#hella heels | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

daryltwdixon · 1 day ago

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Summary: Neither you or Joel had realized the fallout of facing each other after trying for a baby—something that never would have happened if Tommy could have given you one himself. And when the first time doesn't stick, you're back at Joel's door, asking for another favor.

|| smut MNDI 18+, pinv, f!receiving oral, dirty talk, no outbreak, not cheating but still def not kosher!!! don't do this!!!, breeding kink, rule breaking, baby making, talk of infertility, joel is absolutely filthy when he's turned on what can I say || notes: Tommy, hunny, if you're reading this, im sorry. im sure you're great in bed. im sorry this got so long!!! I was hella sick the past couple days and mightve wrote this with a fever sooo

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3?

You hadn’t meant for it to change anything.

In the days after the first time you… tried with Joel, you hadn’t really spoken to him. He’d left in a hurry, barely looking at you as he pulled his clothes back on, and you’d been too drunk on the aftershocks of what was possibly the best orgasm of your life to really think about what came next. Not until the hours stretched into days, and the reality of what you’d done started to settle in.

Now, standing by the pool in the thick, hazy heat of late summer, you realized just how weird it was going to be when you saw him again.

It was Frankie’s birthday, the last big cookout of the season—an annual thing the Morales family threw without fail, and especially this year with Marie now expecting their first baby. The beer was always cold, there was always too much food, and the night always ended with everyone gathered around the fire pit, full and tipsy and laughing. You’d been coming to these parties for years, always bringing appetizers, just as the Miller brothers always brought the beer. It was tradition. Comfortable.

Except this time, nothing felt comfortable at all.

You were in your string bikini, your loose, sheer cover-up thrown over the lounge chair you inhabited, still slick from the last dip in the pool. The air smelled like sunscreen and charcoal smoke, the buzz of cicadas tangled with the sound of splashing and distant laughter. You had just grabbed your drink from the poolside table when movement caught your eye.

Joel.

He was stepping into the backyard, a case of Miller Lite hooked in one hand, his other hand pushing through his hair. He looked good—annoyingly good—worn jeans hanging low on his hips, t-shirt stretched across broad shoulders, sunglasses tucked into the collar. He scanned the crowd until his gaze landed on you.

Your breath hitched. Not because of him—of course not—but because the moment stretched just a little too long.

And then Tommy turned, sitting next to you with an easy, unaware grin, and Joel’s eyes flicked to his brother like he’d just been caught red-handed. He gave an awkward nod—more of a grunt than a greeting—before turning on his heel and heading straight for the house.

You flushed.

Right. This was going to be weird.

Tommy laughed, like he hadn’t noticed the way you went red beside him. He leaned in, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek before getting to his feet. “Guess I better go say a proper hello before he drinks all the beer himself.”

And just like that, he strolled off, leaving you sitting there, drink in hand, watching the back door swing shut behind Joel.

The sun was starting to dip lower, stretching long golden streaks over the yard, and you were starting to feel it—the kind of lazy, sun-drenched exhaustion that came from too much heat, too much pool water, maybe one drink too many. The party was still going strong, laughter rising over the music, but you were more than happy to hover near the patio with a few of the other wives in the shade.

You hadn’t seen much of Joel.

Every now and then, you’d catch a glimpse—his broad shoulders making their way through the small crowd, the sound of his laughter, the sun catching in his hair—but he never seemed to linger anywhere long. It was like he was playing some kind of unspoken game, orbiting close enough that you were aware of him but never so close that you had to speak.

Which was fine.

It was fine.

You were definitely not hyper-aware of him. Not tracking his presence without meaning to. Not letting the memory of the filthy things he said to you crawl into your head every time you glimpsed those big, soulful eyes.

You exhaled, shaking the thought loose just as Marie called your name. She stood at the grill next to her husband who was flipping burgers, her hands full of side dishes that had to be put out for dinner.

"Can you grab the potato salad from the fridge?" she asked, nodding toward the house. "I meant to bring it out, but my hands are too full!"

"Yeah, of course," you said, already stepping toward the back door.

The second you slipped inside, the air-conditioning cooled the heat still clinging to your skin, the quiet settling heavy after the constant hum of the party outside. It felt nice. Like taking a breath you hadn’t realized you needed.

The house was mostly empty, everyone still out in the yard, and for a brief moment, you let yourself just enjoy the quiet. Then you stepped into the kitchen and saw him.

He was standing near the counter, one hand braced on the edge, the other loose around a beer as he looked out the kitchen window into the yard. His shoulders tensed when he heard you, but he didn’t turn, just flicked his gaze toward the fridge like that was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world.

Joel.

You ignored the way your pulse kicked up, forcing yourself to be normal. Chill.

“Hey,” you said, casual, like this was fine. Just another Saturday afternoon.

Joel nodded once, barely glancing at you. “Hey.”

Oookay.

You moved toward the fridge, opening it and scanning the shelves. “Just need to grab something for Marie,” you said, reaching for the container of potato salad.

Joel exhaled, shifting to the side so you had more room, but he still didn’t look at you. His grip flexed around his beer, his jaw tight like he was concentrating very hard on ignoring you.

Fine.

Grabbing the container, you shut the fridge and turned to leave, but you found yourself hesitating.

You sighed, shifting your grip on the bowl before turning back around. “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know.”

Joel’s head lifted slightly, like he hadn’t expected you to say anything. “Like what?”

“This.” You gestured vaguely between the two of you. “The awkward. The avoiding.” You paused, tilting your head. “You can’t even look at me.”

He blinked, caught off guard, before his eyes flicked to yours—quick, hesitant. “I’m lookin’ at you right now.”

You huffed out a small, dry laugh. “Yeah. For the first time all day.”

He shifted on his feet, looking uncomfortable, his fingers tapping once against the beer bottle. “Ain’t avoidin’ you.”

You lifted an eyebrow.

Joel sighed through his nose, glancing at the floor before dragging a hand down his face. “Alright,” he admitted, “maybe a little.”

You crossed your arms, letting that hang in the air for a second.

Joel took a long breath like he was trying to collect his thoughts. Then he finally—finally—looked at you, really looked at you, with something almost hesitant in his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said, low but firm. “You’re right.”

Your arms loosened slightly, tension easing just a fraction. “I do that a lot.”

Joel huffed a little laugh, shaking his head. “Yeah, yeah.”

Joel’s eyes flicked down—quick, instinctive, before he caught himself and looked away. But not fast enough. You saw it.

The humidity outside had been enough to keep you from throwing your cover-up back on after the pool, but now, standing here in the cool dim light of the kitchen, it felt like a mistake. The shift in temperature sent a shiver across your skin, every inch of you laid bare in nothing but damp, clinging fabric. You knew this bikini was thin but damn your nipples for hardening in the sudden cool air. Water still beaded along your collarbone, trailing in slow, lazy rivulets down your stomach, disappearing beneath the tiny scraps of your bikini.

And it seemed like Joel was very aware of these things as well.

You weren’t sure if he swallowed, but you thought you saw his jaw go tight. Then, just as fast, he looked away.

Something curled low in your stomach. Was he thinking about that night, too?

Not supposed to. That was Rule #2.

Not supposed to think about it. Not supposed to talk about it outside the four walls of your bedroom.

Joel cleared his throat. “You feelin’ alright and all?”

You blinked, pulled from your thoughts. “What?”

His fingers tightened around his beer bottle. “Any signs yet?”

Oh.

You shifted your weight, trying to collect yourself. “No. Won’t know for a few more days. Won’t show up on a test yet.”

Joel nodded, looking thoughtful, like that was news to him. His gaze flicked downward again—this time, toward your stomach.

“Did Tommy not tell you that part?” you asked, amused despite yourself.

His mouth twitched. “Not exactly.”

You smirked. “You mean you didn’t ask.”

Joel scoffed, almost like a chuckle, shaking his head. “Wasn’t exactly a conversation I was rushin’ to have with my brother. Haven’t… had to think about this stuff in 15 years.”

That made you laugh—a soft, breathy thing—and just like that, something tilted in the air between you.

The tension didn’t go away. It just… changed.

Joel was still standing where he was, but now it felt like he was closer, and he was even smiling a little bit.

Maybe you were the one who had stepped closer.

You weren’t sure when it had happened, when the space had shrunk, but suddenly, it wasn’t enough. The air between you was buzzing, and you could feel his presence—solid, warm, steady across from you.

Joel’s fingers flexed once against the counter. His gaze flicked down again—quick, but not quick enough.

This time, when his eyes met yours, he didn’t immediately look away.

And neither did you.

The kitchen was quiet.

Not just in the absence of sound, but in the way the air felt thick, in the way neither of you spoke, in the way neither of you moved.

But you weren’t imagining it.

Joel’s eyes were still on you, his body still angled slightly toward yours, and you were very aware of the space between you.

Your skin prickled, still damp from the pool, and you wondered again if he was thinking about that night. If the way his fingers flexed against the counter meant he remembered how they’d felt on your skin. If the way he swallowed meant he was trying real hard not to think about the words you exchanged, low, filthy, depraved–

The sound of footsteps echoed down the hall, breaking the moment like a stone thrown into still water.

“Y’all hidin’ in here?” Tommy’s voice was easy, oblivious as he crossed the threshold, already making a beeline for the fridge.

“What?” you squeaked, “No, why’d we be hiding?”

Oh god. Your stomach flipped as heat prickled up your spine. Why the hell had you said it like that?

Tommy, thankfully, didn’t seem to notice—or if he did, he didn’t care.

“It’s hot as hell out there. Think I saw Frank fannin’ himself with a paper plate like some old lady in church.”

Joel straightened immediately, rolling his shoulders back like he’d just snapped to attention. He cleared his throat, shifting his grip on the beer bottle. “Damn near a hundred degrees, I’d say. Just… takin’ a minute.”

Tommy barely looked up, cracking open the fridge. He grabbed a beer for himself, glancing toward you. “That for Marie?”

You nodded, heart still kicking a little harder than it should. “Yeah.”

“Good. She was about five seconds from sending out a search party for it.”

Joel exhaled sharply through his nose—maybe a huff of a laugh, maybe just a breath—but he made sure to avert his eyes from you now.

You just nodded once, shifting the container in your arms before turning on your heel and walking out the way you came.

Joel

A week had passed, the tightness of unspoken things curling around him until the evening settled low one night and Joel finally started to relax.

The TV’s blue light flickered against the golden glow siphoning through the blinds, the last rays of daylight painting the floorboards in long, slanted streaks. The house was quiet aside from the hum of the sitcom playing, its canned laughter punctuated by the real thing—Sarah, curled up beside him on the arm of the couch, feet tucked up against his thigh as she giggled at another dumb joke.

But Joel was distracted.

He’d been distracted for days, really.

It wasn’t just the wrongness of it—though there was plenty of that, enough to make his gut twist every time he let himself linger too long on it.

It was the fact that he couldn’t seem to stop feeling it.

The way you’d tightened up around him, shuddering, gasping, falling apart with his name on your lips. The way you’d let him take you, let him fill you, let him say things he had no right to say.

He shook his head, forcing the thought away.

Wouldn’t let himself dwell on it. Wouldn’t let himself remember the way you felt, the way you sounded, wrecked and breathless beneath him. Wouldn’t let himself think about how easy it had been to lose himself in it, to let every filthy thought spill from his mouth like he didn’t give a damn about the consequences.

But you.

You had let him. Had taken everything he gave you, had needed it.

And worse than any of it—the thing that really messed him up—was knowing that Tommy, his own brother, couldn’t make you finish the way he had.

That knowledge had settled deep in his bones, twisting something dark and selfish in his gut. That he was the one who had made you come apart like that. That only he had. And God help him, but the idea stroked his ego like a cat purring into your hand. He hadn’t been able to think straight since.

And maybe that was why, when the knock came, it took him a second to register it.

Joel blinked, dragging himself out of his own damn head. He turned to Sarah, their eyes meeting in confusion. “You expectin’ anyone?” he asked. Sarah shook her head, brow furrowing. Joel exhaled, pushing himself up from the couch with a few protesting cracks in his knees before heading for the door, rubbing at the tension settled in his jaw before pulling it open.

For a second, he had to blink to make sure he was seeing right.

You stood on his porch, hoodie sleeves pulled over your hands, stuffed into the front pocket, your hair mussed from the evening breeze. The light had dipped enough that everything was softer now, blurred at the edges, but it didn’t hide the red rimming your eyes, the way your shoulders curled in just slightly.

Joel’s chest tightened.

“Hey,” you said softly.

He cleared his throat, opening and closing his mouth, but before he could say anything, Sarah appeared beside him.

He watched as your expression shifted instantly, the smile pulling at your lips effortless, natural. A mask, maybe—but a convincing one.

“Auntie!” Sarah beamed, rushing forward to wrap her arms around you. And just like that, your smile became real. He saw the way your eyes softened as you hugged her back, tucking your chin briefly over the top of her head.

Sarah pulled away just enough to grin up at you. “Whatcha doin’ here?”

Your gaze flicked between her and Joel before settling back on Sarah. “Was wonderin’ if I could steal your dad for a sec,” you said easily, voice light, “that okay?”

“Please,” Sarah teased, shooting Joel a smirk. “Any chance to take him off my hands is always appreciated.”

Joel snorted, shaking his head as Sarah turned back toward the couch, giggling to herself. But when he looked back at you, the brightness from a moment ago had already dimmed. The smile had slipped—not completely, but enough. Your lips were still quirked at the edges, but your eyes… your eyes looked tired.

Joel exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck.

“So,” you sighed, shifting slightly on your feet. “Can we talk?”

There was something in your voice, something heavy, something that sat thick in the air between you. And Joel knew. He knew what this had to be about, but that didn’t stop his mind from racing, didn’t stop the sudden, gnawing pull in his gut as a dozen worst-case scenarios started clawing their way forward.

Were you here to tell him it was all a mistake? That he should’ve never come near you like that, never agreed to something so ridiculous? Were you going to say you couldn’t look at him the same, that you didn’t want to, that whatever had happened between you was too far over some invisible line?

Or worse—were you here to cut him out entirely? To tell him he was done, that he’d never step foot in your house again, never see the baby he had tried to put in you?

The thought settled cold in his stomach, but he didn’t let it show. He just jerked his head toward the hall, leading you through the quiet house and out to the back door.

The porch creaked beneath your weight as you moved, wordless, settling onto the old swing. Joel followed, standing a few paces away, one hand braced against the railing. You didn’t look at him. He didn’t look at you.

Your eyes were fixed on the pool in the yard—the above-ground one he’d put in for Sarah and her friends this summer, the water still rippling from whatever movement had last disturbed it. The tubes and pool rafts floated aimlessly, bobbing in the quiet evening breeze.

But you weren’t really looking at them. Joel could tell your stare was a thousand miles away.

Just say it, he thought. Just tell me you think it was all a mistake, so I can stop going crazy in my head.

“It didn’t work,” you finally said, voice cracking.

Joel’s eyes found yours, and for a moment, all he could do was look.

You were beautiful in the dying light—soft gold settling over your features, catching in the moisture gathering in your eyes. Your chin wobbled, lips parting slightly as you sucked in a shaky breath, fighting for control.

His chest ached.

Joel had never been good at this. Never been the type for soft reassurances or knowing what to say when someone was hurting. But he couldn’t just stand there, not when you looked like this. So he moved, stiff and uncertain, stepping toward the swing before lowering himself onto it beside you.

The wood groaned slightly beneath his weight and for a second he hesitated, fingers twitching against his thigh. Then, after a beat, he lifted a hand and rested it on your shoulder, squeezing gently.

The sound you let out was small, choked, a breath away from a sob. Your hands flew up to your face as your shoulders curled inward, your body trembling against the weight of it.

And then—before he could react—you turned into him. Pressed your face against his chest, curled against his side like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Joel stiffened.

For a long, still moment, he didn’t move, his body locked up tight. His breath was shallow, caught somewhere in his throat, but the sound of you—soft, muffled cries against his shirt, the uneven tremble of your breath—made his chest pull even tighter.

Carefully, slowly, he let his arm settle around you.

He wasn’t sure how much comfort he could offer, but he could do this. He could be solid. He could be warm. He could let his fingers trace slow, steady strokes over your arm, grounding you, letting you take what you needed.

“I’m sorry,” he finally whispered.

You sniffled, your body shifting as you pulled back slightly. It was like you suddenly realized how close you were, blinking up at him, eyes glassy but clearer now.

“It’s—” you exhaled shakily, rubbing at your face with the sleeve of your hoodie. “It’s okay. Not your fault, of course.”

Your shoulder still pressed lightly against his, and Joel’s arm, solid and steady around you, didn’t move. He wasn’t sure if it was to comfort you or to keep himself grounded, but his thumb was still tracing slow, absentminded strokes against your arm, like if he stopped, something might shift in a way he wasn’t ready for.

The quiet between you stretched, thick and full, the weight of everything that had transpired the past few weeks hanging in the warm evening air. The swing creaked softly beneath you, the distant chirp of crickets threading through the silence, but neither of you spoke.

Joel wasn’t sure what the hell he was supposed to say.

He didn’t know how to fix this. Didn’t know if you even wanted him to fix it. So he just sat there, his fingers still moving, his eyes still studying you—your profile washed in golden light, the way your lashes were still damp, the slow rise and fall of your chest as you tried to steady yourself.

And then—

“Would you…” Your voice was small, barely above a whisper.

Joel felt like his lungs stopped working, his heart kicking up before he even knew why. You were still staring down at your lap, fingers twisting together, your teeth catching at your lip as you sucked in a breath like you weren’t sure how to say what you wanted to.

You tried again. “Would you be okay with…”

You trailed off, shaking your head. Still not looking at him.

But Joel knew. Knew before you even said it, before the words could form, before you could force yourself to meet his gaze.

“You want to try again?” he asked quietly.

That got you to look at him.

And when your eyes met his, something shifted. Because Joel suddenly realized just how close you were.

Close enough that he could make out every ridge and curve of your soft lips, every delicate flicker of color in your irises, every tiny freckle that summer had kissed onto your skin. He hadn’t noticed it before—not really. Not in the dark of your room, not when he’d been too caught up in the moment to see you the way he did now.

Yes, you were nice-looking—Tommy always had good taste in women. But Joel had never let himself notice something like that. Not before. Not until now, until you were watching him with that hesitant, quiet hope, until something deep and unfamiliar curled in his chest in a way he couldn’t quite name.

He could feel you shifting beside him, like you were fighting some sort of urge, like you didn’t quite know what to do with yourself. He got it. He felt it too. That strange, electric wrongness, the awareness that neither of you was saying what you were actually thinking. His fingers twitched where they laid, but he didn’t move them.

“Would you be okay with that?” you asked softly. “I’ll talk to Tommy, see what he thinks, of course. He’s out tonight, but I just—I couldn’t stand being alone. After taking the test this morning, it just felt so empty in the house. It’s okay if you don’t want to, of course. We can figure out something else, maybe a donor or some sort of IVF or surrogacy—”

You were rambling now, your words tumbling out too fast, your hands twisting in your lap, your eyes darting away from his like you didn’t really expect him to say yes.

Joel didn’t know what the hell to do with the mess of feelings twisting inside him as he watched you stumble over your words. It wasn’t like you to hesitate, to second-guess yourself—but now, you were looking anywhere but at him, your fingers fidgeting, your breath uneven. He should’ve let you work through it. Should’ve waited. But before he could think better of it, his hand moved, fingers brushing beneath your chin, tilting your face up to his.

Your breath hitched as he lifted your face toward him, guiding your eyes back to his in a slow, careful motion that had nothing to do with the things he wasn’t supposed to think about.

“I’ll do it,” he murmured, his voice low, steady. And damn him, he couldn't help the way his eyes flickered to your lips as they parted when he said, “We can try again.”

“Are you sure you have to go?” you asked, your hands resting on Tommy’s chest as he held your hips, fingers squeezing gently.

His smile was soft, easy—full of the kind of warmth Joel had no business standing in the middle of. There was so much love in your eyes, so much familiarity between you, and Joel felt like he was intruding.

But that didn’t make much sense, did it? You’d both invited him here. You’d both agreed to this. And yet, here he was, sitting on the damn couch, trying not to watch the way you looked at your husband—like you’d rather he stayed, like you weren’t about to let his older brother take his place in your bed for the night.

“Listen, hun,” Tommy said, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “You know how Frank’s been feelin’, all the pressure of havin’ a baby soon. Marie’s gonna pop any day now, and the least the fellas could do was plan a night away.”

You pouted up at him, fingers playing absently in the longer strands of hair at his nape.

Joel exhaled slowly through his nose, trying to focus on anything else. The clock ticking on the wall. The hum of the fridge. The feeling of his own damn skin crawling.

“Joel here’ll take good care of ya,” Tommy said, and Joel’s body locked up.

His head jerked up, his whole body locking up like he’d been physically struck.

When he met Tommy’s gaze, there wasn’t even a flicker of mischief there. No teasing, no knowing smirk. Like he hadn’t just said the worst goddamn innuendo Joel had ever heard in his life.

Christ.

“Jesus, Tommy,” Joel muttered under his breath, but his brother didn’t hear him.

Or maybe he just ignored him.

Either way, Joel didn’t look. Didn’t watch the way Tommy leaned down, kissed you slow and lingering. Didn’t watch the way you melted into it, or the way his little brother looked at you like you were the most precious thing in the world to him.

Not with what the night had in store for the two of you.

When the door shut behind Tommy a few minutes later, you turned, your eyes flicking to Joel—hesitant, uncertain—before darting away just as fast.

There was no getting over how weird this was.

“Can I… get you something to drink?” you asked from across the room, your voice just a little too casual, like you were trying to make this feel normal.

Joel nodded. Something to take the edge off was exactly what he needed.

With Sarah at a friend’s for the night, there was no rush, no curfew, no reason to be anywhere but here. He could take his time. He should take his time, not rush into it like last time. He still felt bad about how long it had taken him to get it up. But what the hell did anyone expect?

This was weird.

His younger brother asking him to put a baby in his wife.

His sweet, pretty, sexy wife.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Joel cleared his throat, rubbing a hand over his jaw as you turned to grab the bottle from the cabinet. His eyes flicked down—just for a second—catching the curve of your waist, the slope of your back as you reached for two glasses.

He needed to get his shit together.

“Whiskey, really?” he asked, surprised.

“I thought it would be for the best. Ya know. Calm the nerves.”

“You’re nervous?” He didn't mean for it to come out so rough, so low and gravely, but something in the way you were standing there, hand wrapped around the wide glass as you looked between him and the drink.

You handed him his glass, fingers brushing, and you pulled away as soon as his hand wrapped around it, grabbing yours and walking into the living room, “Aren’t you?”

Joel brought the glass to his lips, giving himself a second before responding as he sat down across from you. The whiskey burned, but not as much as the look you gave him over the rim of your own glass.

"Wouldn’t call it nervous," he muttered, setting his drink down on the table.

You hummed, taking another sip. "No?"

"Nah." He shifted, the leather couch creaking beneath him. "Just... y’know. Wrappin’ my head around it."

You studied him for a long beat, fingers curled loosely around your glass. "So you’re sayin’ it’s not weird for you at all?"

Joel let out a little chuckle, rubbing his palm over his thigh. "Didn’t say that."

Your lips quirked, but it wasn’t quite a smile. Maybe more like you were just relieved that he was talking to you again. Something in Joel shifted at the realization. He should’ve been better at this—at talking, at making this easier. At not making things so damn weird.

"Guess I just figured the second time would be easier," you admitted, voice softer now, quieter.

"Easier how?" Joel asked, his hands twitching on his thighs before he grabbed his glass again, taking another sip just to do something.

You hesitated. "Jus’ didn’t expect it to feel so…" Your eyes, previously glued to the contents of your drink, flickered up to meet his. Joel felt his stomach flip, his pulse tick up. Your gaze was steady, unsure but searching, and he could feel it— the weight of it settling somewhere deep in his chest, in the thick, charged air between you.

“Tense.” you finished, and Joel swallowed down his last sip of whiskey, the burn sinking all the way to his gut, welcome this time—anything to settle the fire licking up his spine.

It took a moment before Joel realized the both of you were staring at each other, gazes locked and burning across the room.

The silence stretched, thick and unmoving, the weight of it pressing down on his chest. He should look away, should say something to break whatever spell this was, but his body wasn’t cooperating. His fingers flexed around his empty glass, his breath slow and measured like he was trying real hard not to give himself away.

Then, you blinked, inhaled, and wet your lips before forcing out a quiet, “Should we… get to it, then?”

Joel exhaled through his nose, tilting his head slightly, eyes dragging over your face, searching. “That what you wanna do?” His voice came out rougher than he meant, lower, like the whiskey had settled there and refused to budge.

You let out a breathy laugh—nervous, unsure. “Isn’t that what we’re here for?”

Joel didn’t answer at first. He just set his empty glass down on the table, slow and deliberate, the soft clink against the wood the only sound between you. Then, he leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, watching you.

“I mean,” he murmured, voice low, “we got all night, don’t we?”

You nodded, slow, absent, your teeth catching your bottom lip as your fingers toyed with the hem of your shorts. Your bare legs shifted slightly, restless, and Joel could see the way your body carried the same tightly wound energy thrumming under his own skin.

And for the first time, he wondered if it wasn’t just him who felt different. If you’d been thinking about that night all along too. If this thing, this quiet, simmering thing between you, had started to crack open something neither of you were ready to face.

Joel swallowed, flexing his fingers against his knees before dragging one hand over his jaw. “You sure about this?” he asked, his voice rougher than he intended.

You exhaled, shifting in your seat, but when your eyes lifted to his, there was something there—something nervous, maybe, but certain.

“Yeah,” you said quietly. “I’m sure.”

Joel nodded once, slow, measured. “Alright.”

But neither of you moved.

Not yet.

And that might’ve been the worst part, the way the space between you suddenly felt charged, humming, like a live wire sparking at both ends, neither one of you quite willing to touch it first.

Joel finally sat back, spreading his legs slightly, running his tongue over his teeth in thought. “How you wanna do this?”

The words sent something sharp curling low in his stomach, but he kept his expression even. Neutral. Like this wasn’t the strangest damn conversation he’d ever had in his life.

Your lips parted slightly, like you hadn’t expected him to ask that, and something flickered in your gaze.

“I…” You hesitated, shifting again. “I don’t know.”

Joel huffed a quiet breath, rubbing a hand over his thigh. “Why don’t you tell me what you like,”

He meant it as a practical question. But the second the words left his mouth, something about them felt different. Felt thick.

Your throat bobbed as you swallowed, lips parting again—but no words came.

Joel’s fingers flexed where they rested, and then, slowly, deliberately, he lifted his hand and curled two fingers toward himself in a beckoning motion.

“C’mere.” His voice was low, rough, unwavering. His other hand patted the empty space beside him on the couch.

Your eyes went wide.

Joel’s gaze stayed steady, dark and unreadable, waiting, watching. And when you didn’t move, when you stayed frozen in place, teeth worrying your lip like you weren’t sure if you should—

He tilted his head slightly, exhaling through his nose.

“Don’t be all shy now,” he murmured. “You helped me last time. I’ll help you this time.” A pause, thick with meaning. “Come on, now.”

Your fingers twitched, and then slowly, hesitantly, you moved towards him.

You set down the empty whiskey glass with a soft clink, and Joel caught the slight tremble in your hands as you made your way over to him. You sat beside him, close but not too close, your body angled toward his, but still not touching. He could feel the heat of you, though, could sense the way you hovered in that charged space, your breath just a little uneven.

Your eyes flickered to his, uncertain, waiting.

Joel let the moment stretch before speaking, voice low, rough with the remnants of whiskey and something heavier. “Now,” he drawled, slow and deliberate, as his hand rested on the back of the couch as he turned towards you, “what’s got you all worked up, hm? Why you nervous tonight? Weren’t nervous last time.”

You blinked at him, “Yes, I was.”

Joel shot you a look, brows furrowing slightly.

You were?

Hell, he was the one who’d been in damn ribbons last time, all wound up so tight he couldn’t even get hard at first. But you…you’d been steady, patient, pulling him out of his own head with soft hands and softer words, guiding him through it like you’d done this a thousand times before.

But now, looking at you, at the way your fingers twisted absently in your lap, at the way you were still hesitating, hovering, he realized maybe he’d had it all wrong.

Maybe you’d just been better at hiding it.

Something in him shifted at that thought, something warm and unexpected. And then—just like that—the corner of your mouth quirked up, barely there, but enough.

Enough to break the tension just a little.

Joel’s gaze stayed locked on yours, watching the way your lips twitched with that barely-there smile, the way you shifted in your seat, still wound up tight. You might’ve been trying to play it off, but he could see it now. The way your body was holding something back, how much you were overthinking, just like he had last time.

He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping low and edged with something darker.

“How do you usually get off?”

He watched the way your body reacted to the question, your thighs pressing together just slightly, the way your fingers tensed against the couch cushion, like you needed something to hold onto.

“Joel—”

“C’mon, now,” he murmured, tilting his head, gaze flickering down your body before finding your eyes again. “You asked me the same question last time. Let me help you relax, sweetheart.”

Your breath came a little faster now, chest rising and falling, and for a second, Joel thought you might overthink your way out of this. Might shake your head, pull away, break the moment before it could go any further.

“I, um…” Your teeth caught your bottom lip harder now as your eyes flicked away, like you were thinking, trying to find the right words. “Tommy—he usually… he’ll go down on me.”

Joel hummed, urging you on. “Mhm.”

“And usually I’ll get off then—”

“Usually?” Joel interjected without thinking. His brow furrowed slightly as he looked at you.

You shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. “Sometimes it takes a while,” you admitted. “So I tell him to give up and—”

“Give up?!” Now Joel was incredulous. His head jerked slightly as he wiped a hand down his face, like he could scrub away the mental image of his little brother trying and failing to make his own damn wife finish on his tongue.

"Jesus Christ."

You gave a small, amused shake of your head. “Not everyone is as talented as you, Joel Miller.”

The words left your mouth so easily, a throwaway comment, but the second you said it, your face went red, realizing what you’d just admitted. You let out a breathy laugh, trying to play it off as a joke, but Joel wasn’t remotely amused.

Because he’d seen the way you shrugged when you said give up. Like it was normal. Like you didn’t expect anything else.

No. He wasn’t having any of that.

His expression hardened, jaw ticking.

“Lay back.”

Your eyes widened slightly, your lips parting as you released your lip from between your teeth. “What?”

“Lay back, dammit. Pants off.”

“Joel, we’re—”

“You keep breakin’ Rule Number Three, doll, I’m gonna start thinkin’ you don’t give a damn about ‘em.” His voice was firm, his gaze unwavering.

“Sorry,” you murmured, your voice softer now, almost breathless, and Joel’s stomach tightened at the sound of it.

Joel was already moving, shifting forward, his body his broad frame eclipsing yours, forcing you to either back up or let him take what he wanted. You braced yourself against the couch, your hands gripping at the cushions as he hovered over you, broad and unrelenting.

“You don’t have to–”

“I said lay back, baby,” he murmured, voice low and firm, edged with something dark and determined. His fingers brushed against your thigh, coaxing, teasing, his eyes locked onto yours. “Lemme show you how it’s supposed to be.”

You hesitated, your chest rising and falling too quickly, lips parting like you wanted to say something—maybe protest, maybe challenge him—but instead, you obeyed.

You let him guide you down, sinking back against the cushions, legs still bent, thighs pressed tight together.

Joel hummed at the sight of you beneath him, at the way you looked up at him now—uncertain, but wanting. He could see it in the way your breath hitched, in the way your fingers twitched like you didn’t know what to do with them.

“That’s a good girl,” he muttered, dragging his palm up the length of your thigh, heat radiating from his touch even through the fabric of your shorts.

He should take his time, should tease you like he’d been dreaming about in the weeks between last time and now—the way he’d pictured you squirming, begging for him. But then he remembered what you’d said.

How sometimes it took too long.

How you’d just tell Tommy to give up.

Like it was your fault. Like you were too much work.

Bullshit.

Joel’s jaw ticked, something dark and dangerous curling in his gut. His fingers flexed against your skin before slipping beneath the waistband of your shorts, tugging them down before you could say anything else.

You sucked in a breath, hips lifting instinctively, letting him pull them past your thighs, past your knees, tossing them somewhere behind him. His hands settled firm on your legs, his thumbs stroking slow, deliberate circles against your inner thighs as he spread them wider.

And fuck, you were already so wet, your panties clinging to you, a darkened patch right where he wanted to put his mouth.

His smirk was slow, satisfied.

"What’s this all about, hm?" he purred, pressing his thumb against the damp fabric, rubbing just enough to make you jolt. "Wanna tell me what’s got you all dripping for me already?"

Your breath hitched, a little mewl escaping you as you tried pushing your thighs together, squeezing tight, making the soft, puffy outline of your lips press perfectly against the thin fabric.

Joel swore he started salivating.

His hands ran up your legs as he sank onto the floor, knees pressing firm against the couch cushions, palms settling against the soft skin of your inner thighs. He wanted you spread open for him, wanted all of you.

"Tell me, baby," he urged, voice thick, coaxing.

Your throat bobbed, lips parting, your breath a little shaky. "I was…" You swallowed hard, fingers twisting in the couch cushion, "I was just remembering."

Joel’s eyes flicked to yours, heavy-lidded and dazed, thick with want. "Rememberin’ what?"

You met his gaze, lashes low, voice barely above a breath. "How good you made me feel last time. I’d never… felt that before. Not like that, at least."

Jesus fucking Christ.

Joel let out a low groan, his cock stiffening behind his zipper, aching in a way that made his breath come slow and deep through his nose. You had to feel it, the hard press of denim against your ass, the way his body reacted to your words, to the way you looked at him like you were already cock-drunk before he even touched you properly.

"You felt so good, Joel," you murmured, your voice thick, dreamy, like you were already sinking into it. "Made me feel so good."

His fingers curled against your thighs, pressing in just a little harder.

"Gonna make you feel real good again, baby," he muttered, voice rough as his fingers hooked into your panties. He pulled them down slow, savoring the sight of them peeling away from your slick folds, strings of arousal clinging to the fabric.

"Open these pretty legs for me," he murmured, gripping your thighs, easing them apart as he settled lower, gaze locked on the glistening heat between them.

You let him hold you open, bare to him, and all Joel could think about was getting his mouth on you, making you come undone the way you were supposed to.

The way he knew he could.

Joel’s breath was heavy, measured, but inside, he was burning.

He slid his palms up your thighs, pressing them wider, his thumbs tracing firm, slow strokes along the sensitive skin. His hands felt big where they gripped you, broad and rough, like they could hold you there forever, keep you open for him until he was satisfied.

And right now, he was hungry.

His gaze stayed locked between your legs, taking in the way you glistened in the low light, slick and dripping for him, already so ready. He exhaled sharply through his nose, his cock pulsing behind the tight confines of his jeans.

"Fuck, baby," he murmured, almost to himself, dragging his thumbs over your inner thighs, watching the way your muscles twitched beneath his touch. "You got no clue how pretty you are down here, do you?"

You whimpered, a small, needy sound, and Joel felt it straight in his gut.

He leaned in, inhaling against your core, lips just barely brushing against you—not quite a kiss, not quite a touch, just enough to tease, to let you feel the heat of his breath against your slick folds.

You gasped, your hips jerking slightly.

He smirked, the ghost of it pressing against your skin.

"Easy, sweetheart," he murmured, smoothing his hands over your thighs, grounding you, keeping you spread open for him. "Ain’t gotta rush. Gonna take my time with you."

And then, finally he let his tongue drag through your folds, broad and slow, from your dripping entrance up to your swollen clit.

You shuddered.

Your fingers scrambled at the couch cushion, a broken moan spilling from your lips, thighs trembling beneath his hands.

"That’s it," Joel muttered against you, voice thick, satisfied. He dragged his tongue over you again, slower this time, savoring the way you tasted, the way you reacted.

He loved this—loved watching you come undone beneath him, loved the way your body melted, how you gave in so easily when someone actually took their damn time with you.

His mouth latched onto your clit, sucking just enough to make your back arch off the couch, another moan breaking free.

"Joel—oh my God—"

"Mmm," he hummed in response, the vibration sending a sharp jolt through your core. His fingers dug into your thighs, holding you still, keeping you right where he wanted you.

You were practically dripping onto the couch, coating his lips, his chin, and Joel loved it. Lapped it up like he was dying for it, groaning against you, letting himself drown in you.

He flicked his tongue, slow and teasing, before dragging it down, prodding your entrance. His hands slid up, fingers pressing against the dips of your hips, holding you steady as his tongue dipped inside you.

You choked on a breath, your thighs twitching against his shoulders, and Joel grinned.

"Yeah?" he rasped, pulling back just slightly, his lips slick and shining with you. "That feel good, sweetheart?"

You barely managed to nod before his mouth was back on you, eating you like a man starved.

Your hands fisted in his hair, and he groaned against you. He loved how messy you were, how you squirmed just as he’d imagined, how you kept whispering his fucking name, breathless and desperate like you just couldnt help yourself.

He knew there was a reason that was a rule.

Because it sounded too fucking pretty coming from your mouth, tangled up in all those sweet little sounds you were making, and he never wanted to stop hearing it.

"Ain’t learned your lesson yet, huh?" he muttered against you, voice thick with sin, pressing a kiss against your clit before dragging his tongue over it again, slow and deliberate, feeling the way you jerked. "Keep breakin’ that rule, sweetheart, and I’m never gonna stop."

A little choked noise escaped you, hands pulling harder in his hair, but you weren’t pushing him away—you were pulling him in.

And fuck, did that make him ache.

"Bet you don’t come this quick for him, do you?" he rasped, letting his tongue dip down, teasing at your entrance before pressing inside, groaning as he felt you pulse around him. "How long’s it take you on my brother’s tongue, huh? You gotta work for it? Tell him it’s okay to give up?"

You whimpered, a full-body shudder rolling through you, your hips rolling up, chasing more, and fuck, that answer was all he needed.

Joel grinned against you.

"Not with me, baby. Nuh-uh. You come when I tell you to, and you ain't goin' nowhere 'til I get what I want."

His fingers dug into your thighs as he devoured you, tongue working you over, sucking slow, firm pulls on your clit until your whole body seized beneath him.

"Joel—"

Your thighs clamped around his head, hands flying to your mouth like you could stop it, like you knew you weren’t supposed to say it.

Joel groaned, filthy and deep, gripping your hips tighter, dragging you down against his mouth, forcing you to take it.

"That's it, baby," he growled against you, tongue curling, licking deep. "Say it again. Come on my tongue saying my name, just like that."

You shattered, a strangled, broken cry falling from your lips as you gushed against his tongue, whole body trembling, thighs shaking around his head.

And Joel fucking loved it.

But he wasn't done. Not even close.

Your breath was still uneven, your body twitching from the aftershocks, when he kept going.

"Too much—" your voice was a high, breathless plea, hips shifting like you were trying to get away, but Joel chuckled, gripping you tighter, keeping you exactly where he wanted you.

"Nah, sweetheart," he murmured, pressing an open-mouthed kiss against your soaked folds. "Tommy might let you tap out, but I ain’t him. You’re gonna take everything I give you."

And then he was back on you, devouring you, tongue pushing into you, working you open, tasting you like he was fucking starved for it.

You gasped, legs trembling, but Joel just held you still, broad hands locked tight around your thighs, thumbs digging into the soft flesh as he pinned you down.

He wasn’t sure what came over him in these moments. Wasn’t sure if he’d ever been like this before. He couldn’t remember another time a woman made him feel this insatiable, this hungry. He kept telling himself one more—just one more, to wring you out and leave you spent beneath him. But you were still so soft, still so wet, and he wasn’t finished yet.

He pulled back just enough to watch the way you twitched beneath him, your lips parted, your chest rising and falling fast. Your thighs gave a little shake where he held them apart, and fuck—you looked downright beautiful.

You were panting, wrecked, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes, legs trembling where he held them apart.

And Joel was grinning against you.

Because you hadn’t told him to stop yet.

And until you did, he was gonna pull another from you.

And another.

By the time you came the fifth time, you were boneless.

Joel leaned back slightly, watching the way you just lay there, sprawled out against the couch like your body had melted into it, chest rising and falling in uneven breaths. Your legs were still twitching, little aftershocks making you jolt every now and then, and he could feel the warmth of you still slick and messy against his mouth, his chin, his fingers.

He wasn’t sure if you were even conscious after that last one.

He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, jaw tightening at the sight of you—wrecked, trembling, looking like you hadn’t even processed what the hell had just happened to you.

Joel exhaled through his nose, pleased, then dragged himself up over your body, bracing his forearms on either side of your head. You barely stirred, eyes fluttering, a sleepy little hum slipping from your lips as his hand slid into your hair, tucking it behind your ear.

"Sweetheart," he murmured, voice rough.

You made a noise, something breathy and spent, your eyes opening just barely.

“Hm?”

Joel smirked. "You need a break?"

There was a beat, like you were trying to process what that even meant—then a sleepy little giggle bubbled up in your throat, your hands finding his hair, fingertips scratching lightly against his scalp.

"Maybe like, five minutes," you murmured, smiling up at him, wrecked but glowing.

Joel huffed a laugh, shaking his head, before pulling you against him. You let out a surprised squeak as he stood up, gathering you into his arms like you weighed nothing.

“What the—?”

Joel shot you a lazy grin, shifting you higher against his chest. "My brother would kill me if I told him I knocked you up on a couch like a teenage boy."

That finally seemed to wake you up.

Your whole body stiffened, eyes going a little wide as reality set in.

"Oh, god…" you murmured, voice a little hoarse, your hands gripping at his shoulders. "I can't believe we just… I just did that…"

And fuck, something in Joel sank at the sound of your voice.

Because he knew that tone. Knew it well—that creeping guilt, that second-guessing, the way someone’s mind started running ahead of them, thinking about what it all meant instead of how it felt.

His jaw tightened.

He hadn’t meant to… he didn’t even know what came over him. He should’ve stopped earlier, should’ve slowed down, should’ve given you more space to breathe before he just took and took and took.

But Jesus, the way you responded to him, the way you gave it all back, the way you opened for him like you’d been waiting for someone to finally take care of you—

It did something to him. Still, he had to be sure.

"Hey." His voice was softer now, more even, as he shifted his grip on you, keeping you steady in his arms as he began to climb the stairs. "Ain't nobody gotta know. Stays between us."

You blinked up at him, chest still rising and falling a little too quickly, fingers curling slightly into his shirt.

“But Tommy—”

Joel shook his head, cutting you off gently. "Tommy don't need to know a damn thing ‘cept that we tried."

You swallowed, lips pressing together like you were still processing, like you wanted to say something else, but didn’t know how.

Joel exhaled, shifting his weight slightly, giving you something solid to hold onto.

"You still want this, don’t you?" he asked, quiet, steady.

You hesitated—but then, slowly, you nodded.

"Yeah."

Joel nodded back, just once.

"Then that's all that matters."

His hand smoothed over your back, solid and warm, grounding you. "We just keep doin' what we agreed on. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less."

Your breath hitched slightly, but you nodded again.

And Joel didn’t let himself think about why that felt like a lie as he crossed the threshold into your bedroom.

Eventually, he laid you down on the bed, and you settled back against the pillows, your chest still rising and falling in slow, deep breaths. You reached for the hem of your shirt, peeling it off and tossing it somewhere, your bra following it to the floor.

Joel took his time. He shucked off his jeans, then his shirt, watching the way heat crept up your neck, the flush deepening across your skin as you took him in.

He told himself he just wanted to see your reaction—wanted to watch the way you took him in, wide-eyed and wanting—but the truth was, last time, he’d been so caught up in his own head, trying to wrap his mind around what the fuck he was doing, he barely let himself process it.

He wanted to commit this to memory.

In case it was the last time.

His hand wrapped around his cock, the poor thing aching, flushed dark at the tip, leaking, desperate for relief. He hissed through his teeth, exhaling sharply as he stroked himself, his eyes fluttering shut for just a second before he climbed onto the bed.

But before he could settle over you, you moved. You laid down flat on your belly, head toward the foot of the bed, your chest pressed flush to the mattress, your ass tilted up just slightly.

And right in front of you—the dresser mirror.

Joel’s body locked up as his eyes flicked up, finding his own reflection staring back at him. But then—your eyes met his through the glass, a little shy, a little hesitant.

Jesus fucking Christ.

His cock twitched in his hand, and his grip tightened around the base like he needed to ground himself, keep himself from losing control too fucking fast.

And then you smiled—small, soft, still lost in that post-orgasm haze, warm and pliant and looking like you’d do anything he told you to.

Joel climbed onto the bed, moving behind you, his weight shifting over your back as his broad hands settled on your hips, gripping firm.

His eyes flicked back up to the mirror, watching the way you looked at him, watching yourself.

He smirked.

“You dirty girl,” he murmured, his grip tightening as he ground his cock through your slick folds, coating himself in your arousal.

A breathy whimper slipped from your lips, your body arching, pressing your ass back into him, and he swore under his breath as his bulbous, leaking tip caught against your entrance.

The heat of you, still soaking, still so tight, made his breath catch as he lowered himself, chest pressing into your back, caging you in, his lips grazing the shell of your ear as his cock teased against you, notching at your entrance, pushing just barely.

"You wanna watch me fuck you?" he rasped, his voice low, dark, dripping with sin.

You let out a shaky breath, eyes fluttering shut, and Joel rolled his hips forward, making you feel every inch of him stretching you open, slow, teasing, unbearable.

Your eyes snapped open, a choked gasp spilling from your lips as your gaze locked onto his in the mirror.

That wrecked, ruined expression, that wide-eyed shock as you took him inch by inch, deeper and deeper…

He knew was never gonna forget this.

Joel growled against your ear, his breath hot, his hips pressing flush against your ass as he bottomed out, stretching you open until there was nowhere left for you to go.

"Wanna watch your husband’s own brother knock you up, baby?" he purred.

Your jaw dropped, eyes going glassy, mouth parted in a silent cry as he felt you squeeze around him, your tight little pussy gripping him like you’d never let him go.

Joel had never felt anything this good.

He pulled back, just barely, before sinking home again, slow and deep, forcing you to feel every inch of him, every drag of his cock as he stretched you open all over again.

You whimpered, nails scraping against the sheets, already wrecked, but not nearly done.

He watched in the mirror as your lips parted, as your lashes fluttered, as your brows furrowed at the overwhelming sensation of it—of him, filling you to the brim, thick and unrelenting.

"That’s it, pretty girl," he groaned, grinding into you, pressing his full weight over you, hips rolling in a slow, deep rhythm. "Take it just like that. Nice ‘n easy, let me feel you, huh?"

Your mouth fell open, a breathy little moan spilling out as he fucked you slow, letting you feel every inch, dragging it out, stretching it thicker, deeper.

Then he pulled back, bracing a big, rough hand on your hip before thrusting forward, harder this time, deeper, dragging a sharp gasp from your lips as your eyes flew open— and as he looked up and saw your face, he could’ve finished right then and there, your eyes flashing open wide and your wrecked voice crying out for him.

His jaw clenched, his fingers digging into your hip as he set a punishing rhythm, hips snapping against your ass, the slick wet sounds of you taking him filling the room, mixing with the soft, broken noises slipping from your mouth as he fucked you hard, deep, like he’d been waiting his whole life to do this.

Joel’s body pinned you down, his weight heavy and solid as he laid over you. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to move—just him, pressing you into the mattress, keeping you exactly where he wanted you, exactly where you needed to be.

The heat of him burned into your back, his chest slick against your skin, his breaths hot and uneven at your ear as he worked himself slow and deep, grinding his hips down into you, forcing your body to take everything he gave you.

You couldn’t move.

You could barely breathe.

Every push forward drove you deeper into the mattress, your fingers gripping at the sheets, holding on as his pace built, each thrust sinking him deeper, stretching you open with long, deliberate strokes.

Joel groaned against the nape of your neck, his mouth grazing your skin as his hips rocked into you, dragging you forward with every heavy roll of his body. His weight bore down, pressing you into the bed, keeping you flush beneath him, letting him sink in to the very hilt, until you could feel every thick inch of him, filling you, claiming you.

He could feel everything—the way your body clenched around him, the way your walls fluttered, pulling him in deeper, tight and wet, keeping him locked inside you.

And in the mirror, he could see how flushed, how spent and wrecked you were, your soft lips in a perfect ‘o’ as he kept pushing himself to the hilt, your velvet walls constricting his cock with every thrust. He relished in the feeling, how deep he was inside you, how good you felt wrapped around him, how you had no choice but to take it.

Your moan was soft, needy, muffled by the sheets, your back arching, trying to press into him, trying to take him even deeper.

"You’re gonna come again, aren’t you?" Joel murmured against your sweat-slicked skin, feeling the way your walls squeezed him tighter, your body locking up, every muscle trembling beneath him. One of his hands slid under you, finding your clit easily and starting to rub slow circles using two thick fingers, "Gonna give me another, baby? Gonna let me feel you?"

His hand slid up, his fingers brushing over your throat, tilting your face to the mirror.

"Look at yourself." he said as his hand wrapped around your face, thumb pushing into your cheek and fingers digging into your jaw as he brought your gaze up to meet his.

Your eyes met his, glassy and fogged, your lips parted, your breath coming in short, desperate gasps as he ground into you, holding you still, keeping you stretched full and helpless beneath him.

"You see that, baby?" he whispered, his fingers tightening at your jaw, keeping you there, keeping you watching, “See how perfect you look takin’ my cock?”

Joel thrust deeper, grinding his hips against your ass, rocking into you, making sure you felt every thick inch stretching you, keeping you full.

“You know, my brother can pretend all he wants," Joel growled, driving into you harder, making you feel it, making you take it.

"But this pussy’s mine now," he snarled, his fingers gripping tight at your jaw, making you watch yourself begin to fall apart on him.

"Was mine the second you came on my cock last time, wasn’t it?" he rasped, thrusting deep, holding you full, his fingers grinding slow and taunting against your swollen, sensitive clit.

"Go on," he growled, one hand gripping your jaw, the other sliding up, thumb pressing firm at your lips before pushing past them, hooking into your mouth. "Say it."

Your breath hitched, a muffled coo spilling around his thick finger.

“All yours, Joel,” you whimpered, voice broken, wrecked, helpless.

Your words turned into a sob, your thighs shaking, your body locking up as your orgasm tore through you, your muscles clenching down tight around him, your walls milking his cock, dragging him even deeper.

Joel groaned, his head tilting into your neck, feeling you pulse around him, trying to pull him in, hold him there, keep him inside you.

You heaved in breaths, trembling beneath him, as he released his tight hold on your face, your head met the bed, too wrecked to hold yourself up.

Joel followed you down, face pressed into your shoulder, holding you still as he thrust once more, deep and final, his body locking up as he filled you, spilling inside you, holding you down, making sure you took all of it.

He stayed there for a long moment, panting, his breath warm against the back of your neck, his body covering yours completely.

Joel didn’t move right away.

His breath was ragged, hot against your sweat-damp skin, his weight still pressing heavy over you, pinning you down, keeping you filled, stuffed, claimed.

His arms caged around you, his chest pressing into your back, the lingering aftershocks of release making both of you twitch, shuddering in the same unsteady rhythm.

But as the haze of it ebbed, something else crept in.

His own words, thrown into the thick air like a brand, still hanging there.

My brother can pretend all he wants.

This pussy’s mine now.

Was mine the second you came on my cock.

Joel exhaled slowly, eyes pressing shut, realization sinking into him like a heavy weight.

Jesus Christ.

He shouldn’t have said that.

He’d felt it—deep in his chest, in the pit of his stomach, in the way you clung to him, the way you let him take and take and take like you needed it just as badly. But saying it? Letting those thoughts slip out, low and raw and real—

That was something else entirely.

His grip loosened, fingers flexing where they’d held you too tight, his body finally easing up, lifting off you, just a little. Enough to give you air.

His mouth hovered at your shoulder, his breath still uneven, before he forced himself to speak.

"I’m sorry," he breathed, voice rough, thick with something he didn’t want to name. "I… I shouldn’t have—"

“Joel?” Your voice was weak, soft, barely above a breath.

And when he looked up at you, your eyes were open just a little, sleep-heavy, a small, lazy smile tugging at your lips.

He swallowed. "Yeah?" he asked, voice gentler now.

You sighed, shifting just enough to settle deeper beneath him, your body still pliant as you rested your head on your arms, "Don’t ruin it."

Joel stilled.

You breathed slow, eyes fluttering as exhaustion pulled at you.

"It’s okay. I won’t say anything if you don’t."

Something in his chest tightened, and for the first time since the haze had lifted, he let himself breathe.

Joel exhaled slowly, eyes tracing over your face—soft, spent, utterly at peace beneath him.

"Okay." he murmured finally, voice low, rough, unreadable.

And with that, he let it be.

tag list: @alidiggory92 @pinkylouise @izzy698

#my brain is fried #I havent touched grass in days #family matters #joel miller #joel miller x you #joel miller smut #tommy miller #tommy miller x you #joel miller x reader #tommy miller x reader #tlou #the last of us

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silentscrying · 2 months ago

Text

🐾 snowprints

vet student!megumi x dog owner!reader

summary: when you find yourself in need of an emergency trip to the local vet clinic, it's late and the sign on the door is flipped to closed. luckily for you, animal science student megumi fushiguro is still around, and he's willing to help you and your dog out—and maybe get a little more than he bargained for in the process. but he's not used to letting people in, and you've never been particularly patient. when winter rolls around, will you be spending the holidays alone?

content/warnings: 20.7k words. complete. sfw. f!reader, you have a dog, megumi has his dogs, they are unbearably cute, megumi doesn't know how to communicate for shit, language, no use of y/n, christmas yay!!, aged up characters, including riko, she's in college, and she's a menace, (light) angst with a happy ending, mentions of deceased parents (typical fushiguro canon), soft, fluff, you know when your sister psychoanalyzes you at the kitchen table, car crash, alcohol, reader studies environmental science but can't keep plants alive for SHIT, so much unnecessary pining, gratuitous overuse of italics and em-dashes

note: this takes place in the same universe as out of my mind, but you don't have to read that to know what's going on here! though it may help with some context. happy hella late birthday megumi fushiguro you will always be famous

PART I // BATMAN & ROBIN

IT’S TEN O’CLOCK and dark when Batman decides to cause problems.

Batman, of course, being your three-year-old German shepherd mix, the one currently whining and staring up at you with big, dark puppy eyes while he holds one paw up limply.

“Oh, little buddy,” you sigh as you squat down in front of him, despite the fact that he hasn’t been little in a very long time. He’s been restless all night, so you caved and took him on a late night walk, and it’s so dark you can’t tell what’s wrong with his paw even in the glow of the phone flashlight.

God, fuck. Where’s the closest vet? The one in the city is definitely closed. You’re fairly certain there’s a smaller one somewhere on the outskirts of the JU campus, though, one that the pre-vet students use for clinicals.

“C’mon, champ,” you murmur, tugging gently on Batman’s leash. “Let’s go get you checked out, huh?”

The early September air is chilly, a little bit of a bite to it. You’re glad the temperatures haven’t yet dropped below freezing, so you don’t need to let your car defrost before going. “Up,” you say, patting the passenger seat with the door held open for Batman.

You punch the clinic into maps and pull out of your suburban street into the busier roads. It’s not far, thankfully, and you make a beeline for the door with Batman on your heels, not noticing until you’re right in front of it that the massive sign hanging on the door is flipped to CLOSED.

“No,” you groan, leaning forward and pressing your forehead to the cool glass of the closed door. You close your eyes, wondering what the fuck you’re gonna do, and then—thump.

You nearly jump out of your skin, eyes flying open and gaze raising to meet the amused eyes of a guy on the other side of the door, who’s trying and failing to suppress a smile that feels a little teasing. Oops.

You step back and wave sheepishly, and the boy unlocks the door and swings it open, taking in the sight of you and your limping dog.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt. “I know you’re closed and it’s some ungodly hour on a Tuesday, I just didn’t know what else to do—”

“It's fine,” he says, waving it off. “I’m just cleaning up, it’s not a hassle. Come on.” Batman has no qualms about following the guy through the open door, so you follow, glancing around the small clinic. It’s pretty sparse, save for the bulletin board overflowing with pet photos on one wall.

“Fushiguro,” the guy says in introduction, glancing back over his shoulder at you. He’s got deep blue eyes that match his dark scrubs, and his hair sticks out every which way in a manner that feels intentional. He must be around your age. It takes you a beat to remember yourself and give him your own name, stuttered out as you pass into the back exam room.

There’s a white coat tossed haphazardly over a spinning chair, and the guy—Fushiguro—picks Batman up like he weighs nothing and situates him on the metal table.

“Hey, bud. What’s your name?” he asks, scratching behind Batman’s ears. Your dog is usually weary of vets, but today his tail pounds on the metal of the table as he raises his head to sniff at Fushiguro’s face.

“Batman.”

Fushiguro’s gaze snaps to you and he blinks, evidently thinking you’re joking. “No.”

“Yes.” You hold your index fingers up above your head to imitate your dog’s pointy ears. “Batman.”

“Oh. My god,” he says. “And what, you’re Robin?”

“I am not the sidekick in this situation.”

“Batman dragged you out here at eleven on a school night. You absolutely are the sidekick.”

You scoff, moving up to the table and stroking Batman’s fur. “Am I just a sidekick to you, little guy?” you coo. “You wanna be a hero so bad?” He noses happily at your palm.

Fushiguro side-eyes you, half-grimacing as he grabs Batman’s paw to look at it. He doesn’t seem to mind, which is honestly a shock. He hates people touching his paws, even you. “You baby talk your dog?”

“You judge your patients?”

“Course not,” Fushiguro says, smirking as he looks back at you. “Just their owners.”

You roll your eyes but can’t help the huff of laughter, and his dark eyes reflect the fluorescent overhead light as he turns away. He’s undeniably attractive—you don’t remember seeing him around campus.

“You go to JU?” you ask, and he nods.

“Sophomore. Pre-vet. D’you?”

“Nah, Kaisen.” Your school is a lot smaller than the neighboring Jujutsu University. They’ve got something of an athletic rivalry with Kaisen College, but you really don’t care. “Environmental science.”

“You know everything there is to know about trees, or what?” His tone is teasing, and you know he doesn’t mean anything by it. The fact is you do know more about trees than normal college students probably should. Doesn’t mean you can keep plants alive for shit, though.

You’d guess there’s actually a fair bit of crossover between your course of study and a pre-vet student’s bio track, but you say, “I specialize in rare long grasses, actually.” It comes out so deadpan that he glances at you, brows knit together, trying to gauge if you’re being serious. You only last a second before you crack under his scrutiny, and he shakes his head and huffs as he turns back to Batman, who is now trying to lick Fushiguro’s nose.

“Excuse me,” he says. This only seems to encourage the dog kisses, but Fushiguro decides to just ignore them. He hums, grabbing a pair of tweezers and squinting as he moves to pull something out of Batman’s paw. “Just a splinter. The pad of a dog’s paw is one of the most sensitive parts of their body, so it’s not surprising he was so worked up about it.” You watch as he pulls out a thin sliver of wood, probably from stepping on some splintering twig, and drops it into a tray on the table.

You watch as your dog drops his paw back to the table and stands up, tail wagging at lightning speed, like nothing was ever wrong. He jumps off the table before Fushiguro can grab him and bounds over to you, rubbing himself along the outside of your leg like a giant cat.

“How much do I owe you?” you ask, pulling out your card, but he waves you off.

“It was literally a splinter.”

“But—”

“Honestly, it’d be more work to boot up the payment system again anyway. Don’t worry about it.” He holds your gaze, and you can’t tell if he’s lying about the payment system or not, but you slide your card back into your wallet without complaint.

Something passes between you, some weird spark of recognition—not that you’ve met before. You know you haven’t. But you don’t typically have this kind of easy banter with strangers. Something about this guy intrigues you, and you don’t particularly want to stop talking to him.

But you’ve already kept him past close, and you need to get home.

The moment breaks when Fushiguro clears his throat, leaning over to grab something off the counter. “Right. Well, give me a call if he starts limping again, but he should be alright.” He holds out a hand and you realize he’s offering you a business card, weirdly professional for a student.

M. FUSHIGURO Veterinary Technician Trainee, JU

His number and email are printed beneath it in small sans serif lettering.

“Oh, you’re fancy.” You raise a brow at him, tucking the card into your jacket pocket. “Thank you. Seriously.”

“Well, who am I to refuse Batman?” he says wryly. He walks you to the door, and you try not to think too much of it—he just needs to lock up behind you, probably.

Before you slip out, he leans down and pats Batman on the head, earning a happy little tail-wag in response.

“Drive safe, Robin,” he calls, and you groan at the nickname as you unlock your car.

At home, you key his number into your phone and save the contact as fushiguro (cute vet). You sit there for way too long debating over whether you should text him—Batman’s fine, and it’s late, and he gave you a business card. Not exactly an invitation to flirt, tempting as that might be.

But you really want to.

“Should I text him?” you ask your dog, who’s decided to curl up right beside your bed and look up at you, waiting for an invitation. Your twin bed is not big enough for this and he knows it, but he always seems to think he’s a smaller dog than he really is.

Batman, unhelpfully, tilts his head at you, his perky ears flapping with the motion.

Maybe it’s because it’s past eleven and it’s dark out and you’re exhausted and you don’t have the best sense of judgment right now. Maybe it’s because Fushiguro’s just really cute.

“You’re right,” you say, nudging Batman with a socked foot. “No use waiting. Say cheese.”

you: [1 Image Attachment] you: gotham city’s savior says thank you

It’s kind of embarrassing how you sit and stare at the screen for two minutes, waiting for him to answer. Batman snorts, like he’s making fun of you, and you lock your phone and toss it on the bedside table. “Oh, don’t start.”

Your roommate and best friend, Setsuko Sasaki, is studying abroad in Japan for the semester. It’s been lonely, strange without her occupying the second bedroom of your little rented townhouse. You’d like to say this is why you’ve resorted to talking to your dog, but that would very much be a lie, because you’ve always done this. Sometimes, when she’s home, Suko adopts a gruff, low voice and answers for him.

You jump when your phone buzzes and make yourself count to three before checking the screen.

fushiguro (cute vet): don’t mention it. always had a soft spot for batman, anyway. fushiguro (cute vet): his sidekick’s alright too.

“Oh, he likes you,” you tell Batman. “Wingman. Thanks, little buddy.”

you: well, send a bat signal if you’re ever in mortal peril and i might show up

After that, you try to push Fushiguro to the back of your mind. He doesn’t go to Kaisen, so it’s not like you can stalk him in the university directory. You have no reason to run into him around town. As the semester ramps up and you fall back into your routine of classes and exams and friends, you don’t think too much about the cute vet tech who happened to be around that one night.

Or, you don’t for a grand total of six days.

You’re on a jog with Batman, afternoon sun making up for the fall chill in the air that’s hung around since it stormed last night. You don’t intend to stop, but Batman abruptly sticks his nose in the dirt about halfway through your run and refuses to move.

“Dude.” You backtrack and see that he’s discovered a couple pairs of dog prints, pressed faintly into the damp earth. “Oh, you smell friends, huh?” He tugs you forward, following the scent of these other dogs. “Hey!”

The thing about having a massive German shepherd mix, even one as docile as Batman, is that he is inarguably a lot stronger than you. So you don’t really have much of a choice but to stumble along after him as he bounds across the grass and comes out on the other side of the path—you don’t normally come this way, because there’s a dog park over here and he gets way too excited.

But today he’s on a mission, and you only see two other dogs in the fenced-in park—two huge balls of fluff, one white and one black. “Fine,” you say begrudgingly, undoing the gate and letting Batman off his leash. “Go play. But we aren’t staying long.”

He bounds off toward the other dogs while you latch the gate behind you, and then a familiar voice has you spinning around with your eyes wide. “Bat signal wasn’t me,” Fushiguro says, raising both hands in a gesture of innocence. “They did it.” He points at the other dogs, who are now engaged in a butt-sniffing circle with yours.

“Fushiguro!” You grin, making your way over to him. Once the other two dogs have deemed Batman a worthy playmate, they move on to you, sniffing at your palms and circling around you until the black one jumps up and nearly knocks you over with the force of it. “Oh, hello!”

“Kuro,” Fushiguro chides, rushing forward to tug at his collar. “Hey. Down.”

“It’s okay,” you promise through a fit of giggles as Kuro tries to basically hug you. “Oh, you’re cute, aren’t you? Hi, Kuro.”

Fushiguro huffs out a breath of relief when Kuro finally gets down. “That’s Shiro,” he says, gesturing to the white dog, who is now chasing Batman around the park. “Think she’s found a friend.”

“He dragged me all the way here,” you tell Fushiguro. “Guess he missed you or something.”

“Just him?”

You grin. “What, you think I was out here pining after you?” He only smirks in response. “I don’t even know your name, M. Fushiguro. What good is a business card without your first name on it?”

He hums, shoving his hands into his pockets, considering. “Guess.”

“Guess,” you echo. “Okay. Um. Michael.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Max.”

“Nope.”

“Um, Maverick.”

“What the hell?” He looks at you with furrowed brows. “Who in their right mind would name their kid—”

“Okay, hey,” you interrupt, holding up your hands. “I just watched Top Gun, okay? What do you want from me?”

“M—”

“Nope, out of tries for today. Three strikes, you’re out.” He shrugs, wholly unaffected, like this is just how the world works and he’s got no say it in whatsoever.

You gape at him, planting your hands on your hips in affront. “I hope you know I will be insufferable every single day until I’m right.”

Batman trots back over, prancing between you and Fushiguro until he crouches down to pet him. “You come here a lot?” you ask, glancing around the empty park. “I’ve never seen you here. Or your dogs. I think I’d remember giant balls of fluff like that.”

“Yeah, not often,” Fushiguro says, pushing back to his feet. “But Kuro’s been so restless all day. Had to let him run his energy down somehow.” The dog in question is chasing his own tail in circles while Shiro looks at him, unimpressed. “You live over here?”

“Few blocks out, yeah.” Your place is between the two campuses, an easy walk to both places because Suko takes Japanese classes at JU. Apparently Fushiguro doesn’t live too far away, either, just on the other side of the skate park where you know your friend Hajime hangs out all the time.

By “hangs out,” you mean he probably (definitely) buys weed there, but that’s not your business. Maybe he and Fushiguro know each other—they both go to JU. But Hajime’s a senior, so probably not.

You don’t get the chance to ask because Fushiguro’s phone rings, and he sighs and answers it with a glance at you that might be apologetic or might be mildly irritated. Hard to tell with him.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he says gruffly. “Okay. See you.” He hangs up and tucks his phone back into his pocket, then whistles for the dogs. “Time to go.”

“Good to see you,” you blurt before he can turn away. He seems a little taken aback, but you don’t break eye contact, and you think he might be on the brink of a smile.

“You too, sidekick.”

—

After that, the two of you start texting more often, gradually moving from photos of your dogs to real conversation. And you keep your promise to be insufferable about finding out his name. You send him new M-names every day, never seeming to get any closer to the truth. For his part, he refuses to call you anything but Robin, cementing your existence as a superhero sidekick and nothing more.

you: new theory you: the M stands for mr you: monsieur you: m’lord

He dislikes the messages in response, and you send him a teary-eyed emoji and hope the guilt is enough to get him to tell you.

It is not.

You and Fushiguro are in some sort of convoluted orbit around one another, sometimes colliding, sometimes drifting away. There’s really no reason you should keep stumbling across him, considering you go to different schools, live in different places, study different things.

But after that first day at the dog park, you might take Batman there a little bit more often.

Every time you talk, Fushiguro starts to take up more and more headspace. You find yourself searching for his flash of ink-dark hair, spiky and disheveled, in every crowd. Every set of fading prints in the grass or mud might be his, might be Shiro’s or Kuro’s. It’s stupid, how much you’re thinking about this boy.

At some point you start dragging your friends out to the coffee shops between your two campuses to do work, rather than the one in the student center. You justify it to yourself with the half-assed excuse that if you run into your friends less, you’ll get more work done, but really you’re just hoping he’ll be there. And your friends are happy to oblige, especially Riko, if it means she’ll get a glimpse of this mystery vet man you don’t shut up about.

Riko’s a year below you at Kaisen, but you know her from back home. She’s a frenetic ball of energy and indignation, and she’s fully prepared to go to every coffee shop in a ten-mile radius for the purposes of what she calls “the mission.”

But the coffee at the second place you try is actually god-tier, and you wind up there regularly after that, hunkering down to grind out your assignments in your spare time. It’s there that he finds you, sliding into the seat right across from yours so abruptly that you nearly fall out of your chair—your noise-canceling headphones really block out the entire world. He smirks as you sheepishly tug them down around your neck, glaring.

“Warn a girl, Jesus!”

“I did,” he drawls, taking a sip of his coffee. “Twice.”

“Boo.” You kind of forgot about your own drink because you were so into your work, and you pick it back up now, mostly for something to do with your hands. “Well, hi. What’re you up to?”

“Same as you, I think.” He nods at your laptop. “Mind if I hang out here?”

“You certainly can, but you’ve just stolen someone’s seat and you might have to fight for your life when she gets back from the bathroom.” His eyes widen almost imperceptibly, and as if on cue, Riko is beelining toward the table from across the room.

“Well hello, Mr. Seat Thief. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Fushiguro seems to be gauging Riko, and you realize this is kind of the first look he’s gotten into your private life outside of your dog, and you’re irrationally nervous about it. But he scoots over and grabs a chair from the next table over, giving Riko a mocking bow in response.

“Better?”

Riko nods, and then grabs his coffee and takes a long drag out of it. He doesn’t object, and that should have been your warning—you can see when the bitterness of it hits her all at once, her face twisting in some combination of shock and despair and mild outrage.

“Oh my god,” you say as Riko grabs her water bottle and chugs to get the taste out of her mouth, aggressively shoving Fushiguro's coffee back toward him. “Of course you drink coffee black, you fucking loser.”

“What, you dump six cups of sugar in yours? That’s not coffee.” You flip him off instead of justifying this with a real response.

“I was gonna use that as payment for your crimes,” Riko gasps dramatically, leaning over the table, “but I was instead punished. You’re in my debt now.” She glares at him fiercely, turning up her nose, before abruptly abandoning the bit and grinning at him. “I’m Riko, by the way.”

He snorts, but a very small hint of a smile appears in a corner of his mouth. “Fushiguro.”

Riko nods and glances from him to you, as if to say really? This guy? You can already hear the analysis she’ll be giving you on the way home. Easy on the eyes, I get it, but does he like, have a personality?

“I did research,” you tell Fushiguro, nudging Riko’s shin under the table in warning. “On you.”

“You stalked me online, is what you’re saying.” You’re learning that he’s not a very expressive person. He treats laughs and smiles like rare currency, and everything you need to know about what he’s thinking is in the tiniest shifts—a downturned brow, a blink, a tilt of the head. You’re still learning, but you like to think you’ve got it down enough to know that this doesn’t actually bother him, despite the resting angry face.

“Yes,” you say, shameless. “Except when I typed in Fushiguro and your school, I got all these results for the editor of your campus paper. You have a sister?”

If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. “Tsumiki, yeah.”

He doesn’t offer more, so you push. “Older?” You already know the answer, but best let him believe the depth of your internet stalking is shallower than it really was.

“Two years. She’s a senior.”

“Cool. I don’t know a ton of siblings that go to the same school.”

“You’d be surprised,” he sighs. “My cousin and her twin sister both go there, too. And one my roommates’ half-brothers.”

“Convenient, I guess,” you concede. “Sibling discount or something?”

“Nah, but it was easier this way,” he says, pulling a textbook out of his bag. “Go—uh, our legal guardian works around here anyway.”

Riko raises a brow but doesn’t ask, which is a remarkable show of restraint for her.

Legal guardian. Parents aren’t in the picture, then. You want to ask but you don’t, not yet.

The three of you buckle down and get some work done, casually exchanging conversation over the next few hours, and eventually Fushiguro has to head out. “Rehearsal,” he says.

“Rehearsal?” Riko asks, glancing at you as if you know what he’s talking about. You don’t, but you have some absolutely ridiculous mental image of Fushiguro in choir and you almost laugh out loud.

But he just says, as if it’s nothing at all, “Oh, yeah, I’m in a band.”

“What?” you nearly shout, jumping out of your chair so fast it pushes across the floor with a scrrcck. “You’re in a band? You didn’t think to tell me this before? What’s it called? Can I listen—”

“Nope.”

“But—”

“Nice to meet you, Riko,” he says loudly, cutting you off as he slings his bag over one shoulder. He mock-salutes you, two fingers to his brow as he turns to go. “Robin.”

You sink back into your seat and watch him leave, only turning back to Riko when the door swings closed. She opens her mouth and you hold out a hand. “Don’t start.”

—

At some point you start calling, letting yourself fill the silence of your little townhouse with idle chatter as he listens. He’s not one for small talk, you learn, and he’s a good listener. And he pays attention. He remembers the stupid little details you give him, the names of classmates and professors you can’t stand.

“Katie from Ohio?” he asks when you’re ranting one day about the partner you’ve been assigned in enviro. “We don’t like her, correct?” We.

“We do not.” Katie from Ohio does not pull her weight in group projects, and it’s driving you up the wall.

“You tell your prof about it? Isn’t this your favorite one?”

“Yeah, he is,” you groan. Haibara teaches your conservation bio class, and he also taught ecology your freshman year, and he’s the best teacher you’ve ever had. “But no. I don’t want to bother him about it. It’s whatever.”

He hums, unimpressed. “Is it?”

You groan, feeling like you’re getting lectured by your parents. You hate when other people are right. “You want me to talk to him.”

“I’m just saying, if you get a shit grade and it’s Katie’s fault, don’t come crying to me.”

“I will, though,” you say, putting your phone on speaker and setting it on the counter while you pour dog food into Batman’s bowl. “It’ll be super dramatic. I’ll sob in your arms and everything.”

He snorts. “Talk to your prof, Robin.” You stick your tongue out like he can see you.

But you do talk to your prof, and Haibara is your favorite for a reason. Katie gets a shit grade. You do not. Fushiguro does, in fact, say “I told you so.”

By mid-September, you still have no idea what Fushiguro’s first name is. You’re at the end of your rope.

you: GOOD MORNING MASON fushiguro (cute vet): no. you: MORT fushiguro (cute vet): no. you: why don’t you want me to know. is it crazy you: melvin fushiguro (cute vet): NO. you: marie you: meghan fushiguro (cute vet): … you: well, that’s it you: i’m calling you maleficent until you tell me you: i’m gonna do it in public too you: so loud

INCOMING CALL: FUSHIGURO (CUTE VET)

You don’t greet each other when you pick up—you never have. Instead, Fushiguro just says, “You could’ve picked like, ten other Disney characters and you went with Maleficent?”

“Don’t hate. You’d rather be Mufasa? Boy’s dead.”

“Oh my god.” Everything Fushiguro says sounds long-suffering. You wonder what it sounds like when he laughs, really laughs, if those walls ever break down and he lets himself actually outwardly express his emotions.

“I can call you Mickey Mouse if you really want—” Batman starts barking from his spot at the window, and you groan, waving your hand at him pointlessly as you try to get him to stop. “Hey! No! There is nothing outside, what are you on about?”

“He probably just thinks you’re barking with him,” Fushiguro says unhelpfully.

“Oh, and yours don’t bark out of turn?”

“Not really.”

Now that you think about it, you actually aren’t sure you’ve ever heard Shiro and Kuro bark aside from excited greetings at the dog park. “What the fuck, dude? Do they teach you the secrets of the trade in vet school?”

“Nah, I’m just a natural.” He says it so deadpan you aren’t sure if he’s joking or actually being cocky.

“Come over and help, then,” you say, before you can think it through. It’s a Saturday night, and clearly neither of you have anything better to do.

You aren’t sure what exactly you’re expecting him to say, but for some reason you’re surprised when he just responds, “Okay.”

“Bring the dogs.” You text him your address, and half an hour later he shows up with the dogs in tow. Meeting him at the door, you see his car parked along the curb. It’s small, black, as unreadable and practical as everything else about him.

“That,” he says, pointing to the long-deceased cactus in the pot on your front stoop, “is dead.” Probably because it’s been there since August and you forgot it was there after one week.

“Yes, thank you, very astute.”

“Isn’t keeping plants alive your whole thing? What are they teaching you?”

“Okay.” You start to close the door, but Shiro bounces forward and noses between it excitedly, and you laugh, opening it to let her and Kuro in. “Be nice,” you warn Fushiguro, letting him step inside. He rolls his eyes as he passes, and Batman nearly knocks him over with how excitedly he leaps up to greet him.

He’s also barking, and you raise a brow at Fushiguro expectantly. “Okay, Dog Whisperer. Do your thing.” You close the door behind him, and in the two seconds that you’re turned away, Batman fucking stops barking.

You whirl around, planting your hands on your hips, and find Fushiguro kneeling in front of your very silent, very happy dog.

“What the fuck.”

He looks up at you with the most smug expression on his face, and you throw up your hands in exasperation.

“Hey, don’t pout about it,” he teases, standing and following you into the living room. “That’s what you wanted.”

“I wanted you to teach me how to make him stop, but apparently you just slipped him treats behind my back.”

“Insult to my talents,” he says, hesitating when Kuro leaps onto your couch. “Are they allowed—”

“Ah, yeah, it’s fine.” Batman follows suit. “Got enough dog hair on that couch to make another couch, probably.”

You suddenly find you don’t really know what to say. Because Fushiguro is here, in your house, on a Saturday, your dog is not barking, and you’re alone. Alone with a guy you are very much attracted to. Suddenly you just don’t know any of the words in the English language.

But Fushiguro seems entirely at ease. He always does, really. There’s a quiet sort of confidence about him, and you aren’t sure if it’s fabricated or not. He just looks like he belongs wherever he is, nonchalant about everything.

“Done any more stalking?” he asks, sitting next to Shiro on the floor. You flush a little, feeling weirdly caught out when you aren’t the one bringing it up.

“No, but I might if you don’t tell me more about this band of yours.”

He shakes his head, absently playing with Shiro’s fur. “Just a crazy idea my housemates had. We just practice in the basement. Probably not very good.”

You opt to sit on Shiro’s other side on the ground, and Batman uses the opportunity to lick you directly in the face, since he’s on the couch and you’re now eye-level. “Thank you,” you tell him dryly, shoving his snout away.

“Don’t get humble now,” you tell Fushiguro. “What do you play? Or do you sing?” You really can’t imagine him singing. Everything about this guy screams quiet bass player.

Apparently you’re right. He won’t tell you the name of his band, and allegedly he doesn’t have any gigs this month, so you let it drop—but only for now. “Cagey,” you accuse him, but you’re smiling.

You talk about your courseloads for the semester—his is pretty bio and anatomy-heavy this semester where yours is mostly ecology and conservation-focused, but there’s a bit of overlap in your curriculum, and you find that it’s easy to make conversation about your respective career paths, even though he won’t stop bringing up the fact that you managed to kill a cactus.

“They’re notoriously hard to kill,” he drawls. “Did you try to?”

“No!” You cross your arms over your chest indignantly. “Mean.”

“Honest and mean aren’t the same thing.”

You don’t really notice the sun going down until the living room is swathed in shadow and you have to flip on the floor lamp. It’s been hours by now, but it’s felt like minutes. Every thing you learn about Fushiguro opens up ten new lines of questioning, and you want to know so much more about him. But he shrouds himself in this mystery you can’t seem to get around.

Eventually you stand up to grab snacks from the kitchen, and when you return you find Batman practically on top of Fushiguro, licking his face while Fushiguro just takes it. Cute, you think uselessly.

Batman. But also Fushiguro. And also just the sight of Fushiguro playing with your dog and looking entirely at home on your shaggy living room floor. Fuck, he’s really cute.

“Have you always had dogs?”

He shakes his head as he sits up and nudges Batman off of him, gaze going just a little distant. “Not ‘til I was a teenager.” There’s more there.

“Your idea? Tsumiki’s?”

He shrugs it off, picking at loose threads on his sleeve that don’t exist, some nervous tic he’s developed that seems to only show up when you try to talk about him. Hence, shroud of mystery.

Like you gathered at the coffee shop, his parents aren’t in the picture—dead or absent, though, you’re not sure. He does tell you a little bit about his legal guardian. His name’s Gojo, and according to Fushiguro he is certifiably insane. He says this enough that you know he means it fondly—if he didn’t, he just wouldn’t bring Gojo up at all.

It shouldn’t be possible to talk so much and learn so little, but the hours keep slipping by and finally neither of you can hide the yawns punctuating your conversation. “I should go,” he says, and you reluctantly lead him to the door, crouching to say bye to Shiro and Kuro before you open the door.

“Drive safe, Fushiguro.”

You don’t expect him to respond, but he pauses halfway down your drive, turning to look at you over his shoulder. The moon is out now, and it casts him and his dark clothes in silver. You suddenly find you can’t look away.

Not that you really want to.

“Megumi,” he says.

“What?”

“My name.” He swallows, looking away quickly before looking back. “You can call me Megumi. If you want.”

Chill. Be chill, you tell yourself, trying to school your features into that same neutral expression Fushiguro—Megumi—always has, but you know it’s not working. You can’t help but smile. You feel, weirdly, like you’ve earned something.

“Okay,” you say, leaning on the doorjamb. “Megumi.”

Megumi.

You do one last little bit of internet stalking that night, because you just want to know.

His name means blessing.

—

Everything about Megumi’s house speaks to the collision of three wildly different college-aged boys tempered by the saving grace of one girl.

Remotes for a range of gaming consoles are sprawled across the floor, there are way too many half-empty bags of Doritos, and you’re pretty sure there’s just a single half of a drumstick stuck between two of the couch cushions. But there are also nice, dark tapestries pinned to the walls, string lights bordering the room, a couple plants that are better-kept than any of yours have been.

You know very little about Megumi’s three housemates except that one is a golden retriever in human form, one is a skater boy, and one is a senior named Kirara who somehow keeps them all in check.

“Sorry for the mess,” he says, gesturing at the controllers and chip bags that honestly don’t constitute a mess in your book. Not after all the boys’ dorms you’ve seen, including Hajime’s.

“I like it,” you say honestly. “Also, it smells good in here. I’m proud. Kirara?”

“Kirara.” He nods and leads you to the couch, where you confirm that yes, that’s a broken drumstick.

“I don’t even—Jesus,” Megumi says, pulling it out of the gap between the cushions and tossing it onto the low coffee table. “He breaks more of these than I think is normal.”

“He being skater boy or golden retriever?” you ask as you tug your legs onto the couch to sit cross-legged, facing him. You dragged Batman with you—Megumi said his dogs would appreciate the company—and he’s taken it upon himself to sniff every corner of the house before deeming it suitable for playtime.

“Golden retriever. His name’s Yuji. Skater boy is Ino.” None of his housemates are here—it’s a random Thursday afternoon and the two of you happened to not have classes after two thirty.

“How’d you meet them?”

“Kirara went to my high school, so I knew her before coming here. I knew Ino too, actually. Yuji—I don’t know that anyone really meets him so much as gets forcibly adopted by him?” He somehow manages to make his scoff sound affectionate. “Him and our friend Kugisaki. They’re crazy, but we were all in the same orientation group freshman year.”

“Your friends sound fun.” You like the idea of two outgoing freshmen just deciding Megumi had to be their friend. “How’d you know Ino?”

He tugs at the sleeve of his black henley, picking at a nonexistent string. There’s a bit of a pause before he says, “His—I don’t know, his mentor? Nanami, he knows Gojo. So he was around sometimes.”

You don’t really know what to ask, simply because there’s so much to ask. It doesn’t take a detective to know there’s a lot to unpack in Megumi’s past. “How long have you been…” What’s the proper term for this? “Has Gojo been around, like… since you were a kid, or...?”

Despite your attempt to catch his gaze, Megumi’s eyes are trained on the far wall. “Kind of. Yeah.”

When he doesn’t elaborate, you fight to keep your lips sealed, to not push. You don’t have a right to his past. He can tell you if he wants to. But you’ve always been impatient.

And it’s starting to become a pattern, this strange caginess about his own life. His family, his friends. Every so often he lets something slip, and then it’s like you can see the doors in his mind slam shut—six deadbolts holding you out.

You know a little bit about Gojo, but that’s where the information stops. You drop hints that you want to meet Tsumiki, and whether he’s protective or just too oblivious to pick up on them, you can’t tell.

Maybe, then, the issue is that you haven’t given him much either. He’s met your dog and Riko, but maybe you need to offer him more of yourself before he’s comfortable reciprocating.

So you do. You tell him about your family, sitting on his couch with Shiro at his feet and Batman between you, Kuro unable to sit still. He listens while you talk, unsettlingly attentive eyes intent on you. You live about a half-hour drive away from your parents' place, you tell him, though you don’t go home often.

“It’s not that I don’t like my family,” you sigh, leaning back into the couch cushions and stroking Batman’s fur. “It’s more just that they’re never there, always on business, wrapped up in their own shit. So there’s just… no reason for me to stick around, except a couple times a year on holidays.” You shrug. “At least here it’s not an empty house. Or it’s not usually. When my roommate’s not in fucking Japan.”

“At least Japan’s cool,” he says, shrugging.

You sit up, leaning toward him. “You’ve been?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, once. Gojo said Tsumiki and I weren’t allowed to hit sixteen without having been on a stupid-long flight somewhere. Which sounds insane, but that’s pretty standard Gojo logic for you, I guess.”

“That’s so cool,” you sigh, part of you wishing you could be on a stupid-long flight right now. On the way to somewhere warm, preferably. Fall is starting to give way to an early winter, and you’re not looking forward to running Batman in the cold.

Travel, at least, seems to be a safe topic, and the two of you trade stories about road trips and flights and different cities. You challenge Megumi to Mario Kart at some point and immediately regret it, because why is he so good?

After he thoroughly kicks your ass, you sink back into conversation, walk the dogs, and eventually part ways so you can get some work done.

megumi (cute vet): you know when somebody says they’ll text you when they get home megumi (cute vet): and they don’t? you: SHIT SORRY megumi (cute vet): you’re not dead. you: NOPE you: sorry i got back and then batman knocked over a lamp megumi (cute vet): you don’t have to cover for his vigilantism, sidekick. i already know.

You do feel bad for forgetting to text him, but part of you is a little warmed by the fact that he was worried. Not that he’d ever admit to being worried about anyone, except maybe a dog.

you: okay fine he was stopping a robbery you: happy? megumi (cute vet): depends on what they were trying to steal

The work on your desk says you should stop texting and buckle down on your assignments, but he starts teasing, and you start feeding into it, and then you’re on the phone again, and by the time you finally hang up it’s too late to reasonably get anything done.

You can’t say you’re particularly upset about it.

—

The semester ramps up quickly, and you’re drowning in work. That’s your excuse when your basil plant by the kitchen sink dies a week after you bring it home—you’re just busy.

Megumi notices, and the next time he’s over a rosemary plant mysteriously appears in its place. He denies any involvement.

When you aren’t with Riko or Hajime, on the phone with Suko, or hanging out with friends from class, you’re with Megumi. His place, your place, the dog park, the coffee shop. It hasn’t reached a point where your friends comment on how much time you spend together (except Riko, who has a loud opinion on everything and does not care if other people don’t want to hear it), but you like the hours you steal during the week just walking around or drinking coffee or trading idle conversation.

You even visit him at work one Sunday when the clinic is slow, watching him handle the few dogs and single cat that come through. He’s easygoing with the clients and has that same calming effect on every animal—like he speaks some secret language, understands them in a way other people don’t. You love watching him like this.

You like this guy. It’s not rocket science—you put him in your contacts as “cute vet” the day you met him. The hard part is that Megumi is too difficult to read. If he has feelings for you, you have no idea. You don’t think he’d go out of his way to spend time with someone he didn’t genuinely like, but whether it’s platonic or not is so fucking over your head.

Until you finally meet one of his friends.

It’s Riko’s doing, really. The two of you are at the coffee shop when she strikes up a conversation with a redhead in line, and it doesn’t take long for her to make the connection, probably because they’re both talking ten miles a minute and not holding anything back.

“Oh my god!” Riko screeches, turning to you after you place your order. “Hey! This is Nobara. She’s friends with Fushiguro.”

She beams at you. “How do you guys know Fushiguro?”

Riko answers for you. “The vet. She has a dog, the clinic was closed, he was there. It was probably super romantic.” You groan.

Nobara’s mouth forms a small O and then she says, “Ah, you must be the sidekick.”

You can’t stifle your laugh. “He even calls me that when he’s talking to other people?”

She laughs, shaking her head. “No, he doesn’t tell anyone anything. Ever. But that’s what you’re in his phone as, and I saw his screen before he could hide it.” She leans in conspiratorially. “He won’t tell us who you are, which means he’s into you, y’know that, right?”

“Um. Is he? I don’t really—”

“Girl,” Nobara says flatly. “He doesn’t talk to people. Yuji and I have to force that guy out of the house half the time. If he’s hanging out with you, it’s because he likes you. Not that he knows that, probably. He’s horrible at feelings. I offered to give him a free therapy session and he said he’d rather become a monk.”

Riko mutters something about how that wouldn’t be too far off from whatever aesthetic he has going on right now, but you’re hung up on something else—Yuji and I.

“Oh my god,” you say, realizing something. “You’re Kugisaki.”

Her entire face lights up and she bounces on the balls of her feet. “He told you about me?” she squeals. “Ooh, he does love me! I’m gonna give him so much shit! What did he say? Was it good?”

The three of you end up talking for half an hour, after you all get your coffee and find an empty table. Nobara talks a mile a minute, but you can’t help hanging on to every word she says—she has a lot to say about Fushiguro, and you feel like you might be learning more about him this way than from the numerous conversations you’ve had with him.

She lives down the street from his place. She knows Gojo, who is apparently exactly the way Megumi described him—loud and eccentric and kind of stupid, but a guy who obviously loves his kids. She and Yuji, true to Megumi’s recollection, basically forced their friendship upon him on the first day of school, and they’ve been a trio ever since.

“He doesn’t tell anyone shit,” Nobara says, echoing her own words from earlier. “I feel like I probably know more about him from Gojo than anything. Or reading his notifications over his shoulder.” She smirks. “But he’s a good guy. I wouldn’t put up with his shit if I didn’t mean that.”

“About—what you said earlier, about him… maybe having feelings for me,” you start.

“Definitely having feelings for you,” she corrects. “Whether he knows or not? Undetermined.”

“Right. Uh.” You don’t get the idea that Nobara is a person you ever want to argue with. “Could you not… mention anything about that? To him?”

She sighs. “Course I won’t. Y’know, the guys always say I can’t keep my nose out of things, but two of my roommates have been in love for years and haven’t done anything and I haven’t said a word. Even though it sucks out part of my soul every time they’re in a room together and they just stare longingly when the other one isn’t looking. They’re so stupid.”

“You and Fushiguro are also stupid,” Riko says helpfully. You glare at her, and she throws her hands up in exasperation. “What? You like him, right? You can’t look me in the eyes and say you don’t like him.”

“He is a good friend,” you say, feeling the burn in your cheeks give you away even before Riko starts cackling.

“I like you,” Nobara tells her, sizing her up. “I might regret saying this, but I think I need you to meet one of my housemates. You could be chaos goblins together. I feel it in my bones.”

Riko rubs her hands together like she’s plotting something, and you think you should probably keep her as far away from said housemate as possible.

Eventually, Nobara pushes to her feet, draining the rest of her coffee and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I gotta go, but I’m so glad I ran into you. I feel like a spy, knowing Fushiguro’s secret girlfriend.” She wiggles her brows at you, and you don’t bother denying it, just burying your head in your hands instead. “You guys should give me your numbers. I can give you Fushiguro intel.”

Riko immediately accepts Nobara’s phone. You wonder how Fushiguro will feel about all this—fond exasperation seems like the default emotion when it comes to his friends. But you give her your number, waving goodbye as she skips out the door, and lean back, thinking as Riko immediately starts to tease you about your boyfriend-not-boyfriend and how at least he has cool friends, even if he doesn’t have a personality.

You just keep looking out the window, trading snarky comments with Riko as it gets dark—earlier now, at the end of September.

“Are you ever gonna tell him?” Riko presses. “I don’t wanna watch you pine for the next six months.”

“We haven’t even known each other that long,” you insist, tracing patterns aimlessly on the tabletop. “And I don’t… I don’t know. I kind of want him to be the one to say something. Because if Nobara’s wrong and he isn’t actually into me, I could fuck everything up—”

“Isn’t actually into you?” Riko exclaims. “Oh. My god.” She waves a hand in front of your eyes. “Can you see? Do you need to get your vision checked? Do you—”

“Okay!” you laugh, swatting her hands away. “Message received, Jesus. Chaos goblin was right.”

“I wear that as a badge of honor,” Riko says solemnly.

Yeah. She can never meet Nobara’s housemate.

—

It’s a Wednesday, and you and Megumi are walking back to your place from the dog park. His car’s at your house, and the dogs have just had a very high-energy playdate that hopefully knocks them out for the night. The air is chilly and the sky dimming, and everything about it feels immaculately fall.

That’s where your conversation has ended up—the upcoming fall break, which is really just a Friday where neither of your campuses have classes. A three-day weekend really shouldn’t be called a break, you think. It’s misleading.

“You’re not going home?” he asks, and you sigh, shaking your head.

“Parents won’t be home. Not really much of a point.”

“We could—” He clears his throat. “We can hang out that weekend if you want. If you need the company.”

“You’re not going home either?” You glance over at him, a little puzzled. “Like—to Gojo’s?” His lips become a thin, tight line, and you wonder if you’ve somehow crossed some invisible boundary. You’re about to tell him he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to, despite being on the brink of insanity because he doesn’t tell you anything, ever.

But then he says, “He’s a bartender. Not around weekends, usually.”

“Ah.” Nobara mentioned that.

You did tell Megumi about running into Nobara in the coffee shop, and he immediately looked like you told him that you hung out with Gojo and saw all his baby pictures.

“She’s nice!” you insisted, and he sighed, raking a hand through his hair.

“She has no filter.”

“She’s fun.”

“She’s Kugisaki.” He shrugged. “Learn anything interesting?”

You told him about your conversation, minus the whole feelings thing, and he agreed that Riko and Toge Inumaki should never, ever meet. “For the good of the entire world,” he said solemnly. “People would die, Robin.”

Now, as the two of you turn onto your street, he glances at you like he’s trying to find something. And maybe it’s how tired you are, maybe it’s the way his eyes look so bright even though they’re so dark, maybe it’s that weird streetlight-night aura that makes everything feel a little bit not real, but you find yourself studying him right back, meeting his gaze without shame.

You want to know him, to be a part of his life in the way he’s become a fixture in yours. You want to meet his housemates. You want to meet his sister, his family. You want him to open the door and stop acting like you’re going to rob him or something the second you get inside. He knows you better than that, right?

He blinks, and you smirk. “I win.”

“Wh—that was not a staring contest.”

“It’s okay,” you tell him sympathetically. “You can’t be good at everything.”

His laugh—his real laugh—isn’t anything like you thought it’d be, but somehow it’s even better. It transforms his whole face, some blink-of-an-eye shift that lights up his eyes and makes everything about him brighter, louder.

You want to make him laugh like that again. As often as you can, really. Always.

“What?” he asks, staring at you, the light lingering in his eyes, some sort of afterimage of his joy.

“I just—I like your laugh.”

He stops, and you realize you’ve reached the end of your driveway. You drop Batman’s leash and let him run around the yard, and Megumi’s dogs follow suit, knowing better than to go far.

“I like your laugh, too,” he says, a crooked smile spreading across his face. And somehow that feels more like a confession than anything he’s ever said to you.

You’re very close.

He’s leaning in and you’re almost subconsciously reaching up to meet him, heels leaving the ground, and he’s still got the slightest curve of a smile lingering on his lips, and—

“Oh!” Shiro jumps on you from the side, tail wagging excitedly.

When you look back up at Megumi, laughter on your lips, his smile is gone, and he’s looking away, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Megumi—”

“That’s my cue,” he says, a forced-sounding chuckle punctuating the sentence. “I should, um. Get back.”

“Oh. Um, right. Yeah. Totally.” You’re kicking yourself now, feeling stupid, foolish. Did you just mess this whole thing up? Was it too soon? Did you read it wrong?

Megumi opens the back door of the car and lets the dogs hop in before circling around to the driver’s seat. “Robin…”

You look at him, trying to squash the hope adamant in your chest. And he looks like he doesn’t know what to say, for a moment, his lips parting and then closing and his eyes darting around before they finally land on you again. “Night,” he says quietly.

“Night, Megumi.” You lift a hand in a half-wave. “See you.”

Batman stares at the street long after the car has disappeared around the corner, and so do you.

“Fuck,” you murmur, and then again, louder, “fuck.”

—

Megumi’s texts over the next week are less frequent and more distant—at least, you think so. Maybe you’re getting too in your own head about it.

From then on, he’s pretty quiet. You wonder if you fucked up. You haven’t talked about it, the kiss. Almost-kiss. Your texts start getting fewer and far between, and in the chaos leading up to midterms you almost don’t notice. Almost.

Lots of almosts, lately.

you: still on for break?

Part of you expects him to go back on his word, say something came up. Especially when he takes a half hour to respond. He’s just busy, you tell yourself. Stop being dramatic.

megumi (cute vet): your place at 5, right?

“Oh,” you say aloud to nobody but Batman, smiling a little. Well, that’s good. You can ask him what’s been on his mind lately. He just seems… preoccupied.

When break rolls around, you spend Friday out with friends and Saturday catching up on schoolwork until Megumi comes over. You’ve hung out so often—you don’t know why you’re nervous.

And it seems contagious. He still shows up at your door and immediately picks up a conversation you left off on the last time you texted him, but he just seems slightly out of reach, somehow. You let it slide for about twenty minutes before you sit him down on the couch and ask.

“Okay. What’s going on with you?”

“What?” You don’t know if he’s playing dumb or just actually doesn’t realize he’s been acting strange.

“You’ve been… look. You’re acting weird. And I feel like we need to talk about whatever happened last week.”

The ensuing silence makes you want to take it back, or say something else, or do anything to create sound in the little bubble of waiting that's formed around the both of you. But you make yourself wait. Give him the space to find words.

“I guess… there is something I wanted to talk to you about,” he says suddenly, flatly, without looking at you. Your mouth slams shut and you find yourself drawing back a little, the remoteness of his voice almost physically distancing.

“Uh,” you say, like the eloquent person you are. “Okay?”

He swallows once, hard, and he looks at you with so much reluctance you almost wish he’d just look away. Your heart is twisting itself into knots.

“I think we should… take a step back.”

“What?” you whisper. “What do you mean?”

He sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “I mean—this is going… do you want a relationship?”

The question feels so abrupt you’re momentarily shocked into silence. But you know where he’s going.

He doesn’t want this. Doesn’t want—you. And it hurts more than you thought it would. It’s not so much a sharp stabbing sensation as a thousand needles worming their way into the crevices of your heart, slow and numerous and deadly.

Because you do want this. You want him.

“Yes,” you admit, quiet.

And he says, “I don’t.”

In general, you want to ask, or with me? But the words stall in your mouth, all blocked up and sticky, and you don’t say anything at all.

“You shouldn’t,” he murmurs, looking down. “Want that. With me, I mean. It’s…”

“It’s what?” you ask, hesitant. Another long, horrible silence.

“It’s never going to work,” he says, detached. Almost cold. “Us. This.” He’s still not looking at you.

“Let me ask you something, then,” you say, hating the unsteadiness of your voice. “Do you want it to?” Do you have feelings for me? You want to know if this is something he’s denying himself or if he really just doesn’t like you.

You know your own intelligence, though. You haven’t made up whatever this feeling is between you.

He doesn’t answer your question. Just murmurs, “You don’t know me.” And somehow it sounds like an accusation.

“You won’t let me!” you burst out, your voice louder than you intended. But all this caginess, this dancing around everything real, it’s got you at the end of your fuse. Shiro looks up and whines, Kuro leaping off the couch to stand in front of the both of you, curious. “I told you everything! I told you about my family and my friends and my classes and my hometown and my car problems and fucking Katie from Ohio, and you don’t say anything, Megumi, you won’t talk about your family, you won’t introduce me to your roommates. You won’t tell me about your band or your childhood, you took weeks just to give me your first name! What—are you just embarrassed of me? Do you think I’ll judge you? Do you not trust me? Is that it?”

“No,” he practically growls. “God, it’s just—you don’t understand—”

“You’re right, I don’t!” you exclaim, throwing your hands up. Batman paws at your leg, wondering why you’re shouting. “So help me understand. I know I’m not patient, but if you have shit you’re not ready to talk about, that’s fine. But just say that. Tell me to wait and I’ll wait. Just—give me something.”

He looks at you and he’s utterly unreadable, doors slammed shut.

“If you don’t want me in your life, just fucking say so,” you spit, but your voice is wavering now, uncomposed and only loud so it doesn’t shatter. If he really said it, said I don’t want you, you don’t know what you would do. It would be too sharp, too painful, too much.

“You don’t want this,” he says instead, averting his gaze. His tone is measured and even and emotionless.

“Don’t tell me what I want,” you seethe, but your words come out quiet. “If you really think I don’t want this, it’s because you won’t let me.” You’re whispering now, worried that if your voice raises any more, it’ll crack the paper-thin walls holding back your tears. “Megumi…”

“S’better this way.” He rubs the heel of his hand over his eyes, a messy movement that seems so at odds with the evenness of his tone. “I… I have to go, Robin.”

And the strange, unstable feelings of betrayal and confusion and hurt morph abruptly back into something hotter, something angrier. Because how dare he come here, spend fall break at your house, listen to you spill your heart onto the carpeted floor? How dare he run away, say he doesn’t want this, and then still call you that stupid, endearing fucking nickname?

“Yeah,” you say icily, glancing away with your arms crossed over your chest. “You do.”

You count to five, silently, before he moves, and you don’t look when he does. You blink tears out of your eyes when Kuro hesitates, nosing at your hip before following Megumi out the door.

It slams, hard, and Batman stays perched at the entry, tracking him as he walks out of your house, your life.

You don’t move for a very long time.

INTERMISSION // A REAL GOOD START

MEGUMI FUSHIGURO IS in deep, deep shit.

That is to say, he’s lost control of the situation, which is the one thing he does not allow to happen. Ever.

He can’t stop thinking about you.

Sleep is hard to come by in the days after he fucks everything up. He keeps thinking about how it could have gone if he’d just—if he’d done anything else. If he hadn’t run off after he almost kissed you, traitorous heart thumping in his chest even while his brain screamed danger!

You became part of his life so fast and so naturally he didn’t know it was too late until the damage had already been done. If he let himself kiss you, he would drown.

But he didn’t. He shut you down instead, on a Saturday night that could have been different.

He makes excuses when Gojo invites him over Sunday afternoon, going into work early just to avoid him. Even if Megumi’s perfected his poker face, nothing gets past Gojo. It’s like he has some sixth sense for when his pseudo-kids are in emotional turmoil. He’ll force Megumi into a talk therapy session (run by the most unqualified bartender of all time) and he’ll die of embarrassment on the couch.

So instead of talking to someone, anyone, he throws himself into his work, into rehearsals, into school. He goes to the clinic early and leaves late. His fingers are sore from plucking the same lines out on his bass until his housemates go to sleep. His eyes are dry from staring at his laptop until three in the morning. But it doesn’t matter what he does. He can’t. Stop. Thinking. About. You.

The thing about being in a band with all of his housemates is that there’s really no world in which they don’t notice something’s off. They’re spending even more time together lately than usual with the Battle of the Bands going on, and his only relief is that none of them say anything—at least not aloud. There are a number of raised brows and the occasional questioning shoulder nudge, but it seems Yuji, Ino, and Kirara know him well enough by now not to push. That, at least, he’s grateful for.

Nobara Kugisaki is a different story.

It’s a Monday when she storms into his living room—she didn’t even bother knocking on the front door. Shiro and Kuro run happily around her legs, and normally she’d be fawning over them, but today she looks furious. He can almost see smoke coming right out of her ears, eyes narrowed to dark slits as she stares him down.

“Fushiguro.”

“You,” he points out, “do not live here.”

“And you,” she seethes, “have one minute to explain to me what the fuck you did.” Before he can say anything, she waves her phone around in the air and says, “Hi, Nobara, I was just wondering if Fushiguro seems okay to you? Things kind of fell off and I would feel weird reaching out but I’m just a little worried.”

She’s quoting you.

Texts from you.

Shit.

Megumi knows that you and Kugisaki have met, but for some reason it just did not cross his mind that you might have exchanged contact information.

Control the situation.

He clears his throat, refusing to break eye contact. “Well, she said it,” he huffs, his usual toneless expression. “Things fell off.”

You still wanted to check on him. He treated you like that and you still…

“You broke up with her.”

“We weren’t together—”

“You broke up with her. Are you a fucking moron? This girl—” She jabs her finger into her phone screen so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t hurt— “is so fucking cool. And she puts up with you. And you like her. And now you’re acting all weird. So what, you go over there and tell her you can’t be together? What the fuck, dude? Why?”

What a loaded question that is.

“Because,” he grits out. “It wouldn’t have worked.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Kugisaki repeats flatly, walking over to the couch and making herself at home way too close to him, staring him down. He turns his head away. God, she is so persistent. She is so annoying.

“Yeah, congrats, your hearing works. Can you leave me alone?”

“Tell me you don’t have feelings for her and I will.”

“I—”

“Look at me and say it,” she snaps.

Megumi looks at her. “I don’t,” he mutters.

Kugisaki rolls her eyes so hard Megumi can’t believe they stay in her skull. “Okay, sure,” she says skeptically. He doesn’t like this tone, where it’s going. “So if I set her up with Toge, you wouldn’t mind?”

“I—” He clamps his mouth shut, hands curled into fists. “Kugisaki, that’s not—”

“That’s what I thought.” Normally she’d look smug, victorious after pulling one over on him, but this is worse. She just looks… concerned. He hates it.

“Look,” she sighs. “You’re not going to talk to me, so I’m not going to waste my time. But when you figure this out—and you will figure it out, or I might kill somebody, and it will be you—I’ll be all ears.” Her gaze might as well be pinning him to the wall with how fierce it is. Sometimes he lets himself forget how much of a force Kugisaki can be, and right now, she’s got that glint in her eyes that he hates, the one that makes him feel like she knows something he doesn’t. “Understood?”

“If I say understood, will you get out of my house?” he grumbles. She says nothing, just looking at him, and he thinks maybe she could win a staring contest with a fish. For a long, tense minute, he doesn’t say anything, and neither does she.

Whatever. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’ll forget about it eventually.

He sighs, tipping his head back against the wall.

“Understood.”

—

Things seem to happen around Megumi, to him, not because of him. The last conscious decision he made was to end things with you, and now he’s just a passive witness to his own life. Ino has something going on with Nobara’s housemate, Yuji’s scrambling to pass his midterms, Kirara bounces between their house and Hakari’s place faster than he can keep track of, and Megumi… he just exists in the periphery, goes through the motions.

He keeps finding his thumb hovering over your contact name. A dog with a silly name comes into the clinic and he wants to text you about it. He hears a song that reminds him of you (every song reminds him of you) and he wants to play it for you.

He wonders if Riko has him on a hit list yet.

A voice in the back of his head that sounds an awful lot like Kugisaki keeps repeating, Why?

Why did he end things? Why did he bite the bullet so fucking hard?

Because you deserve better than him, honestly.

You don’t know me, he told you. What he didn’t say, though—because you wouldn’t want me if you did.

Part of him knows that’s probably unfair to you—your words keep playing back in his mind and not even his music can drown them out. You won’t let me! But there are things he can’t imagine saying out loud. Explaining the way his dad disappeared, not even showing his face again when his mom died—eighteen-year-old Gojo from across the street on their doorstep, promising he and Tsumiki wouldn’t go into foster care. Bloody knuckles from fighting middle school bullies. Gojo and Geto trying to raise a bunch of kids when they were still kids themselves.

Gojo didn’t leave, but he should have. Megumi knows he threw away so much of his life for him, for Tsumiki. He could have done so much more. He could have done anything he wanted. But Megumi held him back.

Maybe he’s holding him back even now. He knows Gojo would deny it.

The point is, Megumi has shit to figure out for himself, and you shouldn’t have to sit by and watch him deal with it. That’s not fair to you. Yeah, he went about it wrong, but—but this is for the best. You can find someone who actually gives you everything you deserve, and he can… whatever.

Megumi’s band, Shibuya Incident, doesn’t perform this Friday at The Fix—Shoko and Geto’s bar. They’ve already made finals. Tonight will just decide who their opponents are. But even if he’s not up there playing, the Battle of the Bands is a welcome distraction. Even if Ino’s just making lovesick puppy eyes at the stage the whole time and Yuji won’t shut up about wanting Taco Bell. Megumi lets himself get a little lost in the music, and Kugisaki’s band is good, really. He votes for them as soon as the digital form opens and then vows to never tell her.

They should win, but Black Flash takes it again. Kasumi Miwa and Maki’s sister and their friends. They won the whole thing last year. Great, Megumi thinks.

The night comes and goes, and he dodges Gojo on his way out of the bar despite knowing he’ll get a text about it later. And then they’re all piled into Yuji’s car on the way to get his beloved Taco Bell, and he’s just about convinced he’s done with feeling anything at all when Kirara screams.

For a second, there’s nothing at all.

And then the world comes back to life around him in a shock of colors and sounds and a lot of cuss words, mostly coming out of his own mouth.

“Holy shit!” Yuji shouts, yanking the wheel hard to the right, and Megumi can barely process the sight of the white car barreling toward them before there’s crunching metal and shattering glass, and it’s like he feels the collision as an aftershock, shaking all his bones back into place. The airbags go off and he’s blind, wind knocked clean from his lungs, and then he’s moving—no, he moves. No more passivity. This is real.

“Everybody out,” he demands, wrenching the passenger door open and taking in the sight of the crash. Smoke is billowing from the hood of Yuji’s car, the vacant passenger side of the other one entirely smashed in. “Everyone okay?”

Yuji circles around the back of the car and Megumi clocks immediately that he’s holding his wrist weird, wrong. “Yuji—”

“Ino, come on—hey. Hey. Ino.”

Kirara’s got one knee on the edge of the backseat and one hand braced on the roof of the car, and Ino is not making any move to get out.

Sirens. Who called the cops?

“Kirara?” Yuji asks, moving to help her, but she holds up a hand and looks back over her shoulder.

“Don’t. I got it. We’re fine. Just—bad memories, I think.”

Megumi knows Ino hates driving. He doesn’t know why, but he can guess. So he doesn’t push it. Kirara’s the psych major, after all. And probably the one with the most emotional intelligence and any semblance of tact. She’s got him.

He’s about to turn to Yuji when somebody stumbles out of the other car. The car that had been driving in the wrong lane,directly toward them. If Yuji hadn’t reacted so quickly, they’d all be dead.

“What the fuck,” he hisses.

It’s his cousin.

“What,” he says, louder, “the fuck? Naoya!” He storms over and grabs Naoya by the front of his shirt—his breath reeks of alcohol, and he’s laughing, like he didn’t just almost commit vehicular manslaughter. “What the hell, man? What’s wrong with you? Are you—”

He hears… screaming?

But not from here. Not in person. It’s…

Megumi looks at the cracked phone on the ground, having been flung straight through Naoya's shattered windshield. He looks at his shitbag cousin, who’s half tipping-over, legs like jelly under him.

“Naoya,” he growls. “Who. Is. That?”

“Hah,” he slurs. “Mm. My ex! My ex. She is… she is.”

He’s not making sense, but Megumi might get back into Yuji’s car and drive it into his cousin on purpose. Naoya was dating this girl—Megumi knows her. She's friends with Yuji. Some brand of art major, he’s pretty sure, and she's nice, way too good for him. And then what, she finally gets away and he still torments her? By drunk calling her from the car, letting her listen as he crashes? The blood in Megumi’s veins might as well be venom.

He shoves Naoya back with a scoff, letting him stumble over himself, and grabs the broken phone off the ground. “Hey,” he says, and she’s still screaming, this poor fucking girl— “Hey! Hey. Calm down. It’s—hello?”

“Naoya? What the fuck, Naoya—”

She’s definitely talking through tears, maybe angry, maybe scared.

“Not Naoya,” Megumi sighs. “Uh, this is Fushiguro.” She’s quieting a little on the other end, and he hears a guy’s voice trying to talk her down. “Listen. Naoya’s fine. Just… drunk. And an asshole. Are you okay?”

After that, the entire night is a blur.

He talks down Naoya’s traumatized ex-girlfriend on the phone, Ino’s girlfriend shows up and calms him down, and then Gojo and Nanami and Shoko are there and Hakari shows up and Gojo’s dragging Megumi to the ER with Yuji to get his wrist checked out and it’s sprained and Tsumiki is running into the waiting room and hugging the life out of him and Maki calls and Naoya’s got a DUI and then finally, finally they’re home. Megumi can barely keep his eyes open. He doesn't know what time it is.

He sleeps harder than he has in months.

—

Megumi is so fucking exhausted that when his phone starts buzzing the next morning at the kitchen table, he doesn’t actually think it’s real for a second.

INCOMING CALL: SIDEKICK

He’s hallucinating. Sleep deprivation, or something. Or maybe he actually got a concussion in that car crash and now he’s seeing things that aren’t real. That’s the only explanation.

That or you butt-dialed.

He doesn’t bother explaining himself to the others as he stands up and retreats to the hallway, almost letting the phone ring out before steeling himself and swiping to accept the call.

“Hey?”

He’s never greeted you like that before. It sounds so fake. He usually picks up the phone and just starts talking about whatever you texted him, or whatever weird thing he saw that he has to tell you about. Not hey. Hey is for people he doesn’t know. Doesn’t care about.

“Um. Hey.” It is stupid, what just the sound of your voice over the phone does to him. “I just saw this article about a car crash? Are you—”

“I’m fine,” he says, too fast, too sharp. Stop it. “Sorry. I’m—yeah. We’re all fine.”

You clear your throat on the other end of the phone. “Okay. That’s—that’s good. I just… wanted to make sure.”

He pushed you out, and you texted Kugisaki to ask if he was alright.

He pushed you out, and you’re calling to make sure he’s okay.

I’m not, he wants to say. I fucked up. I fucked this up.

I miss you.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I… appreciate that.”

Maybe he can still salvage this. Still be friends with you, at least. But that’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? He’ll just hurt you again. But…

“It was my cousin,” he offers, not really knowing why he’s saying it. Maybe as a peace offering. He didn’t tell you things before, important things. Maybe he can start now. “Drunk. On the phone with his ex.”

“Oh,” you say. You sound surprised, but Megumi isn’t sure if you’re more shocked about his words or the fact that he gave them to you. “That’s… awful.”

“Yeah,” Megumi breathes. “Um. Yeah, he’s taken care of now.”

“Good. That’s good.” A dog starts barking, and Megumi feels his lips twitch up into an almost-smile.

“There he goes,” he murmurs. You laugh, and he’s actually smiling, now.

“There he goes,” you say fondly. “I should… go calm him down. I’ll…”

“Yeah, yeah, go,” he says, not sure how to end this. “Um, good… luck.” Stupid. That was so fucking stupid.

“Thanks. Bye, Fushiguro.”

“Bye, Robin,” he says, but the line’s already gone dead.

—

Megumi sees you three times in the month of November, and every time he feels ten times closer to a train wreck.

It snows in November, because it’s stupid and cold and winter comes early here, and there are prints leading toward the dog park. Imprints of dog paws and boots, side by side, and he’s a vet student. He knows what size dog those prints mean. He knows exactly who it is.

He lets Shiro and Kuro tug him all the way to the dog park, and he doesn’t even remember letting himself through the gate. He just knows that you see him right after Kuro starts panting excitedly, and you freeze.

He half-waves in the most pathetic, lame response ever known to mankind.

“Robin,” he says, the nickname falling off his tongue like nothing ever changed.

“Fushiguro.” You smile, hesitant, and he wishes it didn’t feel like a needle that you used his last name. He walks over to you—just following the dogs, he tells himself, that’s natural. Batman almost knocks him over in his excitement.

Megumi can’t not smile at a dog. That would just make him a bad vet, wouldn’t it?

“Hey, bud,” he says, crouching down to pet him. “Yeah, I missed you too.” When he looks back up, your gaze is a little distant, and he closes his eyes for a second, collecting himself. He pushes back to his feet and turns to you.

“Did you know I’d be…” You don’t finish the sentence, but he knows what you mean.

“I… snowprints,” he says, shrugging. It seems to be enough of an answer for you.

“Snowprints,” you echo. “We found you with tracks too, the first time. Didn’t we, Batman?” Like he understands, Batman slaps his tail against the ground and flicks his ears forward and back. Yep. Sure did.

He scrambles for something to say in the silence—small talk is the bane of his existence, but is it ever small talk when it’s you?

Small talk doesn’t matter.

Everything you say matters.

“So. They teach you how to keep plants alive yet?” he asks, and has to fight not to physically cringe after he says it. God, it’s like he never learned how to talk. But you laugh, which he counts as a win.

“No, but someone is significantly less barky, so thank you for that.”

He has you for five minutes before your phone rings, and you chuckle, showing him the screen.

“Ah,” he says. Riko. He doesn’t object when you go, slipping out through the gate with your phone pressed to your ear, because he doesn’t have the right.

But you text first, later.

sidekick: it was good to see you sidekick: and the dogs. obviously

“Look at that,” he mutters to Kuro, whose nose is nearly touching his phone screen. “You’re my good luck charm.”

megumi: you too, sidekick. megumi: and batman. obviously.

The second time, you’re crossing paths in the coffee shop, both of you on your way to other places. It’s brief and stilted and still leaves him feeling like a mess.

“Black?” you ask, nodding at his coffee. You’ve got a hat tugged haphazardly over your head to ward off the persistent snowflakes outside, and it’s—you’re cute. Fuck.

He huffs a laugh, looking down at the sleet-stained floor just to avoid staring at you and your cold-flushed cheeks. “What else?”

“Vanilla latte,” he says, glancing at your cup, because he wants you to know he remembers. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but he thinks you look pleasantly surprised.

The third time, you don’t see him.

He knew you had friends at JU, but he’s never seen you around campus before. You’re with the guy with the blue hair, always pulled up into two knots on the top of his head—Hajime, maybe?

You throw your head back and laugh at something he says, and it’s like—fuck. Laughter shouldn’t sound that poetic.

And he knows he can’t lie to himself anymore.

It’s time to talk.

Kirara would probably kick his ass the second he told her anything. Ino’s busy with his new girlfriend, Yuji’s an idiot, Kugisaki is… well, she’s Kugisaki, and he can’t handle that lecture right now. And he sure as hell isn’t gonna talk to Gojo.

Which means he only has one option.

When he knocks on the door of Tsumiki’s apartment, she takes one look at him and sighs, long-suffering.

“You finally ready to talk?”

This was probably a grave miscalculation. If Kirara would kick his ass for the way he treated you, Tsumiki might actually hang him from his ankles out the window and leave him to die. But not before he apologizes to you. So at least he’s got time.

He walks in without responding and ignores her invitation to sit, pacing the kitchen instead in an uncharacteristic show of nerves. “I fucked up.”

“Yeah, I gathered,” Tsumiki says dryly, but she hops up onto the counter and looks at him, patient as ever. Tell me, she doesn’t say, but Megumi hears it anyway.

“I think I might be in love.”

—

To her credit, Tsumiki is dead silent for the entirety of Megumi’s rambling explanation. He’s a little hoarse by the end of it—honestly, he never talks like this. He feels like he just dumped his heart onto his sister’s kitchen floor and is awaiting some sort of judgement.

“Also, I think she hates me,” he finishes, finally sinking into a chair at the kitchen table. He tilts his head back and stares at the popcorn ceiling. “And I deserve it.”

For a beat, Tsumiki is silent. And then she says, “You wrote a song about her.”

He snaps his gaze to her so aggressively it hurts his neck. “What?”

She rolls her eyes and pulls something up on her phone, sliding up the volume and pressing play. She scrolls to some random point in the song, and Ino’s voice sings, “She’s got me up late starin’ at my phone, waitin’ for a text, feelin’ all alone.”

“Tsumiki—”

She turns it up, and Megumi looks anywhere but at his sister. There are plants everywhere, warm light filtering in through the windows onto herbs on the kitchen windowsill and succulents in the living room and god, everything reminds him of you.

“And she don’t even know what she’s doin’ to me, all my hopes are high-strung and she’s just gonna leave, no!”

“Okay! Okay, stop, I get it,” he huffs, dragging the heel of his palm down his face and trying to ignore her smug smile. “How did you even know?” he mumbles. “I’m not on the credits.”

“I know you,” she says dryly. “I also know Ino, and his lyrics are not that… I don’t know, poetically nihilistic.”

“I really can’t tell if you’re trying to insult or compliment me right now,” he says, sighing.

“Also,” Tsumiki says pointedly, “because this is what you do, Gumi.” He gives her a quizzical look in lieu of a response. “When people get close to you, you lash out and then you run away.” She hops off the counter and crosses the room to the table, pulling out a chair across from Megumi.

“No, I don’t,” he grumbles, tilting his chair away on its back legs and inadvertently proving her point.

She just looks at him until he relents, burying his face in his hands.

“I don’t think it’s unprecedented,” Tsumiki says gently, “considering the way we grew up. But you can’t keep shutting down good things, Gumi. You wouldn’t even be friends with Itadori and Kugisaki if they hadn’t forced their way past your bullshit. And you love them, right? They’re great. You know they’re not gonna hurt you.”

“Nobody knows that,” he huffs. “College will end and we’ll all go our separate ways and I’ll never hear from—”

“Nope,” Tsumiki says loudly, cutting him off. “Okay. My turn to talk. Shut up.” She glares at him, planting her elbows on the table. He feels stripped raw. “The whole pushing-people-away-before-I-get-hurt thing? You need to stop. You cannot look me in the eyes right now and tell me you don’t have people who would die for you, Gumi.”

He opens his mouth to object, but she swipes a hand through the air, silencing him. “I’m not done.” Megumi has only seen his sister like this a few times in his life, and he is fairly certain that if he tries to interrupt her again he might not leave this apartment alive.

“You have me. You have Gojo. You have Geto and Shoko and Nanami. You have all of your housemates, and Kugisaki, and probably all of her housemates too,” she says. “And none of us are going anywhere, okay? No walking out on the kids, no betrayal, no kicking you to the curb. So you need to get your head out of your ass, Megumi.”

Well.

“Look. It’s a defense mechanism. I get that,” she says, a little gentler now. “But you are not doing yourself any favors. And this girl? You’re in love with her, Gumi. That means she’s pretty special, okay? Because I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you look twice at a girl in your whole life. And I know she doesn’t deserve this, just as much as you know. So you have two choices.”

Megumi doesn’t think he’s going to like either of the two choices.

Tsumiki leans back in her chair, shrugging. “You can let her move on without you and keep screwing yourself over, or you can go tell her you fucked up and ask her to forgive you.”

He’s never liked asking for things. Tries to avoid it, actually. But he’s finding there are a lot of rules he’s willing to break when it comes to you.

“But if you’re going to ask this girl to step back into your life, you need to make sure you’re ready for it,” his sister says firmly. “You need to have your shit together. You need to know how you feel.” She pauses, catching his gaze, and once she has it she might as well be holding his face in her hands. He can’t look away, not when she’s looking at him this intently, like she’s waiting for an answer she already knows. “So. How do you feel?”

When he doesn’t answer right away, Tsumiki knocks on the table, like a dismissal. “Okay. You think about that, and when you know—you know.” She looks at him for a long moment after he stands up, those eternal curled locks of hair falling into her face, and he’s suddenly hit with a wave of affection, of gratitude, so strong he can barely stand it. Yeah, so he doesn’t have a mom. And fuck his dad. But Tsumiki—thank god he has his sister.

“Miki,” he says, before he can stop himself. “Uh—thank you. I…” He swallows once, hard. “Love you.”

Her smile is slow but wide, the kind that makes her eyes narrow just a little. “I love you too,” she says softly, and then she winks. “Hey, those words? That’s a real good start.”

—

When Megumi sees you next, he’s going to be ready. Just like Tsumiki said. He needs to know how he feels. So he thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks.

There’s a notebook in the bottom drawer of his desk, scrawled song lyrics he’ll never let anyone see. He fills page after page after page trying to figure out what’s going on in his head, in his heart, how he can make it make sense. Fit together like two hands, two sets of prints in the snow. He tries to imagine what he’ll say to you, how you’ll react, but every word he thinks of falls short, everything just sounds stupid in the face of how much you deserve and how little he can give.

He keeps thinking.

It’s December 19, Kugisaki’s Christmas party before everyone parts ways for break.

Megumi won’t admit it, but he’s having a good time. He brought the dogs, and he and Yuji have been bouncing around talking to their friends. Tsumiki’s here too, and when he loses track of Yuji he makes his way over to her, leaning silently against the wall.

“They’re cute,” she says fondly, and he follows her gaze to the hall—Ino is standing there with his girlfriend, Skipper, and there’s mistletoe hanging right above them. No doubt Kugisaki’s doing. Skipper laughs and pecks Ino on the lips before he says something and drags her down the hall, and then Maki and Yuta glance up at the mistletoe, look at each other in mutual horror, and pointedly do not walk beneath it. They’re finally together, but they wouldn’t be caught dead kissing in front of other people.

And he wonders what you’d do, if you were here standing under it with him.

He doesn’t have to say anything. Tsumiki reads him like a book.

It’s like this:

Megumi is very well-acquainted with loss. But he’s not sure he can handle this one.

He let his own insecurities ruin a good thing, a bright thing. He shut it down before it could start. He struck first and he fucking regrets it.

That’s it, then. Pity party over. Delusions down the drain. It’s time to get over himself, to get real.

Because the truth of it is that he doesn’t give a shit about his birthday, about Christmas, about the trees and the lights and the stupid fucking carols, if you’re not there with him.

Oh, he thinks. His sister has the audacity to smirk.

He stays, because this is Kugisaki’s party and despite everything, he does love her. He’s getting better about that, about acknowledging it—he has people who care about him, and he has people he cares about.

But when he heads out just a little bit early, after whispering your name in Kugisaki’s ear, she nearly slaps him for not going sooner.

“Shiro, Kuro,” he calls, heading for the door. “C’mon. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

PART II // TO TRYING

FOR A WEEK after Megumi walks out your front door, you drown in self-pity like the flower you killed in September with too much water.

And then you open your computer and type his name into the search engine with jujutsu university and band. It’s not hard to find—one of the first results is some Instagram advertisement about a Battle of the Bands at JU, from a couple of weeks ago. One of them’s got to be his. You could just ask Nobara, but—it feels weird, somehow. Wrong. Like you’re encroaching on part of his life that he so clearly doesn’t want you to be a part of.

You can’t helping asking her to check on him, though. You just—it’s probably stupid, but you want him to be okay. Not that you think him pseudo-dumping you would tear him up or anything. But there’s a not insignificant part of you that doesn’t believe what he said that day. Part of you that knows a defense mechanism when you see one.

The thing is, you could’ve asked your friends about him. Hajime goes to JU. He might know Megumi, and if not he could’ve found out. But you wanted this for yourself, this mystery of earning his first name and his history and his heart, except you thought you’d gotten two of the three and it turns out he’ll only ever give you one.

You start typing in the bands one by one, figuring eventually one of them has to be his. A search for Black Flash turns up an artist image of a group of people surrounding a grinning girl with bright blue hair. No Megumi, though.

Shibuya Incident, then. You key it into Spotify and rub your eyes when the artist profile comes up, like you’re maybe seeing it wrong. No. It’s him.

There’s a dark-haired girl who must be Kirara leaning on a familiar-looking guy with pink hair, face split open in a smile. Front and center is a brown-eyed boy with a beanie tugged lopsided over his hair. And in the back, standing, looking characteristically bored, is Megumi Fushiguro.

Why are you doing this? You shouldn’t be doing this.

But you’re scrolling before you know it. Most popular songs. They have an EP called Over Duress. And they have a single—released recently, it looks like.

Strike First.

You only allow yourself one second of hesitation before you press play.

“Catch feels real quick,” a voice sings—Ino, must be. “And they go real deep.” You can’t help paying attention the bassline. It’s steady, constant, holding the rest of the band together as Ino sings. The lyrics almost sink into the background until the chorus snags your attention, and you have to go back and replay it.

“I can hear the heartbreak saying, ooh, I’m on my way. So you strike first, strike first ‘cause she’s not gonna stay.”

Oh.

You understand, then, even if his name isn’t listed in the writing credits, even if you have no proof. Megumi wrote this song. You can hear him in the unfamiliar voice of the lead singer. You can feel him in the pattern of the words. It’s his.

He didn’t want you to leave, so he left first. Is that it?

You understand, but it’s not enough. Abruptly, you’re just—you’re angry. What a stupid reason to let something fall apart. You don’t owe him patience. If he’s not ready to commit, that’s not your problem, it’s his. He needs to figure himself out, learn to let people in, and you can’t just sit here and wait for him to do it. It’s not your responsibility.

It’s not.

There’s some sort of grim satisfaction in knowing that there’s nothing else you could have done.

“Forget that,” you mutter, closing out of Spotify and intending to just toss your laptop on the bed. Case closed. Moving on.

But something in your search results catches your eye first.

JU senior issued DUI after crash on 34th and Olson Blvd Friday night

Okay. So. Nothing to do with Megumi, right? Except it’s showing up in your search of his name. You click on the article, heart suddenly pounding.

Jujutsu University Campus Police responded to an emergency call at 11:41 last night after an automobile collision on 34th Street and Olson Boulevard, four blocks from the popular campus live music bar, The Fix.

“No,” you breathe. “What the fuck?” You keep skimming, everything in you loosening up when it says nobody was seriously hurt, but it just—whose car is that, Yuji’s? It’s bright red. Not Megumi’s.

You’re not really thinking when you make the call. It rings for so long, and right as you’re about to give up, he’s there on the other end of the line, and you realize you have no idea what you’re supposed to say.

“Hey?”

“Um. Hey.” You sound more breathless than you should, just sitting here on your bed with your laptop open to a student news publication. You don’t wait for him to ask why the hell you’re calling, barreling on before you lose your nerve. “I just saw this article about a car crash? Are you o—”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly. Defensively. Oh.

Right. This is overstepping, probably. He doesn’t need you checking up on him. You should’ve just texted Nobara. You should’ve just not read the article, actually, shouldn’t have typed his name into your search engine. He probably thinks you’re a creep who put Google alerts on for his name or something. You don’t have any real excuse for how you stumbled across this fucking article.

But then he says, “Sorry. I’m—yeah. We’re all fine.”

Thank god, you think. But you just clear your throat a little and say, “Okay. That’s—that’s good. I just… wanted to make sure.”

The silence is so long you think for a moment that he’s hung up on you. But then, very quietly, he says, “Thank you. I… appreciate that.”

You don’t really know where to go from here. He’s fine. Of course he’s fine. Why the hell did you call him in the first place? It’s not like he’s going to offer you any information. Because he doesn’t tell you anything, which was the whole problem in the first place—

“It was my cousin.”

You blink.

“Drunk. On the phone with his ex.”

“Oh,” you say, more of a surprised noise slipping out before you can bite it down. It’s less shock at the actual words than the fact that he’s giving you something, that he’s offering you this. You scroll down in the article. Naoya Zenin. The senior in the headline who got a DUI. “That’s… awful.”

“Yeah,” Megumi breathes. “Um. Yeah, he’s taken care of now.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Batman chooses this moment to start barking at absolutely nothing out the window. He actually has been a lot better about that recently, but it’s like it’s his mission today to embarrass you on the phone with the guy who dumped-not-dumped you.

“There he goes,” Megumi says lightly, and you laugh a little, because he sounds almost fond when he says it.

“There he goes,” you echo. “I should… go calm him down. I’ll…” What? You’ll what? See you around? No you won’t. Talk to you later? Unlikely.

“Yeah, yeah, go,” he says. “Um, good… luck.” With what? Batman? Life?

“Thanks. Bye, Fushiguro.”

You slam your finger down on the red button before he can reply.

You don’t want to know what he says. Your name, or sidekick, or Robin, or nothing at all.

—

You try to forget about him, but it’s hard.

Every time your phone buzzes with a message from your friends, classmates, family, your heart jumps, foolishly thinking it might be him. You follow Batman to the dog park without making the conscious decision to, and berate yourself when you realize, lead him off in another direction. Your rosemary plant dies and you hear him in your head, teasing you—isn’t the environment your whole career? Better shape up, sidekick.

Riko prepares a half-hour long PowerPoint presentation about all the reasons he didn’t deserve you in the first place. She must’ve told your roommate, too, because Suko calls you in the middle of the night, Japan time, just to check in.

A week into November, it’s dulled a little bit, the hurt. You’re still startled when he shows up at the dog park, but… not unpleasantly so.

“Snowprints,” he says when you ask if he knew you were here. One word, but it means more to you. Snowprints means he knew what he was walking into, and he came anyway. Snowprints means he saw a chance and followed it to you on purpose.

That’s progress, isn’t it?

You see him at the coffee shop and he remembers your order. It shouldn’t mean anything, but it does. Snowprints and a vanilla latte.

He said he didn’t want this, but you just… don’t believe him.

But you’re not waiting for him. If the cute guy from ecology asked you out tomorrow, you’d say yes. This boy isn’t dictating your life while he figures himself out.

You hope he does figure himself out. But you won’t hold on to scraps.

And you do start to forget, a little. The cute guy in your ecology class does not ask you out, but your friends and your studies and your needy dog are enough of a distraction that Megumi isn’t in the front of your mind all the time. The semester is flying by, and you make an effort to keep in touch with Nobara despite everything—she really is fun.

It’s approaching break before you know it, and you’re going home for the holidays soon, though you’ll probably be back before the new year because Setsuko needs a ride. Man, you’re excited to have a roommate again.

Your suitcase is half-packed, poorly folded clothes covering the whole of your bedspread in some futile attempt at organization. Christmas is in six days—well, five, you think idly, glancing at the clock. Half past midnight. You should go to sleep, but your bed is covered in clothes and you need to finish packing for your drive home in two days.

“Hey, no,” you lecture as Batman sniffs at a shirtsleeve dangling over the side of the bed. You can tell he’s considering making the leap and taking a nap on top of all your freshly laundered clothes. “No. Stay down.”

You push to your feet, yawning, and then Batman freezes in place, his ears perking up and forward like he hears something.

“What’s up?” you mutter, and then his head snaps toward the door. “Dude, what? It’s past midnight—”

The doorbell rings.

“The shit,” you mutter, trudging to the front door. Irrationally you wonder if your roommate’s home early, but that’s stupid—she’d have needed a ride from the airport, and she has a key.

You don’t know what you expect when you nudge Batman aside and open the door into the cold night, barely holding him back from the cracked door with your leg.

Oh.

You’re face to face with Megumi Fushiguro, and your heart does a diving, spinning leap into the bottom of your stomach.

His lips are slightly parted like he stopped speaking mid-word, eyes wild with urgency, and you suddenly wonder if he’s in trouble, if something’s really wrong. Snow peppers his dark hair, the porch light bouncing off the white specks and making him look like he’s sparkling.

You can’t find any words. None at all, nothing that can actually articulate the shock and confusion and barely-squashed hope. What is happening?

“Robin,” he says. And then he says your name, your real name, and—it’s like a dam breaks.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry. I—I’ve had some time to think and I really, really messed up and I don’t know how I’m ever going to make it up to you but I have to try to explain, I—it’s me, it was all me, all my fault, you’re amazing and I’m insecure and I let that get in the way of something really fucking good and that was stupid, so stupid, and I like being with you and I like knowing you and I want you to meet my friends and my weird messed-up family and I want you to know me, I want to let you know me, and I’m sorry I didn’t just because I got too in my own head about it, about you. You take up so much headspace it’s insane and I haven’t stopped thinking about you since—since, I don’t know, since I fucking met you, and I—”

The multi-colored Christmas lights strung between the pillars of your front step cast colors and shadows over him as he rambles, his cheeks red from the cold and maybe something else, and you can’t take it, watching him like this, desperate.

“Fushiguro.”

But he’s on a roll now, the words spilling from him like they’ve been building up in the hollow space of his throat for years, and he’s not stopping now. You’re not sure he even hears you over the rapid, panicked lilting of his own confession.

“You should turn around right now, slam the door in my face, I get it, I deserve that, and I don’t have any excuse that matters, but I realized how important you’d become and that scared me more than anything I’d ever felt because that meant I could lose you, you could leave—”

“Fushiguro.”

“And it’s—I fell in love with you months ago,” he breathes. “I’m sorry, and I love you, I’m so in love with you, and I—”

“Megumi.”

He finally stops, panting, every part of him frenzied and undone. His lips are still parted around a word he hasn’t said, freeze frame, the remote in your hands. “Will you just come inside?”

The silent second feels like ages, years, maybe, and you can see the disbelief in his irises, like he’s afraid to trust this, afraid to hope.

“No,” he breathes suddenly, and something comes dangerously close to cracking in your heart. Did he come here, say all this, only to leave you again?

“I—”

“No, because I brought the dogs and they’re sitting in the back of my car right now,” he explains, sheepish. An unbelieving, slightly hysterical laughter bubbles up out of you, warm and surprising and not at all unpleasant.

You grab Megumi by the dark fabric of his coat and yank him toward you, pressing your lips to his cold ones, hand slipping up to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s like your warmth leeches into him limb by limb, slowly unfreezing him both from the cold and the frantic fear that you’d turn him away again, and it’s below freezing but he’s melting beneath your touch, and you missed him so, so much.

You pull back, your breath fogging in the air like an echo. “You idiot,” you tell him. “Go get them, I want to see them.” You cross your arms over your chest, leaning on the doorjamb and finally processing how cold it is out here. It’s like it’s sinking right into your bones. “And then get your ass inside.”

He smiles breathlessly, standing still for a moment, and then it’s like he just snaps into action, like he’s afraid you’ll change your mind if he waits another second. The dogs run up the path before he does, and you let them barrel into you and then have their little reunion with Batman while Megumi catches up.

“Come sit down,” you tell him, shutting the door and closing out the cold air. “And tell me more.”

It’s almost like nothing ever changed.

You talk for hours in the lamp-lit living room, surrounded by three tired dogs and a record spinning in the corner. But this time, Megumi talks more than you’ve ever heard him talk. He tells you everything.

How he pushed you away and justified it to himself by saying you deserved better, when really you deserved the truth. How his dad left and his mom died young and Gojo was barely legal when he took him in. How he had a lot of issues with his self-worth growing up, and even now, and how it took him a very long time to accept that people care about him. How it was Tsumiki's idea to get the dogs, because after their mom died he couldn't stop having nightmares. How he wanted to call you every day and then he finally cracked and he went to Tsumiki and she psychoanalyzed him at the kitchen table and he sorted out all his shit so he could show up here like an absolute nuisance and beg you to give him another chance.

“That’s all I wanted, you know,” you tell him, the both of you on the floor, leaning against Shiro and Kuro as they sleep. Batman’s made himself comfortable on the couch, occasionally using his vantage point to lick you right in the face. “You, being honest. You didn’t have to tell me about your parents, y’know, if you didn’t want to. But just…”

“I know that now,” he murmurs sheepishly. “I’m sorry. Really. But I’m trying to get over the whole self-sabotage thing. Trying to… try. In general. With people.”

And he means it. Because the only time Megumi has ever lied to you was the day he told you he didn’t want this, and you knew even then that it wasn’t true. He might try to be all stoic and poker-faced, but he’s not a very good liar. You smile. “That’s a good start.”

You’re facing each other, knees touching, and you reach out, hand palm-up between you. He glances at you before he makes any move, like he’s asking—are you sure? But then he laces his fingers through yours. His hands are way bigger than yours, fingers folding over your own, warm and encompassing. Something about it feels very right.

“So I was wondering,” he starts, and this new side of him that is so hesitant but also hopeful is maybe the most endearing thing you’ve ever seen. You squeeze his hand a little, and that seems to embolden him enough to ask whatever it is waiting on the tip of his tongue. “Uh, would you… want to meet my housemates?”

—

“They’re crazy,” Megumi says, standing outside his house with you the next day. “I mean it. I don’t know how to prepare you for—”

“Megumi,” you cut him off, laughing. “No disclaimers. I’m friends with Riko, remember?” This actually seems to be an effective argument, because he smiles a little, putting his hand on the door.

“Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”

You are tackled the second you cross the threshold.

“Hi!” someone practically shouts in your ear, full-on bear-hugging you as you stumble back, laughing.

“Oh my god,” Megumi groans. “Itadori—”

“Sorry!” he yelps, pulling back and awkwardly offering a hand like he didn’t just squeeze the living daylights out of you. “I’m Yuji. Kugisaki’s told me all about you and Fushiguro said—”

“Itadori,” he says again. You immediately understand what Megumi meant. This boy is legitimately no different than the two dogs who have come to crowd around your legs. Actually, Shiro and Kuro have greeted you significantly more calmly than Yuji has. It’d be difficult not to like him, you think.

“No, you’re fine,” you laugh him off, using the handshake to pull him back in. “You’re fun. I like you.” Yuji grins victoriously at Megumi and lets you go, and you finally move out of the entryway and into the familiar living space.

“Ino,” you say, pointing at the boy in a beanie, and then shift to the girl crouched in front of the TV, rummaging through a bunch of games. “Kirara.”

The conspiratorial smirk Kirara gives you—along with the way the Wii games are scattered all around her like a personal hurricane—makes you think she might not actually be the long-suffering order in a house full of chaos. More likely, she and Ino and Yuji are only kept in check by Megumi’s neat freak tendencies and blunt nature.

“Hey.” Ino grins. “Okay, I gotta ask, is your dog actually named Batman? Because that’s awesome.”

“She’s been here for two seconds,” Megumi chides, but you nod happily. You are very proud of your dog’s stupid name.

“Well, I approve,” Ino shrugs, patting the space next to him on the couch.

And it feels natural, the way you fall into place with the rest of them. For all Megumi pretends they drive him insane, it��s obvious he loves his friends, and he seems relaxed around them even as you waste away the afternoon chatting and arguing and getting your ass kicked in Mario Kart (specifically by Kirara, whose undefeated record pisses off all the boys but makes you even fonder of her).

By the time night falls, you feel like you’ve been friends with all of them for years. You learn all about the band—Megumi didn’t tell you that they won the Battle of the Bands, which you plan to give him shit for later. They ask you about your school and friends and seem to actually, genuinely want to meet them.

You go home for Christmas, getting your annual few rare days of quality family time, but Megumi sends you photos from Gojo’s with Tsumiki and the dogs. You respond with a picture of Batman in a Santa hat.

megumi: they really want to meet you when you get back. if you want.

A smile splits across your face before you can stop it. Because this is exactly what you wanted—for Megumi to want you to meet his family, to know that part of his life.

“What are you smiling about?” your dad asks from the couch, and your blush must be answer enough, because he turns to your mom with a raised brow and mouths boy. You shove your phone in your pocket. You weren’t prepared for the interrogation, but it’s too late now.

The thing is, if your family had asked you if you were seeing anyone even last week, you’d have nothing to say. And maybe you shouldn’t dump all this information on them when it’s still so fresh, so new.

But something tells you this is going to last. He wants you to meet Tsumiki, to meet Gojo. You won’t keep him from your family if he doesn’t keep you from his. Plus, your parents leave on another trip in two days. You’re not sure when else you’ll get the chance to tell them this in person.

“So,” you say, before they can start grilling you. “His name is Megumi.”

—

There are prints in the snow.

It feels uncannily familiar, walking your usual path with Batman and seeing the two sets of paw prints and accompanying boots. You place your own footsteps in their wake, laughing at how they dwarf your own shoe size.

You aren’t supposed to see Megumi until he picks you up to go to Gojo’s tonight, but it seems fate—or Batman—has other ideas.

You let him drag you all the way to a big, snowy clearing, where you see your boyfriend and Kuro standing in the snow. It takes you a whole five seconds longer to make out Shiro, who basically blends right into the landscape.

The dogs, per usual, see you first, and Megumi turns at their excited noises to see you. He wastes no time setting off across the field toward you, and you grin, meeting him in the middle.

“So is this a coincidence, or is someone following me?” he asks, meeting you at eye-level as you crouch to greet the dogs. Batman basically shoves his nose in Megumi’s face in response.

“Snowprints,” you say, gesturing to the trail behind you. “Seems to be a theme.” Behind the wall of Kuro’s dark fur, you plant your hands in the snow, letting a mischievous smile grow on your lips. “Anyway, I’m glad I ran into you, because—”

You throw a massive snowball right at Megumi’s face.

“Oh,” he says, swiping a gloved hand across his eyes but leaving flakes of white stuck in his brows, on his lashes. “You’ve done it now.”

“Protect me,” you whisper to Kuro, and then you run.

All-out war. The dogs are thrilled at every snowball that misses its mark, all of them leaping to catch the wayward projectiles in the air, and you and Megumi chase each other and trip over the snow and wind up in a big, snow-covered mess on the ground, staring up at a shockingly bright afternoon sky.

You can barely breathe, you’re laughing so hard. “You’re crazy,” you pant, pushing yourself up onto your elbows, then your palms. An absolute mess of snowprints—his, yours, Shiro’s, Kuro’s, Batman’s—cross over each other in the snow, revealing patches of browning grass here and there, showing the signs of your battle. “Aw, hey. It looks like a giant heart.”

“Sap,” Megumi snorts.

“Buzzkill.”

“Instigator.”

“Oh, yeah?” You grab a fistful of snow and put it right on his head, letting it melt into his tousled, snow-streaked hair. “Well, I’ll instigate, then.”

He laughs, shaking his hair out like a dog, and tackles you back into the snow. “Then I’ll instigate something else.”

You’re so cold you can barely feel half your face, but it doesn’t matter. Not when he kisses you like this.

—

The first thing you think when Satoru Gojo opens the door is damn, he’s tall.

The second is holy shit, those are the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

“Gumi!” he shouts, enveloping him in a very one-sided hug.

The third thing? Yeah, you like him.

“Gojo,” Megumi grumbles, half-heartedly pushing him away, but the fondness of the interaction doesn’t escape you.

“And I’ve heard all about you,” Gojo grins, pulling you into a hug as well—you don’t hesitate to hug him back, because now you know exactly what this man has done for Megumi and Tsumiki. And he’s important to Megumi, so he’s important to you.

Megumi telling you about his childhood and Gojo was one thing, but him actually wanting you to meet his family is another. You feel warm all over as Gojo ushers you into the apartment, where Tsumiki is already busy making dinner. She nearly drops the pan in her hands at the sight of you. “Hi!”

“You all hug so much,” Megumi says flatly when she hugs you too, and she just grins and forces him into an embrace as well.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

“Shut up.”

“Love you too.”

“So,” Tsumiki says, turning back to the stove and insisting you sit down and make yourself at home when you offer to help. “Tell me about you.” Instead, she enlists Megumi to be her kitchen assistant, and you aren’t sure why it’s so surprising that he knows how to cook, but it is.

The four of you talk about school and the dogs (who are at home with Suko, now that she’s finally back from Japan) and your families and friends, and you can see Megumi growing more comfortable as the night goes on, once he’s sure that Gojo isn’t about to whip out a bunch of embarrassing pictures of him as a kid or tell you all his darkest secrets. Tsumiki is sweet and you take a liking to her immediately, talking all about her job running the campus paper. Gojo tells you about the bar he works at, about his college friends who founded it.

“Do you have to work tomorrow, then?” you ask between bites of the best meatballs you’ve ever had.

Gojo shrugs. “Yeah. But if I wasn’t, I’d be hanging out with all the same people I work with, anyway. Not so bad, huh?”

“We’re actually probably going to swing by the bar tomorrow,” Megumi says, avoiding Gojo’s gaze in favor of looking at you. Gojo lights up. It’s endearing, how excited he is at the prospect of seeing all of Megumi’s friends. “You coming?” Megumi asks Tsumiki.

“To the bar or the house party?”

“Both,” Megumi shrugs.

“Only if you are,” she says not to Megumi but to you, teasingly.

“Yeah, I gotta meet the rest of his friends. All of Nobara’s housemates.”

“Oh, I love them!” Tsumiki says. “Mm, you’ll get along with Yuta. I mean, everyone does. Oh god, and Toge. And S—yeah, okay, all of them, actually. Have you met our cousin Maki?”

“No, but they all sound great,” you say honestly.

“They are!” Gojo says loudly. “They can give you so much dirt on Megumi.” Megumi glares at him with a complete lack of heat.

“You and my friend Riko would get along,” you say, but as soon as you say it you’re not sure it’s true. Either they would immediately gang up on Megumi and make his life a living hell, or Riko would have the same dynamic with Gojo and they would argue until somebody threw a punch.

Megumi stares at you incredulously. “They can never meet. Ever.”

Except they do, because you bring Riko to the bar the following night. You feel like this might have been a dire miscalculation, because not only does this mean she’s meeting Gojo, but it means she’s meeting Nobara’s housemate who, in her words, is a kindred “chaos goblin.” This means that they’re both comm majors with too much time on their hands and they make it everyone else’s problem.

Toge Inumaki is the very possibly the only person you’ve ever met who can match Riko in terms of sheer chaos. It is terrifying. They’ve known each other for a grand total of five minutes before they’re planning a full-on bracketed Just Dance tournament with Rasputin as the final battle.

“You’re insane,” you tell Riko fondly, and she grins at you.

“I think we’re brushing over the fact that you think Rasputin is the hardest one on there,” Gojo says, leaning over the bar incredulously.

“What, you think your old man knees can handle it?” Riko asks shamelessly, and you excuse yourself as they launch into bickering worthy of siblings.

But nothing explodes, and you meet Shoko and Geto and Utahime and Nanami, and all of Nobara’s housemates, including Megumi’s cousin. She’s very no-nonsense in a way that you appreciate, and after you shit-talk Naoya with her, you feel like you’re probably going to be very good friends.

It’s well past eleven by the time you all get back to Megumi’s place, leaving Gojo to ring in the new year with his own friends. Someone puts the ball drop on the TV in the living room and you all scatter across the space, a swell of conversation and laughter as midnight inches closer.

It’s like this:

A living room full of your friends and his, laughing and smiling and teasing and playing Just Dance really aggressively (but that’s just Toge and Riko, really). Megumi’s knee pressed against yours as Tsumiki forces him to smile for a picture with you. Nobara throwing her arms around you, insisting you settle a debate between her and Yuta about the superior shape of pasta noodle. Sneaking off to Megumi’s room while Yuji is distracted, stealing kisses in the dark. Listening to his whispered commentary in your ear as the drinks and sleep deprivation start hitting Toge and Yuta and they get existential on the floor. Suko telling everyone all about Japan and the occult club she started at her university there. Yuji being way too into the idea of starting one between JU and Kaisen, launching animatedly into a discussion of all his favorite conspiracy theories.

Five minutes to midnight, Kirara pops open a bottle of champagne and passes you a glass, and you wave it in front of Megumi teasingly.

“What, you wanna toast to something?” he teases, leaning in toward you. “You gonna say to us? That’s pretty Hallmark movie of you.”

You hum, swirling the glass, lifting your gaze to meet his. “To trying,” you say. “And also vigilantism?”

And there’s his laugh, better than the ball drop, the streamers, the disco ball that came from god knows where in the corner. “I can get behind that,” he says, clinking his glass against yours. “To your superhero dog,” he says, leaning in closer. “And his pretty cool sidekick.” He kisses you as the countdown hits one, and you’re laughing against his lips, savoring the warmth of his hand on the back of your neck.

When he pulls away, it’s only by centimeters, just enough for him to lock eyes with you. “And,” he breathes against your lips, “to trying.”

directory // my masterlist | out of my mind !

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a/n: sorry this took like twenty years and it's SO LONG. heh. i'm incapable of short-form content. it was fun to write though. let me know what you thought, and be sure to pop over to out of my mind (and, if you're curious about naoya's ex, greta's sukuna spinoff, if you are NOT a minor)! thanks loves :)

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