#he’s just been staring into space for hours | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

love-quinn · 1 day ago

Text

— DON’T SAY THAT

summary — you and remus find each other doing what you both do best: hiding from the rest of the school.

warning — none

pairing — remus lupin x fem!reader

pronouns — none but reader is explicitly mentioned to be a girl

word count — 1.9k

note — this is another super old draft i’ve been sitting on, i hope u like it :3 thank u for 300 followers <3

The wooden panelling of the window was sticking into your back but you weren’t planning on moving. The sun was hitting your back in a way that filled you up completely. You had your current read in your lap, curling your neck into a crevice. The East hallway on the fifth floor was pretty much deserted most afternoons, most of the classrooms up there were for classes that no longer ran anymore.

Summer was quickly approaching, and with summer came the end to your time at Hogwarts. You weren’t a hundred percent sure you knew what you were doing after you finished school, you knew the general field, but you didn’t have a dream job or anything.

The pages of your book were browned by the sunshine, and it was hot to the touch as you flipped the page.

There was the distant sound of footsteps, and you shrunk further into your alcove, a little sunset set right into a window that overlooked the Quidditch pitch. The Hufflepuffs were training down there, and you watched them zoom around between pages.

You had nowhere you were meant to be, it was hours until curfew and the wing wasn’t off limits. No danger of getting in trouble.

The footsteps slowed to a stop around the corner, you couldn’t see them with your back pressed into the panelling. Eventually, you heard a breath, and swivelled your neck to see who was there. You recognised him from a few of your classes, and just from around. He was tall, taller than the rest of his friends, with messy hair and a heaving chest.

You weren’t staring at him, but you were definitely looking. He locked eyes with you and gave a sheepish smile. “Ah, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You’re alright,” you said gently. “What were you running from?”

He looked embarrassed to have been caught. “Oh, just… you know.”

You didn’t, but you nodded anyway. “Right.”

He looked back in the direction he had come. “Don’t think anyone will come up here looking for me. I don’t suppose you mind sharing your hiding spot with me?” He asked softly.

You pulled your knees closer to your chest, giving him enough room on the seat to sit. There was already room, it was deep enough for you both to sit side by side, but you figured he’d want the space. “I’ve seen you around loads,” he said, tucking himself away. His eyes were the colour of honey in the sunlight. He sat cross-legged, sleeves of his jumper pulled over his slender fingers. “Are we in the same muggle studies class?”

You nodded, pleased with the recognition. “I don’t know why you take that class, you already know everything.”

“My mum’s a muggle born,” he laughed, ducking his head. “But she was never able to share that stuff with me as much as she wants to, not with… all this,” he gestured around and your eyes fell to the quidditch team on the ground. They were packing up, dusk was coming soon.

“That’s really sweet,” you said honestly, smiling behind where you held your book against your chin.

He gave you a mirrored grin, scratching the back of his neck. “I’m so sorry, but you’ll have to remind me of your name. I’m normally not this rude, I promise.”

You told him and he snapped his fingers like you’d just given him some sort of breakthrough. “Right, I am awfully sorry.”

You shook your head, leaning against the glass of the window. “There’s no need to be sorry.”

He studied your face for a second, a frown working its way into his eyebrows. “You already know my name,” he guessed.

You shrugged, somewhat embarrassed. “I get you guys confused,” you said airily. “You’re either Remus or Sirius.”

He groaned, forehead landing on your knee. “Don’t say that to me, I thought we were becoming friends.” He wiped his hand over his face. “Do I look like much of a Sirius?”

“About as much as you look like a Remus,” you reasoned. That wasn’t entirely true. Remus was soft, it was a cosy name that had some sort of academic background you couldn’t recall. Sirius was a star, you’d learned in mandatory first-year astronomy. You’d never spoken to any of Remus’s friends, but if you had to guess any of them to be named after a star, you’d pick Sirius, charming smiles and chipped nails.

“Godric, just say you hate me.” He said dramatically. “I can never tell him that, he’ll be over the moon.”

You smiled at that, and he brightened. He’d been trying to pull a real, proper, one out of you since he’d arrived. He gave them a lot more liberally than you did apparently. Remus couldn’t really imagine looking at your face and not smiling.

There were more footsteps and Remus sighed. “I’d better head off. You only need one idiot interrupting you.”

You didn’t correct him, though you wanted to. He walked off with the air of someone who wasn’t actively being chased. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” you said agreeably, not really believing him. He’d been a lot nicer than you’d expected. All three of them, Remus, Sirius and their friend James, were fairly intimidating. Taller than most of the other seventh-years, James was the captain of the Quidditch team and Head Boy, and Sirius had his own reputation. It was easy to see them as scary. They’d never done anything to you to cement the idea, but they’d also never done anything to disprove it. Not until then, anyway.

Dinner arrived and you took your book back to the Great Hall to eat. You sat with your friends and had almost forgotten about your encounter with the boy until the next afternoon. There was a summer storm coming, heralding in the season, with thick grey clouds off in the distance. For the moment, though, it was as warm as ever, and you were looking forward to being stretched out on the seat and continuing your book. You had friends, roommates, classmates, plenty of people who would be more than happy to let you keep them company after classes ended. But you liked coming up here. Hogwarts was often busy, especially outside, especially in the warmer months. You got to people watch in the quiet, and you didn’t mind it. The large windows gave you a view of the changing weeks without needing to ever alter your routine to suit the weather.

When you reached the seat, though, it wasn’t empty. Remus Lupin was sitting there with his History of Magic textbook open on his lap. You stood there for a moment, right in the spot he had been when you had seen him the afternoon earlier.

“You can sit,” Remus teased, “I don’t mind sharing.”

You sat, flattening your skirt and mirroring his crossed legs. His were a lot longer than yours, but there was more than enough space for you to give him extra legroom. “Oh, how generous.”

“I brought a book as well,” he held it up. “Mine’s nonfiction, though. I get shy. Figured I didn’t want to put you out too much. Not that I have to stay, of course.”

You shook your head. “Like I said, you’re alright. I can’t really picture you being shy about anything.”

He beamed. “Oh, you should see some of my books.” He let out a puff of air like he hadn’t used enough of his breath by talking. “It’s appalling, honestly. You’d lose all respect for me.”

“I don’t care what you read,” you assured him.

He shook his head. “No, it’s the state of them. You seem like one of those people who think books are this sacred thing - which, don’t get me wrong, I agree. But the state of them, I think I’ve written more in margins than I ever have for school.”

You let out a laugh, not too loud for how close you two were sitting, but loud enough that he could make out each individual layer of your voice. You flipped over your book and showed him your annotations that you had made months ago. This was your favourite, and you’d reread it dozens of times. “Ah, one of us I see,” Remus said happily. His whole face lifted when he smiled, like a spring that had finally let go and been snapped back to its original position.

“This one’s blank, I donate my books back to the school at the end of the year,” he explained. You didn’t even realise the school did that, you’d always gotten your books from Diagon Alley at the beginning of each year. You did vaguely remember seeing old potions textbooks in the bottom of the ingredients cupboard.

“Of course you do,” you shook your head, looking down at your lap and stifling a giggle. “Pack of saints, you lot are.”

Remus looked offended. “I resent your insinuation, evil girl.”

You raised your eyebrows innocently. “I’m just saying, I’m pretty sure I saw one of you throw a dungbomb across the hall during breakfast yesterday morning. I find it rather difficult to connect that person to this one.”

“I am multifaceted,” Remus said matter-of-factly. “Besides, that was James. I had no part in it.”

You gave him an appraising look, but he didn’t waver. “Of course. Where do your friends think you are, anyway?”

That surprised him well and truly. You’d been a bit of a surprise as a whole, really. You usually kept to yourself as far as Remus had seen. Even when you were with your friends, Remus had never heard you talk as comfortably as you seemed to be doing with him. He didn’t understand why you’d ask him that. “Here,” he said like it was obvious. It should have been. “With you.”

“Oh,” your eyebrows furrowed and then your face cleared with much deliberation. “Of course, right.”

“Why would I lie about coming to see you?” He asked, looking right at your face. Your eyeline was still in your lap. “I think you’re great. I want to get to know you better.”

You finally looked up at him and he felt the sun hit his face again, despite the fact that it was now hidden behind the impending clouds. “I want to get to know you better, too, Remus.”

He flashed you a wide grin. “I’ll have to ask their permission, of course.” He was teasing you again. You rolled your eyes and uncrossed your legs, stretching them so you could kick him as gently as possible.

“I hope they’ll like me,” you didn’t realise you did until you said it out loud.

“James’ll love you,” Remus said casually, like you were actually planning on meeting him. Neither of you had any intentions on breaking from your new tradition, especially not so early on. “It’s Sirius you’ll have to win over.”

You bit your lip. “I have to like, prove my intentions with you, or something?”

Remus laughed, and the sound echoed around the corridor. “No, no, you could fuck me over royally and he wouldn’t care.” Your laugh joined his and Remus scooched as close as he could in such a confined space. You didn’t mind, your thigh pressed against his. He finally spoke up again after a minute, voice filled with honey. “No, you’re just much prettier than he is.”

#remus lupin x reader #remus lupin #remus lupin fic #remus x reader #remus lupin x you #remus x you

65 notes · View notes

metallicames · 2 days ago

Text

Teenage dream

Part 1

Description: After a night of passion, the reader must return to reality and face her father and James and figure out which direction to go and whether to follow her feelings.

Warnings: angst (very little), age gap, petting.

⸻⭒⸱ 🖤 ⸱⭒⸻

The silence of the return trip overwhelms even my thoughts. My father has obviously been weird all day with me and James and now I don't know how to start the conversation. I feel terribly guilty and embarrassed but I want to make him understand that I did what I did because I wanted it for a long time and that James treated me in the best way possible.

"So... how long have you liked James?"

His question throws me off, I stop staring at the fields outside the window and turn to him.

"Well.. I've always had a crush on him to be honest." I confess embarassed.

"I would never have expected this thing... from either of you!" his tone is dark and serious, I can see he gripping the steering wheel tightly with one hand.

“Dad…I’m sorry, but I want you to know that it started with me…James behaved well, he didn’t-” my sentence stops halfway.

“Y/N don’t justify him, you’re a girl, he's a man, he could have avoided it!” the words come out of his mouth almost shouted.

“But I’m 20, I’m not a little girl anymore! You’re just annoyed that he’s your friend!”I exclaim almost trembling with anger.

"No, you don’t understand…you're my daughter I don't want you to suffer. I’d rather you never see each other again!” His words hit me, a lump forms in my throat and I try to swallow, holding back the tears.

"I don't even know if he'll be interested in seeing me again, it might have been the first and last time..” my voice shakes I don't want to believe my own words, in my heart I hope that James likes me even if this would make things complicated, especially with my father.

“Y/N I'm sorry to tell you but it's better this way, he's always on tour you're studying and you have to commit to college, it's not a feasible thing”. His tone becomes calmer and sweeter, I know he's right but I wish it wasn't like that. I go back to looking at the fields out the window getting lost in my thoughts until we arrive at our destination.

I spend three days with my head completely elsewhere, in class I can barely take notes my brain continues to process possible scenarios of what could happen. I don't even know if James has spoken to my father, I don't know what his intentions are, I feel suspended unable to act and think clearly. I don't talk about it with anyone, not even my roommate with whom I have a good relationship, I'm afraid that she'll confuse me even more and that she'll deceive me just to make me feel better.

While I'm lost in my thoughts in the college's yard my phone rings making me literally jump out of the bench and I come back to reality, I read the name on the screen - Hetfield - my head spins and I feel my heart rate increase, I stare at the phone unable to act, after a few seconds I take a deep breath and I answer.

"Hello? James?" I try to keep a calm and relaxed tone but inside I feel like I'm dying, "Hey! Sorry to bother you are you in class?" - "I just left", I lie shamelessly, actually I'm on a bench staring into space.

"Sorry, I'll be quick, what time do you finish tonight? I was thinking of picking you up, I need to talk to you” his tone becomes uncertain and I understand that my father must have said something to him, I remain silent for a moment before answering.

"Ummh. Ok fine, I'll finish at 6.30 pm, I'll send you the address of the exit so we can meet there" - “Perfect, see you in a couple of hours.” His tone is almost cold, detached as if he does not want to reveal any emotion and I begin to fear the worst.

We say goodbye and I spend the next few hours paranoid.

It's 6:20 pm and I head to the bathroom to get myself ready while I try to calm down, I don't know why I'm so nervous I almost want to throw up and my heart is racing like crazy. I take one last look in the mirror, -with my girly skirt, my college sweatshirt and my backpack I look even younger, shit- I think to myself.

I head towards the exit and find James' black pick up parked outside, the sun is setting, I cross the road and look around hoping no one sees me.

"Hey, hi James" I exclaim as soon as I get in the car, even though it's only been three days I've missed seeing him and smelling his perfume.

"Hi Y/N! How are you?" he turns towards me he takes off his sunglasses and looks at me smiling, I notice a change in his gaze the light I had seen when we were in the mountains has gone out and I glimpse a hint of worry. "I'm fine, and you? Are you tired?" I ask as I fasten my seat belt trying to avoid his gaze. “A little, I'm thoughtful, I talked to your dad. Wait let’s go to a quieter area...” While he speaks he moves the car away from the entrance. There is a few moments of silence in which I try to process the information. “What.. what did you say to each other?” My eyes look at him as he is intent on driving, I want to cry but I don’t want to create even more embarrassment so I hold back the tears with all my strength.

“He’s worried Y/N, and I feel like shit, you know, he’s a good friend of mine and I don’t want to wrong him. I don’t even know what to do, what happened the other day it's stuck with me.”

The pick up stops near my apartment and James looks at me again, his gaze penetrates me and makes me feel completely exposed, as if he could see my thought.

“I talked to him too, he wants to protect me but at the same time he forbids me from doing something that makes me happy, because I like being with you James, you make me feel good.” While I speak I turn towards him with my body shortening the distance, I see James’s gaze linger for a few moments on my legs and then rise to my face.

“Me too Y/N, I’ve thought about you often in these three days, but there’s always a part of me that tells me that it’s wrong. I’m much older than you and I should make the right decision even if it hurts.”

The faint hope that had been created inside me vanishes, I shrug my shoulders and start playing with the edge of my skirt so as not to show my disappointment. I thought he wanted to continue seeing me instead he seems to have found a nice way to tell me that he wants to move on with his life even if his body language confuses me. He seems cold and detached since I got in the car as if he wanted to keep his distance but at the same time I notice that he is holding back as if he fears what he might do if he let himself go, his eyes betray him.

"Ok, I thought you cared.. so.." I feel so stupid.

He moves closer with his body, reaching out a hand towards mine and squeezing it: "Of course I care Y/N, and seeing you here in front of me makes everything more difficult..".

The warmth of his hand makes me melt, without realizing it he is making the situation even more painful.

"If this is your decision I don't want to force you...it'll remain a good memory I hope for both of us and... I don't know what to say James.. " My eyes fill with tears of disappointment I look out the window avoiding his gaze.

An almost surreal silence follows, his eyes are fixed on me then I improvise, I undo my seat belt I take my backpack I open the door.

As I prepare to leave James grabs my arm forcefully, I turn around confused and I linger on his eyes, dark, intense.

Why is he doing this to me?

before I can process his gesture James comes closer to me, tightening his grip on my arm and kisses me tenderly on the lips, resting his forehead against mine, running a hand up my neck and then resting it on my cheek.

“your dad is right when he says it's complicated and if we keep going we'll hurt each other, I know what's right, but I need to keep doing the wrong thing” he murmurs.

I'm almost in shock, the constant alternation of different feelings leaves me in a daze that fades away when James kisses me again this time with more passion. I let myself go trying to turn off my brain for a moment while James slowly slides his tongue into my mouth, letting out a little moan. Our tongues meet, rolling over each other, savoring and intertwining with more and more passion and desire, stopping when lips are just barely touching and we breath each other's air, our breathing already labored. “I can’t resist you…” he whispers, placing a hand behind my neck.

I put a hand on his warm chest, and as James begins to kiss my neck I slowly lower it, feeling every part of his torso covered by the thin layer of his shirt under my fingertips, stopping just above his belt. I feel his altered breathing in my ear as he bites my lobe, returning to kiss me shortly after. My hand goes down meeting his big erection pressed against his jeans, I touch it making him pant harder in my mouth, I want him so much that I'm going crazy, his body is a magnet, I can't resist him.

Our hands explore each other's bodies, his fingers make their way along my bare legs giving me goosebumps, they creep under my skirt, I open my legs slightly to make room for him and I feel his big hand approaching my core. His thumb moves on the fabric of my panties sending shocks of pleasure through me as it reach my clit, I squeeze my legs slightly at the sensation and he smiles at me letting out a little giggle. While our tongues meet again his thumb applies more and more pressure moving my panties to the side making me wet from the growing stimulation.

Our mouths search and devour each other, our tongues intertwine while our bodies become impatient as do our hands.

I start to undo his belt and slide my hand into his pants, feeling his bulge under my fingertips and start to palpate it making him gasp deeply. When I open my eyes to admire him and stare into his blue iris out of the corner of my eye I see a car parking near us.

“Shit… that’s one of my roommates” I pull away from James and wave at her pretending to be indifferent while he still has his fingers stuck on my cunt. “Do you think she saw us? Do you want us to move?” he asks me almost dazed with his pupils completely dilated and his lips glossy.

“I don't know! Is better if I go back inside, they’ll all be back home now. I want to take it slow, I mean, see how it evolves and tell them about this later.” Obviously my body would like something else but I try to be rational and not give in to my instinct.

"Ok.. so are you leaving me go home in this state? You’re a mean girl!” he says looking between his legs, my eyes follow his gaze stopping on his boner, I swallow noisily.

“I know, I know fuck James… if someone sees us doing it in the car it would be pretty embarrassing, I'm saying this especially for you” I really care about him, I don't want any pictures or strange news about us to come out in some newspaper, even if a part of me would like to get in the back seat and do literally everything with him.

“Yeah.. You're right...unfortunately” he caresses my face delicately looking at me tenderly. “Will we talk in the next few days? I'm away this week but I would like to hear from you and maybe see you when I get back.” he stares at me with a sweet look but still dazen and horny.

“Of couse, we'll be able to reconcile our commitments, I'm sure”. We give each other one last soft and slow kiss I get out of the car with butterflies in my stomach.

I cross the doorstep with his taste still on my lips, I feel ecstatic, even though I know it will be difficult to hang out with someone like James the connection between us is too special not to try.

As I am about to fall asleep under the covers in my room, my phone vibrates, I immediately pick it up with a very quick movement, instantly coming out of my torpor.

Hetfield: "I still have your scent on me, I don't think I'll sleep tonight".

Well, I don't think I'll get any sleep either.

𝓣𝓸 𝓫𝓮 𝓬𝓸𝓷𝓽��𝓷𝓾𝓮𝓭...

#james hetfield smut #james hetfield x reader #james hetfield fanfiction #metallica fanfiction #james hetfield #papa het #fanfiction #fanfic

60 notes · View notes

hottiesforhockey · 1 day ago

Note

hi! Can you please do Matt rempe with *I can’t sleep either. Mind if a join you*

The apartment was too quiet.

You stared at the ceiling, watching the faint glow of streetlights filter through your curtains. The hum of the fridge down the hall and the occasional creak of the building settling weren’t enough to lull you to sleep. It had been hours since you’d crawled into bed, exhausted from the day’s events, yet sleep refused to come. Your mind wouldn’t shut off—thoughts looping endlessly about work, responsibilities, and the way Matt had laughed earlier at dinner, his head thrown back in pure, unfiltered joy.

With a groan, you rolled onto your stomach, then onto your back again, punching your pillow in frustration. You huffed, muttering under your breath before tossing the blanket off and sitting up.

A knock at your bedroom door made you freeze.

Heart hammering, you hesitated before swinging your legs over the edge of the bed. “Yeah?”

The door cracked open, and Matt peeked his head in, his hair messy from lying down, his expression sheepish. “I can’t sleep either,” he admitted. “Mind if I join you?”

You exhaled a quiet laugh, scooting over to make room. “Yeah, come in.”

Matt didn’t hesitate, stepping inside and closing the door softly behind him. He was in a hoodie and sweatpants, his broad frame making your small room feel even smaller as he flopped down on the edge of your bed.

“You good?” he asked, voice quieter now, like he didn’t want to disturb the stillness too much. "You've been making a lot of noise." He coos.

You sighed, tucking your legs beneath you. “Just restless, I guess.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Same.”

For a moment, you just sat there, the dim glow of your bedside lamp casting soft shadows on his face. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion, but there was something else there too—something thoughtful, almost hesitant.

“You tired?” he asked, tilting his head slightly.

You huffed a quiet laugh. “Very. But apparently, that doesn’t matter.”

Matt smiled at that, small but genuine. “Yeah. That’s why I came over. Figured if I can’t sleep, might as well not sleep with company.”

There was a warmth to his words, an openness that made your chest ache in a way you didn’t want to examine too closely. You’d spent a lot of time with Matt lately, more than you had with anyone else. He had a way of making people feel comfortable, like they belonged.

You sat back against the pillows. “So what do we do? Just sit here until we pass out?”

Matt hummed, tapping his fingers against his knee. “We could talk.”

“About what?”

He shrugged. “Anything. Everything.”

And so you did. The conversation started slow, meandering through small talk before dipping into deeper territory - The two of you had been roommates since he moved to New York when he signed with the rangers, one of his teammates connecting the two of you, but it wasn't like you'd had a real conversation before. You were both so busy all the time - He told you about growing up, about the pressure of the game, about how sometimes it felt like too much, but he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. You told him about your own fears, your own doubts. The words came easier in the darkness, without the weight of expectations pressing down on either of you.

At some point, you shifted, lying back against the pillows. Matt followed suit, abandoning his spot on the edge of the bed to stretch out beside you. His shoulder brushed yours, warm and solid, grounding you. Neither of you acknowledged it. But the space between you felt charged, heavier than before.

“Hey,” he said after a while, voice softer now. “I think I might actually fall asleep.”

You turned your head, looking at him through the dim light. His eyes were half-lidded, his breathing steady. But there was something unreadable in his expression, something lingering.

“Yeah,” you murmured. “Me too.”

“We should do this overnight.” He whispers softly. A beat passed before Matt shifts closer, just slightly, his fingers brushing against yours where they rested between you. The touch was fleeting, tentative, but it sent a shiver down your spine. He didn’t pull away.

“You’re warm,” he murmured, voice low, rough from exhaustion.

You swallowed, barely daring to breathe. “So are you.”

Another silence stretched, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it was filled with something unspoken, something that neither of you quite had the nerve to say aloud. His fingers curled slightly, his knuckles grazing yours, and you felt your pulse quicken.

“Goodnight,” he whispered finally, voice barely above a breath.

“Goodnight, Matt.”

Neither of you moved. Neither of you needed to. Sleep came slowly, but this time, it came with the warmth of his hand barely touching yours—and the quiet, thrilling possibility of something more.

#nhl #nhl fanfiction #nhl fic #nhl x reader #matt rempe #matt rempe x reader #matt rempe fanfic #matt rempe smut #matt rempe drabble #prompt game

134 notes · View notes

hannahssimblr · 3 days ago

Text

Back home, the cats emerge from their shadowed pockets as I haul my bicycle into the building. My new friends, two stray cats I’ve named Main Street and Ten Feet Behind—on account of the fact that one is always wandering the main street, and the other is always like ten feet behind her, just kind of watching. I give them food, usually, just bits from my breakfast, or the leftovers of some half-eaten ham sandwich inside my pocket, but today I'm empty handed. Bringing nothing home from the café today but a scald.

My hand’s red now, like a boiled lobster, feeling every tiny crease and movement of my skin in a way that makes me oddly nostalgic for summer. For a sunburn across a nose, stinging when you wrinkle it. Leave the bike by the stairs and head up. A new apartment. Still getting used to it. Different tile on the stairs and a new echo in the foyer.

We left Kreuzberg last month on account of the expense and hauled ourselves all the way to Neukolln. Almost an hour to cycle to college from here, and not much faster on the train. I cycle everywhere anyway. It’s free, and the fresh air does me good. At least that’s what I tell myself, so I feel better about it.

“I am happy to move,” Jonas said as we packed up our things. “I never liked living among all the landlady’s items. Now we can have our own space.” And we do, and it’s smaller with lower ceilings and thinner walls, and we have very little to fill it. For weeks we’ve been using pillows in place of a couch. Both of us, sitting there with sore backs on the floor of a near empty room to watch the ultra HD TV I bought last year for six hundred quid. It seems to encapsulate my month perfectly.

Today, Dalia is here. Those are her boots outside the door. We now live closer to her than any of our other friends, much to her delight. “Nobody ever visited me out here,” she said, bringing over a home cooked meal for us before we had set our kitchen up. “I’m genuinely so glad to have someone to visit in the area.”

And visit she does, every couple of days now, hanging around, eating Chinese food on the floor with us, bare feet stretched out on the floorboards. Ranting about politics. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and whatever, filling the empty apartment with her loud, American voice. A racket that brings specific comfort. A safety about it. My cousins in Albuquerque chatting in the kitchen, voices ricocheting off the Spanish tiles.

“...equal pay for equal work,” she’s saying now. Audible from the door. In the living area, Jonas is on the floor with her, back against the kitchen counter, nodding intently so she knows he's feminist, too.

“Jesus Christ, your hand.” Dalia stares in alarm. “What happened to you?”

I hold it up like a dead fish. “Boiled it.”

“And they let you come home like that?”

“Kind of.”

She’s up then, and I’m trailing her into the bathroom. She’s rifling through a cabinet. “They’re fucking assholes,” she bites out. “This is the second time you’ve been burned, huh?”

“Yep.”

She mutters expletives under her breath, and moments later, produces gauze and bandages.

“All that?” I say.

“Does it hurt as bad as it looks?”

“Well, it hurts.”

“Then sit down out there and I’ll help you out.”

Back in the kitchen, I get onto the floor with Jonas while she works on me. Taking my hand. A shock of cold as she applies a burn gel to tender skin. Gauze. So gentle. I feel like a baby.

“Fuck that shithole job,” she says. “You could sue them for this.”

“It’s alright, I quit.”

“Good. You gave your notice?”

“Nah. I just left.”

Jonas, then. “You left? You mean you walked away?”

“Yeah. I threw my apron off and headed out.”

“Hm,” he says, a frown appearing.

“What?”

“Well, it is not exactly best practice. You are supposed to give notice. Give them time to find a replacement.”

I scoff, turning my bandaged wrist in my hand. “Or what?”

My question appears to confuse him. “Well, this is the rule.”

Let my eyes slide back to Dalia. The queen of emotive outrage. Anti-establishment this, communism that, and whatever, but she’s nodding along solemnly. “Yeah, honestly, it looks pretty bad. You shouldn’t have done that.”

I scoff and remind them both I am a grown man with free will, but their faces remain grim.

“Eventually you’re gonna need a reference,” Dalia points out. “Your resume will have all these places you worked at, but nobody to vouch for you. It looks sketchy.”

“Right, well, doing it once is okay.”

Nobody says anything, so I pretend I’m correct. Hate being wrong, but hate too, that uncomfortable sense everyone is afraid to oppose me. They’re confusing. Agreeing it was a shithole job a minute ago, now saying that leaving without giving notice was unfair. They’re ganging up on me, really. That’s what they’re doing now. And when I have a burned hand and all. Dalia sees my face and changes the subject.

“I heard you’re taking Astrid to the cinema this week.”

Ah, yes, the cinema. The peak of our week lately. It takes me almost two hours to earn the twelve euro our tickets cost, so I make her buy her own snacks. It pisses her off enough that she doesn’t share the popcorn with me, even though I ask. A couple weeks ago, I ate a kernel that fell into the crease between the armrest and my seat, and didn’t even regret it.

“Yeah. The film with Brad Pitt in it.”

“So fun.”

I shift restlessly. A sudden resentment for all of it. Irritation comes like this these days, in bursts, spurred by exhaustion, all the micro moments of the day culminating into my ultimate swirling fury at the state of my life. When I bite my tongue with a rude customer, the noise a metal chair makes when I bump into it, wet jeans after cycling in the rain. Pissed off now about the cinema, that infernal croissant woman at the café, and the way I have to sit on the floor in my own apartment because we haven’t bought a fucking couch yet. Rage quick and hot. Yeah. So fun. The cinema. Cycling there for like an hour, then sitting for two in complete silence. Going back to hers, then, always hers, where she makes me take off my trousers before sitting on her bed because they’re touched public seating, or whatever, and there’s never anything to eat for breakfast.

“Does she ever visit you out here?” I say, hearing the edge in my voice. “Astrid, like.”

Dalia laughs dryly. “She doesn’t come to Neukolln. Every single time I’ve seen her in the last two years, it’s been in the city, or at her place. She won’t come the whole way out here.”

“Wow. Yeah. That’s what I thought. That’s really nice.”

A thin smile. “Yeah, well, you know how it is.”

I shrug my shoulders. Thinking of her the other week after college when I asked her back with me. “Are you ever going to see my new apartment?” I said, and she just laughed. “Maybe when I have time.” Knowing on a deep level she wouldn’t actually make it. This is just admitting it aloud. Confirmation of a quiet fear. “Thought she might come for me, is all.”

“She might.” I can tell she's trying her best to sound hopeful. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Right.” I’ve had enough. I get up and trudge towards my room, Jonas calling out to me as I go. “We are thinking we will go to the bar later with Elias if you’d like to come.”

I look around at them, huddled there on the kitchen floor with those uncomfortable looks upon their faces, grimaces, almost. Hoping I’ll turn them down. Nobody wants this energy at the bar. “No. I’m going to lie on my bed.” I mutter, and kick the door behind me.

Beginning // Prev // Next

#lucky boy 2012 #sad sad sad #he's a wet blanket #get a job (again)

59 notes · View notes

zeroseuniverse · 2 days ago

Text

Come and See Me In Your Nylon

Word Count: 638 Summary: He didn’t touch her, not yet, but he moved, letting his body fall into rhythm with hers, a question spoken through motion: Can I join you? Pairing: Minghao X reader

Taglist: @sh0dor1

Navigation

The bass pulsed through the club, a steady heartbeat vibrating through the floor as bodies swayed under dim neon lights. The air smelled of sweat, liquor, and something electric—something alive. But Minghao only saw her.

She moved like liquid gold, each roll of her hips and arch of her back a perfect rhythm in sync with the music. She wasn’t just dancing—she was commanding the space around her, bending the air itself to her will. It wasn’t a performance for the crowd, not a display to be watched. It was a language, spoken through the sway of her limbs, whispered in the flick of her fingers.

Minghao barely noticed his drink warming in his hand, forgotten the moment his eyes landed on her. He had spent years perfecting his own movements, learning control, precision, technique—but she danced like she had been born from music itself.

And then she turned. Their eyes met.

A slow smirk curved her lips as if she could feel the weight of his stare, as if she had known all along that he was watching. A silent invitation. He didn’t hesitate.

Minghao pushed off from the bar, weaving through the mass of bodies until he was in her orbit, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her skin. He didn’t touch her, not yet, but he moved, letting his body fall into rhythm with hers, a question spoken through motion: Can I join you?

Her answer came in the way she didn’t pull away. The way she turned into him, the way her arm brushed against his chest as she twisted, spinning just out of reach before snapping back into place. A game.

Minghao’s lips parted, his breath unsteady. She wasn’t just beautiful—she was mesmerizing. And for the first time in a long while, he found himself losing.

She leaned in, her voice barely a breath against his ear. “You dance?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “You tell me.”

Her grin was quick, sharp. A flick of her wrist pulled him deeper into her world, and suddenly, they weren’t in a crowded club anymore. It was just them. Her body moved, and he followed. She spun, and he was already there to meet her. It was effortless, intoxicating, a connection forged in rhythm alone.

By the time the song ended, Minghao didn’t remember how long they had been dancing. Minutes? Hours?

She pulled back, chest heaving, pupils blown wide with exhilaration. And before he could say a word, she was gone.

Like a dream. Like smoke slipping through his fingers.

Minghao stood in the middle of the floor, pulse still racing, searching the crowd for even a trace of her. Nothing. Just the lingering echo of her presence and the maddening thought—

I should have stopped her.

He told himself it was a moment. A fleeting thing. A brush with something untouchable.

But then, a week later, he saw her again.

Same club. Same pulse of music. Same intoxicating presence. And when her eyes met his across the room, something in them flickered—recognition, curiosity, amusement.

This time, he didn’t wait.

Minghao was in front of her before she could slip away, a knowing look in his eyes. “I never got your name.”

She tilted her head, playful. “You never asked.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “I guess I was too busy trying to keep up.”

Her gaze softened, just for a moment. Then she took a step closer, her fingers brushing against his wrist, a touch so light it almost wasn’t there. “Think you can keep up this time?”

Minghao caught her hand before she could pull away. This time, she wasn’t slipping through his fingers.

His voice was low, certain. “Try me.”

And just like that, they were dancing again. But this time, Minghao wasn’t letting her vanish into the night.

38 notes · View notes

mangilingo · 2 days ago

Text

Beneath the sunlit sky

Summary — A solo traveler meets Luigi on a Hawaiian vacation, and as their paths continue to cross, a deep, undeniable connection forms between them, leading them to confront their feelings and the possibility of something lasting beyond the island.

╭──╯ . . . . . . . . . . ╰──╮ '*•.¸♡

♡¸.•*'

The sun hung high in the Hawaiian sky, casting a golden hue over the crystal-clear waters. You had never been much of a traveler, preferring the quiet comfort of your own space. But when the opportunity for a solo trip to Hawaii arose, you couldn’t resist. The thought of escaping your mundane routine, even for a week, filled you with a strange sense of excitement. The decision had come on impulse—a spur of the moment kind of thing, but now you were here, standing at the edge of something completely foreign, looking out at the infinite ocean that stretched before you.

The resort you stayed at was on the quieter side of the island, with less of the hustle and bustle that came with the more tourist-heavy areas. You were relieved to find some peace, just the soft murmur of waves and rustling palms, with only the occasional hum of a passing motorbike or chatter of a couple walking past.

After checking in, you wasted no time in heading to the beach. The golden sand slipped between your toes as you walked down toward the shore, the heat of the sun soaking into your skin. You took a deep breath, letting the salty air fill your lungs and settle into your mind. The world here felt suspended in time, the perfect place to forget about everything.

The first few hours were blissful. You found a quiet spot by a large palm tree and settled under its shade, enjoying the sounds of the ocean and the occasional chirp of a tropical bird. You watched the locals and tourists alike paddle in the shallows, swim, or simply sunbathe.

It wasn’t until you decided to take a walk along the shoreline that you saw him.

A man, dressed in a loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, stood near the water’s edge, his back turned to you. He was tall, lean but muscular in a way that spoke to a life filled with movement. His dark brown hair, a little longer than most, shifted in the breeze. He had a way of standing—feet planted firmly in the sand, his arms loosely crossed—like he was lost in thought, staring out at the horizon, as if waiting for something.

He looked so… out of place. Not in a bad way, but in a way that suggested he wasn’t quite in sync with the easygoing vacation vibe of the island.

Your feet took you closer without you intending to. There was something about him, something that pulled at your curiosity. And then, just as you were about to walk past him, he turned his head, his eyes locking with yours.

For a moment, everything else seemed to blur. His gaze wasn’t forceful, but it was intense. You couldn’t look away. There was something in those eyes—something you couldn’t quite place. Longing? Regret? Whatever it was, it hit you like a wave crashing over you.

Your heart fluttered unexpectedly, and you quickly turned your gaze down to the sand beneath your feet. Your pace quickened as you walked away, but his stare remained with you, an invisible tether that followed you down the beach.

The evening came quickly, with the sun dipping low in the sky, painting the horizon with streaks of pink and purple. You couldn’t resist the pull of the resort’s beachfront restaurant, with its open-air seating that overlooked the bay. You chose a table near the window, hoping for some solitude and a perfect view of the sunset.

The evening air was warm, carrying the sweet scent of hibiscus and salt. You ordered a light seafood dish, something fresh and simple, accompanied by a chilled coconut drink. You let your mind wander as you watched the sky change colors, the vast ocean stretching endlessly before you.

It was in that peaceful moment that you noticed him again.

There he was, sitting at a table near the back of the restaurant, almost hidden in the shadows of the large potted plants, but still within view. He was alone, just as you were, his eyes fixed on the view. His body was relaxed, though his posture was stiff, almost as though he were retreating into himself. You could see the muscles in his arms flex subtly as he leaned back in his chair, and the way his gaze moved from the ocean to the horizon, as if trying to reach some far-off place, somewhere beyond the blue expanse.

You tried to look away, but your eyes were drawn to him. There was something magnetic about him, something that made you feel like he wasn’t just another stranger, but someone important, someone with a story to tell.

Before you could gather your thoughts, the waiter came by, refilling your glass. “I couldn’t help but notice that the gentleman over there,” he gestured to Luigi, “has been staring in your direction for a while.”

You blinked in surprise, unsure of how to respond. “I don’t know him,” you replied.

The waiter raised an eyebrow. “Happens to all of us at some point, right? But hey, if he’s looking, maybe it’s worth taking the chance.”

With a knowing smile, he walked away, leaving you staring at Luigi, your heart rate picking up again. You knew you couldn’t just ignore this connection anymore.

You tried to dismiss the thought as you finished your meal, but that was easier said than done. That night, as you headed back to your room, you kept thinking about him. Who was he? What was it about his presence that made you feel so… seen?

The following morning, you found yourself wandering down the beach again. The air was warm and humid, the ocean’s sound constant and soothing. The water sparkled in the morning light, inviting you to step in. You walked along the shore, your feet sinking into the wet sand, when you saw him again.

Luigi. He was sitting beneath a palm tree, a book in his hand, the edge of his sunglasses perched on his nose. He looked so peaceful in that moment, a stark contrast to the quiet intensity you had noticed the previous day. It was almost as if he had allowed himself a few moments of calm, something that seemed scarce in the little bit you’d seen of him.

You hesitated, unsure whether you should approach him. There was a certain barrier between you two, an invisible line that neither of you had crossed yet. You considered turning back, but something urged you forward, and without quite realizing it, you found yourself walking towards him.

Luigi noticed you just before you reached him. His eyes lifted from the pages of his book, and a flicker of surprise passed across his face. He set the book down slowly, as though deciding whether to engage or remain in his solitary world.

“Hey,” you said, your voice softer than you meant it to be. There was something about this man that made you unsure of yourself.

He smiled, the first real smile you’d seen from him, and for a second, it took your breath away. “Hey, it’s you again.”

You paused, the connection between you so palpable that it almost felt like a shared secret, like neither of you were quite sure how to handle it. “I keep running into you,” you said, a chuckle escaping your lips.

“Maybe that’s fate,” he said, his voice teasing but not in a way that felt uncomfortable. His eyes met yours, steady and warm. “I’m Luigi,” he added, as if you hadn’t already known his name.

You introduced yourself, and for a moment, the world seemed to slip away. The conversation started slow—casual, almost forced—but soon, the awkwardness melted away. You found yourself laughing, talking about everything and nothing. He told you he had come to Hawaii to escape some unfinished business back home, but he wasn’t specific. You both shared little pieces of yourselves, enough to create a bond but not enough to know each other completely.

“I’m here for the same reason,” you admitted, “just… needed a break from everything.”

His gaze softened, the understanding between you palpable. You had both come here for the same thing, even if you hadn’t known it until now. The rest of the world, it seemed, was miles away.

The days that followed seemed to blur together. You and Luigi found yourselves crossing paths again and again, each encounter seeming less accidental than the last. You shared meals, walked through the town, and took long swims in the ocean. There were moments where you both spoke endlessly, laughing about silly things, your connection growing deeper by the day. But there were also moments of silence, moments where you simply sat together, both lost in your own thoughts.

One evening, you sat on the balcony of your room, staring out at the ocean. The sun had long since set, and the sky had turned dark, dotted with the flickering stars. The soft sounds of the waves below were comforting, and you let the quiet wash over you, savoring the peaceful solitude.

Then, you heard a knock on your door.

Your heart skipped a beat as you stood, your breath catching in your throat. You opened the door to find Luigi standing there, looking more unsure than you’d ever seen him. His hands were in his pockets, and he seemed hesitant.

“I—uh—wanted to see if you were free. I… I just felt like talking,” he said, his voice quieter than usual.

You stepped aside, allowing him in. There was no need for words. The connection was undeniable now. The pull between you was stronger than either of you had let on, and the walls you’d built were beginning to crumble.

He sat down beside you on the balcony, and for a long moment, neither of you said anything. You simply shared the silence, your bodies close but your thoughts far away.

Finally, it was Luigi who spoke. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” he said, his voice hoarse. “But I don’t think I can leave here without knowing what this is between us.”

Your heart raced in your chest as you looked at him. There was something raw in his eyes, something that mirrored your own feelings but went unspoken for too long.

“I don’t know either,” you whispered. “But I’m willing to find out.”

And in that moment, it wasn’t just the island that felt suspended in time. It was the two of you—standing on the precipice of something both uncertain and undeniable, ready to take the leap.

The days after that evening blurred into something beautiful and strange. Neither of you wanted to define what was happening, but you both knew it wasn’t just a fleeting vacation romance. It was something deeper. Something real.

The last day of your trip arrived too quickly. You stood by the beach one final time, the sun low in the sky, painting everything in golden light. Luigi stood beside you, his hand brushing against yours.

“You know,” he said, his voice gentle, “this doesn’t have to end here. Whatever this is, it doesn’t have to stay on this island.”

Your heart fluttered in your chest. You looked at him, the bond between you undeniable now, stronger than the ocean waves crashing on the shore. There was a tenderness in the way he looked at you, the way his hand now lingered in yours.

“No,” you said softly, squeezing his hand. “It doesn’t.”

And as you both stood there, watching the sun set over the horizon, you realized that this—whatever it was—had become something that could last beyond the shores of Hawaii, beyond the boundaries of time, a story that had only just begun.

#Luigi mangione #luigi mangione x yn #luigi mangione x reader #x reader #free luigi #fem reader #hawaii #Spotify

31 notes · View notes

bitchinbarzal · 14 hours ago

Text

Secret Drawer | B Faber

summary: you’re broken up and now you’re roommates.

Brock is exhausted when he steps off the plane. A four-game road trip, back-to-backs, and a brutal loss in overtime have drained every ounce of energy from his body. He just wants to get home, throw his bag on the floor, and collapse into his bed for about sixteen hours.

Except, when he gets to his apartment complex, his key doesn’t work.

He frowns, trying again. Still locked.

“What the hell,” he mutters, tugging his phone out of his pocket. His notifications are a mess, mostly texts from teammates about bad calls, group chat chaos, and random NHL updates he doesn’t care about.

Then he sees a missed call from his landlord.

His stomach sinks as he calls back immediately, pacing outside his apartment building.

“Faber! Good, I was hoping you’d call,” the landlord greets. “Listen, man, your place got flooded while you were gone.”

Brock’s brain short-circuits. “Flooded? What—how?!”

“Pipe burst. Maintenance is already working on it, but your stuff had to be moved. Don’t worry, I had the movers take it to the address you had listed as your emergency contact.”

A cold chill washes over him.

No. No way.

“What address did you send it to?” he asks, voice tense.

The landlord rattles off an address, and Brock physically winces.

Because that’s not just any address.

It’s yours.

His ex-girlfriend’s apartment.

“Shit,” Brock mutters under his breath.

The landlord keeps talking, but Brock is already tuning him out, mind racing. He had meant to take you off the emergency contact list when you broke up, but between travel, training, and pretending he was totally fine without you, it never happened.

And now all his stuff—his clothes, his hockey gear, his entire life—is sitting in your apartment.

This is a disaster.

When Brock finally makes it to your apartment, his stomach is a tight knot of anxiety.

The moment you open the door, the air shifts.

You don’t look surprised to see him. If anything, you look like you’ve been preparing for this exact moment.

His eyes dart past you, and sure enough—his stuff is everywhere.

Boxes stacked in the hallway. His old jerseys draped over the couch. His gear bag tossed to the side, sticking out like an ugly reminder that he doesn’t belong here anymore.

Brock runs a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. “So, uh… I guess you got my stuff.”

You cross your arms, leaning against the doorway. “Yep. Shocking surprise, by the way. Really made my week.”

The sarcasm stings.

He shifts on his feet, feeling like an intruder in a place he once called home. “Look, I didn’t plan this. My landlord screwed up.”

Your expression stays neutral, but there’s something in your eyes—a flicker of old history, of memories you both left unresolved.

“Yeah, well,” you sigh. “It’s not like I can kick you out. Turns out, the lease is still in both our names.”

Brock’s head snaps up. “What?”

“I tried to fix it months ago,” you say, rolling your eyes. “But apparently, you never signed the paperwork, so now, legally, this is still your place too.”

He stares at you.

So not only is his stuff here, but now there’s no easy way to leave.

“Great,” he mutters under his breath.

You sigh, rubbing your temples. “I don’t want this either, Brock. But I don’t have the energy to figure it out tonight, and clearly, you don’t either. So for now? Just—stay out of my way.”

And with that, you turn on your heel and walk toward your room, leaving Brock standing there, surrounded by everything he thought he had left behind.

The next few days are pure hell.

Every interaction is painfully awkward—like two people who used to fit together perfectly but now can’t even exist in the same space without stepping on landmines.

The first morning, you walk into the kitchen to find Brock standing there, shirtless, drinking coffee like this is totally normal.

It is not normal.

You freeze. “You can’t just—be here.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Pretty sure I live here.”

You groan, grabbing your own coffee mug and avoiding eye contact at all costs.

Then there are the accidental run-ins—like when you’re both trying to leave at the same time and nearly collide in the hallway.

Or the one time you walked into the bathroom only to find Brock hadn’t locked the door.

“Jesus, Brock!” you yelped, slamming the door shut.

“You could’ve knocked!” he shot back, voice muffled.

“You could’ve locked the damn door!”

Neither of you spoke for an hour after that.

The tension only builds.

There are moments when you almost talk—when he looks at you like he wants to say something, like there’s something unspoken between you.

But neither of you take that step.

Until the night you go looking for a pen in your nightstand.

And you find the drawer.

It’s filled with your stuff.

A necklace you thought you lost. An old hoodie of his that you used to steal. A handwritten note—the one you gave him on your anniversary.

Your breath catches.

Because Brock never threw it away.

And suddenly, everything you’ve been pretending doesn’t hurt—hurts all over again.

You hear footsteps behind you.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” Brock says quietly.

You turn, clutching the note in your hand. “Why do you still have this?”

His jaw tightens. “Because I couldn’t let it go.”

You shake your head. “You broke up with me, Brock.”

His face twists. “Yeah, and I’ve regretted it every damn day since.”

Silence.

Raw. Unfiltered.

For the first time in months, you’re looking at each other without the walls up.

“I thought about reaching out,” Brock says, voice rough. “But I figured you didn’t want to hear from me.”

“I waited for you to,” you admit softly.

His expression crumbles.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he says, shaking his head. “I thought I was giving you space, letting you move on. But I never did. And now I’m standing here, and all I want to do is tell you that I was an idiot for ever thinking I could let you go.”

Your heart pounds.

You could walk away—tell him it’s too late, that you’ve healed and moved on. Maybe it wouldn’t even be a lie.

You could try.

Slowly, you inhale. “If we do this again…”

Brock’s breath catches. “Yeah?”

“It has to be different,” you say firmly. “No half-measures. No leaving.”

His eyes darken with something determined. “I won’t mess it up this time.”

You search his face, looking for doubt, hesitation, anything that makes you think he’s saying this just because it’s easy.

But you don’t find it.

You find Brock. The same one who never stopped holding onto the past, even when he thought it was too late.

Maybe this time—it’s not.

You exhale.

Then, finally, you let go of the note.

And instead, you reach for him.

Brock doesn’t hesitate.

His arms wrap around you, holding you tight, like he’s terrified to let go again.

And this time, He won’t.

#brock faber imagine #brock faber x reader #nhl imagine

45 notes · View notes

utopiastri · 17 hours ago

Note

oooh for the prompts please 8 (im taking you home and that’s that) and N (fondness) with a little S (exhaustion) and dealers choice for the setting bcos i couldn’t decide!! (also could be about anyone who takes your fancy you know i am delighted to follow you on any journey that being said i will love you forever if you pick galex 🫶🫶🫶) thank you!! love you!!

-🦎

8 - “i’m taking you home, and that’s that.”; N - fondness and S - exhaustion (hello my beloved🦎anon!!! you said dealer's choice for the setting and i saw the words "airplane hanger" and then started thinking about airports which are. not the same thing but there you go - thank you for the prompt darling! 💕)

(prompt list here!)

Alex is going to kill him. Alex is going to find George, kill him, bring him back from the dead to yell at him and then kill him again.

“Sir, I’m going to need your passport.”

Alex gives his most charming smile to the security guard. He’s pretty sure it comes out more as a grimace, but he thinks he can be forgiven bearing in mind it’s 3:30 in the fucking morning.

Finally, finally, he makes it through security and into duty-free. Now he just has to find his stupid best friend so that they can leave this stupid airport and Alex can get back into his stupid bed. And also so Alex can kill George.

He pulls out his phone to text George again and is met with the wall of texts he sent George earlier. His stomach churns as he rereads through their text chain.

georgie Alex, I’m so sorry to do this so last-minute, but I’ve booked a flight home. It leaves in two hours so I need to head off now - I didn’t want to wake you so I thought I’d text instead. Thank you for your hospitality.

Alex geog georgie its 3 in the fucking mroning are you kidding where are you george george i swear to god if you’re at the airport right now i’m going to kill you GEORGE

Alex sends another text, demanding for George to tell him where he is but, unsurprisingly, he doesn’t get a response. He groans.

Fine.

He’s just got to think like George. Where would George Russell go after he gets through security at the airport?

…

Alex is an idiot. It’s George. He’s probably been sat at the gate for his flight since he got here. Immediately, he starts running, pulling up George’s flight details as he goes so he can figure out which one he needs.

-----------

Five minutes later (and embarrassingly out of breath), Alex finds himself at Gate 7 staring at the back of George Russell’s head. After taking a moment to compose himself (and get his breath back), Alex marches over to him, plucking his headphones off his head for good measure.

“Wh–Alex?” George splutters, staring up at Alex first in indignation, then in bewilderment.

“Hi, Georgie.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Alex glares at him. “I don’t know, George, why might I be at the airport at three in the morning? Oh, that’s right, because my idiotic best friend is at the airport at three in the goddamn morning!”

George winces. “I was just trying to get out of your hair,” he mumbles.

Alex sighs. Pissed off as he is, he’s aware it comes out a little fond. “Who said I wanted you out of my hair?”

George’s mouth twists. “I thought…”

“You thought what?”

“I thought…I thought you’d want some space after…” George trails off and swallows.

Alex’s stomach drops. “George,” he says carefully, “What did you think last night was?”

George looks down at the ground and doesn’t say anything. Alex’s chest aches. He grabs George’s hand and pulls him to his feet.

“Alex, wh–”

“No, shut up. I am taking you home, then we are going back to sleep for at least six hours and then, at an appropriate fucking time of the morning, we are going to have a conversation about how apparently you missed the memo that I’m in love with you.”

George’s jaw drops. “B-but…you…”

“Come on,” Alex says, tugging on George’s hand, “We’re going home.”

“Wait, but what about my flig–”

Alex groans. He places a hand on George's neck and pulls him into a deep kiss. When he pulls back, George is staring at him, eyes wide.

“George Russell, I’m taking you home, and that’s that.”

#listen. who doesn't love an airport confession scene #godbless those poor airport employees who i'm sure are traumatised by confession scenes at least once a day #love you 🦎 anon!!!!!#🦎 anon #galex #kitty.drabbles #kitty.asks

29 notes · View notes

ghostofwriting · 6 hours ago

Text

In London: come back, be here

Rafe x Reader

warnings: mentions of cheating

Word Count: 6,416

In London: Series Masterlist

Note: This is part of the In London universe, and it can be read standalone. I strongly recommend reading them in order of release (you can find that in the masterlist)

Summary: Rafe's actions after she leaves Kildare.

Rafe sat hunched over his phone, his fingers trembling as he repeatedly hit the dial button. His heart raced with every unanswered ring, every text left unread. He had been blowing up her phone for hours, his calls and messages growing more frantic with each passing minute. He'd tried everything—texts begging for her to talk to him, voicemails soaked in regret—but still, no response.

Desperation gnaws at him as he moves on to her mom, calling her in the middle of the night, sounding more like a man on the edge than someone who had once been her daughter’s boyfriend. “Do you know where she is? Please, I just need to know she’s okay.” Her mother’s voice on the other end was calm but firm. “I don’t know, Rafe. She’s not here, you need to stop calling me.”

But Rafe didn’t want to hear that. He couldn’t. He wasn’t ready to accept it. He wasn’t ready to admit that she was gone, that she had walked away from him for good. The weight of his own betrayal crushed him, each memory of the lies, the mistakes, and Kiara sinking deeper into his chest. He had cheated on her. He had broken her trust in the worst way possible, and now, she was gone, and he couldn’t undo any of it.

The truth echoed louder than his panic. She wouldn’t forgive him. Not this time.

His chest tightens, and a bitter laugh escapes his lips, though it lacks any humor. The room felt suffocating, the walls closing in as the harsh reality set in. Rafe throws his phone down onto the bed, his hands clutching at his hair as he sinks into the dark silence of his room. He missed her so damn much.

His heart ached in a way he hadn’t known was possible. The space she used to fill in his life was now a gaping hole, one that he had created. He knew it, and there was no running from it. No matter how many times he tried to reach out, no matter how many calls he made, nothing would bring her back. He had pushed her away, and now she was gone.

Tears well up in his eyes, but he can’t bring himself to cry. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. The only person he wanted to talk to, to hold, was the one person he could never have again.

Rafe collapsed back against the bed, staring up at the ceiling, his chest heaving with each breath as the weight of his actions finally, fully, crashed down on him. She was gone. And it was his fault.

+++

Days blurred into one another as Rafe spiraled. The emptiness inside him became unbearable, so he sought anything to numb the pain, anything to stop the relentless ache that gnawed at his insides. At first, it was just a drink or two to take the edge off. But soon, it wasn’t enough. The alcohol didn’t dull the sting, it didn't silence the screaming thoughts in his head. It only fueled them.

He finds himself drinking more and more, drowning himself in whiskey until his vision blurs and his mind fogs over. He’d been here before. When his dad had put too much pressure on him to take over the company, when he felt like he wasn’t enough and his dad would never love him like a dad should love their son. When she had made him feel like he would never be good enough for her. When she told him that his dad’s love was not the end all be all and that he had people who loved him for who he was. He couldn’t see it then. He was blinded by the hurt of his father, of his shortcomings, of her sharp tongue when he was already down. Drugs had taken the edge off. Drugs had also lowered his inhibitions so much that he ended up in bed with Kiara,

It’s not long before he starts reaching for pills again, molly, oxy, whatever he can get his hands on. Barry refuses to give him any cocaine and he doesn’t want to go out of his way to find another dealer so he settles for anything that would give him that brief escape.

The high was fleeting, but in those moments, he didn’t feel the crushing weight of his own regret. He didn’t feel the agony of her absence, the constant reminder of his betrayal.

He starts partying, staying out late, surrounded by people who don’t care about him, who don’t know the real him. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the numbness, the temporary relief from the gnawing pain in his chest. The people he hangs out with don’t know any better so they encourage him, laugh with him, feed into the destructive cycle. They don’t know what is really going on, they just saw a guy who was letting loose, having fun.

But when the alcohol hits its peak, when the drugs blurr his thoughts even more, Rafe’s mask begins to slip. The walls he’d built around his vulnerability came crashing down, and his desperation, his grief, poured out in ways he couldn’t control.

One night, after hours of drinking, Rafe stumbles into the kitchen, barely able to stand. He leaned against the counter, his breath heavy, his body unsteady. His friends are still partying in the other room, laughing, not noticing the storm brewing inside him. He pulls out his phone, scrolling through the contacts until he finds her name. His thumb hovers over the call button, but before he can press it, his phone slips from his hand, crashing to the floor.

“Call her,” he mumbles, his voice slurring. He turns to the stranger in the room with him, his eyes wide with panic. “Please, someone… call her for me.”

The stranger looks at him like he has two heads “uh what?” Rafe sinks to his knees trying to grab his phone from under a cabinet. The stranger gives the drunk man an uncomfortable glance and looks towards the person entering the kitchen.

“Rafe.” Barry says, trying to hoist him up by his armpits.

Barry had been watching him, he didn't know what to say or how to help. Rafe had never been like this before. His pain was raw, and it was too much for the group to handle. They tried to get him to sit down, to stop drinking, but Rafe couldn’t hear them. All he could hear was the silence from her side of the phone, the echo of her absence.

“Please…” he whispered again, his voice barely audible now. His eyes were glassy, pleading. “Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I love her. I’ll fix it, I swear, just—just make her come back. Please.”

Sarah has been quietly observing from the doorway. She has been worried about him for weeks now, ever since he’d started disappearing for days at a time, since the drinking and drugs began to take over. She knew something was wrong, but she had no idea how bad it had gotten.

She stepped forward, her heart aching at the sight of her brother, broken and lost in a way she’s never seen before. “Rafe…” she said softly, trying to get his attention. “You need to stop, okay? You’re not okay. You’re going down a bad path.”

Rafe looked at her, his eyes blurry with tears and alcohol. “I don’t care anymore, Sarah. I fucked up. I ruined everything. I need her back. I can’t breathe without her.”

The desperation in his voice cracks Sarah’s heart. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to fix this. She had always looked up to her older brother, the version he had been when she was still here, but now… now he seemed like a stranger, lost in his own self-destruction.

“Please, Rafe,” she said, her voice trembling. “Stop doing this to yourself. She’s not coming back, not like this. You have to deal with what you did. You can’t keep hiding from it.”

Rafe’s face twits in pain. “I don’t know how, Sarah. I don’t know how to live without her. I don’t know what to do.”

Tears well up in Sarah’s eyes as she reaches out to him, but he pulls away, stumbling back to the couch, his head buried in his hands.

“Don’t leave me,” he mumbled, his voice hoarse. “Please, just don’t leave me.”

The words hung in the air, and Sarah felt the weight of them crash down on her. Her brother, the one who had always been so strong, the one who had always protected her, was now broken beyond repair. And she didn’t know how to fix him.

She had to do something. But what? She can’t watch him self-destruct, but she doesn’t know how to pull him out of this darkness. All she can do is stay by his side, even as he pushes everyone away, even as he continues to spiral further.

+++

Rafe's grief had consumed him, and all he could do was keep chasing the high, hoping for a moment of numbness, a fleeting escape from the reality that she was gone, that she wasn’t coming back, and that he had destroyed everything.

His desperation had grown so all-consuming that nothing else mattered, nothing except the faint, impossible hope that she would somehow hear him. The numbness from the alcohol and pills was starting to wear off, but the pain in his chest never subsided. Every morning felt like waking up in a nightmare, each day blending into the next, a haze of drunken nights and clouded judgment. He didn’t care anymore. He just couldn’t bear the silence, the empty spaces that she once filled in his life.

He knew he was sinking lower and lower, but that doesn’t matter either. All that matters is finding a way to get her to talk to him, to forgive him. To make everything right again. Deep down, he knew it wasn’t possible.

The first time it happened was at a party, a random night that blurs together with all the others. He had been drinking heavily, trying to drown out the thought of her. But it doesn’t work. He sits with Kelce and Barry, laughing with them like everything’s fine, like he hasn’t just spent the entire afternoon staring at her name on his phone, willing it to light up with a message from her.

"Hey," Rafe slurred, looking over at Kelce, who was texting someone on his phone. "Give me your phone."

Kelce barely looked up, too drunk to notice the desperation in Rafe’s voice. "What? Why?"

"Just—just give me your damn phone," Rafe insists, his tone harder than he intended, making it clear that this isn’t a suggestion.

Kelce, unfazed by the anger in Rafe’s voice, handed it over with a casual shrug. "Fine, whatever. Don’t break it or whatever."

Rafe doesn’t waste a second. His hands are shaking as he unlocks the phone, the screen blurring with the alcohol-induced haze in his vision. He scrolls through the contacts with a feverish urgency, finding her name and hovering over it. His thumb hesitates over the call button, just for a moment, but that moment feels like an eternity. Then, without thinking, he presses it.

The phone rings. And rings.

His heart pounds in his chest as each ring seems to echo louder in his mind, each one a cruel reminder of how far gone he is, how hopeless this all feels. His thumb hovers over the screen, ready to hang up if she doesn’t answer, but he can’t bring himself to do it. What if, somehow, this time she picks up? What if this was the moment when everything changes?

But no. The call goes to voicemail, as it always does. Rafe curses under his breath, throwing Kelce’s phone down onto the table as if he’d just been slapped.

"Fuck!" he shouts, the frustration spilling out of him. "Why won’t she just talk to me?"

Kelce, now realizing how badly things had gotten, gives him a sidelong glance. "Dude, maybe you should just… lay off it for a bit. You’ve been at this for weeks now. It’s not helping, man."

Rafe doesn’t care. doesn’t care about Kelce’s advice, doesn’t care about anything other than getting her back. He snatches up Barry’s phone next, his movements erratic, frantic. Barry is too caught up in the music to notice what Rafe is doing until it’s too late.

"Rafe, what the hell are you doing?" Barry asks, glancing at him with a confused frown.

Ignoring him, Rafe is already calling her number. His thumb feels heavy, but he can’t stop. Every time the call goes unanswered, every time he hears the voicemail greeting, a part of him dies inside.

"Come on, sweetheart," he whispers into the phone, as if she could hear him. "Please, just pick up."

But she never does.

When the call ends, Rafe slumps back against the couch, his chest heaving as if the air was being sucked from the room. He’d been doing this every day, every single day, but it never got easier. The pain only deepened.

"Rafe, you need to stop this," Barry said, his voice quieter now, tinged with concern. "You’re killing yourself, man."

But Rafe can’t stop. Every time he picks up someone else’s phone and calls, he holds on to that shred of hope—that maybe, just maybe, she’s just waiting for him to reach out one more time. Maybe she’s watching her phone, waiting for his message, longing to hear his voice like he’s longing to hear hers.

It was irrational. He knew it. But that doesn’t make it any less real.

As the days passed, the calls kept coming. Sometimes it was Kelce’s phone, sometimes it was Barry’s, sometimes even Sarah’s phone, though she had started keeping her own distance from him. Rafe doesn’t care. If there’s even the slightest chance that she would answer, he had to take it. He can’t bear the thought of never hearing her voice again.

Meanwhile, Sarah was getting increasingly worried. She can see her brother falling apart in ways she can’t help fix. She’d come into the room to find him sprawled out, drunk and high, his hands shaking as he fumbled with someone else’s phone, desperately dialing the number he knows by heart. His eyes are bloodshot, his face gaunt, as if the weight of his guilt was crushing him.

One night, Sarah had found Rafe sitting on the edge of his bed, his head buried in his hands. The room was littered with empty bottles, and the air was thick with the smell of whiskey and stale smoke.

"Rafe," she said softly, trying to get through to him. "You have to stop. This isn’t you. This… this isn’t how you fix things."

He hadn’t responded. His body trembled with exhaustion, and his voice came out in a hoarse whisper. "I just need to hear her. Just one more time. Please, Sarah. Please…"

Sarah sank down beside him, her own tears threatening to spill. "I know you miss her. But you can’t keep doing this. You have to face what you did. You can’t fix it by drowning yourself in this... this mess."

Rafe looked at her with hollow eyes. "I ruined everything, Sarah. I lost her. I cheated. She’ll never forgive me."

Sarah shook her head, her heart breaking for him. "You don’t know that. But you’ll never find out if you keep destroying yourself like this."

Rafe hadn’t said anything else to her. He had just stared at the phone in his hand, his fingers had traced the screen as though somehome, that small gesture would get her to call back.

+++

Rafe doesn’t know how to stop. He doesn’t know how to fix what’s broken. All he has now is hope—no matter how irrational—that one of these calls, one of these desperate pleas, might bring her back.

His mind races as he sits on the couch, he grips his phone, the screen now dimmed and lifeless in his hand. The empty bottles on the coffee table seemed to mock him, their contents long gone, leaving only the lingering stench of whiskey and regret. The sounds of the party were muffled in the background, but Rafe can’t hear them anymore. All he can hear is the deafening silence from the other end of the phone, the void that had swallowed her up, and the ache that tore through him every moment she wasn’t there.

A conversation with Topper changes everything. It hits him like a ton of bricks.

Topper had been quiet for a while, his own guilt simmering just below the surface, but tonight, he seemed off. He kept glancing over at Rafe, as if debating something, and Rafe knew his friend had something to say. He’d been drinking, but the sudden shift in Topper’s demeanor made his gut tighten.

“Rafe,” Topper finally muttered, his voice low. “I need to tell you something.”

Rafe’s eyes flicked up from the phone in his hand. His pulse quickened. “What?”

Topper hesitates, his brow furrowing in discomfort. “Sarah and Sofia… they know where she is.”

Rafe’s heart stops. The words hit him in the chest, like a punch he wasn’t ready for. His vision blurred as a wave of panic washes over him. “What the fuck do you mean, they know where she is?” he demands, rising from the couch and taking a step toward Topper, his voice shaking with frustration and disbelief.

Topper backs up slightly, holding his hands up in defense. “I don’t know how, man, but they do. Sarah told me. Sofia and her keep in touch.

Rafe’s breath comes in short, desperate gasps. He feels a knot of betrayal twist in his stomach. "And you didn’t think to fucking tell me?" His voice rises, the anger seeping in with the desperation. "You know how badly I need to find her, Topper. Why the hell didn’t you say anything sooner?"

Topper winces, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, dude. I didn’t think it was my place. Sarah made me promise... she said we should respect what she wants. She doesn’t want you to know where she is.”

The room suddenly feels cold, as if the walls are closing in on him. Rafe staggers back, staring at Topper as if he’d just betrayed him in the worst possible way. He had done everything to try to get her back, everything to fix the mess he’d made, but now, his own sister, his own flesh and blood, was protecting her, keeping secrets from him, just like everyone else.

Rafe doesn’t know what to say. He has to talk to Sarah and get her to tell him where his girl is. Where she’s staying, where he can find her. He has to convince Sarah that he deserves to know.

Topper watches him as if he can read his mind. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. He doesn’t have to. Rafe can see it in the way his eyes shift uncomfortably. "You need to let it go, Rafe. I know you're hurting, but she’s made her choice. And you… you need to accept it."

Rafe laughs bitterly, the sound of it harsh and broken. "Accept it?" He paces the room in a blur, his mind spinning. "You’re telling me to accept that she’s gone, that she won’t even talk to me because of what I did? That she’s hiding from me, and you—" He stops and turns on Topper, his voice rising, "—you knew, and you didn’t even tell me?"

"I don’t know where she is," Topper says quietly, but firmly. "I just found out that they do but they didn’t tell me anything. They promised her”

Rafe’s chest tightens as his fists clench, the words crashing against him like a tidal wave. The promises. The secrets. He had betrayed her in the worst way possible, and now it felt like everyone around him was betraying him, too. His mind races, his heart hammers, and it isn’t long before the panic begins to rise again.

"Where is she?" Rafe asks through gritted teeth, his voice barely above a whisper.

Topper shakes his head slowly. "I don’t know, man. I swear. You need to talk to Sarah if you want answers, but she won’t give you anything. She promised and she’s not gonna break it."

Rafe’s vision narrows, and a wave of cold fury surges through him. He can’t believe this is happening. He can’t believe that after everything, his own sister was keeping this from him. Keeping the love of his life from him as he suffered.

"You think you’re helping her, don’t you?" Rafe spits, his voice trembling with anger and pain.

"You think you’re protecting her from me-” he chokes over his words “like this is your retribution- like if- if she were to find out you were helping her she’ll forgive you. Well, you’re wrong.” Rafe spits “she will never forgive you. You are just as dead to her as I am.”

“You have no idea what I’d do just to talk to her, to apologize. To tell her that I’m sorry. But you all won’t let me. You’re all just… just standing there, watching me fall apart."

Topper flinches at the rawness in Rafe’s voice, but he doesn’t back down. "I’m sorry, man, but it’s not about what you want anymore. She’s made her choice. She’s not coming back unless she’s ready to."

The words hit Rafe harder than anything else. She’s not coming back.

He turns away from Topper, his hands running through his hair in frustration. He feels a storm brewing inside of him, the storm of all the guilt, the loneliness, the anger he had been carrying for weeks. The people around him who were supposed to care—his friends, his sister, the ones who had always been there—were now keeping him at arm’s length, blocking him from the one person he still needed most.

With a cold, angry look, Rafe grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. “I don’t care about promises. I don’t care what you think is right anymore. I’ll find out where she is. And when I do, I’m going to make her listen to me. No one is going to stop me."

Topper doesn’t try to stop him this time. Instead, he just stares after Rafe, his face drawn with concern. He can see that the guy standing in front of him isn’t the same Rafe he was a month ago. This Rafe was broken beyond repair, desperate in a way that made his heart ache.

But there was nothing anyone could do anymore. Rafe was too far gone.

+++

Rafe paces back and forth in the quiet living room, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The knot of guilt and frustration twists in his stomach, but there is something else there, too—anger. Anger that had been building since she left, since he had made that unforgivable mistake. And now, Sarah’s hiding her from him.

"Sarah," Rafe's voice is low, controlled, but underneath the surface, the tension is palpable. "You know where she is."

Sarah, sits on the couch with her legs tucked beneath her, looks up at him with a mixture of pity and caution. She has never seen Rafe like this before, desperate, broken, unhinged. She shakes her head, trying to keep her voice steady.

"I’m not going to tell you, Rafe. She left for a reason. She’s trying to move on."

Rafe's eyes narrow, his frustration spiking. "She left because of me. I need to fix it, Sarah. You have to understand that." He takes a step closer, his hands resting on the back of a nearby chair, gripping it as if he needs something solid to hold onto. "I know I messed up. But I can't live with this, without knowing where she is. Please, tell me. Help me make things right."

Sarah’s face softens, but her resolve doesn’t waver. She had seen her brother's remorse, had heard his pleas, but she also knew how hurt Yn was, how deep the wounds ran. Telling him where she was, would only lead to more pain.

"Rafe," she said quietly, her eyes not leaving his, "if you really want to fix things, you need to give her space. Let her come to you when she’s ready. Pushing her won’t change anything."

His jaw tightens, but he doesn't argue. Sarah has always been the one who tried to see the bigger picture, and in this case, she might have been right. But the ache inside him was too strong to ignore, and he could feel time slipping away. If he didn’t act now, he might lose her forever.

“I can’t just wait,” he mutters, his voice barely audible. “I can’t live with myself if I don’t try.”

Sarah looks at him, her heart aching for both of them, but she stands her ground. "Then you have to let her go. It’s the only way you’ll ever have a chance to get her back."

Rafe stands in silence for a long moment, his shoulders tense with the weight of the conversation. Finally, he nods, though the defeat in his posture was clear.

"Fine," he said, turning to leave the room. "But I’m not giving up on her. Not yet."

+++

Rafe walks into the rental house of some touron. It’s alive with noise, laughter, music, and the clinking of bottles.

But Rafe doesn’t care about any of that. He's only here because Sofia is here. He’s been trying to track her down for days. She had been dodging his phone calls and texts, probably because Sarah warned her that he knew they knew.

He stares at Sofia as she sits across the room on the couch, laughing with a group of friends. He hasn’t thought this plan through. He’s desperate, he’s high, and he’ll do anything to contact Yn.

Sofia’s phone rests causally on her lap. He had been waiting for this moment all night. His frustrations had reached a boiling point, and he needed to do something. Sofia knew where she was, which meant that they still talked to some extent.

He moved swiftly, weaving through the crowd, careful not to attract Sofia’s attention before he had a chance to snatch her phone. He reaches Sofia, leans in, and before anyone can react, grabs her phone from her lap. He continues walking swiftly through the crowd, no hesitation. He hears Sofia’s protests as he darts upstairs and into a room.

He’s lucky to have known Sofia for almost his entire life, he unlocks her phone without an issue, thankful that her password continues to be the same. It takes him a moment to find yn’s number. Maybe they aren’t talking as much as he thinks they are.

His heart pounds so loudly he can barely hear his own breath. He takes one last look around the empty room, bracing himself, before pressing the dial button.

The phone rings once. Twice. Three times.

And then, finally, it clicks.

“Hello?” her voice comes through, and it sends a shiver down his spine, He’s missed her. It sounds like she’s out, there’s wind, car horns, and people.

His throat tightens. He opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out at first. Hearing her voice again after everything, it’s more than he can handle in that moment. He had screwed up so badly, and now, here she was, answering after everything he had done.

“Sof?” She asks curiously. She thinks it’s Sofia. Of course she does.

"Yn," he croaks, his voice raw, desperate. "It’s me. Please, just—just hear me out."

The silence on the other end of the line is heavy, suffocating. Rafe can feel her hesitation, the distance she had built between them. His heart races, and he takes a deep breath, pushing forward.

"Please, I need to talk to you. I—I know I don’t deserve it, but I can’t lose you, sweetheart. I’m such an idiot. I’ve hurt you, and I’ll never forgive myself for that, but I’m begging you, just—just give me a chance to make it right."

There’s a long pause before her voice finally breaks the silence, and when she speaks, it’s like every word comes with a weight that crushes Rafe’s chest.

"You need to stop calling me" her tone is sharp, edged with pain. "You can beg all you want, Rafe, but it doesn’t change anything. You’ve already hurt me too much. I can’t keep doing this with you."

Rafe’s stomach churns. He had known this moment was coming, but hearing her say it out loud still felt like a punch to the gut.

"I don’t expect you to forgive me," he whispers, his voice breaking. "But I’m asking for a chance, just one chance to prove to you that I can be better. That I can make up for what I did."

Her sigh echoes through the line, full of disappointment. "You don’t get it," her voice hardened. "I don’t want your apology. I don’t need your promises. I don’t want anything from you. You had your chance, Rafe. And you blew it."

Each word is a needle, piercing through the remnants of hope he had clung to. Rafe's chest tightens, but he refuses to give up. He presses on, voice shaking..

"Please. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I’m sorry for what I did. I can’t live with myself knowing I hurt you like this. Please, don’t shut me out."

Her voice softens for a fraction of a second, but it quickly hardens again, like a wall she had built between them.

"I don’t care how much you love me, Rafe. You broke me. I can’t go back to someone who would do that to me. Not even for you. I won’t forgive you. I won’t forget what you did. I’m done."

The finality in her words hit him like a slap. He could hear it in her voice, the resolve, the exhaustion, the pain she had carried for so long.

"No," Rafe whispered, his voice cracking, his heart shattering again. "Please…baby, please don’t say that. I can’t lose you. Come back, come back and be here with me."

There’s a long, painful silence. He thinks she might hang up, that this would be the end. But instead, her voice comes through one last time, softer but resolute.

"Goodbye, Rafe," she said quietly, her voice breaking ever so slightly. "Please don’t call me again."

The line goes dead, and Rafe stands there, staring at the phone in his hand, his whole world crumbling around him. He had known it was over, but hearing her say it—he couldn’t even breathe. The finality of it, the weight of it, crushed him in a way he never thought possible.

He had begged, he had pleaded, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

Rafe stands there, his heart still pounding in his chest, the phone burning a hole through his hand. He barely registers as the door opens and Sofia Storms over, her eyes flashing with fury.

“What the hell, Rafe?” she snaps, yanking her phone out of his hands. Her fingers tremble from anger. "You can’t just take my phone and call her like that. Are you out of your mind?"

Yes, probably.

Rafe barely registers the sting of her words, his mind still stuck on the finality of Yn’s goodbye. His breath comes in short, ragged bursts. "Sofia," he pleads, his voice hoarse, "you know where she is. Please, I need to find her. Tell me where she is."

Sofia’s expression hardens, and she steps back, holding her phone close to her chest. The anger in her eyes, replaced with a deeper, almost sorrowful kind of disappointment.

“No,” she says firmly, her tone unwavering. “I’m not telling you. I won’t be the one to lead you to her.”

Rafe’s heart drops. "Please, Sofia. I can’t lose her. I’ve already lost so much. I—" His voice catches in his throat as he searches for the right words, anything to convince her.

Sofia shook her head, her eyes narrowing with resolve. "You don’t get it, do you? Even if I told you where she is, it wouldn’t matter." Her voice softened, but there was a quiet certainty there. "You wouldn’t find her in the way you think you will."

Rafe took a step forward, his desperation growing. “I don’t care! I just need to talk to her, to apologize. Please, Sofia, you don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t understand,” she interrupts, her voice cold but with a tinge of sadness. “You don’t get that Yn isn’t the same person anymore. And neither are you." Her eyes flicked to the phone in her hands, the device now a symbol of everything he had broken. “You think you can show up and fix it with a few words? With begging her to come back? You’ve changed, Rafe. And so has she."

His nails dig into his palms as he tries to ground himself. "I know I messed up. I ruined everything. But I can’t let her go. I love her, Sofia. I can’t just let her slip away without at least trying."

Sofia’s gaze softens, but her resolve doesn’t waver. "You love her? Then respect her, Rafe. Respect her space. If you really loved her, you wouldn’t be here, making things worse, acting like she owes you a chance." She lets out a sharp breath, almost as if she were trying to hold back tears. “You’re not the person she needs right now. And if you ever want a chance to make things right, you have to fix yourself first. Because this version of you? The one who’s so consumed by guilt and anger that he’ll stop at nothing to get her back? She won’t want anything to do with him.”

Rafe freezes, the weight of her words sinking in, like bricks falling one by one on his chest. "But I can’t change what happened," he whispers. "I can’t change the way I hurt her."

Sofia’s eyes softened, but her voice remained firm. “You’re right. You can’t change the past. But you can stop making it worse. If you really want her to come back, stop chasing after her. Start being the person she deserves—someone who respects her decision, even if it’s not what you want. If you can do that, maybe, just maybe, she’ll see a version of you worth coming back to.”

Rafe stands there, rooted to the spot, the pain of her words sinking deeper than anything he had ever felt. He had been so focused on finding Yn, so desperate to fix things, that he hadn’t seen the bigger picture.

Sofia turns away from him, but not before one last look over her shoulder. "Just stay out of her life okay? You’re not the only one suffering.”

Rafe watches as she disappears back into the party, the sounds of the music and laughter drowning out his thoughts. For the first time, he wasn’t sure what the next step was.

+++

It was just past midnight when Rafe finds himself mindlessly scrolling through social media, trying to numb the ache in his chest. His thoughts, his emotions, are a jumbled mess after everything with Yn, and he can’t seem to escape it. His thumb scrolls lazily across the screen as he passes post after post, most of them meaningless distractions. But then he freezes.

A post from Ruthie. Topper’s ex.

The picture shows her and a girl he doesn’t recognize, both beaming into the camera from some trendy bar. The caption read: "NC girls reunited." The location on the post reads “London, England.”

Ruthie hadn’t been around for long. She had realized that Topper wasn’t who she wanted to be with and left. For the short amount of time that she was around though, Yn had made her feel welcome. She had told him that she felt bad that Topper would invite her places and then leave her with a bunch of strangers.

When Ruthie moved to Charleston, he remembers Yn still keeping in touch. Maybe, just maybe, Ruthie knew where yn had gone.

Could it be?

He clicked on the profile of the girl tagged in Ruthie’s post. Amber. He scanned through her feed, his eyes darting from picture to picture. Amber was also from NC, she didn’t have anything that would say she knew yn.

He opens up her first post which was a carousel. He scrolls through and doesn't see much until one picture makes his blood run cold.

There they were, Amber and Ruthie, standing side by side in a bathroom mirror, the kind of candid shot you’d post without thinking. The lighting wasn’t great, but what made his stomach churn, what made his heart stop, was the jacket.

The jacket.

He would recognize it anywhere. The leather, the slight distressing on the sleeves, the stitching that she had insisted on showing him. The one he had looked for day in and day out because she couldn’t stop talking about it. He had given her that jacket for their anniversary two years ago.

The one she’d wanted so badly.

It was only half in the frame, the bottom half peeking out from behind Amber, but it was enough.

Rafe’s breath catches in his throat. He leans in closer to the screen, his hands trembling slightly as he reads the caption: "Uni bathroom, Ruthie, ms future lawyer, and a dream."

His mind spins. Why would Yn be with them? Why would she be in London?

His thoughts collided with the memory of calling Yn the other night, at 2 AM, when it had sounded like she was in a busy place, a bustling one.A city that was awake. A different timezone. It was like his mind was piecing together a puzzle he hadn't even realized existed.

London. Ruthie and Amber.

The jacket.

It clicked.

Without thinking, he grabs his phone off the table, his heart pounds in his chest.

“Guess I’m going to London,” he mutters to himself, the weight of the decision sinking in.

He isn’t sure what he’s hoping to find, doesn't know how to find her in such a big city, he doesn’t even know where to start. But one thing’s clear: He can’t sit here wondering any longer.

He has to see her.

#rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron #rafe x reader #rafe obx #outerbanks au #in london series #in london #rafe cameron obx #obx rafe cameron #rafe fic #rafe x you #rafe fanfiction #rafe imagine #rafe outer banks #rafe cameron fic #outerbanks rafe

35 notes · View notes

wibben · 15 hours ago

Text

404

It's supposed to be Higuruma's day off, but he just couldn't help himself.

↳ pairing: hiromi higuruma x fem. reader

↳ warnings: 18+, nsfw, smut, sexual tension, exhibitionism, semi-public sex, oral sex (f. receiving), hr violations, improper use of a desk, boss-employee power imbalance if that bothers you, grey sweatpants should be their own warning

↳ wc: 9.2k

↳ notes: wouldn't catch me letting him leave the house looking like that, that's for sure. higuruma you get back inside right now.

The office felt quieter without him in it.

Not just quieter – wrong.

The kind of wrong that wasn’t loud or obvious, but insidious, creeping in through the cracks of routine and settling heavy in your chest. The walls hummed faintly under the fluorescents, the air stagnant and too still, like a room that hadn’t been lived in for a long time. Nothing had changed – your desk was still tucked into the corner of his office, the blinds still tilted to let in those pale, anemic slants of morning light, the coffee machine still wheezing dutifully in its nook. But the balance was off, something fundamental had been knocked out of place.

All because Higuruma had taken the day off.

You should have been glad. You had been glad when you first suggested it – flippant and teasing, after catching him pinching the bridge of his nose for the third time in an hour.

"Take a day, Higuruma. The firm won’t fall apart without you. I’ve got it!"

You hadn’t expected him to actually listen. He never did before. But now, knee-deep in briefs that refused to organize themselves, picking at the plastic lip of your highlighter just to have something else to do, you found yourself regretting it. The absence of him pressed against your ribs like an itch you couldn’t scratch, and you couldn't quite eschew ‘I'm glad he's resting’ from ‘how dare he leave me here alone’. It wasn’t that you couldn’t work without him. You were perfectly capable – good at your job, in fact. You’d fought tooth and nail to carve out your place here, earned every ounce of the trust and respect Higuruma placed in you. The firm didn’t need him today. You didn’t need him today.

But the office felt empty without him anyway. And maybe that was the problem – because Higuruma wasn’t loud, or particularly overbearing, but he had a way of filling up a space without you noticing. Not in big, sweeping ways, but in the quiet, unassuming things you hadn’t realized you’d come to expect. The soft clatter of his pen against his desk as he mulled over a case. The steady tick of his keyboard, the shff of paper sliding against paper. The occasional, absent-minded hum as he read through a deposition, too lost in thought to realize he was doing it. Or the cup of coffee he’d nudge across your desk with his knuckles, sweetened with sugar and a subtle wink conveying: I see you’re about to lose it, so here. Or one of his deadpan jokes that landed so poorly it looped back around to being funny and – against your better judgement and exacting standards for comedy – always managed to make you snicker. And even the way he’d check in – “How are you holding up? Fine? Good!” – just before a fresh avalanche of paperwork from his own arms threatened to swallow you whole.

It was ridiculous, really – how easily you’d come to calibrate yourself around his presence, the rhythm of his movements, the weight of his sighs, the rare, reluctant chuckle when something you said actually managed to slip past his exhaustion.

Without him here, the space felt unmoored, and you a slack-sailed ship set adrift in uncannily still waters.

You leaned back in your chair, twirling your pen between your fingers, glaring at the door as if sheer force of will might conjure him into existence, a punching bag for you to gripe at.

It didn’t. Of course it didn’t. You huffed, tilting your head back to stare at the ceiling, restless energy thrumming under your skin. It was ridiculous. He’d taken one measly day off – his first in who-knows-how-long – and you were falling apart like he’d abandoned you in the wilderness with nothing but a stapler and your wits.

The coffee wasn’t helping. You’d long since crossed the threshold into over-caffeinated jitters, and restless energy crawled up your spine like ants.

And for the first time, work wasn’t enough to occupy you. The murmur of voices in the hallway barely registered – just another piece of the building's white noise, slipping between the rhythmic tap of your keyboard and the distant shrieking tantrum of the printer. You paid no mind to the shuffle of footsteps or the scrape of a chair. Until they stopped right outside your door. You snapped upright, spine un-shrimped and pencil straight, fingers hovering over your keys, suddenly alert in a way that felt completely ridiculous. It wasn’t like you’d actually been waiting for something to happen. It wasn’t like you’d been hoping—

A knock. Sharp, perfunctory. And then, before you could do so much as blink, the door creaked open, like permission was an afterthought. Higuruma’s head poked around the frame. “Excuse me, I have an appointment…”

All dry humor and faux seriousness, low and familiar as the tone but underscored with a lopsided smile meant just for you, and whatever tension had been sitting squarely between your shoulders unraveled like an unfurled lily returned to water.

Relief washed through you, unreasonable in its enormity, such a thin and frayed lifeline tossed down into the well of your boredom. You tsked, air sucking between your teeth as your incisors caught and imprisoned your bottom lip, barely biting back a grin.

“Schedule’s packed, I’m afraid,” you said, leaning back in your chair. “Get out of my office.” Higuruma scoffed, stepping inside fully and letting the door swing shut behind him. “Your office?” “You’re not here, are you?” You gestured vaguely to the empty space he usually occupied, tilting your head. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

His lips twitched like he wanted to smirk, but instead, he just exhaled a quiet chuckle, shaking his head.

“Relax,” he said, waving a lazy hand. “Just forgot something.” And as he did so, you found yourself stuck there, pinned by a gravity far different than the tedious duty that bound you before. Maybe you were truly driven to madness through sheer boredom, because what you saw could not possibly be your Higuruma. Gone was the usual sharp, severe silhouette of a three-piece suit, the crisp lines and muted ties with their perfect Windsor knots, the clean-shaven jaw that usually looked carved from marble. This Higuruma was softer. Messier. He looked comfortable. And that was jarring in and of itself. His hair was tousled, fluffy, strands dragged slightly out of place like he’d raked a hand through it exactly once before stepping outside. He was wearing glasses – since when did he wear glasses? – thin, wire rimmed things perched on the roman bridge of his nose, lending a velveteen boyishness and charm, an age-defying panacea. And the scruff – God, the scruff – rough and dark along his jaw, prickling up over his cheekbones, dusting the hollow of his throat, suggesting carelessness or exhaustion, maybe both, but it forced you to trace this new and unexpected feature with far too much fascination.

You swallowed. Okay. Fine. Whatever. But it was his clothes that struck the killing blow. The black sweater was simple, plain, but the way the fabric clung, stretched over his shoulders and arms, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, strong sinewy forearms bared to your gaze and the chilly office air that raised goosebumps and fine dark hair alike was what made it noteworthy. Sneakers, scuffed and worn, suited for morning runs you knew he didn’t partake in. And then… the sweatpants. Oh. God help you. Grey sweatpants.

Soft and loose, they hung low on his hips, one size too large, the drawstring tied in a bow that felt obscene in its innocence; the drooping loop just begging to be caught on your crooked finger and tugged. The heathered fabric skimmed over his thighs, and every shift and step sent a ripple through the material, drawing your gaze against your better judgement to the unmistakable, undeniable, print beneath. They were absolutely shameless. And so was he for wearing them. And so were you for looking. Your brain crashed. Buffered. Blue screened. For a moment you forgot how to breathe. The brain function required for such automation went to worthier endeavors – like the slow shift of your knees to lock together, squishing your thighs shut beneath your desk as if the physical wrist-slap of no, bad, down girl! would silence the overwhelming yes, oh fuck yes! crowing in your head.

“... What are you doing here?” you croaked.

“Nice to see you too,” he said, dry as ever, though the switchblade flick of his eyes over his shoulder was undeniably humored by your apparent lack of manners. “Don’t worry, I’m still technically ‘relaxing.’” He made air quotes with his fingers. As if that were the problem.

“But I couldn’t stop thinking about that book I left here,” he continued, sifting through a neat stack of binders. “Figured I’d swing by and grab it.”

His words went in one ear, whistled through the cavernous cavity that became your skull, and out the other.

Every synapse in your brain was too busy short-circuiting, trying to reconcile this version of him with the man you thought you knew. This wasn’t the same Higuruma who swept into courtrooms like a force of nature, cutting through the prosecution like a scalpel through tissue. No, this was someone else entirely. Someone devastatingly casual, achingly comfortable, and unintentionally – no, intentionally, it had to be intentional, no one looked that good by accident – sexy. Someone who made coffee in a small, cute kitchen with smushed and tousled bed head, those sweatpants fighting for their life to cling to sharp hip bones, sans shirt, a crescent-soft smile cast over a bare and scratch marked shoulder to sleepily ask whether you liked your eggs scrambled or over easy, or better yet what size ring you wear and you’d be more than willing to drop to your knees yourself— You swallowed the cotton lumps in your throat, your gaze catching on the subtle shift of his hips as he rifled through the papers on his desk. You couldn’t stop staring. Couldn’t even pretend to. Didn’t even want to. Every part of your brain pickled in brine at once, one chaotic spiral after another: Why does he look like that? Why does he look better out of a suit than in one? How is that even possible, never mind allowed? Has he always been hot? Your brain screeched, and the death knell rung thrice. Had he been? Surely not, surely you’d have noticed, surely this would’ve been a problem months ago, surely you’re just hopped up on caffeine and jittery, yes, of course—

The tinnitus in your ears reached a fever pitch, and you quickly sniffed, surreptitiously dragging your knuckles beneath your nose with a quick flicker glance down, fully expecting to see a bloody vessel popped from the sheer pressure building in your sinuses.

You were going to die. Right here, at your desk, taken out by the unholy combination of casual clothing and Higuruma Hiromi.

You were devastated.

Why would he think twice about walking into his own office, dressed like he just rolled out of bed and into the middle of some cruelly curated thirst trap? Why would he stop to consider the devastating consequences of soft, messy hair and grey sweatpants on his wonderful, straight-laced, dedicated assistant? You were as much a fixture of the room as was the standing lamp in the corner, without opinion or recourse or stray thoughts that gleefully skipped down paths they shouldn’t.

“So, do you miss me? Check the box for yes or no.”

The question was so offhand, so casual, it felt like a personal attack. Higuruma didn’t even look at you when he said it – just kept scanning the bookshelves behind his desk. Meanwhile, you were unraveling in real-time, layer by secret layer, like some chaotic nesting doll of poorly disguised attraction and absolute mortification. Yes. Yes, I have, you thought miserably, but you couldn’t say that. Instead, you scrambled to pick up a file from your desk and brandished it like a shield. “Well, you left me with a mountain of work, so… maybe a little.” Higuruma finally glanced at you, something knowing flickering behind his gaze before it softened into almost pity – like he actually felt bad for something so frivolous as taking a break.

He sighed, shaking his head. “Consider it character-building.”

You narrowed your eyes. “That’s what people say when they want to justify unnecessary suffering.”

His lips twitched. “And?”

“And I don’t see you suffering,” you pointed out, waving vaguely at the absurdly soft-looking sweater draped over his frame, at the sweatpants hanging loose on his hips. “You look like you just woke up from a nap.”

He grinned, smug and self-satisfied. “It was a good nap.”

You grunted, a syllable that fractured in the middle like a dropped plate. You winced, nodding stiffly, every joint in your body locking into a marionette’s mimicry of calm. Your eyes, however, refused to cooperate. They widened, traitorous and gleaming, glued to him like he was the shiny prize in some deviously deceitful claw machine, just out of reach but taunting you with every twitch of the joystick in your fingers.

Higuruma hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head just enough to make the soft fall of his hair shift against his forehead. His fingers – long, deft, maddeningly precise – trailed along the spines of the books, pausing here and there to linger. It was methodical, unhurried, and utterly oblivious to the fact that every subtle flex of his arm, every shift of his shoulders beneath that infuriatingly soft-looking shirt, was eroding what little coherence you had left.

And those fucking pants.

Did he not have a mother who chastised him for wearing indecent clothing? Or were you just a voyeur? Loose in all the wrong places, snug in all the right ones. The fabric clung, suggested, hinted at truths your mind had no business trying to parse. Every time he moved, the lines and shadows shifted like a cruel optical illusion, and you couldn’t stop your eyes from darting back to them, helpless and hogtied as they betrayed every ounce of professionalism you clung to with blanched knuckles.

Your fingers hovered uselessly above your keyboard, and the sentence you’d been typing devolved into a jagged line of hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It blinked at you accusingly from the screen, a digital monument to your brain’s complete implosion.

“Everything okay?” His voice broke through the fog, and you flinched. He glanced over his shoulder, brows furrowed and stitched together, and for a moment, the weight of his attention – direct, steady, disarming – was worse than any punishment.

“Yep! Yeah—totally fine!” you stammered, the words tumbling over themselves in their haste to escape. A nervous laugh followed, high-pitched and strained, like the dying wheeze of a deflating balloon. “Just, you know… great. Really productive.”

Higuruma’s lips twitched – whether in amusement or suspicion, you couldn’t tell – but he let it go, turning back to the shelf with a quiet hum. “Right. Well, no slacking just because I’m not here to breathe down your neck.”

Not that you'd have minded the warmth of his breath at your nape, or the pointed traipse of his nose down the satin soft and secret zone behind your ear— You exhaled sharply, sagging in your seat, only to be yanked back to reality when your pen slipped from your fingers.

The sharp clatter as it hit the floor made your breath hitch. You bent down to retrieve it, but your elbow clipped the edge of your desk in your haste, sending an entire stack of papers cascading to the floor.

“Shit,” you hissed under your breath, scrambling to fix the mess, but before you could even reach for the first sheet, Higuruma moved, a seeking missile with its primary directive being to organize disorder, to settle the mess in his space. Even off the clock, he just couldn’t help himself but leap to occupy his hands.

“I’ve got it,” he said, already crouching down beside you. “Don’t worry about it. You keep working.”

“But—”

“Seriously, it’s fine,” he interrupted. He fluttered his hand at you, dismissive but not unkind, a gentle command to stay put. And then he was there – on his knees, right between yours, filling the narrow space under your desk like he belonged there.

You stopped breathing. Froze entirely. Because Higuruma Hiromi, the unflappable, immovable bastion of composure, was crouched so close that you swore you could feel his breath breeze against your knees. His hunched shoulders filled the gap between them, his presence suffusing and suffocating in the best and worst possible way.

Every movement was torturous. His fingers curled around each sheet of paper with a kind of care that somehow felt intimate, as though he were handling something far more delicate than office supplies. The flex of muscle in his forearms was subtle but devastating, the faint ridge of veins tracing elegant paths beneath his skin, a roadmap of destruction you couldn’t help but follow.

His glasses slipped and slid down his nose – crawling along the bridge, like they were in on the conspiracy against your sanity – and he nudged them back up with the edge of his knuckle, the motion infuriatingly casual but still made your pulse trip over itself.

You could imagine it so easily. Too easily. His shoulders hunched just like this, his head bowed low, but not over papers. His hands skimming, not the floor, but your skin, those precise fingers teasing a path along your thighs, coaxing your knees apart, his glasses fogging as his lips parted with a sly smile and—

“Here,” he said, breaking the spell as he rose fluidly to his feet, the papers stacked neatly in hand. He placed them on your desk, his small, faint smile utterly unaware of the chaos he’d just wreaked on your psyche. “Crisis averted.”

No, no, crisis caused, actually.

You stared at him, utterly mute, your throat dry, your heart threatening to hammer its way out of your chest. A quiet hum of satisfaction escaped him as he turned back to his desk, leaving you to pick up the pieces of your shattered composure.

And then, because the universe had a cruel sense of humor, he stretched.

Arms lifting high above his head, fingers lacing together, spine arching in one long, slow pull. A quiet, absentminded groan slipped from his throat, low and indulgent, like the stretch felt good, and something inside you – something delicate and self-preserving – snapped clean in half. Saliva pooled beneath your tongue.

But then his shirt rode up.

The hem lifted, inch by inch like a sinful satin stage curtain drawing back to reveal the main event upon the corpse of your sanity. Pale, smooth skin stretched taut over the lean planes of his stomach. The sharp jut of his hip bones, the faint, devastating groove of muscle dipping into the perfect V of his pelvis.

And there, just below his navel, a dark trail of curls, disappearing under the waistband of those godforsaken sweatpants. You forgot how to breathe. Of course he had a happy trail. Of course you were now going to think about that trail every time you saw him stretch from now on. That was one trail you’d happily hike down, hands, mouth, anything, straight to the promised land, actually—

You whimpered.

Higuruma froze mid-stretch. Slowly his arms lowered, his eyes sliding open with a heavy-lidded, almost feline sort of acute appraisal, one brow arched over his glasses. “Sorry?” he asked, his voice calm but laced with something new – something sharper, more curious.

Your brain scrambled, words piling up in a frantic, disjointed heap, none of them useful.

“Nothing!” you blurted. “I just—uh—spider! There was a spider.”

Higuruma blinked.

“Huge—” bad word choice “—Hairy—” oh my god, shut up “—but it’s gone now.”

Silence.

The corner of his mouth twitched, and you watched in real time as a dimple formed on his cheek from where he bit into the inside. “A spider?”

You nodded far too hard. “Yep. Massive. Terrifying. And gone.”

He didn’t move at first, didn’t blink. Just stood there with his head cocked to the left, eyes shrouded behind the glinting of the overhead light, but you had the distinct impression he saw straight through you. You wondered if it was too late to crawl under your desk and die or hide until he left, whichever came first.

His brow furrowed behind those glasses, just a hair – not enough to be suspicious really, but enough to make your chest feel like it was shrinking in on itself. Suddenly, you missed the boredom. You’d take loneliness over this catastrophic mental collapse any day. Maybe you were dreaming – one of those stress-induced nightmares where you showed up to work without clothes, only so much worse. “Well,” he sighed, tone light, offhanded. “I guess I’d better take a look.” You felt the color drain from your eyes, running off as icy dread that slammed into the sweltering wall of heat just held back by your diaphragm. A convection cauldron boiled inside you, and your silence had you nursing the blunt edge of your tongue, usually so adroit you struggled to whittle it back into some sort of functioning point.

“W-wha—?” “For the spider.” He clarified, pushing off the corner of his desk in favor of yours, slipping around the back to where you sat with a leisurely gait that felt gut-twistingly ominous. “If it’s that big, it could bite. I’d hate to leave you alone to deal with it once I’m gone.”

“No need!” you blurted, a little too loud, a little too fast, and you tried to recall when the last time you updated your resume was. “I’m sure it’s gone.” But he only hummed, unconvinced. “Just to be sure,” he said, and before you could protest, he was already behind you. His gaze swept the desk, eagle-eyed and determined, like he might actually see the thing lurking among the chaos of pens and loose papers your station had become. Then, he leaned in. Leaned over.

You felt the give of the upholstery that cushioned the back of your chair dimple beneath his talon-like grip, and slowly, he rolled your chair back. The swivel wheels spun, a mirror to the frantic cartwheeling in your chest, and it was far too late for you to counter-maneuver by the time he’d pulled you. It was too late to stand, or excuse yourself, or create any plausible explanation short of “I think I want you and I really shouldn’t,” and “this is going to be a problem so please go back home, oh god please.”

The solid weight of his chest hovered just behind your shoulder blades, the clean scent of fabric softener and soap invading your bubble like you’d walked past a perfume store. Too close, way too close. And then his forearms reached past you, one moving to grip the arm of your chair, forcing your own to drop limply down into your lap, while the other braced forward on the edge of your desk. Pinned, bracketed, you could do nothing but face forward like a statue bust.

Your breath caught and you held it in an iron fist, because every inhale welcomed more of that fresh Higuruma smell deep into your lungs, and you were pretty sure it was already imprinted into your cell lining. You had to actively remind yourself to inhale, exhale, repeat, shallow as you could manage, because your body seemed to have forgotten how. You weren’t sure if the lightheadedness was from lack of oxygen outright or lack of free oxygen. He stretched further, one arm snaking past you to lift a loose stack of leafed papers, then a book, then another book. “Hmm,” he mused, his voice low and thoughtful and you could feel the rumbling bass judder down each and every one of your vertebrae like a xylophone. “Nothing here.” You swallowed hard, your pulse hammering in your throat as he moved closer, his weight shifting slightly so that your chair gave a little rock forward with the accidental nudge of his pelvis. You could feel the soft brush of his sleeve against your shoulder, the rhythmic and completely calm exhalation of his breath against your temple when he deigned to tilt his head just so to address you. “I suppose it could be under here,” he murmured, reaching across to lift the edge of your keyboard. His fingers brushed yours along the way and your eyes slammed shut like old window shutters, blocking out the accompanying visual to the live-wire jolt that galvanized your spine to ratchet up straighter, inadvertently lengthening the stretch of your body pressed against the front of his. “I-it’s not under there,” you stammered, your voice a crackly whisper, too shaky, something he’d have chastised you for any other day. A good lawyer has presence. He’d scold. Enunciate. Use your chest. And maybe the fact that he doesn’t scold you should’ve clued you in. But you don’t think about it beyond the feeling of gratitude because you’re certain if he spoke to you in that tone he uses, if you were able to track the slow crawl of his lips down in that disapproving pout so close to your face, you’d simply self immolate. “Well you never know,” he said instead, his tone breezy and conversational. “Spiders are sneaky little things. They like dark corners. Lots of dark corners in a desk, on a desk, under a desk…” He shifted again, this time pressed just a little more firmly into your back – enough to be completely improper, you think, you’re pretty sure, but plausibly deniable as accidental. Because he’s only trying to help you, see? He’s looking for a spider that doesn’t exist, one that you made up because you were ogling the mouth watering muscle of his hips and wanted to trace the lattice work of fine blue lines with your tongue— You swallowed, and you were grateful you’d already crossed your legs because there was no way you could do so subtly now, grateful that instead you could just squeeze them closed a little tighter, your thighs squishing shut, chained and gated, and your nostrils flared with frustration and your brows knitted together just so at the slightest bit of pressure that pressed upon your center. “You sure it’s gone?” he asked, his voice dropping just a fraction lower in time with the tilt of his head towards yours. He craned around, forcefully catching your eye, and you met them feeling every bit a deer in headlights. You nodded, a quick up and down bob of your chin that you hoped passed well enough for an answer. You didn’t trust your mouth to open – you didn’t think anything would come out of it, but the things that could shouldn’t be afforded the chance to. He didn’t move right away. Instead, he lingered, his fingers idly toying with the edge of your mousepad. One of those ergonomic things, gelly and squishy, to elevate your wrist. A gift from a friend who didn’t quite care, who didn’t quite know you beyond your occupation as “office worker” so of course you would appreciate office supplies.

You watched with dawning horror, struck mute as his fingers gripped the gel pad, rolling it into his palm with a slow squeeze.

Your mouth went dry.

Pinned between his palm and the meat of his thumb, he lifted it, checking beneath for the arachnid interloper, before he sighed and returned it back down to your desk. But his hand stayed put, circling his thumb in slow, rhythmic circuits over the material, rolling the gel beneath his fingertip in an unhurried, back-and-forth knead, and you swallowed. Hard enough to hurt your throat, loud enough to know he heard, and with equal parts mortification and shame, you could feel the slick evidence of your unabashed ogling pooling between your thighs.

This man was a danger to society, and most certainly a danger to you.

“Hm…” he grumbled. And you watched as his hand quit fondling the squishy mouse pad you’d never be able to look at the same way again, one long finger flicked up to your computer screen. “You’ve got some typos there. Planning to fix those?”

Your jaw ticked and your eyes snapped to narrow slits. Your head jerked to face him with an indignant defense on your tongue – failing to account for how that would put you nearly nose to nose. And instantly you were cowed. You watched in real-time as your reflection deflated, mirrored in the gleam of his glasses, and your voice came out far more petulant when you muttered: “You’re distracting me.” His expression shifted, subtle, but there – your proximity made you privy to the amusement kept captive behind the lenses of his readers, a patient and knowing hook that drew a single brow up over the wire rim. “Am I?” His voice was mild, casual as you’ve ever heard it, but the way his fingers traced a deliberate line along the desks surface betrayed him, there was nothing absent about his mind in the gesture. His thumb grazed the edge of a page, smoothing over the corner before flicking it back with a sharp snap. You jumped, flinching to look at the offending sheet. It was not a fidget at all, but a consideration, a temperature check, and he smiled at the side of your turned head. “You’re jumpy today. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” His hand moved again, his fingers walking toward the armrest of your chair, resting on the small island of space unoccupied by your elbow. He didn’t touch you, but he hovered close enough that you felt he already had. You could stop this. You should. You could laugh it off, spin your chair, remind him and yourself that this is not the time nor the place, and isn’t professional in the slightest. You could try to convince yourself that your boss wasn’t reading you like an open book, and wasn’t seconds from confirming something you could never walk back. But you didn’t. “Well, I saw a spider, you know how I feel about those,” you tried to excuse. Higuruma’s lips puffed and pursed, daring to inch his thumb just a little closer, piercing your bubble to pluck a frayed string on your sleeve. “I didn’t see any spiders.” You were floundering. What the hell is happening, who is this man, and what has he done with your boss? It was the glasses. It must be. This overconfidence – even if irritatingly warranted – had to be a byproduct of knowing he looked good dressed down. And you wouldn’t mind dressing him down, undressing him, peeling off those already flimsy layers yourself, but you couldn’t. So you resisted, your arguments a sieve through which not a drop of water would hold. A shitty lawyer you’d make. “So just because you didn’t see it, it was never there?” you rebuffed. And that, it seemed, gave Higuruma pause. At least for a moment, until his head teetered down to almost rest on your shoulder, his back quaking with a vibrating laugh. “Oh? Schrödinger, is it? That’s what we’re doing?” You cringed as soon as you said it, knowing full well that quantum theory would not save you, but you certainly wouldn’t have minded a convenient box into which you could crawl and die. But he didn’t let it go. He never did. He thrived on contradiction, lived and breathed the thrill of the argument, got off on unraveling logic until all that remained was the truth. And right now, you hid yours poorly. You were caught red handed, red faced, damned by the scarlet that creeped ever higher up your throat and refused to be swallowed down. His voice dipped, amusement curling at the edges. “If I don’t see the spider, how do I know it’s real?” Your lips parted, but nothing came out. His hand still perched on the armrest curled inward by degrees – knuckles brushing against the back of your hand in the barest contact.

You couldn’t take it anymore. You inhaled, sharp and shallow between your teeth. “Higuruma.”

He stilled. His jaw twitched. And then—

“Do you want me to stop?”

No soft edges, no careful subtext. The words landed between you with a dull, leaden weight, devoid of that razor-edged coyness he’d been wielding like a paring knife. No shields, no plausible deniability – just blunt, naked truth.

You blinked at him, pulse thudding erratically against your ribs. Surely you had misheard.

But his eyes, fixed on yours, were clear. Watchful. Expectant. Beneath the wary composure, something raw flickered – uncertain and unsteady. A breath, a blink, a second too long with no answer, and you watched him start to fold in on himself like a flimsy card house.

“Shit,” he exhaled, quiet, almost to himself. His lashes flickered in rapid succession – once, twice, again. Like shaking off a trance, dragging himself out of something he knew he shouldn’t have sunk into in the first place. “I overstepped. You’re uncomfortable, I’m sorry.”

A sharp nod. A muscle clenched in his jaw, then smoothed out, his mouth flattening into something more neutral and practiced in its artificiality. Already withdrawing. Already gone.

And he looked—

God, he looked like a kicked dog.

Panic surged up your throat, knocking the breath clean out of you. Your hand shot out before your brain could catch up, fingers latching around his wrist, gripping firm. Warm skin, quick pulse beneath your touch.

“Stop what?” The words tumbled out, unsteady, breathless.

His gaze flickered back to you, impassive, unreadable. He didn’t answer.

You squeezed his wrist. “Stop what, Higuruma?” Higuruma swallowed. His wrist tensed beneath your grip, and you felt the subtle flex of his fingers curling inward, like he wanted to hold onto something but didn’t quite dare. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

You dragged in a breath, forcing your voice into something steadier. “Higuruma,” you pressed, voice softer now, urging. “Stop what?”

A beat.

Then another.

His mouth twitched. Not in a smirk, not in amusement, but like he was physically fighting himself, trying to bite something back before it slipped past his teeth. His head tilted just slightly, his gaze drifting – not away from you, not entirely, but somewhere to the side, anywhere safer than your face, as if the words he was about to say were too much to deliver straight on.

Then he exhaled, slow and shuddering.

“I lied,” he confessed.

“I didn’t come in for a book,” he admitted, and now it was like the floodgates had cracked. “I didn’t need anything. I just—” He laughed, soft, humorless, dragging a tired hand down his face. “I just wanted to see you.”

Your fingers twitched against his wrist.

He shook his head, incredulous at himself. “It felt wrong. Not seeing you today. Kept thinking I forgot something. Like I was missing a step all day and couldn’t figure out why until I caught myself reaching for my phone, halfway through texting you, trying to find an excuse, hoped you’d need me to come in after all, and I—” He inhaled sharply through his nose, closing his eyes for the briefest, tortured second before forcing them open again. “I just wanted to see you. That’s all.”

Silence pooled thick and electric between you, and now you were the one who had no words.

His throat bobbed with a swallow, his voice quieter when he spoke again. “So – I don’t want to stop. But I can. I will.”

There it was.

The inevitable moment where everything clicked into place and left no room for interpretation, no exit route to hide behind. He wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t testing you, waiting for you to fold and deny it. His face was open, stripped of all pretense, and that earnest sincerity – the kind that people mistook for courtroom performance but you knew better – hit you like a freefall drop straight to the pit of your stomach.

Higuruma Hiromi wanted you.

A slow, consuming warmth curled through your limbs, filling your veins, burning your capillaries.

Your grip on his wrist softened, fingers smoothing over the bone. A shift of weight, barely perceptible, but his breath hitched all the same. He was still watching you, eyes darting minutely between yours, scanning, waiting, bracing for rejection, for hesitation, for anything that would tell him he’d misread this, that he’d just set himself up for ruin.

You leaned in, just slightly, just enough to catch the scent of his cologne clinging to the fabric of his shirt, the warmth of his skin beneath it.

And you whispered, “Then don’t.”

Higuruma inhaled.

He was closer now, his weight shifting like his body had made the decision before his mind had caught up. His knee brushed yours. His fingers flexed against the armrest. His head dipped, slow, inevitable, like the pull of gravity was stronger now, like whatever unseen force had been keeping him tethered had finally snapped.

Your mouth parted – either to speak or meet him halfway – but then his forehead dropped, pressing briefly, firmly against yours.

His breath shook against your lips. “God,” he muttered, laughing softly in disbelief. “I really shouldn't.”

Then his fingers brushed your thigh, just barely, tentative at first – like he still wasn’t sure he was allowed. You exhaled, heat curling low in your belly, and reached for him, closing the space with a slow, deliberate roll of your knee to the outside of his. “I promise I won’t call HR if you don’t.”

He groaned.

And then he sank to his knees.

His hands slid over your thighs, smoothing upward in slow, reverent strokes, coaxing them apart, and your breath hitched. He watched, eyes heavy-lidded, flickering up to catch yours as he pressed a kiss – light, lingering – to the inside of your knee.

“Keep working,” he murmured, voice a little raw, a little wrecked already. His fingers curled into the hem of your skirt. “Don’t mind me.”

And then he dragged his mouth higher. Higuruma was breathing hard. You could hear it, feel it – the unsteady push of air against your bare thigh, the way it stuttered. His hands, already so warm, traced slow, sweeping lines up the outside of your thighs, fingers flexing against the hem of your skirt, seeming fascinated by the give and shift of the polyester, gathering the courage to do what he really wanted.

Like he still thought he needed permission.

You exhaled, shifting slightly in your chair, parting your thighs just enough that his fingertips slipped over the sensitive inner skin. His breath hitched, a quiet, sharp inhale through his nose. His head dipped lower, hair brushing against your knee, and you felt the tremor in his fingers as he finally, finally pushed your skirt up.

He did it slow, like he wanted to savor it, like he was unwrapping something precious.

Higuruma dragged the fabric upward, baring inch after inch of soft, warm skin, his thumbs pressing into the meat of your thighs, kneading absently like he couldn’t help it. And then he reached your panties, delicate lace darkened at the center with proof of your wanting. He made a sound, low and unsteady between a groan and a whimper. His fingers curled into the elastic, hesitating, holding.

Then he hooked them to the side.

He went still.

For a long moment, all he did was look. His hands tightened against your thighs, fingers dimpling the flesh, and he let out a sharp, unstable exhale. His glasses slipped a fraction of an inch down the bridge of his nose, but he didn’t move to fix them this time, didn’t move at all – just stared, breathing through his mouth now, lips parted like he was on the verge of either something catastrophic or panting like a dog.

“Oh,” he murmured, voice wrecked.

His thumbs smoothed against your skin, a reverent, subconscious caress.

“Fuck.”

You should have felt self-conscious, spread open for him like this, but the look on his face, the sincere, trembling hunger in his expression burned away any hesitation. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing up the brown of his irises black as pitch, his brows furrowed like he was in pain.

His hands slid under your thighs, lifting them, shifting you forward in your seat, making you open for him, spreading you wider. His nose – sharp, sloped, aristocratic you’d always thought – skirted along the inside of your thigh, his breath scalding, his lips dragging heat against skin. His stubble caught, a scratch of sensation that made your stomach jolt, made your cunt clench around nothing.

“Higuruma—”

He shuddered. “Hiromi,” he corrected, wide and needy eyes slowly swiveling up to your face, though not without great effort at having been reeled away from the exquisite glistening between your legs. “Hiromi’s just fine for right now.”

Then his mouth was on you.

The first stroke of his tongue was slow, broad, deliberate – a long, dragging lick from your dripping entrance to the stiff, aching pearl of your clit. Your whole body jerked, a broken gasp catching in your throat.

Hiromi moaned. Deep, desperate, guttural.

It vibrated against your cunt, made your thighs twitch where they bracketed his head. His hands flexed against your hips, squeezing like he needed something to ground himself, like the feel of you under his palms was the only thing keeping him tethered to reality; he’d mold the clay of your flesh into a life preserver, because he fully intended to drown here.

And then he did it again.

He was savoring it, the obscene, deliberate press of his tongue slipping through the slick mess of you, catching every little twitch, every tiny intake of breath. His nose brushed your clit with every motion, the bridge of it dragging just enough to make you squeak, your hands curling into the armrests, nails biting into the leather. A moan spilled from your lips before you could snag it back, too loud. Hiromi’s hands tensed against your thighs. He pulled back just slightly, just enough to glance up at you, his lips wet, mouth gleaming with dew, and glasses hopelessly lopsided. His voice was low, giddy and playful but the effect was outshone by how breathless he spoke – shaken and twitchy. “You’re supposed to be working, remember?” It took too long for you to realize what he was waiting for as he looked up at you. The clack of the keyboard. The pretense of professionalism. You laughed, choked and gravelly. Your gaze wrenched from the delicious sight of him below you up to the bleary glare of your monitor, blinking cursor and abandoned typo’s and all. Your fingers hovered over the keys before you forced yourself to type something, anything. A sentence. Just a few words. Hiromi hummed against you, pleased. His hands slid higher, hooking around your thighs to grip their fronts and tug you closer to him. Then he dipped his head and sighed – long and low, the sound that made your stomach tighten and heat pool in your gut, and would fuel countless wet dreams for the rest of your life.

You barely registered the way your thighs started to tremble, the restless shifting of your hips to wordlessly tempt him back, your body chasing after every slow, devastating pass of his tongue.

Hiromi felt it, though.

Felt the way you arched into him, the way your muscles twitched when he flattened his tongue against your clit and pressed, the way your breath caught when he let out a quiet, helpless whimper against you. He felt utterly pathetic, deranged, oh he could write empirical dissertations on every ethical breach occuring in his office today – but you liked it. Whether it was the taboo of it all or simply him – he hoped to god it was him – he could hardly drink you down fast enough before your sweet pussy drooled down into the cleft of your ass on the seat.

His fingers curled lower, slipping between your thighs from above, thumbs spreading you open.

He was shaking.

His shoulders quivered, adrenaline puppeteered his muscles into a jittery mess and he could do nothing but try to work through the tremors.

Then, like something in him had finally snapped, he gripped your thighs tighter and shook his head – side to side and feral, his nose rubbing against your clit, his tongue pressing inside you, spreading you open for him in a way that had you gasping, a choked-off moan catching in your throat.

“Oh, fuck—”

Hiromi growled into you, deep and needy, and then he was fucking his tongue inside you, quick and filthy and wet. His nose ground against your clit, his stubble rasping against the delicate skin of your inner thighs, and your entire body jolted at the overture of conflicting sensation.

You didn’t notice the way one of his hands slipped from your thigh, moving lower, until you felt the determined press of his fingers, felt the slow, careful stretch of two of them sinking into you, filling you alongside the obscene, messy slide of his tongue.

Your head dropped back against the chair, a broken, gasping moan slipping past your lips.

Higuruma growled into you, curling his fingers, pressing them just right, like he already knew exactly where to touch you, like he’d spent months learning your body before he ever laid a hand on it.

And maybe he had. Maybe those long, bleary nights where you caught him watching you – when your skin prickled under the self-conscious weight of his gaze – had never been idle, absent-minded staring at all. Maybe he hadn’t been zoning out, lost in legalese and exhaustion. Maybe he’d been looking at you like this all along.

Noticing the way you chewed on the end of your pen when you were thinking. The way you stretched your arms over your head after too many hours hunched over case files, the soft sigh you let out, the way your shirt lifted just enough to show the barest sliver of skin if he were lucky. The way your fingers tapped against your coffee cup in restless little rhythms, how your brows knit together when you were deep in thought, the way you bit your lip when you were holding back a smile.

Maybe, when he used to linger a little too long after walking you to your car – hands in his pockets, rocking slightly on his heels, like he had something else to say but couldn’t quite get it out – it wasn’t just his usual brand of overworked buffering. Maybe it was this, all of this, eroding at the edges of his restraint, wearing it thinner every time you laughed at one of his dry remarks, every time your shoulder brushed his in passing, every time you looked up from your desk and caught him already watching.

And those guilty little smiles he used to give you?

Maybe they weren’t guilt at all. Maybe they were apologies.

For thinking about you in ways he shouldn’t have. For picturing you like this, like you were now, spread open beneath him, panting and flushed and trembling under the crooked curls of his fingers.

The realization hit you like a live wire, striking something deep and low inside you, flicking the taut rubber band behind your navel. Hiromi made a sound – low, half a moan, half a fuck, muffled into the slick, messy heat of your core.

And now that you knew – now that you saw it – there was no unseeing it.

Your pussy clenched around his fingers, sucking him deeper to the knuckle.

His whole body jerked, a sharp inhale through his nose, and his hips rolled against nothing, a ragged whimper spilling out muffled against your pussy.

He finger-fucked you slow and deep, his lips sealing around your clit and sucking it clear of its hood, rubbing with the flat of his tongue like it was his job. Like he’d done this a hundred times before, and he reckoned he has, if the lackluster imaginings in his head while he jerked himself to completion in bed were to be tallied. And just below your desk, he shifted, his breath fleeing the deflated balloon of his lungs in an embarrassingly high-pitched whine as he shouldered your legs and palmed himself through the soft grey cotton of his sweatpants. His cock twitched under the roll of his palm, thick and aching, the damp patch down the inseam darkening with every helpless grind of his hips against air.

His voice was wrecked, muffled, words half-swallowed against your skin.

“—fuck, y’taste s’good…lil’ more. Lemme have it…s’wet n’ pretty—”

Your breath stuttered, your hands flew to collect a fistful of his hair and yanked. He gasped against you, the vibrations shooting straight through your core to strike flint to steel, igniting the short and kerosene-soaked fuse in your belly.

“Hiromi, I—” you only just managed to squeak.

His free hand – it hadn’t been free though, but he’d sooner abandon himself than abandon you – shot up, grasping blindly for yours, lacing your fingers together, squeezing tight. His tongue dragged over your clit, slow and deliberate, then he sucked, and—

You shattered.

Your whole body seized, back bowing, thighs clamping tight around his head. You barely heard the choked, desperate groan that tore from his throat as he swallowed you down, tongue fucking you through your orgasm like he was starving for it.

Everything blurred, your breath stuttering, your fingers tangled in his hair, clenching tight as your body pulsed around his fingers, your cum soaking his face, his mouth, slicking his wrist.

And still he didn’t stop.

Didn’t stop licking, sucking, devouring, his consumption of you was absolute. His lips wrapping around your clit, gentle and coaxing, dragging you through the trembling aftershocks until your body sagged, boneless, against the chair. But you felt the way his whole body shuddered and suddenly convulsed, the heave of his shoulders beneath your limp legs, the muffled broken moan that gargled in his throat as his fingers squeezed tight against yours— And the way he abruptly stilled.

When he finally pulled away, his breathing was ragged, panting against the inside of your thigh, his glasses fogged up, his lips swollen and shining, his stubble slick with the mess he’d made of you, earned from you.

“… fuck,” he rasped. His forehead dropped against your thigh, his fingers squeezing where they still clung to yours. “God. I—” He swallowed hard, his voice thick. It was rare for Hiromi to be rendered anything resembling speechless.

His shoulders shook between laughter and disbelief.

“Would’ve done that ages ago if I knew you’d let me.” Hiromi exhaled a slow, steady breath against your thigh. Then another. His fingers flexed in your grip once, twice, before finally loosening, slipping free only so he could smooth his palms along the tops of your legs, rubbing lazy, absentminded circles into your skin. His forehead rested against you, warm and damp, glasses tilted near sideways and lifted from his face.

Neither of you said anything for a long moment. The hum of the office settled back in around you – the faint click of a keyboard from down the hall, the intermittent trill of a phone ringing elsewhere, the low hiss of the air vent. But all of it felt far away, like a different world, like something that had no bearing on the one you were currently sinking into, pacified and hazy in your chair, while Hiromi sighed heavy and contented into your lap.

Then, just as the static buzz of post-orgasmic bliss started to fade—

His jaw went slack against your thigh.

You barely had time to react before his mouth stretched wide, lips grazing your skin, and chomp.

Not hard – just enough to make you squeal, swatting at him with the force of a wet napkin.

“Stop it!” you half-laughed, half-scolded, still breathless, shaking him off as he grinned, cheek smushed against your thigh.

He hummed, entirely unrepentant, his lips pressing an exaggerated, obnoxiously loud mwah right where he’d bitten you.

“Sorry,” he said, voice still raspy. “Couldn’t help myself.”

You huffed, still laughing, running absent fingers through his hair in retaliation. “You’re awful.”

“Mm,” he agreed, eyes slipping shut as he nuzzled deeper, getting comfortable like he had every intention of staying there for the rest of the afternoon.

You hesitated, still gathering the courage to say it, but you were riding the same high he was, and you wanted to. So you smoothed your hand down, fingers slipping under his prickly chin, tilting his face up just enough that he had to look at you.

“You want me to return the favor?”

His eyelids lifted just slightly, heavy-lidded and unreadable, like he was parsing whether or not you were serious. Then his mouth quirked, slow and wry, his voice a quiet rasp.

“There’s no need.”

You blinked. “No need?”

A beat.

Then – his ears went pink.

Oh.

A slow, wicked grin curled at the edges of your lips.

“Hiromi Higuruma,” you said, voice rich with delight, dragging your fingers through the sweaty, mussed strands of his hair. “Did you—”

He groaned and dropped his face back into your lap, burying it in your skirt. “Don’t.”

You laughed, warm and breathless, carding through his hair, absolutely gleeful. “Oh my God,” you whispered, voice high-pitched, teasing. “I didn’t even touch you.”

His arms curled around your thighs, squeezing once in a half-hearted warning, but the damage was done.

“That’s…” You exhaled, still smiling, still floating. “God, that’s so hot.”

A muffled groan vibrated against your lap.

You weren’t going to let him off easy. Not after this. Not after knowing that just getting you off had been enough to get him off, too.

“What happened to all that patience, Hiromi?” you teased, nudging his chest with your knee. “What happened to self-control?”

He grunted, shifting, and you rolled your head to the side and saw it – the sticky, wet mess that turned the pale grey of his pants a darker charcoal.

You grinned. Oh, you were never letting him live this down.

He lifted his head slightly, glaring at you from under his lashes, though there was no real heat behind it. “I was patient,” he grumbled, jaw ticking. “It just… caught up to me.”

“Uh-huh,” you mused, biting back another laugh, still stroking your fingers through his hair. “Maybe you should take days off more often.”

Hiromi made a sound, indistinguishable between a laugh and a groan, squeezing your thighs where they still rested over his shoulders. “Don’t start.”

You hummed, smirking. Then, gentler, pressing the pads of your fingers to his scalp: “Seriously. You should.”

He went quiet for a moment, then sighed, long and slow, shifting his arms so he could rest more comfortably in your lap. “Maybe I will.”

Maybe he would. Maybe he’d let himself have more than just a stolen afternoon, a guilty indulgence. Maybe he’d stop making himself wait for nice things. Or at least consider it.

But for now, he'd stay there, warm and content against your thighs, letting you thread your fingers through his hair, letting you touch him like you wanted to.

And for the first time in a long time – maybe ever – he let himself enjoy a day off.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #higuruma hiromi #hiromi higuruma #hiromi jjk #hiromi higuruma x reader #hiromi x reader #hiromi smut #hiromi x you #hiromi x y/n #jjk higuruma #jujutsu kaisen higuruma #higuruma x reader #higuruma smut #higuruma x you #higuruma x y/n #hiromi higuruma x you #higuruma hiromi x you #jjk smut

49 notes · View notes