#everyone else: *glares in envy*

[obsessedwithceleste]

Love Lies

Theodore Nott x Ravenclaw! reader

Based on this request 🫶🏽

Summary: You’re just as confused as everyone else when your mortal enemy wakes up fully convinced that you’re the love of his life. (Spoiler alert: literally no one else was surprised)

word count: 5.2k

©️ obsessedwithceleste. all works posted here belong to me and should not be reposted or copied in any way or form.

It was cold and windy and wet as you stepped off the quidditch pitch, rain soaking you to your core. Thank Rowena you didn’t have to play an actual match in this weather. No, that honor went to the Slytherins and Gryffindors and you did not envy them at all, regular practice was enough for you.

As you make your way back to the locker rooms you see students and staff already beginning to fill the open stands and shake your head with pity. No amount of drying or warming charms were going to make it a comfortable match to sit through.

Just as you're about to turn into the locker rooms you feel yourself jerk back as a green robed shoulder slams past you, nearly knocking you off your feet.

“Watch it dolcezza,” a familiar voice slurs over the rain, condescension dripping from his words.

Despite your better judgement, you turn to find yourself facing none other than Theodore fucking Nott, broom in hand, and signature cocky smirk pasted across his face. God you hated that boy.

“Call me sweet again you pompous git,” you snap, glaring up at the Slytherin.

“Why waste my breath on you?” He retorts, matching your steely gaze, his lip curling up in a sneer.

You had never gotten along with Theodore. It was no secret among your classmates that the two of you hated each other. Despite being in many of the same NEWT level courses, sharing a love for quidditch, and both of you basically residing in the Hogwarts library, you simply could not tolerate one another’s presence.

It was strange perhaps, you’d done the analyzation yourself. By all accounts you two should probably be friends. But no amount of similarities or shared interests could make up for the fact that Theodore Nott was an insufferable, arrogant arse who only cared about maintaining his perfectly curated reputation.

"You're right Theodore, save a tree a bit of work why don't you. Rowena knows that tree is doing more for the world than you are," you reply coldly.

Theo opens his mouth to respond, but for maybe the first time ever, you see the boy falter, if only for a split second, before he's back to his usual stoic self. He scoffs.

"Just forget it, you're not worth it," he mutters under his breath, rolling those pretty blue eyes as he turns to go.

You shake your head at the boy, scoffing yourself.

"Yeah, do your best to forget me Nott, because I won't hesitate to forget you."

"Don't be mad."

"Just hear us out."

Oh dear god. As soon as you hear the combined voices of Mattheo Riddle and Lorenzo Berkshire, you know that you're about to be in for a ride. You look cautiously up at the pair from your seat in the library, on edge because wherever these two were, Theodore was sure to be nearby.

"He's not here if that's what you're worried about," Lorenzo offers with a nervous smile.

It's the kind of smile you would offer a skittish cat that you've cornered in hopes it doesn't bolt, and you had an unfortunate feeling that you were the cat in this scenario. Still you feel your shoulders relax a bit as the two carefully sit down at the table across from you.

"So uh. We heard about your, ah, little tiff, with Theo today," Lorenzo starts out awkwardly, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else in the castle at this moment.

"Bloody tosser never shuts up about you," Mattheo mutters so quietly you almost miss it.

You raise in eyebrow at the two boys in front of you, waiting for them to get to the point as Lorenzo gives Mattheo a sharp jab to the ribcage.

"Anyway," Lorenzo continues a bit too loudly, "There was a bit of an incident at the quidditch match today."

"Yeah, Slytherin lost. Again. I heard," you cut in, trying to wrap this up.

"Okay, ouch," Mattheo mutters once more, earning a glare from both you and Lorenzo.

"Did you also happen to hear that Theo was knocked of his broom?" Lorenzo asks.

Oh shit. As much as you couldn't stand Theodore, it's not as if you wanted the boy to get hurt. And you knew from personal experience, any quidditch injury should be taken rather seriously. But then, why were Theodore's two best friends sitting here in the library with you and not in the hospital wing with him?

You narrow your eyes at the boys across from you.

"So what does this all have to do with me? Nothing good could possibly come of you two starting the conversation with 'don't be mad' and 'just hear us out'."

Lorenzo fidgets nervously, shifting in his seat and Mattheo refuses to make eye contact with you. You truly had never seen the ever stone cold Slytherin boys look so wildly uncomfortable before.

"He got knocked out and when he woke up he was convinced the two of you are madly in love," Lorenzo rushes out, flinching back as if waiting for you to yell at him.

"And now the smitten tosser is requesting the presence of his beloved. He's really torn up about it too," Mattheo adds looking the most serious he’d been, probably ever.

But you were having none of it.

"Alright, hahaha, you almost had me there, you two actually sounded pretty sincere for a bit, but seriously it's not funny anymore. There's simply no reality where Theodore is in love with me, that's disgusting and I'm not stupid."

Mattheo and Lorenzo glance at each other with knowing looks before sighing in unison.

"On Salazar's good name, we are not lying or joking about this," Mattheo says solemly.

"And we didn't want to involve you in this whole thing anyway. We know about how well you and Theo get along. It's just that Madam Pomfrey is concerned that, until she's able to brew something to get Theo's head back on right, any world crushing stress or shock might have lasting, long-term psychological effects or what have you," Lorenzo finishes, emphasizing his last point rather strongly.

You continue to stare at the two boys in front of you as if their heads had been replaced by hippogriffs, slowly understanding what they were asking of you.

“Oh absolutely not. There’s literally no way. I’m not going up there.”

You hated the smell of the hospital wing. It was far too... sterile. Unnervingly so. The last hour of your life had been a blur and frankly you still weren't entirely sure how Lorenzo and Mattheo had managed to wrangle you all the way up to the hospital wing, but here you were.

As you make your way to the large double doors that lead into the infirmary, you send one last pointed glare to the pair of Slytherins behind you before turning, steeling yourself as you prepare for the worst.

The first thing you notice when you enter the brightly lit room is how strangely peaceful it is. As you quietly approach the rows of narrow hospital beds, the second thing you notice is how normal Theodore looks lying there asleep. There's no snarling lips, raised eyebrows, or biting words, it's just Theo. Tilting your head a bit, you're able to really admire the boy for the first time, not worrying about what insult he's going to throw at you next. He actually was rather attractive, you could see why so many of your classmates practically threw themselves at his feet. Maybe you would too if he weren't such an insufferable prat.

Just as you’re about to finally feel a bit more at ease, Theodore has to go and ruin it, because of course he does, by shifting a bit in his bed, eyes fluttering before settling softly on you.

“Morning dolcezza, finally come to see me hm?” he asks, lips curling up into a sickeningly sweet smile. You can see the adoration in his eyes as he looks up at you.

It should’ve been a sweet moment. Something straight out of a romance movie perhaps, but all you could hear was the way he had snarled ‘dolcezza’ at you earlier that day. Nothing but hatred and malice on his face. Not, this. Whatever it was.

“Please don’t call me that,” you blurt out, your body subconsciously stiffening, ready for whatever Theodore was about to throw back at you.

Instead though, he looks hurt. A frown flickers across his face making him look like a kicked puppy and you instantly feel a wave of guilt crash over you.

What the hell had happened out on that quidditch pitch.

Before the situation could get any more uncomfortable than it already was, Madame Pomfrey saves the day as she comes whisking into the hospital wing to check up on her charge.

“Hello dearie, you must be the one Mr. Nott has been going on about all evening,” she says with a knowing glance as she gives Theodore a quick inspection. “Now it’s been my understanding that Mr. Nott hasn’t quite been, well, himself since he woke up. Unfortunately, the specific brew that’s needed for these kinds of things takes a full moon cycle to whip up. Until then...”

You stare at the witch in horror. The idea of being stuck with Theodore for the next month made you want to vomit.

“I feel fine,” Theodore protests, shoving himself into a sitting position and reaching out to clasp onto your hand.

It takes everything in you to not recoil away and you shoot a look at Madam Pomfrey, hoping she’d speak some reason into the boy.

“Well, if you’re sure,” she says instead, “Mr. Nott is clear to go, but do come back if you start feeling dizzy again, I simply won’t have another student fainting in the corridors.”

With that, she ushers Theodore up and out of bed before shooing the both of you out of the hospital wing.

Once the metal doors clang shut behind you, you feel Theodore reach out, grabbing your hand once more.

“Let me walk you to your common room then?” He asks, giving your hand a light squeeze, already tugging you in the direction of Ravenclaw tower.

Resistance seemed futile at this point, so you let the boy drag you along doing your best to avoid conversation and eye contact. You receive several very bewildered stares as you pass your classmates in the hallway, but thankfully no one says anything. Not to your face anyway.

When you finally arrive at your common room door, even the golden eagle mounted to the door looks baffled by your choice of Slytherin companion.

Before you can pull away, Theo presses a soft kiss to the top of your head and you jerk away from him.

“Um, I’ll see you tomorrow carissima,” he murmurs, eyebrows furrowed a bit before he turns and disappears down the corridor.

The first week with Theodore glued to your side is, for lack of better words, literal hell. The next morning on your way down to the great hall for breakfast you simply want to melt into the floor in horror when you find Theodore waiting outside your common room door, garnering a good number of whispers and stares from your fellow housemates.

He takes hold of your hand once again and you begrudgingly follow, silently cursing the brunette boy and the rest of his bloodline.

“Have you finished the charms essay Flitwick assigned last week?” Theodore asks as you stroll through the corridor.

You want to burst out laughing at how comically mundane the question was given the absurdity of the whole situation, but you do your best to keep it together.

“Not quite, just have to wrap up the last few lines I think,” you reply, trying to keep it short.

“We can finish up in the library together tonight then,” Theodore decides.

You open your mouth to protest, but close it just as fast. If you were going to be stuck with this tosser, you might as well extort him you think begrudgingly to yourself.

You can feel several pairs of eyes on you as you sit down next to Theodore at the Slytherin table. Your blue robes stick out like a sore thumb making you rather self conscious. Still, his friends all greet you as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to have you sitting with them and you feel like you’ve entered the twilight zone.

As the rest of the week goes by, it’s all more of the same. Trying to hold back a grimace every time Theodore takes your hand or kisses your forehead good night, pretending you weren’t completely weirded out by the way his friends had so easily adapted you into their little group, ignoring the whispers and side eyes from other students.

Objectively speaking, this could be much worse. Theodore was actually rather tolerable to be around when you weren’t throwing insults back and forth. The real issue was that every time you thought to yourself that Theodore Nott might not be all bad, you’d get a sudden flashback of him and his friends picking on some innocent first or second year, or playing a particularly foul game of quidditch, or the time they’d hexed poor Hermione Granger’s teeth to keep on growing like a beaver's and you’d feel sick to your stomach.

You really didn’t think your hatred for Theodore was all that misplaced. When it came down to it, he and his friends could be down right bullies and you loathed the way they acted as if they were above others. Even now when it came down to it, your whole part in this little cooked up scheme was to protect Theodore’s ego.

It's in the second week that your perception on things begins to crack. You'd been spending a lot of time with Theodore and his friends and, you didn't really know what you had expected, but, it wasn't this.

It was the first time you'd ever been in the Slytherin common room. All dark and cold and dreary. Nothing like Ravenclaw tower, but they were on two opposite ends of the spectrum you supposed. You were sat next to Theodore, buried in your book, one that he had given you, and trying to ignore everything going on around you when a group of first year Slytherins come stumbling into the dungeons, huddled around a young boy who's skin was an alarming shade of electric purple.

You're not prepared for the way the students around you jump into action. Daphne Greengrass is by the boy's side in moments, wiping tears from his cheek as Lorenzo and Pansy interrogate some of the other's as to what had happened.

It had been some second year Gryffindors, one girl said her lower lip trembling. Apparently they had gotten their hands on some of the Weasley twins' underground candies and tricked the poor boy into eating a few.

You watch silently as Draco and Blaise examine the boy before ushering him off to their dormitory, confidently telling him a cure would be easy enough to brew.

In all the commotion, you don't notice Mattheo and Marcus Flint sneaking off to go find a certain group of young lions. But Theodore does.

"Better go make sure they don't take things too far," he sighs, rising from his place next to you and giving your hand a squeeze before following the other boys out of the dungeon. You don't even have time to protest.

You're about to just return to your common room and call it a night when Daphne finds her way over to you, having calmed down most of the shaken up first years, and sits down next to you.

"Sorry you had to see all that," she sighs looking tired and worn down.

"I didn't realize you all were so close," you state, gesturing to some of the older students who had seemingly taken some of the younger ones under their wing now.

"We have to be. If we aren't on our own side, who else will be?" she replies.

When she's met with silence she gives you a tight lipped smile before turning, ready to go.

"So when Theodore and Mattheo get into fights, is it always because—?" You let your words trail off, not really sure where you were taking this and Daphne turns to face you once more.

"Honestly? No. Sometimes they can just be massive pricks. They usually make up for it though." Daphne says as you nod your head in response. "We really do appreciate what you're doing for Theo," she says, switching topics. "I know you don't exactly see eye to eye, and honestly I can't blame you. I know how the boys can be. But between you and me, I've always suspected that he actually liked you, at least a little bit. Maybe this knock to the head got him to finally come to his senses," she laughs.

"I don't know about that. I'm pretty certain once Madam Pomfrey whips up that potion, he'll be right back where we left off," you reply, adding in your own nervous laughter.

"You're only saying that because you don't know what he was really like before. You don't have to believe me, but if you really gave him a chance- you never know."

"Maybe, but I'm pretty sure about this."

Daphne shrugs her shoulders.

"Suit yourself, but um, if you wouldn't mind, maybe don't go spreading this whole incident around the school? We try to keep these kinds of things, discreet. Don't want the other houses to see us sweat and all."

You take a good look at the girl beside you and then at the room full of Slytherin students around you, realizing for the first time that it really did seem as if they had the whole school against them.

"No, of course not. I didn't see a thing," you tell her.

Daphne gives you a grateful smile as she rises to leave.

"He'll be back in a bit. Probably be glad to see you still here," she says before disappearing to her own dormitory.

It's not long before Theodore finally returns, his face lighting up when he spots you still tucked cozily away in your corner, nose buried in the pages of your book.

Theo was very confused to say the least. It had been almost three weeks since he'd been knocked off his broom in that match against the Gryffindors, and things just felt, off. Truth be told, he couldn't really seem to remember much of anything since before the fall. Not clearly at least. It was all fuzzy shadows and warped conversation, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make sense of it all.

The only thing he was really certain about, was you. He remembered dreaming about you while he was asleep in the hospital wing, and how angry you had been that day before his match, though he couldn't quite place why. He had worried that that was why you weren't there when he woke up, maybe you were mad at him.

But then the next time he opened his eyes you were there, gazing down at him, and everything had just felt right. Your hand had slotted perfectly with his and he was sure that, out of everyone, you were the person he could trust the most.

So why did you look like you were in pain every time he approached? Why did you flinch away whenever his lips brushed the top of your head? Why did it feel as if you were holding him at an arms length?

All this swirled around in Theo's mind as he sat on the library sofa next to you, watching the warm glow of the fireplace dance across your face.

"Have I done something to make you upset carissima?" Theo asks, the words leaving his mouth before he can stop them.

You look up at him, startled by the abrupt question as you snap your book shut.

"No, why do you ask?"

Theo watches you turn your body to face him now, tilting your head as he furrows his eyebrows, trying to put the words together.

"I just, remember things being different, I think," he replies, hating how his brain wasn't letting him form cohesive thoughts.

"Oh?" You look surprised at his statement, eyes darting away from him and Theo can tell he's onto something.

"Was it before the match? Before I fell? Were we fighting about something carissima?" He asks again.

It's obvious you're thinking hard about what to say as Theo reaches out to take your hands in his. For once you don't flinch away from his touch, instead just staring at your intertwined fingers.

"It was something like that," you mumble as Theo rubs careful circles around your knuckles.

“I don’t think I remember a lot very clearly. It’s frustrating sometimes,” Theo admits. “But I remember you.”

“Yeah? What do you remember about me?”

“I remember how you always say hello to the painting outside of the charms classroom. And how you like to sneak snacks into astronomy. I remember the time in third year when we were flying on the quidditch pitch and you were about to get hit by a bludger so I had to move you out of the way.”

You blink at the last memory Theodore shares. You knew what he was talking about, but that’s not how you remembered it. You had been flying yes, when Theodore had come out of nowhere, shoving you while in the sky and then turning, laughing while calling you an idiot. You’d never even seen the bludger.

“I remember kissing you under the bleachers, and holding you by the fireplace. I remember you telling me you loved me.”

And that's where he lost you. Those memories, you didn't know where they came from, but for Theo, they were real. And who knew he was such a sap? You'd never thought the boy was even capable of having emotions.

"Can we start over? I don't remember why you were upset. But I'm sorry. I just want what little memory I have to go back to normal."

Theo watches as you let out a deep sigh. Every word out of Theodore’s mouth was like a punch to the gut, absolutely devastating any sort of resolve you had still been holding.

“Sure Theodore.”

“Just Theo,” he corrects as he pulls you into his arms, tucking your head snuggly under his chin.

The last week you have with Theo, or at least with this version of him, you spend trying not to get too attached. You'd grown rather used to having the boy appear by your side to carry your books or to sneak snacks into the library for you when you'd spent the last several hours putting the final touches on your ancient runes essay. You didn't even mind having to constantly tell him and Mattheo to quiet down anymore.

As it turned out, Daphne had been right about one thing. Theodore and his friends could absolutely be obnoxious, arrogant, pompous pricks, but they did have their ways of charming their way back into your favor. The little parasites. They'd grown on you.

You knew that Madam Pomfrey had finished brewing the elixir before Mattheo could open his mouth just by the guilty expressions on his and Lorenzo's faces when they walked into the Slytherin common room. You'd been frequenting the dungeons a lot more recently, but it looked like that was about to come to an end.

"It's ready then?" you ask, tucking your book away as your hand falls to rest on Theo's arm.

Mattheo just nods his head as you all turn to look at Theo who's still focused on his own book.

"Hey. Madam Pomfrey says she wants to give you one last check. Just to make sure your head is on straight," Mattheo says, thumping Theo on the shoulder.

"Why? I feel fine," Theo replies, an air of annoyance laced in his voice as he's torn away from his book.

"Don't know mate. Just humor the old bat," Enzo sighs.

Theo rolls his eyes before reluctantly rising from the couch, offering you a hand up as well.

"Coming along carissima?" he asks, already reaching out for your hand, but you dodge away.

"I think I'm going to head back up to Ravenclaw tower actually. It's getting pretty late," you reply, feigning a small yawn.

As you exit the dungeons, Enzo catches you by the arm.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with? We don't know for sure that he'll, ya know, go back."

"It's fine Lorenzo. I just- I really can't be up there. We all knew this wasn't a real, permanent thing. I just want to finish my book," you reply, backing away. "I hope Theodore feels more himself, I guess."

You can see Lorenzo's face visibly shift as you revert back to Theodore's full name, his whole demeanor stiffening.

"Right well. Have a night y/n."

And then he's gone.

When you finally make it all the way back to your tower, you collapse onto one of the sofas overlooking the castle grounds, eager to distract yourself by diving back into you book.

"Just come back from the dungeons?" the voice of Marietta Edgecombe asks, dragging your attention away from your novel.

You nod your head, hoping your short answer would encourage the girl to move on quickly.

"I called that one so early on. I've been telling Cho for years, those two are going to end up together, I just know it. And I was right!" she says gleefully, giving your shoulder a little squeeze before flouncing off.

“You came,” Theodore’s voice rings out from his spot on one of the stone benches that lined the walls of the astronomy tower.

“I did,” you reply carefully, watching as he leans back inviting you forward.

It had been almost two weeks since the antidote had been brewed and Theodore looked like he hadn’t slept at all in that time frame. You’d spent that time avoiding him, and all the Slytherins really.

You were confused and you hadn't known what to expect when Theodore came back down from the hospital wing. It had been a strange past month, and now you weren't sure where it left the two of you. What did he remember? Did he care?

You take slow steps forward, Theodore’s eyes never leaving yours until you’re standing directly in front of him. He continues to just stare at you, the silence becoming deafening.

“What do you want, Theodore?” You ask finally, growing frustrated as you let out an agitated sigh.

“Just to talk, dolcezza,” he replies lazily, patting the spot on the bench beside him.

“Don’t call me that,” you mutter, rolling your eyes but taking a seat anyway.

“Don’t call me Theodore,” he shoots back.

You feel your eyebrows raise.

“So you remember then?” You ask.

“I remember. Everything from the past month. And before.”

There’s another pause, less uncomfortable this time though as you both consider his words.

“So why am I here Theo?”

“Cause I can’t keep you out of my head mostly,” he replies, rather resigned to the fact.

“Have you tried?”

Theo gives you an exasperated look.

“Obviously. If I could, I’d just loose feelings for you, but it’s not exactly easy to fall out of love with someone you’ve been holding onto for so long. What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two weeks?” He grumbles stubbornly.

"What do you mean 'holding onto for so long'?" you ask, giving the boy a puzzled look. You'd hardly call a month a long time.

Theo just looks at you again as if silently willing you to simply read his mind. Unfortunately for him, that's not how osmosis works. With another long, drawn out sigh, Theo rests his elbows on his knees letting his head fall into his hands as he mumbles incoherently into his palms.

"Huh?"

He mumbles something again, louder this time. You squint at the boy, trying to make something out.

"If you're trying to confess your undying love for me, you're doing an awful job," you tell him.

This gets Theo to glare up at you, a pout almost visible on his lips. Oh how the mighty fall.

"I've liked you for years," he mutters, his chin resting in his palms now as he refuses to look at you. Pride really was a strange thing.

"Well, you've been truly terrible at showing it, you insufferable prat," you say, giving his shoulder a light shove.

Theo just let's out a grunt, watching your hand on the bench next to him from the corner of his eye. Dear Rowena, you had no idea how you'd ended up falling for this prick.

"But, I suppose you've been, significantly less insufferable this last month or so," you finish, carefully resting your head on his shoulder.

"If you're trying to say you like me too, you're doing an awful job," Theo responds, causing you to immediately tear yourself away from the boy once more.

A smile finally cracks Theo's lips as he smirks playfully up at your deadpan reaction.

"I take it back. I actually hate you. You are the worst."

"Aw, come on now carissima, did the last month mean nothing to you?" Theo asks, pulling you back into him, the same way he did that one night in the library.

"It meant literally nothing. You were being weirdly nice and clingy the whole time," you reply, begrudgingly feeling yourself melt into him.

It wasn't your fault you'd been going through withdrawals the last two weeks, okay? Theo's chest shakes with laughter against your head.

"Contrary to popular belief, I can be somewhat tolerable sometimes."

"Then why the fuck have you spent the last several years being such a prick? It was just pushing me away you know."

"That was kind of the point," Theo says, making you scoff. "Love is weakness and all."

God, the emotional whiplash was going to make you sick.

"Well, which one is the real you?"

"Can't it be both?"

"Not if you want me to put up with your sorry arse."

Theo lets out another quiet laugh.

"Well, you might have to learn to love both sides, because I do fear you're stuck with me," Theo responds, pulling you closer to his chest. "Now come here you little minx."

Before you can protest, Theo's hand has found your chin, tilting your head up just enough for him to capture your lips with his own. It's soft, hesitant at first, as if he's not sure if you'll pull away or not. But your hand finds its way into his hair, pulling him closer still as you move your lips against his, nipping, teasing. You can feel the smile grow on Theo's face as he deepens the kiss, his other hand finding it's way to rest on your thigh.

When you finally pull away, you can still feel his warm breath on your face as he presses a gentle kiss to your forehead.

"For the record, I still hate you," you say, still slightly out of breath, a teasing smile playing across your lips.

"I'm sure you do carissima. I hate you too," Theo replies before engulfing you in his arms once more.

Taglist: @adreamingpendulum @ahead-fullofdreams

[sttoru]

hi!! could you write smut of sukuna w/ corruption kink x clingy reader? i need to see more of them 🤭🤭

 𝝑𝑒 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒. true form!sukuna x concubine! female reader. smut, pwp. corruption kink. reader is described as clingy cute / innocent. voyeurism?// exhibitionism. double pénetràtion. cowgirl. cream pies. nicknames ‘slut, brat, woman’. combined 2 requests :3

it’s honestly your own fault. you’ve been sticking around sukuna the entire day, clinging onto him like he won’t let you experience the consequences of your own actions.

“eyes on me, brat,” sukuna scoffs, thumb and index roughly turning your chin back. he needs to see your face as he embarrasses you in front of the guests and other concubines standing around the throne.

you’re supposed to feel regret, yet you’re drowning in a state of pure lust. it’s the thrill that keeps your hips going, the ache in them temporarily ignored as you search for that grande moment of euphoria.

you can’t care less about the humans at the bottom of the stairs. they’re grovelling in fear of the king of curses, knowing their heads can fly off if they dare to look up at you two.

it’s a sign of disrespect—a sign that the king of curses can’t care less about what those lowlifes have come to see him for. sukuna’s doing so on purpose, using your clinginess to his advantage.

“hah, what a total slut of a concubine,” sukuna scoffs, leaning his head against one of his hands, elbow propped onto the armrest. this is a punishment for you, though it certainly does not feel like that. even if all attendants in the room can hear you fucking yourself silly on sukuna’s dicks.

you and those sloppy sounds of your two bodies connecting.

you try to hold back your moans, but a rough yank to your hair instantly opens your mouth again. your eyes roll back and your voice spews out. “mhh, my lord—‘s too much,” you whimper, however your body doesn’t stop bouncing on his cocks. sukuna responds by squeezing your middle while he watches his lengths being swallowed by your cunt and ass.

it’s funny how you’ve been reduced to a mess—a toy he can command to do whatever he pleases. your clinginess secretly pleases him, because it reassures him that you’ll do what’s asked of you. sukuna grins lazily, letting you work for it, “too much? tsk. weren’t you the one begging f’ my attention, brat?”

he does have a point. you nod mindlessly whilst his cocks drill into you—leaving no hole empty. your eyes dart to both sides of the throne, where two concubines are situated. you can see them tremble in embarrassment and envy.

sukuna’s showing you off to everyone and they don’t like it; none of the concubines do. they hate the fact that he chose you to show off to everyone else in the room. like you’re the only trophy he’s proud of.

the guests don’t dare to speak either. nor does uraume, who’s politely looking the other way as their master ravages his favorite little concubine. they’re used to his acts of exercising his power.

sukuna keeps a firm grip on your hair, threatening to pull your head back each time you dare look around you. “you have no shame. absolutely zero,” the king of curses says condescendingly. as if the humiliation of being watched isn’t enough, sukuna’s words add to the embarrassment you’re feeling, “cock hungry slut can’t go a minute without being filled, hm?”

your whimpers get louder and your pace grows faster. his fat tips hit your deepest parts over and over again, the stretch threatening to split you in half. you’re too turned on to care. the way sukuna’s staring at you with that menacing glare—his sharp nails digging into your skin so painfully . . . you need it all.

“this ‘s why you’ve been following me ‘round all day long,” sukuna grunts—one hand coming up to free your breasts from the confines of your robes, “y’ just needed to be dicked down.” the flicks against your stiff nipples make you tighten up around his cocks again and again.

you’re nearly screaming because of everything your senses are picking up on. your half lidded eyes catch a glimpse of sukuna’s cocky facial expression and you’re almost pushed over the edge. he’s so smug—knowing he has you in the palm of his hand.

his eyes are luring you in. there’s a hint of something so primal in there - a beast impatiently waiting to be unleashed - one that sukuna is trying his best to suppress.

“aren’t you just cute. . .” sukuna mocks with a dangerous chuckle. his thumb rubs your bottom lip before slipping into your mouth for you to suckle on.

“kehehe, isn’t that what those servants call you? cute.. innocent.. adorable,” he continues, faintly groaning at the feeling of your tongue swirling around his thumb. sukuna cocks his head to the right and your eyes follow. that’s where you spot your maids and lady-in-waiting in a corner.

you feel tears well up in your eyes from both pleasure and humiliation. everyone is seeing and hearing you being claimed by the monster of a curse you’re riding. your maids have always adored your innocence—how you don’t seem to be tainted by sukuna’s advances no matter what. it’s a first to them.

it has been a rumor around the estate for so long; you being the only concubine who can withstand sukuna’s wicked influence. you always seem to stay yourself, your cheery and sweet personality never changing. you’ve been known as the innocent one among all other concubines.

yet here those same maids are, watching your brain being corrupted by sin. you’re so sinfully enjoying how sukuna’s cocks are penetrating you. “n-no, am—fnghh—don’t wanna,” you stammer, speaking to no one in particular. your inner desires clash with your rational mind and your body seems to continue its erotic act.

“don’t you fight it, woman,” sukuna brings your attention back by thrusting his cocks all the way up inside you, balls slapping harshly against your ass. he’s proud with his accomplishments. you’re slowly but surely being tainted by him and it’s so pleasing.

soon enough, that damned innocence of yours is going to disappear. he’s going to turn you into a total slut driven by lust, for him and only him. he’s going to ruin you and your body until all you can think of is the pleasure he can give you.

your nails dig into sukuna’s shoulders. you moan loudly, losing the battle, as expected. the king of curses just knows how to make you give in. he takes great pleasure in seeing you lose yourself, with everyone watching how he strips you from that innocence.

“stupid, nasty fuckin’ thing,” sukuna grunts as the lower pair of his arms hold you by your hips. he halts your movements before starting his own. “y’re mine, ya hear?” he pounds up into you—making you mewl. a chant of his name leaves your lips. you simply cannot stop yourself.

“yes, ‘m yours, my lord!” you moan for everyone to hear. the pink-haired man grins in satisfaction and quickly plunges his cocks in and out of your holes, needing to release himself so he could fully claim you as his in front of the rest.

his dirty cumslut, his tainted and brainless doll.

sukuna wraps all four arms around you, leaving no room for escape. he presses you against him until you’re struggling to breathe. your head is pushed against his shoulder and your insides are being turned into mush. the gooey fluids drip down onto the throne and down the floor.

“fuck. not a drop goes to waste or i’m fuckin’ ya again,” sukuna warns before shooting loads of cum into your womb and up your ass. both your holes are stuffed full of white, sticky semen mixed with your own release. you desperately clench around nothing once sukuna pulls you off his dicks.

you try to reach your hands out towards him as he manoeuvres your body away once he’s finished. the king of curses pins your wrists at your back so he can turn you around on his thighs, forcefully spreading your legs like a trophy he’s showing off on his throne.

one arm wraps around your waist and his chin rests on your right shoulder. sukuna keeps you on his lap and continues to act like he didn’t just completely wreck your insides.

while you’re left in the intense moment, he seems to have moved on already.

“speak,” sukuna orders the humans who’ve witnessed the whole ordeal. their foreheads are stuck on the floor—none of them daring to look up at the sight, like everyone else.

you’re panting and your head is spinning. you’re totally spent. sukuna holds your limp body up on his lap as one hand is busy scooping the excess cum back into your pussy, not wasting a drop like said before.

one of the villagers finally speaks up, stating the reason for their visit to the estate. their voice is muffled due to a loud buzzing in your ear. you’re tired and can’t focus on what’s said either. you just want to sleep. . . in sukuna’s warm embrace, filled and half-naked, for the entire room to see as they continue discussing business as if you’re not even there.

[luvrodite]

KYLE GARRICK X F!READER [9.4k] (18+)

synopsis. It's a long while before you give a name to this feeling, longer than it ought to take for you to realise just what it is. It's embarrassing really, that it should take you as long as it does. You'd brushed it off as admiration, that being in Kyle's orbit had crossed your wires. You never could think clearly around him, bashful, fluttery, easily mortified.

warnings. f!reader, friends to lovers, soft-hearted reader, selfship coded, piv sex minors or ageless blogs do NOT interact, you will be blocked

read on ao3

He's one of your best friends, though you'd hesitate to call yourself his.

It seems odd, at a glance, that the two of you should know each other at all, let alone interact in any capacity beyond casual pleasantries. You suppose he's just one of those guys. The ones who get on with others easily, the ones who slip into conversations without feeling like they've committed some terrible sin by daring to breathe in someone else's company. It looks seamless, the way he manages to find connection with just about anyone.

You envy it sometimes. (Envy him, too, on your more miserable days.) You'd hate him if he weren't so him. It's difficult to hold anything against him. You'd been defenceless then, too. All it had taken was a single glance your way, warm, doe eyes crinkling at the corners and you, odd, little nobody that you were – you were his before he even knew your name.

Kyle Garrick enters your life one morning during your second year at university, striking up a conversation that unspools in the minutes before your lecture starts and continues to thread through the rest of your life, seemingly endless. He's a year older, handsome in a 'stranger you see at the airport and think about for the rest of your life' sort of way and worst of all, nice.

You could handle cool indifference. You've conditioned yourself to expect the unseeing slide of a gaze over you, comfort found in the press of the wallpaper against your back, lingering on the edges of a crowd alone. You're woefully unprepared for nice.

He finds out that you've started university early and you brace yourself for the slant of his mouth in that queer way you've grown accustomed to from your peers – belittling, a mocking smile that precedes a compliment that isn't really a compliment. But you're left stammering over your words when his eyebrows rise and he simply grins at you, tilting his head as if to say, cool.

For some reason, unfathomable, unknown, he takes a liking to you. He cares to spend his time in your company, taking up space on your lumpy little couch, or kicking his socked feet up on your bed when your flatmates are taking up the living space. He comes round with CDs in his hands, coaxes you into whatever plans he's got for the night.

Golden, brilliant, beaming –

Beautiful.

It's disarming to be near him, to have the weight of his attention on you like this. Your university days are something of a blur to you, spent trying to keep yourself steady on a tightrope. You wake up most mornings feeling like a clay creation taken out of the kiln too early, shaped by clumsy hands and half formed, hairline fractures you're sure everyone notices, brittle creation glaring in the company of their perfect porcelain.

If he does, Kyle doesn't say a thing about it. Your oddities are the least of the older boy's concerns. In those days, he'd been more interested in coaxing you out of the house, or swaying you to let him inside.

You give him a few of your firsts – the ones that don't really matter, not compared to the others anyway.

Your first drink is with him, nineteen and screwing up your face at the taste of the too strong mojito he's ordered for you, alcohol sharp and burning as it makes its way down your throat, chest warming with the shots you take a little while after. He laughs at you, hand coming to clap you on the back playfully, where it rests for the remainder of the night.

After your first night out on the town, the both of you stumble to his place and fall asleep on the couch with half finished boxes of takeaway on the coffee table. You wake up in the morning with his shoulder pressed against yours, his long legs kicked up against the glass tabletop, the sight of his mismatched socks making you muffle a laugh despite the soreness in your neck.

These aren't that big, compared to the other firsts, the glaring ones that make it into every movie and book and show. First kisses and first times are only things you dream about sometimes. These, these firsts you have had, you guard zealously, protective. You don't even think Kyle knows – he might’ve discouraged your drinking so much that first night if he had, but you grin drunkenly up at him and think that as far as firsts go, you're glad these are with him.

You fall asleep on that couch a great many times in the years afterward and when he moves into his first proper place, he insists on bringing the ridiculous thing with him.

In the beginning, you'd suspected you were something of a pet project to Kyle. That feeling doesn't ever fully go away. Wretchedly, sometimes you liken yourself to a puppy, lingering by his side and attached to his hip like you haven't quite been house trained yet. You smile bashfully at strangers when he slips an arm comfortingly around your shoulders and introduces you.

There's always affection in his voice, but the roots of self pity are deep and you wonder whether the silent warning reaches everyone as clearly as it does you – that you're a little fragiler than the rest of them, that the words you say never seem to come out right, that you're - in your more awful moments, you think – a freak.

He tells his friends one time at a party, arm around your waist to keep you anchored – don't spend the entire night hiding in the bathroom, mate, I want you to have a good time, these are good people, you're gonna like them, promise – that you're brilliant. You think about it all night as you’re steered from friend to friend, introduced by Kyle, wondering if you're worth the praise.

There's not much about you that's remarkable, not that you can note, but Kyle beams, proud, and brags about you like you are. It muddles your mind and leaves you feeling breathless in a way you don't want to inspect too closely.

It's a long while before you give a name to this feeling, longer than it ought to take for you to realise just what it is.

It's embarrassing really, that it should take you as long as it does. You'd brushed it off as admiration, that being in Kyle's orbit had crossed your wires. You never could think clearly around him, bashful, fluttery, easily mortified.

It had felt like being 11 again, wide-eyed and the dawning understanding that you weren't the same as your peers, that they, along with you, saw the invisible markers that set you apart from them. Kyle, funny, brilliant and beautiful – it was like drawing too close to the sun. This proximity, to have him so close, to be able to reach out and touch him – he'd grinned at you the first time you'd leaned in to greet him with a hug, arms squeezing you tight before releasing you – this was not something you'd ever thought was in the cards for you.

He leaves you warm-faced and woozy, like waking up from a nap beneath the summer sun, head wool-stuffed and tongue dry. Still, you linger.

Strange, silly girl. Shame warms you when you turn your face into your pillow after he leaves your flat, skin burning against the fabric his hands had rested against only a while earlier, your mouth pressed to the cotton. The cologne he uses hangs in the air, dizzying, and disgust wars with devotion, your lips parting in an inhale.

In the dark of your room, you hold your own hand and long for something you cannot name.

Cruel thing that it is, the world does not wait for your cognizance.

Your university days come to a close quicker than they'd arrived and you're adrift once more, moored only by the temp job you somehow manage to get before graduation – it's better than nothing, and you don't have to leave London like you had expected.

And it would be fine, this job of yours, your flat that you spend an exorbitant amount to occupy, the dawning feelings you've been harbouring for close to half a decade, but–

Kyle enlists.

– and it feels like the beginning of the end.

You try not to let him see the tears but by then he knows you too well, has traced the features of your face with sharp eyes too many times to count. Every breath, every expression, every flutter of your eyes, he knows. You're a shit liar to begin with but it's impossible to get by him.

He goes in the end, of course. But he holds you in the back garden of your friends' house and doesn't say a word as you ruin his shirt, before he does.

Listen, I'll be alright, yeah? I've been thinking about this for some time. Don't look so sad, it'll be okay. They'll care of you, the guys in there – don't make that face, I wanted to tell you first, I just…I needed to get things organised, alright? I need to know you'll be alright while I'm gone. A laugh, when you scowl at him. I know you're an adult, love, just…humour me. I'll write you when I can, I promise, and I'll call.

It feels silly, knowing he'd gone to such lengths. More than ever, you feel the brittleness of your bones, the unsteady ground beneath your feet – a sweet gesture turns into a shard of glass, a reflection of your inadequacy. You long for it, this invincibility that the others around you seem to carry, a solidness, a strength you sorely lack.

If you were… more, perhaps he wouldn't have to make such arrangements. Your face is warm when you return inside, and you're conscious of the others' gazes, a gentleness in their arms when they tuck you into their side to continue what you now realise to be Kyle's send off.

Baby bird with an awkwardly formed wing, you're passed from one set of arms to another through the night, love taking the form of kid gloves. They mean well, you know they do. It doesn't leave you feeling any less of a mess.

Kyle's brown eyes dance in your periphery all night. You don't meet them, ashamed, disgusted by the wobbliness of your mouth, the ever teetering emotions that threaten to capsize you.

You realise, horrified, that it's love when someone brings out a cake covered in messily scribbled icing – Good luck Garrick! – and you meet his eyes over the glow of the candles.

Full lips stretch into a devastating grin and he ducks his head when the congregation begin to descend into a drunken rendition of For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, your voice joining the fray in a broken warble. Over the flicker of the flames, Kyle Garrick holds your heart in his hands.

It's been his all these years and you hadn't even known.

Love takes hold and continues to bloom. The world does not stop when half your heart leaves for the other side of the world. It does not stop when he comes home, if only briefly, only to slip from your fingers once more. You rue the day John Price set sight on your friend, wish that Kyle would be selfish – come back, you want to say but you have no right to this, no right to plead him to hide with you in this bubble.

The world goes on. The years pass.

In his absences – long stretches of time before he returns home, almost always bloody and never not banged up, you enter the spring of your life. It feels like a betrayal to solidify, to bloom where he cannot see, the suggestion that you were only waiting for this – that you needed the time apart to mould yourself with wet hands once more is treasonous to your lovesick heart.

The edges of you fill out. Less and less do you feel like a ghost, still strange, still peculiar, but you bloom. No longer in stasis, no longer pinned in place by an invisible something, your twenties begin to take their course. The ground beneath your feet feels firmer and Kyle –

He remains out of reach, always a hair's breadth between your fingers and the sleeve of his jacket. Homecomings are fleeting things, short, treasured, moments before he's inevitably called away.

You love him still, how could you not? But little by little, your breaths begin to even out. Life unfolds, takes shape where you thought it never would, forming around the space in your heart where he lays, anyway.

You pass a few more firsts, some inconsequential and others momentous. Sharing shy grins over candlelit tables, presses of lips to yours, a real, proper job that makes your face ache with how widely you smile at the achievement. You make friends – friends of your own. Though you love your university friends dearly, it had been Kyle who'd introduced you to them, and it's Kyle you see in their smiles when you curl up next to them, that same brand of love you miss dearly in their arms, both comforting and stifling. It seems a silly distinction, but it eases something in your chest, a lonely, wounded part that's still unsure, still a little scared this is a fluke, that this isn't yours to have, that you get what you're given, and not an inch more.

It is yours, though. It's yours, this life you've built, the friends you've made. It's yours. It makes you glow to think about it. Precious thing that it is, you don't dare to tamper with it, fearful of it shattering if you get too greedy.

Greed – you long for more, yearn for it. The world finally delivered to you, no longer an outsider looking in, surer of yourself than you've ever been, your fingertips itch to sink into it, hungry. More, more, more.

You think of dark eyes and the only smile you've ever loved like this, and you want.

Fear though, fear stays your hand. It weighs your tongue when Kyle returns to make himself at home in your flat, fixing himself a cup of tea while you choose a movie to watch. It presses you into the opposite end of your small sofa instead of his side, legs trembling when the heat of his leg presses into your thigh.

Precious, treasured, beloved. You don't dare to tamper with this.

The years have passed, the world has changed, the both of you, too, but this remains sacred. Your want remains locked in the deepest recesses of your heart – this is one thing you cannot have.

There's a clarity to the earth you see when you're a child. The grass ever verdant, fruit sweeter on your tongue, summer yawning infinite. Kyle loses that as he grows older as most often do, eyes aging, colours muting. The grey of London seeps into his awareness with startling clarity, stifling, acrid.

The day he meets you, the world flares up around him once more, ultraviolet and vibrant. Something unlatches in him, a notch undone. His ribs expand, a full, clear breath after years of pollution. Aurora lance through the air, solar flares that burn bright against his eyes.

He's preoccupied for a long time, unable to recognise this feeling for what it is. The rush of his twenties are a whirlpool, occluding his heart from him. He knows this, though. You're not much younger than him but there's a naivety to you that he finds sweet. Endearing, even. He reasons his sudden draw to you as a need to look out for you.

(It is not philanthropy that reels him to you every few days, that tugs him to the seat beside yours in the lecture theatre. It is not the responsibility of a good samaritan that desires to hear your voice, that searches for you in every room. He thinks himself a gentleman, but he isn't that kind.)

Still, there is always something that lingers, a lump in his throat that he can't ever fully dispel. It burns when he's away, when he tucks you into a corner of his mind every time he leaves London, drives him forward when he's rappelling out of a helo, free falling through the air with the scent of blood under his nose. This thread tugs him forward, keeps him coming home.

He loathes the change – adjusts poorly to the distance. It's difficult, the inability to see you, the uncertainty of wondering, more times than he'd like, if he ever will again. Homecomings are bittersweet now, every difference magnified. He burns the first time he realises you've changed your perfume – a sweet fragrance that curls inside his lungs, so different to the one you'd reached for through your university days. The intersections of your lives diverge further and further, no longer entwined like they had been before, meeting only briefly, a cache of things to catch each other up on, stories he no longer is part of but gets to hear and deliver.

You bloom tenfold each time he sees you, petals unfurling with every visit home. There are glimpses of the girl you'd been in the days when he'd been around, sweet, shy thing when you offer a bashful grin in response to his teasing. Now, he marvels at the changes, glaring, glowing .

Love makes itself known to him in the early days of his recruitment to the 141 when he wakes up in an infirmary, a little concussed, aching all over, and your name is the first out of his mouth. His captain quirks a brow, hides the twitch of his mouth in the shoe brush moustache above his upper lip.

Didn't know you had a girl back home, Garrick.

Keen blue eyes had watched him as he'd sunk back into the hospital mattress, uncomfortable, a pained scowl twisting his lips.

Not mine, sir. Not like that, anyway.

You planning on keeping it that way?

Sir?

This line of work…you don't get many chances for a do-over.

Price hadn't said much further, but those words had taken root, anchored just below his ribs. They're glaring each time he returns home, a cacophony that only grows with each year that passes. He burns, with every pass of your glances his way, fire roaring each time he reunites with the soft mass of your body, arms winding around your softness.

The changes don't matter so much then – not when the threads of his sanity steadily begin to unravel. The fibers twist and tighten, fraught with tension, fraying one by one.

When all but the last have snapped, when the leaves have turned and fallen, when the sands have trickled down, Kyle takes the last remaining thread –

sitting in the back of a bird inbound for base, the ache of a near decade of war worn deep into his bones

– and severs it himself.

"'Lo."

Your lips part in surprise and you have to bite down the surprised squeal that bubbles up your throat. Eyes widening, you barely think before tilting yourself forward into Kyle's already open arms, a laugh punching out of his chest at the collision. He staggers backwards, nearly taking the two of you down and you clutch his shoulders.

"You ass," you exclaim, stomach dipping suddenly when he pulls you so close you're forced to press up on your toes, arms squeezing you tightly. "You didn't tell me you were coming home!"

"I wanted to surprise you, didn't I?"

He chuckles and his breath tickles the skin of your neck. The smell of soap and musk, the lingering notes of his cologne on his collar reach your nose and you tuck your face against his jaw briefly, a fleeting moment for you to savour before sense washes over you and you realise what you're doing. You draw back, mortified.

Kyle doesn't say anything, only shuffling over the threshold and kicking the door shut with you still in his arms, the two of you clumsily stepping further into your flat. You're carefully let go of after a moment longer, pools of deep ochre sweeping over your features affectionately. A sweet smile plays on his lips, unrepentant in the face of your frown.

"Consider me surprised," you mutter, shaking your head. "Did the others know?"

He shakes his head. "Haven't told them yet, otherwise they'd all be coming round. I wanted to see you first."

You try, and struggle, to mask the flip your stomach does at that. "Oh."

"Yeah," he says, eyes crinkling. "You miss me?"

You'd never been a good liar and the time apart had done little to rectify that. Your face warms immediately under his attention and strained laugh makes its way into the air as you look away.

"Course I missed you, Garrick," you murmur, moving away in the direction of your kitchen. "It's not the same without you."

He follows, kicking his trainers off and trailing after you through the hall where your dinner is cooking on the stove.

"How long are you back?" you ask, drawing up to the pot, poking a fork into the softened pasta shells.

"Little while," he answers vaguely, parking himself against the counter. "Got a bit banged up so I'll be round for a bit. Captain's orders."

You whirl around at that answer, alarmed. "You're hurt?"

No compassion for your heart, he only grins. "I'm fine, love. Promise."

You regard him a little longer, lips twisted in a frown, before you let out a breath and return to your now boiling pasta. Shaking your head, you carry the pot to your sink, watching steam rise through the air as you tip the water in. In a quiet voice, you tell him, "You know I worry."

He softens then, chastised, and you have to shrug him off when he comes up behind you, still unamused. The contrite look on his face makes your heart squeeze in its chest and you look away.

"Will you go set the table?" you mutter. "This is just about done."

He presses his lips together, as though fighting the urge to say something, before nodding. You take a moment in the kitchen to collect yourself. The flat is too small to afford you any real privacy, you can feel Kyle's presence only a few strides away, but you make do, fingers tightening on your spoon as you portion the pasta onto plates, carefully arranging the food in obvious delay until you can no longer reasonably fuss over it. You carry the plates to where he's laid out the glassware and cutlery, your favourite drinks already waiting for you alongside a puppy-eyed man who holds your heart in his hands.

"Don't be upset with me," he murmurs, a hand covering yours when you set his plate down in front of him. You're anchored to his side instead of allowed to slump into your chair at the side of the table adjacent to him, and there's a plea in his wide eyes, entreating you to soften on him.

You've never quite been able to guard yourself against it. You pause, before your palm flips upwards to kiss his. Truce. His shoulders loosen and you offer a small shake of your head.

"I was just worried. I'm happy you're home."

He lets go of your hand after a moment, eyes still on you as you take a seat.

"Yeah," he mutters, softly. "Me too."

Dinner, and the company, thaws you inside out until you're warm all over, face aching with the weight of your joy. You both remain at the table long after you've cleared your plates, unwilling to move and shatter the moment – an unreasonable part of you fears he'll be called back the moment you do. Selfish, longing, you want him here with you, even if you'll have to endure the growing numbness in your bottom for it. Your legs are pulled up, folding between you and the table as you listen to Kyle talk.

He has a way of telling tales, you realise, clinging to every syllable that his lips shape, every pause, every sigh. The sound of his voice is one you'd missed these last few months, and you barely breathe as he talks himself hoarse, not wanting to lose a moment of it.

It's worse, to have his attention on you. He's unrelenting about it, insistent on catching up with every bit of your life he's missed. You pity the others that have been on the end of his interrogation, though perhaps you've gotten off lightly. You can't imagine him reaching out to fiddle with the fabric on their pants, after all, wrapping a stray thread around his finger and letting go, only to do it again. They're likely not being poured more water when their voice gives out, fingers brushing against his when he passes the glass over.

He only interrupts you once, and it's as the hour grows later, tilting his head inquisitively.

"Wait," he says and you pause. "Come on, you've got to be uncomfortable sitting like that – don't you want to move to the sofa?"

He doesn't give you a chance to stammer out a no, no I'm okay. Standing, he pulls you with him and you're tugged forward to sink into the plush cushions of your sofa. He picks your legs up to deposit them in his lap, and your fingers curl into the fabric beneath you at the closeness.

"What about the dishes?" you mutter, face flaming and he reaches forward to brush a hand over your cheek.

"Get them later," he says, voice taking on a softer quality, almost tender, even. "I missed you, I want to hear how you've been."

You affect a casual laugh, averting your gaze when it becomes too much to bear, fixing your eyes instead on the collar of his shirt. Blue, and beautiful against his deep skin. Your favourite shirt on him.

"What else is there to say," you murmur, pressing your temple against the back of the sofa, curling up against its arm. "Not all of us are falling out of helicopters and having gunfights, Garrick."

Something flashes in his eyes at that, a little laugh breathed out into the air. Your attention snags on the gleam of his teeth, the wet press of his tongue against his lips, and you’re conscious of the way your pulse throbs.

"Good," he rumbles, an arm resting over your thighs, thumb skimming back and forth over your covered knee. Heat blooms in its path, your skin warming with every pass of his finger. "You don't need to get caught up in that business. Want you safe, here."

You hum in response and he nods decisively. His shirt sleeve rides up, and you lean forward, reaching out when you catch sight of a new scar, something in your chest pinching at the sight.

"What's this?"

He lets out a breath when your finger brushes over the raised skin and your eyes flick up to his face, meeting dark eyes much closer to you than they'd been last. His breath tickles your skin and you tense at the proximity.

"Got nicked," he says, voice barely above a whisper. "Don't worry about it."

You frown, feeling your lip beginning to tremble, telltale signs of the waterworks to come in the pressure behind your eyes.

It’s been many years since your eyes had been opened to the consequences of a career such as Kyle’s. Imagination only went so far, a thin veil of protection between you and the threat of blood spilled, not quite real and easily banished. Easier to stomach, too. 

There had been scars on him you’d never seen before when Kyle had returned home after his first tour. You’d crowded close to him in the pub that night, tucked under his arm and pressed between his side and your friends, all clamouring to hear the deviltry he’d gotten up to with horrified fascination. 

Stiff with fright, stomach roiling and your drink untouched, you’d sat there and listened to the stories he’d relayed, voice a little rougher when he’d stumbled over the parts you suspected were too awful to give a name. The way his voice had grown a little thinner as the night went on, the too close encounters that he brushed over with forced lightness –

You had managed to keep it together right up until he’d taken you home, where you’d barely made it past the threshold of the bathroom before you’d thrown up. Bile and tears splattering against the porcelain, you’d kneeled over the toilet seat with Kyle’s hands smoothing over your back until your stomach had finally settled. 

Though he’d never named you as the reason, Kyle had stopped talking about his deployments soon after that. The reminder of his mortality grows more and more tender as you age, your tender heart only fraying more with each season where you had hoped it might calcify – if only enough to hide your worry from him. But even now, there is no corner of the world for you to shy away from him.

"You got hurt. How could I not worry?" Your voice pitches, upset.

So quickly the night threatens to take a turn, but he keeps steady, shaking his head, forehead tipping forward to press against your temple. Unshed tears burn your eyes as you press your face into his neck, trying to compose yourself.

"It's nothing, I've had worse," he tries to soothe and it only hollows the pit in your stomach. You make a noise, trying to rear back, but his hand has come to loop around your waist, keeping you close to him. Another settles on the back of your neck, warm, heavy, grounding.

"How is that meant to make me feel any better?" you demand, fingers reaching up to curl into the fabric of his shirt. He pulls back slightly and you loathe the calm on his face, the stillness that only regards you gently.

"I'm here, aren't I?" he tells you, and you scowl at that, trying to pull back. He doesn't let go. "Look at me – love, look. I'm fine. I'm home."

"You're hurt."

"It's always gonna be a risk of the job, you know that," he says quietly. Doesn't offer you platitudes, and you don't know if you wish he would or not. Your heart is too tender to bear the thought of him hurt but any placation would make you bristle. Perhaps because you know they can’t be relied on. There will always be another cut, another scar you only learn about inadvertently, wounds hidden to you but their weight evident when Kyle comes home favouring his side, uncharacteristically careful when he holds you instead of his usual exuberance. "But I'm always gonna come home to you. Haven't let you down yet, have I?"

It feels heavier, somehow, this proclamation. Like there's something you're not reading in his tone, dipping slightly, sober. But you get caught up on the words – the fallibility of such a promise.

"What about –" your voice catches in your throat, fingers fisting the shirt under you. "What about when it's in a box? Am I supposed to be happy then?"

He takes a moment too long to answer and it terrifies you when his eyes turn gentler. It's not something he hasn't already given thought. You're pushing at him before you can think, staggering off the sofa to storm into the kitchen. You can barely stand to look at him a moment longer.

Kyle only gives you a minute before he's after you. You're reaching for the sponge, wet fingers scrubbing at the pan you'd left to soak in the sink. Face twisting to hold back your tears, your hand curls tightly around the metal handle.

Warmth at your back, hands bigger than yours coax the pan back into the sink, guiding your hands under the water to wash away the suds. He doesn't say a word, head pressing into the back of your neck, thumbs swiping down the centre of your palm to wash the bubbles away.

When he speaks, the timbre of his voice breathy, you can feel the brush of his mouth against your skin.

"You'd be taken care of. I wouldn't do that to you, leave you alone like that."

Your fingers curl into fists under his, knuckles bumping against his palm. "That's not – that's not what I want, Kyle. I–"

"Will you look at me?" He turns you around anyway, hands sliding to your hips. The counter is hard against your spine as you press backwards, but he doesn't give you much room to escape him.

You stare at him and it's as though the years pass through you in a blink. Kyle fills out before your very eyes, bigger, more commanding. The boy you met at university ripples, invisible hands carving and moulding. Despite the near decade he's spent away from you, you'd always managed to cling to the image of him as he'd once been – genial, the sun in his eyes, sleeping on your couch and pressing his head against yours under awnings when the rain pushed you off the streets. Water dripping from your eyes, the two of you had laughed despite the chill clinging to your clothes.

You see it now, the man you'd caught glimpses of in the moments in between. The serious, intense set of his mouth, eyes darker than night. A reflection of a quiet emotion in his gaze. It's one you know well. It resides in the dark hollow of your chest, locked tightly away.

Kyle makes no such attempt at inhibition.

"What are you doing?" you whisper when he tilts his head downward.

Panic rears its head, doomsday too close for comfort. Desire is destruction – you're certain of it. And you want to tell him no, don't, Kyle, your worst fears poised to strike with the closing distance between your lips and his, but you long for it all the same, trembling in his arms.

"Relax," he breathes against the corner of your mouth, lips pressing into your skin sweetly. It's still damp where your tears had slipped down, and the wet press of his tongue makes your knees weak, gripping the fabric of his shirtsleeves. "You worry too much."

He dips his head, nose carving a burning trail down the slope of your jaw. Heat blooms where he touches. Your hips, your neck, your face. You're aflame, loose-limbed and weak, so close to him. He keeps you upright, hips pressing yours against the counter.

You can barely mutter a response before he continues. Perhaps he doesn't mean for you to speak at all. His words reach you thickly, a veil over you that he peels back only slightly. Disoriented, you blink at him.

"Such a sweet girl," he says quietly, ghost of a kiss pressed to your throat. "So good to me, fussing over me all the time. Course I wouldn't leave you alone – wouldn't do that to you. 'M going to take care of you – always been mine to take care of…"

"Kyle," you whisper, eyes slipping closed, and he thumbs away another tear that rolls down your cheek, chasing the salt smudge with his lips.

"Haven't always been here, haven't told you, but I'm making good on it now," he professes, pulling back. You open your eyes, meeting blurry ochre pools. "Such a good girl, waiting for me – always known, haven't you? Knew you were mine. My girl."

When he kisses you, the little thought that you'd been capable of slips downstream. You cling to the solidness of him, fingers biting into hardened muscle, jewel toned lenses over your eyes. Twilight shimmers over the small space of your kitchen and your best friend puts his mouth to yours like they should have never been apart.

You've been kissed before. Overeager, wet swipes of mouths, hot breath against your cheek that had carried the hint of wine. But this –

Kyle breathes life into you anew, soft mouth sliding against yours and you shudder. The soft scrape of his stubble against your chin makes you squirm, letting out a little gasp into his mouth. Greedy, he swallows it, tongue brushing against the seam of your lips, coaxing you open.

He mumbles something, a sighed Fuck, that slides around your shoulders and slips down your spine, pooling in the bottom of your stomach. Amber flickers in your periphery, heady, low lit want shrouding you.

How long you stand there, letting him forever change the bounds of your relationship, you don't know. He licks at your mouth like you've syrup behind your teeth, traces of his tongue smeared over your bottom lip. The very air around you shifts with his touch, fingers curling against your spine, spanning up to cradle your jaw, to open you up for him.

You're breathing hard when he pulls away, dizzy, unmoored. Up close, you can make out the thin ring of his irises, a shade lighter, inscrutable to most, known dearly to you.

No words are spoken when he leads you down the hall. On shaky legs, you let him guide you to your bedroom. The glow of your lamp greets you, and Kyle muffles his knowing laugh into the curve of your neck, teeth ghosting over the thin skin.

The shirt and trousers you have on suddenly feel lightweight and you gaze up at him through watery eyes when he turns you around. Gooseflesh ripple over your skin, and his fingertips graze the skin of your stomach, dipping below the hem of your shirt. Slow, so slow, he drags it up with deliberateness until it's lifted off your torso.

A beat passes in which you both stare at the other, silent. Kyle remains clothed and you, with trembling fingers, bring your hands to his chest. The beat of his heart travels through layers of skin and fabric to meet your fingertips, picking up when you take a half-step closer.

"You can–" he cuts himself off, inhaling shakily. He whispers, "You can take it off."

You look up at him. He meets your unsure gaze with a nod, almost solemn if not for the tender creases around his eyes, soft russet irises gazing down at you with a familiarity that settles over the raised flesh on your arms like a blanket.

Warmth pools in your face when you dare, even with his instruction, to take hold of his shirt. Under his watchful gaze you feel rather on display. It brings forth a swell of embarrassment – this is Kyle, but a shade of him previously unknown to you and in your own place stands a rabbit-hearted girl once more, your inexperience seeming to you to be written all over your face.

As if he's able to read your mind, Kyle bends forward to press his head to yours, nosing against your cheek comfortingly. It's reminiscent of the turn your nights out would take, long past midnight and the warmth in your belly from the liquor dwindling into restless laughter. Kyle, leaning his weight into you, a heavy arm slung over your shoulder on the walk home. Where you'd spend the night was dependent on whoever's flat was closest to whatever takeaway place you'd inevitably find yourselves in afterwards, hungry and getting into a drunken scuffle with the older boy when you would attempt to pay.

You'd won once, taking advantage of Kyle's distractedness at spotting your other friends on the way in and slipping inside to place your order, though sometimes you still suspected he'd let you.

The whisper of your name reels you through time back to this moment, now, and you meet the questioning set of your best friend's brows.

"What?" he's smiling, as though you're withholding a joke from him that he longs to be part of. You realise it to be in response to your own smile, unconscious and affectionate.

You shake your head, a breathy laugh expelled from your lips. Love bolsters your resolve and with renewed purpose, you grip the hem of his shirt. Bit by bit, he bares himself as you had until you stand in front of each other shirtless, chests rising and falling in tandem.

Your eyes track along the shadowed marks of injuries past, rippled, raised skin that makes your heart twist until he descends upon you once more, soft mouth claiming your attention to drive it through –

I'm here. I'm still here.

All at once you are brought back, hyperaware of the press of his chest against yours, the edges of him slotting against yours. You move in between breaths. One moment, you are standing and the next he has you settling down against the sheets, the softened linen of your untouched bed cool against your flushed skin.

He hovers over your form, a vision in amber light. You let him drag your trousers down your hips, every patch of skin exposed to the air rippling with gooseflesh, warmed once more when he bows to press his mouth against you. The softness beneath your navel jumps under his touch and he muffles a snicker against your hip, fingers petting the crease of your thigh.

When he begins to unbutton his own pants, you will your sluggish limbs to move, unclasping your worn bra with trembling fingers and dropping it over the side of your bed. Before your courage fails you, you push your underwear off too.

For a moment, Kyle pauses in front of you to stare, jeans halfway down his thighs. Nervous, your hands twitch by your sides, the urge to cover yourself growing stronger until he lets out a heavy breath, returning to undressing himself. There's a touch of urgency to his actions, pushing his clothes off uncaringly. You glow with pleasure when you realise it's so he might return to you faster.

He kneels at the side of the bed once more and greets you with a kiss like he's been parted from you for an age. You suppose he has been. This reunion feels different, charged with all the things you never said, that now lay out in the open, your vulnerabilities splayed for him to see. His own, in turn, are made known to you.

Kyle's hands cradle your face as he kisses you, big palms pressing down against your cheeks, fingers spanning your jaw and nape to draw you closer against him. The first brush of your bare chest against his has your breath hitching, gasping against his smiling mouth.

He lowers himself against you and it's then that you feel the length of him press into your thigh. You tense beneath him in surprise and ever attuned to your mood, your best friend draws back from you. The thought of him retreating has you leaning forward to cling to him, circling your arms around his shoulders.

He nearly loses his balance, planting a hand beside your head to steady himself. The other comes to your back, warmth suffusing through you under his touch. When you tuck your face into his throat, closing your eyes, Kyle curls himself over you more protectively.

"What's up?" he whispers. "You okay? We don't have to –"

You cut him off. "I want to," you insist, lifting your head to gaze at him through widened eyes. His features slacken, shoulders dropping where they'd tensed. He strokes your cheek gently, eyes searching your own.

"Then what is it?"

It feels embarrassing to admit to him when you've always felt like his little shadow, head tipped always in search of him and his exploits. In comparison your own are…not bare… but middling, perhaps. A late bloomer, your life placed on a slow burner.

"I haven't ever…"

His response comes in rapid, stunned blinks. As though he hadn't expected it, as though he finds it difficult to believe – who would I even do it with, you want to ask, surprised by his disbelief.

"Never?" he questions, voice pitching ever so slightly. You roll your bottom lip inwards, teeth worrying the skin of it as you shake your head.

"Oh," Kyle says, soundly oddly strangled. You hesitate, feeling as though your confession has soured things between you – had he been expecting something else? Did this change things?

You're beginning to gather the courage to voice this when he lets out a breath and shifts closer, thumb resuming its path across your cheek where it'd frozen in the wake of your admission.

"You don't know what you do to me, do you," he mutters, exasperatedly, dropping his forehead against yours. The air between you seems to lighten exponentially and you brave a smile, huffing out a nervous laugh.

After a bit, Kyle admits, "It's been a while for me too."

Your turn to be surprised, now. You look up at him and meet unlaughing eyes, almost shy in extending this branch.

"What, you never…" you stumble over your words, unmoored. "In all those cities you visited –?"

At that, Kyle's lips tug down into a displeased frown and he snips, though without heat, "Wasn't there for pleasure, was I?"

His eyes avert to something off to the side momentarily and he mumbles, "Work, y'know…And it's not like I was going to–" Suddenly flustered, he shakes his head, grumbling, "Whatever. Doesn't matter."

You fight back a smile, endeared, reaching up to press your lips to the corner of his own. The tension in his face slips from his as though snagged by a current, lost to the water, and he tilts his head, sighing into your mouth.

You stay like that for a moment and it feels as though you've shifted lenses, switching out the old for newer, sharper ones. The readjustment comes in shades, in soft kisses and the odd, pleased giggles you don't manage to stifle, giddiness stirring in your chest.

"Can I have you?" he asks through swollen lips, voice rough. You've all but melted back into the mattress, head cloudy. Need pools between your legs, desire smearing between your thighs.

You want to tell him he's had you . That you've been his since you were 18 and he smiled at you in the lecture theatre. That in every interaction thereafter, in whatever shape or form, you have always been his.

That the seasons have come, passed by and arrived again, that you've begun to discover new aches in places you had not thought were possible, that the ice is melting and there is a hole in the sky and the world has been turning and through all of it, it comes down to this –

You have always been his.

In the end, though, all that comes out is a simple, "You do . "

A shudder rolls through him at that. Kyle closes his eyes briefly, before surging forward to claim your mouth.

The hand on your jaw holds you to him firmly and Kyle kisses you with a vengeance. It is so distinct from the gentle press of his mouth, the slow, languid brush of his tongue over yours – this is burning. This is the weight of time passed, the culmination of the years away and stewing desire.

He bears down on you, every edge of him pinning you to the mattress as he steals your breath. You are emptied of all thought, reduced to muffled gasps and the noises he plucks from your mouth unthinkingly. It comes to him as easy as breathing, yet another skill he picks up effortlessly.

His fingers trace over your stomach. Down, over your sides and to your navel, repeating the route when your breath hitches and you shudder beneath him, muscles jumping after he brushes over a sensitive spot. His lips curve into a smile against yours and you gasp, but he does not relent. Not until you begin to whine, wrapping your hand around his wrist to push it further down.

He takes pity on you, tweaking the skin of your hip and letting out a little laugh that slips into your mouth, sinking on your tastebuds. It tastes rich, salt and thyme settling on your tongue.

The crease of your thigh is next to receive his ministrations, the sweeping path he carves from your hip stalling just a few breaths shy of where you long for it the most. By now, you've begun to drip steadily, you're sure of it, want bleeding into the sheets beneath you. When you press your thighs close, they glide together and you hear Kyle grumble above you.

It's the only warning you're given before he's pressing your legs open, a hand settling on the inside of your thigh and guiding it outwards and up, until it's slung around his hip and you're bare to him.

He pulls away from you then, eyes hazy and flickering down to where only inches separate the two of you. A breath punches out of his chest and he groans, eyes fluttering closed briefly. It's an expression you've never seen on him before, one you drink in with soft fascination, eager to be let in on another side to the person you love the most. When it comes to Kyle, you find yourself unendingly curious, always conscious of him. You can't help it – you've been attuned to his every breath since you were 18.

This devotion, you learn, is not rebuffed but met with equal vigour. Dark eyes fall on you and you have only a moment to blink up at him before a noise tumbles from your lips at the press of fingers at your entrance. The blunt press against your cunt makes you squirm, mouth falling open at the slight sting that comes with the stretch of your channel. Your vision swims and Kyle, split in two, lets out a breathless laugh.

The hand holding your leg pets your skin gently, but you can only feel the insertion of his digits – bigger than your own, certainly – where, only in your most gone moments, you'd dreamt of them touching. Reality is blunter than daydreams, and Kyle shushes you a little, dropping his head to kiss you again when you begin to whine.

"So noisy," he tuts gently, but there is only amusement in his tone. You turn teary eyes to him – when had you begun to cry? It's mortifying. He doesn't seem to mind, only pressing his lips to your wet cheek. "It's late, baby, you've got to keep quiet."

How can you be quiet when he has you like this? When the man you have loved for nearly a decade is hovering above you, his hands on you – in you – looking down on you as though he's been starved. When the stuff of your most shameful dreams, your most wretched desires, has not only come home to roost but longed for you, too?

It is so different from those days, young and wandering the late night streets, on your way to let Kyle claim a shade of you. But here, all these years later, once more he takes a first of yours and the length of time thins until only a thin veil separates you from back then. You are so different, yet entirely the same; both the tender hearted girl and the woman steadfast in your new life.

It leaves you vulnerable and panting, tilting your face up to Kyle when he replaces his fingers with something bigger, the blunt stretch of his cock against your insides carving your breath from you with every rock of his hips. You cling to him for purchase, disoriented and dizzy. Eyes streaming, no matter how he shushes you, cradles you as the thrusts come harder, until you're jolting with every drive forward.

His brows knit together, his fingers grip your leg, the other slipping beneath your neck to hold you close. Gone is the boy who'd laughed with you and in his place, bullying your body to another orgasm – the first having arrived embarrassingly quickly after only a few strokes of his fingers – the man who'd cornered you in the kitchen to claim your mouth as his.

The sounds you're making are foreign to your ears, strangled moans, gasps that sound entirely out of place in your bedroom. Mewls too breathy to be your own – the kind you'd always thought to be a practiced form, spilling from you in repeated oh, oh – oh! 's that have Kyle goading you on, greedier with every passing second, control steadily unravelling.

It has you searching for something familiar – something known to tide you through this new, sudden change, brilliant and wonderful and terrifying. You look up through your tears, at your best friend and you beg him.

"Ky–Kyle," you whine and he dips his head forward, cooing, nosing at your cheek.

"Yeah, baby," he murmurs, sweat dripping from his brow and onto the pillow beside you. "Yeah, it's me, it's – fuck – 's me."

Him, making you feel this good. The pride of it all makes him preen, you can see it. Pure, masculine pride that you might've ribbed him for in another instance. Now, your eyes only roll back a little more, his name slipping from your lips again. You're in desperate need of an anchor, overwhelmed by the cacophony of noise in your head – you'd let him do whatever he wanted, but you needed –

"What's it, hm?"

"Need –" your breath hitches, skittering over a hiccup, utterly pitiful. "Can I –"

"What, baby?" his breathing is ragged, but he folds himself over you further, forehead pressing against yours. "Tell me."

"Kiss me," you manage to choke out, lips turning down, pleading and his hips stutter. "Please, I –"

He doesn't make you ask twice, only pulling you by the back of your neck up to him in a clumsy kiss. He kisses you like you need – like he knows you need. The hand on your neck slides up to cradle your cheek, and Kyle kisses you like he loves you, like he's breathing every bit he'd hidden in the years away into you.

And you know this, winding your arms around his neck and holding him close, until the two of you are flush and the only thing he can manage is to grind his hips into yours, reduced to a desperate tilt of his hips and the press of his mouth against yours. You know this –

He loves you, he does.

He always has.

He tells you as much when you ask him, in the quiet after you've come together, his cum sticky on your thighs and your chest pressed against his. Your limbs are loose, your head heavy above his heart. Fingers that had gripped your thigh rub apologetic circles into the sore flesh, and you look up at him.

"Did you mean it?" you ask, and he sits up a little to kiss your shoulder.

"Meant everything I said," he affirms, steady. Then, glancing away briefly, he asks, "Did you…when you said you were mine.."

You offer him a wobbly smile. "Yeah. Since we were 18, I think."

He lets out a breath, and the arm around your waist tightens. "Long time."

"It is." You bite your lip. "Is that okay?"

The smile he gives you is rueful. "Just pissed I kept you waiting so long."

"You're here now," you say, through a yawn. Kyle rucks up the blanket a little closer over your shoulder, kissing your head. You lay back down against his chest and you fiddle with the tags on his necklace. "And I…I don't know, it never felt like that."

He makes a questioning noise and you loop the metal chain around your finger.

"Dunno," you mumble. "You were gone so often, but I never felt like you were gone – from me. Not in that way. Am I making sense?"

Kyle's chest shakes a little with suppressed laughter, and it makes you huff, pressing your face to his chest to hide the smile he draws from you. "Not a bit, baby."

"I just," you pause, thinking over it. "I never felt like I didn't have you, even if it wasn't romantically."

He’s silent for a moment, long enough that the heaviness of your eyelids begins to weigh them down with no conversation to delay it further. When he answers you next, you’re startled a little by the sound.

“Good,” he says, squeezing you. His hand strokes a path over your shoulder, knuckles briefly caressing your cheek. “You did, you know. Have me.”

“I love you,” you whisper, emboldened and his hand stutters, before resuming its path.

“I love you,” he echoes, hushed. And then, just as you’re succumbing to your dreams again, a secret you only just manage to catch, he confesses something to you once more. 

“I always have, I reckon.”

this fic was conjured up when i went camping in the outback in the dead of winter last year. i was mad and cold and hungry and i ended up kind of cutting off a near decade of friendship afterwards, which is funny because reader in this is doing really well with her own decade long friendship.

anyway this took me nearly ten months to write because i find writing smut so difficult and i wanted it to be more purposeful about the emotions or whatever, because the main thing i had to go off when i was daydreaming about this scenario was the idea of letting someone you love do whatever they want to you but needing that reassurance that they still love you - tilting your head up and begging for them to kiss you because you could bear anything (even scary, if years-long desired, change) with that anchor.

so um. i hope it translated from my cold + hangry + coping mind to paper well. this is my first proper proper gaz (and cod!) fic and i'm a little nervous because i want to get him right. i hope it's received well!! he's so beautiful i am forever yearning for more fics about him, and i hope my contribution to that is good!!

the playlist for this:

edge of desire, john mayer | holocene, bon iver | return of the mack, mark morrison | south london forever, florence + the machine | towers, bon iver | wait by the river, lord huron | stop this train, john mayer | wish that you were here, florence + the machine | perth, bon iver | 29 #strafford apts, bon iver | michicant, bon iver | beth/rest, bon iver | carry me away, john mayer | kiss me, sixpence none the richer | like real people do, hozier | nfwmb, hozier | i lied, lord huron + allison ponthier

[mononijikayu]

delicate — geto suguru.

Suguru glared at Gojo. “I’m not concerned, I just—” “Uh–uhuh, keep talking.” “I’m just some friend—acquaintance. Worried.” Suguru narrowed his eyes. “Seriously, Satoru. I don’t know what you’re going on about. If I'm in love with them, shoot me.” Without missing a beat, Gojo grinned, “Bang.” He made a playful gun gesture with his hand and gave Suguru a wide grin. “Cupid’s bullets confirm!”

GENRE: Alternate Universe - Modern AU!;

WARNING/s: Fluff, Romance,, Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Light-Hearted, Slice of Life, Friendship, Confessions, Humor, Getting Together, Mutual Affection, Love, Pining, Kissing, Profanity, Mention of Fighting, Mention of Bruising, Outcast! Geto Suguru, Popular Cheerleader!Reader;

WORDS: 6.9k words.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: i made this while thinking about what dynamic i wanted to see between cute couples. and here we are. this was supposed to be shorter too, but it ended up way way longer than 4k words. but im satisfied with this. i hope you enjoy!!! i love you all <3

ADDENDUM: i just found out gege akutami said jjk ends in five chapters and i just want to say that this is going to be hard for me since ive been a fan since 2019.

but i will say ill continue to write as much as i can for this story, enjoy the anime with you for years to come. im sad of course, but im thankful. im grateful for gege akutami for letting me meet his lovely story and his bountiful characters.

and of course because of him, i met all of you. i am very grateful. from beginning to end. i am crying but i am happy too. i love jjk a lot you guys. hugs and kisses to manga fans everywhere. lets hope for a happy end to the story we have loved 🥹🫶

main masterlist

kayu's playlist - side 900;

if you want to, tip! <3

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🌌*ੈ𑁍༘⋆

YOU WEREN’T LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. You were the it-girl, so sought after. The shining star. You were the girl everyone wanted to be—effortlessly beautiful, charming, and the center of attention at Jujutsu College. As a cheerleader, you had it all: the admiration of your peers, the envy of others, and the kind of popularity that opened every door.

Everywhere you went, eyes followed. Whispers trailed in your wake, a symphony of awe and envy that only fueled your rise to the top. You were untouchable, your smile a weapon, your presence a force. Parties, events, and the campus buzzed with your name. Everyone wanted to be near you, to bask in the glow of your effortless charisma. But all of that came crashing down when you chose to stand up for what you believed was right.

The whispers got worse the moment they took to the locker room. One of the newer cheerleaders, a girl named Emi, was their target—shy, awkward, and an easy mark for their cruelty. You watched it unfold for days, biting your tongue, hoping it would stop. They were the same, the seniors who already graduated. You let them do it then, because you hoped they’d stop like the seniors did. But they did not. Instead, it went too far.

You looked at them for a moment, trying not to be obvious. This was going too far. The girl was about to cry, maybe she’d even get even more hurt. This is enough. You cannot stay and just stay silent anymore. Maybe it was the memory of your own first days on the squad, when you weren’t yet the queen bee, when you still had something to prove. Or maybe it was just a sense of fairness that you couldn’t ignore. But you knew that this had to stop. This has to end.

"God, Emi, you can’t even get a basic cheer right. Why are you even here?" one of the girls sneered, her voice dripping with disdain.

Emi stood frozen, her eyes welling up with tears. The other cheerleaders laughed, egging each other on, pushing her closer to the edge. You bit your lip, closing your locker with a loud bang, causing everyone to look at you. You could feel Emi’s eyes on you too, shaking with fear as tears fell from her cheeks. 

“Leave her alone, you freaks!” you said, your voice sharp as you stepped forward. “That is enough. She doesn’t deserve this. You’ve gone too far, even more than our seniors!”

They turned to you, surprise flickering across their faces before it morphed into mockery. You moved forward to the captain, eyes narrowed as you glared at her. You shook your head at her. “Just leave her alone. She’s a freshman. She doesn’t need your shit.”

“What, are you her knight in shining armor now?” one of the lackeys taunted, crossing her arms. “You’re supposed to be on our side, aren’t you? This is a tradition for us seniors.”

“I’m on the side that’s not full of bullies.” you shot back, your anger boiling over. “Being bullied doesn’t mean you should be one!”

“What’s your problem?” another girl snapped, stepping closer, her tone threatening. “She’s dead weight, and you know it.”

You clenched your fists, trying to keep your temper in check. “My problem is that you’re all acting like a bunch of jerks. If you can’t see that, then maybe you’re the dead weight.”

The tension in the room exploded like a storm that had been brewing for too long. You could feel it in the way the air seemed to thicken, in the way eyes narrowed and lips curled into sneers. It started with a harsh word—one of those sly, cutting remarks that slid under the skin like a blade. But this time, you couldn’t let it slide. Not when it was aimed at Emi, the quiet girl who had been on the receiving end of too many of those slights.

You were on your feet before you even realized it, the words spilling out of you in a rush of anger and defiance. “What’s your problem? Why do you always have to pick on someone who’s done nothing to you?”

Your voice cut through the chatter, silencing the room. The others stared at you, shocked that you—of all people—would dare to break ranks. The lead cheerleader, the queen bee, glared at you, her eyes narrowed into slits. “What, are you her bodyguard now? Don’t act like you’re better than us.”

It was the spark that lit the fire. The room erupted into chaos as insults were hurled back and forth. You didn’t back down, not when they turned their barbs on you, not when they sneered at Emi. It all escalated so fast—too fast. Suddenly, hands were shoving, nails were scratching, and before you knew it, you were in the middle of a full-blown fight.

You could barely make sense of it all. The adrenaline surged through you, drowning out the pain as someone’s fist connected with your cheek, leaving a nasty bruise that would bloom later. All you could think about was protecting Emi, keeping her out of the fray, even as the world around you descended into chaos.

The chaos only ended when the coaches rushed in, their voices booming as they waded into the mess of tangled limbs and flaring tempers. They pulled you all apart, demanding to know what had happened, their faces a mix of shock and anger.

But it was too late—the damage was done. You could see it in their eyes, the way they looked at you now, like you were the problem. The principal was called in, and you found yourself standing in his office, staring at the floor as he lectured you about school spirit and the responsibilities that came with your position.

Your words fell on deaf ears. They didn’t want to hear about the bullying, about how you were just trying to protect Emi. All they saw was the fight, the disruption, and the girl who had gone from golden to tarnished in a matter of minutes.

When you returned to the locker room, it was like a slap in the face. Your things had been removed from your team locker, stuffed unceremoniously into a bag and left on the floor. You were no longer welcome. The cheerleaders, the same girls who had once been your closest friends, looked at you with cold eyes and turned their backs.

You had wanted to protect Emi, and now you were left with a throbbing bruise, a reprimand from the principal, and a cold emptiness where your friends used to be. But even as you walked out of that locker room, head held high despite everything, you knew you’d do it all over again. Because some things were worth fighting for, even if it meant losing everything else.

The next day, you found yourself officially kicked off the squad. Well, Emi was also kicked out too, but you were glad that she wasn’t at all hurt. That was what mattered. The news spread like wildfire, and the people who once idolized you now whispered behind your back. Your world felt like it was crumbling, and you couldn’t help but wonder if you’d made the biggest mistake of your life.

Later that afternoon, you found yourself sitting alone outside, trying to process everything that had happened. Emi had repeatedly apologized to you today, but you kept waving her off and told her to stay safe around school. It wasn’t really her fault. Maybe if you had acted much earlier, maybe Emi wouldn’t have had to go through the worst. Perhaps this was your punishment. This was what happened because of your inaction. And you feel like you deserve this. You deserve to be punished like this. You could only sigh.

That’s when you heard someone approaching.

“You know, I always thought cheerleaders were supposed to be a tight-knit group.” a voice drawled. 

You looked up to see Gojo Satoru standing there, hands in his pockets, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. “Guess I was wrong, huh?”

“Guess so.” you muttered, feeling the sting of his words even though they weren’t meant to hurt. “I’m sorry, have I met you before?”

“I don’t think so.” He says, removing his round sunglasses. “Have we met before too?”

“Don’t think so.” You admitted also, face scrunching in confusion. “I don’t meddle around with unpopular kids.”

“Hey, hey, I’m not unpopular.”

“Then why have I never heard of your name before?” You raised your brow.

“I don’t know, maybe you were too focused on being a cheerleader and me being a Digimon stan?” 

“Oh, so you’re a nerd!” You clapped your hands together. “That makes sense why I haven’t heard about you.”

He sighed. “You cheerleaders are cut throats, aren’t you?”

“I’m an ex–cheerleader now. Not really much of a cheerleader anymore.” You snickered. “Those pom pom waving mean girls, goodbye them!”

He plopped down next to you, stretching out his long legs. “So, what’s the plan now? Are you gonna go all lone wolf, or are you open to a new company?”

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Why do you care?”

Gojo shrugged, his smile widening. “Because I’m curious about the girl who went from queen bee to outcast in one day. That takes guts.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, though it came out a little bitter. “Or stupidity.”

“Or both, you know?” he agreed easily. “But I like guts. So does Shoko. And Suguru. And Kento and Haibara. You’d fit right in with us.”

“Fit in?” you echoed, not sure if he was being serious. Your face reminded Satoru of how Kento reacted to him asking to be his friend. 

“Yeah.” he said, leaning back on his hands, looking up at the sky. “We’re not exactly the most popular kids on campus, but we’re fun. And we don’t care about that petty stuff.”

Before you could respond, Shoko Ieiri appeared, hands stuffed in her lab coat pockets, a cigarette dangling from her lips. “You’re not bothering her, are you, Gojo?”

“Me? Bother someone? Never, Sho.” Gojo said, feigning innocence. “Just making a new friend.”

Shoko rolled her eyes and looked at you. “He’s right, though. You’re welcome to hang with us if you want.”

You hesitated, glancing between them. “I don’t know…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shoko said with a lazy grin. “We don’t bite. Well, maybe Gojo does, but only if you ask nicely.”

You laughed again, this time more genuinely. “Okay… I guess I’ll give it a shot.”

As the days passed, you found yourself drifting away from the cheerleaders and into a new circle. It started subtly at first, with Gojo casually inviting you to sit with him and Shoko during lunch. Gojo’s easygoing nature made it hard to say no, and Shoko’s dry humor quickly drew you in. 

They didn’t seem to care about the drama that had turned your life upside down. Gojo’s bright grin and carefree attitude were a stark contrast to the cold shoulders you’d been getting from your former friends. Shoko, with her sharp wit and laid-back demeanor, offered a kind of friendship that felt refreshing, real in a way that the cheerleading squad never had.

Soon, Geto Suguru and Nanami Kento joined in. Suguru had a quiet confidence about him, a steady presence that was both comforting and intriguing. He didn’t ask about the fight or why you weren’t with the cheerleaders anymore. Instead, he offered a warm smile and an understanding nod, as if he knew without needing to be told.

Nanami, on the other hand, was more reserved. He didn’t speak much at first, but his presence was reassuring. There was a steadiness to him, a sense of reliability that you hadn’t realized you craved. He welcomed you into their group with a subtle nod, a small but genuine gesture that told you he saw you for who you were now, not who you had been before.

Each of them, in their own way, made room for you. They didn’t treat you like the fallen star or the girl with the tarnished reputation. With them, you didn’t have to pretend. You could be yourself—no masks, no expectations.And slowly, you began to feel something you hadn’t felt in a long time: belonging.

That afternoon, all of you were sitting together under a tree on campus, watching the world go by. Geto Suguru was in the middle of explaining something, his voice calm and soothing, while Nanami listened quietly, offering his thoughts every now and then. Yu was more excited trying to make friends with you than before. You think it's interesting, how this ball of sunshine saw you as some sort of superhero for what you did, even if you didn’t.

Yu Haibara, ever the sunshine in human form, plopped down beside you with a grin. “Hey, I heard about what happened with the cheer squad. Pretty badass, if you ask me.”

You smiled, feeling the warmth of genuine friendship for the first time in what felt like forever. “Thanks. I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing, but…”

“It was! You’re so cool, you know?” Haibara said firmly. “Standing up for someone who needed it? That’s always the right thing.”

“Besides, it’s just what it is, you know?” Geto added, looking over at you. He was smoking his cigarette roll, one he made himself. “You don’t have to be what you aren’t.”

“Yeah.” Nanami agreed, his voice steady and reassuring. “You don’t have to pretend to be something you’re not with us.”

You looked around at them—this group of people who had taken you in without hesitation, who saw you for who you really were, not just the image you had projected for so long. And for the first time in a while, you felt like you were exactly where you were meant to be.

As the weeks went by, you found a surprising sense of belonging with Gojo, Shoko, Suguru, Nanami, and Yu. They had become your new circle of friends, and their acceptance gave you a fresh start that you didn’t know you needed. They were a new sort of fun, a different kind of excitement that was worlds apart from the polished, high-pressure life you’d known as the it-girl.

With them, your days became filled with spontaneous adventures. Gojo was always dragging everyone to the arcade, where his competitive streak made every game feel like a high-stakes challenge. Shoko would roll her eyes at his antics but still join in, her laughter adding to the cacophony of beeping machines and cheerful music. Suguru, ever the cool-headed one, had a knack for choosing the perfect music stores to visit, introducing you to tracks that soon became the soundtrack to this new chapter of your life.

Nanami and Suguru were more reserved, especially at first. You could tell they were still feeling you out, trying to figure out if you really fit into their group. But even in their uncertainty, they made an effort. Nanami, despite his serious demeanor, would show up at the burger joints Gojo loved, quietly indulging in the greasy food and ridiculous banter. Suguru, with his calm presence, would often give you a slight smile or a nod, a small but significant sign that you were being welcomed, even if it was cautiously.

Yu was the glue that held it all together, his infectious energy and boundless enthusiasm pulling everyone along. Satoru was as enthusiastic as he was, but unlike him — Yu was someone that tried to keep everyone in good peace together. And he was good. He had a way of making you feel included, whether it was by handing you a spare controller at the arcade or making sure you got the best seat at the burger joint.

That’s just how it was with them. You didn’t have to worry about the petty dramas or the constant pressure to be perfect. With this group, it was all about the moment—the thrill of a high score, the taste of a greasy burger, the discovery of a new song. And you liked it. You liked who you were becoming with them.

Gojo leaned back in his chair, tossing a sugar packet from one hand to the other. “You know, you fit in with us better than you did with that cheer squad.”

You shot him a playful glare. “Are you saying I was too good for them?”

Shoko rolled her eyes. “Stop teasing, Gojo. You’re ruining the vibe.”

“Hey, I’m not!” Gojo argues as  his grin spreads, “Just that our new friend here is way cooler than they ever gave them credit for.”

You looked at Shoko, who was sipping her coffee with a look of amused tolerance, added, “He’s right. They were just too busy with their drama to see how awesome you are.”

Suguru, sitting across from you, offered a more thoughtful observation. He bit into his fries. “Sometimes, it takes getting knocked down to realize where you truly belong. You were always meant to be with people who appreciate you for who you are.”

Nanami, who had been quietly observing, nodded in agreement. “You’re a good blend with us, I think. We’ve had a lot of fun since you joined us.”

Yu Haibara, always the optimist, leaned in with a grin. “Yeah, and you’ve made things a lot more interesting around here. It’s not every day we get someone with your… spirit.”

You smiled, feeling a warm flush of gratitude. “Thanks, guys. I wasn’t sure where I’d fit in after everything that happened, but I really appreciate how welcoming you’ve all been.”

The conversation shifted to lighter topics, and you found yourself laughing more than you had in a long time. It was a refreshing change from the pressure and pretense of your previous life. 

As the night wore on, Gojo suddenly stood up and stretched. “Hey, who’s up for a late-night walk? I heard there’s a new food truck downtown.”

Shoko raised an eyebrow. “You just want an excuse to get more snacks.”

“Guilty as charged.” Gojo admitted with a wink. “But you’re all welcome to join if you’re up for it.”

“Sounds good to me.” Suguru said, standing up and grabbing his coat. 

You looked around at your friends, feeling a genuine sense of contentment. “I’m in.”

“You feeling cold?” Suguru asked as he saw you stand from the booth. 

“A little—” He threw you his jacket, which you were barely able to catch.

“Put it on.”

“O–oh, okay.”

As you all walked together through the city streets, the cool night air filled with laughter and conversation, you realized how different this life felt from the one you had left behind. There were no superficial judgments, no hidden agendas—just a group of people who valued each other’s company and had each other’s backs.

Later, as you shared food and stories under the streetlights, you found yourself in a moment of quiet reflection. You had come so far from the popular girl who had been kicked out of the cheer squad. You were no longer defined by your past status or the mistakes you’d made. Instead, you were part of a new chapter, one where you were valued for who you truly were.

Gojo’s laughter broke through your thoughts as he tossed a piece of popcorn into the air, catching it with a grin. “See? This is what life’s about—good friends, good food, and not taking things too seriously.”

You laughed, feeling the weight of the past lift off your shoulders. “I couldn’t agree more.”

In that moment, you knew that despite everything you had been through, you had found something real and genuine. And as you walked beside your new friends, you felt a renewed sense of hope for the future, knowing that wherever life took you next, you would face it with people who truly cared about you.

But in that moment, Geto Suguru looked at you and thought to himself for a moment, just for that moment — how good happiness looks on you.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🌌*ੈ𑁍༘⋆

IF HE WAS BEING HONEST, HE’S NOT ONE TO TRUST PEOPLE EASILY. But coming from a rough place in life, it was something that can’t be helped. So, in the beginning, Geto Suguru had his reservations about you. He’d heard the rumors about the cheerleader who had once been the queen of Jujutsu College, and he wasn’t impressed. To him, you seemed like just another snob who was used to getting their way and couldn’t be bothered with anyone outside her circle.

When Gojo tried to blend you into the group, Suguru’s attitude was guarded, and for a good reason. So, he kept his distance and even interacted with you, he tried to be casual, trying to not get too deep into it.

He remembers what he said then — “I’m not really into the whole ‘cheerleader’ thing,” he’d said with a shrug. “Not my style. So they're still not my style either.”

You had sensed his cold demeanor but tried not to let it bother you. Instead, you focused on being yourself—friendly, outgoing, and always ready to lend a hand. You wanted to prove that you weren’t just the image people had of you. Even though you could still be rough in the edges with your personality, it didn’t stop people from enjoying your company. 

And over time, Geto Suguru began to see a different side of you. You didn’t just laugh at his jokes or offer superficial compliments, nor were you as stuck up as people make you out to be; you were genuinely kind and considerate. You had a really good way of making others feel comfortable, and it wasn’t long before he found himself intrigued by the real you, the one who went out of their way to help others despite their own struggles.

One evening, as the group hung out at a quiet park, you were sitting on the grass, talking animatedly about a new project you were excited about. If he was being honest, excitement was a beautiful color on you. And he thinks that he wants to see more of that in you. He could only sigh as he thought about how much you’ve occupied his mind. He shakes his head. Suguru looks above the sky, trying to distract himself while Satoru spoke to everyone about his new date. 

“You know, Suguru.” you said, glancing over at him, snapping him back to reality. “I really appreciate how you’ve been around lately. And how not awkward it is between us now. It means a lot to me.”

Suguru raised an eyebrow. “I’m just here because Gojo dragged me along. Don’t get any ideas.”

You laughed, unfazed. “Yeah, yeah. But seriously, you’re not as bad as I thought you’d be. I guess we’re not so different after all.”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Maybe. But don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here because I have to be.”

Despite his words, you noticed subtle changes in his behavior. He was more engaged in conversations around you, his smiles more frequent, and he’d even started teasing you back. You found yourself drawn to him more and more, your feelings shifting from admiration to something deeper. The way he would look at you, even with his usual aloofness, made your heart race. 

After a particularly lively conversation about your favorite books, Suguru caught you off guard with a rare moment of vulnerability. He looked at you with an intensity that made your breath hitch. 

“You’re really persistent, you know that?” he said, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “I didn’t think I’d be saying this, but you’ve managed to get under my skin.”

You grinned, feeling a rush of hope. “Is that a good thing?”

Suguru looked away, his expression turning more serious. “I’m not sure. I told myself I’d just tolerate you, but… the more I hang around, the harder it is to keep my distance.”

He was fighting it, trying to convince himself that his growing feelings for you were nothing more than an annoyance. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do.” he continued, frustration evident in his voice. “But I’m not someone who easily changes his mind. So don’t expect too much.”

Despite his words, there was a softness in his eyes when he looked at you, a clear sign that he was fighting a losing battle. The more you interacted, the more he found himself charmed by your genuine warmth and infectious enthusiasm. And he didn’t know what to feel about that. He doesn’t know how to react to you.

You were infatuated with him, and it became clear that you wanted his attention—more than just casual conversation, more than friendly banter. You wanted to be the one who made him smile, the one he thought about when he was alone.

And though Suguru tried to keep his distance, you could see the cracks in his resolve. His stoic exterior was melting away, little by little, with every shared laugh, every meaningful conversation. He couldn’t deny the way he felt any longer, no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise.

In moments of quiet, when it was just the two of you, Geto Suguru’s demeanor softened. He would catch himself gazing at you with an expression that betrayed his irritation with his own feelings. He was torn between his desire to remain aloof and the undeniable pull he felt towards you. As you continued to be your bubbly, charming self, Suguru found himself drawn to you more and more, fighting a battle he wasn’t sure he wanted to win.

The house party was in full swing by the time you and your friends arrived. The sorority house was buzzing with energy, and the crowd was a mix of familiar faces and new ones. You were excited to be there, especially because you had a date with you—Mark, a guy you had been seeing for a few weeks. 

Suguru Geto, always the reserved observer, was there too, though he seemed more detached from the festivities. He had taken a spot near the snack table, his gaze scanning the room. When he noticed you with Mark, he gave a curt nod but didn’t say much.

As the night progressed, Suguru found himself cornered by Mark, who was chatting animatedly with a group of people. You had gone off to mingle with others, leaving Mark to his own devices. Suguru, being the stand-up guy he was, decided to introduce himself.

“Hey, I’m Suguru.” he said, offering a polite smile. “So, what’s your story, bro?”

Mark took a swig of his drink and grinned. “Oh, I’m just here to have a good time, mess around, party hard. You know how it is.”

Suguru nodded, trying to make conversation. “Yeah, I get it. So, how long have you and my friend been seeing each other?”

Mark’s smile faltered slightly. “A few weeks. But, honestly, they're kind of a handful.”

Suguru’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he kept his tone neutral. “Oh? How so?”

Mark shrugged, looking around to make sure no one else was listening. “They’re always so cheerful and in-your-face. It gets old pretty fast. And don’t get me started on their mood swings. Sometimes they’re all sunshine and other times, they’re just… exhausting.”

Suguru’s smile faltered, and he could feel a simmering anger rising. “I wouldn’t say that. They’re actually really kind and caring. Maybe they’re just passionate around you.”

Mark snorted. “Passionate? More like over–dramatic. You must be used to it, though, considering you hang out with them.”

Suguru’s jaw tightened. “I think you should stop talking about them like that.”

Mark raised an eyebrow, clearly enjoying the reaction he was getting. “Why? It’s the truth. You know, they could be a lot better if they just… toned it down a bit.”

Suguru’s eyes darkened as he took a deep breath. “Seriously, stop it.”

Mark continued, oblivious to Suguru’s mounting frustration. “They’re always making everything about themselves, always trying to be the center of attention. I don’t get why you’d even bother with them. They’re literally like….a bitch..”

Without warning, Suguru’s hand tightened around his beer bottle. He took a step forward, his voice low and dangerous. “I said, stop.”

The tension in the room was thick, a simmering undercurrent that everyone felt but no one acknowledged—until Mark pushed too far. He had been needling Suguru all night, his criticisms growing more pointed, more personal with each passing minute. The rest of you tried to steer the conversation away, but Mark wouldn’t let it go, his words becoming sharper, crueler.

Suguru had been holding back, his calm facade cracking only slightly as he tried to keep his temper in check. But when Mark ignored him and continued with his relentless criticisms, something inside Suguru snapped.

In an instant, he moved. With a swift, fluid motion, Suguru swung his beer bottle, the action so smooth it was almost graceful. The bottle connected with Mark’s face with a sharp crack. The impact was immediate and satisfying, sending Mark stumbling backward as beer splashed across the floor, the bottle shattering in Suguru’s hand.

The room fell into stunned silence.

“Goddamn it, Suguru!” Shoko’s voice was the first to break the quiet, a mix of shock and exasperation. She stepped forward, ready to pull Suguru back if needed, though there was a slight smirk playing at the corners of her mouth. “Couldn’t you have at least waited until he finished his drink?”

Nanami, who had been lounging in the corner, raised an eyebrow but didn’t move from his spot. “Well, that escalated quickly.”

Shoko sighed deeply, looking around. “I’ll call someone to clean this up. And maybe get some ice for Mark.”

Mark, clutching his face where Suguru had punched him, looked up in stunned disbelief. “What the hell, man? You’re crazy!”

Suguru’s eyes were cold as he glared down at him. “No. I’m done listening to your crap. You should’ve known when to shut up.”

“You all are a bunch of crazy freaks! Especially that bitch!”

“You don’t get to talk about them like that!” Suguru said, his voice steady but filled with a cold edge. “Not on my watch.”

Mark looked up at him, a mix of pain and surprise in his eyes. He didn’t say anything, just backed away slowly, still holding his nose. Yu came between them. “Hey, hey. Let’s all calm down, okay?”

Suguru turned on his heel and walked away, heading outside to cool down. He needed some fresh air and space to collect his thoughts. You, having witnessed the altercation from a distance, rushed over to Suguru, concern etched on your face.

You spotted Suguru standing alone in the hallway, his gaze distant as he tried to calm down from the confrontation. Determined to get some answers, you made a beeline for him, your concern and curiosity palpable.

“Suguru, what happened back there?” you asked, trying to piece together the events of the night. “Why did you hit Mark?”

Suguru glanced at you, his expression a mix of embarrassment and frustration. “It was nothing. He just… he crossed a line.”

“No,” you said, putting the pieces together with a sudden burst of realization. “He called me a bitch, didn’t he? That’s why you hit him. You hit him for me!”

Suguru looked away, his cheeks tinged with a hint of pink. “No, that’s not—”

“Yes, it is!” you interrupted, your excitement and relief bubbling over. “I know I can be a lot sometimes, and I am a bitch! But you actually care about me. You love me, don’t you?”

Suguru’s face turned a deeper shade of red, and he mumbled, “No…I didn’t…”

Suguru’s thoughts were still a whirlwind, his mind racing to process the events of the night and the emotions that came with them. He needed to clear his head, and talking to Gojo seemed like the quickest way to do that. He excused himself and quickly went back inside. As he entered the kitchen, the room was a stark contrast to the chaos outside—bright, warm, and filled with the comforting aroma of Gojo Satoru’s sandwich-making.

Gojo stood by the counter, casually assembling a towering sandwich with practiced ease. His movements were relaxed and carefree, a stark contrast to the tension that Suguru was radiating. He glanced up, taking in the scene with a curious, slightly amused expression.

“What’s going on, man?” Gojo asked, his tone light as he continued to layer on the ingredients. “I heard there was a bit of a commotion.”

Suguru tried to compose himself, but the frustration was evident in his voice. “Mark was being a complete jerk. He was bad-mouthing them, and I… I lost my temper.”

Gojo raised an eyebrow, his interest piqued. “He was talking about them? What did he say?”

Suguru’s jaw clenched as he recounted the encounter. “He kept going on about how they are a handful and how they’re exhausting. He was just being really disrespectful. Even called them a bitch, mind you!”

Gojo’s eyebrows knitted together in surprise. “And you punched him for it?”

Suguru nodded, his gaze intense. “Yeah, I did. He wouldn’t stop, and I just couldn’t let him keep talking like that.”

Gojo’s expression shifted from amusement to genuine concern. “Are they okay?”

Suguru’s frustration softened a bit as he considered your well-being. “They’re fine. I mean, they did seem surprised, maybe in some way upset, I don’t know. But they’re okay. It’s just… I don’t like seeing them being talked about like that.”

Gojo’s eyes sparkled with a mix of mischief and understanding. “So, you’re defending them, huh?”

Suguru’s face flushed slightly, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not just about defending them. It’s just—”

Gojo looked up from his sandwich-making with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah, but is your lover okay?”

Suguru froze, caught off guard. “They are not my lover, Gojo.” he snapped, defensively. “They are just—”

Gojo’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Oh? Then why’d you hit him? Seems like you’re more concerned than you’re letting on.”

Suguru glared at Gojo. “I’m not concerned, I just—”

“Uh–uhuh, keep talking.”

“I’m just some friend—acquaintance. Worried.” Suguru narrowed his eyes. “Seriously, Satoru. I don’t know what you’re going on about. If I'm in love with them, shoot me.”

Without missing a beat, Gojo grinned, “Bang.” He made a playful gun gesture with his hand and gave Suguru a wide grin. “Cupid’s bullets confirm!”

Suguru stared at him, dumbfounded. “Are you serious? This is not—”

Gojo laughed, clearly enjoying the confusion. “Just kidding, Suguru. You know I’m just messing with you.”

Suguru sighed heavily, his frustration giving way to a reluctant chuckle. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

Gojo shrugged, still grinning. “Just having a bit of fun. But seriously, if you need to talk or if something’s going on, I’m here. Just don’t let things like this get you too worked up.”

Suguru nodded, a mix of relief and embarrassment on his face. “Thanks, Gojo. I guess I needed that.”

With a final, reassuring pat on Suguru’s shoulder, Gojo returned to his sandwich-making. He took a deep breath and went back outside. You were talking with Shoko when you noticed Suguru come back outside towards your way. You were about to speak when Suguru turned back to you. There was a softer, more earnest look in his eyes as he met your gaze.

He looked at you with a determination, his voice steady but kind. “Take your coat, doll.” he said, offering it to you. “We’re getting out of here.”

You raised an eyebrow, surprised by his sudden decision but relieved by the prospect of escaping the party. Without protest, you slipped on your coat and followed him out into the cool night air. The contrast between the cold outside and the warmth of the party was a welcome change, the crisp air a refreshing balm against your senses.

As you walked to the parking lot, Suguru’s silence was a comforting presence. His demeanor was calm and purposeful, a stark contrast to the turbulence of the evening. He led you to his car, and you both got in, the engine’s hum a soothing sound against the backdrop of the night.

Soon enough, you found yourselves parked in the lot of a nearby fast-food chain. The neon lights of the restaurant flickered against the dark sky, casting an almost surreal glow over the scene. It felt like a world away from the party, a simple, unpretentious refuge.

Suguru ordered a handful of burgers and fries, his movements deliberate and focused. You followed suit, choosing your favorites with a sense of familiarity. As you both settled on the hood of the car, the comfort of the fast food and the tranquility of the night began to ease the tension.

You took a bite of your burger, the flavors surprisingly comforting. Despite the simplicity of the setting, there was something deeply satisfying about the moment. “This is the best date ever.” you said with a grin, the warmth of the food and Suguru’s presence making the night feel a little brighter.

Suguru looked at you, a bemused expression on his face. “We haven’t talked in half an hour.”

“That doesn’t matter,” you said, shaking your head. “It’s nice just being with you, even if this doesn’t seem like much.”

Suguru looked away, a soft smile tugging at his lips. “It’s not as bad as going bowling.”

You blinked, puzzled. “Bowling? I didn’t know you liked bowling.”

He shrugged, leaning back against the car. “I do. It’s something I enjoy, and being with you is kind of like that—enjoyable and relaxing, even if it’s not always fancy.”

You tilted your head, contemplating his words. Then, feeling bold, you leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. Suguru’s eyes widened slightly, but he responded, kissing you back with a tenderness that melted away any remaining tension.

When you finally parted, you looked up at him, a soft smile on your lips. “Not too bad?”

Suguru’s gaze softened as he met your eyes, a genuine smile spreading across his face. “Not too bad.” he agreed, his voice warm.

You both shared a comfortable silence, the world outside the fast-food restaurant feeling a million miles away. As you finished your burgers and settled back into a peaceful quiet, you knew that despite everything, moments like these were what mattered most.

You and Suguru remained on the car hood, finishing off the last of your burgers. The night was crisp and clear, the occasional hum of passing cars providing a steady backdrop to your conversation.

“So, what’s your favorite part about bowling?” you asked, genuinely curious and trying to keep the mood light.

Suguru chuckled, a soft sound that warmed the chilly air. “It’s the combination of skill and luck, I guess. Plus, it’s fun to just throw the ball and watch it knock down the pins. It’s simple, but satisfying.”

You smiled, enjoying his enthusiasm. “Maybe we should go bowling sometime. It sounds like it could be a lot of fun.”

Suguru’s eyes twinkled as he looked at you. “I’d like that. I think you’d be pretty good at it. You’ve got a good arm from throwing those frisbees around at the park.”

You laughed, leaning into him. “You think so? I’ll hold you to that.”

Suguru wrapped an arm around you, pulling you closer. “It’s a promise.”

The warmth of his embrace was comforting, and you snuggled closer, resting your head on his shoulder. The night was quiet, and for a while, you just enjoyed the peacefulness of the moment.

Suguru glanced at you, his expression softening even further. “You know, despite everything that happened tonight, I’m really glad we ended up here. I like these moments with you. They remind me of why I care so much.”

You tilted your head up to look at him, your eyes reflecting the soft glow of the streetlights. “Me too, Suguru. It’s the simple things, like eating burgers and talking about bowling, that make me realize how much I enjoy being with you.”

Suguru gave a small, affectionate smile, his fingers gently brushing against your cheek. “Sometimes, it’s the simple things that mean the most.”

You sighed contentedly, feeling a deep sense of connection. “I guess that’s true. And, even though tonight didn’t go as planned, it ended up being pretty perfect in its own way.”

Suguru chuckled softly, his gaze fixed on you. “Yeah, it did.”

You both sat there for a while longer, sharing soft kisses and quiet laughter, savoring the simplicity of the moment. The night air was cool, but the warmth between you made it feel like the coziest place in the world.

Eventually, Suguru shifted slightly, pulling you closer as he gave you a tender kiss on the forehead. “Let’s head back. I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

You nodded, standing up and stretching as Suguru helped you off the car hood. “Sounds good. But we definitely need to plan that bowling trip soon.”

Suguru laughed, offering you his hand. “It’s a date.”

As you walked back to the car, hand in hand, the night seemed a little brighter, and the world a little warmer. The small, spontaneous moments were what made your time together truly special, and you both knew that, no matter what, you’d always find a way to cherish them.

[e04kj0125]

Women's Day, SAGAU

This is a short unedited drabble i am sorry for the spelling and gramatical mistakes that will occur. As of for now there is no TW.

There were new rumors bustling about. It travelled from the merchants going through the borders of the nations, to the workers, and to even the office-bound scholars. It was quite an odd phenomenon that one rumor could hold the attention of so many and such a diverse group of people, but it was to be expected when the subject was related to none other than their grace, their beloved creator. Indeed, the scholars of the akademiya were scouring or writing down notes of this new holiday you had deemed important, trying to see if it was passed down somewhere.

Women's day.

Such a simple yet odd holiday, their grace had decided to celebrate. Some scholars wondered what was so special about this date and in this day, was it the stars aligning just right or some other phenomenon? The fact that only women were celebrated was easy enough to rule out, why, who else would be closest to you, their creator, other than women who can create life?

The clergy meanwhile set their own preparation, wondering if their prayers and offerings were enough for this auspicious day.

Meanwhile, a few acolytes had a surprise waiting in store for them.

Meanwhile in Snezhnaya.

Childe pouted from his seat, glaring at his fellow harbringer in disdain. Said harbringer gave him no mind, sipping her tea in peace, her poise relaxed and elegant. Indeed, the woman had no care, why would she care about him when their grace granted her such a wonderful gift, Childe sulkily thought while seeing the letter that appeared out of thin air in their meeting. It was quite a shock, but before any panic could set, Arlecchino had already opened the letter and to everyone's surprise chuckled.

When she was asked about the contents of the letter, she gave one simple answer.

Their grace.

It was all it took for the mood in the room to shift from one tense to clear envy and jealousy. When Arlecchino was asked what the letter contained, she replied with a smile and a simple one sentence.

"their grace wished me well."

Childe continued to sulk and changed his gaze to another occupant in the room that also received a gift. The girl was one of Arlecchino's and she did a very good job remaining stoic in the presence of so many high-ranking harbingers. He could see why their grace had chosen her an acolyte. The girl, Lynette, other than the excited swaying of her tail and tightly holding her letter, showed no emotions on her face, while her twin stood over her shoulders reading it as well.

If it was Childe he would be grinning from ear to ear, hmpf.

Maybe if he were a woman, would he become an acolyte as well? Now that he thought about it, you had a lot of women as acolytes, perhaps you preferred women?

Meanwhile in Mondstadt.

Jean read the letter that appeared on her office with a small smile, it was one of the rare non-work related letters she had gotten after taking over the role of acting grand master, and the encouraging yet kind words of their grace were quite comforting.

Her office was filled with laughter as other women of Monstadt came to share their letters, Amber was leaning over Noelle as they read through hers. The girl's face was slightly pink, abashed yet happy, while Monstadt astrologian was going through the content of her, Amber's, and Lisa's letters muttering about numbers and patterns.

Said librarian was sipping wolfhook juice, no doubt from her student as she looked over Mona in amusement.

It seemed today she could relax a bit, their grace had said it was okay after all.

Meanwhile in Liyue.

Liyue had its own customs and traditions kept over centuries, there was much beraucracy and paperwork to go through when it was time to celebrate such holidays, and it was even rarer for them to add a new national holiday, even rarer for them to add one in just a mere few days.

Yet that was such power their grace held.

Keqing huffed but said nothing further, their beloved creator had personally encouraged her and told her to rest, who was she to refuse?

Ganyu smiled softly, reading her letter before taking the day off, deciding to nap after snacking on fresh flowers in the mountains near Cloud Retainer's abode.

Said woman was proudly showing off her letters to the other adepti who looked at her enviously. Zhongli hummed quietly and congratulated her on the wonderful gift, yet his lips were tightly pressed together, one could say he was also jealous as well.

[hivemuthur]

Nothing's New - Ch.2.

viktorxfemale!reader explicit!

AU modern era, lovers to enemies to lovers, getting back together, a lot of angst, smut to come somewhere mid-way through

Ch.1. | Ch.3. | Ch.4. | Ch.5. | Ch.6.

word count: 7,2K

tag: #nothings new

summary: More meetings, welcomed and unwelcomed + some foreshadowing. Nothing exactly smutty in this chapter, but I'm leaving it on explicit rating, for reasons of angst and generally adult emotions. Also, I should go to writer's jail for starting so many fics with dialogue.

Cross-posted on AO3

—

“Why the fuck are you only telling me this now?” You fume over the phone. A sloppy text message from Mel has made you stop in the middle of the street. Now. Now, when you are heading to act out your pretend chance meeting with Viktor. Now, when you are ten minutes away from the drop point and haven’t finished replaying all possible conversation starters in your head yet. Now, when your knuckles are white from clutching your coffee cup. Now, when you are bathed in the cold sweat of fear and the hot sweat of the temperature. Why now. Why now.

I feel you should know this. Viktor is seeing someone. Please don’t eat me.

You are going to fucking eat her and clean your teeth with her bones.

“Jayce spilled just recently. He was afraid I would tell you.” Oh, the irony. Mel is whispering on the phone, which indicates that Jayce is around, and her clock is ticking. “Apparently it’s been going on for about six weeks. It’s someone from work.”

“What?! Six weeks? What was that scene at your party then?!” To counter Mel’s whispering, you are screaming. White-hot anger surges through your veins, blinding fury. The audacity. The audacity to make you feel bad for doing something adjacent to moving on when he himself has moved on weeks ago. People scoff as they walk past you, and you glare daggers at them. Fuck off.

“I understand this is… hard, but… I thought you were happy with Paul? Maybe this is the way to fix this?” your friend offers carefully. Very carefully.

“I am happy. I am so fucking happy it makes me sick,” you spit into the speaker against Mel’s sigh. The thought of Paul makes you feel guilty. Your entire relationship has been built on guilt poisoning your reason. But the thought of Viktor. With someone else. That’s different.

“This is all I know. Jayce is leaving, I have to run!” Mel ignores your protests, puts the speaker an inch away from her mouth, and sends you three in-air kisses. You almost throw your phone into the trash bin. You almost slap a person walking past you who gives you a sodden look. You almost kick a beer can under your feet with the force of a rugby player.

This is so, so different. The thought of you and Paul suddenly makes you sad. The way he is a picture of kind insecurity, even though most of him is mouthwatering. There are ugly parts of him, yet invisible to the naked eye. He makes the thought of being touched by someone other than Viktor bearable.

Viktor touched you like he was keeping you. His claiming hands, a constant reminder of his yearning. Which is why, when he stopped, you forgot. You became unkept. A stray in a shelter, getting food, water, and blankets, but no carer. And you could’ve lived without all of those, but not without the belonging. For you, it decayed much sooner than for Viktor.

And then Paul found you. He stumbled upon the pieces of you, left to be picked up and put back together. And Paul touched you like he was asking for permission to be kept. So the two of you strays agreed to keep each other. With time, his touch became familiar; it had overridden the default touch of Viktor. It became comforting, consoling. You never long for it, but you always welcome it. And you no longer need a keeper.

And Paul is a man that everyone envies you for. He’s a man that steals glances and twists the necks of women who congratulate themselves for having a decadent taste in men. In fact, Paul just looks like he fucks well and would make a good dad in the future. He’s hot, but not intimidating, smart, but not a buffoon. Clingy and needy at times. He gets angry in traffic and then patronises you when you freak out about weak Wi-Fi. He has a sadness and kindness to him that makes him a whole human. And sometimes, a whole human is more than you can bear.

You wonder, who is this woman who found pieces of Viktor, and how has she put them back together? If she did. If he let her. If he is in pieces at all.

You feel yourself in fragments, appearing and disappearing, as you approach the shop. And oh God, he is there, and Jayce is running late. Viktor is... picking a bed.

Your shirt clings to you awfully, and you catch a glimpse of yourself in the shop window—face red, remnants of foaming anger visible at the corners of your mouth twisted downwards, hair all messy from digging your hand into it, and two fucking sweat stains under your armpits. Great. Just great.

Why is he picking a bed? Is his bed soaked with you, and he wants a fresh one for the new woman? Is he ready for someone else’s scent so soon? You aren’t ready for him being ready.

You snort up three breaths in a row, no exhales. You hold them until one of your feet steps through the door, announced by a bell. Before your mind can throw you something—anything—you’ve prepared, you feel yourself walking up to him, and you hear yourself blurting out, “Why are you buying a bed?”

Viktor, who is standing by a frame much bigger than the one you two used to sleep in, looks up at you slowly, his lips disappearing into a thin line. “Because I need a bed. And hello.”

“What’s wrong with the old bed?” Unbelievably, you’ve lost all of your common sense. All that matters is why Viktor needs a new bed. His eyebrows raise, and he… smiles. With a horrible, smarmy curve of his lips.

“I don’t have a bed anymore,” he answers sweetly, acid dripping off his tongue.

He didn’t have the bed anymore. For months, he had slept on his tiny couch, which had significantly buggered his spine. But he couldn’t bear it—the bed had smelled of you, and whenever he came near it, it was as if you were still there, lying there, waiting for him. At first, he had wanted to burn it. He asked Jayce for help, and Jayce was frightened. He fidgeted around Viktor and asked him wary questions like, “Are you sure this is what you want?” or, “Isn’t it illegal?”

Viktor scoffed at the last one. He was convinced that if he had told the police why he was burning a bed, they would have helped him do it. But since he was in no shape to chop it with an axe while picturing your face or drive it out of town to build a pillar of hate to pay his respects to you in an eternal flame, he settled on a Craigslist deal. Some poor fucker wanted a bed in exchange for a book. It happened to be the first edition of Naked Lunch. The poor fucker had no idea.

You would have loved it. So he burned it instead.

He burned it on the balcony in the middle of the night, hoping it would make him feel better. Hoping you would feel the tickle of the flames around your soul as he purged it from his being. Hoping that this symbolic act of destroying a piece of literary history would also destroy his feeling of this—this thing he dared not name.

And now, he has just collected a shiny new set of keys to his apartment that he is going to give to Julia the next day. Not to live together, too early for that. But to come and go as she pleases. He will do things differently now. He will do them better this time.

And it is easier, because Jules isn’t so co-dependent. She is collected and pretty. She is alright with anything Viktor proposes. She never challenges him and manages to be funny on rare occasions. They have a lot in common, and it feels comfortable. Yes, Jules is an easy ride—one that he needs after his road through hell.

“What happened to the old bed?” you insist. You loved that bed. It was small and cozy and soft, and Viktor would always jokingly complain about it. And then he would really complain about it, because when he wanted to be far away from you, the softness of the mattress would suck you both into the middle by morning, like a black hole.

His vile smirk turns into a full, shit-eating grin. “It’s gone,” he says coldly. “I hated it. It was bad for my back. Why are you here?” He shoots you a look, and you feel a new wave of sweat pushing itself through your skin.

“I saw you in the window,” you blurt out idiotically, as if that would explain anything. You bite the inside of your cheek, your face contorting into a new expression every second. How utterly mortifying.

“And? You thought you could say hello?” He shifts his weight onto the cane, pinning you like a butterfly on one of those museum boards. Splayed flat, stretched and dried out, dust under anyone’s prying fingers. “Or… you thought it was proper to just come in and be disturbingly weird?”

“I— What? I am not being weird! I’m asking you a question, and you lie to my face,” you hiss, your tone defensive. Oh, he has caught you. His eyes glint, clearly pleased with your mind struggling to formulate a proper comeback.

“Disturbingly weird it is, then,” he deadpans, that fucking smirk still on his face.

Weird. He remembers it so well. He didn’t want to, yet the sensation burned itself into his brain. Even more now, as the act of burning history had the opposite effect of what he desired. After the last remnants of Naked Lunch lifted into the hot summer air and disappeared into glimmering dust, he felt himself stepping into the weird club. The way your weirdness was fascinating and hot. The way his was full of fear and remained unaccepted.

You were neurotic but refused to acknowledge it fully, even though you wore it as a verbal badge. The constant fidgeting, moving objects around, slow pacing across the room as you read your books, always with a soundtrack because your mind needed distractions to remain focused. You could sing a song and read a book simultaneously, and Viktor loved it. He lived to observe all those people encapsulated within you, every single one incomplete, as if you were made of a bunch of different personas.

The fidgeting became overwhelming when he asked you to move in with him. It had been fast, and he owned it—the recklessness of the decision. He left you a way out: keep your old place, just in case. The “just in case” came in handy three years later, when you returned to a dark cage shrouded in dust.

But back then, you had no idea what to do with yourself once your stuff travelled with you to Viktor’s. When you were a guest, the pressure was less. You could move things around, and he would put them back where they belonged after you left. Now, you debated heavily before touching anything. Your books splayed on the floor, your records in a box, while you moved from place to place trying to figure out the value of a random bundle of tomes that some poor soul had sold to your boss for a stupidly small sum.

Viktor was sitting at his desk, trying to work, but your groans made him wince, and your skittish movements lingered in the corner of his eye. He turned in his chair and sighed.

“Come here,” he beckoned, his arm opening in a welcoming gesture, inviting you to sit in his lap. You paused, a puzzled look on your face. Then, you dropped your computer onto the bed, walked up to him too fast to save yourself any dignity, and straddled his hips, hiding your face in his neck.

“Why are you being so jumpy?” Viktor asked, wrapping his arms around you, shielding you from whatever answer you would have to come up with, signalling that whatever the reason was, it was alright.

“I am always jumpy,” you mumbled into his collar. No way to say this. Happy and sad at the same time. Excited and frightened. Bold and shy. Full of his love and hungry for more.

“Hmm, but this time more than usual,” he mused, placing a hot hand on the nape of your neck. A thought struck him.

“Miláčku, are you nervous about a new space?” His question was met with silence, only your nose pressing deeper into his neck. He chuckled, pleased to stumble upon the answer so quickly.

“Do you not feel like this is your home?” he asked, his tone warm and gentle as he propped your face against his palm and lifted it so you would look at him, the response painted on your face.

“Would you like to change something? Would you like to, say, paint a wall?” His peace offering made you wince at your own immaturity. Yes, you wanted to change something. Yes, you wanted to feel less like an invader. The comfort of being a guest was long forgotten, morphing into the feeling of being a stranger probing Viktor’s space, trying to squeeze yourself into it.

Seeing your eyes fixed on him expectantly, your mouth forming a pout, he continued. “Would you like a bookshelf?” A timid nod. He smiled. There we are.

“And maybe a record shelf?” An unhinged display of affection at this. You rubbed your face against his in thanks, nodding a few more times and purring. He chuckled, rolling your hips on his, warmth pooling low under his belly button.

“Hmm, and would you like to get all those things now?” Or would you rather seal the deal with a nice, afternoon fuck? He licked the lobe of your ear, breathing you in through his nose. Your hips pressed down on him, a sweet weight of your ass splayed on his lap making him warm. He ran his flat palms down your back to ground you further, his touch addictive.

“No. Now I want to do something else,” you said, picking up the ball, nipping at his lower lip. You kissed his beauty marks, and Viktor’s eyes fluttered shut in bliss. So much fun to crack you open.

“Ah, distracted already?” he mumbled before kissing you deeply. His hands travelled to cup your ass cheeks, his palms filled with your flesh, just as things should be.

“You always distract me.” Spoken with embarrassment at the admission. Sweet civility, your decorum still intact at those tiny confessions. He swallowed all of them, kept them to himself, and grew stronger and better each time he was granted one.

“And… I’m sorry for being weird,” you said, pulling away an inch to rest your forehead against his.

“I like weird,” Viktor said with a smile, his tone closer to a love confession than a blunt statement. “I am weird,” he added, tracing the lines of your face with his fingers.

“No, you are not,” you chuckled, disarmed. “You are… peculiar,” you announced, poking his lips gently, affectionately.

“That’s just a fancy weird,” Viktor snorted. Peculiar. What a word. What a beautiful word to be given to him. He would wear it like a crown from that point forward. You had anointed him with your gift, and he would cherish it with pride.

“No,” you defended, your brows furrowed at this clear misunderstanding. “No. Weird has bad connotations.” Your finger rested on the tip of his nose, accentuating your point. “Peculiar is fascinating and curious,” you mused as your finger began tracing upward, all the way to the spot between his eyebrows, and then higher, to the line of his hair, brushing it away so you could cup his face. “Odd, in a good way.”

“Alright, word wizard. Did you just come up with this?” he relented with an embarrassed chuckle.

“No, I thought that on the first sight,” you announced proudly. You had. Peculiar was entirely Viktor’s. Wonderful, fascinating. Never fully uncovered, always something there lurking to surprise you. A wild landscape of his brilliant mind, of his raw body—so flawed, so beautiful, like an unfinished sculpture. Every time you remembered his angles, they would shift into something even more mesmerising. The complete lack of effort within him, the way he dressed like a man from a novel. The way he was always incomplete, always searching.

“Peculiar at first sight. Do you have a word for everyone?” he murmured. Seeing your timid nod, his eyebrows shot up. “Jayce?”

You laughed; this one was easy. “Big. Just big. Big everything—big hands, big teeth, big smile, big personality. There is enough of Jayce to literally hug the world,” you said, your tone warm and friendly, as all of this was true about Jayce.

Viktor chuckled, thought for a second. “Mel?”

“Rich.” The word came slightly too fast, and you grinned. Viktor laughed knowingly. “But it goes to everything about her, as I love her,” you clarified, your expression soft. Mel was rich through sharing it with other people. Her fortune came back to her, the more she gave it away. The fortune of her money, her personality, her beauty, spread across all the people she knew.

“Oh, I know. For yourself?” He cocked his eyebrows, his look probing. He had so many words for you. Beautiful. Unhinged. Skittish. Tender. Focused. Distracted. Vulgar. Weird. Hot. His.

“Uh… chaos,” you chuckled awkwardly. Yes, the chaos of your mind never tamed. Which was why your life landed in books. They had provided you with all the personalities you mended yourself from, making your chaotic being work. And Viktor seemed to like all of them.

Until he stopped, and there you were. The weird gained its disturbing friend, and it was no longer cute or fascinating. Now, it was gnawing at him, because he could see those parts of you that he once loved so dearly through a distorting layer of ice, burning his eyes.

“It is none of your concern how I furnish my apartment,” he says calmly. “I am seeing someone and would like your remaining stuff to be removed. Here.” His words stab at you as he pulls out a keychain from his back pocket.

“Next weekend, I’m out of town. Feel free to come and collect your things. Leave the keys in the post box,” he recites, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “If you don’t, I will dispose of them on my own.”

A rush of blood to your head—cold and vile—leaves icy spikes in your veins as it travels upward through your body. Your face drains of colour, your mouth agape. Thousands of “what”s push themselves to your tongue, and you let one slip through.

“W-what?”

“What is so surprising? The pragmatism, or the fact that I had the civility to tell you I’m moving forward on my own accord?” he asks, his tone so utterly cruel it makes your insides twist. “Take this as the last ounce of respect I have left for you.”

“Are you implying that I do not respect you?” you spit, the fury you felt while talking to Mel surging back with full force. What a wanker. “You blocked me. Everywhere. I had no way to let you know.”

“Just take the keys.”

“I… still have my set,” you offer weakly, instantly regretting it as Viktor’s lips curl into a smirk.

“These are new,” he says with feigned innocence. Of course. But you already know this, so why does it shoot straight through your chest? Why does it leave a steaming hole in it? Why do you want to take the keys and stab his eyes with them? Why do you want to scream at him—and yet you can’t.

You take them wordlessly, staring into the void. They burn your hand. “Okay. Alright,” you sigh, defeated, sliding the keychain into your pocket.

An automated smile glues itself to Viktor’s face. So why does he feel so rotten? Surely, this is a victory. Here you are, crumbled into a sad twat of a person, resigned from any further attempts to talk to him. Here you are, exactly where he wants you—hunched and shrunk under the weight of his boot stomping over your cruel heart. You lost, and he won.

So why does he feel so shitty?

He clears his throat and looks away.

“I will have you know that Jayce is desperate to piece the gang together. You and your new… partner will receive an invitation to dinner on Sunday. Jayce has informed me that we are expected to play nice.” The word “partner” is laced with so much venom, the radius could make all the kittens in the vicinity drop dead.

“W-what?” you ask dumbly again. What the fuck? Jayce has lost his mind.

Before you can ask again, the said madman appears by your side.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” he asks wearily, but his embrace is warm.

“Can… can I talk to you for a second?” Your voice cracks, and you hate it. And the worst part is, there’s nobody to carry you home on the top of your shield.

Jayce glances over to Viktor nervously, but Viktor’s eyes are fixed on the mattress in front of him. Jayce sighs, nods, and pulls you a few steps away, pretending the reality isn’t as fucked up as it is.

“What’s up?” He keeps his tone light.

“Jayce, a dinner?”

“Uh, he told you already? I meant to… Yeh, I had an idea that maybe if we all meet and clear the air, things could move forward, at least a bit?”

When he sees your mouth opening and closing a couple of times, and your eyes not blinking even once, he adds, “Please. This is killing me. I feel exactly the same as I did when my parents were divorcing.”

You sigh, finally. Finally, a breath. Your heart is thundering in your chest, and you can feel Viktor’s secretive glances.

“Can I leave at any point?”

Jayce’s face lights up with relief. “Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you, thank you for giving this a chance,” he blurts, so happy, wrapping you up in a hug.

You want to wince away at first, afraid that he might feel how restless your heart is or that he might smell how sweaty you are. But in the end, Jayce’s hug does what it had always done—it calms you, making your head give up. It is what it is.

“I’m gonna go,” you say weakly, pulling yourself away. Jayce shoots you a knowing look and nods, placing his hand on your shoulder before you disappear completely.

You don’t spare Viktor so much as a glance, his keys still burning a hole in your pocket.

***

You despair. The number of times Paul calmly tells you that you could still turn back makes you sick. This poor, kind bastard. He has agreed to this ridiculous idea in an instant, before even checking how you felt about it. Seeing that what you felt is utter peril, he does his best to calm you down and present you with around a thousand options for how this could go.

“We can just not go. We can pretend you’re sick. We can pretend I’m sick, and you can go alone. I can go alone and test the waters for you. We can stay for a drink. We can leave if you feel uncomfortable. Just remember this awesome thing called ‘free will,’ okay?” he says, sitting cross-legged, naked, on the bed.

You are pacing, also naked. Panic surges through your vascular system. It carries said panic to every tissue of your body, making it slowly decompose into a puddle of cries and sobs.

“Hey,” he says, getting up and rushing to hug you. “It’s alright. He’s just a guy.”

This very complacent lie makes you shoot him a look. He tries to be respectful of your old life, of your friendships. Unbidden, his love is too sweet on your tongue as you feel yourself becoming complacent as well.

And then you remember Jayce. His face when he was sad, and he was so, so fucking sad it ripped your heart out. And you feel this vast emptiness that is left after Viktor. With the absence of him, the absence of Jayce and Mel is unbearable. So you sigh.

“Alright. Okay. Let me just… try to do something to not look like a rat.”

Paul chuckles, assuring you that you never look like a rat. When you walk down to the restaurant, your feet stomp heavily on the pavement, and your hand squeezes Paul’s palm in an unrelenting grip. At the door, he says it again, “We can turn back.”

You shake your head and step inside, bravely hiding behind the mass of your boyfriend. Jayce spots you instantly. He gets up so fast, his cutlery clattering to the floor.

“I was afraid you were going to bail,” he whispers loudly into your ear when you finally make it across the room.

“I… thought about it,” you admit under his glare. “You have to thank this guru,” you add with a sigh, gesturing to Paul, who just shrugs, as if it were obvious that you would have bailed without him.

They exchange embraces. You smooch Mel’s face obscenely, actually quite happy to see her, before slumping into your chair, the question staring you in the face. Where is Viktor?

Noticing the question mark distorting your forehead, Mel quickly adds, “They’re on the way. Traffic.”

Bullshit. Viktor lives nearby, and there is no traffic on a Sunday evening. A small relief creeps into you—maybe the outer gods heard you, and it is Viktor who was going to bail. Maybe you have been pulling your hair out over nothing, and this will turn into just a nice evening with your two friends and your lovely boyfriend. Maybe—

“Apologies. Traffic,” comes a sharp tone, accompanied by a shrug and the familiar sight of a cane being hung over the chair’s armrest.

Something sinks in your chest. Peril has just taken relief’s head, ripped it off, and taken a huge shit into its neck. But this isn’t the worst. Introductions come next.

A girl comes running in after him. Pretty. Nerdy. Just… pretty. Nothing remarkable. Pliant and nice, with slightly shy body language. Potentially intelligent. Potentially nothing.

And suddenly, you feel odd having Paul at your side. It feels like you are trying to prove something. It eats at you—that Viktor has shown up with someone so unremarkable, while he himself oozes confidence about his champion. Your champion seems to be completely overblown—his massive frame, his charm that could sweep anyone off their feet.

Overachiever. Poser. Liar.

You feel a nasty fucking thing hatching in your chest. It envelopes your heart, fills your veins with ice, and you could swear the whites of your eyes have gone black. Your hand hesitates when she repeats your name with an oblivious voice, pulling her palm out for a handshake. Your own palm hovers as you muster every ounce of willpower not to slap that mediocre face.

“Hi, Julia. Nice to meet you,” you manage, swallowing the beast, which rakes its claws at your insides as it slides down to your stomach. Your throat burns as you down an entire whisky glass.

You realise it would feel less painful were she obscenely beautiful. Her absolutely average physique has meant that there was something within her soul that beckoned Viktor forth, and the thought makes your own soul wail.

You watch them all from your seat, exchanging names and glances. Jayce knows Julia from work. Paul knows both Jayce and Mel. Which leaves… oh.

“Right, sorry. I’m slow in this weather,” you chuckle a bit too loudly. “Paul. Julia. Viktor.” You gesture clumsily, presenting them to each other before scrambling back into your seat, craning your neck to eye the waiter back to your table.

You watch Paul charming Viktor’s new girlfriend with his smile. You watch Viktor’s slender hand disappear into Paul’s firm grip. You watch their eyes meet, cold and challenging.

You feel a sudden urge to slide under the table. To bury your head in your knees. To bite through the wooden floor to the basement. To dig your own grave and fall asleep in it forever.

“Thanks for the invite, Mel,” Julia beams at your friend, and you spot Mel’s unctuous smile gluing itself to her face. This one is one of her best—so oily and sleek that even Jayce notices. He presses a kiss on her cheek so deep that she has to relax her face.

“So… how did you guys all meet?” It falls on the table and it takes you a few seconds to pick it up.

Holy fucking shit in heaven. Of course. He hasn’t told her. He hasn’t told her that this innocent dinner with friends is actually a farce with the high potential of turning into a carnage. She is oblivious to you. She has no idea. Ignorance is bliss.

“Uh… well, me and Viktor know each other from university, but that you know. Mel I met at a business convention, and, well…” Jayce stammers, stumbling over his words as his forehead begins to glisten with sweat.

Poor soul. You feel so sorry for him, you throw him a lifeline.

“And I am Mel’s friend. Best bitches since business school,” you say, giving the best fake smile you have. Not as good as Mel’s, but it does the job. “And Paul and I met at my work. You can connect the dots,” you throw out nonchalantly. And Viktor was fucking me into heaven for three years. For two.

“Oh, so you’re in business too?” Julia really tries, but the tension is just too palpable. You blink, dumbfounded.

“Uh, no.” A forced chuckle, as if business were a vile way to live. “I sell books.”

“Alright, that’s just unfair,” Jayce intercepts, taken aback by your modesty. You are not trying to be modest; you are trying to give as little information about yourself as possible. You almost smack him, but he continues.

“She finds books like you wouldn’t imagine. Medieval texts, first editions, magic books—all the crazy shit people would write down and publish. Precious objects,” Jayce muses as you try to smooth a crease of panic from your forehead.

“And they trick people who have no idea of their value into selling them rare tomes for chunks of copper,” Viktor murmurs, twirling the wine in his glass.

“Knowledge comes at a price. Of all people, you should be the one to understand that,” you shoot back, your nails slicing through the skin of your palms. You feel Paul’s hand on yours. He doesn’t look at you; he just entwines your fingers together on your knee. The saviour.

“Anyway, it’s actually all incredibly bureaucratic and boring,” you offer weakly, finishing your second drink. “And what about you?”

And then Julia talks. How she is an assistant at the lab where Viktor and Jayce work. How she was always fascinated by their projects. How she thought Viktor distant and mysterious at the beginning, only to discover he was a sweet man. How she just couldn’t say no when he asked her out. Each sentence is a stab into your chest, each of your hard gulps making Viktor smile triumphantly. Until—

The first thing you see is his smirk dropping from his face. The second is Paul’s face as he pulls you in to whisper into your ear, disguising the act as a gesture of affection.

“Smile. And nod. Do you want me to punch him?” he murmurs, the question inaudible to anyone but you.

You smile lovingly, place your hand on his cheek, and shake your head. In fact, you smile so much that your face hurts, and you find yourself needing to physically relax your cheeks with your fingers.

The conversation carries on, all faces a tad sour save for Julia’s. She does most of the talking and asking questions. She focuses on Mel and Jayce, leaving you and Paul to exchange inside jokes. And he does such an exceptional job distracting you that some of your smiles are actually genuine.

You are on your third drink, and your body relaxes despite itself. The food arrives, finally bringing some silence, occasionally broken by hums of appreciation and Jayce’s voice, since he talks with his mouth full. For a moment, you forget Viktor is there—until Julia leaves for the bathroom and leans over to give Viktor a kiss.

His neck cranes to meet her mouth. His hand travels to her throat; the other squeezes her waist. Very briefly, his eyes meet yours. Before you can combust from the look, her hair falls, shielding them both, and all you can make out is the sound of lips smacking apart when she finally pulls away. You wonder what would happen if you stabbed your hand with a fork.

Viktor clears his throat and returns his attention to his plate. You watch him separating meat from the bone, chewing, and swallowing, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he does. And he feels your eyes on him, the smug curve of his lips betraying him.

Paul picks up the glove. He clumsily rolls a chunk of pasta onto his fork and asks innocently if you want to try his food. Absently, you nod, taking a sip of water first to flush your mouth. The bite is too big, and he smears sauce on your cheek and nose. You don’t worry about decorum; you chew as you always chew—jaw working heavily as you gulp down. You can swear Viktor’s eyes are burning a hole in your throat. Paul chuckles at how gross you are and leans in to kiss the sauce off your cheek, nose, and the corner of your mouth. He lingers and comments on how it tastes even better now. It’s all very sickening, and you feel dirty doing it. You can see Viktor eyeing his fork.

Julia returns and plops down next to Viktor with a happy sigh, as if she’s just had the most satisfying number two of her life. You cackle at the thought, but it dies in your throat when Viktor chirps, “I missed you,” to her and presses his lips to her temple.

You feel yourself simmering beneath the skin. It’s all too much.

“Excuse me for a second.” You offer another sweet smile, stand up, place a hand on Paul’s shoulder, and make your way toward the entrance. A gush of sticky air isn’t exactly a relief, but at least it’s not acidic.

“Sorry, can I bum one?” you ask a woman smoking outside. She gives you an understanding look and pulls the cigarette pack toward you.

“Sure, honey. Did you spot your ex in the crowd?”

“Uh, you have no idea. Thanks,” you exhale, letting her light your cigarette. You don’t smoke, but now it seems suitable.

You are expecting Paul to come out after you, ordering a regroup.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Viktor deadpans, giving you a scolding look.

“I don’t,” is all you manage to say without choking on the smoke. “Please, leave me alone,” you plead, seeing him move closer. You could rake that face with your nails. You could slap him and walk away. You could throw his keys back at him and tell him to eat shit. But no. Jayce needs you to play nice.

“Are you not having a nice time?” he asks innocently, just aiming to hurt. “I thought you wanted things back to normal.”

You sigh, looking at the cigarette lying oddly between your fingers. “I…” Your voice falters. And then, despite your efforts to hold the words back, they refuse to stay. They slice your throat open from the inside, bleeding straight into his ears. “I miss you.”

A slap. A slap straight through his heart, hooking his lungs out of his chest. Your beast gets him, instead of sweet Julia. It coils in, purring and eating him from the inside. It’s all he wanted to hear. He won, again. And he feels like shit about it, again.

Viktor’s cane wobbles under his weight, a sharp, uncomfortable cough forcing its way out of him. His face twists. He stands there, still as stone, except for the erratic rise and fall of his chest. His lips part, his tongue flicks to wet them, but no words come. He looks like he is suffocating under the weight of what you’ve just said.

“Fuck off.” The words come out jagged, like broken glass, his voice harsh and cracking. “You have no right.”

You deserve it. You have no right, indeed. Your chest tightens, your lungs pulling for air that isn’t there. He has gone for the kill, but his voice… His voice doesn’t match his words. It’s soft and trembling.

“I know.” Your voice cracks too, balancing on the edge of fury and despair. You step toward him, the cigarette still burning between your fingers, ash crumbling onto the pavement. “But I do.” It feels like scraping off a scab too fresh to be poked at.

Viktor’s eyes widen, just for a moment. It’s quick—too quick—but you catch it. A flash of something buried deep, a flicker of something that makes your knees want to buckle, to throw yourself at his feet. His jaw clenches hard, his lips twitching as if biting back every single thing he wants to say.

“This was supposed to be over,” he hisses finally, but his gaze betrays him, darting down to your mouth, lingering on the curve of your jaw.

“It… is, I just—” You step even closer, the words clawing their way out of you, half a plea, half a challenge. “This is different.” There is no logical explanation for how this is different, except for the absolute certainty, the gnawing truth in your heart of hearts. You are utterly convinced that Julia existed only to spite you, whereas Paul existed to save you, and in principle, the connection between him and Viktor was non-existent. You wonder, for a second, if you should tell him. And then you picture how he would react, and you decide not to.

His hand grips the handle of his cane tighter, his knuckles turning white. “Do not—” His voice wavers. “Do not do this to me.”

You laugh bitterly, the sound hollow and cruel even to your own ears. “What am I doing to you?” You gesture wildly, the cigarette burning low, its ember a heartbeat away from searing your skin. “I try to do right by you. All you do is block me and slap me around.”

“You left!” he snaps, his voice rising, sharp enough to cut through your already battered flesh. “You are the one who left, and now you stand here, saying—saying things you should have said before.” He looks completely crestfallen.

The silence that follows is deafening. Your shoulders slump as you stare at him, and for a moment, you don’t recognise the man in front of you. The Viktor you know wasn’t this—this wreckage, this storm barely holding itself together.

“I left because you made me,” you whisper, the tears you’ve been holding back threatening to spill. “Because you pushed and pushed until I broke. And now I don’t even know if there’s enough of me left to stay mad at you.”

His head dips, his shoulders collapsing in defeat. His free hand runs through his hair, tugging at the roots like he wants to rip something out—anything, just to make the ache stop.

“You think it was easy for me?” he asks quietly, almost a whisper. “To let you go? To—” His voice cracks again, and he stops himself.

That is a first. You knew how hard it was—you had to crawl through your own shitty tunnel. You knew it was hard for him, but you’ve never heard him admit it before.

You both stand there, breathing hard, the air thick like tar. The cigarette finally burns out, the last ember dropping to the ground as you let it slip from your fingers.

“Then why didn’t you fight for me?” you ask, and your voice breaks. “Why didn’t you—”

“I did.” His words come fast, cutting you off, raw and painful. “I did, but you didn’t see it. You wouldn’t.” Viktor fights his hands to not reach out for you and wipe your tears away with his thumbs. He fights his body to not pull you flush against him, to kiss you deeply and whisper a secret into your mouth. He takes a step back, and it costs him everything. Then you both stare at the thing in front of you.

The truth. Ugly and jagged, sitting between you like a gaping wound neither of you knows how to heal. You had both fucked up, royally. And then you went ahead and jumped into something new, hoping that a tiny bit of duct tape would seal a hole in a massive, overflowing tank of feelings.

“Go back inside.” His voice is soft now, a whisper lost in the sticky night air. “I’ll be right there.”

“Everything alright here?” Paul’s voice reaches you before you see him, and you wince. Viktor takes notice. Paul’s arms are crossed on his chest, lips pressed into a thin line.

You nod and drag yourself in obediently. A quick stop in the bathroom to fix your sorry face. A slump into the chair next to Paul, as he places a loving arm around your shoulders. Viktor comes back to the table with an unreadable smile on his face, his eyes wet, but only you can see it. A civil, nice evening, ending with exclamations of how you all should do this again. How it was fun.

“All good?” Paul asks you when you walk home. When you walk to his apartment, the one you silently refuse to move into.

“Yes, just… why did you come out after me?” you counter, puzzled. You pin him with your gaze until he relents into an embarrassed chuckle.

“I thought you needed saving, is all.”

“I don’t need to be saved from anyone, Paul. Don’t intervene again. I’m an adult,” you scoff, opening the door to his apartment.

For the first time, you flinch away from his touch when you are in bed. Tears choke up in your throat all night. But you hold them tight, not letting any slip out. And you realise it takes so long to get over losing someone. That no band-aid, no pretty and nice boyfriend, no amount of friends or sad music could make the process faster. And you realise it isn’t possible to get over Viktor so quickly. And then, you realise that your grief hasn’t moved an inch. It’s still in denial.

[allthingssteddie]

Eddie Munson hated a lot of things. He hated the jocks who thought they ruled Hawkins High. He hated the posers at the record store who claimed to love metal but had never even listened to Iron Maiden. He hated his gym teacher that asshole who got off on making him miserable. And he especially hated the cheesy, commercialized holidays that seemed to bring out the worst in people.

Valentine's Day.

Eddie Munson hated a lot of things, but Valentine's Day was definitely at the top of his list. And that day was finally here.

The happiness radiating off everyone in school was suffocating, and even Steve had fallen victim to the Valentine's Day madness. He was beaming with pride, flowers in hand, as he chatted with Nancy by her locker. Eddie's stomach twisted into a knot as he watched Steve's goofy, lovestruck grin. He couldn't stand the way Steve's eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled at Nancy. It was a look Eddie had never seen Steve give him, and it made his chest ache with a dull, unfamiliar pang.

He knew his crush was doomed from the start, a futile infatuation that would never be reciprocated. But knowing it didn’t make it any easier to bear. Especially not today, when he was forced to witness Steve’s affectionate gestures towards Nancy up close. His locker, conveniently located next to Nancy’s, offered a front row seat to the torture. Eddie couldn’t help but feel like he was stuck in a never ending nightmare, watching the person he secretly was in love with attention on someone else.

Eddie thought the morning couldn't get any worse, but first period proved him wrong. As he walked into class, he spotted a long stemmed rose on Nancy's desk, surrounded by a gaggle of girls cooing and aahing over it. "Is it from Steve?" one of them asked, eyes wide with excitement. Nancy's face flushed as she glanced at a note attached to the rose, her awkward smile and nod confirming their suspicions. Eddie's gut twisted with a mix of discomfort and envy as he slid into his seat, trying to ignore the syrupy sweetness that seemed to be suffocating him.

As the day wore on, Eddie witnessed a different scene unfold. Nancy and Steve were standing by their lockers, their voices hushed but their body language screaming tension. The rose from earlier lay wilted on the floor, trampled and forgotten. Nancy's face was red with anger, her eyes blazing as she spat out the words, "You're such an ass, Steve!" Steve looked taken aback, his eyes hurt and confused, as if he had no idea what he'd done wrong. Eddie watched, fascinated, as the couple's argument , wondering what had triggered the fight.

Nancy stormed away, leaving Steve standing by his locker, his face etched with hurt and confusion. He slumped down to the ground, holding his head in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. Eddie couldn't help but approach him, curiosity getting the better of him. "What's wrong, man?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Steve glared at him, his eyes welling up with tears. Eddie, taken aback, threw up his hands. "Fine, don't tell me," he said, turning to leave. But Steve's hand shot out, grasping Eddie's pants leg. "Wait," he said, his voice cracking. Eddie sat back down beside him, and Steve let out a shuddering sigh. "She's cheating on me," he sniffled. Eddie's eyes widened in shock. "Nancy?" he repeated, incredulous. Steve nodded, his face crumpling. "Yeah, Nancy."

Eddie's eyes widened in shock. "Are you sure?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. Steve sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. He handed Eddie a note that had been attached to the flowers. Eddie's eyes scanned the page, his heart sinking as he read the words "I miss you... J". The initials seemed to leap off the page, a stark confirmation of Steve's suspicions. Eddie's gaze met Steve's, and he could see the pain and betrayal etched on his face.

"That's...that's pretty conclusive," Eddie said, trying to sound calm, but his voice came out rougher than he intended. Steve nodded, his jaw clenched, and Eddie could see the muscles in his face twitching with suppressed emotion. "I knew something was off," Steve muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. "She's been acting weird for weeks, but I had no idea..." He trailed off, his eyes welling up with tears again. Eddie felt a pang of sympathy for Steve and instinctively reached out, putting a hand on Steve's shoulder.

As the bell rang, Eddie turned to Steve and suggested they ditch class. Steve hesitated for a second, but nodded in agreement. They slipped into Eddie's car, where they shared a joint outside Waldenbooks.

"I'm actually banned from here," Eddie said with a chuckle.

Steve laughed, inhaling the smoke. "Why?" he asked, his eyes squinting with amusement.

Eddie grinned mischievously. "I got into an argument with the guy who worked here over The Lord of the Rings book."

Steve raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "What about it?"

Eddie leaned in, a conspiratorial whisper escaping his lips. "He said it was just a kids' book, and I... disagreed."

Steve chuckled, the smoke from the joint curling out of his mouth. "You went all geek on him, huh?"

Eddie nodded, a proud smile spreading across his face. "Someone had to set him straight."

Steve passed him the joint, and Eddie took a long, satisfying drag. For a moment, they just sat there in comfortable silence, the only sound the soft hum of the radio.

Eddie couldn't believe it - King Steve, the star athlete, was sitting in his car, smoking a joint and smiling with him. It was surreal, and yet, it felt oddly natural.

The silence was broken when Steve spoke up, "I'm surprised you're not into Valentine's Day, Eddie, like isn’t everyone?”

Eddie scoffed, "It's a total sham. A holiday created by corporations to guilt trip people into buying overpriced flowers and chocolates. And let's be real, it's just a reminder of societal pressure to conform to romantic norms."

Steve chuckled and said, "Wow, Eddie, you're like a Valentine's Day Grinch. What's behind all that cynicism?"

Eddie rolled his eyes, "Hey, someone's got to keep things real around here. But if you must know, I just think it's all a bit... forced. Like, why do we need a special day to show people we care? Shouldn't we be doing that anyway?"

Eddie smiled, looking slightly surprised by Steve's agreement. "Yeah, I mean, it's just another day, right?"

“As "I Want to Know What Love Is" by Foreigner came on, Steve lit up, turning up the volume. He sang along, eyes closed, and Eddie joined in. As they sang, they looked at each other, their eyes locking. Eddie stared at Steve's lips, and Steve caught him looking. They exchanged a glance, and Steve smiled slyly. "You know what would be perfect?" he asked, his voice low as if he was telling a secret. "What?" Eddie replied, his heart racing.

They sit side by side on the planetarium's seats, gazing up at the starry night sky projected above. Steve let out a soft "whoa" as a swirling galaxy filled the dome.

Eddie turned to him, a knowing glint in his eye. "Right?"

Steve nodded, his eyes still fixed on the celestial display. "It's like... perspective, you know? We're just a tiny part of all this."

Eddie smiled, his voice barely above a whisper. "Exactly."

“How did you find out about this place?” Steve asked, his gaze still upward.

Eddie smiled, his eyes nostalgic. “As a kid I’d come here with my uncle.”

Steve turned to him, intrigued. “Your uncle?”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, he was an astronomy buff. He’d bring me here whenever I was feeling lost or overwhelmed. He’d say, ‘Look, son, we’re just a small part of something much bigger.’”

Steve’s eyes softened, and he turned back to the starry sky. “That’s really cool. I’m sure he’d be happy to know you’re still coming here.”

The two sat in comfortable silence for a moment, taking in the celestial beauty above. Then eddie reached out tracing the stars with his fingers and Steve and gently brushed his hand against Eddie’s

Eddie's fingers froze, and a spark of electricity ran through him at the gentle touch. He turned to Steve, their eyes locking in the dim light of the planetarium. Time seemed to suspend as they gazed at each other, the only sounds the soft hum of the projector and the distant, music.

Without breaking eye contact, Steve intertwined their fingers, his hand warm and gentle around Eddie's. Eddie's heart skipped a beat as a jolt of connection ran through him, like the stars above had aligned just for this moment.

Eddie couldn't help but feel a shift in his perspective. As he sat there, hands intertwined with Steve's, surrounded by the celestial beauty of the planetarium, he was starting to believe in Valentine's Day.

[cece693]

She Doesn't Know

pairing: alec lightwood x male reader tags: secret relationship, Alec isn't ready to come out, leads to you being flirted with a lot, jealous Alec, clary being clary, things are changed to fit my narrative better

Alec leaned against the stone pillar in the Institute’s training room, trying to ignore the slight tension coiling beneath his ribs. You were in the center of the open space, demonstrating an elegant series of blade techniques for a group of wide-eyed onlookers: Izzy, Jace, a handful of other Shadowhunters, and of course, the newest arrival—Clary.

There you stood, the picture of confidence and grace. Each arc of your blade elicited murmurs of appreciation from the small crowd, and Alec couldn’t help but feel an all-too-familiar twinge of envy. He watched from a short distance, arms folded over his chest, jaw tight.

You were his boyfriend. His partner. His. Yet, in the eyes of almost everyone else here, you were the Institute’s star: gorgeous, talented, charismatic. Alec had overheard rumors that you were the “ideal Shadowhunter”—the sort of person even the Inquisitor might commend without hesitation. You had been many people’s first crush: from timid recruits who looked up to you as the epitome of skill and kindness, to seasoned warriors who admired your strength and devotion to the Clave.

But none of that changed the fact that you were Alec’s secret—at least, outside of Izzy and Jace. His siblings knew, had known for a while, but it wasn’t something Alec wanted the entire Institute gossiping about, especially not while he was still grappling with how to tell his parents. And definitely not to Clary Fray, the redhead who’d only just discovered she was a Shadowhunter at all.

It didn’t help that Clary had developed an instant fascination with you from the moment she was rescued. Alec suspected it was more than just gratitude. She listened with rapt attention anytime you spoke, eyes shining like you were the only person in the room. And the problem wasn’t just that she was smitten. It was that you, being the gentle soul you were, rarely turned anyone away. You humored her questions, you corrected her stance in training, you comforted her when the nightmares of her mother’s kidnapping returned.

Alec’s heart twisted in on itself every time he saw her giggling at something you said. He couldn’t exactly scold Clary for enjoying your company—she didn’t know you were taken. Worse yet, Alec couldn’t just stride up and put an arm around you to make some blatant claim. Not in front of a group that still assumed Alec’s straight.

“She doesn’t know,” Izzy said softly as she approached. Alec was startled; he hadn’t heard her footsteps. She was wearing her signature confident smile, but it was tinged with sympathy. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Alec sighed, keeping his gaze locked on you. Having stopped your training, you now were talking to Clary, the little girl's laughter echoing through the room, high and bright. Alec could almost taste the jealousy on his tongue. “I know she doesn’t know,” he grumbled, shifting uncomfortably. “I just—It feels like he’s everyone’s favorite. Even with Jace—”

“Jace is his parabatai,” Izzy interjected teasingly, lifting a dark eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you still think he's making a move on your boyfriend. When they drew those runes, he basically gave up those feelings.”

Alec heaved a silent breath. “It’s not…I know Jace respects our relationship. It’s just—he’s my best friend too, right? So it feels strange that whenever I look for him, or for my boyfriend, they’re off training together, or exchanging some inside joke.”

Izzy placed a comforting hand on Alec’s arm. “You’re not used to sharing, but you’re going to have to. You can’t lock him up in your room away from everyone else.”

Alec shot her a glare, but a reluctant half-smile tugged at his lips. “That wouldn't be such a bad idea, actually. But, seriously, that's not what I’m trying to do.”

“I know,” Izzy said, voice gentler. “Talk to him. He’d want to know if you’re feeling this way.” Alec glanced from Izzy back to you. He knew she was right; you’d pick up on his mood soon if you hadn’t already. You always had a knack for sensing when Alec was troubled. Or jealous.

Later that evening, Alec found you seated on one of the long benches in an alcove behind the Institute’s library. Dim overhead lights cast dancing shadows along the shelves. You’d folded your arms on the table in front of you, scribbling notes on a mission report.

He hesitated in the doorway for a moment, admiring the way your hair fell over your forehead, the focus etched across your face. Of course people gravitated toward you—you were breathtaking, inside and out. Alec’s chest warmed at the reminder that, for now, your heart belonged to him.

Taking a quiet breath, he approached and gently rested a hand on your shoulder. You looked up, a brilliant smile lighting up your features the moment you saw him. The corners of Alec’s mouth tugged up, and he sunk down on the bench beside you.

“Hey,” you said softly, setting aside your pen. “You okay? You seemed a bit off in training earlier.”

He shrugged, then shook his head, deciding to be honest. “I’m just…” He swallowed. “A little jealous, I guess.”

Your eyebrows arched in surprise before softening with understanding. “Of Clary?”

Alec’s mouth parted, but he hesitated. It felt foolish to say it out loud. “She doesn’t know about us,” he finally admitted. “And I can’t exactly blame her for…flirting.” His lips twisted wryly around the word. “But it drives me crazy.”

You slid closer, your thigh brushing his. A comforting warmth radiated between your bodies. “I can see that.” Your voice was gentler than ever. “I’ve been trying to discourage her without being mean, but she’s persistent.”

Alec let out a breath he’d been holding. “I don’t want to let my jealousy show. And I definitely don’t want anyone else figuring out my…preferences before I’m ready.” The words still felt awkward on his tongue, but it was the truth. “It feels like all eyes are on us, you know? You’re…well, you’re you.” He almost laughed at his own phrasing. “People watch you. They notice who you talk to, who you train with, who you spend time with. If they notice me acting possessive or something, questions will start.”

You reached for his hand and squeezed. “I understand. There’s a lot riding on you, on your family name, on how the Clave sees you.” Your voice lowered. “I just want you to be comfortable. I don’t want to hide, but I also don’t want to force you out before you’re ready.”

Alec’s chest felt tight. Gratitude washed over him in a gentle wave. “Thank you.” He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on the reassuring feel of your hand in his. “I’d never want you to hide either, but—yeah, it’s complicated.”

“It is.” You brushed a thumb over his knuckles. “I care about you, Alec. That’s not going to change, no matter who else needs a training partner or who else tries flirting.” A soft smile tugged at your lips. “And if Clary presses too hard, I’ll find a tactful way to let her know I’m not interested.”

Heat rose to Alec’s cheeks. It felt absurd that a single line could chase away so many of his doubts. You had a way of cutting through his insecurities with your kindness. Every word felt like a reaffirmation of your loyalty to him.

For a second, Alec let himself imagine a future where the entire Institute knew the truth—where he could step forward and simply stand behind you during training, wrap an arm around your waist without worrying about the stares. Where Clary could look at you both and see just how uninterested you were in her. One day. Soon, maybe.

[hyunjuenthusiast]

ITS ME AGAIN😎

need a jealous!hyun-ju x fem!reader who gets a bit too close with gi-hun, ANDD reader ends up getting edged and fingered roughly by jealous!hyun-ju as reader tried to quiet down in the bathroom??

TYSM I LVOE YOUR FICS🫶

HEYYYY👋🏻 Are you becoming a regular?!😂 Let me see what I can do!

BEAUTIFUL ENVY

Summary: During the games, you become close with Hyun-ju, not realizing the envy that builds inside of her when you start also getting close to Gi-Hun.

Pairing: Jealous!Hyun-ju x Femreader!

Warnings: SMUT and jealousy.

Not an adult? Don't read! 🔞

Hyun-ju grits her teeth as she hears you laugh along with Gi-Hun's group. Just because they decided to work together didn't mean that you could just leave her.

That thought made Hyun-ju tense. You weren't together. She had no right to be feeling this way. But the sight of you smiling at someone else after you had been so kind to her, made her want to strangle Gi-Hun.

Looking back over at you, her blood boils. Gi-Hun was offering you his gimbap. He'll no.

She was walking towards you before she could even think. You looked up at her as she stood in front of you and Gi-Hun, the rest of the group talking about random things, not really paying attention to Hyun-ju.

"Hyun-" You go to question, only to be silenced when she holds out her gimbap as well. The look she was giving Gi-Hun made you tense where you sat.

With both of them offering you their food, you didn't know what to do. "Um, thank you both, but I'm not that hungry!" You say, letting out a nervous chuckle that only Gi-Hun returns.

You give Hyun-ju a soft smile, trying to ease whatever tension this was. You can see her relax a little.

She sits on the other side of you. Young-il asked Gi-Hun about what he thought the next game would be, and you listened closely, leaning in closer.

You heard her scoff before you felt her hand on your forearm. She pulled you a bit closer to her, leaning down close to your ear. "He doesn't know anything about the next game. He was wrong about the second game. We shouldn't trust him." She whispers.

You frown. You did trust Gi-Hun. He helped everyone in red light, green light. He's voted to go home, which is more than Hyun-ju has done. She voted to stay once after all.

"He's not untrustworthy-" you try to say until you notice her soft glare, making you shrink a bit into yourself. "You can't be sure of someone's intentions, sweet girl, especially in here." She explains softly. You knew she was right. But that means you also couldn't trust her.

She seems to know what you were thinking, and you see her eyes soften. "You know I'd never betray you, don't you? Not after what happened to Young-Mi." She whispers, making you look down in guilt.

"I know." You whisper back softly, your breath hitching as she reaches to hold your hand. "I won't let anyone hurt you. Not any of the players, not any of the guards, not even yourself." She says. Your eyebrows furrow for a moment, not really knowing what she means by not letting you hurt yourself, but she doesn't clarify.

You made a mistake. That's all. You wouldn't leave her. Not for him. He's old enough to be your father. But the way you clung to him during lights out...

She clenches her fists. As soon as the guards shut it down and announced it was time for bed, she grabbed your wrist, making you get out of your bed. Not enough to hurt, but enough were you knew she was serious. You question her with your gaze, but she looks straight ahead, her pace much faster than yours.

She knocks on the door, and a triangle guard opens the little window to see what she wants. "She got her period. Would you please let us through so I can help her clean her pants?" She asks making your eyes widen. You weren't on your period.

When the window shuts, she quickly takes off her jacket, tying it around your waist. Knocking again, this time, the guard lets you through.

She was smart. The guard checked your backside when you walked past him.

As soon as the woman's restroom door shut, Hyun-ju rushed and pushed you against a wall, her touch firm, making you gasp.

"W-What are you doing?" You ask, the look in her eyes changing from firm...to hunger.

"You let him hold you." She whispers close to your ear. "W-what? Wh-" She inturupts, "Gi-Hun. Player 456. You let that asshole touch you." She sneers. You have to crane your neck to look up at her. "I-I don't underst-" you try to say.

"You will." Hyun-ju says, her eyes dark. One of her hands travels down your body, stopping just under the line of your bra. "What color is it, baby?" She asks in a whisper.

You give her a confused look. "What color is your bra?" She says, one of her fingers tracing where your nipple is.

Your eyes widen, but you feel the need to answer her. "P-Purple" you whisper, hearing her inhale sharply.

"Has he seen it? Gi-Hun?" She asks, starting to lift your shirt up gently. "N-No of course not, w-why would-" She shuts you up with a kiss. Her lips are softer than what you would have thought, and moist.

"I see the way he looks at you, baby." She says as she breaks the kiss. "And you give him those sweet puppy eyes, don't you?" She asks, lifting your shirt over your head, her eyes immediately taking in the sight of your breasts.

"I don't." You whisper. "You do, baby. Don't lie. But that's okay, I'll fix it." She says, leaning down and kissing the edge of your cleavage. "Mmm, so soft." She mumbles against the supple flesh of your right breast.

"What do you mean? Fix what?" You ask, a little breathless already. You can feel her smirk. "I'll make sure you only look at me." She says, keeping her eyes on yours as she rips your bra.

You gasp, making her chuckle darkly. She throws the now useless peice of cloth on the bathroom floor, returning her hands to your chest, squeezing.

Hyun-ju leans back down, waisting no time with taking your nipple into her mouth. The cold bathroom, in contrast to her hot mouth, makes you shiver.

You gasp as she switches to the other breast, giving it the same treatment. "H-Hyun-ju we can't" you whimper, making her chuckle. She's already kissing her way down your stomach, getting on her knees in front of you.

Faster than you can think, she has your pants pulled down, looking at your matching purple underwear. "You're so fucking beautiful, baby." She whispers, starting to kiss up your thigh.

She gently kisses your clit through your panties, making you gasp. "I can see how wet you are, Y/n. You've soaked your panties." She whispers, looking up at you hungrily. You don't protest as she slides them down next.

"Oh baby..." She coos, looking at your pussy. "Your little clit is swollen...do you want me to make it all better? Hmm?" She asks, making you whine.

You nod.

That clearly didn't satisfy her because the next second, you feel a small slap to your pussy. "Use your words like a good girl." She says firmly. Holy fuck.

"Y-Yes...please make it better!" You whimper. She gives you a smile before you feel her tongue on your clit.

She teases you just a little before reaching up and putting two of her fingers inside you. "Fuck baby, you're so tight. You can take another one, can't you?" She says, her tone mocking. When you whine, shaking your head, she adds another anyway, giving you a nice stretch.

Having both her fingers and her tongue feels like heaven. Pure heaven. But that thought quickly leaves your mind when you feel her change the pace.

You could hear the wet sound of your pussy as her fingers set an unforgivable pace. "H-Hyun-ju!" You squel. "T-To much p-please slow down!" You moan.

You look down, watching as she pulls away from your clit, smirking.

"To bad." She says, fingerings you a little harder. "Oh fuck!" You scream, the back of your head against the wall.

"Do you think Gi-Hun could make you feel this good? Hmm?" She asks, her eyes sharp. You quickly shake your head, which makes her stop.

"What did I say about using your words?" She sneers, taking her fingers away. "No no please don't stop!" You beg, your hips lifting trying to get her back.

"Are you going to be a good girl for me?" She asks, her lips kissing the skin just above your clit.

You go to nod, but remember her words. "Yes!" You say, making her tikt her head. "Tsk tsk tsk, say it properly, baby. Tell me you'll be a good girl for me." She commands.

"I'll be a good girl for you!" You say quickly, making her chuckle once more. "Only for me?" She asks, and you nod quickly. "Yes yes only for you Hyun-ju!"

She puts her fingers back inside you, setting another brutal pace. "Are you going to cum for me?" She asks.

"Yes yes! I'm so close!" You whimper. Not expecting her to pull away again, but she does.

"I don't think so. Not until I know you're sorry. You hurt my feelings with the way you looked at Gi-Hun. How do I know you won't let him touch you again? Hmm?" She says, licking her fingers clean of you.

You almost cry. "I am sorry, Hyun-ju. I'm so sorry, I only want you!"

She pretends to think, her thumb reaches up, keeping you on edge by rubbing tight circles on your already overstimulated clit.

"If I see you even look in his direction, I'll have you over my knee, no matter if we're in the bathroom or not." She says, making you nod.

This time, when you feel her fingers and that familiar pressure building in your tummy, she doesn't pull away. "Cum for me, pretty girl." She says, her voice sending vibrations through your core.

She stimulates you through your climax, making sure not a second of pleasure is wasted. "Such a good girl for me." She whispers, her head getting awfully close to your core.

"W-what are y-" you can't finish your sentence as she licks into you. "Mmm let me clean you up, baby." She says.

After she helps you put your shirt and pants back on, she picks up the discarded bra, putting it in her pocket. "Come on, sweet girl, you need to rest for tomorrow." She says, her tone now soft.

She holds your hand on the walk back to your bunk. She even kisses your forehead before she walks back to her own.

You don't notice that she makes a stop first.

Hyun-ju walks up to player 456's bed, leaving a torn purple fabric next to his shoes.

Stay away from her girl Gi-Hun✋🏻😏

[ladysharmaa]

Wild Hearts

Jasper Hale x original character

Summary: When a new girl arrives at Forks, she seems to catch Jasper Hale's attention. However, he and his family are hiding a secret. What they don't know is that Evelyn has a secret of her own

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Evelyn had taken the news that she and Jasper were mates surprisingly well. However, she had asked the vampire to take it slow and not to rush things. Jasper had accepted without a second thought; all he wanted was for Evelyn to be happy. He would wait hundreds of years for her if need be.

But the two had grown much closer. They exchanged small, innocent touches, were always glued together when they were together, and none of this went unnoticed by the rest of the school. The girls looked at Evelyn with envy, both for having caught Jasper's attention and for her mythical beauty, while the boys glared at Jasper with anger. The vampire was quick to return the glare and pull the dark blonde closer to him.

Evelyn had also spent more time at the Cullens' house. Jasper invited her over every day, and although he said it was because he always missed her, she knew that one of the reasons was also because he didn't like the conditions of her house. But she really liked her place, since it was the first time she lived alone. Always living in the demigod camp, she had to share her cabin with six other daughters of Aphrodite. Although they were very close friends, arguments always ended up happening.

Something else had also changed in Forks. Apparently they were going to receive a new student, Chief Swan's daughter. Once the man gave her a ride, he told her how happy he was to have his daughter living with him again after so many years apart.

That morning, it was Jasper who picked her up at home so they could go to school together. She was just putting on her boots when the doorbell rang.

"The door is open!" she shouted to the person on the other side, who she knew was Jasper as she heard his car pull up.

"Darling, how many times do I have to tell you to lock the door?" the vampire sighed and scratched the tip of his nose in exasperation. "It's dangerous, someone might come in."

"I knew it was you." She rolled her eyes at Jasper's protectiveness.

He saw her pull on her coat and point to the door, indicating that they should go. However, the boy motioned with his fingers for her to come closer to him. When she did, Jasper pulled her coat up tight, and grabbed a scarf from the coat rack and wrapped it around Evelyn's neck, making sure she was warm.

"We need to get you more warm clothes. Your cheeks are still rosy right now." he teased, seeing the demigod's gaze locked on him.

Their faces were extremely close, and Evelyn could feel herself blushing even more. Her eyes flicked down to Jasper's lips, which were forming a smirk, and back up to his eyes again.

She cleared her throat. "Must be the cold. We should go to school. And wipe that proud smile of your face."

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗

When they arrived at school, everyone was talking about Bella Swan. Evelyn hadn't had the chance to meet her yet, but she made a point of introducing herself. Charlie had talked about Bella so much that Evelyn felt like she already knew her.

After a tiring morning, where Evelyn luckily had a few classes with Jasper and Rosalie, she and the Cullen family headed to the cafeteria. Alice was telling her about a new one that had opened in Seattle, while Lucas complained to Jasper about Evelyn stealing Alice's attention from him.

The blond vampire just laughed and put an arm around Evelyn's waist. Lucas took the opportunity to pull the little vampire towards him and make her spin a little as they entered the cafeteria, where the other students of the school were already gathered.

At a table, Evelyn saw her friends with the famous Bella. From Jessica's position, all leaning forward, she knew they were in gossip mode.

"Who are they?" Bella questioned, watching the Cullens walk with an inhuman grace, their skin as pale as chalk and their eyes as amber. Beside them, a girl who was not so pale, with a healthy brown skin, eyes as clear as the sky and who had a natural beauty that made all the heads present turn to her.

"The Cullens." Angela answered. "And that's Evelyn, she's our friend."

"Yes, she moved here at the beginning of the year. She's very nice, you'll like her." Jessica continued. "But she attracted the attention of the Cullens, and since then she's glued to Jasper, the boy who's been sending glares to everyone who dares to look at Eve."

"Don't be like that, Jess. Eve is friends with them, but she always makes time for us. Just yesterday we all went out together." Angela rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, they're Doctor and Mrs. Cullen's foster kids. They all moved down here from Alaska two years ago. They're all together. Like, together together. The blonde girl, Rosalie, and the big dark-haired guy, Emmett, they're a thing. I'm not even sure if that's legal."

"I don't know how you get along with those people, Evie." Rosalie rolled her eyes.

"What are they saying now?" Evelyn sighed, grabbing Jasper's arm affectionately. As much as she adored Jessica, she had a tendency to get too involved in other people's lives.

"The little dark-haired girl, Alice, she's really weird." Jessica continued, pointing at the vampire. "She's with Lucas. They're very different, he seems to be more shy while Alice is outgoing. Then, you have Jasper and Evelyn. They're kind of the hottest couple, even though Eve tells us several times that they're not dating."

"Yet." Angela giggled.

"Yup, I give it like two weeks. Everyone is so jealous of them." she said, watching them pass by their table. Evelyn stood on her tiptoes, and gave Jasper a light kiss on the cheek, leaving him to go to the Cullens, who sat at the farthest table while Evelyn sat with her friends.

"Let me guess, you guys are gossiping." Evelyn interrupted their conversation, sitting down next to Bella.

"Obviously." Jessica nodded amused.

"Hi, I'm Evelyn. And you must be Bella?"

"Yes, it's nice to meet you." The girl stammered a little.

She had realized why she had captured everyone's attention. Her face seemed to have been carefully constructed, her lips were full and pink, and her eyes a very clear blue. In addition, she seemed to always have a smile on her face. Bella couldn't find a single flaw.

Evelyn smiled, Bella and her father were both socially awkward. "Nice to meet you too. Your dad talks a lot about you."

"You know Charlie?" Bella questioned.

Evelyn found it a little strange that the girl called her father by his name, but she decided to ignore it. "Yes, he gives me a ride every now and then so I don't have to walk to school."

However, Bella's attention was already focused on the last Cullen to arrive in the cafeteria. Edward Cullen walked confidently, he had bronze colored hair and an air of mystery that only captured Bella's attention more. "Who's that?"

"That's Edward Cullen." Jessica murmured. Edward walked past their table, leaving a kiss on Evelyn's head, and as soon as he started walking away Jessica and Angela broke down in giggles. However, when he glanced at Bella over his shoulder, he seemed confused about something.

"Eve, you are so lucky." Angela groaned, dropping her head on the table.

"He's totally gorgeous, obviously. But apparently, no one here is good enough for him. Like I care." Jessica feigned disinterest. "They only care about Eve here. So, don't waste your time."

"I wasn't planning on it." Bella shook her head, but her gaze remained fixed on the boy.

Evelyn stared at the two with wide eyes. From the Cullen table, Jasper motioned for her to come over to them. The daughter of Aphrodite nodded, realizing they had something to say to her. "Sorry, girls, I'm just going to see a Jasper before we have to go to class."

"Young love, so beautiful." Jessica teased, Evelyn playfully tossed her a napkin and grabbed her things before heading to the other table.

"What is it?" she asked as she sat down next to Jasper, who immediately pulled her chair closer to his.

"Bella, the new girl, she's Edward's blood singer. And apparently he can't hear her thoughts."

"Like how you can't hear mine?"

"No." Edward shook his head thoughtfully. "It's different. I don't get static on her mind. I can't hear anything at all. It's silent."

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗

That same day, Evelyn had to go to work at the dinner, being dropped off by Jasper who promised to pick her up as well. Even though he told her that she didn't have to work anymore, Evelyn refused. There was no way she would depend on Jasper, whether they were mates or not.

So, she got ready for her shift. She was cleaning a table when Charlie and Bella Swan entered the dinner, their presence being announced by the bell on the door.

"Charlie, Bella! How are you? Come, you can sit on this table and I'll bring you the menu." Evelyn greeted, leading them to a table in the corner of the dinner, where they could chat freely.

"Hey, Eve. Have you guys met at school today?"

Bella nodded, letting an awkward silence settle in. Before it could get worse, Evelyn brought the menus, and let them choose. Until the end of her shift, she only had the opportunity to say goodbye to the father-daughter duo, as the other waitress took over their table. Everyone in the town was very happy to see Bella with Chief Swan, and they all wanted to see if she remembered them. Of course, the girl had no idea who they were, which only made her more embarrassed.

When she left the establishment, Jasper was already waiting for her patiently. His serious look changed to one of adoration when he saw Evelyn walking towards him.

"Hello, darling. Did your shift go well? Did anyone give you any trouble?" Now that he knew why Evelyn was bringing so much attention, Jasper had become very protective of her. Even though he knew she could defend herself.

"Everything went really well. How is Edward?" she asked, getting into the car when Jasper opened the door for her.

"He's going to Alaska for a while, to the Denalis, who are friends of ours." Jasper explained, making sure to turn the car's heater up to full blast. "The smell of Bella's blood is too tempting and he's afraid of losing control. Rosalie isn't happy."

"Seems like Rose." she chuckled, lifting an arm and running her hand over Jasper's cheek in a caress. The vampire smiled, and turned his face slightly, but never taking his eyes off the road, to kiss the palm of her hand.

"Are you sleeping over tonight? It's really cold today, Emmett and Lucas are in charge of taking care of the fire. I think you'll give us the chance to use the fireplace for the first time." Jasper asked. "Please."

"Fine. But you can't let those two paint things on my face while I sleep. Last time it took half an hour for the paint to come off."

"Sure thing, Lyn."

[gotham-daydreams]

How would it have gone differently if Reader didn't try to be an "overachiever" and instead just stayed quiet and didn't interact with anyone besides Alfred until they left? Their room they left being mostly blank, with only the music journals? Giving up on trying to get their attention.

I think what's so funny about this ask, to me, is that I already have a concept like this written down (along with 3 others since the current reader I'm writing for the "Not [ ]" series is one of them but with a few missing details), so this'll be fun!

I guess it generally goes how you'd expect? Which is different for the most part, but the reader's perspective on what's happening is also different.

Granted, I would like to point out that, at least for this particular concept and the idea I have for it of how this would go, does have more stuff going on pre-Batfam that do affect how they perceive what's happening, and that's what makes things interesting in my opinion. Because someone can be naturally shy or just overall more reserved either out of nature or because they feel a certain way, but still feel bad about being neglected and, despite their lack of effort, feel that pain just as much as someone who's tried. Which is valid! Besides, someone's definition of 'trying' can vary as well.

Everyone should have a chance to have a family, and form some kind of connection with people. Just because you aren't going above and beyond for one person, doesn't mean you're undeserving of certain things. Especially not a chance to have a family, or feel like you have one. That's what I think anyway.

Nevertheless, back to the reader!

From the original concept, I will be tweaking a few things to fit the ask, but the same general outcome remains! Though again, the reader's perspective on things is a tad different. But how about this- I'll show two versions of the reader.

One that's quiet and more reserved because they gave up much earlier, or just generally hopeless really early on because maybe they felt as if anything they'd do just wouldn't be enough, who'll be accurately named Quiet!Reader. With the other being more closely related to the concept I wrote for such an idea, that we'll refer to as Waiting!Reader.

Quiet!Reader would change up things quite a bit! I won't lie!

They might already have bad self-esteem that's quick to develop at the start of things, which is something to note as that doesn't get better with time. They grow more cold and distant from the family at a quicker pace both from personal and external reasons.

Put simply, they don't feel good enough, and even if they did- anything they could do to get the Batfam's attention would never be enough in their eyes. To which, they see very early on when they try to engage and do some things with the family, only to be turned down. What doesn't help is when Quiet!Reader sees Damian get adopted and almost immediately showered with love, (compared to them) and that really cements some ideas that were already developing in their head about the family.

When Damian comes into the picture, they feel replaced. Seeing him as someone to fill in the 'youngest Wayne' role instead of them, so that Bruce and the others actually have someone to acknowledge for such a title. Just someone else to further take away the little they had.

So, they further step out of the way, glaring at the Batfam with tired eyes before that eventually stops too. Envy clawing at their heart, hatred being sent through waves of pain all throughout their body. Hurt unmatched. Yet they still remain invisible. Quiet as ever. Unnoticed. Everything they ever felt dies down, and forms a cold numbness that they begin to associate with the family.

Maybe through that, they feel closer to the family in some twisted way. Now just as cold as them. Just as talkative, and just as engaging. Almost mirroring them, but they're honest about how they feel. Honest about what they think, and therefore better. At least when compared to the Batfam- and to them, even if it wasn't a high bar to reach anyway, at least it counts for something.

It was never Damian's fault, or really about Damian at all. It could've been anyone else and Quiet!Reader would've still reacted the same way, they know that. Though just seeing the Batfam show love and care to him and not them just makes them feel... worse.

Clearly they're capable of love, and can notice new additions to the family (to which they may have mostly believed that the Batfam's neglect was just something the family did for whatever reason, and thought that them being the youngest had something to do with it for a while) and that breaks the reader. It doesn't hurt, not as much as it would've, maybe, but whatever hurt is there dies down quickly as Quiet!Reader, well, quietly accepts their fate.

The Batfam clearly wants nothing to do with them, so why should they try to do all of these things for them? It's simple, they shouldn't. So they don't. Quiet!Reader gives up, and continues to live their life without them.

The Manor just becomes a place they sleep in, and nothing else. It isn't anything close to a home, and not even Alfred can help with that.

It's because of that little fact, however, that Quiet!Reader leaves much sooner than the reader in the "Not [ ]" series. Maybe once they get a friend they can trust, they essentially end up living with said friend, hence why their room remains so empty. The notebooks they even keep in the room they have in the Manor is from when they were way younger, instead of just being from a few months ago or so. We're talking years since Quiet!Reader has touched those things now.

Maybe they do 'officially' leave a month or so before they usually would as an overachiever in the "Not [ ]" series, having only bothered to return so often before because of Alfred. Though even then, they'd forget to return most nights- only being reminded to even try and go back once Alfred would personally call them, and ask them where they were.

However now, after a while of just the time between them basically living with their friend and sleeping at the manor, they stop returning altogether. Though this time around they instead personally go to Alfred to say they're goodbyes. Not explaining much, but just saying that while they might still try to come and visit him sometimes, they don't live in the Manor anymore. Alfred already knows this, and the embrace they share fully hammers in that fact.

Yet when Quiet!Reader turns away, and leaves the Manor for good- even through the front door at that. Alfred can't help but just... miss them already.

You see, while Quiet!Reader is indeed quieter and more reserved, especially towards the Batfam, with Alfred really being the only exception, they still made music.

Maybe they didn't have as many concerts or physical, grand, live performances compared to the reader in the "Not [ ]" series, they not only started earlier, but may have actually started out on a social platform such a youtube. They really started out small, but were able to find and start their passion much earlier!

Most of what they played was when they were in the Manor, but slowly they started to get involved with things music related outside of the Manor and in Gotham- and from there were able to build themselves up even more. Hell, I'd even say that Quiet!Reader is a little more well-known and popular than the reader in the "Not [ ]" series because of the amount of extra time they dedicated to their passion.

So basically, Alfred this time around has more recordings and such of Quiet!Reader actually doing something they love than with the one in the series. However! Funnily enough, they're gone for a shorter amount of time despite having left earlier than normal.

Alfred is just, extra fed up with this nonsense, and so pulls his tricks more early on, but also make them hit harder.

He doesn't clean Quiet!Reader's room to show how long they've been gone, adding onto the emptiness and almost abandoned feeling the room itself gives off because of how bare and empty it is. They're music haunts the halls, subtle, sure, but still noticeable- especially to those who are hyper aware all the time. Pictures of Quiet!Reader and Alfred begin to be hung up, and if he can manage- some with Quiet!Reader and their friends during important parts of their life.

No one is safe from the guilt and anguish Alfred seeks to cause to not only have the Batfam look for you, but most importantly, to finally notice you.

Let's just say, things work out a little too well.

---

As for Waiting!Reader? Oh man, I've been wanting to rant about them for a while!

Unlike the reader in the "Not [ ]" series and Quiet!Reader, Waiting!Reader had some semblance of a life before getting adopted into the Batfam. Though the idea and character themself isn't musically inclined/involved in music, or even all that interested in music for that matter- for the sake of this ask, lets say they are!

I won't dabble too much into the life Waiting!Reader had before the Batfam, as if I do end up writing them I'd also like to keep some details vague (for the sake of leaving it up to interpretation and everything), but just know that during the time they were still with their original family, they were essentially taught that they should 'wait their turn', and eventually their parents would spend time with them and care for them. Hence the little name I've given them.

So! When they get to the Manor and are officially adopted, only to be neglected and ignored during their first few attempts- because of their young age, they immediately think "oh! they're just like mom and dad!" So they 'wait' for 'their turn', believing that eventually, should they wait long enough, they'll be rewarded with bonding and such from the Batfam just as they were with their previous parents.

This mindset changes what they do as well, as Waiting!Reader even goes out of their way to not bother anyone, or "get in the way" of whatever they could be doing. Waiting!Reader treats the situation so much like their previous home life, that sometimes they might even forget that the Batfam are completely different people from their parents. The only real difference that they can think of is that they're not acknowledged at all and it seems like their 'turn' never comes. Though for a while that doesn't get them down. The Batfam is busy like they're parents were! Waiting!Reader is sure that when things die down then they'll have their time.

... Hopefully.

I can imagine that part of the reason why Waiting!Reader holds on to hope for so long is because, again, their own parents constantly reassured them that they would have their time eventually. That if they behaved, and stayed out of the way, then they would go somewhere fun with their parents and essentially be rewarded for their efforts. They were conditioned to wait, to be patient, and just comply until those around them decided to actually take care of them, and spend time with them.

Of course, as they grow up the reality of the situation does hit them eventually, but during that time they do try.

Waiting!Reader helps Alfred around the house, and so they mostly bond over doing chores, among other things. They are also more mindful, and try to keep the amount of noise they back down— so they actually don't play at the Manor all that often, and instead play literally anywhere else. If and when they do play outside, around the area of the Manor like in the gardens or something, they make sure no one is around before even thinking of playing.

Alfred does help them break a few of their habits that they got while living with their parents, but the one thing he can't seem to 'fix' is how absolutely quiet Waiting!Reader is when they walk around. Which, as on can imagine, doesn't exactly help in a situation where the whole family, except for the butler, is neglecting you.

The amount of times Waiting!Reader has caught Alfred off guard is more then you'd think for someone that works with the Dark Knight, and his various sidekicks and such, over the years. Which does say something, sure, but it's also funny!

Regardless, similar to Quiet!Reader, Waiting!Reader is able to start their musical career earlier than normal, and thuse becomes a little more popular than they would originally. However, they're more known for their live performances and giving back to the community. Seemingly just like Bruce as they attend charity event after charity event, and try to do good by the people.

Waiting!Reader also does genuinely try to become a vigilante as well, but they do so in a way where they only take care of the smaller/medium guys, and leave the bigger ones to the rest of the Batfam. This is because they want to remove possible distractions for their family, and while they would try to take on "bigger guys", they don't think they're skilled enough or experienced enough to even think about it. So they don't even try. (They also don't have the same theme as the Batfam- since they don't want to 'ruin' their reputation with what they're doing or something. Which does hell them further detach themself from the family later on.)

I'd say that with Waiting!Reader, the difference between them and the Batfam is more clear to them? Like, to them, the Batfam are just so good at what they do that they have no hope of reaching them. So instead of trying to reach for them, they just do their own thing and try to help in their own way.

Because Waiting!Reader takes care of smaller guys, they are kind of closer to Waiting!Reader as a vigilante.

The best way I can put it is that while the community trusts Batman and the members of the Batfam to save their city, they trust Waiting!Reader to save their homes.

So basically- Batfam is the bigger picture while Waiting!Reader focuses on the smaller picture.

Nevertheless! Also like Quiet!Reader, Waiting!Reader actually leaves earlier. Except when they leave, they leave.

Waiting!Reader straight up leaves Gotham City to attend the college that they want to go to, in an area that has more opportunity for them, that isn't close to where the Batfam lives or patrols.

So they not only leave earlier, but it also takes the Batfam longer to find them. Especially because Waiting!Reader does still do some things in Gotham, they just don't live there anymore.

I feel like out of all three readers, Waiting!Reader definitely feels like the kind of person that someone would assume is some kind of "Phantom of the Wayne Manor," y'know?

So Alfred definitely tries to make the Batfam feel bad like he does with Quiet!Reader. Except how anyone in the Batfam is reminded that Waiting!Reader even exists, and that they've been gone for a while now is through a letter that is accidentally sent to the Wayne Manor from one of Waiting!Reader's fans. From there, some research does start and the more the Batfam learns, the more they want to go and find the reader- you know the deal.

I hope this answered your question even if I really did ramble on this time- if you'd like me to clarify anything or go into more detail on a specific part, feel free to send in an ask!

[cynthiav06]

Do you think Jason and Percy's "friendship", which everyone portrays in the fandom, is overrated? Frank seems TO BE LITERALLY PRESENT HERE! And, I admit, is Jason not exactly the character that hooked me? That is, from the "lost" trio (Piper, Leo and Jason) No one got me hooked. I didn't give a damn about them, and now I don't care about them. But Frank and Percy's friendship is in the book son of Neptune.🛐 . I would like to ask you about this

I will be the first one to admit that out of all the glaring problems of HoO, the most overlooked one is that there's no proper exploration of interpersonal relationships between all the characters especially when it comes to Percy. But I swear, soN relationships were done so well. The trio of Hazel, Frank, and Percy is absolutely phenomenal. (Hot take: I like this trio more than I like Percy, Grover, and Annabeth's og trio. Go figure). Anyways, let's do this one by one. [This is going to be long cause let's admit it the entirety of SoN is just Percy, Frank and Hazel bonding and it's the best thing Rick has ever written]

Only Frank and Hazel are ever stated to be his best/good friends, and they openly interact that way throughout the books. It's the only consistent thing in all or HoO. The fact that Percy and Frank's Riordan wiki has them both in each other's family sections and labeled brotherly is one of only redeeming things about the wiki.

Up until House of Hades, Percy's interactions with Leo are practically nil, nor does he have many opinions on Leo other than the fact that he makes good inventions. Then post HoH, there's this ridiculous conflict shoved between them over Calypso that is so absurd I won't waste my breath talking about it. Leo didn't much appeal to me either because of some of his obnoxious behavior and the way he treated Frank just pissed me off. And then him blaming Percy for the Calypso thing was just the final straw. The only thing I like about Leo is his genius and loge for inventions.

The same goes for Percy and Piper. Percy practically has no opinion on her aside from the fact that she is an ally of his. Piper, on the contrary, has MANY opinions on Percy, most of them wrong. Especially the part where she says Percy needs to be leashed and Annabeth's the one to do it and Annabeth just fucking agrees? But never mind, let's move on. My thoughts on Piper are complicated and she is one of the characters I can say I actively disliked. But that could be a whole separate post.

Then there's Percy and Jason. They are paralleled a lot, but their differences are quite prominent as well. There's a two-way insecurity/envy there, and it is never properly resolved. Percy has decent information about Jason's past. Jason has little to no information on Percy's past, just like everyone else. Aside from that moment underwater in BoO there's little positive interaction between Jason and Percy; their one or two prior conversations are either neutral or combative due to them being pit against each other either by the narrative or their own conflicting opinions. But their relationship has the most potential; Jason I do like a lot and the things he could have been. He and Percy could have been very good friends if they had shown any such inclinations but the way Jason was left un-nuanced in terms of his buildup and depth at times and their relationship being left underdeveloped and raw really got in the way of any developments. But the fandom's reason for hyping them likely has to do with the unexplored depths of their paralles and their contrast in choices, motivations and end results of their struggle. That and they are a recently popular ship so their's your answer for the hype.

So, to sum it up, Percy considers the lost trio to be allies/friends at best or, at worst, he has no much opinion of them. But there's more of a link between Percy and Jason than there's between Percy and the other two members of the Lost Trio. Which is that Jason is Thalia's brother. Thalia is one of Percy's close friends and his cousin and Jason is HER younger brother which makes Percy slightly more inclined to think of Jason as a closer friend than the other two, not necessarily because of his own relationship with Jason but because of who he means to Thalia. Percy "fatal flaw loyalty" Jackson taking it up on himself to keep Thalia's brother safe is something extremely plausible and very in character for him despite barely knowing Jason.

Now to the main point: I love love Percy and Frank's relationship. Like they are so fucking iconic as best friends and no one even talks about it. And I have been wanting to make a post on this for ages. Thanks for giving me the extra push for it, Anon.

The way Frank and Percy meet and just immediately have each other's back; chefs kiss. To me Frank and Hazel are the two people who immediately return Percy's loyalty while Percy's first meeting with anyone else is always about them being suspicious of Percy. Percy saves both Frank and Hazel from the monsters soon after their introduction. Frank is absolutely in awe of Percy and grateful to him for saving his life. For the first time ever, Percy's good act is instantly rewarded when Frank offers to vouch for Percy in Camp Jupiter before Reyna cuts him down. Percy, despite learning of Frank's low rank and not so good reputation, is completely unbothered and fully supportive of Frank.

1]Now, if you remember, Frank takes the vials of gorgon's blood that technically are Percy's by right because Frank thinks one of them might help with his curse. He is so guilty about it from the start. He doesn't think Percy noticed that he took them, but obviously Percy did, and he later brings it up with Frank not to criticize him but to ask him to keep it safe for him. Frank is so completely moved. Because he believes no Roman given the chance to have these vials for themselves would give it up and especially with Percy's mind and memories being in the state that they are, he definitely needs them more and yet he willingly gives those up.

I just love that interaction. Cause for once, someone doesn't think the worst of Frank or look down on him, despite how powerful Percy is. In fact, Percy even actively believes Frank did it to protect Percy, showing Frank that he thinks the best of him. Frank is so extremely guilty, and he immediately makes sure that he won't use the vials for himself or for anything else until he has Percy's say-so.

2]Just before that interaction is the one where Frank confides in Percy about his mother. His first instinct is to lie, but then he looks at Percy and is unable to [its practically canon that people just divulge their secrets and innermost insecurities when Percy is looking at them and it's the absolute funniest thing everytime.] He tells Percy the truth of what happened to his mother Emily and how she died in the war. And is immediately relieved cause Percy doesn't offer any platitudes or words of consolation. He just listens and nods, and knowing Frank doesn't want to linger on the subject, he immediately changes it.

3]Frank is the one to base their whole plan on Percy. When even Percy, because of his memory loss, isn't sure he could control the cannon, Frank believes in him, and Percy immediately backs up Frank. And when Percy does succeed in exploding the cannons and Frank looks at him to lead, Percy immediately tells Frank that it was his plan and that he should be leading the attack and gives Frank all the credit. The trust these two have in each other is insane. To have a friendship like these two.

4]Later on, when Mars arrives, everyone but Percy kneels and only and only when Frank asks him to kneel does Percy kneel. The whole segment of Mars talking and Percy being snippy and Frank's entire inner monologue about not wanting Mars to kill Percy and being so fucking worried about Percy and confused as to why Mars isn't immediately furious was just so hilarious.

And the way Frank just asks Percy if Riptide can do a grenade form after he sees Mars turn his grenade into a ball point pen and Percy is just so fucking offended and asks Frank to shut up has to be one of the funniest interactions in the book. Like look at this; Frank is so hopeful and Percy is so insulted that he would have anything in common with Mars. I don't know why but I absolutely love this interaction.

5]Percy doesn't want to go on the quest, but he doesn't want to leave Frank and Hazel alone, so he tags along immediately. Not because Mars asked but for Frank. Despite receiving the message in his dreams about Annabeth asking him to stay put, he immediately prioritizes his their safety over his own reunion and memory recollection and if that isn't Percy being Percy then I don't know what is.

The way all three of the SoN trio just completely hit it off almost immediately and the way they mesh together so well for such a treat to read. The whole book is just all of them being iconic individually and then as a trio. The best book in HoO by a landslide no questions asked. Some parts of HoH come close but overall it's the best book, in terms of writing as well as character consistency.

6]The way Percy hates Spartus monsters, but when Frank is the one controlling them, he is okay with them after one assurance from Frank. Percy is also completely amazed when it beats the Laistrogonyans. My point being that even before Frank got his gift, Percy completely respected him and his judgement and was completely supportive of Frank's plans and his leadership.

There are so many subtle as well as obvious signs. Percy being proud of Frank for making centurion, worrying if Frank got hurt when he got his mural, being concerned for Frank's grandmother and consistently bolstering Frank's self-confidence. He makes sure Frank understands how much he and Hazel need Frank and appreciate his leadership. And the way Percy is so proud of being related to Frank.

"You singlehandedly took out three basilisks while I was sipping green tea and wheat germ. You held off an army of Laistrygonians so that our plane could take off in Vancouver. You saved my life by shooting down that gryphon. And you gave up the last charge on your magic spear to help some defenseless mortals. You are, hands down, the nicest child of the war god I've ever met… Maybe the only nice one."

-Percy to Frank, SoN, pg.348

Coming from Percy who hates war gods especially Ares/Mars enough for it to overpower Hera's memory curse, this is extremely high praise. The way Percy is absolutely ready to throw hands with death to protect Hazel and Frank is just so important to me.

Frank being absolutely in awe of Percy, and having full faith in Percy's power even when Percy doesn't have it and Percy mirroring this behavior back is my Roman Empire. They are both the most suicidal characters in the book. I don't think we talk about how often Frank thought of dying and Percy is almost always suicidal (since 12 years old) but the way they both make sure the other won't die on their watch...it's the best written relationship in the entirety of HoO and you won't tell me otherwise.

The way Frank and Hazel both look up to Percy, how Frank was absolutely against Percy gambling is life and the fact that he is so proud of Percy that Frank points out the way Percy beat his father Mars to Mar's face with just so much sass is like the only proof you need. My guy was ready to back Percy till the end no matter what.

7]Obviously there's a reason why only Hazel and Percy know about Frank's curse initially and the fact that Frank trusts Percy so naturally and explicitly. Percy asks him to turn into a dolphin for the sake of his plan? Frank turns into a dolphin, no hesitation. Frank looking to Percy for silent acknowledgement whenever he tries something new with his powers and the fact that we know Frank wants to make Percy proud is just so fucking gut wrenching. These two are absolutely the inseparable best friends and I will forever hate Rick for not doing them justice.

8]Frank has seen Percy at his low when he is panicking and suffocating in the aquarium when they are captured and how he immediately does what he can to comfort Percy. He doesn't judge Percy for being so shaken by the whole situation, he completely understands and is so fully on Percy's side. The whole of SoN at times Frank was the one more fixated on returning Percy's memories than Percy was. The absolute devastated state that Hazel and Frank are in after Percy falls into Tartarus and Frank focusing on what Percy would want them to do. No one is doing it like them in the whole pjo series.

9]Also the whole Percy being slightly jealous and so in awe of Frank's ability and Frank just gaping at him cause to him, his gift is nothing compared to Percy's and that whole conversation is so hilarious. Percy calling Frank beast yet again but this time to tease him about how on the nose he was and Frank being flattered and embarrassed and immediately shutting it down gives me life. It's one of my favorite interactions ever.

All in all, Frank and Percy have similar issues and the way they mirror each other's positive and encouraging behavior to dispel each other's insecurities and the innate protectiveness for each other and the fact that they are both so proud they are related. The peak of brotherhood. The best friendship in the pjoverse to me. You cannot get better than this. Not to mention they both care so much for Hazel and are so protective of her and the way Hazel looks upto Percy always and relies on Frank for support. The best trio that ever trioed (could only be beaten by Lockwood, George and Lucy from Lockwood and Co.). There's not enough acknowledgement for these guys and the fandom really is missing out on the awesomeness of Frank Zhang.

I hate Rick for butchering Frank's character development in HoH that way. Frank so absolutely deserved to be Praetor but it should have been on his own merit, not because the blessing of Mars changed him the way it did. It's shit writing and just an awful message to give in general. The way Rick is fucked up all these golden opportunities and character potentials. To me everything after HoH is mostly non-canon anyway.

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Gods and Humans reaction to Tesla, Sasaki, Chen Gon, and Buddha with a Wife!Reader like Jessica Rabbit (She has a voluptuous body, speaks in a seductive, breathy voice, very calm, even in danger, brave, quick-witted and having a great singing voice, as she’s a very popular singer)

Despite this though, she’s very loyal and deeply in love with her beloved, who she likes to call her ‘Hunny Bunny’ or ‘Darling’

She also took Zerofuku in as her child, even calling him her ‘Baby Bunny’ and sings him songs to help him sleep or soothe him when he’s upset

She doesn’t care about the catcalls, stares or the lust in others eyes, as she’s only devoted to her love, and doesn’t care about how others think of her, even explaining “I’m not bad… I just look that way”

However a stupid, lecherous god tried to grope her, but before her Love could react, said God proceeded to scream in pain as his hand reveals to have been caught in a bear trap (The ladies could only laugh as even Shiva commented that was a cleaver ‘booby trap’)

-Wowza- that was one of the words that many used to describe you- you were drop dead gorgeous, stunning, sexy, and just so alluring looking that you had heads turning of all genders when you walked by.

-You were a well-known and very popular singer, able to charm anyone with your beautiful, luscious voice, and paired with your looks and sexy nature when you would perform, you had admirers all over Valhalla who would do anything to just be in the same room as you.

-The only downside… YOU WERE MARRIED!!!! It wasn’t fair- someone got to you first and you were completely loyal to your ‘Honey Bunny’ (Love).

-The same eyes that watched you with awe and desire glared daggers in his direction, as they couldn’t fathom that he was married to you, thinking he had tried some underhanded trick!

-While professional but still a little sexy with others, talking with your low breathy voice that seemed to have the spines of men melting, when (Love) came around, you were so open with your affections, rushing over in your heels, hugging him close and covering him with kisses, happy to see him.

-The only other person who would get your highly coveted affections was your adopted son, Zerofuku, whom you called Baby Bunny. He was drawn to you, being able to easily sense you were a good person and he loves your hugs, you were always so warm, and he would proudly wear the proof of your love, your lipstick marks all over his face.

-You were his safe space, he could easily relax when you would sing to him, and if he was ever in his Envy form, while being salty to everyone else, he could never be like that to you. He would accept your embrace and he could just feel his anger melting away.

-(Love) was very respectful of you, if the two of you were out and about together, you would be holding his arm and he would defend you if someone were to cat-call you, calling them out on their disrespectful behavior- you were a stunning beauty, not a dog to be called.

-There were some, those who were jealous of you, who would try to spread nasty rumors that you would use your body to get your way on things, or to seduce others, but those who actually knew you knew that this was the farthest from the truth.

-When Brunnhilde, a good friend of yours, asked you this after she pulled (Love) away to keep him from attacking someone, why you didn’t do more to defend yourself, you just smiled down at her, your eyes half closed, “They can say what they want, I know who I am. I’m not bad, I just look that way.”

-However, you did prove yourself that while you let the words roll off your back, you didn’t let anyone who wasn’t your husband, or your son touch you.

-A lecherous god had seen you and thinking you were an easy mark, he immediately came over, despite it being in broad daylight while you were surrounded by many of your friends and stuck his hand down your dress to cop a feel.

-You had frozen in shock, before a loud SNAP was heard and he howled loudly, pulling his hand out, a bear trap closed around his hand as he was screaming in pain.

-Your female friends all looked proud, giving you nods of approval while many of your male friends were a bit scared, a few asking things like, “Do women really have booby traps like that?”

-You turned with a smile as (Love) hugged you, his head on your chest as he pouted, “That’s for us to know, and for perverts like this to find out.”

-You were a dangerous woman, you had beauty, brains, and so much love for your family. You were truly a work of art.

[inkytoru]

⚠︎ ˒ ៸៸ cw: f!reader, cult themes/religious abuse, noncon, dubcon, power imbalance, fearplay, bloodplay, objectification, breeding, exhibitionism, sexual coercion/spiritual coercion, yandere behavior

cult leader!sylus who gets cute virgin women sacrificed and corrupted in his name. he especially likes when their hair is long enough for him to pull when he robs them of their purity.

cult leader!sylus who loves it when they cry big fat tears of fear; licks them away with a smirk and a compliment on his lips at how delicious the saltiness of their tears are and how much they’re turning him on right now.

cult leader!sylus is not familiar with the concept of condoms. he’s got a raging breeding kink and is looking to raise the perfect little heir to his throne. so naturally, there are days dedicated to ensuring his seed takes. even when you’re exhausted and (borderline) asleep or protesting and weakly attempting to push him away he’ll find himself in your walls again, giving you cervix kisses with his fat tip.

cult leader!sylus who tells his followers sex (whether it be with him or others) is a mandatory spiritual duty. it is the pathway to salvation, higher consciousness, and divine favor. you want to be cleansed of your bad karma, right?

cult leader!sylus who preaches about the divine feminine in his own twisted way. he relishes in the awe and zealous looks from all the women listening and hanging onto every last word he says. and the ones that disagree? well, they know better than to challenge his teachings.

cult leader!sylus satisfies his exhibitionist side by telling all his followers that in order to appease him, they are bound to watch as he defiles women on the altar. over and over again. everyone is advised never to avert their gaze, for if they do, punishment will be swift and imminent.

cult leader!sylus choosing you to be his favorite. you take pride in this, and love to gloat when the other girls glare with envy as clear as day at you as you sashay by his side past them. you are his prized possession; and it shows with the way he looks at you as if he’s just as devoted to you as you are to him. he swears you’ll be his downfall one day.

cult leader!sylus makes you off limits to everyone else but him. no other man is to touch you—with friendly gestures or otherwise—without his say so. and if they try to circumvent this rule, well that just won’t do. the very next day, he has them sacrificed in his name.

cult leader!sylus collecting the blood from your broken hymen when he takes you for the first time. he then has it fashioned into a ring by a bloodsmith that he always keeps on his ring finger.

cult leader!sylus uses mephisto to record your first time together, and the many times after that. he swears that the footage (especially the one where your virginity is taken) holds power that strengthens him every time he touches himself to them.

cult leader!sylus officially decrees one day that you are of equal status to him, and that all are to worship you both. this sparks many murmurs and whispers, but no one objects knowing very well what their fate would be should they question their leader that has never steered them wrong.

cult leader!sylus knows it in his very heart, spirit, and soul that you two were made for each other and that you were always meant to rule alongside him as the divine feminine to his divine masculine.

© INKYTORU — do not repost, translate, feed AI, or plagiarize any of my content. please refrain from sharing or recommending my work on other platforms outside of tumblr such as tiktok. MINORS DNI.

[leaderwon]

HATE THAT..

chapter 39 — what a bitch

Synopsis :- In a world where lovers are destined and written by fate, You hated the idea of a soulmate, or maybe you just hated him. Jake wanted a soulmate, a lover to be with for the rest of eternity. Just not you. Not wanting eachother, the both of you occupy yourself with someone else. But the universe had other plans.

luna's diary : a small chapter, I'm really sorry. i intended it to be longer but I'm not really feeling my best

warnings : Jake is a bitch, we hate pisseul and mentions of violence

prev — masterlist — next

The welcoming faces of Jake's parents greeted you as you stepped into the house. The middle aged woman hugged you as a smile adorned her features.

You loved Jake's mom, she was kind and extremely sweet. The best part about her though? Her cooking.

It was the main motivation that made you come here. You didn't know what it was, no matter how old you were or what the situation was, you would always eat whenever she cooked for you.

You saw Jake's dad hug yours as they wanderered off to whatever old men do.

"Come to the dining room, I've prepared all your favorites" You heard Mrs. Sim say to you with a warm smile on her face.

Going deeper into the house, you heard Jake's voice as he was conversing with someone else.

You didn't think much about it, until you saw her.

"Park Iseul?" Your mom's cheerful voice broke you from the mini shock you had gotten.

Whatever excitement you previously had, was now vanished as you looked at Iseul hoping it was a dream.

This cannot be happening.

Your mom embraced the girl in her arms as she pointed out on how pretty Iseul had gotten.

She was right, Iseul had gotten pretty ever since she came back from america

You felt insecurity take over you as you noticed your mom looking at Iseul with all the love in the world in her eyes.

At this moment, you envied Iseul. Ever since you arrived back home, all you recieved were dry replies or glares from your mom.

Seeing someone who caused all of this in the first place recieve the look that you deserved snapped something inside you.

"Iseul missed Jake, so she decided to join us for dinner tonight" Her mom exclaimed as she handed you a plate, showing you where your favorite food was placed.

You were starting to lose the remaining bits of your appetite as a gut feeling of something about to get worse started to annoy you.

This was Park Iseul we were talking about. There's no way in hell she would let you be in peace.

You were having an amazing time catching up with Jake's parents trying your best to ignore Jake and Iseul who say across you.

"Y/n, Do you still play football?" Jake's dad curiously asked you. "Oh yeah, i recently joined the football team as center forward" You replied.

"She got captaincy too" Iseul said as her annoying voice butted into the conversation.

"What about you Iseul, have you been playing after america? I heard you also joined the same university as Jake and y/n" Your dad asked the girl.

"I was playing for a while, but i got into a tiny accident" She said as she gave your dad a smile.

What a bitch.

"Tiny accident? Iseul don't lie" You heard Jake's voice for the first time since this dinner had started.

"What do you mean?" Your mom asked questioning the two of them.

"It's no-" "Ms. Y/N here wanted captaincy so bad, she got Iseul into an accident" Jake said interrupting Iseul.

No.

"What?" Your dad spoke in shock.

Your mom had an idea of you "bullying" Iseul, but your dad was kept out of the loop to prevent a fight breaking out in your house. Which you were now sure was going to happen.

"Iseul, is this true?" It was Jake's dad turn to speak up now. "I'm sure she didn't mean it" She said innocently.

Innocent my fucking ass. I'm gonna kill this bitch.

Jake who was now visibly pissed started talking about how I had "allegedly" bullied Iseul.

The whole table went into an awkward silence as people started to take in these fake peice of information.

You stood up catching everyone's attention. You felt a rush of adrenaline as you finally spoke up, "Iseul's lying. I didn't bully her" You tried defending yourself.

"I don't know wh-" Your dad interrupted you getting up from the his seat as well. "We're leaving" He said sternly.

"Thank you so much for having us" He continued making his way to the door as the color of your face slowly drained.

Jake knew how your dad was, yet he still did this over a lie?

You were having trouble believing this situation was real. Your eyes made their way towards Jake as he looked anywhere except you.

He knew your dad was violent. Fortunately, he wasn't so physically. But you absolutely despised your inner peace being broken by a fight in your house.

You couldn't count the days you've ran to Jake crying your eyes out.

He had to feel some sort of emotion right? Sympathy? maybe.

All your hopes were crushed as he finally connected his eyes and gave you that glare.

"Y/N, let's go" Your mom said. You gave Jake a look of disbelief as you finally left his house mentally preparing yourself for what you were about to face.

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© @leaderwon 2024. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

[cassiopeia-longbottom98]

Nott's Big Question

Relationship: Theodore Nott x Reader

Summary: Theo takes you to dinner. It's just a normal dinner at Blaise's, right?

Warning: Use of Y/N

_______________________________________

"Theo, thank you so much for dinner. You know how much I love Blaise's lasagna." I said happily. I tilt my head to the side and smile.

Theo stares back at me in awe. He admires us from across the table. "My goddess, you are absolutely stunning tonight. You always are, but tonight even the stars are envy your beauty."

I blush at the compliment. Theo has always been very good with his words, but they always seemed to leave me flustered.

"T-thanks Theo.", I say blushing, "You look dashing as ever. Blaise should offer you as dessert." I wink at him.

Theo grins, "Only for you, my darling."

You both talk about your day. Theo rants about how Draco keeps coming in late and how he has to pick up Draco's slack.

Ever since Draco and Hermione had gotten back from their honeymoon 3 months ago, Draco has been coming in late. I have my theory that she's pregnant. She wasn't looking too well after she had to use the floo when we had dinner last week. Theo thinks they are just shagging all the time.

"Hey Y/n!" Ginny calls. I look up to see Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Ginny and Harry have been married for a few years now. Their wedding was on the cover of the Daily Prophet for at least two weeks.

I smile and greet them. "Are you guys here on date night as well?" Theo asked. Harry nodded.

"Yeah. Ginny has been talking about wanting to come back here, since Y/n's birthday dinner." Ginny elbows Harry in the side. Harry grunts and glares at his wife.

"Anyways, I see you guys are here on date night." Ginny smiles and gives Theo a weird look.

'I wonder what that was about.' I think to myself but eventually brush it off.

Harry and Ginny go and sit at their table and we continue with our date.

Theo and I continue to eat your food in comfortable silence. It was never uncomfortable between you guys. He looks up at me and smiles.

When I first met Theo back in second year, he never smiled. I remember the first time I saw it.

It was fourth year and everyone was coming back at the Yule Ball. Draco seemed to be in a mood. Pansy stormed off to the dorm room, and everyone else was starting to get tired. Blaise wanted to lighten the mood and to make his best friend smile, so he asked Blaise to dance. Both being purebloods, they obviously knew to dance properly. The two of them started doing the tango. I watch from afar. Being a muggleborn sorted into Slytherin was rare and that meant I was an easy target.

I laughed at the boys being silly. I turned to see Draco smirking. I looked back at the dancing duo and was taken back. Theo had the most beautiful smile and his laugh could cure all things evil. The Slytherin common room never felt warmer.

"Well, hello lovers. I took time out of my very busy schedule to bring you this exclusive dessert." Blaise greeted. I giggle at his antics. Blaise has always been dramatic. Blaise shows us his very new cheesecake, carrot cake cheesecake. Theo grunts, trying to convince Blaise to leave.

Blaise chuckles and looks down at me, "You know Y/n, if you ever get tired of him, my bed is always available." I chuckle at him as he walks away. Theo mutters about how he is going to kill him.

"Theodore darling, we both know you won't kill him. Who else would you dance with?" He glares at me as he tries a bit out of the cheesecake.

I take a bite and moan. Theo looks up at me hungrily.

"Y/n, would you care for a stroll after dinner?" Theo asks. "I am going to have to work off this cheesecake to keep this sexy body." He grins at my laugh.

"I would love it. Got to keep that figure or else I may have to take up Blaise's offer." I wink at him.

He glares at me as he finishes and goes to pay.

As we walk down Diagon Alley, I lean into him to try and warm myself. "Cold, my love?" Theo asks softly.

I nod. I feel as the warming charms that Theo placed work its magic. Theo has always been a sweetheart. He doesn't act like it around others, but he's such a softie with me. As we walk, I feel Theo pull my closer and wrap his arm around my shoulders. I lean into smelling smoke, wine, and cinnamon. His scent comforts me.

Abruptly we stop, and I look up at Theo. I see him grinning, his cheeks dusted with red.

"Remember this spot?" He asks cheekily. I look up and see we are outside of Fortescue's Ice cream Parlor.

I blush. "Oh Merlin. How could I forget?" It's the day I embarrassed myself in front of you."

"By embarrassed, you mean ruin one of my favorite shirts." I smack his arm. "You know it was an accident." He chuckles. Theo grabs my hands and smiles at me.

"You know that is one of my favorite memories of you. I don't understand how I never noticed you before then. I love your dark green eyes and sandy brown hair. You make my life so much better. I never knew happiness or love until I met you. You know how my father was. I would go through again every time if that meant I would get to be with you. Y/n Smith, I will love you until the day my magic gives out. I will love you until Draco and Blaise stop getting annoying.", Theo says as he gets down on one knee with a ring in his hand, "Will you please do me the honor of marrying me and making me the happiest man in this galaxy?"

I stand there stunned. I never imagine Theo would be on one knee in front of me. I stare at him until I could see the nerves starting to hit. I squeal and wrap myself around him. "Yes, Yes, Yes!!!" I yell. I hear Theo curse under his breath.

"Salazar woman, you about gave me a heart attack. I thought you were going to say no." Theo chuckled.

I look at him and place my hand on his cheek.

"Merlin Theo, I never thought you would have proposed to me. I would always say yes to you. I love you so much."

I pull Theo closer and kiss him softly. Theo leans in and deepens the kiss.

We finally pull away as we heard people around us start whispering. I stand up and pull Theo up.

We apparate back to our house. As we snuggle on our couch, I look at my ring. "How does Y/n Nott sound?" I look at Theo smiling big.

"It sounds perfect love." Theo whispers and he leans down to kiss me.