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evilmenenjoyer · 1 month ago

Text

Gratitude

Pairing: The Salesman x fem!Reader

SEQUEL to City of Love. Probably not a good fic to read as a stand-alone; read City of Love first for context.

Word count: 5.5k

Warnings: smut (minors dni), dubious consent, rough sex after a fight, degradation, dom/sub dynamics, bruising, marking, pain play/sadomasochism, mirror sex, manhandling, hurt/comfort (but mostly hurt), lots of angst.

Tags: @apookalypse @thecutiepieishere / I do not have an official taglist yet, but I'd be willing to make one if people were interested. If you'd like to be tagged in my fics, or in any additions to this story, let me know somehow!

–––

It's three days later when you see him again, just when you were convinced he left Paris for good.

You knew it would take a lot longer for the reminders of him to leave your mind as well as your body. He's in the marks his hands left on your hips, in the scrapes and faint bruises along your back from when he tossed and squeezed you against the brick wall, in the ghost of his lips on your skin. You can still feel them every time you close your eyes, hear his voice whisper your name against your neck as he came.

It shouldn't surprise you, after everything, to have him knock on your door right as you’re getting ready to have a night out. It still nearly takes your breath away to see him, looking as impeccable as usual in his dark gray suit, smiling as if his mere presence doesn't rock your world upside down a third time.

“What part of ‘don’t ever contact me again’ did you not understand?” you ask, though right away you can tell you don't sound nearly as firm and assertive as you’d like. You wonder if he can tell you hoped, against every rational thought in your brain, that he would come back.

Judging by his smile, you’d bet he can.

“I couldn't help myself,” he responds, raising his hands slightly in mock surrender. “Can I come in?”

That part of you that still clings to rationality, that can tell a good idea apart from a horrible one, lights up like a loud siren in your brain. There's nothing good that could possibly come out of this. Hasn't he toyed with you enough already? With his weird twisted games, tracking you down all the way to a foreign country, sending you off to those horrific games?

Still, you find yourself stepping aside, leaving a gap for him to come through. You’ve never been good at controlling your impulses, after all.

The apartment you’ve been renting for the time being stands in the heart of Paris. It looks exactly what you pictured a typical, glamorous Parisian apartment to look like – high walls, hardwood floors, large arched windows with a stunning view of the city and the Eiffel Tower. It's furnished with all the essentials, and nothing more. You didn't see the need to bring in new furniture or decorations when you didn't even know for how long you’d be staying in the city. At this point, you’re already considering moving on to somewhere else.

“Make yourself at home,” you say. “But I’m going out soon.”

“I see that.” His eyes run over you as he sits at the arm of the couch, shamelessly lingering on the black dress that hugs all your curves at the right spots. “Where are you going?”

“Out.”

You turn your back to him, looking for the earrings you had put down somewhere when you heard the knock on the door. You feel his body heat approach you from behind, his fingertips brushing against a red spot on your shoulder blade that the spaghetti straps of the dress fail to cover.

“Did I do this to you?”

His voice doesn't sound remorseful or apologetic at all. If only, there's a hint of pride to his tone, a small smile at the corner of his lip that you can tell is there without even looking at him. It should upset you, thinking of how roughly he pushed you against that wall, but it has goosebumps blooming all over your skin around the spot he touches.

“Who else would it be?” Your voice shakes ever so slightly against your will, and you clear your throat to get rid of it.

You expect him to pull back, but instead he inches even closer. He has to lean down to mold his chest to your back, his lips brushing the delicate skin of your neck when he speaks. “I can make it up to you.”

“Oh, really?” You turn your head just enough to chase after his lips. Screw the night out. He lets you capture them, indulging you in only a quick kiss before pulling away.

“I’m serious. I have something for you.”

“Oh.” You frown at the loss of contact, turning to face him. “What is it?”

“Close your eyes.”

Your frown deepens, and he raises his eyebrows at you. “Don't you trust me yet?” he asks.

No. Absolutely not. Still, what's the worst that can happen? What would he do while you have your eyes closed that he can't do right now; that he couldn't have done three nights ago at that bar, when you gave yourself to him so willingly?

You close your eyes, with a small sigh as if letting him know it's a nuisance. There's no real heat to it, and you both know it.

The Salesman’s hands find their way to your arms, guiding you further into the apartment. You follow his lead slowly, careful not to bump into any furniture or clutter you left around the place while picking an outfit and getting ready.

“You didn't have to give me a gift,” you say, still confused about what this is about. He stops walking the two of you, leaving you in an unknown part of the apartment. Your heart beats slightly faster than normal; distrustful, but excited. No man has ever bought you a gift before. Gifts are for girlfriends, for women they're trying to impress. Somehow, in all your years on this Earth, you’d missed out on being that woman to anyone.

“I was feeling romantic,” he explains. You feel something cold land over the exposed skin of your neck and chest, and he fiddles with a clasp at the nape of your neck. “Blame it on Paris. You can open your eyes.”

You do so, finding yourself standing in your bedroom, right in front of the large mirror resting against the wall. The necklace stands out against your skin – thin white gold chain and gemstones shining so bright you can immediately tell they're real, a ruby and a sapphire encrusted by tiny crystals. The color choice is an odd one for a necklace, prompting you to take a closer look. That's when any hints of a smile vanish from your face.

The gemstones are placed beside each other, the shapes and markings in them identical to those of the ddakji tiles you and the Salesman had played together in the subway station.

“I had it custom-made for you,” he says. Standing behind you, his reflection on the mirror takes up almost the entire background, but you don't pay him any mind. Your eyes are all but glued to the red and deep blue stones hanging from your neck, hoping against hope that you had seen it all wrong, that this was just a figment of your imagination and the real necklace will reveal itself if you just look hard enough.

It never does.

Reality hits you then. This isn’t some fun new fling, or the beginning of a Paris romance. This is the man who lured you into a horribly traumatic experience when you were at your most vulnerable, who came all the way from Seoul just to rub in your face that you didn't deserve to make it out of there alive. And now here he is. Prying his way into your apartment, your body, your mind. And you just let him.

Horror floods you, nearly pushing you to your knees right here. You touch the pendant with shaky fingers, and it takes everything in you not to grab the chain and yank it off your neck. Finally, your eyes meet the Salesman’s in the mirror.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He blinks innocently. “You don't like it?”

“Why would you do this?” you ask, unsure of whether you want to burst into tears or slap him in the face.

His fingers join yours where they rest on the necklace, only grazing your skin on their way to touching the pendant. “I thought you'd like a reminder.”

That makes you spring into action, pulling away from him and pushing his hand away with a ferocity you didn't know you still had, not since the Squid Games.

“A reminder? What makes you think I want to remember that shit?” You raise your voice; something to make up for how small you feel, by the way you need to tilt your head to look him in the eye. “If I could erase that night from my memory for the rest of my life, I would.”

“I find that hard to believe. Would you erase our night together at the bar as well?” His eyes leave yours only to look back to the mirror behind you. “Look at you. Wearing those bruises so proudly.”

For a moment all you can do is stare at him, unable to believe the sheer audacity he has to stand in your house and say these things. The worst of it all is you can’t fully deny it – you picked the dress deliberately knowing it left the upper part of your back exposed, happy to catch glimpses of the bruises he left you with if you happened to stumble upon a mirror or reflective surface throughout the night.

“I would,” you insist. “What the fuck makes you think I’d want to remember the night that ruined my life?”

A laugh comes out of him; a short, but cruel sound. “I ruined your life, is that what you're saying?”

You scoff. “Don't act like you don't know you did.”

He steps even closer to you. You refuse to step back, even when it feels like his chest is about to bump into your forehead. “Your life,” he says, “was already shit way before I came around. Debt, an awful job, an even worse home, no future prospects, no friends. What exactly was there about your life that was good enough to be ruined?”

Rage consumes you to hear him talk like that about your old life. Things were bad, yes, but there was a positivity about you that's been lost ever since you stepped foot in those games. You could barely make ends meet, and your shifts were long and exhausting, but you had hopes of going to school, of turning your life around. Your home was a tiny, shitty house in an even shittier neighborhood, but you still took the effort to decorate it and try to make it feel more like a home. Where did that go? Now, you have all the money you could ever wish for, and all you do is spend it on clothes and expensive trips you don't even have the motivation to enjoy, your only goal being getting far away from Seoul.

“At least I felt like a fucking person! Do you even know what that’s like? Feeling human?” you all but yell, grateful for the language barrier in case any neighbors happen to be listening. “I’d never killed anyone. I’d never wanted to kill anyone! I didn't have nightmares, and I didn't wake up every day wondering if I deserve to be alive after everything I did to survive!”

“You had nothing,” he reminds you, his voice cold as the winter outside. “Not even your dignity. Or did you forget how we met? How you asked me to play ddakji with you, willing to get hit in the face repeatedly not for money, but just to have my attention?”

You hold back a sob, shaking your head furiously, but it's of no use. The words sting hard enough to bring tears to your eyes; it stings even more to know they're true.

“Get out of my apartment,” you demand. You wish you'd never let him in. You wish you'd never met him at all.

“Things are different now,” he says, ignoring your order completely. “You’re rich, and you’ve matured. You’ll never struggle again in your life, if you're smart.”

“I said GET THE FUCK OUT!”

Finally at your breaking point, you push him, shoving at his chest as hard as you have the strength to. He barely budges. It's only then that you notice how cornered he’s got you, your back about to bump into the mirror.

He brings his hand towards your face, cupping your chin and forcing you to look higher up at him. You thrash and claw at his wrist, trying to push it away from you, but he only tightens his grip until it's almost painful. There’s a darkness in his eyes that’s unlike any expression you’ve ever seen on him.

“I made you stronger. You're a millionaire now because of me,” he says. “How about a little gratitude?”

Even from your position, you still manage an incredulous scoff at him. “Gratitude?”

“Yes.” A grin stretches the corner of his lips, not a trace of warmth of friendliness behind it. “You should be thankful I pulled you out of your misery.”

He moves faster than you’re ready to, grabbing you by the waist and tossing you down. You brace yourself for the impact of your head hitting the floor, gasping in surprise when your back bounces over the soft mattress instead. He hovers above you, using his heavier body to pin yours down before you even have the chance to start struggling against his grip.

“Get off me!”

“Calm down.” He holds both your wrists together with one hand, while the other manages to somehow pull your panties off your body, using your kicking legs as leverage. Your eyes widen in shock. “I’m just giving you another reminder.”

“W-what?” Your voice wavers with fear. All that fury is slowly but surely being replaced with it, or with a mixture of both feelings that leaves you heaving for breath.

He doesn't have to pull your dress up – your own struggle does it by itself, leaving the fabric rumpled up at your hips and your bottom exposed. You stop kicking him in an attempt to cover yourself, and he takes advantage of that fraction of a second to stick his knee on the spot on the mattress between your legs, stopping you from shutting them. You gasp, the heavy pressure on your core cutting off all your thoughts for a moment. You can think of nothing to do other than to yell for help.

As if reading your thoughts, his free hand covers your mouth.

You voice your displeasure through a muffled grunt. You keep on struggling, trying to kick him off you, but each movement unintentionally rubs your bare clit over his thigh that pins you down. He applies even more pressure and you cry out, mortified to feel heat pooling between your legs.

“Christ, you're wet. I can feel it.”

You can feel it too, the fabric of his pants damp and hot where it connects with you. You're torn on whether to keep fighting and essentially humping his leg or giving up, if only to have a few instants of relief.

“If you scream, I’ll slit your throat,” he warns in a hoarse whisper. “Do you understand?”

Out of options, you nod.

He releases your mouth, then your wrists. It occurs to you to scream anyway, but you force yourself to remember who you're dealing with. He wouldn’t give you empty threats. Anyone involved in bringing people into those games has no qualms about slitting your throat open and leaving you to bleed out on your silk sheets.

The Salesman makes his way down your body, now holding onto your legs with his hands.

“What the fuck are you doing?” you manage to ask, the answer rather obvious but it had all happened so fast, leaving you dazed and confused.

“Giving you yet another reason to be thankful to me.”

The sudden, damp feel of his tongue on your entrance overcomes your senses, and you wouldn't be able to hold back a shout if you tried.

Fortunately, he forgives you for it. You squirm under the sensations, but he holds your hips down against the mattress in a firm grip, immobilizing them completely and prying you open all at once. You hoist yourself up over your elbows only to be met with your own reflection on the mirror across the room, your hair a mess already and your face contorted in fear and pleasure and indignation all at once. You can’t bear to watch yourself like this, mortification entrenched into every muscle of your body that reacts to his touch as he continues to penetrate you with his tongue. You fall back towards the mattress with a broken moan.

“God– Y-you can’t–” Whatever you were about to say dies out in your throat as his lips rise to your clit, enveloping you so expertly in the wet heat of his mouth. You clench your whole body, eyelids all the way down to your toes, and for a moment you’re grateful for the hands that hold your legs open just so you don’t have to face the shame of spreading them wider.

Your hands, perfectly capable of putting up a fight once they’d been released, twist into the sheets beneath you, holding on like your life depends on it. You curse yourself for not trying harder to push him off, for not really wanting to; for always being so unwilling to say no to him. Moans leave your lips like they’re being ripped out of you, growing in volume like you just can’t help it. It makes you wish one of the pillows were within reach so you could bury it against your face and muffle them, or simply to hide yourself from how incredibly good it feels to be at his mercy.

It doesn’t take long at all. Say whatever you want about the Salesman, but this is a man who knows what he’s doing with his tongue. In only a few minutes he reduces you to whimpers and pleading, your orgasm hitting you like a wave crashing full-force over the shore. Your back arches off the bed, mouth open in a long moan, and he continues to dine on you like a starving man until the moment you fall backwards, spent.

When you come back to yourself, you’re covering your face with your hands as he presses kisses to the line of your inner thigh. You feel him make his way up your body, feel his hands on your wrists, gently moving them out of the way and exposing your face, the deep flush that has colored your cheeks.

Looking into his eyes, you’re overcome with a rush of emotions you’re not sure how to name. How can a person make you feel so many things at once? How can you still want him – ardently, desperately, profoundly want him – after everything? How can he be so addictive, leaving you already hooked from the scraps of attention he’s given you? You tilt your head just a tiny bit towards him, a silent invitation, and he leans in the rest of the way to take your lips in his.

He kisses you deeply, hungrily, holding you through the shudders that run through your body from the aftershocks of your orgasm until they subside. Kisses you like you’re more than just a hookup, tempting you to believe there must be something about you that’s special. Kisses you for long enough to get you drunk in it, like he’s happy to do nothing but this for the rest of his life.

The next time he pulls back, he removes his suit jacket and tie. You somehow manage to help him unbutton his white shirt, motivated by the promise of feeling his bare skin on yours. You nearly forget his pants are still on, letting him work on that as you press kisses to down his neck. Of course his body is as perfect as his face. He makes an approving sound that you can feel on his throat, and you follow the vibrations of his vocal chords until his pulse point, pleased to find his heartbeats as fast as yours. You can’t resist taking the skin there between your teeth.

He growls, hands tightening on your hips and flipping you on the bed so you’re facing the other side, your back to him. You hold onto the bed frame to steady yourself, body half-bent forward.

You expect him to thrust into you without warning, just as he had the last time. Before that, he brings a hand underneath your chin, tilting your head upwards, your sight landing squarely on your joined reflection on the mirror.

“Keep your eyes right there.” Now he enters you, and you watch your eyes widen at the sudden intrusion. “Watch yourself get fucked on my cock.”

The sheer filth in his voice prompts you to obey, to look. Your knuckles turn white on the bedframe and your body rocks forward with each of his thrusts; slow at first, but steadily gaining power and speed. He reaches down to rub your clit in circles, and it makes your body jerk to feel it and see it at the same time, to watch your reactions in real time. The sight of the necklace still hanging from your neck prompts you to look away, a confirmation of what’s actually happening to you that you’re not prepared to stare in the face.

His hand leaves your clit to wrap itself into your hair, yanking it back. Your body arches to follow it, your reflection on the glass confronting you once again.

“I said look,” he says into your ear. “Don’t you wanna see what a pretty mess you are for me?”

You shake your head, although his death grip on your hair makes it difficult to move. That’s precisely the issue: seeing the mess that he made you into, seeing yourself so overwhelmed and dirty and ashamed, the sounds leaving you suggesting nothing other than aching, raw need. It’s too much. It doesn’t stop you from pushing your hips back to meet his, trying to match his rhythm.

He angles his thrusts to hit a spot inside of you that makes you see stars. “Oh God,” you croak, feeling the heaviness of tears behind your eyes and another orgasm fast approaching.

Just when you’re close, impossibly close to your release, he stops. You watch him on the mirror, panting just for a moment before he pulls out of you and releases your hair. You’re about to protest, or maybe plead for mercy, but he pushes you to lay on your back on the bed again, back inside of you before you can even think of a sentence.

“How about that thank you now?” He pounds into you, somehow even deeper from this position. “Say it.”

“Shut up,” you say instead. The pause, brief as it was, only served to make you more desperate to come, and the last thing you need right now is to hear this. “Please just shut up.”

The necklace gleams over your chest, catching his attention. The Salesman runs a thumb over the sapphire, as if contemplating something, before he presses down on the pendant hard, digging it into your skin.

You gasp, throwing your head back. He’s moving fast enough that the bed rocks underneath you, the headboard slamming into the wall, his fingers still on the necklace like he wants to imprint it into your chest. It fucking hurts, the sharp metal edges unrelenting, digging in hard enough to leave a bruise. It makes your body sing, awakes the deeply-hidden, fucked up parts of you that crave this kind of pain.

“Every time you wake up,” the Salesman says, slightly out of breath himself, but much more composed than you, “and you look out of the window and see Paris, or anywhere that’s not the gutter in Seoul, you thank me for saving you.” He punctuates his words with a particularly hard thrust. “Say it.”

You don’t want to say it. Saying it makes you feel like it’s true, like you should give in and believe what he’s saying. That you are a piece of trash who got lucky, after all, and you should thank him for anything close to success that you achieve from now on. But your orgasm is so close you can feel the force of it numb your ears, your wrists; and in this moment, you would say anything, do anything, so long as he keeps you feeling this good.

“Thank you,” the words are just barely above a whisper, like you wish you could keep them to yourself as a shameful secret.

“For what?”

He gives you another hard thrust, almost painful if only the lines between pain and pleasure hadn’t been blurred a long time ago. You push your chest into an arch, the pendant digging even deeper into you until it breaks skin and the pain turns into agony.

“F-for saving me.”

��Good girl.”

You come then, thinking about the mark that the necklace will leave on you, thinking about how you’re going to feel it for days, how you’re going to remember it every time you feel it or see it. That there will be evidence on your body that he touched you this passionately. It feels like you’re floating, rising to the sky as you clench and unclench around him, as sound after humiliating sound leaves you.

You collapse back against the mattress when your orgasm finally lets you go, boneless and spent. You didn’t see or hear him come – in another situation, it might’ve upset you to miss it, if you weren’t still riding the aftershocks of that incredible high –, but he’s still against you, breathing hard into your neck. His release leaks from between your legs. He stays like that for a long time, slowly softening inside of you, before he finally pulls out and away from you.

You stay right where you are, unmoving. Somewhere far away, you think you can hear him searching for his clothes and dressing himself. You don’t want it to upset you, but it does; because of course he would come here, humiliate you, give you the best fuck of your life and then immediately leave, without so much as a word to you. Your head falls to the side, and even that small movement feels incredibly difficult, like your entire body is a limb that has fallen asleep. Your vision is blurry, far-away, until it finally focuses on the large window that overlooks the city. Tiny snowflakes flutter over the city lights and the dark night sky.

“It’s snowing.”

That pulls his attention to you. He’s got his pants and shirt on, the first few buttons undone, his once perfectly-styled hair a mess. He follows the line of your gaze to the window. “Were you looking forward to it?” he asks.

“Yeah.” It feels like forever ago since the last time you even thought about it. The Salesman was right; the city is beautiful at this time of the year.

You expect him to return to his clothes then head out the door. Instead, he reaches for the covers over the bed and wraps your naked body up in them like a baby. “Ow,” you hiss when he moves you, pain exploding on your chest where the necklace was pressed against you. A few drops of blood dry on your skin from when the skin had split. You feel the Salesman lift you bridal-style, much to your surprise, but you’re still too dazed to find it in you to question it.

He sits you both on the thick windowsill, him behind you and you leaning against his chest, framed by his legs. It’s gentle, somehow more intimate than you’ve ever been with him even after sleeping with him twice. You watch the snowfall outside, mesmerized, letting the steady rise-and-fall of his chest behind you soothe your aching muscles.

It’s the closest to safe you’ve felt in what feels like forever, and you’re crying before you even realize it.

Once it starts, it’s impossible to stop it. Your body trembles with the force of your sobs, tears flowing from your eyes like they haven’t since you were a little kid, at least not this openly. He wraps his arms around you from behind, pulling you flush against himself and pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, keeping his lips right there against your scalp. He rocks you ever so slightly, shushing your cries, the sound as soothing as a soft lullaby. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” you sob. You think about the snow in Seoul, about how the first snowfall always made you excited, even when it happened every year. You can feel your tears rolling down your cheeks and into your neck, your collarbones. “I want to go home.”

“Then go home,” he says, like it’s simple.

“I can’t.” How can you walk the same streets you always did, as if your life wasn’t completely changed? As if the price you paid for this change wasn’t much, much greater than you could deal with? “You’re right. I have nothing. No one.”

“You had nothing. You can have anything you want now.” You want to tell him there are things money can’t buy, but you’re so tired, so exhausted. You can’t muster the willpower for much other than wallowing in your own misery, weeping in his arms like a child. “And you have me.”

That only makes you cry harder, shaking your head. “Don’t say shit you don’t mean.”

“Look at me.” He nudges you to turn to him, the angle awkward but it’s so worth it the second he cups your face in both hands, brushing your tears away with his thumbs. “I mean it. Come back to Seoul.” He kisses the corner of your mouth, then your heavy eyelids. “You just need to see things from a different perspective. I can help you.”

He coaxes you to lay back against him, and you do so without protest, burying your face into his chest. For a moment you actually consider it. Dropping the plans you had for a next trip and following him to Seoul, letting him finish corrupting you with whatever twisted worldview he has. Maybe it would be blissful, you think, to see all that violence and bloodshed as a blessing, as something that saved you rather than ruined you. It has to be a trap, or another one of his games. But it doesn’t hurt to dream about it, just a little bit.

Little by little your crying subsides, your breaths returning to normal. He holds you through it all, stroking your hair in a way that’s so tender, so soft, like you’re fragile. Like he cares about you, or even loves you.

You silently wonder if he can love anyone at all, much less someone as broken as you.

With his fingers drawing circles on your scalp, you drift off into a dreamless sleep.

–––

You wake up alone. You’re still naked but on the bed, tucked into your blankets. There’s no confusion over what happened last night, no delusions that your brain would come up with a dream like that. There’s only memories hitting you like a truck, one after the other, and it’s too fucking early for this.

You pull yourself into a sitting position, and you jump at the sight of yourself on the mirror. You barely notice the smudged makeup from last night, your eyes going straight to the star of the show: the angry red spot right on the center of your chest, already turning into a deep purple at the center. You flinch before you even touch it, your hand hanging in the air halfway through like you’ve changed your mind. The necklace finishes it off like the cherry on top of the cake, the pair of precious stones right next to each other like eyes watching you, mocking you.

You button your coat all the way up before you leave the house.

It’s still early enough that the sun has just begun rising, coloring the sky in a bright blue that bleeds into the buildings and streets. There’s probably nothing open right now, but you could really use some coffee. Or a drink. Probably a drink.

You find him at Pont Neuf, watching the river below. There’s no one else around, the city in a rare moment of quiet and peace. He hasn’t spotted you yet, seemingly lost in thought, and it occurs to you that you could sneak up behind him, push him over the edge and just keep on walking. Sever your ties to him forever, and simply keep going like nothing ever happened, bury it along with all the other memories you try so hard to forget.

You don’t do it, but knowing you could brings you a bit of comfort. You lower your head and keep walking in the opposite direction, not sparing him another glance.

#the salesman x reader #salesman x reader #the recruiter x reader #gong yoo x reader #squid game x reader #the salesman x you #salesman smut #my fics #guess who was too lazy to make a cute banner #next time i promise

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artbiter · 4 months ago

Text

wolf in sheep's clothing

art donaldson/reader nsfw summary: art falls for you first yet patrick gets the fortune of having you. what else is art supposed to do but play dirty? tags: stanford!art, stanford reader too, art is a borderline homewrecker, art donaldson is a SNAKE, patrick gets cucked right under his nose </3, oral, slight body worship, TBH idk note: hi this is my first time writing ff since .. 2021 .. and this is definitely a diff style from the ao3-approach i usually take to writing but please enjoy i really like art donaldson i really like challengers and i really like art taking what he wants (and i really like mike faist in blonde curls)

art donaldson is not a homewrecker, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't waiting for his chance with you.

he first meets you at one of his games, eyes flitting over the crowd and panting hard after a rather close singles win, before his gaze is magnetically drawn to your pretty face in the bleachers. smiling with your friends, you look so happy to just be watching this game, and when you make eye contact with art you wave excitedly like he's a celebrity, and whisper to your friends after he salutes back with a grin, trying to catch the breath your gorgeous smile has knocked out of him.

he wants to find you so bad after, and so he does. your friends are tennis groupies, hanging behind to flirt with any guy with a racket in hand, but you're just there for moral support. he chases after you just before you leave, just to say hi. an innocuous greeting and thanks for your support. and he sees how jealous your friends are that you tag along once with them and immediately get picked up by art freaking donaldson, but you seem to be oblivious, beaming at him and clasping your hands to your chest. you tell him he was great out there, that you've never "gotten" tennis but that you can feel he's a pro anyway. you part ways and he can't stop thinking about you.

when he tells patrick that he's met the prettiest girl he's ever seen at one of his matches, patrick thinks it's endearing and the epitome of dumb puppy love.

"did you even get her name? or were you just drooling over her?"

"nah, that would've been weird... right? oh shit, should i have? i was trying to be normal about it, i don't know." art beats himself up for not even picking up on your name in conversation, and resolves to seek out your identity and ask you out.

so when he finally has the fortune of seeing you again at a party, he's heartbroken when you smile and wave to patrick in tow.

"patrick!" you laugh and bound up to the pair. "didn't take you as a stanford party type of guy."

"i'm a plus one tonight. lucky i ran into you, huh?" patrick is eye-fucking you and doesn't even try to hide it, and art feels like doubling over in pure grief.

patrick notices but says nothing, only introducing you to art. "yeah, i'm here with my buddy art." he slaps art on the back lightly and art finds out that you and patrick met at another party before this. he remembers you from patrick's anecdotes over lunch, where patrick wouldn't shut up about the hottest chick he's ever seen who wouldn't go home with him, but has been texting ever since.

some other girl, presumably one of your friends, attaches herself to art's arm for the rest of the night, but he can't bring himself to notice or care when patrick kisses you and you lean into it.

patrick got to you first, and art hates himself for it. he won't admit it, but he feels the resentment festering inside of him as soon as patrick announces it's official.

the next best course of action for art is to play the best friend role, obviously. except like the unassuming snake art is, he's going to be your best friend, too.

he's your puppy, waiting on your beck and call — whatever you need, he's got it. your bio homework is impossible? sure, you can copy his. you got no sleep last night? he has your regular order from your favorite café committed to memory. patrick's being such a bad boyfriend? oh, tell him all about it.

"he's so inconsiderate," you whine, slumping over your pillow. "can you believe he forgot our six months? and when i brought it up, he didn't even say sorry. he was just, like, 'i didn't know we were still in high school.' i wanted to die, art, really."

art clicks his tongue in sympathy, criss-crossed on your dorm floor and nodding along to your laments. "no, he's definitely wrong here. i'm sorry he forgot something so important." for good measure, he adds in, "guys should be looking out for their girlfriends all the time. i'd be celebrating monthly anniversaries if i had a girl."

"ugh, right? i thought so, too." you flop back onto your bed, turning your head to gaze at art. he thinks you're so beautiful like this, clad in a t-shirt and shorts, bare faced with tears tinging your eyes. "you're a good guy. i don't know why you don't just date."

he doesn't want to date anyone if it isn't you, but he doesn't say this.

art watches you and patrick continue for another few rocky months, marked by arguments spawned from patrick's chronic nonchalance and your sensitivity to his perceived lack of care. and art gets the full report from both sides; patrick tells him all the time about how he's really trying to make you happy and support you, but he doesn't see why you value such small things. and you cry to art, sobbing that patrick never takes you out anymore if it isn't to fuck, that patrick is too friendly to other girls. art thinks to himself that patrick doesn't deserve you, but he rubs small circles on your back and reassures you that you need to do what's right for yourself.

(he's elated when you don't remove yourself from his touch.)

when you finally break it off with patrick, he hears it from his best friend first.

"dude, she dumped me." patrick's voice buzzes over the phone. "not gonna lie, i saw this one coming. but i thought i was doing good, seriously. fuck, what am i gonna do?"

"i'm sorry, man," art sympathizes before he hears a knock on his door. "yeah, it really does suck. take a breather for a few days. i'm sorry, but i really have to go right now." he peeks into the peephole and sees you standing outside. "let's talk more later?"

patrick is still rambling on the other end, but art hangs up and opens the door for you to immediately come spilling.

"art, i broke up with him. i really couldn't do it anymore." you tell art more things he already knows, like that you liked patrick a lot but you were just uncompatible in the end, and that you wished he listened. as always, art feeds into you, agreeing with your every word. something deep inside art tells him it's wrong to coax his best friend's girlfriend into breaking up with him, and that he's messed up for offering you his support when patrick technically should come first. but when you look up at art through wet eyelashes, sniffling and yearning for comfort, who is he to deny you?

art cups your face gently and presses his lips to yours. he doesn't miss how your eyes widen, but you don't jerk away. his heart pounds in his chest as he holds the small of your back with one hand while the other caresses your cheek. you smell so clean and warm, and your lips are so soft art wonders how patrick could ever give you up without a fight. it solidifies art's need for you, that if patrick won't make you happy, he will.

when you pull away from him, you're breathless, voice barely above a whisper. "art, i don't think we should—"

he can't contain himself from kissing your neck, relishing the soft, smooth expanse, inhaling your scent so deep into his lungs he finds it oxygen. "tell me you don't want this." he laps at your jaw, sucking light bruises onto the sides of your throat. "tell me you don't want me to treat you the way you should be, and i'll stop."

you moan his name involuntarily, and art takes it as the green light to carry you to his bed and kisses back up to your lips. "i'm sorry," he murmurs into your skin. "i'm sorry. i want you so bad."

"then show me," you sigh softly, hands rooting themselves into his blonde curls as his tongue probes your mouth.

like you even had to ask.

tugging down your sweatpants and feeling like coming just as the sight of your underwear, art immediately tears it off of you. he latches himself to your cunt, already weeping, and he looks up at you through hooded eyes, pupils blown wide. "already so wet for me, baby?"

"mmf..." your fingers, still tangled in his hair, tighten their grip as you push his head forward, and he obliges.

he licks wide stripes, feeling you convulse and twitch every time his tongue comes in contact with your clit. his dick throbs in his pants just from eating you out.

"you taste so sweet. fuck, you're delicious," he pants, making out with your pussy like it's your lips. "don't know how i survived this long without you."

you buck your hips up into his mouth, mewling and spasming as he suckles and licks at just the right places. your cunt is soaked, but neither of you can tell whether it's from your arousal or how much art is slobbering over your pussy. "right there," you squeak out, a hot wave washing over your body as you cum on art's face.

and fuck, art almosts busts on the spot with you. his mouth doesn't cease, swirling patterns all over your vulva, grazing over your clit, dipping his tongue inside of you as you lock your legs around his head desperately.

"too much, too much!" you feebly try to pull his head up from your cunt, but he's so addicted to your taste he barely notices how sensitive you are now, how your clit twitches and aches for a break.

art can only laugh softly as he pulls himself back up to you, kissing you gently as his hands roam underneath your shirt and to your bra clasp.

"mm, you're so good," you gasp into art's mouth as his kiss becomes sloppier. "so good to me, art."

"it's what you deserve," he mumbles back, unhooking your bra and clumsily pulling your shirt off so your tits spill free. and even art is admired by his own self-restraint, just staring at your perfect body on display for him. he's been dreaming of this day for months now, jerking himself off late at night to thoughts of you sucking his cock, to pictures of you smiling on his phone, to the memory of your voice the day he met you. it's so wrong of him to fuck his best friend's ex fresh after the split, but why do you feel so right beneath him? "i've been waiting for this," he whispers into your neck. "been wanting to show you how much i want you. want to make you feel good. want to treat you so much better."

"fuck me, art, please," you beg him, relenting and palming at his boxers. you're so fucking easy, letting him touch you like this and being compliant as he undresses you, kisses you all over, shrugs his boxers off as you help him position his cock right at your entrance. it's not your fault that art has been nothing but kind and gentle to you. it's not your fault that he's been flirting with you since day 1, and now all his desires have culminated into head of a lifetime. and art finally has what he wants now: you.

and even when he barely pushes the tip in, he wants to cum inside of you so badly he feels dizzy. "so fucking tight, i'm gonna cum, gonna cum right now," he gasps in your ear as he unsheathes himself, stretching your warm, tight hole. "so perfect, holy shit. fucking made for me, baby, you feel so—" he can't stop himself from rutting into you, and he just about comes undone when he hears his name tumble from your lips in pained moans. it takes all the self-control in the world for art to not pour himself into your wet heat right now.

"slow down, art, fuck, you're so big," you sob, clawing at his back. he wishes he could fuck you nice and slow, the way he always envisioned his first time with you would be. he'd fantasized about nights with you full of languid strokes, making you scream his name with calculated, intentional thrusts straight to the spongy patch buried within you. but art is just a humble man, and when your walls, silky and warm, are choking his dick, he can't resist fucking into you like a jackhammer. you cry, moaning uncontrollably as your hands clutch tightly at him, letting his cock ruin you.

art's head goes fuzzy, and all he knows now is your pussy trying to milk him dry and that he can't say anything coherent besides strings of guttural moans telling you how warm, how tight, how good you feel on his dick, how your sweet cunt was made for him, how beautiful you look and sound at his mercy, how he wants you to be his so bad and that he'll do anything for you to be his. that his only regret is not claiming you first.

you keep crooning in his ear, honeyed moans that intoxicate him dizzier and dizzier as you tell him that he can have you. with a few more stutters of his hips, and a convulsing squeeze from your walls onto his cock, his head falls into the crook of your neck as he pulls out and shoots ropes all over your stomach, right as you cry out his name uncontrllably, heaving beneath him. a low, resounding grunt rips from his throat while his seed paints your abdomen, and he feels you shiver upon the warmth touching your skin.

"i'm sorry," he apologizes again like the gentleman he is. his breath still heaves at an uneven rhythm, staggering as he attempts to regain his composure, but every time his eyes fall upon you it feels like he wants to go for round 2. "i'll clean you up, pretty girl. you were so perfect." he presses his forehead to yours, sweaty and damp, and whispers, "you were made for me."

some sick sense of pride fills art from head to toe as your body trembles in an attempt to catch your breath, your hair disheveled and lips puffy, patches of skin blooming pink and red from art essentially making out with every inch of your body. and you blush when you catch him staring, covering your face and murmuring for him to come back to bed.

he did this to you. he made you such a picturesque image of ruined perfection, splayed out on his bed and stained with his cum, pleading for his embrace.

patrick would have to pry you from his cold, dead hands.

#art donaldson x reader #art donaldson smut #art donaldson #art donaldson x you #challengers smut #challengers x reader

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mirrorball-leclerc · 2 months ago

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track seven - i don't regret it one bit, 'cause he had it coming

series masterlist

WINTER BREAK 2023

ines_alonso, oscarpiastri, and charles_leclerc posted new stories

last night's gingerbread houses, 3 guesses which one's mine babysitting duties today 😁 watching bluey because according to the kiddos it's the show that reminds them of danielricciardo, for the record he does give off bandit energy, so i agree petite fraise is very happy at the alonso-leclerc-piastri home gotham's greatest protector is so cute, villains tremble before him

liked by lilymhe, francesca.cgomes, kellypiquet and others

ines_alonso first year hosting in the alonso-leclerc-piastri home this year in spain next year its monaco, trust me. p.s. charles is officially banned from stepping foot in our kitchen.

tagged: charles_leclerc, oscarpiastri, fernandoalo_oficial

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maxverstappen1 oh my god, what the hell did he do this time?

oscarpiastri the firefighters were involved this time max, that's all you need to know charles_leclerc okay, you people are being dramatic and i am not being dramatic ines_alonso THE OVEN WAS ON FIRE! THERE WERE FLAMES CHARLES! charles_leclerc you're being dramatic, there was no fire oscarpiastri the firemen laughed at you charles, there was a fire.

user1 two cats and charles leclerc? how the hell do they manage?

oscarpiastri i ask myself that same question every day charles_leclerc fuck you, i'm a delight ines_alonso except when we have to call the firemen because someone lit the oven on fire BAKING COOKIES!

user2 the matching pjs and slippers?? oh i'm in love with this trio

user3 inés, how did you convince them to get matching pjs and slippers?? i need tips on how to convince my partner

ines_alonso threaten to withhold sex, it does wonders user3 why didn't i think of that? fernandoalo_oficial i can read this... charles_leclerc what's sex? never heard that word in my life 😅 oscarpiastri what is this sex she speaks of?? fernandoalo_oficial watch your backs going into turn 1 in bahrain user4 peepaw, stop causing controversies, this is why they call you a war criminal

francesca.cgomes marry me and make me delicious treats??

ines_alonso meet me at the courthouse tomorrow?? pierregasly absolutely not! oscarpiastri now i'm thinking we should've had you and kika get fake married instead of charles and max charles_leclerc why are you always feeding into this shit? oscarpiastri why not?

user5 she has style and yet her partners always dress in the same skinny jeans and shorts

user6 oscar needs to step up his fashion style user7 charles needs to wear something that isn't those fuckass tiedye jeans user5 those jeans are a horror to humanity

alex_albon there is not a single thought behind those eyes, just like oscar

oscarpiastri stop slandering my name alex_albon tell your girlfriend to stop flirting with mine and i'll stop oscarpiastri carry on, there's no use in me telling her, she'll never stop

user5 nano living up to the chaos of fernando alonso

user6 i bet he knocked down the tree ines_alonso he did and the charles scolded him, it was quite hilarious to see

georgerussell63 why does honey always look like that?

ines_alonso like what? georgerussell63 lost charles_leclerc she gets it from her father oscarpiastri fuck you, she gets it from you georgerussell63 this was not about either one of you but i fear i may have just started a war

jensonbutton the wife is demanding to know where you got those slippers from

ines_alonso i'll send her the link in exchange for pictures of you in them! brittnybutton deal! ines_alonso pleasure doing business with you mrs.button

ximena.gomez nice holiday?

ines_alonso i'm still mad at you but they're at each other's throats ximena, help me. pierregasly at each other's throats or in each other's throats? ines_alonso blocked and reported.

user8 wait, so they did get a place in spain?

user9 it looks like they did but it could be a rental for the holiday season? user10 honestly, i would love it they got a place in spain because that would mean the s*inz mafia can't get away from them even in spain use8 they can't get away from them even in sp

user11 honestly can't tell who i'm supposed to be more jealous of, inés for having two hot boyfriends or charles and oscar for dating inés

user12 charles and oscar because they have inés. i mean who gets jealous over the men? user13 all three?? user11 i think all three is the only right choice

FEBRUARY 1ST, 2024 AKA DIVORCEGATE

FEBRUARY 7TH, 2024 AKA GASLIGHT, GATEKEEP, GIRLBOSS

liked by charles_leclerc, oscarpiastri, fernandoalo_oficial and others

ines_alonso i've always looked good in navy 💙

tagged: redbullracing

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charles_leclerc words cannot describe how proud we are of you mon soleil. looking forward to racing against you next year! ❤ by ines_alonso

oscarpiastri so excited to be racing against you again sunshine. i can't believe we finally get to share the same tracks again, looking forward to it! ❤ by ines_alonso

patriciooward felicitaciones hermana! this is what you deserve and so much more, i can't wait to see what you do on the track! ❤ by ines_alonso

alex_albon INÉS JESSICA ALONSO, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO US?!

ines_alonso my middle name is not jessica alex_albon I DON'T CARE! HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME, YOUR BEST FRIEND?? AND I FUCKING BET MAX EMILIAN VERSTAPPEN KNEW! maxverstappen1 I HAVE AN NDA YOU DIMWIT?! alex_albon I DON'T CARE?! THIS IS THE SHIT WE TELL EACH OTHER!!

fernandoalo_oficial no hay suficientes palabras para describir lo orgulloso que estoy de ti. te mereces esto y todo lo bueno que hay en tu vida. [translation: there are not enough words to describe how proud i am of you. you deserve this and everything else that is good in your life] ❤ by ines_alonso

ines_alonso papa, voy a llorar fernandoalo_oficial it's okay, i'm crying too

jensonbutton going to miss one of my favorite co-hosts, who else will help me terrorize the evil woman?? but congratulations baby alonso, glad your dream finally came true. ❤ by ines_alonso

ines_alonso it's okay jenson, we can terrorize her post race together, i promise. and thank you, it means a lot 🥹

isahernaez felicitaciones pequeña!! te lo mereces, no dejes que nadie te diga algo diferente! [translation: congrats little one!! you deserve it, don't let anyone tell you anything different] ❤ by ines_alonso

ines_alonso gracias isa! espero verte en una carrera pronto! [translation: thank you isa! i hope to see you at a race soon] isahernaez obvio! nadamas dime cuando y ahí estoy, tengo que apoyar a mi pilota favorita [obviously! tell when and i'll be there, i have to support my favorite driver] userxx i love the survived carlos sainz jr club ❤ by ines_alonso and isahernaez

sabrinacarpenter CONGRATULATIONS!!!

ines_alonso THANK YOU!!!

user14 wait, so who's the wag now?

oscarpiastri we're both her wags charles_leclerc we're just ken and she's everything user14 down bad, both of you

louieee BITCH?! HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME?!

ines_alonso I'M SORRY BABY!! I COULDN'T TELL YOU!! louieee I'M SO PROUD OF YOU BABY!! YOU DESERVE THIS AND EVERYTHING GOOD IN LIFE!!

carlossainz55 wow, what a way to stab your own brother in the back

ines_alonso womp womp oscarpiastri womp womp charles_leclerc womp womp maxverstappen1 womp womp louieee womp womp patriciooward womp womp fernandoalo_oficial womp womp alex_albon womp womp jensonbutton womp womp logansargeant womp womp aussiegrit womp womp pierregasly womp womp sebastianvettel womp womp lewishamilton womp womp kimimatiasraikkonen womp womp user15 KIMI? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!

redbullracing looking forward to working with you in 2025! ❤ by ines_alonso

user16 SHUT THE FUCK UP?! RED BULL RACING JUST EARNED A NEW FAN!!

user17 carlos sainz jr found screaming and throwing up in a ditch somewhere

schecoperez felicitaciones baby alonso!!

ines_alonso gracias checo!

taylorswift congrats little alonso 💙 ❤ by ines_alonso

ines_alonso I'M RACING WITH THE NUMBER 13 MOTHER!! patriciooward i'm begging you, be normal for once taylorswift that's a great number to pick 😉

user18 i bet oscar and charles are glad to have red bull in the house without seeming like traitors for going out and buying it

user19 bestie, what the fuck does that mean? user18 oscar once said he doesn't like monster but he does drink another energy drink (red bull i'm guessing) and charles just seems like he's hopped up on red bull 80% of the time. user20 those bitches love to drink red bull and you can't convince me otherwise

tkelce congrats inés and good luck next year!

ines_alonso i might be freaking out a little bit right about now but thank you! danielricciardo no inés, you must stand strong, go bills! ines_alonso i'm so sorry mr. kelce but my loyalties align with the honey badger tkelce okay? user21 nothing is better than someone like travis kelce getting involved in the world of formula 1 because these people are insane and he's not ready for their chaos.

kellypiquet congratulations, looking forward to spending time with you in the garage next year 🩷

ines_alonso thank you kelly, looking forward to terrorizing max with p 🩷 maxverstappen1 p does not terrorize me, you and alex on the other hand... alex_albon okay, so find other friends bitch. oh that's right, you can't!

pedri felicitaciones!!

ines_alonso gracias pedri!!

user22 all these people congratulating inés because it's what she deserves is making me tear up a little bit.

aussiegrit congratulations inés, there's no doubt you'll do amazing.

ines_alonso be honest, is oscar holding you at gun point? aussiegrit they're going to think i hate you ines_alonso jury's still out to be honest

lewishamilton it'll be an honor to share the track with you inés

ines_alonso thank you lewis, that means a lot coming from you

nicorosberg make sure you terrorize max for me

ines_alonso will do britney 🫡 maxverstappen1 i will wipe the floor with her nicorosberg i will destroy you on sky sports and will tell fernando exaggerating lies that you said about inés ines_alonso i just sit back and giggle at this chaos

danielricciardo make me proud baby alonso!

ines_alonso always honey badger user23 and this one goes to all the haters who were saying what about daniel? clearly he was aware of this and is fine with it. y'all are just misogynistic.

eliasowens congratulations kid, i might give you a lot of shit for stealing my kids but you deserve this, don't let lord voldemort ruin this for you

ines_alonso elias, i love your kids, jury's still out on you but thanks. eliasowens you suck sometimes inés

¡taglist!

@minmira95 // @lesliiieeeee // @vroomvroommuppett // @prongsvault // @justtprachisblog // @scuderiadevils // @cataf // @chezmardybum // @formulaal // @lilsiz // @norstappenvibes // @ironspdy // @nikfigueiredo @hinamesgigantica // @niniluvsainz // @matchaverse // @fakeikeastore // @theseus-jpg // @six-call // @81folklore // @emppusofi // @luvsforme // @nichmeddar // @loloekie // @luvpedro // @donttouchthegnote // @nothaqks // @inferiusreggie // @mochimommy2002 // @rach3164 // @clove08 // @clove0 // @lillysbigwilly // @jenxjar // @blupblupfish // @thereadinggremlin05 // @meowiarty // @magical-spit // @camdensreg // @laneyspaulding19 // @ocyeanicc // @yelenasloverrrrr // @percervall // @blushmimi // @spilled-coffee-cup // @greantii // @ietss // @yeanoskrrt // @brakingboundaries

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¡leclerc-s speaks!

𝜗𝜚 i hope all of you that celebrate christmas had a great one, this was originally supposed to go up yesterday but i forgot to post it.

𝜗𝜚 and yes, this is 100% what the poll i posted ages ago was about, so writing this part, that deals with 2024 preseason is insane to me because the 2024 season was just so chaotic and heartbreaking. i am so not ready to write out logan and daniel's departures, even writing this part knowing what i know about daniel and red bull breaks my heart. plus even though it's a fanfic i don't feel good about this plot point and me just blatantly putting yuki to the side this way. i know why he didn't get the red bull seat but i have every right to be upset about it either way and i will be for a while.

¡disclaimer! 𝜗𝜚 this is in no way making assumptions about the people involved in this story, this is all fake. it is a fanfiction please don't take any of what is said seriously. this is all for entertainment purposes and as a creative outlet for me. enjoy!

#leclerc-s #guilty as sin series #f1 instagram au #f1 x oc #f1 oc #f1 smau #f1 social media au #f1 #formula one #f1 fic #formula 1 fic #f1 x female oc #charles leclerc x female oc #oscar piastri x female oc

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ckret2 · 1 month ago

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Chapter 82 of you can really tell the writer got a new art program this week and went apeshit with it instead of doing anything productive: the Mystery Shack is in terrible peril from the government and only one thing can save them:

Teaching Bill Cipher how to flirt with humans!!

####

The Stans explained the plan to Dipper and Mabel as briefly as possible—that Bill had to save them all by flirting with the head fed—and that was about as far as they got before Mabel started squealing. They wished her good luck with Bill, wished him good luck with Mabel, and beat a hasty retreat, with Dipper tagging along after Ford on the pretense of helping figure out how to get the flash drive out of Gompers.

"This is perfect!" Mabel slammed the door closed—and Bill had the sneaking suspicion she'd trapped him on purpose—then grabbed both his hands to drag him further into the room. "I can see it now! He'll fall in love with you, and then he'll realize that living in a small logging town is so much more emotionally fulfilling than his high-pressure fast-paced big city government job, and he'll see what a special, magical place Gravity Falls is and he won't wanna do anything that could change it, and Washington will call him like, 'Your report is late! Have you forgotten your mission?' And he'll go 'I have a new mission now: my WIFE!' And—"

"Hold on!" Bill pulled his hands back. "I think you skipped the part where you married me off to a government agent."

"No I didn't! Because he says that and everyone gasps and then he gets down on his knee in front of you and pulls out a ring and—"

"In your dreams, star girl." He dropped onto Mabel's bed and crossed his legs. "Think a little less cheesy Christmas romcom, and more noir spy movie with a double-crossing femme fatale."

Mabel measured that up against her limited spy movie knowledge, and asked dubiously, "You're gonna drop him in a tank of sharks?"

"Hey, if you have one...!" Bill laughed. "But, no. The plan is just for me to keep him distracted long enough for the nerd squad to get the flash drive, wipe any sensitive data, and leave it somewhere that'll make the agents think the goat dumped it naturally."

Mabel considered that. She inhaled deeply. "Okay," she said. "But. What if it's one of those movies where the evil girl spy has a change of heart because of the good guy's charm and you do fall in love."

"Do you remember who we're talking about?" Bill asked. "Fine! If we fall in love, you can be the ring bearer, best maid, and officiant—but don't start stapling together a white dress just yet."

Mabel completely skipped past his main point. She whispered, "You'd let me make your wedding dress?"

"I'd turn down every fashion designer in Milan, Paris, New York, and London combined."

Her eyes widened. "I've gotta start drawing wedding dresses." She rummaged around the floor for an unused piece of paper and the nearest crayon and/or marker box.

"Draw me as a triangle," Bill said automatically. "So there, you're caught up on the plan!" He slowly slid off Mabel's bed toward the door. "So if you'd let me out so I can prepare..."

"Ohh no. Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford brought you to me to learn how to flirt, and I'm going to teach you how to flirt."

He groaned, but plopped back down on Mabel's bed. "I don't need to be taught how to flirt! I'm a pro! While your universe was still gearing up for a Big Bang, I was fending off marriage proposals from lovelorn generation ships and sentient oceans."

"You're not seducing ships and oceans." Mabel had already flopped onto the floor and drawn a triangle with an eye, and was trying to figure out how to put a dress on it. "You're seducing a man."

"Which is even easier! You people barely last a century, you're desperate! Humans fling themselves at me left and right!"

"Then you'll have no trouble passing my love quiz."

Bill automatically frowned. There was a part of him that still tensed up at the word "quiz" even if he did know more about romance than the entire human race combined. "What, like the one you put the guys through on your dating show?"

"Yes, but with all new questions! So you can't just copy all of Soos's answers to get a perfect score!"

"Psh! Like I need to copy anyone's answers," said Bill, who had never taken a quiz in his life without copying someone else's answers and had been planning to do just that. "All right, hit me."

"Question one! Uh..." She tapped a crayon to her chin as she thought. "What's the best gift to give on a first date? Jewelry, chocolate, a wedding ring, or flowers?"

"Ooh, we're starting with bribery, huh?" When in doubt, the right answer was usually C; but "jewelry" and "wedding ring" seemed kinda redundant. Well—cheating had never failed him before, why stop now? "None of the above! I've got a better answer than all of them!"

Mabel lowered her crayon to give him a skeptical look. "Oh yeah? What?"

"Sneak into their dreams the night before, find out their heart's desire, and surprise 'em with that," Bill said. "That's not even a romantic move. It'll let you win over a human in any context! Birthday parties, baby showers, job interviews, criminal trials, hostage negotiations..."

"What if you don't know their heart's desire?"

"Then you're not me."

She set down her crayon, laced her hands under her chin, and said, "Okay, then. If you were trying to win me over, what's my dream birthday gift?"

"Replacing your bedroom with a bouncy castle with inflatable furniture."

"Ha! No it's n..." She trailed off. "Wait. Ohmigosh."

"Told ya."

"I've been dreaming too small," Mabel whispered. She shoved aside her first drawing and started drawing her fantasy bedroom.

Bill picked up one of Mabel's dolls—a floppy tiger—and started talking to it like he was lecturing it. Forget this whole "taking a quiz" thing; he was much more comfortable in the roll of the teacher than the student. "And if it's a blind date and I can't stalk 'em beforehand, nobody's ever disappointed by a solid gold brick," he told the doll. "It's both practical and pretty, and it appeals to humans' natural greed without making them feel sleazy about accepting a wad of hundreds from their date."

"What's Agent Powers's heart's desire?"

Heck. He didn't actually know. He'd ducked in on the guy's life a handful of times, but he'd never needed to pay that close attention to him. What did boring people like? "A really nice leather wallet," Bill said.

"Okay, you're off to a strong start," Mabel said. "Question two: what's the ideal location for a first date?"

"What are my options?"

"Fooey to the options! I wanna hear your thoughts."

"Then that's easy: anywhere they can't escape from until they love you," Bill said. "Even better if you can serenade 'em."

Mabel nodded in approval. "Perfect answer, full points! Every Inkwell princess movie and vampire novel on the market agrees! Question three: best first date outfit?"

"Sexy."

"Okay—yeah," Mabel said, "But specifically, what does that look like?"

"Tallest hat you can find," Bill said.

Mabel waited. Bill didn't say anything else. Mabel said, "What about the rest of the outfit?"

"Bow tie. Outfit complete."

"That's just what you wear."

"And it's always sexy!" Bill insisted.

"Maybe in Flatworld, but this is earth! If you go out dressed in nothing but a hat and a bow tie, you'll be having your date in the back of a police car!"

"Fine," Bill huffed. "Fifty pairs of gloves—and the more of them you have hands to fill, the better! A dress made out of blank checks! Two snakes! A fur coat made out of live kittens!" Bill shook the stuffed doll emphatically with each point. "Good enough?!"

Mabel squinted thoughtfully at him. "The kitten coat has potential."

"Damn me with faint praise, why don't you."

"What about more traditional romantic outfits? Like... a red velvet suit with a leopard print shirt? Or short shorts that say 'too hot' on the butt?" Mabel asked. "Or a t-shirt with your date's face on it in a heart! That shows your date 'I'm here to focus on you!'"

"What if my date's face is ugly, did you think about that?" Bill asked, mainly to cover up the fact that he was chagrined he hadn't thought of the velvet suit himself. "Forget about fashion. Next question!"

"Okay, how would you prepare yourself for the perfect date? Aside from finding a tall hat and stalking your date's dreams."

"Hygiene's the most important thing," Bill said. "Humans are very attuned to pheromones. It's one of your base instincts."

A look of relief cross Mabel's face. "Yes! Good start. So we're talking a shower, or...?"

"Oh yeah, if you're going on a date in this country, you've gotta scrub that skin raw. There is no smell Americans hate more than the natural smell of other human beings."

Mabel nodded enthusiastically. "Right!"

"And once you've gotten rid of your real scent you've got to make sure you smell appealing. And that means making sure you smell the most! Cover up any competing suitors' scents with your own!"

Mabel made an uncertain hum. "Okaaay, sooo... what would you call an appropriate fragrance for a first date?"

He wasn't sure he liked the sound of the hum. "First date? You've got to make a strong impression, and set the mood for romance," he told the doll, so he didn't have to watch Mabel pass judgment. "So, I'm thinking... decaying salmon, deer pee, and ambergris."

Mabel was silent for an uncomfortably long time. Bill glanced at her. She immediately pulled her sweater up to hide her mouth. Voice strained with suppressed laughter, she said, "You don't think, maybe... floral scents...?"

Who did she think she was laughing at! He directed his attention back to Mabel's doll. The tiger didn't judge him. The tiger thought all his ideas were brilliant. "Is this guy looking for a garden or a girlfriend? I know ninety percent of the soaps and shampoos on the market are designed to make you smell like a fruit salad on the beach, but you humans don't know the first thing about what activates your own monkey-brained reproductive urges! Trust me: decaying salmon, deer pee, and ambergris! They reek of raw sex appeal!"

"What's ambergris?"

"It's a staple fragrance in the perfume industry! Some of the most popular scents in Hollywood have ambergris base notes!"

"Okay," Mabel said, "but what is it?"

"Okay so," Bill said, "when a sperm whale gets so constipated it kills 'em, the rest of its body rots off while the turd floats to the surface, and after it's bobbed around baking in the sun for a few decades—"

Mabel lay a hand on Bill's knee and gently said, "No."

"Hey, I'm not the one who invented ambergris, that's your species's idea!"

"Bill, I'm sorry. But you've got the best and worst romance ideas with no in between, and you don't know the difference," Mabel said. "But I promise you're in good hands! I'm the best matchmaker in Gravity Falls! I helped hook up Soos and Melody, Robbie and Tambry, Waddles and Gompers, the Hand Witch and that hunky hiker guy..."

He threw Mabel's doll down on the bed, slumped back against the wall, crossed his arms, and sulked. Then he muttered, "But I've got the best ideas?"

"Oh yeah. You're like an untrained romance prodigy! You just need a liiittle help filtering out the diamonds from the coal."

He grunted. Then he grudgingly admitted, "Getting Waddles and Gompers together is pretty impressive. They have complete opposite political opinions."

"See? I'll have you date ready in no time!"

Bill heaved a frustrated sigh. "Fine. But I'd better at least get a killer makeover out of this."

"Definitely! I'm getting an expert on the case!" She pulled out her phone to send a text. Plus, whatever you're wearing tomorrow? I'm bedazzling the crap out of it."

"Good!"

"But first," Mabel said, "Let's talk about your technique."

####

"Lesson one of Mabel's Guide to Flirting With Humans: pick-up lines! First impressions are super important!"

"Pick-up lines are easy," Bill said. "I know a million of them!"

"That's great! Then this should be easy." Mabel pointed at the picture of Creggy G in the middle of her Sev'ral Timez poster, whom she'd designated as their attractive human for Bill's flirting practice. "Try one out."

Bill sized up Creggy calculatingly, and said, "You know, your eyeballs are so beautiful."

"Yes!" Mabel cheered. "It's romantic! I love it!"

"—and they'd look even better in my mouth."

Mabel stared at Bill.

"What?" Bill asked. "Too forward? Should I save that for the second date?"

The flirting lesson quickly switched track from teaching Bill how to use a pick-up lines, to teaching Bill what pick-up lines not to use.

And from there, the conversation drifted to a list of subjects Bill wasn't allowed to discuss with the federal agent, which necessitated relocating to the living room so Mabel could set up an easel pad and record all the banned topics. Partway through, Stan drifted in and started throwing in his two cents.

The list of banned flirtation topics included: eyeballs; cannibalism; squid kings; dragonfly mating habits; mandibles; the time and method of living people's future deaths; the cold and lonely heat death of the universe ("Why?! It's a perfect excuse to suggest cuddling for warmth!"); fun get-to-know-you questions like "would you rather kill your mother or your father" or "which conspiracy theories would you most hate to be true"; which conspiracy theories were true; the agent's embarrassing middle school secrets that Bill shouldn't have known about but did; the agent's bald spot; cancer flavors; pending global disasters...

Bill flung his hands in the air. "So what does that leave to talk about?!"

"Anything else," Stan snapped.

"The Chuquicamata open pit copper mine."

"Anything normal."

Bill gave him a look akin to that of a vegetarian who'd just been asked to discuss his favorite cuts of beef. "Have you metme?"

"Try topics that get him in the right mindset for romance," Mabel said. "Like, 'what do you want your future wife's favorite color to be?' Or 'you look like dad material!'"

Bill nodded slowly. "So we're aggressively leading him on. I can work with that. I've never been a fan of subtlety."

"And call him charming," Stan said. "Guys love hearing they're charming. Oh, and tell him his jokes are funny."

"What if he doesn't tell jokes."

"All guys tell jokes when they're flirting! If he's not telling jokes, you're doing something wrong."

"It's true," Mabel said. "Watch any high school romance!" Bill gave them both a dubious look.

Stan glanced up as Ford and Dipper walked by the doorway with Gompers. "Tell 'im, Ford."

"What?"

"All men tell jokes when we're flirting! It's probably in our DNA or something."

Dipper thought about that, and nodded. "I tell jokes when I'm flirting."

Mabel shouted, "You try to tell jokes when you're flirting! Heyooo!"

"Hey."

Ford grimaced. "Usually when I'm flirting, I forget every joke I've ever heard and start asking as many questions as I can think of."

Bill said, "That's because you only flirt with things you want to add to your bestiary!"

"The point still stands."

Dipper had leaned into the room to read the banned topic list. "Why are conspiracy theories off-limits? He came to Gravity Falls in the first place because he was looking for a paranormal conspiracy."

"Dipper's right," Ford said, "he'd probably be interested in the topic."

Bill flung his hands in the air. "Thank you! That's what I was saying!"

Stan shook his head, "Too close to discussing politics. What if they believe in different conspiracies!"

"Plus, watch this," Mabel said. "Hey Bill, what do you think about Flat Earth theory."

Bill groaned. "I was drunk, those statements were taken out of context, and I can't be held responsible if some idiot with a boat misinterpreted me."

Mabel looked at Ford and Dipper.

Dipper grimaced. "Got it."

Ford nodded. "Conspiracy theories are off-limits."

"This is why you're all single," Bill said.

####

Stan said, "And if you're gonna lie about your job—"

"Which you always should," Bill cut in.

"Obviously! But make sure it's not something too easy to verify. Like, you can't claim to be the governor, what if your date actually voted and knows who the governor is?"

"That's a good point! Margaret was not impressed."

"You're telling me! My suit smelled like broccoli cheese soup for weeks!"

"You shoulda suggested she get the house salad."

"Yeah, I—" Stan cut off. "Wait. How do you know about Margaret? That was twenty years ago!"

Dipper and Ford were in the kitchen, looking for every ingredient they could find that might coax Gompers to release the flash drive the old-fashioned way and listening to the discussion in the living room. Gompers nibbled at a dish towel, oblivious to the fate awaiting him.

Mabel trotted in and patted him as she passed. "Hey, you! You're giving us major trouble, you rascal!"

He bleated at her.

Mabel pushed up to the open fridge next to Dipper, and when he stepped aside to make more room for her, she stepped into his personal space again and leaned into him with her shoulder. "Why are you in the way, bro, jeez!"

"You're in the way!" He leaned against her in turn. "What are you doing in here? Aren't you supposed to be training Bill?"

"Grunkle Stan's taking the lead right now," Mabel said. "My talent is helping people find true love! But his talent is suckering someone into liking you for a day. So I think he's better suited to the task at hand."

"Oh, yeah." Dipper chuckled wryly. "His advice will get you a first date, but not a second date."

Ford muttered, "His technique hasn't changed since high school, I see."

Dipper found the bottle of prune juice he'd been looking for, pulled it out, and stepped back. Mabel yelped when her counterweight disappeared and stumbled sideways into the fridge door.

As Dipper emptied the juice into a mixing bowl, he said, "I'm not sure about this plan. Even with both you and Stan helping. I know Bill's good at tricking people, but... he's so annoying. And not in a lovable way."

"Don't undersell him!" Mabel said. She'd retrieved a pitcher of Mabel Juice and was dumping a full bottle of sprinkles into it—hardcore romance training required high stamina. "He has the potential to be a dreamboat!"

Ford muttered, "He's a manipulative, murderous monster." He was searching through all the cans they'd moved to the kitchen counter for beans.

"Those don't have to be mutually exclusive," Mabel insisted. "Serial killers get girlfriends. Sometimes after they're arrested!"

"I'mmm not seeing a dreamboat," Dipper said. "More like a shipwreck. I mean, when you were trying to come up with a list of romantic date foods, he suggested blood licked off your date's teeth."

"And he was right!" Mabel said. "Vampires, bro-bro!"

"Okay, but I don't think he was talking about teeth that were still attached to his date's skull!"

"He didn't say they weren't attached," said Mabel, with flagging conviction that suggested she hadn't considered that and was realizing Dipper was probably right.

"And five minutes ago you and Stan told him he should pretend to be a princess, and he told you he'd be great at that because he started an Internet dating service that matches up lonely widows with overseas con artists pretending to be deposed princes."

"Well," Mabel said sheepishly.

"And then he tried to talk you two into investing in a pyramid scheme to fund his dating service."

"But we didn't invest!" Mabel said.

"Only because you looked it up on your phone and discovered he'd made it up!"

"I mean, until then, it sounded romantic!" Mabel flung her hands out in a wide shrug. (Something about the gesture looked strange to Ford.) "Finding a second chance at love with a mysterious foreign criminal with a glamorous false identity? That'd be great if it was real!"

"Mabel, it's a scam," Dipper said exasperatedly.

"And do scam artists not deserve love, too?!" Mabel pounded a fist on the table emphatically. "What about Grunkle Stan! He deserves love! A rich overseas widow would be perfect for him!"

"That's not— The point is, Bill's not romantic!" Dipper said. "This plan isn't going to work!"

Ford set half a dozen bean cans next to Dipper's mixing bowl. "He doesn't need to be romantic," he said. "He only needs to be charismatic. And for all his flaws, he's certainly that." Planets will orbit stars and black holes just the same—and not even realize the difference. "He doesn't have to actually win Agent Powers's heart. He only has to keep his attention for a few hours. By the time Bill stops dazzling Powers long enough for him to see the red flags, we'll have the flash drive." He nodded toward Gompers. "If we get it before the agents return with a warrant, we might not even need Bill to distract him."

Dipper sighed. "Then let's hope Gompers likes prunes."

"Come on! Show a little faith!" Mabel said.

Ford muttered, "The last time I put my faith in Bill..." Dipper gestured emphatically at Ford in agreement.

"Not in Bill! In me! Mark my words, Grunkle Ford—I'll get this Cinderella ready to meet his Prince Charming if I have to summon every mouse in Gravity Falls to help sew his ballgown!"

"Please don't summon the wildlife again," Dipper groaned. "The last time you did that, huge spiders kept appearing in our room for a week."

Mabel's pocket vibrated; she pulled out her phone and gasped. She chugged down the rest of her juice in three sickly sweet gulps and bolted from the room. "Biiill! Your personal style consultant texted back!"

"My who?"

She dragged him out of the living room by the wrist. "Come on!"

Ford watched them run up the stairs, then started searching through their cereal boxes for the high fiber one. Tentatively, he asked, "Mabel doesn't actually think we're trying to get Bill and the agent together, does she?" The Prince Charming comment was concerning.

"I don't know," Dipper sighed. "A few days ago she started talking about trying to get Bill a love life? Maybe she sees this as a practice round."

"Really? Why, did he say he wants to date people?" If he wanted to get out of the shack to emotionally prey on the locals one-on-one without supervision...

"I don't think she's even told him yet. It's part of her project to... reintegrate him into society? She probably thinks the power of love can rehabilitate him." Dipper sighed. "She's setting herself up for disappointment. He's been conning people into thinking he's a good guy for billions of years, right? If being loved could fix him, he'd be an angel by now."

"Instead, he's just gotten better at pretending to be an angel," Ford said ruefully. "I'm inclined to agree with you." He found the cereal he'd been looking for and set it on the table by Dipper. "But then... we let him live, didn't we? Because we all hope we're wrong. I suppose that doesn't make us that different from Mabel."

Dipper shook his head emphatically. "Not me." He dumped one of the cans of beans into the prune juice a little harder than necessary. "I let him live for two reasons: because of Mabel, and because of that prophecy. And he doesn't have to change to fulfill some prophecy to save us—when it comes, he might just be trying to save his own stupid butt, too."

"I suppose so." Right—of course, even if he'd agreed to spare Bill, Dipper still didn't have any real hope for him beyond his usefulness.

Over the past month, Ford hadn't seen anything more sympathetic out of Bill than Dipper had. He wondered at himself for even being willing to consider Bill might change. When had Ford changed enough to consider it? Or was he just more susceptible to Bill's same old tricks?

"You don't remember the whole prophecy yet, do you?" Ford asked. "What if this is what it was about? Saving our family from the government because he's the only person the lead agent finds attractive enough to distract him?"

Dipper pulled a face. "I hope not," he said. "After everything he put us through? He owes us a fight to the death with an interdimensional eldritch god."

"Now that's a sight I'd pay to see."

####

MABEL: Heyyy Paz, can I ask for a small favor. I have a friend that needs a MAJOR MAKEOVER!! 😿 Like the FULL PRINCESS TRANSFORMATION treatment!! Can you help him?

PACIFICA: Can't, I'm suuuper busy today. I have the lunch shift AND grooming day at the ranch.

PACIFICA: Plus, why would I help some total rando? 😒

MABEL: Because it's my friend with the beautiful golden hair.

PACIFICA: asldkfggh

PACIFICA: OK fine come by the ranch after work

PACIFICA: and send me a picture of his skin next to a white paper so I can grab some foundations to try out.

####

Bill took a piece of paper and a marker, wrote "Make me beautiful!" and dotted the I and the exclamation point with hearts, flopped the least sunburned part of his arm next to the paper for Mabel to take a picture, and leaned away to keep his face out of it.

As Mabel snapped a couple pictures, she said, "Okay, before we visit Pacifica, I have to warn you. She can be a liiittle bit mean when it comes to fashion. So don't get mad at her, okay? It's how she shows she cares!"

"No it's not," Bill said.

"No, it's not," Mabel conceded. "But it doesn't mean she doesn't care. That's just... how she relates to other people! By insulting their fashion, style, and body. And family. And finances."

"Don't worry, star girl. I can take it."

"But I mean, she might be really, really, super mean about your looks," Mabel said. "And you cannot curse her or threaten to turn her bones into flutes or do anything Bill-ish like that. Promise me."

"Hey, bone flutes! That sounds like a fun arts and crafts project, right?"

"Bill!"

"Re-lax, it'll be fine," Bill said. "She's just your garden-variety pageant girl with an overly-critical mom who tried to relive her glory years through her daughter! I can handle a teenage ex-beauty queen. I'm an expert on those types."

Skeptically, Mabel said, "Really?" She was slowly coming to realize that, in Bill's opinion, he was the expert on everything.

"Oh yeah. I spent years eyelid deep in the pageant scene."

"You did?" she said, surprised. "How come? Did you try to trick a beauty pageant into building your portal or something like that?"

Bill stared at Mabel.

####

Outside the flat hospital, it was a beautiful, peaceful morning. The air was clear, the unseen sun was shining brightly from some unknown dimension, and some 2D equivalent to a bird was chirping in some 2D equivalent to a tree.

And then the hospital doors crashed open with such force that passing shapes momentarily suspected that someone had set off a bomb.

"—don't give me that look, if you'd hustled your hypotenuse and had your birthday yesterday, we wouldn't be in such a rush! You're just lucky you came out so cute, or—" An exhausted, dull pinkish triangle charged out the doors with a very tiny, squishy yellow triangle in her trembling arm. She turned to shout behind her—"Hurry up! There's only two hours until the Best Baby Pageant and he is not going to miss it!"

—and was followed closely by a horrified blue triangle carrying a hat in one hand and a cane in the other. "But Scalene, the doctors still have to do those tests to check for—"

"They can test him later! If he's got some horrible birth defect, he'll still have it after he's won a trophy!" Without slowing, Scalene turned and held the baby out toward the other triangle. The squishy new shape gawked at him in mild befuddlement. "Look at this kid, Euclid! Most newborn brats look like cranky raisins, but he's less than an hour old and he's already bright-eyed and smooth-sided! He was born with the face of a pageant winner—"

Not looking where she was going, she ran into a tree. The bird flew off in a panic, Scalene lost her balance, and she nearly dropped the baby. Euclid caught him, caught her, and held her steady while she leaned dizzily against the tree. "Lene. You should be on bedrest right now. Maybe we should just, you know, take a moment to process..."

"Process what! We have our little angle. Am I supposed to sit in a hospital bed staring at the afterbirth?!"

While Euclid stared at her in shock, she snatched the child back, pushed him away, and wobbled back upright. "What kind of a lazy mother would I be if I was sleeping instead of making my child a winner! You want him to start off life on the right foot, don't you?"

Defeated, Euclid said, "All right. I'll take care of the... the paperwork. At least bring your cane."

"I don't need it. I'm fine."

"Fine?! You just..." He gestured at her, gestured at the brand-spanking-new baby, gestured at her again, then flung his hands up in defeat. "If you drop our baby, I'm divorcing you."

She sighed huffily. "You're so dramatic." But she snatched the cane out of his hand anyway and stormed away, declaring loudly enough that shapes on the other side of the street turned to stare: "If the mayor doesn't declare my Billy the greatest baby in the whole godforsaken world, I'm grabbing the biggest trophy in the room and bashing his eye in!"

####

Bill shrugged at Mabel. "Sure," he said. "Something like that."

####

Gompers stared down at the bowl set on the floor in front of him.

It contained black beans, broccoli, coffee grounds, fiber-enriched whole-grain cereal, oatmeal, and an avocado and half a sweet potato mashed together into an orange-green mush, all stewing in a prune juice soup.

Gompers looked up.

Dipper and Ford were crouched across from him, watching expectantly.

Gompers bleated balefully at them.

"Go on!" Ford nudged the bowl closer. "It's good for you."

Gompers knew a lie when he heard one. He turned his nose up at the mix.

"I don't get it," Dipper said. "He eats everything. What's wrong with this stuff?"

"I haven't a clue."

"Maybe it's the broccoli?"

Ford gave him a quizzical look. "Why broccoli?"

Dipper shrugged. "I don't like broccoli, I don't know why he would."

"Hmm." Mystified, Ford propped his chin in his hand and stared into Gompers's eyes. Gompers stared back. Gompers stared into his soul. Gompers didn't blink.

Ford was dragged from this session of nonconsensual soul-searching by the sound of footsteps and Mabel's voice drifting down the stairs: "Listen, you know I love your sense of fashion! All I'm saying is everyone loves kittens, but snakes? That's a pretty niche fashion market! You're not gonna get a lot of takers."

"No, hey, hear me out," Bill said. "I listened to your professional matchmaker advice, now you've got to listen to my professional heartbreaker advice. You'll thank me for this one day! This is my number one romance tip: if you wanna impress a date, strap cobras to your arms and call yourself 'Johnny Cobra-Arms.' It works every time. Guaranteed."

(Dipper snorted.)

"Whaaat? No way," Mabel said. "Seriously, what?"

"It's true! I workshopped this! I've experimented across parallel timelines! It works."

"Quit messing with me, Bill."

"You think I would ever mislead you? No. Picture this." As the pair turned the corner on the stairs, Bill was spreading his hands in front of himself as though gesturing to the scene he wanted Mabel to imagine. "You see a guy, maybe a year older than you, kinda cute but nothing to write home about, maybe a 6/10. Got him in your mind's eye?"

A look of intense concentration crossed Mabel's face as she engaged her Imagination. "Yeah?"

"Okay, now imagine he—" Bill reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around. "Where are my shoes." He raised his voice, "Who moved my fisshoes! I left them right— oh, there they are." He disappeared into the living room. "Imagine your 6/10 has two big snakes wrapped around his arms. And he catches your eye from across the club, comes up to you, and says..." Bill's voice dropped to a pitch that was nearly in the range of an average adult human male, "'Hey. Name's Johnny Cobra-Arms. What's yours?'"

Mabel thought about it. Her eyes slowly widened in amazement. "Oh my god, it would totally work on me."

Bill re-emerged into the entryway, fish shoes donned. "See?"

"It made him hot! What the heck, how did that happen!"

"See?! It works every time!" He shouted toward the kitchen, "Hey, we're leaving for Alpaca's! I'm taking the car!"

"No you're not," Ford said.

Bill spread his hands in a shrug. "Worth a shot!" He grabbed his umbrella and the magic friendship bracelets from the coat rack and waited for Mabel to open the door. "See, it's the best possible first impression. It shows he's got a sense of humor, he's quirky, he's a little bit dangerous, he's got a great sense of fashion, he's a world traveler, he's good with animals..." The door swung shut behind them.

The way Bill had shrugged stuck in Ford's mind.

In his true form, Bill didn't have shoulders. His arms extended out of his sides like the trunks of saplings extending from the surface of flood waters, and they glided around his perimeter in a way that defied conventional physical biology. No joints.

When he shrugged in his human body, sometimes he'd bob his shoulders up and down in a deliberate mimicry of how humans performed the gesture; and lately, as Bill got used to moving his new body, Ford had seen him sluggishly raise a shoulder when he was too exhausted to gesture more expressively. But most of the time, he shrugged like he still didn't have shoulders. He'd spread his arms, bend his elbows, usually forming a W shape but sometimes when he was particularly emphatic forming a shape like football goalposts, and if he really wanted to make his meaning clear he'd twitch his upturned palms up the way a human would twitch their shoulders.

He did it all the time. He'd done it just now. The gesture was so natural on Bill that Ford had never realized how unnaturalit was on a human—until he'd seen Mabel make the exact same gesture earlier.

She was copying Bill's body language. He wondered if she knew.

He'd have to keep an eye on that.

"Hope Agent Powers is into snakes," Dipper muttered.

Ford laughed—then wondered whether someone pulling the Johnny Cobra-Arms trick would've worked on him. If by now nothing had made him take an interest in a basic, garden-variety human being, he doubted anything could... but, admittedly, he'd at least consider hanging out with Johnny. He sounded like an intriguing character. "If that's the worst thing Bill subjects him to, he'll be getting off light."

With a twinge of guilt, Ford realized just how true that was. Ford was no stranger to having to turn down the volume on his conscience for the greater good—and there were few greater goods than protecting his family—but...

He might not know Powers, but he did know that, whether Bill succeeded in seducing him or not, the man didn't deserve what he was about to be subjected to.

####

(Now that this chapter's finally out, may there be no further delays for a good long while, ugh.

Here's your "what was changed in the wake of TBOB" update: obviously, since we got five whole pages on Bill's beliefs about romance, a lot of that got incorporated into this chapter—the first and last scenes were basically written entirely in response to TBOB.

The scene with Scalene & Euclid, obviously, got their names & descriptions from TBOB & TINAWDC (and yeah, yeah, i'm eventually gonna go back to earlier chapters and edit out Bill's mom being a line so it matches up with canon), and it's obvious what the "best baby pageant" is a reference to (so you can guess whether Bill won)—but Bill being a pageant kid due to his mom was already part of the plans long before TBOB, so I just stuck a couple canon details into the story I was already writing. We were already gonna get into Bill's childhood this chapter & next (as you'll see next week).

Beyond that, most of the chapter was already in its present form before TBOB—up to & including Bill having a list of topics he thinks are acceptable for dates that no rational human would agree with—and all TBOB added was a couple tiny details (like... "mandibles".)

The fact that the list of things that were influenced by TBOB is so much longer than usual is part of the reason this chapter's two whole weeks late lmao.

Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed, happy new year, and I'm looking forward to (finally) hearing your thoughts on the first fresh chapter of 2025!

#bill cipher #scalene cipher #euclid cipher #mabel pines #human bill cipher #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher #(tbh i'm still not 100% on euclid's design. He looks too plain without the brick stripes but they aren't quite doing it for me)#(he's got a brother he's gotta be matchy with—maybe i'll toss up some concept art later—which is why i'm tilting toward green)#(but THAT shade of green? and the stripes? not convinced)#(but it's good enough for now)#(also as u can see i decided yes i do wanna give Mabel sweaters without collars to indicate she's 6% older now)#(i'll prob be editing art in earlier chapters at some point to reflect that)

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rottiens · 3 months ago

Text

nocturne, gojō satoru

summary. you feel strange, something that had never happened in Satoru’s presence before. He had never made you feel anything more than comfort, confidence and respect, but now the air is slowly charged with a heavy mist that begins to seep through your skin, weighs on your lungs and makes your beats detonate just a little. You can't know what it is but there's something different about tonight.

tags. (18+), touch starved fem!reader, size difference, dubcon, manipulation, praise kink, reader is geto’s “ex”, gojo a little gay/bi (the usual), just the tip, cum eating, thigh job.

WC. 10.8K — read on ao3

notes. ok, first of all, I have the hc that gojo dances very well (I have zero proof, zero doubt). Second, this is inspired by my under my skin series with geto, writing the last chapter made me think about the people geto left behind when he left jujutsu tech and how they handled those feelings and this was born (you don't need to read that series at all to understand this), third; this came out darker than I had thought and I hope you still love me as much as I love feral gojo

You like to think that nothing has changed since he left. After all, the sun still shines just as brightly, the rain still drenches even the remotest corner of Tokyo, you keep drinking tea without a spoonful of sugar and you still attend Jujutsu Tech like the obedient little sheep you are (his words).

You still work for the higher-ups despite disagreeing with them all the time. You keep improving yourself as a sorceress, completing mission after mission and sending money to your parents every end of the month so they can finish paying off the house and maybe after all the only thing that has changed is that you now have your own apartment, which well, officially will be yours in about two more months when you finish paying off the loan. You are surrounded by things that you can proudly say belong to you and that you were able to buy for yourself, things that you may not need like a vase of candy that you keep in the kitchen for when Satoru is visiting or the cotton candy flavored lip balm that you are currently entertaining yourself with while waiting for the kettle to start squeaking.

The clock-like cat in the background meows at 1:56AM, yet another item Satoru threw in the shopping cart when he helped you get the essentials you needed to furnish your apartment a couple of years ago. It's something you didn't need because you're never home to look at the time or that's what you have your phone for, and after all you were never much of a cat lover. However when Satoru was looking at you over the top of his glasses and those bright eyes were begging you, it was almost impossible for you to say no to him.

Though, how could you? Satoru has been the only friend you've kept after so long, the only one who knows all the pain you've gone through in silence and the only one who was there with you the day Suguru left Jujutsu Tech. Truth be told, you were never that close to Satoru back then, you two never managed to talk that much except for when you would go out in a group and Ieiri would invite you downtown to go with them to eat, shop or drink sake, the memories make you sigh heavily. An ironic laugh crosses your chest along with a bitter memory of those days where you kept looking at Suguru from the other side of the table, every time his eyes met yours you were forced to look away, to run away from that heavy feeling that burned your chest and to ignore the fact that every time he laughed his knee met yours. You remember his cold fingers under the table touching your knee, touching your shoulder when he turned to tell you something funny.

The clock strikes 2:03AM, the exact moment when the kettle starts to squeak and forces you to get up from your stool and shuffle your bare feet across the tiles to the stove. You turn it off and the smoke leaving the kettle makes you focus again on that day... The day when The High-ups decided that Suguru Geto was officially enemy of the sorcerers and was now considered a curse that needed to be executed, that day Satoru was there too. It was the first time you saw him so quiet, without that sarcastic laughter that characterized him filling the room, the same silence that filled the others rested even heavier on Satoru's head and yours, it was as if a heavy black cloud began to rain down on your heads.

Satoru was silent but his clenched fists spoke for him, shaking on the table. White knuckles and thick veins were marked on the backs of his hands and when you looked up into his face he was glaring at you, that icy stare still makes your back bristle every time you remember it. His nose flaps were dilated and his sharp jaw was clenched. You on the other hand were shivering, as if the gray cloud above your head was actually starting to rain, as if the drops were real and together with Satoru's gaze it was raining on your body.

You never told anyone, not Satoru, not even Ieiri, but deep down you blame yourself for never noticing how he was slowly drifting away from you, how he was losing himself. In the middle of the nights when you talked lying on his bed, while he smoked and passed you the cigarette and asked you about the origin of the curses, when he asked what you thought would be the solution for a world without curses are clues that should have raised alarms in your head, yet you could never connect the dots of the red alerts that screamed to you that the person you were in love with could be about to fall into the abyss.

You lie to yourself, when you fix your hair every morning and put on the spotless uniform next to the plastic smile you have become so used to wearing, you lie to yourself and tell you that everything is fine, that even though you haven't known where he is for four years, even though you hear the trail of death he leaves in his wake, you are fine, everything is fine, the reflection in the mirror smiles back at you and repeats the same thing. You're glad you have a roof to live under, a place to work, friends to worry about, it's okay if you couldn't save one of them after all, right? It's not your fault. The important thing is that you are doing the right thing, that you are saving dozens of innocents, right?

You just pray every day, to whatever higher being might be listening to you not to be the one to find him, not to be the one to confront him... because if that day were to come, you...

Your phone chimes with a notification and the fact takes you so abruptly by surprise that the teacup you're holding slips and shatters to pieces on the floor, splashes of hot chamomile drops burn on your bare feet and exposed legs, you groan in pain and curse walking away to pick up the phone resting on the counter, just in time to receive another message.

S. Gojō: Knock knock, silly

S. Gojō: I'm outside

Sent at 2:21AM, he's never visited you this late. Usually Satoru would show up suddenly in the nights because he couldn't sleep, midnight, eleven, ten but he always left after two hours of drinking tea and talking about anything. Other times he would text you very late in the dawn because he woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, then he would find you awake because you couldn't sleep either and both of you would stay up late talking and then he would always be late the next day for his classes.

But today was unusual... your phone vibrates with another notification.

S. Gojō: Don't make me break the door, I can feel your cursed energy from in here :p

You must have been too deep in thought not to notice the strong smell of his cursed energy coming through the door, the sensation even through the walls tingles your skin.

You flee the kitchen scene with your feet marking wet footprints all over the floor, on your way to the front door you stop in the small living room to turn on the lights and give a little more life to the gloomy place. Your footsteps stop right in front of the frame, your fingers curl around the knob and you take a deep exhale that allows you to search for the plastic smile to put on your face, a smile that manages to mask how exhausted you were feeling tonight. Of all the nights, this might have been his worst choice to come visit you.

"Hey—" The creation of your fake smile falls halfway off. You don't remember the last time you'd seen Satoru out of uniform, or at least dressed so formally, just to come see you? But seeing him in casual clothes caused the wheels in your brain to stop working just a little. "What—"

He chuckles, adjusting the sunglasses better on the bridge of his nose. "They canceled the mission to Kyoto." He pauses to tap twice on the carry-on suitcase dragging near his feet that you barely notice. "So I thought I'd stop by and see how you were doing."

That was it? "You always dress like that for all your missions?" Now he was smiling, almost looking amused at your reaction. "What's wrong with my clothes?" Nothing! That was the point, rather than a mission, he looked like he was dressed for a date.

He was wearing a black synthetic jacket that came down to his wrists along with a shirt the color of his eyes underneath, the two buttons near his collarbones open revealing a flash of his chest. Those oval sunglasses that couldn't be missed and tight black pants that matched the shiny loafers. Without the uniform he even looked taller, he smelled like he just got out of the shower, a kind of icy mint where you are forced to inhale while blinking slowly.

"Nothing," you comment after you've examined him up and down. You think you were subtle enough that he didn't notice, but you're sure he did anyway.

"May I come in?" he still keeps a smile on his words.

You step aside without adding something else that sinks you into a debate you can't get out of. You wait patiently for the wheels of the mini suitcase to cross the threshold of the door and for Satoru to give you the space to close it behind you.

"Want some tea?" you cross past him to head for the kitchen, his footsteps following your trail.

"Yeah, tell me you have sugar." You want to fight him, to tell him that chamomile tea doesn't really have sugar in it because it's a sleeping tea, but you know you'd just be wasting your time so you end up pointing your finger at one of the shelves instead.

"It's right where—"

"Wow!" His hands suddenly squeeze your waist and make you stop, you stutter his name in confusion. His fingers burn against the flesh your pajamas fail to cover and he pulls you back. "What happened?" he says low behind you. You notice how his hands look squeezing you and then look at the puddle at your feet along with pieces of pottery strewn in front of the sink.

"Your text message, you scared me."

"So it was my fault, hm?" you can guess the smirk in his tone. "It's okay, I always take care of my messes."

Satoru gently pushes you aside, then asks you to sit on one of the stools while he takes care of picking up the pieces because he's afraid you might cut yourself in the process. He further alleges that you are barefoot.

"My hero," you say, exaggerating your voice for a louder one. This time Satoru laughs and it rubs off on you. He takes several paper towels and squats down spreading his knees as far apart as he can to soak all the paper while you stare at him silently, it's impossible not to think how big he is if you compare him to your kitchen space or if you compare him to any other object in your apartment really.

"I know, I know. What would you do without me, huh?" he looks up at you from below and you catch a glint of the blue in his eyes before he turns his attention back to the floor, focusing now on picking up the broken pieces and carrying each one to the trash can behind you.

"Sooo." You exaggeratedly lengthen the word until he's back in your field of vision, rummaging through your cabinets effortlessly as if he owns the floor.

"So?" He walks toward you with two mugs that he places side by side. Then he turns around to pick up the teapot and starts pouring the hot liquid.

"Do you always go on your missions like this?"

"Like this how?" Oh, he knows very well what you meant. Like this, you want to tell him, but you know it would only serve to boost his annoying ego a little more. "Tell me when to stop," he asks you, starting to empty the hot liquid into the cup, the smell of chamomile and cinnamon wafting up towards your nose.

"That's good," you tell him a few inches before the infusion touches the rim and you bring it to your mouth almost instantly. "And I mean like this," you point his body up and down with your free hand, then sip slowly, "so elegant."

"What do you mean? This is me in my regular clothes, this is how I always look." Satoru finishes filling his cup and puts at least six sugar cubes in it before speaking again. "Let's go to the couch." You just shake your head and follow the path he traces because you're sure you're going to be more comfortable on the L-shaped couch he helped you pick out (which is why he loves it so much), conventionally too big for your living room space, but big enough for Satoru to spread his legs and arms on the back and coo like a pleased kitten. "Today's mission was special..." He answers a question you'd forgotten about and takes the first sip of his tea.

"Hm?" you inquire, curiously looking for more information. Now that you're sitting up, the satin fabric of your shorts rides up a few inches over your thighs and in a vain attempt to pull it down just a little, you find him peering out of the corner of your eye.

"It was someone... important." You feel his eyes on your thighs, he tries to disguise it but doesn't try very hard either. "I had to escort him somewhere."

"It had to be someone important to be escorted by the strongest." This time he's the one cooing, hesitant. You know there are missions you can't divulge too much about or you might get in trouble, and even for someone like Satoru Gojo who giving his tongue a life of its own has never been a problem, him being quiet now should be enough to make you desist on the subject or maybe he's just too distracted going back to your legs again and again. You clear your throat. "I-"

"Mind if I turn out the light?" you blink slowly in his direction. "My eyes," he clarifies something that should be obvious to you. An Oh louder than it should makes your throat vibrate.

"Sure."

"I just want to take a break from the sunglasses for a while."

"Sure, yeah."

Satoru first sets the cup down on the small table in front of the couch, then gets up and walks over and through the various objects in your living room until he reaches the switch. You try not to notice his body as he does so, his long legs or how wide his shoulders look as he walks back towards the couch making the place his catwalk, the height and appearances have always made him look like a model in your eyes, a comment you want to make but your coherent side makes you bite your tongue, you're still too awake for that.

You try to hide that it doesn't affect you when he takes off his jacket and settles back on the sofa with his mug in hand, staring at you.

"Better?" You clear your throat again, feeling it irritably dry.

"Yeah. I have been using them all day and the bright light sometimes ends up bothering me.” The conversation makes you look at his eyes, even in the midst of the darkness that surrounds you, you can see them shine.

“I'm sorry,” you say, but you don't know exactly what you're apologizing for. Uncomfortable and overheated, you decide to take another long sip of the infusion.

It's strange, you feel strange, something that had never happened in Satoru's presence before. He had never made you feel anything more than comfort, confidence and respect, but now the air is slowly charged with a heavy mist that, although you cannot see, begins to seep through your skin, through your pores, weighs on your lungs and makes your beats detonate just a little. You can't know what it is but there's something different about tonight.

"What about you?" Satoru murmurs with his mouth on the cup, his sweet voice echoing among the ceramics and the way he speaks seems like he's telling a little boy a secret. "Haven't you been on missions in a long time?"

"I don't usually take so many important missions, no." You didn't need to give him any more details because you're sure he knew… that your last name wasn't as well known as his or the Zenins, that you weren't as strong compared to other sorcerers, and that you didn't normally leave town, unlike he.

"I remember when Suguru was here it wasn't like that." His name makes you stop breathing for a moment. Your fingers squeeze the semi-empty cup and your gaze escapes from his to focus on some point on the floor. "He always said how strong you were, how much he wanted to have you under his arm and show you what you weren't able to see for yourself, one day." Was he really saying all that about you? This time you go back to his face, on his expression, his half-closed eyes fixed on what was in front of him, it seemed that he was serious.

"He never told me that."

"I guess it wasn't necessary, was it?"Yes? You have always been a person who likes to hear what others think especially regarding their feelings, no matter how much their facts speak for them, you need to hear them say those three important words. "You guys were really close after all." Yes, Suguru and you were very close indeed. So close that sometimes he would rather study with you than with Satoru even though you were a year younger than them. You were so close that sometimes you slept together, he would listen to your secrets and he would babble about his.

“Gojo…” You scratch the back of your neck, massaging a tendon that tightens and pulls your nape toward the floor. You weren't sure if this was the topic you wanted to talk about tonight.

“Please, we are the same now. You don't have to treat me with such respect, Satoru it's okay." You leave the empty cup on the table before looking at him, a smile was waiting on his face that barely curved the corners of his mouth but there was something in all this that although it seemed innocent, it was not right, and while you pull down the fabric of your shorts you realize what it is.

"Satoru." You say his name for the first time in a long time and that makes the grin on his face widen, he tilts his head forward a bit showing you more of his eyes and invites you to continue. "I don't know if I want to talk about it right now."

You knew exactly what that was on your chest, tight, like a rope knot. It was guilt, because even after so many years you felt that you had to continue being faithful to a person who disappeared without giving you an explanation, guilt because you were seeing who his best friend was with different eyes. Because you were thinking of Satoru in a way that one friend wouldn't think of another.

"Do you still love him? Is that why you don't want to take on the important missions, are you afraid of running into him?" your tongue is heavy, your stomach sinks even deeper. Satoru wasn't looking at you, his attention was fixed on the unlit lamp at the other end of the couch.

"Yes." It's all you can say, running from his expression to your legs. Not having enough strength to clarify which of the two questions you are answering, concentrating on the heating in your apartment, on how warm it feels to be there.

"Yeah..." He sighs, pausing for a long time. "Me too. I miss him, it's hard not to think about him sometimes." You can sense the melancholy in his voice, his cup crashing against the wood as soon as he finishes speaking, the silence and darkness in the room adding a bit more melodrama to the scene. Satoru splits his legs, spreads his thighs wide, and the mix of emotions inside you intensifies.

"He never contacted you again?" you ask desperately to occupy your mind. He shakes his head, still focused on the lifeless lamp. You? "No."

And maybe it was better that way. To live in silence, to live hiding and filling the emptiness he left inside you with books and knowledge, with other people who look like him, with missions where you pray you never meet him face to face because the moment you did you wouldn't know exactly what to say or what to do, even though you know well what the orders are supposed to obey.

You look at the lamp along with him wondering what he's thinking. Filling the gaps in your memory with banal conversations you two might be having right now, yet this didn't seem like one of the many times Satoru has come to your place to chat and drink.

"When was the last time you did something fun?" Out of the corner of your eye you see him rest his head on his shoulder and relax a little more on the couch. “Something that has nothing to do with work. Something you really enjoy.”

If you were honest... "I don't even remember."

He clicks his tongue and you look at him just in time to see him reach for something in his pocket. The blue light from the screen illuminates his face, the keyboard squeaks under his nice fingers, strands of hair stick to his forehead and the light is so bright it makes his eyelashes look like snowflakes. A soft melody begins to play, you're lost, you drop your head to the side along with a pout that makes him laugh, then he holds out his hand.

"Dance with me."

“Gojo— no, no. I Can't." You laugh nervously, the heat rising from your cheeks to your chest. "I don't know how to dance." You confess quietly, more embarrassed to share that secret than you should.

"Okay, me neither." Liar, you'd definitely seen him dance before at teacher parties and maybe he wasn't a pro but he was good, he did that thing with his feet that was impossible to take your eyes off him when he was on the dance floor. "Come on."

You chew your lower lip, exchanging glances between the hand that moves its fingers strangely in front of you and Satoru, who is waiting for you with a smile. No, don't, don't take his hand… You know he feels your icy damp fingers as his hand clings to yours and helps you up to cling to your chest. Your lungs empty and fill with him, his perfume, his natural scent, the faint cotton candy scent you manage to identify among the tangle of faint scents. The fact that he had deactivated his infinity so that you can touch him shoots adrenaline through your bloodstream, skin against skin.

"Okay, what do I do?" You were laughing shyly again, allowing his fingers to take hold of your waist, fixing you close to him just as he wanted you.

"Just follow my footsteps." It was hard to follow him, keep your nerves in check and at the same time try to breathe.

"I'm going to step on you." You tease, his open palm descending to your lower back as the violins pick up, pulling you further into him. "Go—!"

"You're not going to step on me, we're fine. Put your hands on my shoulders." He instructs you. That meant having to leave his chest, stop yourself from looking at his collarbones and look into his eyes. "Like this." He does it for you, takes one of your wrists and delicately places it on one of his shoulders then returns to your waist, his ice-cold fingers a little further below your waist this time, you feel his fingertips brush against the elastic of your shorts, his nails barely scratching your skin. “This is my favorite part,” he says low in your ear, almost mischievous. And in the midst of the symphony of your blood rushing violently in your ears and the drum of your heart, you hear it. The violin had increased in speed which made you go faster, it was almost impossible to follow his turns, impossible not to step on him but this was something Satoru ignored, he allows your bare feet to step on him again and again and again, bringing behind these one apology from you after another.

Satoru was practically on top of you now, hugging you closer to him. His face hidden in your neck —which you appreciate because how could you look into his eyes and dance at the same time—, his lips on your skin, humming the melody of the instruments. His arms squeeze you, make you groan in surprise. Then he kisses your neck and that makes you aware of every little thing around you, the noise that the silence makes, how slowly his feet took you on the impromptu dance floor because the violins had decayed dramatically, you could clearly hear how quickly you were breathing with your mouth open, his arms gripping your waist make you feel small, you can tell how hot having him close is making you, the warmth of his body, how the tender fabric of his shirt felt crinkling against your exposed skin. Satoru kisses you again, this time near the ear.

“Gojo…” you call him, your hands pushing his shoulders in search of regaining your personal space, you needed it or you were going to faint.

"Satoru." He corrects you, breathing heavily into your ear. The warm breath makes your thighs rub against each other.

"Satoru." You repeat, he makes a growling sound. "I don't… think…"

"Do you think he will come back?" A phantom hand oppresses your chest, destroys your ribs to the rhythm of the dramatic melody with which the song continues that seems to never end. "Is that why you haven't been with anyone else?" Satoru leaves the comfort of your neck to look at you, his arms still tied behind your back. He has the look of a feline on his face, white locks falling across his forehead serving as curtains for those eyes that glow like neon lights. An iciness rests on your abdomen, as faint as the flutter of a butterfly.

The song stops abruptly, leaving you alone with the pounding of your heart, your stomach sinking with each breath you take.

“How do you know—” He snorts, his laugh sounding cruel, cutting your sentence off in mid-air.

"Have you?" you refuse to answer, you refuse to keep looking at him so you evade him and those eyes that seem to watch everything. You think you have nowhere to go —literally, because his arms hold you prisoner—, wherever you look there he is. So you stare past his shoulder, past the baby blue of his shirt to the fresh coat of paint on your wall. "Look at me."

You refuse to do it and show him your vulnerability. Sinking deeper and deeper into that heavy, cold sensation that walks from your navel to your ribs, turning into a bitter cocktail of emotions that you don't know how to swallow. When you don't look at him, one of his hands goes to the back of your neck and forces you to do so, fixes your gaze on him, on his slightly half-open pink lips, then on his eyes and the bitter cocktail becomes digestible, clear....

"I've always had my eyes on you."

...So clear. Underneath the layers and layers of raw human emotions you could make out so clearly the primal fear, you wanted to run away from the almighty, hide from his intense gaze but you also feel guilt because inside you still waited for Suguru, because you still expected him to come back even after four years. Guilt because you still felt you had to remain faithful to someone who never asked you to be his girlfriend, to someone who never told you he loved you. You still want to stay faithful to a ghost. Shame, because you couldn't help that your body reacted so well to his closeness, you were hot in every corner of your body and underneath it all, you were aroused.

Your quick blinks took care of erasing the stupor you were in, protecting your tears from spilling over, why would you cry after all? If you never cried when he left, it wasn't time to cry now.

"What did you say?" You tell him in a shaky voice.

"Whenever you were looking at Suguru I was looking at you, watching you laugh, watching your eyes sparkle every time they met his." You see him move from your eyes to your lips. "Watching you fall in love with my best friend. But I don't blame you, I too wondered how his lips tasted."

"Satoru, I didn't—" You were dizzy, your guts in knots. Your frail fists push him again achieving the same result: him remaining motionless. "I don't think it's right that we..."

"He's gone." He says your name, the tone he uses is so ruthless, his voice sounds broken, hoarse and you can't help but shed a single tear that he tries to wipe away immediately, his thumb scrapes your cheek and the touch makes you close your eyes looking to escape from there, to escape the pain, the loneliness and the hundreds of emotions you shouldn't be feeling right now.

"You're his best friend," you say in a tired sigh, looking for him to see the logic to a situation that is obvious to you.

"Yeah." That's all he says. You see him approach you and your eyes snap open meeting his face bathed in darkness, the shadows of the room dancing across half of his face, it makes the features blur and stand out so much more at once. "But we haven't done anything, have we?" he says even closer to your mouth. "At least not yet."

Before you can protest, complain or bring any sense to his brain, Satoru was kissing you and all you can feel for a long moment are his gentle, expert lips, kissing you frantically, forcing you to open wider to give him the space he needs to deepen the kiss. You try to push him away but any kind of physical force you try to exert on him is less than pathetic, your fists don't even faze him and as much as you try to run away, his hands are squeezing your forearms tightly forcing you to remain immobile.

After a while of struggling, of denying yourself the pleasure, you let him in. Satoru purrs reaching your tongue. You are clumsy at first but manage to keep up with him, melting into his rough grip that contrasts gently with the way his mouth caresses yours. His tongue drags your lower lip and that makes you moan in surprise, embarrassed your face boils and his teasing chuckle makes your whole body tighten.

When Satoru finally pulls away, it seems like an eternity has passed, every little corner of your body feels hot and unstable. Your lips tingle and your thighs tremble, you don't remember the last time you... actually, yes, you remembered very well.

He still stands close, with a smile you can glimpse cutting through the night. With slightly swollen lips, painted a pink a few shades more intense than before. As you struggled to get fresh air into your lungs, Satoru still maintained the same breathing rhythm as when he walked through your door.

"You really haven't been with anyone else,” he says, tasting his lips with his tongue.

"N-no, I..."

You didn't have to answer, it wasn't a question, you still looked to try to give him a logical explanation for the physiological reaction you were having but he was already smiling, much wider this time without actually showing his teeth. Satoru lets go of your arms and seems to widen on you, he seems taller, stronger, as if all this time he had been bending his knees so he could be completely at your eye level. Suddenly his hands were all over your crotch, squeezing your pussy above the fabric of your shorts, sinking deeper between your folds. The sticky puddle immediately stains the fabric, you feel it and you know he feels it so you slip away from his face paying more attention to the floor.

"No panties," he says loudly in a mocking tone. Your nails dig into his wrist, a futile attempt to make him stop.

"Satoru, please."

"Please what?" With the help of his fingers he strokes your slit up and down damaging your shorts with your arousal, the delicate fabric feels so good on your swollen clit, someone else's touch even with your pajamas in between is so good you can't help but moan, your nails digging a little deeper into his skin. "Please, keep going?" his caresses are barely perceptible now, toying very very slowly with your clit, your jaw drops to the floor. "Or Satoru, please stop?" He pats your pussy in a gentle slap as if trying to prove a point, your whole body arches falling forward towards him and Satoru welcomes you in a kind of strange embrace. "You have to use your words," he clarifies, his voice so much like a siren's song.

With your face in the middle of his chest he turns you into a shell that does nothing but tremble, a shell empty of all logical thoughts. All that comes to you is an explosion of emotions bombarding your senses, you are overstimulated with smells: you inhale with his hand on the back of your neck petting your hair, giving you time to clear your head. Your belly tingles because he smells so good, the icy mint mixes with a somewhat sweet manly perfume that invites you to sniff harder. His chest feels hard and pleasant at the same time giving you the security you've been lacking the last months, you want to hug him and cry while you let him take care of you, the heat emanating from him almost burns you, it seems impossible to you that he's so hot; your eyelids squeeze tighter making the pitch black take shapes: stars, constellations, random dots.

"If you're not going to decide, then I think I should give you space." He takes a step back and your brain has to force itself back to reality, you regain the unsteadiness you lost when you stopped touching him and take two strong steps backwards moving further away from him, even though the heater is still on, your whole body suddenly feels cold. You hug yourself to cover your erect nipples. "I'll leave you to rest and we can talk tomorrow."

Your tongue stays heavy and sticky, your teeth are biting it slowly as you watch him grab his jacket determined to leave.

"Don't go." You don't recognize your own voice.

"What? Sorry I didn't hear you."

"Please stay." You assumed he was smiling, you couldn't bring yourself to lift your head from the tip of his shiny shoes that are getting bigger as he approaches you again. His presence makes you feel under some kind of spell, you inhale looking for the oxygen that was stolen from you, you feel weak, dizzy... and his long fingers grab your chin to make you look at him, then you confirm he was smirking, the corners of his mouth slightly raised towards the sky.

"Do you trust me?" You do. You'd be a fool not to. Your lips part to respond, but the height difference makes you clam up. "You know I'd never hurt you, right?" You know. "Go to the couch."

That's how you find yourself doing the next thing he asks, sliding your shorts off and placing your legs on the soft surface in an awkward V, exposing your wet pussy to a hungry gaze. In a way he reminds you of Suguru —the way he walks towards you brimming with confidence, the way he looks at you, the aura of superiority with which his height looms over you— and that makes you feel more shame, more guilt, you want to hide your face but you know that would be much worse so you force yourself to watch him walk towards you and drop to his knees in the middle of your thighs.

Satoru grabs your calves, your yelp in surprise. The soles of your feet are on his broad shoulders, you feel the muscles there tense and stretch as he settles in, you watch him lick his lips and your pussy clenches under his nose. Without hands —because these are on your waist, walking shyly over your ribs—, he kisses your navel and your body contracts. Relax, he murmurs, kissing your skin, tickling you every time his pretty lips go down a couple of centimeters more.

The waves of heat produced by his laughter go straight to your sensitive bundle of nerves, you were shivering under him, as if your body was freezing to death but on the contrary, your temples were wet with droplets of sweat, your back is hot and your hands are soaked, still you can't stop shivering. His nose brushes the short hairs on your mons pubis, then he kisses your clit hidden between your labia and with the help of his tongue he searches for it with his eyes closed, parting your soaked lips until he manages to make direct contact with what he craves so much.

You don't know what to do with your hands, you want to leave them to the side of your body but they start to tremble, you want to take it into his short strands but you don't know if that would be something he would approve of.

"More," he says. Satoru takes your hands and makes his words make sense, he helps you place your fingers under your knees, forcing you to open wider for him in an embarrassing position. "Keep your legs open, just like this."

He mumbles something else between his teeth but you don't pay attention, his thumbs were spreading your lips further apart, uncovering more of your clit and the inspection gets your arousal spilling from your pussy to your thighs and from there to your ass. You were so wet, you could feel it touching the couch. You wanted him to do something, anything, if he kept looking at you like that you weren't going to be able to control yourself.

"Stop it," you beg him, squeezing your eyes shut, the grip on your thighs weakening a little.

"Let me look at you. You're soaking wet from just a couple of kisses..." The left one holds your pussy open, the thumb of the right then makes tight circles over your most sensitive spot and an electric current runs through your body. "That's cute." The thumb slides down to your slit, there it collects your juices and returns to the top where it drags them over your clit using them as a lubricant. "I wonder..." You feel his breath close to it, speaking so softly it feels like he's not even talking to you, your hips thrust upward. "Are you this wet because no one has touched you in years or is it just because it's me?"

He doesn't give you time to answer, you don't even know if you'd be ready to. Suddenly his lips were locked on your clit, sucking roughly, making your legs slam over his head, the vibrations of his laughter going straight to your core.

"Mhm no, stay wide open for me. I want to taste every last drop." You take a deep breath in search of silencing another moan. His hands on your legs forcing you to open them a second time.

It's been so long since another person touched you that his strokes seem to come in waves, forming with each moan a knot in your lower abdomen tighter and tighter, sharper and sharper. You couldn't form a single coherent thought other than a distant, welcoming white noise as Satoru devoured the feast that seemed to be your cunt, his soft tongue parting your slit and pressing hard enough on your throbbing clit. You open your eyes after a while, you blink looking up at the sky, the darkness you had grown so accustomed to is replaced by the dim lighting in your living room, the white noise turns into the wet and sloppy sounds of Satoru kissing your pussy and between long blinks you gasp—

"I'm close..."

Satoru stands up just a little to tease you and the sensation of not having his mouth near you is almost painful, you feel him shudder beneath your feet. "Already?" he asks without really expecting an answer, his open palm squeezing your clit mercilessly. The sudden electric touch makes you snap your eyes shut again, your eyelids fill with lightning and a cold current coils up your spine. "No— huh, I don't want you thinking about anyone else while I make you cum... open your eyes."

"That wasn't—! Ah." That wasn't what you were doing! That's what you mean, but his fingers were hitting your aching flesh a little too hard, emptying your lungs.

You are so very close to reaching that longed-for sensation but he stops. A coo of no, no, no, no, comes out of your throat, forcing you to swallow a ball of saliva that had formed. But Satoru was standing now, he had left your wobbling body to one side, your weak legs dangling off the couch and he was in front of you, undoing the belt with one hand and stroking the prominent bulge with the other. Now the white noise of your thoughts passed your ears, the drums in your chest were beginning to sound much louder. Then with a, Get on your knees, you knew this was really happening, this was real.

You want to protest because you want to find the release that is burning your core, you want to beg him to continue touching you until he makes you cum but the look he gives you silences any protest, you really didn't want to challenge him. Satoru plops down next to you occupying the previous empty space on some cushions with his body, his legs stretched out as he pleases, lightly colliding with your knee. You get up from your seat to crawl to his feet, there, with his arms on top of the backrest and legs spread apart add that air of superiority that always surrounds him.

Your hands look small on his legs, the shadow of his cock resting on his thigh makes them look much smaller. The size intimidates you and detonates dozens of unseemly thoughts inside you —how big will he be when you take it out, if you've taken Suguru before you could definitely do it with Gojo— you were scared and you knew he knew it, silently Satoru raises his hips letting you know he's still waiting for you, but to your surprise he was being much more than patient with you. In the process of lubricating your throat with enough saliva and stroking his cock over the fabric at least thirty seconds pass.

You hear him sigh in relief, your palm is like the touch of a feather, so light that you know you will make him desperate if you keep it up. You see him drop his head back and decide to work up the courage to remove the button and then undo the zipper. Satoru helps you with the rest by hooking his fingers into his pants and pulling them down to his knees along with his boxers. You cling to his thighs, your nails digging into his porcelain skin, even with the absence of light you can see it quiver, the size makes you squeeze your legs together, your juices running from your cunt to the inside of your thighs. Again your memories travel to Suguru and you find it hard not to unconsciously compare the two of them, Satoru was definitely much less thick than his friend, something you are thankful for as it makes you think you would have an easier time taking it; however it is long enough to make you just a little terrified at the thought of having it inside you. It was long, pale and slightly curved to the left.

You swallow and come to the conclusion that the right thing to do would be to take it from the base with both hands made into fists, you squeeze it, he groans through his teeth.

"What are you thinking?" you are surprised to hear him speak, you thought after all this time he had run out of inappropriate comments to make.

"It's big." There's not a single filter in your brain at that moment. You still contemplate how much you have left to take in even as you hold it, one fist over the other.

"You like it?" You lick your lips in response, moving from the sticky wet head to his eyes and think as you look into them now they are darker, still glistening with lust. "Use your words, angel."

The petname makes you dizzy. You look down at the cock in your hands again, then back up at him. "I like it," you confess.

"Do you need help?" You didn't think it was possible to get your heart to beat faster but somehow you manage it. You shake your head in denial, see him smile and assume maybe he's proud. Satoru spreads his legs wider and moves his hips closer to the edge of the couch to make you more comfortable, two of his fingers manage to start removing the buttons on the wrinkled shirt. "No? Alright, show me what a good girl you are then."

His praises were going straight to your head making your brain turn into a sponge asking for more of his voice, more of his compliments. You stir between your legs, the position quickly numbing your knees. You start to move your hands at the same time, up and down very slowly, hoping to get some sign of approval from him but all you get is a long silence, even though it only makes you want to please him more.

You let your hands continue to massage the shaft and focus on the head. Trying to remember the last time you sucked a cock you remember Suguru, you remember what he used to like, the instructions he used to give you, after all he has been the only man you have been with, the only one who has taught you everything you know so nerves eat away at your bones when you finally put it in your mouth. It's strange because you were expecting another taste but surprisingly it tastes like nothing so this makes you suck, swirl your tongue in circles sensing every detail of the smooth texture, that's when you hear him moan, you hollow your cheeks and seek to take it deeper.

You pause for a moment to spit on it and fuck just the tip of it with a tight fist, Satoru gasps and his back arcs in your direction. Standing closer to you his fingers sink into your silky strands and he forces you to steady yourself, his height widening over your crumpled figure.

"Say 'aah', that's it, atta girl." Satoru snatches his own cock from your hand to flick your tongue, then forces your head down to take him deeper. You feel the tip hit your throat which makes you gag around it, you squeeze the fabric of his shirt in your hands, protests get stuck around his shaft and when the saliva is touching your jaw he pulls out of you to let you breathe, as soon as his cock stops clogging your throat you start coughing. "Sh, sh. You're going to take it again." He speaks to you so sweetly he almost makes you believe that you can.

"I can't—"

"Let me try again, your throat feels so good, look how hard you've made me." Amidst your watery eyes you manage to see it throbbing in front of you as Satoru pleases himself by stroking it vaguely with one hand, the head tinted a darker red. "Just a second time, I promise." His words are cotton candy on your palate, they make it all make sense, make you trust him because he would never hurt you and get you to end up opening your mouth like an obedient lamb for a second time.

Satoru slides inside you with a praise and an animalistic growl, first he takes his time and rubs himself on your tongue back and forth, your lips close around him sucking devotedly. You take a big inhale to try and prepare to take him again, this time the fist binding your hair forces you to go deeper. You protest, your hands slapping his thighs. "Mhm almost... almost. I know you can take it all, relax your throat." In between gagging comes the thought that you are going to choke, not just because of the size, but because of the amount of saliva you have accumulated and with the fist on your head pushing you deeper you come to the conclusion that you were going to pass out. Even though you managed to breathe through your nose your throat was burning, you could barely see because of the salty drops accumulating in your eyes and when you had given up and relaxed your throat, the tip of your nose brushes the short white hairs, there finally Satoru lets you go.

You are coughing at his feet with your sore and bruised throat, one hand wiping the drool from your cheek and another drying your tears that apparently overflowed at some point. If you told him to stop, would he really stop now, could you really go through with this? Your lips hurt, your throat burns and your stomach sinks a little at the thought that Suguru might find you like this. What would he say? You don't know at what point you started sobbing quietly or when you ended up in Satoru's lap but when you opened your eyes all you could find was that pair of deep blue eyes staring at you, singing you a coo as he stroked your back.

"You did so good for me." You did? Your eyes shining with illusion, your stomach in knots. You shouldn't be happy. His thumbs wipe away your tears, his big hands cradle your face and you melt into them, rubbing your head between his palms like a needy puppy. He deposits two wet kisses on your moist cheeks. "You liked sucking my cock that much? Is that why you're crying?" You... you were stunned, you didn't know exactly what you were supposed to answer. You try to swallow and your throat s scratchy, your tongue gritty. "You made me so fucking hard and took me so deep, you should be proud." His thumb travels from your burning cheeks to your lip and he squeezes it back and forth, the soft touch feels so good that you are forced to close your eyes again, letting yourself be consumed by that cloud of pleasure. In the midst of your stupor, you feel two fingers bring a new flame to your core, caressing your clit in lazy circular motions.

"Satoru..."

"Open your mouth." You find yourself doing it before you can process the idea, his thumb is heavy on your tongue, the sensation is pleasant and reminds you of his cock; the idea makes you clench around nothing. "Suck it nice and deep, like it's my cock." That makes you moan, his touch has you melting, his fingers go from your clit to your hole and there he slides a finger inside you with such ease, the squish of his finger digging deep inside you exposes how wet you are. "Do you want me to make you cum with my cock in your mouth?" The moan he steals from you is lewd, Satoru replaces your thumb with two of his longer fingers, he squeezes your tongue and thrusts in and out of your mouth as spit starts to puddle on your tongue. "All this wet from sucking my dick?"

Satoru laughs behind your ear, leaving a kiss there that makes you clench around the second finger he presses inside you. Massaging your pussy slowly in and out, you're sure his fingers are soaking wet when he reaches your g-spot, all the way to the knuckles deep inside you, making your cunt scream with those clicking sounds. He starts to increase the pace pumping that spot and fucking your mouth at the same time, getting your body to start bucking on top of his lap.

His fingers keep pounding your sore pussy and that makes you want to collapse in his arms, his fingers longer and more expert than yours manage to easily reach deeper inside you. You cry out his distorted name thanks to his fingers reaching for your throat, your body twitches and falls silent until he pulls his soaked fingers out of your mouth and lets you collapse onto his body, sobbing into his shoulder as his fingers continue to ride each wave of your orgasm, your hole tightening again and again around him, you are exhausted, empty as he pulls out of you.

You moan because your whole body is numb, more perceptible to the dim light, to the sounds you distinguish in your own apartment and his dirty fingers from your orgasm now begging for entrance to your mouth.

"Clean your mess," he says, but he is really ordering you. Your still mush brain allows him to enter your mouth and you suck with devotion until he deems them clean enough, only then does he drag them out of you, gently pat your cheek and that gets your attention back to reality.

"W-what-" Even though you had learned that complaints were worthless with Satoru, you decide to whine in confusion as he was helping to gently lay you down on the couch and next he positions himself better on top of you. "Wait, Satoru..." You clearly knew what was coming.

"Squeeze your thighs together." He ignores any kind of complaint to your non-surprise. You manage to prop yourself up on your elbows to look at him, his hair falling messily across his forehead giving him a feral touch, almost covering the wild look he was staring at you with... though he wasn't looking at you, at least not directly. His cock slams into your clit, squeezing it back and forth beneath his heavy head and the impact makes you wince. "You know what..."

"I don't think, really... really I—"

"It's okay," he says. Gathering your legs so easily in one hand, pushing them together until they touch your chest. "I'm not going to put it in, it shouldn't count as cheating." He's so hard against your sodden folds, you gasp as you just the fat head tease trying to push inside you, bumping into your hole to slide all the way back up your slit. You shudder, your hips squirm. "Though for someone who doesn't want to get her pussy fucked, you're pretty fucking wet," he snorts wryly, slamming into your pussy harder this time. "Maybe we could try it next time, it wouldn't count as cheating if I fuck your ass either." Next time.

You don't have time to complain or mention that you've never done anything like this before... you can't take in the icy fear mixed with excitement that settles in your belly as you listen to him talk about fucking your ass because Satoru was pushing himself into the middle of your tight pussy lips, Squeeze your thighs for me, he reminds you, so he can let go and rest both hands on the sides of your head. Your feet are pressed against his chest, Satoru starting a firm pace where he shamelessly fucks your thighs and where you can't do more than take it because your hands are busy holding your legs closed so they don't spill out beside you.

Satoru is close to you, his shirt falls open around his ribs making it bounce with each sharp thrust. You're panting with your mouth open getting your tongue dry as you desperately search for the oxygen that each time his hips bump against your thighs makes escape. He's certainly not inside you, he's not stretching your insides nice and deep but it's as if he is— each thrust makes you feel dizzy, the swollen tip of his cock rubbing against your tender clit over and over again, your pussy still sensitive from the recent orgasm he had snatched from you.

Contrary to what you might have imagined, if you had ever allowed yourself to fantasize about such a thing, Satoru is quiet, grunting and moaning without any modesty, sometimes gritting his teeth or you notice the Adam's apple go up and down yet he doesn't bother to disguise how good you make him feel, not caring much that the whole building realizes you have company tonight— knowing him, you imagine the idea only turns him on more. You're sure he'd rather be inside you but the expression on his face right now is one of pure ecstasy and lust, a hint of morbidity even as he's not even fucking you properly, the idea of him fucking you with that same intensity... that you even let him use your ass makes you clench painfully around nothing, your walls feel achingly empty.

From below you notice his pearly teeth chewing on his lower lip, his arms tensed at your side from the force he's exerting mark prominent veins and the occasional white strand bounces off his forehead from the intensity, his forehead beading with droplets of water.

"Fuck, I'm close." Satoru sits back on his calves and runs a hand through his hair pushing away the annoying strands. Your legs open, drop down to rest a little from the position feeling already the burning that chews your muscles and will be much worse tomorrow.

He takes the time to take off his shirt which is a mess and you lose yourself for a moment in what little you can appreciate of his marked abdomen, much stronger than you could ever imagine. Satoru wasn't as muscular or beefy as Suguru, but he was just as attractive.

Holding onto your elbows you see him grab his cock with one hand and slap your aching flesh again, tap, tap, tap. "You want to cum like this? Me slapping your clit?" you couldn't answer, you don't really know what you wanted, too deep in a thick fog of desire that manages to sink you deeper and deeper into that white noise. Far away, you hear him chuckling without stopping, rubbing your clit, hitting it with the red tip, teasing it until you gasp squeezing your eyes tight, a big hand pushes your abdomen down telling you dirty and sweet things, thus helping you to reach your sweet orgasm just with the stimulation of his cockhead.

Satoru drops down on you again but this time it's much closer, his wet chest is crushing yours, between your legs you how heavy his thighs and hips are. His heavy breath hitting your neck, from there he goes to your ear. "Can I put it in? Just the tip, I promise." The tantalizing whisper makes your hips thrust upward seeking more of his hard cock sliding in between your slick folds, you feel it hard, throbbing, begging to finally be emptied. "Please, please..." Your nails dig into his back, he growls biting your neck in response.

"Yeah..." You respond lost amidst your carnal desires. Overwhelmed by the beads of sweat on his back under your fingers, the fragrance of his sweaty shampoo hypnotizing your coherence, his clammy hair tickling your shoulder line. Satoru marks your neck, peppering it with little kisses and sucking until it hurts.

"Yeah? That's a good girl." Satoru's heat suffocates you against the couch, his thighs heavy on top of yours making you sink between the cushions just a little, forcing you to open wider to take it. You are too hot, too wet. Satoru jerks the tip of his cock at your entrance, making circles that make you clench wanting to have it inside, teasing you one last time he does as he promises, he shoves just the tip of his cock in making you so empty, it's not enough, it's all you can think about.

You are aching still thanks to your previous orgasm, sobbing, lost in the sweet babbles he drops as he licks your ear.

"I'm going to cum inside you," he blurts out. Followed by a long thrust that gets his hips sliding inside you but he pulls out right away, the motion makes your nails dig deeper into his back. "Sorry, you're so wet..." He shuffles his hips again to thrust into your pussy with a faint clap of colliding skins, there he just grinds his hips against yours, stimulating your clit at the same time, making you feel how deep he is, making you feel every inch of his cock, twitching, as Satoru gasps at the line of your neck, telling you how good you've been for him.

Your body is sticky as he pulls away from you tracing a line of kisses from your mouth, collarbones, navel and reaching your crotch. As he deprives you of his warmth a cold air seems to rush through your limbs.

"Gojo..." You say softly, lifting your head.

"Sh. I always clean up my messes." You fail to articulate another word, sore and tired you give up on the couch as Satoru takes over licking your pussy collecting his own cum, you feel his fingers inside you a couple of times pumping it just a little, delighted by the way your hole quivers faintly around his digits. "Sorry, I couldn't resist."

Satoru gives one last suck on your clit and climbs towards you to take you in a strange position, in a sort of spooning attempt but the space is so small you feel like you're going to fall off at any moment, yet his long arms manage to clutch you tighter to his chest, managing to coordinate your unrestrained breaths. Then you let him shower kisses on your shoulder and neck, his long fingers petting your belly.

"Let's go take a bath." Satoru tries to get up but you stop him with a groan, too heavy to even open your eyelids.

"Five minutes..." you say, your voice sounding distant. Within the mental morass you sink into, you feel him squeeze you, he leaves another kiss on your shoulder.

"You're going to sleep. I want to clean you up first."

"Mhm."

You can't get up now no matter how dirty you feel, your legs are mingling with the cushions, chains pulling you down forming one body with his. You don't know how you're going to present yourself to Jujutsu Tech tomorrow with your neck probably hurt, you didn't know if Satoru had left visible marks but the idea stirs up a feeling of anguish that fades as you give in to sleep— especially you didn't know what was going to happen now, what was going to happen next, you didn't know how you were going to look him in the face…. But maybe this was just what you needed, a reality check, a slap in the face of cruel realism that told you that you can't be loyal to an absent person. You will forget him, you would… you would… you repeat to yourself, having no idea how close you were to uncovering again that Pandora's box you had so much trouble closing.

#wr #wr.gojo #cw dubcon #cw manipulation #divider creds: adornedwithlight.#gojo x reader #i truly don't know how to feel about reposting this lskd #but #maybe i'll end up deleting it #gojo satoru x reader #gojo smut #gojo satoru smut

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avelera · 2 months ago

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I’m curious how you think Jayce and Viktor’s romantic/sexual relationship most likely unfolded within the context of the two Arcane seasons. Do you think it would have looked something like the trajectory from Distinguished Innovators or were they just pining for each other but entirely oblivious of the other person's feelings until the very end (especially with what you said at some point about the possibility of Mel being Jayce’s first)

Hmm, so there's fanfic and canon to consider here. I think with fanfic, it can be anything the author desires.

Technically, I think the most canon-accurate romantic read of what's happening on the page is that Jayce and Viktor have feelings for each other but neither is totally aware of their feelings until Jayce has his moment staring into the fire in 2.07 when he "chooses" Viktor. Then Jayce basically confesses during their big final scene and we get a lot of hints that Viktor has felt the same way or been silently and hopelessly pining for him and now they're finally together.

But that never quite works for me because it requires a little too much "carrying the idiot ball" like... these guys spent the entire time skip between 1.03-1.04 in close quarters at all hours of the day creating Hextech together. That's before Jayce becomes the "Man of Progress" or any of that stuff and was just a regular and possibly crazy researcher who almost got banished, so it can't always be a status difference. And Jayce is so affectionate, and he falls for Mel so quickly, I really truly struggle to imagine that with no barriers to a relationship (Runeterra canonically does not have homophobia) they wouldn't have gotten together sooner if something else wasn't in the way.

So, personally, I think that they've tried to or come very close to a relationship in the past, but something prevented them from going all the way and now it's that near-miss is still there in their physicality with one another, and both might still long for it, but one of them is holding it back from happening while the other just thinks it's hopeless and I honestly think after S2 it's Viktor holding back because of his declining health, while Jayce is the one thinking he hasn't got a shot so he might as well, tragically, look elsewhere.

And I'll go into a bit more detail on why I believe that for a romantic read of these two:

(Obviously you can just go the boring old "cuz they're not romantic" but I think that's dull and reductive and presumably not why anyone is the Jayvik tag)

I also don't totally buy the idea that they hadn't figured it out yet? These are two young men in their 20s, who basically instantly connect with one another, share everything, and are openly physically affectionate with each other from the first. In my fic Distinguished Innovators there's a certain amount of shyness and the fact they're just busy to deal with but they're still young men, it's why the fic postulates a physical relationship between them that isn't exclusive or official and thus doesn't change their status as "partners".

But in fics of mine like Parley I first floated another possibility that with time I find more convincing argument: Viktor knows he doesn't have long to live, so he's resolved to keep a certain distance from Jayce and not interfere with any sort of love life he might have (even if it destroys him with jealousy) because he doesn't want Jayce to be totally destroyed by his death, which given how openly affectionate Jayce is, seems inevitable.

This one works for me increasingly because it means the characters don't need to carry the idiot ball. Viktor can have his own strong reasons for not wanting to involve Jayce in that kind of relationship and Jayce can read that Viktor doesn't want to be involved with him in that way, and maybe they even got close and he was pushed back, and he's just respecting that now because he's just happy to have his soulmate in his life in any way he can have him (which I truly sincerely believe is a canonically supported read of Jayce no matter how romantic you see their relationship).

Then the tricky thing about a disease like that is... how much time does he actually have? If it's months, he should focus on leaving a legacy, which Viktor does. If it's years, in theory, they could work on a cure for him, but what if that doesn't work? Then you run into the tragedy of the longer he lives, the more he comes to regret not being with Jayce anyway. Then there's the question of a Hextech cure. I can see Viktor resolving to himself that if he's ever cured, then he'll confess to Jayce. Which feels all but impossible at the end of S1 when Sky dies, but then in 2.08, in the Council chamber scene, it really feels like Viktor finally feels like he's allowed to openly pursue Jayce because he's "perfect" now, and that to me is a linchpin of the idea that Viktor was holding himself back from pursuing Jayce openly because of his health.

Oh and I still think it's possible that Mel is Jayce's first as a result, or very near his first if him and Viktor maybe fooled around a bit or if Jayce had other relationships before that. But there is something very innocent in the way Jayce approaches sleeping with Mel that to me feels very much like he's had only a couple partners or fewer at the very least, if he hasn't been outright "saving himself for marriage" levels of hoping Viktor will notice him someday, which is my Jayvik romantic read of that moment he pauses before returning Mel's kiss, he's thinking, "Do I realistically have a shot with Viktor?" and concluding sadly that, no, he doesn't so he might as well stop denying himself a possible relationship over it anymore.

#i'm sleepy so I may have missed some things but here ya go #jayvik #arcane #arcane meta

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khaire-traveler · 7 months ago

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I'm curious because someone recently made the comment that it's only fair for Lord Charon to expect money in return for his services, but this system would actually raise a lot of questions. If you're curious, some questions I thought of are featured below.

(For the record, I still believe Charon deserves recognition for what he does; it's just the coin system doesn't actually make sense when you start examining it closely.)

Please reblog! 🧡 I want to hear everyone's opinions on this.

Not every Underworld god is paid for their labors. Some aren't even given offerings anymore, their names tragically lost to time. So, why is Lord Charon specifically mentioned to require coins for his ferry? Why not Lord Haides, for entry to his domain? Or Lord Thanatos for deliverance of one's soul? Or Lord Hermes for transportation from the mortal realm to that of the dead? Why not Cerberus for letting you through The Gates (he is a sentient being, btw, for those who seem to think he's just a random three-headed dog)?

Does The Underworld have an economy? Why does it need an economy based on coins from the material plane/Earth? How does it even determine currency value?I mean, just imagine how many different people from different countries would have gone to The Underworld and paid with coins over thousands upon thousands of years.

Does payment have to be coins, or is there maybe some other form payment you can provide? Does the value of the item have to be monetary, or can it be something that meant a lot to you in life? More of a metaphorical release of the material plane, in a sense, as you trade off something that ties you to Earth and are officially transported to "The Other Side".

How do you get physical coins onto a spiritual plane?

Why would Charon need coins from the surface world? Does he maybe just have a sick coin collection from over thousands of years of human history?

What about our ancestors who were alive before the invention of monetary coins; were they just expected to stand at the shore for 100 years for not having something that didn't exist yet?

Speaking of the last question, where do animals go? How do they get across the river Styx?

Why would the afterlife require money in order for you to enter it properly? That seems kind of fucked up and more like something a bunch of old men wrote down to declare the wealthy more important than the poor, no?

If this is really just a job for Lord Charon (who is a son of Nyx, mind you), that implies that maybe Lord Haides (or whomever oversees that) could hire others to help him. Is there more than one ferryman on the river Styx? What is their average hourly pay? How can I apply, and does anyone have any interview tips? Seems to me that it'd be based on commission.

Do you think the spirits on the riverbank get bored of waiting? What do you think they do for 100 years to pass all that time? 🤔

#helpol #hellenic polytheism #hellenic pagan #chthonic #polls #deity worship #paganblr #greek deities

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heechwe · 13 days ago

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remember that | 𝐬𝐦𝐠

୨୧ pairing: song mingi x fem!reader ୨୧ word count: 5k ୨୧ genre: angst, slight fluff, smut ୨୧ tags: exes(ish) au, "we're on a break" au, soft pining, miscommunication, makeup sex, praise kink, oral (f receiving), semi-dom!mingi, unprotected sex, squirting, creampie ୨୧ synopsis: A break is supposed to give you time to understand what you do and don't want. But what if Mingi has to come with everything that frustrates you about him, no exceptions? Can you make it work, or will you both succumb to the pressure of love not being enough? ⟢ AUTHOR'S NOTE: Beta'ed by my babes Booki @kwanisms, Tiya @gyubakeries, and Ally @lovetaroandtaemin, I love you all so much. Also song title inspiration from LANY!

There are many valid pieces of evidence to support the argument that breaks never work. Friends, family, and perfect strangers remind you, solicited or not, why minor blips of time meant to think things through are simply an excuse, leading to the demise of a relationship.

“Don’t be chickenshit,” your best friend Karina remarked when you told her you were officially taking some time apart from Mingi. He would stay back at the dorms while you both took the next two weeks to think about your future. He didn’t want to, but he had to respect your wishes if he wanted any chance to mend the fences that were broken. “You know what you want to do, so do it. Don’t hide behind a ‘break.’”

You weren’t hiding, not in the slightest. If anything, the past few days alone have given you time to breathe. To reflect on the things that have and haven’t been working in your relationship for the last year.

You work in the same industry, and yet you have kept the entirety of your coupled status under wraps from everyone, save for your intimate group of loved ones. It isn’t hard to hide when you work on almost ten guys’ hair and makeup, but it’s all too easy to let feelings impede upon your professionalism.

Mingi’s always been willing to give you everything, but he doesn’t always see the entire picture of your needs. Sometimes, you don't need him to rescue you, and his eagerness borders the line of smothering too much for your comfort.

And yet, running through the pros and cons doesn’t make you miss him any less.

You ache waking up alone, not feeling the rise and fall of his chest under your head or hearing the sounds of his gargantuan feet pattering around your apartment. It became his apartment too by association after the fifth month of dating, his belongings sitting in every nook and cranny of what used to be your solitary space. Now, without him, it feels too hollow, too reminiscent of what it was like before he came into your life.

Even drives without him are terrible, the usual cacophony of traffic more bearable when he’s by your side, singing along off-key to the music on the radio or to his playlists when he uses your car’s bluetooth.

His absence is everywhere, and where there’s freedom sits all the despair attached to his missing presence.

“It hurts!”

“It’s not gonna hurt if you just listen to me.” You try to move closer to Hongjoong’s eye with the pencil in your hand, but he whips his head away again before you can begin on his waterline. “I told you to look up and away from me. You’ll barely feel it!”

“That’s a lie and you know it.” Hongjoong pouts in the makeup chair, and you stifle a giggle that bubbles in your throat. Watching so many impeccable performers be terrified of makeup applicators is probably one highlight of your career so far, especially guys as intimidating to look at as the one in front of you.

Suddenly, you feel him enter the room. The instinctual pull between you and Mingi goes beyond logical bounds, the tether made of only the metaphysical. It reminds you, every time he walks into the same space you’re in, how your body wants to be nowhere but next to his. You hate it more now than you ever have before.

“Am I going next when he’s finished?” Mingi cuts through the sudden silence to ask, his timbre a tad hollow but somehow still hopeful. You haven’t spoken for three days. This past weekend is the longest you’ve ever gone without communicating with each other. You can tell just from the sound of his voice it’s taken a toll on him.

You don’t turn to face him directly, finding some confidence from not having to look at the face you love so much head-on. “Seonghwa is, but he’s off getting his shirt hemmed, I think.”

“Just be patient, man.” Hongjoong winks at his younger friend. You thwack Hongjoong on the cheek with your eyeshadow brush, making the humored expression on his face dissipate.

“Did I say you have to talk when you’re getting your face done?” Hongjoong shakes his head with terrified eyes. “Exactly.”

You go back to your kit, but you feel despondence creep up your neck at the small quantity of black and neutral eyeshadow you have left. “Fuck it, we’ll just have to make do with the eyeliner right now.”

“Can’t you grab some from Mina’s kit? She probably won’t mind.”

You shake your head and go back to the pencil you dropped on the vanity when Mingi walked in. “I’ll just grab some more from the store later.”

“I can pick up some now if you need me to.” Mingi pipes up again, more hope seeping through his words. Sometimes, his overwhelmingly helpful nature makes you think he'd be reincarnated as a big puppy in the next life.

You finally face him with a soft smile, and you see the corners of his eyes crinkle up at your expression. “It’s okay, Min, really. Nothing I can’t handle.”

This is exactly why you needed space from Mingi. Staring into his big, brown eyes that make your body even a fraction weaker than before is why you can’t think through things properly around him. He takes all the logic and reason out of you, leaving you only to listen to the workings of your heart. And such an effect makes it simple to forget the myriad of minor problems that became so big you could not suppress them any more.

As he smiles at you, you repeat the words in your head like a mantra: he doesn’t listen, he’s too reckless, he acts on impulse half the time…

Seonghwa walks in and exclaims, “Okay, I think the shirt fits finally!” He looks between you and Mingi and then stares at Hongjoong with a curious fluff of his eyebrows. “What’s up with them?” He mouths to his friend.

Hongjoong can only shrug, the expression basically stating “Who knows anymore man?” without verbal support.

The longer you lock eyes with Mingi, the other men in the room long forgotten, you wonder if all you’re doing during this break is delaying the inevitable.

You took copious snapshots of the boys’ last looks before they had to practice on the stage. The sweat would ruin what you worked on for hours, so it was crucial to catalog it for your portfolio before that could happen.

Now, you watch them work through the three songs’ choreography with ease. Mingi takes center stage multiple times, and you smile to yourself at how ridiculous he acted an hour prior when he was in your chair, so busy complimenting you that you could barely get through doing his makeup.

“You look really pretty today,” he says as you dab the bridge of his nose with liquid highlighter. “I mean, you always do, but I haven’t seen you in a few days, so…”

You smirk and put the tub back in your makeup kit. “Making up for lost time, Min?”

Mingi blushes, a shade so pink you think you can skip putting that component of his makeup on altogether. “Just stating the obvious.”

“You don’t know,” you say, “I may have looked like shit in my sweatpants and ratty t-shirts all weekend.”

“Wanna know a secret?” You humor him, moving closer until his lips brush the shell of your ear, making you shudder. “That’s when you look the most beautiful to me.”

You retreat with trembling hands and a breathless laugh. “Are you gonna keep spitting game or can I finish your eyes now?”

Mingi smirks and snaps his eyes shut, pressing his face as close as he can to yours once again. He whispers with such a quiet but sultry tone, you think you may risk it all and kiss him once to get it out of your system. “Do whatever you want with me.”

And here you are, back in his orbit like he’s the sun and you’re a planet, willing to spin around him forever. A few weeks ago, you didn’t mind doing so until it made you dizzy, but you don’t know now if you miss depending so much on him. His “I got this, babe” one minute and “I can handle it” the next slowly made you realize he either didn’t trust you to work through anything without his help or he was so willing he couldn’t see how it came across.

Bringing it to his attention didn’t make him any wiser to the problem, his response defensive rather than introspective. He argued it was in any boyfriend’s nature to want to do everything for their girlfriend. “Don’t you do the same for me? What’s the difference?” He asked in the fight's haste that led to your desire to take a breather from each other.

Flitting the memories away, you focus on Mingi’s undeniably enchanting dancing and rapping. It’s what reminds you why you fell for him in the first place, both his talent and work ethic, which gave way to everything else that turned you into putty for him.

Before the group can finish the last song, a courier taps on your shoulder. “For you, miss.” He holds out a bag from the makeup store downtown, the contents inside being all that is low in your kit.

“I didn’t order anything,” you respond, fighting the only logical answer and culprit of the situation. The kid shrugs and makes his way out of the building, and you turn back to Mingi, the giant lost in his choreography. You feel your eyes light with fire rather than fuzziness, your desires and impulses from before long gone.

When he drops from the stage and makes it to the back, you slam the bag into his chest before walking away. “Wait! You said you needed this stuff!” Mingi trails behind quickly, his long legs catching up to you in seconds.

You turn when you’re alone in the hallway, your fury unleashed. “I said I could do it after work, and you went over my head again to do something I deliberately said you didn’t have to do!” Your bottom lip trembles. “Do you not care about listening to me at all?”

“What? No!” He shakes his head, his own face becoming a mask of confused anger. “I just wanted to help. And it’s just twenty bucks of makeup. Why is this such an issue right now?”

“Because I didn’t ask for your help!” You throw your hands in the air, and the gesture only makes you feel smaller.

Mingi chuckles, no humor in the sound. “You always take things on by yourself, even before we started dating. Is it so terrible of me for wanting to help, just a little?” He practically pinches his index and thumb together to emphasize his point.

“They’re my burdens to bear,” you scream. “Is it so hard to get in your head? I’m not some princess in a tower you need to save.”

“Why do you always treat someone else’s help like it’s a grandiose gesture you should feel guilty for?” He steps closer, your chests barely a breath apart. “I help you because I want to, because you deserve it and because I love you. Why can’t you stop pushing me and others away who want to make things easier on you?”

The words get stuck in your mouth, no sounds coming out in a response that makes sense or can answer his questions properly. A tear escapes your eye, falling hot on your cheek. Mingi tries to wipe it away, but you whip your head out of his direction and rub your face with your palm.

San comes from the exit you both walked out of and looks on with concern. “You guys alright?”

You shake your head and walk past them both, your heart in knots too tough to untangle today.

You clip the buckle on your heels as you continue to hold your phone’s receiver to your ear, the sun setting as you make haste to end the call and head out the door. “Woo, for the last time, you should know where I’m going by now. I thought we were friends before I started dating one of your best friends.”

“You are, but you could be playing coy, I don’t know!” Wooyoung remarks, making you laugh. You haven’t seen the kid since Monday when you walked away from the show, not having time to say goodbye to him before you made your way home.

You always spend Thursday nights with your parents for dinner. Your immediate family decided long ago to make time out of all of your busy schedules for weekly briefings and small talk over home-cooked food. It was one of the few times you found peace in the hectic nature of everyday life.

“Trust me—and you can let our mutual friend know—just the same usual Thursday plans.” You hear a knock at the door and rush to get off the phone even faster, wondering who could be outside your home so close to the evening. “I gotta go, talk to you soon.”

You iron out the wrinkles of your dress before heading to your apartment door. The man on the other side steals your breath in his white button down and denim jeans combo. He completes the ensemble with his thick-framed glasses and his hair, tousled just a touch, exactly how you like it. His fashion choices on nights like this still stun you to no end, even if you’re surprised he’s here tonight at all.

“M-Mingi,” you say. “What are—“

“I wouldn’t miss family dinner, together or not.” He clears his throat and puts his hand out, clearly eager for you to take it. “If you’ll still have me there, I mean.”

You fight the smile tugging at your cheeks and instead take a deep breath and his palm in yours. Your fingers interlace, and it reminds you more of home than the entire 900-square foot apartment behind you. “Just because you made such an effort to look so nice. It’d be a waste, you know?”

Mingi smiles and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his other hand. He smiles to himself the entire time you lock your door and head down the stairwell, not letting go of your hand once.

You don’t say no when he offers to drive, or stop him from holding your door open until you get in, and he thinks that maybe you’re turning a corner after he slipped up. And you think you might just give into him for the sheer fact being in a car again with him, listening to his off-key riffs, reminds you of everything you’ve been missing, for better or worse.

“Honey! Mingi! Come in,” your mother beckons you at the front door. She welcomes you inside wearing her signature floral apron, though your father and brother do most of the cooking.

Neither you nor your mother expected Mingi to bring flowers to tonight’s dinner. You didn’t expect him to invite himself at all, but thinking about it, it would be weird for him not to attend when your family did not know you were on a relationship hiatus.

This Thursday holds no more significance than all the others, but it warms your heart to see your mother grab a vase from the living room to hold the batch of tulips Mingi brought.

“Sometimes I think my own husband forgets my favorite flowers. But not you, my sweet boy.” Your mother pinches Mingi’s cheek, and Mingi blushes a shade of plum at the physical touch.

“Speaking of him, does he need help in the back? I know the grill can be a pain for him and Eric to get going,” Mingi offers.

“That would be wonderful, Mingi, thank you.” You smile at Mingi as he leaves you two to walk towards the back porch. He greets your father with a handshake and your little brother with a manly hug, and any residual anger you felt over the past few days instantly dissipates.

He’s always been a caring person. You knew this the second he brought a spare pack of bandaids on your second date when you slipped and fell on your knee during your first. Sometimes, as you’ve grown to learn, he seems to have a hard time hearing when his help isn’t necessary. Or the exact help he envisions isn’t the help you desire.

“That boy is one in a million, baby.” Your mother says as you walk to the kitchen together. “I can’t picture someone better to take care of you.”

You sigh. “Who says I need to be taken care of, Mom?”

She shakes her head with a grin as she keeps stirring the soup on the stove. “Everyone needs someone, my love. Even when a person is adamant about fighting their own battles like you.”

“That’s not what I mean,” you huff, exasperated. “All I’m saying is that I can have someone by my side and not be wrong for wanting to do things on my own in my way, right?”

Her head continues to move back and forth, her ladle going in the same fashion. “And all I’ll say, baby, is that it’s important to let someone know those things. If you don’t tell someone what you’re looking for, they’ll make assumptions. And you know how we all feel about those.”

“They make an ass out of you and me,” Eric pipes up from behind you, making you flinch. You thwack him on the arm, and he rubs the spot with a pout. Your father and Mingi gather in the kitchen behind your brother, the simmering steaks on a large plate smelling delectable.

“Time to eat, everyone!”

Before you all can head to the table, Mingi pulls you in and whispers, “The right one is yours. Medium rare, how you like it.”

He leaves you standing alone as he sits next to your brother. Your heart resides in your throat the rest of the night, sitting beside Mingi and your mother and wondering if maybe a part of you hasn’t given credit to Mingi in the way he deserves. Maybe you both have been wrong in your own ways, and it’s still fixable.

Maybe this break is serving a purpose in a way you didn’t expect.

The drive back to your apartment is quiet, but it’s charged with tension from the way Mingi rubs patterns into the back of your hand with his thumb. Both of your palms rest over your thigh, the muscle on fire from how his large fingers encompass yours and hover over the fabric of your dress.

Now is not the time for sexual frustration. It’s time to talk and see if the break can be amended into some form of peace treaty.

He parks his car in the lot and looks over at you with a small grin, close-mouthed but earnest all the same. “Tonight was fun. Glad to hear Eric’s doing good in school.”

You smile back. “My parents were happy to see you. They thought with the comeback coming up you wouldn’t be able to make it tonight.”

“I wouldn’t miss it. I told you that.”

Your throat is in a mess of knots once again as you nod. You turn in your seat to face him head on, and Mingi mirrors your body posture. Removing his palm from your thigh, you hold it in both of your hands, finding some strength to let the words come out. “We need to talk.”

Mingi’s eyes go wide immediately, inching as close as he can to you despite the ridiculously large glove box in his way. “If this is the start of that conversation, please—“

“No, no! I’m sorry,” you say immediately. “I shouldn’t have started with that.”

His free hand goes over his chest, and the relief floods over his entire expression. “You really can scare the shit out of a guy, you know that right?”

“I said I’m sorry,” you respond with a teasing pout. “But, I think I’ve been terrible at communicating what I need from you and from this relationship.”

Mingi thinks the words over before he nods slowly. “Okay.”

You inhale again, taking in a deeper breath. “First, I apologize for not being transparent. I should’ve said that I’m not exactly the greatest at getting help, not just from you. And my expectations couldn’t have been met if I didn’t tell you what they were, and I’m sorry for that.”

Mingi nods with ease, almost like he’s shrugging it off entirely, like there was nothing to apologize for.

You continue, your confidence in your speech building. “I love the big and little things you do for me, and I’ve always appreciated your willingness to be there no matter the time of day for those you care about. For my family, for the guys—even for a random person on the goddamn sidewalk.”

You feel tears pooling in your eyes. “But, I need you to listen when I tell you there are some things that you can’t help me with, or that I don’t need your help for. And taking my opinion and listening doesn’t mean you’re not doing your best as a boyfriend. The opposite, actually.”

You see words on Mingi’s tongue threatening to spill out, and you give him the clear to say them. “I guess I just don’t know how to show you I’m here for you otherwise.”

“You’ve always shown me that, Min,” you respond instantly, not wanting him to doubt himself or his capabilities as a partner. “All I want is for you to be by my side, even if I’m struggling with things, and if you can understand that I’ll ask for your help when I need it moving forward, I think we’ll be okay. Okay?” You kiss his palm in between your own hands, and you tuck it under your chin.

Mingi smiles and puts his other hand on your thigh, rubbing the skin through the material of your dress. “Does this mean that I have to go back to that store and get a refund for the makeup I bought?”

You laugh, the sound coated with happiness, and shake your head again. “No. Why let all that good eyeshadow go to waste, right?”

Mingi chuckles, full of vigor. “Right.” He leans across the box between you, your lips an inch away from his. “And does this mean I can kiss you now?”

You quirk an eyebrow and smirk. “If you know what’s good for you, Song Mingi.”

His lips press to yours, quick and hard, and you swear you hear the clack of your teeth against his the second they collide. You don’t care, though. The feelings that accompany the kiss are all-encompassing; the pain from being apart for days, the tension from the entire night between you like a knife ready to strike down, the love that’s always been there even when you both were apart.

“Fuck, I missed you so much,” Mingi confesses. His lips reattach to yours as he bunches up your dress with his hands, his fingers just barely ghosting over the hem of your panties. Your quickly dampening underwear meets the cool air in Mingi’s car, and you shudder.

“Min, the place for kissing and making up is not in your car. Take me to bed properly, please?” You beg and nibble at his bottom lip. The moan that leaves his mouth makes your heart sing and your pussy wetter than it was a moment before.

He nips your lips again before saying, “Anything you want, always.”

Mingi sprawls your body out on your shared bed gently. You can tell he’s worried the moment is a figment of his imagination, or you’ll change your mind in a second, wanting him to go back to waiting and wishing for you again.

But you dispel the doubts in his mind the second you say, “Mingi, please touch me.” He grins and pulls your dress down by its hemline, the strapless material easily removed from your body with his strength.

He kisses your skin as if starved of your body for years instead of days, moving from your ankle to the juncture of your thigh and pelvis. You moan weakly, hips bucking into nothing but the cool air. “You’ve made me wait, princess. It’s only fair you have to wait a little bit too.”

His words ring hollow, though. The second your panties meet the same fate as your dress, he kisses your clit and folds with all the love and admiration he has in his body. He dives into your cunt with the same fervor he put into his kisses on the way there. His mouth goes at a solid and quick pace, his tongue slipping inside of you before circling around the sensitive nub between your legs and repeating in that fashion.

You clutch his hair with your hand. Mingi’s other hand presses down on your stomach so you can’t arch too hard off of the bed. “So eager and so wet, princess. Just like I like it,” he whispers hoarsely.

“Fuck, fuck, Mingi, please fuck me,” you whimper. “I want to come with you inside of me.”

Mingi shakes his head, his hair ruffling against your inner thighs. “I want one on my tongue, baby. Just one.”

He increases his tongue’s speed against your clit, flicking so fast you think you may die before you feel the effects of your impending orgasm. But, thankfully, you get to welcome the release in all of its glory. Your essence covers Mingi’s face as you ride out your high, letting your hips roll until you come down completely.

Mingi kisses you hard when he comes up from between your legs. You mewl at the taste of yourself on his tongue. He taps the side of your thigh with his fingers, and by now you know what he wants you to do.

You turn and raise your body up on all fours. You jut your ass out for him to admire in the moonlight's glow pervading your bedroom window. He chuckles, but it’s airless from his shock at the sight in front of him, one he thought for a second he would never see again. “Goddamn, I could look at you all day. You know that, right?”

You look over your shoulder and bite your lip, moving back to brush his reddened cock, making him groan. “Why look when you can touch?”

He slams inside of you in the next second, clit smacking against his balls from the sheer force and size of him going all the way inside of you without issue. You press your face into the bed underneath you, garbled moans filling the room because of your pleasure.

Mingi yanks you up by your hair, not slowing his pace. “I don’t think so, princess. I want everyone in this place to know how good you’re getting fucked, got it?”

He bends your neck at an absurd angle to kiss you again, his tongue and lingering traces of your essence filling your mouth as he drills his cock into your velvety walls. It’s indescribable how impeccable his sex drive is, tonight one of all the other nights he’s made you fall apart multiple times without a sign of stopping.

But seeing as you’ve been apart for the better half of a week, you think he may just fall apart as fast as you do on a normal day.

“Min, I’m close,” you warn, your body slowly weakening from staying in position after such merciless thrusts and the brutal force of his cock slamming in and out of you.

Mingi holds you up with one hand while the other snakes down to your clit with intense exuberance. “Me too, baby. Just hold on tight, okay?”

Suddenly, he’s going faster than he ever has before, your body merely a toy for him to emit dozens of thrusts into in such a brief time span. His speed is almost unmanageable, it creates blind spots in your vision. You come with a violent cry ripping from your throat, your body releasing onto his cock and on the sheets below you. You don’t stop coming until he slows his own pace and orgasms himself, the mess between you and on the bed a mixture of your releases.

Mingi exits you and moves the two of you to a spot on the bed not covered in the mess, but he can’t help but stare as his cum leaves your cunt in small droplets. He’s partly fascinated by the sight, but also relieved to have you back in his arms in the bed you’ve shared for months.

He rubs up and down your arms and kisses across your collarbone until he reaches your face, his eyes reflecting a pool of love and satiation. “Hey, beautiful. Are you feeling okay?”

You smile dumbly and give him a small nod. “Never better.”

He kisses your nose before he meets your lips again, this kiss softer than all the other ones you’ve received from him tonight. “I love you.”

You know he means it every time he says it. Yet, somehow, with a newfound understanding of your shared wants and needs, and a promise for the future to be better than the past, this time he says it feels sweeter than it ever has. And when you say you love him back, you mean it even more.

@gyubakeries @loserlvrss @lovetaroandtaemin @xomakara @pars-ley @addictedtohobi

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o-sachi · 6 months ago

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Kick It! - Heacanons (Var. WinBre)

ᯓ how would the winbre characters react to an s/o that does taekwondo? ᯓ characters; sakura haruka, suo hayato, kaji ren, umemiya hajime, hiragi toma, togame jo ᯓ tags; sfw, afab reader, no y/n

Sakura Haruka

"You're cool and all... but let me protect you still..."

He's both impressed and worried about the fact that you can fight.

Of course, he's impressed because you can do the things he does—all that flying and kicking. And even more so since you're his girlfriend.

But he's also worried since you might not need him to protect you anymore. It's so silly but the man just wants to be your knight in shining armor :(

"That kick was pretty good huh?" / "Yeah! It felt good. What's with the long face though?" / "Eh? What do you mean?"

After sparring with him a bit, he comes to terms with it in the end. He can't help but feel a sense of pride watching you move so skillfully.

Although, if you allow yourself to be "protected" every once in a while, he'll appreciate that immensely.

I should add that he's probably not as impressed about the fact that your flexible since he is like that too. To him, it's something normal. He's more fixated on the fact that you can fight.

Suo Hayato

"You got quite a kick there hm? Would be pretty dangerous if I got hit."

Suo practices a martial art himself (Aikido, I believe), so he's quite fond of that similarity between the two of you. He likes that you both have the discipline and determination for it.

He's pretty flexible himself and he achieved that through daily stretches. He'll definitely invite you to do it with him and you can talk about random things as you do.

I'm 100% sure Suo has a big ass house and inside that mansion is a dojo. He'd ask you to come over so that you two can train together and maybe even spar.

"Think you can win against me today, sweet pea?"

He finds it so funny when you try and kick him and all he does is easily evade all of it. Suo would be so cocky—hands behind his back with a silly smile on his face.

But he'll console you and reassure you after that you're good enough as it is. He's just one step ahead of you but that's alright. He insists that he has to be so that he can protect you when the time comes.

Kaji Ren

"You kick like my grandma."

HE IS THE DEFINITION OF TOUGH LOVE. Sure, he's aware you can fight, kick, or whatever. But it's gonna take more than that if you want to hear him compliment you.

He'll make annoying remarks (affectionately, of course). Without knowing it, you're actually pushing yourself to improve even more because you want to earn his approval.

Don't get him wrong though. He is CRAZY proud of you. You don't know it yet, but he brags about you to Kusumi and Enomoto. (Yes, he has threatened them before because they joked about telling you how Kaji would simp).

He's not a dick about it all the time though. He knows when it's too much and when you really can't handle it anymore—he'll comfort you.

"Shhh... you're not bad, okay? Hell, the things I'd give to have someone like you on my team." / "You mean that?" / "Of course I do, angel. Don't be sad, please?"

In sparring, you catch him off-guard a lot because of your flexibility. It allows you to pull off elaborate moves that are quite hard to read.

Umemiya Hajime

"THAT'S MY GIRLFRIEND. GO, GIRL. KICK SOME ASS"

NUMBER ONE HYPE MAN! His heart would be swelling with pride every time you showed everyone your skills. He'd hate it if someone suddenly put the spotlight on him instead of his girl.

If you compete officially, you probably have told Ume once or twice to calm down while he's watching from the sidelines. Let's just say he gets a bit too heated...

"Can you believe it? Unanimous decision? Pfft, what a joke." / "Babe, it's fine... I won..." / "So? Doesn't mean they can rob you of your honor like that."

His eyes turn into hearts whenever you ask him to teach you how to fight or ask him for tips. But you quickly realize he might not be the best person to ask because he can't take it seriously (he's still gushing about how you asked him so he's a bit soft with you).

Will mope around when you ask the other guys to ACTUALLY fight with you seriously.

You relent and him if he wants to help you cooldown instead. His smile returns almost instantly. He'll even offer you a footrub after. Such a good boyfriend :(

HIragi Toma

"Hm? Oh... yeah, I guess that was good."

He's like the middle ground between Kaji and Ume. No overflowing praise or tough love. Nothing. Hiragi's so quiet about it.

While he's not good with words, you can tell that he's aware of your skills through subtle signs. You can see how he carefully observes how you move and the little nods of approval he gives you when you do it perfectly.

It has become your goal to become good enough that Hiragi will have no choice but to compliment you. He doesn't know it nor was that his plan.

He will actually refuse to spar with you. While he knows you can hold your ground, he doesn't think he could forgive himself if he hits you too hard by accident. But he'll encourage the other guys to help you get better.

But when you finally get him to agree and kick his ass (affectionately), he feels an odd wave of attraction for you all over again.

"Heh... you're better than I thought."

Togame Jo

"Damn... you got a pretty nasty kick. I think it's better than mine."

You can never ask this man for constructive criticism because he will butter you up no matter what. He'll even tell you that you're way better than him when even a baby can tell the difference in your skill.

"Nah, you gotta believe me when I tell you that kick was amazing." / "I landed on my but, Jo. It was a flop." / "I think you were just too strong." / "Sigh."

When sparring with him, you can tell he's going too easy on you. Sometimes he won't even try. He'll let you win all the time. Unless... you ask him nicely to actually fight like he usually does.

Of course, he whoops your ass with ease. But he'll put you in a bear hug after and tell you how well you did against him. Togame insists that you were one of the toughest opponents he has faced (yeah, right).

I think he's the type of guy to make stupid and suggestive jokes about how flexible you are...

On the flipside, he'd love to be more flexible himself (for fighting, obviously). So he asks you to teach him the kind of stretches/training that you do in order to achieve your level of flexibility. Plus, he just loves learning from you.

#wind breaker #wind breaker x reader #wind breaker headcanons #sakura x reader #umemiya x reader #suo x reader #kaji x reader #hiragi x reader #togame x reader #sakura haruka #suo hayato #ren kaji #umemiya hajime #hiragi toma #togame jo

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runningfrom2am · 1 year ago

Text

cold nights // part nineteen

summary: you showed him colours he knows he can't see with anyone else.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 3.3k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: tribute!reader and mentor!coriolanus, r is very sweet (too kind for this world. literally.), sunshine x grumpy trope kinda, he falls first, violence typical for the source material, depictions of mental illness, also she's is very smart (as she should), district twelve!reader.

a/n: i'm sorry it took me so long to post this omg i am behind on writing bc i'm so sick but i'm also trying to get ahead on requiem BUT-

Important Announcement!!:

cold nights will officially have a season 3! i wasn't sure but i had a good idea for what the epilogue would be and then i realized it would be so much better as another fully developed idea. so, that will be coming soon!!

my asks are also open to talk about this series! (i do have emoji anons open now too!)

send me any and all of your thoughts! here!

series masterlist // playlist

Coryo smiles as you run up ahead of him, picking up his pace slightly and dropping his bag next to yours.

Some of the others are already stripped down to their bathing suits and running down the dock. It is beautiful here, not that he ever doubted you.

He watches as you peel off your dress, another short one similar to the one you had worn for most of the time he'd known you. This one wasn't sewn in at the middle, so you can slip it quickly over your head. Your bathing suit must have been homemade, too, and it allowed him to see how the bruises and scratches on your back were all but healed while you toss your dress to the ground. He notices quickly that it was exactly the same as Lucy Gray's, maybe your mother had made you matching ones. That's so sweet.

Your skin looked so beautifully soft- just like it should have the first time he saw it, spare for the scars on your calf and your arm, it was just what he imagined.

You kick your shoes off, and the wood of the dock is hot against your bare feet as you run down to the end, diving head-first off to the side to avoid jumping right onto any of your friends.

It seemed to Coryo that you weren't afraid anymore as you briefly looked back at him while you were running. The excited scream you let out when you lept from the dock made his heart flutter. This is exactly what he had wanted, from the very beginning.

When Coryo jumps in behind you, you can hear his shout and feel the water shift around you as his body breaks the surface. You turn under the water, its clarity allowing you to see where everyone is. You loved this. The memories of this lake kept you safe, almost. You can hear muffled laughter above the water, deciding to take your time before coming up for air. You didn't need it just yet.

You swim away from everyone deep under the surface, scanning the lake floor for anything interesting. Really, it was just sticks and rocks and mud, but one day you may find something else exciting, but not today.

"Where is she going?" Coryo comments, watching your body as you kick away deeper under the water.

"Wherever she wants." Lennox answers plainly, treading water as he stares at him.

"She's looking for secrets." Maude Ivory giggles, splashing him in the face. At least she gave him somewhat of an answer.

He quickly lifts an arm to block the wave, but it fails miserably. "What kind of secrets will she find at the bottom of the lake?" He coughs out, wiping the water from his eyes.

"Once we found a watch." Lucy Gray shrugs, looking from him to you. "Which is odd because we didn't know anyone else knew about this place. The secrets are what happens when we aren't here."

You hardly noticed the lack of oxygen until it almost felt too late, quickly swimming up and pushing your hair out of your face so you don't inhale it by mistake.

"Anything good today?" Lucy Gray shouts over to you as soon as she's noticed you've come up.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so!" You pant, pushing yourself through the water back toward her.

"So, that's a no?" Sejanus asks and you laugh, shaking your head.

"Just rocks and sticks." You explain, joining them again and bumping shoulders with Lucy Gray. "Some weeds, if that's your fancy."

"Oh, yes, that's right up my alley." Sejanus chuckles, cupping his hands to block out the glare of the sun as he looks down into the water anyway.

"I've never been to a lake before," Coryo says, breathing heavily as the waves from the kids splashing keep coming up too close to his face.

"What? Really?" Lucy Gray and Sejanus ask in unison, and you smile at him.

He nods, eyes locking with yours. You feel the need to say something. "Is it everything you dreamt of?" You ask.

"Just about." He grins.

"Oh? What's missing?" You giggle.

Oh, only being able to hold you without retraumatizing you.

"It's not that anything is missing," He comes up with as an excuse. "There's just more birds than I expected."

"Oh, yeah. They like it out here." You hum, looking up at the trees while Lucy Gray whistles out a tune for them to mimic. You smile. "Why, you don't like birds either?"

"Never been the biggest fan, no." He chuckles.

The birds echo her song back to you repeatedly. Coryo turns around to watch as if there was anything to see besides these black birds flitting around the trees and above the cabin. "What kind of birds are they?" He asks. "I've never seen that before."

"We call 'em Mockingjays." Lucy Gray tells him.

"'Cause they'll mock ya if you mess up the song!" Clerk Carmine jumps in, climbing onto Lucy Gray's back under the water.

"Oh, I wouldn't know." Your friend teases him, gripping tight onto the boy's legs as he starts to shout. He knows what's about to happen, and clearly you do too as Coryo watches you and your brother quickly swim out of their reach and closer to him.

You laugh, watching as Lucy Gray takes a big dramatic breath in and sinks under the surface of the water, pulling CC down with her as he screams and splashes.

The sun dried you quickly after you decided you had had enough of the water, climbing back out onto the dock and deciding to just lay your blanket there to dry off on while you took the book and snacks from your bag.

Coryo had been sitting with Lucy Gray and Sejanus, but they were just talking to each other more than him. Not that he could have paid much attention. He was just watching you.

"Can I go talk to her?" He asks with little regard for the conversation that he was interrupting.

They both look over at him. "I mean, you could try. Would that be okay?" Sejanus answers, looking to Lucy Gray for confirmation.

"No. Let her have her peace and quiet." Lennox interrupts as he walks back up in front of them, pulling his shirt back onto his now fully dried skin.

Lucy Gray sighs."Just... Don't be stupid." She advises Coryo, nodding him on. "Len, we'll be right here."

Your brother shakes his head slightly, glaring between the three of them with nothing short of adamant disapproval.

Coryo nods slightly, taking the preferable answer by getting up and heading back down onto the dock.

Lennox looks back over his shoulder to where he just was with Maude Ivory looking for katniss, before taking Coryo's spot on the deck.

"Did she not tell you anything about him?" Lennox mumbles to Lucy Gray, eyes locked on his sister and her 'friend' as he stands over her. "No, she must have- because you were at The Hob last week. You saw it."

"I saw a girl with a lot of unresolved trauma have an episode." Lucy Gray explains, watching Lennox take Coryo's spot next to her. "He made a mistake, but he wouldn't ever hurt her."

Your brother opens his mouth to argue, but Sejanus interrupts. "I know it isn't my place, but Lucy Gray is right. He would sooner die than hurt her."

"Okay, well, explain how he's sitting right next to her when he's already hurt her so bad she may never recover!" Lennox whispers, gesturing to the dock as if they couldn't already see you there.

"I'm not defending anything he's done. That's not what I meant." Sejanus explains. "I just mean he would never do it on purpose."

"Accidents are clearly bad enough."

"Len, he just wants to make amends now." Lucy Gray insists. "And she wants that. I know she does, she's really trying."

"Listen, if it helps..." Sejanus starts, looking back out at you and Coryo on the dock. He can tell how nervous his friend is, watching you intently as he picks at the wood finish beneath him and listening to you talk. "He really loves her. I know it's not my place to tell you that, but it was bad when she was gone. He hardly spoke a word to anyone, he wouldn't put her book down- it was really hard on him. We weren't sure if she had been executed for cheating, and it was killing him to be left in the dark."

"That's not love, that's guilt." Lennox mutters, watching you closely.

"What's the difference between love and guilt?" Lucy Gray asks him rhetorically. "He wouldn't feel guilty if he didn't care."

"The difference is he wouldn't have come here and made the same mistake again."

Lucy Gray bites into her lip, slightly shaking her head. That was an honestly good point.

"I was in the arena, too. I saw what he did." Sejanus says after a moment. "He saved my life, it was my fault. It was shocking... you know, the overkill, but I can't say for certain I wouldn't have done the same thing. We were both pumped so full of adrenaline that I truly believe that's what it was." He explains. "I mean, I was behind him, so I don't know what she saw- but it looked like adrenaline to me."

"How do you think she felt?" Lennox asks, eyes wide. "She was in there for three days! You and him were there for what, ten minutes?"

"Wait..." Lucy Gray backpedals, looking at Sejanus. "Sejanus, what do you mean you thought he was executed for cheating? Like, in the games?"

Sejanus swallows, nodding. He looks over at you but quickly looks away. "Yeah, uh... Coryo told me that she used rat poison to kill two of the others. And he did something to keep the snakes from biting her, but I don't think he was caught for that."

Your brother and best friend look at each other like they'd just seen a ghost before their eyes simultaneously track to you. You were laughing.

"She didn't... She didn't tell me that." Lucy Gray says quietly. "Did you know, Len?"

"No."

"That doesn't surprise me." Sejanus shrugs and they both look at him, shocked and confused. "Well, she doesn't know either. I don't think, definitely not about the snakes, but she told the Dean it was salt. That I gave her." He laughs slightly at the end, but they don't find it funny. "By the time she left, she was fully delusional about it. She knew what it was, Coryo gave it to her to protect herself because he needed her to win. She was really upset by the insinuation that it, in fact, was not salt."

Lucy Gray and Lennox look at each other again, unsure what to say. It must have been worse than they thought. Regardless, they knew it must be eating you alive.

"Can I join you?" You hear Coryo's voice above you after about ten minutes of listening to the mockingjays sing Lucy Gray's song back to her as she sat on the porch of the cabin. The sun was so warm on your skin that you could have fallen asleep here if you weren't reading your book.

You squint against the sun as you look up at him. "Yes, you may." You agree, and you feel him sitting down next to you as the wood creaks below him.

You find yourself holding your breath, even as you return to your book to try and remain relaxed.

He's not going to hurt you.

"What are you reading?" He asks after a moment, thinking your arms must be asleep for using them to hold the book and support your weight for so long.

"It's called 'Much Ado About Nothing'." You answer. "Another Shakespeare piece."

"Do you like it?" He asks, lifting his leg to rest his elbow on his knee while you sit up, crossing your legs and letting the book fall into your lap.

"I do." You smile down at the page. It is much more lighthearted than Romeo and Juliet, as much as you would have loved to come home and drown yourself in your favourite book- the boy next to you unintentionally made it impossible. God, you were so embarrassed by the letter you wrote to him. Your cheeks flush just think about it. All you did by surviving was make everything weird.

"Another tragedy?" He inquires, attempting to read some of the words on the page as it's opened on your lap.

"No." You chuckle, shaking your head. "It's a romantic comedy, actually."

"Oh, wow. You changed it up?" He asks, only somewhat shocked. It would only make sense that you couldn't handle much more tragedy since you've been home.

"I did." You smile. "It's quite funny."

"Will you read me your favourite part?" He suggests, watching your eyes as they light up with excitement from the request.

"Okay, so..." You quickly flip back through the pages and into the first act, scanning for the lines you're looking for. "Okay. Here." You pretend to clear your throat.

"In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature." You recite, dragging your finger along the page so he can track what you are reading. You remembered it, but it might have been easier for him to follow that way.

Coryo watched you the whole time, and by the end, you were a giggling mess. You thought it was absolutely hilarious, and he smiles at that.

"What does that mean?" He chuckles.

"So," You laugh, a hand pressed to your chest. "Basically, she's talking about how she was arguing with Benedick and won. The punchline is that she let him keep one of his wits, because if she didn't no one would be able to tell him from his horse."

Coryo laughs at that, shaking his head. "That is good." He agrees.

"Isn't it?" You smile. "It's a welcome change of pace."

"Yeah, Romeo and Juliet was... yikes." He says, ticking his jaw and peeling up some of the wood from the dock between you.

"You read it?" You ask quietly, eyes widening as you look over at him. It shouldn't shock you, he told you he would, and that he even looked forward to it. "What did you think?"

"Of course I did," Coryo nods. "I really enjoyed it."

"It doesn't seem like it..." You laugh nervously, looking down as you flip back to the page you were on before closing the book.

"No, truly. I did." He insists. "Just... for lack of a better term, it was tragic."

"Yes, well..." You chuckle, shrugging slightly and tucking your book back into the bag next to you.

"It was heartbreaking!" He laughs suddenly. "And that's your favourite?" He looks at you then, head tilted as he slightly shakes his head.

"Okay, so," You laugh, rolling your eyes. You were used to defending this to others who have tried reading it. "That's what makes it so beautiful. It's so touching, they died for each other thinking they were in love, but they also hardly knew each other. It forces you to wonder what could have been, and I like that."

"Okay, well, you're right." Coryo agrees. "I didn't like the ending, but that's the point, I suppose. The rest was good, it reminded me a lot of you."

"I think I forced a bias onto you. My apologies."

"You didn't force anything on me." He smiles, shaking his head. "All I knew is that you loved it, and that made it so much better."

Your cheeks flush as you busy yourself by pulling out the bag of cherries. "Would you like some?" You offer the bag to him and he reaches in, taking just a couple out and popping one into his mouth.

"I finished it all before you left." Coryo tells you, and you hold him out another empty paper bag to spit the pits into.

"That good?" You smile and he nods.

"Can I..." Coryo starts, and you tilt your head at him. He doesn't want to ruin your day by bringing this up. Everything on your face shows hope, even excitement for what he is going to say. "If you can't hear this stop me, but the book made great company in the mentor hall."

For a moment, he saw nervousness flicker behind your eyes, but still, you nodded. You wanted to hear anything he had to say- you just hoped you could stomach it.

"Oh, that's fine. I'm... I'm glad." You try and smile, distracting yourself by popping a cherry into your mouth.

"I was alone most of the time. I didn't go home." He tells you, trying to say what he wanted but still be as vague as possible.

"It must have been so horribly boring." You laugh nervously, swallowing the cherry pit as you reach for another of the small red fruits, picking the stem from it and flicking it into the lake.

"I wish it was." He replies, watching you closely to see if and when he's crossed a line. You nod in understanding, and he takes a nervous breath in. "I... The alternative was that I got sent home like some of my classmates. I wasn't going to leave until I had to."

'Until I had to.'

So he was forced to go in for Sejanus. Why on earth would they not send peacekeepers? Why another child?

"I... I appreciate that." You stammer out, looking down at your lap, noticing for the first time that your hands were trembling. "That must have been uncomfortable. I apologize."

Coryo furrows his brow at you. "No, I'm sorry. Why would you apologize to me?" He asks. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you. That I couldn't get you out."

"You did more than you had to." You say, voice quiet with your honesty.

"No." He shakes his head. "I had to do everything I did. I couldn't let you die."

"You saved my life, and... and-" It happens very suddenly when a tear falls down your cheek; you didn't even notice you were starting to panic.

"No, wait, I'm sorry, hey, don't cry..." Coryo says quickly. He wants to help, to do something, but he feels helpless. Again. He feels sick with the knowledge that he always says the wrong thing.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." You mumble, trying to wipe your eyes but you're finding it hard to speak.

"Don't be, please don't be sorry." He pleads with you, shifting so he's kneeling next to you, placing a hand on your back.

You almost jump away, head flying to look at him. He's just rubbing your back. He's only trying to help.

Instinctively, your eyes search for his. They aren't hard to find, and all you can see as you search them is worry. Nothing malicious. "I... Do you want me to get Lucy Gray? Or your brother?" He offers, grabbing your shaking hands in his free one. "Just take deep breaths."

You nod, scared to look away for even a second. So he has to.

Coryo turns back, swallowing his pride. "Lennox! Lucy Gray!" He shouts, drawing their attention quickly.

He accepted the berating he was about to get from your brother before it even came.

"What did you do?" Lennox asks him, forcing himself between the two of you.

"We were just talking and I think I said something- I don't know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." Coryo answers honestly, standing up and taking a step back.

You're watching him, intently, despite Lucy Gray taking over holding you and talking to you in hushed tones, trying to ease your mind.

"I'm okay." You tell her, nodding. You don't look at her, only watching him. Watching his eyes- but nothing changes. Baby blue. Worry. More worry.

taglist: @soulessjourney , @that-veela-girl , @dreamyysouls, @rockstarbfs , @maysileeewrites , @baybieruth , @kitscutie , @fratboyharrysgf0201 , @totallynotkaibiased , @stelleduarte , @secretsicanthideanymore , @bejeweledreverie , @drewsandsebastianswife , @niicole-87 , @queenofshinigamis , @innercreationflower , @nallasstuff , @iovemoonyy , @thatmarvelchick19 , @wearemadeofstardust0 , @regulusblackcore , @puredreamagination , @fantasticchaosthing , @becauseseaotters , @secretsicanthideanymore

okay suddenly tumblr isn't letting me tag more people than this so i just made some cuts unfortunately :') i just left the max amount of people i could whose users i recognized and see in my notifs all the time :) if you're not on here and you should be i'm so sorry!

also this taglist is closed now!! if you’d like to get a notification when i update, turn on my post notifications!! i promise i won’t spam y'all :,)

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james-is-here · 11 months ago

Text

oh? OH? 👀 🫢

Part two

Blogs: @heartbinn

Tags: Angst, my first hurt/no comfort cause I have a soft heart and could never go through with it, Chan is the one not getting comfort, Members forget Mn, Made the manager...attached to Mn? He's just as sad to see you go.

Lmk if any other tags are needed. Feedback and comments are welcome, it makes me so happy seeing how you thought of my writings.

You realized something was off when you were 'forgotten' for the second live stream in a row. You don't know when it happened. How it started. You just started noticing more and more that you were being left out.

"Sorry, Mn, I thought you were busy. Didn't think to invite you." They always thought you were busy.

"Hectic schedule, I'm sorry." You guys have the same schedule, that's not an excuse.

"I'm sorry, Jagi, I thought that was tomorrow." Even Chan forgot things.

You never use to be like this. You were all once connected, always talking, always hanging out when there was time. They listened to your feedback, they agreed with your inputs, and when they needed, they'd go to you for comfort.

Now it's like you're a ghost. Present but not visible. You look like a deer caught in headlights when they talk about stuff that you haven't been caught up on. There was one time in the choreography that you were to catch one of the boys and you stood around aimlessly and ended up getting yelled at. You yelled right back because they never tell you anything and you didn't know you had to catch one of them. It wasn't fair!

"Mn, you could've hurt Jeongin! Why didn't you catch him?!" "How could I have caught him if I didn't know that was the next move! You guys don't tell me anything anymore!" "Yeah we do!" "Christopher, Don't lie! You are doing it too!" "Mn!" You didn't care that you disrespected him and used his full first name. You were annoyed.

Your breaking point was two things. The first was when you had to find out about an upcoming album through your manager. He had sent you a preview photo of the album cover and you flew into a panic attack. New Album? When? How? They decided on things without you? You're apart of the group too, how could they not have realized you weren't there?!

The second was when you were waiting...and waiting...and waiting in Chan's room. He had promised a movie night for your anniversary and yet four hours later than when he promised, he still wasn't there. You just left his room, red eyed and absolutely pissed. That night, he didn't even check on you when he came home.

It took a couple days but you had officially left Stray Kids. You couldn't take the neglect anymore, it was unfair, uncalled for. Your manager was sad to see you go but he understood, even he noticed the others neglect but it seemed that when he told them off it went through one ear and out the other.

You packed at night, taking about half an hour to debate if you wanted to take memories of being in the group but instead you just took down the photos of you and the boys and cut yourself out, leaving just the boys along with the few albums and photo cards you kept on your desk, throwing the pieces of you in the waste bin underneath.

Tears streamed down your face as you packed your suitcase. Midway, your realized you folded the two hoodies Chan gave you. You lay one on your bed but decide to keep the white one as you zip up your luggage and start packing your other one.

Leaving in the cover of night let you leave without seeing their faces, without seeing possible confusion or pity pleads to have you stay. In the days it took to be out of the group, you also managed to get accepted into another company. You would've stayed at JYPE if it didn't mean you'd still see the boys that once brought you joy, if you stayed you'd have to put up with them trying to talk you back into the group. You just can't seem to trust them anymore.

You ex-manager was nice enough to take you to your home where you're staying until you can properly integrate into your new company, possibly into a new group. You heard that the company knew you and would be helping you to try and join a group or even help you become a soloist.

That morning, the boys went on with their lives, completely oblivious. It wasn't until after practice and recording that they were finishing up and getting ready to leave the room they gathered in to discuss the album when Chan looked around and finally noticed. "Wait...Where's Mn?" Their manager looked at Chan and the others before sighing. "Really? Haven't I yelled at all of you to stop ignoring him? It took you almost all day to realize?" Your manager felt really bad for what they were doing to you so he did get a bit heated.

"What do you mean?" The manager sighs before guiding the boys out. "Let's get to the dorms." Is all he says. When they get there, the manager makes them sit on the couch, hands on his hips. "Have any of you really realized that you were excluding Mn? I asked him about the album cover and he told me that he didn't even know a comeback was planned to happen. He also told me that you yelled at him for almost dropping Jeongin but you guys never told him or showed him the choreo, how could he have caught him if he didn't even know what was going on?"

With a deep sigh, the manager looks down at the floor before delivering the news. "Mn signed out four days ago..." He looks back up to the boys, staring at him wide eyed. "What?" "He's gone, Chan. I took him home last night." "W-Well, we'll see him at the company at some point right? So he's not-" "He's moving to KQ. He thought that if he stayed at JYPE you guys would stop him at any opportunity to try and get him back. They're already looking to either put him in a group or help him be a soloist." Han was the first to move, running past the manager to run to your room.

The others hear him cry out a moment later then return with your cut photos in his hands. "He's gone..." A few others run to see it for themselves as Han drops the cut photos next to Chan and slides down the nearby wall to cry into his hands.

Chan picked up one of the photos. A picture of you and him, a selfie with him hugging you from behind with his chin on your shoulder. He remembered the negative space where you were, you had your head turned, looked at him with so much love and a bright smile that matched his.

"I'm sorry, Chan...but he was tired of being just a shadow. I wanted him to reconsider but I saw everything and I knew it would be worthless." He saw in the corner of his eyes some members trying to call you only to huff when they got your voicemail.

Years later, they still felt hallow. They were happy and working well but they still felt empty. They know you've blocked them but they still texted you or tried to call you even after this long.

Telling Stay was really hard, they just told them it was for mental health issues but some Stays also noticed the neglect and pieced it together, especially when some fans noticed you in another group.

They were backstage getting ready to preform at the award ceremony the main title from their new album, decked in pirate like outfits with layers and accessories but still dressed a minimum amount to be able to dance.

Chan was helping Felix with his headset when Felix caught something out of the corner of his eye. "Mn!" His eyes widen as a smile took over his dropped jaw and the others turn in the direction Felix is looking. You stop hearing your name, turning to see who it was only to stare at the group of boys unmoving. Felix's hand hesitated before waving at you with a gentle smile.

It's been so long that you were honestly thrown off by how much they've grown and how handsome they've become. You see Jeongin smile at you and you notice his braces are gone, Hyunjin has grown his hair out along with Felix. These little details are forgotten the moment you feel a hand on the side of your face and you turn back around. "Hey." You smile, Seonghwa completely taking your attention as you watch him smile in return, your hands resting on his waist. "Come on, Jagiya. We've been waiting for you." He says, leaning forward to give you a quick peck but you pull him back to you for a slightly longer kiss before you take his hand and he takes you back to the table.

You heard their gasp when you kissed Seonghwa but honestly, you didn't care. You were seen in Ateez, heard and included way more than you ended up becoming in Stray Kids.

Chan's heart was crushed, he honestly had hope that you guys could talk it out but also knew there was no way but he still hoped. His tears blurred his vision as he let a sob left him, he tried not to let them fall, he had to go on stage soon, but it hurt. He had lost not just a member but someone he actually truly loved. He didn't mean to forget him, he didn't mean to push him away. The regret of not realizing sooner still weighed heavily on his shoulders after this long.

The way you held Seonghwa was the same way you'd hold him. The smile and shine in your eye you gave the other idol was the same you'd give to him, the same one in the taped photo that still remains on his desk after he found the other half. The members also have the other photos, taped as well and put on the fridge.

What crushed Chan the most in that moment?

You didn't look back as Seonghwa took you away.

pssst, I would write more Ateez but I don't fully know their dynamics and personalities completely so I'll probably just insert them like I did in this fic 😁

#random #bleh #stray kids #straykids #stray kids x male reader #bang chan #bang chan x male reader #seonghwa x male reader #ateez #ateez x male reader #ateez seonghwa #stray kids bang chan #seonghwa

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jeongsoob · 13 days ago

Text

remember that ᯓ 𝚜𝚖𝚐

SFW version of my fic posted on @heechwe .ᐟ

୨୧ pairing: song mingi x fem!reader ୨୧ word count: 4k ୨୧ genre: angst, slight fluff ୨୧ tags: exes(ish) au, "we're on a break" au, soft pining, miscommunication ୨୧ synopsis: A break is supposed to give you time to understand what you do and don't want. But what if Mingi has to come with everything that frustrates you about him, no exceptions? Can you make it work, or will you both succumb to the pressure of love not being enough? ⟢ AUTHOR'S NOTE: Beta'ed by my babes Booki @kwanisms, Tiya @gyubakeries, and Ally @lovetaroandtaemin, I love you all so much. Also song title inspiration from LANY!

And yet, running through the pros and cons doesn’t make you miss him any less.

His absence is everywhere, and where there’s freedom sits all the despair attached to his missing presence.