#i spent too much time on this fucking thing

[burningembers91]

The Beauty of Vulnerability - Choi Su Bong (Thanos) x Fem!Reader (NSFW)

Follow up Piece to: Not Who I Want to Be

Synopsis: Thanos is ready to show who he really is

Warnings: Alcohol and drug misuse/addiction, p in v, oral, 18+ only!

Your phone buzzed once, twice, three times before you finally picked it up. Thanos had sent you a selfie of him posing on his balcony, the Seoul skyline in the background. He had his usual goofy expression on his face, his tattoos visible on his shirtless body. He’d followed the selfie up with several emojis and a plea to join him on his balcony. You couldn’t help but smile, couldn’t help but zoom in on his abs visible in the lower lefthand corner of the screen. It had been six weeks since your meeting in the nightclub, and as much as you’d tried to resist, he’d charmed his way into your life.

Thanos was unlike anyone you’d ever met. He was so vibrant, so full of life and yet so broken. His eyes were filled with such sadness, a sadness that never quite went away no matter how hard he laughed, or how many jokes he told. He was the classic class clown, always striving to make you laugh. You hadn’t believed him when he told you he was a famous rapper, not until you’d Googled him the next day. Your friends didn’t believe you’d met him either, not until you showed them the message you’d sent him. you’d listened to his music, and although it wasn’t entirely to your taste, there was no denying the man had talent.

You’d met a few times since then, mostly at Thanos’ apartment. You’d once made the mistake of heading to a restaurant for dinner and spent the entire time fighting off screaming girls armed with iPhones and killer glares in your direction. You hadn’t quite got a feel of who this man was, didn’t quite understand what made him tick. He was a wildcard, but there was an underlying sweetness about him.

While you were reserved with your feelings, Thanos was head over heels for you. You gave him a reason to wake up in the morning, gave him purpose on days that without you would have been filled with drugs and booze. He hadn’t quite managed to quit the narcotics, but a lifetime habit was hard to break. But you’d inspired him to write music again, had given him an entirely new lease on life. The day after he’d met you, he spent all day messaging you on Instagram. The next day, he removed the parasites from his apartment, the ones who only came round when they wanted to party, take drugs or cling to his coattails. He deep cleaned his apartment, tipping bottles of booze and pills down the toilet. He sat at his piano for the first time in years, penning a song that was so different to anything he’d written before. The music seemed to flow through him, the words coming so naturally. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d written something sober, the melody overwhelming him until he was reduced to tears. He’d spent so long pretending to be someone else, it was nice to have a piece of the real him shine through.

He understood you wanted to take things slow, and he’d be a fool to rush into this headfirst. That had always been his mistake. Thanos usually acted first and thought later, but he didn’t want to fuck up whatever this was that he had with you. There were a few times when he slipped back into his old habits, taking a pill when the world got a little too much, drinking himself to sleep when his racing thoughts wouldn’t let him rest. He hadn’t told you about his addictions, but you knew.

You saw it in his eyes, saw the ways his hands shook when he was starting to withdraw. You’d seen friends addicted in the past, and it hadn’t ended well. That’s why you were taking things slow; you were waiting for the moment Thanos would inevitably break your heart. Your head screamed at you to leave, but your heart told you this man was worth fighting for.

You joined him later that evening on his balcony, just as the sky turned candy floss pink as the sun began to set. He handed you a glass of champagne worth more than your monthly salary, kissing you softly on your cheek. His days were long and lonely without you, counting down the hours until he saw you again. You were the anchor that kept him grounded to the world, the woman who stopped him from floating away into the clouds. His fingernails were painted black today, the colour matching the thickly tattooed line that snaked from his middle finger to his neck. you liked to trace that line, smiling as he shivered against you. you hadn’t slept together yet, but every day you found it harder to find a reason not to. His lips skimmed your cheek again, making their way down to your lips. Thanos loved kissing you, loved the way your lips felt against his. You were impossibly soft, your tongue meeting his as you wrapped your arms around his neck, the glass of expensive champagne long forgotten.

“I wrote a song for you,” he whispered, playing with them hem of your skirt. “Can I play it for you?” You nodded, tilting your head back as his lips continued to kiss you, trailing across your jawline and down your neck. He was so crazy about you, so head over heels he felt like he might go insane. You made his entire body tingle, from his scalp to his toes, and he found himself constantly getting lost in your eyes.

Pulling you from the comfort of his outdoor sofa, he led you to his music room, offering you a seat on his plush leather stool. He sat at his piano, nerves wracking his body as he took a deep breath. Usually, he’d pop a pill to calm his nerves, or down a few shots of tequila. But not tonight. Tonight, he wanted to sit with those nerves, to show his vulnerability to you in a way he’d never shown anyone. As he began to play, his voice singing in perfect harmony with the notes, you watched in silence. Every inch of you was covered in goosebumps, the tune on the piano so beautifully encompassing his feelings towards you. Never had a man treated you the way Thanos had; he made you feel like a Goddess.

When the song was over, Thanos stayed at the piano, his bottom lip trembling. You watched him for a few moments, your heart aching as a lifetime of emotions bubbled to the surface. He was so tired of being someone he wasn’t, of surrounding himself with people who didn’t give a shit about him. Until 6 weeks ago, he had no one to call when he was lonely, no one to hug him when he was feeling sad. He’d had no one to turn to when the world got dark, but you were here now. Sitting across from him, your eyes brimming with tears, he didn’t know how to convey his feelings towards you other than through song.

Nothing about him was real; nothing was authentically him. His name wasn’t even real; he’d modelled it on a fucking purple CGI villain. A single tear fell from his eye, landing on the ivory keys with a splatter. A deep, wracking sob escaped him and his closed his eyes as he felt the darkness closing in. He longed for a release, longed to feel the numbness that came with the pills he popped like candy.

Your arms encircled him, pulling his shaking body into yours. You stood there for a while, stroking his shock of purple hair while he sobbed into your chest. He’d never cried in front of a woman before, had never shown any emotion other than unabashed confidence. “My name isn’t even Thanos,” he choked after a while. “I know,” you smiled, “I doubted your parents named you after a Marvel villain.” You wiped his tears away with the pad of your thumb, placing a soft kiss on each of his eyelids. He looked so fragile, so broken as his head slumped against your breasts, his body still shaking with the occasional sob. “What is your name?” He looked up at you. He hadn’t said he real name for years; Thanos had become his brand, the crutch he used almost as much as the drugs and alcohol. “Choi Su-Bong,” he whispered. “My name is Choi Su-Bong.”

You kissed him, pulling him down onto the soft carpet of his music room floor. “Choi Su-Bong,” you smiled, “My Choi Su-Bong.” He made love to you right there on the floor, the sounds of your moans melting into the sound-proof walls. Su-Bong had never felt like this with anyone before. He was usually completely numb when he fucked someone, if he remembered fucking them at all. But with you, he was sober, perhaps for the first time in his life. He felt every touch, every thrust so deeply. He let you take charge, straddling him as you lowered yourself onto him. Your fingers traced his abs, the sensation overwhelming him as your nails dragged gently across his skin, tracing the tattoos that littered his torso and chest. He’d never known something could feel this good, had never realised that your entire body could feel like it was on fire in the best way possible. He was desperate to touch every inch of you, to feel every part of your exposed skin. He guided your chest towards his mouth, his lips locking around your sensitive nipple as he took it gently between his teeth. Your moans were heavenly, more beautiful than any song he’d ever heard. He came with an earth-shattering groan, his fingers gripping the skin on your thighs as he finished inside of you. He carried you to his room after, laying you down on his silk sheets before drawing out your pleasure again and again. Your body shook for him, your breathy moans spurring him on. You tasted like heaven, your slickness coating his mouth and tongue as he devoured you again and again.

You weren’t sure when you fell asleep, waking up as the sun broke over the horizon. Thanos was gone, but Choi Su-Bong had replaced him. His arms cradled you as you watched the sun rise, his lips peppering kisses along your shoulder and neck. Finally rousing from bed, he padded through to the kitchen. He was no chef, but last night had worked up quite the appetite. He ordered breakfast from a local café, spreading out the food across his expansive kitchen. He wasn’t sure what your favourite was, so he ordered one of everything. You sat and ate together, smiling at each other over your coffee mugs.

There would be hard days ahead, but Choi Su-Bong was determined to start fresh. New music, new friends, a new perspective. He’d never had anything in life that made him want to be a better person. But now he had you, and you were worth fighting for.

[avonsdrabbles]

You know, I wanna add to this.

My parents… tried. They tried to come to my everything. They taped what they could so we could always have it on disk. My childhood was spent rewatching videos of my major events, none of which feel major now as a 27 year old. But they were major then. And with how much therapy I’ve gone through, I finally can recognize — can finally remember — how good that felt.

And how horrible it felt when that wasn’t the case.

Later in my life, before cutting them off, my dad lamented about how he had never been there for me. How he had work often when I was a child, so he missed a lot of my developmental ages. He tried to make up for this later in life; he built me toys and games, talked with me about various topics he thought would appeal.

They all fell flat. There was always some aspect of it that was missing. The air hockey table he built (which I appreciated, genuinely, especially since it was based on the joy I had with my sister, playing a makeshift one in my room) was in the garage where he smoked, and my asthma wouldn’t allow for playing. Every conversation we had that I was passionate about resulted in an argument as passions flared, and it became easier not to talk at all.

He would tout this failure of his to connect to me as a child as the reason I came out to mom, first. In some degrees, I think he’s right. I think it was a factor, at least.

But the biggest thing I can recognize as an adult is… I get it. He couldn’t be there as much. Just… physically. My father is disabled, was making the most money in the household, and we needed that income to continue with our way of life. My parents worked their asses off to provide for my sister and I, and we had a very comfortable lifestyle because of it. But that work came at the cost of connection.

I guess what I’m saying is… I can recognize, now, how necessary it was. But I wasn’t an idiot then. I could’ve understood, had anyone just explained it properly.

“Dad couldn’t come; he had work.”

To a 5 year old, that’s not an excuse. Can’t you just take off work? Can’t you just come? What sort of world do we live in where work is more important than (checks) my fifth grade play where I’ll screech at the top of my lungs??

“Dad had a headache.”

To a 5 year old, fuck that. I’ve had headaches at school before. Nevermind that my father had an aneurysm, I don’t know that word.

If you can’t make it, please, fucking explain to your child why, in ways they can understand!!! And do it BEFORE you miss, whenever possible.

“Hey honey; I want to come, but my boss is evil and won’t give me time off. If I don’t go to my job, I can’t afford your magic tree house books. I know this recital means a lot for you, but I know those books matter a lot too. Is it okay for me to miss this one, if I promise to see you on the camera later?”

Just give that reassurance.

Help your child through the grief of not seeing you there. Prepare them for it.

my parents never came to anything I did.

I have so many memories about this, but one in particular: when I was away at camp with 89 other teenagers, and at the one-month mark the post was collected distributed to all the dorms. 89 other children tore open their boxes and, shovelling handfuls of sweets their parents had sent them into their mouths, read pages-long letters and handed around photos of their brothers and sisters.

I didn't. I didn't get anything, I sat on my empty bed watching them. The teachers had to call my parents and ask if perhaps the post had gone missing...? but my parents were surprised they were required to interact with me while I was away.

Well, today, my 3-year-old daughter had a fun-run. The childcare centre invited parents to come but stressed that if we weren't able to, it was alright. There was no fucking way I wasn't going. My daughter wasn't going to be the only child there without a parent watching.

I got time off work and stood there in the beating sun and plastered in greasy sunscreen waiting to see my little girl emerge from inside the centre and stand on the track.

When she did, her little eyes searched through the crowd person-by-person for me, and absolutely lit up like the sun when she spotted me.

Mine filled with tears as I waved at her and cheered.

I'm breaking the cycle.

[seat-safety-switch]

Have you ever gone that extra little bit on a project, only to completely ruin it? We all have. Being human is about trying harder and then immediately regretting any additional effort we spent on it. Whether it be running your sleeve through some fresh paint, trying to adjust some setting glue, or even going back for that last little polish only to fuck the whole thing up forever, never doubt your ability to snatch failure from success.

True experts know the secret to delivering consistent results every time: slack off at the end. Just resist that urge to go the extra mile, and be happy with the miles you already accomplished. Learn to use the magic phrases "good enough" and "I'm happy with it." In this way, you will avoid disaster. Hell, the bible says they took the seventh day off after creating all of existence, and things turned out kind of sort of okay even after coasting to the finish on that one.

There is, however, a hidden risk. Bear with me now. If you are constantly half-assing to the certain amount, eventually you will get a lot faster with practice. Soon, you'll be able to get done in a half-ass what you once needed three quarters of an ass to complete. It is in this extra quarter-ass that danger lurks, for this is the new place where you will be tempted to go above and beyond. Oh, things finished up so much faster than before, I still have time to– No. Stop it. Now you have more time to post about how great this one went on the internet, and then start a new project!

I hope that this is helpful and instructional for all of you. I'd write something more after this sentence, but I think things are going pretty well already, and I'd be afraid to fuck it up with some incomprehensible analogy to giraffes that would get etched on my tombstone. See? I went too far as it is, now it's all weird.

[celestiamour]

Ever since squid game s1&s2 wi hajoon character😩 I even saw a clip of his back 💀ok im getting side tracked😭so may I please request a smut with junho x fem reader where he’s stressed trying to find his brother but his wife or gf is there for him to keep him calm. It could literally be any plot😭 just need Jun Ho

ft. hwang jun-ho x f! reader — squid game

╰₊✧ eating you out after a long stressful day┊0.7k words

setting: season 1, before the 33rd games contains: smut!! dom jun-ho & sub reader┊oral fixation, receiving oral, overstimulation, mentioned nipple play & marking, established relationship

➤ author's note: i need this so bad, the new year depression is hitting and i’m so lonely

being a police detective is insanely stressful on levels he couldn’t even begin to explain, even more so when it’s a case related to him personally. ever since his brother went missing, he’s been relentless in his pursuit to find him, searching for even the tiniest clues that may help push the dead end he’s been stuck at for so long. he comes back a little bit later each night with less and less energy, crashing out on the couch and fall asleep to stop the raging headache from considering all of the possible things that could have happened. 

he still makes an effort to be there for you though, taking time out of his busy schedule to take you out on at least one date per week, not just to remind you that he loves you even with how busy he is, but for him to relax too. there’s nothing better than being comfortable and able to turn off the gears constantly turning in his brain in the company of someone he adores so much, and returning home to rest in your warm embrace is akin to heaven for his troubled mind. 

sometimes he likes to shut his brain down entirely when having sex with you and just thoughtlessly do his own thing. it’s almost therapeutic for him, even though you’re the victim of his ministrations and find your body suffering from too much pleasure (if it’s even a thing, he draws a thin line that makes you wonder).

like he is right now, hands spreading the inside of your thighs with a tight grip to prevent them from closing and his mouth laser-focused on what’s in between.

“i-it’s too much,” you whined, trying to push him away for a second of relief yet making no real attempt to do so, limbs slacking after a mere second of effort. perspiration had covered your skin in a thin sheen, shining under the light of the ceiling fixture and drawing attention to his previous actions: marks from constant sucking and biting into your soft flesh all over your neck and chest area. 

he simply hummed in response, the vibrations sending pleasure straight to your clit and making your whimper, not really listening to you. there weren’t really any thoughts in his head at the moment, only trying to pull another orgasm from your spent body to taste more of your addicting nectar and listen to your cries that sounded like the song of an angel.

you originally wanted to pay him attention before yourself, taking the edge off the perpetual stress he was going through with his climax, yet this was all he wanted to do, sucking on your clit like it was candy until the neighbors knew his name. there was no real skill or technique behind his movements, just pure unadulterated passion and lust as he pulled you even closer than you thought possible with an increased pace of fucking you with his tongue. 

it felt so suffocatingly hot, taking another breath only to let out another pitched moan in a vicious cycle. you didn’t know where to put your hands, alternating from the bedsheets to your oversized t-shirt stolen from his before finally tangling your fingers in his dark locks and tugging which caused him to groan in response. he finally opened his eyes and met your half-lidded ones, but he did not stop his assault on your engorged pearl. truthfully, the sight of you as such a blissed-out mess was almost enough to make him cum untouched, and he’s not even certain if he didn’t.

the familiar feeling of an orgasm washes over you, the intensity of it being your third tonight making your back arch off the mattress and your toes curl with a pitiful gasp. still, jun-ho’s lips stayed latched onto your abused pussy, lapping up all of your arousal like a damn dog until you were all cleaned up with nothing but his spit slicking your folds. you whimpered when he finally let go only to part your swollen hypersensitive cunt with his finger, admiring how it quivered and clenched around nothing begging for more.

it was going to be a long night, but it’s worth it if he gets the satisfaction of carrying you out of bed the next day due to your shaking legs and he finally wakes up with a clear head for once.

[bibi-e]

Ambessa + face sitting

might make a small series with the arcane milfs for this one warnings: r! has a pussy, gn! terms, face sitting, light mentions of body/weight insecurities

Ambessa can spend hours eating you out without any problem, skilled and rough tongue laps over your lips and drinks your cum, pushing you over the edge more than you have done to yourself in moments where you spent the nights without her presence, or edging you until your eyes give in hot streams that reach the pillow underneath your head.

Being the dominant one in your relationship, she leads your activities frequently, moreover, she is observant of your likes and dislikes and never indulges or tries something that could cause any harm. You had realized her liking in having you completely bare, presenting your body to her, whilst she was fully clothed. It stroked some part of you that made you feel small, dominated, and most of all desired, by the lust hunger of her eyes once she opened the heavy gold door of her quarters and laid her gaze on you.

Until one night, the warlord was kneeling in front of your spread legs that she tossed on top of her broad shoulders face buried into your cunt as she sucked and rolled her tongue over your clit. You had lost count of how many times you had cummed on her tongue, and she wasn’t making any move to back away. You felt the red sheets beneath you start to damp from the boiling heat exhaling from your body causing a layer of sweat to form on you, moans, screams, and wails leaving your mouth as Ambessa sucked harder and coordinated with the flick of her tongue on your clit.

You were almost reaching another hard orgasm when she abruptly stopped, raising her head from your core, your juices were smeared over her lips and dripping on her chin – she was a messy eater – and rose to her foot towering her form over yours on the bed, finally addressing that she was going to fuck you and maybe let you rest for the night but she made her way to your side of the bed.

Ambessa’s large hands grab your thighs and manhandle you to straddle her large chest and hold you there by your hips, you don’t need to balance yourself from how hard and confident her grip is on your curves. Your grunts of insecurities about being too much to be on top of the warlord that pounded on your head and ached your heart were quickly stopped by a light slap on your ass, and her hands coming to squeeze the soft flesh there causing you to move closer to her face.

“Pretty thing…” she growled lower, her breath inches close to your core making you shiver from the cold contact against it. “I’ll just make you feel good like you were dripping all over my mouth just before.” Your tired legs were fighting against dropping your whole body not wanting to hurt her, but the sudden movement of her head made your clit return the touch with her mouth, a moan leaving your lips as the pleasure flooded your body again.

Her dark lips cupped your cunt and her tongue slipped out of her mouth delving into your insides as you hesitantly rolled your hips. Ambessa, noticing how stiff you were, held your hips and pushed lower onto her face with a delicate force that caused her tongue to slip more inside of you, a satisfied hum leaving her lips as she finally felt your weight pressing down on her.

The feeling of her nose pressing into your clit and the thick tongue stroking and lapping your dripping juices made your legs feel wobbly and it was getting hard to sustain your body. You reached for the headboard to gain some sustain but got stopped by the lack of Ambessa’s mouth on you, “You grab that headboard and you’ll be prohibited to cum for how long I decide.”

Hands backing away from the place and returning to hold on to her forearms, you made your best decision to not disturb or interrupt a warlord’s favorite meal. She didn’t care for air, she didn’t care for anything at that moment. She was the strongest and most feared warlord, the chosen of the wolf, having no worries and only fulfilling her urge to savor a precious thing like you.

[crimsonmochi]

Intimate ― S. Gojo

Synopsis. Part 2 to "Personal" | Pornstar!Satoru is used to fucking for money's sake. It's something he does often and something he does really fucking well. When he is requested to guest you, however, it shocks everyone to see an immediate energy shift.

Pairing. Satoru Gojo x fem!reader

Content. MDNI, fem! pornstar! reader, chubby! reader implied, gender neutral pronouns used for reader, but use of "girl" about twice, no use of "y/n", smut, p in v, fingering, creampie, sweet sex, some semblance of onlyfans, pussydrunk! gojo, gojo is left handed canon, still a little bit pathetic, still a little nasty, probable breaches of work boundaries, drinking mentioned, no beta

Word Count. 6.1k

Parts. one | two

A/N. thank you so much for the love on part 1! sorry for taking so long with this one, i was a bit busy for the holidays. part 3 and final part hopefully coming soon in a theater near u

Seventeen times. And a half.

Since the tape came out on his page, Satoru Gojo had jerked off to it seventeen times. He only counts the half because he technically had finished that one time, but it was too humiliatingly early to even fully count.

It worried him at first. Sure, he was aware of his high sex drive, but never had a single video—a single person—managed to have him this worked up. He even had it downloaded to his phone, and downloading porn had never been a thing Satoru envisioned himself doing, ever, even if it was his own.

Every now and then, his mind would go blank and remind him of how you looked, how you sounded, how you smelled and how you felt. He remembered how you looked at each other, the burns your eyes had permanently left on his soul. He remembered making out with you on the studio bed after you had sucked on his fingers, a primal urge to taste you consistently and refusing to stop even to breathe. And he remembered your smile against his lips and how embarrassingly giddy it had him feeling.

Satoru hadn't turned the cameras off right away. He stayed with you in bed, and you didn't seem to mind, chatting it up rather normally while he laid on top of your body, heavy as a rock and as your fingers brushed through his hair. He had never spent over a minute with his co-stars after filming before. You were different. And he liked that you were different.

What he did not like was what came with you being different, the unknown.

Satoru was used to one-night stands, situations, and things that could have become something more but ended after one conversation about what he did for a living. Connections ending abruptly, accounts unfollowed, numbers deleted. It never shook him emotionally; he would be at most bummed out for the afternoon because, damn, she was hot or fuck, I liked her voice. Never anything serious.

And sure, whatever he had with you might have started as pure sexual attraction, but you weren't just a pretty face and a hot body.

He had explained it to Suguru as having a box full of your favourite chocolates and one flavour never tasted before. He liked all the other chocolates because they were his favourites, but once he tasted the unknown flavour, the other ones started to be dull to the senses―to which Suguru responded by calling him an idiot, of course.

It hadn't helped that you two started calling shortly after the video went live, your sweet voice and soft waves of laughter making his situation exponentially worse. Satoru put a lot of effort into being as casual and kind as he could be, careful not to scare you off and desperate to keep you around if only just milliseconds longer.

To your surprise, Satoru turned out to be a great listener—a little too great, at times, when you wondered if he was still listening after long monologues. He was attentive, remembered details you wouldn't even expect your closest friends to remember, which made your lips curl and your heart feel a little warm.

You had confessed on a particularly inebriated that you only got into the industry to pay off your education and some of your parents' debt and that it was supposed to be temporary. You explained that you were actually qualified for very high-profile jobs, but since you now had a "questionable internet history" that employers kept bringing up at interviews, you had given up on that, which took some coming to terms with on your part. And Satoru listened to that story, heart clenching when you thanked him for the opportunity he gave you to make a little bit more money this month.

Weird how you conveniently found a deposit in your bank account the next morning. He swore up and down he did not know the first thing about it, but even if it had come from him, he would not want you to take it as a gift of pity but rather a late bonus for your hard work. But it definitely wasn't him, sweet thing.

The gifts didn't stop after the money incident. Now that Satoru understood you better and that small gestures were the way to go rather than an exceedingly ridiculous amount of money to gift someone, he went with that. He ordered flowers to your home with no cards, trinkets and stickers he found at those seemingly breaking down records shops Suguru would drag him into.

Satoru never left any indication that it was his doing, and you had never brought it up to him. But he knew that you knew, and that was all he needed.

All your assistant ever heard these days was "Satoru this" and "Satoru that." Your constant gushing had made it abundantly clear that your relationship was a little bit more than professional and even transcended that of a friendship.

"Seems like you've really... taken a liking to that guy," she once said in the passenger seat of your car.

"I'm telling you, Sammy, he's nothing like he seems in his content. You'd like him," you had responded, pausing to contemplate your next words. "Plus, we're just, like, friends..."

"Friends who want to fuck each other bad, from what I heard."

"But friends nonetheless."

Silence fell at a red light, the hum of the tires rolling against the pavement dissipating.

"Plus, I don't think he's... he wouldn't go for me, is all I'm gonna say," you mumbled, fingers gripping the steering wheel.

Sammy scoffed, a tiny smirk at the corner of her lips.

"Yeah right."

For the most part, you were happy to have Satoru around, and he was happy to stay. But the satisfaction devolved into wanting, neither of you being brave enough to make the first move. Although Satoru was fine with even just having you in the picture, he wished he could film with you again, see you again. Touch you again.

And even if you both didn't truly know what you were, what you wanted from each other, it was peaceful to have another's presence the way you and Satoru did.

That lasted until about a month later when a studio approached Satoru, intending to remake the magic of your and him's video, with big money involved.

"You see, your uhm... tape, so to speak, I'm sure you're aware of the numbers it did," blabbed some man in a blue stained shirt and a moustache that didn't exactly connect.

"'Course," mumbled Satoru, slumped on an office chair, his eyes fixated on that moustache that barely qualified as one.

"Well, it seems that our female demographic these days is into that sort of played-up intimacy, you know. We're placing our big bets on your ability to do that."

This guy—Itsuki, as Satoru recalled—was a director for this falling pornography production studio. He knew what he was talking about for the most part, yet was still hiding the fact that this was a last-stretch attempt at keeping the business alive. "Big bets" was an understatement; nobody offered the amount of money they did if they weren't desperate.

God, he really, really hated studios.

"Played up?" Satoru questioned, shaking his head. "That wasn't played up I just..."

"Listen kid, you're the industry big shot," Itsuki grumbled.

"I am?"

Satoru's numbers had been high, but he had never considered himself to be anything other than just another attractive guy who happened to be good at sex as well. Calling him a "big shot" only cringed him out.

"Oh yeah, trust me, you're talked about a lot. It's a good thing. Ya got the X factor. You're versatile, people love you," the man continued, turning in his chair like a tall child, "And we just, uh... need a bit of your talent right now."

Satoru sighed, contemplating his options. On the one side, it was something he hated; being directed and ordered around like a show dog really was not his style, and he'd rather chew on a dirty tire than deal with that energy for even just one day.

But on the other hand, this would allow him to do something for you. Something he had been thinking about doing for a little while.

He really, really, really hated studios.

"Alright. I'll do it. Let me call my girl—" mumbled Satoru, reaching for his phone.

Itsuki raised his hand dismissively, earning a puzzled look from Satoru.

"Oh, sorry, you've misunderstood. We're gonna bring in one of our own actors for this job. Your girl, they're not exactly what we're, uh, looking for, if ya know what I mean," Itsuki chuckled, raising his pen to his lips, an amused look on his face.

"I don't know what you mean."

Satoru's tone had turned icy, blue eyes piercing through Itsuki's soul with disgust. Satoru had a pretty good idea of what he was arguing. His body tensed at the prospect.

"They're not exactly the, uh... body type we're lookin' for, y'know?"

"Yeah, no thanks, deal's off," Satoru groaned, rolling his eyes as he got up, already halfway across the room before Itsuki reserved the audacity to keep speaking.

"We'll throw in an extra few thousand."

Satoru found himself in a break room, reading the dumbest script of his whole career, with a girl with a stupid stage name and Itsuki. Any attempts made to change something in the script were quickly shut down by 'Honey Suckle,' the tall blonde clinging to his arm like he was her life force. He barely even glanced at her when she spoke; he didn't need to. Her voice was irritating enough.

He could not get his brain to shut off for even two seconds, thoughts racing. He kept forgetting the script, rolling his eyes at the dumb dialogue, and most importantly, for the first time in his entire life, he couldn't get it up for what seemed like an hour.

Until that is, he thought about you. The soft sound of your laughter, your eyes on him, your pussy sweet and tight around him, shit, that did the trick.

Honey didn't make the task an easy one. Satoru was lucky to be blessed with an adequate set of acting skills and a talent for pleasing women, this time for the sake of finishing this ordeal early and getting out of there with the money he was promised.

Just when he thought he was free, walking back to his makeshift dressing room—which had peeling paint that crumbled and left a white dust on his clothing and a cracked ceiling, adding to the desolate atmosphere of this sorry establishment—to get ready to leave, Honey ambushed him, demanding his number with an attitude that lacked class and bridged into spoiled brat territory.

Satoru was not surprised to learn that she was the one who orchestrated everything from the script to the over-the-top romantic set in the first place.

Reaching his front door after that day felt like reaching the gates of heaven. Satoru wasted no time hopping in the shower until his anxiety melted away and until he felt safe from the claws of that Honey girl, nearly scorching hot water cascading down from his head to his feet. A thick fog of condensation stuck to the glass and the mirror, shielding him from the emptiness of the room, perhaps.

With his leaned against the cold tiles, his hand reached out to grasp the soap bottle, and finally, a moment to himself, Satoru could not stop the reoccurring daydreams of you in this very place. Your thighs around his waist, your digits in his locks. Your bodies warm to the touch, skin sliding against skin. He could picture his hands on your chest, using the excuse of washing your body to touch, to feel. Taking you against the wall, the glass, leaving handprints that would linger for a few hours later.

And then, maybe, switch from the shower to the bathtub. Your body leaning on his chest, his lips against the nape of your neck, just gently holding you close. His fingers would prune up, and his head would rest on your shoulder, his eyelids too heavy to keep open. Maybe you would tell him it was dangerous to sleep in water, and he'd mumble something about not even being tired.

Despite the thought putting his mind at ease, he recognized the distant fear of vulnerability within himself. But it was dimming with every time he spoke to you; he was changing and seemingly adapting to the way you made him feel.

Satoru called you that same night, a little bit later than usual, unsure if you would even pick up when he glanced over at the clock on the wall, ticking amongst the silence. You answered, your usual quiet "hey" emerging from his phone's speaker, but it was... off to Satoru.

You sounded tired, distant even. He asked, pressed to understand if something was wrong, yet all he received in exchange were non-reassuring two-word sentences and mumbles of affirmations.

He didn't feel good about hanging up that night.

And he felt worse when he didn't hear from you in the next few days.

Satoru simply could not take the silence. It physically pained him to no end, like a sickness bubbling at the pit of his stomach. He was afraid that if he let it bubble enough, it would reach his throat to choke him out and make him perish.

When he wanted to treat you as a retired distraction, a mere phase of his life, the emotions came back to haunt him tenfold, the whiplash causing his usually already short temper to be microscopic.

He stalked your page almost every night, once finding a new upload of you taking it from the back, some random guy he had never heard of clumsily thrusting at an uneven pace. Satoru was almost certain you didn't even finish. Actually pathetic.

Before he knew it, Satoru was typing in the comment section, writing something along the lines of "He didn't even make you cum lol, you look bored as fuck, he's such a loser," before giving up on pressing the post button when he realized how unhinged he would come across.

Things were almost back to the way they were before he met you. And he absolutely hated it.

Satoru nearly punched Suguru when he had the gall to invite him to a wedding―a distant relative of the Geto family that Suguru insisted he had to attend the wedding of―because he thought it would be "good for him" and would "help him figure out what he wants."

Suguru may have had to drag Satoru to the event, but he did attend and stayed until after the ceremony, only for the drinks. And he drank, not until he was drunk, but enough to keep his emotions at bay for a little while.

Satoru walked outside the venue to get some air while Suguru talked to his second cousin. Standing in front of the busy street, Satoru took a deep breath and admired the lights of the cars passing by, street lights, windows and traffic signs, all coming together forming a multicoloured mosaic. The cool air hit his face and made him shiver, turning his head slightly to the left.

The street he was on happened to be the street you lived on. Satoru blinked once, twice; maybe he was imagining things. He knew your address by heart from ordering so much shit to your place, and he knew he wasn't blind either.

Sooner than he could even rationalize it, his feet were taking him down the street, looking closely at the numbers. He roughly estimated being about two blocks away from your apartment complex.

His mind started working overtime, giving him reasons to turn back, like, what if you had company over? What if there was another man there, in your bed, right now―and if anything, it only encouraged his body to move forward.

Satoru crossed the street, looking at the number at least six times before entering the entryway call box, his fingers hovering on the keypad, wondering if he should ring you or just a random person. A stranger would be 50/50 at this hour, but he was almost assured that if he picked you, his chances were near zero, given how you had ignored his calls in the past week.

He went with the stranger, dialling some random four digits and crossing his fingers. Hopefully, they wouldn't answer and ask questions―

"Hello? Is this Domino's?" a male voice, probably late 20's, answered after a few rings.

"Uhm... yeah?" Satoru squeaked. Whatever happens next will be the pizza delivery guy's problem.

The guy buzzed Satoru in without another question, leaving Satoru concerned about security in the establishment if it was this easy for him to get in.

6th floor, 683.

The anxiety started to set in only in the elevator on the way up. He hadn't planned this; in fact, he hadn't planned anything. He didn't even know what to say. He didn't even know why he was doing this. Why you, of all people. Why you, of all people, reserved the ability to reduce him to this, naked and vulnerable for you.

Or why he hoped, deep in his gut, that he could do the same to you.

Satoru almost wished that the walk from the elevator to your apartment was longer as he stood there. He nearly moved to look through the peephole, but nah, that'd be creepy.

He listened in instead from where he was standing, discerning from the silence that there was no one with you.

And so, he raised his fist.

And knocked.

You froze in your living room, whirling your head towards the doorway, cautious not to make a noise. You hadn't ordered anything, and a girl living by herself was probably better off not answering the door from an unknown visitor at 10 in the evening.

Satoru shut his eyes, cringing at himself in a moment of realization, though he did not leave. He leaned his forehead against your door, his palm over the frame above his head.

"You there?" he asked.

You knew that voice.

You moved quietly to stand in the doorway, careful to land your feet softly on the floor.

Satoru reopened his eyes and glanced down, seeing that the light was peeking through the bottom of the door and that a shadow was moving through.

"I know you're here, sweet thing," Satoru said, firm yet soft. "You can―" he sighed, "You can tell me to go away, and I will, but I just... I don't know what I'm here for, actually. Jus' wanna see you, is all."

His voice sounded like a whine, picking away at your resolve. He waited there for a minute in silence, giving you time to make your choice.

But he was silently begging you to choose him.

Satoru should have felt relieved when he heard your door lock and saw the handle turn, though it instead stuck his breath in his lungs.

It hadn't helped that he saw you standing in a pretty pastel nightgown, with a face devoid of makeup and mismatched socks. Such a beautiful, natural state that made his heart stop and his dick twitch with interest. He was trying not to let his eyes linger on your chest, your thighs, your everything that wasn't your face for too long.

What a sight for sore eyes.

That isn't to say Satoru was not a pretty view himself, his tie halfway undone around his neck, sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up to right above his elbows, hair messy, eyes tired, and cheeks rosy―partly from the alcohol, partly from the cold, and partly because he felt like he had just been struck by a deity in the sky just looking at you―all while leaning on your doorframe and staring like he had been starved of something while away from you. Which he had, in his perspective.

"Y'don't answer your phone anymore, sweetheart?" asked Satoru rhetorically, words dripping in sarcasm.

"You show up to people's apartments uninvited now?" you retorted, employing the same tone.

"Would you cut the bullshit for a second? I'm being serious."

"Didn't sound like it."

Satoru was surprised to find you had bite, talking back to him with a little sass. He liked it. And maybe he'll fuck the attitude straight out of you later.

"That little radio silence thing you're on? Can't stand it," he went on, keeping the soft edge to his tone.

"I've been busy, you shrugged.

"Not too busy to get your back blown out by a guy who couldn't last two minutes."

"What, are you jealous?"

"Of what? His performance? Amongst the worst I've seen."

"That he got to blow my back out."

"Not jealous. Just pissed."

"Mh."

Satoru took a step closer, hand leaving the door frame to land on the wall above you as you crossed your arms, staring at the man towering over you with the same intensity he had in his blue eyes.

"Why are you ignoring me, love?" Satoru mumbled, letting insecurity and vulnerability peer through his voice.

"Because I don't know what you want. And I don't want to end up being just... another girl, y'know?" you admitted, dropping your gaze to his crinkled and half-open shirt.

Satoru's eyes softened, stepping too close to close the door behind him. You caught the scent of his cologne before he stepped back once more, and fuck, you needed him.

"There was this... other woman who posted on social media about how she was your girlfriend and all that," you went on, playing with your fingers as a distraction. "And then when I checked her out there was a video of you two in this whole like, romantic setting thing so... and like, I totally get it, I'm―I just didn't know what to do. Or what to think."

Oh, hell no.

"She's not my girlfriend," Satoru nearly interrupted. "I can swear that on my life, we just filmed together. I don't know why she's posting that, but I can promise you that I barely even tolerated her. She's not the one I want."

That authoritative voice nearly made you forget the conversation you both were having.

"Matter of fact, I'm a bit offended that you would think that we had any chemistry whatsoever; I had to work my ass off to even make it look remotely believable," he scoffed, a grin returning to his lips.

Satoru was desperate to see that smile on your face again.

"Well, I didn't know what to think, I mean, she seemed like she could be your type," you replied sheepishly.

"If you think that's my type, sweetheart, I've still got lots to teach you," he purred, voice low.

Satoru reached his palm to your face, feeling the warmth of your flesh beneath his fingertips. He snaked his hold to the nape of your neck, pulling you forward towards him, his neck craned to meet your figure with his. His nose and lips brushed against yours teasingly, putting on a show.

"Come on, tell me to leave. Tell me I can't be yours."

Toying with a strand of your hair and looking through his long white lashes, he was unwilling to make the first move. Or rather, Satoru wanted you to tame the uncertainty bellowing from the pit of his stomach. Fearing rejection was unfamiliar to his heart, but knowing it to be a testament to your importance mellowed the burn.

"Tell me that I can't have you."

Satoru was only merely surprised by your arms wrapping around his neck to bring his lips to yours, adapting quick and shutting his eyelids, languid movements of your tongue against his, sobering him up completely to get him drunk on a different type of substance.

His hand left the wall to come softly grip your thigh, moving to its underside to encourage you to jump.

"But what if I'm―" your voice came out breathless.

"Don't offend me right now, sweet thing."

You jumped, trusting him to catch you―and he did, without so much as a grunt, picking you up and wrapping your legs around his waist, supporting you with his forearms under your thighs.

"See? No need to doubt me," Satoru mumbled against your lips.

The kiss was slow yet messy, sloppily reverberating passion and a twinge of desperation. Within a break for oxygen―which he could have gone without if up to him―Satoru asked for the directions to your bedroom, kicking his shoes off somewhere between the entryway and the hallway.

Satoru was thrilled to see the room he had seen on Facetime with you a few times; it was perfectly tailored and personal to you. It was one thing to see, but it was another to be in your space with you.

He set you down on your bed carefully, keeping your legs to the sides of his waist as he crawled above you.

"You're just too good, y'know that? Fuck, you made it so hard to focus," said Satoru, admiring the sight before him.

"I wasn't even there."

"You were everywhere. Couldn't... couldn't think straight... couldn't stop..."

His voice trailed off as his eyes dropped lower to your hips, your thighs. Satoru traced an imaginary line on the inner side of them, agonizingly slow, your nightgown pooling and lifting at his wrist. He ran his finger on a small patch of your underwear where your arousal had soaked through the fabric, a stupid smirk on his face.

"Can I keep these after?"

He chuckled softly when you rolled your eyes and turned your head to the side, flustered. How cute.

Satoru began to take your panties off, shifting on top of you to make the task possible, bunching up the fabric in his hands and shoving them in his pocket with a wink.

He dipped two of his fingers between your slit, avoiding your clit on purpose, smiling down at you when you frowned at him.

"What? Tell me what you want. Big girl words, come on."

No script, no pre-determined routes, just genuineness.

"Just touch me, Satoru..." you mumbled, unsure.

"Where?"

Oh my god, this asshole.

You gasped as his fingers ghosted over your clit, begging him to touch there.

"Right here?" Satoru questioned, fake innocence etched onto his face as he stroked the sensitive nub slowly.

"Mhm," you sighed out.

The pace he had set was too slow, but he was aware of that. He did not want to make you cum, at least not right then, he simply wanted to drive you insane, give you a taste of your own medicine―so to speak.

Satoru replaced his fingers with his thumb, digits reaching over to your entrance, circling the opening.

"You have no fucking clue, do you? How mad you can turn a man. How long I would wait, what I would give up just to be yours. You don't even realize―"

He pushed his fingers in with one deep thrust, letting you whine and mewl at him before resuming his sentence, moving his index and middle in and out of you.

"You don't even realize how unhinged you make me―fuck, look at that, already soaking my hand, shiiit, and you're so tight..."

Satoru's eyelids were half closed, focused on the soft squelches of your pussy and the sight of it, ignoring his erection begging to be released from those tight black pants.

"And then you go out and fuck some guy who can't even make you cum? Who doesn't even take his fucking time to learn your body to fucking treat you like the deity you are. Now that's bullshit, and you know it, sweetheart. I know you're smart."

He sped up the pace, hitting your spot with deliberate and merciless movements, high on your moans and the way your back arched for him, mind stuck on his objective.

"Should've called me, I would've eaten that pussy for hours, would've done it for free. For less than free. Fuck, would've paid you for it."

Satoru's incessant speaking drove you up the wall, your fingers tightly gripping the sheets, his motions precisely designed to satisfy you but never quite send you over the edge.

"Satoru," you panted, sweat beading on your body.

"Yes?"

"Want more... please..."

"Anything you want, pretty."

He timed the thrusts of his fingers with the circling of your clit, increasing the pace while keeping a delicacy to his endeavours, capturing your lips in a small, shallow kiss before leaning his forehead on yours.

Right when Satoru felt your thighs start to tense at his sides, your breath quicken on his face, your walls fluttering, and the urgency in your voice, he...

Stopped.

Pulled his fingers out and licked them right in front of you, making sure your eyes were on him.

"I was so close―this is the second time you've done this," you whined, eyes closing as you felt the pure need coursing through your veins like a spreading disease.

"First time doesn't count; it was on camera," Satoru shrugged. "Come on, don't make that face. Besides, I'm punishing myself too. Watching you cum is the hottest thing ever."

With a groan, you pushed Satoru to his back and lifted yourself onto him in one move.

Satoru didn't know if he was in love before, but this certainly did it.

"My, my, woman. Didn't know you had that in you."

Even under you, the man had to stay smug, an arrogant smile on display just for you. You pouted and started undoing the buttons of his shirt without a word, which he did not move to fight, simply observing your meticulous work with his forearms under his head.

"Just like that, use me, sweetheart; you deserve it."

You couldn't ignore how Satoru's voice made your core drip, the stain of slick you had inadvertently left on the lower part of his dress shirt, or the comment he made about never washing that shirt again.

"You're nasty."

"You love it."

When you reached his pants, having shimmied further to gain access to it, you hesitated.

"Don't tell me you're shy now," Satoru taunted.

"You can't―you can't blame me. I haven't had sex for real in a while," you retorted, a small smile forming on your lips, catching his gaze.

"It felt pretty real last time."

There was a certain sincerity in his voice, contrastingly different from just a moment ago, vulnerable. You could see it in his eyes, the way in which they conveyed everything he had ever felt, giving and sharing strands of thought and emotion.

"That was different," you mused, moving to take his pants off.

Satoru lifted his hips to help you, silent as for your words. He did not want to push and ruin this by digging, searching to understand every inch of your soul, of your experience with him. Although it was tempting.

He moved to sit up against your headboard, biceps flexing. He took his boxers off, cock standing tall and proud, achingly hard. Satoru took your forearm in his hand to pull you closer until you were straddling him, his length slipping between your slit.

"Use me," repeated Satoru, murmuring. "I'm all yours. Take what you want."

He moved his hand to your face, thumb sliding over your cheekbone. Satoru gazed up at you with a glint of devotion in those deep blue eyes, devoid of any uncertainty or hesitation, pretty white brows furrowed lightly with gut-wrenching warmth. Fondness was too shallow of a word to describe it. A little pathetic was surface level.

A second hand left your forearm to rest on your hip, imprinted nicely on your flesh. Satoru helped you lift yourself to sit back down on his cock, drinking your little mewls and gasps, groaning when he was fully seethed in your tight heat, as if it were his home.

"Mph, fuck, the wait was so worth it," he exhaled, both of his palms migrating to your waist. "Want some help, beautiful?"

You nodded yes, busy with the feeling of the wind being knocked out of your lungs. Satoru smiled and helped you lift yourself, length dragging out of your sopping cunt, to help you back down. He moaned shakily as you set a slower pace than what he was used to, losing himself in the feeling of your cunt around him.

"Y'know I... I watched our v-video so many fucking times. Started to―fuck, so fucking tight around me..."

"Started t-to what?" you whimpered, letting your head drop to his shoulder, panting quietly against his skin.

"Started to feel guilty f-for doing it, fuckin' jerking off to you... after you'd just told me some fuckin' innocent shit about your day or something... Oh my god... missed this, s'much."

Satoru moved one of his hands to lift your head off his shoulder, holding your face to force eye contact. His lips were parted, shameless with the endless grunts and groans of satisfaction your body forced out of him. He just about lost it when he felt your pretty hands on his chest, desperate for something to touch, to grab.

"Angle your hips that way, sweetheart," Satoru murmured, hand at your side moving you.

His thick tip hit your spot with a particularly harsh bounce, eliciting a high-pitched moan from you. Your thighs twitched around him, and your eyes rolled back as he whined at the lewd sounds of your skin slapping against his, the wet noise of his cock dripping and enveloping with your essence.

"I think I'm gonna cum," you breathed out.

"I know, I know pretty... I can tell by the way you squeeze around me, shitttt..."

Satoru felt like the world around him was spinning, listening to your voice, your pretty face, your body. The way your hands tightened around his pec inadvertently, the subtle sheen of sweat on your skin, your concentrated expression, so fucking adorable.

He pulled you in to connect your lips, trapping you in a searing, sincere kiss, swallowing your breaths, taking from your air. His fingers tangled in your hair, gripping tight but not enough to hurt. His nose brushed against yours as he turned his head for better access, pressing his face against yours as if he were scared you would evaporate beneath his fingers.

Satoru bit your lower lip and lightly dragged it away with his front teeth when he felt he was finally satisfied, although he had to force every muscle in his body to just let you breathe.

"'M gonna take care of ya... gonna fuckin'―fuck―gonna give you everything, promise... I swear, e-everyday I'll prove I'm good e-enough for you, every fuckin' day 'til I die, holy fuck."

Until my body gives out to the stars.

Your thighs started to give out, the strain making your movements less fluid and more scattered. Satoru started to meet you halfway with a thrust of his hips, sliding a hand down to toy with your clit, just like he'd seen you do before.

"Satoru," you breathed, tone wanton and desperate.

"Fuck, d-don't say my name l-like that unless you wanna make me―"

Satoru's ears started to ring, and his vision went blurry as he spilled himself deep inside your willing cunt, little whimpers contrasting the deep groans from earlier. His head fell back on your headboard, Adam's apple bobbing while his eyes got teary.

"S-So good, so pretty f'me, fuck..." Satoru squeaked out.

He continued his finger's assault on your cunt, flicking and rubbing at a faster pace. He just needed to see you cum. Needed to see you cream on his cock, just like you deserved.

Satoru looked at you as if you had hung the stars in the sky, watching you convulse, pant, do anything to brace yourself with this impending orgasm, finally sending over the edge with a sharp pinch of your clit.

And he didn't just stop at that; when he had regained his ability to speak, he offered to clean you up, take you to the bathroom, run you a bath, dumb shit that he thought you'd appreciate that he wanted to do for you. Didn't even recognize himself anymore.

You accepted the first two offers but not the last, seeing as it was late and you were tired, not only from the day but riding his dick, losing yourself in his arms.

Satoru found a cloth in your bathroom and warmed it up with tap water. He made sure it wasn't too hot to the touch before he climbed back in bed, gently cleaning your thighs, your mound, anywhere he thought leaving dirty would be uncomfortable.

Although seeing your hole nicely filled with his seed almost made him ask for a second round.

"I do care about you. Wanna do right by you, if you're okay with that," Satoru murmured.

"I'll keep you around," you responded.

Parts. one | two

[mercurycft]

‘𝐓𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 (𝟏) - 𝐋.𝐖

## reader x leah williamson (childhood friend) !!

happy new year pookies!!! i hope you all had a lovely festive season whatever you celebrate, and if you don’t i hope u had a lovely nice break away from school, work or life for a few weeks! hoping 2025 brings lots of health, happiness and love to us and our loved ones!! did i listen to 'you could be happy' by snow patrol this entire time? yes. bit of a long one! buckle up! enjoy this, love always — RGx

this IS a christmas themed fic! <3

pure fluffy flirting, unfinished business hints, angst, rough family-dynamic and parent / child relationship, hinting at past experiences with leah & r, childhood memories.

4.3k words.

PART 1 - christmas eve.

"you promised you would be here for christmas this year!" you shout down the phone, fingers clenched so tightly around the device your knuckles begin turning white.

"y/n, don't act like a brat. your father and i work very hard and you know how important our work is to us!"

"i know that mum, but you promised!"

"well there's nothing that can be done now! it's too late!"

"its only an hours drive mum!"

"well it's not happening y/n! and that is final!"

"so you would rather stay in london and work, rather than spend christmas with your daughter? her first christmas back in the country?"

"don't turn this into a big thing, it's simply how life works sometimes."

"whatever. merry fucking christmas."

"don't you dar-"

you don't hear the end of the sentence before the phone call is ended and your phone is laid screen down on the table in front of you. you pace beside the dining table and your eyes meet the piles of presents you had laid out for them, all labelled and wrapped with love. you feel a bitterness that you know all too well course through your stomach and rise through into your throat with an acidic burn.

it riles you up until you're rushing towards the front door, angrily zipping your coat up and shoving your keys into your pocket. you slam it behind you and begin out into the rain, feet stomping with no real purpose but to blow off steam. the rain is aggressive paired with the harsh winter wind, but you're too focused on the millions of thoughts racing through your mind.

memories of christmas past hit you deep in your chest, stinging and stabbing like a vicious blade. the teenage years you spent begging for your parents to be there, to want to spend time with you. the smaller, more confused version of you that would stay awake on christmas eve but not to hear for santa, instead to hear for their keys jingling through the house.

it only fuels the fire behind your eyes and the pain in your veins. so you walk, and keep walking.

you don't, or can't, catch your breath the entire time. allowing the heavy rain to beat against your skin as you keep walking. you pass the familiar streets and houses, all decked out with festive lights and decorations of joy, but you don't stop. keeping your eyes on the concrete, your vision still blurred by tears. the cold is harsh against the skin of your face and hands, so harsh it's almost oppressive. beneath your coat, your outfit is impractical for the weather, but you don't care.

you fight against the rain as you haul through the town, head tucked down and determined to push through it - which has only gotten heavier and is now beating against your skin like bullets and seeping through the fabric of your coat and onto clothes.

the hours leading up to this blur into a pile of madness in your mind, and you don't realise where your body has carried you until you're standing outside her door. bell already pressed and chest heaving to recover from the brisk pace you managed to keep up through the storm. the roof of the porch providing you with a much-needed break from the rain. it feels familiar, the same as it did all those years ago.

you stand still, clenching your jaw and fists in an attempt to still the chattering of your teeth and the shaking of your limbs as the cold finally catches up to you.

a shadow approaches after a few moments, and you hear the muffled laughter as they move towards the door. the door swings open after a second, and she's not there. instead, her mum stands on the other side of the threshold. a santa hat sat perfectly on her head, you can see the warmth in her cheeks from her familiar smile - though it falters when she meets your eye. her previous look is replaced with one of concern, her brows furrowing and eyes widening as she takes you in.

"amanda," you manage to whisper when you look at her. eyes pooling with tears once more. the realisation of your presence hitting her like a ton of bricks. "im so sorry to just turn up, but i didn't know where else to go and i just kept walking and then i was here and i-" you ramble out a string of words that just barely make sense until you feel her pull you into the warmth of the house.

"y/n, love, breath." she says softly, rushing to push the door shut with her foot as her arms move to unzip the drenched and practically useless coat from around you. she lets it fall to the ground with no regard for the carpet and moves to wrap her arms around your shaking body.

you relax into her embrace and continue attempting to drag deep breaths through your nose and into your lungs while mumbling an array of apologies. suddenly you're no longer an adult to her, you're the same child that would rush around after school to yank leah into the garden to play football. the same child she opened her home to countless times when your parents were away.

"y/n, sweetheart, you need to breathe," she says with more conviction this time, bringing her hand to your back to coax a deeper breath and attempt to warm the skin simultaneously.

you stand against her for a few minutes, until your breathing slows to a manageable pace and you can fathom words again. her hand still drags across your back as she lifts her head to turns it in the direction of the living you.

"bubba, can you come here?" the muffled conversations get louder when a door opens and then shuts with a small thud, and footsteps approach you both in the hall.

"what you doing out here mum? we're about to get uno out.." her voice falls quiet. "y/n?"

you turn to face her with tear-stained cheeks and a weak smile.

its been years, enough to forget and move on. but the look on her face has you cursing yourself for being away for so long, and you know that she hasn’t. she hasn’t forgotten. the way her eyes melt when they meet yours tells you everything you need to know. you go speak at the same time, but your voice is weak. it breaks and cracks and she falls silent, brows furrowed with concern as she shuts the front room door behind her, keeping this moment to herself and confined to the small room.

"they're not coming. no one is coming and I don't expect you to do anything, i haven’t even had a chance to settle in properly- but i didn't know where else to go." you breathe a shakey breath, it's quick and shallow but enough to fuel your next sentence. your voice breaks once more, and your shoulders fall into themselves as a low sob raises from your throat again. she makes her way across the small space between you and catches your cold frame with hers, arms wrapping tightly around you "no one is coming," you sob into her chest.

amanda leaves with a pat on your back to go find you some clothes to change into as the pair of you stand there for a few minutes. you feel small beneath her, her chin resting on your head as it lays against her chest.

"why didn't you call? i didn’t know you were back, i could've come to get you," she whispers,

"i left my phone at the house, and i just started walking, and then i was here im so sorry,"

"stop apologising. you know mum loves a guest, especially you." she jokes softly, and you feel her shoulders rise with her smile when you let out a breathy laugh against her.

after a little while, amanda comes back with a change of clothes and a fresh towel, pushing them towards you and gesturing her head up the stairs. "go and take a nice warm shower, then put these on love. that'll get you warmed up."

you reach out take them hesitantly, then pull your arms back by your side. "i'll make my way home in a minute amanda, thank you though-"

"you absolutely will not." she says with typical mum raised eyebrows, pushing them back to you "now go,"

you smile weakly and take them from her, "thank you." you whisper as she waves you off and up the stairs. you turn back to face them from the top step, both of them still watching on.

“just like old times, eh love?” amanda adds with a wide smile.

━━━━━━━━━━

the shower feels like heaven, the warmth spreading across your skin and warming you right to the bone. you take in the few moments of serenity the warm water gives you, allowing your eyes to close and your muscles to relax. you let your mind wander, let it drift away from the sad and harsh reality that has become your life. you use leah's shampoo to wash your hair, recognising the smell immediately and allowing yourself to laugh that she has used the same brand since you've known her.

once you're out you brush your hair, letting it fall down your back as you pull on the clothes amanda had pulled out for you. you recognise an old pair of leah's pyjama bottoms and a smile in acknowledgement of fond memories breaks across your lips.

you make your way back down the stairs a little later, feeling refreshed from your new-found warmth and comfier clothes that lack the ability to stick to every inch of your skin.

the house is the same, and the years feel like they melt away from you. you hesitate outside the door to the front room, a small smile on your lips at the house of laughter from the other side. you reach a knuckle to announce your presence before you open it and enter.

everyone is in their respective spots: david and amanda on the sofa, with leah at their feet sprawled across the carpet; her cousins surrounding her. you feel fourteen again, leah’s clothes still hanging from you in all the same places. you share a smile with everyone, holding up your hands in a make-shift surrender. “apologies for gate crashing, i still like to make an entran-” you don’t manage to finish before jordan and jacob, leah’s cousin and brother are up and wrapping their arms around you hurriedly - tugging you to the floor.

it doesn’t feel different, or strange. you fit back into the same place you left off all those years ago. you play a few rounds of uno with leah and her family, and drink countless cups of tea. amanda always made the best one, even when you were young, so you make use of her skill. it’s nearing 9pm when you finally decide its time to remove yourself from the bubble you’ve been in- and into the hallway beyond the front room.

you try to quietly and quickly slip your still wet coat back onto your frame, but your silent antics are interrupted by leah’s voice.

“where you running off to?” she asks, leant against the small table on the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.

“just getting out of your hair,” you reply, smiling small. “thank you for letting me in, even just for a few hours. it was fun.” you turn back around to zip up your coat and begin dressing again.

“you don’t have to go yet, y/n,”

“i’m sure all of you have so much left to do in prep for the littles tonight so i’ll see you-”

“i mean it, you’re welcome to stay for a bit,”

“plus its christmas, who wants a stranger in the house at christmas?”

it’s as if you’re having two different conversations, at the exact same time. each of your voices overlapping and interrupting - unable to hold steady rhythm. as you speak you pull on your trainers one by one, not really paying attention to the words leah is saying, instead focused on your mountain of excuses to cut the visit short. it isn’t until you hear her voice drop, to barely above a whisper, that you process what she is saying.

“y/n!” her normal voice, calm and collected, snaps you out of your own mind. “please. stay.” its low and quiet, but loud enough for you to hear across the space between you. you whip around to face her, her eyes locked on you and her breathing steady.

“what?”

“stay.”

"leah," you start, head tilted. "i couldn't do that,"

"spend christmas with us," she pauses for a beat, eyes searching yours and your features. "with me,"

you feel like you somehow have managed to travel back in time, transported to the exact moment all those years ago when you told leah you were leaving. you remember how her face fell in the exact same way, how her hands twitched as she fought against the urge to reach for you and keep you with her forever, how she couldn't choke back her tears when she begged you not to go.

the same guilt and pain you knew all too well began to spread through you again, starting in the tips of your fingers and receding up your arms until it sat dormant in your chest.

"i can't." you whisper, unsure whether to yourself or to her.

"you can," she replies anyway. "i already spoke to mum, and to dad, and everyone else. we want you here."

"why?"

"because i'd rather you be here, with us, with me, than alone when you wake up on christmas morning."

you fall into silence, or silence full onto you, you're not sure. taking a deep and quaking breath that trembles through your lips.

you don't say any words, instead, just unzip your coat and slip your shoes off. pushing them back beside the drawers against the wall and hanging your jacket back onto the hook. you turn to face her with a small smile.

"okay."

she lets out a breath you didn't know she was holding and moves to embrace you, you melt into her arms and breathe with her for a few moments. "i would've looked like a real tit if you said no," you both share a laugh. not a small or pathetic breathy one, a proper laugh. a laugh that almost has you snorting like you used to.

"you look like a tit anyway," you add, as you both make your way back into the front room. you don't think twice as you walk towards amanda and david, who sit with their eyes fixed on the tv as an episode recap of eastenders begins to play. you lean between them both, wrapping your arms around the pair of them. it takes them by surprise for a second, before their arms are around you too.

everyone spends the next half hour all huddled around the tv, beside leah. more-so on top of leah. you share the armchair in the corner of the room, your legs on her lap and head fallen on her shoulder. breathing deeply with your eyes closed tight. you don't think you're asleep, too aware of your surroundings to be sleeping properly. but you're calm, very calm.

laughter from the floor is what makes you open your eyes and adjust to the lights again, met with leah's eyes as she nudges you with her shoulder. "alright sleeping beauty?"

"sorry, i didn't even realise i fell asleep," she shakes her head in response, dismissing your apology. "can you take me to mine in a minute, le?" the nickname slips out without you realising, but she doesn’t react.

“thought you said you would stay?”

“i am, i just want to go and get some stuff so that i can actually look nice tomorrow,”

“you always look nice,” she says lowly, looking back out to the distracted room. you roll your eyes, shaking your head at her and lifting a single brow as if to push her to answer your question.

“yes, go and get your shoes on and we’ll go now,” you smile to thank her and rise from the chair beside her.

"where are you two off to?" david asks as you walk past.

"just going to y/n's to grab her stuff to stay over,"

"well, don't be long, love actually will be on soon!" amanda replies excitedly, which david replies to with a roll of his eyes.

━━━━━━━━━━

whilst in your house, you took a moment to look at the presents beneath your tree. to look at the gifts you had accumulated through the months in hopes your parents would have the same childlike joy on their faces christmas morning as you once did. you considered leaving them, maybe shipping them off to their london house for them to enjoy alone. but deep down you knew they didn't deserve it. they didn't deserve the effort you had made for them.

you let your fingertips run across the presents, the new appliances and products you bought for your mum and dad alike. your fingers then fell to the labels you had added. you twisted the tag in your hand, reading the words you had written with love. you let it sit in your palm, dazed by the pain of your parents' missing presence.

"i'm sorry they're not here, y/n." you hear leah speak from behind you, leaning against the kitchen island.

"i'm not," you begin. "i'd rather spend it with people that give a shit anyway,"

you let your fingers wrap around the tag, slipping the attached string out of the piece of tape which was securing it down and screwing it into a ball. you did this to all of the presents, taking each of the tags one by one and removing them until they were left in a pile beside you. you took the presents, piling them into bags you had instructed leah to get from a cupboard in the kitchen.

"be a shame to let perfectly good presents go to waste," you said with a small sigh as you carried them over to your front door, making sure to grab your phone and pop it into your pocket.

you're gone and back in less than an hour, with a bag packed of clothes, your own pyjamas as well as everything you'll need for tomorrow and maybe another night in the williamson household slung over your shoulder and two large bags packed with presents in either hand. leah trailed behind from the car with an additional bag of gifts in her hand, helping you through the door and placing them on the floor.

you stand there for a minute, staring at the bags below you, leah locking the door and placing her keys in their spot before she joins you. standing shoulder to shoulder with you, in a comfortable silence. you feel her fingers brush the back of your own when she lets her arms relax on either side of her body.

"i'm glad you're here,"

"you were the one convincing me to stay,"

"no, i mean here, back in england."

you draw in a breath. "me too." her fingers brush yours again, this time she allows her pinky to link with your own. her hands warm against the chill of yours. "im sorry i left,"

"yeah, me too," she replies lowly.

you stay there for a bit, lost in the forgotten comfort of her and her presence. it feels right, normal. no anxiety or awkwardness. so you bask in the stillness with her, away from prying eyes and the events of life that came before this very moment. you enjoy the hush of the hallway together, standing still, pinkies intertwined. you don't know what to say or to do, so you don't do anything or say anything. you just breathe, together.

"come on then," she says quietly breaking the silence after a minute or so. "we better put these presents under the tree, santa's orders,"

you cant help but laugh at her, and nod along to her words. picking up the bags and pushing them through into the front room, leaving the moment to fester alone in the four walls of the hall. jacob and his family had already made their way to the spare bedroom, and jordan and hers had made their way home - so when you walked back into the living room, only amanda and david remained waiting for you both.

"what on earth is all that!" amanda asks from the same position as when you left, eyeing the bags in your hands.

"presents," you push them to the floor and begin taking them out of the bags.

"y/n, you didn't have to do that love." dad says, shaking his head at you.

"i know, but i would rather give them to people who deserve them. i'd rather you guys have them, and use them and appreciate them." you say, rarely looking up from the gifts as you place them into piles, suddenly too aware of the eyes on you. "it's not a big deal, and i don't want to make it one. christmas isn't about that. but i hope you guys will take them, and enjoy them. just think of them as a thank you, for all you've done for me over the last decade." you say the last bit through a laugh, and finally look up to them. each of them looking back at you with nothing but love in their eyes.

"oh, y/n," amanda says softly, waving you over to them both, which you do - pulling yourself up off the floor and to stand in front of them. you don't get a chance to say anything to add to your previous point before amanda's arms are around you for what feels like the hundredth time tonight alone. "i am so, so happy you decided to stay." she whispers for only you to hear, then pulls away. "and to be honest i was sick of leah barking on about how much she missed you," she says in jest and gets up to walk to the kitchen, "every bloody day," which makes you laugh.

david juts his hand between you, and you take his in yours. "welcome home, y/n love." he says, pulling you into a dad-like hug before following his wife into the kitchen.

the living room was a picture of warmth and cheer, the soft glow of the christmas tree lights casting a gentle hue over the neatly wrapped presents beneath it. the smell of pine mingled with faint smell of tea through the house, you turned to survey the room around you - including leah.

"i feel bad that i haven't got you anything," she says, looking at you from her spot beside the tree.

"this is enough,"

"what do you mean?"

"i mean this, being here with you, with all of you."

the four of you spent another hour awake, watching the rest of love actually and chatting about life. catching up on the years missed from either side. when the fill finally draws to a close, amanda and david say their goodnights and head up to bed, leaving you and leah downstairs on the sofa. the room was lit with nothing but the lights from the tree, and the tv.

you yawn, so large it makes your eyes water and turn to face leah. "you can go up to bed, don't let me keep you down here." you say to her, snuggling your head into the pillow beside you for comfort.

"you not coming up?"

"i can sleep on the sofa leah, its fine."

"but what about santa?" she teases, poking you.

"im fine down here, really."

"come up with me," she speaks whilst trying to find the remote that has somehow disappeared. "it wouldn't be the first time we're shared a bed,"

"i know that," you roll your eyes, stomach flipping with the thought of sleeping beside her.

"then come to bed," finally, she finds the remote and shuts off the tv. her words spoken as if they are final, causing you to sigh.

"fine."

you work together to lock the doors and turn off the lights, then make your way upstairs. so now, you find yourself tucked into leah's childhood double bed. laid stiff as a board beside her as she flicks through netflix for something to fall asleep to. it shouldn't feel different, you've been here, in this exact position a thousand times. but it does, it feels so different that it's blinding. the sound of your heart in your ears is deafening, but you try your hardest to ignore it.

she asks what you fancy absentmindedly, unaware of the way your stomach swills when she speaks. you tell her to pick whatever she wants, unable to process a proper answer in your current state. you try your hardest to swallow your anxiety, to not draw attention to the way your body lays entirely still next to her.

she hands you the remote after she has chosen, in case you want to change it. you don't, instead you smile and put it onto the dresser next to you. you feel her shuffle to get comfy, then she's facing you, hands tucked beneath her head and chin.

"stop freaking out, y/n." she mumbled with a sickening smirk.

"im bloody not,"

"liar."

"shut up,"

"lay down and i will,"

"oh i have not missed this,"

"lay down then,"

"yeah i will,"

"come to sleep,"

you roll your eyes at her persistence, nothing has changed. you have probably had this conversation a thousand times in the years you have known her, and you know better than to try and fight it. so, you turn to put your phone on charge and then turn back to her, mirroring her position.

"goodnight, leah."

"goodnight, y/n."

"merry christmas,"

━━━━━━━━━━

oh em gee i hope you all enjoyed part 1!! part 2 will either be released later tonight (5/1/25) or tomorrow (6/1/25)! lots of love! x

[gallusrostromegalus]

Now for the Gotei-13:

Ukitake has spent his entire life Sick. He has no memory of Not Being Sick. He is sick, all the time, unignorably so. Its exhausting, it's infuriating, it's painful and worst of all it's Boring. The Boredom is heinous, being flat on his back, sometimes too weak to even read, prisoner of his own flesh.

He is, at least, not alone.

Mimihagi has been with Jushiro for every breath as long as he can remember, and will be so until he dies. The Godling is just as trapped by Jushiro's flesh as he is. It's a bizarre solace, to have someone to grieve with, but Jushiro counts himself lucky for it.

He has also become not so much gone numb to the horrors of the flesh so much as blown right past that and found a strange sort of beauty and joy in the extremes of what the body can tolerate. He and Unohana are both regularly banhammered from the groupchat for posting unspoilered images of "LOOK WHAT THE FUCK NEW MEDICAL BULLSHIT I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT!!".

-

Rukia is almost never sick, which is really good for everyone's sanity, but ESPECIALLY Byakuya, who gets trauma flashbacks to Hisana's slow and awful death every time Rukia so much as sneezes. On the rare occasions she does finally catch a cold or has an injury serious enough to force her to take time off, Byakuya is practically her shadow, with soup and cookies appearing at her bedside before she can even articulate the thought of what she wants. He reads to her, and often sleeps in the same room so he can hear her breathe.

Rukia was originally a person who wanted to be left alone to convalesce. Renji made her a rabbit plushie out of old flour bags and stuffed with heather when they were kids to act as a sort of token guardian when she'd kick him out of her bunk for hovering. These days he still hovers, but at a distance- he texts her memes and shop talk all day to keep track of her, and pester his Boss, who is in the same room.

Rukia has learned to deal with Byakuya's overzealous care because she recognizes it as an act of profound love and affection and she doesn't actually get to spend much time with him. Sometimes she'll pretend to be just a little more under the weather than she actually is so she can have another night of his attention, and then 'miraculously' look much better in the morning, so he stops worrying about the illness 'lingering'.

-

Mayuri vacilates wildly between praising the humble virus for it's ability to wreak havoc on such complex organisms as humans, what with out reactive immune systems and telling his colleagues that illness is a "Skill Issue".

-

Nemu is probably the single most disease-resistant organism in the afterlife, both by Mayuri's extreme efforts in her creation, and the immense amount of work she puts into sanitizing the 12th division and improving her own form, two things of which Mayuri is entirely oblivious.

She wants to eradicate at least ONE serious pathogen before she presents her work to him. Not because she is particularly worried about him disassembling her- that's on the level of a hangnail for her. The reason is that she and Mayuri share a streak of Pride A Mile Wide and she wants to be able to flex on him.

It's how they show love.

-

Zaraki:

(Continued under the Cut)

As is befitting of a Kenpachi, Zaraki is incredibly resistant to both receiving injuries and spectacularly good at handling the consequences of injury when he does receive it. Most humans can lose about 20% of their blood without dying. Zaraki can push 30% and still be issuing effective commands to his men or attempting to continue the battle. 1000 years wandering the Rukongai have also given him a cast-iron stomach, not to mention the liver and kidneys of a God- At least, that's what Unohana said about them the first time she had a rummage through his abdominal cavity. He's been insufferably smug about it since.

Being of such rude health and one of the very few shinigami with O-Negative blood and the only shinigami with No Native Zanpakuto Spirit puts Zaraki in an unusual position- he is a Truly Universal blood Donor. Blood typing in souls works the same as in living humans, but Shinigami have to also contend with matching the elemental types of the zanpakuto spirits in a reverse Rock-Paper-Scisors-Lizard-Spock arrangement. Since he has no zanpakuto spirit, Zaraki can donate to anybody, and Unohana retains his services as a Living Blood Bag. He enjoys the work- he enjoys any attention from Unohana, and gets a kick out of how fast people improve with a pint of him in them.

As robust as he is, Zaraki does have one serious medical weakness: Since he almost never gets *sick* the extremely rare times a virus or other pathogen makes it past his initial immune system, it knocks him on his ass. Even a common headcold makes him feel like he's dying because that's genuinely the most ill he's ever felt. Naturally, Ikkaku and Yumichika give him endless shit about this, but they also don't leave him alone. Sure, maybe it's just a cold that got lucky this time, but one time he really did have Yellow Fever.

-

Yachiru endeared herself immensely to Unohana when the first met by being intensely curious about the 4th division hospital and one thing lead to another and within an hour of their meeting Unohana may have sort of let the girl help screw a patient's collarbone back together.

-

Ikkaku has just the WORST fucking hayfever in the middle of July and he has NO IDEA what is causing it!!

(Ikkaku is allergic to Bird Dander and is married to a man who has a Peacock for a Soul Being and is besties with a man who was raised by eagles and some of the features of both avians have magically transposed onto Yumichika and Zaraki respectively. Like the mid-summer molt.)

-

Yumichika's mothers were what passed for surgeons in the East Upper 70's and raised him to be persnickety as hell about sanitary conditions, but specifically, to always take care of his hands- if your hands go, you're fucked. Consequently, not only has Yumichika been walking around with a perfect manicure since he was seven, one of his primary was to show affection is to take care of the hands of those he cares about. Ikkaku almost always has at least one red nail to match his eyeshadow, Yachiru wears an assortment of colors but always at least one pink and Zaraki can't stand the texture of polish but he lets Yumichika see to it that they're clean and in good working order.

This actually caused Yamamoto to lose a rather large sum of money once.

There was a bet established about a week after Zaraki's arrival as to his age. It's actually something of a mystery-He has the haggard face of an old man or a young one with a rough life, emotional maturity that vacillates between "childlike lack of impulse control and emotional intensity" and "Sagacious shrewdness regarding the better and worse aspects of human nature", talks like he knew ancient historical figures personally but is known to wind people up with a shaggy dog story for fun, and still has all his teeth.

Yamamoto THOUGHT he had an inside track because he got a good look at Zaraki during the ONE kendo lesson he managed to give the bastard before the C46 got their panties in a twist and banned Zaraki from learning it. To Yamamoto's (very experienced) eye, Zaraki had the hands of a very young man- they were in terrific shape for the rough living and sheer number of fights Zaraki apparently got in to, and Yamamoto mistakenly chalked it up to The Resilience Of Youth rather than The Efforts Of Friends, and bet heavily.

He was apoplectic when he found out he had low balled Zaraki's age by about 1200 years.

-

Rangiku was actually on the fast-track for the 12th division when she got a look at Mayuri and decided she'd be safer in another dimension, and signed on with the 10th Division's Special Deployment Squad instead. Her special interest is cosmetics- the science of dermatology, color theory as applied to fashion, how to deceive with shape and shade, the history and sociopolitical causes behind fashion and makeup trends etc.

She also makes all her own soap, shampoo, conditioner, sunscreen, makeup, perfume, moisturizers, serums, lubricants and other little bottles of liquid illusion in her quarters, much to Hitsugaya's despair. Unohana has made no secret of the fact that if Rangiku had the ability to do Kaido, she would have not had the option of enlisting in any division besides the 4th. Rangiku takes as the compliment it is, and hands Retsu the 13-in-1 cream Rangiku developed specifically for her. Sometimes shades of Unohana's former life show through and the violently utilitarian approach the chief medic takes to cosmetic appearances. It's fine- Rangiku is actually really proud of the chemical exfoliant in there that ALSO removes blood, bile and other bodily fluids without harming the skin.

Now if only she could figure out something to deal with Hitsugaya's growing Teenage Boy Stank.

-

Hitsugaya does NOT have teenager stank, thank you! He is having more than a bit of a rough go with Puberty though, because most long-lived souls have normal-length childhoods and maybe slightly elongated adolescences, then prolonged adulthoods. He caught the slowdown EARLY, and now that he appears to be aging one year for every ten lived, Toshiro is facing down the prospect of mentally and anatomically being in middle school for upwards of thirty years.

"Tough titty Icicle jr." Yachiru grumbled when he attempted to commiserate with her as a fellow youth. "I'm not going to be an adult until 2403!"

-

Tousen has the opposite problem from Zaraki. Even relatively minor injuries (for a shinigami) can lay him up for ages- he's a profuse bleeder and extremely slow to heal*. How much of his sensitivity to perceived aggression is a reaction to trauma from the repeated attacks on his person by bigoted peasants in his youth versus a very proportionate response to the danger he faces from injury is debatable, but the latter is definitely a contributing factor.

*constantly being on anti-inflammatory meds to manage the pain of the 66 curse nails driven into his spine will do that.

On the other hand, Tousen can be Alarmingly Ill and still functioning "Normally". Tousen's previous Lieutenant warned Shuuhei to check the captain's temperature if he seems like he's in an unusually good mood. Last time he thought Tousen was recovering from his ever-present cloud of depression, he actually had a 103 degree fever. Tousen is a responsible individual who isolates when he feels sick, but his tolerance for discomfort and suffering is so high he thought the case of Whooping Cough he has was "a little bronchitis". Shuuhei has gotten very good at eyeballing his boss, sensing something is off and throwing the captain over his shoulder to haul him off to the 4th to find out what's wrong with him this time.

Compounding this issue is that Tousen's adopted mother was a famous Murder Mystery Author, and he her primary researcher and editor, so the man possesses a vast and disturbing knowledge of various poisons, weapons, environmental conditions, allergic reactions, venomous animals, industrial accidents and outright bizarre ways to die. Last time he was seriously ill, he decided to sit down at his typewriter and document his descent into Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever rather than seek medical attention, out of a desire to finally fill out one of the missing sections in his Encylopedia Of Death*. The seriousness of Unohana's lecture about how stupid he'd been was slightly tempered by her admiration of how thorough and detailed his documentation was and how it would be a helpful diagnostic tool-

*Also the desire to escape The Curse, even if it involved shuffling off his mortal coil.

-

Shuuhei has undiagnosed Obsessive-compulsive Disorder. Not because Soul Society doesn't know what OCD is- they're not THAT behind on psychiatry- but because Shuuhei thinks that being unable to stop thinking about something, especially an irrational catastrophe, is perfectly normal so he never talks about it. Also he'd rather die than admit he's having any kind of problem, at all, ever, to the vast annoyance of everyone around him.

-

Kensei is truly Red-Green colorblind. He has both Protanomaly (reduced sensitivity to red light) and Deuteranomaly (reduced sensitivity to green light), and sees the world mostly in shades of gray, yellow and blue. He's sometimes a little bummed about it, but mostly he's glad that the Shinigami Uniform is black and white, and not the totally-indistinguishable-to-him reds, purples, greens, oranges or browns that everyone else loves.

He is VERY annoyed to find out Komamura can see more colors than him though.

-

Mashiro is completely deaf in her right ear from a bad fever as an infant. She compensates for it with the distinctive curious-head-cocking-like-a-spaniel she does, and by making sure she's always standing on Kensei's left side because the man talks at a volume meant for stadiums so she might as well only expose the already-fucked ear.

-

As much as Shunsui drinks, he's almost never drunk. People with extremely high reiatsu also have ridiculous appetites because they constantly need to be throwing fuel on the fire, so to speak. Shunsui's favorite brand of Sake is a high-quality but far from the best out there, but it IS the one that gives him the most dissolved-carbohydrates-per-fluid-ounce-while-also-not-tasting-like-gasoline. The constant sipping from the bottle is him keeping his blood sugar up- the alcohol is digested and metabolized into sugars so fast it never gets to make him drunk.

-

Nanao is also in high demand as a Shinigami blood donor because she technically doesn't have a native Zanpakuto spirit, but can't be a true bloodbag like Zaraki because her actual blood type is A-, which she gets VERY strong feelings of inadequacy about.

-

Komamura has perfectly normal human color vision. Actually slightly better- he has excellent color acuity as well. He also has a humanlike liver that tolerates chocolate and alcohol, though he sometimes lies about the latter because he can't stand the taste or being around really drunk people.

Unohana has known he's a Wolfman since the first day he came to Seireitei at Yamamoto's invitation and the captain-general introduced them so he'd have a doctor who'd keep his secret, and she's taken extensive notes on him, because he's the only Wilderkin she's ever seen up close. She hypothesized once that Komamura is significantly more man than wolf- it's just that all the Wolf parts are externalized. Anatomically speaking, he's really quite Human on the inside.

Komamura still isn't quite sure how he feels about that.

-

Iba staunchy Does Not Believe In The Occult mostly because his mother is such a freak about horoscopes and also a huge bitch, but he DOES believe in Zaraki's Garbage Hell Tarot deck specifically because it predicted his lethal allergy to bananas right before bananas became available in Soul Society. They look and smell exactly like something he'd love, but at Ikkaku's urging, Iba got tested and found out that if he'd gone and eaten a banana he probably would be dead before anybody could find and administer an epi-pen.

-

Byakuya knows perfectly well what caused his Wife's Illness and Death was congenital and triggered by very specific circumstances that are easily avoidable now, but he still has a panic response any time one of the people he loves gets sick and he must fuss over them in his overgenerous, emotionally flat manner.

He will literally die before letting anyone know that HE is sick though. Emphasis on the Literally. He's been hospitalized for untreated influenza several times. Unohana got Renji's name in the seated officer Secret Santa one year and gifted him a long-range laser temperature gauge so Renji could check him from a distance. Renji genuinely treasures the device.

-

Renji used to be one of those idiots that showed up to work sick because of a misplaced sense of duty. Then he was visibly ill in Byakuya's line of sight and got the worst dressing-down of his career over contigation. He still has nightmares of Byakuya glowering down at him and growling about how there are Pregnant Women here Abarai, what if you give one of them Rubella? I expect responsibility from my officers!

Renji HAS learned this means he can take sick days whenever he wants and Byakuya will always grant them No Questions Asked, but he is certain that if he ever abuses the privilege, Byakuya and worse, RUKIA will find out and he'd rather be skinned alive than face being lectured by both of them.

-

Aizen is a stickler for food safety rules and regulations. It's a bit agitating to have him suddenly loom over you because you almost put a dirty teaspoon back in the cannister without washing it properly, but the division has one of the lowest illness rates AND more than enough clean tea spoons.

-

Momo has a bizarrely high alcohol tolerance for someone of her shape, size and background. Rangiku has lost drinking contests to her before. She is the SWA's designated driver, and not just because she's the only shinigami with a valid driver's license.

She also doesn't get hangovers, which Rangiku thinks is straight-up unfair.

-

Shinji has exquisite dental hygiene because he is DEATHLY AFRAID of Dentists. Like, can't even watch movies with dentists in them. Don't even MENTION Little Shop of Horrors around him.

-

Hiyori had pica as a kid and intermittently gets it as an adult. She absolutely terrified Hikifune the first time the captain stepped out into the courtyard and saw her beloved lieutenant just. Eating a handful of dirt. Both Hikifune and Urahara have tried and failed to figure out what fucking vitamin she's missing that causes the occasional dirt craving, with Urahara going so far as to beg Unohana for help.

Unohana stared at the man for a moment, before casually leaning back in her office chair to stick her head out of the door and squint at Hiyori in the hall. "Do you ever get sick after eating dirt?"

"NO!" Hyori growled, exasperated. "I USUALLY FEEL BETTER!"

"Kid's fine." The chief medic shrugged. "Sometimes you gotta have that crunch."

That was the last time Urahara asked her for assistance.

-

Unohana:

Some people learn about WHY she got into medicine- to be able to heal herself and her opponents and continue battling indefinitely and assume she has an extremely high tolerance for pain.

This is Incorrect.

Zaraki is an adrenaline junkie and pain fetishist. Pain hurts for him, it just Hurts So Good-

Unohana is an honest-to-God, Biological Masochist. Pain doesn't hurt for her. It genuinely pleases her. Lacerations light up her pleasure centers and getting stabbed genuinely feels as good as getting the good dick.

The closest thing to pain she feels is "boredom". Unohana has severe ADHD and like Zaraki, her chosen dopamine replacement is Adrenaline. For her, any stagnancy isn't just boring- her brain stops making even trace amounts of the neurochemicals it needs to function, and rapidly descends into a black despair and can even become injured from stimulation deprivation.

When her lung became permanently compromised and she turned to medicine, it was a struggle and a half to study until she discovered the thrill of surgery- something done At Speed back then because it was also done Without Anesthesia. She quickly found that surgery fulfilled her desire for combat, and with little wonder- she now faces the greatest opponent of all- one who she might win battles with but never truly defeat, one who never backs down or gives up, one who will someday defeat her utterly and completely-

Death itself.

To fight The Great Inevitable, knowing the battle will continue until her personal oblivion?

What Bliss.

-

Isane Kotetsu has the single worst case of frequent Sleep Paralysis and Night Terrors Unohana has seen in her entire career. They first met when teenage Isane turned up in the emergency room against the express wishes of her family, because she'd been awake for eighty hours straight at that point and either the demon haunting her every time she tried to sleep needed to go, or she would.

Consequently, Isane is the first lieutenant of the 4th to actually live in the lieutenant's quarters. Unohana puts a lot of value on her privacy and personal space, and had 'agreements' with her previous lieutenants that they should live with their families, or elsewhere in the division. Isane is genuinely pleasant company though, and only ever demands Unohana's attention when the captain realizes her lieutenant's quiet snoring has stopped and she need to go poke the girl and send the hatman packing.

-

Gin Regularly pretended to be sick in order to get time off for his machinations. Never realized that all his little "I Am Definitely A Human Person" deceptions fell flat, but the fact he Apparently got the flu two or three times a year was the most convincingly Mortal thing he ever did.

-

Kira's body ought to be in much, much worse shape than it's in given the amount of drinking, caffeine pills, poor nutrition and other abuse he puts his organs through, but for all the other misfortune he suffers, Kira is inexplicably blessed with incredible toxin resistance and durable organs. He was in the fourth when he started as a shinigami before Gin poached him, and Unohana has quietly held a grudge about no longer being able to study him like a bug.

-

Rose has never actually been sick, or even hungover in his entire life. He too has exquisite toxin resistance, but he also regularly eats fruits and vegetables, hydrates and gets nine hours of sleep per night*, so he's basically going to live forever.

*...unless he hyperfixates in a new investigation or musical composition that he forgets that he has a body and doesn't eat or sleep or parties so hard he goes on a bender where nobody hears from him for two months, like that one time Shinji had to fly to Paris and hunt his ass down, whereupon he found rose half dead in a brothel because he'd had so much sex he'd forgotten to eat for two weeks.

**Unohana also wishes to study him like a bug.

-

Soi Fon is currently at the top of the leaderboard for "most cases of you-knew-better food poisoning", because between the combat training and weird family shit, she never actually learned how to cook, let alone food safety, and regularly eats extremely expired leftovers. She also has a bad habit of not sleeping when she's agitated about something which has caused Omaeda to acquire and learn how to use a tranquilizer dart gun.

-

Omaeda has hunted his boss down with a dart gun to get her to rest before. She was mad, but also slightly to impressed with his stealth, cunning and aim to punish him too severely. Just shoot her in the arm next time, got it? NOT the ass!

-

Yamamoto's hearing is immaculate despite his age, and he can eavesdrop on conversations in the first division from three floors away if he wants. He is developing cataracts and Myopia he's in denial about though.

-

Sasakibe has gone to some fairly extreme lengths to conceal his age- partially out of vanity, but mostly because having a detail like that be totally unknowable drives snoops and spies INSANE and this amuses him. The Shinigami Women's Association runs much of the gambling in seireitei, and holds exclusive rights to gamble on certain long-term bets, including "at what age will any captain actually fucking die?" Where the mystery of Sasakibe's current age adds much speculation and higher wagers.

(the truth is that he is only fourteen and a half years older than Unohana and twenty-one years older than Zaraki. How old THEY are is an even bigger mystery though.

Since you're at the doctor's, medical headcanons. Who's afraid of needles, who's the biggest baby when sick, who insists that everyone just let them die, etc. etc.

Short answer before long one bc I have to drive but:

They're all deep, deep into the morass of the horrors and miracles of The Flesh.

---

The Karakura kids are weird because Ichigo's dad is an emergency trauma doctor and Ichigo's family loves above the clinic. Any time his friends come over there's a round of "so what wild shit happened in the ER since last time?"

(continued under the cut)

Uryuu's dad is also a surgeon, and the thing that gets him and Ichigo back on speaking terms again is more or less second-hand shop talk.

Orihime has been obsessed with emergency medicine since her brother died. She wanted to know what she should have done, and can do so it won't happen again.

Keigo has been carrying a first aid kit in his backpack since he became friends with Ichigo and Tatsuki in middle school. He's got an exceptional talent for patching someone up enough to get through English class without the teacher noticing the injuries after a lunchtime brawl.

Tatsuki started peeking over Orihime's shoulder at her notes on joint trauma and developed a talent for targeting her kicks and punches to deal maximum damage in karate tournaments.

Mizurio knows a suspicious amount about neurology and how pain works because his "uncles" keep telling him about techniques used by enforcers to extract payment or information.

Chad got heavily into Oxacan folk medicine because once he stopped getting in fights, he needed something else to occupy him, and his abuela decided to teach him how to cook. There is not a huge difference between good food and good medicine. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of chemoreactive plants and chemistry you can do on a stove.

Every single one of the Karakura kids has had something medical happen to them or a loved one, and every single one is now peering into the mysteries of the flesh about it.

---

The shinigami are worse.

Shinigami broadly have better physical resistance, esp because they're reaping the injury stabilizing benefits Senjumaru wove into the Shinigami Shushako.

But they live in a feudal society that has only SOME of the benefits of modern medicine, and the few instances of disease-mitigating infrastructure are far between. It's COMMON for the souls of the rukongai and Seireitei alike to have a sibling who died in infancy or a parent who died in child birth or of an infection.

Societally, they are still in the very earliest phases of the war against pestilence and it gives one a very warped perspective on all things medical. Especially if you happen to be in the immediate sphere of influence of soul society's greatest warrior against death:

Retsu Unohana.

I cannot overstate the impact this woman has had, and you don't do things like "decimate the nationwide infant mortality rate" or "pioneer organ transplant surgery" without being a bit mad, and she has lived so long and done so much that the madness has clarified into a single extremely dense point of determination and she warps the reality of those around her. Woe and Blessings alike to those within her event horizon.

---

The Arrancar are even worse.

Hollow resilience to injury allows them to body much, much worse injuries than the humans and it has an impact on etiquette. Biting off a hand because someone won't stop bothering you is a normal way to establish a boundary. Limb loss and regrowth is common, and disembowelment about as serious as a bad cold.

The food situation is even more dire. Smaller hollows, ones that used to be plants or animals or human-hollows who have a modicum of self control are weak, but lucky. They can survive off the ambient reiatsu in the atmosphere of Hueco Mundo, or the naturally cleaving fragments of soul that fall off the living.

Everyone else needs to hunt. And the more powerful a hollow becomes, the more it needs to consume, and the richer it's prey must be. The only really rich souls are other sapient beings. Any hollow at the level of Shrieker or Grand Fisher or higher is trapped in a hellish metabolic cycle of cannibalism, and the only way out is through.

The primary killer of hollows is other hollows. They know what they're doing. They're looking their fellow beings in the eye, the ones who understand them best, and deciding that their own life is worth their friend's. For all their ability to handle the slings and arrows of physical trauma, hollows are worse at handling the emotional consequences of this cycle. Monstrous Egotism is a best case scenario for them.

In practice, this means that while it's perfectly acceptable to bite someone's hand off for annoying you, it would be rude of you to spit it back at them. At least eat it!

I realize this last bit is not, strictly speaking, medical, but you can see how the ability to survive being turned into an anatomical Venus and having to live on a diet of the flesh of others would completely recontextualize how hollows think about Illness.

---

I will do the fun individual headcanons when I get home, but this is a good broader framework to consider for now.

[bonbonly]

Retired scriptwriter!Nico would definitely always give the reader a script for a movie as a favor…unless he finds out that movie was being produced by Lewis…then you’re in trouble.

i lowkeyyy had way too much fun writing this

bon's thoughts (18+)

"mr. rosberggggg" you cry out in a sing-song voice, twirling your hair. you stomp your foot a couple times on his front porch, before harshly kicking at his door. with a huff, you bunch up the ends of your dress, adjusting your fur coat as you move to the side of the house. as expected, the window's open and you sigh, crawling in like a rat scouring for food.

nico exits his bathroom, a towel around his shoulders as he dries his hair and at the sight of you seated so haughtily on his couch, he groans out loud and rolls his eyes, "ms. (l/n), this does count as breaking into my house, you are aware of that right?"

"doesn't matter, mr. rosberg! i've come to ask about the script you were working on? remember, i said i can bring you back to the oscars!" you gaze over at the shelf right above his TV, all his awards on display. a hint of cobwebs was present, and you clear your throat to bring his attention back onto you, "mr. rosberg, i trust you have it finished, correct?"

he lets out a low chuckle, rubbing his jaw as he walks over to the dining table where all his papers lay askew. he shifts through some, crinkling the edges as he tosses them around and brings back a large binder, "for you, ms. (l/n). hopefully, this'll put you in contention for the oscars this year... and maybe if it's successful i'll come back to the industry again, does that sound-"

but his words mean nothing to you once you grab hold of the script, you're flipping through with vigor, excitement bubbling inside you as you squeal out loud, "oh, lewis will never refuse me with this!"

nico's lips form into a thin line, his hand still in the air from when he was gesturing his words and he tilts his head, "i... i beg your pardon? l-lewis? what does he have to do with this?"

"oh my dear, mr. rosberg!" you coo, pinching his cheek which makes him snap his neck away from you in disgust, his eyes hooded with rage at the way you're babying him, "producer lewis told me that if i had a good script, he'll let me sign onto his production house! of course, i'll have to work with legalities to get out of carlos' contract but i can handle it! now you being the sweet gem you are have just given me the opportunity to finally impress him!"

nico's jaw goes taut at your words, and he yanks the binder from your hands and tosses it to the wall, thereby knocking over one of his oscars. you shriek as it crashes onto the ground, crumbling into a million pieces. your worries about the material award is put on hold when he digs his fingers in your hair, yanking your head back to get a clear look of him, "how fucking dare you...gör," he emphasizes the last word with a harsh shake of your head, which causes you to yelp in surprise. your eyes go wide, staring at him with that oblivious look you always gave him when you crossed a line.

"w-what'd i do wrong?" you ask, and he laughs right at your face, his hand traveling down to grab your jaw, his fingers digging into your cheeks,

"too many things you've done wrong. and i've been quiet about all of them, but this? going to the man that nearly ruined my career? with my script? that i generously spent weeks working on for you?" he tosses you onto his couch, his knee pushing your legs apart for him to settle between them, "just the nerve, the fucking audacity of you to come here begging like a cheap whore for me to write you a script, and i do it every time because i keep thinking you're a star, and then you remind me time and time again that whores like you will never learn!"

he hikes your dress up, noticing your thin lace underwear and he glares at you, "im not surprised, just disappointed really," and he hooks a finger into the waistband and pulls it back, letting the fabric slap onto your mound with a firm snap! that has you whimpering. "no, no noises from you, you keep your mouth shut. i don't want to hear any of your bullshit."

he grabs your panties and slides them down your legs, all the time berating you as he stuffs the underwear into your mouth. the fur coat slips down from your shoulders and he rips your dress off, using the fabric to tie your hands behind your back as he flips you onto your stomach.

"every fucking time... when will I ever learn?" he mutters, trailing his finger down your back, "this is how you get roles right? how you get awards? your cunt's just too good to pass up on, that's why they keep making you win hoping you'll spread your legs again next year, hm?"

his touch is torturous, his movements slow and it's hours before he finally slides his cock into your weeping pussy, finally giving you the pleasure you were craving for. he ignores your strangled moans as he buries himself to the hilt, sliding out until his tip kisses your folds before slamming right back into you. a few more harsh thrusts that sends you to heaven before he grabs a hold of your hips and sets a relentless pace. he leans down to pin his weight on top of you, loving the way your moans flood his empty house. he snakes his hand around to circle your clit, your moans now screams that momentarily distract nico from the fact that lewis was calling you. you pathetically try to wriggle away but nico holds you down, letting his cock root into the gummy walls of your creamy cunt and he grabs the phone,

"had an appointment didn't you? you were gonna tell him about my script?" he scoffs. he smacks your ass hard, and you jolt forwards as your face burrows into your coat, tears streaming down from your face, "should let him know you won't make it right?"

nico answers the call, tossing it right in front of your face and he finally yanks the panties from your mouth, yanking your head back as his fingers find your hair. he picks up your pace, "i want to hear you scream, slut, be as loud as you can be."

that's more than enough for you to be babbling, sobbing and screaming at how good you feel, how you'll never make a mistake like this again! "mr. rosberg, oh rosberg!" you punctuate with each moan, and nico laughs behind you. there's silence from lewis's side, exactly what nico wanted. his thrusts become erratic, and when he's close to cumming, he pulls you up flush against his chest as he rubs your clit hard, determined to make you milk his cock. your guttural scream floods lewis's ears through the phone, combined with nico laughing out loud at the mess you've made,

"you slut! look at you!" he chuckles, "i have to get my couch cleaned now! there's some on the table... be a good little girl and lick it off for me, hm?" he lets you go, untying your wrists and kissing your forehead gently before grabbing the phone right above your head.

"you stay away from her, hamilton," nico growls into the phone, "i better not see that contract signed by her." and then he hangs up, tossing the phone back onto the couch before heading back to his pile of scripts waiting for him at the dining table.

[ennabear]

✴︎ —PAINT THE AGES A HUNDRED SHADES OF GOLD ⊹₊⟡⋆

I DON’T WANNA TALK ABOUT LOVE ANYMORE ‘CAUSE IT’S GETTING TOO MUCH FOR ME …

cw: councilor!sevika x painter!mel, sevika is a lil sad and mean but she gets over it, sevika is also kind of a loser who can’t stop talking when she gets drunk, jinx and isha mentions because i’m evil and we know this, mel paints sevika nude, body worship, lots of comfort, oral sex, 18+

word count: 7.3k

it’s been months since sevika’s big move, and she fucking hates it to say the least.

all of these pilties are stuck up, even more than she remembers. which is a lot. she’s exhausted, she questions why she’s even a part of the council if all they do is ignore her. showing up every day and listening to them talk about her home and her people the way they do makes her sick.

they draft plans to raid the markets, shutting down anyone who isn’t licensed to be selling meat or rice or bread, but they refuse to let anyone get a license to sell those things. of course, she’s glad that she gets to eat three meals a day now, but with every bite she takes, she’s reminded of her home, and how starving they must be over there.

no matter how much she fights back, offers up a real plan that could make peace between the rivaling nations, they all just snicker and point fingers at her like she’s some sort of circus act.

and don’t ask her about how much she likes being called councilor sevika, because she doesn’t like it at all. she’s not a councilor, and maybe that’s a good thing, because it’s the last thing she’d ever wanna be.

still, she keeps her emotions under control. this is a huge opportunity to help get zaun on it’s feet and cut ties with piltover officially, she won’t spoil it by making a scene and giving up. no matter what, she’s gonna make an effort, even if it means being locked in a room with a group of rich pigs who’ve never felt that growing pit of hunger in their stomachs that make them so dizzy that they keel over on the streets.

that they die on the streets.

so yeah, it’s not easy, not even a little bit.

most of her nights are spent alone in her room. it’s nice, “small” compared to the rooms everyone else occupies, but still bigger than any house she’s ever seen in the undercity. it has large windows that let every bit of light in, but it’s still eerily dark at night compared to zaun.

in zaun, there are neon lights and buzzing street lamps that glow and flicker at every hour, so when it gets dark, the colorful lights bounce off of every inch of the city. you can see them in the reflections of the puddles, bright streaks of light flying up into the night from behind buildings and stretching until they’re out of sight.

here, in piltover, they have different kinds of lights. tiny, white holes in the sky called stars that shine when it gets dark. they have spotlights and statues and lanterns, but it gets lonely at night. everyone is at home, distancing from their friends and their jobs, getting sleep and resting up for whatever the next day will bring.

there isn’t really any rest in zaun, just a small wink of sleep whenever you catch it, and you’re up again. everyone’s grouchy and hungry and cold, but it makes for good shimmer sales, and the bar is a great place to find refuge when you need a break from it all.

so sevika sleeps with all of her lights on. an attempt to remind her of home— although her home doesn’t have a queen sized bed, fluffy pillows and soft blankets, lamps, alarm clocks, fireplaces, clean water on their nightstands, and stars that shine through their windows.

the stars might be her favorite part about piltover. probably the only good thing about piltover. she doesn’t really know what they are or what they do, but they’re nice to look at late at night when she can’t manage to sleep.

every time she finds herself staring up at them, she sends a prayer or two up to janna. always one for the people, a prayer that even though they pretend to hate each other, and there sure are a few goons who are ready to slit her throat for never paying them back, she hopes they’re okay.

she hopes that ran and theiram have got the bar under control, that vi and ekko manage to keep the chaos limited, and most of all, that jinx and isha are doing alright.

ever since silco died, her whole world was flipped upside down and shaken vigorously. who knew that someday she’d be missing jinx? but she does. she cries at night for the blue haired girl, praying for her safety and her happiness, hoping that she’s managed to keep some of her creativity after everything that went down.

and of course for the more tolerable blue haired kid, isha.

she prays that isha is still attached at the hip to jinx, that her fluffy hair gets dyed that awful bright blue color as often as she wants it to, that she’s found some way to communicate with the world while her voice is at rest.

she’s got no clue as to where they could be. one second, she’s wishing jinx would leave her alone. that she’d pack up her inventions and make a home for them far away from sevika’s life. the next second, they’re gone. no warning, no heads up whatsoever, just completely taken from her life.

but if she wishes to find any wisp of happiness, she’s gonna have to push these thoughts to the back of her mind, only letting them front when she’s alone and awake and accompanied by the stars. they’re the only things who understand her.

——

if you listen closely, you might be able to hear the sound of mel’s thoughts buzzing around in her mind.

the past few months have given her some intense whiplash, but things are finally starting to straighten out. her life isn’t exactly normal, but she’s growing used to her… new self.

she spends most of her time perched at her easel, painting the canvas in beautiful colors that fall over various people or places. it’s therapeutic for her, whatever image or question or anger she has lingering in her head, she can work it out with the paints. when she’s done, she lines them up in front of her.

it helps her see things more clearly, like a thought that can’t float away, frozen in time for her to analyze further. some of them are just plain colors. gold, with white, yellow, and bronze streaks, an attempt to recreate the swirls that are painted on her own body.

sometimes she paints her mother, her eyebrows lowered in a scowl and her silvery gray hair crowning her head. jayce and viktor occasionally make an appearance, both of their faces lost in thought as they stare at various equations and formulas that she can’t quite make out.

sometimes she just sees miscellaneous things, quick visions that she needs to bring to life. countless canvases are covered in black, with that dark red fog reaching into it like vines. there’s also the hextech that makes the occasional appearance, but she can’t quite get that bright, rich blue color right.

a few times before, she’s attempted portraits, but she doesn’t prefer them. lest has been one of her closest friends during all of this, she can sit and pose for hours while mel works away at her figure on the canvas. they’ve also tried painting together, but mel prefers her alone time.

she’s tried recreating the pictures from her memory, but it never comes out as well. she covers the canvas in thick paint, a bronze, brown, and white, making up jayce’s features. but she always clouds his face with shiny white webs, and those glistening, rainbow stars. the ones that stole him away.

while she sits, her body stays stagnant, eyes racing around the blank canvas. she mixes the colors in her head before she even opens the tubes, her eyes proportion it all for her, so she rarely makes sketches anymore.

recently, she’s been more interested in staying in and shutting out the world. the occasional knock rings out against her door, but she can’t be bothered to investigate. she doesn’t wanna give her opinions anymore, doesn’t wanna lead all of topside to peace and gas the streets of the undercity. really, she never signed up for that. sure, she’s ambessa’s daughter, but she doesn’t care to be a leader anymore. not when all it does is get people hurt and killed.

but apparently it’s urgent this time, because the knocking persists.

“um, mel?” a timid voice asks. “i hate to bother you, but the council requires yo—”

she flings the door open, clad in her white robe and slippers. her hood hangs halfway over her head as she glares at the man, but he insists on escorting her to the council meeting. her feet gently pad against the floor as she walks through the long halls, already dreading having to play referee for a group of adults who should know better.

but ambessa is gone now, and these people need someone to give them any sort of direction.

the dome shaped room welcomes her, and although she dreads being there, the sun shining through the stained glass is gorgeous. she spies a few familiar faces sitting in their respective seats, and notices some new ones who were added after the war.

“but they need the money!” one councilor booms, one of the newer ones who mel doesn’t quite recognize yet. “you can’t just cut their funds and raise the tax prices, they—”

“councilor sevika, please.” someone says, talking over her voice. “what possibly could they need more money for? our city needs to be rebuilt, and it’s them who’s caused all of this destruction.”

mel observes quietly, noticing the tears that fill sevika’s eyes. she makes an assumption that they’re either out of sadness, anger, or exhaustion, but she can’t quite tell. one thing she does know, though, is that it isn’t fair.

it’s not fair to just drag a zaunite up to topside and force her to be the only one representing her nation. especially when she has to be locked in a room full of people who hate her, who think she’s nothing more than just undercity trash to mock and make fun of.

mel’s surprised that sevika has held her ground for this long. if that were her, she’d want to pack up and leave within a day, especially when she notices the snorts and sideways glances that she gets every time she opens her mouth.

“have you even been down there?” sevika asks. “have you seen the bodies lying on the streets? have you heard the sobs of the starving children?”

they all look at her, unable to imagine what hunger even is, much less an entire nation overcome by it. shoola offers a sympathetic frown, but it’s not enough for sevika. she’s exhausted, and the thought of seeing her home even more impoverished is killing her. worst of all, word on the street is that zaunites are beginning to call her a traitor.

she wishes that they could see how hard she’s working, how much she’s fighting for them behind the scenes. but she can’t exactly blame them, it must be hard to watch every leader they’ve ever had either fail at leading them to sovereignty or turn their backs on the people. must be worse to watch someone who they thought was on their side disappear into the council and watch as things just keep getting worse and worse down there.

and this makes sevika feel horrible.

it’s hard for her not to blame herself for this, especially because that’s what she’s used to. her job for years was to be silco’s right hand, so it was constantly her fault if something went wrong. that’s just how things are. if things don’t go her way, it must be her fault for not working harder to overcome it.

“i agree.” mel says plainly. “councilor sevika has firsthand knowledge of what it’s like for them, why shouldn’t we trust her?”

sevika is taken aback at this. she’s never seen someone so… rich looking… be this understanding toward her. but although it’s the bare minimum, she appreciates it. she’ll take whatever form of kindness she can get right now.

the other councilors stare at mel like she’s just grown three heads. obviously, they’ve never been told no a day in their life. sevika is glad that she gets to be present for the first time. some of them sputter and growl, some of them roll their eyes, but sevika just sinks back into her chair and decides to let them argue it out.

“i agree too.” councilor shoola says. “it’s only fair… unless, any of you would like to go down there and experience it for yourselves? then you could tell us all about their excess of funds.”

sevika sighs in relief, thanking janna or the universe or whatever god decided to help her out. she can’t exactly smile, at least not yet, but she manages a tiny grin, and decides that maybe she shouldn’t feel too bad about herself just yet.

mel is glad that sevika and shoola have at least a little bit of brains, but she’s starting to rethink having all of the others on the council. maybe they need to fire some, or at least add some more zaunites to level the playing field. although, she now knows that sevika can put up one hell of a fight, so maybe she doesn’t need it.

but the clock strikes two in the afternoon, and the councilors file out to get on with their day until they meet again tomorrow. sevika hangs back, waiting for everyone to leave before she returns to her office. but mel hangs back too, determined to talk to sevika more, to get to know her.

sevika pulls her cape over her shoulders, completely covering her figure before she exits the room. mel perks up and shoots her a questioning look.

“yes?” sevika asks.

“you’re brave.” mel says.

“no i’m not. d’you think it’s brave of me to leave my people starving and helpless down there while i have a real home and three meals a day?”

mel just stares blankly at her. that isn’t what she meant at all, but at the same time, she’s completely right. as much as she still believes that sevika is brave for putting up with the councilors, she should be calling everyone else brave, everyone in zaun who goes days without food. sevika is the luckiest of them all.

“that’s not what i meant.” mel explains. “i meant that you’re better than them because you stand your ground instead of just getting everything you want. you work hard for what you earn.”

sevika shrugs. “i guess you could say that.”

“do you miss it down there?”

“what do you think?” sevika grunts.

“i’d bet that you do, you just try not to show it in front of anyone.”

“yes, because showing weakness gets you killed.”

“not up here, it doesn’t. you should open up a little, it might be good for you.” mel suggests.

“i’ll pass.”

“i could help you.”

“i don’t need—”

“let me help you.” mel says, reaching out to grab sevika’s hand.

“help me how?” sevika asks.

“open up to me. tell me about your life. friends, family, past, anything.”

“okay… maybe.”

“okay, good.”

——

sevika has never been great at opening up to anyone, but mel is… understanding. as much as she hates to talk about her struggles to other people, mel is probably the best possible person to talk to. mel marched herself down sevika’s hall to her door, banging on it until sevika sleepily presented herself. she marched sevika down the hall and through the building until they reached her own suite, and she fed sevika more and more wine until she started to talk to her.

it started with just a confession. sevika was wine drunk and admitted that yes, she did miss her home, and that she hated topside. and then mel pressed for more, made her tell her specifically who she missed and what she missed about them.

the list of people who she missed was never ending. at the top— jinx and isha. in all honesty, mel is shocked to learn that sevika had anyone that she really considered family, much less a daughter or a niece. but sevika tells her all about them, how isha would beg to paint her nails or dye her hair, and how jinx finally had a sister who she could play with, instead of just being too young to do anything.

but when mel asks where they’ve gone, sevika freezes. she doesn’t know, and it’s not something she prefers to think about. dead is something she’d heavily considered, but that ending makes her too sad. as long as she doesn’t know that they’re dead, they’re not. at least not in her world.

she tells mel that she hopes they’re somewhere safe, somewhere that they can have fun together. like floating on a cloud, or living in outer space with the stars. maybe they are with the stars, and that’s why she loves them so much.

“you like the stars?” mel asks.

“that’s the only thing actually worth liking about this place, i think…” sevika slurs drunkenly.

“hmm, i guess they are pretty, aren’t they.” mel ponders.

“yeah and there are so many of them, and it’s like every time you see them you’re seeing a completely different sky. and they’re cool because they only come out at night when they think nobody can see them, it’s like they’re shy. but i always see them because i’m always awake with them.” she rambles.

mel can’t help but giggle. again, everything she said is exactly right, but she’s never seen it that way. sevika offers her a fresh new perspective, one that makes her ponder how much she knows about the world.

“sorry…” sevika whispers, suddenly aware that she’s drunkenly blabbering and probably making a fool of herself. she tries to blink herself sober but it doesn’t work.

“no worries. i like them too.” mel soothes.

“i think i should go.”

“already?” mel asks.

“it’s gett’n late. i have places to be tomorrow…” sevika sighs. mel stands and walks her to the door, grabbing on gently to her human arm in an attempt to stabilize the woman. she offers a sweet smile to sevika as she leaves, even takes her hand in her own for a second and squeezes it tightly, but sevika just stares at the floor.

“mel?” she asks finally, although in a timid voice.

“yes?”

“thanks for sticking up for me. i don’t know what those pigs would get up to without people like me and you.”

mel’s heart warms at this. sevika is so drunk that she’s starting to get sappy and sweet, and while it’s adorable, it’s clear that she needs to get home. but she’s glad that her effort isn’t going unnoticed, and she’s starting to really like sevika.

“of course.” she smiles again. “get some sleep for me, okay? don’t spend too much time with the stars.”

sevika curses herself for the warm feeling that wraps herself all around her, she hates that she’s being vulnerable and making friends. she just blames the feeling on the alcohol, but she knows that it’s not. because that light, warm feeling clings itself to her every time she sees mel.

it happens again when they coincidentally cross paths, mel on her way outside for some fresh air and sevika on her way to her room to sign papers until her fingers bleed. but she realizes for the first time that mel is so beautiful. she hasn’t spotted sevika yet, but the sunlight glowing in from the windows catches her golden streaked skin perfectly, and she’s shining. it’s like she’s a real life star, and sevika can’t peel her eyes away.

“oh, hi sevika.” mel grins.

“um… hi.” she responds, her heart suddenly beating faster than usual. “where are you going?”

“just outside. been cramped up inside all day and the smell of my paints are starting to give me a headache.”

“you paint?” sevika asks, although to anyone else the answer would be obvious.

“yeah, all the time. i’d love to show you someday.” she offers, already knowing that she’s gonna have to drag sevika by the arm and force her to visit.

“okay… yeah, that would be nice.” she says.

“what are you doing right now?” mel asks.

“i just have a lot of paperwork to fill out, letters to write, things to sign, you know how it is.”

“will you stop by later, then?”

“are you gonna make me?”

“probably. if you don’t show up by yourself.”

“alright, see you later then.”

——

sevika is dreading this outing. the more times she thinks about going back over to mel’s, the more anxious she gets. every time she’s been over there the past month, she’s ended up either drunk or blabbering on about stuff that doesn’t matter. or worse— drunk and blabbering. she always finds some way to make a fool of herself, and she doesn’t know how to stop. she just wishes it wasn’t so easy to open up to her, wishes that mel wasn’t so damn likable.

mel already knows she’s gonna have to drag sevika over to come look at her paintings. she always does. no matter how many times she tells the woman to come on her own terms, she finds herself stomping down to sevika’s door and forcing her to hang out. it’s cute, in mel’s mind, it’s like a date. so that’s what she finds herself doing tonight. cleaning up her suite a little, spinning one of her jazz records, and marching down to collect sevika.

she’s arranged her paintings in no particular order, but the array is beautiful. some are framed, some are smaller than others, some of them aren’t even finished. sevika feels so moved by this. she’s never seen anything so beautiful. not anything in real life, not mel herself, not even the stars are as beautiful as her paintings.

mel sits her down on the loveseat, pouring two glasses of wine and sitting down next to sevika, but sevika begs her to talk about her paintings. she’s dying to know how anyone could make anything look more beautiful than the stars. mel blushes at that compliment— it’s a lot coming from sevika for multiple reasons— but she decides that now it’s her turn to open up.

they sit an chat for hours, and before long, sevika feels as if she knows mel like the back of her hand. she now knows about jayce and viktor and what happened to them, about ambessa, her mother, the noxians, and the rest of her family. sevika’s oddly surprised. of course, she’s aware that mel is probably the strongest woman she knows, but she never would’ve guessed that she’s been through that much.

mel cries a bit, and sevika cries too, and they laugh about their emotions like old friends. for once in her life, sevika feels like maybe not everything sucks, and that maybe it’s okay to let herself fall for someone. she just hopes that mel feels the same way.

“sevika?” mel asks, still catching her breath after a fit of giggles.

“yeah?” she smiles.

“will you dance with me?”

“i don’t dance.” sevika says, laughing at the image of her dancing with someone. how silly.

“aww, come on! it’s just us and some jazz! you’ll be fine.” she reasons. “please?”

sevika rolls her eyes at mel’s outstretched hand, but she’s very tipsy and in a good mood, so how could she say no to the beautiful woman standing in front of her?

mel yanks her up by her arm, and sevika wastes no time following after her to the middle of the room where the big sky lights let the stars shine in. sevika scowls and tenses up a bit, but mel wraps her arms around sevika’s waist so gently, guiding sevika’s arm to press against her back. mel sways them back and forth a bit, and sevika soon loosens up and stares down at mel with a smile that puts all of the stars to shame.

“do you ever miss your arm?” mel asks.

“yeah, sometimes. i miss the one jinx made for me, i wish i didn’t take it for granted.” she responds, her mood quickly turning sad against her will.

“i could have one made for you.” mel offers.

sevika shakes her head and flattens her lips into a straight line. “they won’t let me have one on the council.”

it’s mel’s turn to roll her eyes now. “no, i’ll make you one that they’ll accept. they always listen to me, you know.” she grins.

“i guess that would be alright, as long as it’s not much of a hassle.”

“for you? nothing’s a hassle. don’t be silly.”

sevika’s eyebrows pull together in the middle and she pouts, tears quickly filling her eyes. nobody’s ever been this nice to her before. offering her a new limb, protection from the ruthless comments from the council, good wine, and a dance underneath the stars. she can’t help but cry, but she’s not afraid to anymore. with mel, she feels safe enough to be this vulnerable.

mel notices her sad expression, and she silently prays that she didn’t accidentally offend sevika, it’s the last thing she’d ever wanna do. “oh, what’s wrong? did i—”

sevika cuts her off with a kiss. she doesn’t wanna hear any apologies from mel, not after she’s been a literal angel to sevika this past week. mel’s lips are warm and welcoming, they taste sweet, like if gold was a flavor. she reaches her hands up and cradles the back of mel’s head, deepening the kiss.

mel is completely taken aback by this. she didn’t know that sevika had feelings for her. actually, she thought that sevika was sick of her. but she kisses sevika back, her lips are big and pouty and oh so soft. she also gets to feel sevika’s piercing up close, and the cold metal drags against the bottom of her lips ever so slightly. it’s a stark contrast, but a comforting one at that.

one thing leads to another, and they’re quickly back on the loveseat, lapping at each others tongues and giggling like kids and holding hands. sevika’s had tons of sex before, sure, but nothing comes close to this. she feels so special, so cared for, that she notices this strange, giddy feeling bubbling up in her chest.

little does she know, that feeling is called love.

she pins mel down to the seat, both of them breathless and high on this mysterious feeling— although it definitely has something to do with the liquor— and sevika almost cries again when mel spreads her legs beneath her white gown. the warm lamplight mixed with the starlight causes her to glow again, like she’s on fire, so sevika can’t help but kiss all over the gold patterns that paint her skin.

mel erupts into another fit of giggles, holding sevika’s shocked face in her hands. sevika tenses up slightly at her touch, but takes a deep breath and swallows all of her anxiety.

“can i?” sevika asks.

mel smiles and nods. “of course. you can do whatever you want to me.”

sevika shudders and reaches up mel’s dress, caressing her stomach and hips. mel is soft and malleable under her touch, and she’s golden. she reaches forward to tug her dress above her hips. sevika doesn’t think she’s ever seen such a beautiful sight, and mel absolutely adores sevika’s awestruck face.

the same golden markings that paint her face also trail down her abdomen, all the way to her ankles. there are thick streaks of gold that mirror each other on each side of her torso, twisting themselves into swirls and shapes. she also has small golden freckles littering her body, identical to the ones on her face. they look like stars.

best of all, as if sevika wasn’t already turned on enough, she has small, golden hairs that trail down from just beneath her belly button, only stopping when they crown her dripping hole. this woman is made of pure magic, and if sevika doesn’t get her mouth on her within the next millisecond, she thinks she might faint.

mel grabs sevika’s hand when she notices her hesitation, and this makes her snap back into the moment and start eating mel out. she starts slow, just some teasing, soft licks to her clit that make her shiver. mel moans so sweetly and beautifully and sevika feels like she’s floating.

sevika grips mel’s hand harder and harder as she keeps eating her out, and it’s times like these that she wishes she has two hands. one to hold mel’s with, and one to feel inside of her, pumping her full of her thick fingers. mel arches her back and thrusts up into sevika’s face, and they both nearly cum on the spot.

she pulls back for a second, a string of white slick connecting itself to sevika’s lips before dripping down her chin.

“sev, you’re doing so good, baby.” mel praises. “don’t stop, i’m so close.”

sevika speeds up her movements, determined to make mel cum. her big, silver eyes squeeze shut as her mouth works it’s magic, sucking on her clit and running her pointed tongue between mel’s folds to collect her slick.

but she doesn’t cum until sevika wraps her lips around her clit again, her piercing colliding with mel’s throbbing clit as she tips over the edge. a low whine is pulled from her throat, and sevika pulls back to admire the woman above her. mel yanks sevika up by her shirt, thanking her with a deep kiss. some of sevika’s lipstick is smudged, so mel wipes it off with her thumbs, as well as the wet slick that’s smeared all over her face.

sevika is suddenly very aware that she doesn’t need shimmer anymore, because she feels like mel’s sweet nectar is enough to get her high.

“i’m gonna need that new arm as soon as you can get it.” sevika says with her lips smashed against mel’s. “need to show you what else i can do.”

——

it’s been three weeks since then, and sevika’s been coming over every night. she still has lots of work to do, but mel helps her with all of it. they sort through tall stacks of paperwork, taking turns sitting on the others lap and pouring each other more wine. sometimes they get distracted with sex, but they try their hardest to stay focused. occasionally mel will bring out her paints and work on something new, forcing sevika to stay focused while she’s at work.

they also spend their mornings together. if they don’t wake up in the other’s arms, they’ll sleepily march down to their door and bang on it until they reunite and hold each other again.

but this morning, sevika wakes up in mel’s bed alone. she reaches out for the woman with her arm, but that side of the bed is just cold and empty. sitting up, she glances around the room until she spies mel in her silky white cloak painting on the balcony.

“mel?” she asks groggily. “why’re you up so early?”

“just had to finish something, love.” she responds, smiling at her girlfriend’s half awake state. “you can go back to sleep if you’d like.”

“can i at least see what you’re working on?”

“not yet.” she smiles. “it’s a surprise.”

sevika groans and turns around to go back inside, but mel catches her arm and yanks her back for a kiss. sevika kisses over each of mel’s golden freckles, and then her lips, then her nose, her forehead, chin, and then lips again, before returning inside. mel giggles and tries to swat sevika’s back before she gets away, but she’s too slow and the effort is wasted.

back inside, sevika grabs onto mel’s pillow and stuffs her face into it, bringing a familiar comfort that lulls her back to sleep. she’s shaken awake a few hours later, though. it’s mel, very gently rattling sevika’s shoulder while caressing her hair. “sevika, babe, wake up.” she whispers.

“mmmmh?”

“i have a present for you.”

“hmmmm?”

“wake up so you can open it.”

“ughhhhh.”

“oh, please. don’t be so pouty. i want you to see it! quickly, quickly!” she urges, yanking sevika back to the balcony. the sun is slightly higher in the sky now, some of the orange in the sky is still fading away but the sky is painted in a light yellow color, it matches mel a little bit.

she hands her a giant white box with mel’s name on it, a small golden bow sitting directly on the top. “what is this?” sevika asks.

“open it and see!” mel smiles.

so she does. she flips the lock on the box and pulls it open, a smooth, golden arm staring back at her.

“what is this?” sevika asks again, this time in disbelief. she couldn’t tell how serious mel was about acquiring a new arm for her, so she didn’t think she’d be receiving a new one this quickly, or one this pretty.

it’s a lot more modern compared to her other two arms that she’s had in the past. it has a matte gold casing all around it, with shimmery gold patterns that resemble mel’s carved into it. it has all five fingers, but they’re not as pointy, more resembling her human fingers than her past arms. sevika is overcome with emotions, and she turns around to pull mel in for a hug, hiding her tears on her shoulder.

“do you like it?” mel asks.

“i love it.”

“will you teach me how to put it on you?”

“of course.” sevika promises, and with that, mel tugs her inside and makes her sit and show her. it takes a bit of fumbling. sevika isn’t great at explaining things, but she also can’t do much with only one arm, so lots of trial and error occurs during the process. but eventually it’s all screwed in, and the first thing sevika does is pull mel in for a real hug.

mel never really realized how strong sevika is, and how crushing her hugs are. at least, not until now. she knows that sevika can hold her somewhat tightly, but one arm doesn’t do much. now that she as two arms though, mel is struggling to breathe with the way sevika is crushing her. or maybe it’s just because sevika wants to show her girlfriend some love. and she’s definitely not crying.

“i have one more thing.” mel says, although most of it gets muffled by sevika’s chest.

“what is it?” she asks.

“come outside and look.”

sevika follows her outside, grabbing onto mel’s elbow with her new hand.

“close your eyes.” mel says, so sevika squeezes her eyes shut and tries her hardest not to peek. mel dashes over to retrieve the painting on her canvas that’s now fully dry, and then she holds it to face sevika.

“okay, now open them.”

she opens her eyes to see mel holding one of her new paintings— the one she wasn’t allowed to see yet. but now she’s aware of why she wasn’t allowed to see it, because the painting is of her.

it’s sevika. hunched over at mel’s desk with her reading glasses on and a pen in her hand, a glass of wine half empty on the table next to her. the colors in the painting are very warm, likely resembling the warm lamps that decorate mel’s suite. and the most surprising thing— there’s a smile on sevika’s face.

it’s not something she’s ever seen on herself before. for one, she’s never been one to smile in general, it’s just not something she was ever used to doing. photographs are also very rare in zaun, so the only way she could’ve seen it on herself is by smiling in front of a mirror, which is even more rare.

sevika doesn’t even know how to feel. she should cry, because nobody has ever been this kind to her before, and she’s overwhelmed with emotions from the arm, the painting, and just being around mel.

she should also be happy. nobody has ever understood her as much as mel does, and she feels so honored to be seen in her artistic lense. she should be glad that she gets to live up here, where everything is safe and pretty and valuable. she’s also still half asleep, and can’t exactly tell if she’s dreaming or not.

“what do you think?” mel asks after a while.

“i don’t know what i did to deserve this.” sevika says honestly. “is there some kind of special occasion that i don’t know about? or are you just spoiling me.”

“well, mostly the latter,” mel laughs. “but it is our one month anniversary, if that counts for anything.”

“i didn’t get you anything.” sevika frowns, suddenly feeling way out of mel’s league, almost insecure.

“that’s alright.” mel smiles. “your presence is enough.”

sevika rolls her eyes and manages a smile too, yanking mel forward and giving her a sweet kiss. one month isn’t much, but it’s been the happiest month of sevika’s life, and things are starting to look up for her. for zaun, too.

“well,” mel starts, pulling away from sevika’s lips. “there is one small thing you could do for me.”

“and that is…?”

“model for me so i can paint you?” she asks with a happy shrug of her shoulders.

“now? but you just painted me.”

“yes, i’m aware.” she laughs. “but i haven’t painted your new arm yet, and that was from a few days ago but you just look so adorable today. please?”

sevika smiles too. how could she say no to mel when she asks so nicely? “alright, fine.” she agrees.

“good, and take all of your clothes off, too.”

sevika freezes. although mel has seen her naked hundreds of times, she suddenly feels shy.

“don’t worry, it’s just for us.” mel soothes. “lay on the bed and i’ll position you.”

so sevika is left no choice but to follow the orders she was given. she strips herself of her clothes— which is much easier now that she has two arms— and lays down on the bed, looking up at mel with her big, watery eyes. mel walks over and pushes her backward until she’s propped up with just one elbow.

“is this comfortable?” mel asks.

“uh… y-yeah.” sevika responds.

mel pries sevika’s legs open, positioning them apart so that she has a full view of sevika’s dripping cunt from her easel. sevika whimpers, her eyes widening and sparkling as she looks up at mel.

“don’t be shy.” mel teases. “it’s just me.”

“i know, sorry…” sevika says with a sigh, making a mental note to loosen up.

“are you ready for me to start? we’re probably gonna be here all day.”

“yeah. ready.” sevika responds.

“okay, let me know if you need a break.”

mel isn’t too fond of painting from models, but she can feel her opinion changing as she sculpts sevika with the paint. her legs are easy. long and thick, and she gets to mimic the way they’re pressed open.

her torso is next, which is one of her favorite things about sevika. her abs are hard and sturdy, but they get slightly softened out by the rolls of her stomach. then mel moves up to her tits, painting two perfectly pointed brown circles accented with thick, dark nipples.

her neck comes after, and then her arms, and finally her face. mel has memorized every little expression sevika has, so she has a lot to choose from, but she chooses the one that sevika is wearing right now. a goofy, lovestruck smile, adorned with a slight blush sparkling on her cheeks.

her eyes are also fun, they’re so big and sparkly and metallic, mel can’t help but paint stars in them. and of course, her nose, her tooth gap, her piercing, and her hair. they all come together to make up the most perfect face that mel has ever seen.

she moves on to the arms next, painting one with her thick muscles and her warm brown skin, and the other with a shiny gold. her shoulders are slightly slanted, and they have bite marks and hickeys carved into them, which makes mel immensely proud of herself.

and finally, sevika’s glistening cunt. she paints each fold tenderly, a small circle at the top covered slightly by a thin, fleshy hood. she paints the slick in between her thighs that just keeps collecting with her finest white and silver paints.

and of course, her bush, because she wouldn’t dare to forget it. she curls each stroke of her brush until it perfectly mirrors sevika’s thick, dark curls, and then she trails them all the way up her lower stomach.

she finishes the background next, but it’s not much. she doesn’t want anything to take away from sevika’s beauty. but she makes sure to add a few stars surrounding her of various sizes and shades of gold.

sevika has been surprisingly patient throughout the whole thing, mel predicted that she’d be begging for snacks only ten minutes in. but mel finishes quickly and she’s beaming with excitement as soon as she’s done.

“do you wanna see it?” she asks.

“you’re done already?” sevika replies.

“yeah. you’re an easy model.”

“okay, yeah, let me see.” sevika smiles.

mel lifts up the canvas and presents it to sevika, and it’s somehow even more beautiful than the other painting. mel captures her so beautifully, sevika is so honored to be viewed that way. for the first time in her life, she truly feels beautiful. and mel can tell that she feels that way too, through the tears that threaten to spill in her eyes.

and just as sevika is about to tackle mel to the bed too, she notices something in the bottom corner. in a shimmery gold writing, the words “my star. -mel m.” are painted. sevika looks up at mel with a questioning glance and asks, “what’s that?”

“it’s my signature. the title of the painting and my name.”

“‘my star’?” sevika reads off.

“yeah, because that’s what you are. you’re my star, sevika. you’re so beautiful and bright.”

and those words echo in sevika’s mind for the rest of time, especially when sevika pins mel down and rides her face into the pillow a few seconds later. she’s right. she is mel’s star, isn’t she.

[viiennie]

𝕭𝖊𝖙𝖜𝖊𝖊𝖓 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖑𝖆𝖘𝖙 𝖇𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍

Premiere

Gojo Satoru x f!reader

Tags and warnings: Zombie Apocalypse, mentions of gore (including blood and death), slight angst (?), spoilers to ‘Happiness’, eventual smut, female reader, p in v sex, fingering, creampie, lovey dovey sex in the midst of a literal lock down, masturbation, slow burn kinda?, fluff, romance, drugs, manipulation, exhibition, gojo is a pervertttttt, mdni — 18+

In the midst of a world unraveling at the seams, where survival hangs by the thinnest thread, two unlikely souls collide. You, one of South Korea’s most seasoned soldiers, find yourself tasked with a mission that feels almost too absurd to be real—a bodyguard to a CEO’s spoiled son, Gojo Satoru.

The world outside is crumbling, but inside the walls of an upscale penthouse, the only battle seems to be against the daily monotony of a grown man who doesn’t want to be babysat. He’s constantly getting on your nerves, teasing you and making fun of you every chance he gets. Ignore the way he gets overprotective over you, and the way he’s slowly starting to look at you with those dreamy soft eyes? Yeah, out of sight, out of mind. Besides, there’s no way an idiot like him could possibly feel love, right?

This is insane. Absolutely fucking nuts. 

Getting stuck in this stupid penthouse, with its stupid owner and his stupid smile is the worst thing that has happened to you all your life. You regret taking that stupid job to babysit this insufferable manchild, but what could you possibly do when faced with a 15 million won pay? It was irresistible in your very much money desperate eyes. Besides, what was 3 simple days of making sure a guy didn’t die in his own house, right?

God, you wish you could turn back time and slap the absolute shit out of yourself.

Because here you are, two days in, and the universe decides to throw in a plot twist no amount of training could’ve prepared you for. A virus. Not just a normal, everyday outbreak, but one that makes people turn rabid, lose their minds, and tear into others like animals. Two days in, and the news breaks that the city is locking down. Quarantine zones are popping up faster than you can count, and you? You’re stuck in this high-rise hellhole with him.

Gojo Satoru.

The man is a walking nightmare. A grinning, infuriating, insufferable nightmare who has spent every second of your time here testing the limits of your patience. You barely survived the last 48 hours, and now you’re supposed to last a whole week? You’d rather sign up for a solo mission in a war zone than endure another second of his antics.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” Gojo drawls from the couch, his voice dripping with that obnoxious charm he wears like a second skin. “Don’t act all sad. I know you’re absolutely ecstatic deep down to be stuck here with the world’s most handsome living man. It’s a dream come true, isn’t it?”

You glare at him, clutching the mug of lukewarm coffee in your hands like it’s the only thing keeping you grounded. The temptation to chuck it at his stupidly perfect face is strong. Very strong.

“Shut up,” you snap, narrowing your eyes. “I’d rather French kiss a cockroach than spend one more minute with you.”

chapter one

a/n: This fanfic is inspired by the kdrama series, “Happiness.” I’ve based the infection off of the show, as well as the supporting characters. Unfortunately, I have decided not to add other jjk characters in the main storyline. They do exist in this verse, however they are only briefly mentioned and don’t really play big roles. Anyway, comment if you wanna be in the taglist! Only adding 30 people to the said list, hehe

p.s do not plagiarize my content.

[yuyusshinelight]

Dad thoughts feat ATEEZ: First Word

⚠️ Warnings ⚠️

♪ This post is about how I think they would be as parents; just that, some thoughts. This does NOT represent any of Ateez's members in any way.

♪ English is not my first language so sorry if there's any mistake.

Vocabulary just in case someone doesn't know:

Y/S/N — your son's name

Y/D/N — your daughter's name

Jagi — sweetheart, darling, etc...

Note: Hi my shining stars! First of all, happy new year! How has been your beginning of the year? I hope you all are fine🩷✨. Mine has been so-so, I'm sick but I'm getting better now. So, taking advantage of being better today, I'm here to bring you a new scenario for our boys being dads cause I know how much you like those parenting headcanons. I hope not, but if there are any errors or something that is poorly structured, please let me know. I hope you like it and enjoy your reading. Love you all, my shining stars!!!

SEONGHWA

✰ Obviously his little star's first word was 'Daddy'. Seonghwa had spent all her short life repeating it every time he could for her to learn it before any other thing. The poor idol came back home after a hard day at work, wanting more than ever in his married life to lie on the couch with you on one side and your little star resting in his chest. What a beautiful surprise his baby gave him when she appeared crawling towards him to welcome him while mumbling what Seonghwa could perfectly understand as "Daddy". According to what you told him, your little girl had spent the whole afternoon calling him, which made Seonghwa die of love for your daughter but at the same time sad that he had missed her very first word. Good thing you had recorded it.

HONGJOONG

✰ His son's first word was so comical but so inappropriate for a kid of his age. It happened one night in which Hongjoong was in charge of bathing your kid. The so excited baby was splashing all over the place, laughing at how awesome those waves of foam were and making his father laugh too for how cute the scene was. Everything was fun and laughs from both father and son until some foam reached one of Hongjoong's eyes. The male was not aware of that swear word he let out unconsciously until he heard his baby say "Fuck". Good luck you didn't hear it because Hongjoong was more than sure that you would have been angry with him for that.

YUNHO

✰ The first word of Yunho's first son was 'Spiderman', followed almost immediately by 'Daddy'. It was one of Yunho's free days so he obviously decided to spend it entirely with his family. He played with your baby in your bed for an hour, you all went for a walk in the park, he did household chores while you spent time playing with your kid and his didactic toys... Yunho even ended up taking a nap with your baby. And now, while you were giving your kid his bath, Yunho was playing a bit with his PlayStation. A little moment for himself that ended up being shared with your son while you went to prepare dinner because Yunho liked to have his baby near even if he was playing. And then, it happened. The moment Yunho accommodated your son in his lap, the baby pointed at the TV saying "Spidman". That made Yunho look at him with wide eyes, calling you to come quickly as soon as your son said again "Daddy, Spidman".

✰ And, even though he spent months teaching his daughter how to say 'Daddy' because he wanted to be her first word, Yunho was more than excited with the fact that his daughter's first word was 'Brother'. It was one of the cutest things Yuhno had ever heard in his life. His baby called her brother right after she heard the front door. She hadn't even seen him but she already knew that her big brother was the one coming home. He even cried when his daughter hugged his son to welcome him with the widest smile and cutest giggle he had ever seen from her.

YEOSANG

✰ His daughter's first word was 'Chicken'. Surprising to both parents, who couldn't stop laughing for how cute sounded the word in your daughter's voice, but being strangely expected after hearing Yeosang repeat several times to your daughter, "We are eating fried chicken today. Mommy is making delicious fried chicken". It was a special date for Yeosang and you and you wanted to gift him with a meal you knew he would love: Korean fried chicken. What neither of you expected was that your special day would be even more special because it would be the day in which your daughter would say her very first word. It discouraged you both a little bit because you wanted his first word to be something like 'Daddy' or 'Mommy' but you're not complaining either, it was very funny.

SAN

✰ Every time he remembers, the idol can't hold back the tears. He has the moment tattooed in his memory to relive it exactly as it happened whenever he wants. But how not to do it if his first daughter's first words were 'Love you'? San was playing with his daughter to tickle her on your bed when you appeared and gave each one of them a quick kiss. Just after you said 'I love you' your baby repeated you, making both San and you look at each other and almost cry of happiness before kissing your daughter a thousand times more.

✰ With his second daughter was equal as cute as with his first one but so funny too. As every night since your daughter got her own big-girl room, San was with your eldest daughter, telling her a bed story and giving her all the kisses and hugs she asked for before finally tuck her tightly so that his little kitten would not get cold while you were rocking the baby to put her to sleep. Just when he was sure his daughter was sleeping, San turned the little purple bed-side light on and exited his daughter's room, going to his second child's room now to give her a goodnight kiss. What a funny surprise she gave him when as soon as he peeked through the door, the baby blurted out that sleepy 'Sannie'.

✰ And, as it could not be otherwise, his third son's first words were so cute too. Yes, in plural. His eldest daughter was playing peekaboo with her young brother while the second child was sleeping on the couch in your arms. Both San and you were looking at the cute scene with wide smiles when your son threw his head back to look at his father. San, who was smiling even wider, said "What happens, baby? What does big sister do?" Then your son laughed with his hand on his mouth but, even with his tiny fist playing with his lower lip, you two heard that clearly 'Big sister' from the baby.

MINGI

✰ The Song twins had the same first word. Indeed, they said it almost at the same time, first his daughter and then his son. Mingi will always remember that day. He had come back home later from the studio last night so when he arrived home your kids were already sleeping. He couldn't hug and kiss his babies as he wanted because he didn't want to wake them up, obviously, so, after a soft kiss in their tiny heads, the sad dad went to sleep. The beautiful moment happened the next morning, when he woke up and went to pick up his children to give them their breakfast. His daughter let out that tiny 'Daddy' that his son repeated seconds before, not giving Mingi even a second to process what was happening before they started to repeat it more and more times.

WOOYOUNG

✰ His first son's said 'Jagi' as first word. Always hearing his parents say it to each other, it was more than obvious that the baby would learn it sooner or later. The story is that Wooyoung was doing his best to entertain your kid while you were taking a bath. Your baby was at that stage in which every child developed that strong need to be with their mother or father and your son only wanted to be with you. Fortunately, your son didn't burst into tears like many other times, so you could take a quiet but short shower because you didn't want to push your luck farther. If you had known... The moment your son saw you he went from laughing with his father to crying because he wanted to be with mommy. You couldn't do anything else than to go to hold him in your arms obviously "Come with mommy" and as soon as you took your kid in your arms he called you 'Jagi', leaving both Wooyoung and you speechless.

✰ His second one's first word was 'Mommy'. You were preparing breakfast while Wooyoung was playing with your still sleepy children in your bed. It's not like he didn't want to help you, it was more like his little babies had him captive between the comfortable and warm sheets of your bed, giving him a lot of good morning kisses to which Wooyoung could do nothing but give them their corresponding kisses. But then your eldest son tried to get out of the bed on his own, that was the perfect signal to get up so, holding his second child in one arm and giving the first one his free hand, Wooyoung went to the kitchen with both kids. That was when your youngest son called you, making you turn to look at them with wide eyes and a big bright smile on your face.

JONGHO

✰ The first word of Jongho's little bear was 'Mommy'. He was alone at home with your child, a boy's day as Jongho told you. And by the moment their boy's day had been fairly uneventful. The child had eaten well, he took a nap without problems, they had been playing a lot... Until now. It was your son's bath time but the child did not want to take a bath. Or rather, he didn't want daddy to bathe him. According to your theories, it was because you played with him while bathing him and Jongho bathed and got him out quickly. In other words, you were calling him boring. Good thing he had already caught his son after running after him all over the living room. What a surprise Jongho got the moment he heard that little "Mommy" from his son as he was taking him to bathe "Your mother will not like having missed your first word, buddy".

[silcobrainrot]

I was typing out a reply to this post and then I realized I lost the plot so bad that I didn't want to derail OP's point so here it is. OP's points that I'm reflecting on:

Zaun is a very fucked place with a very fucked system. He’s doing what he thinks needs to be done in order to at some point be able to rein it in and make it better. He wanted to give Zaun a fighting chance against Piltover. He wanted to make them equal. And in a place where there are no rules. And people talk with violence. You’re going to have to make some very awful choices in order to not only take control, but have enough power to fix it. He may not have been the one to change Zaun, but he’s raised the girl that could.

"but he’s raised the girl that could." SO fucking true and I wish s2 had let her. firing that rocket at the council was a promise to make their lives hell. i didn't need to see her as the leader of a movement but it would have been nice to see her enable and enact change just by being a powerful loose cannon. Act 1 almost gave us this but then she decided that Jinx was dead in ep 4 and then we don't see her do much of anything until she shows up to the battle in the finale. She could have spent the season being unhinged, having agency and making actual choices that have consequences for herself, Zaun, and Piltover (she was responsible for most of the inciting incidents in s1). The good consequences and the bad.

Let her run wild. Show her lose herself to her grief and anger and how much she misses him and how fucked all of this is. Then bring her back. Not in a redemption arc way, I don't think she needs that, but in a way where she finally understands what she wants her life to be. She mourns the loss, she comes out of her grief, she forgives herself for killing him because it's what he would have wanted, and for the first time ever, she gets to choose what her path in life will be. It's time to be her own person. She's not a hero, she'll never lose her enjoyment of violence and chaos, but she is no longer fueled by anger and hatred and vengeance.

Let Sevika use the stuff Jinx does on her own--avenging Silco and taking vengeance against Piltover--to lead a movement. Let Sevika struggle with keeping the people who worked under Silco loyal to the mission. Show us how Sevika got on good terms with Scar [the firelights' leader while Ekko was away] and what an alliance between the movement for change inspired by Jinx, and the firelights, could accomplish for Zaun. Bringing them hope that change is really possible. Getting them out of their homes and their "every man for himself" mentality and get them believing in something. Wanting more for themselves. Organizing. Community services. Shared resources. Fucking unionizing idk. We see so many of Zaun's worst people but there are normal people living in normal poverty just trying to get by down there, too. Show us the Zaun Silco had become so disconnected from due to isolation and obsession.

It started with Silco, despite how flawed his methods were and how they did so much damage to the Undercity. An evil he thought was necessary because he didn't know any other truth in life besides pain and misery. But it started with him, and it gets realized by his daughter and lieutenant. Sevika is probably the closest thing he had to a friend, who stuck by his side despite how much their methods were hurting the people they were trying to liberate. The people who worked closest to him, lived closest to him, and could see the flaws in both his methods and him as a man, finishing what he started.

But instead we get Jinx committing suicide and Sevika joining the council which. Jesus fucking christ I don't even want to get myself started on that bullshit. @wetnoodle thank you for the brain worm

[kisses4kuna]

How I think the jjk characters would comfort you after a break up !!

Includes: Satoru, Nobara, Yuji, and Megumi.

(Hurt/comfort, mentions of break ups (obviously) murder and vandalism (jokingly), might be ooc, written with fem! reader in mind but anyone can read!! Please ignore any grammar/spelling mistakes, I accidentally posted this twice...!..!.!!! So fixing it was a little difficult so ignore it if any paragraphs are merged......)

Satoru Gojo:

You've been isolating yourself in your dorm for about three days now.

The guy you've been dating just dumped you and you've been devastated since.

Of course, Satoru, Shoko, Nanami, even Yaga have reached out and tried to comfort you, but you brushed it off with a muttered “I'm fine.”, being sure to shut the door in each of their faces before they could say anything more.

But you weren't fine. Of course you weren't.

You were so in love with your ex. He was your entire world and he just left like you were nothing.

You've spent the last three days crying, sleeping, and rereading old texts.

You probably looked like shit, but you couldn't care less. What was the point in trying to look or act decent now that he was gone?

You're forced to pull yourself out of your thoughts once you get a knock at your door.

You groan, you really, really don't wanna talk to anyone, but you force yourself to get up.

You open the door and before you can even get out a full “What do you want?”, Satoru shoves past you into your room with a shit-ton of snacks.

“Did you really think I was gonna let my favorite person stay isolated and wallow in their sadness forever?” He asks, giving you a teasing grin.

You can't help the chuckle that escapes your lips.

“What's all that for?” You ask, pointing to the snacks that were now covering the entirety of your bed.

“Movie night!! We're gonna watch a bunch of movies and eat a bunch of snacks and stay up all night until you stop being all mopey!” He exclaims, and you feel an excitement replicating his bubbling up in your stomach.

“If your big ass doesn't eat all the snacks...” You mutter back with a sly grin as you get into your bed, sitting beside him.

He immediately puts his hand over his heart and squeezes his shirt with a look of faux offence.

“What!? And to think I went out of my way to be all nice to you after your dick-head boyfriend dumped you!” He whines, crossing his arms to look more angry.

This only pulls laughter out of you. His face immediately softens, it feels much better to see your pretty smile than your depressed frown.

He pulls you into an unexpected hug, and once you process it, you hug him back.

“I can hollow purple him if you want.” He says, muttering the words softly against your hair in order to keep the moment quiet.

“That's not happening and you know it.” You whisper back. Suddenly, this break up isn't seeming so bad.

Maybe you just need Satoru and your other friends, and you'll be better in now time.

Nobara Kugisaki:

Ever since you found out that your boyfriend was cheating on you, you've been visibly down in the dumps.

Right now, Nobara is the only one who knows since she helped you catch him.

“I just can't believe him. All that time together and he fucking cheats.” You groan before looking up at Nobara, who's currently going through your closet to help you pick what you need to throw out and what you need to keep since you've got way too much clothes.

“Yeah, he's a total moron. Keep or no?” She asks before lifting up one of your shirts.

“You can throw that out. And with my best friend too? No offense to you, of course, but seriously? He could've slept with anyone, and he chose one of the girls I trusted most in the world.” You shake your head and your heart clenches at the thought.

“Well, at least one good thing came out of this.” She says, tossing your shirt into the ‘keep’ pile.

“What?” You ask with major confusion. What the hell is that supposed to mean? She thinks it's good that you got cheated on?

“Now I get to be your best friend!” She smiles and laughs, and that causes you to laugh as well.

“Yeah, and I guess if he had cheating in his mind, I don't want him anyways.” You then get up off of your bed and sit next to Nobara, leaning your head on her shoulder.

She puts the pair of pants she was holding down and wraps her arm around you.

You both just sit like that. Neither of you says a word, but you feel a sense of peace washing over you for the first time since the break up.

“So do you wanna beat up his car now?” Nobara says, breaking the silence, and all you can do is smile and laugh.

Yuji Itadori:

“He did WHAT??” Yuji practically screams and you immediately slap your hand over his mouth.

About thirty minutes ago, you found your boyfriend (well, now ex-boyfriend) kissing another girl.

Your first reaction was to run to Yuji's room despite it being midnight and pray to God that he was still awake.

When he answered the door, you could hear Human Earthworm playing in the background, basically telling you that you hadn't woken him up or anything.

Yuji stares at you with wide eyes and says something from under your hand, buts it's muffled.

“Yuji, you have to shut up! It's midnight and I'm not supposed to be in here! We'll both get our asses kicked if we wake anyone up!” You whisper-scream to him and he begins frantically nodding his head.

You remove your hand from his mouth and wipe it on your shirt since he got a little bit of his spit on it.

“Ew...” You whisper softly.

“I can't believe him! You're supposed to be his Jenifer Lawrence, guys aren't supposed to cheat on their Jenifer Lawrence's!!” He whispers back, somewhat aggressively.

You can't help but chuckle at his dumb reference.

“Tell me his address!! I gotta square up with this guy!!” He whispers again and you laugh again.

You don't know it, but he's acting stupid on purpose. He's not super skilled at comforting people, but he's great at making people laugh.

“‘Square up’??? Yuji, what is this? A 2000's drama comedy?” You whisper through hushed giggles, your hand now over your mouth to prevent yourself from laughing too hard.

“I'm serious, no one cheats on my best friend without catching these hands!!” He whisper-yells back, which only causes you to laugh harder.

He continues making dumb statements until you both forget the time and are now laughing hard, not even whispering anymore.

Suddenly, there's a knock at the door that snaps you two out of your laughter.

Yuji quickly throws a blanket over you to ‘hide’ you in case it's a teacher then gets up to see who's there.

When he opens the door, he's met with an extremely annoyed and tired Megumi.

“Listen, I don't know what the hell you two are doing up at 1:30 in the morning but if you could shut up and go to sleep so that I can sleep, that'd be great.” He groans, glaring at Yuji then you.

“Do you think hiding under a blanket is actually gonna work?” He asks and you get out from under the blanket, your face is slightly flushed from embarrassment.

“That was Yuji's fault.” You say while pointing your finger at Yuji who them gasps.

“What!! I was trying to keep you out of trouble, how dare you push the blame onto me!!” He jokes back, and Megumi groans loudly.

“Just shut up.” He says before storming off back to his room.

Yuji shuts the door then walks back to his bed and sits beside you.

“We should have a sleepover!” He suggests with a big smile.

You tap your chin with your index finger, pretending to think.

“I dunno... You kick a lot in your sleep.” You tease him.

“I do not!” He retorts in offence.

“Fine. But if you kick me even one time then you have to do all my homework for the next month!” You say before laying down in his bed, pulling the covers over yourself.

He smiles and lays beside you.

“Deal.”

Megumi Fushiguro:

You hate this.

You can handle a lot of things, curses, training, homework, fighting...

But break ups?

You would rather take on a hundred special-grade curses all at once.

Megumi knows that about you. Which is why he's decided to let go of his nonchalant ‘I don't care about anything or anyone’ act for just today for you.

He knocks on your door and you answer.

“Oh, hey Megs. What're you doin' here?” You ask, your gaze shifting from his gaze to the blankets and snacks in his hands.

“Don't play dumb. You know I'm here to comfort you.” He rolls his eyes, walking into your room and setting everything down.

“I know, I just wanted to hear you say it.” You smile.

One of your favorite things to do is tease Megumi.

He knows that about you.

Come to think about it, Megumi probably knows everything about you. He's definitely your best friend. You'd probably choose him over anything and anyone. He knows your favorite songs, snacks, meals, movies, drinks, your biggest fears, your type, your pet peeves, everything.

So of course he came with every single snack you've ever said “Hey, this is really good” or “You know what you really need to try -!!” about.

Of course he came with his laptop to watch your favorite movies.

Of course he came with blankets and pillows to build a fort to watch said movies in.

Because contrary to popular belief, Megumi Fushiguro was the most thoughtful person you've ever known.

That's why he's your best friend.

“Oh, by the way, if you get a very detailed and remorseful apology from your ex, don't respond.” He randomly blurts out while building the fort for you two.

It's basically muscle memory for him after how many times he's done this for you.

“Megumi, please tell me you didn't threaten my ex into an apology...” You wince at the thought.

“I didn't threaten him.” He smirks as he puts the final blanket on the fort before crawling in.

You barely catch the smirk because it's gone within the same second it appears.

“Uh huh.” You reply sarcastically before crawling into the fort with him.

“So what do you wanna watch first?” He asks as he lists off all your favorite movies.

If you told anyone that the cold-as-stone Megumi Fushiguro was here in your dorm, building a fort for you and watching your favorite movies with you and cuddling with you when you both fall asleep, they'd laugh in your face.

But that didn't matter to you, since all you cared about was that you got to see that side of Megumi, and you wouldn't trade moments like this for the world.

---

A/n: this is basically just because I have evermore stuck in my head rn and it made me think ab Satoru helping reader after a break up!? Also, guess which one of them is my favorite 😋😋 I think it's obvious but idk..

[eyrieofsynapses]

so uh, I am brand-new to Star Trek (as in not even finished with the third TOS season), so I don't have much background here, but I have thoughts? I am also not a biologist, mind you, just researching online and using what I remember from gen-ed classes. I may have lost myself down the rabbit hole for… er. a while. a long while.

For the record, this is me trying to apply Earth biology and logic, which I know is not actually applicable to literal aliens or fiction. The joy of writing is being able to say "fuck it, this is fiction, I make the rules now."

But. Science is fun. So here's me trying to Science it.

First: points of consideration! Vulcan is a desert planet. It's close to its star with a thinner atmosphere, and notably hotter than Earth. A thinner atmosphere makes it harder for a planet to regulate temperature and may block less solar radiation. We also know, thanks to Amok Time, that humans can't breathe as easily there, probably due to lower oxygen. So, this means: 1) The temperature difference between day and night is probably more significant than Earth's (because desert and thinner atmosphere). 2) Less oxygen is available.

(For the record, I don't think humanoids would develop on a purely desert planet, but my tangent on this got so long that I'm cutting it. Also sci-fi hand-wavey suspension of disbelief.)

Second: what we already know! …or what I know from the first and second seasons of TOS, what y'all pointed out in the thread, and what I looked up via wikis. The links on episode titles go to transcripts.

Copper blood: Vulcan hemoglobin (the protein used to carry oxygen around) is copper-based, not iron-based (TOS "Obsession"), hence the green blood.

Blood pressure and heartrate: They have significantly lower blood pressure than humans, but a much, much higher heartrate—assuming Sarek's stats during surgery in "Journey to Babel" are applicable, anyway. (Again, I am very new to Star Trek, so that definitely could contradict something newer.)

Cool blood (and low metabolism): Their blood is cooler than humans', possibly implying a lower body temperature. McCoy also comments on Spock's nigh-unmeasurably low metabolism (TOS "The Paradise Syndrome").

Temperature tolerance: They have a considerably wider range of temperature tolerance than humans. (This is implied by their planet's natural temperature range, and by the fact that Spock is usually okay at human temperatures, but, when he can't regulate his temperature so well, apparently finds 125 degrees (presumably Fahrenheit) "tolerable" in "The Deadly Years").

(…also. According to Memory Alpha, a fan-made medical reference text provides some stats. But it's not considered canon, doesn't reference Earth science, and I spent way too long researching this to end it at that.)

SO. Let's go through those "what we already know" points.

Green blood and copper-based hemoglobin: This is a real thing! Some animals DO use copper instead of iron to carry oxygen around! Except they're invertebrates (ex. octopuses, some spiders), the blood is blue, it's not called hemoglobin, it's in an open circulatory system, and it's not like vertebrate blood. It's called hemocyanin, and it free-floats in the invertebrate equivalent to blood (hemolymph) rather than being shipped around by red blood cells.

(For the record, there are other types of blood that are green, but they don't use copper. But blood color varies for other reasons too. I'm handwaving this one.)

Vulcans clearly have closed circulatory systems (closed = blood pumps through vessels, open = sloshes around organs freeform), so they'd need cells to carry oxygen around, so they probably don't use hemolymph.

If you're wondering "but we evolved from invertebrates, so why don't we use copper?" like I was, it's because COPPER SUCKS AT CARRYING OXYGEN. At least in comparison to iron. (Unless you're in deep sea environments, which the desert is not.) So presumably, Earth vertebrates started using iron somewhere along the line. Vulcans did not.

My conclusion: Vulcan biology uses copper in a way that's analogous to how humans use iron, but somehow finds a way to make it efficient enough to match said iron's oxygen capcity. Also, considering that Vulcan seems to have less oxygen in its atmosphere, I'd guess their systems use oxygen more efficiently overall, or they just don't require as much. So maybe it doesn't even need to be quite as efficient. (Coming back later: to my gratification, Memory Alpha also notes the oxygen issue, although in this case it notes that Vulcans have more efficient respiratory systems to get the oxygen needed.)

Lower blood pressure, higher heart rate: I think beastlyanachronism is right about this one. However, circulatory systems are extremely complex and I know nothing about them (I'm a communications person, not a doctor, Jim!), so I'm not really the person to ask. I did some reading to try to educate myself for the sake of this question, though. Anyway: lower blood pressure implies that the Vulcan heart doesn't beat very hard, but it seems to beat faster to make up for the lower pressure. This clicks with the idea that Vulcans use oxygen more efficiently/need less oxygen than humans, since the heart doesn't have to do so much work.

Finally! Body temperature. I'm combining "cold blood" and "wide temperature tolerance range." And I did Much Research. I'm going to explain some biology stuff that some folks probably already know, but for those like me who don't remember the nitpick bits of biology class, I figure this might be useful.

Generally speaking, there are two types of animal when it comes to regulating body temperature: ectothermic (i.e., primarily relies on environmental heat sources and produces little internal heat; e.g. reptiles, amphibians, fish), and endothermic (i.e., generates internal heat and maintains a more-or-less constant body temperature; e.g. mammals and birds). It's way more nuanced than that, but we're talking broad strokes. (More reading: 1, 2, 3)

(Side note, the ducks kedreeva mentioned are maybe using regional heterothermy.)

Colloquially, you would hear these referred to as "cold-blooded" and "warm-blooded" respectively, but science doesn't use those terms anymore because it's not how they technically work; e.g., lots of active ectotherms keep their body temperature in mammal-range. There are others that conform to their surrounding environments, like fish, but as far as I can tell, they need a fairly consistent environmental temperature range. Endotherms, meanwhile, rely on their internal heat source: the excess heat energy from their internal functions.

Heat's important to animals for… well, multiple reasons, but a big one is chemical processes, because they're fiddly and need specific temperatures. Life itself is basically just a bunch of chemical processes.

The problem with ectotherms is that they're reliant on their environment. Their activity is tied to temperature, and the colder it is, the more they slow down. If it gets too hot, they overheat. Also, they have slower metabolisms, and don't necessarily store energy the way endotherms do. Long, extended periods of high activity are harder—if not impossible—for them to maintain, and they can't support big, energy-hoarding brains like endotherms can. (More on intelligence and endo vs ectotherms here.)

Overall, I find it hard to match this with Vulcans, because they seem to perform consistently across a wide variety of temperatures, their brains are very complex and probably need a huge amount of energy, and they're a lot like mammals (hair/fur, similar physical build, etc.), which are exclusively endothermic. Plus, I'm not sure an ectotherm system would be fully compatible with an endotherm, and humans are endotherms, so… I'm not sure Vulcan/human hybrids would work.

The one exception is metabolism, because McCoy does say specifically that Spock's "Vulcan metabolism" is low. (Unfortunately I overlooked that part until after I'd written most of this post.) And, well, Vulcans are aliens, so they COULD be ectothermic-like and just have other things going on that make hybridization possible. And the boundary between ectotherms and endotherms isn't firm; there's plenty of crossover. Or they might be something totally different! So YMMV.

Meanwhile, endotherms—mammals and birds, basically—maintain a stable internal temperature. This comes with trade-offs: we have a higher metabolism (part of what generates our internal heat) and therefore require more food, and we have to be much more intentional with our temperature regulation. 

But. Because endotherms have a consistent internal temperature, we're actually MORE resilient to temperature changes: we can maintain the same activities at warmer and colder temperatures. We can also support bigger and more energy-intensive brains. (Well, mostly; it's more complex than that, but this post is too long already.) I'd argue that Vulcans kind of have to be endotherms, or at least endotherm-like, in order to function across the vast variety of environments we see them in.

…exceeept there's the matter of the cold blood, and their temperature range is still giant (not to mention the accidentally overlooked metabolism issue). BUT. I have a THEORY.

CAMELS.

Camels let their body temperature range between around 34°C (93 Fahrenheit) to over 40°C (104 Fahrenheit). As desert-dwellers, they'll let their body temperature rise over the course of the day and drop during the night. That also helps them conserve water. They have a multitude of other useful adaptations, of course, but what I'm saying here is: they're desert endotherms that change their body temperature according to their environment. So I figure: why not Vulcans, too?

My pet theory: Vulcans are endotherms (or whatever passes for their evolutionary equivalent), but their internal temperature range varies dependent upon their environment. In human-comfortable room temperature, their body temperature might be several degrees below normal human body temperature, thus sparking Dr. McCoy's "ice water" comment. But once you start getting well over a hundred degrees, their body temperatures may come close to a human's, or even go much higher.

(This still doesn't address the metabolism part, but this is what I get for not reading the transcript line thoroughly until I've written a whole post. Bleh. Maybe I'll figure it out later and add a note.)

I also like to think that, assuming evolution already optimized their systems for less oxygen and somehow got copper to be an actually viable oxygen-carrier for vertebrates, maybe the various temperature-dependent chemical reactions in their bodies are more flexible or have other methods of temperature regulation.

…ANYWAY. there's six hours of my life I'll never get back! biologists, my deepest apologies for anything I got wrong, please feel free to yell at me.

Plus one last fun fact: when we look at climate trends on Earth, animals tend to become bigger when Earth cools (ex. mammoths during the latest Ice Age) and smaller when it warms (ex. early horses became teeeeeeny when our climate rapidly warmed back in the Eocene, and then got bigger when things cooled down). This phenomenon is known as Bergmann's rule. Basically, the bigger an animal is, the better it retains heat, and vice versa.

These are Earth rules, of course, and probably there's large Vulcan fauna that evolved to deal with extreme heat, but. look. I find the idea of Vulcans being giants in a world of miniaturized critters amusing, okay?

Okay, I'm all over the place with my physiological grasp of Vulcans. Are they hotter or colder than humans? Why? Does that make them feel the heat more or less than humans? Is their heartbeat faster or slower?

Also if you have a strong opinion or an explanation or anything to say please tell me! I wanna get a grasp on this one

[laura1633]

Long headcanon for Omega Max being jealous of Lewis with Charles next season!

Omega Max and Alpha Charles recently got together after years of Max having a massive crush on Charles. He got the courage to make a move after winning his fourth WDC and it's been amazing so far. They spent most of the winter break together, even sharing one of Max’s heats together, and Max is positive he's in love. He expected them to get less time with each other once the season started, but he wasn't expecting to get so jealous of Lewis once testing began.

Maybe it's leftover competitiveness from 2021, because Charles has been close with or done the PR thing with other teammates before, or maybe it's because Max wasn't actually with Charles those other times. But it feels like every time Max looks up in the paddock, Lewis is there with Charles. Charles is genuinely trying to help Lewis get acclimated to the team and the car, he's helping him with Italian, excited to do PR and having Roscoe and Leo become friends. It doesn't stop Max's jealousy that Lewis is an alpha because Charles has been with alphas before. In fact, Charles mostly used to be with alphas before Max. Lewis has also been with teammates before, even though Nico was an omega, and Max starts driving himself crazy. Especially because they agreed to keep their relationship quiet for now because they didn't want the press to find out.

It would involve a lot of Max being all over Charles, scenting him, fucking him, marking him up, expertly working over Charles' knot. But then he gets insecure too about whether Charles wants something different based on his dating history, and maybe he can't compete with Lewis.

Charles realizes something is off, and at first Charles blames it on the fact that Red Bull is having a bit of a hit and miss year again for the car while the Ferrari is very strong. Even though Max is driving the hell out of it, fighting the car always frustrates him. He knows Max is over-compensating for something, but he assumes Max is struggling with balancing his happiness for Charles with his frustration over Red Bull still being inconsistent.

Eventually they talk it out and Max finds out Charles has been in love with him for years. He couldn't bring himself to longterm date any omegas because it just depressed him that they weren't Max. Max starts to feel way more secure and smug, and they have a lot more sex about it. Now that Charles knows what was bothering Max he makes sure to openly dote on him way more, tell Max and everyone else how much Charles loves him.

I love this so much anon.

Poor Max, finally making a move and being vulnerable with Charles and then feeling like maybe he isn't enough. Love, love, love the idea of omega Max being jealous of alpha Lewis because Charles has a history of also dating alphas! It's like Max is afraid because maybe Lewis can give Charles something that Max is just not capable of giving him.

I can't even begin to imagine how loving and affectionate Charles would be with Max once he realises he is insecure. They would be adorable together.

I know this is only fiction but the idea of the RB21 being temperamental again gave me a shiver down my spine 😂