#idk i think the size i have it at is fine but i am just me

[aroaceleovaldez]

i would like to say my ideal PJO adaptation (if i was being physically forced against my will to have to pick a live action adaptation over an animated one for some reason) would be a combo like writing of the musical + casting of the show + visuals of the movies

BUT the show actually does have the playwright for the musical as one of the major writers for like three episodes and that did nothing for it. so...

[jtbb]

does anyone else get Really Stressed Out when their food is like a Bunch of Different Stuff all on one plate like i need my food to be just the same ingredients within every bite or else i will explode

[kavehater]

Which shipper put a curse on me I literally feel so dizzy

[llama-head]

editing pics (finally) and i changed the font of my text and im trying to figure out if its too small and i dont think it is and if it is....i have transcripts so hopefully its not too bad

[thursdayg1rl]

while i wait for them to come i have a story to tell actually

[sleepynoons]

alhaitham x afab!f!reader, nsfw, 18+, not beta read

cw: omegaverse (alpha!alhaitham + omega!reader), heat, knotting, massive massive MASSIVE breeding kink, impregnation kink, size kink, slight sadism/masochism (more masochism if anything), mentions of pain + hurt, marking + biting, fingering, squirting, unintentional edging (receiving), allusions to dubcon + objectification (but none of it actually), slight nipple play, implied marathon sex

notes: sighs,,, idk how i ended up convincing myself to write omegaverse,,, but i really had a lot of fun with this,,, anyway, i love being an alhaitham fucker, and i love it even more when he loses it and can't be his usual put-together self. lmk if i missed anything in the warnings.

edit: 700+ notes?? y’all :((( i’m v touched and also cracking up lol omegaverse ig checks out - but tyssssm for all the love!! reminders that requests are still open (pls read my rules), and i’d love to have moots/anons!!!!

edit x2: 1,000+ notes... y'all... this is a massive milestone for me to hit - thank you so much for all the love on this lil drabble!! there's no amount of words that can describe how grateful i am, truly.

“ALHAITHAM, FASTER!”

you’re whining, sobbing, desperately begging your lover. anything will do – he can even just lie back and let you bounce up and down on his cock. but you’re only in such a frenzied, lucid state because of your heat. alhaitham, on the other hand, is a few weeks out from his next rut, which means he is able to think about what’s rationally best for you.

you’re infuriated. you need more. you need him to mount onto you, pounding and thrusting into you until you’re screaming for him to stop, and even then, he’ll continue to push you over the edge over and over again until you’re a sticky, fucked out doll. the fire in your belly is burning so passionately, and while you would say something snarky or sarcastic to rile alhaitham up, you can barely carry a thought and can only dig your fingernails into his biceps to convey your impatience.

your lover grunts at the piercing sensation and, through gritted teeth, says, “you just started your heat. rushing through it will only hurt you and lengthen your recovery process.”

you groan at his response, overtly dissatisfied and restless. alhaitham’s response is… it’s just so typical of him. he’s detail-oriented, almost scientific in the way he takes care of you. this isn’t your first heat with him, and he’s learned from prior experiences how to ensure your safety and comfort. in fact, the two of you now follow a procedure to prepare for your heat that consists of: gathering all of your favorite snacks and drinks; washing and prepping all of the pillows, clothes, and blankets you’ll need for your nest; and most importantly, figuring out a polite way of telling kaveh that he’s getting “sexiled.”

but this is overkill, you scream in your head. in missionary, alhaitham is going at a steady pace, but what he doesn’t know and can’t feel is that he’s edging you. he’s fanning the flames of your arousal yet never helping you reach the peak. he’s stimulating you at your most sensitive spots and parts, but it’s not enough for your release. he’s torturing you, and he can’t even tell.

“alhaitham,” you cry out for the nth time. “please, please, please! i can’t take it anymore! i just - i need your cock! i need to cum! please, please, i beg you, i promise you i’ll be fine! alhaitham!”

you’re breaking down into tears. by instinct, your body releases more of your scent, and somewhere beyond your crying, your lover takes a deep inhale.

while alhaitham isn’t in his rut, that doesn’t mean he can’t lose control. he hopes you know that he’s doing his best for you, that he’s holding onto the last shreds of his willpower because, if otherwise, he doesn’t know what will become of you. he’s so much bigger, stronger, sturdier than you are, towering over you in both size and strength. he can be painfully forceful, and inflicting pain upon you is the last thing he wants to do.

but you’re sobbing uncontrollably. you’re defenseless yet pleading him to take you roughly, to break in your pussy with his heavy, leaking cock. you want him to use his force to placate your insatiable heat. you need him to overpower you.

he releases a long, shuddering sigh. he attempts to rationalize, consider the potential repercussions of giving in. but he soon realizes he can’t think. your addicting, heady scent, combined with the beautiful sounds of your moans and whimpers, are rendering his mind empty.

it’s pointless. he growls, “you asked for this.”

one second you’re weeping, and the next all of the air inside you is knocked out by a sudden, harsh thrust from alhaitham. he’s going so fast and hard now, cock head brushing against your womb while his balls and knot slap against your asshole. you feel your toes curl at the feeling of being split apart, and your mouth parts to voice salacious moans.

this is what you wanted. you feel your body relax. you just have to take it, take his fat cock bullying your cunt open, take his harsh bites and teething at your nipples, take his seed until you’re filled to the brim. in your mind, all you can think is, you’re his, you’re alhaitham’s, he wants you. the omega in you croons happily, and you’re every bit as delighted as well.

alhaitham grips onto your wrists tightly as he shoves himself into your tight, sticky walls over and over again. at one point, he flips you over, commanding you to raise your ass up higher. as he holds onto your hips, he watches your ass bounce and jiggle as he pounds into you, and he wants to lick down the beautiful curve of your back. you’re doing your best to stifle your screams because somehow, your lover is reaching even deeper, and the scraping of your breasts against the bedsheets is driving you mad.

then, you feel one of alhaitham’s hands reach down, brushing against the fat of your thighs. it’s inching dangerously close to your throbbing clit, and heat rushes up to your face.

“wait, alhaitham, no –“ 

your lover pinches your yearning bud, and you scream. wetness gushing everywhere, you’re squirting and creaming, white cum staining your lover’s cock and leaking out of your pussy. your eyes roll back, and you’ve lost all ability to control your body, which is absolutely shaking as alhaitham continue to rub and flick at your clit as he tries to squeeze his knot into your fluttering hole.

“oh, archons! alhaitham! stop! no, no, it’s too much! it can’t fit!”

alhaitham, still teasing and toying with your pussy, leans over and snarls into your ear, “you were just saying you wanted more. now you can’t take it?”

you’re wailing. you feel as if you’re being ripped apart at the seams. but the thought of alhaitham’s knot is just too delicious to pass on, so you don’t complain anymore. you just accept the waves of pain and pleasure that crash over you as alhaitham finally locks his knot inside you and bites down on your neck.

your lover groans loudly, lost in his delirium as well. after a few more shallow grinds, he reaches his own high, and you feel rope after rope of his cum fill you up. alhaitham’s cum is so warm and gooey and thick that you’re drooling and slobbering over the pillows at being filled up so thoroughly – impregnated – with it.

even as he’s still cumming, alhaitham bites on the shell of your ear and commands, “keep up, because i’m not stopping anytime soon.”

you can only whimper and fist the blankets even tighter at his command, bracing yourself for the next round.

[ms-demeanor]

Okay THANK YOU for saying “your body craves what it needs” is bs because that felt like bs this whole time.

Like you don’t need more sugar if you crave sweets that is NOT what that means. Sugar is a food that people crave because it tastes good/sugar I think is an addictive food??

Idk it just felt like people making excuses when they’re supposed to be trying to eat a little healthier (healthier, not low cal, not low fat or keto or whatever. Diets are bs but craving sweets does not mean sugar is healthy thing for your body rn)

People crave sugar because it tastes good, which is not a bad thing, and there is an evolutionary reason that sugar and fat taste good to us. Carbs are your body's favorite thing because it is SUPER easy for your body to break them down into useful molecules.

I'm not a fan of the idea that any foods are addictive and I'm skeptical of models that suggest "refined food addiction" is a thing with a measurable, real-world impact; there's a lot of debate in that area of nutrition science and to me it kind of seems like the tools people use to track food addiction aren't really examining the addictiveness of specific foods, but are decent screening tools for people who have compulsive behaviors around food (for instance, one group of people who the Yale Food Addiction Scale has repeatedly been demonstrated to be REALLY good at identifying is people with anorexia).

But your body needs sugar all the time, whether that's in the form of complex carbohydrates that get broken down into simple sugars by your body, or simple sugars that you stir into your tea that then gets sent to your cells as energy. If your diet doesn't have enough sugar in it, your body has a processes to turn non-sugars into sugar so that it can use the sugar (gluconeogenesis!). Sugar is unambiguously good for you in the way that fat is unambiguously good for you. You need sugar to survive and it's not a bad thing if you want to have a cookie or a soda or some candy, and again - your craving probably isn't telling you that you're deficient in a specific micro or macronutrient, but I still think that you should listen to your craving.

Like, I don't know how much you know about psychotherapy but the attitude that a lot of diet-focused discussion takes toward cravings reminds me of cognitive behavioral therapy. "When you crave chocolate, no you don't! Don't think about the chocolate, you actually probably need starch or sugar or something, let's redirect that into having a banana, or some frozen berries, or some spinach. Point away from the unhealthy craving and into the healthy replacement, or, better yet, ignore the craving. Mind over matter. You choose how you act."

(I actually think "X craving means that I want Y food so I shall replace it with Z, which is similar" "craving salt means that I am dehydrated and need electrolytes so instead of potato chips I'll have some soup" is how this goes most of the time. I think this is a diet culture thing, not a food positivity thing.)

And you know what I think that's a garbage way to look at both food and emotions.

When I'm craving ice cream it's not because I've been mostly vegetarian for a week and am low on dietary cholesterol (AN IMPORTANT NUTRIENT. Don't be scared of consuming some cholesterol), I'm craving ice cream because sugar and fat taste good. So instead of trying to pretend that I'm getting "what I need" from a piece of salmon the size of a deck of cards with no salt and some lemon squeezed on top, I'm going to scoop out a moderate portion of ice cream and eat it while focusing on how much I enjoy it. And I'm going to do that instead of sitting down with a pint and a spoon while I'm stressed at work and eating something that tastes good to distract from the fact that work is stressful. (And sometimes it's fine to sit down with a pint and a spoon but I will say that's generally best not to do while you're in the middle of something stressful)

And if you want to relate that back to therapy I see this as more of the DBT approach. I've accepted that I want ice cream so I'm going to eat it in an intentional way and enjoy it instead of eating so much that I don't want dinner, or that it makes me feel sick, or that I eat it without noticing it because I'm using it as a distraction instead of a snack.

I'm not trying to shut down the negative emotion or shun the "bad" food, I'm accepting that I have that emotion and I'm working this neutral food into my day so that I'll feel good tomorrow and won't get heartburn overnight.

So I see that you're trying to be kind of anti diet culture here, but I don't think people need excuses to eat sugar, and I actually think that making excuses to eat it is significantly less healthy than just eating the sugar (which, again, is unambiguously healthy to eat as part of a varied, filling, nutritious diet). It seems like you may have internalized some ideas about sugar that are not great even if you are trying to separate from diet culture.

Nobody is ever going to eat a diet so healthy and nutritionally complete that they don't want candy or cake or cookies sometimes. Food is not only fuel, it is entertainment and culture and comfort and distraction and celebration and a million other things, but it is not bad. I don't think there's a single universally bad food out there, or any food that never belongs as part of someone's diet (unless it's something you're allergic to - I don't care if you're craving peanuts, do not eat peanuts if you have a peanut allergy).

So it's okay to make sugar, you don't need to make excuses. It's okay to eat sugar if you're craving sugar, even if that's not what your body "needs". But also sometimes a craving is your body saying "I'm hungry and this sounds good, please feed me" even if you're not a finely-tuned spectrometer that's craving blueberries pie because you actually need antioxidants from the blueberries (you're not a finely tuned spectrometer, you don't need the antioxidants from the blueberries, it's perfectly fine to just eat a slice of pie).

[kozachenko]

Here's a digital sketch dump of some pose/anatomy practices and some 2hu doodles, I think from now on if I don't have any big final piece to post, I'll just post sketches I liked that I did digitally (might also reblog some drawings of mine that I want more people to see, maybe idk).

Artist's Notes:

Ok so after the recent Hifuu fanart I did, I've been hoping to experiment more with how I draw faces, how I render, as well as how I stylize things. In some of the earlier sketches I did, I had an idea for a pose that I wanted to try drawing, so I took a ref pic of myself doing said pose (the leaning one btw) and then did a sketch over top of it just to get an idea for the shapes, negative space, and silhouette. After that, I wanted to do some simpler breakdowns of the shapes so I can get better at simplifying the body (these ended up being the bottom right sketches in the post). I also did some experimenting with how to push certain parts of said sketches to create a different body type (via liquify and then a more refined version based on that sketch), as well as figuring out what makes a pose feel natural and not stiff. This was also a bit of a foreshortening practice just so I can get more confident with it, and I ended up using the arms from the liquified version for the coloured Zanmu sketch I did since I liked them so much (dw I'll get to that).

The next thing I wanted to try and draw was Hisami, mainly because.... I am very bad at drawing her in my style. Last time I drew her I made her look really creepy and spindly, and it is my headcanon now that she can switch between a more human, and more creepy look whenever she wants. I'm liking where the face is going a lot, might have to refine a few things about it in the future, but it's cute (I also made the blush purple which I think is what I'm gonna do with her face from now on). I also like how her hair in the sketch turned out a lot, but the outfit..... not as much... Ever since I started changing my style to something less cartoony, I've had a hard time drawing her outfit in my style. Especially the flower veil thing she has on, which, I did try to find a way to draw, but I ended up deleting that sketch because I didn't like it. I'm also not a fan of using the colour purple, like, pure purple, magentas are fine, indigos are fine, but not strict purple. I also have a hard time with drawing all the little pattern details on her dress. I also need to find a way to draw the flower veil in a way that looks good because everytime I try it ends up just looking off (very similar to whenever I try to draw Zanmu's blue spears). I think the only solution to this problem is to do what I normally do and make my own version of the outfit, but with adjustments to suit my style while still trying to keep core elements from the original design intact (like I do with Zanmu and Keiki, and yes I am going to get to that Zanmu drawing just gimme a minute).

Ok next up is Keiki, my favourite Touhou character who I haven't drawn since the beginning of the year. Since my style has changed a lot, I wanted to just do a face sketch of her to get a hang of drawing her again, and I..... really really like how it turned out! When I drew her eyes, I realized that a good way of keeping faces too same facey can be via varying the sizes of their pupils, so that's an idea I'm gonna keep in mind from now on. I had a lot of fun with her hair, I initially was gonna do it like how it is in the official art, but I ended up not liking it, so now I'm gonna draw Keiki with wavy heir like this because it's fun and it looks nice. I also included my base sketch for Keiki's face since I was initially struggling with drawing her bandanna, and in the coloured sketch I added some more detail into her hair.

Now to finally talk about the sketches for Zanmu. Good lord was I having a tough time with her face. I also did this sketch before I figured out how I wanted to draw hair, so that's why the rendering on her hair is different (I did this soon after the Hisami sketch actually). Since I changed my art style a lot, I had to find a way to translate her face from my more cartoony style to my more detailed style, so while the face shape, nose shape and mouth was fine, I was really struggling with the eyes. I did get somewhere eventually though, and I am super happy with how it turned out. I wanted to lean more towards the androgynous side of the gender presentation spectrum, mainly because I think that makes sense for her character. Also made sure to include the silver hairs and some wrinkles just to bring some signs of her aging into her face because those are just staple features of how I draw Zanmu at this point lol. You will also notice that I gave her some scars on the right side of her face, and that's because I am a Zanmu-with-scars truther, I fucking love it whenever I see someone give Zanmu visible scars like that it just adds so much omg (I also tried to put a wolf bite mark on her arm in the full body drawing but idk if it reads well). While you can argue that her not having scars sells the idea of her being this "powerful, untouchable mastermind who is impossible to defeat," I'd say that instead of those scars representing times she got injured, they represent everyone who has failed to defeat her.

As I was drawing Zanmu's face, I referenced my sketch of to help with contrasting their features since I made Keiki's face more traditionally feminine. I also didn't mention this in my commentary on Keiki's face because I wanted to save it for here, but giving Zanmu scars also plays into the fact that she used to be human, wheras Keiki doesn't have any scars because she's a god who doesn't follow the rules of normal human biology. Plus I'm thinking about the two of them interacting again (return of Zan/Keik??? (I'm a multishipper btw) maybe???) so drawing their faces together will definitely help me in the future if I wanna draw them together (again, maybe as a ship? I've kinda been ironing out the kinks in their potential interactions (romantic and non-romantic) for a while now so idk maybe expect that in the future lol).

And now for the full body drawing, when I was doing the face sketch I did this little snippet of an outfit, had a vision, and the made it into a reality. I'll admit, part of me was worried that it would end up looking too much like Yuugi's outfits in the spinoffs and mangas, but I feel like I made enough changes to differentiate them. I tried to keep a few of the major details in Zanmu's design (i.e. the red tassles and yellow lining on her shirt) while putting a new spin on it. I also dialed up the scars to 11 since without them the whole thing kinda looked incomplete. Also, while I could say that the leaves on her kimono are "a nod to the fact that technically she should be a tengu because back then people belived that corrupt monks would turn into tengu but no Zanmu is an oni and they're maple leaves because...tengu...ahahahaha" what really ended up happening was that I looked up clothing patterns from Sengoku era Japan, liked the leaves the most because the red picked up on the red from the rest of her design and just ran with it. I also always had the idea to put Zanmu in men's clothing from Sengoku era Japan and while the accurate thing to do would be to put her in a Buddhist's clothes from that era.... from a character standpoint, I don't think Zanmu is pious enough to strictly wear the proper monk uniform, and also since she's basically the king of Hell, she would probably dress herself like royalty from that era. TBH, I probably could've been a bit more historically accurate, but again, this was mainly for conceptual purposes because I had a vision and I needed to see it through.

If I were to draw her in this sort of outfit again, I should probably try and use more references, although now that I look at it, if she were to wear it properly this would maybe, probably look a bit closer to a Kyūtai sugata (a very huge stretch, but it just kinda reminds me of that) just without the layers under and over the main piece of clothing (In the website that I searched up to try and compare the outfit in my sketch to, they name the outfit pieces but don't label them on the image, so I don't know 100% what everything is called) so I will definitely have to use that style of clothing as a reference going forward.

Also, I was kind of inspired by the ToTK design for Ganondorf since I have finished the game a while ago and I absolutely love what they did with his design (it's just so fucking cool omg) and I thought that sort of look would look good on Zanmu, so yeah got some inspo from that.

And those were all the notes for each of the sketches, I'm motivated to draw rn but kinda art blocked, so doing these little coloured sketches helps a lot.

[nortonluv]

The Misadventures of Tiny Sukuna.

Character/s: Plushie! Ryomen Sukuna, Human Reader

Warnings: None just something stupid. Idk sukuna gets a bit pissy I guess.

A/n: This is based around the idea of my mine sukuna plush I bought the other day. I'm thinking of making multiple parts but idk, I think they'll go on Ko-fi if there's more parts to this madness.

Masterlist

Ko-fi

----------------------

He is so cute.

You saw him in a shop and just HAD to get him.

Without much thought, you snatch up the mini King of Curses plush before other people can even try. That kid was eyeing him up, you didn't appreciate that

After purchasing the little plush you notice something strange. It blinked.

Or at least you thought it did.

It's smile changed to a grin as it suddenly seemed a whole lot less plush and a whole lot more real. Well, as real as the messed up proportions of a now ex-plushie can be.

Nothing is said as you rush home, but the tiny Sukuna smiles up at you menacingly.

Placing him on the kitchen counter flat on his back to make sure it's not a hallucination that's lasted longer than it should have. You seriously need to fix that sleep schedule if this is the kind of stuff you see.

He gets up and glares at you, your jaw dropping as you watch his small nubs of hands push him up.

"How are you alive?" You look around the room almost expecting another item to come to life but nothing does and he just stares up at me.

"I am not sure. I'm not too happy about it though. This size is not... Favorable."

"You're so cute and tiny."

"Die."

"Guess you're stuck with me."

"I cannot wait for the day I can kill you."

Isn't he just a sweetheart...

He begins to waddle over the counter observing the large world around him. Clearly not observant enough though.

He let's out a yell as he falls into the sink. He just stays there stunned for a moment before glaring at me, "Pick me up!"

"Why should I?" you smirk at him, "you told me to die and that you want to kill me, so please tell me why I should bother. Asshat."

He looks offended but doesn't reprimand you, "fine, you can be my servant and I won't kill you once I find a way out of this form. How does that sound?"

You let out an exasperated sigh, "better than nothing."

You both know who holds the real power here anyway. Or at least you do, Sukuna is still in shock from the fall I think.

-------------------

I told u it was dumb, but it's also a fun idea. I love just posting sill things like this.

[si1verghosts]

Hi!

3. A kiss on the forehead😌

helloooo dear anon!! i am sorry this took so long i could not for the life of me figure out to write but then ! i wrote this on the 4th and i realized it could work... maybe... sorta. this may not be what you were expecting/wanting but there's forehead kisses in there.... somewhere 🫡 also, if u are not american i apologize for giving you a july 4th fic 😭 but the holiday is relatively inconsequential here like theres no patriotism it's just a backdrop if u know what i mean.... anyway, i hope u enjoy <33

you taste like the 4th of july

di leon s. kennedy x fem reader (no use of y/n)

wc: 3.5k

18+ | cw: mentions of drinking | tw: thoughts about death and dying

tags: established relationship; fluff (i guess??); slight changes to canon to suit author's headcanons

read on ao3

a/n: for the past few months i've been working on this very insane multi-chap post di leon fic 😵‍💫 this was written with that in mind But does not have a place in that story... probably.... idk!!! either way, i think it can be read as a standalone just fine

additionally, there is a scene in here where leon picks the reader up. i would just like to say like... he gets thrown into concrete walls on a biweekly basis and gets up and walks it off without issue so i think he can lift anyone no matter their size or shape!!

not beta read or proofread - sorry if any of it is gibberish i've had a wicked migraine the past few days... will maybe attempt to proofread once i can see correctly again 🚬🧍‍♀️regardless, all mistakes are my own

i do not own leon or any other resi character mentioned, etc etc, please don't sue me <3

please do not use my work to train any sort of AI chatbot and/or writing generator.

-----

"It was a good day, wasn't it?" Leon asks, wrapping his arms around your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder as you stand over the patio table, cleaning up the abandoned plates and platters.

You hum. It was; a beautiful, cloudless July 4th, spent with Leon's friends in the backyard of your home. The only ones missing were Ashley and Ingrid; the former having a standing family commitment and the latter planning to spend her holiday on the beach, away from the country and your fiancé.

Typically, Chris hosted the Independence Day cookout, but Leon offered up your new home as this year's venue, citing your in-ground pool and the plenty of extra space you have for guests to stay. In reality, he just wanted the chance to out-grill Chris - he'd been preparing since Memorial Day; testing different spice and sauce combinations as well as stocking your freezer full of large cuts of meat.

He'd started before you were even awake, chopping and seasoning in the kitchen, slowly loading up the smoker. You'd joined him on the patio a few hours later, watching from your pool floaty as he poked and prodded at various things.

You don't even eat meat, didn't know the whole thing was so involved, but you did enjoy the view; worn blue jeans hugging his frame as he crouched to check a thermometer.

You had taken a short break from the water, tying up lights and setting a few little decorations around before your guests arrived. Rebecca was the first, tucking her jugs of pre-made cocktail and platter of deviled eggs into your fridge before joining you on the patio.

Chris wasn't far behind, unloading two coolers filled with beer and containers of homemade potato and pasta salads. He'd handed one off to you, grinning, "Claire made one just for you this year."

You'd thanked him, making another attempt to get him to share his family's recipes with you. It was futile, you probably couldn't even waterboard it out of either of them.

Claire had arrived on her motorcycle shortly after, pulling a bundle of fireworks out of her saddlebags. "Sorry I'm late," she said - even though she wasn't - dumping the pile on the ground, thankfully far away from the grill. "Had to stop for these."

Leon had crouched down to inspect them, listening intently as Claire told him about all the different varieties she'd purchased while you relaxed back into the pool.

Sherry arrived next, Jake trailing behind her. She'd left both him and her bags of chips at the table, giving Leon and Claire quick hugs before immediately joining you in the water.

She'd slipped in right beside your floaty, grabbing your hand to get a look at your engagement ring - she'd yet to see it, having been so busy with work. Her eyes widened at the ring as she pushed her sunglasses up to rest on top of her head, "Leon picked this out? Our Leon? Leon Kennedy? Are you sure?"

You'd giggled at her astonishment, "Ashley helped him out; took him to one of her favorite jewelers."

"I should've guessed," She nods. "For my 20th Birthday, he bought me this crazy cute pink tennis bracelet and I was like, 'no way you picked this out alone.' He fessed up that he got a little help from a friend named Ashley.

"At the time, I thought it was just some girlfriend - or hoped, I guess. Back then, I spent a lot of time hoping that Claire and Leon weren't just… working; I liked to think they were taking time for themselves, that they were happy," she had trailed off then, looking off to the tree line behind your house for a minute. Blinking the mist from her eyes, she shrugged, continuing on, "Anyways, I'm thankful to Ash for that bracelet, it was there with me though… a lot. And I'm thankful to you for making him happy, like I always wanted him to be."

With that, you slid off the float to give her a hug, holding her tight as you whispered your thanks. You had worked to bite back your tears - if she didn't cry, neither would you.

Luckily, Jill had walked in a few seconds later, providing a distraction in the form of the most ridiculously large watermelon. "Hey, Kennedy," she shouted, pulling Leon out of his conversation with Claire as she gestured to the melon tucked under her arm. "Can't burn this, can I?"

Leon had thrown his head back with a laugh - in previous years, Jill had always brought boxed brownies with extra crispy edges and Leon invariably had to make a comment about them. "I don't know," he had shrugged, "When it comes to you, Valentine, I'll never say never."

Jill had reared the watermelon back, acting as if she was going to throw it at him. Leon had thrown his arms up, shielding his face, causing everyone to crumble into laughter at the scene.

"It was nice," you agree, reaching to pick up the barong machete he had given Jill when she asked for a knife to cut the melon. "We do have kitchen knives, you know," you scold mockingly, gently waving the blade around.

"I know," he says, releasing you to reach around and pluck the machete out of your hand. "It's good to exercise these every once in a while, though."

You roll your eyes at him, "It's a machete, Leon, not a horse."

He waves you off, slipping through the patio door to wash the blade in the kitchen sink. You take the opportunity to speed clean, knowing it'll be a much harder task once he returns and wraps his arms back around you.

Thankfully everyone had taken care of their own plates and cups - they'd tried to stay and do more but you had ushered them out of the backyard, wanting Chris, Sherry and Jake to depart before the traffic picked up with the crowds leaving the city following the fireworks shows. Jill, Claire and Rebecca had taken up on your offer to stay, at least, piling into your guest rooms. You were glad to have them, secretly plotting to drag them to brunch once you all woke.

You finish piling the platters as Leon makes his way back outside. Before he can get his hands on you and derail your progress, you point to the stack, "Take those inside."

He frowns, "Can't it just wait until tomorrow?"

"We'll get ants; come on, five minutes and it'll be done."

He sighs, but doesn't protest further, carrying the heavy plates inside as you follow him with the utensils. You stack everything by the sink before turning to him, "Is there any of Becca's cocktail left?"

He cocks his brow, tilting his head, "You really want to try that again?"

It's a valid question - you had given it a go earlier and despite everyone's warnings to take it easy, you had thrown back a large mouthful right off the bat. You ended up wincing in pain, "Fuck, that burns. What'd you put in there, Becca?"

She'd shrugged, "Oh, you know, a splash of this, a splash of that. And," she teased, drawing out the vowel, "A bit of my own creation."

"Your own creation…" You had muttered, trailing off before it hit you, "Test tube alcohol?"

She had giggled, grinning, "Takes some getting used to."

You had tried another, much tinier sip. You were able to enjoy the sweetness of the juice for a moment before the burn kicked in again, causing you to curse once more, louder.

Leon had shifted his attention from Chris to you at your exclamation. Seeing the jug of Rebecca's cocktail in front of you on the table, he quickly pieced together what was happening, calling over to Rebecca from his place by the grill, "You trying to kill my fiancé, Becks?"

"Absolutely not; that'd be a stupid thing for me to do," she'd shot back. "She's the only one who can keep you in line, and we kind of like you like that."

"Well," you start, rolling the word around your mouth, "No. But yes - there's gotta be some sort of trick to it, right? Everyone else drank it just fine."

"The trick is," he starts, voice low, reaching out to grab ahold of your hips, "To not drink it. Let me make you some tea instead."

"Fine," you pout, relaxing into his grip, not bothering to argue - tea won't make you hate yourself in the morning.

He moves his hands from your hips, sliding his fingertips along your spine. "Go wait outside," he says, releasing you with a featherlight kiss to your forehead, "I'll bring it out."

With a brush of your lips against his cheek in thanks, you slip away from him, heading back out to the backyard and pulling off your shorts, settling onto the ledge of the shallow end of the pool. The air has cooled with the setting of the sun, becoming a comforting warmth instead of an overbearing heat. You dip your legs into the water, thankful you insisted on having a pool when you and Leon were house hunting.

Someone is still setting off fireworks; they're a few miles away, though - you can hear them more than you can see them. Resting back on your palms, you close your eyes, imagining what bursts of color may be accompanying each sound.

Leon joins you a few minutes later - just after the fireworks had died down - sporting his swim shorts and carrying your tea. He bends, setting the mug next to you with a kiss to your temple, nosing at your hair. "Earl Grey," he reports before drawling, "How terribly unpatriotic of you."

"You going to arrest me for treason, Agent Kennedy?" You laugh, reaching up to squeeze his thigh below the hem of his shorts. "You're the one who made it; they'd nail you as an accomplice."

He falls into a crouch, leg muscles bunching under the pads of your fingertips as he shifts closer to touch his lips on your cheek. "They can hang us together, then," he remarks, voice a bit too serious for it to be just a joke. "Side by side, off the same branch."

You sit back just enough to get your eyes focused on him, reaching your other hand out to thumb at his bottom lip. "Dulce et decorum est pro cor mori," you whisper, tacking on a hum in question.

He cocks his head at the unfamiliar words, nipping at your nail playfully, "English please, baby."

You consider him for a moment, the translation of the true phrase running through your mind; how sweet and honorable it is to die for one's country. The old lie, it's come to be known as - fittingly.

It's a similar sentiment to one that's grown to become your fear; that he'll die for the sake of the country, under orders from the government, believing it was his duty.

But you think your spin on it may be true; would be willing to find out.

You don't want to weigh him down with the thought, though, choosing to reel him in for a kiss instead. "I love you," is the answer you settle on, laying the words down right on his tongue.

He seems content with your translation - the method of delivery likely having something to do with it - humming into your mouth. He kisses you back lazily for a long, languid moment before he pulls away, "As much as I'm enjoying this, I've been wanting to get in there all day," he says, nodding his head towards the water.

"Go," you chuckle, giving him a gentle push away from you with the hand still resting along his face.

He lays another quick peck against your lips before standing, padding around the edge to the steps. He pauses for a moment to pull his shirt over his head, skin honeyed under the soft glow of the lights you'd hung around the patio.

A second later, he slips under the surface without hesitation; kicking off the steps, moving quickly to the deep end. He almost shimmers as he glides along the floor of the pool, the rippling of the gentle waves he'd created making him seem like some sort of mirage as he passes by you.

He comes up for air once he hits the far wall, tossing his hair back, smoothing the water from his eyes. He doesn't rest long, though, beginning to swim short laps across the width of the deep end.

You observe him, sipping your tea slowly, appreciating the way his back and arms work with each stroke. He continues long enough for you to nearly drain your cup, stopping short when another trio of fireworks set off in the distance.

Setting your mug down, you eye him, preparing to slip into the pool to soothe him if you have to, but he relaxes once he connects the sound to the flashes in the sky. The tension that had flooded the line of his shoulders drains into the water as he shifts to wade backward, moving closer to where you sit.

You finish off your drink as he starfishes out across the surface of the water, floating just a few feet in front of you. You wonder if you could use him as a floaty, pinning up a note in your brain to try it out sometime.

"I'm glad you insisted on a pool, sweetheart," he sighs, breaking your companionable silence.

You hum, pleased, kicking your legs out gently and causing the water to lap against his skin. More fireworks sound out; he doesn't tense this time, but he does get his feet back under himself, moving to where you sit along the ledge.

Sliding his hands up your legs, he pillows his head in your lap, wet hair fanning out across your thighs. You shift your weight back onto your right hand, laying the other along his jaw. His eyes flutter closed as you brush your thumb along his cheekbone and the scar that runs beneath it.

He picks at the tie of your bathing suit absentmindedly, tugging at the strings when you slide your hand into his hair, scratching at his scalp. "Sherry said something to me earlier."

He makes a noise urging you to elaborate, not bothering to open his eyes.

"She told me that when she was younger, she hoped that you and Claire were living your lives; that you were doing more than just working, you know? She said she wanted you guys to be happy," you explain, working to keep your voice even.

He cracks his eyes open, picking his head up to watch you as you continue. "She thanked me," you swallow thickly, "for making you happy, like she always wanted you to be."

He smiles at your words, and it's a beautiful thing. You still get all twisted up inside with how gorgeous he is; neurons overclocking themselves with the thrill of being the subject of his attention.

"I owe you a thank you, too, baby," he starts, pausing to nose at your wrist.

"You don't owe me anything, Leon," you tug at his damp strands still between your fingers, highlights catching the yellow glow from the lights around the patio.

"I do," he says, the words sending a jolt through you. You never intended on getting married, yet here you are now, eager to hear the phrase on the altar.

He kisses the thin skin of your wrist, lips lingering as if he can feel the thrum of your heartbeat; knows that the pace has picked up under his affection. "All this," he pulls back, taking a hand off you to gesture to the pool; the backyard; the house; to you. "It's something I never thought I'd get.

"Sherry's right - you're behind basically every bit of happiness I have now, sweetheart; I owe it all to you." He reaches up, untangling your grip from his hair, thumbing gently at the ring he put there, "Thank you."

You can't respond verbally, will burst into tears if you do. In lieu of speech, you lean forward, pressing your lips against his insistently.

He seems to get the message; understands that the pleasure is all yours, that you'd give him anything and everything you can - knowing he'd do the same for you.

He gets his arms back around you, continuing your kiss as he lifts you from the edge of the pool and into the water with him. You wrap your legs around his waist, safe and secure in his hold.

His teeth catch along your bottom lip and the neighbors down the street set off fireworks, the bright bursts of color painting your backyard in reds and blues and greens and oranges. The sparks reflect off the surface of the water as he slides his nose against yours and not for the first time, you think this may all be a dream. Maybe you died four years ago and this whole thing has been some sort of afterlife; you aren't sure you'd done anything worth this treatment, though.

Maybe it's more supernatural in origin; an intricate hallucination weaved by a Djinn that's got you chained up in some dark, damp basement as it feeds off your blood. Or maybe you just went crazy and the pool is actually a padded room, Leon's mouth against yours a product of your mind working to distract itself from your reality.

Whatever the case may be, it certainly feels real when he shifts his hold on you, hoists you up higher to get at your neck, laying kisses up and down the column of your throat, nipping at your jaw.

But before he can venture much further, the neighbor's fireworks show grows into an extravaganza, the relentless popping and bursting becoming a nuisance, shattering the illusion of your teeny-boppy movie moment.

"Jeez," Leon mutters, breath hot against the saliva cooling on your skin, causing you to shudder. "Did they buy out a whole tent?"

"Did you check that Claire actually went to bed?" You ask, shaking yourself free of his hold. "She could've joined them; brought everything I wouldn't let her set off here."

He hums, letting you down into the water, considering your words - even though you said it as a joke, it certainly is a possibility. You seem to come to this realization at the same time, eyes narrowing at each other as the spray of fireworks continues overhead. "We should…" He starts, nodding towards the stairs.

"Yeah," you agree, already beginning to move.

You pause to grab your towels, wrapping your own around yourself, throwing the other over Leon's shoulders when you catch up to him at the patio door. Stepping inside, you hear someone knocking around your kitchen.

Luckily, it's Claire. She steps back from the cabinet she'd been rifling through to face you and Leon with a frown. "Isn't this shit ridiculous?" She remarks, pointing to the ceiling in reference to the fireworks.

"You're one to talk, Claire," Leon shoots back. "Didn't you just set off about five hundred dollars worth of them in my backyard a few hours ago?"

"Yes, a few hours ago," she reiterates. "Nothing should be set off after the show at the Capitol is finished - after that, you're done; you missed your shot; better luck next year."

"Exactly," you nod in agreement at her reasoning, "They should put you in charge."

She grins at your words, moving to continue on, but Leon cuts in before she can start; "What is it that you were clawing through my cabinets for?"

She sighs, displeased with his interruption, setting her hands on her hips. "Where do you keep the ibuprofen?"

Leon shoos her out of the way, padding across the kitchen to get the medicine himself. Claire relents without argument, attention immediately shifting back to you as she leans over the counter. "So," she wiggles her eyebrows, "It seems like that pool was a good investment, huh?"

You bite at your lip, ears burning with embarrassment that she'd seen you and Leon necking in the water like teenagers - even though you shouldn't be flustered; it is your house, after all.

Leon sets the bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water down in front of Claire, annoyance evident with the way he uses a bit more force than really necessary, causing the items to clack against the marble.

"What?" Claire questions, glaring at him. "It was cute."

Leon huffs in response, unable to hide the flush that crawls up his neck at her words. You can't help the giggle that bubbles out of you, enjoying the way they bicker like siblings.

Claire leaves Leon to stew, tossing you a grin as she collects the bottle and glass, bidding you goodnight once more before she leaves the kitchen.

You move around the counter to Leon, steps careful in an effort not to slip on the water that has dripped off him and onto the tile. The neighbors must've ran out of fireworks while you were distracted by Claire as it's silent when you wrap your arms around him, tucking your face into his neck. "Still a good day?" You ask, voice muffled against his skin.

He slings an arm around you, fingers fanning out along the small of your back, "Still a good day."

[filmbyjy]

hiii

you may not recognize me and thats because im (kinda) new hehe.. anyway, i've been kinda stalking you- but that's besides the point. i loveee your workss!! keep up the good work <3 idk if asks are open, but if they are, could you write a fluffy fem!reader x bf!niki where the reader comes home from a long day, and niki comforts her?? and if you cant, its totally ok <3

have a nice day!

a/n: this has been in the drafts for a year now💀 so sorry, I am trying to clear the drafts but my schedule is shit and we all know I suck at keeping up with my schedule😍

WELCOME HOME

it was past 8pm when you had treaded through the front door of your apartment. your body sore from leaning over the tables and wiping it. normally, the cafe you work at was peaceful and was decently packed but after a viral video that practically wowed the internet.

there had been more and more people stopping by everyday. the cafe was decently sized but it was short staffed so sometimes you had to man the cashier, do the dishes, clean the tables and make the drinks. for normal days (before the surge of people), there was about 2 people working per shift, not including the 2 bakers in the kitchen as they were the behind the scenes staff that were required to be there.

with not that many staff per shift, it was hard for you and whoever was working that day to manage the cafe. that also meant more demands from the customers who think they are entitled to make a mess of the space as 'customers are always right'. curse, whoever made that quote.

you were mentally and physically drained. you just needed a good long rest for the rest of the week. however, you couldn't do that. not when your off-days were already used up for visiting your family back in your hometown. if only you could just...take a breather.

"welcome home, baby!" ni-ki slides into the hallway just as you walked towards the living room. you gave him a tired smile.

"hi riki, why aren't you at the dorm?" ni-ki gives you a playful pout.

"already kicking me out? baby, you wound me. i came to see you and you're already pushing me away." he says as he throws his (long) arms around you. "you weren't answering my calls so i assumed it was a long day at work and you didn't charge your phone."

you took out your phone and tried to turn it on but it was indeed dead. "sorry, today was a hectic day. couldn't even get a proper lunch break. there was so many people coming over for the past week."

"yeah, i heard about it. jake hyung talked about wanting to come over and buy some desserts. they did look good but since you know us being celebrities...we could get mobbed."

you hummed, "that's fair. it's a good thing you didn't go. seriously, have never seen such a long queue outside of the cafe in my whole years of working there."

"there was a queue?" he says as he pulls back from the hug.

"yeah, i felt like i was working at some fancy restaurant. oh god, speaking of there are so many karens trying to scam me and gaslight me into thinking i did something wrong when i did nothing wrong." you groaned and buried your head against ni-ki's chest.

he pats your head. "were you the shift manager?"

"usually i am whenever i am working that day."

"mmm, then you could've kicked them out and taught them a lesson."

"trust me, i wanted to but i can't i'll lose my job so i just sucked it up and patiently worked with them and even gave them a free bagel."

"not the free bagels, baby. they'll just come back again for more." ni-ki huffs.

"i know but what am i supposed to do." you sniffled as the tears that unknowingly appeared falls. you were just mad and exhausted. ni-ki obviously heard it so he pulls you back and cups your face.

"hey hey, don't cry. everything will be fine. why don't i run you a bath and then order some of your favourite food, okay?" he wipes the tears that were falling down.

"will cuddles be included?"

"of course. cuddles will be included. now, just lay in bed and i'll get the bath running." he pecks your forehead and goes to move to bedroom. however, you grabbed his wrist.

"carry me to my bedroom?" you pout. ni-ki smiles and scoops you up in his arms. he princess carries you over to your bed and places you gently onto the mattress before going over to the bathroom and getting ready the bathtub.

you had shut your eyes for a bit since you were tired but the exhaustion took a toll on you and you fell asleep for a little. ni-ki shakes you a little. "baby? the bath is ready. go enjoy it, i already placed an order so the food should be on the way soon."

you hummed and went over to the bathroom to remove your clothing and step into the bathtub. you laid your back against the edge of the tub and shut your eyes again. the candle light making everything moody and warm. you were enjoying the comfortable warmth and silence, much better than the bustling sounds at the cafe. this felt nice.

you had spent in the bathroom for about 20 minutes or so before deciding to get out of the tub. you didn't want to your fingers or toes to look like dried prunes so you decided to just get out of the water. you had grabbed the towel and dried yourself off. you could hear a knock at the door.

"baby, i have pyjamas with me. i forgot to leave them inside the bathroom." you opened the door to ni-ki. he had one hand out to hold the pyjama set and the other hand covering his eyes. a very gentleman thing of him to always do if you came out of the shower in just your towel.

you had noticed he too was wearing a pyjama set and it was similar to yours. of course, he loved matching things with you. you grabbed the pyjamas. "mmm, i think you forgot to grab my undergarments."

his ears quickly turned red in embarrassment. "ah, i knew i forget something. i-i'll just leave the room so you could change." and so ni-ki bolts out of the room and shuts the door. you shook your head, laughing a little since he was so adorable.

you changed into the pyjamas after putting on your undergarments and then went out to the living room. there ni-ki was, turning on the tv and searching up your favourite anime to watch together and setting up the food onto the coffee table. you had come up behind him and back hugged him.

"i have the best boyfriend in the world." you say. ni-ki smiles.

"well, let's not forget your boyfriend is one of a kind. where can you get another nishimura riki, member of boy band enhypen, in the world." he boasts. you playfully rolled your eyes and released him.

"that's very humble of you, riki." you playfully say.

"oh, i know. i'm just that hot." ni-ki smirks. you laughed.

"yeah, you are. now, will my hunk of a boyfriend please just cuddle and eat with me?"

"of course, i'll eat with my beautiful and amazing girlfriend any time." he steals a small peck to your lips and settles down on the couch. you gave him a playful gaze and settled right next to him.

after some time, you found yourself tangled with ni-ki. your legs and his long ones were somehow crossed in between in each other as you cuddled like cats laying together.

"oh, it's over?" you say.

"no, it can't be." ni-ki gasps.

a flash to the tv showed 'season 2 coming soon'. it made both you and ni-ki groan. "that's lame. we have to wait for the next season? that's going to take 1-2 years." ni-ki whines.

"they're going to pull another 'Spy Family' thing where there isn't going to have episodes in the next season, i can feel it." you complained.

"boooo. let's watch something else." ni-ki grumbles.

"yeah, let's watch-"

"let's watch, you. you're really pretty." ni-ki says as he stares down at you. ah, this playful and teasing ni-ki is appearing now.

"that wasn't that smooth, riki."

"well, to me it was. besides, this is a signal for you to reward me and i don't know give me a kiss or at least a peck? i am an amazing boyfriend, right?"

you snort, "yes, riki. you are but you're not getting that peck."

"what? why." he pouts.

"because..." you got closer to him and watches you with adorable doe eyes. before you unexpectedly peck him and ran away. ni-ki sits there confused, trying to analyse the situation properly. until he finally digested it.

"hey! get back here!" he yells as he tries to chase after you.

you could've not felt any better.

and being with ni-ki helped it.

[ippipo]

Fuck it into ya

sukuna ryomen x reader - mafia au? idk but here's sum

Sukuna is the type to buy you expensive presents literally every week. He was a spend-thrift and it was batshit crazy how careless he was with money when it came to you. So you decided to take the matter into your own hands.

You told Sukuna that you'll tear every single clothing he buys you if he doesn't listen to you, to which he casually shrugged and said, "I could just buy you more." After many blackmailing attempts (who are you kidding? this man gets death threats and is attacked at least once every month), you decided to use your ace card.

You didn't talk to him for an entire day. It was pretty childish considering the fact that he was buying stuff only for you, but you recently heard that one of the three powerful mafia groups had gone bankrupt rendering them useless. It scared you because Sukuna's money saving ability was shit despite being the richest mafia ever.

After a few painful hours of knocking on your door, Sukuna was angry and punched a hole into the hard wood. Of course it didn't work, his knuckles started to hurt. That didn't matter to him though, he just wanted to know why you were ignoring him.

"Y/N.." he called out weakly, his voice bleeding with sadness. He had a bad day and he just wanted to be around you. Hearing his pitiful voice, your heart clenched. C'mon, it's not everyday you have one of the strongest people weak on their knees, begging. Seems like you were just as sadistic as the greatest mafia don himself.

You slowly unlocked the door and peered into his eyes, your eyes bearing rigidity that made his cock hard. You grabbed his hand and brought him to your shared bed, pushing him onto it and falling on him, earning a grunt.

You softly dragged your fingers on his palm, sometimes writing his name, sometimes writing your name. He pushed you off to the side gently and got up to undress himself down to just his boxers. He got on to the bed and grabbed you aggressively by your shoulder, pulling you back on top of him, your rightful position.

You bit his shoulder playfully as a payback for manhandling you to which he replied with a kiss on your forehead. "Say, why do you want me to stop buying you things so bad?" He questioned, his voice booming in the quietness of your room.

"Do you want me to tell you the truth?" You asked. "You are to answer my question, not question me back." He flicked your forehead, earning an 'ouch'. "You won't leave me after this?" You asked, ignoring his statement earlier. He looked at you with a deadpan expression.

"Darling, you fucking dumb bitch, I saw you mixing egg yolks with strawberry jam to make a volcano and I'm still with you." He stated. You muttered 'reasonable' before clearing your throat, preparing yourself for something you thought would embarrass you.

"Okay. So, um-" "Get to the point." He said impatiently. "Fine. The clothes you're getting me are the wrong size, they're smaller and I think I grew bigger than last time. I feel weird about myself because they used to fit me but now they're a little tight and uncomfortable and I feel insecure." You said without a break.

"W-" "And I heard some maids saying that three of your enemy gangs went bankrupt and I'm scared you'll waste all your money on things that I won't even use." You added. "First off, how dare you interrupt me." He said and paused.

"Secondly, what do you mean you feel insecure? If anything, I'm the one who was supposed to buy you clothes that fit you, not the ones smaller, it's my fault. And darling, you're a fucking goddess, I don't care if you got bigger, you look just fine to me." He pulled both your cheeks with his fingers and slapped them softly.

"Stop doing tha-" "I didn't marry you for something as stupid as looks, I married you because you're my weird cumslut who can't go a day without dick, plus, you're my wife, no way am I letting something so absurd bother you." He said with a smirk. You slapped his bare chest because of his choice of words, blushing profusely.

"Thirdly, who do you think made them go bankrupt?" You remained silent at that, assured and relieved. "So...you still like me?" You asked. He smacked your cheek and choked you, gently may I add. "Stop asking me stupid questions." He grumbled.

You giggled when his thumb ghosts over your neck, tickling you while his hand was around it. You take his hand that was around your neck and press kisses on his knuckles. He brought his hand to his lips and kissed the spots you kissed, a happy glint in his eye, as if you both actually kissed.

Sukuna doesn't look like it, but he is just happy if you were near him. Your presence is more than enough, a blessing, in fact. To him, you're not a prize, you're a gift, you're a prank gone right, you're his world. Aggressively, he loved you, he cherished you and he will keep on doing it till his last breath.

"I'm still offended you slapped me." You said, turning away when he tried to kiss you. He grabbed your chin and forcefully made you look towards him, to which you didn't object. He gently kissed your lips, capturing your heart and soul within a span of seconds.

A wordless assurance. He needed that to make sure he didn't actually hurt you, because he meant to slap softly, playfully, with pure love, not the kind of slap he was more acquainted with, thanks to his parents (who were dead by the way).

"It's just that..." You began, grabbing his attention though it was already on you. "I don't like the way I look?" It was more of a question than a confession, you were unsure of yourself. There were times you liked the way you looked, there were times you absolutely despised yourself.

It was complicated, your relationship with your body. When you thought you looked good, you didn't. When you thought you didn't look good, you didn't.

It was tough, especially when you're dating someone conventionally attractive. It makes you feel unworthy. That maybe someday he would find someone else. Maybe someone who looks prettier, has both, beauty and brawns.

Even though he treats you like a princess, showering you with his passionate fancy love, you still felt that he could do better. Choose someone better. That thought makes you feel like someone had cut your head and poured vomit inside you, bleaching your organs with vomit, an unshakeable feeling.

You didn't need to say a word though. Sukuna knew what you were thinking. Every thought, every whisper and every breath of yours was familiar to him. It was surprising how well he knew you. Perfect hands wrapped around a perfect waist, your waist. He didn't care how big it was.

He kissed you, aggressively. That's what you called your relationship, aggressive love, which was quite contrary to how he treated you because there was always a hidden gentleness under his aggressiveness. He knew where to draw the line though.

"I don't know why you don't want to believe me, so I might just have to fuck it into ya." It was funny how he said it in a very serious tone, he was being serious. "Ryo, I was at a stupid party before coming home and my legs are dead from standing so much." You whined.

"Who says you have to work now? Let me handle your body." He whispered, licking a stripe on the back of your ear. A shiver of pleasure ran down your body, right to your cunt. Oh boy did you know what a night it was going to be.

[tj-crochets]

I got sidetracked after this and did my taxes and my laundry instead of sewing more

I went to finish off that baby quilt, and the first step was trimming the edges to make them straight, which meant I suddenly had a lot of little triangles of fabric

So I got sidetracked by scrap management! In addition to these wonky block (they have not been trimmed yet), I have a whole bunch of tiny HSTs

[teddybeartoji]

here are some very random martial arts headcanons for some of the jjk characters bc why the fuck not. btw yes i am aware that most of them practice more than one style of fighting i just think that these are smth that they'd really like as well!!!!

toji likes brazilian jiu jitsu – he got into that a bit later in life, he did more hand-to-hand combat training when he was younger but ever since he discovered brazilian jiu jitsu, he's been obsessed with it. he can use his size and his strength, and his whole entire body and that makes him feel very confident. he's very good at those on the ground throws,, like when he's being pinned down, he always manages to literally toss the opponent off of him and then immediately put him in a hold. it looks incredibly easy when he does it lmao

satoru likes muay thai – HE LOVES DOING SHIN KICKS idk he's so into them. he looks like a maniac when he's fighting btw he's constantly smiling and it's a little scary (it's very hot). since in muay thai there's a lot of elbow and knee hits too you can get very up close to your opponents and i think this is also something he really likes!!!!! mmm during fights he also likes to rile his opponents up lmao

suguru likes wing chun – suguru is the only one i struggled with assigning just ONE style bc i feel like he's veeery very into different types. but wing chun is very fast and it involves punches and slaps and just redirecting the hits coming your way,, wing chun fighters always look so calm while doing it and idk i really think this could be his thing. honorable mention goes to aikido!!!!!!!! he likes it when he doesn't have to hustle around too much, he likes it when he can just put somebody in their place with a mean little grin on his face.

sukuna likes kickboxing – he's all abt that raw power. he loves throwing punches and he's very similar to satoru in the sense that he too, looks like a fucking freak when he's in the ring. they both love the adrenaline so fucking much. in contrary to muay thai, kickboxing has more leg kicks, sooo you can keep your distance a bit more but he's more than fine with that bc that way he can truly show how hard he can hit lmao he has an insane right hook aaand he also really loves doing high leg kicks:333333

megumi likes judo – takes after his dad:3333333 he trained a lot with toji when he was younger but since toji rarely let him win it was mostly just little gumi being a grumpy little sea urchin lmao the fighting styles are both mostly abt grappling and ground work buuut while jiu jitsu is more abt making the other submit by putting them in a hold, judo is more abt throwing ppl around and megumi really likes that. it makes him feel really strong. (he likes to stare down at his opponent after he's just gotten the point i think he can be very mmm cocky sometimes lmao)(he learned that from toji)

yuuji likes wrestling – HE'S THEE BOY EVERRR!!!!! ofc he works out a lot but he's got soo so much raw strength and he loves it when he can put that into use. he's won like SO many competitions lmao i think he's very lighthearted abt the fights though and he has literally no beef with anybody (kind of like hinata yk?)(others definitely have beef with him though bc he's so stupidly strong lmao) he's very concentrated during the match but the second he's won he's got a bashful big grin on his face!!!!!!!!!! he enjoys the sport a lot a lot a lot!!!!

nobara likes taekwondo – IT'S SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! she loves it and she has been practicing it ever since she was little. she loves kicking and punching she's very energized all around!!!! SHE GOES TO COMPETITIONS ALL THE TIME TOO!!!!!!!!! oh and she and yuuji are constantly sparring despite the fact that their styles are so different lmao (yuuji will get his ass beat bc he's kind of.. afraid to throw nobara)(but then gets called a 'pussy' bc nobara says he should fight her with all his might)

[slut4thebroken]

Exposure Therapy pt. 8

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Pairing | Jonathan Crane × reader

Summary | You make the poor choice of teasing Dr. Crane, so obviously he has to punish you.

Warnings | 18+, sexual content, smut, p in v sex, unprotected sex, breeding, kissing, hickeys, praise, edging, crying (but in a hot way), consensual sex, orgasm denial, cockwarming?, emotions? idk, neither does he tbh, bestie has no idea how to comfort you💀

Words | 3.6k

Notes | Trying really hard to keep his character accurate😓 lmk what y’all think lol

Ao3 link | <3

Fic Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Part 7

Neither of you mentioned his confession again. He seemed to be acting mostly normal and only a little awkward and withdrawn so you tried to remain the same to assure him that nothing changed. You were sitting on the couch, doodling with a spare piece of paper he found as well as an extra pencil, when you broke the silence. 

“Where are you planning on sleeping?” You asked, eyeing the large space that was empty save for a desk, a chair, and a couch. 

“The couch.” He said, not looking up from what he was working on. 

“Where am I supposed to sleep?” You asked, making him sigh and turn his gaze to you. “For now you may sleep on the couch, I doubt I’ll be sleeping much anyway.” 

“Oh. Don’t you have an apartment? A bed?” 

“The cops are going to be looking for everyone that escaped, including myself- especially myself, because I created what caused all of that.” 

“Oh… What if I go? I can bring you back some clothes so you don’t have to stay in that and anything else you need? I doubt I can lift a mattress on my own though.” 

“You want to go to my apartment in the middle of town, wearing that?” He asked, raising his brows. You looked down at your outfit and frowned, just now remembering that you’re wearing it still. 

“People are dumb enough to hang their laundry up outside. I’ll just take something before getting downtown.” You suggested, but back tracked when he was silent for a moment. “I don’t have to, it was just an idea.” 

“What will you do if the police show up?” 

“Um… I’ll tell them you’re my boyfriend and I left something there that I need.” That made him scoff. 

“They won’t believe that.” 

“Fine. Ex boyfriend. Who’s been so busy working that I had to just go there myself.” You shrugged and he narrowed his eyes at you for a moment. 

“Fine. Know that if you get caught, I have no power or leverage anymore to help you.” Honestly you didn’t expect him to agree. You figured he might want to keep you within his sight at all times but that wasn’t the case. Trying not to read into this new found trust, you were going over the plan in your head. 

“Wait, is it even within walking distance?” You realized, worried the whole plan just fell apart. 

“It’s not on this island, so no. And the train is still down because of the bat.” 

“Oh… I can probably walk, it’ll just take me longer I guess.” The sun was rising anyway, so it’ll probably be fine. “Or I’ll ask someone for a ride.” 

“Do not do that.” He said sternly, making you frown. 

“Why not?” 

“Because this is Gotham and you are a young, attractive woman. You will more than likely be kidnapped, raped, or killed.” 

“What am I supposed to do then?” He let out a heavy sigh, and got something out of his desk drawer. When he told you to come to him, you stood, leaving the pencil and paper, and walked over. 

“Give me your hand.” You held your arm out to him and he gently grabbed your hand to put on a very weird shaped bracelet on your wrist. “In case you don’t have time to put the mask on, point it away from your face and hold your breath, then push this.” He pointed to a lever near the heel of your hand and you reached for it, trying to test the motion and get used to it, but he stopped you. 

“Not- now.” He strained, uncurling your fingers. 

“Sorry.” You said sheepishly. 

Then you were leaving, finding clothes that looked about the right size and changing in an alley behind a dumpster. The tricky part was the shoes but they’re subtle enough that they shouldn’t draw very much attention. You found an empty paper bag near the dumpster and put the mask in it then started looking for someone to drive you. You spotted an older woman getting into a car and immediately walked toward her. 

“Excuse me?” You said, making her pause. 

“No change, sorry.” 

“Oh no, I was actually hoping you could give me a ride. I have a job interview downtown and it probably wouldn’t make a good impression to show up all sweaty. But I understand if it’s too much trouble…” 

She only hesitated for a moment before agreeing, telling you to get in the back and asking for the address. You read it off the paper to her and ten minutes later you were pulling up in front of an apartment building. 

“You sure this is it?” 

“It’s for a small business.” You explained, quickly getting out of the car. “Thank you so much.” You dropped the smile as soon as you turned around to walk into the building. “Fuck,” You groaned, “I don’t have a fucking key.” How could you have forgotten that part? You decided to just walk inside, breathing a sigh of relief when you spotted a front desk. 

“Hi, I lost my key and my boyfriend’s out of town and I’m supposed to feed his cat,” 

“What number?” The man asked, bored. 

“178.” He reached back and grabbed a key, handing it to you impatiently. “Thanks...” He wasn’t lying when he said everyone and everything is corrupt or just doesn’t care. 

You made your way to the elevator and pushed 17. As you waited, you went over the list he gave you. Most of the stuff was easy, an extra pair of glasses in his desk drawer, a few pairs of clothes, shoes, a toothbrush as well as the extra one under the sink for yourself, etc. But you were mostly worried about the safe and the papers he wanted. What if you can’t open it? What if you grab the wrong ones?

The elevator opening with a ding removed you from your thoughts and you made your way to his door. You worked quickly, not wanting to increase your chances of getting caught, but you took the time to fold his suits, worried he’d be upset if you just threw them in his duffel bag. You opened the safe on the second try, putting the money that was in there in the duffel bag. 

Then you made your way to the desk. Even though the rest of the place was completely tidy, the desk was covered in different papers. He said they would be on top, not in a drawer, so you grabbed everything just to be safe. 

Before leaving, you went through his dresser, praying he wouldn’t be pissed, and got some shirts and sweatpants for yourself, as well as a hoodie and socks. 

The ride back was much easier since you had money to take a cab, but you still had to walk a few minutes, not wanting to be dropped off right in front of his “hideout” just in case. 

“No trouble?” He asked, barely glancing up from what he was writing. 

“Well I realized I forgot to ask about a key- speaking of which, you should probably move because the guy at the front desk just gave it to me.” The corners of his lips turned up and your cheeks went red, still not used to it. 

“Good job.” You stared at him in shock, feeling your cheeks heat up even more, but you tried to play it off. 

“Did you just compliment me?” You scoffed teasingly. 

“Don’t get used to it. Did you bring the papers I asked for?” 

“Oh- yeah.” You set the duffel bag on the desk and he opened it to inspect the contents. “I- I hope it’s okay, I brought just a few shirts and pants for myself too.” You said nervously. When he didn’t respond, you figured that meant it was okay. He started looking through the papers, then turned to you with raised brows. “I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to bring the wrong thing so I just took all of it.”

“Thank you.” He said, making your eyes widen. 

“Mhm.” Was all you could say in response. “Oh- here.” You said, suddenly remembering the wristband and taking it off to give it back. 

“Keep it.”

“What?” You choked out. “You- you’re not worried I’ll use it on you or something?” You asked, staring at him with furrowed brows. 

“Of course not.” He scoffed, then set the papers down and took out a suit and the shoes as you just waited awkwardly, not sure what to do. “Are you just going to watch?” He was teasing you, but there was still an edge to his voice. 

“N- no, sorry.” You blushed, turning around and staring at the ground, listening to the sound of clothes rustling behind you and thinking about how you’ve only ever seen his face, neck, hands, and cock- nothing else. The thought made you frown. “Unless it’s okay… then I’d like to watch.” You said quietly and the rustling stopped. 

“Why?” His tone was guarded. 

“I just- I haven’t seen you yet and you’ve seen all of me.” You explained meekly. “Nevermind, sorry.” You waited anxiously as you heard no movement from the man behind you. 

“Go ahead.” He said in a measured tone. You tentatively turned around, finding him in just a pair of dress pants, straight jacket on the floor and shirt in hand. The first thing you noticed was how lean he looks without his suit. The second were the small scars littering his torso. The third was his happy trail, leading down into his pants, teasing you. 

“Satisfied?” You looked up at him when you heard his voice, not able to read his expression. When all you could do was nod, his lips curled up into a small smirk. “Keep looking at me like that and I’ll fuck you stupid over the desk.” He warned, voice laced with arousal. 

“Is that a promise, doctor?” You purred, stepping closer to him, setting the wristband on the desk to have both hands free. He stiffened, but allowed you to move until you were right in front of him. Staring deep into icy blue eyes, you slowly raised your hands, as if you were approaching a wild animal who could attack at any second. His eyes moved to your hands, watching, but he didn’t say anything. So you slowly moved them closer until you could almost feel the heat from his body against your palms. His eyes moved back to yours and you searched them for a deterrent. When you found nothing, you placed your hands on his chest, sliding them down his stomach, making sure not to linger on any scars. You reached his pants and brushed over the button teasingly before snaking them back up his body. 

“You’re playing with fire.” He said lowly. Your hands reached his shoulders and you trailed them down his arms. Once you reached his hands, you grabbed the shirt and set it on the desk, then took both of his hands in yours, moving them around your waist. 

“On the contrary, Dr. Crane. I’m getting exactly what I want.” You placed your hands on his stomach again to snake around to his back. 

“Oh? And what’s that?” He said coyly, playing along. 

“You can let me keep teasing you to my heart's content or you can punish me. Either way I win.” You smirked, moving your hands down his back to his pants and following the waist line around his body until they met at the button. 

“You think you’ll enjoy however I choose to punish you?” He scoffed. 

“You said it yourself, doctor. You don’t want to hurt me. So I’m sure I can take it.” His hands moved to your hips, gripping tight enough to make you wince as he pushed you against the desk. 

“Foolish girl. You underestimate my desire to watch you crying and begging for my forgiveness. I have no problem torturing you, in fact, I’ll enjoy it.” You faltered at that. “Does that frighten you?” He asked, tilting his head. 

“You don’t scare me anymore.” You said quietly, feeling the arousal in your stomach quickly make its way between your legs. 

“That’s not what I asked.” He teased and you swallowed thickly, squirming under his gaze. 

“No.” You tried to keep your voice steady. 

“Maybe not yet. But I’m sure it will soon.” He reached a hand up to wrap around your neck, squeezing and pulling you forward as your breath hitched. “I don’t have to hurt you to torture you. You should know that by now.” He said quietly, gaze straying to your lips. 

“I can take it.” You said, equally as quiet, not even believing the words as they left your mouth. 

“You think so?” He cooed and you nodded in response. “I guess we’ll find out then.” He took a step back and you whined at the loss of his touch, reaching out for him. “Pick it up.” He said, gesturing to the straight jacket. Your eyes moved anxiously between him and the garment, hesitating. “This is the only warning I’m giving you— You don’t want me to tell you again.” You leaned down and picked up the straight jacket, then waited for his next command. 

“Put it on.” 

“Dr. Crane,” You whined, but he raised his brows, making you close your mouth and reluctantly slide it on. He stepped closer again then started buckling the restraints. 

“You seem to think that pain is the only form of punishment I’ll inflict. I guess given my history I shouldn’t be surprised but you need to get that idea out of your head right now or things will only get worse for you.” You stared at him with wide eyes but his gaze remained on the task of restraining you. “There are plenty of ways I can punish you.” He said clinically, like a doctor explaining something to a patient. “Like denial, for example. Not just orgasm denial… You can’t touch me either.”  

“Please- I’m sorry.” You whined, giving him puppy dog eyes that did not work at all. 

“I bet you are. I bet you’ll say whatever it is you think I want to hear right now. Unfortunately, the only sounds I want from you are moans and cries.” He led you over to the couch and kneeled in front of you to pull down your pants and underwear before having you sit. He discarded your shoes so he could fully remove your clothes, then pulled you forward to the edge of the couch and spread your legs embarrassingly wide. 

“I think you also underestimate my patience. I am more than willing to do this as long as it takes.” He started dragging his hands up and down your thighs, teasing you, never getting close to where you wanted him.   

“Please.” You whined as your hips started squirming. 

“Come now… We haven’t even started and you’re already begging? At least save that until the actual torture begins.” 

“Don’t want torture.” You muttered. 

“No? I thought you said this would be a win for you? That you can take it.”

“Please.” You whined, much brattier this time— all but throwing a fit.  

“There’s that attitude.” He chuckled. “Keep that up. It makes it more fun for me when you break.” His hands snaked up your thighs, then back down, teasing you. You whined and squirmed, but surprisingly, it worked. He moved a hand between your legs, swiftly pushing in two fingers and rapidly curling them against your walls. You let out a choked moan from the sudden pleasure as your head rolled back onto the couch and your hips bucked. He pulled you even farther down the couch, then leaned down and took your clit in his mouth. 

“Oh fuck,” You said through a moan, hips flinching as he groaned against you in response. Lifting your head to look down at him, you found his eyes already on you, making you blush and squirm under his gaze. After getting so turned on and not coming when you sucked him off before, your orgasm approached quickly. The volume of your moans increased as you started trying to rut against his face. He suddenly pulled back, his fingers halting, making you whine. 

“Please, I was so close.” You pouted. 

“I know.” He leaned back down, resuming the motions of his fingers as he started working your clit over in his mouth again. Your breathing grew heavier as you felt yourself nearing the edge again, but you let out a choked sob when he stopped. 

“Please!” You cried. 

“Shh. Be a good girl and take your punishment.” He muttered before leaning back down and continuing. You weren’t sure how many times you were on the cusp of pleasure before it was ripped away from you, but you knew it was at least five— after that you weren’t able to concentrate on counting through your crying and desperation. He pulled back but continued moving his fingers as you babbled out incoherent pleas. 

“I have to admit, my patience is wearing thin so I’ll only keep this up for a little longer.” You sobbed in relief at his words. “Once I’m ready to come, I’m gonna fuck your ass. Remember how much you liked it before? It won’t be nearly as pleasurable this time and you certainly won’t be able to come from it.” 

“No- no, please.” You said, panicked. The thought of being empty was enough to intensify your crying. “Please- I don’t care if I don’t come, just please fuck me.” You whimpered. 

“Shh, it’s okay.” He said softly, but you just shook your head. 

“No, I- I need your cock- please!” 

“How do I know you won’t come?” He asked, slowing his fingers to a stop before removing them, making you whimper at the emptiness. 

“I won’t! Please- I promise I won’t!” He watched you cry for a moment before cursing under his breath and working on taking his cock out of his pants. 

“Can’t fucking say no to you.” He muttered, helping you to lay down on the couch as he crawled over you. The second he pushed in, you let out a relieved sob that turned into a whine when you tried to move your arms. 

“Please- I want to touch you. Please let me touch you.” You whimpered, watching the way his brows furrowed as his mouth opened in a silent moan when he was all the way in. 

“I can’t, you still need to be punished.” He said breathlessly and you sobbed the hardest you have all night so far.  

“Please! Please- I’m sorry!” You cried and he shushed you as he brought a hand up to wipe away the tears on your cheeks. 

“I know, it’s okay.” He cupped your cheek and leaned down to kiss you as he slowly started moving. Trailing kisses up your jaw to your ear, he whispered, “You’re doing so well, little one. Making me feel so good.” You sobbed harder at the pet name— not used to such affection from him. 

“Oh god,” You moaned, already feeling close again. When he picked up the pace and began kissing and marking your neck, you started panting again. You tried to at least tone down your sobbing a little bit, but after you started, it was really hard to stop. 

“Fuck- I’m already close.” He whined, rutting into you desperately now. His hands never left your body as he buried his face in the crook of your neck, letting out quiet moans and shaky breaths. When he stilled with a low groan, your cunt ached at the way his cock was twitching inside you, painting your walls with his come. After a moment, his moans stopped and he was panting heavily into your shoulder. When he started pulling out, you sobbing intensified. 

“No! Please- please don’t- not yet.” You whimpered. 

“I need to get this off of you.” He said, lifting his head from your neck to look at the straight jacket. 

“I don’t care- just please don’t leave yet.” You cried. 

“Okay- It’s okay. Sit up like this.” He maneuvered you so that he was sitting on the couch and you were straddling his hips, his cock never leaving you. He started working on the straight jacket, unbuckling all of it until he could slip it off if you and toss it on the floor. Now that your hands were free, you realized that you couldn’t even do anything with them, not without making him uncomfortable. So you continued crying. 

“Okay, just- come here.” He muttered, pulling you down to lay on his chest. Your hands gripped his shoulders tight as you turned your cheek, listening to his heartbeat and feeling the warmth of his skin. His hands fumbled around for a moment before eventually settling on your hips and you knew that he was probably miserable right now. Honestly you’re surprised he didn’t just throw you off of him instead. 

“I’m sorry- I…” He shushed you, not letting you continue babbling out apologies. 

“Just breathe.” He said softly and you couldn’t help but obey. You let out a slow shaky breath, trying to calm yourself down. “That’s it. Just focus on breathing. You did so well for me, I’m very proud.” You let out another quiet sob at the praise and shushed you again as he moved a hand up to your hair, lightly stroking it to soothe you. 

“You’re okay.” He said softly. “Just breathe— you’re okay.”

Part 9

(For the sake of the plot, bestie is no longer taking oral contraceptives because he had her get an iud or something back in Arkham lol)

[katerina-marie]

The Uncertainty of Domesticity

Toji Fushiguro x Female Reader

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 of 3

Toji Fushiguro wasn’t afraid of much, though he definitely felt so when he became a widower in the same moment he became a father. Years later, he felt it again when you came along with the same hopes and dreams for a future he never thought he would experience again.

Content: JJK universe but no canon events / strangers & neighbors to lovers / medium burn idk / female reader and referred to as such but left descriptively vague / no y/n / out of character and soft Toji / single-father Toji / A little NSFW - brief mention/implication of vaginal sex so please avoid accordingly - but I can't write smut to save my life so it's not very explicit / Megumi-Mama/Mamaguro dies in childbirth and its mentioned once or twice / cutie pie child Megumi / fluff / slice of life / light angst from Toji's inner turmoil / discussions about having children / pregnancy and childbirth for reader / more notes below

WC: 9.2k (*nervous laughter*)

Notes:

Y'all....this thing is 9.2k words. It probably should've been split into another part, but I didn't and I'm just leaving it be. I'm sorry if it feels a bit "choppy?" I could've happily kept writing about all the little moments in between the parts shown, but I'm not sure if it ever would've ended at that point.

Also, I'm posting this at nearly 2:00 am my time because my end of week/upcoming weekend just got very busy and it's now or never, so please forgive any typos. I reread this chapter until I went crosseyed.

------------------------------

Toji Fushiguro liked to consider himself capable of many things. 

He, as a single father, had raised his son from infancy into a fine six and a half year old.

He was a teacher, no matter how unwilling, and had successfully kept all his students alive thus far.

He was your partner, doting and caring of your every whim and utterly wrapped around your finger. 

So, when he and Megumi woke up from a late afternoon nap in the middle of the summer only to step into a puddle of water in front of their kitchen sink, Toji was adamant he was capable of repairing the situation, regardless of his lack of experience in such an area. He mopped up the water, gathered tools, and squeezed himself under the sink the best he could considering his size. At some point, Megumi must have run across the street to fetch you because your legs appeared in his limited field of vision followed by your smug grin as you bent down to check on him. 

Your eyes glittered in a way that was betelling of your mischievousness, and Toji grimaced. “Having fun?”

“Just hand me a wrench from the counter, please.” 

You did as Toji asked without comment, and began to fill the silence (and test Toji’s concentration) with chatter about plans for the weekend in between his intermittent string of curses when something went amiss. As an hour went by with little progress to show for it, you made yourself comfortable on the floor next to Toji’s feet while Megumi had since found something outside to occupy himself with. When you felt water begin to tickle your toes, you reached out your foot to nudge it against Toji’s calf. 

“I mean this in the kindest, least offensive way,” you told him, “but don’t you think it’s about time we call a plumber?” Somewhere under the sink, metal clanged and Toji barked out an expletive followed by a groan of pain. 

“No,” he insisted grouchily, and you watched as he used his legs to wedge himself further under the sink. “I think I almost got it.” 

Your answering hum was full of disbelief, but Toji paid it no mind, even if he could start to feel the coolness of water seeping into the cuff of his pants. If only he could reach one more inch…

His concentration was interrupted when Megumi’s scream of pain filtered in through the open windows. Toji lurched upwards out of sheer instinct and hit his head hard enough against the metal piping that he saw stars. Through the haze of pain and spots across his vision, he saw you dash out the door, and primal parental instinct forced Toji out of the cramped space so he could tend to his child’s cries. When he finally managed to stagger out the front door, you were on your knees on the concrete cradling a sobbing Megumi to your chest. His bike lay on its side just a step away, and from how his son’s left arm was sitting limply over his lap and already changing colors, Toji suspected a hospital trip was in order for what was clearly a broken bone. He approached and you looked up at him with eyes that were glassy with your own tears, your heart breaking for how badly the little boy was in pain. Toji brushed a quick hand over your cheek before crouching down to meet Megumi’s eyes. 

“Alright, Megs,” he coaxed, and the sight of his son’s face clenched in distress and wet with tears was a sight Toji would never get over, “we’ll get you up and to the doctor to start feeling better, okay?” Megumi didn’t react to his words, but when Toji reached out to scoop him into his arms, he wailed harder and tightened the good arm he had wrapped around your neck, burying his face deeper into your chest. Surprise fluttered over your face and then it turned apologetic towards Toji, but he shook his head, the shock of his son’s preference for you in this moment not nearly as important. Instead, Toji carefully helped you up while you held onto Megumi and led the two of you to the car with a protective arm wrapped around your shoulders. 

The evening at the hospital passed in a similar manner. You reclined in a bed with Megumi against your chest while a doctor looked at his arm and Toji filled out paperwork. You murmured in the boy’s ear and brushed his hair back in soothing movements to try and distract him from the pain. When a nurse came in with an IV kit in hand, you let Megumi cry into your neck while Toji helped hold his right arm still. Eventually, after he drifted off to sleep, you took a seat next to Toji on the right side of Megumi’s bed while the doctor set his arm and fixed a cast onto it. The entire time, the worried father remained ramrod straight with eyes fixed on every move the doctor made, and he had your hand clenched between the two of his on his lap. You leaned to the side to rest your head against his shoulder, and adoration tightened your chest when Toji let out an anxious huff before turning his head to press his lips to your forehead.

When the whole thing was said and done and the three of you were discharged once Megumi was awake enough, you rubbed a comforting hand over Toji’s back as he carried his son to the car. Once home, the two of you worked to get Megumi changed and ready for bed, a delicate task when having to take caution with the state of his arm. Thankfully, the edge was taken off by painkillers, and he dazedly chatted about the cool blue cast on his arm and how he couldn’t wait to show it off to Yuji. Toji promised to get him markers for him to draw on it with while you persuaded him to get under the blankets after assuring him you’d bake a giant batch of cookies tomorrow in reward for his bravery. 

Toji took the time to place Megumi’s favorite stuffed animals around him and tucked him further into the blankets. You read him a bedtime story while Toji lay stretched out next to the two of you, and by the end of it, Megumi’s eyes were drooping heavily and his mouth had fallen open just the slightest. You gently lifted Megumi’s broken arm up so that Toji could settle a pillow under it, and after bidding the boy goodnight, he got up so you could slide in next to him. He watched with a thudding heart as you scanned his son up and down with fretful eyes and let your hands flutter nervously about him. You pushed some of the hair away from Megumi’s forehead and leaned down carefully to place a gentle kiss between his brows. When you looked back at Toji with a sad, wobbly smile on your lips but a determined gleam in your eyes in order to be brave for the little boy in front of you, Toji realized in that moment that he had fallen in love with you, and in the same breath decided that he was going to marry you, nearly a year to the day he met you in the middle of a grocery store. 

And later, when the two of you lay exhausted under the blankets of his bed, Toji rolled over onto his side to mold every inch of himself against your back and nestled his chin into the crook of your shoulder so his lips could brush against your ear. 

“Marry me,” he whispered, not so much asking as he was pleading. You were already half asleep, but he felt the shake of your shoulders as quiet laughter blew out from your nose, and you threaded your fingers up through his from where they were draped over your hip. 

“Of course,” you breathed, and Toji tightened his arms around you. He left a kiss on the back of your neck and let his eyes slide shut as he basked in the warmth of your body and smell of your lotion and the incandescent joy in realizing that he’d never have to go another night without it—without you. 

“But ask me again later so I can see you properly down on one knee.” 

A week later, because Toji Fushiguro was powerless to anything you demanded of him, he did as you asked in the middle of his kitchen while you, him, and Megumi still lounged in your pajamas and were only halfway done making breakfast. His son clapped excitedly when you squealed out a ‘yes’ and Toji grinned with pride as you admired the simple gold band that adorned your finger. Satisfaction made his heart full and your smile soothed his soul, but eagerness had him marrying you in a government building just a couple days later.

------------------------------

It wasn’t until Megumi’s seventh birthday that Toji realized stalling wasn’t going to work much longer. 

The months following your marriage had been busy with moving him and Megumi into your house across the street since it was bigger and didn’t hold the memories of a tragic past Toji was ready to move on from. The end of the summer had brought school for him and Megumi back into full swing, and two weeks into it Toji was ready to quit when all his students could focus on was the new ring on his left hand. Most of them were congratulatory in their teasing, but a few made jests about their disbelief that someone could bother marrying their grouch of a teacher, and while Toji had half a mind to bring you by just to shut them up, he decided it was kinder to not subject you to a particular white-haired menace. 

By the time the three of you got settled into the normalcy of being a new family, the year was already coming to a close and Megumi was turning seven. As requested, you had baked his son a double chocolate cake and covered the top in rainbow sprinkles. Toji had taken the time to pipe little swirls of frosting around the edges, though some were lopsided and varied in size (such small, precise tasks were simply too big of an ask for the size of his hands), but Megumi didn’t seem to care when the two of you placed it in front of him on the table, candles lit orange and reflecting off the wideness of his eyes. 

After singing and clapping, right as Megumi filled his cheeks with as much air as he could manage to blow his candles out in a single breath, you threw your hands out over them in an attempt to keep them aflame for just a moment longer.

“Wait, Megumi,” you gasped, yanking your hands back when the heat of the candles scorched a bit too close to your skin. Toji immediately gathered them into his to inspect your palms, but you shook them away, not minding his grumble as the brief sting faded. “You have to make a wish!” 

Megumi’s mouth dropped open into a perfect ‘o’ as he nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah,” he chirped. “I forgot.” 

He immediately squeezed his eyes closed, and you and Toji watched in amusement as he scrunched up his nose and squirmed in his seat. You took the opportunity to snap a couple of pictures, and when he was done, Megumi’s eyes popped back open and he took in a great inhale before blowing out his candles all at once. You cheered while Toji ruffled his son’s hair, and Megumi looked quite proud of himself as you slid the cake towards you to cut him a piece worthy of being eaten on his birthday. Both of you chastised Toji when he kept insisting you make his piece bigger and bigger, almost so that he nearly had half the cake on his plate alone by the time it was all said and done. 

“Hey, Kid,” Toji said around a mouthful of cake while you pointedly took a polite bite of your own, “what did you wish for?” Megumi begrudgingly tore his attention from his cake, and you swatted at Toji’s arm from across the table. 

“You’re not supposed to ask!” you exclaimed, but he simply rolled his eyes and shook his head good naturedly before returning his focus back onto his plate. At the head of the table, Megumi stared at you with an all too knowing look for a fresh six year old and then set his sights on his father with an unimpressed quirk to his brow. 

“I wished for a baby brother or sister.” 

Toji promptly choked on the large bite of cake he had shoved into his mouth moments prior to Megumi’s unexpected declaration, and your lips parted in shock. Meanwhile, Megumi eyed the two of you expectedly as Toji hacked and coughed. You jumped from your chair to grab him a glass of water, then set it down next to him while rubbing a soothing hand between his shoulder blades. 

“Now, Megumi,” you began, not so much stern but intentionally practical, and he looked up at you with wide, attentive eyes, “babies, uhm, take their time getting here…” you trailed off and turned your head to your husband with an alarmed look on your face, but Toji was still working on regaining his breath and chugging his water and could only offer a shrug of his shoulders while he pursed his lips in defeat. 

You sighed and faced Megumi again with a weary smile. “Babies take their time getting here and that’s after their parents decide to have one. Any baby brother or sister will have to spend nine whole months growing in my belly before they arrive, so you’ll have to try and be real patient for us, okay?”

Megumi’s face fell dejectedly, and if Toji looked hard enough, there was a hint of disappointment on your features too. He watched as you playfully pinched at the boy’s cheeks and tempted him back into a happy mood with the hint of birthday gifts waiting for him in the living room. The whole exchange had guilt weighing heavy on Toji’s shoulders, and he had the bitter realization that it was his own fear—the one that lied solely in the scant possibility that you could meet the same fate as the only other woman he had ever loved—that caused the frown on yours and Megumi’s faces. 

In spite of that fear, Toji had promised you something, and in the six months since the two of you had been married, you hadn’t chastised him or given him grief when he pulled out at the last moment to spend himself across your stomach or back. You didn’t question him when he had a hard time meeting your eyes as he tore open a foil packet to remove the condom from inside. He knew your trust in him far surpassed whatever insecurities he wrestled with, but it didn’t make him feel less like a failure every time. 

So later that night, when Toji found himself above you and nestled in the warmth between your legs, he leaned into the security of your arms and sought reassurance in the taste of your lips as he came to his own end after ensuring yours. You ran your fingers down his back and whispered sweet nothings into his ear when the racing of his heart and trembling of his muscles could no longer be blamed on the energy he expended while pleasuring his wife.

------------------------------

You suspected something was amiss a couple months later. Toji had brought home your favorite take-out for dinner, and while the first bite was as pleasant as usual, every one after tasted more and more like cardboard and settled uncomfortably in your stomach until your appetite was thoroughly gone. You questioned whether it was something more and that maybe your period wouldn’t appear in just a couple of days, but when Megumi began to complain of an upset stomach toward the end of the meal, you banished the thought out of your head. 

However, two days after while you were cooking that evening’s dinner, one whiff of the package of raw chicken you had just cut open had you violently gagging and running for the nearest bathroom while ignoring Megumi’s call of alarm when you passed him in the living room. Your knees hit tile as you retched into the bowl of the toilet, and you weren’t sure how much time had passed when you were finally able to lift your head. You trembled on your spot on the floor and felt more tired than you had been in weeks. Nausea made your head spin, and you wondered if you’d ever be able to look at chicken again the same way. Just the sheer thought of it had your mouth souring, and your repulsiveness for it went deep into your bones. 

When you finally caught your breath and were mostly confident you had emptied everything in your stomach, you pushed yourself off the floor and rinsed your mouth before exiting the bathroom. Megumi stood on the other side of the door with his lips turned down in concern and your phone in his hand. When he raised it up to you, Toji’s name was displayed at the top of an ongoing call. 

“Hey,” is all you said when you brought the phone to your ear. 

“Megumi called and said something was wrong with you. Are you okay?” Toji’s voice wasn’t panicked, but you sensed the worry in it, and you could imagine his face looked much like his son’s had moments ago. 

“I was making dinner a few minutes ago, and the smell of the raw chicken…” you had to trail off when just telling him what happened made you gag a little. You hadn’t yet stepped away from the doorway of the bathroom, but you weren’t in a hurry to have to go back in, so you took a few deep breaths until the feeling passed. Megumi hugged your leg as he gazed up at you in concern and you patted the top of his head in reassurance. 

“Ah,” Toji remarked.

“Yup.” 

Toji cleared his throat after a moment of quiet and then asked a question that sent nerves skittering down your spine. “Want me to pick up a test on the way home?” 

“Please.” 

Later that night, after Megumi was tucked in bed, the two of you waited anxiously as the timer on your phone counted down from three minutes. Two pregnancy tests lay face down on the counter. You nibbled on the skin of your cuticle while Toji bounced his knee from where he sat on the closed toilet lid. 

“I mean, it’s not as if we weren’t expecting this to happen,” you pointed out, shaking your hands in front of you in an attempt to dislodge the nervousness from your body, and Toji snorted. 

“Yeah, certainly not.” He wiggled his eyebrows flirtatiously, and the smirk that tugged at the scar on his lip made your cheeks flush hot, and you rolled your eyes at him. As the two of you continued to wait as the seconds on your phone seemed to crawl by, a thought popped into your head. 

“Is it as nerve-wracking the second time around? Or is it easier?” you asked him gently, and you saw Toji’s features soften as his eyes went nostalgic. He worked his mouth in contemplation—perhaps in recollection—and then shook his head. 

“No, it’s uh, just as shocking I’d say—at least for me.” He pushed off his knees and came to stand next to you. “I think it’ll be this way no matter how many times we do it.” The thought of one day doing this a second time had the breath rushing out of you, but you filed the image away for a future discussion. It wasn’t something you had the capacity to consider now, not while you were currently waiting to see if you were about to become a mother. 

The shrill noise from your phone that indicated the timer had run down made the two of you jump a foot in the air, and you looked to Toji with wide eyes. 

“Take that one?” you offered, pointing with a trembling finger to the test that would answer with words versus a combination of lines, and Toji was suddenly very grateful he grabbed two different kinds at the store. While he knew he could squint at a test and convince himself that an extra line may or may not be visible, he was almost a hundred percent positive he wouldn’t suddenly become illiterate and unable to distinguish between “pregnant” and “not pregnant.” 

He nodded, and at the same time, the two of you reached for each test on the counter and flipped them over close to your faces only for your jaws to drop simultaneously. You turned to each other, wide eyed and bewildered (as if you didn’t know what the two of you had been doing these last couple months) because “pregnant” and two dark lines could not be misunderstood. 

You brought your free hand up to your mouth to cover it as unabashed laughter poured from your lips, and Toji wrapped his arms around your shoulders to yank you into his chest. Joy spurred him into kissing you deeply, and the pure love and elation in your eyes when you pulled back was enough for Toji to feel the first stirrings of excitement at the prospect of having a child with you. 

It wasn’t until later in the night, in the dark of your shared bedroom with nothing but the evenness of your breathing to interrupt the noise in his head that Toji could admit to himself that the entirety of it terrified him.  

------------------------------

“That’s a baby?” Megumi’s voice was full of skepticism, and he eyed the ultrasound photo with disgruntled disbelief as you pointed at the grey and white blob in a sea of black. 

“Yes, Megumi,” you giggled, smiling at Toji over the little boy’s shoulder as the three of you sat cuddled in your bed, “that’s your sibling. They are very small right now, but next time they’ll look bigger and more like a baby.” 

He wasn’t appeased by your answer, and he crossed his arms with a little huff of disappointment that had Toji struggling to muffle his laughter. The two of you had just returned from your first doctor’s appointment and had decided to break the news to Megumi now that you had a picture to confirm it, and while he had taken it well, he clearly was expecting more. 

“How long till it gets here?” he asked, glancing up at you, but Toji replied first.

“Doctor said January. You’re gonna have to be patient, Megs.” Toji grinned at his son, but Megumi looked even more unenthused than before and glowered at his father. 

“Why’d you have to take so long to have a baby?” he muttered, and the words wiped the smile clean off Toji’s face as you shook with laughter. With a pained look on his face, Toji simply shoved a pillow playfully over Megumi’s head and tickled him in the ribs to distract him from the question at hand. 

You used the opportunity to burrow under the blankets as your eyes began to grow heavy. Nausea, fatigue, and a general feeling of being unwell had plagued you from the moment the pregnancy test had turned positive, and you hoped an afternoon in bed and watching movies would offer a reprieve. You had just begun to drift off when you heard Megumi ask for Toji’s attention. 

“Dad, where do babies come from?” 

------------------------------

“I don’t think there’s much in that book you have to worry about,” Toji told you on a night that found the two of you lounging in your room after Megumi went to sleep. He was lazily folding laundry from his perch at the foot of the bed. You were reclined back against the headboard with said book in your lap. One hand rested against the curve of your belly that had just started to protrude against the fabric of your clothes in the last week, and the other dog-eared every other page laden with information about pregnancy, childbirth, and newborns.

“Perhaps,” you said, setting the book down on your thighs, and the pointed look you gave him made it clear you didn’t feel the same, “but that’s easy for you to say—you’ve done this before.” 

A harsh laugh fell from Toji’s mouth before he had a chance to stop it, and he tossed a bundle of socks in his hand at the tower he had made of his folded boxers. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t doing a very good job of it. We were barely surviving.” 

He watched as the pile of fabric warbled upon impact, and just as it began to tilt, you shot your foot out to brace it in place. When Toji looked up at you, frustration didn’t furrow your brow or pinch your nose. Instead, your smile was gentle and understanding.

“I know,” you said, voice soft, and it carried an undercurrent of reassurance. 

Toji released a deep breath and tilted up the scarred corner of his mouth in a way that he hoped looked contrite. He reached for the stack of his boxers and righted them so you could lower your leg back down. “I’m probably not the best person to get advice from anyway.” 

You tilted your head to the right, perplexed by his unusual self-deprecation. “I wouldn’t say so.” 

Toji just shrugged and continued fiddling with the last bits of laundry. 

“Sure, you’re a little rough around the edges.” 

“Can’t deny that,” he grumbled. 

“You can be a bit grumpy sometimes, and you have a history of giving in to questionable decisions and habits.” 

Toji shot you a withering look. “You really know how to kick a guy while he’s down.” 

“And,” you emphasized, holding up your hand to indicate that you weren’t finished, “you have a really tragic backstory that just makes the whole thing sad.” 

For once, Toji seemed to be struck speechless, stupefied by the bluntness of your words, and the bundle of socks he had been playing with rolled from his hand. 

“But,” you said, “there’s no one else I’d rather be doing this with than you, Toji.” Your husband, who had clearly been a bit rankled by the conversation, melted. The tension released from his shoulders and the puckered set of his lips smoothed out into a dopey grin as his countenance perked up.

“I love you too,” he teased, his tone light and easy, “even if you are something else.” 

You beamed at him as he got up to gather the laundry in his arms and set it in on the dresser in front of your bed, intending to deal with it tomorrow. He then flopped onto his stomach on the bed next to you, shaking the whole thing under his weight, and if the two of you hadn’t already thoroughly tested its limits, you’d worry about its ability to handle the size of him. The thought had your blood suddenly running hot and you rolled onto your side to nip at his ear when a different sensation in your lower half made you pause. 

For the last two weeks you had been feeling the tiny bubbles in your stomach and knew that your baby had gotten big enough for you to begin to take notice of its movement. However, this was the first time it felt significant enough to be noticed from the outside. You returned to your position on your back and pressed your hand lightly into the skin under your belly button. Nothing happened for a minute, and just as you were ready to give up, you felt the faintest hiccup against your palm. 

“Toji!” you blurted, and you urged yourself to stay still despite your excitement lest your little one move again and hide away. 

“You going to insult me again?” Toji’s voice was muffled from where his face was mushed into his pillow. 

“No,” you scoffed, wiggling your fingers at him even though he couldn’t see, “come here.” He groaned in protest but propped himself up on his elbows to shift onto his side nonetheless, and you snapped your hand out to grab his.

“What are you—,” 

“Shh!” You didn’t bother explaining as you covered his hand with yours and settled it onto your belly where yours had just been. His jaw shut with an audible click. You watched Toji’s expression carefully as you waited for another burst of movement, and even though you knew this wasn’t a foreign experience to him like it was to you, overwhelming joy filled you to your depths when his eyes glossed over with wonder as his child wiggled against his palm. He was quick to gather you to his chest with the arm that wasn’t draped over your hip and you tucked your head under his chin in an attempt to snuggle as close to him as you could manage. 

“Megumi’s going to get a kick out of that tomorrow—literally.” Toji’s voice was thick with emotion, as well as amusement at his own cleverness, and you swatted at his chest. But your laughter deceived you and Toji placed kisses all along the top of your head. 

------------------------------

Toji wondered if all the blood on the floor was retribution for the amount of it he had spilled in the years before. It pooled slowly, eating up the white of the tile and creeping closer until it stained the tip of his shoes. He was empty, void of anything really, and maybe this was the curse doomed to follow him. Loneliness, robbed of anyone precious to him, and instead of incandescent joy that should have taken over him at the sight of his newly born child, nothing except for seething rage and despair filled his mind. There was hatred for a family name that he had already tried to escape, a desire to soothe himself in all the previous vices that had once kept him occupied, and bewilderment that he was somehow in the same situation again.

It was all eerily similar, from the sudden rush of panicked movement in the room to the way he fell back into a cushioned chair, just barely conscious of the baby in his arms. The face of his late wife and yours flashed back and forth, superimposed onto each other as the two of you laid still with eyes closed and arms slackened at your sides. A shrill whine, a solid ringing filled his ears and silenced all other noise. 

Not again. Not again, not again, not ag—,

Years of discipline kept Toji from jolting into wakefulness, but he did suck in a mouthful of air when his eyes opened and took in the darkness of your bedroom. He wasn’t trapped in the sterile four walls of a hospital room, nor was he struck numb by the darkness of your blood. Instead, sweat stuck the sheets to the skin of his back, and above him the fan you always insisted be on spun quickly. The thought of you had his hand clambering across to your side of the bed, but when all that met his fingers was the unusual coolness of your pillow, he lurched upwards, flipped on his bedside lamp, and searched the room.

Rationality told Toji that you were probably fine, that you were in the bathroom or the living room and would be back any second. Rationality would tell him that there wasn’t any need for him to seek you out and confirm you were alive with his own eyes. But adrenaline, a tragic memory, and the nausea simmering in his gut drove him from bed and onto his feet, clad only in his boxers.

Toji was still a bit disoriented from his nightmare, and he tried to be extra mindful of his heavy footfalls as he passed the door of Megumi’s room. As he neared the end of the hallway, he heard the faintest plink of metal against glass and the racing of his heart slowed at the sound before ultimately returning to normal when saw you in the kitchen. 

Despite it being well into the middle of the night, you leaned back onto the kitchen counter with a bowl of cereal in your hands and a happy hum in the back of your throat. Your belly sat low between your hips, pulling taut the fabric of his shirt that served as your outfit of choice as of late, and the sight of it was a reminder that you were nearing the end of nine months now. Nervousness was a constant state Toji was in as your due date rapidly approached, and if he thought too hard about it, panic would shorten his breath and tunnel his vision, such as it was beginning to do in that moment. Thus, Toji wasn’t sure if he made a noise or if you just happened to notice him out of your peripheral vision when you turned your head to him, curiosity taking over your face. 

“Did I wake you?” you whispered, spooning one last bite of cereal into your mouth before setting it into the sink behind you. Toji shook his head and padded over to your side. He dropped his head to rest his cheek on your hair and trailed a hand down your stomach to spread his palm over the front of it. Satisfaction coursed through his veins when you let out a happy, weary sigh and leaned into his chest to rest your weight against him. 

Toji knew you were struggling. He knew your hips ached and it made walking a chore. He knew that your back only stopped hurting after he rubbed the muscles loose for half an hour and that everything including breathing had become difficult for you. The baby kicked you awake during the night, and if you weren’t tossing and turning in an attempt to get comfortable, you were up and going to the bathroom for the nth time. Toji did his best to dote on you in between his job, taking care of Megumi, and doing all the chores around the house. He certainly did want this to be all over for you so you could bask in the enjoyment of motherhood, but each day closer to your child’s birth spiked his anxiety exponentially higher, and he ashamedly wished he could ignore what was to come. 

“Would you like to go back to bed?” he asked, taking a step backwards. 

You nodded your head unwillingly. “I’m too uncomfortable to sleep right now. If I stay up and watch TV in bed will that bother you?” 

“No,” he replied immediately, and Toji was secretly glad he wouldn’t have to stare up at a dark ceiling, too afraid to close his eyes when all he wanted to do was bask in the warmth of your body and the steady rise and fall of your chest. 

The two of you made a slow walk back to your room, and Toji helped you into bed and shifted the pillows behind your back until you were as comfortable as can be in your given state. He scrubbed his hands over his face to rid his eyes of the tiredness that lingered behind them and then slid in next to you as you focused on flipping through channels on the TV. Toji snaked his right arm under the small of your back and wound his left across your lap so his hand could cup the side of your belly and then set the side of his face on the top of it. Your fingers came to scratch through his hair absentmindedly, and the relief that Toji felt from your touch and the quiet thump of your heart was nearly instantaneous. 

As minutes ticked by and most of the lingering tension from his nightmare had subsided, Toji still found himself tapping against the side of your stomach and pushing his fingers against it in an effort to get his child to respond to him. 

You reached an arm over his head to prod at the center of your belly yourself. “He’s been wiggling around a bunch throughout the day, but he might be right about here…” you trailed off just in time for Toji to feel a quick bump under his cheek. 

“I think you meant ‘she,’ isn’t that right?” he said with a smile. Only one of you was to be right about who your child was destined to be, but neither would know until they came out to meet you. 

“No, ‘he’ was correct, thank you very much.” Affection warmed his body and Toji pressed his fingers back into your skin so he could feel the movement again. The baby reciprocated his touch each time until Toji finally relented and figured you’d appreciate the break from being repeatedly poked and prodded. Your palm drifted down to cup his jaw and the swiping of your thumb over it was enough to lull him into the beginnings of sleep. He snuggled a bit closer into your side and let out a great exhale, recalling how you had once made a comment likening him to a large, lounging dog. Toji supposed he could understand what you meant. Really, at the end of the day, all he wanted to do was cling close to you and bask in the pleasure of your touch. 

While Toji knew that no amount of time he spent listening to your heartbeat or prompting his child into movement would prevent a cruel fate from bestowing you both should it be decided, he would let himself pretend if it meant keeping himself together enough to see it through. 

------------------------------

As a surprise to no one at all, childbirth was just as nerve wracking for Toji the second time around as it was the first. 

It didn’t help that he had been on pins and needles since your due date had come and gone, so when you stumbled out of bed and into the living room on the morning of the third day passed, your hand clutching your stomach and a harrowed expression on your face, Toji was coiled tight enough that he sprung into movement. He flung Megumi over his shoulder and was across the room at the same moment to grab the bags you kept at the ready by the front door. By the time you walked out, teetering between amusement at how your husband scurried about and uneasiness at the thought of what was about to happen to your body, Toji already had the car loaded and turned on. A few minutes later, you almost felt bad for Megumi when Toji stopped outside the Itadori’s house to practically throw him at Yuji’s dad—followed by his overnight bag—had the boy not already been hollering to his best friend about how he was about to get a new baby sibling. 

At the hospital, the terrible familiarity of the beige walls and speckled tile had Toji desperate to pace the room at how trapped he felt, but the desire to stay put next to your bedside and keep your hand in his won out. Labor could take hours, that he knew, and Toji spent every moment of it cycling his eyes between the baby’s heart monitor, your face, and the clock on the wall. Each time your expression would twist into a pained grimace, your hand would crush his and a potent cocktail of adrenaline, fear, and anticipation would send his heart racing. 

When the day turned into evening, just an hour before midnight, a doctor placed Toji Fushiguro’s second son onto your bare chest, much to his shock and delight. The noise in the room threatened to overwhelm him—the excited exclamations of the nurses, your panted gasps, the shrill crying of a newborn baby--but Toji wouldn’t let anything tear his focus from you. He stared at how wisps of your hair stuck to your temples in sweat, the red of your cheeks, how your eyes were full of tears and wonder and flicked back and forth between him and your child. Toji knew (how he wished he didn’t) that you could be fine in one instant and dead in the next, but for every minute that passed where you still breathed and your heart kept beating, he could feel the fear slowly trickle from his body. 

Once he was an hour old, Toji held his son for the first time as he sat next to you on your hospital bed. The baby had your nose and tufts of hair the same color as yours, and Toji realized with a sudden pain in his chest that he didn’t remember Megumi in his first couple hours. He couldn’t recall what it felt like to hold him for the first time, nor did he know how much he weighed just after birth. All the tiny details he assumed every parent would remember until the end of their days was overshadowed by a curtain of devastation, the death of his wife wiping it clean from his memory. 

So this time, when the room was quiet and he had you leaning against him, he studied every part of his newborn with rapt attention, determined to commit every detail to perfect recollection. And unlike before, in a moment he’ll always mourn, Toji felt peace and quiet and something indescribably blissful. 

------------------------------

It wasn’t so much that Toji forgot what it was like to have a newborn so much as he had completely blocked what could be considered some of the worst days of his life from his memory. He had been too sleep deprived to even properly grieve his wife and utterly shell shocked at the prospect of now being a widower and single dad. There had been no one to help, no one to encourage him when Megumi cried for two hours straight in the dead of night for a reason Toji couldn’t begin to figure out, no one to help him plan for a couple months down the line when his savings inevitably ran out and he’d have to figure out a safe, legal plan for employment or consider the risk of something illegal since it paid better. 

Yet two weeks into it, when Toji was just starting to discern the difference between Megumi’s wails of hunger and those of exhaustion, someone knocked on his door. He grumbled the whole way down the hall in fear that the sound would wake the baby he had just spent the last hour putting down, and also because he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten or let alone brushed his teeth. So, Toji figured he looked worse for wear when he swung the door open and glared at the man on the other side of it. He was middle aged and wore dark clothing and an even darker pair of sunglasses. He claimed he was an instructor at a school in the city and came to find him out when he heard that rumors began to swirl of Toji Zenin having a son. Toji had spat at him, snarling and enraged and cursing his old last name with vehemence, and he was all too ready to come to physical blows had his son not been sleeping just a few yards away. In the end, the man had just smiled and extended his hand with the promise of a job and to call him the next day. Toji had been wary, but he knew that pickiness wasn’t a luxury he could afford, and appeared at the gates of the school a week later with Megumi strapped to his chest. 

Things were a bit different now, that at least Toji could acknowledge, and the heavy exhaustion that threatened to wrench his eyes shut and made his hands clumsy as he refilled your water bottle didn’t feel so catastrophic this time around. He squinted at the clock on the wall and sighed wearily when he realized the night wasn’t yet halfway over and the two of you were already up for the sixth time. Five day old newborns apparently would wake up and eat more frequently than he could remember, and each and every time he insisted on getting up with you to tend to any needs you had while ensuring his son got the meal he demanded. With an extra snack in hand and a full bottle of water, Toji shuffled back to your shared bedroom and quietly closed the door behind him. 

“You fall asleep standing up at the counter again?” Your voice broke the silence and got a chuckle out of him as he fell onto the bed in a heap by your side. 

“Something like that,” he muttered, but thankfully you didn’t pry and instead gave him a grateful smile when he unwrapped your granola bar and held it up to your mouth since your hands were preoccupied with holding the infant to your chest. You munched on it slowly, and in between bites you would settle  your head back against the pillows and let your eyes flutter shut, trusting your husband to keep a dutiful watch on the two of you. Toji moved closer to you so he could gently rest his head against your shoulder and peered down at his son as he got his fill of milk. He rubbed a tiny foot in between his thumb and forefinger and grinned at the soft suckling noises he made, amazed at how differently things felt this time. Toji was stunned at how having a new child felt so much like the first time since he could actually slow down to process it all now. Maybe this time, when history didn’t repeat himself and he was at home with the people he loved, contentment would allow the memories to stay. 

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It happened for the first time three weeks after your son was born. 

That particular Saturday was dreary and wet, but it made for a cozy atmosphere as the four of you lounged about after a late morning breakfast. Toji was putting away the last remaining dishes. The TV played a vintage cartoon on low volume and Megumi sat on the floor in front of your feet as he colored quietly in his notebook. You sat curled up in the corner of the sofa with your newborn nestled in the crook of your arm, and you watched him, utterly transfixed. As he slept, his nose would twitch and his bottom lip would jut forward. Every once and a while, a dainty grunt would escape his mouth and he would squirm and stretch and whimper just a little before going still again as he drifted back into deeper sleep. He let out a yawn that seemed to take over his entire little body, and in the next moment he was blinking up at you with unfocused eyes as his lips smacked together once or twice. The sight of it made your heart feel as though it could burst, and you wiggled your finger into his clenched hand just to feel him hold onto it. 

“Oh, hey, his eyes are open.” Toji’s voice caught you unaware, and you jolted a little at the suddenness of it. You glanced up at your husband from where he leaned against the arm of the couch to your right, and there was a soft smile on his face as he traced a finger gently down the apple of the baby’s cheek. The newborn’s eyes couldn’t hardly focus on his father’s face from how far it was, but it certainly seemed like he looked for Toji in the moment before his lashes fluttered and his eyes slid shut. 

Toji drank in the sight of you two. There was a blissful glow to your features that couldn’t be missed, even through the signs of exhaustion that still lingered from another night of caring for a new baby. You barely paid him any mind as you smoothed your palm over the wispy hairs on your son’s head, and Toji decided that he would give you another couple minutes before gently urging you to take some time away to shower and do your morning routine should you feel like it. He pushed himself off the arm of the couch and made a move to step around it and sit down when Megumi spoke up from the floor. 

“Mama?” 

Megumi’s voice was barely above a whisper, and it was heartbreakingly timid. The single word punched all the air from Toji’s lungs and he stumbled mid-stride, just barely steading himself lest he land in a heap on top of his eldest son. Megumi didn’t move from where he was hunched over his notebook, still coloring carefully onto the paper, but Toji could see the burning red of his ears and how his eyes flicked back to take stock of your reactions before they went back to what was in front of him.

When Toji whipped his head towards you, you were already looking up at him with a wide, helpless expression. You had never once pushed passed a boundary Toji had yet to lift when it came to how you handled your roll as Megumi’s stepmother, and he could see from the way your eyes searched his that you were waiting for his guidance, his acquiescence before you dared to respond back to the little boy who had just referred to you as his mother despite you technically not being such. 

To Toji’s endless gratitude, you had always treated his late wife with the utmost respect. While you almost always fielded Megumi’s questions about her to Toji, you didn’t hesitate to pull out photos of her when he asked, nor had you ever tried to erase her significance as Megumi’s mother over the time in which you had become a part of their family. 

However, as Toji had come to acknowledge, there was no denying that Megumi had come to see you in that way. Not so much as the woman who had birthed him (Toji had explained that to him in child-friendly terms) but in every other way a mother would be seen. Megumi had no tangible connection to his late wife, no emotional attachment to the idea of her that Toji hoped one day would blossom as understanding matured in his mind, but to hold that expectation to him now wasn’t fair. Toji knew, as you looked at his son with tears of adoration and love in your eyes, that you had been making space for Megumi in your heart for a very long time in preparation for this possible moment, and he figured that having the love of a mother in the land of the living didn’t take away from the one now gone. 

If nothing else, he supposed that Megumi would catch onto your shared habit eventually. Frequently did you and Toji refer to yourself as such when tending to the new little one. 

“Shhh, Mama’s here,” you’d murmur when he wailed out his discomfort while the four of you watched TV in the early afternoon. 

“Mama’s comin’, kid, I promise,” Toji would say when the baby would nuzzle into his chest in a search for milk when he and Megumi sat together on your bed while you showered at the end of the day.

So Toji swept a hand along your shoulder, capturing your attention, and his quivering smile paired well with the tear that trickled down your cheek when he nodded at you. Your hand swiped away the moisture from your skin and you cleared your throat.

“Yes, Megumi?” Your voice sounded a little thick and wet, but the boy spun around in astonished elation nonetheless, and his smile was so wide that Toji wondered if it stung the skin at all. Megumi jumped up to his feet but very cautiously approached you until he could rest his hands on your knees and stand on his tiptoes to try and look up at his baby brother. 

“Mama, can I hold him?” You giggled and nodded as you reached out your hand to caress Megumi’s chin, and he squirmed where he stood as excitement made him antsy. 

“Of course,” you told him. “Come sit next to me and your dad will sit on the other side to help you.” Toji felt his heart expand further than he thought possible when the two of you turned towards him with loving, expectant looks that spurred him into movement.

“Up you go, Megs,” he said, lifting his son up from under his arms so he could plop him down on the cushion next to you before taking a seat himself. He threw an arm along the back of the sofa so he could scootch in closer to you three. Once Megumi situated himself, you slowly transferred the sleeping infant to lay him in his brother’s lap, and Toji was there waiting with an open hand to help cup his head and neck. 

“He’s still so small,” Megumi said quietly—wondrously—but you and Toji laughed at how the baby was still too big for Megumi to fully cradle in his arms. 

“Don’t worry,” you said, “he’ll grow big before you know it, and then he’ll be ready to play all day with you.” Megumi offered you a small smile in response before he settled back to watching his little brother snooze in his arms. You propped your elbow on the back of the sofa so you could lean your head into your hand, and Toji stretched his fingers to swirl them against your arm. Your eyes met, still glimmering with the last remnants of joyful tears, and Toji was nearly overwhelmed by a surge of emotion as he took in the little family that the four of you made.

Fear had once hung like a heavy shadow over his hope for an idyllic future and his ability to experience it. Your smile and the small hands of his children were there to whisk it away. 

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A little bonus:

Three years after the birth of your son, a daughter made her appearance nearly two weeks early, thrilling her eagerly awaiting older brothers. For all the work you did, she came out a near exact copy of her father, and Toji had no problem letting you know how proud he was about it as you laid propped up next to him in your hospital bed. 

“I’m telling you, there was a hint of green in them!” 

You rolled your eyes playfully as you watched Toji recline your daughter against his knees with her head cradled in his palms so you could both gaze at her, and she looked positively tiny in the breadth of his hands. 

“You know a baby’s eye color might shift from what it was at birth once they get a bit older. We can’t know for certain yet.” 

The words seemed to have no effect on your husband, and he simply dropped a kiss to your temple and murmured a soft “we’ll see,” into your ear. 

(To your surprise—and secret delight—Toji was right.)

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Again, thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who took the time to read this<3 I really just love giving tortured characters soft, happy endings, so I hope you enjoyed this endless rambling of fluffy fluff.