#for my soul i need to imagine them together | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

screampied · 7 months ago

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‘ #KNOCK(HER)OUT ! ’

ᡴꪫ‎ sum. you get more than what you bargained for by getting involved with two boxers—two boxers that can’t keep their hands off the pretty new journalist. what happens in the ring stays in the ring though…. right?

wc. 5.7k

warnings. fem! reader x t. fushiguro & s. ryōmen, boxer!au, thrēesome, manhandling, unprotected, semi public, size kink, ōral (f & m receiving), head lock, spīt, sqūirting, they fight over you, brēeding, fīngering, implied multiple ōrgasms, nipple play.

an. based on this ask, haven’t recovered since :,)

sukuna ryōmen and toji fushiguro. . .

the talk of the town. top most infamous boxers of your city, they were supposedly rivals but ended up becoming super close friends. 'friends' was probably a stretch. acquaintances was probably a far better word to describe the two. there was hardly anyone that didn’t tune into your detailed magazines about them—your occupation? a journalist. you’d be the first to write about their fights, their strengths, weaknesses, their total wins & losses, and even a few unnecessary things like their love life. you were new, but you were good. always in the front row, you’d watch them spar against some of the most scariest opponents imaginable. something about guys taking it out in the ring right before your eyes got your panties in a twist. how unprofessional..

you only did it for the money, the publicity— a lot of people adored your skill to make such stories so interesting. between toji and sukuna, they were almost always compared, and oh did they hate it. ex rivals continuously pinned against each other, it’d piss anyone off. although, you were in dire need for a new story topic to write and you just so happen to stumble into their private gym.

“yo,” a rough sly yet cunning voice mutters, and it’s so deep—you recognize it from anywhere, toji fushiguro in the flesh. “are ya lost? no fuckin’ autographs.”

“don’t be rude, ‘toj,” and your eyes avert towards sukuna— he’s a few inches taller and your eyes roam at them both. they had droplets of sweat racing down their washboard abs, scars coating their skin with ruffled hair as if they’d just finished a match. sukuna drags his feet towards you before his eyes light up. “ohh, i know you,” he snickers, grabbing your notepad before nudging his friend. “she’s our little journalist toji. and she’s a damn fine one too..”

“. . . uh,” was all you could make out, feeling a sudden tightness in your stomach. your eyes continue to stare, your lewd thoughts only become more and more vulgar. seconds pass before you realize sukuna took your notebook, toji pauses his sets to get a good look at you. “i thought this was the ladies' room.”

“girl bye,” toji grumbles with two hands buried into his shorts pockets— he reads right through you as if you were some sort of exposed novel. people said he was a lot sassier in person but you didn’t think it’d actually be true. green dark eyes linger onto you for a long time before he stretches, leaning down to get a good glimpse at your figure. “did you come here just to stare or what?”

you were taken aback at how blunt he was.

a coy grin appears on his lips as he watches you struggle to formulate a good enough response.

you were nosy, you were really really nosy. for once, perhaps you didn’t wanna just jot down things about these two— just maybe, just maybe . . you wanted a hands-on experience.

“i… needed new material for my article before the next match starts,” you utter, squeezing your thighs together. sukuna tilts his head, eyeing you in a way that makes you feel hot. toji’s stare was ten times more intimate, darkened irises practically staring right into your soul—you knew this wasn’t the bathroom, you were lying. “i was hoping maybe you’d give me some uh . . inspo.”

they were both towering over you with height, you felt small—like an ant that was preparing itself to be crushed by a villainous shoe.

“inspiration, she says?” sukuna hums, his voice is low—raspy, an almost purr hiding underneath it before he moves closer towards you. “just tell us what you really want, princess.”

“nah don’t get all shy now,” toji chimes in once he sees you grow more sheepish. they both close in on you—you felt like you were trapped in a fever dream, you weren’t exactly complaining either. they smelled so good, a mixture of sultry sweat and a loud scent of heavy cologne that wafts throughout the entire training room. “you got our attention so spit it out, girl.”

“i— i want you both.” you finally mutter after seven long consecutive seconds. with the way toji’s staring right through you, you felt like your stomach sank between your legs - your legs that were throbbing with nothing but mere arousal, again perhaps this was unprofessional. no, it was very unprofessional—but anyone would kill to be in your position, being sandwiched between the top two boxers of your city.

sukuna snickers. “both? what makes you think i’d wanna share with this bum?”

“shut up,” toji snarls, and the way his facial expressions tense a bit—so attractive. the headlines + press was right about toji, he was a lot more handsome in person. he was a fairly new boxer yet a pure lady's man. he’s had a plethora of fangirls while in the ring and maybe you were one of them. as he inches towards you with a hand softly gripping underneath your chin, he inhales. his entire facial structure, so chiseled—brief dark stubble coats the entirety lower half of his jaw and he rubs his left boxing glove against his left knee. “that really want you want? both of us?” and his voice softens. it’s a bit more pitchy and low, and he sneers. “on me, look at me when you reply too, girl.”

your lip gradually pulls down from his thumb playing against it. you felt so hot, the air suddenly felt thick.

a sudden lump gets caught in your throat before you mumble. “i want you both,” and your eyes meet the dark-haired boxer, simultaneously glancing at his attire— shirtless, boxing shorts on with his custom-made ‘fushiguro’ briefs wilting near the top—only showing the hem part. just a teensy detail like that was so enticing that you even spot a few parts of his exposing snatched waist. only after awhile you then abruptly snap out of your vulgar fantasm. “…please.”

“the real question is, pretty little journalist,” sukuna steps in, a hand stroking against your chin. you didn’t know where to even look. both boxers had their hands on you and the tightened squeezing between your plush thighs grew even more. “can you handle both?”

“yes.” you’d speak in a soft voice, most likely as of now you were probably speaking from between your legs—you didn’t care though, everyone’s a little delusional at some point. emphasis on a little in your case, because you had no idea what you were getting in to with these two.

toji snickers. “hm,” he mutters, eyes focusing on you for a long time before he raises his chin. “fine. let’s test your strength then,” and he briefly gazes at sukuna. “sukuna. we can take her ‘n the ring.”

and they mean it quite literally— taking you, the both of them versus you, except you weren’t relatively fighting.

not in that sense, but it was versus an opponent that was throbbing between your thighs.

the arena was empty, about a good hundred or more vacant blood-shot red seats scatter everywhere.

inside the ring, it was a mere raised platform, guided and shaped by strong stringy ropes that were yanking between poles at each side and corner. you lay on the spongy canvas of the ring’s floor before biting back a moan.

“scared yet?” sukuna hums, and he props himself right between your legs. this was risky—entirely risky, anyone could just walk in. besides, you were pretty sure they had a match in about a good forty-five minutes. with sprawled-out legs, he moved closer before dragging a thumb down your panties. his voice was a bit deeper than toji’s, they both shared the same amount of rasp.

sukuna had the charm, toji had the suaveness.

you shake your head, feeling yourself grow even hotter the more he stalls time. it feels warm, the entire air around you is humidly thick and you whine as he teasingly bites your panties. not enough to pierce his teeth into your folds, but he bites near the fabric—you watch, the string of your underwear slowly dragging with him. yet, you can’t help but glance at toji who’s just standing there—arms crossed and that same scowl that stuck against his face. “mhm,” he jibes, eyes flickering towards toji. “toji. she’s looking at you.”

“i know she fuckin’ is,” he grumbles, and your head tilts upward. you’re face first with his bulge that was right against your face. talk about space, it was right there. such a big bulge, who were you even kidding though—you found yourself gawking at his bulge at every match he had. with the skin-tight shorts he’d worn, you just knew he was nothing more than a packer. “nosy girl. y’er mouth bored or somethin’?” and he watches your hands paw at the hem of his tucked-out briefs. “need a bit of throat training, huh?”

sukuna’s playing with your panties still. by now, he’s peeling them towards the crevices of your thighs and you whine whilst you feel a thumb of his drag down your honeyed slit. sopping wet, just a three-second stare and he was suddenly esurient.

“look at me, not him,” toji lightly turns your head to face back up to him again. his bulge, his damn bulge that was right up against you. you nod, feeling your mouth dry—you wanted your throat to be filled, it wasn’t even a question. toji gruffs lowly, moving your chin side to side. “huuuh? girl, i don’t speak silence. thought i told ya how to use those words when you speak.”

“i- i wanna suck you off, ‘toj,” and you get cut off once he pulls his boxing shorts down halfway, bringing your face close to his briefs. you’re taken by surprise once he makes you rub your face against his hardened bulge—you moan, as if on instinct, your tongue lolls out just to taste him. even if it’s just the clothed fabric protecting his actual cock, it was something.

he scoffs. “y’er a nasty girl, huh,” he mumbles, peering down to see sukuna starting to lick against your cunt. your legs quaver upon impact and you slump back against the corner of the ring. “can’t wait, yeah. want me to train this empty throat? maybe it’ll make ya a better journalist, nosy ass.”

you’d almost laugh at his little side remark if it wasn’t for sukuna’s tongue lapping against your slick entrance. your lips part as you lean back, a hand going through his hair. “mphm,” he grunts, one hand squeezing the right part of your thigh. “sweetest taste i’ve had in a . . . looong while.” and he’s so sloppy, not even a few seconds pass before he’s already slurping. your panties were lazily shoved to the side and that’s when toji hauls down his briefs.

you gulp, damn.

he wasn’t just big, he was huge…

your mouth starts to salivate the more you stared at the swollen shaft. toji was a big guy . . hence meaning, toji he was a thick guy.

staggering height and a fat base to back it up, he had about two veins running down the side. his tip was a reddish pink, you could already taste him throbbing in your mouth. toji was quite well shaved a bit— though, it was a few specks of black hairs scattered everywhere. however, his happy trail was so pleasing to look. it roams all down his sculpted body, he sighs once you slowly wrap a hand around his cock.

“spit the fuck on it.”

five words and you didn’t hesitate to roll out your pink tongue once more.

you gather a good amount before watching it coat against his pink sweet tip. he groans, watching your hand stroke him a bit. he was so big, so fucking big that you could barely wrap your entire hand around his dick. toji groans, watching you make a total mess out of yourself. pretty glossy lips, pretty glossy lips that would soon be wrapped around his hefty length.

once you get it wet enough, you gently move your mouth onto him. he hisses, the warmth of your throat has his abs clenching.

“m-mhm,” you’d moan out, though your words were purely muffled. sukuna’s sucking on your clit, occasionally nipping and nibbling on it just to make you squirm even more. it was cute— the way your legs could barely hold still, so this was your weak spot. it’s what he thought to himself, lapping his tongue against your slick entrance. brief kisses coat near your folds before he maneuvers such circles against your pussy. feeling his canines nip against your folds every few seconds had you feral in the best way possible.

“y’er makin’ her squirm all over, ‘kuna,” toji lowly chuckles, such baritone in his voice that it makes you soak even more. you didn’t even know how it was possible with the way you were just profusely dripping like a faucet. not even—you put faucets to shame with how slick you were, quickly coating the lower part of sukuna’s chin with your syrupy taste. “open that mouth a ‘lil more, yeah . . . yeah,” and he tilts your head back a bit, prying your mouth open some more. he starts to slowly sink his cock in, so slow. the pace was incredibly tantalizing, your tongue runs against his slit before he pushed more inches inside. “fuckkk, girl,” he continues to grunt out, knees already starting to buckle. the way you took him in, hollow cheeks all puffed, you were already starting to drool a bit. small amounts of your saliva trickle past the corners of your lips as he goes deeper and deeper. deeper until his tip ends up mashing against your uvula and you gag.

“. . ooooh,” he hums, and just a simple noise as that was so seductive. “good…. good,” he swallows, a hand digging through your hair before maintaining a good grip against it. “now . . let’s test this pretty throat’s durability, hm.”

your little nod makes his sly smile widen, your jaw hangs and he starts to gradually piston his hips. such a mess, he was just so big that you were surprised all of it even fit.

“alllll the way down, shit,” your head starts to move, bobbling as your tongue swiftly running against his pulsating head. he gnashes his teeth together, dim eyes flickering towards your hands. you were feeling hot yourself so you made a cute attempt at reaching between your legs. doing so only greets you to a soft concise smack.

“hands to yourself, silly girl,” sukuna grumbles, and this time he grabs your wrist. he simpers, watching you try to even still rub one out but with his grip, you weren’t getting anywhere. as your mouth was occupied with such inches, you whimper once you feel sukuna spank your cunt a few times. “don’t touch my pussy.”

one turns into two, then three, then four. . .

your pretty cunt starts to become his new obsession—the way you’d squelch for him so easily, he gets hard in his boxers. so wet, he knows the layout as if he’s so used to doing this. you wouldn’t be surprised, especially with a tongue like he had. lapping left and right, he parts your legs just a bit farther before the tip of his tongue swirls all around it. he lays it flat, getting a good enough taste before giving it yet another mean spank.

you whimper, feeling your tummy cave in before toji makes you face him once more. “eyes up here, eyes on me,” and he sounds almost jealous the more you focus your attention strictly on his boxer acquaintance. you’re still stroking him, a thumb sliding down a vein that prods alongside his shaft and he groans. your throat, so warm that he starts to feel his right thigh bounce. “should be . . usin’ this throat for shit like this instead of running that mouth.” his voice pitches lower, boxer shorts pulled down and his hair was slightly ruffled. you stare up at toji and he gives you that same cunning smirk. oh, you were soaked. again, this simply felt like a fever dream. even if at the slightest chance that you were dreaming, you never wanted to wake up.

toji’s quite talkative throughout the entire thing, sukuna’s dragging you further and further onto your incoming release and your legs start to rapidly shake even more. you whine and mewl out such sweetened moans, occasionally coming back up for air as you kept his cock warm in your mouth. each time it hits the roof of your mouth, you let off a straddled noise and he finds it so cute, so filthy.

“relax y’er throat, girl,” he mutters, a firm grip on your scalp. with glossy eyes, you follow his words and you stop gagging a bit. he grunts, getting hard every time your pretty eyes make direct contact with him. “such a pretty girl when you listen.” and his tone gets a bit more sensual, more tender.

you whine, feeling sukuna insert a single finger inside of you—you swallow his digit almost immediately and you cringe at hearing your own salaciously lewd squelches.

soaking, sopping wet,

three perfect words to describe between your legs, you choke out a moan once you feel that sensation brew right up inside your stomach. steadily, it was coming closer and closer. you’re breathing through your nose—feeling a few of his pubic hairs tickle against you. you’re moaning, eyes becoming half-lidded and droopy. toji had a mere pout stretching against his face and he felt himself coming close too.

the icing on the cake was your tongue, the way you swirl and slide it against his frenulum—he groans out a low grunt that rings throughout the arena. it reverberates, it's raspy and it only makes you even more aroused. “s-shit, you close too?”

you nod, and toji jeers, finding it amusing to taunt with you as you’re about to reach your inevitable peak. “yeah? gonna make a mess on ‘kuna’s face?”

“told ya don’t call me that,” sukuna grouses, resuming to pump not one but two fingers into you now—you’re almost there. it’s a hot feeling stirring up near your lower abdomen, a pool of it. your eyes start to roll, still slobbering down toji’s cock before he starts to thrust and thrust into your mouth.

“make me.” toji stared at him—and the both of them grew quiet before laughing with each other.

idiots.

your maw opens just a bit wider, and he’s shoving himself in and out of your tight throat—the noises that follow are so lewd, he finds you so pretty like this. mascara all smeared and runny, your hand continues to wrap around his length—his sagged base, so full. you start to salivate again, imagining what his taste was like. you craved it like you crave sweets, sukuna’s tongue running against your clit only made things far more intense before you start to convulse.

“f-fuckkk, ‘m gonna cum,” toji rasps, tilting your head back a bit more. you stare at him, tongue still grazing against the pulsing slit before after a few more pumps—he shoots a nice velvety load into your mouth. he grunts lowly, nostrils flaring up, jaw tightening and all. “. . damn,” he swallows, allowing himself to slow down. you end up finishing around the same time, costing sukuna’s mouth with a honeyed amount of your slick and he hums. you whimper, legs barely able to hold themselves up before you feel toji’s dick pour the remnants of his cum flat on your tongue. “nah, don’t fuckin’ swallow yet. stick it out, lemme see that shit.”

your legs felt like they were about to fall off, sukuna’s kissing near your now swollen entrance and you slowly loll out your tongue. obeying, you didn’t exactly swallow yet and he hums. “best savor that shit,” he groans, giving his veiny cock a few subtle strokes before he smacks his angry tip against your tongue. “and where’s my thank you for the meal, baby?”

“t—thwak y—you toji,” you speak, barely coherent with his seed splattered all on your tongue. you didn’t wanna spill any, and if you did—you didn’t wanna stick around to find out his reaction.

“yeah,” he huffs. “you can swallow now. get every drop in.”

sukuna moves towards you, you’re still laid on the ring’s mat before he softly wraps a hand around your throat. “hey. don’t let this bastard have all the fun, i want a taste too,” and you're taken by surprise once he pulls you into a deep steamy kiss. you moan, feeling him quite literally take your breath away. your tongue drags against sukuna’s chin, the bitterness. a concoction mixture of your saliva and his mixes, and you whine once he snakes a hand up your blazer. you taste yourself on his tongue and it’s so dirty, hot breaths mash against each other, teeth gnashing, and only then do you feel his cunning smirk.

“no one told you to hog her,” toji grumbles, pulling you back towards him. you briefly gasp for air and they both stare at each other, then you. “tell me, baby. who’d you think win in a fight? me or this . . . thing.”

sukuna glares.

“i don’t … know,” you pant out, heaving from your current orgasm—so cute, yet you only wanted more. from kissing sukuna to having your throat entirely filled, you didn’t know which was better. “can we finish?”

“aw, is someone impatient?” sukuna titters, and you stare at his glistening body—beads of sweat race down his precious v-line, the ideal body for a boxer. you just couldn’t stop staring at his pecs, so chiseled. you even thought his pictures were edited, but seeing them up close . . you wanted him, you wanted both of them. “hm. how ‘bout this? we teach you a few ah, moves. full nelson to start, ‘s pretty easy.”

easy, sure.

with it all being easy, you’d least expect to be put into a full nelson position. a mere popular wrestling position, although you’d be performing it with no one other than sukuna.

he’d have you slump back against him, hooking both arms underneath your thighs as you’re taking such mean thrusts from him. time and time again, you’re spasming out. mouth all open, saliva running down the very corners of your lips before you moan. “s—sukuna, oh my godddd,” and you glance up at toji who’s got a cute pout, stroking himself. you lost count of the time, it’s probably been about a good thirty-three minutes by now, thirty plus minutes of various teeth shattering orgasms. your head hits back against him and each time his tip smacks against your cervix, you short circuit. “fuck, fuck, right there, hit it thereee.”

“you coachin’ me how to fuck, dumb girl?” he chortles with a groan shortly following—he was so deep, the heftiness of his base taps against you each time you bounce back against his cock. he sucks his teeth, the way you easily took him had him groaning all up against your ear. “gotta get a little more stretchy, we gotta . . hah, work on your flexibility too, huh.”

“sukuna hurry the fuck up. watching you fuck my girl ‘s boring as shit,” toji grouses, pumping his cock into his fist every few seconds—you stare and he’s so needy, you could tell. his scowl he had earlier forms into a cute pout, dark eyebrows furrowing together and he’s growing impatient.

you caught that though. ‘my’ girl.

who would have thought toji . . the womanizing boxer who’s never had time for any woman throughout his career would start batting for you?

“your girl?” sukuna snickers, resuming to hold your legs up a bit further. he reaches so deep, that your stomach starts to seize and your maw drops. hooded eyes, your lashes flutter and you felt continuous strained breaths get yanked from your lungs. “your girl yet she’s gettin’ fucked by me? the better boxer?”

toji snarls, and he kneels to kiss you. you moan, barely able to return the gesture since you were in the midst of taking sukuna. with being gifted with such sharp thrusts, you dig your nails into his thighs before running tangling your tongue alongside toji’s. his breath was warm, you whine once you feel one of his hands stroke your cheek.

“aha, look at him. already whipped before me,” sukuna snickers, feeling you sink and gape around him—he stretched you out so good already, it was so relentless. each time you bounce back against his lap, the ringing in your ears grows louder and louder. he feels his dick twitch inside you. seeing you make out with toji irks him a bit before he spanks your ass—the recoil making him even more aroused than before. sukuna hums, seeing the current pout on toji’s face before nodding, “aw. toji wants a turn too, yeah? don’t ya . . big guy?” and he intakes a breath, your pussy constricting around his length as sukuna pulls you further to slam back and forth against him. you’re moving against him now as his dick jackhammers right into your gummy was. your mouth idly dangles with your tongue stil shamelessly lolled out. a raw moan rips from the back of your throat at the pure feeling of utter bliss.

so thick, so girthy—you gasp once you feel his fingers tend towards your neglected tits. toji shortly follows, a hand going between your thighs. your cunt was all stuffed of sukuna, feeding your swollen pussy was so many inches. “hngh, f-fuck, fuckkk,” you’d whine between wet, saturated kisses. toji purposely feels against your folds, all stuffed and sopping wet. he rubs a thumb against your slick entrance as your legs were just about to give out. “toji, m-more. need you to touch me more.”

“you don’t need shit, little girl,” he corrects you, squeezing your lips together before presses a kiss against it. you moan, your ass stinging every few seconds from the stings of sukuna’s palm making direct contact against your ass cheek. spank after spank, oh how he adores the jiggle. he could watch it all day, even in slow motion if he could. “such a cute thing though, had the nerve to say you thought our training room was the fuckin’ ladies' room.”

you cringe once he repeats that. the same ringing going through your ears once more. your ears perk, hearing sukuna’s raspy grunts against the shells of your lobes before you start to stammer, “toji, touch me.”

“i’ll touch this messy body when i wanna,” he gruffs, leaning to nip kisses near your neck. sukuna’s still holding you up—you’re like a rag doll, eyes goggling from the stretch before you start to feel it. not your orgasm, but something entirely different. it was a new type of pressure, sweet whiny moans emit out of you before you feel sukuna’s rude tip thrash against your g-spot again, and again, and again..

toji’s thumb softly strokes underneath your neck as he pulls you into a short kiss. you whimper, pulling away before spreading your legs a bit further.

“i— something’s coming, i f-feel tingly.”

sukuna roughly laughs against your ear, seemingly getting what you were implying. “yeah, gonna make another mess on us, princess? oh. i mean on me, heh?”

you shudder, your pussy feeling entirely stuffed and your eyes merely roll way back. he fit nice and snug, you bare around him before a whine drags out your throat. so deep, so so deep, you’re spasming—each relentless piston of his hips makes you whine louder. a feeling that was purely euphoric welts right against you, and you’re laid all back against sukuna’s bare chest, riding him in reverse. “c-choke me, ‘kuna, choke me, please.”

“want me to put you in a headlock, yeah,” he whispers to you in a rough low voice. you moan, feeling him lick against your earlobe before toji strokes your cheek. you could tell he wanted a turn too, the pout on his lips stretching even further. you’re nodding against him before your cunt gapes more. “sure. i’ll let you in on what my opponents feel, pretty girl.”

you moan, his voice was so low up against your ear, you’re about to cum. or were you, you swallow thickly despite having a sudden dry throat— voice all raspy and strained from moaning for such a duration that your head’s woozy. it feels too good, your thighs ache and quaver before you feel a beefy arm wrap around your neck. “upsie daisy, thereee we go,” and he scoots you on his lap just a bit farther. he’s buried to the hilt. you moan, toji pulling you into the nth kiss of the night, lips moving in pure tandem. just when you’re about to finish, you feel him rub against your stuffed cunt once more. yet that’s only when you decide to move your hands towards the boxers . . . nipples.

“t-the fuck,” he grunts in a hoarse tone, his voice was suddenly a bit shaky. it was cute—you couldn’t lie to yourself, you found yourself staring at toji’s chest way more often than you should. practically always shirtless, his pecs were huge. such pink swollen nipples, you slide a thumb against it and he shivers from your touch. “fuckin’ weirdo. ‘m sensitive there, s-shit.”

he doesn’t tell you to stop—instead, he grips your hair not so tightly but firmly. you look up at him, speaking in a tiny yet sheepish tone. “can— can i?”

“can ya what?” he grits, watching as sukuna continues to feed your cunt of his cock — you were just about to burst, you felt it and your toes clench and curl all up. so cute.

with a thumb still sliding against his pecs tenderly, you murmur. dilated pupils flicker towards his chest, then back up at him. “. . can,” you huff out in short breaths, tummy seizing, breathing hot and heavy. “can i suck on them?”

“no you can’t fuckin’ suck on them. what kinda question is tha—”

“toji, don’t be fuckin’ mean. you claim she’s your girl so let her suck your tits, big guy.” sukuna chimes in, releasing his soft grip against your neck. you gasp, leaning way back against him now. he was so warm pent up against you—you whimper out, sukuna leans against your ear and he starts to talk you through your incoming orgasm. “right? wanna make toji a little whiny bitch?”

“shut the fuck up,” he rasps, and his pecs literally stare at you—so beefy, you could have sworn they twitched. he groans, watching you give him such eyes before he inches closer towards you, bending down. “…….fine. whatever.”

still grinding against sukuna’s lap, you hold toji’s pecs before latching your tongue against it. his face scrunches up and it’s so cute, for whatever reason, the way your tongue curls against his perky nipples feels … good. awkwardly, he pulls your head closer towards his chest, eyeing closely as you briefly start to suck. as usual, you were so sloppy too—moaning up against his sensitive skin, rolling your tongue all against his nipple.

“nasty little g—girl,” he chokes out.

you glance up at him, parting your lips away before he makes you go back to tending to his tense nipples. “i didn’t tell you to stop. use y’er fuckin’ tongue some more. and stare at me while you do that . . . weird shit.”

toji’s voice significantly pitches and you’re so into it that you don’t even realize that before you know it, you end up squirting. everything comes at once, you’re pulsing with sukuna’s cock still twitching vigorously inside you and you whimper, mouth still sucking onto toji’s tits nipples. low laughter could be heard from behind you, and it’s all so much. your pussy was equivalent to a waterpark, gushing out all into sukuna’s lap. “fuckkk, princess,” he chortles, slowing down your hips and he ends up finishing a few seconds after you.

when he came inside, it came out quite a lot too. a hefty amount, it came out in ropes to where he paints the entirety of your womb. so warm from the inside, your tummy briefly caves in and your legs felt like mush.

“heh, did you just squirt?” sukuna points out, cock still twitching inside but he just lies still. you’re stretched out literally on the mat, seeing pure stars— the lights of the arena merely blinding you before you lie back against him. “a squirter and you’re tapping out already? aw boo. ‘n here i thought you could handle a few more rounds in the ring, princess.”

“i— i can,” you protest, parting your lips away from toji’s sheeny pecs. your lips were spit-glossed, he stared at you before squatting down to stare at the mess right between your legs. so messy, sukuna lifts you off of him and it just pours right down between your thighs. “i can go for more.”

toji hums, taking a quick three-second glance at his watch. “five fuckin’ minutes, ‘s all you’ll get with . . me,” and it’s cute because a mere pink forms on his face.

he’s still embarrassed from you sucking on his nipples that he tries to act all tough—but that only makes his tone quaver even more. “match’s gonna start soon. sukuna, let’s take her both.”

he snickers, pulling your shirt that was tucked underneath your blazer all the way up.

“both?” and sukuna lifts you to sit on top of toji, straddling him. you were being preparing to be overly stuffed with not one but two cocks. you fall face forward into toji’s broad chest, the coldness of his chain that wraps around his neck brushes against your skin before he helps you align yourself.

you moan, feeling sukuna get behind too—you gulp, toji’s fondling your breasts that almost poke out through your unbuttoned shirt whilst sukuna was behind. you’d be taking them both— one in each hole. “can you handle us both at the same time, pretty girl? toji’s known for his record of lasting a good ah . . . two solid rounds.”

toji glares, feeling himself start to open you up again. with his plump crownhead of his cock, he splits you open, and he is a tad thicker than sukuna—you moan, wrapping flimsy arms around him before sukuna enters from behind with toji focusing on the front. “shut up. you say that ‘n act like i won’t k.o. you right now.”

“oh yeah?” sukuna cavils, and you gasp, landing on the cold canvas with an 'oof' once the boxer lightly places you down. you pout—glancing up at the two of them who were having a face off at a time like this. sukuna already pulled out and they stared each other down before toji slyly smiles. “is that a fact?” and for a brief moment, he leers down at toji’s sheeny lips— the dark-haired boxer slides his tongue against his scar before humming.

“don’t play, you know it is,” he replies, giving you one ogle before turning back towards his rival. “y’know, ‘kuna. you sure talk a lot of shit but you couldn’t even pin me down if you tried.”

sukuna rasps lowly, inching closer before they were inches apart—you thought they were gonna kiss at this rate. oh, something like this would be such a good inspiration for the headlines.

“if you wanted my attention, should have said so,” sukuna sneers, rubbing his hand that was carefully wrapped up in a white bandage against his slim torso. “besides, i think we all know who can last more rounds.”

“did you two just forget about me—?” you furrow your eyebrows, literally still soaked and laid against the corner of the ring. they shoot you a glance before turning back towards each other.

toji scoffs back at sukuna, ignoring you. “prove it then. pin me the fuck down, hot shot.”

“bend the fuck over then, big guy. we’ll show the pretty journalist who’s gonna win this night’s match. round fuckin’ one.”

13K notes · View notes

lokissweater · 4 days ago

Text

beetlejuice!

{beetlejuice!satoru gojo x f!reader}

— “ may you never forget me ” ♪ ༘⋆

summary: living as a psychic medium was like a ticket straight to nothing in your life, you always accidentally creeping people out and scaring them when you talked about it, and you just feeling empty— like something was missing and vacant in your life with no explanation as to why. but upon stumbling through an attic inside a house of a recently deceased couple, you meet him— beetlejuice, a silly and wacky man who was damned to live in the attic for eternity due to him breaking the rules, you never having met a spirit so forward and flirtatious in your life as you quickly bonded. but when beetlejuice presents the idea of you being able to break his contract and finally set him free, you hesitate at the one condition… marrying him.

warnings: MDNI afab!reader, DIABOLICAL angst my god, angst w/ comfort though YIPPEEE, mentions of death, mentions of murder, reader is a psychic medium, fluuufff, SMUUUTTT, p in v sex, DOM AFF SATORU MEOOWWW, unprotected sex (wrap it y’all), creampie, oral, blowie, mentions of ghosts and spirits and things, loosely inspired by the 80s movie, mentions of reader having ‘pink cheeks’ is only to amplify and over-exaggerate feelings of embarrassment, shyness, and everything in between, and not to be taken literally! this is a work of fiction, and you can imagine many things for yourself :)

word count: 19.8k

authors note: YEEEEEOOOOWWWW GET READY YALL….. SHES FREAKY… SHES ANGSTY… AND SHES THE MOMEEEENNTTTT omg i absolutely LOOOVEDDD writing this one so much and i hope you guys find it interesting or i’m gonna CRYYYY HEHEHEH no i’m jk but as always, i love you SO SO SO much and thank you for all of your love and support !! MWAAAHHH <333

you’ve always had a knack for the paranormal.

and from the newspaper clippings you saw and the meddlesome whisperings of your fellow neighbors, newlyweds adam and barbara maitland died on their way home from a day out in the town— swerving in their vehicle while crossing over a bridge and crashing through the side of it, evidently sending themselves tumbling down to the river below and drowning.

it was the biggest tragedy your tiny town had ever been hit with, the maitland’s having renovated their house on the hill from scratch and had recently just finished it when the accident happened, the both of them in the midst of planning their honeymoon to get away from winter river for a little while, happy and in love and looking forward to a quiet serene life together.

it was a shame, really, and it only took two weeks for rumors to spread about how there were always weird moving shadows from the windows of their two story home, or slight flashings of neon blue or white seeping through the cracks of their front door— all of which pissed the realtors off seeing as the rumors prevented the house from being sold again, prospected buyers coming in with high hopes only to be scared off once they so even explored the town, a store clerk or a fellow neighbor quick to tell them of the gossip and to stay away, ultimately causing the house to collect dust and cobwebs until realtors decided they wouldn’t bother much with it anymore.

and the rumors always peaked your interest, as your entire life you’ve always had a passion for the supernatural seeing as your late parents were psychic mediums for the otherworldly, a beautiful ominous gift that was relayed to you from the moment you were able to correctly comprehend sentences, your mind and soul more welcoming to spirits of the unknown compared to regular folk who flat out refused.

and why? you didn’t know. they were just mystic entities that perhaps couldn’t find their way to the other side like they were intended, and if the rumors were true, the maitland’s were in the same predicament, and you felt like they just needed time and space without the pestering of realtors or dumb kids knocking on the windows to see if a ghost would pop out— deserving of a proper chance to figure it out.

except your boyfriend wouldn’t understand that either.

“babe c’mon!” he pleaded with you, a distressed look on his face. “i thought you liked creepy ghost shit?”

you scoffed. “yes rin but not to fucking break in and steal their things! what the hell’s the matter with you?!”

rin groaned and rubbed his eyes, his friends obviously annoyed and bothered by your defiance and it only made you feel awkward, sitting there on your desk chair in your college dorm and guiltily picking at your black nail polish.

“y/n we literally cannot go if you don’t go.” he pushed. “we need your ghost brain to tell us if they’re around so we can scram if they decide to kill us.”

you snorted, already aggravated by rin’s lack of respect and wholeheartedly believing dumb stereotypes.

“you’re committing a crime—”

“the house is abandoned! no one gives a shit!” he threw his arms up. “babe c’mon i’m serious it’s getting late and we’re losing time.”

why wasn’t he listening?

“what are you looking for anyways?” you mumbled.

“money.” he replied, grabbing his black bag and swinging it over his shoulder. “that’s literally it i won’t take anything else.”

“do you swear?” you peered up at him. “don’t take jewelry or any of their things just money and we get out.”

“yeah we won’t! right guys?”

rin looked over both of his shoulders to ensure that his friends agreed, them muttering and sighing as you gnawed at the inside of your cheek and feeling embarrassed for some reason, slowly standing and crossing your arms.

you never liked his friends.

“and leave me out of it okay?” you spoke. “we could get kicked out of college for this i don’t know how you’re not worried…”

he swung a heavy arm around your shoulders and nudged you on, you stumbling a bit as he basically had a lock around your neck on your way outside.

“they’re not gonna care y/n.” he dismissed, unlocking the car and his friends piling in the back while you settled in the passenger seat. “nobody will. it’s abandoned.”

the entire way there you were aggravated and guilty, rin and his friends babbling on about the valuable things they’d hope to find and the kind of ghosts they thought would appear, not a single person in the car an actual believer of those paranormal rumors as they poked fun and teased, your forehead against the glass of the window and miserable as rin drove up the steep hill— the night chilly and so dark that you could barely make out the shape of the house until you were just about to pull up to the driveway.

rin turned off his headlights and tuned down the radio to avoid drawing attention, steering wheel shifting a little to the right so the car could gradually round over and stop next to the front steps of the porch— rin shutting off the ignition once he parked and stuffing his keys into his pocket.

and you could immediately feel a presence even from outside the house, your arms stiff and tingly as you all quietly got out of the car and made your way to the stairs, dry dirt crinkling beneath your shoes as you tried to swallow back your nerves knowing that at any moment you could all be fucking arrested.

“are you sensing ghosts?” rin whispered, a sly teasing grin on his face as the floorboards of the porch creaked with your movements, his hand reaching and jiggling the doorknob.

“yeah.”

his eyes snapped over to you. “…really? yeah right.”

“no i’m serious.” you whispered back. “what did you bring me for if you’re not even gonna believe when i tell you—”

“okay! okay i’m sorry.” he apologized, though it didn’t seem genuine as he patted your back. “i believe you trust me.”

“wait— she said there’s ghosts?” one of his friends piped up. “how do you know?”

you went to answer but rin beat you to it.

“she’s a psychic… i guess.” he unzipped his bag and pulled out a mini tool kit, a mix of screwdrivers and bobby pins inside. “she can sense them.”

“oh my god…” another one mumbled, all of his friends eerie now. “rin— i thought you said those rumors were bullshit.”

your eyes narrowed. “you said that?”

“no!— i mean, technically yes but—” he took two bobby pins from the kit and put the rest of the box away, hunching down to lock pick the knob. “you guys really think any of that is real? it’s just the neighbors man they’re bored—”

“people here don’t just make up rumors like that rin.” you cut him off. “the majority of winter river is elderly and in retirement why the fuck would they be making up—”

“because they’re old and bored—”

the lock released a prominent click and rin tested the doorknob again, this time it turning all the way and opening as he pushed it wide, you all proceeding cautiously and it somehow being colder inside than it was outside as the group shined their flashlights around every corner and space, not bothering to tell your boyfriend that the presence you felt earlier was ten times stronger now, for rin never really believed you or just thought you were being funny whenever you mentioned things like that to him.

you had known rin since the start of college, him always the rebel dickish type as he didn’t follow directions or liked whenever people tried to tell him what to do, and how you ended up crossing paths with him and it sticking was something that was a mystery to you.

rin was everything you wanted at first.

and though he was a bit selfish, you foolishly looked past the fact and let him meddle his way into your already monotonous life, it being hard for you to make friends in the first place because of your psychic abilities— always feeling like something was missing and… vacant for years growing up without any explanation as to exactly why, figuring it was just the side effects of your parents’ passing.

but it still didn’t help when you’d accidentally partake in scaring off and weirding people out when you mentioned that you just saw their deceased relative wander by, rin being one of the first to actually stay because he didn’t believe you, choosing to turn a blind eye to something you treasured about yourself the most, stuck and left to wonder if there was ever someone who did.

but turning a blind eye to just your psychic ability became him turning a blind eye to everything about you, and you felt like he never really listened to what you had to say or cared, often switching the topic back to himself or giving you a series of ‘mhm’s’ and ‘yeah’s’ to get you to move on.

you didn’t feel seen anymore, but you loved him still for some reason.

“where do we even look?” one of his friends whispered, the lot of you traveling as a group through the entry room and down the hall to the kitchen.

“wherever you think a money bank would be.” rin mumbled, leading you all and going round to the living room, his flashlight shining over dusty furniture and spiderwebs. “i think it’d be better if we split up. half of us can take upstairs and the others can look through the kitchen, y/n and i are gonna dig through here for a bit—”

“what?” you spoke, his friends nodding and walking off to their designated areas. “rin no i told you i’m not—”

“oh my god babe— would it really hurt you to just peek in some freaking drawers? let me know if something looks like it has money in it alright?”

he stepped over to the middle and crouched by the coffee table, opening and closing several compartments. “be useful please.”

you scoffed. “you’re the one who dragged me here and i told you i wasn’t getting involved.”

“you’re not.” he mumbled, standing back up and going over to a big brown dresser on the side. “just look at shit and don’t touch anything. tell me if you see money.”

you rubbed your cheek in exhausted frustration, thinking it’d be better to just mindlessly look around to appease him as you caught and stared at the photographs over by the fireplace— a wedding portrait of whom you assumed to be adam and barbara maitland propped up amongst others of family and friends, your fingers raising to gently wipe away the dirt and grime from the glass to get a clearer look of them.

you felt awful that their lives were taken from them just when they had built such a loving foundation for it, and you felt even more awful that rin and his stupid friends were invading their space and stealing in the way that they were with no sense of respect.

a sudden loud thud from upstairs made you and rin stop in your tracks, the both of you unmoving as you tried to listen.

“i’m gonna—” you gnawed at your bottom lip. “i’m gonna check upstairs—”

“no absolutely not.” rin shook his head. “it’s probably just my friends it’s fine.”

“if it’s the maitland’s your friends aren’t gonna know what to do besides shit themselves—”

“okay yeah sure.” he laughed, opening and closing different drawers from top to bottom. “it’s the house babe it’s old and worn out. maybe the— wood or whatever is acting up.”

you pursed your lips, arms crossing and apprehensive as you stood next to him, knowing with everything in you that the maitland’s were definitely still present.

“can we please just go rin...” you asked softly. “please we’ll— we’ll find a different building that’s actually abandoned and doesn’t have the maitland’s still here—”

he scoffed. “y/n this one is abandoned.“

“but it’s only been three months!” you exclaimed. “i don’t wanna do this to them—”

“—oh sweet! there’s a rolex in here—”

“no!” you snatched the watch from his upheld hand and backed away towards the fireplace. “you swore to me just money these are their things—”

“y/n they’re dead! who fucking cares? all of their shit’s gonna be donated might as well pawn it.”

“yeah for your own benefit right?” you mumbled, pushing past him and walking down the hall. “i’m going home.”

he looked at you baffled. “are you serious? over a dumb watch?”

“rin you’ve gone back on everything you promised and you’re not taking me seriously—”

“did i take the watch? no i didn’t so stop—”

“i’m not talking about just the watch!”

“you know what?! fine!” rin shoved a hand in his pocket and pulled out his keys, chucking them at you and hitting against your chest as you scrambled to catch them. “go wait in the car.”

you threw them back and they hit his upper arm, his eyes narrowing at you in return as he then bent down to grab them from the floor.

“i’m not waiting in the damn car i’m walking home.”

“you’re walking?” he shook his head. “back to your dorm? that’s gonna take you like an hour y/n.”

you shrugged.

“fine go i don’t give a shit.” rin muttered and rolled his eyes. “you always do this man—”

you didn’t bother to stick around for anything else he had to say as you trudged on down the hall and back to the main entryway, tears brimming your eyes at the lack of care he had for you and scolding yourself for the thousandth time for staying with him, trying to understand why he was like this with you when all you’ve ever done was be patient and give him the benefit of the doubt when he didn’t fucking deserve it.

it was hard for you to tell if he even loved you anymore, and you always psyched yourself out that he did whenever he’d barely just accomplish doing the bare minimum.

upon arriving at the front door, you placed the rolex gently on a lonesome night stand by the coat hanger, your hand reaching and turning the knob to step outside until another loud thud shook through the walls, and louder this time as you pulled back and craned your head to look up the stairs.

muffled voices seeped from the top as they gasped and whispered to each other to shush, you recognizing some to be rin’s friends with irritation and worry simmering in your brain, wondering if they were messing with the maitland’s things and stealing what they weren’t supposed to steal, as they were just as uncaring and selfish as rin was throughout the time that you’ve gotten to know them.

and with that in mind, you let go of the doorknob and quietly walked up the stairs, every creak and groan from the wooden slabs underneath your feet making you wince as you went further and further until you reached the top, you sighing as you saw that the maitland’s room door was wide fucking open and with snickering inside.

but with each step that you took to get closer… the more prominent the goosebumps on your arms became and the heavier the feeling in your gut grew, a strange apparent flickering light from your right blinding your vision for a moment as you stopped and turned to look.

your eyes slightly widened, a neon lime green foggy light practically oozing from the attic staircase as it streamed over half of your frame, luring you in with your body mindlessly and curiously walking towards it and up the rugged squeaky stairs, fingers quickly reaching up to swing the attic door open and halting in alarm once you did, the green aluminous light from earlier completely encasing you entirely now as you stepped forward inside the attic.

the door swung and slammed itself shut suddenly, you jumping and spinning around with hurried hands coming up to pull and tug at the knob, breathing irregular upon realizing that it wouldn’t fucking budge and was somehow jammed with no explanation as to exactly how—

“boyfriend troubles?”

“oh my god!” you screamed, hand flying over your heart as your eyes snapped to the source, a tall lanky man standing there with a little grin and vibrant pale blue eyes that only utterly confused you, his vertically stripped black and white suit peculiar and unique as your frantic eyes darted over his figure.

you knew for a fact that the strange man before you wasn’t adam maitland, for the way he looked now didn’t match the pictures you saw in the newspapers at all, you swallowing thickly and slowly backing up against the attic door with your heart dropping straight down to your ass.

who the fuck was he? was he— was he a spirit? because if not there’s a random man literally just basking and relaxing inside the—

“relax! relax jeez you look like you’re about to vomit sweets.”

sweets?

“are you dead?!” you blurted, hand scrambling behind you for the doorknob. “are you— are you alive how are you—”

he laughed loudly and wiggled his little index finger— scrunching it up and down to elicit a ‘yes’ and finding your skittishness a little funny.

“yup! so dead very dead.”

“o— oh… okay...” you spoke softly, tense shoulders gradually relaxing as you gave him a small timid smile, relieved that he wasn’t a freaking squatter and doing god knows what up in the attic.

“you seem happier to see a dead man rather than a live one...” he looked at you amusedly. “you like ghosts? scary stuff? haunted houses? handsome me?—”

you nearly choked on your spit at his last comment, an awkward smile wobbling across your face as you played with your fingers.

“i— i um..” you looked around, your eyes catching a book titled ‘handbook for the recently deceased’ sitting neatly on a dusty table by the door. “you could say that.. but—”

you hesitated, the man’s head tilting to the side as he waited for you to continue.

“but what pretty?”

you blushed furiously, never having met a spirit so forward before.

“sorry but— how did you end up here?” you stood on your tippy toes to peer over his shoulders and around the attic. “and where are the maitlands?”

“oh, those lousy goodie two shoed meanies?” he mumbled, pouting and bitter as he crossed his arms. “beats me..”

you laughed a little, guard slowly coming down as he didn’t seem or feel like a bad person to you, and you thought that perhaps he was in the same boat as the maitlands and was just trying to find his way to the other side.

“why are they meanies?” you smiled, and he reciprocated, arms falling to his sides.

“well— i’m kind of being held in the attic against my will by the— holy shit wait!”

he threw his hands out in front of him and took quick stride full steps towards you, a wild excited expression on his face and you stiffening up again, backing up against the door.

“you can help me!”

“help… you..?” you squeaked.

he vigorously nodded. “yeah! the butthead caseworkers down in the netherworld banned me from leaving the attic… but you can give me a little leg room in my contract sweets!”

netherworld— caseworkers— banned—

“huh?!” you exclaimed, brows furrowed and utterly confused at everything he was fucking saying.

you’ve only ever seen spirits from afar or casually talked to them about something fleeting before they went on their marry way, but never in your life have you met such a complex soul that was so animate and asking you for a favor straight off the bat… as spirits usually just— knew what they were doing and eventually figured out how to get to the great beyond.

so the subject of caseworkers and the netherworld and whatever the fuck else he was rambling on about was something you were not familiar with.

“i did something they didn’t like.” he gave you a boyish half smile. “so they did some ritual thing and now i can’t leave the attic.”

you frowned. “why would they do that? what did you do?”

he waved you off and swung an arm around your shoulders, pulling you forward with him towards a huge 3D model in the center of the room that you barely just noticed— intricate and detailed and colorful as your brain put two and two together and figured out that it was a model of the entire city of winter river.

“don’t worry about it! but i overheard juno telling her assistants not to say my name three times or else i’ll be let out to roam around the house—”

juno? who’s juno?

“—and that’s why i really need you sweets because i’m dying in this fucking attic… way more than i already am.”

you blinked at him. “i’ve never— i’ve seen spirits all my life and i’ve never had any of them tell me about caseworkers? and juno? who’s juno?”

“the rule is that the land of the living isn’t supposed to know.” he pursed his lips and dropped his arm from your shoulders, picking up the book that you had spotted earlier and passing it to you. “says it in the handbook.”

you timidly took it from him and flittered through the pages, old and crinkly and a little worn out as the gist of the pages you saw was a guide for those beginning their post-livelihood and the steps they needed to do so— from waiting rooms in the netherworld to being assigned a caseworker to help you out to the great beyond and so forth, your eyes falling on a particular page and catching specific line.

‘live people ignore the strange and unusual.’

they do. wrongfully they do.

and since people had been ignoring you out of fear your whole life… did that mean you were strange and unusual too?

“what?” the unknown man spoke, softly as his blue gaze switched between your solemn expression and the book, shifting his position to stand right next to you and see what you were looking at.

“oh sorry!” you laughed it off, closing the book and placing it down. “nothing i was just—”

“‘live people ignore the strange and unusual?’” he repeated. “what about it?”

you shook your head and sent him a small smile. “nothing! i was just looking—”

“just because you can see spirits doesn’t mean you’re strange or unusual.”

you stilled, eyes big as you watched the way he froze up over what he said, sheepishly relaxing after a moment and lifting an arm to pat over your head.

“sorry pretty. i can read and manipulate minds and i poked in yours...” he looked at you apologetically. “it’s another reason why they threw me in this shit hole.”

he dropped his hand then, a sincere glint in his eyes. “but i mean it.”

“i don’t know…” you mumbled, looking down and playing with the hem of your skirt. “i’ve never really had friends because of it… and i feel like that book kind of confirmed what i’ve been thinking.”

you quickly picked your head up. “oh but— it’s okay! i’m okay i’m used to it spirits are nicer anyways and i’ve always been alone so—”

“that’s not true.” he mumbled.

your brows furrowed. “what do you mean?”

he funnily froze up again. “what do i mean what?”

“what’s not true?”

“oh! that— that spirits are nicer!” he quickly sputtered. “they’re assholes. all of them. every single one. including me!”

you giggled at his franticness and a smile spread across his face at that, endearing as he watched you slowly cheer up.

“people’s ignorance doesn’t define who you are sweets.” he spoke gently. “so don’t give them that right. you look perfectly fine to me!”

your eyes softened, wondering what the hell this man did that made the caseworkers down in the netherworld ritual him into a contract, as you were convinced it wasn’t even that bad at all and just straight up unfair, him being one of the kindest and silliest souls you’ve probably ever had the privilege to come across.

“i’ll help you.”

his eyes snapped to yours. “huh?”

“i’ll help you!” you spoke sweetly. “i’ll say your name three times so you can leave the attic.”

“wha— really?!” he exclaimed excitedly, hands animatedly flying everywhere as they went from digging into his white locks to all over his suit and then thrown out to grip over your shoulders, shaking you as you giggled again. “holy shit will you actually?!”

“yeah! why not?” you grinned. “i don’t think it’s right that you’re stuck up here all alone.”

“angel! angel! you’re an angel!” he wrapped his arms around your shoulders and stuffed your face into his chest, squishing you so fucking tight and honestly holding you way longer than he should’ve, but you not minding one tiny bit as you hugged him back and smoothed a comforting friendly hand over his broad shoulders.

“what’s your name then?” you muffled against his suit. “so i can—”

“ahhh fuck.” he muttered. “i forgot about one thing.”

you pulled back a little. “hm?”

“i can’t tell you my name.”

“what?” you looked at him confusedly. “what do you mean? why not?”

“it’s part of the stupid contract sweets...” he sighed heavily. “but i can give you clues! ooo!— like charades! ready?”

“oh! o—okay!” you nodded, him finally letting you go and stepping back.

“don’t freak out.” he grinned in a silly way. “i’m about to make things show up.”

your eyebrows furrowed. “make things show up?”

he waved his hand and a life sized fucking black bug appeared out of nowhere, landing on one of the old wooden rocking chairs in the corner of the room as it wiggled its little legs and peered around, you screaming and flying behind the strange blue eyed man while he laughed loudly and looked over his shoulders for you.

“it’s okay! just a figment of your imagination is all.” he cheesed. “but guess now!”

“guess what?!” you shrieked.

“what that is!” he pointed to the bug.

you peeked an eye out from his side, the bug still gross and horrifying as it wiggled it’s antennas.

“a bug!”

“what kind?”

“a beetle!”

“yes!” he nodded vigorously. “okay that’s the first part!”

“your name starts with beetle?!—”

he waved his hand again and the bug disappeared, a carton of orange juice replacing it instead and floating in mid air, a shiny glass cup next to it as you amazedly watched it pour its bright orange contents into the cup without spilling a single drop.

“…orange juice?” you spoke softly, timidly coming around from behind him. “your names beetle orange juice?”

“not quite!” he made a drinking motion with his hand.

“beetle drinking orange juice?”

he laughed. “no! you’re adding too many words pretty take some out.”

“beetle drinking juice?”

“nope.”

“beetle drinking orange?”

“colder.”

“beetlejuice?—”

“yes!” he threw his hands out, eyes wild and excited. “yes that! and you’ve already said it once now just two more times—”

“beetlejuice.”

“uh huh uh huh—”

“beetle— mmph!”

a pair of hands clasped over your mouth from behind you and pulled you back, you letting out a muffled scream as you thrashed and quickly pried their fingers away, you spinning around and fully expecting to see rin behind you with a shit eating grin and laughing in your face for scaring you.

except it wasn’t rin.

it was the maitlands.

“don’t say his name honey.” barbara spoke first. “trust me… don’t.”

“i mean— are we sure about this sweetheart?” adam looked at his wife. “maybe he isn’t all that bad… hell we don’t even know for sure—”

barbara shook her head. “adam, did you not hear a word juno said? he was about to take advantage of that poor girl!”

take advantage?

you heard a scoff behind you and you turned around, a disgruntled and pissed off look on beetlejuice’s face as he crossed his arms.

“jeez i know you don’t like me but that’s low.” he mumbled. “i wouldn’t do something like that.”

your head turned back to barbara. “you know who juno is?”

she nodded. “juno’s our caseworker… we got assigned to her in the netherworld after we died.”

“took us three months waiting in the waiting room until she finally got to us.” adam added, chuckling in humorous disbelief. “but all she really did was nag at us and warn us about him.”

adam pointed behind you and you turned around again, beetlejuice bitterly looking to the side with his lips pursed.

oh god.

had he been feeding you nonsense this entire time?

“warn about what.” you mumbled, and beetlejuice snapped his head in your direction with anxious eyes.

“juno calls him a bio-exorcist.” barbara informed you. “he tried to illegally cross over to the land of the living and bring himself back to life.”

your eyes bulged open. “back to life? how?”

“you switch souls with someone else through a ritual.” adam piped in. “juno says he attempted to trick and switch souls with somebody that was alive so he could terminate all who were living… and they didn’t even know about it.”

“that’s not true!” beetlejuice countered, utterly exasperated. “the old hag made that up!”

he quickly walked towards you, taking your hands in his and looking at you pleadingly.

“please sweets you’ve gotta believe me i never wanted to kill anybody—”

you ripped your hands away and glared. “so this entire time you’ve been lying, playing some hopeless victim so you can poke into my head and find out shit about me to use to your advantage?—”

“no! no i— i haven’t been lying about anything it’s juno!”

“juno.” you repeated coldly. “and what’s she lying about exactly.”

“about killing the living!” he threw his hands out in emphasis. “she literally pulled that out of her ass when her and her minions banned me—”

“and what about tricking that person to switch souls with you so you can come back?”

he faltered, words completely failing him and guilty eyes looking into yours so deeply that it nearly made you feel bad for yelling at him.

“that’s… that’s true.”

you let out a breath of disbelief and barbara put a hand on your shoulder, squeezing it gently and comfortingly as she looked at you with caring eyes.

“we don’t know what to believe either honey.” she began. “it’s a lot of he said she said… but it’s better to be safe. he tried to get us to say his name three times too in exchange for his help.”

you quirked a brow. “help? what do you guys need help with?”

“your buddies downstairs.” adam sighed. “they’re stealing our things and just messing up the house… but we’ve been watching you and we know you’ve been trying to get them out and so have we… horrendously though.”

“oh my god—” you slapped a hand over your gaping mouth. “i totally forgot about them! i’m so so sorry oh my god i can’t even begin to explain to you how embarrassing this is i’ve been telling them to stop—”

barbara laughed and waved you off. “it’s alright! we know sweetheart. but we’re not frightening enough to scare them off whatsoever… so that’s what we were trying to get his help for.”

“and i still can y’know…” he muttered. “even though you hate me.”

“i don’t hate you juno does.” she crossed her arms and leaned her weight on one side of her hip. “adam and i are lost we don’t know what’s going on and we can’t even read that thing for the recently deceased.”

“we’re just trying to get them out of the house son…” adam finished off.

and in that moment you felt like you were the one responsible for this. that if you had bitched about it harder, even screamed at rin to get him to stop or damn near called the fucking cops on them so that this wouldn’t be happening right now… the maitlands wouldn’t have to suffer and struggle like this every waking day to protect their home and what rightfully still belonged to them even after death.

because the maitland’s roaming around and producing shadows and figures and scaring the realtors and prospected buyers off wasn’t just for shits and giggles… but to try and keep what was once theirs and feel a sense of normalcy for the life they once had.

that was their great beyond. their home.

“i’ll get them to leave.” you smiled at barbara and adam. “i don’t care if i literally have to start fist fighting with his friends this is so unfair—”

“wait! are— are you sure sweets?” beetlejuice interjected worriedly. “your boyfriend’s kind of nuts and i can’t help you once you leave the attic—”

“i’m sure.” you mumbled, still bitter and annoyed at him. “can’t be anymore nuts than you basically trying to kill someone so you can prance around alive again—”

“i already apologized to the entire netherworld nation for that!” he argued. “but if you ask me, if it’s so bad then they shouldn’t have put the fucking instructions in the guidebook.”

“juno says guidebook reveals to you what you want most.” adam spoke. “because barb and i didn’t see a single page that had to do with that… mostly just tips on how to scare the living.”

beetlejuice closed his eyes exhaustedly and shook his head. “doesn’t matter. i’m not trying to trick anyone right now i just want to get out of this damn attic—”

he looked to you again. “—please say my name three times pretty i’ve poked in your boyfriends head and he’s looney i don’t want you to—”

“i’ll see you guys in a sec!” you walked over to the door and left a sputtering frustrated beetlejuice behind. “if nothing works i’ll literally just take my boyfriends keys and drive the car down the hill, he freaks over that thing—”

your voice trailed off as you walked down the creaky stairs of the attic and down the hall of the second floor, the maitlands main bedroom coming into view as you tried to get a script together in your head as to what exactly you were gonna tell rin… but your footsteps quickening at the sound of loud yelling and laughing coming from inside the bedroom, sounds of glass shattering and moving furniture making you panic as you practically stumbled in from the doorway.

and your heart stopped, rin standing there with a crow bar in his hands that he got from who the fuck knows where, smashing multiple vases and porcelain jewelry cases and stuffing his pockets full of anything that looked shiny and valuable in his eyes, the mattress and blankets thrown over to the side and the mainland’s things just completely ransacked as you took it all in.

“rin!”

he jumped and spun around, brows pinching upon seeing you standing there.

“what are you doing here? i thought you left?”

“what the fuck?!” you gestured to the broken shards on the floor and strewn about articles of clothing. “what the hell is wrong with you?!”

“calm down babe it’s fine.” he turned and smashed another small jewelry case, you scoffing in response. “it’s all useless shit that’s gonna dust over—”

“get out.”

he snorted. “uh huh—”

“i’m serious rin get out.” you spat. “all of you.”

“yeah like i’d listen to you.” he spoke harshly, eyes narrowed and sharp as he turned again. “go wait in the fucking car or go home—”

“i’m calling the cops.”

“what?!”

a series of protests and worrisome comments erupted in the air from the group, all thrown directly at a fuming rin as he chucked his crow bar to the side— it clattering on the wooden floor as he hastily trudged over to you and gripped your upper arm, yanking you with him and out of the room into the hallway by the stairs.

“what the fuck do you think you’re doing huh?” he spoke lowly and in your face. “embarrassing me in front of my friends like that?”

you shoved him off. “get out and find another building or i’m calling the cops rin.”

“yeah and if you do that i’m telling them you’re a shitty psychic medium so they can throw you in the shrink.”

your jaw dropped.

rin was being meaner than usual.

“why are you like this.” you mumbled. “i don’t even know why i’m still with you you’re an asshole and you’re pathetic—”

he got in your face again and grabbed your jaw, pressing you up against the railing of the staircase and damn near throwing you over as the edge of it dug into your lower back, your fingers gripping his arm and struggling to pull him away from you while his friends quietly gasped and silently watched in shock.

“pathetic? me?” he laughed humorously. “you’re the one who doesn’t have anything or anyone besides me and yet you still treat me like this you ungrateful bitch—”

“rin okay that’s enough dude let her go—”

“you wanna shut up? or do you wanna trade spots with her?” his fiery crazed eyes switched over to his friend, him only cowering under rin’s intense stare and shaking his head no, diverting his gaze and you still squirming and tugging for your freedom.

“get— off me—”

“or what?” he pushed you further back and your breath hitched, your feet off the ground now at this point as one of your hands shot out to grip the railing for support. “you gonna call your ghost friends for help? go ahead i wanna see you do it you lying—”

“beetlejuice beetlejuice beetlejuice!”

a thunderous roar broke out into the air, actual lightning and black smokey fog spreading over the ceiling and around you as rin instantly let you go and looked around, all of his friends in a pure state of fear and alarm as they lost sight of each other amongst the suffocating mist— including you as you frantically tried to look for a clear path out, unable to decide if you regretted what you had just done.

“never seen a man with such a power trip!” a booming voice echoed through the house that you quickly recognized to be beetlejuice’s, the walls vibrating with each word. “seems to me like it’s all bark and no bite!”

“what did you do y/n?!” you heard rin’s distant yelling from somewhere you couldn’t pinpoint, the air cold and prickling at your skin. “who did you call?!”

“a god!” beetlejuice excitedly answered. “achilles preferably! wait actually he’s a demigod not a—”

“who the fuck is achilles?!”

the air cleared in the center suddenly and revealed a petrified rin, wide eyed and angry as he whipped his head around to try and figure out what was going on.

“you don’t know who achilles is?” half of beetlejuice popped out of nowhere from above the fog and his friends screamed at the mere size of him, for he wasn’t the normal looking man you saw before but a borderline monster— huge and crazed as he looked down at rin in particular with a scary grin.

but his eyes were still a fascinating sparkling blue, oddly familiar in a way as you watched the scene before you through the black air, beetlejuice continuing.

“read a book your stupid is showing.”

he lunged while simultaneously popping his eyeballs out of their sockets with his tongue out, cartoonish and terrifying as his friends yelled for help and scrambled to try and leave, struggling though the smothering mist as you placed a hand over your mouth in shock.

beetlejuice sucked his eyeballs back in and blinked to adjust. “what? you guys scared too? shouldn’t have been so mean to my little sweets over there then!”

they all looked to you and you froze, rin’s gaze narrowing.

“his little sweets?” he clenched his jaw. “the hells he talking about?”

beetlejuice didn’t know why rin was so dumb for even attempting at getting near you again after everything he did and said— his footsteps quick and stompy towards you until he straight up smacked into an invisible wall and doubled back with a hand over his nose, your brows pinching in confusion.

you timidly reached a hand out, expecting your fingers to touch an invisible barrier except there wasn’t one at all as they fell through completely over nothing, your arm slowly retracting back to your chest.

you looked up at beetlejuice’s huge figure, and he gave you a bright cute smile that made your cheeks heat up.

“this is bullshit!” rin roared, wiping his bloody nose with the back of his hand and pointing at you after. “you’re a goddamn nutcase y/n! what kind of show are you putting on huh?!”

“me?!” you shot back. “maybe you should stop being a dick for once in your life and listen when i tell you things you idiot.”

“yup!” beetlejuice quipped. “doll if you’re still with him after all of this i’m gonna have to start haunting you in your dreams.”

your gaze switched to beetlejuice and you laughed, a little glint to his eye as he watched you shake your pretty head.

“i was gonna dump him the minute i got him out of the house—”

“what?!” rin barked. “dump me? for what?!”

you scoffed. “are you serious? what do you mean for what?”

“fuck— babe okay i’m sorry alright? i’m sorry i’m just a little overwhelmed right now—”

“you’re a sack of shit.” beetlejuice spat. “and call her babe again and i’ll start the engine of your car and ram it through a tree.”

you snickered and rin swiveled around to face him.

“why don’t you stay out of this freak and leave my girlfriend alone—”

“sweets i’ll make him go away if you marry me.”

you choked, flustered and stiff as you looked at him, bewildered out of your mind.

“huh?!”

“pretty pleeaaseee.” he dragged. “you saying my name got me out of the attic but not the house itself… but if you marry me i’m a free man!”

“how does that—” you let out a shocked breath. “how does that even make sense—”

“marry me.”

“but i!—”

“marry me that’s my condition.”

“hold on!—”

rin dove at you with the full intention to grab you and pull you away, but eyes widening in terror as an invisible force practically grabbed his ankle and sweeped him back and away from you, dragging his body across the wooden floor and over to beetlejuice, his friends having enough of all of this and making a run for it down the stairs.

“oh! i almost forgot about you guys!”

beetlejuice nudged his head and they were sent flying back just like rin, all of them screaming and pleading for mercy as their bodies dragged across the floor and returned to him.

“which of you should i gobble up right now… i’m feeling the one on the far right! he’s trembling like a little leaf—”

“please no!” he cried. “i’ll— i’ll do anything! i’ll leave i’ll never—”

“—and i’ll save rin for the very end… best for last right?!”

they all wailed and clawed at the foggy air, your body unmoving as you tried to figure out if beetlejuice was actually being serious.

“please man!—”

“i’m sorry i’m so sorry!—”

“don’t apologize to me you doofuses.” another invisible force grabbed them all by the ankles and pulled them up, dangling them upside down. “apologize to her. then maybe i’ll spare you… how’s that sound?!”

“y/n! please! i’m sorry—”

“we’re sorry dear god!—”

“y/n!—”

“put— put them down!” you wavered. “that’s enough it’s okay! jesus..”

“awww already?!” beetlejuice pouted. “but i haven’t even started swinging them around yet… like a little ferris wheel! heh.”

you slapped a hand over your mouth to suppress a laugh once rin and his friends started wailing in fear again, you shaking your head and smiling at him.

“it’s okay! next time! just let them go i’m sure they’ll run—”

“y/n, it seems like you understand me… you’re the only one that hasn’t bitten my head off in the entire three years that i’ve been dead!”

you laughed again. “i’m glad! now put them down please—“

“so be my wife then.”

“beetlejuice!”

“what?!” he whined. “you don’t wanna be my lawful wedded wife?”

“no!— well— just—”

“is it because i’m dead?”

“put them down and i’ll consider it!”

“yes ma’am!”

the invisible force dropped them and they slammed against the hardwood floors, each and every single one of them fumbling to get their things that flew out of their pockets while upside down and scurrying away, hurried footsteps stomping down the staircase as they tripped over their feet to get to and out the front door, you observing in amusement and slight guilt, leaning over the edge of the staircase to watch them go.

and the second that they did, the stuffy black fog lifted and felt immensely lighter, it dispersing into the air above you as it thinned out to a mere silly mist, cold and wet to the touch and similar to the air you’d feel after a long days worth of rainfall and cloudy weather, slow strides coming up from behind you as you saw beetlejuice’s shiny raven leather dress shoes out of the corner of your eye, you standing upright and turning to him.

he smiled warmly at you.

“thank you.” you grinned, bashful as he reached and fixed up your hair— hands smoothing over your head and down before his fingers lightly grazed and played with the ends of your strands.

“you’re welcome.” he murmured. “thank you for getting me out of the attic sweets!”

you kindly nodded.

“sweetheart, are you alright?”

you looked back and saw the maitlands, barbara walking up with outstretched arms and pulling you in for a hug.

“that boy was insane!” she pulled back and held you out at an arms length by the shoulders. “we tried so hard to intervene while he was yelling at you but we’re useless… they couldn’t see us.”

you giggled. “no it’s okay! really you didn’t need to i wouldn’t ever wanna put you guys in that position.”

“honey— he almost pushed you off the railing…” adam spoke softly. “if you hadn’t called for beetlejuice lord knows what he would’ve done… he was so aggressive and we were worried…”

your heart warmed, never in your life having been so cared for and looked after— funnily enough that you were receiving that sacred feeling from beings that were dead rather than living and it reminding you a little bit of the way your parents were with you when you were young, when they were still alive.

“we’re sorry for being so hard on you kid…” barbara sighed, gaze shifting to beetlejuice. “mistakes happen. i’m sure your passing was something you weren’t expecting like us.”

“oh! no it’s okay don’t.” he smiled brightly. “i almost killed a man i understand.”

“but we understand too.” adam added, and you felt like he was also referring to something you had no clue about as he had a particular look in his eyes, something that was only amongst them three. “i would’ve considered the same.”

beetlejuice swung an arm around your shoulders and looked down at you.

“so are you my little wife?”

“okay—” barbara laughed. “not that you know this—”

“adam! barbara!”

a sudden shriek boomed through the house and beetlejuice instantly pulled you behind him, waving his hand and an invisible force sending you further away until your back gently bumped against the wall, panic rising in your chest as the same black fog from earlier returned and swirled around you, blocking your vision.

was he… was he hiding you? what for?

“juno!” beetlejuice greeted, laughing awkwardly. “heyy long time no see!”

oh.

“zip it bozo.”

from the cracks and openings that you could see through the whirling wind, a proper old lady in professional office attire stood there with her arms crossed, a pissed off look on her face as she tapped her heel against the floor and played with the pearls around her neck.

“what did i tell you two about letting him free?” she scolded. “he’s a loose cannon! he’s not to be trusted!”

“i know i know we’re sorry… we just really needed to get those kids out! and they’re gone! and beetlejuice seems alright!” barbara looked to her husband, a desperate flicker in her gaze. “right adam?”

“yes! uh uh!” adam stepped forward and sighed softly. “please juno… he’s just a kid. he’s learned and what he did was three years ago—”

“what he did could’ve cost me my job and set my entire office up in flames.” juno lectured, pointing her wrinkly finger at beetlejuice next. “you broke a million undead laws and have hundreds of violation codes on your record. your punishment was to stay in the attic for eternity.”

eternity?

oh god no.

“but now i’m gonna have to send you to live inside mr. maitland’s winter river model and you better stay there!”

“what?!” beetlejuice scoffed. “juno please there’s gotta be a way i can lift those violations?”

“i’m afraid there isn’t.” she seethed.

“pretty please?”

“no.”

“with a cherry on top?”

“absolutely not.”

“not even probation?—”

“not even probation! you’re gone!”

your eyes blew open as you watched juno extend an arm out and move it to the side, a bright white blinding light encasing her entire figure and you quickly pushed a hand through the black fog and grabbed the back of beetlejuice’s suit, everything around you scarily blurring out and disappearing and you squeezed your eyes shut, arms reaching out to wrap around his upper torso as you buried your face in his back.

you didn’t want him to go… not at all. and the thought of him stuck inside a model forever like that all alone terrified you.

you understood why he was punished in the first place, but why couldn’t juno just see that he was good? that all he was trying to do was come back to life and live? something many other souls would also kill for?

hadn’t he been punished enough already? he stood stuck in that attic for three god damn years straight with no means of escape whatsoever, and now he was shamefully being sent to live inside a styrofoam cardboard model that was far worse than that stupid attic, for now he couldn’t be seen by anyone even if he truly wanted to be.

had that not been enough? enough of a sign to reconsider his contract?

why couldn’t he just be given a second fucking chance—

“pretty?”

you opened your eyes, forehead quickly detaching from his back and looking up, his piercing blue eyes staring down at you worriedly from behind as he shifted his body a little in your hold to face you.

“what are you doing here i thought—” his surprised gaze shifted over to the way you were clutching onto him, and he relaxed, smiling a little.

“you grabbed me baby?”

“i—” you let him go and stepped back, your cheeks a vibrant pinky shade. “y—yeah…”

he turned around fully.

“why?”

“because—” you bit your bottom lip, peering cutely up at him.

“because i thought we were getting married…”

beetlejuice’s expression dropped and he stared at you wide eyed, his face reddening at your words.

“i don’t— i don’t understand—”

“what?” you giggled. “i thought you proposed to me earlier?”

“i did! yes i did!” he rapidly nodded. “but— but are you actually serious?”

you nodded. “mhm! i am!”

“you can say no sweets honestly it’s okay…”beetlejuice spoke softly with pinched brows. “i’ll cry myself to sleep and shrivel up but i can handle it don’t worry about me—”

you laughed and nudged his shoulder with yours. “i wanna marry you… i wanna set you free.”

you walked over to a little bench, the feeling of you stepping on rubber and glue a little weird under your feet as you sat down and smiled, gently patting the spot next to you.

“i’m not letting you stay here forever by yourself, not when you’ve been doing that already for years.” you murmured, him taking a seat next to you with a yearn-full but apprehensive face.

“you deserve to do the things you want to do and see the things you want to see…” you looked at him so sincerely and loving that he felt his undead heart throb. “… and if i can help you in anyway to get you there i don’t care what it is. i can’t think of anyone more deserving of freedom than you.”

“you’re so pure…” he softly took your hand, yours warm and pumping in comparison to his cold and stiff one. “you always have been.”

he stared at your hand still, his index finger delicately tracing over the faint markings of your working veins underneath your skin, trying to remember what they looked like on him when he was alive, and if they ever looked as precious as yours did.

beetlejuice raised your hand and kissed it, eliciting a fuzzy blush to your cheeks.

“i think we’re meant to be.”

you faltered slightly, for you felt a rush of deja vu hit you like a stifling wave.

“have we met?” you teasingly asked. “before you died?”

he laughed and shook his head.

you sat in comfortable silence for a moment, beetlejuice still tracing the lines and indentations of your hand before you spoke up again.

“i have a question.”

his content eyes switched to yours before they looked back down. “yes sweets?”

“is your name really beetlejuice?”

he weirdly stopped, and you quirked a brow.

“it’s…” he swallowed. “it’s not.”

“oh what the?” you paused, a little puzzled. “where did it come from?”

“juno.” he snickered. “the old hag said it fit how bizarre and stupid i was, so she put it in my contract.”

“oh my fucking god.” you mumbled. “why the hell would she do that? that’s cruel… you’ve already paid the price for what you did the least she could do is address you by your given name.”

beetlejuice laughed cutely, his eyes twinkling as he looked at you.

“that woman doesn’t care baby… so don’t sweat it.” he lifted a hand and ruffled your hair. “and if you ask me, she needs to retire immediately. like— yesterday. all she does is fucking nag at me and the rest of her damn clients.”

you giggled.

“so what’s your name then?”

“not important! now i say we figure out a way to get out of this rinky dink model—”

your eyes narrowed.

“why won’t you tell me your name?”

“—or maybe we should just stay and make ourselves at home!—”

“you won’t tell your soon to be wife your name?—”

“—oh! oh! i can manifest a little jacuzzi in the middle of the cemetery that’s neat—”

you slapped a hand over his mouth and he stopped, your pleading little eyes making him guiltily melt against your hold.

“your name.” you urged softly, lowering your hand and revealing a little frown that he had on his lips. “please.”

“i—” he blinked, utterly remorseful. “i can’t… i can’t tell you my name.”

your brows pinched. “why not? is part of your contract?”

“no— well yes.” he sighed deeply through his nose, and you wondered why he looked so… strained.

“it’s not their contract, but my contract… with you.”

you froze.

“with—” you struggled. “i don’t—”

he rubbed his tired sunken eyes.

“it’s okay sweets but that’s all you need to know—”

“no.” you replied firmly. “what i need to know is your name.”

he dropped his arms and shook his head desperately. “y/n please i put that contract on you to protect you if— if i tell you my name you’ll be hurt and i don’t want that—”

“what do you mean?” you bitterly scooched away from him on the bench and he stubbornly moved closer, eliminating the distance you had created.

“i lied when you asked me if we had met.”

your heart dropped.

“because we have… and i— i wanted you to forget me so i took away your memories and if i tell you my name—”

he swallowed hard.

“… it’ll break the contract. and you’ll remember me again.”

you stared at him, his regretful tortured gaze so anguishing that it was almost unbearable to watch him endure it, wanting to mend it instead, something that already felt so right and easy to you and in no way shape or form unfamiliar.

slowly, you reached up and cupped his cold cheeks in your hands, bringing his forehead to rest against yours.

“but i want to remember you…” you murmured. “…please let me.”

his pupils worriedly shook as they darted all around your striking features, his name practically hanging off the edge of his tongue but his throat physically unable to get the words out, for his dead heart was pulling and fighting with his vocal chords to prevent him from doing so, everything within him wanting to save you from memories he had to live with even after death.

but the other part of him was filled with such intense longing for you that it effortlessly slipped between the cracks of his defensive wall of not telling you his name…the relentless feeling going straight to his heart and mind and strangling the fuck out of it to get a formidable yes instead.

he wanted the life he once had. more than anything.

“satoru.”

something snapped in your brain and you flinched back, memories flooding through your mind faster than the speed of light as you recollected each and every moment in your existence, for the sentiment of vacancy and like a specific thing was just missing in your life was finally put back in its rightful place— for the thing that was missing in particular was him.

satoru gojo.

there were images of meeting him when you were both itty bitty in middle school under a magnolia tree, him sporadic and silly and making you laugh so hard on the third day of school that strawberry milk blew out of your nose and all over his clothes, satoru not having a care in the world as he cackled along with you and thought the way you made liquid come out of your nose was cool.

and there were images of the both of you becoming the best of friends— never one without the other as you pulled pranks on your teachers and ended up in detention together almost everyday, your parents utterly done with you as you never seemed to get it through your head how to behave, the both of you brushing off your scoldings and lectures because you had each other to endure all of it with.

and you saw how much he cared about you.

how he would physically fight and yell and reprimand anyone who called you a freak, anyone who spread rumors about you and your psychic medium abilities as he constantly reminded you everyday that your gift was sacred… a treasure while he wiped your tear stained cheeks and cheered you up after another day of your classmates poking fun at you, him saying that your skills were the coolest and how much he wished he was just like you, how much you both were meant to be as he loved ghost stories and scary stuff.

you saw how you fell in love too.

and it didn’t take long either, as your stolen glances and teasing turned into much more as soon as you grew and went to high school together, the both of you making it official literally your freshman year despite the apprehensions from your parents on both sides because of how young you were.

but it never proved to be an issue, you and satoru not once stumbling over a hiccup since the two of you had built such a strong foundation of genuine friendship and care before you blessedly fell in love, satoru throughout your years together absolutely smitten over you as he always passed you silly notes during class that had a gazillion hearts scribbled all across with your name in the middle, telling you all of the time just how much he loved and cherished you to the point where you had to funnily push him away from you to get him to stop smothering you, you always giving in anyways due to the fact that you were just as smitten, physically unable to go a day without him, and him still physically unable to not iterate how you were meant to be.

satoru understood you, satoru listened to you, and satoru believed you whenever you would speak on your psychic gift and how you had spoken casually to a spirit just the other day, him always interested and unbelievably amazed at everything you had to say as he bombarded you with fifty questions and begged you to teach him how to see spirits too.

he was respectful and supportive of you through it all.

especially when your parents died.

satoru wouldn’t leave your side. he refused to as you tried to piece together what the fuck had just happened, their accident so sudden and weird that it never made sense to you and still didn’t to this day.

and you grieved of course, cried and weeped and clung to satoru like a moth to a flame, feeling alone and without your biggest support system— without your loving peculiar parents that gave you your priceless gift in the first place, him accepting your tears with open arms as he encouraged you to let it all out and was worried for you when it seemed like you had moved on rather quickly from it.

but it was simply because your parents weren’t afraid of the afterlife. it was because your parents had talked so much about it and taught you everything that they knew, that you were convinced their souls peacefully made it through to the great beyond straight away and together, for you never saw their spirits roaming around aimlessly after and feeling eternally grateful for that, your whole life being about acknowledging and embracing the mysteries of life after death.

the knowledge of knowing they were at peace was enough to get you by for a little while.

satoru continued to check in on you about it though... even when it was the end of your junior year and nearing a year since their passing, his parents kindly taking you in after the ordeal and making satoru sleep on the floor and you taking over his bed since they didn’t have an extra room, satoru doing it without even needing to be told and you thanking all of them any chance you got for their amicable kindness and tried to pay them back, satoru checking in on you every night with a series of timid ‘are you okay’s’ and ‘are you happy’s’ before going to bed, your arm dangling off the edge so you could intertwine your fingers while you slept.

you were never alone like you thought you were. ever.

because of satoru.

and he made it obvious that he wanted to marry you too, that he wanted to have you for the rest of his life and didn’t give a single shit if you were both only 18 and barely starting college, him deeming it pointless for the both of you to pretend like the hope of marriage wasn’t there just for the sake of shutting up his parents, as every time he brought it up you stammered and blushed and fidgeted and he only giggled at you, telling you it would happen soon, to be ready, and to sit pretty and patient until the right time came.

except it never did.

because satoru gojo died a year later following that on halloween, precisely on his way over to your dorm when he was snatched by an unknown man and murdered in the middle of the night, you stuck wondering what had happened to him and why he wasn’t answering the phone when he was hours late to come get you, your chest on fire and aching as the feeling in your gut was weirdly excruciating, a part of you completely torn away and lost and you had no idea why until the very next morning.

and he had to watch you mourn. properly this time and not at all like the way you did for your parents, as this time it was fucking worse, painfully and all alone and for no way for him to get to you and comfort you— to tell you it was okay to cry and that he loved you, to tell you to be happy, to be hopeful for the future and hopeful to the thought of spending the rest of your lives together and being meant to be.

but instead he had to watch you wail and scream in your pillow every night with no saving, clutching his clothes and things and picture frames, you making yourself sick as the grief was too much to bare— everything that your parents had said to you and taught you about the afterlife meaning absolutely jack shit as the workings of supposed fate took away the only thing that ever made you happy.

satoru’s dream was to live with you. and it was taken away from him so brutally that he went absolutely nuts in the netherworld.

because yes he violated every single fucking undead law in the book and jumped over restricted gates and strange passage ways and doors, shoved through emotionless security guards, ignored juno’s warnings, and yes he tricked a living human being so he could exchange souls with him—

all for the sole purpose of getting back to you.

it was always for you.

and now, him sitting next to you with an anxious waiting expression, your body and mind now feeling the effects of not having seen him for three entire years and the way your conscious mind grieved for him and his return, his skin sickishly pale and cold but still so handsome nonetheless… absolutely broke you.

it broke you as you let out a strangled hiccup and covered your mouth tightly with both hands, eyes squeezing painfully shut as you reeled over and wailed with a broken heart, for you were mourning the loss of him all over again.

“baby no please—” he quickly caught you and brought you to his chest, his breathing erratic and with the biggest lump in his throat. “see? i didn’t want you to remember i— i wanted you to forget—

you continued to bawl and borderline scream out in agony, his words meaning absolutely nothing at this moment as your mind wouldn’t quit flashing painful memories through your mind, memories that were once entirely missing as they suffocated you with displays of satoru in his grave over and over and over again.

“i can’t—” he frantically looked around for something, anything that would make you feel better before looking back down. “look at me—”

“why did you leave?!” you wailed, pushing him away as the sight of you drowning in your tears ripped him to shreds. “why did you abandon me toru?! why did you—”

“i’m sor—” his voice gave out and he placed a hand over his heart, tears slipping from his eyes. “i’m sorry i’m so sorry i— i never wanted to leave—”

he reached out and tugged you in again, your body slumping against his as he struggled over his sobs.

“i didn’t want to die i tried so hard not to die—”

his words only made you cry harder as he gripped you tighter and shut his mouth, his frame trembling against yours and his tears trickling down and wetting your hair.

“you left me! you were supposed to come— hic— to come get me! you were supposed to marry me!—”

you were babbling mindlessly at this point, your shattered heart taking over the words that were tumbling out of your mouth as you gripped and clawed at his suit, trying to bury yourself in his skin and stay there where you belonged.

he was too cold. and you couldn’t hear a heart beat.

satoru could only cry and bawl with you as he gently rocked you side to side, knowing that there was nothing he could do to make you feel better, and nothing he could do to come back to life.

no matter how much he wanted it.

no matter how much you wanted it.

this is what fate had decided for the two of you.

“i tried so hard.” he mumbled. “i never stopped trying to get to you that’s why juno hates me so much because i’ve violated fucking everything.”

he pressed his lips to your forehead and laid his cheek on it after.

“i got sent to the attic and i couldn’t look after you anymore and i didn’t even get the chance to let you see me either—”

besides the fact that he took your memories, that explained why you never saw his spirit after he died, and you quickly pulled back again and narrowed your bloodshot eyes at him.

“why did you take my memories i never— hic!— i never asked you to i never wanted—”

“because i didn’t want you to grieve over me pretty…” he gently wiped your cheeks while you cried. “you were hurting so much and it was torture watching you suffer like that.”

you sniffled and wiped your eyes with the base of your palm.

“i wanted to see you happy…” satoru finished off.

“was i?”

he dropped his hands and frowned.

“were you?”

“no!” you muttered. “my entire life i’ve felt like something was missing and i didn’t know why… like this— this block in my brain that i couldn’t figure out and it was always just empty and like something was supposed to be there.”

you tucked your hair behind your ear and solemnly looked down, a pulsing headache racking through you from how much you were crying.

“i had to live with the fact that i was alone and that i never had anyone… and i had accepted that too… only this entire time i did have someone. you.”

and oddly enough, through everything that happened— all of the memories that you now remembered and the devastating death of your late boyfriend, you finally felt a little bit less strange and unusual.

because you always thought that something was wrong with you for feeling the way that you did, for craving something— someone that never existed, for wanting to fill the void that you now know satoru once happily sat in, all of these things now officially clicking into place and bringing you the weirdest sense of peace you had probably ever felt.

“i wish you never made me forget.” you mumbled. “you’re worth remembering toru…. even if it hurts me.”

he guiltily nodded and sniffed. “m’sorry… i thought you were better off forgetting.”

a part of him still does, because the small glimpses he caught of you no longer crying and just simply living after he took your memories away, was enough to bring him a tiny sense of relief just before he got banished to the attic, hopeful that you would live a long and happy life even if it was painfully without him.

but the minute he sensed you coming up to the house earlier that night with him thinking he was going absolutely insane and if it was truly you, was also enough to send all of that out the fucking window and falling back into a pit of despair and longing for you when he finally saw you again— for the first time in three years, looking just as pretty as he remembered and a little more grown up.

you slowly shook your head side to side, lifting your arms to wrap around his neck and him immediately responding, snaking them around your waist and pulling your warm beating body flush against his chest.

“do you still love me?” he murmured. “even though i’m dead?”

you slightly snorted, softly kissing his cheek.

“i’ll always love you toru. wherever you are.”

“i’ll always love you.”

he pulled back and gently smiled, eyes flickering to your soft lips as he juggled in his mind if it was okay to kiss you, every fiber of his undead being begging for it after missing and wishing it for so long, left with only recollections of your kisses to suffice through the years that he spent without you and wondering if he still had the right to— since even though you were once his, and he shamelessly still considered you his, he didn’t know if you were on the same page.

but you were.

it would be stupid not to be.

you leaned your pretty little face closer to his, timid doe eyed gaze looking at him so fondly that it brought back that same familiar feeling he felt with you those years ago, his hands coming up and settling themselves on your warm lively cheeks, holding you like fragile porcelain.

but were his dead lips still worthy of yours? even after everything he’d done?

“toru.”

he hummed.

“do you remember our first kiss?”

“uh huh.” he breathed out softly. “it was in my room.”

“i think—” your nose brushed with his. “i think we should have our second first kiss.”

he bit his bottom lip and smiled.

“you think so?”

“i do.”

he hummed again, his thumb gently grazing over your plushy lips.

“i think it should look a little more like the first time.”

he tilted his head to the side a tiny bit and a delicate gust of wind brushed through your hair, your surroundings now completely and miraculously morphed into his room with the both of you sitting on his bed— just like how you remembered it and basically had grown up in as you slowly took in your surroundings.

“how the fuck—”

he laughed a little, lifting one hand and keeping the other still on your cheek, his index finger lightly tapping the center of your forehead.

“mind manipulation pretty.” he grinned. “cool huh? i poked in your head again.”

“yeah!” you giggled. “very cool.”

“you know what else would be cool?”

“what?”

“if you gave me a little kiss.”

you tilted your head to the side and leaned in again, your breath fanning across his face and your lips so close but not quite that it was fucking excruciating.

“you want a kiss toru?”

“uh huh.”

“how bad— mmph!—”

satoru didn’t even let you finish that sentence as he stuffed his tongue in your mouth greedily, wet and messy kisses smacking through the room as he cradled your jaw, cold lips delving all over yours and him giddy over the sensation of your warm mouth in comparison to his, your hands clutching his blazer and making out so sensually as you made up for the time that was stolen from you.

and the only thing the two of you felt in each others arms then was serenity— one pumping, working heart and the other stiff, unmoving and cold, still equally beating for one another even through the restrictions of death, for satoru’s heart continued to move and love you regardless of how lifeless it may have appeared.

he suddenly pulled away, breathless.

“sweets?”

“yeah?”

“where in the actual fuck did you meet rin?”

you laughed, pulling back a bit to look at him with a regretful look. “knowing what i know now, i’m sick to my stomach toru.”

“did you meet him after i died?”

you nodded. “he was in one of my literature classes… and since back then i only remembered living my life— alone, i guess he was the first person that didn’t make me feel that way. at the start.”

“lame.” he mumbled. “you cheated on me sweets.”

“no!” you laughed again, giving him a little pout. “he was awful. horrendous. and i only stayed because i didn’t wanna be alone again… even though i shouldn’t have.”

you leaned and gave him a soft tiny lingering peck.

“did you love him?” he murmured against your lips, and you shook your head.

“remembering you again made me realize what being in love with someone was supposed to feel like.” you reached and brushed through the front stands of his white hair mindlessly. “and it was no where near what i felt for rin. i didn’t feel anything for him actually.”

he pursed his lips to the side, eyes squinting in thought and distaste.

“hmmm…”

you giggled. “what toru?”

he hated that you got associated with a guy like that, and hated even more that rin was kissing and hugging and touching you whenever the fuck he wanted when you were his first.

“i’m gonna haunt him for the rest of his life.”

you playfully rolled your eyes and nudged him. “honestly? do it. he sucks.”

“and you know what else sweets?”

you quirked a little brow. “what?”

“i’m gonna make you forget!”

“toru!” you giggled. “no more taking memor—“

satoru leaned his face closer to yours and you froze up, wide eyed as a little mischevious glint in his vibrant blue gaze made you fidget.

he slowly grinned and tilted his head, lips coming closer to the side of your ear and tantalizingly hovering, arms snaking around your torso and pulling you up against him.

“did you let him touch you pretty?”

“t—touch?—”

“mhm.” he gripped you a little tighter. “did you?”

“um.” you squirmed a bit, your body turning hot in the matter of seconds. “what— what do you mean—”

“did you let him fuck you.”

your breath hitched and your cheeks went pink, hands timidly resting flat on his chest and feeling a little… guilty.

“maybe—” you paused, shaky breaths blowing through your nose. “maybe once—”

satoru shot up to stand and hauled you with him, a squeal slipping past your lips as he hiked you up and brought your legs around his waist, walking across the room in quick strides and plopping you down roughly on his desk, kicking away his chair and it slamming against the wall as it rolled back.

“toru?—”

“why can’t i make you forget… hm?” he grazed his lips from your jaw and up the side of your cheek, feather like as he squeezed and kneaded at your thighs, your heart fucking hammering against your chest.

“why would you wanna remember being with someone else other than me baby…”

“i— i don’t but you erased my memories—”

he pulled back and tutted, head shaking and fingers drumming against your thighs. “doesn’t matter! should’ve avoided them like the plague silly.”

you giggled and wrapped your arms around his neck, tugging him gently in.

“i would’ve if i remembered.”

“remember this remember that—” he smiled brightly and brought his face close to yours once more.

“y’know what?” he cutely pecked your lips. “i’m gonna help you remember something!”

your brows pinched momentarily in curiosity. “what?”

“that i’m the only man that ever gets to fuck you.”

satoru smashed his lips against yours and pulled you in tight, the bulge in his dress pants abundantly obvious as he grinded and rutted his aching cock on your clothed pussy, you gasping in his mouth at the feeling as you tried to keep up with his feverish fast kisses.

he slipped his icy hands underneath your top and you jumped at the change in temperature, satoru ravishing you up and obsessed with the heat your body produced and radiated, leaving him toasty for once and bringing a faux sense of life to him.

“did you forget that too?” he murmured against your lips, hands ever so slowly creeping up and sliding under your bra to grope your plump tits. “how i feel?”

“nuh uh.” you breathed out. “i didn’t—”

“tell me what you remember then sweets…”

he slid his hands back down and hiked your skirt up, you lifting your hips a little to help him bring it up as high as he possibly could, your pretty little panties tight and suffocating your pussy as his fingers came down to play with your swollen needy clit.

“i remember—” your mouth hung open, words lodging in your throat.

“hm?” he shoved his hand in your panties and your eyes fluttered closed, him placing open wet mouthed kisses all over your neck and chest, your mind unable to grasp the amount of pleasure he was getting out with simply just his fingers, pleasure you missed so fucking badly as he slipped his digits up and down your folds.

“your dick—” satoru pushed two fingers inside of you and you whined. “i remember the way you felt.”

“yeah?” he pulled back from your chest and grinned, fingers squelching as they pumped in and out. “and how did i feel?”

“big.” you choked out, legs spreading wider as you gripped the edge of his desk, his frenzied lust filled eyes drinking in the way you unraveled and crumbled before him.

something he was positive rin didn’t even come fucking close to.

“aww.” he cooed, digits speeding up as you squealed and tried to close your legs, him prying them open again. “bet you missed the way i filled you full huh? stretched you out so good?”

you rapidly nodded, eyebrows contorted in ecstasy as your thighs shook.

“anything else you missed baby?”

arousal trickled down your folds at this point, making an absolute mess out of his fingers.

“your hands— heave— on my neck when you’d fuck me—”

a shiver ran down his spine at your words, his cock so fucking hard and aching as it begged him to let it spring free and bury itself in your hole.

“my god…” he whispered. “i bet your slutty little self wants me to fuck you right now right? stuff you up and make you cum on my dick like i used to?”

with each word your hole was clenching and screaming for his cock, your hands quickly shooting out to pull and unbuckle at his belt, him laughing as he continued to finger your pussy while loosening up the collar of his tie.

“you’re so needy.”

you pouted, embarrassed as you pulled your hands away and brattily tugged at his wrist to take his fingers out.

“i take it back—”

“no!” he quickly yanked his belt off and flung it, his fingers unzipping his pants and taking out his solid dick. “hell no please i need to be inside you—“

he lined his cock up and without warning pushed, your hands flying to grip his shoulders for support and crying out at the mere size of him, his dick icy in between your gummy walls that somehow added a whole new wave of pleasure for you.

“hard toru.” you whined. “please i can’t— i—”

“i know baby i know.” he gripped your hips and snapped his hips up, your moans fueling him as he plunged in your hole and took no time in fucking you in just the way he knew you liked it, proud of the fact that your pussy still took every single inch of him like he’d trained you— almost like she recognized whose dick was actually for you and not some other fucking morons.

“you’re not screwing anybody else anymore, you hear me sweets?” he tapped your cheek to get you to look at him, you completely dazed and fucked out as you tried to hold eye contact with him amidst his drilling cock. “should’ve only been me… living or dead i don’t care.”

you nodded dumbly, you leaning and kissing him sloppily and desperately that you muffled his next words, refusing to detach from his mouth.

“did you— mmph— let him cum inside?”

you didn’t answer, not because you were afraid to, but because his dick was silencing you as you hiccuped and spasmed with every slam of his hips, satoru a horny goner and pinning everything all on you even when it was literally his fault he erased your memories in the first place, fuming over the thought of you tainted by another man that he wanted to perform a full fucking cleanse.

he rammed inside of you faster against the desk as you separated from his lips and clamped a hand over your mouth, eyes rolling to the back of your head.

“don’t tell me you let him cum inside you little slut—”

“i didn’t!” you heaved. “i didn’t i didn’t—”

“good baby!” he cheered, a complete contrast to his menacing tone from seconds before. “so you do love me.”

“i do! i love you i love you i love yo—”

his unbeating heart soared.

“you love me?”

“uh— hic!— uh huh—“

“even when i’m dead?”

you nodded vigorously, feeling your orgasm starting to bubble up in your tummy as you choked and squirmed.

“perfect my sweet little thing…” he cooed once more, him literally lightheaded over the way you clenched around his cock. “make a mess all over me baby i’ve been dreaming of your cute cunt for three fucking years—”

you wrapped your arms around him by the neck again and moaned, burying your face in his neck as he placed two palms on your bent knees and spread your plushy thighs further apart, jack hammering you and so mean about it as you shook violently against him and came, heaves and sobs of pleasure racking through your body as he threw his head back and groaned.

“you want me to cum inside you?” he asked. “fill you up just like i used to?”

“yes! please please—”

“oh fucking well.”

he pulled out of you and your eyes bulged open, his dick shiny and covered in your juices as he grabbed your upper arm and yanked you down on your knees.

“you’re gonna suck me off and swallow what i give you for letting rin’s filthy hands on you.”

satoru tapped his dick against your cheek to get you to open up, you listening and opening your mouth as he shoved his cock inside and placed a hand on the back of your head, fucking your mouth as you choked and gagged on his length and loving every second of it.

“goooddd baby.” he whispered, your slobbering so nasty as he watched drool dribble down your chin. “so good…”

you gulped him down and lathered your tongue around while he used you, his balls swollen and twitching and him needing to dump his cum in your mouth for you to swallow.

“remember when we used to do this every night?” he smiled wickedly. “when i’d make you swallow me up?”

you hummed around him and tried to nod, eager for his release and wanting to show him that you in fact did remember— wanting it just as bad as you hollowed out your cheeks and sucked him harder.

“h— oh my god—” he fisted your hair and shivered, letting you take over and milk him for all his worth. “i’m gonna— jesus baby slow— slow down slow down— hah!”

satoru’s release shot to the back of your throat and you choked, blinking back tears as you gradually slowed your pace and continued to deliciously suck him through his orgasm and gulp down his cum, him with a death grip on the edge of his desk as he heaved and swallowed, hips jittery and twitching away from you— tip now overly sensitive.

you licked up the last of his cum and stood back up, shimming your skirt back down and satoru shakily stuffing his softened dick back in his pants and zipping it, eyes softening once you reached up and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, his over your waist and squeezing you gently.

“so you’re telling me.” you began. “that you haven’t had sex in three years and you fucked me like that?”

he snickered and smoothed a hand over your back. “it’s my instinct sweets! and also because i’m sure rin did a horrendous freaking job—”

you laughed and rolled your eyes, kissing his cheek before looking at him fully.

“i’m serious you know.”

he raised a brow. “about what?”

“about marrying you. even more so now.”

and just when he was about to pick you up and spin you around and jump up and down, he stilled— face sickishly paling more than it already was.

because satoru was keeping something else from you… a condition between the living and the dead and one he overlooked entirely because he was selfishly desperate for you and just wanted you with him again, like the way he had you when he was alive.

“what toru?”

“huh?” his eyes snapped to yours, and he quickly shook his head. “oh nothing nothing!”

his mind was frantically pushing it to the back, ignoring it and wanting to go through with the one thing he’d practically been dreaming of his entire living and dead life— marriage with you.

this was fine. this was okay.

right?

“white or black.”

you tilted your head. “what?”

“you’ll see… but choose!” he grinned. “white or black?”

a slow giddy smile grew on your face.

“black.”

satoru waved his hand and you stilled, the clothes on your skin changing and morphing into something completely anew, your eyes landing on his black and white button up suit now and head quickly dropping down to yourself— gasping once it registered in your flabbergasted brain.

you were wearing a black wedding gown, beautiful and classy as you picked up and felt the soft silk material between your fingertips, your tule sheer veil intricate as you looked behind you then— it long and stretching for what seemed like miles across the floor with gorgeous embroidery at the base of it.

it was heavenly.

your gaze snapped back to his, and he smiled fondly, taking your hand and intertwining your fingers.

“three times.” he murmured, and you picked up on what he was referring to, tightening your grip on his hand and nodding.

“beetlejuice beetlejuice beetlejuice.”

and the room spun around you, so astronomically fast that you almost doubled over in stifling nausea as the wind whipped through your hair and veil, expecting to land in the attic and finally outside that damn model when in reality, you were in a church cathedral as soon as your surroundings had stopped spinning… and one that looked exactly like the one in winter river.

“are we…” you looked around. “are we still in the model?”

he shook his head. “nope! i was focusing my mind here when you were saying my name… we’re in winter river baby.”

you smiled, the atmosphere around you soft and serene as the dimly lit candles around you quietly flickered, a random lilac colored hue across the cathedral and one you assumed was placed by satoru himself as he took your hands in his, almost in a haste too, but choosing to brush the observation aside.

this was wrong… and satoru knew it.

but he pushed it to the back of his head again.

“we are gathered here today—”

“shit!”

you jumped and whipped your head to the side, breathing out and shoulders relaxing once you saw it was just your church’s pastor that you’d known since birth— a strange far off look in his eye that you deemed to be something that satoru did, for there was no way he was up at the crack of fucking dawn right now to do a wedding.

“sorry!” you laughed. “is he… is he okay?”

“oh yeah he’s fine! he’s actually still sleeping.” he let go of one of your hands and patted the pastors head. “i’m manipulating his head for a little bit. just until you’re my wife.”

his wife.

you nodded, cheeks so warm as you tried to refrain from jumping over how excited you were at the thought of finally fulfilling the vows you had placed on each other when you were young— them now nurturing into something real.

“dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness and celebrate the love of satoru gojo and y/n y/m in holy matrimony.”

he shouldn’t do this to you.

“today, they declare their intention to build a life together, sharing their joys and their challenges, and supporting one another in pursuit of their dreams.”

he can’t— he can’t build a life with you… can he?

he pushed his worries back again and gripped your hands tighter.

“do you, satoru gojo, take y/n y/m to be your lawfully wedded wife? do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect her, through sickness and in health for as long as you both shall live?”

this is wrong.

but he swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded.

“i do.”

“and do you, y/n y/m, take satoru gojo to be your lawfully wedded husband? do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect him, through sickness and in health for as long as you both shall live?”

for as long as you both shall live.

satoru can’t live.

“i d—”

“stop.”

you froze.

“what?” you asked worriedly. “what’s wrong?”

“i’m no better than the man i was when i first died.”

the look in his eyes was… odd, and it only further confused you.

“i don’t—”

“i can’t let you marry me baby.”

your heart dropped.

“what?”

“i told you that if you married me it would break my contract and i would be a free man and that’s true…” he began. “but there’s something else that i didn’t tell you... i— i kept it from you.”

oh fuck.

“what are you talking about toru.” your voice was low and heedful, almost like a warning to him, and he wanted to slam his head against the wall for being so fucking reckless again.

“if you—” he breathed in and shook his head, letting go of your hands and letting his fall tight at his sides, balling up. “if you marry me, you’re freeing me…”

he gnawed at his lip.

“but i’m killing you.”

your blood ran cold and drained from your face, words entirely at a loss and useless as your brain tried to process what the fuck he just told you.

kill you?

“marrying me is like exchanging your soul with the dead.” satoru slowly shook his head. “you’ll die sweets… i can’t— i can’t do that to you.”

satoru was desperate to for you, so much so that he was willing to hide such a detrimental part of the marriage clause until the time came, choosing to play freaking stupid and tune it out in the hopes that in the end, he would be brave enough to go through with it just to keep you and not ever have to say goodbye again.

but it was wrong. so incredibly immoral and wrong and he felt like a monster for even trying to do it, for letting it go as far as it did and have you standing there in front of him in your pretty gown and veil— just like how he’d imagined it when his blood was pumping and his heart was beating, and just like how he’d imagined it even now, shriveled up dead veins and all.

this is what fate had chosen for the two of you.

and though it took forever for satoru to accept it… you and him were simply not meant to be.

for you were meant to live, and satoru was meant to die.

“you disgraceful bafoon! you insolent crook!”

the big doors of the cathedral kicked open and juno walked through, adam and barbara maitland running behind her and trying to pull her back, the both of them spouting reasonings and explanations.

“this is her choice juno!—”

“she wants to let her do it!—”

“the kid’s just in love!—”

“button it or i’m sending you back to the house!” juno grumbled at them, turning back around and pointing menacingly at satoru once she reached you both, her brittle old lady perfume wafting in your nostrils.

“juno!” satoru greeted with faux cheerfulness, eyes wide and alarmed. “good to see you hah! you look livelier than the last time i saw y—”

“what the hell do you think you’re doing boy?” she spat, eyes switching to you next. “and you! young lady— this man is a spirit!”

“i—i know—”

“juno they know each other.” barbara spoke up gently. “they grew up together when he was alive.”

“yes they were in a relationship this isn’t him trying to trick her into anything—”

“no but it is.” satoru exhaustedly whined, cutting adam off as he ran his hands through his snowy hair. “she didn’t know about the clause… i just told her now.”

silence.

“you didn’t tell her about the clause?!—”

“are you out of your mind you cockroach?!—”

“you’re doing what you did before!—”

“i know!” satoru exclaimed over the yells of scolding and belittlement. “i know i know that’s why i told her just now… i’m not letting her do it i— i couldn’t.”

he turned to you.

“baby i want you. i need you and that’s why i didn’t say anything like a fucking dingbat because i’m tired of living forever without you... it sucks.”

you felt tears prickle at your eyes.

“but this isn’t fair to you at all. you deserve to live man… i can’t— i won’t drag you down with me.”

“toru—”

“the living and the dead were never meant to coexist.” juno interjected, her gaze looking at satoru sincerely for once that it was a strange sight for him.

she placed a hand on her chest. “i’m sorry that your love was separated by death, truly. i sympathize with you. i can’t think of anything more cruel.”

you both solemnly nodded.

“but the living and the dead were never meant to coexist.” she repeated. “so even though you two move on from this and go back to being what you are, satoru will stay like this and you will not. you will grow.”

juno addressed you directly and you listened with a heavy heart— the use of satoru’s actual given name now from her instead of ‘beetlejuice’ adding a layer of somber seriousness.

“and let’s just say this clause didn’t exist and you get to marry her and she stays alive… satoru will still stay and you will grow. do you both understand what i’m trying to say?”

you quickly wiped the corner of your eyes, satoru peeking over at you sadly.

“i won’t tell you what i think the right choice is young lady.” she continued. “the dead aren’t even supposed to associate with the living like this… but weigh the consequences of either path and see which one you want to walk in.”

she stepped a bit closer, holding eye contact with you.

“but let me make one thing clear— the power of the living is greater than the dead. if you choose to marry him, you will break his contract forever and free him of his violations. but if you do, you will die and be one of us.”

either path is difficult.

to sacrifice his freedom, or to sacrifice your life?

but you knew that a life without satoru was nothing and bleak…. you had lived it for three years.

were you willing to return to that? just to keep your heart beating? and say goodbye to satoru for good?

you didn’t want to live in a world that didn’t have him in it. you didn’t want to live in a world where you remembered satoru for longer than you’d known him, and the thought only made you absolutely sick to your stomach as you envisioned the rest of your life without the person who knew you best.

it was almost easy… you didn’t have to weigh the consequences at all.

your path was satoru.

“we’re getting married.”

“what?!” satoru frantically shook his head. “no sweets no we’re not.”

“yes we are.” you pushed. “this isn’t for you to decide it’s my choice and i choose you—”

“and i’m not letting you.” he countered. “you’re choosing wrong so unbelievably wrong—”

“but i’m not though!” you argued. “literally explain to me right now how me stuck in a world that doesn’t have you in it is better than—”

“y/n you need to live.” he cut you off. “i died, not you it’s not supposed to be you alright? i can’t let you do this.”

tears slipped from your eyes and you wiped them right away.

“do you not— sniff— do you not want me do you want me to go away what—”

“no…” he stepped forward and cupped your cheeks. “that’s the last thing i want and you know that…”

“then why won’t you marry me?” you hiccuped. “why won’t you let me stay with you?”

“baby— life is so unbelievably precious.” he moved strands of your hair away from your face. “do you have any idea what i would give to have it again? to feel my body actually working for a change instead of it just being nothing?”

you continued to cry, your hands clutching his wrists.

“i don’t want you to take that away from yourself because of me… i want you breathing. i want your little heart pumping and your cheeks warm, i want you to move on.”

“i— hic!— i don’t want to move on from you—”

“you have to sweets.” he quickly wiped his eyes before cupping your cheeks again. “we’re not meant to be baby and i hate so much that we aren’t… and i’m sorry.”

“toru stop it—”

“please live for me okay? for the both of us. and don’t forget me either please don’t forget me—”

“why are you—” you harshly wiped your eyes. “why are you talking like that what are you doing—”

“i don’t think i should be around you anymore baby.”

“huh?!” your eyes narrowed. “are you serious?”

“satoru—”

juno raised a hand, stopping barbara from interjecting.

“it won’t be good for either of us if i stick around...” he sniffled. “i need to stay away from you because if i don’t, i might try to trick you again into giving up your soul and i can’t have that.”

“my soul?” you spat. “take it i don’t want it without you i told you already—”

“please try to understand.” he placed a soft kiss to your forehead. “please.”

“no—”

“i’ll see you soon okay?” satoru let go of your face. “graduate please. have kids and get married and stuff… travel.”

you were supposed to do all of that with him.

“satoru no listen to me!—”

“i love you.”

“stop!—”

satoru’s grief was monumental, but his love for you was greater, choosing to let you go for the sake of your life.

he looked to juno and she sighed through her nose, somehow knowing exactly what he was silently asking for, stepping forward and lifting a hand.

“satoru please i wanna stay with you!—”

juno sharply moved her hand to the side and you were pulled to a blinding white abyss, dream like and fuzzy as you felt all muscles in your body relax, your mind completely blank and free of the heartbreak and loss and sorrow for a little, floating through a cloud of soft serenity as it brought you in and tried to clear the pain in your heart.

you weren’t aware of where you were or what juno had done, but your thoughts were distant and muffled as you let it engulf you entirely in its welcoming arms, you sleepy and drowsy until the blinding white abyss slowly shrunk down to a pure black, quiet void, the nerves in your body twitching little by little until you were finally consciously aware of your limbs and mind, but you too tired still to open your eyes.

you cruelly dreamed of satoru still. of him alive.

and you weren’t sure how long you had been in this weird pit of tranquility, or how long you were asleep for until you were jerked awake and ripped from it entirely.

“hey— y/n?”

you shot awake, sitting up and whipping your head around.

you were back in your dorm.

“are you okay? why are you sleeping on the floor?”

you looked up, your roommate standing there with a weirded out expression.

“and what are you wearing?”

your gaze shifted downward, and the minute you saw your black wedding dress and veil folded neatly next to you, memories of what had happened hours prior came achingly flooding in as you scrambled to stand up on your feet, scaring your roommate and leaving her to grumble in her head about how she wished the system didn’t put her to room with the campus ghost girl.

“sorry! i have to go thank you though for waking me u—”

your voice trailed off down the hall, you running through and ignoring the weirded out looks from other students as you sprinted out of the building and down the street, engulfing the skirt of your gown up in your arms so you wouldn’t accidentally trip over it and eat shit on the ground, the goal of getting back to the maitland’s house the only thing on your mind as you ran.

your lungs burned by the time you got to the bottom of the hill, and you thanked anyone that was willing to listen for allowing winter river to exist as the smallest town you had ever known, sparing you from running a full fledged marathon just to get to the house as you heaved and tried to catch your breath, a little sweaty and hot as you began the hike up the hill.

you hoped he was there.. in the attic.

you hoped to god that he was.

reaching the top, you continued to trudge across the dirt driveway and up the porch steps, your foot lifting and just about to make contact with the old wooden platform until an invisible force grabbed your ankle and pulled you back, literally dragging you away from the house and down the hill over the grass as you screamed and thrashed for it to let you go.

satoru.

and you tried again, hiking up the hill with your bundled up wedding skirt in your arms, reaching the top faster than last time and choosing to run up the porch steps instead to see if you could outrun his ghostly abilities.

except you couldn’t, because the invisible force caught you by the ankle again just as your fingers grazed the doorknob, yanking you away and down the hill until it left you screaming and huffing in frustration at the bottom.

you continued to do that for the rest of the fucking day, and everyday for that matter, for an entire week straight.

walking up the hill, reaching the top, getting reeled back, running up the hill and getting sent back down again, sprinting for it only to get dragged away once more as the repeated cycle you had set for yourself happened over and over, until by your last attempt you couldn’t even walk up the hill anymore, satoru having put a huge invisible wall around the house that was impossible to get through.

you were angry. angry and bitter that he was doing this.

was it so bad to just want to spend the rest of your undying life with him? is that not what he wanted this entire time? why was he so adamant on damning you to live a life of suffering and— and loneliness? a life without him?

you didn’t know what to do. your psychic abilities were only for sensing the dead and being able to see them— nothing to do with calling forth spirits or summoning them at any given place and time, so there was no way for you to call satoru no matter how much you wanted to or tried.

and you cried. you cried and you sobbed just like how you did when he first died, except somehow worse knowing that there was a chance to be together with him forever and him not wanting it… not wanting you.

but you waited anyways, hoping that he would come around and change his mind, that he would bring down that stupid invisible wall and let you inside the house and back to him, counting down the days and hours and minutes until it became clearer to you that satoru wasn’t going to change his mind.

and by the third week, you had almost entirely given up.

you felt nothing. absolutely nothing as you slugged through your classes or your day to day errands, not giving a shit about anything that you had to do in this world for you had always loved the other world more— the world of spirits and the netherworld and the great beyond, the world that had satoru in it, as you appreciated and admired that one more ever since you were a kid with your parents… more than the one you were currently in— as this one was filled with ignorance and criticism.

you felt helpless… and maybe satoru was right.

if he was willing to give up an opportunity to keep you forever, then maybe that’s just the way it goes… maybe you should just accept it, and you choosing to think of the latter instead of begging and kneeling at nothing for satoru to come back and get you and marry you— was helping the bitterness in your heart grow and get you by, it at least stopping you from crying in the middle of your lectures or the grocery store and weirding people out anyways.

maybe you should accept the fact that you and him were not meant to be.

after an entire month, you had given up.

and satoru’s grave was the closest you knew you’d get to him, permanently divided by dirt and soil and grass… six feet under and totally out of your reach, his tombstone engraved and pretty and one you couldn’t believe you had forgotten about as it sat here alone for years right under your nose— you visiting it now for the millionth time as you placed your book bag down and sat criss crossed on the grass, mindlessly tugging and breaking off pieces of it as you sat there.

you sighed deeply and hugged your knees up to your chest, the day surprisingly a sunny one as chirping birds flittered past you through the wind, tiny little white butterflies occasionally stopping by to sit on your arm or satoru’s tombstone as you sat there in thought… not really sure what to think, but comforted by the fact that the engravings on his stone reminded you that he was once very much alive and real.

there was an odd wavering in your heart, and you had a feeling that this was going to be the last time you were visiting his grave, for you figured it was time to finally do what he wanted you to do— move on and forget him.

“don’t move on.”

you stiffened.

that voice… was your mind hallucinating now? jesus chri—

“don’t move on from me please… and— and don’t forget me. i take it all back.”

you heard footsteps draw nearer across the grass and you turned your head, eyes widening and unbelieving as you saw satoru standing there with a pleading anxious expression, him still dressed in his black and white suit that he had on for the wedding.

was it actually him?

“how are you…” you trailed off, your mind having difficulty processing how he was there. “how are you outside the house? i thought the contract—”

“juno gave me a hall pass…” he explained softly. “it expires at the end of the day.”

you hummed, itching to jump up and wrap your arms around him and cling to him, but stopping yourself from doing so as you still didn’t know why he was here, and you were quite frankly still bitter and hurt from him sending you away.

you slightly turned your body. “why are you here?”

“because i can’t stay away from you.”

your heart skipped a beat as he crouched down to your level, your eyes greedily running across every feature of his face and committing it to memory, as you now had him directly in front of you again instead of having to rely on recollections of him to try and mend your aching heart.

and satoru was doing the same.

“i started to sense you distancing from me and… and i had this feeling that you were starting to listen and move on and forget me and it made me fucking ill. which is crazy because i’m dead… but i was literally ill sweets.”

you let a tiny soft smile play at your lips.

“i can’t take it.” he spoke again, shaking his head. “i can’t take the thought of you forgetting me. not now, not ever, and i don’t know why i was stupid enough to try and convince myself that i could watch you do something like that even if its the right thing.”

“you sent me away.”

“i did baby…” he reached over and gently caressed your cheek. “and i regret that so fucking much. i’m sorry.”

“toru i need you to understand that you can’t make choices like that for me.”

“i know.” he mumbled and dropped his hand, eyes casting down. “i’m stupid.”

“but i also need you to understand, that i have no interest in living in a world that doesn’t have you in it… it’s not worth it now that you’re gone.”

you tilted your head to try and catch his gaze, continuing once his blue eyes flickered back to yours.

“i would die for you, and i would die without you. i look for you in everything that i do and you expecting me to just forget you is cruel.”

“no i don’t want you to forget me anym—”

“what’s life to you?” you asked him suddenly. “what does it feel to you? and mean?”

he stared at you with pinched brows, his face endearing but sad all at the same time.

“warm.” he murmured. “beautiful and… pure. it’s peaceful and it means you.”

your heart fluttered and you smiled, and satoru fell in love with you all over again— something you conquered when he was alive, and something you conquered again in death.

“that’s what life is toru.” you cupped his cheek. “to me it’s not— this.”

you gestured around you. “it’s not my body or my heart, it’s not the sun and it’s not breathing. it’s you. i feel life through you and i always have… because life doesn’t literally mean where i am now and neither does it mean the netherworld baby… it means you and me.”

satoru didn’t even realize he was crying until you wiped his cheeks, your words serving an entirely new perspective to him about the living and the dead and he felt peace.

because yes satoru was dead… but he was still living. living because he had you as the embodiment of it, and living because his soul still permitted him to see you again and be with you, to look at you with his own undead eyes and feel warmth like he did before.

but not literal warmth from your body or pumping blood or a beating heart.

but warmth from your soul. from who you are.

that’s what life was to him… and what life was to you.

satoru wrapped his arms around your shoulders and brought you to his chest, one hand on the back of your head as he cradled you and cried, finally now no longer mourning his past life like he’d been doing for the past three years, and no longer wishing for it back either or thinking that physically living in this world was the better option for you just because it meant you were breathing.

where he was, was just fine. and wherever you chose to go would be fine too.

but you chose to go with him, something that had been set since the moment you met under the magnolia tree back in middle school— living or dead, paris or italy, your choice would always and forever be him.

satoru proposed to you right then and there at his gravesite, flying to one knee as soon as you both stood back up and him manifesting the biggest diamond rock you had ever seen in your life, laughing and crying together as he slipped it over your ring finger, for your marriage meant the binding of the living and the dead, and the binding of you and him— a new beginning.

but this time your wedding wasn’t at the cathedral, but under the pretty magnolia tree where you had met, now accompanied by the maitlands as barbara cried, and juno as she herself officiated the wedding, you thinking— hoping that she grew a soft spot for satoru, and that behind her stern resting face, she was glad satoru was finally a free man and granted a second chance.

giving your soul up was nothing to you, and it didn’t hurt at all either… you feeling lighter in exchange actually… happy, with satoru standing in front of you and with a massive fucking grin on his face, shiny and bright as he practically jumped in his spot in excitement over you finally being his wife and that he got to keep you— and right this time… no lies or tricks or hidden secrets, but genuine authentic sacrifice instead, for it was the purest form of love.

because this is what fate had decided for the two of you.

it had decided that satoru gojo was meant to die… but it had also decided to bring you back to him as well— to the house of the maitlands, to the attic he was banished to, and back together again in each others cold arms where you belonged, defying the laws of the living and the dead and proving that life doesn’t end even after your hearts stopped beating.

fate had decided that you were both meant to be. that was always a fact.

and fate had decided that you and satoru gojo were meant to live, with unbeating hearts and icy cold skin, but souls still warm for each other nonetheless.

because through sickness and in health… death could not do you both apart.

you and satoru.

together for eternity.

a lovely and incredibly beautiful fanart of this fic can be found here by @courtneedsleep !! <33

taglist!! <33 (THANK YOU THANK YOU!):

@cupcaketeddybehr @soobiary @roachfun @waterfal-ling @saebaey @reneinii @luvvmae @cake-with-the-cream @pixie-dix @2ukika @cramelmacchiao @hy3phiren @fushigurioo @wil10wthetree @jameinfrau @pancakeszs @drftnzume @k0z3me @saelov3 @dindjarins1ut @starrnai @stilettoheelz @tinyray-lovesfood @iloveoldermenn @dazqa @applepi25 @aria-chikage @rose-tinted-kalopsia @runfrme @unofficialsapphire @dee-writes-anime @megumisluciouslashes @peachyaeger @yourstru1y4ever @yoonights @skendos @babylambdietcoke @yunstarz @dinomdubs @kalulakunundrum @s777athv @sugoroo @wastednightsonyou @miri222 @jayawaya @dazailover4ever @courtneedsleep @kcch-ns @halovianembrace @tsukuhoe @kayamor @lupicalbestwolf @therealkurapikakurta @amarahi123 @he-is-chaotic-she-is-psychotic

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indecisivemuch · 10 months ago

Text

Look at me

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader

Summary: Being oblivious to Luke’s feelings, you tried to get over him by getting a boyfriend, who just does not know how to treat you right. Inspired by the song ‘Boyfriend’ by Dove Cameron ~ “I could be a better boyfriend than him.” (jealous luke, friends-to-lovers, fluff, angst, pining, happy ending.)

Warning: Just the boyfriend being an asshole and unwanted physical touch for a split second, but nothing serious. Sorry if your name is Cole. Violence (physical fighting)

Note: I’m sorry if there are a lot of errors, I haven’t had the chance to edit this thoroughly so if it feels like a train wreck, then I'm sorry. I just needed to write this out, get it out there, so I can go back to revising for my exams in peace lol, cause this plot/idea has been at the back of my head, I could not stop thinking about it or study properly. Lowkey hated how this one turned out, but whoops.

Word count: 4.8k

“People say that eyes are the windows to one's soul,” you once told him. You two have been best friends for a very long time: five years of being attached to the hip. Yet, you were completely oblivious to the way he looked at you. Even everybody at camp noticed and thought it was bound to happen. They were so sure that Luke and you would end up together. So imagine everybody’s surprise when something else occurred.

It happened right in front of Luke: Cole - a boy from Cabin 5 and son of Ares - asked you out, and you said yes.

It has been two months since that day. All Luke could do was sulk as he watched his best friend slip away. Of course, you still tried to spend as much time as possible with him. But even then, things have changed. There were no more of those content silences between the two of you. There were no more carefree laughs that made Luke feel like you two were the only ones that existed in this place. He used to walk you back to your cabin every night, hugging you good night or kissing your forehead close to your hairline if he felt brave enough. Moments like those convinced him you two would be like that forever. But his solace was taken in a split second. Now, you were so near, yet so out of reach.

It didn’t help that he saw you every day, like right now, as you sat in the middle of a gathering hosted by your cabin. Gods, even the wind seems to be in love with you, judging by the way it was blowing through your hair as if it was trying to twirl itself around those lovely locks that Luke himself used to always tug behind your ears. The sight of you always bathed him in this warm feeling, like the morning sun. Hence his nickname for you: sunshine.

Then his brown eyes landed on the figure next to you, and they hardened. He has witnessed it all: Cole’s backhanded compliments, ignoring you on your birthday, leaving you alone to talk to his friends, occasionally flirting back with girls who batted an eyelash at him, and then blatantly telling you that you were overthinking it. Luke knew he could treat you so much better.

You were sitting with your boyfriend and his group of friends, who often gave you weird looks or snickers. Gods, if it was him you were with, he’d never make you feel excluded. He would have his arms around you and defend you if his friends ever made snarky remarks. Not that that would ever happen anyway; you were well-loved at camp, and all his friends loved you. But he would treat you well, nevertheless, not like that dumbass sitting next to you.

One of your favorite songs started playing, and Luke watched as you genuinely smiled for once tonight. You touched your boyfriend’s arm, muttering something to him. Luke knew exactly what you were saying to Cole because you and Luke used to do this together. Except, you never had to ask Luke.

Whenever your favorite tunes were on, Luke would immediately pull you out of your seat and dance with you, laughing as if nothing mattered at all. Nights like those, he liked to imagine that the stars above envied them and what the two of you had. Now? He felt like one of them, watching from the outside.

Luke’s jaw clenched as he saw Cole shrugging off your hand on his arm. Gods, Luke felt like that idiot was taking you for granted, and his blood boiled. Before Cole, Luke used to always orchestrated some excuse to have you touch him - getting injured on purpose sometimes just to watch you frantically panic over his wounds and take care of him, volunteering to help you out with swords training just to touch your hand and pretend to adjust the way you were holding it, hugging you every time he greeted you and so on.

For a second, your mask slipped, and you had that look on your face, like something had left you emotionally wounded. It was the kind of look Luke would kill to never see again, and oh, the things he would do to get rid of Cole. Luke had to wrestle with the thought of marching up to Cole and beating him to a pulp. However, he did stand up to approach you.

You felt a hand touch your shoulder. When you peered at the person standing, your eyes immediately glimmered as they caught Luke’s. However, something foreign was gleaming in his eyes. The Hermes boy has always looked at you sweetly. But the way he was looking at you right now was filled with something much more intense - borderline fervent, like an obsession.

Cole finally glanced over at you for the first time the entire night. Unlike you, he instantly recognized the look in Luke’s eyes: hunger and longing. It was clear as day to everybody but you.

Luke extended his hand out for you to take and you understood right away. For the first time in two months, your hand touched his. Luke’s chest sunk and his breathing lost its usual rhythm for a second as your skin made contact with his. The Hermes boy finally looked over to Cole, and the Ares boy saw an immediate shift in his eyes. Now, they were filled with animosity and - the most obvious of all - heated jealousy.

Luke led you away from Cole and started twirling you around. You let out a laugh - the kind that was infectious and has always brought a smile to Luke’s lips. You both sang along to the lyrics. For once, your relationship felt restored, just like the good old days. Was it wrong that this was the happiest you have felt since you got together with Cole? You shrugged away the thought as the song slowly ended. Luke settled with both hands on your waist while yours were around his neck. Usually, you would put your head on his chest as you both slightly swayed around. But now that you were in a relationship, you kept a bit of distance between the two of you. You gaze up at Luke, who was already staring at you sweetly. The moment was perfect. Gods, you almost wished to stay in it forever.

Meanwhile, Luke hoped he could convey his thoughts through his eyes - the unspoken words he wished he had told you sooner. Could you not see the infatuation coursing through his veins whenever he was with you? Could you not see that you got him at your beck and call?

The look you gave him almost convinced him that you heard his thoughts. You leaned your head on his chest, caught off-guard by the speed of his heartbeat as it soothed you along with the music in the background. Feeling a heated look over his way, Luke glanced around and locked eyes with your boyfriend. Cole narrowed his eyes while Luke gave Cole a look of resentment and immense loathing.

Gods, he could be a much better boyfriend than Cole.

“Hey, man,” when you heard your boyfriend’s voice, you lifted your head from Luke’s chest and withdrew your hands around his neck. “I’ll take over from here,” Cole practically pulled you away from Luke and started swaying with you. Instead of feeling happy that Cole finally danced with you after two months of dating, you felt wrong. Cole's hands were on your waist, but they felt sluggish like his heart was not in it at all. Your ear was against Cole’s chest, so you caught the sound of his heartbeat. It sounded…too calm, almost cold and shallow, causing you to twist your lips into a frown.

You glanced up at your boyfriend but saw him staring behind you instead. So you glanced back and caught a glimpse of Luke before getting pulled around by Cole, who roughly yanked your face towards him. He kissed you almost aggressively. There was something cynical and bitter about the way he was kissing you.

Cole opened his eyes and conceitedly made eye contact with Luke. The Hermes boy glared at the sight of Cole handling you so roughly, claiming your lips so smugly. If it was him, he would be kissing you for you; he would be kissing you to show you how much he worshiped you and the ground you walk on, not to prove an empty point.

You finally managed to pull away when Cole let go of your chin. “All right, we’re done for the night, don’t you think?” your boyfriend muttered, quickly leaving you to return to his friends as if nothing had happened. Despite feeling slightly aggravated at Cole, you hated that you couldn't care less of his words at that moment, and the first thing you did was look in the direction Luke had been before.

Yet, he was not there anymore.

~~~

Your cabin was not on the same side as Luke’s cabin for this match of capture the flag. You were fighting off some people who were on the blue team. Years of training with Luke paid off because you managed to point your sword at the person’s neck and grinned when they put their hands up in surrender. You continued perusing through the area, trying to regroup with your team or take down another blue team member. However, you almost tripped as you witnessed Cole on the ground with Luke on top of him, repeatedly punching his face..

“Luke!” you called out, watching as Luke’s action faltered, and his eyes darted around frantically around like a lost wild animal. However, Cole took advantage of Luke’s momentary distraction to land a hit on Luke’s face. The Ares boy got off the ground as Luke stumbled and went for another punch. However, Luke dodged it effortlessly and rammed Cole against a tree instead.

“Hey, knock it off,” you yelled, standing between the boys to stop their flight. Luke immediately backed off, afraid he would accidentally hurt you if he didn’t. But Cole, in the middle of his blind rage, still swung for Luke and ended up striking you across the face instead. Right when that happened, Luke pushed Cole again and rushed to your side to assess your injury. At that very moment, Chiron approached the scene with one of Cole’s friends next to him, who promptly told the man:

“It was him. Luke initiated the fight.”

~~~

Luke wished for somebody to put him out of this misery as he stared at you from afar helplessly. He was so dotted that it hurt. Somebody must have answered his prayers because your eyes met his from across the field. There was a bit of sadness behind them, perhaps regret from how things ended yesterday. You whispered something to your boyfriend, but Cole did not even spare you a glance and waved his hand as if dismissing you from the discussion. Luke’s hand once again curled into a fist. He bit the inside of his cheek from the pain induced by his injury. The Hermes cabin counselor felt no bit of guilt in his body about his physical altercation with Cole. He felt smug at the sight of Cole with one black eye, busted lip, swollen cheek and a body sporting way more bruises than him.

You deserved better.

“Hey, stranger,” you greeted, sitting beside Luke. Almost immediately, he hooked one finger under your chin, tilting your head lightly as if he was afraid he might break you. The boy scanned over your injury, sighing at the sight of purple forming under your skin, indicating an emerging bruise. Even so, under the moonlight, you still looked heavenly to him.

“Devon said you initiated the fight. Is that true, Luke?” Luke frowned at the mention of Cole’s friend. Great, now he knew another idiot’s name. Meanwhile, you have asked this because you knew him. There was no way the boy you knew would lose control like this and swing his hands first.

“No, but what’s the point of telling Chiron that? It’s two against one,” he breathed out.

“Luke, you’re literally the friendliest and nicest counselor here. Of course, he would believe you,” you reasoned. You sighed disappointingly as Luke only shook his head in response as if asking you to drop it.

Now, you two sat in silence. It felt the same as the comforting ones you have had with him before - the ones that made you feel like you were at home in front of your fireplace, curled up with a book.

“Why are you with him?” and with that, the comfort evaporated as the air thickened. You and Luke rarely argued or even disagreed, so it felt like an unfamiliar territory every time it felt relatively tense between you two.

“I know you, which is why I know that you’re absolutely miserable with him, so I don’t understand why you’re still with Cole,” Luke commented, though his voice was quiet because he was considerate of drawing this type of attention to you. He had seen it before - Cole causing public altercations and storming off and you running after him with tears emerging from your eyes. He did not want to put you in the same position.

“Y/N, please, as your best friend…” there it was again, the word that used to make you smile brightly, was now the same one that brought you pain. You wanted more. “...You deserve better,” he uttered, his eyebrows slightly scrunched as he looked at you with those eyes. There it was again, the look so intense that you were convinced they could swallow you whole. Yet, you could not interpret them. So, you looked away.

“Luke…” you said his name almost like a warning sign. The boy sighed at this.

His fingers gently tilted your chin towards him, urging you to face him. There was so much contrast in the way he touches you and the way Cole does. You knew precisely why Luke wanted you to look at him: your eyes were your tell for him. Years ago, after you told him that eyes were the windows to one's soul, he told you that he knew this already because he had learned that your eyes will always tell the truth for you. That’s how, in so many instances, he would be the first to notice whenever you're upset.

“Y/N, does he make you happy?” you stiffened at the question. Words choked up in your throat as your mouth opened to answer. You wanted to say yes so you both could get over this conversation. But you knew he would be able to tell you were lying. The way he looked at you right now, as if you were the only thing that mattered. He seemed so vulnerable. Little did you right at this moment, Luke was willing to surrender and let you go if you said yes.

“Oh, this is who you left me to talk to?” Cole's voice broke you both out of the trance. “The person who beat your boyfriend?” Cole passive-aggressively spat, sneering from above as he looked down at the two of you. You called out to your boyfriend, but he quickly cut you off with a quick “Unbelievable,” before walking away. But Cole did this on purpose. He liked the attention he drew, even if they were at your expense, especially because he knew you would chase after him.

“I’m so sorry,” you muttered to Luke on your boyfriend's behalf as you stood up to run after him. Luke frowned as he shook his head. If you were his, he would never allow you to apologize on his behalf, nor would he give a reason for you to ever do that.

“Uhm, what are you waiting for?” Annabeth’s voice broke Luke from his irritated state. “Go after her,” the young girl nudged.

“I doubt I should do that, Annabeth. Last time I was with him, he ended up in the infirmary.”

“Yes, but you need to go after her before it’s too late.”

“It’s already too late.”

“No, it’s not,” the girl stated sternly, and when Luke peered over at her, he recognized the look on her face. From experience, he knew better than to doubt when Annabeth was right. So, he stood up and walked in the direction where you disappeared after your boyfriend.

“Stop it, Cole. I don’t want to…” Your voice grabbed Luke’s attention as he started walking in that direction, eyebrows furrowed.

“Come on, this is the least you could do to make it up to me,” Cole replied.

When Luke reached the scene, he almost went into an uncontrollable wrath when he saw Cole trying to take off your shirt as you objected and struggled out of his grip.

“I said ‘let go,’ Cole,” you yelled this time, pushing him back. Upon finally doing so successfully, a figure stormed past you and immediately flung at Cole’s cheek, right at the spot that was already bruising. The impact knocked Cole to the ground as he wailed from the pain. Averting your gaze to the person, you saw Luke. Like a deranged bull, Luke grabbed Cole by the collar and lifted him up, going in for another hit, but you quickly stopped him, calling out his name.

Cole, who did not learn his lesson, spoke again, “Gods, of course! He runs to your aid again. You must be a good fuck for him to get this attached. How many times have you fucked him, huh? Gods, you’re such a whore, you know that?” If it were not for your hands stopping Luke and removing his grip from Cole’ shirt, Luke would have ensured Cole no longer had a face.

“Cole, stay the fuck away from me. We are over.” Your words seemed to affect Luke more than Cole. It was as if Luke could feel an immense weight being lifted from his shoulders. “Let’s go, this is not worth it,” you told Luke. Cole barked a laugh at this.

“Man, you’re more trouble than it's worth. Do you know why no guys ever asked you out? You’re fucking difficult and clingy, that’s why. If it was not for that fucking bet, I would not have either.” Luke was about to launch at Cole but was caught off guard because you had already done it yourself. You punched him, aiming for his nose and teeth, making sure to break a few.

“You fucking bitch!” Cole spoke after he howled in agony. He spat out blood as his nose started bleeding, “Gods, you’re gonna pay for this.”

“Oh yeah? Come on!” you challenged him, motioning him to come over. Any sense of calm or restraint you had was long gone. “I’ll be the one sending you to the fucking infirmary this time,” right when you started approaching Cole again, you were quickly stopped by Luke. He stood behind you, one of his hands soothingly rubbing your back in an attempt to calm you down. Luke averted his gaze to Cole.

“If you know any better, then leave, Cole. And don’t come near any of us again, or I promise you…” Luke trailed off, shaking his head as his eyes bore the weight of the promise he left unsaid, leaving it to Cole’s imagination as to what Luke would ever do to him if he ever saw the boy again. Something seemed to dawn on Cole as he saw the dark look on Luke’s face. Cole finally decided to leave the scene, limping away from the area as he muttered some insults under his breath.

You turned around and inspected Luke’s hand, which started bleeding again through the bandage. Taking his non-injured hand in yours, you wordlessly dragged the boy to the infirmary. Despite the excruciating pain spreading through his injured hand, Luke blushed at your action and followed you like a lost puppy.

The Apollo person on shift was someone you knew, so you managed to convince them to let you do the work on the Hermes boy. You observed his hand again, peeling off the dirty bandage from it. As you went to grab disinfectant, Luke softly held you back by flipped over his hand that was in yours so that he could take a look at your hand instead.

“Are you okay?” His words made you swiftly look over at him instead. There was a sad look on his face as he sat on the infirmary bed. You haven’t seen him this hurt and dejected in a long time.

“Am I okay? You’re the one with the bleeding hand.”

“You punched him quite hard.”

“He deserved it,” you settled on answering, hesitantly pulling your hand out of his so you could grab the things you needed.

“You know I had that handled, right?” you asked mindlessly, trying to fill the silence as you disinfected his hand and wrapped a new bandage over it. “I don’t need you to defend my honor or anything, Luke. I can hold my own ground,” you tried joking.

“No, I know you can hold your own ground. Besides, I wasn’t defending your honor,” he spoke softly, watching as you delicately held his hand with so much care. He wished you could hold him like that as well. A quivering sigh escaped his soft lips, his voice much less firm than he wanted it to be:

“I was defending the girl I’m in love with.”

You immediately looked at him, only to see him already gazing up at you. It was as if a blindfold had been taken off, you finally understood what your other friends were referring to when they said that Luke had always “looked” at you. His eyes were filled with adoration. However, this time, they were also decorated with pain.

“I could be a better boyfriend than him,” he stated, almost like it was a fact, and your gut knew it was true, too.

“So….Why not me? I watched you give Cole - a complete asshole - a chance with you. I watched him give you so much less than what you deserve. It pains me, but I still sit here and wait for you to look in my direction for even one second in the way I have always looked at you. I could be so good to you, Y/N. I waited for you to realize I could be the one who loves you so endlessly and treats you way better than all these guys combined. So…why? Please tell me why and put me out of my misery. Why is it not me?”

“Luke…” you rasped out his name. Despite the pain he was in, his heart could not help but throb for a second as it yearned for the sound of your voice calling out to him again. He almost scowled at himself for the way he was reacting to you. Gods, you managed to unravel him through the sound of his name from your lips. He hesitated for a second, wondering if he would even be able to take it at all - if he was given a chance with you. Would he be able to handle the way your skin felt against his, or would his heart burst into unstoppable flames? Would he ever be able to move on if you ended up breaking his heart, or would it remain in scattered pieces of you?

“I love you,” he uttered so effortlessly, which almost convinced you he had said it a thousand times before. In a way, he did, but only in his mind after every time he bid you goodnight. Gods, never did you think he’d say it out loud and put it out there. You almost said it before as well - out loud to the universe, but never brave enough.

“Luke, I never knew,” Luke wanted to sigh as he looked away from you. For the first time ever, he did not want to be vulnerable and let you see his eyes. The same ones that had been looking longingly at you for the past five years, and you were too blinded to see.

He could have sworn that he had been laying it on thick for the past years - all the touches, the looks, his actions. Luke would always linger near you and select you first every time he had to go on a quest. And if he ever were selected to go on one without you, the first thing he would do after returning is wrap his arms around your waist as he pulled you into a hug, breathing in your presence like it would bring him back to life from the gruesome battles he had to go through while out of camp. Did all those actions throughout five years not show you enough that he was infatuated with you? He wanted to reassure you that what Cole said previously was not true. Many guys wanted you but never asked you out because they knew he would be first in line no matter what.

"Luke, please, look at me," Of course he obeyed. His eyes met yours - the ones he always tried to find in a crowd of demigods.

“I never knew that you were an option. I did not know that I could choose you. I thought that even attempting to tell you about my feelings would break our friendship forever. I didn’t know you felt this way, too. In fact,” you dryly chuckled. “I was giving Cole a chance because I was trying to move on from you.” Luke tugged you closer to him, his fingers lingering on your hips. Thousands of thoughts speared through him as he tried to collect himself. A glimmer of hope presented itself as his mind toyed with the idea of you wanting him too.There was no way he was letting you move on now, not when you both have mutual feelings.

“I thought I was deep in the friend zone. Did you not see all the moves I pulled on you?” he asked.

“What moves?”

“Uhm—the physical contact?”

“I thought you were just touchy.”

“I walked you back to your cabin every night!”

“Well, I thought it was just a best friend thing?”

“The first thing I do after every quest is search for you, you’re always the first one I want to see.”

“I really, really thought it was because you were my best friend.” He groaned at all of your responses.

“But do know, Luke. You have always been my first option in everything. And I would have chosen you again and again, the first pick every round…if I knew you were up for it.” He groaned again, but this time out of temptation and satisfaction. He didn’t think the metaphorical butterflies were real. He slowly but surely stood up from the infirmary’s bed and wrapped his arms around your waist. You reciprocated, your hands around his neck. He leaned closer to you and gulped. He wanted to say the right words, do the right things and not mess this up. He took a deep breath and finally settled on what to say next.

“Can I kiss you?” He muttered in a low, raspy voice with a restrained manner, as if he was holding himself back. Five years of pining led him to this point. You almost melted at the sound of his voice.

“Kiss me, Luke.”

And he did. He pulled you up and arched down, connecting your lips together. He dove in as if he had been waiting for this day his whole life. He felt every breath knocked out of his lungs. He sunk himself into this moment like he was living for it rather than in it. He kissed you as if it was the only time he could and as if you would evaporate if he stopped. His hands moved to your face to embrace your cheeks in his palm.

You started moving your hands up his head and played with his curly hair. You tugged it slightly, and the action drew a moan from Luke. The sound caused you to break away. It made you flustered that you had evoked such an alluring sound from the Hermes boy.

“I wanna go slow for you, I really do. But it feels like I’ve been waiting for so long. I want to be a gentleman and not skip steps. But I can’t wait anymore,” he whispered before whimpering against your lips, “please be mine.”

He went in for another kiss again, but you pulled away. His heart clenched at this. The boy bit his lip and wanted to scowl at himself for attempting to speed things up. He was too greedy and wanted things too quickly for you. He almost whined at the thought of losing the chance he barely had.

“That was not a question, Luke. Ask me, and I’ll give you an answer,” he stared into your eyes, and it almost set him on fire. He never saw that much passion in them before. It almost matched his, and that made his heart fasten again.

“Will you be mine, sunshine?”

“Yes, Luke. As long as you’re mine too.”

“I have always been yours.”

——————————

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tojisun · 8 months ago

Note

the way you wrote simon “my cock is too big it won’t fit” riley was jaw dropping, eye-rolling, and heavenly!!!

I’m imagining Simon who finally puts it in and is even more desperate than reader (cue male whimpering audio)

awww thank u so much!! i had such intense need that i bonked my head n went, “yup. this is the horny thought for the day” <333

oh but he was always soooooo desperate, even more so than the reader!! especially before they finally fucked!!!

thinking about the way he fucks his fist every night after your date ends :((

while you were at your home, stuffing your hole with your fingers (and toys, really—your eyes having devoured the chub underneath simon’s pants every time you two would sit close together, snuggled as you watched a movie, before rushing home and putting in on an order for toys because god do you need one. or four…), simon was locked in his room, messily fisting his cock.

there is too much lube, and it is staining his boxers and his pants because he was too horny to even strip properly. he bites down his moans, hesitant to let them out even when he is alone at his safe house, his eyes pressed close as he imagines the way he'll take you: on your knees while he pinches your nipples, flicking the buds with the blunt ends of his nails, or on your back with your legs folded to your chest because there is no way in hell that simon's not going to breed you.

it's that thought that always makes him cum, rumbled groans pouring out like rippling water.

“jesus,” he murmurs as he stares at his cum-stained palm, mind running at the way you clenched-and-unclenched your legs during dinner—something, he notes, was happening more often. “this is torture.”

(simon has always known how you look good in your own desperation, ragged in the way you stare up at him with furrowed eyes and lips jutted into a pout, but there was something different then. it was charged. primal. and simon realized how the ache must have peaked for you.

good, simon thought. i need you just as much.)

he slid two fingers in your twitching hole, relishing in your stuttered moans at the ease of their plunge. the wet squelch made his cock jump, thumping against his thigh, but he wasn’t done.

it wasn’t enough.

(simon has had countless partners before you, just like you had others before him.

you told him of the dissatisfaction, how cocks only ever breached your walls for the pleasure of the body it was attached to and never for your own. you told him of your elation that bubbled into sputtering disappointment because they never knew how to coax an orgasm from you with just their cock. you told him of the accidental orgasms, those that they cannot recreate because it wasn’t intended. sure, you told him of their wonderful fingers or mouths, of their robust laps you were grinding on during those days when sex is more foreplay than the penetration, but it wasn’t what you ached for.

you told him all of this, in return, simon told you the others who could never really fit him. the others who tried but they were never really interested in the preparation. the others who could only take half of his length, hissing when an inch slides in even when it shouldn’t.

“impatient,” simon murmured when you asked why his ex-partners couldn’t fit him.

“and they don’t have that…” he trailed off, tongue heavy in his mouth.

“they don’t have what?” you prodded, blinking at him all so darlingly, your blood buzzed with alcohol.

“they don’t have that masochistic streak,” simon replied, voice gentle. testing.

your only reaction was a quiet gasp, heavy eyes widening a fraction as the words settled in. he watched as you began fidgeting, throat bobbing at your dry swallow.

that was all simon needed to know you are made for him—soul and body.)

the moment your greedy hole managed to gobble all of his four fingers was when simon knew you were ready. he flicked his eyes away from your dripping slit and watched as you laid on the bed twitching, your eyes red from your tears, your skin dotted with sweat.

you looked like a beautiful, hot mess and simon was ready to engulf you whole.

simon slots himself between your legs, fist warm around his flushed cock. your glazed eyes focus on him, watching with open-mouthed gasps, and simon coos, unable to stop himself.

“ready f’r me, pup?” he asks, tapping the head of his cock against your sensitive sex.

it makes you keen, hips squirming, mussing up the already soiled sheets. simon chuckles, heat filling his cheeks, and taps it once, twice, three more times before finally lining the leaking head of his cock against your twitching hole.

the slow press in makes you two moan, bodies locking at the explosion of ecstasy that fills up your senses. overwhelming pleasure quickly razes through him, overtaking his sanity as the wet squeeze of your walls grips him deliciously.

he buckles, muscles liquifying, and the dizzying euphoria makes him stumble. he slips, his cock sliding in deeper, breaching further—

simon whimpers, unable to stop himself as unadulterated bliss grips him. he couldn’t help it: he sinks all of himself in you, your walls not even protesting as they swallowed him in, hungry in the way you are all filled up by him.

“si-!” he hears your delirious squeal, the rumble of your voice scratching into a ragged echo, and simon—

simon gurgles a response.

his mind has been zapped by the peaking high, rendering him unable to string coherent thoughts as all of his synapses sing nothing but the enveloping pleasure, running him on overdrive.

simon feels like he is being devoured. like he is stripped into nothing but his sensitive spots.

“t-too good,” he mewls. “pup, s’too good–”

#anon #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley smut #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley smut #simon and his big dick galore 🥰#ask #suns #I YELLED OMG SORRY THIS IS FILTHY

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opheliapurple · 5 months ago

Text

One of my favorite things about Arthur and John’s weird relationship is their refusal to properly delegate.

In quite literally every other shared-body story in the history of mankind, working together in tandem with each other would be one of the very first things attempted.

Sure we have “ORTHUR, Jesus Christ orthur they’re dead. They’re all dead. FUCK orthur, it’s Thomas the Tank Engine. He’s staring at you orthur. There’s blood everywhere- WE NEED TO GO-“ etc etc, but that doesn’t count. They fail every single Quick Time event that crosses their path because sometimes John will deliver information, sometimes Arthur will make an action, and neither will happen at the same time.

They both act like they’re just standing very close to one another. They have the problem solving capabilities of two people losing a three legged race.

They are tasked with minding a lighthouse flame upon pain of mysterious and creepy monster-death and god forbid BOTH of them pitch in at the same time. Could you imagine either of them being that reasonable? Their hearts would give out under the strain.

Instead tweedlestupid with one hand and zero eyes minds the light while tweedlestupider with one hand and two eyes dedicates every sense available to the crusade of maintaining their back and forth pre/post/current divorce level bitching.

But even before that, the way they chose to tackle the feat of driving was as insane as it was hilarious. That’s when I knew they were incurable morons and deserved to be stitched together on the celestial plane for the rest of their arcane lives.

Tldr: You could merge the consciousness of any other two souls on this planet together and get a more immediately capable pair. That’s how you know they’re soulmates.

#malevolent podcast #malevolent #arthur lester #john doe malevolent #jarthur

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pucksandpower · 3 months ago

Text

Let the World Burn

Charles Leclerc x Ferrari driver!Reader

Summary: a brake failure sends Charles’ world spinning out of control

Warnings: crash, partial paralysis, brain injury, and plenty of angst (with a happy ending because I’m still me)

Based on this request

The paddock thrums with energy as you make your way to your car, adrenaline already coursing through your veins. Charles falls into step beside you, his presence as familiar and comforting as the roar of engines.

“Ready to show them how it’s done, mon amour?” His voice is a low rumble, eyes alight with competitive fire.

You grin, leaning in to press a swift kiss to his lips. “Always. You’ll be the one watching my rear wing this time.”

Charles laughs, the sound rich and warm. “We’ll see about that.” He squeezes your hand, calloused fingers intertwining with yours. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” The words carry the weight of a thousand unspoken promises, a vow as binding as the wedding bands you can’t yet wear.

All too soon, you’re parting ways, disappearing into the organized chaos of the garage. You slide into the snug confines of the cockpit, the car’s familiar lines an extension of your own body. A flurry of final checks, the high-pitched whine of the engine firing up, and then you’re rolling onto the grid, the tension crackling like static electricity.

The lights go out, and the world narrows to the scream of tires on tarmac, the high-pitched howl of the engine, and the razor-sharp focus that has carried you this far. You and Charles trade positions with every corner, locked in an exhilarating duel that has the crowd on its feet.

And then, without warning, your world fractures.

The pedal goes soft underfoot, your instincts screaming even before the telltale high-pitched whine cuts through the roar of the engine. You slam on the brakes, but the response is sickening— a bare fraction of the deceleration you need.

“Ricky?” Your voice is tight, the adrenaline surging as the implications crash over you in waves. “I’ve got a brake issue here. A big one.”

“Copy that.” Ricky’s tone is clipped, professional, even as your heart rabbits in your chest. “Okay, let’s try cycling the systems-”

You follow his instructions with mechanical precision, but the results are the same: negligible braking force, the car still hurtling forward at murderous speeds. A hairpin looms ahead, the barriers terrifyingly close, and you fight the wheel with everything you have, desperate to keep the bucking machine on track.

“Ricky, is this being broadcast?” The words tumble out in a breathless rush as the Turn looms closer, closer.

“Affirmative.” There’s a pause, the faintest tremor in Ricky’s voice. “It’s going out live.”

You exhale, a shuddering breath that shakes your entire frame. There’s only one person you need to reach now.

“Charles.” His name catches in your throat, thick with emotion. “If you’re listening to this-”

The tears come then, hot and blinding as you wrestle with the uncontrollable car. This can’t be how it ends, not like this, not when you’d imagined decades more by his side.

“In some other life, maybe we would have grown old together.” The words are torn from the depths of your soul, raw and wrenched free by the stark reality bearing down on you. “I wish I could have given you babies and watched our children grow up and lived a long life by your side like we always dreamed.”

Your vision blurs, the turn now a void of unforgiving concrete rushing up to meet you. You fight the wheel with everything you have, but there’s no stopping the inevitable now.

“You deserve every happiness, my love. If … if I don’t make it, please … please find someone else to love and cherish. Don't grieve forever. Be happy.” The brake pedal is useless under your foot, the barriers skimming past in a blur of terror. “Because you deserve all the love in this world and so much more.”

“I hope you’ll hear this,” you force out in a cracked whisper. "And I need you to know, my heart, that even if things end here … even if I don’t get to grow old with you … you have been the brightest light in my life these past five years. You made me happier than I ever dreamed. And I will never, ever stop loving you, Charles. Not in this life or the next. You are everything-”

The impact is a cosmic force, obliterating breath and thought and everything else in a blinding flare of darkness. But still, you cling to awareness, to the phantom thread of love that binds you to the one person who matters most.

“I’ll always-” The anguished vow catches, cut brutally short as oblivion rises to claim you. In those final heartbeats, a fleeting kaleidoscope of memories sparks behind your eyes: unmistakable laughter, stolen kisses, quiet moments wrapped in each other’s arms.

Five years of loving Charles, of being loved by him in a way you’d never dared dream possible.

It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough.

But it was everything.

“I love-”

Then, nothing.

***

The world fragments around Charles as his gaze locks onto the shattered remains of the familiar red car. One heartbeat — an endless, merciless instant suspended in time — and then his instincts take over with the force of a tidal wave.

“No … no, no, no!” The anguished words rip from his throat as he wrenches the steering wheel, the shriek of tires on tarmac drowned out by the roar of his own pulse thundering in his ears.

The race, the championship, every ambition and dream that has driven him to this point — it all fades into insignificance as he tears down the pitlane, desperation clawing at his throat. “Y/N! Hold on!”

Flames lick hungrily at the twisted wreckage as he sprints towards the mangled chassis, heedless of the searing heat or the choking smoke that burns his lungs. There’s only one thought, one driving need that propels him forward: reach you, get you out, pull you back from the precipice that has opened up beneath his feet.

“Y/N!”

Your name rips from his lips, a hoarse plea swallowed up by the crackle of fire. He skids to a halt beside the wreckage, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the warped metal that has become your cage, your tomb. “Talk to me, mon cœur! I’m here!”

Coherent thought fractures, replaced by blind panic and the soul-deep terror of losing the one light that guides him through this life.

Your eyes are closed, features lax and far too still against the vivid crimson that stains your skin. Charles’ breath catches in his throat, a raw, animal sound clawing its way free as his trembling hands reach for you, desperate to find a flutter of life, a spark of the brilliant fire he knows blazes within you.

“No, no, no … please, stay with me!” He cups your cheek, fingers smearing crimson as they search in vain for a pulse. “I can’t … I can’t lose you!”

Hands grasp at him then, voices raised in shouts he can’t comprehend. He wrestles against the restraints, a feral need to reach you overriding all reason. “Get off me! She needs help!”

But the marshals are insistent, pushing him back with grim determination until he can only watch, helpless, as they douse the ravenous flames.

It feels like an eternity, each gasping breath torn from a soul being flayed apart piece by torturous piece. And then, finally, they move in, the screech of metal and the hiss of hydraulics barely registering over the roar in Charles’ ears.

You’re so still as they work, pale and frighteningly fragile amidst the tangle of debris. A thin rivulet of red trails from the corner of your lips, each sluggish drip a struck match against the powder keg of Charles’ sanity. He takes a shuddering step forward, then another, his world narrowing to the trembling rise and fall of your chest.

“Please … please, stay with me,” he rasps, fingers closing around the rigid lines of the barrier as if it’s the only tether holding him to reality.

A marshal’s hand on his chest, forceful but lacking the strength to halt the unstoppable forward momentum of a man staring into the abyss. “Back off! Let them work!”

But how can he stand back? How can he simply watch as your life’s flame gutters and fades before his eyes? The words climb his throat, tangling into desperate pleas and vows that he’ll burn the world to keep you here, to keep you safe.

Except, no words come. There’s only the taste of ashes on his tongue and the sight of you, broken and bloodied on the unforgiving grass.

The medics arrive in a whirlwind of crisp efficiency, barking terse orders and assessments that slice into Charles with each clipped syllable. He’s dimly aware of the confirmation that you still live, that there’s a chance — but it’s a flicker, fleeting in the face of the reality unfolding before him.

“What are her chances?” The question rasps out, little more than a graveled whisper as he strains against the restraining hands.

You need an airlift, treatment beyond what can be rendered here on this blood-stained stage. Charles knows it, can see the franticness in the medics’ eyes as they work, but the knowledge brings no comfort.

Only an agonizing cycle of seconds hand-cranked like a Medieval torture device, each one stripping another layer of sanity as he watches you slip away.

“Just hang on, mon amour. I’m here … I’m right here.” His voice cracks, breaking on a devastated keen as they load you onto the backboard.

The whine of rotor blades cuts through the static in his head, a cold metallic slice that raises the hairs on the back of his neck. He sucks in a breath, lungs burning with the effort as the helicopter circles in a raucous descent.

“Please, let me go with her!” He wrenches against the hands with renewed desperation.

They’re taking you away.

He tries to follow, legs turned to lead weights, only to be held back once more by the wall of marshals. There’s shouting, words and pleas and anguished vows all tangled into an incomprehensible madness. “No! Y/N!”

And then, you’re gone.

Lifted skyward in a cloud of downdraft, growing smaller and more indistinct until the sleek lines of the helicopter grow razor-thin before disappearing completely.

“No … no, no, no!” Charles’ legs buckle, sending him crashing to his knees in the scorched swath of earth where you were just lying. His hands fist in the grass, heedless of the crimson that stains his fingers, his palms, every inch of shredded skin and broken soul.

The world has ended. His universe has imploded.

And all he can do is kneel in the ashes and scream your name into the uncaring void.

***

The deafening roar of engines fades to a dull thrum as Charles staggers away from the wreckage, his world reduced to a kaleidoscope of fractured images and white noise. He doesn’t register the shouts, the hands grasping at his shoulders as he stumbles blindly towards the track’s perimeter.

Racing. Championships. It all feels like a cruel cosmic joke in the face of what he’s just witnessed.

A chain-link fence looms ahead, the flimsy barrier doing nothing to impede his forward momentum. Figures materialize on the other side — fans, their faces twisted in shock and concern—and then hands are reaching through, steadying him as he clambers over the top with a desperation bordering on madness.

He has to get to you. Nothing else matters.

The parking lot stretches out before him, a maze of gleaming supercars and sleek team transporters. His feet move without conscious thought, propelled by a single-minded determination to reach his haven, his sole remaining tether in this swiftly unraveling realm.

Except, when he arrives at his Ferrari, chest heaving with exertion and the first tendrils of panic starting to set in, the awful truth crashes over him like a tsunami.

No keys.

A choking sound tears from his throat, part sob and part anguished growl of frustration. He can’t break down here, not now, not when every fiber of his being screams at him to keep moving, to fight, to-

“Charles!”

The familiar voice cuts through the din, offering a lifeline just as the darkness threatens to swell and consume him utterly. Andrea skids to a halt beside him, chest heaving and face flushed from his own desperate sprint across the paddock.

In his outstretched hand, the keys dangle and glint in the harsh sunlight.

“I had a feeling,” the trainer pants, thrusting the keys towards Charles with a knowing look.

No other words are needed. Charles snatches them with a terse nod, every agonizing second weighing like an eternity as the engine roars to life beneath his expert touch.

His knuckles whiten on the steering wheel as he wrenches the car into gear, jaw clenched to keep the scream of agony caged behind his teeth. Andrea hardly has time to slam the door before they’re peeling out of the lot in a spray of gravel and burnt rubber.

Except, the awful truth rears its head once more as the speedometer climbs past ludicrous speeds, the blur of the Italian countryside offering no reprieve from the maelstrom tearing him apart from the inside.

“Shit!” Charles’ palm cracks against the steering wheel, knuckles screaming in protest. “Where did they take her?”

Of course Andrea knows what he’s asking. The performance coach doesn’t even hesitate, already dialing his phone with the same razor-sharp focus that has guided Charles through so many battles over the years. “Fred? It’s Andrea. Where did they take Y/N?”

The next few seconds stretch into an eternity, each rattling breath searing Charles’ lungs. The line must still be ringing because Charles can’t make out any other voice, just the muffled hum of the connection and Andrea’s terse breathing. He casts a sidelong glance, jaw clenched so tightly he can feel the tendons straining beneath his skin.

Then, a response — clipped and authoritative even through the tinny speakerphone crackle. “They’ve airlifted her to the trauma center in Milan. She’s still en route.”

No other words are needed. The Ferrari leaps forward with a howl, devouring the asphalt as Charles whites out every other thought, every scrap of sense and reason. All that exists is the burning need to reach you before the unthinkable becomes reality.

Highway signs whip by in a blur, red taillights and shrill horns little more than background noise as he tears down the roads, uncaring of speed limits or lane markers or any of the trifling rules governing the everyday world he’s left behind. Just an animalistic need propelling him forward, the destination the only thing that matters.

Get to her. Don’t be too late. Please, god, don’t let me be too late ...

And then, finally, the looming skyline of Milan rears into view.

Tires squeal in protest as Charles wrenches the steering wheel, the Ferrari fishtailing wildly before rocketing down the street towards the distinctive profile of the hospital. He doesn’t even bother looking for a proper spot, swinging the car up over the curb and leaving it stranded halfway on the sidewalk in a blatant obstruction.

But he doesn’t care. Can’t care about anything beyond reaching you.

The chaos of the emergency room hits them in a crashing wave of noise and activity, but Charles forges ahead undeterred. Shouts and rebuffs part around him like a river around a boulder, falling away as staff recognize the wild-eyed visage barreling towards them.

It’s Italy. It’s the Grand Prix. Of course they know his face, the name that every tifoso here would sell their soul to claim as a native son. A path opens before them, whispers and pointing fingers trailing in their wake.

“Leclerc!”

“Did you hear what happened?”

“Code Red from the Autodromo ..”

The words slice at Charles, both too loud and too indistinct to comprehend beyond the implication that you’re here, somewhere through these endless, claustrophobic hallways. A nurse in seafoam scrubs appears at his side, ushering them with brisk efficiency. He follows without a word, legs fueled by pure desperation as they weave deeper into the sprawling facility.

At last, they’re led into a waiting room, the nurse pivoting to face them with a carefully composed expression. “The patient was brought in approximately thirty minutes ago with severe trauma from the crash. She’s currently in surgery, but there are no further updates I can provide right now.”

Surgery.

The weight of that single word hits like a sledgehammer, sending Charles reeling until his back slams against the nearest wall. He sucks in a ragged gasp, fingers tangling in his sweat-damp curls as the magnitude of what’s unfolding threatens to drag him under completely.

There are voices, murmurs of concern as figures materialize from the edges of his frayed vision. Hands grasp at him, trying in vain to offer comfort or reassurance or something, anything to tether him to this reality that has become his waking nightmare.

But there is no solace to be found.

With a shudder that wracks his entire frame, Charles slides down the wall, knees tucking up in a pitiful facsimile of the bright-eyed young man who had stood on that sunbaked grid only hours ago. His head drops into his upraised palms, fingers tightening in his hair until the pain is the only thing anchoring him against the relentless maelstrom of grief and terror threatening to sweep him away.

The rest of the world falls away until all that remains is the hollow ache in his chest and the silent pleas to someone — anyone — tumbling through his mind on an endless refrain.

A hand rests on his shoulder, grounding him, and he registers Andrea’s presence beside him, the other man’s face drawn in anguish. Tears track down the trainer’s cheeks, glittering in the harsh fluorescent light.

For a long moment, there is only the sound of their mingled breaths, of a silent understanding too profound for words.

Neither speaks. There are no more words to be said, no prayers to voice beyond the torrent of desperate pleas echoing through their fractured psyches.

All that remains is to wait, and steel themselves against the soul-shattering eventuality awaiting them no matter which way the scales of existence tip.

So they wait. And Charles breaks.

***

The fluorescent lights hum a discordant drone, casting stark shadows that seem to leach the warmth from every surface. Charles stares unseeing at the scuffed linoleum tiles inches from his boots, the clinical smell of disinfectant burning his nostrils with each shallow breath.

Beside him, Andrea’s presence is a fixed point amidst the whirling currents of nurses, orderlies, and grim-faced family members that swirl through the waiting room. A bottle of water is pressed into Charles’ hand at some point, the plastic slick with condensation against his palm.

He doesn’t drink. Doesn’t move or speak or show any reaction to the flickering passage of time.

The flow of bodies ebbs and swells like the tide, more familiar faces appearing in scuttling clusters. First the Ferrari personnel, then other teams’ crew, and finally the drivers themselves, one by one. Gasps and muffled curses drift past as the scope of the situation sinks in. Whispers, a bitten-off sob from somewhere across the room.

Charles hears none of it.

He’s adrift in a sea of his own spiraling thoughts, each cresting wave dragging him deeper into the all-consuming torment. Memories mingle with fragments of overheard updates, snippets of frantic phone conversations from those trying to unravel the events of the race.

Blood, so much blood staining the grass, her lips, matting her hair in crimson streaks as she lay unmoving, unbreathing.

Internal bleeding, fractures, neural trauma.

Laughter muffled by the sheets, lazy mornings spent tangled in each other as the world continued its inexorable spin beyond their bedroom walls.

Code Red from the Autodromo ...

The last words she’d tried to force out, little more than a whispered breath over the roar of the racetrack: “I love-”

The purgatory crawls on, each sluggish second carved raw against his tattered nerves. Charles is vaguely aware of the others filtering in and out in shifts, some speaking to him in murmurs too soft to understand, others simply sitting in silence as the minutes bled together into hours.

Some indeterminable span of time later, a ripple works its way through the room, crystallizing into a gathered hush as figures in pale green scrubs appear. One steps forward — a man with graying hair and a craggy face lined by decades of triaging human lives.

The hush deepens to an utter stillness as every eye turns towards him, a held breath drawn taut to the breaking point. Charles lifts his head, forces his gaze to focus on the man’s lips as they part, the moment elongating like a length of rubber pulled to the edge of its tensile strength.

“The patient-” A pause as the surgeon’s eyes flick across the sea of apprehension before settling on Charles with deliberate weight. “-has been stabilized after undergoing extensive surgery to address the trauma sustained in the crash.”

A soft exhalation moves through the room, instinctive reactions barely bridled by the undercurrent of anxiety that keeps them taut, waiting.

“She suffered a severe brain bleed which resulted in significant swelling. In order to alleviate the pressure on her brain, we were forced to put her into a medically-induced coma.”

The words lance through Charles like jagged shards of ice, locking the breath in his lungs. Unconscious, unresponsive. Alive, but without any way of reaching out to reassure himself that the spark still flickers in those endlessly warm eyes. He swallows hard, the room swimming in and out of focus as the surgeon continues in a measured cadence.

“We’ve also had to repair multiple internal injuries and fractures, including her spine. The next forty-eight hours will be critical for monitoring her condition and responses.”

And there it is, the crux they’ve all been tensed in agonizing anticipation to receive. In two days, they’ll know if the fight — your fight — is over before it’s truly begun. The flip of a cosmic coin will determine whether Charles’ entire universe continues to spin … or falls into the black void opening up beneath his feet.

Peripherally, he’s aware of the questions starting, the anguished pleas for more details and reassurances as the others process the impassive surgeon’s words through their own lenses of experience. But Charles hears none of it, only the deafening rush of his own pulse echoing in his ears as the grains of sand in fate’s diabolical hourglass begin their insidious trek.

A blink, and the surgeon is gone, the rest of the somber scrub-clad figures dispersing back towards the swinging doors of the surgical ward. Just like that, they’re alone again, adrift in the limbo of both desperation and dread.

Charles sags, his tenuous grip on composure fracturing like a dam rupturing beneath the crushing weight of reality. A broken whimper rasps from deep within his chest, guttural and visceral and utterly devoid of anything resembling hope.

A hand finds his shoulder, grounding him enough to keep him tethered to the earth as the universe he knows compresses into the torturous rhythm of a mechanized ventilator breathing life into your battered form.

He can see you so clearly, even with his eyes screwed shut against the harsh fluorescents bleaching every surface to the same antiseptic pallor. Fragile, fighting, hooked up to the cold indifference of technology while it works to preserve what he knows to be the brightest, most brilliant soul ever breathed into existence.

The thought of those sparkling eyes, your eyes clouded with unresponsive stillness … it rips the last tattered shred of restraint from his unraveling core. A desolate wail tears free, strangled and raw and utterly devoid of resignation or peace.

He’s loved you for years, months, days, lifetimes — and still it will never be enough to prepare him for a world in which you don’t exist. A breath where he is forced to simply survive without the steady radiance of your presence illuminating every step along his path. Without living.

Andrea’s arms encircle him, a brotherly embrace that does little to quell the flood of anguish now pouring from him in heaving torrents. The others retreat with quiet steps, allowing themselves to fade into the shadows, mere ghosts slipping from the devastation of a man confronting the whispered dread that inhabits every driver’s subconscious.

A love and a life, both hanging suspended by whatever cosmic forces govern their fleeting existences.

You are his gravity, his sun, his guiding starlight.

If you burn out, his universe will go forever dark.

***

The antiseptic haze of the ICU feels like a vice around Charles’ chest as he follows the nurse down the sterile hallway. Each shuffling step is leaden, tinged with an unreality that weighs heavier with every closed door they pass.

Part of him doesn’t want to go through with this. Doesn’t want to face the reality that awaits on the other side of that threshold and shatter the tenuous equilibrium he’s managed to cling to since the moment everything disintegrated on the racetrack.

“She’s just through here.”

The nurse’s words are a wrench, jerking Charles from his reverie with a sobering lurch. Ahead, a nondescript door with a window barely cracked — the entrance to a realm he’s not sure his soul can withstand traversing.

“I’ll give you a few minutes.” Her voice has taken on that too-gentle lilt, the one that says she’s borne witness to too many lives fractured.

Charles nods automatically, not meeting her gaze as she retreats on soft-soled steps. Then it’s just him, alone in the dimly lit hallway with only the muffled noise of machines and murmured voices beyond the door to keep him tethered.

With a fortifying breath that does little to settle the jackhammer pounding in his chest, he grasps the handle and pushes through into your room.

And then … there you are.

Pale and hauntingly still against the sterile sheets, a sickly garden of tubes and wires cocooning your form. There’s barely a rise and fall of your chest, just the robotic ebb and flow of life being pumped through the mask clamped across your face. Dark crescents of bruising mar the fragile skin beneath your eyes, blossoming in vivid shades of yellow and violet across your cheekbones.

You’re so devastatingly still. As if all your vibrant essence has retreated inward, abandoning your corporeal shell in favor of waging an unseen war to simply continue existing.

Charles sucks in a shuddering breath, fingers spasming against his thigh as the first hairline fractures split through the dam he’s erected around his emotions. Part of him wants to flee, to escape back into the blissful naivete of the world before this became his reality. Another part is rooted to the spot with magnetic inevitability, drawn in helpless orbit around your pale, unmoving form.

Slowly, one foot drags in front of the other, carrying him across the room to hover beside your bedside. The blanket of tubes and wires prevents him from seeing much beyond your face and the barest suggestion of a shoulder through the loose neckline of the hospital gown. He reaches out, fingertips trembling as he ghosts them over the exposed skin just above the jutting notch of your collarbone.

You’re so still. And so, so cold.

That’s what breaks him.

His knees hit the tile with a dull thud, unheeded tears already streaking down his cheeks by the time he presses his forehead to the mattress edge. One hand finds yours, enveloping it in a desperate grasp as his entire being crumbles inward like a spent force of nature.

“No, no, no ...” The words are a mantra intermingled with broken gasps as the dam ruptures completely and the anguish pours free in ragged waves. “This can’t … you can’t ...”

Coherent thought deserts him, spiraling into the endless dark of a life without you at his side. These last few days have been a mere fleeting taste of that desolate actuality, uncomprehending glimpses into a reality too obliterating to fully process.

A universe without your light? Your radiance and warmth suffusing his world with color and texture and meaning? It feels like a black hole has opened its maw inside of his chest, hungry to devour everything until nothing remains.

“Please ...”

The plea rasps out in a guttural whisper, little more than carbon scoring the back of his throat. Head bowed, he crushes his brow to your knuckles, each etchings of bone an anchor weight lashing him to this merciless reality.

“Come back to me ...”

The words splinter apart, shredded into woeful gasps as the dam of his fragile composure ruptures. Great, racking sobs claw their way free, tearing through him from the center of his hollow core.

“Take everything else.” The words fracture anew, dissolving into heaving sobs as another piece of his soul splinters away. “Take every trophy, every podium, every championship I will ever win ...”

His voice cracks, seizing in his throat as he drags in a ragged breath, leaning his brow harder against the bedside to ground himself in some last anchor of solidity. Anything to keep from shattering into a million irretrievable pieces as he pours out the final offering, the ultimate sacrifice any driver or athlete can make against the cruel cosmic joke of mortality.

“Take my career, my records ... everything racing has ever meant to me ...” His fingers spasm around yours, clinging on with everything he has left as the darkness closes in. “Just ... please, let her wake up. Let me have more than just these memories of her smile and her laugh and the way she makes everything brighter just by existing.”

The sobs come harder now, racking his frame with deep shudders as his voice dissolves into jagged keening. Tears scald rivulets down his cheeks and drip from his chin to patter against the utilitarian sheets in glimmering droplets. He cries for the unfairness of it all, for the loss that is so brutally imminent it’s already written into his very bones, for the gaping hole that is soon to hollow out his very existence.

Eventually, the racking sobs subside into muted whimpers, the storm ebbing into a quieter desolation as he clings to the thin lifeline of your hand still cradled in his own. A bitter laugh claws its way up his throat, raw and devoid of any trace of humor.

“You’d probably kick my ass if you could see me making deals with the devil like this.”

The silence is deafening, broken only by the measured hiss-pause-exhale of the machines mercilessly keeping that precious flicker of life from extinguishing completely. Another laugh escapes, rough and graveled with the weight of a million shattered pieces of himself littering the floor around him.

“You’ve always been the stronger one between us, haven’t you?”

He angles his head, pressing his lips to your knuckles in a lingering kiss as a fresh deluge of tears gather in his eyes. “So wake up, mon cœur. Wake up and show me how to keep going ...”

The whisper hangs in the air, suspended in the limbo of waiting and dread as the machines continue their indifferent monotony. Charles lingers there, forehead pressed to your palm as the minutes drag onward and the final flickers of day fade from the window.

He’s here. He’ll always be right here.

No matter how many nights and days and eternities that ceaseless tide must crash over him until your eyes open once more.

The quiet is shattered by a stifled gasp at the threshold, a swell of fresh emotion that causes Charles to lift his head, scrubbing futilely at his eyes with the back of his free hand. Two figures have appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the dimmer light of the hallway beyond.

Footsteps, two sets. Familiar yet not, like ghosts drifting through the periphery of a dream. He knows instinctively who has stepped into the claustrophobic bubble of vigil, but cannot summon the energy to turn, to confront them.

There’s only you. Only you, and this carcass of shattered promises and devastation that he’s been reduced to by the simple fact of your absence.

Until …

Motions in the corner of his vision, the slide of fabric and muted footfalls amidst the monotonous cadence of technology. Then, a pair of weathered hands — hands he recognizes like the veins pulsing with life beneath his own skin — come into view, cupping his bowed head in a cradle of reassurance and shared infinitudes of anguish.

Your parents’ voices carry in the wake of their touch, whispers ragged with the same bone-deep desolation bleeding from Charles’ shattered core. Indistinct murmurs of comfort, of empathy, of that level of understanding that only those poised on the precipice can ever understand.

He doesn’t resist as they draw him into the circle of their arms, enveloping him until their shared warmth banishes some of the chill snaking through his soul. Hot tears streak down his cheeks again, but these aren’t solitary, bitter shed of a man abandoned in the void of loss.

Their mingled anguish binds them together on this fevered plane of suffering, a communion of the damned begging with whatever beneficent forces might hear their pleas.

Please.

Please give them back the spark of light they all crave with every fiber of their beings.

Please, because this ...

This is no life. Not without you.

***

The fluorescent lights seem to dim with every passing hour, the edges of reality blurring together into an indistinct smear. Time has lost all meaning amidst the monotonous cycle of machines and muffled hospital ambiance swirling through your room.

Charles is adrift in a wakeful dream state, his world compressed into the miniscule shifts across your features. The steady beep of the heart monitor, the almost imperceptible rise and fall of your chest, the flutter of your eyelids as your mind navigates whatever ethereal paths separate you from him.

He hasn’t left your bedside. Not for food or rest or even the most basic of human needs. It’s all he can do to simply exist in this liminal space with you, unwilling to surrender a single breath or blink to the cruelty of a reality in which your presence doesn’t illuminate every crevice.

His thumb traces idle circles over your knuckles, the motion as robotic as the whoosh of the ventilator forcing air in and out of your lungs. Voices drift through from the hallway, clinical and detached. More tests and updates being murmured without context or depth of feeling.

None of it matters. The only metric capable of penetrating the fog enshrouding Charles is the ghost of sensation where his calloused fingers brush your skin.

He’s acutely attuned to the details of your condition at any given moment, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to the professionals at their stations monitoring labs and scans. A slight spike in temperature or blood pressure, the faintest twitching muscle or brow-furrow. All of it feels magnified a thousandfold as he clings to every indication, every little shift that might signal a turn for the better.

Or … for the worse

The thought skitters away the instant it surfaces, instinctively repressed by the force of Charles’ sheer desperation. He’s been here, motionless and steadfast, as the forty-eight hour milestone stretched into seventy-two, ninety-six, a hundred and twenty. With each passing day, the doctors grew more optimistic, more positive in their assessments as the swelling in your brain gradually abated.

Until this morning. The preliminary preparations to rouse you from the protective shroud of the medically induced coma began. Rounds of testing, consults from specialists, hushed asides between the scrub-clad personnel that Charles couldn’t parse beyond the undercurrent of anticipation that rippled through the ward.

Now they wait. He and the contingent of nurses and doctors hovering at stations like sentries guarding the gateway to the only world that matters. Watching, observing, as your eyelids begin to stir and the heart monitor’s pattern shifts just slightly from its metronomic rhythm.

Charles holds his breath, fingers tightening around yours as his gaze fixes on your face, the first pinpricks of awareness flickering there. Your eyelids flutter, brow furrowing as if straining against unseen barriers holding you back. Flashes of animation, of unvoiced struggle, play out in rapid succession and his world constricts into that singular point of reality unwinding.

Your fingers twitch, a spasmodic shudder, before settling into a steady movement in his grasp. The change in pressure is minute, featherweight, but it’s enough to electrify every nerve in Charles’ body. His head whips toward the observation window, breath sawing from his lungs.

“She’s waking up!”

It’s little more than a raw exhalation, the spark that ignites the room into urgent, yet controlled, flurries of activity. A nurse slips inside, tapping briskly at monitors and checking lines with an instinctive flow of motion. Charles barely registers her presence, his world distilled down to that singular point of lifeline linking him to you as the fog of unconsciousness finally begins to lift.

Your first inhale tugs at something primal within him, hauls the breath from his lungs even as unfettered joy spills through his chest. There’s movement beneath the fluttering of your eyelids, the rustle of lashes and tiny furrows creasing the delicate skin around your eyes. The seconds stretch out like an eternity until finally ...

They open.

Slitted and hazy, but undeniably open and aware. For an endless heartbeat, Charles is frozen, hands still wrapped around your fingers as afraid to move as a cave explorer plunged into impermeable black.

Then the world rushes in with all the chaos and color he’s been robbed of for far too long. A desperate sound tears itself free of his throat, as his body releases the suspended tension flooding from every pore. He sways forward, bracing his other hand on the mattress edge to keep from utterly crumpling at your very first flutter of life.

“Oh god ...” The fractured keen catches with a gasping sob. “Dieu merci, I thought I-”

But the words fracture, tumble away into lost coherence as you shift, throat bobbing with visible effort before the slurred shape of words escapes past chapped lips.

“C-can’t … f-feel ...”

Charles freezes, the world contracting back into stark lines and hyper-focused clarity. You’re struggling, the effort of speech clear across features still slack with the vestiges of your ordeal.

Panic claws its way up his throat, instinct sounding the call to seek help, to rally every force of medicine at their disposal toward solving this new, horrifying complication. He turns, mouth already open in a shout toward the observation window-

Only to find the room already flooding with personnel, summoned by some unseen alert the moment you stirred. Voices begin filtering through the dissonance clogging his senses — clipped, professional directives lancing through the feedback loop skipping inside his skull.

“Keep her calm-”

“... signs of paralysis ...”

“... damage to the motor cortex ...”

The final phrase lands like a weighted punch, sending Charles reeling back a half-step as the implications unspool into his consciousness. Your face twists in distress, breath sawing as the tube mask fogs with each panicked exhalation.

“I … n-no ...” You try to move, to shift position, but whatever spinal injury incurred in the wreck limits you to feeble twitches and whimpers.

Charles is at your side in an instant, features etched in silent agony as he brushes back the hair feathering across your forehead. His other hand finds yours, solid and grounding as he wills every iota of strength into the contact.

“Shhh, it’s alright. It’ll be alright, just stay calm.”

A cursory glance over his shoulder confirms a flurry of activity unfolding behind the glass as neurologists and specialists filter in. Tests will be run, evaluations and diagnostics to chart out whatever neural trauma has wrought such devastating effects upon your mobility.

In this moment, none of it matters beyond the trembling whimpers parting your lips and the glimmer of tears streaking your cheeks to dampen the pillow beneath your head. Charles wants nothing more than to gather you into his arms, to shield you from this fresh cruelty that has robbed you of yet another piece of your spirit.

Instead, he leans in close, cradling your face in his palm as you struggle to latch onto his presence amidst the waves of fear and distress no doubt crashing through your psyche.

“F-feel my … can’t ....” The disjointed words catch in racking sobs, your eyes squeezing shut against a torrent of emotion he recognizes all too well.

“I know, I know ...” The platitudes feel hollow, meaningless verbal gestures against the enormity of the situation closing its grip around them. But Charles speaks them regardless, murmuring soft reassurances against your anguish.

“Just focus on me, mon cœur. Only me.” His thumb swipes the moisture from your cheekbones, smearing tear tracks through the pallor there as his voice drops to a soft rasp. “You’re still here, still fighting ...”

Your eyes open at that, lashes spiked and heavy with more saline that slips free to streak down your temples. Those depths are oceans of heartache, roiling with a tempest of emotion that momentarily banishes every scrap of reason or logic from Charles’ mind.

All that matters is easing your suffering. Doing anything to lift the veil of anguish smothering the radiant light that marked your essence, that wondrous spark responsible for thawing every one of his defenses and opening a pathway to the heart he’d resigned himself to never sharing.

“I’m here and I’m not leaving. Not ever.” The words scorch themselves into his very soul as he presses his brow to yours. The antiseptic smells of your surroundings fade, the two of you cocooned in the intimate embrace of making your entire world his, if only for these fleeting seconds.

“We’ll get through this together,” he murmurs against your hairline, drinking in the simple euphoria of your closeness, of being able to impart even an inkling of comfort through his presence alone. “I promise.”

The words hang there for a suspended eternity, no response beyond the quiet hiccup of your breathing evening out the tiniest bit. A sliver of solace in the storm to cling to, no matter how tenuous.

Then the retinue of doctors and nurses sweeps in, their voices raised in directives and instructions. It shatters the moment, the outside world crashing back into their reality with all its cold indifference and clinical calculation.

Charles is ushered back, stumbling on legs turned to rubber as he watches you drag your reddened gaze from his, focusing inward as the onslaught of testing begins. He wants to refuse, to dig in his heels and remain steadfastly at your side through whatever fresh torments this throws your way.

But that defiance dies before it can form, snuffed out by the fragility written in the slump of your shoulders and the dull, haunted glaze muting your formerly vibrant spirit. All of his instincts scream at him to protect you, to rally against any external forces bent on inflicting more cruelty upon your already overburdened existence.

Instead, with a leaden heart and bile burning the back of his throat, Charles can only slip from the room and let the white coats encircle you with their machines and sterile indifference.

It’s a wait that lasts an eternity condensed into seconds, the rubber soles of his sneakers tracing grooves into the linoleum as he paces the hallway with increasing franticness. Snatches of conversation drift out from behind the closed door — clinical assessments devoid of context or feeling.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the door sweeps open and a group of personnel file out, scribbling notations and conversing in terse murmurs. One of them, a woman with cropped silver hair and piercing eyes, breaks off to approach Charles. Her expression is carefully neutral, devoid of any emotional tells.

“Mr. Leclerc.” It’s not a question, but an acknowledgment of who he is … and what is owed to him. “Your … partner has suffered extensive trauma to her spinal cord and central nervous system in the crash. The amount of nerve damage we’re detecting suggests paralysis of both lower extremities.”

The words shatter into coherent syllables and empty static all at once. Charles nods numbly, awaiting the verdict he can feel looming above them all.

“We can’t say with any certainty whether this condition is temporary or … permanent.” There’s a pause, the ghost of empathy flickering across her hawkish features before the professional mask reasserts itself. “Only time will tell if there’s any chance of full recovery once the other injuries have mended and treatment can begin in earnest.”

The finality hangs in the air for a stretched tautness of heartbeats, crystalline and utterly devoid of warmth. Charles forces himself to meet her gaze, to hold her clinical detachment within his own eyes as the world drifts further and further away.

“Okay.” It’s little more than a whisper, but it feels like tearing out his own throat to give voice to the thing that shatters his heart for you. “Can I … see her?”

A dip of the woman’s chin, a wordless assent as she steps aside to allow Charles to pass. He manages only a few weighted strides before halting, hand braced against the doorframe as he ghosts his gaze over your prostrate form.

You’re crying, quiet and bereft as the blankets rise and fall in time with your shuddering breaths. Something animal and feral keens low in Charles’ chest at the sight, every scrap of resolve threatening to unravel in the wake of your desolation.

Before he can think of second-guess the impulse, he crosses the space in two strides and drops to his knees beside the mattress. You startle at the sudden motion, eyelids fluttering in shock before recognition blazes through the emptiness shrouding your features. It’s Charles’ undoing.

“No, no … no tears.” His voice cracks like splintered glass, adrift on waves of his own withheld emotion. “You’re still here. You’re still with me, mon amour.”

He finds your hand with his own, fingers dwarfed in his calloused grip as he brings them to his brow. Outside, the doctors and specialists confer in low murmurs, their indifference too jagged to apply to the wounds here in this sanctuary where only you exist.

“You’ll be okay.” The promise burns itself into the verse he’s scribed on his heart, a vow etched in trails of moisture searing his cheeks. “No matter what it takes.”

His lips find your forehead, brushing against the clammy skin there as you sag towards him, drawn together by the gravity of an understanding too profound for the empty hallways and clinical trappings circling them. For this stolen breath, it’s simply you and him in all your wounded radiance.

“I almost lost you.” The confession rattles free, sent skyward on exhaled plumes that stir the fine baby hairs framing your brow. “And I’ll fight like hell to keep you beside me for as long as this life will allow.”

Your eyes find his, fractured mirrors reflecting all the heartache and dashed hopes ricocheting between you. But there’s something else there too.

Hope. Defiance. That unquenchable spark that first lured Charles toward you like a moth begging for the flame’s obliterating caress.

He’ll cling to that inner fire. Pour every ounce of his being into nurturing the smoldering coals until they flare again, banishing the darkness fate has chosen to drape them in at every turn. They’ll get through this, finding whatever reserves the cruelest pockets of despair have yet to strip away to sustain them.

Paralysis, brain damage, unthinkable trauma ...

None of it matters.

Not as long as you’re still drawing those precious, rasping breaths beside him.

Not as long as that beautifully battered heart beats on, refusing to surrender to the abyss.

“Je t’aime.” The oath clings to his lips, pressed against your temple as he holds you close. “Always and forever. No matter what.”

***

The sleek, modern lines of the therapy center bisect the Monegasque sky, all glass and steel rising toward the blue expanse. Charles pauses a moment as he strides across the courtyard, drawing in a steadying breath of the crisp early-winter air before continuing on toward the entrance.

The motion-triggered doors sweep open with a whisper, ushering him into the pristine lobby adorned with the fixtures of understated elegance. Sunlight streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting everything in muted ambers and golds that warm the precision-engineered decor.

Charles crosses the space with economical purpose, gaze sweeping the sitting areas arranged with studied nonchalance until he pinpoints the familiar silhouette awaiting him. You’re positioned with your back angled toward him, the faint shudder of your shoulders visible as you shift position in the high-backed wheelchair.

For a heartbeat, the sight freezes him in place, the old swell of emotions threatening to spiral into rampant chaos until he can taste the acrid tang of panic curdling on his tongue.

Then the moment passes, brought up short by the instinctive reflex to compartmentalize that’s carried him through so many darknesses since the day his entire universe fragmented beyond repair. He shakes it off, squaring his shoulders as he resumes his trajectory, clearing the distance between you in a handful of strides.

You must sense his presence behind you because a tremor shivers across your frame a half-second before you begin to crane your neck towards the source of the approaching footfalls. Charles times his approach to intercept the motion, stepping neatly into your peripheral line of sight with a warm smile ghosting across his features.

“Mon amour.”

The endearment falls from his lips like silk across skin, the richly-textured syllables suffusing the air between you until it feels thick with emotion and the grounding sense of home. Of course, you react to the sound, lips already parting in anticipation of reply that has yet to fully manifest.

The struggle is still so pronounced, hewn into the furrows creasing your brow and the deliberate concentration sharpening the elegant lines of your profile as you wrestle with the disconnect between neural synapses and musculature. Each time Charles bears witness to these trials, it rekindles the enduring fury and heartache enough to steal the air from his lungs.

How cruel could fate be to hurt the brightest soul he’s ever known?

The questions circle endlessly, gnawing their way across his subconscious in a constant cycle of what-ifs and unvoiced anguish. So he clings to patience as your sole solace, willing every ounce of unspoken encouragement into the sliver of contact where his calloused fingers sit atop your knuckles.

“It’s-” The fragmented sound tugs his focus back to your profile in time to catch the flickering hint of frustration tightening the muscles along your jaw as the words elude their trajectory once more. He watches your chest rise and fall with the effort of measured breathing, sees the war being waged behind blown pupils as your nerves strive to reestablish an equilibrium so brutally ruptured by trauma.

And then … a breakthrough.

“I ...” Barely more than an exhale, shaped on the barest puff of air passing your lips. But the simple vowel ignites something beneath Charles’ breastbone, a frisson of hope and pride and a thousand other tangled emotions combining into unadulterated exhilaration.

“L-love ...” Another pause, infinitesimal in the grand cosmic span yet stretched endless as the consonants parse themselves into recognizable sounds. Your eyes find his, glimmering pinpricks of desperate adoration blazing through the sullen cloud of anguish that’s settled in their depths.

The final whisper crystallizes into the air with the reverent weight of an answered prayer, “... you.”

Charles is across the space in an instant, crashing to his knees before you with a breathless sound that parts his lips on a broken rasp. Trembling hands map along the delicate slopes of your cheeks, cradling your face as a single tear spills free to chart a glistening trail down his cheek.

“Oh god ...” The prayer shivers past his lips, half sob and half keening breath as he presses his brow to yours, drowning in your presence and surrounding himself with the singularity of your existence. “You did it. You said it ...”

He trails off, lost to the beautifully battered rhythm of your exhales gusting across his features. This close, you’re all he sees, all he needs to survive this moment of solace among the anguished trials you’ve endured to forge this path back toward him. With painstaking care, he leans in to dust trembling kisses across your brow, your temples, the feathered crescents of your eyelashes as they flutter shut beneath the reverent onslaught.

Until finally, his lips find yours in a searing confession of worship — no urgency or fire, just two souls colliding into the singularity that first kindled their union. Charles slants his mouth across your own, breathing you in deeply until his senses are awash in the familiar scent of your skin and the dizzying tranquility of becoming something so much more than the sum of fragmented parts.

It both is and isn’t a kiss, just the barest brush of sensitive flesh and shared breath. Yet all of Charles’ fortitude strains against the tidal surge of emotion crashing through his bones … devotion and heartache, fervent pride and the nauseating chaser of reality.

Because even as you persevere, rising like a phoenix from each trial along this endless road toward recovery, he knows the path ahead remains strewn with obstacles and shadowed pockets into which the darkness always lurks.

When he finally tears himself away, it’s with another shuddering breath and two crystalline trails of moisture etched into the hollows beneath his eyes. He drinks in your features with the starving desperation of one lost to the merciless desert of life, maps every nuanced shift of line and breath and expression to catalog the miracles unfolding before him.

“You incredible, impossible thing ...” The endearment slips free on a choked laugh, more for his sake than any lack of comprehension on your part. Even after everything, Charles knows you understand the timbre and shape of his words as deeply as if they were your own thoughts.

But before he can bask in the fleeting warmth of this tiny victory, you’re drawing him back in. Delicate fingertips brushing the moisture from his cheekbones as you struggle to translate thought into sound once more.

“This … isn’t ...” A pregnant pause, brow furrowing with the strain before the rest comes in a tumbling rush. “What you wanted. For us.”

The words land like craters against Charles’ ribs, disjointed bombs stripping away the last threads of cheerfulness with each syllable. He stills, mouth parting on a protest that never materializes as you forge onward in the wake of his stunned silence.

“Y-you gave up ...” Another tiny hesitation, your chest rising and falling as you suck in a fortifying breath, “... everything.”

A fresh sheen of moisture wells in your eyes, slick with too many fractured hopes and dreams to ever assemble into coherent utterances. Still, Charles recognizes each shred of meaning, every whispered subtext behind the fragments you offer up as if stilling him for the inevitable strike to come.

Except this time, the blow he expects never arrives. Instead, you lean in, fingertips trailing lightly across the sharp angles of his jaw as the rest of the thought emerges with painstaking care.

“It’s … okay. To find someone ...” Your voice cracks, throat bobbing against the torrent of naked vulnerability suffusing each word. “... new.”

For an endless instant, the world spins on its axis, that single, shattered confession shearing through all of Charles’ deeply-ingrained instincts and defenses. This is the thing he’s dreaded since the first moment fate’s vicious hand tore the very fabric of your radiance into parts — the inevitability of you shouldering the blame for what has unfolded.

Unacceptable.

Unthinkable.

His hands are on you again before he consciously wills them to move, palms cradling your face like he’s the one in constant danger of crumbling into a billion undone pieces. It’s both anchor and lifeline as he pulls you flush against him, mouth trembling for purchase against the rush of sentiment crashing through his veins.

“Never.” The oath has never felt so feather-light yet absolute all at once. He rasps it out like a scrap of prayer, the shape of the sound rippling through the air between them.

“This life? You are everything I want.” The words feel torn from some primal place he had thought cauterized in the aftermath of all that has transpired between them. But still, Charles lays himself bare in their wake, baring every shred of anguish and love and reverence bleeding from his heart.

“Not the career or the glory or any other pursuit I might have thrown myself toward ...” He drags in a ragged inhale, feeling your quivering breaths ghosting across his lips like a light breeze stoked from embers. “Just you, mon cœur. All of you — from your brilliant mind to your determined spirit.”

His thumb traces the supple curve of your cheekbone, rough calluses snagging lightly against satin-smooth skin as his voice skips toward a halting rasp.

“I don’t know what the future holds.” This final mortal truth lingers in the thrall of hushed vulnerability shrouding them. “But I’m not leaving this existence without you by my side through every second of it. Not willingly.”

In the suspended heartbeats that follow, Charles watches the onslaught of emotion crest through the otherworldly depths of your eyes. He swallows hard, aching to fend off whatever final resistance lingers behind those storm-tossed features. Except his throat has grown too thick, too clogged with unshed tears to give voice to the hundreds upon thousands of fractured promises unspooling toward each other.

So he kisses you instead — harder this time, with the desperate exhilaration of a drowning man breaking surface to taste the first gasps of oxygen-rich air. He pours himself into the connection, igniting the spark that first smoldered between you years and lifetimes ago until his entire being resonates with the radiant warmth.

When at last he drags himself back, it’s with a swipe of his thumb to brush away the shimmering track of tears he’s unwittingly drawn to your cheek. “I love you,” he rumbles, the sound resonating from the depths of his core to embed in the very foundations of his soul. “Nothing else matters.”

And as if summoned by nothing more than the simmering weight of his epiphanies, you offer up one final exhalation shimmering with promise and budding hope.

“Race.” A broken sound, little more than a whispered caress against the tide of all that has gone unsaid. “Win for … f-for us.”

Charles’ lips part, trembling with too many half-born replies in that stretched moment of realization.

You’re right. Of course you’re right, focused as always upon rekindling the vibrant sparks threatening to gutter beneath his gaze. It’s yet more proof of why he resolved to kneel before you and bind his existence to your own — from now until the last glimmers of twilight.

He curls a hand behind your neck, prizing this beautiful connection above all the momentary triumphs and thrills his boyhood dreams ever convinced him to pursue. Red-painted carbon and shrieking downshifts, roars of acclaim and champagne spilled as if raining down from the heavens … none of it could ever hope to fill the sacred spaces you’ve already occupied with your quiet strength and luminous resilience.

“For you,” he murmurs against the shell of your ear, leaving goosebumps in its wake along the exposed column of your throat. “And only for you, mon ange. I’ll make the world itself hold its breath if that’s what you need.”

He seals the promise with a final brush of his mouth, lingering until every ounce of the sacred vow sears itself into your skin and memory alike.

By the time he draws back to drink in your features one more time, there’s a spark flickering through the storm clouds rimming your gaze. A dazzling flicker in the instant before it flares into something inextinguishable, something potent enough to blind out every shadow threatening to swallow him whole.

It sears through him like a lightning strike, melting every ounce of resolve into something more precious than any trophy or accolade his profession could ever bestow.

A vow you return with a simple promise. “I’ll be your ...” Your voice falters. But your eyes blaze with the words, with that same inevitable fire that forged those first fateful sparks between your souls, “... biggest fan.”

***

The grand hall seems to hum with the collective intake of a thousand bated breaths as Charles turns to face the gathering. Sunlight streams through towering windows in cascading sheets of amber warmth, gilding everything in honeyed refractions that lend an ethereal glow to the floral arrangements and pristine altar dominating the space.

He sucks in a steadying breath of his own, rolling his shoulders beneath the crisp lines of his tailored tuxedo. Anticipation thrums through every fiber of his being, vibrating in synchrony with the symphony of tremulous breaths rippling through their assembled friends and loved ones.

This moment has been too long in manifesting, too brutally tested by the cruelties of fate to be anything but utterly perfect in execution.

Behind him, the faint rustle of his groomsmen shifting into place provides the barest murmur of ambient sound. Joris, Andrea, Pierre, Arthur, and Lorenzo — all united by the gravity of this singular instance reshaping the trajectory of Charles’ existence. He chances the briefest glance over his shoulder, meeting their steadying nods of encouragement with a fleeting ghost of a smile.

It anchors him, draws together those final errant threads of composure in time for the first swell of the processional to filter through the sprawling chamber. The gentle symphony of strings and woven harmonies crashes over Charles in a physical caress, setting his nerves alight with anticipation as every eye tracks toward the grand archway dominating the far end of the hall.

He doesn’t immediately register the diminutive figure emerging in a sweep of ivory chiffon and pale lace. Only after the sharp inhalation of breath fluttering through the assembled does his gaze lock onto your silhouette, resplendent even through the sheer flutter of the veil haloing your shoulders.

He expects the wheelchair, the familiar sleek metallic lines and measured rolls ushering you towards him. Expects the sight that’s become so achingly you, even as it never fails to tighten every muscle in his body with the urge to shelter you in his arms from every cruelty the merciless universe has seen fit to inflict.

Except … there is no chair.

The shuddering breath that leaves his lips might as well have been torn from the depths of his very essence in that suspended heartbeat of dawning realization.

You’re walking.

With slow, tiny strides, flanked on either side by bridesmaids in burnished golds — but not supported or aided in any functional sense of the movements.

No, these halting footfalls are all your own. A monumental effort of sheer force of will and gritty determination honed across months of exhaustive perseverance through some of the darkest shadows ever spanning your shared existences.

Each trembling step, every inch traveled across that endless-seeming expanse of polished marble floor, is both defiant proof of your resilience and a blazing triumph over pain and hardship and loss echoed ten thousandfold.

Charles cannot breathe. Can barely remain upright as his entire world both manifests and dissolves around this singular progression unfolding before him in strangled increments. Others have begun to weep in earnest, muffled sobs billowing through the gathered assembly like ripples across a pond’s placid surface.

He’s vaguely aware of his groomsmen shifting behind him, of shocked gasps ghosting across their stunned features as they grasp the significance of what’s unfolding before their eyes. Andrea’s palm finds the small of Charles’ back, steadying his frame against the sudden influx of vertigo and exhilaration threatening to collapse his consciousness.

Because all that exists in this shuddering span of fractured instants is you. Nothing more, nothing less than the endless radiance of your soul as you stride toward him.

Toward your destiny.

Toward the culmination of all the strength and beauty and determination he’s revered with every ounce of his being since the first time he met you.

He’s crying in earnest now, can feel the streaking trails of moisture searing molten paths down his cheeks to dampen the crisp cotton stretched across his chest. Yet the tears hardly register as anything more than a bodily necessity to expel the rising tsunami of l elation cresting inside his core.

You’re within arm’s reach now, only a handful of quavering paces separating your joined paths. Charles’ hands tremble where they hang at his sides, fingers spasming around the desperation to move, to reach, to hold you against him and pour every ounce of adoration into you.

Willpower alone is what roots him in place, keeps him tethered until every shift and flex of muscle is committed to memory. Until your forward momentum carries you into his gravitational embrace in a sweeping collision of souls reunited.

He feels your hands first, slightly clammy where they land against his shoulders and chest in search of purchase. Then the subtlest hint of perfume, that floral-tinged elixir unique only to the slope of your neck and the crown of your hair when he dips to brush his lips across your brow in reverence.

The dam breaks and Charles crumples inward, folding himself around your form with only the vaguest cognition of the groomsmen forming a sheltering web around you both as he sinks to his knees in a thunderous impact of boneless limbs.

Words either fail him or escape articulation as the only sounds to pass his lips become a stream of fevered, jumbled endearments and throaty praises poured directly against the fevered warmth of your skin. His hands map every trembling plane in frantic sweeps, nails skirting intricate embroidery and dewy satin as each heated exhale shudders harsh against your neck, your cheeks, your brow ...

“Mon cœur ...” The title is prayer and confession, ground out from the friction of his entire belief system being forged anew around you. “You incredible thing ... dieu, look at you ...”

He silences the reflexive protests before they can rise by slanting his mouth across yours. There’s nothing carnal or profane in the gesture, simply the coming together of two souls.

You taste of elation and salt, of budding promise and fond tenacity. Of incandescent joy and the shredded velvet of nights spent paralleling the loneliest infinities as your fingers clutched each other like dual magnets anchored across the universe’s expanse.

“So strong … my warrior … perfect ...” The muted words ghost over your trembling form. Somewhere distant, a chorus of cheers and applause has erupted beyond the bubble forming around you.

But none of it truly registers, not when compared to this shattering merging of everything either of you has struggled and strained and wept to reach.

Nothing else matters in the sweeping catharsis cascading around you both. Not the hoarse prayers still shuddering past his lips, or the moisture from your own lashes streaking down his cheeks in silence.

It’s only when the dizzying euphoria begins to ebb that Charles slowly drags his gaze upwards to find yours — those beautiful depths drowning in reverence and bliss mirroring his own. The spark flickering there banishes all shadows in an instant, forging incandescence enough for a lifetime no matter what fresh trials fate might see fit to test your devotion.

He drinks you in, committing the flawless canvas of your features to permanence before reaching up to brush trembling fingertips across the sheer lace obscuring your radiance. The sweep of fabric pools around your shoulders and Charles finds himself very nearly undone again by the sight of your unveiled beauty.

“So ...” He swallows hard, fingers tracing the delicate curve of your jaw as words fail him for a what feels like an eternity. “... beautiful. Like the first dawn cutting through the blackest oblivion.”

A tremulous smile sweeps across your lips, the ghost of a promise he absorbs with every pore as you lean into the reverent sweep of his touch. He could stay like this forever, knees grinding against the ornate tile. Anything to capture how eternal he feels right here with you.

Charles drags in a rallying breath, forcing his widened gaze from yours just long enough to call his groomsmen to attention with a look. They rally behind him, steadying him as he rises on legs turned bowstring-taut with adrenaline.

And then, with every eye once more centered upon you two, Charles bends at the waist and sweeps you into his embrace, cradling your trembling frame against his chest with the paradoxical delicacy and unyielding reverence that lives so unbridled within his very bones. Your breath catches audibly, a soft hitch of sound that adorns the sacred silence as he turns away from the guests.

The officiant’s features are flushed and lined, rimed with moisture that glistens unabashedly as he gathers himself to proceed.

“Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc and Y/N Y/M/N Y/L/N,” he begins. “You have been called here as an acknowledgment of the next chapter in your lives together ...”

The ceremony begins, the words spilling forth as you tuck your cheek against Charles’ thundering pulse, fingers curling into the lapel of his tuxedo in a white-knuckled embrace. He lives in the rise and fall of your mingling breaths, in the warmth of your form pressed seamlessly against the shelter of his body as you bear witness to the eternal scripture neither of you could have fathomed even existing upon first crossing paths.

Then, the officiant turns his attention towards Charles, chin dipped in grave deference. “You may recite your vows.”

The command punches through him, sawing the breath from his lungs in a ragged exhalation that shivers across your crown. He swallows hard, blinks back the fresh deluge of tears that threatens to escape his faltering restraint. But when he opens his mouth, the words spill out like they were always meant to.

“I have dreamed of you since before the first moments of my existence.” The syllables echo across the hall, spiraling forth to caress every rapt attendee in their wake. “Of a love conceived in the heart of a collapsing star and given breath in our adjoined forms to shine forth into the darkness.”

His lips brush your hairline, absorbing the scent of your fragrance and feeling the thrumming rhythm of life radiating from your temples. Here, cocooned in the intimate heart of their unity, the world holds its breath along with the gathered witnesses.

“Nothing could have prepared my soul to be scoured by your brilliance, your resilience … let alone knitted together from the fraying remnants when our path shattered across the cruel stones of fate.” A tremulous inhale, steadying as his gaze flicks across the faces assembled before you — a sweep encompassing every expression of empathy and shared joy piercing back at him.

“Yet here we stand, mon amour ...” The endearment spills forth like rich velvet, textured and avowed as his mouth finds the top of your head once more, the taste of reverence sweet on his tongue. “United into something sacred, something woven from those endless nights clinging to each other across the desolate chasm that could so easily have swallowed us whole.”

He savors the simple elation of your response, of knowing his words resonate through every quivering fiber with the promise of finally reaching what you’ve been steadily ascending to all along.

So he breathes you in once more, chasing the familiar scent of your skin until his very lungs burn with the delight of your proximity. The depths of his gaze find yours again, irises rimmed in the faintest remnants dampness as one final promise takes shape.

“I will love you to the final molecule ...” Quieter now, a molten rasp uttered into the hollow between your brows as fingertips sift through the intricate sweeps of your tresses. “I will walk beside you through each breath and season, every triumph and shadow that marks this existence as uniquely ours. With all that I am, all that lingers when the inconsequential has stripped from my shell — I am yours. Until the last spark is extinguished from this universe and beyond.”

The promise hangs in the reverent stillness as he takes his first full breath after, filling his lungs with the ozone and wildflowers commingling from your respective scents until his senses reel. Only then does he draw back enough to drink in the sight before him — the ethereal swaths of your veil now skirting the contours of your features, the downy lashes beaded with moisture, the trembling swell of your lips as the first stuttered shapes of sound begin forming upon them.

Your reciprocation is a hushed, halting stream of sounds that carry all the solemn gravity of prayers finally granted voice. Each syllable pitches forward, low and overflowing with the fevered weight of their reverence until they resonate through Charles’ bei by like physical sensations trailing electricity along his nerves.

“In the beginning, there was nothing,” you breathe, fingers flexing restlessly against the solid plate of his chest as you struggle to channel the turbulent swell of emotion cascading through every aspect of your existence. “An endless and lightless oblivion that should have terrified me ...”

A faint smile blooms across Charles’ features as he watches the story of a lifetime together play out in miniature across your expression.

“Yet it didn’t.” The syllables part on a whisper of revelation, a new wave of tears flickering in the gleam of your eyes as you find his gaze. “Because I knew you even then.”

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