting they discuss the fact that the king doesn’t yet have a male heir. otto suggests aegon taking a second wife to have a chance at producing an heir. it pisses aegon off that otto would even suggest that.

warnings: talk of general misogyny, established relationship, smut. (riding, creampie.)

a. note: link to the original request.

It's a warm day, perfect for taking the girls out to play in the courtyard. They are glad to be free of their daily lessons, and you of your queenly duties.

One day away from such responsibilities couldn't hurt, and the sun shining down on your grouping had you in higher spirits than you had been for months.

Until you spied your husband stalking his way through the corridor toward you.

Initially, you lit up as you saw Aegon, as did your daughters upon seeing their father; he is so often away from them in council meetings or tending to other kingly duties.

For Aegon, seeing his wife and daughters makes him happier than he's been all day. It's a rare sight, seeing him smile so warmly, especially these days. But sadly, it doesn't last long.

The girls may not notice, as Aegon scoops the youngest into his arms, but you sure as hells do.

That menacing look, the red rimming his eyes. Telltale signs that Aegon isn't feeling his best, which unfortunately have been more prevalent of late.

"Aegon?" You lay a hand on your husband's arm, squeezing. "What's the matter, love?"

His violet eyes lay upon your hand squeezing his arm, and he tries to keep his terrible mood in check, so as not to take it out on you or the children. "There's nothing wrong, my dear."

But he refuses to meet your gaze as he presses a kiss to your daughter's forehead.

"Nothing?" You raise your brows, studying him. Something is wrong. Perhaps something you'd better not discuss around the girls....

"Ladies, why don't we break for lunch?" You announce, herding your daughters to one of the maids nearby.

With one last kiss to her chubby cheek, Aegon sets the youngest down and allows her to waddle off with the rest to the kitchens.

"Talk to me, my love." Once alone, you run your hands up Aegon's arms to his shoulders, kneading. "What happened? I thought you were meant to be at council all day...."

The king grumbles, frustrated to be questioned by you, but at the same time relishing the feeling of your talented hands kneading the tension out of his shoulders. Of which there is a lot.

His gaze meets yours, and there's a hint of annoyance in it, though whether at you or other matters, you can't initially tell.

".... Otto has brought a most pressing matter to the council today."

The breath he takes next is measured, trying to keep his composure, though he finds doing so much easier in your presence.

"What?" You frown, any number of terrible things flashing through your mind. All of them ending with the palace in rubble, your family ruined as Rhaenyra takes the throne. "Is it her? What awful thing has she done now?"

You dig your fingers ferociously into Aegon's shoulders.

A small pained noise escapes him, though he tries not to wince as he places his hands over yours to loosen your grip.

"It's not Rhaenyra." He continues to stare at you, his eyes full of an exhaustion you wish you could wipe away. "It's Otto."

You smooth your fingers apologetically over his shoulders, soothing the hurt. "So you said. What did he say?"

Aegon closes his eyes, that furrow between his brows relaxing for just a moment, as your fingers stroke him, before returning. He pauses, unsure how you're going to take the words that must next fall from his lips. Knowing they might hurt you. "He said we need a son, that we desperately need a son and soon...."

Your stomach falls. You knew this was coming - for years now you've only been able to produce girls. With every birth, Aegon's joy only grew, and your worry along with it.

What if you couldn't produce an heir at all? What if -

"We'll keep trying," you say resolutely. "I know I can give you a son. Just let's keep trying, please...."

"That's not all that was mentioned." It looks like it physically pains Aegon to tell you this. "The matter of a second wife was also raised, to try and help produce a male heir...."

You know husbands - especially kings - often take second wives when the first is unable to birth a son. Gods, it will about kill you if Aegon turns to that ...

At a loss for what to say, and feeling tears threatening to spill if you utter so much as a word, you cling speechlessly to Aegon, hoping for him to make it all better.

His hand is under your chin, cupping gently, forcing you to look at him. "But.... what if.... what if I don't care for a son?"

Shaken by this declaration, all thoughts of crying banished in worry, you clap a hand over your husband's mouth and glance around for any passing servants. "Do not say that, Aegon! What if someone were to hear...?"

A determined hand encircling your wrist, he pulls your fingers gently from his mouth, a grave look on his face. "And if they did? Why is it so important they think we care about a son? Why.... why couldn't one of our daughters be queen? Rhaenyra seems to think she has some claim to the throne. Why not our eldest?"

That intense stare does not waiver as he continues to peer at you.

"Aegon, please, not here..."

The cogs in your head are turning, as you grab him by the hand and pull him along into a spare room, Aegon following silently along.

It seems he, too, is thinking about what he's just said as he closes the door behind you. His expression is still earnest when he turns to face you.

You turn to face him at the same time, arms crossed. "You're saying you would name Syryn as your successor, as queen?"

"Yes," comes his simple yet fervent reply. "If Rhaenyra believes Viserys named her heir, then surely I can do the same?"

You chew thoughtfully at your cheek. "Otto will never accept it. I doubt the smallfolk would either. Isn't that why we're in this situation in the first place?"

"You think they won't accept it?" Aegon asks, cornering you and placing his hands on your shoulders. "I'll make them accept it. I'm the king, damnit. I don't want a son, I don't need a son. I have everything I need already."

The conviction with which he says it almost makes you believe it. "And.... you don't want to at least keep trying? For a son? Or even another daughter?"

Seeing your husband all worked up like this is making you feel.... things.

Aegon notices the immediate change in your expression, the way you look at him, your need for him.

"We will keep trying.... but not because I want a son."

His hands relinquish their hold on your shoulders to instead grab for your hips, gripping them firmly and pulling you flush against him. That earnest look in his eyes is now dark with desire, gaze roaming hungrily over your body.

Your hands come to sweetly cradle his jaw, humming contentedly as your body is pulled to his. "I love hearing you talk about our family this way. I love knowing you love us and will do anything to protect us, as king."

Twining a lock of his hair around your finger, you look up at him through your lashes. "I would love to give you another child, Aegon. Son or daughter."

He purrs as your fingers weave further into his hair, his hands tightening their grasp on your hips, pulling you ever - impossibly - closer.

Aegon leans down, breath hot against your ear, and breathes, "Then you'd better be prepared to keep trying.... over, and over and over again."

You can't help but grin, ecstatic at Aegon's joy over your family. You wrap your arms tightly around his shoulders and kiss him; a biting kiss, teeth clashing, tongues sliding over each other.

"We should try now," you gasp, tugging at the back of Aegon's jacket. "While the girls are at lunch and you have some time away from the council."

Aegon groans agonizingly into your mouth before he pulls away, gaze now even darker.

"Such a desperate little thing, aren't you? Wanting to take advantage of your husband while he can spare the time," he teases, pulling off his jacket and tossing it aside.

Even just those words - Aegon calling you desperate, seeing you for what you truly are - are enough to make your legs tremble.

"Oh please, Aegon. Right here, I need it here."

The room you've found yourselves in is bare, with naught more than a fireplace and a few suits of armor dotting the perimeter.

As such, you pull him back toward the wall and lean yourself against it, fingers dipping under the collar of his exposed tunic. "I need to feel you, my king."

Aegon presses you back against the wall, your back aligning with the cool stones, his body now pressed firmly against yours. His lips find your neck with a huff of hot air, kissing and nibbling, hands grabbing for every bit of you they can reach.

"You're always so needy, so desperate," he mutters. "I'll give you what you need, my wife. I'll give you everything you desire."

As his hands work their way over you, yours do the same over him. His body has the perfect amount of cushion to it - being held against him is the most comfortable feeling in the world.

"Aegon...." You whisper, lifting a leg to wrap it high around his waist. "Give me another child. Please."

A deep growl escapes him at the wrap of your leg around him and he presses forward, wanting to make sure you can feel every searing inch of him against you.

"You want another child, do you?" His lips blaze a scorching path to the collar of your dress, which he tugs out of the way with his teeth. "You want me to fill you up and give you what you need?"

In a hurry to have him inside of you, you gather your skirts and pull them up with a quick nod. "Let's not waste too much time. Someone will be looking for one of us sooner or later."

He whines as your gown is hiked up, revealing the smooth, creamy skin of your legs and the heat between them. He runs his hands over those legs, leaving burning trails in their wake.

"So impatient," he murmurs, "but I have to agree with you."

He hunches down, positioning himself properly between your legs, and curls his hands around the backs of your thighs. "Wrap your legs around my waist, love, and hold on tight."

With your back still anchored against the wall, you wrap your legs tightly around your husband's hips and allow him to lift you from the ground. Your hands are still moving all over him, eventually skimming down to his trousers, which you start to undo the buckle of.

Aegon grunts his approval, allowing you to unbuckle his breeches. His gaze never leaves yours, though, as his breaths grow shallow.

"Gods, you're going to be the death of me one day," he sighs, hands squeezing at your thighs. "You always know how to drive me absolutely wild."

At this angle, it's hard to get your hand all the way inside the opening of Aegon's pants. But you do manage to circle your fingers haphazardly around your husband's half-hard cock and give him a few solid pumps to bring him to full hardness.

"And the way to drive you wild is to ask you to fill me full of your babies, isn't it, Aegon?"

His breath hitches at the feeling of your hand around him, a frustrated groan falling from his lips. His entire body quivers with desire as he leans in. "You know me too well. The thought of filling you with my seed, of giving you more children.... it's enough to drive any man wild."

"Any man?" You 'tsk.' "Doesn't the thought of just 'any' man getting me pregnant make you jealous, my king?"

With your legs already around his hips, it's hard to get the waist of his trousers low enough to allow his erection to pop out and Aegon has to help you, shoving the constricting material down so that the head of his cock can nudge at your folds. "I'm wet for you.... can you feel it?"

Though he doesn't say it aloud, he feels a sharp pang of jealousy at your words, a possessive need surging through him. He growls, hands gripping your thighs even tighter, eyes practically blazing with desire.

"Don't play with me. I know you're teasing, but it's enough to make me lose control." He leans in even closer, breath blistering against your skin. "Put me inside, my love. Let me feel you."

Arching your back away from the wall, you position yourself so that Aegon's cockhead is pressing insistently at your opening. "…. should I make you beg to fill me up?"

That simple question sets his body quivering with yearning for you. His fingers dig into your skin as he tries to hold on to his composure, but failing all the while.

"Please…." He groans, his voice low and hoarse. "Please, my love, let me fill you up. I need it, I need you."

"Good boy," you sigh, and after a quick peck of a kiss to his nose, you begin to relax the muscles in your back, allowing your wet cunt to slide down on Aegon's cock, welcoming him inside of you.

Aegon's eyes roll back in overwhelming pleasure at the feeling of your warm, wet heat around him. With a sharp inhale, he redoubles his hold on your thighs, pulling you down onto him as he begins to move with you, matching your rhythm perfectly. The sound of skin slapping against skin echoes through the room, mingling with your moan and Aegon's desperate grunts. Aegon's face finds your neck again as he continues to drag you down onto him with abandon, deeper and harder with each thrust.

"You feel so good, my love." His voice is tremulous, hands beginning to shake where they hold you up. "I'm not going to stop until I get you pregnant again."

And it all feels so dirty, the hem of your gown trapped around your waist as your husband pulls you down by your hips, driving himself into you. Your hands try to grapple for purchase at the wall beside your head, but then settle for resting your wrists at Aegon's shoulders, tips of your fingers clawing and scratching at the back of his neck.

"Please, Aegon…we don't have long. Someone might come looking soon…" At this point, you don't even care if you climax, as long as Aegon's seed finds its home deep inside of you.

In response, Aegon nods, hips now moving even faster as he feels your nails digging into his neck. He can feel his own release building, evidenced by the way his chest heaves and his face has gone pink all over. The need to give you what you want is overwhelming for him.

"D-Don't worry, my love," he gasps. "I won't last long like this."

And with that, he gives one final, powerful thrust, burying himself deep as he empties himself inside of you, shouting your name like a war cry.

There are few things in this world you enjoy more than the feeling of Aegon's warm seed splashing inside of you. You hum, eyes rolling back, as the king spends himself inside you.

He pulls you close, holding you tight against his chest. "I love you," he gasps, with a kiss to your temple. "And I love our daughters. Fuck a male heir. Syryn will be queen."

Capturing his lips in another kiss, you run your hands gladly up and down his chest. "Syryn will make a great queen. She already bosses the other girls around like it's her job."

Aegon chuckles, pulling back to look down at you with a gleam in his eye. "I think she takes after her mother in that regard."

[mv1simp]

Earned It ♥️

Max Verstappen x Wife! Reader

cause girl you’re perfect, you’re always worth it (I see nobody, nobody but you)

PART TWO HERE ♥️

The story of how you met your husband, Max Verstappen, is a fan favourite. A classic rags to riches Cinderella story - well, in this case, a working class med student with an outrageous loan meets F1 multimillionaire. For years, you two dodge the questions of having kids, due to your busy careers. But lately, your husband can’t stop thinking about a 3rd addition to your family…and no, he didn’t mean another cat.

Content includes: 18+ MDNI, fluff, humour, pregnancy, angst but happy ending, very brief description of sexual harassment (not from Max obviously), simp!Max, brat! reader, smut, size kink, breeding kink (very versatile from me for once), 5.7k WC

Guys, seriously, we’ve talked about this behaviour, you need to be tidier. You look up from your comfortable position on the couch, where you’re typing away one of your research projects, to see your darling husband gently scolding your three pets. You muffle your laughter with your hand, 20karat diamond ring glinting, admiring his toned build as he stands with his hands on his slim hips, reprimanding the two cats - Sassy and Jimmy - and labrador Arlo about the mess they’d made on the patio. Hearing your giggles as you fail to contain yourself, Max turns around, grinning at the pretty sound. All done, schat? Want to go out for some lunch?

You hmm in agreement, standing up to stretch and walking over to him with a cheeky expression. But first I need you to explain just what you’re doing here. You know they can’t understand you right, babe?

Max immediately tells your three so called “kids” to ignore your blasphemous words, making you giggle again at what a dork your husband was. No one would ever guess how sweet and domestic he was with you, compared to the ferocious lion he was when terrorising his rivals on the track. It is a very serious matter, schat, Max says indignantly. You’d let them get away with murder. I’m the only one who upholds any discipline in this household.

You stand on your tippy toes to kiss him lovingly on the cheek to appease him, batting your eyelashes innocently as you say sorry, baby, shall I make it up to you? and any annoyance Max had slips away as he pulls your petite frame against his much larger one to press a kiss to your lips instead. You two had been married for almost two years now, and dating for six before that, but you simply can’t get enough of each other - even now, as your innocent kiss deepens into a steamy make out session that has you panting and grinding against your husband’s thick thighs as he squeezes your plush ass with his large hands. You’re just about to ask him to carry you to the bedroom when your on-call phone rings, signalling an emergency at the hospital. Sorry, baby you say, apologising genuinely this time with a guilty look. I have to get this, go ahead and eat and I’ll make us some dinner when I’m back, ok?

Max reassures you that you have nothing to worry about, and that he’d make dinner of course, you’re going to be tired after sorting out an emergency. Your heart swells at how thoughtful he is of you and your busy career. You give him one last quick kiss before speeding out the door, scrubs on and barking orders over the phone already.

Admittedly, it hadn’t always been like this. When you had started dating, Max had been the considerably busier one - at the peak of his racing career and collecting multiple world championships as if it were child’s play. And the way you met was a classic dinner party story - F1 driver crashes his Ferrari into studious med student. It was hotly debated as to whether the fault lay with him for illegally going 80 in a 40 zone, or with you for walking with your nose buried in a textbook. Regardless, his insane reflexes had slammed on the brakes just in the nick of time to stop any real damage happening, but your textbook had gone flying in the air and straight on top of a passing truck, disappearing for good. You’d been devastated by the loss of it, more concerned with your upcoming final exam rather than any bodily harm, and as Max sprinted out from his car to worriedly ask if you were okay you’d whirled around angrily.

He was immediately struck with your natural beauty, with your pretty caramel skin and full lips and dark curls. Then he realized you were furiously pointing a finger at him and roasting his driving skills. Watch were you’re going! God, what is it with you boy racers speeding through the tiny side streets?

What?! Boy racer? Oh, Max was not going to let this grave insult slide, yelling back that he was a World-class driver, thank you, and you were the one who needs to watch where you’re going cause who reads and walks, that’s just dumb-

You cut him off, demanding to know who he worked for. Uber? Lyft? Monaco Taxi Incorporated? I’ll be sure to leave a scathing Google review, you said hotly.

Max had now realized you had absolutely no clue who he was, so basically he just looked like a complete dickhead - including to all the passerbys who gawked at the incriminating scene of the 6 foot Dutchman childishly arguing with a 5 foot, pouting girl. Deflating, he offers you his insurance information but you rolled your eyes and walked off, muttering about the goddamn Monaco elite in their Ferrari taxis.

He’d forgotten all about you until 6 months later, when he and Lando end up in the emergency department after a padel game gone wrong, only to find you pulling back the curtain - looking for Max, wait, Uber driver Max?! You’d narrowed your gorgeous doe eyes at him, then demanded to know if he was here cause he’d gotten in another hit and run. It was not a hit and run, that is an incredibly misleading statement, Max hissed, ignoring Lando’s goggle eyed stare, cause why on earth was his mate arguing with the pretty doctor who thought he drove for Uber and not F1 World Cup winning team Redbull-

The third time you had run into each other, at a charity ball where both your employers were sponsors, Max was convinced it was fate. Either that, or you were a crazy stalker. But he was, like, 98% sure it was fate as he felt his heart race at the sight of you in a fitted red silk dress and gold stilettos, your short frame still not even brushing his chin. This time round, you knew who he really was, and had an embarrassed flush on your pretty face as you said you know, you could have corrected me, it was a very awkward lunchbreak that day when the nurses starting asking if I’d gotten your signature.

He laughed, finding you adorable, and held out his hand for you to shake, grinning Let’s start over then, shall we? You’d easily returned the gesture, an undeniable spark running up both your arms as you touched. And a few months later, at the exact street where you first met, he pulled out a copy of your missing textbook that you excitedly took, laughing that he remembered only to gasp as you open it to see his messy scrawl - Thanks for not suing me, want to be my girlfriend instead of my victim? And the rest had been history, with you two now blissfully married years later.

Sure, you had your fair share of ups and downs, just like any couple did. Before your marriage, Max’s busy career meant that he was away more often than not, and although it helped that you had a busy life yourself, he knew you missed having him there at home after a long day or by your side at friends’ weddings where you’d have to attend solo. But you never complained, never asked for more because you understood that at this time of his life, his career would be first priority, and always supported him with diligently made meal preps, looking after his cats when he went away, and late night debriefs after arguments with his demanding father, your soothing voice helping calm down the burning anger in his chest.

And although you couldn’t attend every race like the other WAGs, you’d always do your very best to make it. He still grins when he remembers his last Monaco race, where you’d gotten held up in emergency surgery and had sprinted straight to the track, not having time to change into the Chanel outfit you’d sweetly picked out the night before (from a very large pile Max had generously insisted you fund with his black Amex). You’d made it just in time to see him cross the line in P1, and the pictures of you happily crying for his win as you jumped into his arms, still in your scrubs, long curls flying as he whirled you around went absolutely viral on social media. He was glad for it too, because you received so much online hate for not always being dressed like a model and by his side at every event - and knew that deep down, you felt guilty about it, even though it was such an unfair double standard. So he’d framed that famous shot of you and hung it in the entryway, so it would be the first thing everyone would see when they walk in, and understand why Max’s heart swelled with pure love and adoration whenever he looked at you.

So when he had gotten his fill with his eight - eight! - world championships and wanted to spend his Sunday mornings waking you up with his skilled tongue in between your soft thighs instead of on a racing track halfway across the world, he had promptly quit F1 - to the outrage of his father and thousands of fans - and stepped back to coach his own team instead. It was quite an accomplishment, you had thought amusedly when reading the headlines that year, to be known as the woman who had "seduced Max Verstappen to retire and become her trophy husband". Of course, Max stood for none of the media circus, retaining his infamous status as Mad Max when he openly shut down that storyline in a media statement that had blown up, making it clear that this had always been his plan and he would not be tolerating any slander of his beautiful wife whom he loved very much - who, by the way, was now the associate head of the emergency department, had they heard?

As time passed the fans eventually relaxed and enjoyed the new talent that came on, with your husband still a common figure on the paddock as coach. He'd had more time these past two years to look after you now - cooking your favourite meals and meeting you on the hospital rooftop for lunch and making all the nurses blush at how romantic your husband was, picking you up from a late shift in his Ferrari, taking you jewellery shopping in Paris one weekend then stiletto shopping in Milan the next with all your bags in his hands and his Amex in yours, and listening attentively in the living room as you practised your powerpoints on Intracranial Haemorrhage: Do early CAT scans change mortality rates? Your personal favourite gift, though, had to be when he'd brought home a 2 month old golden labrador as your birthday present. You'd always wanted a dog but had never had time for one on top of his two cats - but now, with Max home more often, he was able to look after all 3 of your kids, as you both affectionately referred to them.

And speaking of kids - the topic was something that had increasingly come up over the family events and meetups with friends you two went to. Of course, when it had first been asked, the two of you had dismissed it given there was simply no time with your careers. You religiously used contraception - with you on the pill and Max using condoms everytime. At one point, though, you both realised you rather enjoyed doing it raw - when the condom had broken after a particular rough session post 6th WDC win. Max still remembered your blushing face as he came down from what had been one of the most intense orgasms of his life, already addicted to the feeling of spilling inside you. You had bit your lip, shyly saying you know Maxie, the pill is 99% effective, I don't think we need to use condoms anymore-

He'd cut you off with a pleased growl, sealing his lips back onto yours for Round 2 as the thought of getting to fill you up every night sent all the blood rushing to his cock. Safe to say, there hadn't been a box of condoms in your home for a very long time. But as time passed after your marriage, Max started to feel an unfamiliar desire simmer in his gut everytime he saw you playing with his nieces and nephews, or when he would be showing Daniel's toddler how to operate a racekart, or when he’d finish inside you, watching your eyes roll back in pleasure, and wonder what would happen if you weren’t on the pill. He avoided saying anything as your answer to the kids? question at Family Xmas was still not right now.

But lately he hadn't been able to deny the aching yearn he felt any longer, and especially not when you two had been celebrating Charles' and Alex's pregnancy announcement on their yacht last weekend. You'd looked so happy for the couple, congratulating Alex on her glow and admiring the ultrasound pictures but all Max could think about was how amazing he was sure you'd look carrying his child, how he wanted to have your baby scans on the fridge door and argue over names, how he was sure you would be the most amazing mother to his kids and he couldn’t have picked a better wife. He must have been looking quite jealously at the scene because Charles comes upto him, greeting him with a Hey, mate and a knowing smirk. Max grunts, sipping his G&T, then realises he might be acting in a way you would refer to as "dickhead behaviour", so he also throws in a gruff congratulations.

Charles' is not having it though, having recognised the intensity which Max was staring you down with. You know, he starts, prompting Max out of his one-way thoughts, You could always try bringing it up directly with her instead of expecting her to read your mind, hmm? Max glanced at him side ways. Already practising your fatherly advice? He joked, diffusing the tension, before the conversation moved onto how the new young F1 drivers just didn’t appreciate a good wheel to wheel battle like back in their karting days.

Charles' words stuck with him throughout the week, and one night as you both settled down for bed, he decided it was time to ask. Schatje? he begun, watching you from his position in the bed as you brushed out your damp curls in the mirror, dressed in a cute silk nightie. You hmmed at him, slightly distracted by a tangle in your hair but prompting him to continue. You know, I was, well -whatdoyouthinkaboutgettingpregnant?

You frowned slightly, still distracted by the tangle in your hair. Who, Alex and Charles? I think it's great, they've wanted kids for a while now, right?

Max takes a deep breath, tells himself to stop being a pussy, and walks over to you, taking the comb away as he brushes out the tangle himself. You look at him curiously as he tilts your head up with his large palm, brushing your cheek lovingly as his ice blue eyes meet yours. No, shcat he murmurs gently. I mean us, getting pregnant, having a baby. How do you feel about that?

Your jaw drops open at his words as your brain temporarily stopped working. You feel your face blush from the thought of your husband getting you pregnant. As hot as it sounded, out of all the things, you hadn't expected him to say that. You realise your surprised silence was making Max freak out, the telltale sign of a crinkle between his brows. You scramble to come up with a response, stuttering that Oh, sorry, I hadn't really thought about it, I guess and that we'd both been busy with work for so long it kind of...slipped my mind?

But what do you think, liefje, your husband pressed, hopeful. Do you want to try? You honestly weren't sure, this was all so sudden and you needed a bit more time to process it - but when you told Max this you didn't miss the hurt look that flashes across his face as his insecurities rise up. He asked if the problem was that you didn't want to have kids with him, because how could you possibly not have thought about it, all our friends and family constantly bring it up all the time-

I don't know! you'd responded defensively, arms crossed. We'd been focusing on your racing for so long that I just stopped thinking about stuff like that. The argument had spiralled out of control quickly, Max demanding to know when you were going to stop holding that over him, and when you wanted to think about it then, you two weren't any younger, after all - prompting you to angrily accuse him of always putting his job above yours, because now that he had his fill he was ready to start a family but what about your career?!

You hadn’t been able to stop the tears that dripped down your face as the argument escalated into a full blown fight. Max had sighed seeing that, deflating and saying you should both head to bed for now. You’d lain next to him, feeling so cold without his usual warm bicep pulling you against him, trying to hold back more tears before you drifted into a fitful sleep. Max hadn’t been any better either, only falling asleep in the early hours of the morning and when he woke up, you were already gone. He’d started trying to look for you but then remembered you had a conference in London today you’d had to fly out for - you wouldn’t be back for a week, he reads on the note you’d left on the fridge.

Fuck, it had been a bad night to have such an ugly fight considering you two had left so much unresolved. Later, when he’s visiting his sister’s for dinner and watching her kids with the same burning want in his heart, his mother corners him and demands to know why he had shown up looking like a kicked puppy. Your wife’s been gone one day and you’re already so hopeless? She’d joked, but clearly had a concerned look in her eyes. He couldn’t stop himself then, opening up about the horrible fight. He feels terrible that you had ended up crying, but still can’t help feel that you were being purposely selfish, he explains, after all, we’d be raising the baby together, she can still have her career, no?

His mother had been silent for a while, taking it all in, before she gently reminded Max about how she, too, had been in the peak of her very successful karting career when Jos had gotten her pregnant. Your wife isn’t me, and you certainly are not your father, she said firmly. But she’s scared, Max, it’s not personal. She’s scared she could lose everything she’s spent years building while you get to have it all. It isn’t as easy for a mother to put her career on hold as it is for a father. Even if he’s as loving and caring as you will be, she reassures.

Max looked troubled, then, as your responses last night now started to make sense. God, he was such a terrible husband, how had he not considered that before? Sensing her son’s brain was running at 100 miles a minute, the older woman lays a soothing hand on his shoulder. Just give her some space, Max. Let her come to you. You two will work through this.

So he gives you the space, and 6 days later he’s standing at the arrivals area of the airport, stonily looking out the window at the planes landing but internally fighting a storm of emotions. You two had never had these many days of no contact in your whole marriage, and he’d said some vicious things that night, and what if in the time away you had decided you would be better off without him? His jaw clenched at the idea of losing you. God, maybe he shouldn’t have given you space but spammed your phone, begging for forgiveness. Why was marriage so much more confusing than driving a car at 200kmph?

Suddenly, he hears the click of your familiar YSL heels walking up to him and he turns frantically to see your petite figure come to a stop a few feet away. Your face looks just as troubled as his, but as soon as your eyes meet you can’t control yourself and run forward to jump into his arms. Max welcomes you eagerly, all his tension releasing as he hugs you tightly, broad arms easily lifting you up and pressing his face into your neck to breathe in your perfume. You’re rapidly saying something about how you were so sorry, you had overreacted - You don’t have to apologise for anything, liefje, Max says fiercely, God, I missed you so, so much. I shouldn’t have brought it up so suddenly. Take all the time you need, okay?

You blink back happy tears, heart so full at your understanding husband as you looked up into his blue eyes adoringly before sharing a loving kiss. Passerbys smiled at the sweet scene you two made. Max took you home, one hand carrying your luggage and the other firmly around your waist, as if he was paranoid you were going to disappear. Again, in the car, his hand stayed glued to your thigh, softly stroking it as you told him about your week in London. And then at home, you had to stop him as he got ready to climb into the shower with you, giggling and saying you were starving, baby, did he want to grab some dinner for you two?

He’d pouted, but then perked up excitedly once you promised you two could go for a swim in the pool after dinner instead. Need anything else while I’m out, schat? He asked, grabbing the Ferrari keys. You hesitated, making him turn around, as you blushed a little and said Would you mind grabbing some condoms, Maxie? I forgot to take my pill to London so I haven’t been on anything for a week…

You search his face for any hint that he’s upset you still needed time, but found none, only a gentle expression on his face as he pressed a sweet kiss to your cheek. Of course, schatje, he says lovingly before heading out. You watch him go, a devious smirk now on your face. A part of you felt bad for the game that you were planning on playing with your husband later that evening - but, oh well, you had to have some fun in a marriage, right? And your sweet, darling, perfect husband had passed the test with flying colours tonight, showing his dedication to putting your needs first.

The truth was, you’d also reflected on your marriage and its future in London. You’d thought and thought until you could think no more about whether or not it was time to have kids, if you should even have kids, not because you didn’t want them but because you were so worried about how it would derail the career you’d worked so hard to build. And then you’d remembered how Max would spend hours quizzing you for your residency exams, while you were on the toilet or in the kitchen, making sure you got every answer right and you’d passed with full marks.

Or how you knew you loved Max for the first time, when he had stood by your side and steadied you as you shakily reported to your boss about a supervisor who’d developed a nasty habit of feeling you up at work and barring you from surgeries if you said no. Max had stood by you through it all, his large, gentle hands holding your own, a contrast to the thunderous expression on his face at anyone who tried to give you a hard time when you came forward - and he didn’t ease up until the creep had been permanently stripped of his medical license. Even now, when you’d sometimes shiver at the memory, he’d pull you into his safe arms, murmuring how proud he was of you, schat, you were so brave for speaking up.

You thought about how warm you’d felt seeing Max gently rock his nephew in his strong arms, or how impressed you had been seeing how he taught the kids how to drive a kart, or how devoted he was to your marriage and your three pets, always being there to provide for you and support you however you needed him to be - mentally, physically, emotionally. Max really was the best husband to you, and he’d be the best father to your kids. And you knew you had your answer.

So now, after eating your favourite dinner of Italian pasta, expensive red wine and tiramisu for dessert, you got changed into your bikini, a skimpy pink number Max always enjoyed, and slipped on a gold choker with matching anklets, all adorned with the letter M - a custom made Cartier set he’d brought for you on his birthday, as a gift to himself. The box of condoms he’d picked up lays on the bedside table. You smirk at them as you pass by - they won’t be needed much longer. Not that your husband had any clue of that - yet, and you couldn’t wait to see the expression on his face when he figured out just how you were going to reward his devotion tonight. Picking up a second bottle of wine, you take a good swig and make your way out to the dark backyard where Max is shirtless, the pool’s neon lights reflecting the water droplets that slide down his large, muscular back. Shit, you had to stay extra focused if he was going to be looking so delectable tonight!

He turns as he hears your anklets tinkle, smirking as he takes in your dolled up appearance, all for him. Coming in, schat? He calls huskily, feeling his cock hardening at the sight of you after a whole maddening week away. Just admiring the view, you say cheekily, taking another swig from the wine and slowly stepping into the pool. You can feel your husband’s hungry gaze sliding up your curvy body, and you shiver, feeling rather like a deer caught in a lion’s trap even though you were the one playing games tonight. You come to a stop in front of him, your head barely reaching his upper chest, giving him a generous view as your tits spilled around the tiny bikini. You sultrily gaze right into his darkening blue eyes as you take yet another sip of the wine, your pink tongue darting out to circle the tip of the bottle in quite the slutty manoeuvre. Missed you, Maxie you say coyly. Especially missed having you inside me.

He growls lowly at your teasing, easily taking the bottle off you and downing the rest before discarding it to the side. You whine as he puts a stop to your antics, pouty lips and large doe eyes staring up at him invitingly. Chuckling, he places a large palm across your ass and lifts you up against him. Your thighs wrap themselves around his toned waist and your hands tangle in his soft hair, gently tugging on the strands just the way he likes it. Now face to face, you tease him further, whispering in his ear about how lonely you’d been while away, how normally you’d call him and have him talk you through an orgasm, and how your tiny fingers hadn’t been able to make you cum all week because you needed his thick ones to stretch you open.

Fuckkk, schat, Max breathes, feeling his cock grow impossibly hard, his blue eyes completely darkened by lust. I missed that filthy little mouth of yours so much. He glides his thumb along your pink lips and you part them easily, taking him in and swirling your tongue around him. He can’t hold himself back any longer, pulling you in and replacing his thumb with his tongue. You moan into the dirty kiss, running your hands along his muscular shoulders, addicted to the feeling of his strong, thick biceps caging you against him. Your bikini strings are deftly untied as he practically rips it off of you, breaking the kiss to lean you back and suck on your pretty nipples. You squeal as he gently bites down, murmuring maybe you shouldn’t have been such a cocktease, schat.

You’re now grinding your pussy against his abs, begging him for more, please, Maxie and asking him to take you to bed. He smirks at how easily you fall apart under his tongue, squeezing your ass as he carries you inside, always giving you what you wanted like the devoted husband he is. You two have no regard for the sheets as you drip water all over them, foreplay long forgotten as your bikini bottoms are yanked off, followed by his trunks. You’d honestly forgotten about the damn condoms by this point but Max hadn’t, hurriedly ripping open a packet with his teeth as you whine at him to hurry up, Maxie, I can’t take it- Oh!

You moan blissfully as he buries himself inside you. Feels like coming home everytime, schat, he breathes out as he holds his position for a few beats before he starts thrusting into you. Holy shit, that felt sooo good. You didn’t think you were going to last very long at all - putting a time limit on your plan. You let him get a few more thrusts in you before you start begging again, this time asking Maxie, wait, can-can we please take the condom off?

He looks down at you in surprise, saying you hadn’t been on the pill this week schat, it’ll be risky-

Oh, your darling husband still hadn’t caught on to your suprise, and as you whine that it’s okay, you can just pull out, right Maxie? you almost giggle from the strained expression on his face as he considers that feat of self restraint. But he wasn’t going to say no to you, not when you were below him with your lush dark curls spread around you and looking up at him so adoringly, so he reaches down and pulls the condom off and sinks back inside you.

Shit. He swears at the vice grip you have his cock in, one hand automatically going to grasp the headboard to try and maintain some control and ground himself. But you’re begging for more and it feels so good to be back inside you, raw, feeling your slick heat up on his thick cock that his thrusts start getting sloppier. He’s panting above you, both hands now gripping the headboard to hold himself back from the urge to cum inside you.

Your devilish eyes don’t miss this, and you grab his thick wrists to pull them down so his hands rest on your bouncing tits, begging him to play with them, please. Oh, shit, he feels his orgasm quickly approaching from your positively filthy demands tonight. But as he starts to pull back you wrap your legs around him tightly, keeping him in place as you make your final demand - Noo, Maxie, don’t pull out, you can come inside me, it’s ok-

Perplexed, knowing he can break your grip around him in half a second, your husband is now very confused as he points out with gritted teeth that no condom and no pill and no pulling out meant-Yes, yes, I know! You whine impatiently. I want it Maxie, I’m ready now, come inside, I want to get pregnant!

Max pauses above you, this time being the one to have his brain function temporarily suspended as he slowly figures out just what you’re saying. Are you sure, schat-

You roll your eyes, sinking yourself down onto his cock, making him moan, and hoping he gets the message. Oh, I’m definitely sure, dear husband, you say sultrily. Now, are you going to fuck a baby into me or what?

He finally clicks, his confused gaze now morphing into pure joy as he grins down at you, and you can’t help but grin back, the two of you finally ready to progress into the next step of your marriage together. He pressing a gentle kiss to your lips, catching you off guard. You know I love you right, schat? He murmurs, and you nod, confused where he was taking this. Good, cause I’m about to fuck you like I hate you. That was a dirty game you played, yeah? Edging me all night when you were gonna let me fuck you raw all along. Gonna have to punish you real good for that. He growls darkly, his large hand coming to squeeze your throat, making you gasp in delight.

Oh, you loved when Mad Max came out to play. Your legs are tossed over his shoulders and then pressed all the way back against your soft tummy, into a mating press. The unfamiliar position has you screaming in pleasure, your anklets dangling by your face as he thrusts his way back into you. Your husband chuckles wickedly at your reaction, pumping into you deeply and making the headboard bang against the wall each time.

And true to his word, he punishes you thoroughly, not stopping despite your overstimulated pleas as you repeatedly orgasm, instead cumming inside you over and over and over again, leaving you obscenely full with his thick load.

And when you finally pass out into blissful darkness, he meanly fucks you awake again, demanding that you take another round from him like the good little wife you are, aren’t you, so obedient for me, hmm? Gonna fuck you stupid until you’re finally pregnant with my kids, like you always should have been.

Safe to say, you didn’t get much sleep that night, or for many nights after 💖

—————————————————————————

UPDATE: PART TWO out now!!

A/N: damn this is a whole ass essay. I love simp husband max so much tho I couldn’t help it 🥺might make a part 2 about the pregnancy and protective max hehe if people like this! Lmk what you think 🫶🫶

[emmyrosee]

Hi! I was wondering if you could do a modern!au sukuna x fem!reader in which they're dating and they're babysitting little yuji for the day, going to the park, grocery store, or whatever, and some old lady thinks yuji is their son and sukuna and reader had yuji as teens so she starts judging, making comments and kinda insulting them for having a kid so young. (but yuji is just sukuna's little brother)

I hope what I said made sens 😅 and feel totally free to ignore my request if you don't want to do it or if you're not taking requests at the moment :)

tw// mean old ladies, insinuations of s3x in teenage years, sukuna talking back, lots of swearing, mentions of death, I wouldn’t normally put warnings but juuuuuuuuuust in case

There’s a scoff that rings out in the air as the last of your footstep passes her. It’s enough to make Sukuna stop on impact. You turn to him, and Yuuji in his stroller looks up to see what the stop is, but Sukuna’s eyes are firm in annoyance, the vein in his forehead pulsing.

“I’m sorry,” he begins, spinning on his heel. “Is there a problem, maam?” His voice dribbles sarcasm, and you feel your heart rate pick up from anxiety.

When you turn to face the old woman, her face is twisted in judgement, wrinkles furrowed deeper than natural as she glares past Sukuna and burrows her sights onto you. A chill shrills down your spine as her cold gaze fixes on you.

“Babies having babies,” she snarls cruelly, and you see Sukuna’s knuckles lighten from the force of gripping the handles. “You couldn’t keep it in your pants, and you couldn’t close your legs, hmm? Reproducing when you shouldn’t be. You ought to be embarrassed.”

You cheeks heat up in embarrassment, but when you look up at sukuna again, his grin is curled devilishly. You sigh, “sukuna, come on-“

“No,” he hisses. “I want to hear what the crypt keeper’s gotta say. One foot in the grave, one on a fucking oil spill and you’re wasting your breath spilling bullshit? You oughta be embarrassed.”

She clutches her chest in offense, “I can’t stand you youths these days, wasting your life on each other, disappointing your parents. Why they’d ever approve of you keeping that sin in the carriage is ridiculous.”

You’re quick to grab Sukuna’s collar and keep him from launching at the lady. He’s not happy about being stopped, he’s practically frothing at the mouth in rage, but at your grip, he stands down.

His mouth however, does not.

“I’m offended people like you even get to breathe my air,” he snarls, and you try to ignore the look the old lady gives you- she looks almost prideful to be getting such a reaction. “That child is not sin, that’s my fucking little brother- and even if it was, if you looked at him and the first thing you thought of was my girlfriend and I smashing, you need to tell your fucking hospice nurse, you pervert.”

“Sukuna-“

“It’s not my fault nor concern that your husband died from an asthma attack your dusty old pussy gave him, but if you ask me, he dodged a fucking bullet because holy fuck if I had to spend my days waiting for you to die first, I’d pull the plug myself.”

“Sukuna!”

“You think you get to sit here and judge my girlfriend, my self, my fucking brother without consequence, you are sadly mistaken. And I sincerely hope that, with the bottom of my soul, that when your decrepit heart finally decides to stop and bless the world by taking your life, no one bats an eye. If this is how you treat strangers with a child, I would love to see how you treat your loved ones. Sit on it and fucking twist, you old bitch.” Then, he flashes her a smile, “have the day you fucking deserve, you twat.”

The woman stares at him, eyes wide and jaw agape. You also, stare at him with wide eyes and an agape jaw, and it isn’t until he wraps his arm around your waist and starts to push the carriage again, that you follow.

“Sukuna,” you say, voice shaky. “Why…?”

“Because no one gets to look at my fucking family in any way other than damn respect,” he growls, fingers digging into your hip from anger. “No one.”

“No, I mean…” you swallow thickly. “Why do people feel the need to be so cruel?”

“The world is cruel,” he says flatly. Then, he sighs and shakes his head, “but I have no issue in putting terrible people in their place. Especially for yuuji. Especially for you.”

You smile softly and lay your hand on his, lacing your fingers with his as they rest on your hip, “we’re lucky to have you then, aren’t we?”

He chuckles, “it’s about time you appreciate it.”

[seravphs]

ੈ♡˳·˖✶ — GOJO SATORU x FEM READER

Gojo “my girl is mad at me I hope I die” Satoru

wc — 600

tags — fluff, companion piece to modern intimacy so you’re also married in this one, love as annoyance 

Gojo looks like he tried to drown himself in the shower. 

If you hadn’t just mopped the floor, you might be tempted to give in and beckon him over to cuddle. As it is, your annoyance is only mildly tempered by how adorable he is. You suspect this was his plan all along. 

“Go dry your hair,” you tell him coldly, hardly even giving him a glance after his first step into the room. 

He pouts, which you were expecting. He should really learn some new tricks at this point. You make a shooing gesture at him to drive home the point. 

Instead, he clambers down next to your feet, all six feet and two inches of him compressed down to fit his head into your lap. Gojo’s so lanky it gives you the impression of a Jenga tower collapsing in on itself to watch him get on his knees. 

“But you’re mad at me,” he whines. Chilly droplets are seeping into your thighs. 

“I’ll be madder if you keep getting my pants wet. Go on, you’ll catch a cold.” 

“I deserve it.” 

“Gojo.” 

You say it as if you’re short of patience, when really, you’re far from it. You’re enjoying this way too much. 

He turns his head so he can look up at you. His hair falls into his eyes, making him look like a sad, wet puppy, shivering at your feet for mercy. It’s an act, of course. 

He’s the strongest man in the world. Still, you feel your heart melting as you would for any poor abandoned creature. You brush his bangs out of his face, trying to hold onto your weakening resolve. 

He knows he’s got you. It’s just a matter of time. 

“I can’t live with myself,” he says. “If you’re going to be mad at me, you should just kill me. It would be easier-“ 

“Don’t be dramatic,” you say, but that’s when he strikes the killing blow. 

He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he just looks at you with eyes that are suspiciously shiny, his pretty pink lips in a soft frown. You sigh and put the book you were trying to read down. 

“Go get the hairdryer.” 

Gojo perks up immediately. You stay on the sofa. He sits on the ground between your legs as you run your hands through his hair, moving section by section. It fluffs up as hot air moves over it. 

“Are you still mad?” 

“Want to take a guess?” 

He turns around so fast he almost hits himself in the face with the hairdryer in your hand. 

“I’ll never do it again, I swear.” 

“You swear?” You’re teasing. 

Gojo places one hand over his heart and raises the other like he’s making a pledge. You’re the only nation he’d ever devote himself to, anyway. “You know my motto is happy wife, happy life.” 

“I don’t know, actually.” You laugh. “Did you just come up with that?” 

“Now you’re just being mean,” he says. 

“I’m glad you picked up on it,” you say dryly. 

You like him pathetic. It appeals to your worst nature, the one that kind of wants to pinch him just to see him cry. You don’t know when you developed such feelings, and you’re certainly not sadistic towards anyone else, but Gojo just provokes you. It’s what he does. He’s good at being annoying. 

But you love that part of him, just as much as you love the part of him that can’t live without your attention. 

“You really learned your lesson?” You ask. “You won’t do it again?” 

“And go through this again? You kidding?” 

You pinch his cheek in annoyance, but he just laughs and wraps his arms around you, ignoring the way you try to wriggle away. 

“Your hair isn’t dry yet!”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, rubbing his cheek against yours. His shampoo smells good. “Happy husband, happy wife.” 

He knows you too well for you to disagree. 

[yueebby]

all mine — gojo satoru

synopsis. It’s the exchange event and gojo doesn’t like how that kyoto boy is looking at you. 

contents.  fluff, jealous!gojo, minor male oc, loosely based on that one jujutsu scroll, satoru is really insufferable and problematic but in his defense he is lovesick

gojo satoru is seething. he knows that you’re good looking, but he doesn’t need the entire world to know that either. if it were up to him, your beauty would be for his eyes only. 

especially not that kyoto third year who has been eyeing you since your arrival.

it was sickening, really. and to add salt to the wound, you have been oblivious to it all. one moment, gojo has his arms draped around your shoulders, and in the blink of an eye, you were being whisked away by that third year.

“please don’t do what i think you're trying to do,” shoko’s unamused voice breaks his train of thought. her knowing gaze made gojo chuckle.

“who, me? why do you assume i’m plotting something?” gojo feigns innocence, hoping his friend couldn’t sense the vicious wave of cursed energy that was leaking out of him. 

shoko doesn’t bother telling him that his usual sky blue eyes were darker, clouded with annoyance or whatever angsty emotion he was dealing with. suguru snorts at his best friend’s silent torment.

“he’s kinda cute,” shoko places a hand on her hip while she observes you conversing with the brown haired third year from kyoto. he was probably a clan kid, judging by his traditional kimono design for a uniform. “you think [name]’s into him?” she eggs gojo on with a smirk on her lips. 

suguru bumps his shoulder against hers as a silent warning.

it takes a moment for satoru to process shoko’s conclusion, the realization evident on his face as his eyes slowly widened. 

“like hell she is.” satoru’s fist clench and he thinks that he will explode if you keep entertaining that stupid kyoto boy. why waste your time with a weakling, when satoru, who was much worthier of your attention was standing just a couple of meters away in the same courtyard? satoru glares at you from above his glasses, hoping you can feel just an ounce of the anger he feels. 

you don’t. 

he thinks he dies a little bit on the inside. in fact, he thinks you’re purposefully messing with his mind with the way you playfully smack the kyoto boy’s shoulder with the same soft hand that gojo has dreamed of holding since his first year. 

“stop being dramatic and let's warm up. we have team battles today.” annoyance is evident in suguru’s voice. yaga had warned the duo that if either of them acted up during the exchange event, the consequences would be dire.

“dramatic?” he scoffs, his glare not wavering. “she has the audacity to look beautiful in the presence of other men. she’s doing this on purpose.” his arms are crossed now.

exasperated looks are exchanged by his two friends.

screw whatever yaga said. without wasting another moment, satoru forced his way in your direction, ignoring suguru's attempt to stop him. shoko, however, held suguru back. "don't," she said, her eyes fixed on gojo. "i want to see what this idiot will do."

suguru sighed, acknowledging that gojo deserved whatever was coming his way.

you realize that perhaps you are too lenient with gojo satoru. you have forgiven every stunt he has pulled, but the look on his face right now as he approaches you with a wide grin makes you sense that might end now.

“wifey!” he closes the space between you. you furrow your eyebrows at the unfamiliar pet name. “how could you leave me for some kyoto scum?” 

you choke on air at his blatant insult to the boy in front of you. 

“ah, i apologize, i couldn’t help myself but steal her when i saw her. i’m ishikawa daisuke–”

“what a bold statement to say to her husband!” gojo doesn’t spare ishikawa a second glance, choosing to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. too shocked to move, you let gojo relish in the intimate action. 

you’re equally as surprised as ishikawa at satoru’s declaration, a strangled noise escaping from your mouth. the idea of gojo as your husband… it was enough to make your brain short circuit. where did he even get the idea from?

ishikawa’s eyes are blown wide, any semblance of self confidence thrown out of the window,  “i-i apologize for the misunderstanding. i wasn’t aware you were already married so young.” he stutters, bowing deeply to gojo who is smirking with a hand on his hip. 

“damn right we are. i knew i had to tie the knot with this beauty the moment i met her.” satoru proudly exclaims, his gaze softening when it returns on you. the initial shock is starting to wear off and you are shooting gojo your harshest glare. satoru’s antics seem to never end.

“isn’t my wifey the cutest?” he coos down at you, tapping your nose with a single finger. you are tempted to bite it off. 

“gojo satoru, you are the most insufferable man that i know,” you point at his chest angrily. “the most delusional too.” you mutter.

 he places a pained hand to his chest,  “you know other men? you’re killing me sweetheart.”

ishikawa coughs awkwardly, reminding you of his presence. you give him your best sympathetic look.

satoru, annoyed that your attention is off of him once again narrowed his eyes at the brown haired boy, “shouldn’t you be practicing with the rest of the kyoto weaklings? i recommend you to do so if you don’t want to be killed on the battlefield today.” satoru’s voice is an octave lower. 

“satoru!” you’re startled by his indirect threat, quick to defend your senior who looked like he was moments away from pissing his pants. 

“i-if you will excuse me.” ishikawa bows deeply once again before scurrying away without another word. you watch him hopelessly. the moment ishikawa is gone, satoru’s intimidating aura is replaced with a pout as he crosses his arms bitterly. 

“if you wanted my attention you could’ve just asked.” satoru exhales forcefully with a hmph. his arms are still crossed and if it weren’t for the fact that he had acted utterly out of line, you would almost go as far as calling him cute. 

“excuse me?”

“you were trying to get my attention,” he points out. “you don’t have to y’know.” my eyes are always on you. the words die on his lips.

a scoff leaves your mouth, disbelief is evident on your face, “i don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“you do!”

“are you jealous or something?” the idea that the great gojo satoru was sick with envy amused a cruel part inside of you.

“who? me? what could that country bumpkin have that i don’t?” he sounds almost offended at your accusation. 

“he’s nice.”

“i can be nice!" satoru whines. there is desperation in his eyes. "i bought a can of tuna for that stray cat the other week, remember?”

“yeah, but he’s nice to people. he’s also polite and-”

“alright i get it! you don’t have to keep talking about him.” satoru's eyebrows furrow in sync with the way his bottom lip slightly juts out. “i just didn’t like how he looked at you.”

“and how did he look at me?” 

satoru grumbles. was it not obvious enough? “his gaze was devouring you like you were his or something. honestly, what a loser. he’ll have to get in line.”

frustration laces your words as you challenge him, “you can’t just march around scaring off all of the guys that i talk to. i want you to admit that you were jealous."

satoru's jaw drops.

"you can't be serious." he protests, cerulean eyes widening. "i'm starting to think you like torturing me." you smile at his comment. you were indeed doing this on purpose.

"oh but i am completely serious," you reply with faux innocence, eyes blinking at him. “satoru.” you enunciate each syllable of his name, dealing the finishing blow.

he folds. you were being so unfair.

"i was jealous." he confesses petulantly. your grin widens as he admits his jealousy. the victory, however, is short-lived as satoru seizes the opportunity to sneak in another flirty comment. “it’s not my fault my dream girl happens to be everyone else’s.”

a groan escapes your lips, and you take your hand, lightly flicking his forehead. satoru accepts the physical contact happily.

"when will you give this bit up?" you retort, raising an eyebrow. 

“when i finally put a ring on that finger,” satoru winks. you regard his words with skepticism, oblivious to the fact that he was dead set on it.  gojo satoru was going to make you his, or at least die trying.

remember spring days masterlist

extra notes:

prior to the exchange event, utahime actually warned ishikawa that you were off limits. she didn’t elaborate why.

poor ishikawa seemed to be the target of most of satoru’s attacks during the team battle.

tokyo won the event by an overwhelming amount.

“i deserve victory kisses for carrying tokyo to victory, right [name]?” satoru had teased you on the way home.

you pretend to think about it, “hmm i think suguru’s curses were quite helpful. he’s the one that deserves the kisses.”

satoru had never moved faster in his entire life to cover your mouth with the palm of his hand and whisk you away from his best friend who had joined in your joke.

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch4. in a mother’s eyes

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency dept, just got broken up with your boyfriend of seven years, and have been taking care of your sick mother ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket to more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance plan in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation w him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity, mentions of cigarettes, depression/anxiety; btw gojo in this fic is in his mid 30s n reader is in her late 20s

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 4/x

ᰔ words. 10k (omg a whole number...very sexy)

a/n. hellooo my ihm friends! hope you're all doing well. ahh i'm glad to finally be posting this chapter lolol. it's a littleee off tangent from what happens in ch3, but still has some important plot developments. it does dive into feelings of depression & anxiety, so just wanted to give a warning on that! but yea other than that i hope you enjoy and see you at the bottom!! :) also so sorry if there are errors i only had time to skim through it once :((

nav. ch1 :: ch2 :: ch3 :: ch4 :: ch5 (pending)

“Just go ahead and sign right here for me.”

You take the pen from the hospice nurse’s hand. It’s cheap black plastic with a pink fuzzy pom pom attached to the end of it with peeling glue. 

Your eyes briefly flit across the paragraphs detailed in printed ink until your gaze lands on the highlighted lines at the bottom of the page. Your signature. Spouse’s signature.

“We’ll need to have your husband come here to sign the paperwork as well, since he’ll have to add your mother on his list of dependents, but we can certainly get started on expediting this process for you since the insurance has already been pre-approved,” the nurse tells you as she accepts your signed paperwork and then neatly tucks it into one of the compartment holders. 

The afternoon goes by smoothly, with your mother surprisingly patient as she sits in the waiting room while you wait for the nurses to formally show you to her new room.

You thought that you could put off putting her in hospice for a little longer, because in all honesty, you weren’t prepared to let her go just yet. You weren’t prepared to not have her in the house anymore. But lately, she’s been putting herself in lots of danger, like attempting to take her own medications when she does not know the correct dosing, and forgetting things on the stove when she attempts to cook.

But the last straw was when you came home from a very brief run to the grocery store at night a couple days ago to see a handful of your neighbors out on the front lawn with your mother at their side. She had apparently gotten out of the house and walked down the neighborhood, then fallen on the sidewalk but was unable to get up. When your neighbors had found her, a miracle as they were just coming home from dinner and caught sight of her in the illumination of their headlights, they tried to help her get up but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even tell the firefighters that came by to help her what her name was, or what year it was, or where she lived.

It was when you realized you couldn’t even keep her safe anymore that you had to let go.

“Is that a wedding ring?” your mother asks, pointing a trembling finger to it as she lays tucked inside her new hospice bed, “are you married?”

You glance down at the ring Gojo gave you in the courthouse, almost surprised to find that you were still wearing it in good faith. “Yes, mom. I am.”

“Why am I here?” she asks you, “I don’t want to be here.”

You stiffen a little. Although you were mentally preparing yourself to answer these questions, the preparation didn’t make it any easier. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just for a little short while, okay? The doctors want to run some tests on you.”

“Who are you married to?” she asks.

“To Satoru,” you tell her, “our neighbor.”

She lets out a small gasp. “The sweet boy who fixed our A/C?”

You roll your eyes. not sure why your mother has hyper fixated on that memory with Gojo when most days she’ll look at you like you’re a stranger. “Yes mom.”

“Oh, I like him,” she tells you with an affectionate nod. She hesitates slightly, wearisome of some other thought that flashes through her mind. “How long have you been married?”

You let out a small sigh. This is already a conversation you had with her a couple days ago, and it doesn’t feel good to lie to her. It was hard enough to do once, but to have to constantly lie to her over and over again over all the smallest things just so that she stays calm and safe and happy seems to drain you of all your energy and happiness you had left in your bones.

Little white lies, that’s what they are. Harmless ones. That’s what you tell yourself to absolve yourself of the guilt.

“I’ll come back soon, okay? I’ll tell you more about him some other day,” you say to her, speaking gently in the way an adult would speak to a child. The way she used to speak to you. You could never exactly pinpoint when those roles became reversed.

You finish discussing some more insurance matters with the front-desk nurse as she puts together a small folder of documents for you. While she works, you glance at the little counter shelf that includes a plethora of pamphlets on how to deal with the complicated feelings that arise from putting a loved one in hospice care, and dealing with the emotions of having a relative with advanced stage dementia. They are pretty brochures, lovingly creased at the folds as if looked through multiple times by people who walk in and out of this facility, but seemingly only few take them home. You slip one of each into your folder when the nurse hands it to you, manage the best smile possible, and then turn on your heel to head out the hospice doors.

The sun is setting outside as you take the walk back to your car, which was purposefully parked a half mile away to afford you the luxury of a melancholic stroll. Somehow, you feel like you’ve left a piece of yourself back at the hospice. A feeling you can’t quite shake from your bones.

Your feet stop walking somewhere along the sidewalk on their own, the street lights above you flickering brighter into life as the sky is now a dusty gray with only streaks of purple. There’s a liquor store you spot across a small parking lot to your right, and you’re guided towards it, but not without a sickening feeling in your chest.

When you open the door, the bell at the top jingles, and you glance to the right where you see a lanky young man playing some sort of shooter game on his phone by the cash register. You grab a bottle of vodka, a bottle of white wine, some packs of skittles, one of the mini pizza boxes at the hot food station, and then dump it all onto the counter.

The young man scans all your items without even so much as sparing you a glance, but does take a look at your ID, then says, “Total’s $68.65, cash or card?”

“Card.”

Just before you tap your card, something displayed behind the cashier counter catches your eye. Something familiar, something tempting, something you weigh in your head about twenty times within one millisecond all due to the cortisol coursing through your veins and you eventually say, “Uh, and could I get one of those, too?”

The cashier looks behind himself to what you’re pointing at before turning around. “Sure.”

The same jingle is heard on top of your head as you leave the store, now with a burning hot mini pizza box in your hand as well as a plastic bag that carries your candy and the two clinking bottles of alcohol.

“Oh!! omg, y/n,” you hear a feminine voice call out and you’re instantly wincing. The last thing you wanted was to be bothered right now. You just wanted to go home and get drunk and then pass out on the floor of your living room. But alas, the world is small.

You turn around to see Hana come running across the sidewalk lot towards you, and when she’s about a few feet away, she glances down at your hands and all the things you were carrying. You quickly shove your last-minute purchase into your jacket pocket with a shameful conscience, and try to hide the plastic bag of liquor behind your calves. There was no hiding the pizza box, but at least that was the least incriminating.

“Oh, Hana, wow! What a coincidence seeing you here,” you say to her, pressing your lips into a small smile.

“Yeah, I um,” she points over her shoulder towards the hospice that’s standing tall in the darkness of night, cells with windows illuminated with light. If you didn’t know any better, you would think it was a prison. “Remember I told you my friend’s mom is sick and she’s at this hospice?”

“Yeah,” you say.

“I was just visiting her mom with her,” she tells you.

“Aw,” you comment, “I see, I see.”

You adore Hana, you really do. She was there for you when the whole Yuna and Choso thing went down, picking your shifts up for a good week when you couldn’t stomach going into work when your ex-best friend’s stupid face was gloating in the halls over how she stole your boyfriend. Hana was there for you when you were a new hire and all the doctors were being bitchy about a “newbie in the ED”, but she stood up for you, even cussed the fuck out of one of attendings for the whole hall to hear when you were being disrespected by one of them. She’s someone you can beam about how hot the EMT and Firefighter men that stroll into the ED are, too. A priceless companion.

And even though you two have hung out after hours sometimes, it was still always a little awkward to see a coworker outside of work.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“I actually, um, was going to tell you at our shift tomorrow, but I just admitted my mom to the hospice too,” you say, “and…thanks a lot for telling me about it. I really appreciate it. It seems like a wonderful facility.”

Her eyes briefly widen with surprise before they soften once again. “Oh, that’s wonderful, love. I hope all goes well. And your little insurance scam worked! Good for you!”

“Shhh,” you hiss at her, looking around yourself with paranoia, “the feds are everywhere.”

She laughs, sweet in the air, before the sound settles and she looks at you with something reminiscent of well-intentioned concern. Her eyes flit to the plastic bag you were still holding behind your legs. “Hey…um, if…if you ever want some company when you come to visit your mom, just let me know. I hope you know you don’t have to do everything alone.”

You blink at her, sucking in a short breath to respond, but it only leaves you as a slight puff of air. There’s a silent gratitude that you give her, because it’s hard for you to express any feelings with words, but you’ve found that the people in your life who know you best can always read you without them. 

“Thank you, Hana,” you manage to say with a slight croak to your voice because you were fighting back tears.

She smiles at you. “Take care, okay? And see ya tomorroooowwwwww,” she coos at you, coming up to you to give you a small hug, a squeeze of your upper arm, and then she heads back towards the direction of the hospice.

You watch her walk away until you can’t see her anymore. And then you head towards your car.

When you arrive at your neighborhood, you park in front of Gojo’s house. You have a feeling that you won’t be able to bear the vast emptiness of your home now that your mother is elsewhere, and so you drag your feet up the stone stairs of his house with a heavy heart instead.

The spare key that he gave you weakly pushes into the keyhole with about as much force as your fingers can manage, and you realize they almost feel atrophied. 

The house is dark when you step inside, spare for the ambient street lights shining through cracked open blinds on the windows, and the curtains rustle gently from the draft of the AC, a chill that reaches you too by the time you make it to the staircase.

It doesn’t seem like Gojo’s home. A glance at the clock tells you it’s close to 8pm. You briefly consider texting him to ask where he’s at, why he’s out so late, when he’ll be home, and what’s for dinner, but you can’t even bring yourself to pull your phone out of your coat pocket.

Weak legs manage to take you upstairs and you’re about to pass through to your room when the slightly open door to the master bedroom taunts you, like a peephole into some other wordly dimension. Like the wardrobe in the chronicles of Narnia. A portal into your fake husband’s life.

With a palm pushing on the door, you slowly crack it open, and you know the anxious voices in your head are getting worse by the day when the creaking of the door hinges sounds like a lullaby to you. 

Was this an invasion of privacy? And did you really care if it was?

The room is big, with a king sized bed off to the left, sheets neatly made and duvet primly tucked under, like the way hotel beds are set up. You feel a slight flush of embarrassment when you remember you haven’t been making your bed in the mornings for the past couple days you’ve been living here so far, and you wonder if Gojo would judge you for something like that. If he’d think you were a messy or undisciplined person. If he would think less of you.

Truthfully, in a lot of ways, you still felt like a child. You barely weathered a lot of your formative adolescent years when dealing with your parents’ divorce, and you’ve had to put so much of your life on pause to take care of your mom ever since she got diagnosed. So here you were, in the body of a 29-year-old woman, yet still feeling so painfully juvenile. One that forgets to make her bed in the mornings, and on most nights can’t seem to stomach anything other than cereal for dinner. It was like you were still at a party that everyone else had left, except all it ever was is hell. Your life was such a stark contrast to the lives of other adults you’ve come across. The ones that wake up at six to go on runs, the ones that have paid off mortgages with five figures in their retirement accounts, oh god, the ones that meal prep, and the ones that, all things considered, have their lives together. The ones that don’t spend at least an hour of every day, in fetal position on their bed, sobbing until tears soak through the sheets of the pillow down to the feathers like bone, because you’re so overwhelmed with stress and preparing yourself for the grief of losing your mother which you know that, no matter how hard you try to save her from, will inevitably one day come. 

You used to cook dinner every night, make your bed every morning, and go to pilates on the weekends. Back when you were a little younger and healed and excited to live life. But now, you barely get by. Your priorities are with your mother. You can’t remember the last time you did anything nice for yourself, including something as simple as the luxury of getting to come home to a clean house because you hardly ever had time to clean it, not with all the doctor’s appointments you were driving your mother to, not with all the extra shifts you were picking up at the hospital to pay off your debt, not with all the times you felt too depressed to even get out of bed. 

But your mother is in hospice now, so you’ve made time, right? You’ve made the decision that everyone in your life has been begging you to finally do. So why do you still feel so empty inside?

By a quick survey of the room, you notice Gojo doesn’t really have many framed photos hung up on the walls or perched up on surfaces. None, actually. Only a contemporary painting above his bed frame and then a faded vintage horror movie poster plastered up near his desk. Not terribly odd, since in your experience most men don’t really do the whole “cluttering the house with millions of photos of their family” thing until they at least have a couple of kids and some purebred dog. The thought of Gojo someday setting up a little portrait photo at his desk with his wife’s—his eventual real forever wife’s, pretty face in it, posing with their two beautiful kids, makes an oddly melancholic feeling waft through you. You wonder if he would keep a two-by-two in his wallet, too.

Your feet move one in front of the other as your finger traces the surface wood of a dresser cabinet, something that looks a little vintage and oaky, in stark contrast to the modern minimalist vibe Gojo has set up in the rest of the room. A family heirloom, maybe? There’s no dust that coats your finger, which surprises you. If you were to run your finger across your dresser at home you’d have collected enough dust to snort down your windpipes like a recreational drug. But Gojo’s a real estate agent, making a living off of dressing houses up in perfect cosplay so that monetarily stable middle class families feel inclined to buy them. So you’re not exactly surprised he’s invested in keeping his own house in pristine condition too. 

There is a little bit of chaos, though. Like the shirt he has haphazardly hung over his chair at his office space over to the right. There’s a coffee mug sitting there too, porcelain and reflecting the moon light off, but upon peering inside you see that it’s half empty with stale coffee. He’s got pens sprawled across the desk, in a fashion that suggests he accidentally knocked them over in a rush, and slowly, like some grounding exercise, you place them one by one back into the paper mache pencil holder. It briefly occurs to you that he has a lot of paper mache containers of sorts around the house. You lift up the pencil cup, turning it in your hand until your eyes catch something written on it with glittery pink gel pen.

i luv u unkle toru! -yur BEST FREND 4EVUR juno!!! :D

A small smile makes it onto your face. The handwriting was messy, more like scratches than smooth lines, and nothing less than what you would expect of a child. You remember making paper mache and clay trinkets at preschool for your mom and dad when you were younger. And you’re sure if you were brave enough to open the box of memorabilia that sits in your attic some day, you’d see your own scratchy scribbled handwriting on them. An innocence that is long gone and buried, never again to be delicately placed on desks or counters for all the living.

The draft from the AC reaches you once again, brushing over your skin and causing a chill to shiver down your spine. It kicks at the curtains as well, causing them to ruffle up towards you, baring the dark outside world into the streets. And you notice in that momentary glance that there’s a roof just outside the window that overlooks the backyard. A roof? Spotted by a depressed woman going through a quarter life crisis? There was nothing more tempting than that. 

The window was easy to open, which only caused unease over the revelation of how easy it would be for someone to rob this house. You make a mental note to tell Gojo to get a ring camera or security system of some sort since he doesn’t seem to have one, but you can already picture him telling you something about how statistically low the crime rates are in this neighborhood compared to all the other neighborhoods, and then you’d tell him that it’s just for your peace of mind. But whether he’d compromise or not after that, you’re really not sure.

You take a seat on the roof, a little scared as you sit because of the slight slope, but it’s comfortable once you’re settled. You sit criss-cross-apple-sauce, staring out into the neighborhood of perfectly lined up suburban houses. You’ve got a better view into some neighbors' backyards, noticing that a couple of them had pools while some of them have big gardens. There's a cat resting up on a fence in the distance. A car drives by with headlights illuminating everything in its proximity briefly before zooming off. You glance up at the sky, and notice the full moon, but it’s too cloudy to see any stars. Or perhaps it was just the light pollution from the lamps making it difficult to see.

On instinct, your hand reaches inside your coat pocket for your phone, but your knuckles hit something else instead. A moment of brief confusion flickers through your head, but then you immediately recall the last-minute purchase you made at the gas station.

Your hand pulls out the object, and then you stare down at it. Squinting your eyes a little, because it’s a sight that feels familiar but also one you haven’t seen in so long: a pack of twenty Marlboro red cigarettes. 

You’ve tried a lot of things to manage your stress over the years. Excessively working out, eating a lot of sugar, going on six hour hikes to touch grass, flirting with random men at bars, fucking Choso until he was rendered speechless, multiple types of antidepressants, you almost tried smoking weed once with your roommate in college but you wimped out last second. But the habit that had gotten you through the years of 21 to 24 is held loosely in your hand right now. It’s been five years since you quit, but resolve was often a fickle thing. As the saying goes, once an addict, always an addict. 

There’s a brief moment of hesitation as you slowly peel the plastic off of the back, but then it all comes back to you like a reflex you’ll never forget up to where you slide a cigar up out and then pinch it between your two fingers. Forgetting to buy a lighter with the cigarettes is definitely something you would do, but because you remembered it was something that you would do, you remembered not to do it. The flick of the flame coming to life is ASMR you didn’t know you were painfully nostalgic for, and you balance the cigarette between your lips in that sort of movie-star way people used to obsess over back in the day. But just as you bring the lighter up to the end of the cigarette, and just before you can light it—

A hand shoots out in your periphery, grabbing your wrist and entirely stalling the movement.

You gasp, lips parting enough for the cigarette to fall from them and into your lap. The hand wrapped around your wrist is large and masculine, and you briefly consider screaming, but when you snap your neck to look at the perpetrator, you see Gojo crouched down next to you on this roof. You notice he’s wearing a black suit, a tie that was loosely secure hanging from his neck into the space between his spread thighs as he’s crouched, and whatever gel he had in his hair from earlier only barely remains as strands fall over his forehead haphazardly. He looks like he’s on the other end of a long work day. 

You blink at him, expression plastered with surprise, but his is only earnest. With breathtaking blue eyes that you realize he could easily use to surrender a person just by looking at them, like the way he’s looking at you right now. His lips are pressed together into a firm line, as if to suppress some emotion, but the slight crease to his brow makes you feel like you’re in trouble somehow. Like he was silently scolding you for something.

“I—” you stutter.

He lets go of your wrist and discreetly pulls the lighter out of your hand. And then his hand reaches for the pack of cigarettes you were balancing on your knee, but on some reflex that you don’t even think about, you try to snatch them away from him, and now you’re both tugging at the same pack of cigarettes.

“y/n,” he says, “let go.”

“No,” you say stubbornly.

He sighs and tugs a little harder. “Give them to me.”

“But—” you stammer, voice becoming softer to see if that’d work on him, “I’m…” Your grip on them tightens. “I’m stressed.”

He raises an eyebrow at you, then finally loses his patience and snatches them right out of your hand. He stands up from his crouched down position to toss the pack off to the side onto the roof somewhere. You’re surprised when he lets out a sigh and sits down next to you on the roof, as if he felt the obligation to. His legs stretch out in front of him, but still bent slightly at the knees, and he leans backwards with his body weight braced on his palms laid flat on wood paneling behind him. “There are better ways to relieve stress,” he tells you candidly. 

“Like what?” you ask, and just when he opens his mouth to speak, you clarify, “and don’t say sex.”

He shuts his mouth and his eyes flit up to the sky for a brief second. “Damn. I didn’t have a back-up answer.” 

You roll your eyes, releasing a deep breath, then draw your knees to your chest before resting your chin on top of them. 

“I didn’t know you smoke,” he says after a century-long minute. 

You wince a little, because you were half hoping he was going to just drop the subject all together. 

You bite your lip nervously and hug your knees to your chest tighter as if to hide yourself from him. “I don’t. Well, I haven’t. Um, not for a while.”

“Huh. I see,” he says.

Another silence passes, and as he shuffles next to you, the fabric of his suit brushes against the fabric of your coat, and you’ve become entirely too aware of the feeling.

“So,” he says, breaking the awkward silence, “your mom’s in hospice now?”

You nod, enthusiastic enough to where you won’t look like you’re entirely depressed about it.

“That’s good,” he says, “no issues with the insurance?”

You shake your head. “They need you to sign some papers by the end of the week though,” you tell him. “We’ll have to go in person.”

He nods slowly to affirm he’ll make time for it. “I really hope things get better for your mom,” he says, voice soft as he stares off into neighbors homes like you had been doing ten minutes ago. You see the cat that was resting on the fence get up, do a big stretch, and start walking along the length of the fence. Your eyes briefly glance at Gojo, and you notice his gaze is tracing the cat’s path. 

“My—” you start, hesitant all of a sudden by the vulnerability you already feel swelling within you, most definitely due to sitting with someone on a rooftop late at night, but you decide that you’ll be nice to him for once, “…my mom seems to remember you a lot. More than she remembers me.” You let out a small humoring laugh, as if that fact doesn’t completely destroy you. “She was blabbering to me again for the seventh time about how you apparently fixed our AC.” You try to bite your tongue, but can’t help it when you say, “although I’m pretty sure you just pressed a bunch of buttons until it started working again.”

“Yup. That’s exactly what I did.”

You roll your eyes and sigh.

Another awkward silence.

“Can I ask you a question?” you say.

“Sure.” His voice sounds deeper, like he’s sleepy. 

“Why did you agree to marry me? That’s not something people just do out of nowhere.”

He glances over at you, and you flicker your eyes to him. “Why? Having regrets?” he teases, with a slight nudge of his elbow to your side. 

“Just answer me.”

He lifts his palms up from behind him and leans forward, placing his hands on his knees instead. “I don’t know. If something I could do would help someone out that much, I wasn’t going to say no.”

You hum quietly, still confused by his intentions. But you’re too jaded to question them.

“It costs nothing to be nice,” he adds. 

You run soothing circles over your thigh through the fabric of your jeans. For some reason, your mind wanders to Choso. Thinking of all the years you wasted staying with him even though you knew his affections were long gone, just because you didn’t want to break his heart. Only to realize that you never had that privilege in the first place. 

“I think,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper as you draw your knees closer to your chest, “that sometimes it does.”

A gust of autumn wind breezes by, ruffling the trees that the two of you are at eye-level with at the moment. You're pretty sure you’ve completely lost Gojo’s interest at this point, where he’s finally too tired to deal with your oddly cryptic attitudes and overall generally displeasing vibe, assuming this based solely on his prolonged silence beside you. You’re ready for him to get up and abandon you here on this roof, left to ponder every single thing you’ve done wrong in your life. It was any second now.

“Sometimes,” he instead speaks up, and it’s so surprising to you that you jolt a little bit, “you can do everything right, and people will still find a way to fuck you over. But I don’t think that’s any reason to stop being nice to others.”

You glance over at him, your eyes widening slightly, but he just continues to peer off straight into the night. His blinks are slow, lingering on being closed for a moment before he opens them again, and you’re mesmerized by the sight. The skin under his eyes is slightly dark from exhaustion, heavy with character that makes you aware that he’s just a person too. And for what feels like the tenth time this week, you realize that he’s—…handsome. And for what feels like the tenth time this week, your heart flutters in your chest.

He scoffs suddenly and dusts his hands off. “I sound like a fucking youth pastor.” He lets out an exhale before suddenly standing up onto his feet before you can think more on it. He looks off into the night again and lets out another exhale that sounds more like a sigh this time. “God, it’s getting a lot colder these days. Might have to start running the heater.”

You blink up at him with no commentary to add. 

He looks down at you. His face is relaxed, but you can tell those eyes are distracted. A shimmering blue ocean in its own world while he attempts to stay present in this one. 

He holds his hand out to you, and you stare at it blankly like you’ve got no clue what he intends for you to do with it. But you finally take the hint and curl your hand around his palm so that he can pull you up onto your feet too.

You stumble a little, falling forward from the sudden blood flow to your brain, but he holds you steady by the strong grip of his hands on your elbows. He’s close to you, close enough to where you can smell the faint lingering scent of his cologne. Something different than that expensive one he wore to the courthouse, but it’s comforting somehow. A fragrance that’s more him. And you feel nervous as you look up at him underneath pale moonlight. 

He lets go of your elbows. You feel cold from the loss of his touch. But his right hand moves to gently hold your left hand in his palm, holding it curled as his thumb barely grazes the stone you wear on your ring finger; the one he gave you.

The way his thumb prods at the silver band is like he’s inspecting its quality, as if it has to pass some test to be worthy of sitting on your finger. Or maybe just any finger, if you were to quell the delusion. You’re not sure if he’s satisfied with his inspection.

“Where did you get it—” you blurt out.

His gaze flickers up to your face briefly before he’s back to examining the ring. “It was my mom’s.”

Your mouth gapes slightly in shock, heart dropping a little in your chest, and all of a sudden you feel guilty. Guilty that he put his mother’s ring on your finger for something that was fake, something that was essentially a business deal, something exchanged to you out of fraud when it was a precious family heirloom that should be exchanged with love. And maybe he didn’t care about it much, some people don’t care about the sentiments of objects. But your mind thinks of the oaky vintage dresser in his room, so out of place in the aesthetic of its surroundings, a decision you can only imagine him of all people, mr. “everything in this house has to look like an IKEA catalog”, would do if the dresser held some importance to him that was more than meets the eye. And so you’re compelled to think that maybe this ring did, too. 

“Why would you give me this?! You could’ve just gotten a cheap fake diamond ring from a pawn shop and called it a day,” you ask him, suddenly feeling burdened by it.

“Well I wasn’t exactly given much time to think of other options.”

“But—” you start, only to realize you have no counter arguments for that.

He lets out a huh noise, like the sound someone makes when they’re pleasantly surprised by something, as he looks down at your hand that he still held in his. “It’s kinda crazy that it fits you perfectly. I wasn’t sure.”

Your mind wanders to when he slipped the ring onto your finger in the courtroom, followed by the kiss. Soft, sweet, the lingering warm sensation of his palm on your cheek as he cupped your face, the same way those heartthrob actors do in all those romance movies and kdramas that you watch on Friday nights while snuggled up in a blanket, wondering when anyone will ever kiss you like that. You remember the ghost sensation of his hand hovering over the small of your back, fingers lightly grazing the nape of your neck, his frame blocking out everything around you as he kissed you, just to pull away and for the two of you to then pretend like it never happened, as if it wasn’t one of the sweetest kisses you’ve ever known.

You slowly pull your hand out of his, the moment feeling too tender for your liking, and you clear your throat before flitting your eyes up to his. 

“Rule #1,” you remind him with a soft whisper, “no touching.”

You purse your lips, watching his round eyes blink once, then twice, before he shoves his hands in his suit pockets. He rocks back and forth on his heels for a few seconds, nodding slowly in submission, and then he turns on them to head back to the house. You’re standing a little stunned from the abrupt ending to this trance of a moment on the roof, and you’re also a little surprised with how your chest is heaving a little bit with fast breaths, but you eventually snap out of it to follow him inside too. 

You two make it back inside the house, with little words exchanged. You pretend to not notice the way Gojo tilts his head at his desk, like he’s confused about why it looks tidier than when he left it. You’re prepared to feign innocence or ignorance, but he doesn’t press you about it. 

“Y’know,” he says from behind you, his chest briefly brushing against the back of your head as he pushes the bedroom door in front of you open so that you can head out into the loft, “those oversized 1800s-esque nightgowns you’ve been wearing around the house kinda make you look like a less-hot version of Ebenezer Scrooge.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

“Sign right here for me, sir.”

You watch as the nurse slides the papers across the high-raised counter of the hospice nursing desk towards Gojo, his eyebrows narrowing as his eyes skim the words on the paper and land at the highlighted lines where he’s been intended to sign. You feel nervous for some reason, as if he’d suddenly find something disagreeable and refuse to sign, then take you to the courthouse first thing to finalize a divorce and send you off to prison while claiming he was blackmailed into the whole marriage in the first place.

Instead, he pulls a pen from the chest pocket of his suit jacket, clicking the end of it and scribbling his signature onto the paper with some jet black ink that looks like it takes a second to dry. How pretentious of him. The pink pom-pom pen was right there.

The nurse behind the counter continues to chat with him about something, blah blah dependents, blah blah tax claims, blah blah you’ll receive an itemized bill in the mail. You’re trying your best to eavesdrop in on the conversation, but most of your senses are being occupied by examining all your surroundings. When you dropped your mother off at the hospice, your feelings were at the forefront of conscience, but now that you’ve had a couple days to come down from that overwhelming emotional high, you’re here to scope out the quality of this place you’ve just dumped your mom at.

The facility is clean and sleek, with a color theme of red and an ocean blue across the signs, the furniture, even with the paperwork they hand out. All the workers had color-coded scrubs based on their occupation or specialty, and none of them had stains on the fabric. You take a glance down at the modest leather pumps you were wearing past the creases of the long skirt, and notice that the floor was shimmering off their reflection in a perfect polish. It wasn’t bad, this place.

“Thanks, you too,” you hear Gojo say to the nurse behind the counter. He has a professional smile on his face, but still kind and genuine, which makes the woman at the computer something bashful and unable to make eye contact. He folds something that looks like a receipt into his chest pocket before tucking his pen back in there too and then turns to face you. You make a mental note to pay him back for whatever he just paid for, at least once you move some money around. 

Your eyebrows lift, feeling a little dazed as you blink at him blankly.

“Alright,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets, the sound of his shoes on the polished hospital floors satisfactorily tapping in your ears as he took a couple steps towards you, “where’s your mom’s room?”

“Huh?”

“What’s her room number?” he asks you.

“Y-You wanna go see her??”

“Of course I want to,” he says, “she’s my mother-in-law.”

You roll your eyes and pet the fabric of your skirt to smooth the wrinkles out. “You’re getting a little too invested in this role of fake husband.”

“I get to annoy you all day and ride the adrenaline rush of committing a federal crime,” he says, “of fucking course I’d get invested.”

You sigh, tossing some of your hair to behind your shoulder before glancing up at the signs, squinting slightly to locate the ward where your mother’s room is, before you hear an extremely high-pitched and somewhat catty feminine voice call out from behind you. You glance at Gojo’s face as he peers off to whoever’s behind you, and you see him visibly stiffen a little.

“Is that Dayton county’s sexiest realtooorrr???” the voice purrs, and you turn on your heel to see a blonde bombshell of a woman clacking her kitten heels down the glistening floors of the hospice, with another brunette bombshell just a few paces behind her. Bombshell #2 sighs something like “it issss” before they walk right up to your fake husband and take turns at giving him a playful squeeze of his bicep. You have to physically stop your jaw from dropping at the sight. 

“Wow! Ladies, so–...so great to see you two,” he says out of polite obligation, and you immediately clock the fact that he doesn’t address them by name.

Bombshell #1 turns to look at you, all of her hair moving as one solid entity with the motion from all the hair spray that’s probably holding it up, and she points at you with a long slender finger that narrows into a french-tip. “Oh who’s this?? Another one of your clients??”

“Oh, no, she’s my–”

“I’m his wife,” you interrupt him, irritated for some reason. 

Both the women chirp something out like oh! before their faces twist with confusion. 

“I didn’t know you were married,” Bombshell #2 says in a thick New Jersey accent.

Gojo lifts his left hand up, the silver band on his hand glimmering under fluorescent hospice lighting. “Very happily,” he says, as if someone was holding a gun to his head.

Bombshell #1 crosses her arms, and you try not to stare at how nice her boobs look in the low scoop-neck jaguar print top she was wearing. You were no better than a man. And now you’re pissed off at the idea of Gojo glancing down too, but a flick of your gaze up to his face tells you he’s safe. For now. 

“You weren’t married when I asked you if you were a month ago,” Bombshell #1 sneers at him. It’s true, the math wouldn’t make sense, but in his defense, this marriage was a fraud.

“Or when you took me out for dinner last week after I bought my house,” Bombshell #2 snarls with an undertone of hurt. 

Gojo clears his throat beside you before pointing at Bombshell #2. “How is that, by the way?” he asks in an attempt to change the subject, “the half acre down on Maple Ave, right? You, uh, enjoying the pool?”

The woman let out an offended scoff and–were her eyes sheening with tears?? She puts her hands on her hips. “No. Mine is the three bedroom house with the cedar gazebo on 14th street.”

Her friend next to her rolls her eyes and smacks her gum between her cheek. “I’m the one that bought the half acre down on Maple Ave, jerk. Ugh!” She grabs her friend’s arm with a high-pitched hmph noise leaving her throat, and you can hear the other one sniffling subtly as she wobbles on her heels with her friend’s pull of her arm. 

Right before leaving the two of you alone, Bombshell #1 turns to you and says, “I hope you find someone who treats you better,” and then they storm off together down the hallway, their perfectly blow-dried hair bouncing in sync with each stomp.

You blink at the sight, a little flabbergasted from the interaction, and then flit your faze up to Gojo. You see him awkwardly scratching at the back of his head with a grimace on his stupidly handsome face. 

“That’s what you get for being a manwhore,” you tell him.

“I’m not a manwhor–”

“You went on a date with another woman while you were maaaaarrrieeeddd?!” you coo as you let out a fake gasp and slap your cheeks with your hands, “despicable, really.”

He lets out some disgruntled noise, the source coming from deep within his throat. “No. We weren’t fake-married yet,” he vindicates himself, “and it wasn’t a date. I just bought her dinner as a congrats for buying a house. Not a big deal. I do it for all my clients.”

“Satoru. You do realize you’re leading these women on, right? I mean, I’ve seen the way you talk to them. Even if you think you’re just being friendly, please know that your definition of friendly is most people’s definition of flirting.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s true.”

He raises an eyebrow as he glances down at you. “Alright, how come this flirting in disguise of friendliness hasn’t worked on you then?”

You scoff in disbelief before crossing your arms. Maybe you did deserve a better fake husband. “You’re never friendly with me. You’re always rude to me.”

“What? I’m not always rude to you.”

“Well, you’re certainly much more rude to me than you are to other women,” you say, tapping the tip of your shoe with irritation.

“Can we not do this right now? We’re in the middle of a hospice.” 

“God, you’re such a cop-out,” you mumble as you forcefully push past him towards the hallway that’ll lead you to your mother. You can hear that Gojo’s on your tail, following you down one of the more dimly lit hallways, and you can tell he needs to stall the strides of his Daddy Longlegs to not overtake your pace.

“What the fuck is a cop-out?” he asks you from behind.

“Look it up on urban dictionary, Grandpa. Unless you don’t know what the Internet is, either,” you spat. 

You waltz right up to your mother’s room just in time to see a nurse making her way out with a clipboard in her hands. She glances over to you when she sees you approaching in her periphery.

“Hi! How can I help you?” she asks.

“Is it alright if we visit my mother?” you ask her.

“Oh! Sure, let me just clean her bed pan really quick.”

Your brow furrows. “B-Bedpan?? Why is she using a bedpan??”

The nurse stops in her movements. “Well, yesterday and today, that’s just what she has decided to use.”

You immediately become hostile. “That’s not right. She never needed to use one at home. Why is she suddenly using one here? Is that not a clear sign of deterioration? The restrooms must not be kept well enough here if she doesn’t want to use them.”

The nurse becomes something meek, her eyes widening as her mouth gapes slightly. “Ma’am,” she squeaks out, “we see this commonly with patients as they begin to adjust to hospice life. We’ll urge her to use the restroom, but as of right now, we need to prioritize what she finds most comfortable.”

Your expression softens, your shoulders relaxing from their tense position, and you duck your head a little with guilt. “Right…I’m sorry.”

The nurse presses her lips together with a well-meaning smile before shuffling into the room and closing the door behind her. You sigh and lean your back against the wall next to the number plate, cheeks flushing slightly from the confrontation. You have no idea how loud your voice was or who heard you. But you try to convince yourself that you’re just stressed and trying to look out for your mother, although the guilt still sits.

You glance up to see Gojo staring at you with slightly wide eyes, his hands shoved into his pockets, and he tilts his head to study your expression.

“What?” you snap at him.

“Are you doing okay?”

“Just fine, thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

“Satoru,” you cut his questioning off by raising a palm into the air, “just—…just stop.”

His brow furrows together slightly, but before he can show any further concern, the nurse exits the room and holds the door open for the two of you. 

“All set!” she chirps, and Gojo moves to hold the door open in her stead, and then the nurse bolts down to disappear somewhere down the hallway.

You hear Gojo let out a small huff of a scoff as he stares down in the direction the nurse ran off in. “Glad to know I’m not the only one that’s scared of you.”

You roll your eyes and walk into the room through the open door.

Your mother lays in her bed, looking out the window with her hands resting on top of layers of white linen sheets, her skin looking slightly paler than usual. You approach her bedside slowly and she finally turns her head to look at you.

“Hi mom,” you gently greet her, sitting down on the stool beside her bed, “how are you doing?”

Her eyes dart across the features of your face, and you briefly glance towards the wall to the right where you see Gojo standing from a slight distance.

“Oh, hi dear,” she says with a smile, and relief washes over you.

You match her smile with your own. “Mom, I brought someone here to see you.” You glance over at Gojo, who starts to close distance now as he approaches the foot of the bed, “this is Satoru, my husband.”

Your mother’s eyes widen, “Oh! I know him,” she scoldingly swats a hand at you, like you’ve embarrassed her somehow by assuming that she doesn’t know who he is, “he’s my neighbor!”

You sigh, “yes mom, the one that fixed the A/C?” You attempt to finish her sentence for her.

She looks confused for a moment, but slightly nods as if to avoid any further confusion for herself. “But—…but, why…” she trails off and then looks at you, “I’m sorry, are you my nurse?”

Your shoulders drop slightly. “No, mom, it’s me. Your daughter. Do you remember?”

Her face scrunches before it entirely relaxes to keep some image of composure despite the haze you know she feels in her head. “Oh…yes, yes…my little girl. I remember you, of course!”

Your eyes become layered with a slight sheen of tears, “I’m glad.”

“Where’s your father?” she asks, “he said he’d bring me some…oh dear, what—…he said he’d bring me tea. I’ve been waiting.”

“Mom, dad is—” you pause for a moment to think on your feet. You could either tell the truth, or a little white lie. You never know what to do. And either one comes with either guilt or sorrow. “Well, he’ll be here soon, I just wanted to come see you.”

“Oh okay…” she trails off, her eyes squinting at you once more with that same look of confusion on it, but then they drift towards Gojo. “Oh you’re a very handsome young man! You look just like my neighbor.”

Your eyes flicker up to Gojo, and he walks up to your side by your mom’s bed. “Yes, Mrs. l/n, I am your neighbor.”

“With the lemon tree!”

“The avocado tree,” you correct her with a small sigh. “And he’s my husband mom. And also our neighbor.”

“Oh I see I see…” she says, looking up at him, and in a moment that shocks you, she holds her hand up for him to take.

There’s a slight moment of surprise on his face too, but he accepts her frail hand in his, and you glance over to your mom to see her look at him with some look of peace on her face.

“Oh, sit down here, won’t you?” she tells him, and you both blink at her in a moment of hesitation.

He pulls a stool up to the side of the bed right next to you and takes a seat down onto it. Your mother holds his hand with both of hers now, soothing her palm over the back of it before she taps on it lightly.

“Oh, my little girl is very sweet. She would bring me flowers from the garden when she was,” she glances at you, confused once more, “well I remember her when she was so little but she looks…a little older now. Ah, but she would bring me such pretty flowers.”

Your heart aches in your chest. You never knew what version of you your mother would remember. Some days, you’re still supposed to be an angsty teenager that shuts doors in her face, some days you were just as you are right now, and other days, you were just her little girl. And it confused her, the image of not seeing you in the way that she remembers. In the only way she knew how.

“You’ll take good care of my sweet girl, won’t you?” she asks him.

And it knocks the wind out of you.

It drops your heart to the center of the earth.

The thought that, after so many moments where she doesn’t remember you, she still knows that you’re someone she wants to keep safe.

Your mouth gapes slightly, tears welling in your eyes and you try your best to blink them away, but you see Gojo’s hand slip out from being held by your mother’s hands, to instead use both of his to hold hers. Your eyes snap to his face, and you see that same earnest expression you’ve been growing used to seeing these days. 

“Yes,” he responds, eye contact level with hers, “I will.”

A small puff of air leaves your lips, a single tear streaming down your cheek and you quickly swipe your trembling fingers to remove any evidence of it before you huff out a shaky, “excuse me.” And then you’re standing up off the stool, and in a few hurried steps across the room as more tears continue to stream down your face, you make it to the door to push out into the suffocating air of the hallway.

It’s hard to breathe, huffs and puffs barely leaving your lips as you struggle to pull air into your lungs while you storm down the hallway at a fast pace, your heels clicking underneath you in a way that only sets you off further. Suddenly, all the sounds around you make you sick to your stomach, a wave of nausea washing over you, and your nose burns with the intensity of the tears that continue to stream down your face. A few hospice staff look at you with concerned expressions, and you eventually reach a heavy-duty door that leads you out into a secluded staircase hallway where the dim lighting serves to relax at least some of your senses, but you still feel like you’re about to pass out.

Even in the haze of your emotions, there’s this glimmer of a memory that comes to mind. One from when you were younger and you were pushed on the playground at school. You cried and cried and cried in your mother’s arms, but even then, you didn’t want her to baby you. You would say to her, I’m a big girl now! in that same way a child knows nothing of what it truly means to brave the world. 

That little girl had no idea that one day, there would be moments where she wouldn’t be remembered as her mother’s little girl anymore. 

No matter how old you grow, you will always be my little girl, your mother’s voice echoes to you, the feeling of her squeezing you in her arms as she holds your sobbing little form in hers casting a ghost sensation across your skin.

In a mother’s eyes, you’ll always be her baby.

And that’s why it hurts.

Because it’s all fake.

It’s phony.

It’s not real.

This arrangement you have with Gojo.

And if your mother were to die tomorrow, there would be no one to take care of her little girl anymore.

Not in the way she believes there will be.

Of all the white lies, this one pierces you straight through your heart in a way that leaves you gasping for air.

Amidst your whirlwind of thoughts, you hear the door push open harshly, and when you glance over, you see Gojo standing in this dimly lit hallway as he turns his head quickly to the left and sees you standing there.

“Hey,” he says, catching his breath as he lightly jogs up to you, “hey, hey, hey,” he repeats with more concern now when he sees the state you’re in, and he seamlessly pulls you into a hug, your cheek pressing against his chest that feels warm even through the fabric of his suit jacket and shirt, and that familiar scent of him completely engulfs you.

You sob quietly, wiping your snot on his tie and your tears on the felt fabric beside it, your hands balled into tiny fists at your chest, squeezed between the two of you. You feel him tuck your head under his chin and his arms wrap around you tighter. You don’t even realize it at first, but suddenly, it has become easier to breathe.

Then, you wail, and you cry, and you sob, because you don’t have the words to even explain how you feel, about not just this, but with everything, a buildup of everything that has been suffocating you in your life that just comes crashing down on you all at once.

“I know,” he says, his palm resting on the back of your head as he holds your face to his chest, his voice soothing in your ears while you sob until there’s nothing left to cry. “I know.”

You two stay like this for another minute or so as you come down from the cries, your remnant sniffling echoing in the hallway while you wipe more of your snot on his jacket. You make the first move to pull your face away from his chest, but he still keeps his arms wrapped around you when you look up at him.

With your gaze darting across his face, you take in the blue in his eyes. Eyes that are looking at you so softly it’s suddenly hard to breathe once more. And when those eyes flit to your lips, your mouth parts slightly as you two breathe in unison.

It’s possible that you could have dreamed the moment you saw him lean down slightly towards you, his eyes still set on your lips, but it didn’t matter because you’re pushing him away with strong fists before you can even register the thought in your head.

He lets go of you entirely, his eyes wide once more, and you glance down at your feet. 

A tender moment, just like on the roof, broken just because you can’t handle that—…that way, that intense way that he looks at you. New rule, no looking at me longingly like you want to kiss me. I won’t allow it.

“I want to go home,” you whisper, still examining your shoes. And you suddenly feel embarrassed that he had to see you this way. He’s supposed to be scared and intimidated by you, not holding you in his arms while you cry. 

He’s silent for a moment, but you can tell he’s searching for things to say. “You don’t want to say bye to your mom before we go?”

You swipe your palm against the wetness on your cheek. “No. I just want to go home.”

“y/n,” he tried to convince you.

You finally look up at him. “Please.”

He breathes in a few breaths as he studies the features of your face in a way that makes you feel so seen that it’s frightening. But he slowly nods, then says,

“Okay.”

.

.

.

.

.

[end of chapter 4]

a/n. hi friendsss i hope you enjoyed :'') yea like i said at the a/n in the beginning, this chapter is a slight off-tangent from last chapter, but ch5 will continue with a lot of the stuffs that were brought up in ch3. but yea i wanted to explore the whole process of emotions reader would go through putting her mom in hospice, since it kinda felt like a big thing, hence why it got its own chapter. aaa i hope to see you in the next one!! much love from me :''0

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[joonieskinks]

au where you were married to Cpt John MacTavish, but wake up to find yourself married to Sergeant Johnny MacTavish (original vs remake Soap)

“No,” you state coldly. The shock was still sinking in.

“No, Price. That’s not my husband.”

Price’s gaze puzzles. “You asked for Johnny MacTavish, this is Johnny. Our Johnny.” He gestures to your supposed husband, who is taking this all in himself, but he sits just staring at you.

Johnny, who couldn’t stop admiring your face, your body, your ring on your fourth finger. He gave you that. Well, sort of.

Johnny, who was your husband. You, his wife. He had a wife in another life. Gods, what a catch you are, how did he manage to bag you? he thinks.

Wait. Gods, does that mean he gets you too?

“I asked for my John, my John MacTavish, my husband. He-“ You state and finally look, really look at the man before you, this Johnny.

“He’s too young, it’s not the same. It’s- it’s off.” You look back down to the floor, you’re utterly confused. One moment you’re in bed at home, the next you’re on base in a room that’s designated for “MacTavish”. At first you thought it was a dream, so of course you went asking for your husband just to see his face again.

You didn’t expect to actually see him, well- a younger version of your husband, much less an alive one. You had to pinch yourself, you really were here. This was real.

Maybe it was a second chance, maybe it was a cruel trick of fate. You couldn’t tell just yet. You were hesitant, scared.

But Johnny on the other hand, he was having a hard time keeping still and his hands to himself with the likes of you in front of him.

“Cap’, can ye give us a moment?” Johnny asked his superior, who happily obliged. Price eyed you as if to warn you not to do anything stupid, but still be backed out of the room.

You could still barely look at Johnny. He’s your husband, but so much younger, he’s still just as handsome, he’s technically yours but- it was all too weird. Would he even want you? What if he had someone else already?

“Bonnie? Will ya look at me?” Johnny comes straight up to you, holding your hands in his. His fingers playing with your wedding ring, he already loves the idea of it, of you as his. That ring to call you his and his alone. Never did he think he’d have anything remotely close to this, so he considers you a blessing if anything.

You reluctantly keep your head down so Johnny brings one hand to cup your chin, forcing your gaze up to his face.

The sight of his concerned face nearly breaks your heart. It hurts to see him yet it’s everything you’ve ever dreamed of since his passing. To have him before you again. It’s all so overwhelming you can’t help but tear up.

“No need for that, bonnie.” He smiles as he cups your cheeks. It feels so good to have his skin on yours again, you close your eyes at the feeling.

“If you’ll have me, I’ll certainly have you. Even if ye are a cougar now.” He jokes and your eyes shoot open at his words. You hit him lightly out of annoyance, but he just smiles. You can’t help but begrudgingly smile back, rolling your eyes.

Same sense of humour. Maybe he is your husband after all.

“I missed you so much, Johnny.” You admit, bringing your fingers to graze across his face. To actually feel him again, it really feels like you’re getting your second chance at love.

“‘Ts nice to finally meet my missus.” He says softly as he brings his forehead to rest against yours, but it’s you who brings your lips to meet his, losing yourself in his touch after all these years alone…

Then it hits you that this younger version of your husband might have even more stamina and strength- so naturally you waste no time getting him back into his quarters and testing that theory.

At first you feel a little nervous that Johnny might not like what he sees. After all, you are a couple years older than he is now, but he’s utterly entranced as you stand bare before him. His hands all over your body, exploring every crevice, kissing you up and down. He can’t get enough.

“My wife’s so beautiful”, “my wife’s all mine”, “gonna make ya feel so good, show ya what a good husband I’ll make for ya.”

[scarlet-star-witch]

The moon and his sun (Part IV)

Aemond Targaryen x female reader

Summary: People would remember their story. Even decades after they were gone, Septa’s would tell young children about the one-eyed dragon prince and his sweet wife as if they were a part of a fairytale, too good to be true for the harshness real life possessed.

Aemond meets a young girl who quickly becomes his most cherished friend and changes the course of history.

Word count: 11.5 K

Warnings: Angst begins, still lots of fluff, smut (of course), Aegon still being an ass

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5

~~

The court was in a frenzy.

The news of their betrothal spread through King’s Landing like wildfire. It was all anyone could talk about for days on end. Some felt vindicated, that the rumors they had been spreading for months had finally come to fruition, while others were skeptical, unsure of what such a sweet young girl saw in the surly one-eyed Prince. 

The gossip was never ending, with many speculating the couple had been consorting inappropriately in private. While many knew of Ixtal’s customs, that they weren’t as strict about their Ladies maidenhood as they were in the rest of Westeros, it didn’t stop the looks of indignation she received from certain members of the court who turned their noses up at the mere possibility she had sullied herself before her marriage.

While Aemond hated the speculation and had to be held back more than once from storming over to a group of tittering Ladies and threatening to take their tongues for daring to speak ill of his betrothed, she found it laughable. She had to remind her betrothed they weren’t exactly wrong. 

Their nights of pleasure together were only all the more exciting and mind blowing knowing they would have each other forever, that they no longer needed to fear what the future held. 

They could finally relax, they would soon be each other’s in the eyes of the Gods and no one could take that away from them. 

Their wedding was spared no expense. Lords and Ladies of great houses from across the realm traveled to the Capitol to witness the union of a Targaryen Prince and the daughter of the most prosperous house in the realm. 

Aemond paid no mind to the fanfare. All he cared about was her. 

He barely got to see her in the weeks leading up to their wedding, with her swept up with the Ladies of the court in dress fittings and as her family arrived at King’s Landing, she was rarely seen without her dear younger sister or mother at her side. 

The King demanded a three day tourney be held to celebrate, with lavish hunts and feasts raving practically each night. Aemond had never seen his father so excited and he knew it had little to do with him and all to do with his dear friend, the Lord of Ixtal, that their families would officially be uniting. 

He rolled his eyes at the whole affair. He just wanted to marry his love. He didn’t want all this attention and unnecessary flourish. 

She would laugh softly everytime he slunk into her chambers at night, her bright eyes alight with mischief, a delighted smile on her face at the annoyance on his.

“Couldn’t stay away?”

“You know I couldn’t.” He crooned, inhaling her scent as he hugged her tightly from behind. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“I am.” She answered with a blissful smile. “Are you?”

“I was ready to marry you years ago.” 

She practically swooned, leaning her head back onto his shoulder, her gaze filled with nothing but devotion. She never would have pictured this for herself. She never could have imagined she would be able to marry her best friend, that she would find a love so pure and so beautiful for herself. She didn’t think that kind of love even existed. 

“Everything seems so perfect.” She spoke softly, reveling in his embrace. 

He hummed in agreement, wishing they could go find a Maester now to perform a ceremony and bind themselves together. He didn’t want to wait another minute. He just wanted to be her husband. 

The next morning, the entire Keep was a flurry of activity. Maids scurried in and out of her chambers to prepare her, most desperate to catch a glimpse of the Island girl that would soon become a Targaryen princess. 

She sat nervously at her vanity, her hands fidgeting in her lap. 

Today was the day she would finally marry her best friend. It all seemed too good to be true, as though they had gotten away with some elaborate plan. 

“You look beautiful, my love.” Her mother spoke, her eyes already brimming my tears.

“I’m not even in my dress yet.” She laughed as her mother waved her off, wiping under her eyes as she had been doing all morning. 

To her left, Alicent stood, her demeanor much more reserved than that of her own mother and sister, who could barely contain their excitement. The Queen had yet to crack a smile since she had entered her chambers and had been silently picking out jewelry for her to wear, barely sparing a glance to her soon to be good daughter. 

A nervous lump grew in her throat. She didn’t have the best relationship with Aemond’s mother, even as children, the woman seemed disinterested in speaking more than a few words to her. She at least thought the day she wedded her son she’d try to bridge the gap between them, but it seemed she still had little interest. 

She didn’t seem all that thrilled her son was even getting married. 

The maids around her all gestured for her to stand and move towards the floor length mirror, their excited giggles growing in volume as her dress was brought forward. 

Her breath hitched. It was real. This was happening. 

Her heart was racing as the maids helped her dress, her eyes beginning to sting with the pressure to cry the happiest of tears. 

“I assume you know what is expected of you tonight.” Alicent’s voice broke through the throng of excited chattering, abruptly shattering the positive energy in the room. 

The way Alicent looked at her, so intently, almost judgmentally, made her want to shrink. She swallowed and nodded. 

She felt a hand at her shoulder, her mother’s presence steadily at her side.

“We have already discussed what her duty is tonight.” Her mother answered for her, her voice sounder stiffer than before. 

Her mother had been in King’s Landing barely a day before she figured out what her daughter and her betrothed had been up to for months. Aemond had been horrified when his future good mother blurted out their long held secret. 

She was sure he would be blushing for the rest of his life. Even after her mother laughed heartily and assured them she would never tell a soul, that she held no judgment for them, he still had trouble meeting her eye out of sheer embarrassment. 

With one look at Alicent, the Lady of Ixtal knew she would do whatever she needed to do, say whatever she needed to say, to not let the frigid woman before her try to sink her claws into her daughter. 

She would not ruin her daughter’s big day. 

 Alicent hummed, the sound neither that of satisfaction or disdain, and she remained quiet, though her critical eye never lessened. She had no compliments for the young girl who donned her beautiful, extravagant dress, she had no well wishes for the girl as her eyes brimmed with happy tears.

All Alicent could fixate on was how angry her father was at the turn of events. They had lost a monumental opportunity to gain allies due to the girl in front of her. She had bewitched her son, her uncivilized ways weakening Aemond’s sense of duty and proprietary. She never forgot how her son had stormed into her room, practically demanding a betrothal. It was so unlike him, not at all how he had been raised to act and she knew the Ixtal girl was to blame. 

All she could do was plaster on a fake smile and hope everything her father had worked on for years wasn’t all for naught. 

~~

She was a vision as she stepped out of the carriage, her pulse thrumming in her ears, her hands trembling in anticipation. 

In a matter of minutes, she was going to be married to the love of her life.

“Are you ready?” Her father asked, a soft smile on his face as he stared at his first daughter with barely contained emotion. She nodded eagerly, latching onto his arm, taking in a final deep breath before they stepped inside. 

The crowd of guests were in awe as she passed, though she could not spare a glance to any of the onlookers that seemed to swoon at the sight of her. Her gaze was locked onto the man at the front of the room, meeting his eye effortlessly.

Aemond had been watching the door and nothing else for the past few minutes, anxiously awaiting her arrival. The second she stepped inside, his breath had been stolen from him. 

He felt nervous flutters within him, as if he was once again that little boy who was in love with his best friend before he even knew what it meant to love someone. 

His vision blurred slightly as tears gathered in his eye at the sight of her, so beautiful, so perfect, his wife. 

They couldn’t take their eyes off each other as her father removed the cloak from her shoulders. Aemond felt his breath hitch at the sight of her in her dress, the shape of her body, the delicate silk outlining every curve he had spent many nights memorizing and worshiping. 

As he stood before her, placing the heavy Targaryen cloak over her shoulders, he breathed in her familiar scent, calming every one of his nerves. 

He took her hand, guiding her up the steps of the dais. No one said a word as he kept his hand in hers, the crowd was absolutely enraptured by the sight of them, the Ladies dramatically sharing looks of longing at the couple as neither one of them spared a glance to the Septon that began the service. 

They only had eyes for each other. 

No one could deny the love they shared. As they spoke the words that bound them together, their smiles dazzling, no one could deny this was a marriage of pure love. 

“I am hers and she is mine, from this day until the end of my days.”

The words left him with ease. He used to dread this moment as a child, hating the idea of being bound to a woman he didn’t know and didn’t care for for the rest of his life, purely out of duty. 

Now, he couldn’t imagine saying the words to any other person but the woman in front of him. The thought of spending the rest of his days with her, his love, brought him nothing but relief and endless happiness, a feeling he never pictured for himself. 

Since he lost his eye, since a piece of him had literally been taken from him, he had always felt slighted, but now, as the Septon announced their union, as he kissed her for the first time as his wife, he felt whole again. 

He was no longer that overlooked second son, he was no longer that scarred and feared man who longed for revenge. 

He was a husband, he was her protector, her friend, her love. He felt he finally had a meaningful purpose, one that meant so much more than the duty his family expected from him. 

The crowd cheered voraciously. It wasn’t often they got to witness a union so blessed by affection. 

Aemond kept his awed gaze on her as they made their way down the aisle, his hand clasped tightly in hers, paying no mind to anyone else around him. 

They could scarcely keep their hands from each other. 

During the feast, Aemond kept his hand on her thigh, his touch thankfully hidden by the long train covering the table. As both of their fathers gave speeches, spouting lovely rhetorics of family and peace, he couldn’t bring himself to listen to a word of it. 

His attention was focused solely on the woman beside him. His wife. 

He felt himself smiling just at the thought of it, that he could finally say the word. 

When the music started and they made their way to the floor to share their first dance, a moment Aemond had been dreading for weeks, he found he couldn’t care less that everyone’s eyes were on him. 

He realized nothing else mattered. Everything he thought would make him feel insecure wasn’t even a thought in his mind. He held her closely, his heart racing as if they were dancing for the first time, as if he was touching her for the first time.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile so much.” She spoke with a laugh.

“I have a good reason to smile.” He responded with a smirk as he twirled her. 

The guests couldn’t take their eyes off the couple as they danced. Most felt they were intruding on an intimate moment with how intently they gazed at each other, their love radiating from each of them effortlessly. 

They noticed how the couple sparsely ceased their touch from each other. The Lords present couldn’t help but feel slighted there would be no bedding ceremony. They were sure it would be a spectacle with how the Prince eyed his new wife with a hunger most men couldn’t conceive for their own wives. 

Aemond’s pout as his new wife accepted Helaena’s offer to dance, leaving him to sit by himself, would be fodder for most of the gossip the next morning. 

He watched her with a small smile, looking more at ease than the court had ever seen him, content at the mere sight of her delight as she twirled around with Helaena, their shared laughter ringing out louder than the music playing. 

He took a small sip from his wine, content to not drink much more, knowing he’d rather have a clear head for what the rest of the night held. He would finally take her as his wife, he would lay with her, spill his seed inside her without consequence. 

After tonight, her stomach could swell with his child and no one could say a thing. 

The thought made him desperate to drag her to their new shared chambers. He would be eager to see the end of the feast and lay with her for the rest of the night, but with how happy she was, he wouldn’t do a thing to take her away from it. 

As she twirled with Helaena, her head back, eyes closed, a picture of pure happiness, she suddenly lost her footing. She stumbled slightly, her eyes widening, but sturdy hands on her waist stopped her from falling to the floor. 

“Mind if I cut in?” 

She stiffened at the voice in her ear, turning to see Aegon’s smarmy smile. She wanted nothing more than to wrench his hands off her, but she couldn’t make a scene at her own wedding. If she displayed any ounce of discomfort by his hands, she was sure Aemond would forever be tainted as the man who killed his own brother on his wedding night.

“Aegon…” Helaena called out wearily, not wanting her dear friend to be subjected to her brother’s cruel games, though she didn’t have power in her own corner to derail him.

“It’s alright Helaena.” She assured her, giving her a weak smile to the Princess who eyed her worriedly for a moment before retreating back to the head table. 

She cleared her throat and stood stiffly, holding back a grimace as Aegon’s hand slipped around her waist, his other taking hers, his grip tight and domineering, as if he wanted to prove to her how much stronger he was than her.

“You were lucky my grandsire allowed this to happen so quickly.” He spoke blatantly as they began to dance. “I was hoping to expose your big secret to the court.”

She felt her insides twist. Knowing Aegon was aware of her and Aemond’s secret, of their sneaking around, had her wanting to retreat where no one would find her. Even now they were married, Aegon still had the power to destroy her reputation.

She just hoped he ruined his own before he had the chance to tear her down. 

“You think they would listen to the words of a drunken idiot?” 

His smile turned wicked, his disdain for her clear, though there was no denying the lust in his gaze as he looked at her. He didn’t have to like her to fuck her. 

“More than they would listen to a whore who spreads her legs for anyone.”

“You mean my husband?” She retaliated, her patience for him wearing thin. 

Aegon chuckled, though his bitterness was clear. He leaned in close, his nose almost brushing against hers. She jerked back, sending him a vicious scowl, all she could allow herself under the prying eyes that surrounded her. 

“You could have been mine.” He crooned, the wine on his breath making her feel nauseous. “Gods only know why you decided to settle for my twat of a brother. As if he could please you better than I could, as if he could fuck you the way I could. I bet you were the first woman he ever bedded.”

His words made her feel sick to her stomach as she staunchly looked past his shoulder, refusing to look him in the eye. She didn’t want him to know how much he could get under her skin. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“I would rather let the entire brothel of whores you sully yourself with flay every layer of my skin off slowly until I beg for death than ever crawl into bed with you.”

Aegon only smirked joyously.

“The mouth on you.” He admired with a shake of his head. “Such a shame it’s wasted on my brother.”

“Aegon.”

The stern voice of his brother made his eyes widen for a fraction of a second and he quickly schooled his expression, quickly removing his hands from his new good sister, plastering on a smirk so his brother wouldn’t see how successfully he could intimidate him.

She turned, meeting the questioning gaze of her husband. She nodded subtly, silently assuring him she was ok. 

He’d been chatting with her brother but the moment he spotted her in Aegon’s arms, he had abruptly given his well wishes to his new family and was quickly making his way to rescue her from his lecherous brother’s grip.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded eagerly, linking her arm through his, more than eager to say goodbye to the feast and make her way to bed with her new husband. 

“What, no bedding ceremony?” Aegon called out, forcing Aemond to send him a wicked glare. 

“Not if you wish to live, brother.” He spat and turned on his heel, desperate to get his wife far away from his depravity. 

He was more than thankful his good father had appealed to his father about doing away with the bedding ceremony. The Lord of Ixtal cared about his daughter too much to put her through that embarrassment. 

“Did he do anything?” He asked under his breath as they walked away, ignoring the cheers of congratulations from the guests he cared little for.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Aemond’s jaw clenched in anger, his instincts telling him to turn back and threaten his brother within an inch of his life for daring to speak to his wife in ways that were anything but cordial. 

The moment they stepped out of the grand hall, allowing them a brief moment of privacy in the empty hallway, she pulled her arm from his and took his hands in her own, turning to face him, a soft smile on her face.

“Don’t let him ruin our night. This isn’t about him or anyone else. It’s about us.” 

He let out a long breath and nodded, though it wasn’t an easy feat to let go of the anger that burned hotly at the mere mention of his debauched brother’s attention on his love. 

“Besides, I’m quite eager to get to bed and if my husband chooses to delay any longer, I might begin to rethink this union.” She teased, smiling victoriously as his eye darkened with desire.

Her laughter echoed in the halls as Aemond practically dragged her to their chambers, his quick pace signaling he was equally as eager as she was to lose themselves in bliss.

~~

She lay draped across his bare chest, the sheets pooled at their hips. She hummed in contentment, her limbs aching, her eyes heavy with exhaustion as Aemond gently ran his fingers up and down the length of her arm. 

Any other night, his touch would lull her into much needed sleep, but the excitement that continued to course through her veins stubbornly kept her eyes open. 

She turned her head, looking up at her husband.

Gods, she would never get over saying that.

He looked down, their shared smiles growing as their gazes met. 

Her hand that was placed on his strong chest cheekily began to move lower, making him laugh.

“You can’t possibly be needing more.” He spoke tiredly. They had already gone multiple rounds, he had already pulled a countless number of orgasms from her. 

“I thought I married a dragon.” She teased. “Are you saying you no longer have the stamina to please your wife?” 

Aemond’s gaze darkened, his exhaustion worn out by his desire she could so effortlessly spark. 

“You dare to doubt me, wife?” He crooned, knowing how deeply the word affected her, watching with satisfaction as she practically preened against him, a wickedly delightful thrill coursing through her at the mention of their newly married status. 

She laughed and pushed at his chest, forcing him to lay back onto the pillows below him. He eagerly expected her to crawl atop him and ride him in the deliriously, mind bending way she could, but he was left in a pleasured surprise as she began to press heated kisses across his abdomen, moving lower torturously slowly.

He let out a heavy breath, his body thrumming with anticipation. He hissed as she took him in her mouth, his head falling back, already feeling weak under her touch, sensitive from his previous leg-shaking peaks. 

Her wicked tongue knew exactly what to do to render him a useless fool who couldn’t remember his own name. His hand tangled in her hair that was already a mess from their previous passionate rounds. 

His breath left him in heavy pants as she worked him with her mouth at a quick pace. He knew her well, he knew the determined glint in her eye signaled trouble for him. She went further and further and took him deep in her mouth until the tip of him hit the back of her throat. 

He whined, writhing against the bed, his hand that wasn’t pulling at her hair pathetically fisting the sheets below him in an effort to keep himself tethered to some semblance of control that she was steadily shattering. 

“You are wicked.” He moaned, the delight in his voice causing her lips to curl around him in the guise of a victorious smile. 

His lips were parted with a litany of moans and whines as he watched her, eagerly taking in the sight of her, his cock in her mouth, her eyes alight with desire, greedily taking his pleasure. She sped up the pace of her mouth, delighted at the sound of his loud groan echoing throughout the room. 

His toes began to curl, his weak body, already spent from hours of ecstasy, leaving him powerless under her. 

He called out her name frantically, sounding more debauched than he ever would have imagined he could have. 

“Oh fuck, just like that, darling, don’t stop.” 

She doubled her efforts, eager to see him fall apart. She loved to hear his noises of pleasure, to see him so unrestrained as he let himself fall to the haze of bliss. His back arched, both of his hands grabbing fistfuls of her hair, as if to ensure she wouldn’t leave him wanting, that she stayed worshiping him as she was, as only she could.

“Love,” He warned, feeling his end nearing, feeling the familiar fire beginning to stir within him, one that came before a powerful release. With only a few more flicks of her tongue, he felt himself shatter. 

He cried out, a loud, desperate sound most wouldn’t believe to have come from the surly Prince, as he came. His vision was stolen from him as he had squeezed his eye shut in the moment of climax, though he wouldn’t have denied that she had just extricated his soul from his body, leaving him to lose what was left of his sight. He didn’t doubt she had the ability. 

His chest heaved, his jaw slack, small whines leaving him as she was slow to part from him, her mouth lazily working his spent cock that twitched in overstimulation at her touch. 

He reached for her blindly, his limbs weak as though he had just fought a grueling battle. She grabbed his hand, laughing softly at the sight of him thoroughly exhausted. 

She allowed him to pull her over him, his hands desperate to touch her, to feel her close to him, to prolong the pleasure running through him. 

He kissed her hand, his lips moving up the length of her arm until he reached her neck, smiling at the sound of the contented noise that left her lips as he found the spot that always made her giggle with ticklish delight. 

“One of these days you are going to stop my heart.” He told her, still working to catch breath. 

“I would never do such a thing.” 

He smiled and kissed her firmly, his mind a haze of delirium. He briefly wondered if he was dreaming, for this seemed too perfect to be his life. He kissed her again, as if to confirm that this was real, that the woman that just brought him pleasure like no other was truly before him, that he was lucky enough to now call her his wife. 

“Give me five minutes and I will return the favor.”

~~

Their marriage was nothing short of blissful. Now there was no longer a need to hide, the public was shocked by how affectionate the dragon Prince acted towards his wife. One was seldom seen without the other. 

Maids constantly gossiped about the salacious noises heard from their shared chambers practically all hours of the day. With the noises the new Princess made nightly they couldn’t help but begin to lust over the elusive Prince, or at least wish he could give some tips to their own lovers. They almost fought over who got to service the Prince and his new wife to catch a glimpse of the lovesick expression on the feared one-eyed dragon’s face. 

It had to be seen to be believed. 

They knew it wouldn’t be long until the announcement of a new Targaryen babe was made. 

Aemond hated the attention. He wished he could take his wife across the sea and indulge in their newly wedded bliss in private. 

He had just sneered at yet another passing Lady who practically fawned at the sight of the two of them, when she laughed, tucking her arm tighter in his. 

They had simply been walking in the gardens together and still couldn’t escape the gossiping Ladies of the court who could talk of nothing else but their marriage and ponder about the feared one-eyed Prince’s new found prowess among the Ladies. 

“Do they have nothing better to do?” Aemond muttered in annoyance.

“Our novelty will wear off soon.” She assured him. “They are just not quite used to seeing you so… soft.”

“I am not soft.”

She laughed, the sound causing him to look over at his wife incredulously. The disbelieving look on his face only had her suppressing more laughter, 

“Tell me, dear husband, if I told you my legs were hurting and I couldn’t possibly make it to that bench over there, would you not carry me?”

Aemond regarded her for a moment, an almost imperceptible pout growing on his lips as he contemplated the situation. He knew there was no way he wouldn’t indulge her in anything she asked for. 

“That does not make me soft.” He answered defensively, though he knew he was a lost cause. 

She giggled at the obvious answer as they continued to walk. Aemond looked over at her, eyeing her carefully for a few moments, his brows furrowing.

“Your legs are not hurting are they?” 

Her laughter rang out in the gardens as she leaned in closer to his side. Aemond felt his own smile tugging at his lips and he placed a kiss to the top of her head.

He knew he would endure all of the petty gossip that came his way. He would endure a lot worse just to hear that laugh again. 

He almost couldn’t believe the bliss he was living in. He loved her more than he thought it was possible to love someone. Now that they no longer had to hide their true feelings for each other, now that they were married and could freely show affection without any repercussions, he found himself living in a dreamlike state. 

It felt too good to be true. 

Every day was spent showing the rest of the court just how much she meant to him, how he was hers and she was his and no one else mattered, while late nights were spent tangled in bed, their limbs weak with pleasure, a time just for them and no one else. 

As she got up to pour them another cup of wine they had been drinking before he had dragged her to their bed, she looked over her shoulder at her husband who was looking up at the ceiling tiredly, a content smile on his face.

“Have I finally worn you out?” She teased as she handed him his cup. 

He chuckled softly and took the cup, drinking down much needed swallows of the sweet wine. She crawled back into bed beside him, settling herself in his open arms once again. She pressed teasing kisses across his chest, feeling the hum of soft moans that escaped him. 

He cupped her face and kissed her firmly, the gesture lacking much heat as they were both thoroughly spent from the haze of pleasure they’d been tangled in for hours. 

He pulled away, letting his forehead rest against hers as he took her in, simply admiring his wife with an awe that was certainly not unfamiliar to either of them. 

She noticed a flicker of something she didn’t recognize flash across his face, his eye softening almost imperceptibly. 

“What’s on your mind, Love?” She asked, nuzzling in closer to him as she sensed his sudden anxious energy. 

He stayed quiet for a moment longer, carefully contemplating his next words and if he should divulge the sudden thought in his head to her. 

“What if…” He started softly, his teeth worrying his lip as he feared her reaction. “What if you didn’t drink any moon tea tomorrow?”

Her expression smoothed out in surprise at his request. She couldn’t deny that it was something she had thought of since their wedding, but she had never spoken of her fantasies of silver haired children with her husband. She knew he had complicated feelings for his own family, especially his father, and she never wanted to bring it up in fear of pushing him to something he feared.  

“Is that something you want?” 

“I want everything with you.” He told her sincerely. 

The beaming smile that grew on her lips soothed every ounce of anxiety he had and he breathed out deeply, leaning forward to kiss her once more. 

“You’re going to be a wonderful father.” 

Her whispered words made his insides twist and flutter in ways that left him holding back the flood of emotions he hadn’t expected, her words soothing the deep rooted anxiety he felt at the prospect of starting a family, no matter how badly he wanted it. He had no way to tell her how grateful he was for her, there were no words conceivable to tell her the depth of his love for her. 

So he settled for kissing her, silently thanking the Gods above for bringing him to the woman in his arms. 

~~

Aemond stepped into their shared chambers the same time he always did, his perfect hair slightly disheveled from his time spent training. He stopped in his tracks, the warmth in his expression gone in an instant as he eyed the Maester sitting before her with growing apprehension.

“What’s wrong?” 

She laughed at his blatant worry as he approached her quickly, reaching for her hand. 

“Everything’s fine, Darling.” 

“What happened?” He turned to ask the Maester, all care gone from his voice, leaving nothing but strict power as he demanded an answer. 

“The Princess wasn’t feeling well this morn-”

“Are you alright? Why didn’t you tell me?” He interrupted, turning his attention back to her, his concerned tone back in full force, all traces of the demanding Prince gone as he kneeled before her, his expression wracked with worry. 

She smiled again in amusement and looked to the Maester. 

“Would you mind giving us a moment?” 

The old man nodded respectfully, giving her a warm smile and hastily leaving the room, most likely relieved to gain some distance from the dragon Prince with the feared temper. 

She intertwined her fingers with Aemond’s, taking in a deep breath as she prepared herself to bring him the life changing news. 

“I have been feeling a little off the last few days and I called the Maester to confirm my suspicion.” She explained vaguely, her mischievous smirk remaining as she watched Aemond’s brow furrow deeper in concern. 

“And?”

Deciding to finally let her husband off the hook and spare him his heart that was no doubt racing in anticipation, his dramatic mind probably conjuring horrible conclusions, she guided his hand forward, letting his palm rest flatly on her stomach. 

She watched him carefully, noting the exact moment he realized what she was telling him. His lips parted and his gaze moved from his hand to her face abruptly, his eye shrouded in disbelief, looking at her pleadingly, as if needing confirmation that this was real. 

She let out a laugh and nodded, tears brimming in her eyes at the pure love she saw in Aemond’s. He let out a breathless laugh, the sound of delight one she had never remembered ever hearing from him before. He grabbed her hands, swiftly bringing her to her feet and barely a second later, he was hugging her tightly, his hands gripping onto her desperately.

Her delighted laughter filled the room as he twirled her around, the moment filled with nothing but elation. 

“Thank you.” He whispered from where his head rested in the crook of her neck. 

She smiled, her own emotions rising at the sound of him so touched, so loved. 

He pulled out of the embrace, his gaze immediately falling to her stomach that had yet to show any evidence of the life that grew there. He pictured it swelling, the bump that would grow with their child, the life they had created together and he was sure his heart was moment away from bursting out of sheer love. 

“I can’t believe it.” He breathed out in awe. It had only been about a month since they had made the decision to forgo moontea, he had no idea it would happen for them this quickly. 

“With how often you take me to bed, surely this isn’t a surprise.” 

He looked almost proud at her jest and she shook her head, pulling him in for another embrace that he gladly returned, his arms holding her as if she were the most precious thing in the world and if anyone were to ask, Aemond would certainly agree. 

He kissed the top of her head and pulled back, taking her face in his hands as he looked down at her reverently.

“You have given me more than I ever could have imagined I would have.” He told her honestly. “You’ve made me the happiest man to ever live.” 

He kissed her with all the love he could, hoping it would be enough to convey every ounce of adoration he held for her. 

However, their peace didn’t last long. 

Rhaenyra and her sons would soon be arriving at King’s Landing to counter Vaemond Velaryon’s petition for the Driftmark throne.

The moment Aemond heard the news, he became reserved, building that familiar brooding wall around him, portraying that of the feared one-eyed prince the court loved to gossip about. 

The night before they were due to arrive, he had resided in their chambers, wishing to avoid the prying eyes of the court and their whispers about his bastard nephews and the likelihood of there being another duel between them that would result in bloodshed.

He heard the door of their shared chambers open and close, but his gaze remained on the flickering flames in the hearth in front of him. 

“There you are.” Her sweet voice called out, his wife taking her place at his side. “I’ve barely seen you all day.”

“I’ve been here.” He responded softly, his voice lacking its usual warmth that was always present with her. 

She watched him carefully, knowing exactly what was eating away at him, but hesitant to mention it, unsure of how he would react. The mere mention of his nephews was enough to incite his rage. 

“Do you wish to talk about it?” She asked softly.

“No.”

His voice was curt, betraying just how tormented he felt. A flare of pain lashed his scar, the sapphire in place of his eye seemingly burning, as if the thought of that Strong bastard’s imminent arrival alone could cut him like the dagger he wielded that night. 

A tense silence lingered between them, one they both hated. 

With a pained hiss, he tore his eye path off, tossing it to the side carelessly, his sharp features contorted in pain. He leaned his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands as the sapphire in his eye bloomed with pain. 

It wasn’t often the wound still caused him aggravation, but in the moments it did, he always felt like he was that young, helpless boy again. His hands shook slightly as the pain flared so deeply it was all he could do to breathe through it. 

Within seconds he felt gentle hands on his, carefully prying them from his face. He looked up to his wife sitting before him, the concern on her face stirring his emotions he tried desperately to hold back. 

He noticed the vial of ointment in her hands, the one the Maesters gave to him to use whenever his wound became unbearable. He was tense as she cradled his cheek, her thumb caressing the edge of his scar, her eyes taking in the angry looking wound. She had seen him do this for himself a few times but he had never let her do it before. 

She looked at him thoughtfully, posing a silent question to which he nodded slightly, still hesitant to let her touch what was his greatest shame, but the pain was becoming unbearable, he was left out of options. 

She dipped her finger into the ointment and carefully applied it to his eye, her own heart racing as she felt her husband was baring a piece of himself he had been adamant on hiding for so long. 

As her fingers brushed as gently as possible across his wounded eye, the cooling ointment bringing him relief immediately, he finally started to let himself relax, releasing a long breath. 

She reached out with her other hand, laying it over his own that was still clenched into a fist, beginning to trace meaningless shapes over his knuckles. Her touch soothed something in him he didn’t even know could be soothed, the simple gesture enough for him to feel comforted in a way only she could give him. He sighed loudly as he sank into his seat, the rigidity leaving him limb by limb. 

Smiling softly at the sight of him so much calmer than before, she moved to sit next to him once she was finished. Aemond was quick to close the distance between them, moving in closer to her side, taking her hand in his, eager for her touch. 

“Thank you.” He whispered, the look of reverence he sent her stirring her own emotions and she suddenly found herself on the verge of tears. She would never understand what he went through as a child, she would never understand what he felt for his nephews, but she was adamant she would be there for him in the moments he struggled. 

“You never need to thank me for this.” She assured him. 

Another heavy breath escaped him, as if his ire was leaving him with each exhale. His resentment was no match for the love his wife gave him. It would succumb to her each and every time. 

His hand roamed gently over her body, eventually finding its place on her stomach, where it stayed, pulling a small laugh from her.

“You do realize there’s no bump yet.”

Aemond just shrugged, the look of contentment on his face a far cry from the derision that had steadily remained all day. 

“It doesn’t matter. He’s still in there.”

“He?”

He seemed bashful as he looked up at his wife, a slight blush on his cheeks, as if embarrassed to admit the many nights he spent thinking about their child, imagining their son as the perfect mix of them both, of how much he already loved their child. 

“It’s just a feeling.” 

She began to picture it, Aemond cradling their son, his eyes the same vibrant blue of his father’s, his smile wide, his cheeks chubby, every bit of him absolutely perfect. 

Her own smile grew, her vision growing blurry as tears gathered in her eyes at the thought, her hormones that were now on a hair trigger since her pregnancy, coming to a head. 

“Hey,” Aemond called out in concern, reaching up to caress her cheek and she shook her head, letting out a small laugh.

“They’re happy tears.” 

He smiled and leaned in to kiss her softly. It was easy to forget the turmoil he felt, that he was soon to face the object of his anger, when he was next to his wife, their child growing within her. 

That night, he was ravenous. He had taken her with a fervor he hadn’t felt in weeks. He had been insatiable when he knew of her pregnancy, but he seemed to treat her like glass, as if she were now delicate because of the precious life that grew within her. 

His touches had always been gentle, but urgent, hungry yet loving. 

Tonight, he was starved. He fucked her as if they were newlyweds again, every touch portraying just how desperate he felt for her. 

“Aemond!” She cried out, her hands tangled in his hair, pulling hard as he brought her to yet another blissful orgasm.

He growled, burying his face in the crook of her neck, the enticing nip at her neck making her moan. His steady pace never faltered, his powerful hips crashing against hers as he chased his own end. 

Her cries turned to laughs, delirious with pleasure. 

“I love you.” She breathed out and screamed as his pace became quicker, his thrusts becoming harsher, more frantic as he quickly approached his high. 

“Say it again.” He growled, now hovering over her as he gazed down at the beauty beneath him, his eye and the striking sapphire a sight that left her shivering under his tight grip.

“I love you.” She repeated, hoping he believed every word, hoping he knew just how much she cherished him, how much he meant to her. “You are the only man I’ve ever loved, the only man I’ll ever love for the rest of my life.”

His jaw clenched, his eye squeezing shut as the sight of her below him, writhing in pleasure, was just too much to handle. He was powerless against her. 

His thrusts became relentless, the bed shaking beneath them with every one of his brutal strokes. 

He breathed harshly, feeling as though flames were alight in his veins. 

“Again.” He commanded roughly. 

She shivered at the commanding edge of his voice, her toes curling as she felt sparks ignite within her. 

“I love you, more than anything.” 

Her breathless words were his undoing. He shouted a curse and groaned loudly, his arms feeling weak as he practically fell over her, never stopping his movements, his cock thrusting into her almost violently as he came, his body shaking against hers. 

She gasped at the feeling of him spilling inside her, her arms wrapping tighter around him, her head thrown back as she cried out, his name falling from her lips in a chant, as if he were a deity she prayed to for salvation. 

“I love you.” She whispered breathlessly and began to laugh tiredly as he planted kisses over the expanse of her neck, making his way upwards until he met her lips, kissing her soundly, as if she were the very air he breathed. 

“I love you.” He panted in a blissful daze. 

By the next morning, every good feeling Aemond had coveted the night before had dissipated like smoke in the wind. 

He woke early and spared his sleeping wife a kiss to the forehead before heading to the training yard where he spent the rest of the morning, endlessly sparring with Ser Criston and any other worthy opponent available when the knight needed a break from his endless plights. 

Those that dared to step up were left bloody and bruised in a matter of minutes. 

Aemond was wound tightly, his entire being ready to snap as he laid his eye on his nephews for the first time in years. The fury that had been buried deeply within him for years bubbled to the surface with one look at the brown haired bastards. 

The sapphire in place of his eye burned as his glare remained steady on them. 

He preened inwardly as they cowered under his eye. To know they couldn’t meet his gaze brought him more satisfaction than he had expected. He grabbed his sword and gestured to Ser Criston to get into position.

He fought with determination as if he were in actual battle, as if his life was truly threatened and every movement dictated his survival. With every powerful strike of his sword against Criston’s shield, he felt vindicated, as though the years of shame that had come from the bullying he endured from his own brother and nephews stripped off layer by layer with each powerful swing of his weapon. 

His eye drifted to his nephews, a sickly satisfied smirk growing at the sight of their intimidation. 

They held no power over him now. He had made sure of it. 

“Husband.” 

Her voice cut through the haze of victory he had been lavishing in. He turned on his heel, confusion overtaking him as he saw his wife standing in the training yard. He dropped his sword and rushed over to her side. 

“What are you doing down here? Is everything alright?”

She didn’t often make her way down into the training yards and with her current state, he couldn’t help but fret over her every minute of the day he was with her.

“I wanted to make sure you weren’t killing yourself before the petition.”

He sighed heavily. He didn’t know if he loved or hated how easily his wife could read him. She took his hand and he let her guide him out of the yard. 

“You’ve been here for hours, I think you’ve earned yourself a break.” 

He opened his mouth to retort, but she stopped him with a knowing look. 

“Based on the looks on your nephews face’s I think you’ve proven everything you needed to prove.”

The smirk that grew on his lips should have worried her, but she couldn’t find it in herself to feel any concern for the ire he felt for his nephews. It was more than justified, she just hoped it would be enough, that their visit to the Keep wouldn’t result in any more bloodshed. 

Aemond looked back into the training yard, as if hesitant to leave the glory he’d managed to carve out for himself, for the retribution he felt he had finally earned, no matter how slight it was, but her hand in his forced him back to her in an instant. 

“Don’t let them get to you. They hold no power over you.” She told him softly and he let out a long breath, allowing the hatred that had been clouding him all day roll over him like dark thunder clouds making way for the shining sun to warm up the earth after a vicious storm. 

His hand remained steadily in hers, as if needing her like a lifeline in tumultuous waves. She was the only thing that kept him tethered to himself, that kept him from spiraling into his anger. 

She could see how tense he was and if it were any other day, if they didn’t have royal duties to attend to, she would’ve been content to keep him in their chambers and let him use her to both of their delights until he was spent, too exhausted to feel any anger at all. 

She didn’t like to see him in this state. It was so unlike the sweet boy that had been by her side for years. She didn’t like what her nephews had created in him the night he claimed Vhagar. 

~~

The petition unfolded as she expected. While King Viserys’ presence had been a surprise, Vaemond’s demise certainly wasn’t, especially after the accusations he had spouted to Princess Rhaenyra and her sons. 

Aemond had tugged on her arm, instinctively pulling her behind him as Daemon brought his sword down upon the man. 

He had shielded her from the violent display, something she had been grateful for. With the pregnancy hormones swirling within her, she most often felt nauseous around anything that wasn’t plain bread. The sight of Vaemond’s severed head would’ve been enough to put her off eating for the rest of her life. 

As the court reacted in a frenzy to the brutal display, Aemond had placed his hand on her stomach, his eye looking her over carefully, ready to rush her out of the room at the slightest hint of nausea. 

She gripped his hand and nodded to his silent question, assuring him she was ok, that she wasn’t about to spill her guts in front of everyone, though the darkened look in his eye remained. Who it was targeted at, she wasn’t quite sure. 

Neither one of them had been looking forward to the family dinner Viserys was adamant on hosting. It was as if he was completely oblivious to the tension in the family as he forced them in proximity to each other. 

Aemond had barely spoken a word as they readied themselves for dinner. He was tense, his face drawn tightly, as if he expected the worst to unfold, as if he were facing enemies on a battlefield and not a simple dinner with his family. 

“We don’t have to attend.” She told him, wishing she could protect him from the torment he felt in the face of his nephews. 

He didn’t spare a look to her, every inch of him was shrouded in anger, barely contained fury that he couldn’t shake. He didn’t seem like the man she married at that moment. 

“Why wouldn’t I attend?” He asked, as if his torment wasn’t visible, as if she wasn’t aware of the burning anger he couldn’t shake, the vitriol he experienced as a child coming back to the forefront of his mind, reminding him of the slights that he had been faced with. 

“Aemond,” She started softly. “No one expects you to forgive them.” 

He scoffed, shaking his head, his expression filled with bitter irritation. 

“No one expects me to hold any anger at all.” 

She frowned deeply and approached him slowly, eyeing him carefully. She had never felt so out of depth when it came to her husband but she would be damned if she left him to suffer alone.

“We don’t have to go.”

He clenched his jaw, his eye holding a faraway look, signaling he was deep in thought. 

She reached out, cupping his face in his hands, startling him out of his reverie that was filled with nothing but hatred. 

“You just tell me and we’ll leave. I’ll make an excuse and we can go without any question.”

Her words, her ability to show him she was staunchly in his corner, a feeling no one else had ever assured him of, disarmed him completely. There was one thing his nephews would never take from him, the love he felt from his wife stood the test of time, standing strongly against any other force that dared to weaken him. His eye softened, his hand reaching out to grasp her arm, his fingers gently caressing her skin. 

“What have I done to deserve you?” He whispered, his voice cloaked with reverence, as if surprised by the love she held for him. 

She frowned, hating when he spoke as if he didn’t deserve the love she showed him, as if it was some kind of gift he wasn’t worthy of coveting. 

“You read to me my second day here.” She answered simply, reminding him of the beginning of it all, when they were nothing more than two wonderstruck children. 

He exhaled deeply, desperately wanting to hold onto that feeling that always surrounded him when he thought of their childhood together, like warmth embracing him soundly. 

It was a feeling he kept close to him as they walked to the dining hall, though he knew it was futile. The feeling would be gone, shielded in the depths of him in the face of his family.

As they stepped into the hall, Aemond left her side to grab her a drink from the servers, allowing her to step towards Rhaena and Baela, greeting them politely. Rhaena was quick to give her a smile, while Baela only had distrustful eyes to throw in her direction. 

Her name was called and she turned to see Rhaenyra approaching her with a warm smile. 

She smiled and embraced the Princess slightly awkwardly. She had fond memories of the woman growing up, especially in times when she was desperately missing her own mother, but it had been years since she had seen her and knowing her actions on the night Aemond’s eye had been taken had irrevocably changed her view of the woman since.

“It’s good to see you again, Dear.” Rhaenyra smiled warmly at her. “Where is your father, I was hoping to say hello.”

“He’s at Ixtal. He was missing my mother and decided to take a short visit.” 

“You didn’t join him?”

She felt her cheeks heat at the question and she couldn’t help but smile. 

“I would, but I wasn’t exactly in a good state to travel.” She explained and placed her hand on her stomach exaggeratedly. 

Rhaenyra’s eyes widened and she beamed a smile, laughing happily. 

“That is wonderful news.” The Princess congratulated. “You’re going to be a wonderful mother.” 

A hand on the small of her back made her look up to see her husband now at her side, his steely eye locked onto his half-sister whose smile faltered at his sudden presence. She cleared her throat, her demeanor now tense as she nodded politely in greeting.

Rhaenyra left their side quickly, leaving her to wonder just how deeply one family could fracture. She couldn’t imagine ever greeting her brothers in that manner. She couldn’t imagine hating the ones she shared blood with. 

Letting out a long breath, knowing she was in for an eventful night, she turned to Aemond, placing her hand on his arm that was stiff, as if he wouldn't allow himself to relax or even take a breath in their presence. 

They all took their seats, the tension in the room strangling as King Viserys was carried in. 

She held back a grimace at the sight of the decrepit King. He was a far cry from the man she had met all those years ago, far from the man who was a dear friend to her father. 

The awkward aura in the room remained steadfast, with most avoiding eye contact with each other. Even Viserys’ heartened speech about family and the uniting of the house of the dragon did little to mend the obvious rift in the family.

Until Rhaenyra stood. She was shocked to hear her speak such lovely words about the Queen and for the Queen to return the sentiment. 

Their apparent truce for the time being broke the tension, though her husband at her side remained tense, his lone eye unflinchingly cold as he regarded his distant family. 

Her eyes kept circling back to him, as if waiting for the moment he would strike. She wondered when the wood of the chair under his white-knuckled grip would splinter. She wondered when the night would take an irredeemable turn.

She didn’t even get to enjoy Helaena’s thinly veiled jab towards Aegon in her toast, she was too worried about her husband to pay attention to the others around her. 

When the music began, signaling the end of the toasts, she leaned back in her seat, giving her husband a small encouraging smile, anticipating that they had made it through the worst the night had to offer. 

Aemond remained stiff as stone, his posture straight and rigid. She noticed his eye darken further, his gaze locked past her and she turned, her brows furrowing slightly as Jacaerys stepped towards her, a hopeful smile on his face.

“Would you care to dance, Princess?” He asked, offering her his hand. 

She stared at his hand for a long second, contemplating her choices. With the entirety of the table watching the exchange, she knew she had little choice but to accept his offer. 

She spared a brief glance to her husband beside her and the fury that blazed in his lone eye would have melted the wall in the great north. With a heavy breath, she gingerly took Jace’s hand and stood from her seat, allowing him to guide her away from the table.

Her husband’s gaze practically burned at her back. 

Aemond watched with barely contained rage as the bastard danced with his wife. His teeth grinded together so harshly it was a wonder they didn’t crack. He briefly contemplated what the repercussions would be if he murdered the Strong bastard where he stood. 

The fire within him was simmering, ready to unleash as he watched another man touch his wife. The smile on the bastard’s face left Aemond wondering whether he should slit his throat, dismember him, or let Vhagar turn him to ash. 

None of the choices seemed punishment enough. 

As Jace twirled her, her eyes briefly met Aemond’s and her stomach twisted at his expression. She knew tonight wouldn’t end peacefully. 

She flinched slightly as Jace quickly spun her back into his arms, causing her to almost crash into his chest, forcing her much closer to him than she felt was necessary. She leaned back to gain some distance, hoping it wasn’t noticeable, hoping her husband hadn’t been able to tell she had been uncomfortable for a mere second.

Jace would be dead and buried before the sun rose if that were the case. 

“I have to admit, I was quite shocked when I heard the news of your wedding.” Jace suddenly spoke, keeping his voice low so only she would hear. 

“What was so shocking?”

“I didn’t expect you to end up with someone like him.”

“Someone like him? You mean my oldest friend?” She questioned, disdain creeping through her tone, her defenses raised, which didn’t allow her the wherewithal to speak in a friendly manner. 

Jace sighed, as if wanting to dispute the simple fact that she and Aemond had been close for years before marriage was even a thought in either of their heads. 

“You two are very different.” He said with a slight shrug. “I pictured you with someone more… warm, romantic even.” 

“I assure you, my prince, my husband is plenty romantic. You do not need to worry yourself about my marriage.” She smiled stiffly. 

Jace, seeming to sense her attitude, remained silent for the remainder of the dance. As the song ended, she politely curtsied and was walking back to the table before he could rise from his bow. 

The tension didn’t dissipate as she took her seat at her husband’s side once more. If anything, the fury radiating from the man beside her only set her more on edge. Aemond leaned into her, making her shoulders tense both in apprehension and desire. 

“If he touches you again, I will break every bone in his body.” Aemond hissed in her ear, smirking delightedly at the shiver she repressed. 

She looked up at him, his fury now morphed into an insatiable hunger only she could tame. She knew she would be in for a long night. 

She was just thankful he seemed to be feeling anything other than murderous rage. 

But it did not last long. 

She had been speaking quietly to Helaena, Aemond’s hand in hers, his thumb caressing over her knuckles a steady comfort when he suddenly pulled away. 

She barely had time to look over at her husband before he was bolting out of his chair. His fist that slammed on the table made her flinch in surprise, her wide eyes looking up at him in confusion.

“Final tribute.” 

Her heart raced wildly in her chest, her gaze wandering around the table, wondering what could have possibly stoked his fury. It wasn’t until she saw the sheepish guilt that permeated with fear on Lucerys’ expression that she began to understand. 

“To the health of my nephews. Jace, Luke, and Joffrey. Each of them handsome, wise… strong.”

She felt her breath hitch in her throat, her wide eyed gaze meeting Alicent’s for a brief moment, his mother looking equally as petrified for what was to unfold. 

“Let us drain our cups to these three Strong boys.”

She sent her husband a pleading look, but it was lost on him, his gaze, full of hatred, cemented on his nephews. 

“I dare you to say that again.”

“Why? Twas only a compliment. Do you not think yourself strong?”

She gasped, her hand covering her mouth as Jace landed a punch to Aemond’s cheek. The room erupted in chaos. She could watch with disappointment as her husband pushed his nephew to the ground, as Aegon joined in and shoved Lucerys against the table. 

Helaena stood from her seat and rushed towards her, her face shrouded in fear. She sighed and stood from her seat, wrapping her arm around her friend who seemed disturbed by the rift tearing in her family before her. 

“It’s alright.” She assured her. 

Across the room, Rhaenyra’s eyes bored into hers, pleading, as if she had any control over her husband’s ire. She sent her an apologetic look and bowed her head, wishing Aemond had taken up her offer to avoid the dinner altogether. 

The room came to a standstill, the fighting men separated, a room divided by two factions. 

Aemond glared at his uncle who looked at him as if disappointed, as if he were out of line to enact revenge for the slight against him. 

He grit his teeth and in a quick motion, swallowed the wine left in his cup before turning back to the table. He avoided looking at his wife as he grabbed her hand, pulling her along with him as he stormed out of the room.

Her feet moved quickly to keep up with his quick pace, her heart in her throat as he led them through the halls.

Once they were back in their chambers, her eyes seldom left him, watching every one of his movements carefully, noticing how highly strung he still was, how stiffly he moved as paced for a moment before he finally took a seat on the edge of the bed. 

His anger wouldn’t be leaving him easily. 

“Are you alright?”

He stayed quiet for a long moment, gazing ahead blankly, the burning fury that simmered in his veins leaving him practically trembling, the desire to wreak havoc not yet dissipating. 

Every part of him was wrought with tension, his mind a mess of thoughts, though his anger was the easiest to make sense of. 

“Don’t try to convince me that what I did was wrong.” He spoke bitterly.

“I won’t.” 

His jaw clenched, the events of the last few minutes running through his head on a loop, keeping him in the state of rage that made him shake, that made his hands twitch, wishing he had done more, wishing he could hurt that bastard the way he had been hurt all those years ago.

The thought briefly startled him. It was a thought he used to have frequently, when the rage in his heart was so new he didn’t know what to do with it. It was a thought he hadn’t focused on since being with her. 

The revelation had an unfamiliar upset stirring within him.

“I should sleep in my old chambers tonight.” He muttered tersely. 

The bitter anger burned within him, he felt on the edge of cracking and he would hate himself if he ever took it out on her, his sweet wife. He felt he needed to be far away from her to avoid darkening her with his presence.

“What?”

The sadness in her voice almost broke him. He closed his eye and bowed his head, he couldn’t bear to see the look on her face. 

“I don’t want you to see me like this.” 

It was quiet for a long moment, his words lingering in the room like an ominous death rattle that signaled the bitter end after a long, torturous fight. 

But she refused to let him sink into his despair. 

He flinched as she stepped before him, catching his gaze. Her hands smoothed out the doublet he wore, roaming upwards to brush the hair off his shoulders and gently caressing his neck as she reached up to hold his jaw affectionately. 

He let out a deep breath, the tension slowly but surely easing from him in waves under her touch. 

“I am not letting you feel this alone.” She told him, her voice soft yet stern, letting him know there was no way he would change her mind about this, that nothing could force her to accept his absence from her side. 

“I don’t seem to recognize myself around them.”

His whispered confession hit her harder than she had expected and she felt her breath hitch in her throat, her own emotions rising to the surface at the sight of him so tormented. 

“You can never undo what they took from you.” She began slowly, her voice wavering slightly. “I’ll never understand what you’ve been through. I wish I could and I’m so sorry I don’t, but you cannot let this consume you.”

His face remained a mask of torment, his derision and anger battling against the exhaustion that permeated his bitterness, that left him feeling weak in the aftermath of his rage. 

She gently guided him to tilt his head upward so she could look at him, so he could see her and the resolution on her face and understand her honesty.

“You are more than your eye. You are more than the rage you feel when you look at them. You are more than them.”

He almost shuddered under her hands, the words striking him with force as though they were dealt with a physical hit. 

“I see you, the real you. The one I fell in love with, my sweet husband, the father of my child.” 

With that, she grabbed his hand to place it over her stomach and his expression changed in an instant, the anger gone as he caressed where his child grew. 

He leaned forward, his forehead falling to rest against her chest, his arms circling her waist. He spread his legs, allowing her to step closer to him, her own arms wrapping around his shoulders, holding him tightly. 

She ran her fingers through his hair, the soft motions pulling a soft sound from deep within him, his rigid body falling lax against her. 

As she hugged him tightly she felt her eyes begin to sting with tears. She wished she could pull the agony from him, untangle the strings of rage that wound him so tightly. 

She wished she could’ve gone back in time and held tighter to the wounded boy who hid his despair from her for so long. 

~~

The girls are fightinggg

And the angst is coming xx

~~

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