#in other words.... i started ch 11 today

[amoripomoea]

the beginning of ch 1 vs the beginning of ch 11....................

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]

kickoff ch.12 how you get the girl

ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem reader, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot, marijuana use, sexism, sexual harassment (verbal only)

ᰔ chapter. 12/x (probably 18)

ᰔ words. 11.3k

a/n. man the color scheme for this chapter is kinda giving BRAT lolol...i mean gojo IS brat. anywho, i don't have much to say at the beginning of this chapter but i do have a LOT to say at the end of it sooo see y'all at the bottom!! hope u enjoy. also BIG THANK YOU to @whereflowerswenttodie who beta read parts of this chapter for me n convinced me not to scrap it lol

nav. masterlist

☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1 :: ♬.*ﾟplaylist

11:03am you: hi! 11:03am you: good luck today 11:03am you: incase i don’t see you

11:05am Gojo Satoru: Why wouldn’t you? Aren’t you gonna be on the field for your newsletter shots?

11:07am you: i mean yes but idk where i’m gonna be stationed so 11:07am you: it might not be on UTokyo’s side of the field

11:08am Gojo Satoru: Okay then I’ll look for you before the game starts

11:10am you: no pls don’t. coach yaga thinks i distract you. i don’t want to get yelled at again. he scares me :(

11:12am Gojo Satoru: Haha you’re silly 11:13am Gojo Satoru: East side entrance at 2 11:13am Gojo Satoru: Be there

11:14am you: or be square?

11:15am Gojo Satoru: Yea whatever shape you wanna be in is fine cutie

It’s a bright sunny day outside, perfectly blue sky with a scattering of fluffy clouds seen outside the window of your shared room in your apartment, and you realize spring is fully here from the way birds chirp past the glass. You’re stuffing your camera case full of chilled Kodak film rolls, your last stash left, and it’s the last piece of equipment you pack before slinging the strap over your shoulder and heading out the door.

Mina had offered to give you a ride to the stadium since your car’s still at the shop, but you’re happy you opted for the bumpy bus ride and although you come close to low-grade concussions from the bang of your head to the window at every other speed bump, the music in your ears while someone else is operating a public transport vehicle helps you think creatively before shooting shots.

It was surprise enough that Mina of all people was going to this game, and when you questioned her about it in the morning, she looked at you like you were absurd to assume anyone from UTokyo wouldn’t be at this game, and sure enough, it’s all anyone on Instagram has been repping on their stories or talking about in the bustling minutes before lectures. Even Utahime was going to this game, and she hates all intercollegiate sports. You knew the game was a big deal, given the way Coach Yaga was yelled at via email by the Dean of UTokyo to make sure the team wins today because a multimillion dollar Nike sponsorship would be greenlit by the prospect (for some reason you were cc’d in an email chain among divisional higher-ups, but you weren’t opposed to snooping in on conversations that were entirely outside of your tax bracket).

It’s because it’s the second to last home game before the season ends, and apparently this has been statistically the best season the UTokyo D1 Men’s Soccer team has played since the new millenia. No pressure to the players on that fact, but failure wasn’t much of an option for them anymore. 

And you can feel the stakes the second you step inside the stadium. Packed would be an understatement, there were people flooding the aisles, overbooked for the sake of the university pocketing an extra buck no doubt, but spectators could care less since they were able to at least get in on the basis of that irresponsibility in the first place, despite the stadium’s capacity having long been reached before the pregame festivities even start. Banners and signs drape over railings with the school’s striking blue and golden colors, every single replay screen is lit up and brightly pixelated at every north, south, east, and west entrance for inclusive viewing. As you pass VIP security and make it into the lower field-level entry, the scattered chants from the crowd amplify in volume and you almost wince a little to yourself from the noise. The stadium felt like a living, breathing entity, pulsing with the collective heartbeat of everyone inside. 

You’ve never been more overstimulated in your life, except instead of finding it frightening, it was electrifying. And for once, you think you can understand what an athlete must feel when playing on their own home turf surrounded by those that are wholeheartedly rooting for them.

Hana is quick to spot you, panic clear across her face as she regards you with a couple pages with your assigned vantage points, a rushed briefing session, and then she’s darting down the sidelines to make sure equipment is set up appropriately where needed. She’s understaffed, given you told Utahime about Kai’s little intervention last week and she made a nasty point to the university (and possibly a handful of legal threats) and they relented in firing him. So now the three of you were down a photographer, and the extra work shows in the instructions she gave you as you skim the sheets. 

A glance at your phone tells you it’s close to 2pm, and your eyes take in the expanse of green on the field. UTokyo’s players practice kicking shots off to the right goal post, while YCU’s players practice shots off to the left. You can’t spot where Gojo is, but you faithfully head down to the East Side entrance like he asked you to. 

When you round the corner, you almost crash right into an Ichiko mascot, but swiftly dodge, and then you stop in your tracks when you see Gojo standing right at the concrete entrance. He’s leaning back against the adjacent wall, arms crossed at his chest, and he’s stretching his neck side to side with a creased brow, an intense look in his eyes, lost in serious thought, scanning the wall across from him like he’s mapping out plays in his head. 

When you approach him and catch the corner of his eyesight, he leans off the wall and flashes you one of his so extremely charmed to see you grins on reflex, and suddenly there’s nothing your senses seem to pick up on except him. Like everything else around you just disappears.

“Hey, you,” he says when he comes up to you, and you walk him like a dog back to a corner that’s tucked further away from noises and sights. You lean your back against the wall now, the coolness of concrete seeping through the fabric of your shirt, and he stands a step in front of you. Your hands toy with the strap of your camera.

“Are you ready to win today?” you ask him, and look off to the right into the flourishing seats that are still being filled to the brim, “clearly there’s no pressure.”

He breathes in deep, and releases it slowly, like there really was tension to relieve. “We’ve got no choice but to win.”

“Is that something Coach Yaga says to you guys often?” you ask him, because the man recited the same thing about five times in that email chain. “Also, apparently you take years off of his life.” Another thing he recited about five times in that email chain.

Gojo only addresses what he wants to address, as per usual. “Yeah, it’s something he says to us often.” 

“So,” you say, “what did you want to talk about?”

He looks at you puzzled, tilting his head to the side. “Nothing. I just wanted to see you.”

It’s hard to assume that he didn’t have something to talk about with the intention of telling you to meet him here, because this is the same place you confessed to him a few weeks ago, and so is also the place he so painfully rejected you. But maybe he doesn’t think about these kinds of things as much as you do. “I see.”

His tongue pokes to his cheek as he studies your anticipating expression, and then he sighs, his shoulders slumping slightly. “What are we doing? I mean, I like you, and you like me too, at least I hope you still do. Why don’t we—…why don’t we just give it a go already? I don’t see how we can move forward if you won’t at least let me take you out on a date.”

Your hands stop fidgeting with your camera strap from his words, and you lick your lips, suddenly unable to keep eye contact with him so your gaze drifts down to his chest in front of you. His uniform is clean, no smudges of dirt or grass, just pure white fabric underneath heat-pressed blue and golden accents, and of course, that signature number 10. You’re sure he’s all you’ll ever think of when you see that number now for the rest of your life. 

You know when you want something so bad you don’t know what to do once you have it? Because it almost seems too good to be true? 

“I just wanted to let stuff between us breathe for a little bit,” you confess, “it’s just, it was a lot to deal with. Being around you when I thought you didn’t want me the way I wanted you. I don’t know if this is odd to say, and maybe I’m overthinking it, but I just feel like somewhere along the way, I kind of…forgot who you were for a little bit.” This kind of vulnerability would have you running away with your tail between your legs with anyone else, but not with him. Not after everything. 

His expression softens, melting away that confrontational energy he had earlier, and he nods slowly. He opens his mouth to speak, but he can’t seem to find words. The presence of them is there, though, you can feel them. But what good are his thoughts if not voiced? 

“I just wanted to spend a little bit of time getting to know you again, I guess.” You squeeze your arm in reassurance of yourself because he wasn’t giving it to you. You let out an awkward laugh. “I don’t really know what I’m saying right now, to be honest.”

You can tell he’s at a crossroads, and you think back to this week and his efforts to get you to open up to him again. You know how he feels right now, because it’s exactly how you felt when he rejected you. Like when someone is so close, yet so far, you can feel that they’re within arms reach but never truly. And they’re slipping away for some reason that you may never know, but all you can do is assume that it’s a fault of your own. You’re not really sure what he can do to make you feel secure about this whole thing anymore, and you can see the slight panic in his eyes when he realizes that too.

“I don’t mind waiting,” he tells you, rushed with a desperation entirely contrary to his words, “what’s a week or two when I want to spend a lot more of those with you anyways.” But he takes a deep breath, like he’s already mentally preparing himself for an agonizing wait in his head.

There’s a sound over the stadium speakers, something technical and sporty and goes entirely over your head in dismissal, but to Gojo it seems to have a different effect, as he’s suddenly attentive and stands up straighter, that focused expression on his face from earlier resurfacing. You realize he needs to get back to the field. 

“Can we continue this conversation after the game?” he asks you hastily, already turning towards the center of the stadium. And he adds an obligatory, “sorry.”

“Yeah, sure,” you quickly agree, suddenly feeling like you’re taking up his time. 

He gives you a small smile, unsure in its presentation but pure in its intention. But he can only take one step towards the field before you reach out and pinch the fabric of his jersey to keep him still. He feels the tug of it and fully faces you once again. 

“Um. Just a sec,” you say, “I have something to give you before your game.”

“Oh?” he looks at you with interest, “I fucking love things.” 

“You have to close your eyes though.”

“…what is the thing…” He squints at you with a what are you up to expression.

“Just close your eyes!” you snap at him.

“Okay, okay, jeez,” he holds his hands up in front of him in surrender, shaking his head to get his hair out of his face and then he closes his eyes. “You’re scary as hell sometimes. Excuse me for being cautious.”

You roll your eyes, useless because he doesn’t see it, and then take a step towards him. You cup his jaw with the palm of your hand, his cheek twitching slightly from the unexpected contact, and then you raise on your tiptoes to press your lips to his cheek. It’s short and sweet with the sound of a peck.

“For good luck,” you whisper, then you quickly lower yourself back onto your heels, take a step back and tuck some strands of hair behind your ear. The ground suddenly interests you.

He opens his eyes, blinking a few times with shock and his hand comes up to brush the tips of his fingers against the spot you kissed him, and then his gaze goes comically dazed when he reaches out to hold you. “Alright, c’mere you,” he says, closing his eyes and puckering his lips as he leans down to kiss you but you laugh and push his face away.

“No no no, only on the cheek for now,” you say with a small laugh.

He does nothing to restrain his frustrated groan. “You can’t do something that cute and then expect me to be chill about it.”

“If you win, then, maybe I’ll let you kiss me for real.”

“Maybe?”

“Yes. Maybe.”

He’s close, towering over you near this bustling east side entrance that he seems to like so much, and his eyes drop to your lips. “Alright. I like those odds.” 

You give him a smile and slip away from him to get back towards the field, and you feel his eyes on you as you walk away.

The pregame events are a blur, with blaring music accompanied by the sounds of the sports announcers clipping across the speakers, finally quieted down in time for the players to line up on the field for the national anthem which was then followed by UTokyo’s alma mater. 

You’re stationed on the same side of the field as Minato, UTokyo’s side, while Hana is covering the sidelines of the opposite end with the opponents goal post. Minato’s filling up a cup of Gatorade for himself at the athlete’s station and then he comes back around to find you.

“Are you ready to take your shots? I see Hana wanted you to shoot on film today,” he says to you as he sloshes around Glacier Freeze in a flimsy plastic cup.

You twist your aperture dial with your thumb. “Yesss, all set. I’ll try to keep up.” 

He nods at you in approval.

The atmosphere feels nerve wracking. Something felt different about this game, the stakes feeling high. Well, of course they’re high, because if they lose today then they’re out of the tournament. But the stakes feel high for other reasons too, an energy you can pick up on but can’t quite discern. 

Your eyes drift across the field where you can see a referee placing a ball at the center of the field. Off to the right, you can see Gojo standing with a few of his other teammates, including Geto, Nanami, and Choso, and they’re all gesticulating to various corners of the field as they discuss what you can only imagine have to do with their plays for today. And you realize— it’s their last college soccer season. Their second-to-last official home match before the championship, and for those of them that haven’t qualified for the national league, it may be their second-to-last match of this caliber for the rest of their lives. One of the final chances that they have to prove something of themselves. The determination was palpable. 

The chief referee’s whistle cuts through the air with three short chirps, and that gathers the attention of all the players on the field. UTokyo wins the coin toss, choosing to kickoff, and YCU’s players choose to attack the left side goal.

Your stomach churns with anticipation, the crowd hushing too as all the players take their places on the field. If you feel nervous, you can only imagine how the athletes feel. There’s a rhythm that you’ve learned over the past couple of months getting to know the sport, where players stretch out their necks and kick out their feet and take subtle deep breaths as they survey the stands. Idle moments before the start of the match where they have no choice but to look forward and only forward, so they take a moment to stay in the present for as long as they can gather. You’ve never been much of a sports spectator, and perhaps you’ve only recently had some personal interest in the team, but you realize you feel pride in your school as you stand behind chalk sideline and see UTokyo’s colors scattered across the field in uniform. And fuck, you wanted them to win. You wanted them to win with fierceness and wrath, and it’s a desire you share with the crowd. 

Gojo spends a minute talking to the referee before the black and white striped man pats him high on the back in the good sport and urges him towards the center of the field. He lifts his foot up onto the ball, rolling it back and forth underneath the spikes of his cleat, and you can see it in his eyes, even from all the way over here, that he seems to have different ideas in mind for this game too. High stakes. Pre-determined, set with will, evident in the clench of his jaw and the concentrated furrow of his brow as he surveys the field with his eyes, and you’re lost in the sight for what feels like forever because you can hardly register the chirp of the ref’s whistle. 

And then the kickoff starts. 

The ball is tapped to Geto to start the play, and the first few minutes were intense as the ball was passed back and forth between UTokyo’s players, placing pressure on YCU’s defense as they inched closer and closer towards the goal. A pass between UTokyo’s #4 was intercepted by YCU and the ball was rushed down towards the left side, the crowd’s horror evident in the uproar as they raise to their feet in fearful anticipation, and with ruthless offense, YCU’s forward takes a clear sink shot towards the goal, and the crowd holds their breath before they watch Choso lunge for it in air, gloved hands firmly grabbing the ball and then pulling it to his chest with a possessiveness you can only expect to see from a skilled goalie, before he crashes down into the ground and the crowd releases relief in the form of rowdy roars.

Ten minutes in, with everyone on their toes, each team tested each other’s defenses. UTokyo were known for stellar offense, especially within the past few years with players like Gojo Satoru and Takuma Ino joining the league as powerful forwards, but UTokyo’s overall offense was still statistically second to none other than YCU. And the pressure YCU was putting on UTokyo’s defense was wearisome to say the least. You glance to see Nanami, who is UTokyo’s best defensive player, huffing and puffing as he stands between two light-footed YCU players in an attempt to guard, and fails an attempt to steal the ball before it gets to the feet of YCU’s striker #6, passed in a split second off to his teammate, with a fake so seamless that it has Choso just a couple inches away from touching the ball before it’s sent flying into the net. 

The noises from the crowd are still loud, but dampened in spirit. 

With the referees hand signal up in the air, the current score is confirmed. 0-1, YCU. 

Coach Yaga calls for a sub, in which he switches Nanami out for who you believe is a 2nd-year defensive player name Yuta you’ve seen around practice with a promising statistical record for interceptions, and you watch as Nanami takes the bench before he swipes the sweat off his face in exhaustion. God. Just fifteen minutes into the match, and YCU already has UTokyo’s defense winded from play. 

You bring your camera up to your face, forgetting for a moment that there was still a job to do here, and you position the direction of the lens towards the center of the field, where Gojo takes his place at the ball once more. Yuta briefly passes by him, signaling some play to him by holding up a number three, likely something Coach Yaga asked him to pass on to Gojo, and you see him briefly nod, his mouth slightly agape as he breathes slowly and pulls his jersey up to wipe at the sweat at his forehead. 

The referee chirps the whistle, Gojo taps the ball to Yuta, and the play starts. 

YCU immediately puts pressure on UTokyo’s offensive play once more, with eager movements to steal the ball, but it’s passed between UTokyo’s players with ease, more practiced and more sure. The kind of play that you and the rest of the school was used to seeing from them. However, Geto loses the ball on a left-back pass, but right when YCU makes attempts to cover field in a long-shot kick towards the left, Yuta intercepts the ball and swiftly passes it to Gojo.

The crowd immediately rises to their feet in anticipation, watching as Gojo shuffles the ball down the field, dangerously close to off-field boundaries, a signature tactic he uses because he knows there’s not a single player in the league that can match him in precision and control to keep the ball in-field on a steal, and he swiftly passes it towards Geto with a side-swept kick, beelining down towards the goal post, in perfect time for Geto pass-back to meet his feet and when Gojo was this close to a net, there was no stopping him. 

He draws his right foot back, and explosively kicks the ball forward, chipping the grass under it in the motion, and it’s sent flying towards the goal, and then threaded past the goalie right to the back of the net. The cheers that erupt across the stadium rumble the ground beneath you. 

1-1, even match.

UTokyo spends no time celebrating, other than a few pats to Gojo’s back as he nods in acknowledgement, no emotion on his face other than pure concentration and greed. The greed to win, like a righteous sin. He stretches his neck out, panting slightly as he takes his place towards the right side of the field and the referee chirps his whistle to signal YCU to start the kickoff.

They quickly make attempts in moving the ball towards their scoring-end of the field, but face push-back from UTokyo’s defense, unable to make it much further past the midfield line, and you bring your camera up to take a snap of Gojo, who you see is still standing off to the right side of the field. But when you position it and peer through the viewfinder, that space he once stood at was empty. You pull your camera down, and blink at the sight, and then the crowd is picking up in volume once more.

Gojo sprints down the flank, cutting past every defender, and moves towards YCU’s attacking goal, which was a shocking place to be for a center forward, but you could feel his desire and determination to steal this back-and-forth ball, and succeeds when YCU makes an open pass, thinking they were in the clear, only to have Gojo sneak in at the last moment and get the ball at his feet. 

The play moves by in a flash, a blur that you or anyone else in the stadium could hardly keep up with it, movements so fast you were shocked a human being was capable of even running that far in such a short amount of time, and in an almost embarrassingly easy play, Gojo makes a fool out of YCU’s defenders as he slips the ball through the legs of his last obstacle before he struck it with sharp precision, sending it soaring to the corner of the goal, past the outstretched arms of the goalie, and into the net. 

2-1, UTokyo.

It was electrifying, the feeling that strikes through the stadium, one that reaches you in your own blood. You’re shocked, standing here, after witnessing Gojo score two goals within the matter of minutes, against one of the top three teams in the league. It’s a shock that reaches everyone, including Coach Yaga who’s standing about ten feet down the line from you, his arms crossed, and you see his eyes for the first time as he takes his sunglasses off to get a better look at what he’s seeing.

You trail his sight, dragging your gaze across the field until it lands at Gojo, who is barely acknowledging the encouraging pats and shakes and goodhearted shoves that his teammates were giving him, because he was focused. It might sound crazy to say, but you swear his eyes looked like a fiercer shade of blue, like they were lit up, and you’re insanely glad you’re not one of YCU’s defensive players at the moment because you feel fearful of him even just standing on the sidelines. 

Your gaze trails back to Coach Yaga, who slowly puts his sunglasses back on but his brows are narrowed tightly as he crosses his arms over his chest tightly.

The “athletic zone”... You’ve heard of it before. A state of pure focus, of peak performance, where an athlete experiences optimal concentration and a sense of effortless control over their actions. In which they perform at their highest level, where time slows down, any and all distractions fade away, and they’re completely immersed in their sport at hand. At the task at hand.

Coach Yaga seems to pick up on the fact that Gojo was on the edge of tapping into that state. 

YCU makes a substitution, and you watch in anticipation as they begin the kickoff. 

There’s fire in their veins with desperation to even out the score once more, rushing the ball down the off-field line, one of their center forwards mimicking Gojo’s signature attack pattern, and Yuta struggles to keep up with the expert dribbling of a fourth-year player with more experience on him, so much so to where he completely leaves the ball unguarded and there’s an open shot, but Geto places pressure at the last moment, in a fierce battle for the ball, before YCU’s center forward loses the ball over the goal line. 

Choso picks the ball up, tapping on it harshly a few times as he surveys his eyes down the field, and all offensive players begin to shuffle towards their attacking goal in anticipation for the goal kick. He signals his hand down and then holds up two fingers in the air before placing the ball down on the six-yard box. He tightens the strap of one of his gloves, eyes squinting, and you follow his gaze down to a part of the field where you note UTokyo’s best aerial players are located and being guarded by YCU’s defense. And with complete trust in his team, that’s exactly where he kicks the ball. 

Geto makes first contact with the ball, his chest colliding with two other YCU players as his head comes out on top and he headbutts the ball closer towards the inner field, and Gojo immediately gains access to it with a bounce of his knee. The crowd holds their breath, fear that they’ll lose the ball to a steal in the split second it spends floating in the air, but Gojo urges it forward with a bounce off of his chest and then rushes it straight down towards the goal post. 

You wonder what sight he sees right now. Where you’re dead center, at no angle, lunging towards the sight of an open goal with a sole goalie standing in the center, anticipating to block your shot, and three defenders on your tail. There’s no room for error, no time to think, only instincts that you cultivate in the last leading milliseconds. They say that, in sports, athletes channel one hundred hours of practice in just a brief second on the field. A split second success that was years in the making. You can’t even imagine possessing that level of perfection in your body, or possessing that level of confidence that you can follow through with it in a moment as dire as this.

It was unreal, the way Gojo fades away from all the defenders, and faces no fear when confronted with the sight of the goalie in front of him while drawing his foot back to kick the ball. You lift your camera up at the last second, no time to think about aperture or ISO, just like he had no time to second-doubt a single twitch in his muscles, and his foot makes contact with the ball so harshly that you can hear the explosive sound even among the delirious cheers from the crowd, before he hook, line, and sinks it straight past the goalie’s head, rushing by like a scarcely deflected bullet, and into the net behind him. 

3-1, UTokyo.

The whole stadium is momentarily speechless, all players and referees and recruiters and reporters and coaches and employees alike, before the most deafening cheers you’ve ever heard in your life scatter across the stands.

There’s a moment of brief reprieve, where the players can catch their breath while YCU makes yet another substitution, as if they’re just trial-and-erroring it at this point, and the cheers in the stadiums remain idle as you can’t tear your gaze away from Gojo.

It’s one of those moments where you realize that someone who you thought was so familiar to you was actually someone you hardly knew at all. You knew he was a talented soccer player, everyone on campus knows it, potentially one of the best to ever grace the league, and the amount of times you passively watched his plays on a lecture hall projector screen as your professor enthusiastically broke them down during class, even before you met him, was good enough for you to realize that he was insane, a one-in-a-million, a talent you cannot replicate, one you have by divinity. One you were born with. 

And yet, somehow, getting to know him these past couple of months, he just felt so human. For someone so seemingly beyond you, he felt so…close? In those moments where it was just the two of you, it was hard to imagine that he was capable of such greatness, and that so many people were rooting for him with wholehearted tears in their eyes and cheers from their hearts, because most of the time, when he was with you, he was just a dorky idiot. You find that your heart is beating fast in your chest, that feeling of being unsure of what to do with what you’ve been wanting resurfacing powerfully. 

“This is insane,” you hear Minato say from beside you and you jump a little from your thoughts being interrupted.

You twiddle with your camera straps. “I know…almost done with the first half and we’re up 3-1…I thought YCU are number one in offense for the league?”

“Oh, yeah, I mean, yes, that is insane too. But what’s even more insane is that three of the goals so far have been scored by one player.” He tips his chin towards the right sight of the field and you trail his line of sight. “By Gojo Satoru.”

Your brow furrows as you watch Gojo, his hands on his hips and his mouth slightly open as he indulges in a few shallow breaths to gain energy while YCU prepares for kickoff. Three goals, by just one player. Your eyes widen when you realize that is insane, especially for a D1 semi-final qualifying match.

“You know what the divisional record is for most goals scored by a single player during a championship match, y/n?” Minato asks you as he lifts his camera up to take a picture of the area Gojo was standing in. 

You shake your head and wait for his response.

He drops his camera down and glances at the photo on his screen. “Four. During Keio Uni vs. Osaka Uni, near the beginning of the tournament back in 1997 by Osaka’s center forward number 24, Yuji Nakazawa. Meaning no one’s managed to beat that record since the new millenia, for a couple decades. Although a few players came close.”

You blink at him, and Minato is jerking his chin over in the direction of Gojo again.

“I think he’s trying to beat the record.”

You can only widen your eyes at Minato in realization, and then the chirp of the referee’s whistle draws everyone’s attention back to the field. 

The sports announcers go wild on the speakers, the crowd raving all the same, standing to their feet like the team just won the championship match.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! We are watching HISTORY in the making!! Gojo Satoru, UTokyo’s very own 3-year consecutive MVP, has scored his 34th goal of the season, highest of any player in this year’s season so far, and is now on the road to beat the league’s long-standing record for most goals scored by a single player in a championship match since 1997!!” And the crowd roars even louder as you stare out at the field in awe.

YCU starts the kickoff following the prompt short chirp of the referee’s whistle, and with two minutes remaining on the clock for the first half, make desperate attempts to book it down the field towards their attacking goal, one of their midfielders making a clumsy attempt to strike the ball to the net in the final minutes of the half, and Choso easily catches it in his arms, right before the buzzer of the timer sounds, and the match moves into halftime. 

All of UTokyo’s players immediately flock towards Gojo in sportful glee, finally having a chance to surround him and harass him with harsh pats on his back and ruffles of his hair for his play in the first half. Choso even puts him in a headlock because they all don’t know what else to do with their excitement and adrenaline rushing through their bodies. Their win for today was basically confirmed with the way he was playing. 

You catch a glimpse of him through the crowd of people, and he has a boyish grin on his face, reveling in the embarrassing amount of attention from his teammates, that focused look from before dissolving into his normal self again. But you can see through him, as well enough as you’ve learned to at least, and you can tell he’s not satisfied. He’s thinking it’s not enough. There’s still more to be done, and it’s not time to celebrate yet. 

His eyes scan down the sideline until they find you. 

Your heart jumps a second in your chest. He stands up straighter, despite his teammates still clinging to him, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes when your eyes meet. 

Cheerleaders take their place out onto the field, performing their numbers with loud music blaring, and the recruiters seated at their white tables get up to roam across the sidelines in discussion with referees and with Coach Yaga and with whatever players they can sink their greedy teeth into, as well as sneak at refreshments while they’re at it. You can see off to the right that Hana has reunited with Minato and she’s showing him some of the shots she took over at the opponent's side. 

UTokyo’s players start to make their way to the benches to grab for towels and drinks of water and to sprawl across in rest, and you hear loud familiar laughter approaching as you watch the players sprawl across the benches, so you avert your eyes towards the source of the sound. 

You see Gojo approaching the benches, two of his teammates slung with their arms around him in some type of adrenaline-drunken glee as they talk dramatically and theatrically which Gojo entertains with his own drunk-off-of-adrenaline glee. And you raise an eyebrow at his demeanor when he makes eye contact with you.

“There’s my freaky little photographer,” he says, and he’s standing up straight and—wait, is he puffing his chest out as he makes his way towards you? Oh for fucks sake.

Gojo has always been confident around you, for as long as you can remember, but in the fair few moments he’s been cocky, he’s been a menace. And you can only assume the testosterone-induced high of being on the verge of breaking a league record in front of the entire school then subsequently getting homiesexually praised by his teammates for the better part of the past five minutes, not to mention with the crowd and the reporters feeding his ego with a spoon across the speakers, he’s been transformed into the final boss of cocky.

His teammates surround you too, their hands on their hips as they assess you and Gojo when he meanders right up to you, arms held out to hug you, a sleazy sight you’ve seen probably six times this week, and you feel a rush of warmth in your cheeks as you place a hand on his chest to keep him away.

“You’re sweaty and gross, please stay away from me,” you reprimand him, “this is an expensive lens that is not humidity-proof.” 

“Hey, you’re the girl that Kentaro socked in the face with a ball the other day at practice, right?” one of his teammates asks, leaning in towards you to take a closer look at your face.

“Oh yeahhh, ‘cause Satoru wasn’t paying attention,” another one of his teammates chimes in teasingly, hardly heard over the loud remix playing in the background as the cheerleaders continue to perform on the field. 

You shrink a little from where you stand. Gojo’s got an irritated look on his face and he’s shrugging his teammate’s elbow off of his shoulder.

“I really hope you’re getting my good angles,” his teammate to the left comments before winking at you, and you purse your lips together. 

The one on the right leans in too, looking at your cheek with an assessing look in his eye. “At least it didn’t leave a scar on your cute face—”

Gojo shoves the both of them back and away from you by elbowing them in the chest, and they make deep eugh noises before stepping away and rubbing at their sternums with pouts on their faces.

“Get the fuck away from her,” he grumbles, “she’s mine.”

Your cheeks flush slightly with warmth at the attention, and you watch as his teammates scurry away to adhere to some social hierarchy Gojo seems to possess over them.

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Yours?”

“Yes. Eventually. Whatever, did you see me out there?” he turns his torso towards the field and points behind himself with his thumb, “when I—”

“Oh god, you know what’s soooooooooo super sexy to me?” you interrupt him. “When guys are humble.”

“Oh c’monnn,” he curls his arm around your waist and pulls you to him, to where you stumble a little on grass and he holds you when you fall into him with more clumsiness than grace. “Tell me you aren’t at least impressed by me.”

You pout, because you are, and you’d really like to give him some reassurance and validation, but for some reason his cocky attitude is setting you off. “Satoru,” you sigh, wiggling a little in his hug, but he holds you tighter, “I’m working right now. Cut it out.”

He lets go of you at that, sober enough from the adrenaline to realize you’re being serious, but he steps into your space so only you can hear him. “What? Are you embarrassed?”

“Of what?” Your face twists with confusion.

“Of me. Are you embarrassed of me?” he asks.

“No. Why would I be embarrassed of you?” you ask with sharpness.

“I don’t know, just, sometimes I feel like you’re always annoyed by me,” he says with a sigh. “It’s like, you’re really sweet sometimes, and then kinda rude out of nowhere, and it’s sort of messing with my head.”

You pout. “You were messing with my head for weeks.”

“And I’m sorry about that,” he quickly interjects, like he already knew you were brewing up that counterargument, “but you don’t have to act like you’re all disinterested and indifferent just to get back at me for it.” He places his hands on his hips and wipes his temple on the round part of his shoulder when he feels a drop of sweat trickle down from his hairline. “You don’t have to act embarrassed around me either.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” you deny, and your cheeks feel hot, and for some reason you feel angry. “In fact, I’m the one that should be asking you that question. Because I still very clearly remember that time you said I was just someone you know in front of your friends.”

He groans and tilts his head back with frustration. “Can you just let that go? Things have changed between us since then. Move on.” 

“You kissed me and then pretended I was just a stranger to you in front of your friends,” you grit as you cross your arms. “That’s the level of sincerity that I know from you, Satoru.”

“Oh, okay, so there’s nothing else I’ve done that shows you that I’m serious about you?” he asks rhetorically with incredulity, throwing his hands up in the air in disbelief.

No. That’s not true, not true at all. But he’s pissed you off now and so all logic was to the wind. “Doesn’t matter. If you’re not embarassed of me, and if you’re really serious about me this time, then fucking prove it.” You’re speaking out of spite, and you fear you’ve just set him off too.

“Fine,” he says, and he grabs the microphone straight out from a passing reporter’s hand, replacing it with a gatorade bottle. The reporter stares at the bottle he’s now holding with confusion. “I will.”

“W-Wait—” you squeak out, feeling the hair at the back of your neck bristle in anticipation and a shiver gets sent down your spine. The cheerleaders are making their way off the field at the end of their routine, and you can hear the thumps across the loud boisterous speakers when Gojo whacks his palm to the microphone to make sure the thing was on before he jogs to the center of the field.

The crowd is already cheering, ecstatic to see the afternoon's star player and pride & joy of their school, and Gojo takes a moment to soak in all the glory in comical appreciation with bowing towards all 360 degree angles of the stadium.

“Uhhh,” you hear Choso from beside you, who’s strapping his thick goalie gloves tightly to his wrists, “Why the fuck does Satoru have a microphone while standing in the middle of the field.”

“It can’t be for any publicly decent reason,” Geto muses.

All you can do is watch.

“Hi, uh,” Gojo starts, static blaring slightly across the speakers and the crowd winces with him, “sorry. I’m Satoru, Gojo Satoru, you might know me from—uh, the game you’ve been watching?”

Cheers all around, because as if a single person wouldn’t know who he is. The stands were rowdy and most definitely drunk off of sidestep beers the stadium has been serving all afternoon long. 

Gojo is about to continue speaking, when he catches sight of the table of recruiters in the corner of his eye and he turns to face them out of respect. “Oh, yeah, uh, number 10,” he tugs his jersey up at the shoulder to stretch out the fabric, the 1 and the 0 flattened in view, “division player ID 233-997. Coach Yaga keeps my business cards in his purse if you want one.”

“SAAAAATTOOORRUUUU!!!!!” you hear Coach Yaga yell from somewhere in the distance.

“Anywho,” Gojo continues, and the music dims slightly, so he glances at the stop clock on the screen, which shows him he’s got roughly five minutes left to pull off whatever idiocracy he had in mind before the second half of the game starts. “Just here to say that there’s this girl I really like.”

The crowd gets louder, almost deafening, and sonically mostly feminine in (delusional) hope he’s gonna name call one of them.

Gojo’s voice is crisp and clear through the speakers as he clarifies. “She’s standing over there,” he says as he nonchalantly points to your exact latitude and longitudinal direction, “with the big camera slung around her neck that looks like it could pull her down to the center of the earth. Yeah. She’s super cute and I really like talking to her.”

“Uh-oh,” Geto murmurs from beside you, and you glance at him to try to get a read on the situation but you can’t.

Gojo starts to pace across the center of the field now, like he’s working the crowd. “But get this—she thinks I’m not fuckin’ serious about her!!!”

The crowd groans with him in unison. Yep, most certainly drunk. Or high off of glee. Either way, he’s playing them like a violin.

“Huh?” Gojo’s voice sounds distant now, away from the mic, and you can see on the large pixelated screen that he’s being interrupted by someone that looks like one of the videographers, “oh, what’s that? This is being broadcasted? Uh-huh. Oh. I’m not allowed to cuss? Oh fuck, okay. Er— shit, okay. Wait—shoot, okay.”

Choso’s smirk is heard from beside you, and you catch Geto and Nanami shaking their heads in your periphery.

“LIKE I SAID,” Gojo continues into the mic, “the girl I like thinks I’m just messing around, so. Uh. To show her that I’m serious about her, I’m gonna…” He looks up at the sky to ponder, and you can hear people shouting all sorts of suggestions of nonsense from the crowd. And instead of saying proclaim my undying affection for her through a romantic soliloquy straight from my heart in the presence of the entire school, he says—“I’m gonna strip. Yes. Down to my tighty whities, Imma strip.”

H–

Huh?!?!?

You don’t even have time to be horrified or scared, you’re just bewildered beyond belief that that’s what he came up with.

What the fuck kind of reassurance did you ask for. And what the fuck kind of reassurance were you about to get?

The crowd goes wild, it’s no surprise to say everyone and their mothers wants to see him naked, even the straight dudes would dig it for the gym inspo. And he points straight to you, sleazy look on his face and you’re going to ignore the fact that he just winked at you too as he crosses his arms to hold the hem of his jersey and pulls it up over his head in the most raunchy and slutty way a man can take his shirt off.

The music manager is quick with the bit, and is most definitely a fellow Gen Z college student, because Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack (ft. Timbaland) starts playing across the speakers and the crowd goes ballistic.

“Ayo why’s Satoru Magic Mike’ing the field right now?” one of his other teammates calls out through a mouthful of protein bar, “What the fuck did I miss?”

The cameraman does God’s work in a hella zoom-in of Gojo’s sweat glistened abs, then pans up the naked expanse of the perfect taut skin across his chest, and you can’t help but stare even among all your horror. It’s like when a male bird embarrasses the fuck outta himself to attract a female bird sitting on a perch, except instead of within the context of a NatGeo documentary, this was your real life. Everyone wants him, but he’s making a fool out of himself for you. 

He pretends to stretch his arms up into the air, a cover-up to flex his biceps, and then he kicks his cleats off, and the socks come off too. Entirely unnecessary, as showing one's ankles is simply too slutty, but alas he’s a whore. And when his thumbs dip into the waistband of his shorts, and there’s anticipating screeching from the crowd, he finally gets chased by security. 

Except he’s an intercollegiate D1 athlete, why the fuck wouldn’t he be able to outrun a bunch of dudes in black?

The camerawork on him is phenomenal as he runs across the sidelines of the field, eliciting a wave down the bleachers. So good in fact that you’re pretty sure the camera man could shoot for the Olympic track and field, with the way the stadium’s got a clear sight of Gojo mouthing the lyrics Them other fuckers don’t know how to act from the song still blaring with satirical rage on his face as he makes a fool of the men chasing him around the perimeter of the field.

And then he does it, drops his shorts, discards them with a kick, and he’s down to his tighty whities as promised. Cameraman has got to be displaying some previously undiscovered level of talent as he zeroes in on a shot of said tighty whities, with Gojo’s—forgive me, I need to be crass—huge bulge prominent in Big Dick Energy fashion except his tighty whities have little red hearts in rows across the fabric so do with that duality what you will.

He’s outrun security with a steady grin on his face as he eats up the drunken crowd’s cheers and riots and roars and you feel like you’re the only sane person in this stadium, or maybe you’re just not used to the fanatics of a college sports crowd. You peep the men in black trailed all the way on the left side of the field where they abandoned their pursuit of Gojo.

He taps imaginary pockets at his thighs, very muscular thighs you take indulgence in noticing, as if he expected to find something there, and he looks around when he doesn’t. He shrugs and grabs the microphone of the next passing sports commentator he spots, and then he makes his way back to you.

His breathing is a little shallow, and he inhales deep to catch his breath. “Baby.” The crowd SCREAMS at the way he purrs the word into the mic. “Will you do me the honor,” he’s huffing and puffing, heard across blaring speakers, “of being my lawfully wedded girlfriend?” And then he holds the mic to your lips.

“W-Wha—” you stutter, and there’s chanting across the crowd with words that barely make sense until you finally realize they’ve started to yell say yes! say yes! say yes! “Oh my gosh, okay, yes, fine, now please, for the love of god, put some freaking clothes on!”

The crowd goes wild with cheerful glees, and Gojo shoots fists up in the air in celebration as he runs all the way towards the center of the field with high knees, and you’re gawking at the sight, before he falls backward onto the grass and makes delirious snow angels on the ground. You see Coach Yaga’s vein popping in his neck from pure agitation as he storms off towards the center of the field to knock some sense into Gojo, but you know that Coach Yaga can’t kick him out, because they still have a game to win. The perks of being the most valued player in the league is getting to act like an absolutely insane idiot because you know they still need you in the end to bring it home.

You glance to the right, seeing his teammates nodding slowly then getting back to wrapping athletic tape around ankles and stretching out shoulders, with immediate acceptance of his actions like it wasn’t even out of character for him to do. And you realize again that you don’t know Gojo as well as you think you do.

And then the halftime timer is up.

You see Gojo approach the benches in a quick jog, squeezing some water into his mouth with his green gatorade squirt bottle, and when your eyes flit up to the screens on all four entrances, you see that the cameramen are still all focused on him accompanied by the continued buzz of conversation among the crowd following his public spectacle. But he seems to already be past any semblance of embarrassment as he takes the attention with ease, before he glances up to make eye contact with you and then lightly jogs right up to you.

“Did that prove to you that I’m not embarrassed of you?” he asks you, cocking a brow with a smug look on his face as he gets all up in your personal space. 

“I don’t know, but I’m certainly thoroughly and expeditiously embarrassed of you now,” you say, cheeks feeling flush when he leans forward so he can make eye contact with you at eye level. “I’ll have to move to a different country.”

His grin is relaxed. “Yeah well you asked for it.”

“Maybe. But I underestimated what a lunatic you are.”

“You’re my girlfriend now, you’ve gotta get used to it.”

Your heart skips a beat in your chest. “Satoru–”

“Tomorrow,” he cuts you off, “Hinode pier. I’ll pick you up at six. It’s a date, so wear something cute. And preferably easy to take off.” And then he’s attentive to the chirp of the referee’s whistle in the air before jogging backwards towards the feel and eventually turns on his heel towards the field while you’re left with warm cheeks and a heart that felt like it was moving at a mile a minute.

The timer for the second half refreshes on the screen while you loosely hold your camera in your shaking hands. It occurs to you that you haven’t taken a single photo of him before the start of the kickoff, and so you bring the piece of consolidated metal up to your eyes, peering through the viewfinder and focusing it on the center of the field. And there he was. Your muse.

Gojo lets out a breath, which you can see even from here that it’s shaky and staggered with resistance, and he lifts his jersey up to swipe at the sweat trickling down his face as he eyes the ball underneath YCU’s player’s foot just prior to the start of the second half. There it was—that look again of pure focus. 

3-1, forty-five minutes on the clock. And the referee chirps the whistle to start the second half.

It’s immediately evident that YCU has returned to the field following halftime with renewed energy, pressing high down the flank relentlessly past UTokyo’s defense, so fast it was hard for anybody to even keep a steady eye on the ball with the fluidity of their passes. The persistence pays off in the fake double-pass that slips past Geto’s feet, a moment of hesitation in the broken flow of UTokyo’s defense, and one of YCU’s strikers has the perfect line of shot towards the goal before digging his foot under the ball and sending it flying towards the corner of the goal post, scoring themselves a goal within just the first five minutes of play.

3-2.

The pressure mounts at the next kickoff, and with about seven minutes of solid play, with back-and-forth passes, multiple attempts at both goal posts to no avail on either side, it was clear that exhaustion was bustling in the veins of all the players.

One of YCU’s offensive players seems to capitalize on this, jumping on a defensive lapse of a pass Nanami attempted to make towards Yuta, and the ball is swiftly stolen then raced back towards the goal post. Choso prepared himself at the line, light on his feet paired with a solid stance, but in a millisecond of a moment, YCU’s offense unexpectedly passes the ball to a player racing up the midfield, and the player chips the ball neatly into the exposed corner of the goal despite Choso’s attempt to lunge for it in mid air.

Equalized, 3-3 game, momentary shock across the players’ faces, and the crowd bustles with something that sounds less like glee and more life fear. YCU was prepared to live up to and hold onto their title as the league’s number one offense, and as Minato explained to you during your time working in this job, an offensive team isn’t good at scoring goals, but rather exceptional at breaking down the other team’s defense.

Your eyes zero in on Geto, who stands in the center of the field for kickoff, and he’s huffing and puffing. He's the lead of defense for the team, and you can only imagine the level of pressure he feels right now. He glances around to his players, over to Nanami who seemed to share the same level of exhaustion, and then he glances towards Gojo who stood in front of him off to the right. Except you notice that Gojo looks relaxed, albeit still exhausted, but there’s a composed expression on his face even in the moment of heightened stakes. With locked eyes, Geto nods at Gojo and raises two fingers up into the air to signal a play, of which Gojo seems to respond to by closing more distance between him and the goal post prior to the kickoff, positioning himself almost directly in front of it, to which YCU’s defense immediately begin to guard him in a tight radius. 

The kickoff begins, with Geto making a few passbacks with Nanami as they close distance towards the field before passing it off to UTokyo’s string of offense and then receding back to their defending goal. UTokyo continues to close distance, raising stakes for YCU as their defense begins to falter under pressure, and the ball gets passed to Gojo, who only keeps it in possession for less than three seconds before he passes it back to Yuuji, a risky decision to make in the second half of a semifinal match, but the first-year swiftly unleashes a powerful shot that rockets past YCU’s goalkeeper, up towards the corner, except–

It bounces off the metal of the goal post, shot off with projectile speed back towards the center of the field, but with razor-sharp reflexes, Gojo headbutts the ball in air, twists his torso and strikes the ball with his foot past a dumbfounded goalie who can’t even move an inch to guard the ball that he already knew was going to sink right into the goal, and that’s exactly what it does. 

The stadium erupts with the momentum.

4-3, UTokyo. 

It was a sweet moment, one you manage to capture on camera of Gojo running up to Yuuji and ruffling his hair in reassurance, despite the missed goal. Your heart feels warm in your chest, feeling your own sense of melancholy that this was one of the last times they’ll ever get to play together on a team. 

Your eyes widen when you glance at the scoreboard, realizing that he’s tied. Gojo is tied for the most goals scored during a championship match. There were less than three minutes left on the clock. UTokyo either preserves their lead, or they risk moving into overtime, which, judging by the exhaustion on the UTokyo players’ faces in the wake of YCU’s relentless offense this entire game, moving into overtime would be a hefty, hefty risk. 

YCU’s center forward takes his place in the center of the field, fire evident in his eyes as he glances across the field. YCU are light on their feet, channeling everything in their bodies into these last moments of the game as they prepare to start the kickoff. You glance across UTokyo’s players, and although they look spent, there was a resolute look to all of them. It wasn’t the time to give up or feel at ease even near the end of this grueling battle. Now was the time to play. 

The referee chirped his whistle, and the kickoff began.

YCU immediately presses hard, as all their other plays have been all game, in their desperation to score. You can already see UTokyo’s midfielders move sluggishly in comparison to YCU’s offense, a drag to their feet as YCU pushes past the first layer of defense towards their attacking goal. Geto takes an aggressive approach, making moves to steal the ball while Nanami and Yuta guarded both flanks, and there was a relentless pass-off happening that ate up more than a minute of the remaining time.

Nanami succeeds in stealing the ball, but immediately loses it under his feet by a YCU midfielder, who makes a broad pass down the sidelines to YCU’s star forward who then powerfully kicks the ball towards the unguarded area of their goal, a dangerous shot that was clear towards the crossbar and Choso makes a leap for it, high into the air, his glove brushing against the ball, the entire crowd holding their breath in anticipation–

And the ball lands in the net. 

4-4, tied game. With one minute and seventeen seconds left on the clock. 

There was no time wasted in getting back to center field. No time spent dwelling in the horrific roars of the crowd as they watch with anxiety and fear. No time spent to process or consider or signal any plays. Not even a single second used to catch breath. When there is this much at stake, an athlete thrives on momentum. 

To your surprise, Gojo isn’t the one that takes place at the center of the field to start the kickoff. Yuta stands there instead, and you notice his eyes are erratic as he surveys all corners of the field. 

The referee chirps his whistle. 

Yuta immediately passes it off to the side to UTokyo’s midfielder, who curls it towards their attacking goal with a swift pass to Ino, who closes distance towards the goal, but one of YCU’s defender slips in, undoing any progress they had made in their offense by stealing the ball and sending it back towards mid-field. Forty-three seconds. The crowd’s roars heightened as YCU continued to push forward, thirty yards now from scoring, and UTokyo’s defense was desperate to stop them but their momentum was cracking in the wake of their exhaustion. 

It was a moment you don’t think you could ever fully or truly recall, one that you wish you had focused all your energy and attention to so that you could commit it to memory for the rest of your life. The image of Gojo pushing all the way to ten yards before their defending goal, a place where no center forward should really be at in a game like this, but it was exactly what their defense needed. It was exactly what the team needed. It was exactly what the school needed. For the ball to be in his possession.

With twenty-two seconds left on the clock, he steals the ball from right under YCU’s offensive feet, and then charges towards the opposite side of the field. The crowd rises to their feet, thunderous roaring that overtook any and all senses, as Gojo weaves through forwards, center forwards, midfielders, and defenders, covering the entire span of the field in lightning time. Fifty yards, forty yards, thirty yards, twenty hards, ten yards–

In a moment you couldn’t believe, he digs his foot underneath the ball, and sends it flying out towards the goal. There was not even a margin of an inch in which it slipped past the goalie’s hands, past his head, and swiftly flew right into the net.

With three-two-one seconds, the match was over. 

5-4, UTokyo’s win.

The final whistle blew, and for a moment, there was silence. As if the world paused to catch its breath. Then, all at once, the crowd erupted with glee that shook the entire stadium at its core. Flags waving, scarves held high, toasts of beer held up to the sky, it was deafening, and it almost makes you want to cry. Thousands of voices shouting in unison, celebrating the hard-fought victory of their school’s team. A type of pride that was fostered, and well-deserved, and long-lived.

You quickly glance towards the field again, and see Gojo standing right at the same spot where he had kicked the last and final goal, staring towards the net. You can’t see the expression on his face, but it surprises you how still he is. Like a statue, staring at the goal with the ball tucked into its corner. The very epitome of what it means to succeed in this sport was right in front of him, and it seemed like he wanted to soak the visual in for as long as he could.

His trance is abruptly interrupted when his teammates swarm in, rushing over like a wave of pure adrenaline. They slap him on the back, ruffle his hair, shout his name, the sounds of gleeful disbelief mixed with exhausted sighs of relief swarming into the air. And Gojo finally melts away from the tension of the match and into the celebration as he weakly returns the embraces of his teammates while he catches his breath. 

“IT’S OFFICIAL!! IT’S OFFICIAL!! UTOKYO’S VERY OWN GOJO SATORU HAS OBLITERATED OSAKA UNIVERSITY’S RECORD FOR MOST GOALS SCORED BY A SINGLE PLAYER IN A CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH!!” 

The speakers are blaring the voices of the sports announcers, along with ambient music to match the intensity of the match that everyone had just witnessed. 

You should probably be doing your job. You know, take a picture of the huddle of players on the field as they bask in the glory of a close victory, but instead your feet start moving on their own. Like a magnet drawn to him, you make your way towards Gojo, only a slight hesitation in your step as you stop about ten feet away, suddenly unsure. But when he makes eye contact with you, all that fear melts away.

He hastily pats the backs of some of his teammates, acknowledging their praise at the center of the huddle before tightly squeezing past them to make his way over to you. Your heart is beating fast in your chest, feeling an almost overwhelming sense of pride in your school’s team, but more importantly, in him. What was the acceptable thing to do? Run to him, into his arms, and hug him while he twirls you around? Tackle him to the grassy ground? Kiss him like your life depended on it? You have no clue what the acceptable or sane or normal thing to do is. But he’s made his decision for you when he walks right up to you, his hands holding your waist as he pulls you towards him. He smells earthy, of grass and salt and sweat and of all the hard work he poured into today, the wear and tear of the game evident in the wear and tear of his jersey. He only manages to huff out an exhale at the sight of you, like some relief washing over him just by looking into your eyes. Forget the fact that the crowd was all watching and that all of the screens you could see past his head were focused on the two of you, because all you could hear or see or think was him.

“I believe you owe me a kiss,” he says, huffing as he catches his breath but that doesn’t stop the smile that makes its way onto his face.

You nod your head, giving him your own version of a sweet smile as your arms slide up past his shoulders, crossing behind his neck, and he leans down to kiss you.

You hear a swell from the crowd, some teasing comments off in the distance from some of his teammates, you’re pretty sure you hear Coach Yaga yelling at him to get back to the benches, but it all melts away with the feeling of him smiling against your lips as he kisses you at the center of this stadium.

It was a moment so pure, so sweet, so picture perfect, and for once, you’re not the one behind the camera taking the photo. You’re the one that’s in it.

.

.

.

.

.

[end of kickoff ch12]

a/n. aaa thanks a lot for reading!! pls the fucking public stripping scene was so stupid i apologize on behalf of kickoff gojo for his behavior 😂😂 i’ll put him in his cage dw this chapter had some of what i consider to be the most challenging aspects of writing for me (internal conflict, grand public gesture, sports jargon) and so writing it felt like an uphill battle the ENTIRE time i wrote it and edited it. i considered scrapping it sooo many times cuz i just wasn't happy w it...but whatever i can't expect to be 100% happy w every chapter i put out there haha. i think kickoff has become a lil sacred for me since i've been working on it for a while now but likeee...sometimes u just gotta say fuck it we ball (tbh kickoff gojo probably says that to himself before a match) anywho, i am veryy thoroughly excited for what i've got planned for the chapters to follow, especially moving into the last angsty arc before the end of the series!! so i look forward to picking up momentum w this series again :0 honestly chapters 10 through 12 were the most difficult things i've written so far for a lot of reasons, but i have a feeling things will go more smoothly for me creatively going forward since what i've got planned falls well within my writing comfort range oh also there seems to be a little confusion about the number of chapters left, as i know i had originally said 12, but i anticipate that there will be about 18 chapters of kickoff total!! so still around six chapters left before the end :)) much lovee thanks for reading!!

OH WAIT ONE LAST NOTE I'M SORRY i didn’t really have a way of organically incorporating this into the story n i’m not sure if i’ll get a chance to in the upcoming chapters, so i just wanted to share this part of ch7 (gojo’s pov chapter) that is relevant to this chapter:

During the thrilling semifinal match between Keio Uni, Gojo’s father’s team, and Yokohama Uni during the end of his senior year, spectators witnessed a game that most college soccer enthusiasts would deem was a once-in-a-lifetime watch. Both teams engaged in relentless offense, and Gojo’s father was on his way to shatter the record of the most goals scored in a single championship match within the history of the league, but when he received a call from his wife during a timeout with the most life-altering news he could have ever heard, he abandoned everything on the field that day to go home and be with her. Grainy footage from the televised broadcast still exists online today—the moment he sprinted across the field, confused players glancing in his direction, amidst the uproar of the crowd. She called to let him know she was pregnant. 

the record that gojo broke in this chapter is the same record that his father almost broke before he got the call that he was going to be a dad :0 

➸ you're all caught up!

additional notes. please do not pressure me for updates or ask when i will next update (read rules); taglist is currently closed (consider subscribing to the story on my ao3 for email updates if you'd like! :0)

taglist:

@megumisdivinedogs @witchbybirth @avatarl0v3r @mwtsxri @asherheed

@wynney @delulux3 @higurumapet @zombriesworld @xenop0p

@phoenix-eclipses @who-can-touch-my-boob @mo0nforme @reagan707 @lost-resonance

@foulprincesscycle @luniunia @alekssashka7 @beabadobeee @thexmistress

@tsukikourito @pickuptruck01 @gabriiiiiiii @4y3sh4 @tiredflame132

@cliosunshine @btszn @izayas-rings @semra4 @ethereally-lyann

@drthymby @bbyxxm @fvsm4x @sadmonke @zoinks1010

@joemama-2 @horisdope @banenemilk @nanasukii28 @spindyl

@ri-sa20 @thexmistress @mwtsxri @ritsatoru @sashisuslover

@chwesuh-imnida @megumisthirdog @imjustaweirdnerd @angelicscribe

[taglist is closed]

[igbylicious]

whichever way [woosan x reader] epilogue

pairing: woosan x f reader

rating: 18+

genre: smut, fluff-ish, neighbours au, FWB to QPR

ch. summary: together you make a new start.

wc: 2.6k

ch. warnings: no explicit content but there is some conversation about sex, i teared up while writing this; does that count as a warning?

a/n: features a soft-bodied, aromantic reader who uses she/her pronouns.

a/n²: what a fucking time we live in. take good care ♡

masterlist. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, epilogue

“I think these are the last ones,” Wooyoung says, patting the stack of boxes next to him. “Did we get everything from your side?”

“Yeah, we emptied that out yesterday,” you say. “This… this is it.”

San hums thoughtfully, putting an arm around each of you. “End of an era isn’t it?”

The three of you stand by the doorway to the living area, looking over an empty, forlorn apartment.

Depressingly bare walls, furniture replaced by nostalgia. It doesn’t even look like anyone ever stayed here at all. The only concrete proof of your life here is the kitchen cabinet’s crooked door, busted when San hit his head so hard you’d worried he fractured his skull.

Even now, face to face with the empty room, it feels surreal to leave it all behind. No more paper-thin walls, no clumsily bumping into each other in the cramped kitchenette, no more sneaking through the building’s hallway in the early mornings or late nights.

Suddenly every small inconvenience is filtered through the rose-coloured lens of sentimentality, like they’re something to be treasured. Maybe they are. The little imperfections that brought texture to the flavourful sweetness of everything good.

All three of you take a moment, keenly aware you’re saying goodbye to the space where you collided into them; collided, and then intertwined. There’s a lot here to be grateful for.

Wooyoung is the one to break the spell. He nods his head with a big sigh, like he's bracing himself. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” you say, matching his sigh. “Just one more thing left to do here, right?”

San and Wooyoung divide the boxes between them; you are already holding a large flower bouquet. It’s time for your final goodbye in this building.

Together, you take the elevator down one floor, then walk over to the apartment placed directly underneath yours. You ring the doorbell, and it does not take long before Mrs Yoon opens the door.

“Oh? Oh! It’s you kids!” The crinkles in her face deepen into a wide smile, and she curiously eyes the boxes. “Today is the big day then, hm?”

San bows his head politely. “We’re officially moved out, yes,” he says, a tinge of red across his cheeks. “Um. Sorry for all the trouble we’ve caused.”

“Nonsense,” she scolds. “No trouble at all, I’m sad to see you go. It’ll be so quiet around here without you!”

The redness on San’s face intensifies but Wooyoung just giggles, immune to Mrs Yoon’s light teasing. “Still, we didn’t want to go without getting you a little something,” Wooyoung says, “a thank you for putting up with us!”

“Ahh, Wooyoungie, you shouldn’t have!” Mrs Yoon coos adoringly over him like he’s her favourite grandson, lovingly pinching his cheeks. She lets out a small gasp of surprise when you hand the flowers over to her. “These are for me? Really?”

“Really,” you say. “It’s the least we could do!”

The bouquet looks comically huge in her tiny arms, almost drowning her in camellias and hydrangeas; but Mrs Yoon just beams with delight, taking a deep whiff of the sweet aromas. Even with the flowers, she still manages to reach for your cheek, patting it in gratitude.

“Wishing you and your friends all the best in your new home, sweetie,” she says warmly. “Feel free to drop by if you’re ever back in the neighbourhood.”

“We will, Mrs Yoon,” you promise, a pleasant glow in your chest at the word ‘friends’. “Thank you for looking out for us.”

The three of you part ways with Mrs Yoon, regretfully declining an invitation to come inside for a cup of tea. Your new home waits for you.

The new apartment is not too far from the old place, just a short ride away. Wooyoung is driving the car that Yunho was gracious enough to lend you, and you’re next to him in the front seat, his hand resting casually on your thigh. San is behind you, leaned forward with his chin on the backrest while he sweetly hums along to some romantic pop-song on the radio.

You bask in the warm glow of sunlight filtering through the window, smiling at San’s smooth voice while your hand rests on top of Wooyoung’s. It’s easy, it’s comfortable. Outside the car, your surroundings slowly grow less and less familiar, though you know that’ll come with time. You look forward to it.

Finally you reach the compex’s underground parking lot where Wooyoung neatly parks Yunho’s car. You unload the boxes, and find the elevators after a brief moment of disorientation.

You’re not on the top floor this time, but this building is taller so you’re still up higher than before. Finally you exit the elevator, and nostalgia is pushed back in favour of excitement as you walk over to your front door. One single door, for all three of you.

(Of course, you practically lived together already anyway, but it still feels different like this. More solid. Words and promises of long-term commitment transformed into tangible fact.)

You type in the freshly memorised code into the keypad, and the door opens.

The apartment is bigger and nicer than your old place; it’d be far too expensive for you alone, but that’s the practical benefit of splitting rent three ways. It’s still a mess, of course, unpacked boxes all over the place, but already you can see glimpses what it’s going to be, the home you’ll make out of this cluttered chaos.

Already there’s a small bustle of friends moving around the place, helping you to settle in. Even Hongjoong took time off, standing in the (significantly larger) kitchenette with a puzzled expression as he goes through one of the boxes.

You make a beeline towards him, and Hongjoong grins as you approach, making a show of groaning in annoyance when you lay a bear-hug on him.

“What kind of highbrow culinary types did you move in with? I don’t even know what half of these are,” he sighs, toying with a basic garlic press as he glances at the wide array of appliances strewn on the kitchen island. “Makes me feel like I’m not adulting right.”

“It’s alright, not all of us can be kitchen princesses. That’s Wooyoung’s purview,” you joke.

Hongjoong snorts. “Is that your way of saying you also don’t know what half of these are?”

“Pff, don’t lump me in with you. I know at least three quarters of them.”

“Wow, impressive! Let me know when you earn your first Michelin Star.”

He grins when you playfully elbow him in the side, and together you unpack the rest of the box, enjoying the bustle of activity around you.

A few people are walking back and forth, sorting out boxes and putting them in the right place. Seonghwa and Yeosang have taken up most of the floorspace to assemble a large bookcase, looking somewhat bamboozled by the instructions. San is setting out Byeol’s things already, even though she’ll stay at his sister’s as a guest until you’re all settled in.

He wrestles with putting her climbing tree back together when a sudden flash of light distracts him; Wooyoung has grabbed his camera. To do a little documenting of the event, he claims.

“Wooyoung-ssi,” Yeosang says pointedly, “aren’t you just avoiding having to do any real work?”

“Come on, it’s important to save some memories of today!” Wooyoung says enthusiastically, utterly undeterred by his oldest friend’s scepticism. Instead he snaps a quick shot of Yeosang instead, who instantly shields his face. This only escalates into Wooyoung trying to take a selfie with Yeosang, which escalates into him trying to land a smooch on Yeosang’s cheek.

You watch their shenanigans with a wide, bright smile, and Hongjoong watches you with a thoughtful expression in turn.

“So…” he says in a slow drawl. “What was that you once told me? That you got nothing ‘involved’ going on with these guys?”

Heat flares up on your face. “Shut up,” you mumble, embarrassed at the reminder of how deeply in denial you used to be. Let’s face it; San and Wooyoung had firmly pulled you into their orbit from the very start.

Hongjoong chuckles and pats your shoulder. “It’s fine. I’m just glad you were right about the most important thing.”

You give him a confused look. “?”

His eyes soften, a crooked smile on his face. “That I didn’t have to worry about you.”

You swallow thickly, a sudden lump in your throat at his sincerity. “Yeah? Well don’t think that means you’re off the hook for our irregularly scheduled videocalls,” you joke awkwardly, prodding him in the side again. “It’s not like the guys replaced you or something. I still want my bestie too.”

“Good!” he chuckles. “Anyway, they couldn’t if they tried. I’m pretty irreplaceable.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” you laugh, whapping him on the shoulder.

You try to continue unpacking the kitchen supplies; but you soon get distracted when Yunho struggles to carry a gigantic potted plant, and you realise he’s about to set it down in the living area.

“Yunho wait, hang on! That goes outside!”

You abandon Hongjoong to guide Yunho out to the modestly sized balcony.

“Here, here,” you usher him to a corner, where the plant will provide some nice shade and privacy.

Yunho sighs in relief when he can set the heavy pot down, stretching his back with a low groan as he stands upright again. He looks around curiously, looking around the balcony. It’s not much, with just some old garden furniture that Wooyoung’s parents ‘donated’ to you, but the plant makes a good start to cosy it up properly.

“Huh. Hadn’t been out here yet,” he says, putting his hands on the metal railing to lean forward and take in the view. “It’s nice.”

Your eyes get momentarily distracted by how his long fingers curl around the handrail, but then you tear your gaze away and look out over the neighbourhood together. It’s mostly other apartment complexes, but there’s a big park with plenty of greenery and a pond nearby too, next to a busy kids’ playground.

“Yeah,” you agree with a wistful smile. “Really nice.”

You glance at Yunho again. All the initial awkwardness between you has faded by now; San, Wooyoung and him were eager to make up for lost time, so he’s been around quite a bit. You don’t mind. You like Yunho.

(Not just because he has distracting hands. He’s every bit as funny and dependable as your first impression led you to believe. It didn’t take long for you to grow just as fond of Yunho as the guys are.)

“And if you think about it, I got you to thank for it all!” you joke, grinning at Yunho. “Really, if you hadn’t played cupid, I wouldn’t have ended up here.”

Yunho blinks in confusion. “Cupid?”

“Yeah? You set San and Wooyoung up, right? San told me you played matchmaker.”

“……Huh. That is what San thinks I was doing?” He lets out an awkward, breathy chuckle, rubbing the back of his head.

“You weren’t?” You frown at Yunho. “But you introduced them, right?”

“Y-Yeah, but— Never mind,” he says, his ears going red. “It’s not important.”

You give him a stubborn look. “Um. No. No, you can’t leave me hanging there. What’s not important?”

Yunho sees the look in your eyes, and after a long moment he gives a slow nod and straightens up. He glances at the open balcony door, but nobody inside is paying you any particular mind.

He leans forward, conspiratorially, dropping his voice low. The secrecy is causing your heart to bump faster in your chest; what the hell happened?

“Okay so, uh. No, I didn’t set them up,” Yunho says. “Sure, I’m really happy that it worked out so well for them, but… no, I just meant to test the waters for a bit, to see if things clicked between us, and then… I could see if they were interest in doing… other stuff together.”

“Stuff?” you ask — but the redness of Yunho’s ears deepens, and a lightbulb turns on in your head. “Wait,” you hiss, lowering your own voice as you lean even closer to him. “You introduced them to have a threesome? And they started dating instead??”

“Basically, yeah!” he chuckles awkwardly. “And really, it’s no big deal, I’m happy to see my friends happy. I saw the way they hit it off, figured I’d give them some space to figure things out. Thought I could always pitch the idea later — well, until Wooyoung told me San wanted to be monogamous.”

“Oh god,” you say, growing more and more aghast as your brain works overtime, linking up all the dots Yunho is throwing at you. “And then San asked you for advice about me.”

“Yeah, I’ll admit it — that one stung!” he laughs, about five percent pained. The last lingering hints of a grudge still holding on.

“I bet it did, fuck I’m so sorry—”

“Not your fault,” Yunho says, patting your shoulder with a reassuring smile.

You puff out a flustered burst of air, and shake off your embarrassment. Yeah, he’s right. This isn’t your fault. “…Is it weird that I’m kind of offended on your behalf?” you say with an awkward grin (god this is all so awkward). “Like, I know San and Wooyoung can be a bit oblivious, especially when they get stuck in each other’s little lovestruck tunnel vision, but seriously? They never realised??”

“Eh,” Yunho shrugs. “It’s on me too, I misjudged. Clearly shouldn’t have taken the subtle approach.”

You snort. “Okay yeah, maybe it’s a little on you too. The subtle approach? For those two?”

“Hey! Whatcha talking about?” San says out of nowhere, poking his head around the doorway like a devil who has belatedly realised someone spoke of him. “Thought I heard my name!”

You freeze instantly and fumble for an answer. “Uuhhhhhhh…”

Wooyoung’s head pokes out from behind San’s broad shoulders. “Hm? Are you guys gossiping about us?”

“Umm…………”

But Yunho just lets out a dry chuckle, unfazed by the interruption. “Yeah, actually,” he says with an easygoing smile. “I was just telling her that I never meant to play matchmaker for you two.”

“You didn’t?” San asks in surprise. “I thought…”

“I know,” Yunho interrupts him, not unkindly. “But no, I was trying to set us for a threesome.”

A deep, deep silence falls that strikes even Wooyoung.

He’s just staring at Yunho wide-eyed, the gears in his head ground to a complete halt. San has gone full crimson in the cheeks, putting Yunho’s faintly red ears to shame.

“What?” Yunho laughs when he sees your surprised face. “You said it yourself; no room for subtlety with these two. It was bound to come out sometime anyway. No time like the present.”

“You know what? Fair,” you say, relaxing back into a laugh of your own.

“W-wait, you what??” San finally stammers out.

Yunho casually leans his side against the balcony railing, shrugging at San. “Is it really that big a surprise, coming from me?”

Wooyoung’s shock has slowly morphed into a thoughtful expression as the gears in his head come back into motion. Keen interest shines in his eyes as he looks back-and-forth from San’s flustered blush to you and Yunho, grinning at each other.

“So uh,” Wooyoung says, mischief creeping into the curve of his crooked smile, “…is having sex together still on the table?”

final notes: yes, i am planning to do a one-shot sequel lol. you are getting that yunwoosan foursome smut scene <3 originally it was part of the epilogue, but i decided it works better as its own, separate thing

but this still is the end of the main series, the story of Woosan & reader coming together, and i am a big ball of emotion over it asdkjdsajk. thankyou for reading my fic, and for all the incredibly kind words i’ve received; this was a very special, personal project to me, and i hope it gave you some good times ♡

[honeekyuu]

genius. [akaashi keiji x f!reader] chapter one.

>>You struggle to pay rent on your limited graduate student salary, and your worst enemy agrees to help you out.

or

You realize you need to find a partner for your faceless porn account, and Akaashi Keiji is the only man who meets all your requirements.<<

series status: [ongoing]

masterlist. || next.

a/n: this series is going to be the death of me. im currently writing ch. 2, and the first scene (the first scene!!! of 9!!!!!) is 10k words. i wrote a 10k smut scene. :)))) im actively dying. please enjoy chapter 1!!!

[feel free to buy me a cup of coffee!]

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

“ Shit, shit shit- ” You throw things all over the apartment, searching for your keys. The clock on the wall reads 10:55AM, flipping quickly to 10:56 and making you swear again. “ Fuck! Oh-” You snatch up your house keys with a victorious cheer and then immediately race for the door, your bag hauled over your shoulder on the way.

You turn the 30-minute bike ride to campus into 20 minutes, but that still gets you to the door of the Linguistics department by 11:15. You slam down on the elevator button repeatedly while you wait, glancing back at the rest of the lobby only when you hear someone call your name. It’s a student of yours, so you have to smile and wave back politely, even though all you want is to scream ‘ I’m so fucked! ’ into the void. 

The elevator doors open, and you treat the buttons on the inside panel with the same cruelty, choosing to text your frustrations to Bokuto while you wait to arrive on the 5th floor.

[11:16 AM]

You: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

Kou: OMG SAME

You: ?? whats wrong on your end

Kou: nothing why?

Kou: IS SOMETHING WRONG???

You snort, rolling your eyes.

You: late to my 11am

Kou: OH THE READING GROUP

Kou: which one is that??? Linguisticsomething of something something??

You: you know,,, there was no way to be wrong with that answer kou

Kou: :))))) 

You: it’s LEM

Kou: LINGUISTICS AND EXPERIMENTAL METHODS

Kou: RIGHT

Kou: oh wait isnt that the one akaashis in?????

You: thats why im fucked

Kou: oh im sure he wont say anything

Kou: SAY HI FOR ME

The elevator opens, so you shove your phone away and race down the hall to the lab room. You skid to a stop in front of the door, taking a calming breath before pushing into the room as quietly as possible. A few people glance up from the round table in the center with small smiles before returning to the presentation on the screen, but you know well enough that you’re not in clear.

“-f it’s true then that case gets valued where base-generated, rather than at the landing site after Movement, we should see that these forms are nominative-marked. However, clearly, we get accusa-” 

You take the seat closest to the door, and it creaks.

Akaashi Keiji’s eyes find yours.

You grimace openly at him, and he lifts an eyebrow, his finger still hovering over the example on the TV.

“Y/n. Would you like me to start over?”

You struggle not to roll your eyes at him, your face burning with embarrassment. “Of course not. Please, continue.”

“It might be helpful if I start over-”

“I don’t need the background on case valuation in Korean, Akaashi,” you snap. “We work on the same language.”

You watch his eyes harden. It’s only you that he looks at like that. He opens his mouth, but your advisor cuts in on your left.

“Okay, you two,” he says. “Let’s try not to kill each other today.”

You lean back in your chair, arms crossed, and meet Akaashi’s eyes evenly. He stares back blankly only a moment before returning to his presentation.

“So, we can see here that accusative-marked nominals are permitted, despite the prediction that only nominative is grammatical-” 

You let out a quiet breath, trying to pay attention to his presentation – because, no doubt, he’d put you on the spot about it soon – while also recovering from the adrenaline rush of getting here. Your phone buzzes in your pocket, and you extract it subtly, glancing at the screen. There are two alerts.

Bank Account Balance (Oct. 10); $562.95

Rent Notification: Rent and Utilities; Payment ($1018.00) Due Nov. 1

Your heart sinks, a lump forming in your throat, and you shove your phone away, returning to Akaashi’s presentation. A coffee cup from the nearby cafe slides into your periphery, and you turn to see your advisor pushing it toward you silently, his own cup in front of him. He doesn’t look at you, but he does crack a tired smile.

“ Drink, ” he whispers. “ You’ve had a hard couple days. ”

You smile and bring the cup to your lips, ignoring when Akaashi glances at it and then between you and your advisor. It’s your regular order, and you’re immensely glad that most of your advisor meetings happen at coffee shops. You make it through Akaashi’s presentation with little issue – unsurprisingly for the department’s Golden Boy, his work is flawless. You agree with every argument he makes, every flaw he finds in the analyses of previous work.

So when he says “ Any questions?” in that polite, soft-spoken way of his, you’re prepared for the very few questions asked to be nothing more than clarification. No one has any comments about his thinking or his analysis, and no one challenges him. Because Akaashi Keiji is always right. 

But you can also see that these questions don’t excite him. He answers each one nicely, nodding along and mumbling ‘ Yes, that’s right ’ or humming thoughtfully – as though he needs to think about it at all – and then shaking his head, clicking through his slide deck until he can point to something and correct someone’s thinking. But he looks a bit disappointed, like he’d been hoping for a bit more of a discussion. He even glances at your advisor hopefully – but your advisor is also his advisor, so why would he have any notes? He’s already pre-approved all of this.

Well, that’s what you get for being so smart, you think with a little bit of snark. Your advisor always preaches to the group that peer feedback creates room for improvement, but what’s Akaashi supposed to do when there’s no more room? He’s already the best.

He meets your eyes briefly, and you look away. You’re not going to give him what he wants.

“Okay, then,” he says after a moment, unplugging his laptop from the TV. “Thanks for listening – Y/n?” You pull your laptop from your bag, standing and rounding the table. You take the HDMI cord from him, slipping into the chair he’d occupied. He takes yours, careful not to touch your things. You sigh softly and then smile at the rest of your reading group.

“Hey, guys. Thanks for coming.” You gesture to the TV, your slide deck open. “So, if you were here for my most recent project, you know that I got some interesting results and will be broadening the scope in order to explore them for my dissertation.”

You launch into your presentation, the material so familiar to you that you don’t have to think about what to say. Your second major project had wrapped up last year, your name sitting on a journal article set to print at the end of the month. You’d gotten a number of reviewers asking similar questions, all related to the experimental results of one of your tasks, so you and your advisor had decided that, for the dissertation, you would be increasing the technical difficulty and redoing the experiment with new materials and a more rigorous theoretical analysis.

You present this to the group, outlining your idea and the changes you’d be making to the original project in order to answer the open questions left by your reviewers. By the end of your 20-minute slot, you’ve got most of the group nodding along in agreement.

Most of the group.

You do your best not to look at him, but you can still see Akaashi sitting there with his arms folded in his lap, his expression void of everything. His eyes skim your slides, unreactive, and you just know that you’re in for it.

“Okay-” you sigh, clapping your hands on your knees. “That’s it. Thoughts?”

Your advisor lifts his brows, a smile tugging at his lips, and you know he’s thinking the same thing.

Just the grilling of a lifetime incoming .

There’s silence for a while, everyone trying and failing not to look at Akaashi, because they know how this will go. And then his lips part, a soft breath taken.

“Can I… ask a few questions?” He starts gentle, the way he always does. He fools everyone into thinking he’s sweet and soft and careful, but you know better. You know that, if you were anyone else, he wouldn’t have started like that. He would have complimented their work first, noted the things he thought they’d done well.

You’ve never heard a compliment from Akaashi Keiji in the five years you’ve known him.

“Of course,” You sigh. Some snickers pass through the group.

“How do you know that this will tell you anything at all?”

He doesn’t hold back – you’ll give him that.

“Sorry?”

“If your results indicate a misalignment between the production of this ambiguous form and the comprehension of it, why are you using eye-tracking to test only comprehension? Where’s your production gone?”

You inhale slowly, flicking back through the slides. “Like I said before, there are two possibilities for why this form was over-produced and under-accepted by participants. Either they are operating within their grammar and just attaching an emphatic element to a different word, resulting in a homophone with the ambiguous form I’m interested in-” You flick through more slides. “Or they’re operating outside of their grammar, in which case there are discourse factors at play.” 

You meet his eyes with a tight smile, trying to remain polite. “Running an eye-tracking task with comprehension will let me see, in real time and without metalinguistic interference, if they accept this form in situations that should be ungrammatical. If they don’t, then these results are due to emphatic attachment and that’s that. If they do, then..” You shrug. “There’s more to be done. But my point is that production wouldn’t be necessary here. I have what I need.”

The group all shift their eyes from you to him in an instant, waiting for the tennis match to start. Akaashi only meets your gaze for a moment and then nods, and you feel mildly victorious at having won this interaction. But you swallow it down, because he’s opening his mouth again.

“And what about case?”

You almost roll your eyes. “What about it?”

“What analysis are you adopting?”

“I’m only using accusative-marked forms for this experiment,” you say. “The object of the embedded clause is the position I need. I’m not adopting competing analyses.”

“But there are other ways to mark case on these forms – as I’m sure you’re aware.” His gaze narrows at you when he says it, and you know he’s getting back at you now for your comment earlier. “What about those?”

“I’m not interested in them-”

“ Right ,” he bites. “I understand that. But what are the case alternations available?”

It takes a special kind of person to draw Akaashi Keiji’s patience short, and you’re happy to be that person every single time. You have to purse your lips not to smile, because there’s a little piece of you that finds it funny to draw out that twitch in his eyebrow that no one else claims to have ever seen.

“Genitive and nominative, and dative under restricted circumstances.”

He lifts his brows at you. “So pretty much all of them.”

You nod simply. “But using pretty much all of them means I’d have to change the structure of the sentence for each type. It’s not a simple swap.”

“Then do it.”

“Excuse me?” You lift your eyebrows in disbelief.

He shrugs. “Your results could be due to any of the things you’ve talked about. Or they could be due to this form being preferred with different case markers in different situations. You could be getting low acceptability because of the case, rather than what you’re interested in.”  

You just stare. “That’s, like, four dissertations, Akaashi.”

His eyes have flattened out again. “Then maybe you should have done it right the first time.”

“ Okay ,” your advisor says, clapping his hands. “Hour’s up. Let’s thank Keiji and Y/n for their time.”

Your eyes stay locked on Akaashi’s while the room clears out, both knowing that you’re not allowed to go anywhere. You get a couple ‘ good job ’s from the people leaving, but you can’t bring yourself to break eye contact first. In fact, it only serves to irritate you more – why is it only you that gets those reassuring comments? Why don’t people tell Akaashi that he’s doing well? Do they think you need it? Does everyone think you need it more than he does?

“Alright,” your advisor breathes, shutting the door again and turning toward you. “Oh-Come on, you two.”

You break first, dipping your head and turning to unplug your laptop from the TV. 

“That was good, both of you.” Your advisor cuts a glance at Akaashi as he sits. “A little harsh there, but-”

“Sorry,” He mumbles, immediately deferent. But you know he’s not apologizing to you, and that makes you finally roll your eyes.

“Okay, okay,” your advisor laughs, taking his coffee and sipping at it. “Let’s just finish this up so I can get away from all this hostility.”

The meeting ends quickly, the three of you just summarizing thoughts and future steps for each of your projects. Akaashi purses his lips when you speak about your plans, but he doesn’t push at you any further. 

Finally, you’re able to leave, so you gather your things quickly and bolt for the door. Unfortunately, your office is directly across from Akaashi’s, so the walk down the hall is spent with him on your heels.

“It’s not four dissertations, by the way,” he says as soon as your advisor’s out of earshot. “Just redesign your materials to include the case alternations, and you’ll get something interesting.”

You roll your eyes and shake your head, not stopping your march down the hall. “I’ve already designed the eye-tracking materials, Akaashi. It’ll take me weeks to redo them for case.”

“Then take the weeks ,” he argues, just as you’re both arriving to your respective doors. “Do you want to do it fast, or do you want to do it right?”

You whirl on him, your anger unfiltered now that you’re alone. “What would you know? You’ve never done the kind of research I have to do. You don’t know anything about psycholinguistics – you don’t know what goes into something like this. You just sit in your world of theory, without ever thinking about the practical applications. You might be right about everything all the time, Akaashi, but I’m the one who has to take those theories and do something with them.” 

He stares back emptily while you rant, and then he leans in close, his eyebrows lifting as his voice drops. “Are you really going to be okay not including the case alternations? Now that I’ve brought it up?” When you only sigh heatedly through your nose, glaring up at him, he shakes his head. “No. You’re not.” Then he turns to his office door, slotting the key in the lock while mumbling to you. “You’re a lot of things, Y/n, but you’re not lazy.”

You stare at his office door long after it’s been shut.

You really hate Akaashi Keiji.

–

“I dunno, Kou, I’m not sure what to do,” you sigh, running a finger along the rim of your coffee cup. It’s the same from earlier, because you don’t have the money to buy another and because drinking it slowly helps to stave off your hunger. You’d been too rushed for lunch before leaving home, but you know dinner’s only four hours away. You can last until then.

“Well-” Bokuto talks through a mouth full of food. “-is it gonna bug you to not do it?”

“ Yes ,” you admit a little grumpily. “Of course it is. But I don’t have the time – I wanted to have pilot data for the experiment by the end of October.”

“What would happen if you pushed it back a few weeks?” He asks loudly, spooning more food into his mouth before he’s even done eating the first mouthful.

“I don’t know. It would just push my whole timeline back, and I’d graduate later than expected, and I’m already losing my mind. I need a job , Kou – I can’t live on grad student wages much longer.”

“Yeah, I feel you,” he nods, pulling more food out of his backpack. “But at least you’re still splitting that nice apartment with your roommate! $500 a month is so nice.”

You stare down at your lukewarm coffee.

You haven’t exactly mentioned to him or your other friends that your roommate had moved out. She hadn’t left for anything negative – in fact, she’s a good friend of yours. The two of you had posted in the graduate students’ forum over the summer before your first year, each requesting roommates, and you’d paired up nicely. Your personalities had gone together well, and you’d stayed roommates the entirety of grad school. But she’d had to go home suddenly, which was fine for her because she’s finishing up her dissertation and doesn’t need to be on campus.

However, that does leave you without a roommate in the middle of the semester. There’s a fee for you to break your lease early, and it would overall be way more expensive for you to move out, especially in the middle of October. But paying over $1000 on your own, with your limited salary, is extremely difficult.

You’d looked for another roommate, but there aren’t any grad students without housing this late in the year – the only people you’d seen posting on the university Facebook page about housing had been undergrads, and you’re certainly not comfortable with that. So, you’d looked for extra jobs, but your student contract only allows you to be employed a certain amount, and you’d already reached the maximum. Your advisor had told you as much, shaking his head regretfully when you’d all but begged for extra hours in his lab. You’d even tried finding jobs outside of the university, but most of them had asked for a consistent work schedule and more hours than you can afford to give. 

Which might be why you’d decided to turn to making adult content online.

You’re not particularly attached to the idea of being a porn star, but you’d seen a video online talking about the amount of money that adult content creators can make even from a single video, and you’d made an account without giving yourself time to think about it. You’d taken all the necessary precautions – things like always editing out your face and the singular tattoo you have on the inside of your ankle, or never displaying your background in a way that would be recognizable to someone who knows you. You really don’t need anyone finding out about this, especially not your friends.

You’re not sure that Kuroo would really care – the chemistry student’s nosy, sure, but he’s a big proponent of leaving people to their lives. And you know that Bokuto would probably find it interesting, but he’s got an objectively big mouth and little social control, so it would be a risk to tell him. The only person you’re really worried will find out is Yachi – your closest friend, that sweet girl wouldn’t be likely to judge, but she certainly wouldn’t understand. She’d ask a lot of questions – ‘ why would you do something like that?’; ‘well, are you sure there aren’t other options?’; ‘i would rather move out if i were you’ . Yachi’s had a very straightforward way of thinking ever since you met her, and she’d be the most likely to tell you that pursuing this line of work is drastic and unnecessary. You’re not sure you’re emotionally strong enough to deal with that.

Especially since your new occupation isn’t exactly going well . You’ve only been at it a few weeks, and you’ve garnered a decent number of subscribers on your platform – 897, to be exact (you check every day; you’re desperate). But, in the month since your roommate’s left, you’ve hardly made $300, and, while $300 of extra income per month is certainly not insignificant, it’s not enough to pay your rent.

Which is why you’re sitting here now, lunchless and sipping pitifully at cold coffee. But at least you’re in good company, Bokuto’s presence always a weight off your shoulders.

“Hi, Bokuto.”

Here comes the weight, right back on your shoulders.

You look up from your cup, meeting Akaashi’s eyes. He scans you quickly but doesn’t greet you, only setting his lunch tray down on the table and taking the seat beside Bokuto. The silver-haired man looks between you with wide eyes.

“Aw, man! Did you guys fight at your reading group?!” He rubs at his stomach. “Don’t fight now, too. It’ll make my tummy hurt.”

You laugh weakly, turning away and surveying the crowded dining hall. “Of course not, Kou. You’re neutral ground.”

“What she said,” Akaashi says, carefully mixing his food with his chopsticks. He cuts a glance at your coffee cup. “Is that the same one from this morning?” He glances at the time on his phone. It’s already past 2:30.

You’re instantly defensive. “Yeah.”

He hears the edge in your tone, shaking his head with a breath of laughter while pulling noodles into his mouth. He chews and swallows before responding, ever the gentleman. “Didn’t bring lunch?”

“Forgot it at home.”

He points at the buffet line at the back of the dining hall. “Then buy something.”

“Trying to save money,” you say. You watch his eyebrows pull together in confusion, and you know why – the dining hall’s extremely cheap, usually only $8 or $9 for a fair lunch. The issue is that you don’t have $8 or $9. You don’t have rent money, so you don’t have lunch money.

Thankfully, though, he doesn’t say anything else about it, and you’re briefly appreciative that he’s respectful of your financial situation. You’re also appreciative that he doesn’t tip Bokuto off about it. The large man is tapping away on his phone while he chews loudly, so he’d barely heard the questions Akaashi had asked you. He looks up at the silence now, glancing between you. 

“What’d I miss?”

“Nothing. We were fighting,” Akaashi says. Today’s turning, shockingly, into a day of appreciating Akaashi Keiji.

“ No, ” Bokuto whines. “No fighting.”

A body slides into the spot beside yours, and another into the spot beside Akaashi.

“They fighting?” Kuroo asks, organizing his food on his tray. Tsukishima snorts across the table, mumbling ‘ aren’t they always? ’ quietly.

“We’re fine,” you laugh. “Trying not to make Kou’s tummy hurt.”

“Fair enough,” Kuroo says as he’s lifting a bite of food to his mouth. He stops, though, staring down at your cup. “Your tummy hurts, too, I guess.”

“I guess so,” you say, smiling and sipping at the now-gross coffee. He doesn’t say anything about it, only turning to ask Tsukishima about some ongoing drama in the history department. But he does slide his tray between the two of you while he talks, shoving his chopsticks into your hand and then leaning casually over to keep chatting to the blond, as though he’s merely asking you to hold them while he talks. You purse your lips, embarrassment warming your ears, but you pick at his tray anyway – just a bit of rice and a thin cut of spam balanced on his spoon. You take two bites and then slide the tray back, muttering ‘ thanks ’ under your breath.

You feel Akaashi’s eyes on you, but you refuse to meet them. Your phone buzzes in your back pocket, and you pull it into your lap.

[2:47 PM] New Comment on Your Video

Your eyes widen, and you lower the brightness and turn your back slightly to Kuroo. 

user6969 : pretty hot, would be hotter with someone fucking her tho

It already has ten likes. Your eye twitches, and you clear the notification quickly. You could never film with another person. You can’t . That defeats the whole purpose of keeping this anonymous. 

But what if that’s the thing keeping you from making money? From paying rent? At this point, would you rather bring someone else into this, or would you rather eat the cost of moving out?

But you can’t move. With breaking the lease and having to sign a new one – moving fees not included – you already don’t have enough money. There’s no way to get approved for a new place with such little money in your bank account. 

Should you sell feet pics? No, you can’t switch platforms or content at this point. You’d be starting from nothing in that case, and it’s no guarantee you’d do well there. Not that you’re really doing well with your current account, either.

Are you going to have to find a partner to film with?

“ Y/n .”

You jump, looking up. Akaashi’s staring back, standing behind Bokuto with his eyebrows raised and his tray in his hand. He looks a little annoyed.

“I’ve been calling your name.”

You blink. “Sorry. What is it?”

He lifts his brows impossibly further. “We have to go.”

You start, checking the time again. It’s 2:52. You have to go to the undergraduate class you’re TAing with him. “Oh, shit,” you mutter, standing with your bag. “We’re gonna be late.” You wave a cursory goodbye at the others, rushing to toss your coffee in the trash. 

You chase after Akaashi, cursing his long legs, and follow him across the quad to the lecture hall. You both slide past the doors just as your advisor’s clearing his throat to get the class’s attention. 

“ Now that our distinguished TAs have arrived, we can get started… ” he says into the microphone connected to the podium.

You follow Akaashi up the steps to the top row, managing to control the urge to roll your eyes at the number of undergrad girls watching longingly as Akaashi passes by. You sit with him in the back corner, huffing quietly and then hugging your bag to your stomach, because a low gurgle of hunger is creeping out. Akaashi snorts quietly, and you glare sideways at him. But he just reaches down into his bag, extracting a granola bar and offering it to you, his eyes still on the whiteboard at the front.

You grimace. “ I’m good, thanks, ” you whisper.

“ It’s going to annoy me, ” he says, jabbing the bar at you. You take it with a soft sigh, mumbling ‘ thanks ’ to him while you try to unwrap the plastic without being loud. You eat it quietly, deciding that it’s the least he can do for torturing you during LEM. And then you stuff the empty plastic in your bag before extracting your laptop, intending to take notes on your advisor’s lecture.

The screen is bright and noticeable when it opens to your most recently opened tab – thankfully not your porn account, which you’re always mindful to close before leaving home. But it is open to your bank’s website, still signed in and clearly displaying the meager $562.95 in your checking account.

You jump, rushing to lower the screen brightness and close out of the tab at the same time, and then you cut a glance at Akaashi. He’s not looking directly at your screen, but he’s certainly not looking at the whiteboard anymore. His eyes hover suspiciously in the space between your laptop and his, and he meets your eyes quickly before looking away when he realizes you’re watching him.

“ Sorry, ” he mumbles. “ Brightness caught my eye. ” 

“ Don’t say anything ,” is all you say. All that you’re willing to plead with him. He just lifts a brow and nods, saying nothing else as he refocuses his attention on the lecture. You sigh, pushing two frustrated fingers against your temple, because now Akaashi Keiji knows you’re broke and living way too far above your means.

–

You sit on your couch four days later, scrolling aimlessly through Tinder. You grimace as you swipe, unable to bring yourself to approve of any of the guys you’re seeing. There are obviously some good-looking ones, and even some extremely attractive ones, but every time you start to swipe right, you hesitate.

How crazy are you going to look, matching on a dating app with someone, only to ask them if they’d be willing to be your faceless porn partner?

You groan, throwing your phone down. You can’t believe you’ve even gotten to this point. Just this week, you’d sworn you would keep running your account alone. You’d sworn you wouldn’t let anyone else get involved with this, for your pride and for your anonymity.

That’s another reason you’re so unwilling to match with someone on Tinder. What if he ends up being a total weirdo? What if he leaks your name online or talks about you to his friends? Or-

Oh, God, what if he lies about his age and ends up being an undergrad? Even worse – an undergrad in your department ?

“ Ugh- ” You shudder, picking your phone back up. “No. No fucking way.” You quickly delete your account and the app, shaking your head. It’s too much of a risk, and you’re not even sure you could ever trust someone you don’t know to help you with something so private and sensitive.

Do I really have to find a partner?  

You pull your laptop from the table and open it, logging into your porn account and scrolling through the videos. You’d stuck to the same posting schedule since you’d started, maintaining consistency and posting every day over the last four weeks. It had definitely helped with your views, because the subscribers you do have know when to expect a new video. But, even this week alone, your view count has become stagnant and – in the case of the video you’d posted today – even gone down a few thousand hits.

You check the section for monetization, seeing you’d made an extra $16 dollars in the last four days. $16 dollars in four days. You might as well start selling your couch.

But if you can’t find a partner amongst the hundreds of men you don’t know, then it has to be someone you do know.

“Kuroo,” you sigh, leaning your head back against the couch. And then you shake your head. He’s the best choice – he’s private and minds his business. He would never be a risk for outting you. He’s also extremely attractive, and you have decent chemistry. But he’s also one of your closest friends, and you’re not even willing to tell him you do this for a living, for fear of something changing between you. You could never ask him to help you.

“Bokuto,” you move on, bobbing your head back and forth. He’s definitely the least likely to let anything change between you – he’d find it interesting, and he would never judge you. He’d also be more than willing to help, especially since this is for the purpose of paying your bills and not just something you do for fun on the side. He’s incredibly kind and motivated in that way… but still, it isn’t right. 

Not only does it feel a bit weird to imagine having sex with him, even for business, but it also wouldn’t be long before he accidentally lets something slip to someone. It would be unintentional, of course, but Bokuto Koutarou isn’t exactly known for his subtlety. Not to mention that you need someone who can’t be recognized on camera, even faceless, and Bokuto’s presence is so overwhelming that it would take no time at all for someone who knows him to pinpoint exactly who it is.

You shake your head, going through the mental list of every guy you’ve ever interacted with. You don’t really know Tsukishima, despite eating lunch with him most days and seeing him at almost every function, and you get the feeling he would laugh in your face if you ask. You think of guys you’d known in college and even some guys you’d met at the events that your friends have invited you to. You even pick up your phone and start scrolling through your contacts, really stretching the limits of your imagination.

None of them work.

“ Fuck ,” you groan, scrubbing at your brow. This isn’t going to work.

Your phone buzzes with a text, the message sliding into view before disappearing.

[9:48 PM]

Akaashi: i printed copies of the handout for discussion on monday

Akaashi: putting them in my mailbox so you can grab them before class

Akaashi: youll print the exams next week, right?

You stare at the messages as they come in.

Akaashi . 

His name drifts like a whisper through your mind, and you have to throw your phone on the table and stand, your eyes wide.

“No. No,” you say, rounding the couch and pacing behind it. “No, no, no.”

Not him. Anyone but him. You can barely stand him, and the idea of him knowing what you do to make rent is unfathomable. You can’t trust him with something like that-

But, he is trustworthy. He’d shown himself not even a week ago to be sensitive to your personal information and financial situation. He makes judgment calls that benefit you, even though he could be doing everything in his power to make your life hell. As annoying as he is – as rude as he can be, especially to you – he’s a decent human being. He’s private, he’s subtle, he’s quiet and keeps to himself, and-

And he’s average. A very good-looking man, yes, but overall a perfectly normal, average guy that would never be recognized.

“ No! ” You groan, starting to pace harder. “ No, no, no! ”

Your phone starts to ring on the table. You jump, staring at the screen.

You can see his name even from here. 

You approach it carefully, hands shaking as you reach for it. 

“H-Hello?”

“ Y/n, ” he says, his voice quiet but firm.

“Uh-” You laugh weakly. “Hi. What’s… up?”

“ I’m just checking you got my texts. I’m leaving the department now. ”

“You stayed there until 10 on a Saturday?”

“ I lost track of time. You got my texts, then? ”

“Yes,” you sigh. “Yeah, I got them. Thanks for printing.”

“ And you’ll-”

“Yep. I got the exams.”

There’s silence on the other end, followed by the quiet jingle of his office keys. “ Are you… You sound.. not great. Nervous. ”

It’s mortifying that he can hear that it in your voice. Why can he hear that in your voice?

“No, I’m good. Just-just busy. Stressed.”

“ Oh. Okay, then. ” He pauses a moment, and you wonder if he’s giving you time to say more. You don’t. Finally, he clears his throat. “‘ Kay. Bye. ” He hangs up before you can repeat it back to him.

A perfectly average, decent human being who’s private, subtle, quiet, and keeps to himself.

The only issue is that you hate each other.

Great.

–

You pace in front of his office door two days later, biting your nails while you think. Anxiety swoops low in your gut, over and over again while you imagine talking to him. Swelling and heaving when you imagine the look on his face, inevitably judgmental and maybe a little amused that you’d even thought to approach him.

God, you can’t do this.

“No,” you mumble, turning back toward your own door. You’ll find someone else.

The door opens behind you, and you jump, spinning around. Akaashi stares at you in exasperation, his glasses askew and his hair ruffled like he’s been pulling his fingers through it.

“Are you going to come in, or are you just going to stand outside all day?”

“Uh,” you stammer, shaking your head. “Uh, no. No, I didn’t-I don’t have anything-”

“Y/n,” he sighs. “You’ve been pacing out here for ten minutes. I’ve been watching your feet go back and forth in front of my door this whole time. It’s really fucking distracting – I’m trying to work.”

Your eyes go wide, because you’re not sure you’ve ever heard Akaashi swear before. He opens the door wider, beckoning you in with an impatient sweep of his arm. You find yourself stepping past the threshold, wringing your hands as you stand in the middle of the little room. He leaves the door cracked, slipping past you carefully and returning to his desk.

“What is it?” He sits and starts sorting through his papers, attention only partially on you. “Something about LING 303? I graded my section’s assignments already – do you need the answer key?”

You swallow, still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. “No, I… I have an answer key, too.”

“Then?”

A large part of you wants to leave. He’s in a bad mood, and he’s clearly busy. You’re not sure this is the best time to bring up something this sensitive with him. But then again – when would you ever find the best time to talk to Akaashi Keiji about your secret porn account?

So, with a shaky breath, you return to the door, pushing it closed quietly and locking it.

“Uhm,” you start, turning slowly on the spot and facing him. “Can we talk?”

He’s got his eyes, wary now, on the doorknob where your hand rests, your thumb still over the lock that’s been pushed in. He blicks and flicks his gaze to yours, eyes narrowing when he sees the discomfort in your expression. 

“O…kay?” He sets his papers down and leans back in his seat, his attention yours now. “...What’s up?”

You make your way to the chair in front of his desk and perch in it uncertainly. “Okay. Is it okay if I say everything before you talk?” He just tilts his head, watching you intensely, and then he nods once. Whatever had been on his mind before is clearly gone, and you silently hope it hadn’t been some groundbreaking idea that you’ve just interrupted.

“So,” you start, heaving out a nervous sigh. “You saw my bank account the other day. Last week.” He nods again, and you rush into the speech you’d practiced all morning, not wanting him to think you’re just here to ask for money. That might be easier, honestly. But your courage might never come again, so you need to barrel through this now. “It’s been that way for about a month now. I live in a 2-bedroom apartment, and – when I had a roommate-” He squints now, because he’s certainly heard Bokuto talk about your roommate as though she still exists. “-my rent was only $500 a month.”

He opens his mouth to speak, thoughts very obviously swirling in that overactive brain of his, but he shuts it again, remembering he’d promised you silence. He nods, and you nod back.

“She moved out a month ago for personal reasons, and if I break the lease and move out, too, it would cost more than just continuing to live there on my own. And-” You throw your hands around while you talk, ramping up in intensity now that you’ve gotten started. “-I know that in the long run, it’s more cost-effective to eat the move-out fees and the cost of moving, but you saw my bank account. I don’t have any way of doing that right now.”

“You need a roommate,” is what he says, unable to stop himself. You sigh, shaking your head.

“I tried. The only people searching for housing this late in the semester are undergrads.” He grimaces, and you nod. “So that’s not an option.” You sigh again, trying to remember what to say next. “Uh-Oh, right-So-” You wring your hands in your lap. “My rent’s over $1000, and I obviously don’t have that. And I’ve tried looking for extra jobs and for extra hours around the department, but I’m at max hours, and there are no part-time jobs that are flexible with my research and teaching schedule.”

You sigh shakily, staring out the window behind his head. You stay that way for a minute, gathering your courage. Akaashi watches you carefully, tracking the slight changes in your expression and the defeat that crosses your face.

“Y/n?” he asks, his voice soft now, in that way that he speaks to everyone who’s not you.

“Sorry,” you laugh. “Nervous.” You clear your throat and ground yourself, looking him straight in the eye. “So, I had to turn to some… desperate measures.” His eyebrows lift with interest, and you think you see him lean in almost imperceptibly. “I… decided to start making… content -”

You watch understanding cross his face immediately – of course it does, he’s not the Golden Boy for nothing. His eyes go wide, and he inhales quietly, leaning back in his chair and letting out a long, drawn out breath that ends in a quiet ‘ oh, boy ’. You stop talking, just watching him nervously. He stares back a moment, his mouth opening and closing with thoughts unsaid as he considers how to respond.

“And it was your only option?”

“Probably not,” you laugh. The sound is watery, and your eyes are starting to sting. “But I couldn’t think of anything else at the time, and I haven’t figured out anything better since – anything short of asking someone for a $500 loan.”

“Okay,” he says simply. You meet his eyes, searching for judgment or thinly veiled disgust, or anything . But he just looks back at you, his face devoid of everything but concentration as he thinks. “So, why are you telling me this?”

You break eye contact, staring down at your lap. You’re sweating profusely, your stomach doing that terrible flipping. “It’s… not exactly going well .”

Silence, and then-

“Define ‘ not going well ’.”

You flick your eyes to meet his briefly, seeing that he’s staring at you with an intensity you’ve never seen before. When you make eye contact, he takes a breath.

“Y/n-”

“Someone-” You swallow. “I’ve only made $300 in the last four weeks, and my roommate helped me pay the October 1st rent because she felt bad for moving out so suddenly. I’m clearly desperate, Akaashi, because I’m not making the kind of money I need to be making, but there’s nothing else. And someone commented on a video that-” You break, rubbing at your brow and breathing hard. God, this is so difficult. You don’t know how to say it to him.

“You need a partner.”

You suck in a breath, your own watery, stinging eyes meeting his. He’s breathing a little harder now, and his expression’s not as guarded as it usually is. He’s tapping a finger nervously on his desk and blinking a lot.

“Why me?”

You fumble for an answer. “Uhm-Because-”

“Why not Kuroo?” He asks, his voice calm despite the increased tapping on his desk.

“‘m not sure our friendship would survive it. I care too much about him.”

He nods, clearly not offended by the implication that you’re willing to risk things with him . He’s not your friend and he knows that. The relationship between the two of you is delicate and tense, but it’s never entered the realm of care. Professional respect at most, outright hatred at worst. There’s nothing to risk by asking Akaashi Keiji to help, aside from the risk that he’ll make you feel bad or even that he’ll tell someone else. And it must mean something that you’re trusting him not to do those things.

“Bokuto?” he asks, jumping through all the same mental hoops that you had.

“There’s a million reasons it can’t be him,” you say, sighing tiredly. He narrows his eyes at you in suspicion, but he doesn’t push it. He just shakes his head slowly.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to do this with someone in the same department.” He considers something else, rolling his eyes slightly. “ And we have the same advisor. It’s too close. If something goes wrong…” He shakes his head again. “I don’t know, Y/n.”

“Right,” you say emptily. You’re already recalculating how often you can film and post solo content without losing too much sleep, the thought of selling feet pics popping up again. Anything to keep your mind off of the fact that talking to Akaashi had been a mistake – a waste of his time, and an exposure of yourself that had amounted to nothing. 

This had amounted to nothing, baring this piece of your life to him. How humiliating.

“Y/n,” he says gently. You don’t meet his eyes, just patting your pockets for your office keys.

“Okay, well – thanks for your time-”

“I won’t say anything, Y/n,” he tries. “About any of it. I promise.”

“Thanks,” you laugh. “Yeah, I would appreciate that. Sorry for wasting your time.” You stand quickly, spinning to the door.

“Y/n- Y/n- ” 

The sound of your name is muffled as you yank the door open and slam it closed behind you. You hear him sigh on the other side, a quiet ‘ fuck’ uttered in the stifling silence. Your phone buzzes in your pocket, and you plead for it to be Bokuto or Kuroo or Yachi.

Shockingly, it’s all three, sent to your group chat.

[2:26 PM]

Kou: LUNCH? TEN MINUTES?

Tetsu: bo we eat lunch at THE SAME TIME EVERY SINGLE DAY

Kou: IM JUST CHECKING, FUCK

Hitoka: i like that he reminds us, hehe

Kou: yeah, see??? Yachi’s forgetful!!!

Hitoka: hey now.

Kou: oops-

A small smile tugs at your lips as you drift down the hall to the grad student lounge to get your lunch. But, as you’re typing out that you’ll be down soon, another text comes in.

Akaashi: y/n i wont say anything

Akaashi: i swear

Your face burns with embarrassment. It’s damage control, plain and simple, and the fact that he feels the need to do that at all makes this whole situation worse. You can’t bring yourself to open the text or say anything else to him. It’s humiliating, knowing that Akaashi Keiji knows what you do for money now. That you’re not even good enough at it to make rent.

Akaashi doesn’t make it to lunch that day. You try your best to shrug uncaringly when Bokuto wonders aloud why he’s not there.

–

Keiji has never known what to make of you.

From the moment he’d met you – at the department orientation five years ago – he’d found you interesting, and not always necessarily in a good way. When you’d rattled off that list of research interests during your self-introduction, the one that had been unrealistically high-reaching and ambitious, he’d written you off as naive. When you’d made friends easily, your smile bright and your laugh loud and grating against his ears, he’d written you off as annoying.

And then you’d gone ahead and proven that that list wasn’t as high-reaching as he’d thought. Or maybe it was, and you’d just had a touch of insanity in your blood. You’d proven that you aren’t just ambitious – you’re successful. You’re smart – brilliant, even. And Keiji had found you interesting again, because he could never tell if you’d realized it. He still can’t.

You carry an intensity in your shoulders and eyes that he’s always caught off guard to see. You question the work of your peers with the kind of brutal honesty that should make you unpopular. It should make people hate you, the way you pick apart their ideas and results. But they never do. They never hate you, and he kind of hates that. 

Maybe it’s because you always seem so eager to learn. You don’t criticize when you question – you just question . You don’t tear anyone down – in fact, your questions only seem to build people up, to the point that you’re often stopped in the halls and asked for your opinion on methodological choices and theoretical connections. People seek you out, and you’re all too happy to help.

But with your own work, you’re suddenly unsure. Keiji bristles when he sees it, that uncertain tilt of your head when you talk. It’s almost impossible to notice, and he’s sure that, to everyone else, you’re just being humble, or a nervous public speaker, even. You’re knowledgeable about your work, you seem confident when you answer questions, and you accept criticism with grace, taking notes diligently when points come up that you hadn’t thought of.

But he sees it – that uncertainty in your own ability. And it pisses him off.

You are annoying, he’d decided after the first time he’d noticed that hesitant nature. It annoys him, because you work just as hard as he does – you’re just as smart as he is – and you can’t seem to see it. Or is it a ploy? Is it an act, a performative relatability that only he can see? 

You piss him off.

How can both of you be so brilliant, but you seem so much more likeable? How can people call him the Golden Boy and then be too afraid to approach him? You’re the Golden Girl, for fuck’s sake. Can’t they see it? Why are you so easy for people to talk to? Why do people tell you ‘ good job’ when you give presentations, and he’s never gotten so much as a pat on the shoulder? Why do people like you so much , and all he gets is polite smiles and nervous expressions? Why does his name float around the department in reverence, but it’s your name that people say when they want to get a second pair of eyes on their proposals, their chapters?

And why , for all that is good in the world, do you not realize it ?

That’s why he targets you. It’s like an itch he can’t reach — he just can’t help himself. He doesn’t offer you meaningless platitudes or careful language when he gives you feedback, because it’s not your favor he wants. What he wants is to push you. He wants to push you to your limit – bully you to it, if he has to. 

Because it’s your research that’s born of brilliance, the kind of brilliance that makes goosebumps rise on his skin. The kind that makes his spine straighten and his gut wrench with excitement. It’s your research – your mind – that he’s drawn to. He wants to see you succeed, because he wholeheartedly believes that you could change the field.

But you don’t see that. No one seems to see that, except him and, undoubtedly, your advisor. So, when he pushes you, he know it looks like a personal attack. He knows it looks to you like he dislikes you for no apparent reason, because you’re just trying your best and he’s the department genius that thinks you’re beneath him. He knows how it looks, and he makes not a single move to fix it – because he’s seen, more than once, how what you think he is and what you think he’s doing has moved you to do revolutionary things.

He’s seen you do remarkable things with just a little bit of hatred. 

So he keeps it up, because maybe he hates you just a little bit, too. Maybe his own work is as unquestionable as it is because he’s secretly begging you to question it, begging you to give him that focused look and that critical eye that always makes his breath hitch. But you never give him what he wants, so he doesn’t either. He doesn’t give you the softspoken voice or the gentle, polite demeanor that he gives everyone else, even though he can see you yearning for it. He won’t give you that, not until you realize what you are – a genius, just the same as him.

When you come to him on October 16th, opening your life to him in ways he hadn’t expected, he means every word he says to you. It shouldn’t be him – it would get messy, the two of you having sex. He knows you had to have thought this through already, that you would never have approached him unless he was the absolute last option available, but he can’t bring himself to say yes to you. He knows you need the money, and there’s a non-insignificant part of him that actually wants to say yes. That wants to help you, because, despite how he feels about you, he can recognize the severity of the situation. Of the look in your eye, desperate and scared.

But he can’t bring himself to do it, because he knows that this intricately built web of hate and respect that you’ve built together is incredibly fragile. That whatever you two have – whatever this thing is that can’t be called friendship or anything close to it – would collapse and change. Keiji doesn’t like change. 

So he watches, over the course of October 17th, 18th, and 19th, as you become more desperate. 

He catches you dissociating more than once during your shared reading group meetings, and you don’t even pull your laptop out during the syntax class you TA together. You avoid his eyes for the duration of the 17th, but you seem to forget about him entirely the rest of the days, your gaze distant and stressed. You check your phone more than once during class, and he doesn’t dare look, because he’s certain you’re looking at your porn account for views and comments.

He catches you chasing after your advisor after group meetings, and he realizes quickly that the man’s aware of your financial situation, because he only shrugs regretfully and leaves you in the hall, staring down at nothing. He catches you turning down Bokuto’s lunchtime offer to hit up a bar on the evening of the 18th, and then he glances into your office the morning of the 19th – you’re staring blankly at the journal article on your desk, not reading a single word, and Keiji begins to understand how this might impact your research.

He confirms it that afternoon, a cloudy Thursday just before lunch. He’s passing his advisor’s office on the way to the grad student lounge, a can of iced coffee waiting with his name on it – but he stops short when he hears your voice inside.

“ ...have to find another job, ” you say, your voice clearly stressed. “ There’s no way to get an advance on next month’s paycheck from the department? ”

The old man sighs loudly. “ I’ll see what I can do, but you know these things don’t usually work like that. And they take time. I think another job’s the only option at the moment. ”

“ Okay, ” you say. “ In that case, I’m not sure what to do about my research- ”

Keiji inhales sharply, pressing his ear to the door. You’re not postponing your experiment, are you? You can’t. He knows he told you to push it as much as necessary for the case marking issues, but he hadn’t meant for it to be like this . 

“ Take some time to focus on your personal situation ,” your advisor says. “ Find a part-time job with stable hours, and we’ll work your research around it. It might double the time needed- ”

Double?!

Keiji’s starts to shake his head. No, that’s not possible. You can’t.

“ Fuck ,” he whispers, stomping off down the hall, his coffee entirely forgotten. God, is this really going to be the thing that brings you down? Is it really going to be this ? 

He barrels into his office and starts to pace the length of it. He thinks through your situation in extreme detail, rubbing at his brow and sighing in frustration every time he has to turn and pace the other way down his office. 

Obviously, you’ve thought through every option, but he runs through them anyway, if only to confirm for himself that you really are left with no option except finding a job and delaying the progress of your research.

Well, there’s one option.

One option that wouldn’t require you to put your energy toward applying for jobs and training for some side gig you have no interest in. One option that doesn’t require you to lose sleep or miss class or drop out of optional reading groups due to having to work somewhere across town. One option that would probably get you immediate payout, which he knows is the reason you started in the first place.

He looks at the little flip calendar on his desk. October 19th. 12 days until your rent is due. How long would it take you to apply for jobs? Would they let you start right away? When would you get your first paycheck?

Is finding a part-time job even a solution anymore?

“ Fuck! ” He throws himself down in his chair. There’s a very large part of him – the majority, even  – that’s concerned about your research progress. It’s unwarranted, his dedication to work that’s not his own. But it’s not even about that – it’s the fact that he knows how this will tear at you. How it will eat you alive, not being able to work on your research. How agonizing it’ll be, seeing the rest of your cohort progress while you struggle to pay rent. Because you think like he thinks, whether you’d like to admit it or not.

Maybe that’s the smaller part of him, too. The part that wants to help you because it’s you . Because, as much as he dislikes and even hates you at times, he wants to fix this for you. He wants things to be okay for you, because you’re a person with a life – a person in his life – and you don’t deserve the kind of torment you’re currently experiencing. He doesn’t want to see you crushed by the stress.

Not when there’s something he can do about it.

–

Akaashi texts you that night.

You sit, hunched, at your dining table, frantically fixing your resumé and sending it off to different cafes, restaurants, and bars all over Tokyo. You’ve been applying all week – two places have already rejected you, saying they’re only hiring full-time workers, and one place has scheduled an interview with you, but it’s over a week away.

You’re staring intensely at your laptop, pushing down the continuous sense of dread by finding more and more places to apply. You barely notice when your phone buzzes next to you, and you pick it up without looking, thinking it’ll be one of your friends sending a meme to the group chat.

[7:59 PM]

Akaashi: i’ll do it.

You stare down at your phone, unseeing. Your ears start to buzz, and your vision goes blurry for a moment.

He’ll do it? He’ll-

You press call before you can think of anything. He picks up on the first ring.

“ Hello? ”

“You’ll do it?” Your eyes focus in on a scuff on your hardwood floors, latching onto it so you don’t have to look at anything else. “Really?”

“ Yeah. I’ll do it. ”

“Why?”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end, and you eyebrows scrunch the longer it stretches on.

“ I could use a bit of extra money, too. Once you’re done paying rent. ”

It’s insultingly easy to spot that that’s bullshit, but you don’t press it. You can’t risk pressing this. Not when your solution – this miracle – is finally within reach.

“What about the other stuff?”

“ We’ll figure it out. I can draft up a contract and bring it by tomorrow, if that works for you. ”

“A contract?” You want to roll your eyes, because that’s incredibly Akaashi Keiji , but you also recognize that you hadn’t thought of that.

“ Are you in or not? ”

There’s no way in hell you’re passing this up.

“Yes-Sorry, I’m just… surprised. But, yes.”

“ Alright. Tomorrow afternoon? ”

“I’m free after 2.”

“ I’ll be there at 2:30. Send me your address. ”

“O…kay. Okay.”

You hear him swallow and shift on the other end, and then he mumbles, “ Okay. See you tomorrow. ”

You’re left with the dial tone, that scuff in the hardwood burned into your mind when you blink.

“Okay,” you say to no one.

The conversation had lasted 55 seconds.

–

He shows up at 2:29 on Friday, rapping three quick knocks on your door and scaring the shit out of you as you pace the living room nervously. You rush to get it, fixing your hair and clothes as you go and giving the room a cursory glance. You’re suddenly so nervous to exist in front of him, feeling your appearance and the cleanliness of your home under scrutiny even though he hasn’t seen either yet.

You pull the front door open, dragging your eyes up to meet his. He’s wearing a pair of black slacks and a tucked-in white button-down, the collar peeking through the top of the black sweater vest he’d fitted over it. His glasses, black and settled comfortably on the bridge of his nose, glint in the light and block you from seeing the look in his eye when you appear in front of him. And then he shifts his weight, and you see those deep blue eyes staring right into yours.

Akaashi adjusts his backpack on his shoulder. “Hi.”

You swallow hard. “Uh. Hi.” You step back quickly to let him in, and you try not to notice the subtle cologne he’s wearing when he brushes past you. Had he always worn cologne? “Thanks for coming.”

“Mhm,” he hums, slipping his sneakers off and setting them neatly to the side in your foyer. When he stands, you watch him cast his gaze across your living room and dining area, tucked into a corner by the kitchen. He steps into the living room, wandering slowly to the side of the couch while looking at the space. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to let this place go.”

High ceilings, lots of windows, and a small balcony. Hardwood floors and an open floorplan – the kitchen is visible past the island counter, two beams capping the ends of the bar to section the area off from the rest of the room. Your bedroom door is just past the couch, your roommate’s old room hidden down a narrow hallway with the bathroom. 

When you and your ex-roommate had found the place together, five years prior, rent had been cheaper and $500 hadn’t been considered a steal for a place like this. You’d managed to keep the landlord from raising the prices over the years, the two of you stellar tenants with not a single issue to note. That’s the only reason he’d let your roommate break her lease so suddenly – especially since you’d said you could take the entire thing over until you could find a new roommate.

Not that that new roommate would ever appear.

“Yeah,” you say, following Akaashi into the room and gesturing for him to sit. You move to the kitchen to get two glasses of water while he takes the corner and sets his backpack down at his feet. “I’ve made my home here. Would hate to start over, I guess.”

He looks around, eyeing all the decorations and furniture in the room. Your roommate had left you with the furniture, thankfully – this place would be barren otherwise. She’d even left her bed and the little couch in her room, reasoning that keeping the room furnished might encourage someone to move in. 

You’re not sure you’d ever tell her what you use that bed and couch for now, a conveniently placed “studio” right in your own home.

You join Akaashi on the couch, offering him the water and just nodding awkwardly when he thanks you for it. His fingers brush yours when he takes the glass, his attention still on the room, and you fight the blush that rises. There are a number of thoughts floating through your mind as you examine his fingers, but you shake your head to clear them, because technically no contracts have been signed, so you’re not allowed to think about how pretty his hands will look on camera.

“So…” you start. “What exactly did you have in mind for these contracts?”

He blinks, as though remembering why he’s here, and sets his glass down. “Right.” He rustles through his bag, extracting two sets of papers and handing one to you. “I… had to look up a template for this kind of contract-”

You snort despite yourself, because he’s blushing slightly at having to admit that he has no clue what he’s doing. He rolls his eyes but continues anyway. 

“I think it’s standard to just discuss expectations, boundaries, and-uh- preferences .” 

You flip the first page over, finding blank lines to fill in the terms of the agreement – and then a long checklist that spans about two more pages. It consists entirely of turn-ons, turn-offs, kinks (taboo or otherwise), and absolute non-negotiables. There’s another page with blank lines, the section titled ‘ Agreed Upon Consent System ’. 

You nod slowly. “You did your homework.”

“Did you forget who I am?”

You bark out a laugh, shaking your head as you look through the checklist again. “Sorry – is ‘Shibari ’ listed here because you know it, or because you expect that I might?”

He smothers a smile, but you catch the downward turn of his lips before it’s gone. “I didn’t want to make any assumptions.”

“Fair enough,” you sigh. And then you look at him. “And… you’re sure you’re okay with this?” When he just nods, meeting your eyes evenly, you watch him for a moment. “And you won’t, like, hold this over my head or something?”

His brows furrow for a moment before smoothing out. “No. Of course not.” You don’t respond, and he sighs. “I don’t benefit from hurting you, you know.”

You relax at that. You suppose that’s true – the two of you might not like each other, but it would be another level of messed up if Akaashi were to use this against you in any way..

“Okay. Sorry. I had to check.”

“Surprisingly, I’m above blackmail.”

You shake your head, wondering if he’d always been a little funny, or if this situation’s so ridiculous that you’re finding everything hilarious. “Okay, so – terms?”

He shifts his weight forward, leaning his elbows on his knee while he looks down at the first page of the contract. “I think payment’s the most important part right now.” You nod, watching as he retrieves a pen from his bag and clicks it a few times. “I was thinking… I take 20% of the cut for each video, but only when it wouldn’t prevent you from paying rent and bills?”

“How’d you decide on 20%?”

He shrugs. “I’m relatively comfortable financially, so I don’t need a large portion. And I don’t expect anything for the first few weeks, at least – not until your finances are settled.”

You watch the side of his face while he thinks – his lips pinch into a grimace and he shifts his head back and forth. He’d always been that way, from the beginning. He clicks his pen a few more times, and then he glances at you.

“Is that okay with you? I’m good for 10%, too.”

You shake your head right away. “No, of course not. 20% is completely reasonable.”

He nods, tapping his pen to the paper and writing out the agreement for payment. He sighs quietly. “Okay, next thing… What do you do for privacy?”

You take a breath. “I edit my face out of everything, and-” You stretch your foot out and lift your pant leg, displaying the small sunflower tattoo on the inside of your ankle. “-I edit that out, too.” You point down the hall. “I film in the spare bedroom, so that no one recognizes the stuff in my room. And I muffle some of the audio, so my voice isn’t easy to recognize. It would help, too, if we need to talk to each other.”

He nods, and then he starts to roll up the sleeve on his right arm. “Would it be hard to edit this out?” There’s a medium-sized tattoo on his forearm, a stretch of the moon cycles sketched in black across his skin.

“Oh, woah-” You scoot in on instinct, your fingers hovering over his milky skin. “When did you get this?”

“Last year, when I passed the Prelim.” His voice comes from over your head, quiet and low. You smile to yourself, examining the intricate line art. “I wanted to gift myself something.” You find it interesting to imagine Akaashi Keiji being nervous enough about passing the milestone between doctoral student and doctoral candidate, so much that he’d promised himself something if he were to pass.

“Pretty cool gift,” you mumble, your fingers tracing the air over his skin but never making contact. He lowers his arm, and you seem to realize only now how close you are. You meet his eyes quickly, seeing the silent amusement in his gaze, and you scoot back to your spot. “Sorry.”

He says nothing of it, just nodding down to his arm. “Can you edit it?”

You squint at the art. “I can try, but if you move your arms a lot, it might be easier to cover it with makeup. We can test it – film from the other side, lower the camera so your arm’s out of frame. That kind of thing.”

He nods, rolling his sleeve down again. You look away from his hands as he works, taking the moment instead to reflect on how business-like this conversation is. You’d expected more discomfort, given the circumstances. But you both treat it with detachment and only a few hiccups that can be recovered easily. It’s oddly easy, in a way that you can’t imagine with Bokuto or Kuroo – perhaps because of how much history you have with them, how much would be changing by entering into this kind of agreement together.

There’s nothing holding you and Akaashi together that would prevent you from doing business together in this way. It’s reassuring to realize that.

Akaashi buttons the cuff on his sleeve again and reaches for the pen, jotting down the terms of privacy. He glances at you briefly. “About who we can tell…”

Your heart jumps. “No one, preferably.”

“Right,” he says. “But if someone were to find out on accident, or if someone puts together that we’re having sex… what do we say?”

“Oh…” You tap your nails on your thigh. “Just that we’re hooking up?”

He nods. “That’s fine. I also think it’s fine if you decide to tell someone what we’re actually doing.” He cuts you short when you open your mouth to protest. “ I won’t tell anyone, because this isn’t my financial situation and this wasn’t my idea. This is your business, and I’m mindful of that. But I think it’s perfectly possible that you might end up wanting to tell someone, for whatever reason. And I think that’s your prerogative, so I don’t mind if you tell them that I’m part of it.” He takes a breath, smiling to himself when he considers something. “Uh, but – maybe don’t show them anything.”

“Oh, God, I would never,” you reassure him, shaking your head. “That’s a huge violation. And I don’t expect that I’ll want to tell anyone-”

“Still,” he argues. “It’s good to have the option. If you’re stressed or need a friend.”

“Well, what if you want to tell someone? What if you need a friend?”

His eyebrows tent in amusement, and he sighs. “How about we just agree to ask each other first? Whatever the reason.”

You take a breath. “Okay. I’m okay with that – reserving the right to say no?”

“Of course,” he says plainly, adding that to the terms.

You nod, sighing shakily. You feel an odd sense of trust with him – that he’s good for his word, because he’s, more often than not, honest to a fault.

“Anything… else?” you ask. “Before we get to the… technical parts?”

He snorts through his nose while he writes, and you’re reminded of the absurdity of the situation. “Yeah, just one more thing.” He purses his lips now, not meeting your eyes. “When was your last health visit?”

“Oh!” You blink rapidly, realizing what he’s asking. “Oh, I’m clean. I get a yearly health check, and I haven’t had sex in– I dunno, probably two or three years, so I’m good,” you ramble, laughing to yourself as you brush off his concern. Then you stop, because he’s looking at you like he’s fighting laughter himself, and you register what you’d said. That you’d just admitted to him that you haven’t gotten laid in three years . “Uh-”

He shakes his head. “Good to know. And it’s been at least a year for me, too.” He reaches into his bag, retrieving a sheet of paper. “But I brought this, in case you needed it-” He starts to hand it to you, and you piece together quickly that this is his health check. You take it, only glancing at the date to confirm that it was, in fact, done today.

“You went to the doctor today?”

He blinks. “I thought it would be best.”

You gape at him. “You didn’t have to do that. I would have believed you.” You glance around your living room. “I don’t even know where my sheet is- I went two months ago-”

“I don’t need to see it,” he says, shaking his head. “I believe you.”

“Dude! You can’t have all these weird, anti-double-standards.” You throw your hands up and hand him his health check back, and then you stand, moving to the file cabinet in the corner. “I’m finding that little fucker-”

“ Y/n ,” Akaashi laughs, and you pause, if only because you’ve never heard your name like that from him. He looks more visibly relaxed, too, now that you look at him properly. “It’s fine . If you want to find it, find it later.”

You sigh, staring him down a moment but returning to the couch nonetheless. He tries to hand you the health check again, but you brush it off with a grumble. “I don’t need your stupid health check, damn it.”

“I went through the trouble of getting it,” he argues, lifting his brows with a smug tilt of his head. You glare, snatching it from him but leaving it on the coffee table.

“What else, huh?” You bark, half-joking. “Got any other surprises for me?”

“No,” he says with a patient shake of his head, his lips tugging his smile away. “We can get to the technical part.”

You sigh, lifting your copy of the contract from the table and leafing through it. “So, I post every day on a consistent schedule. Obviously, I don’t want you to give up every evening of your week to film for the next day’s post, nor do I have the time.”

“And it would look weird – both of us becoming suddenly unavailable to see our friends every night,” he reasons, and you nod.

“Exactly. You have a life, and so do I. I usually batch all my content one night a week, and then I spend a few hours the next night editing everything and scheduling it to post.”

“You’ve really thought this through,” he comments quietly, also leafing through his contract. You warm, realizing it’s a compliment. 

“ Thanks ,” you mutter. “I’d hoped it would have yielded better results, but at least I have a consistent schedule now.” You return to your proposal. “I think filming partner content will take longer, naturally, but I don’t want us meeting every night, so how’s twice a week? Five or six hours each?”

He hums and nods right away. “Makes sense. And we can change the days every week, so we’re not both conveniently missing every single, say, Tuesday and Thursday.”

“Yeah, good point.” He writes it down, and you clear your throat. “And I don’t think we should kiss,” you suggest, your voice quiet.

“I agree.” He doesn’t think twice about it, just writing it on the next line, and relief fills you. You hadn’t been sure how to bring up to him the fact that you find kissing personal and intimate in a way that you aren’t comfortable experiencing with him. It would probably offend you if he were anyone else – the way he agrees immediately – but you know he’s only thinking about this as logically as you are.

You appreciate, for once, that you and Akaashi Keiji think so similarly.

“And,” you start, clapping your hands as you realize something suddenly. “As for protection-”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, reaching down into his bag. 

He drops a box of condoms on the table, size large.

You stare down at it dumbly. “Oh. Okay. That’s-” You’re not sure you’d ever expected to be in the know about the size of Akaashi’s-

“I was at the store and didn’t want to forget.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s fine, it’s just-” You smile to yourself, a little embarrassed to know this. “Videos with condoms don’t really do as well as videos without.”

You feel his eyes on the side of your face. “I… did not know that,” he says. “But I can understand why.”

You swallow, handing the condoms back to him with an awkward grin. “I’m on the pill, is what I wanted to say.” You’re glad to see that the apples of his cheeks are becoming rosy.

“Got it,” he says, turning to put the box in his bag again. He scribbles ‘ birth control ’ haphazardly on the sheet, and you let out an accidental snicker. He shakes his head at it, and you catch the grin on his face just as he’s turning away.

“Uh,” you start, trying not to laugh again. “I was also thinking pet names might be necessary.”

“Oh, if we need to talk to each other,” he realizes, nodding. “Yeah. Do you have a preference?”

“I think that question might be better for you,” you muse. “I’m good with most things-”

“ Sweetheart ? Princess ? Pretty girl or baby girl ? Darling ?” he asks without thinking. You watch his mouth move, words you’d never expected from him just falling from his lips like nothing. 

“S-Sure. That’s all fine with me.”

“Okay,” he says. “I think for me… I mean, baby ’s fine. I’m not really into the… more stereotypical names.”

You tilt your head. “What, like daddy ?”

He grimaces. “Yeah, that’s not my thing-” He cuts a glance at you. “Sorry, if it’s yours.”

You smile wide now, utterly amused. “Can’t say it is. But – are you a dom, Akaashi? Or a sub.”

“Why?” he says, a single eyebrow lifting as his lips quirk in a grin. “Because I like to be called baby ?”

“I’m just curious,” you say, feigning a seriousness you simply don’t feel.

“Well, be curious in bed, not now.”

You laugh loudly, throwing your head back. “Yes, Sir.” His fingers twitch on his pen, and your eyebrows lift with interest. You lean forward. “ Sir ? Is that it?”

He shakes his head. “Nope.”

“But you reacted when I said it-”

He rolls his eyes and starts to flip the page toward the checklist of preferences. “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it.” 

“How’d I say it?”

He stands, glancing down the hall. “Like a brat.” Your smile drops, right along with your stomach. It flips violently, and your fingers start to tingle, but he barely gives you a second look. “Give me a tour of the spare bedroom? While we go through these.”

Your legs shake when you stand. “Sure.” You lead him down the hall, contract clutched in your hand and heart in your throat. You weren’t prepared to hear that from him.

You push the door open, letting him in. He wanders to the center of the room, turning in place. You’d put plain white sheets on the bed, the comforter a deep red color. The couch in the corner is covered in a pale green sheet, and there are a few throw pillows and blankets laid over the arm and back of it. There’s an empty desk in the corner, one that Akaashi eyes with an amused lift of his brow. 

“It’s nice in here,” he says blankly, his eyes still tracking the decor in the room. It’s all plain enough not to be recognizable, but the room is comfortable to be in. You’d put string lights all around the wall, your phone equipped with an app to change the colors whenever. You’ve got one tripod for your phone near the bed and another near the couch, and there’s a chest at the end of the bed. Akaashi taps it with his foot.

“Functional or just decoration?” Your harsh flush is his answer, and he reaches for the latch, pausing for permission once he’s got his fingers on it. You nod curtly, and he drops his contract and pen on the bed so he can crouch by the chest and lift the top with both hands.

He gives you no indication of his thoughts when he looks inside – it’s filled with sex toys, harnesses, props, and basically anything else you thought might be useful. Looking at it now, you’re certain it looks like you’re into a lot of interesting things, but he only glances at you for a second round of permission before he reaches in. He seems to understand that it’s one thing to look and another entirely to touch , but you give him that permission, too.

The first thing he extracts is a whip. “Have you ever used this?”

You smile emptily. “On myself, once. Wasn’t very fun. And I didn’t upload the video.”

He sets it back inside gently. “I prefer to use my hands, if that’s okay.”

“Oh.” You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to this. “Sure.”

He spends the next few minutes quietly pulling out a variety of dildos, butt plugs, and vibrators and laying them neatly on the bed, side by side. You grow warmer with each one, unsure what to do with this situation. He also retrieves a stretch of black cloth that you’d used once to blindfold yourself. It hadn’t gone as well as you’d hoped.

He stands with it now, tugging on it experimentally. “I like this.”

“Okay.”

He nods to the items on the bed. “I like all those, too-” He glances down and reaches into the chest again, setting a bottle of lube next to the vibrator on the end.

You approach him finally, standing beside him as you survey the collection. “Okay. Why?”

He picks up his contract, scanning the list and pointing to your bed as he speaks. “Guided masturbation.” He points to the dildos and the vibrators. He points next to the butt plugs. “Anal-”

“Oh, I’ve-” You fidget with your fingers. “I have yet to be successful with that.” He stares down at you in confusion, and then gestures to the fact that there are three of them on the bed, varying in size. You smile pitifully up at him. “I thought the issue was the size.”

“O…kay,” he says with a breath of laughter. “We don’t have to include anal-”

“No, I’m…” You chuckle to yourself. “I’m not opposed… obviously.”

There’s a long moment of eye contact, one where you become incredibly warm and his lips fight to tug into a smirk, but he eventually turns back to his contract. 

“Understood.”

You wonder how much longer this torture will last.

He moves to the couch, sighing quietly and clicking his pen again. You’re starting to get the idea that that’s a nervous tick. “Should we just go one at a time and say yes or no?”

“Okay. Sure.” You close the lid of the chest and sit on it, ignoring the pile of toys behind you. 

You spend the next ten minutes that way, voting on a list of kinks with Akaashi Keiji, as though you haven’t spent the last five years dreading every second with him. You learn that he’s into choking – giving and receiving – but that he prefers giving oral more than receiving it. You tell him that you like being tied up but that you’ve never tried it with a partner before, and then you admit to a slight oral fixation. He jokes dryly that you’d have to settle for his fingers in your mouth, in that case, and you bite back a warning that the oral fixation includes marking your partners up where others can see. He only lifts a brow and asks if he should check off ‘ exhibitionist ’, and you joke that your balcony isn’t visible from the street. You ask more certainly if he’s a dom, because it’s becoming obvious that he is, and he rolls his eyes and asks if you’re always this bratty.

The list goes on and on, and you’re surprised by how honest both of you are being. He checks ‘ dacryphilia ’, and you tell him with waning embarrassment that he can go ahead and check ‘ somnophilia ’ while he’s at it. Even things you’ve never tried but have been quietly interested in make the list, and you wonder if maybe it’s because this is a chance to try all those things without fear of judgment from the person you’re doing it with. There’s no pressure with Akaashi, because there’s no crushing fear that he’s going to find you strange or uncomfortable. 

He’d shrugged and nodded when you’d said the word somnophilia, for fuck’s sake. He utters the words ‘ temperature play’ , ‘ overstimulation ’, and ‘ ruined orgasm ’ with ease, and you rattle off ‘ edging ’, ‘ praise ’, and ‘ dirty talk ’ like it’s nothing. There’s nothing to worry about with him.

Eventually, he sighs, turning to the last page of the contract, which only has the ‘ Agreed Upon Consent System ’ section and lines for your signatures. “And… is it alright if I’m a little mean?”

You tilt your head at him, your embarrassment long forgotten. “Like, degradation? Calling me names?”

He hums and then shakes his head. “Not exactly.” He thinks for a moment. “More like… disinterest.”

“Oh.” You consider it. “I suppose that’s a kind of degradation.”

“I suppose it is.” He shifts. “Just worried, since you mentioned praise.”

You feel a little embarrassment now. “Well, is there a way to do both?”

His smile is surprised, and he ducks his head when he laughs. “Yeah, I think there might be. Disinterested praise.”

“Yeah, see? Just make sure not to smile at me when you say nice things,” you joke.

He shakes his head and then taps the paper. “What’s our consent system?”

You shrug. “I’m only really familiar with the color system.”

“Green, yellow, red?” he asks, already starting to write it down. You hum in agreement, and he holds the contract up when he’s done. “Okay. I’m ready to sign if you are.”

You leave your blank copy on the bed and hop off the chest, joining him on the couch. You watch as he signs his name and marks the date on one of the lines – he hands you the pen after, and you do the same, your name sitting neatly under his. 

“Okay,” you breathe, staring down at the paper with fresh eyes. He nods beside you, and then he turns his head. You feel his eyes on you, so you meet them, and he sticks his hand out to you.

“Let’s get you your rent money.”

You can’t help but laugh when you take his hand, shaking it firmly.

–

He texts you later that night, after you’ve had time to lie in your bed and process what’s just happened. 

You feel, weirdly enough, more comfortable with him – not completely, and certainly nothing of the friendly sort, but you feel like the afternoon hadn’t been that tense or difficult. It had mostly been awkward and a little funny, which is only to be expected in this situation. It makes you wonder, while you’re showering and making dinner, if maybe Akaashi’s not all that bad outside of an academic context.

Of course, things between you inside an academic context are so hostile that it had always bled over into whatever social interactions you’d been forced into by your mutual friends. You can’t imagine that those things will change anytime soon – it feels strange to picture Akaashi as anything but rude and torturous within the department, and you find that you’re not so enthused at the idea of him suddenly warming up to you. You like how things are between you. You like him just how he is, predictably annoying and cold.

So, when he texts you, you’re unsurprised that your guards go up.

[10:16 PM]

Akaashi: i need your account name + site

[10:18 PM]

Akaashi: please

You feel the floor drop out from under you, and you answer in a frenzy.

[10:19 PM]

You: no fucking way

Akaashi: ???????

Akaashi: i need to study before tomorrow??????

Yes, you’d agreed to spend the majority of the day tomorrow batching content for the week. But you have no idea why you hadn’t anticipated this. 

Aghast, you don’t bother typing, just jabbing down on the button to record a voice note.

“You need to study?! ” You say, exasperated. “My body’s all over that account! I’m doing a lot of things on that account! Naked things!”

You send it and wait, pacing the space around your bed. He sends a voice note back. You click play with a shaky thumb.

“ Are you insane?” he says, and you hear that he’s laughing at you. You swell with annoyance as he talks. “ Did you plan to have sex with me with all your clothes on? ” You roll your eyes, sitting at the edge of your bed. 

“Yeah, that was a stupid point,” you mumble to yourself.

“ I need to see what the general aesthetic of your account is, okay? To see how you film. ”

You press the microphone again to record. “Yeah, but this feels super unfair! You’ll have seen my whole body, and I won’t have seen yours – this is skewed!”

He texts back this time.

[10:23 PM]

Akaashi: oh, sorry. let me link you to my porn account, too, then.

Akaashi: are you hearing yourself???

You groan, throwing yourself back on your mattress. You know he’s right, but it’s terrifying to know that Akaashi will have seen you naked – more than naked, really – and you will have no clue what you’re walking into tomorrow. Still, you just flail on your bed a few times in protest before sighing and lifting your phone to your face.

[10:26 PM]

You: xxxvids .com

You: username tokyolovely

You throw your phone down and roll over to bury your face in the mattress, screaming into the comforter when your phone buzzes with his response.

Akaashi: … no comment.

You want to smack him.

Akaashi: and why couldnt you choose one of the big sites that everyone else posts on???

Akaashi: onlyfans?? pornhub even???

Akaashi: i swear to god if i get a virus from xxxvids .com

Akaashi: rent is not the only expense youll need to worry about

You definitely want to smack him.

–

Keiji throws his phone down on his desk, shaking his head with a sigh.

“What even is that?” he mumbles to himself, typing the site into his laptop. “ XXXVid- This is so stupid. Just use PornHub at that point.”

He’s accosted immediately by thumbnails of naked women and men with penises that just have to be cosmetically enlarged. He plugs his headphones in quickly, very much not needing any audio surprises from this site, and makes an account, rolling his eyes when he needs to come up with a username.

When he’s done, he types your name into the search bar.

“ Tokyo…lovely, ” he says as he types, and then his middle finger hovers over the Enter key. 

His goal really is just to look at how you’ve set up your account. He just wants to see the general tone of your channel. If you’re loud or quiet. If you’ve marketed yourself as one of those gentle, virginal girls or as a sex freak that makes a lot of noise. He needs to know these things, so he knows how to perform tomorrow. It’s logical. It makes sense.

But still, he sits here, finger hovering over the key while he contemplates it. He’d gone through the entire contract with you and revealed his deepest interests – previously experienced or otherwise. But this feels like a move he can’t take back. Once he does this, he will have seen your body, and that’s irreversible.

You agreed to this, you idiot.

He groans, jamming his finger down on the key before he can think further about it. The website buffers long enough that he wonders about that virus again, and then it loads.

Oh.

His heart jumps, and he finds himself looking away from his screen and glancing nervously around his living room, as though he doesn’t live completely alone. And then he looks back, met with the sight of your body.

He can only tell it’s you because he knows it’s you, and – looking at you in a set of black lingerie in the first thumbnail – this body looks like yours. The next thumbnail has you in a mismatched bra-panty pair, and, in the video after, you’re not wearing anything at all. He sucks in a breath, glancing away every few seconds while he scrolls, because it feels wrong to stare. He focuses on the titles, testing every ounce of his reading comprehension in this moment.

[Oct. 19] Shy Girl Fingers Herself to Orgasm

“Shy?” he mumbles, shaking his head. “Yeah, right.”

[Oct. 18] Virgin Sends Masturbation Video to Boyfriend

“Not a virgin,” he says. “No boyfriend.”

[Oct. 17] Girl Makes Herself Squirt on Friend’s Couch

“Not a friend’s cou-Wait.” He blinks. 

You can squirt ?

The room becomes noticeably warmer as he stares down at the little thumbnail of you curled up on the couch in your spare room. He’d intended to watch one video, just to see the extent of your editing, but he’d meant only to skim through it, skipping parts and examining the video from a purely analytic standpoint.

But… Well, if he’s going to watch one, anyway… 

He drags his mouse over it, about to click into it, when a pop-up banner appears from the left side of his screen.

TOKYOLOVELY IS ACTIVE NOW – SAY HI!

Keiji jumps, feeling as though he’s been caught doing something awful. And then he sighs heatedly and clicks on the banner, watching it open to an empty chat box.

[10:35 PM]

tokyohandsome: stop anxiously scrolling through your own videos

tokyolovely: YOU FUCK, YOU CHOSE THAT NAME ON PURPOSE

tokyohandsome: get offline, tokyolovely

tokyolovely: youre not allowed to watch the one of me with that dildo in doggy

Keiji blinks hard. The what ? Where you’re what ?

tokyohandsome: go to bed, youre driving me nuts

tokyohandsome: wait-

tokyohandsome: can you see which video i view????

tokyolovely: …. if i say yes will you exit this website

tokyohandsome: ill take that as a no.

tokyolovely: YOU HAVE TO TELL ME WHICH ONE YOU WATCH

tokyohandsome: goodnight, lovely <3 

tokyolovely: i hate you.

He laughs to himself, bright and hidden in his hand.

tokyohandsome: do you get paid for interacting with viewers in dms?

tokyolovely: yes.

tokyohandsome: do i decide how much they give you?

tokyolovely: … it’s a rating after i log off.

tokyohandsome: then you better say goodnight to me and log off, lovely <3

tokyolovely: ….. goodnight, handsome.

tokyohandsome: :((

tokyolovely: …. <3

tokyohandsome: :))

TOKYOLOVELY HAS LOGGED OFF

He sighs, pleased, and gives you a five-star rating like he’d always intended, closing the chat. He’s tempted to go looking for that video of you in doggy position, but he respects your hyper-specific request and returns to the video he’d originally seen. He clicks on it now, nerves a bit eased after that absurd interaction with you, and settles back in his chair.

The video starts with you in your underwear, touching yourself gently through the fabric. He watches with distant interest as you squeeze your breasts through your bra and then drop one hand to the spot between your thighs that’s currently hidden by how you’re curled up. You touch yourself vaguely, and he hears the beginnings of a moan, quiet in his headphones.

The sound grows the longer you continue, and he wonders if those moans sound faked because they’re obviously so or because he knows you. From the many years of hearing your voice – albeit never in this situation – he can’t imagine that this is what you would actually sound like if you were feeling good. He clicks his tongue, shaking his head as he watches you start to slide the panties down your thighs. 

He’s certain he can pull better sounds out of you than that.

He watches a few moments longer, genuinely critiquing the video and your performance, if only to gauge how he should act, too. 

But then you drop your panties on the couch beside you, sighing breathily, and move to unhook your bra. Keiji’s eyebrows lift as you slip the straps off, and suddenly he’s not thinking about things he plans to do differently as your business partner.

You prop your feet up on the couch and spread your legs, and he spreads his, too, unconsciously, eyes dropping to your exposed core. His tongue darts out, wetting his lips, and he shifts in his seat, his sweats becoming suspiciously tight. He watches you on his laptop screen – the way your fingertips swipe over your clit in two tight circles before dropping to your entrance – and he swallows, committing the motion to memory, because he’s here to study. To study .

He blinks hard, shifting again and ignoring the way his cock twitches in his pants and strains against the band. He watches you dip both fingers into your entrance before slipping out, and he has the torturous thought that your fingers look a lot smaller than his. You repeat the motion three or four times, working yourself open until you can fit both fingers up to the knuckles. 

You moan in Keiji’s ears, loud and a little gratuitous – but he moans back.

He palms himself through his sweats, watching you finger yourself. His breath hitches, and his stomach swirls with nerves, and he feels a wave of desire crash over him.

And then he hears your voice, in that note you’d sent him.

‘-feels super unfair – You’ll have seen my whole body, and I won’t have seen yours-’

He groans, throwing his head back against his chair briefly, and reaches for his phone before he can overthink.

“ Fuck it, ” he mumbles in a strained voice, opening the camera and propping his phone up against the stack of books on his desk. 

He presses record.

–

At 11pm, you get a text.

You’ve sat on your bed the last thirty minutes, scrolling through Twitter absentmindedly as you think about what Akaashi could be watching. You wonder if he’s actually watched anything, or if he’s just skimming the thumbnails and titles, or maybe if he’d just logged off right after you, satisfied with teasing you a little. 

You feel painfully vulnerable in your state of not knowing. You have no clue what you’re walking into tomorrow. At least before, you were partially comforted in that neither of you had seen the other naked, and also in that neither of you had been with someone else in at least a year. There had been an air of safety, knowing that you and Akaashi were on relatively equal ground.

You’re horribly underground, now.

So, when his first text comes through, the banner pulling down over the top of your screen, you think the worst.

[10:59 PM] 

Akaashi : [Video Attached]

What is that? What did he do? Did he record your videos on his phone? Is he commenting on them? At the very worst, he’s making fun of you, and at the very best, he’s offering you tips to improve your filming or editing. You really don’t know which you hate more.

But then his second text comes in, this banner replacing the last.

Akaashi: making it a little less unfair.

“ What? ” you mumble, brows furrowed as you click on the notification. Your phone jumps to the text thread, and you squint at the thumbnail of the video. It’s just him leaning toward the camera with a furrowed brow, seated at his desk in grey sweats and a white t-shirt, with his glasses perched on his nose and his hair slightly wet from what’s probably a recent shower. He’s got headphones in, and there’s something bright on his laptop screen.

It’s the glare in the corner of his glasses, a reflection of his laptop screen, that makes your heart leap.

You know that pale green sheet.

“What… the fuck …?” You bring the phone close to your face, too scared to press play . “Is that asshole live-reacting to my video?” With a trembling finger, your click on the video.

And you realize immediately what’s happening.

Akaashi settles back in his chair with a heated sigh, his tongue darting out as he watches his screen. It’s because he leaned back that you can see properly now – the tent in his pants, the hand he presses over the outline of his cock with a quiet sigh.

Your jaw drops. He’s-

His eyes track your movement on the screen, which you can now see clearly in the glare of his glasses, and his bottom lip catches between his teeth. He breathes hard, palming himself through his sweats as he watches your video. He glances once at his own camera, clearly nervous about recording this, but then his eyes widen and fly to his screen, whatever sound you’d just made in his headphones drawing his attention completely.

“ Oh, f- ” He purses his lips, and you feel yourself leaning in, wanting to hear what he’d been about to say. He blinks rapidly, eyes trained on one spot – you can see exactly which video it is now, and your heart jumps when you recognize the way your own body moves in the reflection of his glasses.

So that’s what he’s into.

You spend so long staring at the reflection in his glasses that you nearly miss the way he starts to move. You drop your eyes in time to catch him lifting his hips just enough to slide his sweats down to his thighs. He tucks one hand into his boxers, and you watch with parted lips as Akaashi Keiji’s eyes roll back into his head.

“ Fuck, ” he breathes, his head dropping back momentarily, and your mouth falls open more, your brain stunned into nothingness as you watch him masturbate to a video of you masturbating. As you realize that this isn’t just anyone watching one of your videos – liking one of your videos.

This is Akaashi Keiji.

Akaashi Keiji’s just given you the confirmation that you’re good at this, after so many weeks of feeling quite the opposite.

“Oh,” you breathe, the sticky heat of understanding washing over your skin. It worsens when he uses his free hand to tug his boxers down, making this ground feel suddenly a lot more equal.

Oh.

Akaashi keeps his eyes glued to his screen, and you catch a glimpse of your on-screen self coming more and more undone. You examine him closely while he watches it, too – his lips are swollen and wet from pursing and biting at them, and there’s a flush high on his cheeks and a hooded, hazy quality to his eyes that makes your stomach flip with nerves. His tongue darts out again, wetting his pink lips just as he’s parting them to sigh. 

Your eyes drop, watching how he slides his palm against his cock, slick with precum and making the most impolite, soft squelching sound whenever he flicks his wrist. Your thighs press together instinctively, a hard throb pulsing through your core when his hips jerk slightly. 

His breathing speeds up, as does the flick of his wrist, and you realize in the reflection that you must be starting to squirt. Akaashi grips the arm of his desk chair with his free hand and presses his lips together, his moan muffled but still audible. His hips jerk and stutter, and then his eyes roll back into his head again as he comes all over his hand and stomach, streaks of white painting the back of his hand and wrist.

His lips part in a gasp and a rough sigh as he’s coming down, and he slumps against his chair, breathing hard as he stares at nothing – the screen is dark in his glasses now. He drags his clean hand through his hair, tugging hard and breathing out a soft ‘ fuck ’. He breathes twice more, and then his eyes flick to his camera, as though he’s only just remembered it’s there.

He sees himself in the video and rolls his eyes immediately, a breathless laugh leaving him as he shakes his head and looks away.

“ Uh, ” he says, still laughing. He leans forward, reaching with his free hand for the phone, and shakes his head again. “ See you tomorrow, I guess.”

The video cuts there, leaving you with silence and a sudden, overwhelming attraction to Akaashi Keiji.

Oh.

[persevereforahappyending]

Maybe in Another Life |16|

Pairing: Clarisse La Rue x Hunter of Artemis!Reader

Summary: You are a Hunter of Artemis, but you start to question what you truly want when you meet Clarisse and get to know her.

Warnings: Slight The Last Olympian Spoilers, Stab Wound, Dying, Talks of Dying

Word Count: 3k+

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

ch. 1 | ch. 2 | ch. 3 | ch. 4 | ch. 5 | ch. 6 | ch. 7 | ch. 8 | ch. 9 | ch. 10 | ch. 11 | ch. 12 | ch. 13 | ch. 14 | ch. 15 | ch. 16 | ch. 17

You tried to open your eyes, but your eyelids were just so heavy. You couldn’t remember a time you felt so exhausted, your body felt like it was filled with lead. It felt like all your energy was focused on breathing. You slowly tried to open your eyes again, as they finally cracked open you were met with a bright white light.

Everything was blurry, you could only make out shadows as they passed across the light. You closed your eyes, intending to try and clear the blurriness. You weren’t sure how long it took but every time you closed your eyes even though you were just trying to blink it took forever to open them again. When your vision was finally clear you saw you were in some building, a few other demigods shuffling about, it sounded like there was screaming coming from outside, though it sounded far away.

“Wh-” you tried speaking, your voice sounding drier and raspier than it ever had before.

“Easy,” a soft voice came.

You looked around trying to find the voice which turned out to be a mistake because instantly your world started spinning. You needed to close your eyes again, you didn’t open them until it felt like everything had stopped moving. You slowly opened them again, expecting to be thrown back into a spinning world but instead you were met with the sight of Clarisse.

“Easy,” she said again. Her voice sounded so soft; you didn’t like when her voice was that soft, it usually meant something bad had happened.

Your mind was still fuzzy, but everything was slowly coming back to you. You had been fighting, there was a demigod on Luke’s side, he was about to stab Thalia in the back. You winced at the reminder of a dagger going through you, you glanced down, seeing your shirt ripped and bloodied.

“Thalia?” You rasped out.

“She’s okay,” Clarisse whispered, lightly running her fingers through your hair. “She had to go back out there, the fights still going.”

“Why are you here?” It was truly exhausting trying to keep your eyes open, you never knew how heavy your eyelids were until now. You closed your eyes, taking short breaths as you tried not to wince in pain every time. “What?” You asked, slowly opening your eyes when you realized Clarisse hadn’t answered you.

“You were stabbed,” she said, shaking her head like she couldn’t even believe you asked her that.

“But you’re needed out there.” You weren’t sure how long you were out but if the fight was still going on then Clarisse needed to be out there, any other time she would be out there.

“I’m not leaving your side.”

“I’m not really sure I’m getting better.”

You didn’t miss the way Clarisse’s eyes shined with tears once again, maybe you were becoming delirious from the blood loss. “Don’t say that,” she shook her head.

“I’m on borrowed time,” you gave her a sad smile. There were only so many healers, there was only so much they could do, if one hadn’t already seen you then there was no way one would. You were okay with that, there were other demigods that needed attention, ones who hadn’t lived a thousand years already. “I’ve lived enough lifetimes.”

“I don’t care,” Clarisse’s voice cracked. “You’re not dying today. I refuse.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle, not even caring about the pain. “Sadly, power over the dead isn’t something Ares can control.”

You’re entire body shook, shivering more than you ever had in the middle of winter. You knew you weren’t actually cold though, there wasn’t a reason to be. You were in New York in the middle of summer, you were also dripping with sweat. Despite the fact that your entire body was shivering you occasionally felt Clarisse dabbing a cloth on your forehead.

“You’re not allowed to die on me,” Clarisse whispered. “First Silena,” she choked back a sob. You could see her trying to keep it together, Clarisse was doing everything in her power to not completely breakdown right now. “Now, you,” she shook her head, “I don’t think I could take it.”

You looked up at her through tired eyes. “I’m sorry,” you rasped out.

You didn’t know what else to say, you couldn’t change what happened to Silena, you couldn’t bring her back. There was also no way you’d take back what you did. You knew the risks when you put yourself between Thalia and that demigod. You would make the same decision again and again; Thalia was alive and that’s what mattered. You hated that Clarisse had to go through this though, you hated seeing someone you cared for be in so much pain.

“I thought you always won,” Clarisse said. “Daughter of Nike, you’re meant to win, that’s your thing.”

You let out a silent chuckle, which required much more energy than it ever should have. “I did win,” you let out in a tired breath. “I protected my lieutenant, that’s my job.”

Clarisse frowned. Artemis chose a lieutenant, someone who was her second and then you were their second, you were always meant to protect them. Even if it wasn’t your job to protect your lieutenant, you would still do it, you would always protect your lieutenant, or your goddess, or any of your sisters. Clarisse knew this, she knew it when she met you, you had talked about it, you guessed that didn’t make it any easier when something actually happened.

“Well, this is a fight you need to win. You need to fight for your life, I need you to fight for it.” she said. “That’s an order.”

“Sorry, boss,” you joked. “I don’t think I get a say in this one.”

Clarisse clenched her jaw. Ares was the god of war; his kids loved a fight. Ares nor his kids ever cared about winning or losing at the end of the day as long as the fight was good. However, this was a fight Clarisse couldn’t do, it was one you had to do all on your own and you knew the outcome was already decided for you, this was always going to be your fate one day.

Clarisse’s eyes snapped up, looking at something across the room. You started to turn your head to see what she was looking at but stopped when the simple movement exhausted you. You opened your mouth to just ask Clarisse what it was when she shot out of her seat and disappeared from your view. You cleared your throat, letting out a pained cough, your throat was so dry.

“Fix it!” came an angry voice. A second later Clarisse came back into view, though this time she was dragging some kid with her. She pointed down at you and shoved him forward.

“Clarisse-” the boy tried, somehow remaining calm despite Clarisse literally dragging him away from whatever he had been doing.

“Now, Solace!” she stepped forward, towering over him, intimidating him as best as she could.

The kid raised his hands and kneeled down next to you. “Hi,” he whispered. “My names Will.” Clarisse tapped her foot impatiently, arms crossed, and jaw clenched, as she glared at Will but remained otherwise silent. “Mind if I?” he pointed to your wound.

You nodded, that seemed to be all that you could actually manage at the moment. You felt Will lift up your shirt then peel back the bandage. He sucked in a breath; you hadn’t seen your injury yet but clearly it wasn’t good. You kept your eyes on him, watching as he flicked a glance up to Clarisse, clearly wanting to say something but opting not to. If he wanted to tell her your injury was too severe then you would say he made the right decision, Clarisse didn’t want to hear there was nothing he could do.

Will flicked his eyes from your wound to your face, meeting your gaze. His eyes widened for a split second, probably realizing you had been watching him, before he recovered, offering you a kind smile. He placed his hands just above your wound and quietly began singing a song in ancient Greek. You held your breath, watching as Will’s eyes never left your wound, his brow furrowed despite the soft song he was singing.

When the song ended, and Will took his hands away, you saw his face fall. You didn’t need him to look at you, you didn’t need him to say anything, you already knew, you could feel it, it hadn’t worked. Will finally looked up at you, his eyes soft. “I’m sorry,” he whispered with all the sympathy.

You nodded, returning the kind smile. “It’s okay,” you whispered. “Thank you.” You didn’t want him to feel guilty, he had tried his best. Even a child of Apollo couldn’t heal all injuries.

“Sorry?” Clarisse asked. “What do you mean sorry? Heal her!” she grabbed Will by his shirt, aggressively pulling him closer to her. “You have to heal her.” Though you knew she was still intimidating and would strike fear in most demigod’s eyes you didn’t see fear in Will’s, you only saw sadness.

“I can’t,” he said. He reached up, gently placing a hand on Clarisse’s and slowly eased her hands off of him. “I’m sorry,” he looked back down at you then back at Clarisse. “It’s not just a normal stab wound.” You furrowed your brow; the dagger had looked like a normal celestial bronze dagger, and you knew that was definitely what you were stabbed with. “I think there was some sort of poison on it.” You sucked in a breath, that would explain why your entire body ached, you weren’t just suffering from blood loss, but some sort of poison was slowly killing you as well. “A poison I can’t heal.”

Clarisse released her hold on Will, giving him a little shove. Will stumbled but he still didn’t seem angry. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again. Your eyes didn’t leave Clarisse, you saw her arms fall to her side, when she turned to face you again, you saw it, the realization that this was the end, she was going to lose you.

Clarisse got down so she could kneel next to you again. She rested a hand on your head and gently began running her hands through your hair, lightly scratching your scalp in the process. Your head snapped to the side when you felt someone grab your hand, your brow furrowing when you saw Will back at your side.

Will closed his eyes and a second later you let out a gasp, instant relief flooding through you. Clarisse looked from you then at Will questioningly. “I can’t heal you,” Will whispered. “But I can take some of your pain.”

“Thank you,” you whispered. You watched Will, seeing how he closed his eyes, his face contorted in pain. You knew a child of Apollo could take the pain from someone, but in doing so they took the pain for themselves. You wanted to send Will away, you were sure there were other people he could actually help but Will seemed committed on staying, you weren’t sure why, you didn’t even know the kid, maybe he was just friends with Clarisse or maybe he was just empathetic like most kids of Apollo.

You closed your eyes, enjoying the relaxing feeling of Clarisse running her fingers through your hair. As far as deaths went this definitely wasn’t the worst way to go. You would have preferred a more instant death, it would have been less painful, but at least you were being given the opportunity to say goodbye. Far too many demigods didn’t get that chance, most went off on a quest and just never returned, no one knowing what happened to them or how they died. A lot of demigods didn’t even make it to Camp Half-Blood, the majority of them were snatched up by monsters on their way there.

You weren’t sure how long it had been since you got stabbed but the war had been won. You didn’t know exactly what happened, but you could hear the cheers from the other demigods, the fighting and the sound of monsters had slowly died down, only to be filled with screams of joy. Wherever you were, remained quiet though, the Apollo kids quietly moving around to finish healing the injured, and demigods comforting each other on all the friends and siblings lost. You heard quick whispers about Percy and Annabeth beating Luke. Throughout it all though Clarisse remained by your side, she didn’t fight at the end of the war because she chose to stay by your side.

“It was supposed to be me,” Clarisse whispered. You furrowed your brow, looking up at her, it had been a while since she had last spoken. “I was supposed to die first.” You felt Wills fingers twitch in your hand but when you spared him a glance you saw his eyes were still closed, focusing solely on taking your pain. You knew he could hear both of you, but it was clear he was trying not to eavesdrop.

“Guess fate had other plans,” you rasped out. “Don’t worry,” you gave her the best smile you could manage. “I’ll be waiting for you in Elysium.”

Clarisse gave you a sad smile. “I’ll be there.” She hesitantly intertwined her hand in yours before slowly bringing your clasped hands to her mouth, giving your fingers a soft kiss.

“Better not show up too soon.” You narrowed your eyes at her. “Otherwise, I’ll be pissed.”

Clarisse let out a chuckle, but it quickly turned into a sob. She leaned down, resting her forehead against yours. You closed your eyes, just enjoying her presence. The two of you were broken out of your little bubble when you heard someone approaching.

When Clarisse pulled away you saw Thalia in front of you, limping slightly. Behind Thalia though was Artemis. You couldn’t help but let out a relieved sigh. You knew it had been a long shot, you weren’t sure how long the war would last, you weren’t sure how long it would take for the poison to kill you, but you were hoping you would have long enough to say goodbye to both of them but especially your goddess.

“Do you want me to give you a minute?” Will asked, breaking the silence.

You hesitated but eventually nodded. “Thank you,” you told Will again. You closed your eyes preparing yourself as Will released your hand. Despite knowing it was coming you couldn’t help but hiss, gasping as a wave of pain overtook you again.

Clarisse gave your hand a final squeeze before leaving your side for the first time. Clarisse was giving you your privacy with Artemis and Thalia, but she had just moved right outside the doorway, so you could still see her. As soon as Clarisse vacated your side Artemis filled the space, kneeling right next to you.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

Artemis rested a hand on your shoulder, giving it a comforting rub, as she shook her head. “You did good,” she said, nodding. “You fought bravely, you protected your sister,” she glanced over at Thalia. You nodded; tears began to fill your eyes, but you refused to let them fall. “Just as you always have.” She glanced down at your wound, her face falling. “Your death will be handled with honor; I will make sure of it, or Hades will feel my wrath.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle. Hades was powerful, he didn’t take many of the gods seriously, even his brothers at times. You knew your goddess though and she would raise hell to get what she wanted, especially when she set her mind to something, she was truly a force to be reckoned with.

“Now, none of that will be necessary,” a cocky voice came.

“What are you doing here?” Artemis said, clearly annoyed. You followed her gaze to see Apollo leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and his usual smirk on his face.

“I heard my favorite Hunter was trying to die on me.” He pushed off the doorframe and made his way to your side. “And I just won’t allow that.”

You furrowed your brow as Apollo got down on his knees. “Love, if you wanted to hear my gorgeous voice all you had to do was ask,” he said, giving you his classic smirk.

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes, but you didn’t have time to question him before he raised his hands over your wound and began to sing. You hated to admit it, you truly did, but Apollo had a decent voice. Seconds after Apollo’s song ended you let out a gasp, your eyes wide as you looked around, the pain was gone.

You looked down at your wound seeing your bloody shirt but no wound. “Thank you,” you said, looking up at Apollo.

“No need to thank me gorgeous,” Apollo said with a smirk. “Though you can repay me, with a date?”

“No.” Apollo’s mouth dropped open in offense.

“As much as I appreciate this brother,” Artemis spoke, glaring at her brother. “Leave my Hunters alone.”

Apollo stood up, raising his hands in surrender. “I have business to attend to anyway,” he said before disappearing in a glow of light.

You groaned as you propped yourself up, groaning as you did so. Though you were fully healed now it seemed you were still physically exhausted. You glanced over at the doorway where you saw Clarisse, her foot shifted forward but she didn’t enter the room.

You caught Artemis glancing at Clarisse out of the side of her eye, but she didn’t say anything. “I have business to attend to on Olympus,” Artemis said. “Help with the injured, with cleanup, anything you can, then make your way to camp.” You and Thalia both nodded at her orders. “I will meet you when it’s time.” You and Thalia gave a confirmed nod and then Artemis also disappeared from in front of you.

As soon as Artemis was gone, someone crashed into you. You were glad to still be sitting down because the impact from Clarisse would have surely sent you to the floor. You groaned as you felt her arms wrap tightly around you and bury her face in your neck. You were pretty sure she mumbled an apology, but you didn’t care, you were happy to return the hug just as tightly.

Taglist: @cxcilla @danonered @touchmyfracturedomens @luclue @manu-007s-world @death-in-love @nenas19 @mynameiskaci @fictionalwhor3

[wardenparker]

Hummingbird Has Landed, ch 14

Marcus Pike x female reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

After the debacle of his failed engagement and relocating to Washington to take charge of his task force, newly minted Special Agent Marcus Pike is ready to get back out into the dating pool once more. A slew of bad dates has him feeling a little down, and he takes an old friend up on an invitation to get away and get his head on straight. Imagine his surprise when he finds not only fresh air, but his soulmate as well - hiding in plain sight but in the unlikeliest of places.

Rating: M for Mature but this blog is always 18+ Word Count: 9.2k Warnings: *Blanket warnings for this series: occasional mention of American politics, pregnant character, food/alcohol consumption, mentions of clothing/regulated dressing for occasions, mentions of therapy because we believe in self care here, reader is in a previous relationship, love triangle, reader is mentioned as turning 30 during the course of the story, dom/sub dynamics* Nothing, really. Some conversations about money and clothing but this chapter is fairly smooth sailing. Summary: The wedding planning begins in earnest! Notes: For anyone following along on the chronic pain escapades, this coming week is surgery week! Hopefully this will be the last mountain to climb in the way of handling the issues at hand and we'll have just a little bit of time with smoother sailing.

Ch1 ~ Ch 2 ~ Ch 3 ~ Ch 4 ~ Ch 5 ~ Ch 6 ~ Ch 7 ~ Ch 8 ~ Ch 9 ~ Ch 10 ~ Ch 11 ~ Ch 12 ~ Ch 13

Planning a lunch for the day after the engagement party was very intentional, not wanting people to be short of sleep or hungover after celebrating the night before. What your mother has planned in as casual a manner as possible is a lunch for family and friends in the White House residence to help start the planning of your wedding. It’s favorite foods and enjoying yourselves. At least, that is the plan.

It’s noon on the dot when you and Agent Sisson walk into the Blue Room, and he happily leaves you to your lunch party. Agent Bailey has a much-deserved day off today and your secondary detail is just fine with leaving you to be guarded by the standing White House detail.

“Birdie, your party last night was magnificent.” Your mother rises quickly and moves to hug you. She had enjoyed the relaxed and festive atmosphere.

“I’m glad you had fun, Mom.” The hug is tight and short, but you squeeze each other before letting go. “We thought it went really well, too. The caterers were incredible.”

“They were.” She agrees. “Now, Marcus’s parents should be here any moment. Your father has already talked Matthew into a round of golf after lunch.” She huffs in amusement.

"Of course he did." That doesn't surprise you in the least, but you are glad to see that your father and Matthew Pike are getting along. When the Pikes had come to visit over the summer the two fathers had gotten on like gangbusters and it's continuing. "Sydney should be here soon, too. Juan is taking the baby to his mother's today for some bonding time." Looking around, there is no sign of your sister despite the table being set for the full party. 'Where's Junie?"

“She’s actually out.” Your mother tells you with a small smile. “She went out to breakfast with her new favorite person.” It’s absolutely wonderful how she has clicked with her soulmate and there is no way she would discourage that. “She gave up sleeping in to spend time with him.”

"Our little Junebug's in love." It stings a little that your baby sister won't be here for lunch and to talk about wedding things, but you definitely also understand the pull of wanting to be with your soulmate every possible moment.

“She is.” Your mother nods and touches your shoulder. “Much like you are. I expect her to come rushing in at the last minute, flustered from seeing him.”

"I guess Grammy's wedding dress is going to get a little bit of a workout." the idea makes you smile. Just the mere idea of it. Even if Junie decided she didn't want to wear the heirloom, it wouldn't truly matter. It's having the option that is meaningful.

“That is something that I wanted to talk to you about.” Your mother arches a brow delicately and smiles.

"What about?" You ask tentatively, desperately hoping she's not about to say that something has happened to it or that she doesn't want you to wear it for some odd reason.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about all of your weddings.” She admits. “I was thinking about offering Alex some of the train, if one of you wishes to remove it, in order to create a vest or something to be a part of his own wedding ensemble with he and David eventually marry. But I wanted to see what you and Junie think, since it will one day be held to pass down to your daughters.”

"Mom." Your eyes water immediately, one hand going to your chest, and you're nodding before you can even say anything else. "I think that might be the sweetest thing I've ever heard. I love it, and Junie will too, I just know it."

“And maybe it will become a tradition with David and Alex’s kids, if they decide to have some.” She is so grateful you like the idea.

"It actually works perfectly with an idea I had," you admit, but a sound from down the hall cuts you off and you grin when you recognize the commotion. "I'll tell everyone together. That's definitely Sydney and Selena that I hear."

“Oh my god, I’m in the White House!” Selena cannot even contain the squeal as the door opens to admit them. “I’m such a history nerd, I just can’t.”

"We'll finally get you on a full White House tour one of these days, I promise." Selena has been meaning to and meaning to book a place on a tour since she moved to DC, but she's been busy and just hasn't nailed down the time. You file the reminder away for yourself and in the meantime you throw your arms around both friends. "I'm so glad you guys are here, oh my god."

“Where else would we be?” Sydney scoffs. “A private invitation to the White House is being framed and hung up on my wall.”

"There's going to be a bunch of them over the next year." Your laugh is full of relief, though, and you usher them both into the room. "Selena, you met my mother last night, right?"

“To be honest, I was too nervous to approach her.” She admits with a rueful shake of her head, obviously a little intimidated by the President of the United States being your mother.

"She's an absolute nerd," you assure Selena with a laugh. You grab her hand and tug her toward the center of the Blue Room. "Mom, you can see Syd's baby pictures in just a second." It's so incredibly sweet that in the last two minutes your mother has clamored to see pictures of baby Constance, but you bring Selena forward with you and smother a laugh. "I want you to meet Selena Pike. She's one of Marcus's cousins and we got attached at the hip while I was in Dallas."

“It is a pleasure to meet you.” Your mother has several different smiles, but the one she gives Selena is a genuine, friendly smile that is reserved for family. “Don’t shake my hand.” She shakes her head when Selena offers a more formal greeting. “Family hugs.”

“Oh my god.” Selena breathes, in a way that makes it very clear that the full sentence is actually oh my god, I’m hugging the President, but she keeps her composure well enough and is beaming when she pulls back. “It’s such an honor,” she gushes, giddy and not caring to hide it.

“Well hopefully I won’t disappoint.” She gives Selena a wink and smiles as she practically vibrates.

“Absolutely not.” Selena assures her, certain that there won’t be any politics talked today beyond the invitation list. Today is about the wedding.

“While I know it will not be up to snuff with the amazing caterers that Birdie had last night, I hoped that having lunch would be an easy way to start things off.” Your mother informs them.

"I can't imagine your chef making anything less than stellar." Donna Pike strides into the room with a glowing smile, with your little sister by her side. "I'm so sorry. We got caught up for a minute. June was showing me something in the China Room."

June trails behind your future mother in law, beaming with the innocent hope to someone newly in love. “Sorry, I saw her at the gate and escorted her in.”

"Don't be sorry!" You sweep in and hug them both one at a time, glad to be able to squeeze the life out of your sister and see Donna happily smiling away. Everyone is here and today is meant to be relaxed and joyous.

“Our bride to be is looking radiant this morning.” Donna observes slyly. “Hopefully that means you have a clear plan on what you wish?”

"Marcus and I have talked through some of our early ideas," you pat your purse with pride. "I have a notebook dedicated to wedding planning and thought we could start talking things through over lunch."

“Very efficient.” Donna praises with an encouraging smile. “Now- let me go ahead and say that this is your show. What you want - goes.” She promises. “I will offer an opinion when you want one, but I would never want to be the kind of mother-in-law that views this as ‘her wedding’.”

"This is the White House's wedding." It isn't something that you regret or dread, though, and you turn to your mother with a smile. "And we're going to honor that as best we can, while still doing things our way."

“As long as you are happy with the results.” Your mother interjects. “Otherwise, that wouldn’t be fair.”

“Why don’t we all sit down and we can start talking?” You suggest, nodding to the table that has been set. “I don’t know about you guys but I slept late and didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”

“Yeah….slept.” Junie snorts with a knowing grin. “You and Markie couldn’t keep your hands off each other at the end of the night.”

“It was their engagement party,” Sydney reminds Junie, laughing her way to the table. There are place cards out with everyone’s names on them and little bud cases with a few flowers at each seat. “They’re allowed to be sickeningly cute. It comes with the territory.”

“I know.” She grins. “I’m happy for you, even if it’s eye-rollingly cliché.”

“Says the girl who basically came skipping into the room from spending the morning with her own soulmate.” You sit down at the table where your name is marked, delighted to have Syd on one side of you and Donna on the other. “You guys were sickeningly cute last night, too.”

She rolls her eyes and bites her lips for a moment before she sticks her tongue out at you.

"And on that note..." Like the big sister you are, you snicker playfully before turning your eyes across the table. "So Mom, what's for lunch?"

“Poached salmon with a lemon dill sauce, couscous and root vegetables .” Your mother hum. “Started off by a summer strawberry salad with candied pecans.”

There is a collective, happy groan from everyone at the table, and seconds later a member of the White House kitchen staff comes into the room with pitchers of water and iced tea for the table and another follows with the salad course. Dining in the White House is always a bit like a dance, and you love watching Selena's face as she experiences it for the very first time.

Junie looks towards you with a happy face as the salads are being brought in. “Have you decided to wear Grammie’s dress?”

"Starting with the big questions right away?" Well, you can't blame her for that. It will affect her, too, ultimately. "I have. I love Grammie's dress and I've dreamt about wearing it for years. But, Mom had an idea. And it would affect you, too."

“How would it affect me?” She asks curiously, picking up her fork and thanking the staff as they set a salad on her place setting.

"Mom had an idea to alter the dress," you explain as everyone starts to eat. "The train on Grammie's dress is long, and there is enough fabric there that...if we agreed we both wanted to...we could have a professional trim the skirt and use the fabric from the train to make a waistcoat for Alex for when he and David finally decide to get married."

“Oh that’s a wonderful idea!” Instantly in love with the sentiment, she nods eagerly. “I agree, completely.”

"I know we like different styles." The fact that she is on board with this immediately has both you and your mother beaming with bright smiles, and you sip your iced tea happily in between breaths. "But I like dresses a bit shorter than you do, and I'm taller. I bet if we had Grammie's dress taken up to be full-length on you, it would be about tea length on me."

She snorts slightly and nods. “You are taller than me, you giant.” She teases, shooting you a grin. “I love that idea. I know you’ve been mooning over a Jackie O style for a few weeks.”

“I do want to wear pearls,” you admit with a grin. Your cheeks warm with the slowly building hum of excitement that is actually starting to plan your wedding. “And Marcus and I talked about having a cake similar to the one the Kennedys had.”

“Typical.” She teases, falling in love with the idea immediately. “Do we know if the bakery that made the cake is still in operation? You would need a huge one. It could be another feather in their cap.”

“They are.” In fact, Marcus had looked it up within hours of having the thought and been nearly giddy to report it. “But they’re in Boston, so we would need to talk to them to see if they’re even able to do a cake for a DC wedding. If not, we thought we would just replicate the flavors as a nod to the original.”

Junie snorts and throws your mother a grin. “I think that a request for a wedding cake on White House stationary would be something framed and hung on the wall.” She offers, pointing her fork at her mother. “Or can that be done?”

“I’ll find out.” Your mother’s answering grin says she’ll find a way to make it happen if it is at all within her power. “If it can’t be done on White House stationary, the request will still have the First Family’s name on it.”

“We have a back up plan in case it’s unreasonable to ask,” you remind your mother. It isn’t worth throwing titles around over a cake. That’s not only silly, it would look very bad from an outside perspective.

“If it will cause an optic problem, we will handle it another way, but the wedding will be a White House function.” Your mother reminds you.

“Of course it will.” Your fork up another bite of your salad with a happy hum. “To that point: Mom, we’d like to have the ceremony in the Rose Garden if that’s okay with you.”

“Honestly?” She smiles at you. “I didn’t imagine you would want anywhere else.” She admits. “You have spent hours out there since I’ve changed my address.”

“Have you picked a date yet?” Donna asks, promoting you and Sydney to exchange a knowing smile.

“We did.” The fact that it’s starting to become a reality — this dream you’ve had for months now — makes you giddy in your seat. “Since we share so many of the same friends and family members between what would be two guest lists, Syd and Marcus and I all talked, and we’re having the wedding on September second next year. The next morning, in place of a day-after brunch, we’d like everyone to come and celebrate Constance’s birthday at the inn.”

“Oh that is wonderful!” Donna lights up and nods. “That little girl is cute as a button and her birth is wound into your engagement.”

“And,” you tilt your head to Sydney, not having formally asked her about this particular detail yet. “We’d like her to be our flower girl, too.”

Every woman in the room, including Junie, coos at the idea. Sydney nearly tears up, hormones still making her slightly over emotional when it comes to wonderful things and her daughter. “I would love that.”

“Malachi has set his tongue firmly in cheek and insists on being the ring bearer because I trust him with everything else in my life.” It had made you laugh so hard you’d doubled over when he had said it jokingly a few days ago and it’s all you’ve been able to think of since, so you and Marcus had asked him officially. “So he’ll bring her down the aisle safely. No worrying about getting her around or trying to teach a one-year-old to throw flower petals.”Top of Form

“Oh please tell me we can find a baby carrier in your wedding colors.” Sydney snorts, cackling with laughter. “I would pay money to see him strap her to his chest.”

“It shouldn’t be hard.” The thought hadn’t occurred to you but now that it has you’re fully on board. “We think we want to go with navy and gold. It should be easy to find a navy baby carrier.”

“Only if Malachi and Constance are wearing gold.” Selena chuckles. “God that will be cute.”

“We’ll make it adorable. But putting Constance in a little gold flower girl dress sounds adorable.” When everyone is done with their salads a few members of the White House staff comes back in to clear the small plates and serve lunch, which looks absolutely stunning. Not that that surprises anyone. The White House chef is remarkably talented and it makes you grateful on a very large scale that your wedding’s catering will be in good hands.

The first bite has Donna groaning in pleasure. “This is amazing.” She gushes, looking between you and your mother. “Tell me how this works.” She begs. “Do you have to pay for them yourselves or is it part of the perks of living in the White House?”

“Their salary is part of the presidential budget. The kitchen staff are White House employees, not the family’s specifically.” Your mother doesn’t mind talking a little bit of shop at the table, but she does lend Sydney a smile. “If you didn’t already have your restaurant I would have had you here in a heartbeat.”

“Anytime you wish me to cook…” Sydney promises with a grin. She’s spent many hours with your family and has cooked for them plenty of times.

“We might have to have you be a special guest chef for something.” The President smiles. She clearly already has an idea in mind. Sydney is her third daughter and she’s as proud of her as she is of you or June.

“I will cook your next inauguration dinner.” Sydney promises, lifting her glass of iced peach tea as a toast.

“I will take you up on that, young lady,” your mother teases, although everyone knows she isn’t teasing at all.

“Does your family have any special traditions?” Donna asks after a moment. “Beyond the wedding dress? Anything like a cookie table or similar?”

"We did a cookie table when Birdie's father and I got married." Your mother nods, smiling at the memory. "Our family isn't very large, so we don't have a lot of things that have been passed all around or repeated amongst cousins. My parents helped us with the down payment for a house as our wedding present but our kids have already gotten a step ahead in that respect."

“They are amazing.” She agrees with a proud nod. “I have brought something with me that is a Pike tradition.” She informs the table and makes sure she makes eye contact with you. “But that doesn’t mean it has to be continued.”

"Oh my god." Selena breathes from the other side of the table, and she puts one hand on her heart as you tear up instantly.

"I didn't know you were going to bring it," you murmur, having seen enough Pike family wedding photos to know exactly what she's talking about.

“Of course I was going to bring it.” She’s not offended, but she huffs slightly. “I remembered your grandmother’s dress and was hoping even if you decided not to wear it on your wedding day, that we could take a photo of you in the dress with the necklace.” She explains as she reaches down into her purse to pull out a very loved and worn necklace case.

When she hands you the jewelry case you set it very carefully between you on the table and open it up to be able to show Sydney, your mother, and Junie. "I did say I wanted to wear pearls, didn't I?" The necklace itself is ornate and beautiful. A three-strand pearl necklace of natural fresh water pearls in various tones and coordinated sizes that graduate gently at each end. The inner most strand has a stunning fixture of diamonds fashioned like outstretched wings. It can be worn all as one piece, as a double strand of pearls, as just a single pearl strand with the diamond fixture, or the diamond fixture can be removed altogether to become a brooch. Each Pike bride had done something different with the piece to make it her own. "It belonged to Marcus's great-grandmother," you explain to the few people at the table who have never seen the necklace before.

“It’s gorgeous.” Junie coos, falling in love with it. “It’s- oh god, it’s Cartier.” She breathes when she sees the emblem on the box. “Isn’t it?”

"My husband's grandmother was given the necklace as an engagement present," Donna explains, having been proud to wear the piece herself on her own wedding day. She had affixed the diamond brooch to her dress like a badge of honor. "She gave it to her daughter-in-law as engagement gift down the line, and it was leant out to subsequent nieces, cousins, and other granddaughters. It's become tradition for all of the Pike brides to be given the chance to wear the heirloom."

“That is such a lovely tradition.” Your mother comments, finding it to be absolutely breathtaking.

"Isn't it?" It's impossible not to fall in love with the story, just like you had when Marcus had shown you the plethora of family pictures and explained the tradition to you.

“It is time to let the necklace rest in the hands of the next generation.” Donna tells you softly. “We want you to have it.”

“To…to wear it.” You clarify, eyes widening to the point of saucers as you look at your future mother-in-law beside you.

“To keep it safe.” Donna clarifies. “The cousins and nieces and nephews may ask you for it to use and as the future Pike “matriarch” I suggest always offering it when someone gets engaged, but I mean for you to keep it going forward.”

“Pike…matriarch?” It hadn’t occurred to you that that would be the case. It truly hadn’t. Marcus has so many cousins and aunts and uncles you had just assumed that that title would go elsewhere. That the responsibility of it would fall to someone else. But you? “I’m—I’m absolutely honored,” you promise her, tearing up at the table as you squeeze her hand tightly.

Smiling at you, she reaches out and touches your face softly. “I am thrilled that Marcus has found you, wonderful you.”

“I didn’t plan on crying today,” you huff, always playfully, when tears start to press at your eyes. But it doesn’t matter. Not really. Not when they’re tears of appreciation and joy and you can lean over to hug your fiancé’s mother tightly. “Your entire family has been so kind and so welcoming. I’m impossibly grateful to all of you.”

“It is easy to be kind when you are amazing.” She promises. “You are supposed to be in this family, it’s….well, it’s fate.” She smiles ironically.

“It is, isn’t it?” Keeping things to just a sniffle is a miracle but you manage it for now with just a dab at the corners of your eyes.

Everyone else smiles at the obvious affection between future mother in law and bride. Your mother is eternally grateful that you have been so welcomed.

“Okay, well that was unexpected.” You wipe your eyes and let yourself have one more good sniffle before looking around the table with a soft grin. “Anyone else planning on making me cry today? I’ll brace myself.”

“Not unless there’s more unexpected news?” Your mother asks, looking around the table.

"I don't think so." Looking around the table makes you laugh. "Unless someone else has something up their sleeves."

“I cannot give you jewels or prestige, but I can offer my assistance with anything you need.” Selena offers.

"You have my bow." Junie jokes, ever the avid Lord of the Rings fan.

"And my axe." Syd snorts, giggling along with her.

“It was supposed to be sword first.” Your mother tsks, shaking her head at Junie, even as she grins. “Sounds like we need to rewatch it.”

"I know it's sword first." Junie complains, though she will never complain about a rewatch of her favourite movies. "But I never took fencing, I took archery. Why would I pledge my sister a weapon I can't wield?"

“My youngest child is so literal.” Your mother snorts, laughing at the offended look on Junie’s face.

"One of us has to be," you grin in amusement. "I've got my head in the clouds and Alex is a gremlin. We need Junie to ground us."

“You are all so very different, but so very alike.” She muses. “All of you amazing in your own way.”

"Oops." June laughs and points her drink in your direction. "Mom is getting sentimental. Quick, somebody else ask a wedding planning question."

“Where will the reception be?” Selena asks.

"Probably the East Room?" You look to your mother for confirmation, but it makes the most sense. It is the largest room in the residence and usually used for dancing and receptions of other kinds. "Would we have dinner in one of the dining rooms and then dancing in the East Room?"

“I believe that would be very fitting considering that is where the ‘First Princess’ photos were taken.” Your mother hums, nodding in agreement. “We must make sure that Marcus recreates that dip for another photo.” It would be for purely personal reasons she would want that.

“I’ll make sure he does.” It would be perfect for the first and last pages of your wedding album to be those photos, and the idea practically makes you sigh with the dreamy feeling in your heart. “So that’s all the wedding locations sorted. The rehearsal dinner is still way up in the air and the Jack and Jill bachelor party is being left up to the wedding party.” Your eyes cut to your three bridesmaids and Sydney, June, and Selena all grin back with false innocence. “But there will be photography so please keep it wholesome. The only other venue is the bridal shower.”

“Where would you want to have a bridal shower?” Selena asks curiously. “There are so many historic sights around here, I can’t help but think that it’s impossible to choose.”

“If we do another historical site, I want to make sure they keep the museum open like they did last night.” There are only a few bites of your salmon left and you already know you’ll be thinking about this meal for weeks to come. “Using historical sights is about recognizing American history and being open to discussing it. I would hate for someone to show up to an event at Ford’s Theater and assume we support presidential assassinations just like I would have hated anyone to show up last night and assume we supported slavery just because we were at the home of someone who had been a slave owner.” You shake your head a bit, knowing that some people will always be contrary. “Maybe a smaller museum that could use a little recognition?”

“What about something for women’s rights?” Sydney asks. “There’s the museum for Women in the Arts and the Women’s Museum.” She offers. “It can be a moment that shows that just because a woman finds her soulmate, that doesn’t mean she looses herself.”

“There are those, and also the Suffrage Museum,” you nod along with the idea.

“You mean Sewall-Belmont House?” Junie perks up immediately. “Technically it’s now the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument.” You flash your best friend a grin. We could have a tea party in the museum dedicated to women’s suffrage? They sold tea blends and Held tea parties as part of the rallies during the suffrage movement. Any of those would work.”

“Really?” Donna tilts her head in curiosity and smiles. “That is something that I know nothing about, but it would be fascinating.” She confesses.

“Lets see which of those three would be able to take our numbers and passes the Secret Service’s scrutiny,” your mother suggests. “They would all be wonderful choices.”

Murmurs of agreement sound around the table and then the clinks of the forks on the plates resume as everyone continues to eat. “What about gifts.” Selena asks.

“For the bridal shower?” You cringe, knowing that gifts are traditional but also that you and Marcus can manage. “Ought I to make a registry? Or should everyone just have at it?”

“I think you should.” Your mother nods. “If you aren’t comfortable with the gifts, find a charity you would like contributions to be made to in your honor.”

"We've tossed around a few charities we want to support." It's something that has come up a little more often now that gift giving occasions are on the horizon. "We'll talk it over. But knowing my practical fiancé, he will suggest making a small registry for closest family members and friends, and choosing a charity or two to put on the invitations."

“That sounds like the best kind of compromise.” Sydney admits. “Aunt Mildred isn’t going to want to donate to charity, she wants to gift you an egg platter that will be used twice a year and then displayed with pride.”

You smirk, but nudge your best friend beside you. “So this hypothetical Aunt Mildred…is your mother?”

She snorts and sighs. “How did you guess? The horrible name or the insistence on things being her way?”

“Your mother is as particular as she is old fashioned.” You snort, knowing that particular is a generous description of Syd’s mother. Though she has always been a kind and supportive presence, she does has very strong beliefs.

“Particular.” Sydney rolls her eyes and shakes her head, although it’s more in fond exasperation than anything else. “Yes, but that particularity will have you something hopelessly needless and ornamental.” She warns.

“And we will treasure it because it’s from her.” After all, Sydney’s mother helped raise you. She’s as much a part of her childhood as your own mother in a lot of ways.

"Mom is in meetings all day, so no fear of your mother-in-law popping in to give her two cents," you tease, as you and Marcus move through the White House residence on a Friday afternoon hours in advance of family dinner. You're meeting with the person that the White House special events staff has designated as your wedding planner for the very first time and trying not to seem nervous. It feels overwhelming to start this planning right in the midst of the holiday season but it has to get done. And the sooner the decisions are made, hopefully the easier the rest of the wedding preparations will be.

Marcus snorts and rolls his eyes playfully. “You’re the one who said I couldn’t use my badge.” He reminds you, winking as his arm loops around your waist.

"Because I want that ace in the hole, my love." You grin back at him and lean into his side, putting your arm around his waist in turn and giggling. "If anything goes truly sideways, that's when we use the badge."

“FBI, madam,” Marcus drawls seriously. “Did you insist on the color puce for a wedding color?!”

The snort you let out echoes in the halls of the residence and you're still giggling when you turn into the China Room. "I think navy and gold were good choices. Nice and simple. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here."

“And it’s a play on red, white and blue.” Marcus observes. “The red will come from the roses in the Rose Garden and then gold for the white and of course, navy.”

"The white will surely be your bride, won't it?" Annette is already in the room, sitting with her notebook and phone out on the table in front of her. "Miss Sharma is on her way. She's just coming from a meeting with your father and I'm sure he has given her a few things to consider that he wants for your wedding."

Marcus smile as he nods towards Annette. “Good to see you again. And yes, she will be the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen.”

"There's no need for flattery, you two." But you still hum happily and sit down at the table with Marcus and Annette. "We're all the most interested in having a day that runs both beautifully and smoothly."

“I have two goals.” Marcus tells you. “Well, one goal.” He corrects. “Marry you. As long as that happens, the day is perfect.”

"Was there another one in debate?" The chairs are too far apart for you to lean into his side, so you take his hand and weave your fingers together instead.

“I had thought to have a water fight in the Rose Garden.” He jokes. “But I don’t the secret service would like a game of hide and seek.”

"I might put it on the schedule just to see them panic." Amelia Sharma is a tall, poised, and right now very amused woman who sweeps in to the room with a chuckle. She introduces herself but doesn't stand on much ceremony, plopping down in the chair between you and Annette. "We have quite a lot of work ahead of us. A few jokes will help us keep our heads on straight."

Marcus laughs as he watches her pull out a planner and it’s a wonderful idea. He bites his lip and wonders if it might be a keepsake you and he could have after the wedding is over. “Despite the magnitude of the wedding, we are really pretty simple people.”

"That might be the other thing that will keep our heads on straight," you admit, watching the woman get settled. As is habitual in your mother's White House, there is a pitcher of iced tea and a plate of snacks on the table but for now you just reach to pour yourself a glass of tea. "We're not terribly picky, or high maintenance, or any of that. All we want is a nice day with our friends and family."

“There will be a few other guests as well.” Annette reminds you. “But only few.”

"Do you have the list of official guests?" The guest list from the White House was meant to be approved by your mother early on and adjusted as economics and politics demanded, but you have been curious about a first draft.

“You have final say.” Amelia pulls a sheet of paper out of the planner and hands it to you.

Dignitaries and representatives from other governments are all represented as you suspected them to be. Members of your mother's cabinet. The new governor of Pennsylvania and her family. A few token members of important families. But no celebrities or donors or anything that doesn't make immediate sense as you look over the list.

“Does it look alright?” Marcus asks you, knowing that you are much more knowledgeable on the political side than he is.

“I never thought I would have to curtsy to anyone at my wedding, you admit, Running your finger along the names of the various retrial families on the list before you look back up at Annette and Amelia. “Do we think any of the royals will actually show, or just send a nice card?”

“They might arrange an upcoming tour of the US to coincide.” Annette tells you with a smile. “Although you could cause tongue to wag by not curtsying.”

“I don’t object to it,” you clarify immediately, thinking of all the scuttlebutt that would happen if you didn’t do something as silly as curtsy. “It sounds like a cute photo op actually. The First Princess and the Actual Princess.”

“I think I would like to see that.” Marcus agrees with a fond smile. “It would be a beautiful photo op.”

“You know what that makes you?” The sly grin on your lips for your fiancé isn’t subtle, nor is the sparkle in your eyes. “Prince Charming.”

He snorts and shrugs, “I’ve never denied that.” He teases playfully.

“Some will accept and some will not.” Amelia Sharma smiles, mostly because she can tell you’re nervous. “But those who will souls be given a bit more attention than your standard courtesy invitation.”

“It doesn’t matter who is there.” Marcus tells you. “All that matters is that those we love are there, celebrating our happiness. Everyone else is just white noise.”

“We just want the flowers inside to complement the fact that our ceremony is being held in the Rose Garden.” It feels like a foreign language to you, talking to this florist, and you curse the fact that Marcus had been called out of the country on a case as you sit here with your wedding planning the florist’s shop wishing you knew what the hell you were talking about.

Marcus bites his lip, his alarm going off to remind him of the flower appointment. “Excuse me, I need to make a call back to the States.” Interpol doesn’t need to know that it’s not to his boss, so Marcus closes the door on the small office he’s been allowed to use and pulls out his phone.

It’s a miracle when your phone goes off in the middle of trying to find your voice with the florist. Oh thank god, you think with a sigh. “This is my fiancé,” you explain, and set your phone in the table in front of you to answer it. “Hi honey! You have perfect timing.”

“Have you already met with the florist?” He asks, happy to hear your voice and he thinks he hears a little bit of relief in your tone.

“We all just sat down,” you tell him, wishing you could just reach through the phone and hug him. “I was just telling Theresa about the Rose Garden, and Amelia is here with us as well.”

“So I’ve been doing some research….” Marcus admits with a smile in his tone.

“Oh?” Theresa, the florist, sounds impressed that a groom would be doing more research about flowers than the bride.

“We have colors for our wedding. Navy and gold, so I was thinking that we use marigolds, azure aster and baby’s breath for the bouquets.” He suggests. “They complement the roses in the garden and still have their own beauty.”

“We can certainly start there,” the florist hums, nodding along and starting to scribble down in her notebook. “We’ll get some height out of other flowers in the same color scheme, but this is a beautiful beginning. Bringing real color to the palette is much more lively than working with a monochromatic look and I think you’ll be very pleased with it.”

“What do you think, sweetheart?” He hopes he hasn’t overstepped because you and he hadn’t had a long discussion about flowers yet.

“I think it’s an utter relief,” you promise him with a laugh. “I had absolutely no idea of how to approach flowers and you’ve solved it in one go.”

“I spent the flight hooked up to the WiFi and researching flowers.” He admits with a laugh. “I just didn’t want you to have to think about this alone. If you hate it, that’s fine, but let the florist put something together like that to see, hum?”

“I’m absolutely on board.” And relieved — absolutely, entirely relieved. “You didn’t happen to have a thought about my bouquet, did you?”

“Actually…” Marcus chuckles and shrugs even though no one can see him. “I thought you could have something non-traditional and yet it would be a quiet statement in official portraits. What if you were to carry a bouquet of olive branches?”

“I could certainly use olive branches as greenery in your bouquet instead of the usual accents,” the florist offers, interested by the choice.

“You’re thinking of the official seal, aren’t you, love?” You ask Marcus over the phone, and hum slightly at the idea. It’s a nice homage without going crazy. “What if we used olive branches and laurel branches as the greenery for our flowers?” You offer after a moment. “Laurel are in the Seal of the President.”

“It would be a statement.” He agrees, having thought laurels might have been too bold, but the two of them together might be the ticket. “Especially since your mother is working hard to achieve peace.”

“And the day is a peaceful one.” Amelia smiles at the sentiment, nodding in approval. “After the turmoil you dealt with early on, it will be nice to have your day for happiness.”

“Yes.” Turmoil, you think with a polite smile. That’s one word for it. “Maybe for my bouquet we can use those greens and an assortment of white flowers? White versions of the things that we’re using in the other arrangements, and of course roses and dahlias and camellias. Things like that?”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.” Marcus promises, smiling softly as you start to interject your own thoughts into the process.

“And what about the boutonnieres?” The florist is now taking rapid notes. “How many members of your wedding party will there be?”

“Honey?” Marcus speaks again. “Did we decide on four or five?”

“We said four, didn’t we?” You look down at the phone as though you were simply looking at him in conversation. “You have Juan, Alex, Leo, and Clark?” Originally Marcus had asked his father if he would want to be a groomsman, but after a long discussion Matthew had insisted that Marcus choose his friends that are nearby and truly enjoy himself.

“That’s right.” Marcus huffs. “You’re completely right, I forgot. There would be five total, four for the groomsmen and I would like a boutonniere that matches the bride’s bouquet. I think there should be a subtle difference between the arrangements, right?”

“Absolutely.” The florist nods, continuing to scribble. “I can do further simplified pieces for the fathers and the ring bearer if you would like?”

“Definitely.” It sounds very sweet, actually, to have everyone unified like that. “Our ring bearer is an adult, for the record. A very close friend. So the only child in the wedding party is our flower girl.”

“Will the child be holding a bouquet as well?” She asks and for some reason that makes Marcus laugh through the phone.

“Our goddaughter will only be a year old, so I’m not planning on testing her coordination with a bouquet and a basket of flower petals,” you answer as kindly as you can with Marcus giggling over the phone.

“Sorry, I’m just imagining Constance flapping the bouquet in Malachi’s face as he carries her down the aisle.” He snorts.

“Honestly?” You giggle right along with him but offer your florist and wedding planner an apologetic grin. “That alone might make it worthwhile.”

“I’m here!” Sydney opens the door three inches and shoves her lips inside, the days of just popping in without announcing are over now that Marcus lives here. She’s not willing to risk walking in on something she shouldn’t see. “Put your clothes on.”

“Marcus is out with my Dad,” you huff at your best friend, but laugh anyway. “I’m fully dressed and presentable. But don’t come in, we need to scoot out if we’re going to meet Selena, our sisters, and my Mom at the dress shop.”

“Sorry.” She knows she’s the one running behind. Getting out the door has become practically impossible with Constance here now. “Let’s go.”

“Honey do not even apologize.” You grab your coat and grin to find Agent Bailey already ready to go.

“I’ll drive,” she offers, shooing you toward the elevator. “You two enjoy your gossip and baby pictures on the ride.”

“Thanks.” She flashes the agent a grin. “I only took ninety-seven photos this morning. Quite modest.”

“I can’t believe it’s dress shopping time already.” As the three of you head down in the elevator, you snag Sydney’s arm and tug her close in your excitement. The January chill has done nothing to quell your excitement, but it does mean you’re definitely wearing knee high boots with your plaid dress today instead of heels. “This dress shop is amazing and I’m so excited to see what you guys like.”

“How have your fittings been going with your grandmother’s dress?” She asks, knowing how careful you are being with altering the heirloom. You had taken Junie with you to make sure she approved.

“It’s going to be pretty perfect.” The elevator ride evaporates on a sigh and a laugh, and in mere minutes you’re sliding into Agent Bailey’s car. “It will be tea length, so the mission is to find dresses for the four of you that are the same or shorter.”

“You might be the first bride in history that wants her bridesmaids to have a sexier dress than she does.” Sydney teases, making Agent Bailey chuckle softly as she pulls out of the inn’s driveway.

"Knee length dresses can be perfectly modest," you huff, but you know she's right. "The place we're going is run by a pair of cousins, and they make modern interpretations of vintage dresses. I think we're going to find something fantastic. At least...I hope we will."

“I know we will.” She predicts. “This wedding planning has been super easy. Who could have guessed that Marcus would have been so engaged in the entire process?” Her comment is sarcastic because all of them knew it, but it’s still fun to point out that your soul mate is also carrying around bridal magazines in his briefcase.

"Actually?" Glancing over at her in the car, you smirk to hold back a joyous giggle. "He's the one who had the idea for the bridesmaid dresses that I think I'm going to go with."

The little dress shop in downtown DC is just that — little — but the ladies who run it are endlessly sweet and accommodating. Your group just about fills the entire shop and there are Secret Service agents to boot, so the shop owners have elected to have their place open late today to accommodate your group as a private party.

It might actually be the most fun you e had with any wedding planning trip ever. You and Sydney join your mother, June, Selena, and Sydney’s sister AnnaLeigh to round out your bridesmaids— on top of having your wedding planner present — and everyone has mimosas to make the whole thing even more fun.

“Have you decided what color you would like the bridesmaids’ dresses, or are you still going to choose what you like best?” Your mother asks, happy to be able to be here after all the meetings this morning. Nothing but a national crisis would have prevented her from coming.

“I’m hoping we can find dresses for everyone that work in navy blue, but if we can’t then that’s fine.” You’re not going to be a bridezilla about your wedding colors. The groomsmen have all already ordered suits in navy with a gold pocket square so your colors are represented there. “I want you all to wear things that make you feel beautiful. Marcus had a thought that I agree with — that we should pick a color, a fabric type, and a length that everyone can agree on. And then everyone can have a dress in their own style that coordinates instead of completely matching.”

“Ohhhh interesting.” Junie lights up and nods. “I think that would be great, although, there’s a lot of beautiful things here.”

“If you all fall in love with the same dress, then that’s fine,” you look around at your bridesmaids with an utter softness in your expression, just glad to have you friends and your sister here. “But I’m not going to force you to match.”

Sydney smirks at Junie, both of them aware of the conversation that had been had without you about how you were all going to match for this wedding.

“Why don’t we start with the navy blue options and see what we like?” Your consultant today is one of the shop’s owners and she is nothing but smiles with the large group in her shop.

“Of course.” It’s absolutely thrilling to have the President and her daughter in their shop and the owners are here to personally oversee the day, giving you the privacy you need without the additional staff here. “We will pull all the styles we have available and we can order any size needed and make alterations.”

“Do you guys want to do a fashion show?” It’s a fully rhetorical question. You know these four women and you know they absolutely live for frivolous shopping trips and the endorphins of being silly with friends. This trip might be for a real event, but it still has that air of frivolity that shopping for prom dresses did back when you were teenagers. “I’m going to sit with Mom and Amelia and we’ll go through the best of the navy blue choices first?”

“Yes!” Junie immediately volunteers, shooting up out of her seat in excitement. “I put on my good bra too.”

"Come on, Junebug." Sydney tugs your baby sister toward the racks of dresses and nudges you firmly in the other direction. "Sit," she urges you. "Drink. Chat. Let us do the work for once."

"Oo!" AnnaLeigh, already in the racks of dresses, is gasping over a discovery. "I found one with a lace top!"

She pulls the dress out with a flourish and four bridesmaids immediately coo over the pretty dress. “I think you should try it on first.” Junie tells her.

“Everybody picks a different dress and we let Birdie pick, right?” Selena murmurs, her eyes already sliding to a satin swing dress that looks straight out of the 1950s.

“Agreed.” Sydney sees where Selena is heading and her own browsing bypasses that and goes directly for a beautiful sleeveless number.

It takes several minutes to get everyone coordinated, but when all four of your bridesmaids disappear into changing rooms there is a collective squealing and another moment’s pause before they emerge again in all their glory.

“Oh my…” your mother whispers, her gaze full of love and adoration for the vision in front of her. She loves Junie with all her heart, Sydney is the closest thing to a child she has beyond her biological children and of course she adores Syd’s sister and Selena. “You all look perfect.”

“Oh my god!” Knowing that your friends have excellent taste might have been a little bit of a tactic on your part, and setting them loose to pick the first round of dresses was a fantastic choice. “Okay, you all look amazing. But how do you feel? Comfortable? Like you can dance and move and sit without trouble?”

Every woman starts swinging the dresses around playful and moving. Junie and Selena dance to no music and all of them laugh.

“What about sitting?” Choosing between any of the four dresses they’ve chosen will be impossible unless you put on a critical eye. The dress Junie has on is the right length on her, but your petite little sister is considerably shorter than the other three. And the dress can’t be elongated to fit them.

There are chairs and all four of them sit down with great aplomb, grinning happily. The dresses feel right.

“I swear, if you all tell me you found the perfect dresses first thing…” Looking between them, it certainly seems that way. As though they have all magically found perfection without any effort at all.

“What? That we have time for you to try on your dress with the alterations started?” Junie challenges with a grin. “Don’t you think you should see what a rough look like it will be, all together?”

“Is it safe?” You have to let the shopkeeper make the call on that decision. The reason you found this shop was that they specialize in working with vintage pieces as well as selling vintage-inspired designs, so it had been sort of a one stop shop for you in terms of planning.

“Yes.” She smiles at the wistful hope in your eyes and knows that she can’t say no. The hem has been pinned and as long as you aren’t careless with it, it will be good to get a final fitting with it. “We can go get it from the back.”

“I really didn’t expect to put it on today.” Which is evidenced by the fact that you didn’t even think to wear a strapless bra today, but it doesn’t matter. It will be beautiful regardless.

Junie smirks and shakes her head. “You have to.” She insists. “One picture with all of us right now.”

“Do you guys really love these dresses? You’re not just saying that?” Looking at the four of them, you can’t help but get a touch misty-eyed as Selena pulls you up on the dais with them to look in the mirror together. “Because you all look stunning, but you really don’t have to pick after the first round.”

“I love mine.” Selena snorts. “This is the one I want.” The others hum and nod in agreement. “Yeah, this is the one for me.”

“What kind of jewelry are you thinking?” AnnaLeigh asks, gleefully swishing her skirt in the mirror.

“I was thinking…pearls maybe?” Meeting all of their eyes in the mirror, you have four beaming smiles gleaming back at you. “But the other wedding color is gold, so maybe…maybe pearls and gold? But those are going to be gifts for you four. Thank you gifts, for being a part of all of this.”

“You don’t have to give us anything.” Sydney automatically protests, but she knows you will do it anyway.

“No.” You know that, but you squeeze your best friend to your side. “But I want to.”

“But we just want to lodge a formal protest.” Her sister chimes in with a grin. “So we are going to buy our bridesmaids dresses.”

“Absolutely not.” Shaking your head at that adamantly, all four of them shoot you a stern look in the mirror. “You guys, no,” you insist, nudging them all. “Get your own shoes. Whatever height you like. Be comfortable and pick something fun. Gold or blue, you guys decide as a group. But…Mom already offered to pay for the bridesmaids’ dresses.”

“You’re no fun.” Sydney huffs, turning towards the President and rolling her eyes at your mother. “The presidential purse, hum?”

“The regular purse,” your mother laughs. You’ve allowed her this one little thing to do personally, while most of the wedding expenses are being covered by a combined force of contributions. “You all look stunning, and I want the bragging right of saying I got all of these beautiful dresses for you.”

“Mrs. Pike?” The shop owner has a little habit of calling all the brides by the future marital name and it makes you beam. “We are ready for you to try on the dress.”

“Here goes nothing.” You grin at your friends in the mirror and slip away to change, practically floating with the glow of two little words. Mrs. Pike. In just eight months, that is exactly who you will be.

______

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My Masterlist!

[writing-until-i-drop]

Wildflowers For A Hangman Ch. 11

Summary:

Daisy, a career novelist, moves in with her college best friend Phoenix who has been permanently assigned to Top Gun with Dagger Squad. She finds herself instantly connected with a cocky pilot who's soft only for her and Jake can't help but want to know everything about her. When the past comes knocking at both of their doors, will they stand together or fall apart?

Or: The Dagger Squad can't cook and Jake falls in love with a woman who makes a mean lasagna while they work their personal trauma.

Jake "Hangman" Seresin x writer!femOC | 18+ (eventually) minors dni. Fluff, smut (eventual), idiots in love, past trauma.

A/N: Daisy's been having nightmares and shutting Jake out but she should know by now that Jake's always going to be there | hehehehehe smut. oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v (don't do that), dirty talk, lmk if I need to add anything else in this note.

AO3 Link

Previous Chapter

I woke up with a start, fumbling for the table lamp, gasping for air. This was the seventh night in a row I had woken up from a nightmare in the middle of the night. I reached for the other side of the bed only to find it cold, my heart dropping to my stomach. It was also the sixth night in a row I’d kept Jake out of the apartment. 

Talking to Rudolph Lance, and hearing him confess to the murder of my parents, was supposed to make things better but instead, all it had done was make my life a living hell. My agent had found out about the prison visit and had signed me up to do a dozen interviews for different news outlets and because of all of the press, my publisher was moving up the release date of my next book. Harvey was understandably pissed after I had explained the whole thing to him the morning after speaking with Lance and he was no longer taking my calls. His wife had texted me saying that he was fine, he just needed to cool down. 

Under the pressure of it all, I found myself pushing everyone away. I had snapped at Natasha more than once, ignored Jake’s calls, and wouldn’t text any of the Daggers back, not even Bob. I knew I was lashing out like a cornered animal and I hated myself for hurting everyone around me, but I couldn’t stop myself from spiraling. 

After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, I disarmed the alarm and went on the porch for a cigarette to clear my mind before calling Jake. It was two in the morning, so it wasn’t a surprise when the call went to voicemail. I almost hung up but instead I listened to the automated message, lighting up another cigarette.

“Hey, Jake.” I sounded like crap, even to my own ears. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. I know you’re probably mad at me and I don’t blame you, I’m mad at me too because I’ve been the biggest bitch.” I sighed, flicking ash. “But I miss you and waking up alone hurts like hell. I’m so, so, so sorry, and if you’re willing to hear me out for a full apology, come over today, okay? I’ll be here.” I hung up and smoked another cigarette, the nicotine rushing to my head, making it spin.

It was like Groundhog Day. I woke up with a start, gasping and fumbling for the light, except this time when I reached out my hand didn’t hit cold sheets. My hand connected with the warm skin of Jake’s firm chest. He was shirtless in bed beside me, eyes blinking open against the sunrise.

“Jake?” I sobbed, throwing myself on top of him as he groggily tried to get his bearings. 

“I’ve got you, Wildflower.” His voice was rough from sleep just like it always was when he woke up and I kicked myself for voluntarily missing out on hearing it for the past week. “I’m right here.” 

“I’m with you,” I cried into his shoulder, three words standing in for another three words. “I’m here with you.” 

“I know you are, baby. Catch your breath, breathe with me, baby.” Jake exaggerated his breathing, praising me as I copied him. “That’s my girl, you’re doing such a good job.” 

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” I kept repeating those words as my breathing slowed, whispering them into his shoulder, pressing kisses to his warm skin. “I’m really sorry.” 

“Stop apologizing and look at me,” Jake’s rough hands slid to my waist as I sat up, straddling him. His face was stern, green eyes staring into my soul. I flushed in shame, my head dipping. Jake slid two fingers under my chin, forcing my head up. “Don’t ever pull that shit again, do you hear me?” I nodded and then yelped, more surprised than hurt by the swat to my butt. “Say you understand, Daisy, I need to hear it.” 

“I understand,” He rubbed my ass with his palm, soothing away the slight sting. “I missed you.” I rested my hands on his shoulders, hesitant. Jake leaned his cheek against my right hand, smiling softly at me.

“I miss you too, Wildflower.” I leaned in slowly, kissing his forehead. “You owe a lot of people apologies,” Jake’s voice was tired, quiet, and had a serious edge to it. 

“I know,” I whispered, resting my forehead against his. “I’ll cook dinner, invite them all over, and give out lots of hugs,” He hummed in approval, his thumb tracing patterns on my hip. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away like that, any of you.” 

“No, you shouldn’t have,” My heart sank but I understood. Apologies couldn’t take away the pain I’d caused but they could help us move past it. “But you had some pretty valid reasons.” Jake kissed me softly, easing the guilty feeling in my chest.

“Still feel like shit though,” I mumbled into the kiss, toying with the hairs on the nape of his neck. Jake buried his fingers in my hair, massaging my scalp. A tension I hadn’t even known was stored there began to relieve itself under his touch, and my eyes fluttered shut. “I don’t deserve you.” His ministrations paused,

“Baby, look at me,” He was giving me those soft eyes again, cradling my head. “You deserve a man who treats you with care, compassion, and unconditional love. Even when you feel like you don’t deserve it, I promise that you do.” For the first time in a long time, the weight that settled in my chest wasn’t cold and harsh, but warm and full of comfort. 

“Someone like you?” 

“No, Wildflower. Not someone like me, me.” Jake pulled me close, brushing his lips against mine. “Are you with me?” 

“For as long as you’ll have me, pretty boy.” I’m not sure who kissed who first but it didn’t matter when Jake flipped me onto my back, deepening the kiss like a man starved. I keened against him, digging my nails into his back, spurred on by the noise it drew from him.

“We should do this right, baby,” Jake said between kisses, kissing his way across my cheek and down my neck. “I should take you on a real date with candles and white tablecloths.” He sunk his teeth into the crook of my neck and I cried out, scratching at his back. Jake lapped at the spot, soothing it, and sucking to deepen the mark.

“We can’t do this wrong,” I promised. There was a soft pressure on my thigh from his hand, working its way towards my center. I gasped, hips rolling. His hand stopped just short of where I needed it most. “Jake.” 

“Impatient much, Wildflower?” I pinched his side, feeling a little violent at being denied. “Okay, okay,” He laughed, kissing me quick, my lips chasing his as he pulled away. “What about a breakfast date instead?” I pushed his chest, schooling my face into a blank expression that was hard to maintain.

“Get off of me,” His face fell and I couldn’t take it, breaking into a grin. “I need pants for breakfast.” 

“You drive me crazy, woman,” Jake kissed me again. “Just a few more minutes in bed first,” He begged wistfully and who was I to argue? 

Jake glared at me when I snatched the check, quickly passing my card to the waitress.

“Now why did you have to do a thing like that? I was going to pay,” He chided and I rolled my eyes.

“Because I have been horrible for a week and this is one of the many ways I plan on making it up to you both.”

“Cheers to that,” Natasha, who had happily crashed our breakfast date, chimed in from the booth behind us. Jake’s foot brushed against my calf beneath the table, making me giggle. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it, it's gross.” We were all laughing when the waitress came back. I tucked the receipt in my pocket before Jake could grab it and figure out how to pay me back. “Okay, lovebirds. You should leave before I puke,” Natasha announced.

“You’re not coming back with us?” I asked, we had driven together in Jake’s truck and Natasha hated taking Ubers.

“Nah, Rooster is going to pick me up for putt putt.” I turned in my seat, hugging her tightly around the neck. “Condoms are in my nightstand,” She whispered, “I know you don’t have any.” 

“You’re the best best friend any girl could ask for,” I kissed her cheek and then let Jake walk me out of the diner with our fingers intertwined. 

X

The missed call notification when I woke up had scared the shit out of me. Phoenix had assured me that Daisy was asleep in bed, perfectly fine, but had let me in the house anyway when I showed up two hours after the call.

“What are we going to do with her?” She asked, not for the first time that week, while we hugged in the living room. I gave the same answer as always, be patient.

Then I stripped down to my boxers and slipped into my side of her queen-sized bed. I fell asleep in seconds with Daisy so close for the first time in a week. When Daisy woke up in a panic, reaching out for me without knowing I was there, that was the moment I knew she loved me back. 

“Don’t even think about opening that door,” Daisy blushed, releasing the handle. It had taken every ounce of my concentration and willpower not to crash the truck when she had reacted to my laying a hand on her thigh while driving by spreading her legs for me. My girl was running hot for me and it was going to take more self-restraint than I had to do this right.

I turned off the truck and jogged to the passenger side, opening the door and holding a hand out for her. She leaned back in her seat, giving me a long once over, teeth sunk into her bottom lip. “What, one second you’re trying to jump out of the truck and the next you don’t want to get down?” 

“Started thinking about having sex in your truck,” Jesus Christ. Was she trying to kill me? “Kinda liked the idea.” She was definitely trying to kill me.

“Wildflower, we’re not having sex for the first time in my truck.” Maybe tomorrow, I thought with a grin. “Now come here, baby.” Daisy hopped out of the truck with her hand in mine, blushing and shy like she hadn’t just proposed having sex in my truck in broad daylight. I led her inside, intending to take it slow, maybe sitting down for a movie first but the second the door closed Daisy was leaning against it and pulling me against her. 

Kissing Daisy would never get old, the way she switched between brazen and nervous, responding to even the most innocent of my touches. I tapped her thigh and she understood, jumping enough for me to wrap her legs around my waist. Daisy kissed her way down my neck as I carried her up the stairs, focusing on my collarbone. I moaned, trying not to run us into the walls as I stumbled down the hallway. 

“You’re killing me, baby,” I moaned, shoving her against the wall outside of her room. Daisy sunk her teeth into me and God, I thought I was going to pass out from the lack of blood going to my brain.

“Fuck me, Jake,” She whispered into my neck. “Please?” I kissed her softly, sweetly, trying to convey the feelings I couldn’t say aloud. I would give her anything she wanted, anything, all she ever had to do was ask. 

“Yes, ma’am,” I kissed her gently again and then carried her into the bedroom. When I put Daisy down she pulled off her oversized shirt and her bralette quickly followed, I stood back watching the show. Daisy was gorgeous, showstopping, taking my breath away, even in her cartoon pajama pants. 

“Jake,” She looked up at me with wide eyes. I snapped out of my haze, pulling off my shirt and joining her on the bed. I trailed kisses from her hip, up her stomach, between her breasts, all the way to her lips, savoring the needy way she buried her fingers in my hair.

“Are you sure about this, baby?” Daisy tensed, pushing at my shoulders. The lust I had been seeing on her face all morning was gone, replaced by insecurity.

“Do you not want to do this?” Propping myself up on my elbow, I rubbed away her scrunched brow with my thumb, then I traced her lips. How could she not know how crazy I was about her? I loved everything about Daisy, from the way she got lost in the worlds she created while writing, her collection of sleep pants that she’d wear to their wedding if Phoenix let her, hell, he even loved the way she drooled a little in her sleep. 

“Daisy, baby, I want to do this.” She studied me for a moment before relaxing back into the pillows with a smile, looking as perfect as ever. “Can I kiss you now?”

“Yeah, pretty boy,” She giggled, cheeks burning. “You can keep kissing me.” 

“Thank God.” I kissed her until my lungs burned for air, loving the hint of maple syrup from breakfast lingering on her tongue. Daisy moaned and cried as I lavished her neck with kisses, marking her delicate skin with bruises and bites that I hoped would never fade away. She shook with anticipation as my fingers slipped between her legs, teasing her slick folds. 

“Oh my God,” Daisy moaned. I nipped at her collarbone, knowing exactly what I wanted to do next.

“Has anyone ever had their mouth on your pretty pussy before, Wildflower?” She shook her head, whining my name as I slid a finger inside of her. Daisy was soaking wet and tight for me, rolling her hips for more. “Words, baby. Use them.” She shook her head again, pinching my side. I chuckled, kissing my way to her beasts, taking one of the pebbled peaks into my mouth. 

Her moans were music to my ears, getting louder with every move I made. I switched to her other breast, slowing the movements of my fingers to rile her up and she pinched me again, harder this time. I chuckled, kissing my way down her stomach. I hoped I was the only one who knew how violent and impatient Daisy got when she was wound tight like this. I worked a second finger into her, watching how her face scrunched in pleasure. 

“You going to answer my question, Wildflower?” I slowed my fingers again, teasing her. She looked at me, dazed and I repeated my question, slowing my movements to the point of almost stopping. 

“No one,” Daisy whined, rocking her hips against my hand, making up for the slowed movement. She groaned when I removed them, weakly kicking at me as I slid off the bed. “Stop being mean to me.”

“Patience, baby. I’ll give you what you need,” I dragged her down the bed, throwing her knees over my shoulders. “You’re perfect, Wildflower.” 

“Jake!” Daisy was delicious and it didn’t take long for her to lock my head between her thighs. With every lick her legs trembled more, my name leaving her lips like a chant the closer she got. I was running out of air but God it would be a good way to go. “I’m close,” She announced and I doubled down my efforts, focusing attention on her clit. Daisy came with a scream and I lapped up every drop she gave me, not wanting to miss a single drop of her. I was so hard it hurt, my dick straining against my jeans, begging to be released.

“Fuck, darlin, you taste amazing.” 

“Jesus, Jake,” She sat up on her elbows, panting. I sat back on my heels and just took in the view. “Get up here, pretty boy. I think it’s my turn to take care of you.” I shook my head, stripping off my jeans and boxers in one go.

“Not today, baby. All I want is to feel you come on my cock like a good girl,” Her eyes went wide at my words, She bit her lip, rolling it between her teeth. So she wanted to be my good girl, I stored that information away where I kept all the details I knew about Daisy. Like the way she took her coffee, her favorite pizza toppings, the brand of perfume she wore, how she preferred cotton hip hugger underwear even though she had half a drawer of satin thongs. “Now move up the bed.” Just like the night in my truck, I didn’t have to tell her twice. 

“Fuck, Jake. I need you,” 

“I need you too, baby.” I notched myself at her entrance, “Are you going to pinch me again if I do this slowly?” 

“Yes,” She gasped as I buried myself in her with one, quick motion. God, she felt like heaven. Stars clouded my vision and I had to bite my tongue to keep from coming right away, which would have been mortifying. “Please, please, please, don’t go slow.” I gave her a moment to adjust, kissing her sweetly. “Move, please.”

“Whatever you want, baby,” I pulled all the way out until just the tip remained inside and snapped my hips forward, setting a steady pace that had us both moaning. Our kisses became sloppy, her nails digging into my back, leaving scratch marks there that I’m sure the guys would tease me about later. “Harder,” She begged, crying out my name as I obliged, shifting her leg to get a better angle. I found her clit, rubbing fast circles to hurry her over the edge again, dying to feel her come around me.

“Come for me, baby. Come on my cock,” Daisy’s eyes screwed shut, “Eyes on me while I fuck you, baby.” Her eyes blinked open, locking with mine, and she came. She squeezed me like a vice, pushing me towards my own climax. I wasn’t going to last long. I adjust, pumping into her harder, fucking her through her orgasm and into what felt like another one.

“Fuck, Jake, fuck,” She pulled me in for a kiss, biting my bottom lip. “Oh shit, we forgot a condom.” Oh shit was right, I slowed my pace, I had never forgotten a condom. It was a rule of mine, hell, there was one in my wallet right now, sitting in the pocket of my abandoned jeans.

“Do you want me to stop? I’ll stop,” She shook her head. “I’m clean.”

“Me too, IUD,” Her words were a jumbled mess as she rocked her hips up to meet mine, “Keep going.” 

“Are you sure?” Daisy pinched me hard, sending the message loud and clear. “Think you can give me one more, baby?”

“No,” She had that blissed out look on her face. “Jake,”

“One more, baby,” I started on her clit again, “You can give me one more.” It didn’t take long to push her over the edge again and this time I came with her.

“Holy shit,” Daisy kissed me softly, running her fingers through my hair. I loved this woman, if it hadn’t been official before, it was now. “I don’t think I can move,” She giggled, breaking the kiss.

“Good, means you can’t run away from me again.” She scoffed, rolling her eyes,

“I didn’t run.” I gently flicked her nose and she stuck her tongue out at me, all of the weight that we had both been carrying this morning gone as she smiled up at me.

“Whatever, baby. Point is, I’m never letting you kick me out of this bed again.” Daisy smiled, cupping my face with both her hands.

“I don’t plan on it, like I said, I’m right here.” 

“And I’m here with you.” I love you. 

Next Chapter

Taglist: @dizzybee03 @littlezee80 @nervousenemyduck @carolina-on-my-mind03 @mizzzpink @beltzboys2015-blog @writingrose

[nightlyrequiem]

The Other Side of Paradise

5) To Budding Friendships. (And More.)

Cross posted from AO3

Ch.1, Ch.2, Ch.3, Ch.4, Ch.5, Ch.6, Ch.7, Ch.8, Ch.9, Ch.10, Ch.11

You try to make the best of your life working at a small bakery in a city with rising cartel violence. One slower day, a man starts harassing your coworker. Despite the obvious threat, you stand up to him anyway. Unbeknownst to you, Valeria just so happened to be there to witness it.

A/N- All chapters containing smut will be labeled mature. The fic is fully written with the whole thing on AO3 but chapters on Tumblr will be posted one a day.

Tags/Warnings: Fluff, Angst, Dual POV, Happy Ending, Plot with Porn, Graphic Violence, Inappropriate Use of a Knife, Masturbation, WLW

You stare up at the two disemboweled corpses crucified against a building. They're both wearing cheap looking cowboy hats. Memento Mori is spray painted above them. You turn away from the gruesome sight, at risk of puking. You stand on the sidewalk for a few more minutes. Trying to process what you saw before you head into work. El Sin Nombre made a habit of displaying bodies, but all the other ones were kept on street corners wrapped under sheets. You force yourself to move on. There's nothing you can do for them now.

You enter the bakery and greet your coworker. Your thoughts are caught up on the vile display and you mess up four orders. Your coworker can tell something is wrong, but he doesn't bother asking. People are buzzing with conversation. You weren't the only one who saw it. They're smart enough to talk quietly but a few words are still loud enough to reach your ears. You slip off to the back, so you don't have to listen. You live in a cartel run town and you've lived long enough to see your fair share of gore but for whatever reason this is what's really sticking with you.

You should be working, or at least trying to but all you can do is stare at the soapy sink. You really wish you kept Valeria's number. You could really use someone to talk to. You should really keep your thoughts to yourself but you're sure you can talk to Valeria. She told you she liked how honest you were after all. You force yourself to start washing the dishes. The warm water burns a hidden cut you didn't notice. You gasp in surprise when someone puts a hand on your shoulder. You whip your head to the side and see Mateo. His thick brows are furrowed.

He says your name and looks at you.

"You've been washing the same plate for five minutes." You stare at him blankly. Have you? You're really out of it today. The corpses must be throwing you off.

"I'm sorry." You say haltingly. For once the look Mateo is giving you isn't one of thinly veiled irritation. He looks a little concerned.

"Do you need to take this shift off? Are you feeling sick?" You do in fact, feel a little sick. You don't really want to go home yet though.

"I'm fine," You're always fine. "I just had a bit of trouble getting to sleep last night, the AC is broken again." Mateo looks at you like he doesn't believe you but chooses not to press you on the matter.

"Okay...well...if you do just let me know." He says awkwardly, like he's not used to showing basic kindness. He walks off and leaves you to your work.

Valeria doesn't come to visit you during your shift, and you feel a little disappointed. You go home and keep your eyes averted when you have to pass by that building. You get back to your apartment and go inside. The chill from the AC makes gooseflesh rise on your bare arms. Your apartment is relatively small and empty. Maybe you should get a pet or something. Even a fish would make things look less lonely. You set down the treat basket and head off into the bathroom to wash the day away.

You exit the bathroom freshly clean and check your phone. You rarely get important notifications, but you still always check after being away for more than ten minutes. Just in case. To your surprise you have a few texts from an unsaved number. You know who it is without checking.

"It's Valeria. I was wondering if you were busy tonight?" You are not busy tonight. You're never busy after your shifts. You Sit on the couch and curl your feet up under you.

"No, I'm not busy." You set your phone down and wait for a response. You turn on the tv and watch impatiently. Dulce Obsesión is playing but you aren't really paying attention. The only thing that catches your attention is that one of the main characters looks a little like Valeria.

Twenty minutes later your phone dings and you check it immediately.

"Good. I want to take you out for drinks." She wants to go drinking with you. Aren't you special. You have work tomorrow and you're quite tired, but you won't turn down an opportunity. You try to wait a bit before replying immediately lest you come off as desperate. You are desperate though and decide that mindset is too juvenile at your big age.

"Sure, what bar were you thinking?"

Valeria replies quickly, easing your worries.

"Greenrose." Greenrose? You pick through your memories to see if you know the place. You aren't too familiar with bars. You gave up years ago because you felt lonely sitting in a crowded place where no one wanted to approach you. You don't have very much time to try and work out where it is before Valeria sends you another text.

"I'll pick you up, what's your address?" This almost feels like a date. You send her your address and rush back into the bathroom. You fix yourself up a little bit. You need to buy some new concealer though; you're running dangerously low.

You put on a cute outfit and wait on the couch. Despite the AC you still find yourself sweating and feeling a little too warm. Finally, a knock on your door ushers you to your feet. You wait a few seconds before opening the door. Valeria's eyes dart over you and her lips lift in a friendly smile.

"You look nice, let's go." She says. Turning and walking down the narrow stairs. you follow behind her. Valeria leads you to a clean looking car. She even opens the door for you. You feel a little excited. Your unpleasant feelings over the distressing sight from earlier are long forgotten.

You usually aren't out this late. There's no reason to be and it's generally not very safe. You feel safe with Valeria though.

"You have a nice car." You say. Admiring the clean interior. It looks new but smells used. There's a rosary tied to the rearview mirror. Valeria shoots you a smile before pulling away from the curb.

"Thank you." She sounds proud. You'd be proud too if you could afford a car like this. It looks like a high-end SUV. "It's pretty expensive but it's definingly worth the investment."

"Wow, what do you do for work?" You ask. Genuinely curious. Valeria pauses.

"Something in the pharmaceutical field." She replies vaguely. You tilt your head at her.

"You own a business?"

"Something like that, although I'm more of a... distributer."

You arrive at an admittedly nice-looking bar. The surrounding area looks a little sketchy though.

"I haven't been over here before." You say nervously. Valeria turns off the ignition and looks at you. Her eyes glinting in the low-level light.

"We'll be fine. I come here often." She says calmly. getting out. You do the same and shut the door. Following her into the bar. She confidently weaves her way through the small crowd. There aren't that many people inside but most of them match the area. There's a corner of boisterous men playing cards. A flock of women surrounding them. A few stragglers sit alone drinking. You try not to judge them too harshly. That was you at one point.

You look back to Valeria as she takes a seat at an empty booth. You sit down across from her. You aren't drinking alone this time.

"What do you want?" Valeria asks. "My treat." And she's buying you a drink? You're struggling to tell if this platonic or if she has ulterior motives. You hope it's the latter.

"Vodka lime." You say. Your go-to affordable drink. Valeria nods and gets up.

"I'll be right back."

While she's gone you take the chance to look around again. The men in the corner are still in the middle of their game, the loners are still alone. That makes you think of Valeria. You wonder why she picked you of all people to spend tonight with. Not that you're complaining. Having drinks with a pretty woman is more ideal than wasting your time watching telenovels.

Valeria comes back and sets down a tray of five shots and your Vodka lime. she wastes no time in downing one of them.

"Today was long, it feels nice to just unwind with good company." She says lowly. Locking her fingers together and resting her chin on them. "I haven't had the time to just be."

"Tonight's a good night to simply exist and relax." You remark. Taking a sip of your drink.

'I agree, I'm glad I could find the time to take a break." She hums. "It's nice to spend some time around another woman." She pauses. "Around you. outside the bakery I mean."

You smile and take another sip. You should slow down a little bit. It would be a shame if you got yourself too drunk and embarrassed yourself.

"Speaking of the bakery, I was a little disappointed to not see you today." You reply. Leaning back in your seat.

"Oh, well, my apologies I hate to disappoint," she says with faux seriousness. "I hope this little night out makes up for my transgression."

You forget to take it slow. You finish your Vodka lime and three shots. Valeria goes from a clear outline to slightly blurry. Sometime during the night, you moved from across her to beside her. Your shoulders and thighs brushing against hers. The topics of your conversations shift from work to hobbies to memories.

"I was dating this guy," Valeria murmurs. Your heads close together. "It was a long time ago, just after we graduated and-" She takes a sip from the whiskey she ordered a few minutes ago. "-And we were making out, and he threw up in my mouth." You gape at her then erupt into a flurry of quiet laughter.

"Was he at least a good kisser?"

Valeria snorts in amusement and shakes her head. You grin like a fool, having the most fun you've had in a while. Valeria leans in close enough for her breath to ghost over your face.

"No, he wasn't a very good kisser." She murmurs. The proximity is enough to cause your heart to go into a frenzy. You don't pull away though.

"No?" You reply quietly. "What about you? Are you a good kisser?" Valeria stares you in the eyes intently.

"I'm not sure, perhaps some feedback would help." She whispers.

Valeria begins to lean in when the phone in her back pocket starts to buzz. She pulls away, looking absolutely murderous. She pulls out the little flip phone and sighs. She gets up and runs a hand through her hair.

"I have to take this, it's work related." She walks off towards the exit and steps outside, leaving you by yourself. You wish she would've ignored it but what do you know? You don't run a pharmaceutical business. Or distribution. Or whatever else it was that she does for a living that you can't recall.

[daisyvisions]

as long as you’re sure you’re okay with it!!

11 (“I’ll make you feel good, I promise. Just trust me.”), 94 (Whispered praises against the other’s lips, which are met with soft whimpers and moans.), and 96 (“Oh, sensitive there, aren’t we?”) with eric please 🥹

yes i might just be the softest subbiest eric whore you will ever meet i apologise 😭

(don't die pup, enjoy every single drop of this request 🤪)

Desperate

Member & Prompts: Eric Sohn (TBZ) + 11. "I'll make you feel good, I promise. Just trust me.", 94. Whispered praises against the other’s lips, which are met with soft whimpers and moans., & 96. “Oh, sensitive there, aren’t we?”

Warnings: Smut (18+, minors DNI), choking, rough sex, pet names (baby, baby girl, princess), cursing, praising? (idk if there's anything else I missed!)

‧⋆ ✧˚₊‧⋆. ✧˚₊‧⋆‧‧⋆ ✧˚₊‧⋆. ✧˚₊‧⋆‧‧⋆ ✧˚₊‧⋆.

It was a cold, quiet afternoon. The sound of raindrops hitting the window, the natural glow from the sky shedding some light into the dark room, and all snuggled up against Eric’s chest.

His back leaning against the headboard, his arms and legs wrapping your body like a warm blanket as you watch him play his video game on the screen in front of you.

Watching the veins in his hands move as he grips the controller, his fingers fiddling with the buttons. You suddenly feel your core throb at the thought of how he caged your body beneath his the night before. Oh how you loved his hands.

The way its firm grip has on your soft skin. The way his rough fingers lightly graze your sensitive spots, making you feel lightheaded every time- just like what had been happening to you at this very moment.

“I-I’m going use the restroom…” you mutter as you get up from the bed. “Okay!” he responds back as his eyes were focused on the game.

Maybe splashing water on your face was a good idea, maybe it would help calm your racing mind… Looks like you spoke a bit too soon. 

The image of the veins protruding on his strong hands were still stuck in your mind, feeling yet another throb down in your core.

Suddenly, you remembered a thought you’ve been trying to suppress down for so long. Would he be into if I asked him? Would he get scared of me or think I’m weird? Shit- You shake your head.

You take a deep breath before opening the door. Looks like today is the day you’ll finally ask him about it.

“Eric?”

“Yes, baby?” his eyes still glued to the screen.

“Have you ever thought about…choking me?”

Eric’s ears perked up like a dog hearing a squeaky toy. The last two words you had uttered had him pausing his game. “What did you just say?”

Oh no, he’s weirded out. Abort, abort, abort- “Uhm… I was just wondering if you’ve ever thought about ch-choking me… Or if you’ve ever done that to someone before…”

You stare at the ground, desperately trying to avoid eye contact as the embarrassment creeps up your cheeks.

Yeah, he did hear that right. He wasn't hallucinating one bit. “Well, I tried it once before... Why? What's in that crazy mind of yours, hm?”

You try to speak, but you feel the words getting caught up in your throat.

“Come here y/n, talk to me.” He calls out for you.

Walking towards him felt like an eternity. What’s worse is you felt your stomach twist from driving up the courage to look at him straight in the eyes.

“Look at me, princess.” His warm hands cupping your face, making you tilt your head up at him. “You can tell me anything.” He smiles reassuringly.

“Well-” you gulp down your anxiousness before continuing, “I was wondering if maybe… we could uh… we could try it?”

His eyes widened. There was a moment of silence between the two of you. You start to panic, thinking you might’ve said the wrong thing.

But you were so wrong. In fact, his eyes had widened in excitement, feeling a sudden twitch in his cock the moment he heard your request.

“Oh baby girl… I thought you’d never ask.”

Your eyebrows shoot up in surprise, you’ve never seen Eric’s eyes go dark the way they did before. “Wait, wha-”

His lips suddenly crash into yours, feeling his needy tongue slip into your mouth. He starts kissing you everywhere from your jaw to your neck.

It seems you’ve woken up a sleeping beast inside him… and you loved it.

You help each other out of your clothes, leaving only but your soaking underwear on. You gasp into his mouth, almost letting out a moan as you feel his rough fingers slightly tighten around your neck.

“Oh, sensitive there, aren’t we?” he grins looking at how you react.

“Eric, please-”

“Please what, baby?” his hand gripping your throat a little tighter now.

“Please, I need you i-inside me” you whine desperately.

“Say no more.” He grabs your waist and aggressively positions you on your elbows and knees, your ass on full display for him. He pushes your panties to the side, exposing your wet cunt.

He leans forward just enough to whisper in your ear, “I’ll make you feel good, I promise. Just trust me.” You feel the tip of his cock brush against your entrance, making you shiver from feeling his precum spreading against your folds.

He impatiently pushes himself inside you without warning, making you both moan from the sudden stretch.

Wasting no time, he starts pounding into you like there's no tomorrow, the grip of his hands on your hips tightening the more he feels his cock rub against the ridges of your walls.

“Oh fuck, Eric-” ”You feel so good around me baby, just like that- shit…”

The sounds of skins slapping, his balls hitting your core, and your nipples brushing against the fabric of the mattress has you entering into another dimension.

“Fuck baby- you’re so tight.” he grunts as he continue to thrust harshly into you. You reply with nothing but a strain of broken moans.

Then Eric suddenly remembers the request you had asked him, making his cock twitch inside you. “Up” he commands.

You do as your told and he pauses his movements monetarily as he helps you kneel upright.

He places his hands around your neck before continuing to thrust inside you, making sure that the grip is firm enough to send a message.

You swear you feel your eyes roll back from the overwhelming senses, jaw slacking open as you pant profusely.

“You like that baby? You like my hands around your pretty neck?” his hot breath fanning against your ear.

“Y-yes, s-so much-” You cry out, his thrusts getting deeper each second, hitting your gummy spot so well.

“You’re doing so good baby, so fucking good.” He moves one of his hands to hold your jaw, turning your head to meet his. His lips latch onto yours with much desperation.

“God you’re so perfect…” He groans into your mouth as his thrusts become more rhythmic, his other hand his gripping your neck.

The tight grip making you slightly gasp for air has your head spinning and your core getting wet each second passing by. This is exactly what you’ve been dreaming of.

“Eric- s-so good, fuuckkk” you mewl.

Whispered praises against the other’s lips, which are met with soft whimpers and moans. Had you known your boyfriend had this side to him, you would've asked a long time ago.

And thank god you did.

[steamberrystudio]

19/11/2023

Hey everyone! Time for the bi-weekly tumblr update for Steamberry stuffs!

Summary

Finished writing all routes up through the end of chapter 9

Started working on editing for now

Added in-game achievements

Received some new BG art

Ramble

Okay, so writing-wise, I wrote Yren's content up through the end of chapter 9. Also revamped my end-route summaries for Yren and Raif.

The current word count is 426,000 words.

But I decided to hold off on finishing the endings for the four remaining routes. The main reason for this is that I have planned a lot of early-story changes that are going to shift the trajectory of the route endings. And I was really struggling with how to construct the route endings with those planned changes in a more nebulous state.

I usually try to avoid working out of order because I find it is not conducive to forward progress. But there are some points when you have to break the rules and go back to make important edits because you need them there in order to be able to move forward.

I'm kind of at that point.

So I decided I would fully edit Asher's route, which will allow me to inject all those planned changes into the story which will make it much easier to construct endings that call back to that earlier foreshadowing.

So writing-wise, that's what I've been doing this week. I am currently up to Chapter 6 in the edit (which means I'm a little less than half through the route).

Other Stuff:

I have received new BGs of course. Those are coming in at a fairly steady rate of 1.5 - 2 weeks each.

I also have decided to add in-game achievements to WSC. I've been thinking about it for a while but putting it off since I know that one more screen (like an achievements gallery) means more tweaks to the UI. But I finally sucked it up and did it anyway.

I've also been playing with a colour slider for Wil's sprite. I'm not going to go into detail about it here because I've talked about it more in depth on Patreon and will continue to post most of the details there.

But the idea is that instead of choosing from 3 skin tones and 2 hair colours, there would be colour sliders allowing for a much greater range of selection. One of the big concerns with colour sliders is whether or not the recolours can be made to look as good as recolouring manually - which has always been why I've stayed away from them. 

The more complex shading styles have always struggled with colour sliders. But a developer friend - Feniks - has made a really cool and dynamic shader that actually can recreate even painterly or non-outlined art styles with incredible accuracy.

Using a slider is really useful because it increases the variations the player gets while *reducing* my work load. Instead of having to recolour manually, I would actually only need to colour everything once in grey scale.

Of course, it's not as easy as just dumping in the code and art. It requires some experimentation and learning but right now it is looking like I will be able to make it work. So I may be able to show off some examples in the future.

Screenshots:

None this time...

Upcoming Weeks:

I am currently editing Chapter 6 of asher/common routes and there are some pretty substantial edits I have to make.

It's always tricky to estimate what I will get done editing wise because editing does not flow at a more or less even pace like writing. Chapter 5, 6, and 7 had (and will have) major updates and changes so it may take a while to get through them. Though I'm already through with Ch 5. So...that's one of three.

Anyway.

And I'm also working on the GS lore book, still (LoL. 🙃). Someone today reminded me that I still need to go through all the deleted content to see if anything is salvageable for the lore book too.

😭

Thank you so much to that person (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. And you need to answer for your crimes, my friend.) 👀

[blueesnow]

(6/6) Mikado Nagi's Private Story [Utapri Live Emotion]

Ch 1: (unlocked if you reached intimacy lvl 6 with Nagi)

-Hotel Lobby- Haruka: (Looks like there's still some time left before the new program's production presentation begin…guess I'll just wait here and look at the materials) Haruka: (Its content is educational variety and one of the main MC is--) Nagi: …Wah!! Haruka: Eh, Nagi-kun? …Kya! Nagi: Hey! If you keep that up, you'll fall…! - Nagi: ….Sigh, that was dangerous. Geez, why are you so clumsy? - Nagi: No matter how you look at it, you acted way too surprised just because I called you from behind. Even though you were supposed to be a working adult, that was so pathetic. Nagi: And to think that I took time to call you out. If you were somehow to fall just now that would make me look like I'm the bad guy, yknow? Haruka: Fufu, I'm sorry. Thank you for helping me out. Haruka: I came here at the invitation from a producer that I know, and by chance I was just about to go and greet Nagi-kun. Nagi: Hmm~? So you were looking for Nagi. But, if you think just normal greeting works on me then you're wrong! Nagi: There has to be something more that you need to say to me, right? Can you give me words that will make Nagi happy? Haruka: Yes! To think that you were selected as one of the main MC, that's so amazing. Congratulations…! Nagi: Why of course, it's Nagi after all! Educational program fits exactly for a genius like me♪ Nagi: With an incredibly cute MC such as me, there's no doubt that I'll make everyone smile in front of the TV☆

Ch 2: (unlocked if you reached intimacy lvl 11 with Nagi)

-Hotel Lobby- Nagi: That's the news site, and over there is the TV crew. Looks like there's a lot of media assembled here. Nagi: If it's like this then that means I can show a lot of people to a cutie Nagi. Make sure you also check me out too okay! Haruka: I'm looking forward to it! The starting time starts soon right… Nagi: Somehow people over there are quite in a hurry~? …Staff-san, is there something wrong? Nagi: Eh… The host announcer can't come? Isn't that a pretty bad situation? Haruka: That's right. Even if we managed to find a substitute, we have to at least delay the start time… Nagi: There's no need to do that. We also don't have to go search for a replacement. Who do you think is standing in front of everyone right now? Nagi: It's Mikado Nagi, the cutest and most genius in the universe! Leave the hosting to me, I'll do it in a flash. Haruka: (Certainly… Nagi-kun will be able to do it right away. But as expected, it's difficult to host without any preparations.) Haruka: (If I could somehow prepare something in this remaining time… Ah, those materials over there…) (choices) <I found the script> Haruka: I found the host's script. Here it is. Nagi: Nagi is perfectly fine even if he doesn't look at it though~? But, well, I should at least give my thanks to you. Thank you. Nagi: The MC's talk, explanation of the program content, Q&A session… looks it all went pretty much just as planned. <Sound and lighting instructions!> Haruka: Here is the sound and lighting instructions! If there's anything that needs to be changed, let me know and I'll pass that to the other staffs. Nagi: Heh~ That's very thoughtful of you. Since Nagi will be doing both the performing and hosting duties, we need to make him stand out even more. Nagi: For the BGM… can I ask you to play it during this timing? Also, put the pin spotlight on Nagi over here! (back to story) Nagi: Yup, it's all perfect! No one ever expects me to be the host, so it's going to be a fun surprise to everyone. Nagi: Make sure to pay attention on me okay, Haruka. That camera over there and this camera right here, Nagi will take them all!

Ch 3: (unlocked if you reached intimacy lvl 21 with Nagi)

-Hotel Lobby- Nagi: Hi everyone~ Thank you for joining us! Nagi will be your special host for today☆ Nagi: Fufu, were you surprised~? Then the surprise was a huge success! I hope you can keep your eyes upon Nagi's brilliant performance, okay. Nagi: Now then without further ado, let me introduce you to the members who will be helping me here together to make this show even more exciting. Let's give them a big round of applause♪ Haruka: (Amazing… While he manages to deliver words that needs to be conveyed, he also livens up the atmosphere with Nagi-kun's usual way of speaking) Haruka: (To think that he was able to easily handle the role of a host on such a short notice, Nagi-kun, you're so amazing…!) - Nagi: And that's all for the production presentation. Please look forward to it until the broadcast date, okay! Bye-bye~☆ - Haruka: Nagi-kun, thank you for all of your hard work! I was very impressed with how amazing you handle your role as the announcer host, I even forgot that you're supposed to just be a sudden substitute…! Nagi: Geez~ You're exaggerating a lot. But well, I knew how you feel. I mean, it turned out to be more than perfect after all☆ Nagi: Getting a perfect 100 score is a given. But the one who manages to get a result of 120 score is Nagi! Haruka: All of the staff members around were also grateful to Nagi-kun, you know. Nagi: I only did it because it would be a problem for me if the time was delayed. It's a new program after all, so you have to make a good first impression. Nagi: But, thanks to Nagi's brilliant way as a host, all of the expectations have risen. There's no doubt that this program will sure be a big hit♪ Haruka: Yes! I can't wait for the broadcast date either. Nagi: If that's the case, then why don't you go and check out during our recording later? You're probably curious how Nagi being an ultra cute MC, right! Nagi: This is not all that I have in store. I'll show you more just how charming Nagi is☆

Ch 4: (unlocked if you reached intimacy lvl 31 with Nagi)

-Photographic Studio- Haruka: …And done. After that… Eh? The one standing there, isn't that… Nagi-kun! Nagi: Hm…Haruka? What, I didn't knew you were also in this studio too. Nagi: Looking at you now… It looks like you've just finished saying goodbye to all of the people involved, and was on your way going home…I guess? Haruka: Eh… Wow, you're amazing! How did you knew all that? Nagi: Looking at the jacket that you were about to put on, plus the pass that you're holding in your hands. It was all obvious☆ Nagi: Hey, if you're free after this then come with me. There's a cafe nearby that I want to check out. Haruka: Wow, that looks fun. But, are you really okay going with me? I don't know whether Nagi will enjoy it or not… Nagi: Geez~ Nagi's the one who's inviting you, so of course it's perfectly okay☆ Nagi: Stop worrying about unnecessary things. As long as you're with me, that's more than enough. Nagi: Come on, stop hesitating. Let's go! - Haruka: This… isn't this a cafe that's currently trending on social media right now. Nagi: That's right! I heard that they also served cute foods and drinks too. So I wanted to come here for at least once. The menu is… Nagi: What will you order? With so many options here, it's hard to choose right! Nagi: Whoa… this, isn't this very lovely? This one is colorful. Oh, they also have one with Nagi's color too! Nagi: Hmmm, each one of them is cute but… Maybe I'll order the pancake. Ah, this one…!

Ch 5: (unlocked if you reached intimacy lvl 41 with Nagi)

-Cafe- Nagi: Look, there's a musical note imprinted on the pancake! Haruka: All of them are so cute it'd be such a shame to eat them…! Nagi: Aren't you glad that you came here♪ Let's take a photo right away. While holding the plate of the pancake…the angle should be around this much. Nagi: For the pose… That's right, I'm going to listen to your special request for today. Which kind of Nagi would you want to see? (choices) <The usual cute Nagi-kun, please!> Haruka: As I thought, the cute Nagi-kun is the perfect choice! Your smile would fits perfectly with the wonderful sweets, what do you think? Nagi: I'm already cute enough as it is, but you're asking for more? Can't be helped then~ How about this? Nagi: It's a special menu just for you. I'll give you a smile as sweet as a-whipped-cream♪ <Maybe a cool Nagi-kun…?> Haruka: While we're here, maybe a cool Nagi-kun…? Nagi: Are you trying to say that I'm only just cute most of the time? Don't you underestimate Nagi. Let's get started. Nagi: …Hey, Haruka. Look over here. Rather than sweets, you should just focus and be obsessed over me. (back to story) Nagi: …Yep, the picture turned out great! As expected of Nagi☆ Here, look. Haruka: Wow, what a wonderful picture…! It's full of Nagi-kun's charm! Nagi: Right☆ Hehe, thanks! I'll send it to everyone in HE★VENS later♪ Nagi: Now then, it's time to eat. Bon Appetit♪ …Mmm―! It's so sweet and fluffy! Haruka: …Fufu. Nagi: …Hey. Just now, you probably thought that Nagi was acting just like a kid, don't you. Nagi: Your face says it all. But you can't speak for others either, can you? …Look, you have a cream on the side of your lips. Nagi: Here, I got it. …Fufu, your face is all red. It's 100 years too early for you to treat me like a kid.

Ch 6: (unlocked if you reached intimacy lvl 51 with Nagi)

-Downtown- Haruka: Nagi-kun, thank you so much for today! I had a lot of fun! Nagi: You spent time with Nagi after all, so it's a given☆ That cafe had a nice atmosphere to it, right? Haruka: Yes, as expected of Nagi-kun! Please let me know if you found a nice place again. Nagi: Sheesh, don't just rely on Nagi all the time, you should also try to look for one too. But well, maybe I might let you know if I ever feel like it. Nagi: Oh and when you go home, make sure to keep your eyes on the road while you walk, okay. You're a klutz after all. Haruka: Yes, I'll be careful. See you later. - Nagi: …Now then, I guess I'll head home too. Oh, but before that, time for me to send the photos to everyone in HE★VENS♪ Nagi: We took a lot of pictures. Nagi is also a genius with his photography skill! The cuteness of the sweets is also doubled as well. Nagi: Oh, this one is her picture. *giggles* She had a cream near her lips again! Nagi: Her cheeks are so puffed up too. Talk about a weird face! Seriously, she's so funny. Nagi: Now on to Nagi's pictures… Yep, it all turned out really well! Was it because of the natural lighting? Somehow my expression looked much more better than the usual… Nagi: I seem to look like I had a lot of fun. …Was it because I was with that girl? Nagi: …Pshh, nu-uh. There's just no way. Besides, I'm the one leading her around all day too… Nagi: Everyone in HE★VENS is quite handful and troublesome people, so I guess that just means I'm starting to get used to taking care of the adults around me. Nagi: Yep, that's totally it! Geez, I ended up thinking of something weird. Let's go home quickly and make preparations for my next job~

[kyndredravenstories]

Eyes of Infinity: Chapter 14

Hello, I have been posting my work on AO3 and recently decided to venture here to Tumblr. Please note: This story is 18+. No minors. Please read tags carefully. Link to AO3 below but I will also be posting the chapters here.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/53564641/chapters/151115194

Pairing: Sylus/Female MC with some elements of Xavier/Female MC

Genre: Romance, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Angst, Adventure, Smut, Porn with Big Plot and Big Feelings

Content Warning (For the entire fic): Explicit sexual content, spoilers and alterations to existing lore and cards/memories/tender moments/secret times, size kink, size difference, vaginal sex, cunnilingus, anal sex, fingering, all kinds of fingering, elements of consensual somno, dom!Sylus, jealousy, possessive!Sylus, Mephisto stalking, typical game violence, battle and combat

Summary: To love him meant stepping over the threshold and crossing into darkness. To be with him meant accepting the lure of the shadows. And to protect him from betrayal meant sacrifice. I knew not how, only that I would not let time sever our paths ever again.

Previous Chapters: Ch 1 / Ch 2 / Ch 3 / Ch 4 / Ch 5 / Ch 6 / Ch 7 / Ch 8 / Ch 9 / Ch 10 / Ch 11 / Ch 12 / Ch 13

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Master Felix whips around and slaps Alfie's face. Hard. Alfie had been carrying a tray of glass vials, and he holds onto it with all his strength to make sure none of them fall to the shiny white floor. His small hands shake. It hurts. It hurts so very much. Master Felix likes to slap him when Alfie makes a mistake. Likes to see the tears in his eyes and the welts his rings leave behind when he hits him just right.

"I'm sorry, Master Felix," Alfie mumbles on instinct.

"Do you know what you did wrong, Number Eight?" Felix asks, towering over him in his white lab coat. His black eyes look like the vats of tarry goo in the basement rooms, his white teeth gleaming like a shark's in the pulsing blue lights of the lab around them.

"I wasn't quick enough, Master Felix. I'm sorry. Please don't punish me." Alfie doesn't really know what he did wrong. He had made a mistake, of course. But, what was it? He had to figure it out so Master Felix wouldn't be angry anymore. He brought the vials just like the Master asked for. Maybe he didn't run fast enough. And the guards had stopped him, too. They liked stopping Alfie. Liked it when Master Felix punished him.

"Useless freak." With a sneer, the man licks his fingertips and smooths them over his gray stubble. He turns away from Alfie and back to his writing desk, sitting down in his black chair and sliding close to the desk on its wheels. "Get those vials processed. That's twice you've made a mistake today."

Oh no. One more time and Master Felix will put Alfie in the tank. He hated being in the tank. It's so cold and the frozen sleeping man floating inside likes to whisper things in Alfie's head. Master Felix calls him the Progenitor, but he's more like a monster. He says things and makes Alfie see things while he feeds off of his Evol until everything goes dark and his heart feels like it will stop. It's worse than Master Felix's slaps. A lot worse.

Trying to overcome his dread and fear, Alfie rushes over to the big red spinning machine and starts putting the vials inside their matching colored slots. It's up so high that he has to pull up a step stool. He's careful not to make any more mistakes. He's careful not to break any vials or to spill any of the clear liquid. It's precious, Master Felix says. There isn't much of it, so every drop is important. If Alfie spills even a little, the Master will put him in the tank until the Monster drains every bit of his Evol.

That's how the other kids died. Now the cages are empty, but not for long. Every once in a while, the guards bring more of them to the prison in the basement. They come from all over. Sometimes, they speak words nobody can understand. But, Alfie stopped trying to talk to them a long time ago. It's sad when he makes a friend and they get put in the tank. Nobody else has ever come out of there alive. Nobody except Alfie. Maybe that's why the Master made him his assistant. Maybe Alfie is special.

Once he finishes putting away the vials, Alfie begins cleaning the laboratory. Luckily there isn't any blood to clean today. Seeing blood makes Alfie nauseous. He mops and sweeps, dusting the counters and wiping away anything that could leave a stain. That's what Master Felix likes him to do when he isn't running errands. The lab has to be clean and tidy. Leaving even a spot on the floor or the counters will be a mistake. The Master will be angry, and Alfie will get slapped. Or put in the tank. Or left without dinner. None of that sounds good.

While Alfie is cleaning, Master Felix takes out his blue recorder and begins talking to it. He does that a lot. Usually, he talks about all the things he learned and did that day. Kind of like a diary. He really likes talking to himself, and Alfie likes to listen. He pretends that Master Felix is telling a story, and it helps calm Alfie's fear. Today, he talks about how Malakai came to the lab to ask about the Progenitor. Alfie remembers that. Everyone always acts so different when the man with violet eyes comes to the lab. They say he's the strongest ever and that's why he's the leader of Noxis. But, if he's the strongest, why is he trying to become even stronger by using the Progenitor? 

"The recent failure is a setback, but at least a partial transference was achieved. If only Malakai hadn't been so wounded, perhaps..."

While he talks, Master Felix licks his fingertips a few more times and brushes them against his stubble. He does that a lot, too.

When Alfie is done cleaning, he puts everything away and sits in his place in the corner of the lab between the spinning machine and the computers. It's warm here. He curls into a ball, hoping Master Felix will not notice him for a while. Interrupting his stories would be a mistake. Alfie's attention shifts to one of the screens on the table in front of him. It's a big monitor showing cameras in different rooms. He sees something moving in the basement. In the room with the cages. They're empty now, so why would anybody be there? Nervous, he squints at the screen. More movement. Like shifting shadows. He glances at Master Felix. He can't interrupt him, but he's supposed to tell someone when he sees something strange. Alfie trembles, confused.

"Number Eight," Master Felix calls. Alfie holds his breath as he rushes over to the big black chair. Alfie hates that everybody calls him by his number here. In his mind, he holds onto his name. It's the only thing he can remember before he was brought here with the other kids and put in the cages. 

"Y-Yes, Master?"

"Go to the basement and leave this list with Orla." He hands Alfie a laminated piece of paper with handwritten names on it. "After that, you are free to go to the kitchens and take a meal. If you are not back in one hour, it will be a mistake. Do you understand?"

Alfie nods. "Yes, Master. Thank you, Master. I won't make a mistake, Master."

"Get out of my sight."

Alfie runs out of the lab, tucking the piece of paper against his chest. Orla is the Floor Warden for the basement. Maybe he can tell her about the moving shadows on the camera. Maybe she'll be nicer to him if he tells her something that will make her look good in front of the Master. If he could just talk to her. But, she's so scary. She hates the kids, and she likes to hit Alfie with her cane. She knows how to hit without leaving bruises. Master Felix doesn't like Alfie to have bruises from anything except his slaps.

He makes it to the elevator and presses his thumb to the fingerprint reader. With a green flash and a ping, the double doors hiss open to let him inside. He chooses the basement floor and scans his thumb again. The screen flickers with some letters and a message, but Alfie can't read anyway so he ignores it. In seconds, the elevator takes him four floors down to the lowest place in the compound. When the doors open, Alfie steps out.

It's really dark and cold here. A lot colder than anywhere else in the lab. They have to keep it cold so the bodies don't rot, Master Felix says. Alfie smells the bittersweet stuff the other scientists use to keep dead things fresh longer. He can never remember the name for it; the word is too long. The smell is stronger than usual, which means the scientists must be doing something with the bodies. Maybe they're making more tarry stuff. Or maybe it has something to do with the "failure" Master Felix was talking about in his stories today.

Orla gives Alfie a glare when he walks timidly up to her office. She's an older woman with streaks of grey in her hair and ugly wrinkles. She's wearing the grey and indigo Noxis uniform. Her pants are creased at the backs of her knees from sitting all day and watching her monitors. He holds out the paper as he walks up to her, hoping she'll understand that he's here to run an errand.

"It's from Master Felix," he says. "I just have to give you this list and then I have to run."

Orla stands up and marches the rest of the way up to him; he can hear her heavy breathing. When she's close enough, she takes the paper then steps around and closes the door behind Alfie. He tries to stay calm. She likes it when he's scared, and she really likes it when he cries. If he can just avoid doing what she likes, she'll get bored and maybe let him go with just a few smacks on the backs of his knees with her cane. He hopes he can get this over with fast. Master Felix only gave him an hour, and Alfie didn't have dinner yesterday.

"Looks like Felix wants me to take you to the cages," Orla smiles after reading the paper, reminding him of a picture of a shark he saw once on one of the monitors on the TV in the kitchen. Alfie doesn't believe her, but he can't fight her if that's what she wants to do. She's a lot stronger, especially because Master Felix just put him in the tank last week. He still doesn't have all of his strength back.

"That's not what the Master said," Alfie frowns. "The Master said to give you the list and go to the kitchen."

"You talkin' back to me, kid?" Her cane comes down hard on his back. Alfie doesn't expect it and falls down. She hits him again, on the head this time. He raises his hands to shield himself, confused now and on the verge of tears. This isn't how this normally goes. She's never hit him this hard. Curling into a ball, he screams when she keeps hitting him. She's shouting something, yelling. The more she hits him, the sweatier she gets and the louder her breathing becomes.

And suddenly, the pain stops.

Her voice stops.

Still terrified, Alfie squints open his eyes and looks up above him. Orla has a weird look on her face, like a robot disconnected from its plug. Her face is kind of limp. Her mouth hangs open and her eyes are rolled back into her head. She wavers for a second before a fountain of blood spurts from her neck. Alfie screams as her head falls off her shoulders and onto the floor, bouncing and rolling towards him. Horrified, he scrambles backwards on all fours. When he opens his mouth to scream again, a hand wraps around his face.

"Shh. Don't shout, unless you want to end up like that hag."

"I'm s-sorry," Alfie whispers. "I made a mistake. Please don't hit me. Please don't put me in the tank. Please don't hurt me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Calm down," another voice says.

Alfie realizes that he covered his face with his hands instinctively.

"Look at me," the same voice demands. The hand leaves his mouth. Someone shifts around him. Alfie moves his hands away, peeking up towards the voice. Two figures are standing above him dressed in all black. Their faces are covered with crow masks. The tips of the beaks are red like they've been dipped in blood. One of their hoods says "06" and the other says "07". Otherwise, he can't tell them apart.

"P-Please don't h-hurt me," Alfie whispers again.

"If you do what we ask, we won't," Six says.

"W-Who are you?" Alfie asks.

Six sits down next to him. "Tell me your name first."

"A-Alfie...I think. I can't remember because..." he stops there. Suddenly, he's wondering if this is another test from Master Felix. The Master is always testing him. They killed Orla, but she liked to disobey the Master and the rules. She liked to hit Alfie and make him cry. He's glad she's dead. He just wishes there wasn't so much blood. He really hates seeing blood.

"Everybody calls me Number Eight. That's who I am. I won't tell you anything," Alfie says, his bottom lip quivering. "I won't say anything. I have to go to the kitchen. Master said to go after I was done here. Please let me go."

Six looks at the headless corpse on the floor then at Alfie again. "We just killed your friend. Aren't you upset?"

"Orla wasn't my friend," Alfie insists. "She hit me and beat me. She was a bad worker. She broke the rules, and she deserved it."

Nobody ever listened to him when he complained anyway. They all just liked to hit him. If he complains to these people right now, it might be a mistake. He might end up in the tank. He has to show Master Felix that he's loyal. That he's special.

"What do you do around here, Alfie?" Six asks him. Seven stays silent, occasionally glancing towards the closed door. Six had said his name. Not Number Eight. His name. Maybe this means Alfie is doing well. Maybe this is a reward.

"I'm Master Felix's assistant. I help him."

"I see. And, do you like helping him?"

"Yes," Alfie answers without hesitation. "Master Felix is amazing. He's smart. He's merciful. He gave me a place. Made me special. A nobody like me can be helpful if I serve him."

"I see," Six sounds impressed. "You must be really important here. Are you the youngest?"

Alfie puffs up his chest. Nobody had ever told him he was important.

"I was before, but not now. The other kids that came with me and after me were put in the tank, so they're dead. They were weak. They weren't worthy of serving the Master."

Six nods. "The tank sounds like a scary place."

"It is," Alfie shivers. Six was really easy to talk to, and he didn't look like he was going to hit him. He liked this. Maybe he could talk to him just a little more. "It's really really scary. It's cold and there's the Progemator. I don't like him."

"Progenitor?" Six asks, correcting Alfie's pronunciation. "What's so scary about him? He's just a floating dead guy, isn't he?"

"No!" Alfie insists. Nobody's ever been this interested in Alfie before, and he doesn't want Six to think he's scared. "The Progemator isn't dead. He's alive, and he gets stronger when he takes our Evol."

"Oh, really?" Six sounds surprised. "Have you been in the tank with him?"

"Yes. Master Felix puts me there when I make a mistake. When I do something wrong. I deserve it, of course. It's all my fault. I deserve to be punished and have my Evol taken."

Seven comes over and sits next to Alfie, too. He crosses his arms over his chest, listening intently. Alfie can't help but feel proud. He's said only good things about Master Felix and the Monster. Only good things. That means he's passing the test, right?

"You sound like a brave young man," Seven says. "After all, you're such an important assistant and you've survived going into the tank."

Alfie's eyes sting with tears. This is the first time anybody's ever given him so many compliments. He hopes this test will go on just a little longer.

"Does that mean your Master trusts you to go anywhere here in the lab?"

"Yes, anywhere he needs me to go."

Seven reaches for Alfie's wrist. "Can I look at something?" he asks.

Alfie hates being touched, but if its for the test, he can be patient. He nods, and Seven gingerly takes hold of his forearm and pulls up his ratty sleeve. His mark is tattooed into his skin; the black ink looks as fresh as though it only happened yesterday. It's the number Eight.

Six and Seven look at each other. They don't say a word, but Alfie feels like they're talking to each other. After a minute, they shift to sit closer together and hold out their forearms to him.

"Wanna see something neat?" Six asks.

"I think you'll be surprised," Seven says.

Alfie hesitates. Is this the next part of the test? He nods, clasping his hands together nervously. In perfect unison, Six and Seven pull up their sleeves to show their wrists. Alfie gasps when he sees the same tattoos on their skin in the exact same place as his: the numbers six and seven.

"Alfie," Seven says, "how would you feel about a trade?"

"T-trade?"

"Yes. In return for taking us to see your Master, we'll take you home with us."

"Take me...to another lab?" Alfie holds his breath, not daring to hope.

"Take you home," Six says, his tone suddenly different than before. "No more labs."

"Away...from here?" Alfie whispers, his eyes going wide.

Seven nods. "Yes, that's right."

This is a test. This is Master Felix's test. Alfie has to stay strong. This is all a trick. The second he says 'yes' someone will come out and hit him. Master Felix will laugh and slap him then put him in the tank. Maybe forever.

"No," Alfie shakes his head. "No, I won't. I'm happy here. I belong here. Master Felix made me special."

A tear runs down Alfie's cheek despite his best efforts to hold it in. It's lies. It's all lies. If he could, he would run away from here. If only these people were real. If only this wasn't a test.

"You don't trust us?" Six asks him. "What reason do we have to lie to you?" He sounds sincere. He sounds real. Alfie takes a step towards him, digging his nails into his palms. 

"If..." Alfie swallows past his fear. "If this isn't a test. If you're not with Master Felix. Then...you killed Orla...and you could kill me too."

"Believe me," Seven says to Alfie's left. "If we wanted to, you'd already be dead."

"But, you won't." Alfie frowns. This is how everybody is. They all want to use him or hit him or hurt him. "Until you're done with me." 

Six chuckles. "Smart and special. I definitely want to keep him now, Kieran."

"He's not a puppy, Luke. Boss won't like it."

Luke and Kieran. Were those their names?

"Boss?" Alfie asks, suddenly curious. Did they have a Master, too? They had tattoos like him and a Master like him. But, they were so strong. And they weren't in a cage. Was their Master nice? Did he hit them, too?

Luke looks over to Alfie. "Yeah, our Boss. Strongest guy you'll ever meet."

"But I thought Malakai was the strongest. He's our leader."

Kieran snorts. "That chump is going to be fish food soon."

"Fish food?" Alfie doesn't understand.

"Yeah," Luke says. "Like getting thrown into a tank but in pieces."

"Your Boss is that strong?" Alfie asks, amazed. He can't imagine anybody stronger than Malakai. "Is he...nice? Does he hit you?"

Luke shakes his head. "Never. We get to play as much as we want as long as we do our work."

"Does he let you go to the kitchen?"

"As much as you want," Kieran says, his arms still crossed over his chest.

"But, what about the numbers? Aren't you his prisoners?"

"He took us from our prison," Luke says. "And gave us the strength to kill all those who hurt us."

Alfie takes a slow shaky breath. All who hurt him. Kill them? Kill Master Felix? Kill the guards that always stopped him and got him in trouble? Killing others was for the strong, and Alfie was weak. He'd imagined so many times what it might be like to hit Master Felix back. To hit the guards that abused him. To take Orla's cane and hit her over and over until she stopped moving. But, he'd always been too weak.

"I can't do that," Alfie mumbles.

"What, kill? You don't look like a softie to me, kid," Kieran says.

"I'm not strong enough."

"You don't have to be strong to fight for your life," Luke explains. "You don't have to be strong to give back an eye for an eye." He reaches out and puts a hand on Alfie's shoulder. "You just have to have one thing. The instinct to survive. Like any beast, really." 

"That's all any of us are," Kieran concludes. 

Alfie wrings his hands together. "Can you...or your Boss...can you teach me that?" 

"We can," Luke assures him.

It was too good to be true. Too good. But, Alfie wanted to believe it so much.

"Then...then..." 

"Do you want to trade now?" Kieran asks, sounding impatient.

"Yes," Alfie breathes, scared and excited all at once. "I want to leave here. I want to kill Master Felix. He hurts me. He treats me like dirt. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him." The last part comes out as a growl, and the walls around him shake with Alfie's anger.

Luke rubs his hands together. "Alright then, it's a deal."

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Felix Blaze is a man of logic and action. His lab ebbs and flows in perfect order. Not a hair out of place. One might say he runs a tight ship. His direct reports don't dare to step a toe out of line. There are no terminations here. At least, not in the traditional sense. Young bloods come to work here to prove themselves to the organization, and one word from Felix is enough to either earn a promotion or earn a place among his cages of test subjects. It's a risk a surprising many are willing to take.

Felix has earned quite a reputation of success in his endeavors and assigned projects. He grew quickly in rank, and in just a few short years, he's taken A.R.C.A.N.E and Noxis to a whole new level. An accident -- something involving an introverted young bookworm working too hard for her own good and a tenth story ledge calling her name -- led Felix to a method of mass producing LUMINIS. With her notebook and knowledge in hand, he was a rising star among his toxic and quite envious collective. A figure of envy.

But, after flying so high, the brilliant scientist's fall is all the more painful. Malakai's failed operation just hours ago is a new stain on his record. While most of his colleagues had gone home for the night, Felix remains alone in his frigid, dark, lab. He sits at a desk, the only light a pulsing blue glow coming from the eight foot tank beside him. His hands move at blinding speed as he scribbles notes and observations in impeccable penmanship. Only Number Eight remains by his side, bringing him hot cups of coffee and carrying out menial tasks.

Foolish naïve little child. An unexpected bonus brought to Felix among a cartload of worthless bodies. He possesses an interesting Evol, one full of the potential to either destroy or to elevate the RE-Birth project. For that reason, Felix keeps him on a tight leash. A prisoner given the illusion of limited freedom. First, Felix had made sure to crush his mind and his spirit. Then, he ensured that he continued doing so. The child must never know his true worth or purpose.

Now if only the other factors of the project could line up as well. Lost in his own anger and frustration, Felix laments that no one is here to witness his heroic actions. If only Malakai could see him now, picking up the pieces after their recent set-back and planning for the next attempt. See how alone he is; how he's clearly the only worthwhile worker in this lab. Damn the other scientists. So what if they'd been working without rest for over 48 hours? They're on the verge of a breakthrough. Doesn't that mean anything to them? Unworthy rats. Not even fit to lick Malakai's boots. They would need to be dealt with soon; their incompetence cannot be tolerated. Every failed attempt puts Malakai's life at risk, puts the Progenitor at risk.

Intolerable.

Disgusting.

So furious his hands shake, Felix reaches up to lick his fingers and smooths them over his growing stubble.

The Master must be informed. There must be another purge of the staff. They can start over; build again. Bodies are plenty to push buttons and fill beakers. After all, it is he - Felix - that is the true mastermind and the brains behind it all. Only men of his caliber are fit to work at A.R.C.A.N.E. Men with ambition, fortitude, and a strong understanding of their role in the great machine that is Noxis.

Hands trembling, he writes up the last of his report. Compiling data for this last attempt isn't easy. Something had gone disastrously wrong. No. Disaster isn't a good word. A glitch. Yes, that's it. Just a glitch. They'd needed more bodies than usual. More of the Blood, too. And still -- still -- Malakai couldn't couple with the Progenitor. His leader had left frustrated and weakened, his Evol unchanged, his memories only partially transferred. If only Malakai hadn't been injured, they could have tried again. But, the wounds needed a Proto-bath treatment to heal.

Again, Felix reaches up, licks his fingers, and smooths them over his stubble.

If only the Specimen hadn't escaped over a year ago. The search for him had borne no fruit, and there were no more Lemurians readily available to pull from to replenish the Blood. At this rate, LUMINIS production would be compromised and the RE-Birth project will need to be put on hold. Unless, of course, Malakai made progress in obtaining a new resource.

The girl.

The Core.

With her, none of these things would be obstacles at all.

So, why did their leader hesitate? Why did he not capture her in this last encounter? A.R.C.A.N.E needed her so badly. No tissue, no cell, would be wasted. Every piece of her body would be put to good use. The Core to power the Progenitor. Her blood for LUMINIS. Skin and bones and organs for research and analysis. She would be reborn; they'd find her, capture her, and use her again. She was perfect. A timeless resource that would never run dry.

Setting aside his notebook, Felix picks up a clipboard and walks closer to the Progenitor's tank. A man floats within, his long black hair waving with the current, his violet eyes closed in repose. One of these days, Felix would see them open. Malakai will succeed in transferring his Evol and his memories to this new body, achieving true rebirth and reincarnation in a form that will be unstoppable. Noxis will rise like a phoenix from the ashes, and the vermin of Onychinus would fade into the shadows, never to be heard from again.

Of course, these are only Felix's ambitions. Malakai has much grander plans, including the slow and methodical elimination of his greatest rival - Sylus. Felix wants to see this, too. Wants the man with the red eyes to kneel before them all and beg for his life. Once, Felix had been a part of Onychinus. Once, he had been the greatest among the ranks of their scientists. Until Sylus had swept in and destroyed his research. All of his life's work pertaining to the Aether Core, gone in a single vicious night of flame and smoke.

Felix reaches up and smooths his moistened fingers across his stubble.

Revenge would be sweet.

And, what could be better than claiming Sylus's body for research and experimentation? A power like his had never been known or seen anywhere. A monster, some called him. Or, perhaps, a result of some machination by an unknown hand. Many feared the unknown, but Felix welcomed it. All mysteries could be solved, and monsters made for fruitful study.

A ringing. Felix's phone. Blinking at the flashing screen, he frowns when the caller ID looks glitched and fragmented. The metal in the walls tends to interfere with calls here. Concerned that it's a summons from Malakai, he picks up.

"Downstairs," a familiar voice says.

"Right away, Sir."

Felix grows worried. Had Malakai's wounds been worse than they'd thought? Was the Proto-bath not sufficient? Were more Protocores required? His breathing quickens as he gathers his things and makes his way outside with his briefcase in hand. Number Eight follows him like the obedient dog he is. On the way, Felix throws on his thick winter jacket. He exits the building with a swipe of his badge, stepping out into a flurry of falling snow. A pair of headlights nearly blind him, and he rushes around the car's front. Someone opens the door for him, and he slides inside. Number Eight follows suit.

"Sir, I --"

He stops. Two men sit before them dressed in all black identical clothes and armor. Their faces are hidden behind crow masks, but somehow even without seeing their expressions, Felix can tell they are smiling. They're wearing hoods with the numbers "06" and "07" printed on them. Recognition flares. His jaw clenches. He swallows past a lump of terror in his throat, for he's heard rumors of these men and what they do at Sylus's side. One of them takes a phone out of his pocket and taps the screen.

"Downstairs," the recording of Malakai's voice plays. "Downstairs...downstairs...downstairs..."

"For a smart guy, you sure fell for this trap way too easily," Seven says.

Felix lunges for the door handle, but he doesn't even make it an inch before one of the men seems to teleport to his side. A gloved hand wraps around Felix's wrist hard enough to break bone. He shouts in pain, but this only seems to amuse his captor.

"Now, now," Seven chides from above him. "You're our guest of honor. Just stay put, would you?"

The man across from him -- Six -- chimes in, "we're not in the mood to play right now."

Felix's eyes snap to Number Eight. Six is holding a glowing dagger to his throat. The boy's bright silver eyes are dead as always, devoid of any kind of human emotion. He doesn't look scared or concerned. In fact, he looks almost angry, an expression Felix has never seen on his face.

"Let me go," Felix demands. "I don't have anything you want. You can keep the kid." He gestures with his head towards Number Eight. "He knows more than I do."

Seven shakes his head, "Speak again without permission, and we'll start removing fingers."

Felix gasps at the threat, but doesn't dare to say anything else.

"Now, if you're a good boy and you answer our questions, we might be merciful and kill you quicker."

"That's not much fun, though, is it?" Six sighs. "And who's this extra?" He shakes Number Eight, but the boy doesn't say a word. Strange. For as long as Felix has known him, the boy was terrified of his own shadow. He'd capitalized on that; had made sure to make his fears much worse. He should be shivering and shaking now, especially with a knife at his throat. 

"Looks like a cute little assistant," Six snickers. "I guess he's a freebie, so I can do whatever I want, right?"

"Boss said we could do whatever as long as the scientist squawked." Seven shrugs. "No mention of the kid, so he's bonus loot."

"Let's take them to the cell," Six whines. "I wanna try out my new kit."

"He needs his tongue to talk," Seven counters.

Felix's body starts to shake in terror.

"Oh, look, he's scared," Seven chuckles, leaning forward until the sharp beak of his mask is nearly touching Felix's face. His voice drops to a low thundering threat. "Is the big bad scientist going to pee his pants?"

"You better not. These are leather seats," Six says.

Felix bites his lip, tasting blood. "W-What...do you want with me?"

The second man's mask tilts down. "Well, those documents in your bag are a good start. But, mostly, we need you to tell us where Malakai is and everything you know about that half frozen clone of his that you've been growing in your lab."

Felix starts to say something when an armored fist flies out of nowhere and punches him in the face. He goes down like a bag of rocks, coughing and sputtering as his vision spins.

"Rule one," Seven says, "no lying."

"Didn't...lie..." Felix coughs.

"You were about to. I can sense that a mile away, you know."

Number Eight whispers something. Felix balks when Six moves the dagger away from his neck and leans down towards him.

"What was that, Alfie?"

"Slap him," the child answers. His silver eyes gleam in the low light. "He made a mistake. Slap him."

"You're right," Seven says then turns and slaps Felix's face. The impact is so severe that Felix thinks he might have broken his jaw. He coughs and sputters past the pain and dizziness, spitting out a mouthful of blood along with a tooth.

"You...little freak..." Felix hisses, glaring at the child. "It was you that led them here?"

How? How was this possible? Betrayal from the child? Felix had done everything by the book. He'd been certain that he'd broken this boy long ago. Yet the silver eyes looking back at him now weren't the same ones he was used to seeing. Had these two men done something to him? Had they influenced him somehow? If so, when? This wasn't something that could have just happened on a whim. 

"Careful, Master Felix," Number Eight says, his face and eyes still dead as rotting pond water. "Don't speak without permission."

Felix flinches back. Six knocks on the pane of glass separating the passengers and driver. The car takes off, and Felix struggles to get his emotions and fears under control. No matter what happens to him here, he cannot give them any information about Malakai and his plans. He glares at the twins, then at Number Eight.

"I think we've got a true loyal pawn here," Seven says. "He looks determined."

"Loyal till we really get started," Six shrugs.

Seven grabs Felix by his collar and pulls him forward. "Hey, just so you know, I want you to fight me. I've been bored lately, and I could use some human dissection to get my mind right again."

A phone rings somewhere behind Felix. Six reaches across the seat and picks up the phone.

"Yeah, Boss, we got him. We're on our way now."

A deep voice says something Felix can't make out.

"Understood, Boss."

When he hangs up, Seven speaks up. "So? What's the Boss-man want?"

"We can't kill him 'till the Boss gets a turn with him," Six practically pouts.

"So as long as we leave his eyeballs in tact, we can do whatever?"

"That was my understanding."

Both men turn to look at Felix, and he comes close to soiling himself despite the earlier warning. All of his earlier bravado vanishes, shrinking and withering like a slug in saltwater. They're taking him to Sylus, and they're planning on torturing him. No amount of fortitude or sanity will be enough to survive that. 

"P-Please...I take it back...I'll tell you anything you want."

The twins both laugh in unison. "Oh, you will," they say simultaneously. "But we'll have some fun first."

[wardenparker]

Down the Rabbit Hole - Epilogue

Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels x female reader Co-written with @absurdthirst​

When Jack accidentally shoots a civilian on a mission he takes on not only the guilt of the man’s death, but inherits his soulmate as well. To you, it’s a dream job with more perks than you can imagine - but for Jack it’s a nightmarish complication. Even more so when he starts to develop feelings.  

Rating: Mature, but this blog is always 18+   Word Count: 7k   Warnings: Family reunion, pregnancy, references to deceased spouse/child, cemetery visit, character death, vague afterlife references. Summary: Jack’s birthday on the ranch is celebrated with a new surprise.  Notes: This story has been so near and dear to my heart, and my absolute love of one sweet cowboy has made it even more precious. A few people have asked and there is always a possibility of coming back to revisit our soulmate pairs, so we’ll just have to see if these two have any more stories to tell in the future. Until then - stay tuned for a preview of the next soulmate story - The Viper’s Bride - later today!

Ch 1 ~ Ch 2 ~ Ch 3 ~ Ch 4 ~ Ch 5 ~ Ch 6 ~ Ch 7 ~ Ch 8 ~ Ch 9 ~ Ch 10 ~ Ch 11 ~ Ch 12 ~ Ch 13 ~ Ch 14 ~ Ch 15 ~ Epilogue

"Grammy! Grampa!" The shout goes up through the house – two little voices in unison as the front door of the ranch house swings open and two sets of stampeding feet come thundering toward the front hall at top speed. Even though you and Jack are moving a bit slower these days, it's nice to see family, especially for an occasion like this one. The fact that all the two of you have to do is show up is something of a fringe benefit. The other half of your entourage is right behind you, as Jackson won't let you or his father carry your bags into the house from the truck. He's greeted with an equal screech of "UNCLE JACK!" and your two grandkids veer slightly off course immediately to launch themselves at their uncle.

“Already replaced.” Jack pouts, rolling his eyes playfully as the kids clamber all over the youngest. “Jane still loves us. Jane? Honey? Where are you?”

"We're not as fun to climb on as Uncle Jack is," you chuckle under your breath as your younger child stands tall for his two nephews to climb all over like a tree in the yard.

"Dad?" The voice from the kitchen is loud enough to be heard over the din without shouting. "Mom? I'll be right out; I'm just putting the finishing touches on the cake!"

Jack chuckles when your face falls, obviously hoping to get here before she had made dessert. “You know it’s coconut cake.” He murmurs, pressing his lips to your leathery cheek. The years have been kind to you, still as gorgeous as the day he had tucked tail and ran from you.

"Of course it is. My baby knows what she's about." That sense of pride in your children is as bright as it was for their first smile, first laugh, first step, first word – first anything. Jackson might be the one running the restaurant with you now, but his older sister is something of a miracle in the kitchen in her own right.

"You made it!" When Jane appears from around the corner a second later, her apron is covered in all the evidence of an enormous project gone very right and there's coconut flakes still under her fingernails, but she's smiling as wide as can be and holding out her arms to hug both of her parents at once. "Happy birthday, Daddy."

“Thank you, honey.” Jack doesn’t deny his birthday anymore, doesn’t insist that it’s not to be celebrated. The parties that have been held have been a joyous reminder of the life he has now, a bittersweet remembrance of what could have been, but the ache has lessened over the years with the annual visits to Daniels Ranch. “Kacey still workin’ or is he around?” He asks.

"I barely got him inside twenty minutes ago, so he should be out of the shower soon." Jane squeezes you both tight and smiles, happy despite being tired. That's motherhood in a nutshell. "His family should be on their way right about now. They didn’t want to overwhelm you by taking over the house right when you arrived but they promised not to be late for dinner."

“Hope he’s ready to drink some whiskey and lose money to me after the kids get to bed.” Jack chuckles, having brought a few bottles from the distillery.

"Kayce's on a budget this year." Your daughter rolls her eyes fondly and laughs. "I don't need him losing the house during the poker party after I just redid the kids' bathroom."

Jack snorts and grins at his eldest child. The long-standing joke about betting the house always amuses him. Jane had found she was soulmates with Aiden’s grandson when they were just nine and ten years old. So every summer they had come back, making sure the young soulmates had a solid foundation and the boy liked ranching better than farming. He now ran Daniels Ranch and the board had been dissolved just a few years ago.

"What can we help with, sweetheart?" Despite Jack teasing you that it's perfectly okay to slow down and even consider retiring now that you've officially passed into senior citizen status, you just can't help yourself. No matter where you are or what you're doing, you have to dig your hands in.

“Nothing.” Jane is just like you, a consummate entertainer. Loving to provide good food and good times for those she loves.

"I don't know how you do it." You shake your head and give Jane another hug just as you hear footfalls on the stairs in the next room. "When you and your brother were that little I was throwing potlucks and pool parties. You've got your great-grandma in you. She could do absolutely anything with perfect style."

“Mom, come on.” She snorts rolling her eyes. “The only reason you did that was because dad put his foot down about you not running yourself ragged.”

"Then somebody ought to tell that husband of yours—" The exaggerated words come with a smile, knowing Kayce can hear you from the stairs. "That he ought to be helping out, too!"

“Sorry.” Kayce rubs a hand through his still damp hair and grins sheepishly. “Had a problem with the calves out in pasture twelve. They keep escaping and turning up in the creek.”

"Don't trouble yourself, honey. We just got in." It's not that you have favourites by any means – but if you could have chosen a son-in-law by hand, you certainly couldn't have chosen anyone kinder or more loving for your only daughter than Kayce. "The boys are already climbing on their uncle, and Janie didn't leave a thing for me to help with. So I have nothing to do but give out hugs, I suppose."

“Well, I can accept one of those.” Kayce holds his arms out and wraps them around you for a hug. “Thank you for coming. It’s so hard to get away. And I know this is tradition.”

"We wouldn't have missed it for the world." Turning around to find where Jack's gone, you smirk when you see that he's snuck into the kitchen to admire his birthday cake and swipe a finger through the frosting bowl.

“Daddy!” Jane huffs, turning around to see where you are looking. “What?” Jack cries, pretending he hadn’t just stolen some frosting. “I had to test it! You know that’s my role.”

"He's worse than the kids," you laugh, shaking your head at him before looking back at Jane and Kayce. "At least let me help set the table? Don't make your Mama feel useless."

Jane narrows her eyes at you for a moment before she sighs, relenting. She knows how it can be to want to help and be told it’s not necessary. All while watching someone run around. “The birthday china.” She gestures towards the large cabinet along the wall.

“The birthday china.” Grateful to not be relegated to the position of old lady who sits in a chair just yet, you hustle into the kitchen while you listen to Jack play with your grandsons out in the other room. What the family calls ‘birthday china’ is actually the beautiful china dinnerware that Jack and Abigail had received as a wedding gift that had been relegated to the house’s cupboards and left behind when Jack left for Louisville so many decades ago. Now it is used consistently, every time there is an adult birthday to celebrate on the ranch.

Jack walks back into the dining room to watch you fuss over the place settings with a fond smile. Wrapping his arm around his daughter and squeezing her against him. He might not be as strong as he had been when she was a little girl, but he is thankful that Ginger has managed to keep all of you spry. “Thank you, honey.” He murmurs softly. “This is just what we needed.”

“You can come up as often as you want, Dad. You know that.” Jane settles against her father comfortably, always having been a bit of a Daddy’s girl and enjoying the comfortable presence of having him close by. “You are retired now. Even if Mom refuses to.”

“I know.” He shakes his head. “Still can’t get her out of that kitchen. It’s her baby now that you two are grown.”

"It was her baby even before we were born," she laughs softly. "That restaurant is my older sibling, and also somehow my brother's baby." The Rabbit-Hole, she always says, is just another member of the family.

“It’s woven into the fabric of our lives and most of your memories.” Jack admits, praying that his children are happy with their lives. He had given them the opportunities to do whatever they wanted and yet each of them had chosen a path that was damn near a family legacy.

"And some day when Jackson finally finds his soulmate, it'll be part of their kids' lives, too." It's more or less an open secret in the family, what Statesman is all about. And because they are so aware of the inner workings, Jackson always likes to say that his soulmate must be one of the agents. Who knows whether or not it's true, but it certainly does speak to his mischievous heart.

“That boy is just as stubborn as I was.” He chuckles, shaking his head as he looks over at where he’s rough housing with the boys.

"If we thought he'd be happy without knowing them, that would be one thing," Jane shrugs with sympathy in her eyes. "But I know he wants to find them. It'll happen eventually." After all, she knows how lucky she is. If Kayce hadn't broken his arm when he was ten, they might not have known they were soulmates until they were much older.

“He would be. He’s a romantic at heart.” Jackson doesn’t say much about it, but Jack knows the boy’s worried. He doubts the kid doesn’t have a soulmate, he’s just sure they’re playing hard to find.

“It’ll happen.” Jane hums confidently, always seeming like she knows something the rest of the family doesn’t. Her Mona Lisa smile always keeps everyone guessing. “Why don’t you get settled, Daddy? Aiden and Sheila should be here soon and we can all tuck in to this big birthday dinner.” She grins at him. “I’m gonna tell Kayce to get the grill going.”

“Shit.” Jack pouts at his daughter. “I’m gunna drink a beer and advise the boy on how to cook those steaks perfectly.” He teases with a wink. He tries not to interfere, but he’ll give his son-in-law a hard time on principle alone.

“Shocking that you would do such a thing,” Jane teases, waving her father off to follow the sound of roughhousing so she can say hello to her little brother. Though adulthood has kept them apart for a few years now, they still talk mostly every day and remain as thick as thieves.

Stopping by the fridge, Jack grabs two beers, knowing Kayce will want one as well. Grilling is horrible thirsty work and it seems only right to do it with a beer in your hand. Stepping outside, he watches as the younger man lights the grill. “Reports from the ranch have been really good.” He offers, striding over to hold out the beer. “Seems like everything’s going alright?” It’s a statement and a question. Giving Kayce an opening to talk about anything that’s on his mind.

“Can’t complain.” The younger man takes the bottle that’s offered to him gratefully and nods, looking out over the back yard of the much-larger ranch house since he finished the last set of renovations. “We just hired on two more permanent sets of hands.” He looks to his father-in-law curiously. “You remember the Pruitt family? They say they’ve been in the valley as long as the Daniels have, but that could just be big talk.”

“Pruitt...Pruitt…” Jack hums as he thinks back, looking over the yards towards the barns and bunkhouses. “Think I remember them. Seems like they were always kinda down on their luck?”

"Long as I've known them, yeah." Methodical in his work, Kayce goes about setting up the grill while the two men talk. He'd always thought of Jack Daniels as an unofficial uncle right up until the day he realized he was in love with Janie, and it had saved him a whole heap of fears that seemingly all of his friends had gone through with their own fathers-in-law. "Anyway, the two boys are just out of high school. They've been helping us during the season for years and gettin' pretty good with the work, so we were glad to take them on full time."

“I trust you made a good decision then.” Kayce has always had a good head on his shoulders and thought about the future. “You’ve done a damn fine job runnin’ this place.”

"We need everything to be running smoothly." The sheepish grin that Kayce flashes his father-in-law is broad. "Three kids is going to be a lot of energy running around this place and until they're old enough to be helping hands themselves, Janie wants to make sure I have the hands I need."

“Three—” Jack stops, a grin immediately blooming across his face and he reaches out to slap Kayce on the back. “Pretty soon you’re gunna have your own baseball team out here.” He chuckles, proud about another grandchild. “Anyone else know yet?”

"Not yet." Puffing up proudly, Kayce leans back on the porch railing and lets his smile take over. "Jane wants to tell everyone at once, but I figured...it's your birthday. Getting to be the first to know is like an extra gift."

“It damn sure is.” Jack beams, nodding in agreement. “‘Though I’ll let her think you didn’t say a word.” He promises, looking off towards the Daniels plot. Where Abigail and Timmy are resting. “Been thinking about things for a while.” Jack admits after a moment of silence between them. “I want to make sure that the trust for the ranch is in yours and Jane’s hands. Completely take it over.”

He wants to say that it isn't necessary. That he doesn't mind working for his wife's father. Because he doesn't – not really. It's a big company and a big responsibility to have the running of the whole thing. But Kayce also knows he can manage it now. After a whole childhood of watching his father run the family farm and being privy to all the ins and outs of Daniels Ranch, he and Jane can handle a big family and an even bigger business. They have the right know how and support system for that. "I'm honored that you trust us with the legacy," is what is says instead, looking to Jack with a nod. "This place is a hell of a responsibility and you know we take that seriously."

“I know you do, which is why you and Jane are the right fit for this place.” Jack huffs. “Something about working for yourself that makes it extra satisfying too. You – you have the spirit of a Daniels.”

"It helps that you were there every summer while I was growing up." Though the visits were never too long they always happened, and the two families had been close for practically Kayce's entire life. Getting visits from his grandparents' good friends had just been a thing that happened and it never seemed odd to him – and then he broke his arm in peewee football and all hell broke loose in their families as people started celebrating the fact that he'd have a scar from the surgery to fix it.

“It took a long time to be able to come back here. Your granddaddy’s sister used to love this place.” Of course Kayce knows the family history and respects it. “Figure that same blood runs through your veins as well. It calls to this place, and I’ve never had a doubt in my mind you were the perfect match for my little girl.”

"That little girl is a mischievous woman now." Moving while he talks means Kayce is pulling steaks from the cooler and counting things out to make sure he has enough of all the right cuts for the adults before he starts pulling out burger patties for the kids. "She's dead set on playing matchmaker for her brother. I keep telling her it'll happen when it's meant to."

“She just wants to see him happy.” Jack can’t blame her. She’s so settled in and focused on her life and the joy that she obtains from it, it’s not hard to want that for her little brother. “Plus, she likes to meddle. Too much like her mama.” He chuckles, turning and admiring you through the glass.

"Nothing wrong with that." After all, Jane's similarities to her mother were obvious just as easily as looking at her. "And I think...with being expecting again and all...she's enjoying the domesticity of the thing. First trimester's been a hell of a lot easier this time than with the boys, which has her thinking it might be a girl."

“A little girl.” Jack smiles and chuckles. “Oh I can’t wait to spoil her then.” He enjoyed having a little girl, and he knows Kayce will too.

“We won’t know for sure for a few weeks.” It doesn’t matter though; he knows he’ll love any child that he and Jane welcome into their family. “If it is, she’ll have two very protective brothers looking out for her.”

“Yes she will.” As rough as the boys could be, they were equally protective of each other. He has no doubt that would extend to another sibling. “She’ll hate it when she’s older.”

“She might,” Kayce admits with a laugh. “But her mama and I sure won’t.”

Jack can’t deny that, humming happily as he watches the meat sizzle on the grill. Life is damn good, especially for a man who never envisioned having this at one point in his life.

"You boys plotting the crime of the century out here?" When you stick your head outside to see how things are moving along, it's obvious that Jack and Kayce are just enjoying the afternoon together in peace, something that you're pleased to see every single time. "Kayce, your parents just got here, honey. Grandparents are on the way, they said."

“Yes ma’am, thank you.” Kayce nods towards you and then closes the lid on the grill. “We might as well go say hi. It’ll be a while.”

"Known the boy since he was in diapers, and he still calls me ma'am." You shake your head as Kayce walks past you into the house and hold your hand out to Jack. "Everything going well?"

“Everything’s coming up roses, sugar.” Jack hums, moving over to take your hand and pull you into his arms for a kiss. “Have I told you today that I love you?”

"Only twice." Decades later, you still melt a little every time Jack holds you tight. But it's still always so easy to tease him. "You're slipping a little, honey."

“Damn, I’ll have to tell you again.” He presses his lips to yours gently. “I love you, sugar. I wouldn’t have this life without you. I wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for you.”

"Happy birthday, Jack." Every year it got a little easier, until the bittersweet memories turned nostalgic and the day was no longer one to dread. Now it's a day for smiles and cake, for presents and playing with the kids – and then grandkids. It's a day that he's happy to wake up on instead of dreading. "I love you. So much."

“I love you too, sugar.” Jack promises, smiling at you. “And you’re gonna love our present today. It’s something for both of us.”

"Oh yeah?" You laugh a little, nudging your nose against his. "Did they replace the sleeper sofa with a great big, fluffy mattress for us?"

Jack snorts, shrugging. “I don’t know, that sleeper sofa is comfortable. And I’m not letting our daughter try to take it again.”

"I'm going to remind you that you said it was comfortable when you back hurts in the morning." It's just a little tease, but you can't help it. Enough years and decades with Jack and the joy in being together still hasn't faded from your relationship.

“I don’t think I’ll be complaining this time.” Jack predicts with a grin. “Only complaint you’ll get out of me is if she can’t have coffee in the house anymore.”

It takes a second, but your head tilts curiously just in time for the shit eating grin to spread across Jack's face. "No?" You're beaming right along with him in no time. "Number three? Really?"

“Just told me.” Jack nods. “He’s about to puff up out of his chest he’s a proud as a peacock.” He chuckles, knowing he had been just a proud when you were pregnant with Jane and Jackson.

"Are we the last or the first to find out?" Jane and Kayce have always been so proud of their family each time it's grown, you can't imagine that they wouldn't make a very big deal about letting people know. Kayce must have been busting at the seams to tell someone.

“The first.” Jack admits. “Kayce told me it’s because it’s my birthday.”

That earns him an amused giggle from you, and you shake your head fondly. "Granddaddy's privilege, that's what that is. Come on, love. Your daughter wants to know what else you want to do this week but hang around the house with the boys."

“Do you want to go with me to visit them?” Jack always asks. Even now. Never wanting you to feel uncomfortable, so it’s always a question. You’ve always come with him, but he won’t be upset if you wanted to stay and visit with Jane and the kids this time.

"Of course I do." He always asks, and your answer is always the same. "I've got to keep her updated on all the things you leave out of your stories." The gentle smile on your lips tips upward, and you lean forward to press your forward against his. "I know she's up there with Timmy and Grandma Jane and my parents looking down on us, but I still only get to talk to her once a year. It's tradition."

“It is tradition.” Jack smiles softly. “I want to be buried here.” He admits. “With you, if you want it. Surrounded by my soulmates.”

"I guess I always assumed you would be." In fact, no other alternative had ever really occurred to you. Not in all the years that have gone by. "It's your whole family up there. I always figured we would join them eventually."

“I didn’t know if you’d want that.” Jack won’t disrespect your own wishes. You have a say in this too.

Your fingers lace through his as easily as they did the very first time, and you let that soft smile warm through you. "I want to be with you. In this life and for whatever happens next."

“Whatever happens next.” The commotion inside causes him to turn towards the door and he grins. “Looks like Aiden and Sheila are here. Want to go say howdy?”

"We better, before Jane comes to get us." There's time to steal a quick kiss, but you're still smiling excitedly. "If she's waiting to tell everybody all at once, she'll be itching to give the news as soon as she can."

“Remember to act surprised.” Jack smacks your ass playfully as he guides you towards the door. “And I still want some birthday sex later on.”

He manages to get a little chirp of surprise out of you, and you just laugh. "Of course, cowboy."

“Damn straight.” Re-entering the house to join the chaos, hugs and back slaps are exchanged. Aiden’s claims that Jack’s getting old are countered by good natured ribbing about how only one of them is a great-grandparent. A testimony to how far Jack had come in his journey to healing from the loss of Abigail and Timmy.

You help Jane pass drinks around, still an entertainer at heart, and pretty soon even the kids have settled a little. "So, of course we know that everybody is here for Dad's birthday dinner," she beams at her assembled family, smile burning even brighter when you go to sit next to Jack and Kayce takes your place by her side. "But we just wanted to say thank you for coming and...give everyone a little bit of news."

Jack manages to school his expression to look just as expectant as everyone else around the table. “What’s goin’ on honey.”

The boys look positively bored, but Jane smiles at her young sons and beams out at the rest of her family. "Well..." She blows out a breath and squeezes her soulmate's hand. "In about seven and a half months...Jamie and Carter are going to be big brothers."

The squeals of happiness and gawfs of surprise are loud, making it a rush to jump up and hug Jane and shake Kayce’s hand or slap him on the back. The comedy of the scene is your two young grandsons clamoring to get to their mother as soon as possible, with five-year-old Jamie placing both hands on Jane's belly and informing his three-year-old little brother in his wisest tone possible that the baby can hear everything as long as you talk right at Mommy's belly button.

"At least he's chosen that as the speaker and not something else," you joke, going to put your arms around Jane and give her a tight hug. "Congratulations, Janie. You must be completely over the moon, huh?"

“Excited and wondering what the heck we were thinking.” Language is censored for the boys, considering Jamie had informed the youngest that ‘son of a bitch’ was the pain when you hurt your hand.

“You were thinking how much you love the baby phase,” you stifle a laugh so the boys don’t overhear. “They’re adorable before they learn ‘no’.”

“That word is going to be banned.” She rolls her eyes and laughs, still beaming as her hand caresses her stomach.

“I’m going to take you out for a little pampering while I’m here,” you promise her, remembering how much work two little ones was. She’ll be in it deep with three. “Shopping, eating out, even a pedicure while you can still see your toes. Mom and daughter day. What do you say?”

“That sounds wonderful.” Jane would never suggest that you leave Kentucky, the restaurant still your baby, but sometimes a girl just needs her mom. Especially when she’s pregnant.

“A whole day. Your Dad and brother can hang back with the boys or help Kayce out on the ranch.” Laying a kiss in her hair, you end up sniffling back a few proud tears. “You’re an amazing mama, Janie. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you, mom.” Jane hugs you again. “I will take that as the highest of compliments coming from you. You set the bar very high.”

“We come from a long line of good moms. We got lucky that way.” Pressing a kiss to her hair, you step back before you can get too emotional, and wipe an errant drop of water from your cheek. “Gettin’ sentimental in my old age,” you joke. Everyone is well aware that you’ve always been sentimental.

“I want you and dad to come out when the baby’s due.” Jane automatically requests, just like you have been present for the others. She knows it’s a given, but you also don’t push and want her to call the shots.

“If you want us there, consider it done.” You hadn’t missed the births of your first two grandchildren and you certainly wouldn’t miss the third.

“I do.” Jane grins. “I think this might be the last one, from us anyway.”

“And three is a wonderful number. You’ll always be busy and you’ll have a house full of love for a very long time to come.” The way she just radiates happiness doesn’t make the wheels turning in her mind, though. You’re her mother. You taught those wheels which direction to move in. “But go easy on your brother, okay honey? He’s doing amazingly at the restaurant and he’s happy there.”

“I won’t say a word.” She promises. “I’m just worried about him.”

“I know, honey.” Spending half your lifetime always worried about your children because you love them means you have complete sympathy for that. “But he’ll find who he wants to be with. Soulmate or otherwise.”

“You’re right. I know.” Jane looks over at where Jackson is talking to Kayce’s grandparents and smiles. “As long as he’s happy.”

******

It’s that evening when you park the truck on the hill on the east side of the property, absorbing the last of the August sunshine as you both step out of the cab to visit Abigail and Timmy. It’s almost like going to see an old friend after so many years of this, and you still take Jack’s hand in yours to give it a supportive squeeze before stepping up to the matching headstones.

There is now a bench off to the side, allowing for a lengthier visit, or for Jack to sit down if his back is sore. “Hey, sweetheart.” Jack smiles as he sees how neatly Kayce has kept the family plot. He and Jane had taken over the flower gardens planted around the two headstones since Aiden wasn’t able to come out as often as he had when he was a younger man. “Told you that we’d be back.”

He says it every time, as though Abigail was there raising an eyebrow in surprise to see him, and you always chuckle a little. “Brought you a daisy,” you murmur as you put the flower down - your own tradition that has never faltered. “And some news.”

“Of course you’re gunna tell on me.” Jack teases, although he’s very aware of what news she’s bringing. “Timmy, you’re bein’ good for your momma, aren’t ya?” He asks, his heart aching like a tiny little arrow pierced it at the thought of his first baby boy.

Sometimes over the years, you could have sworn that a breeze came at just the right time to be an answer, or that you felt a flash of cold even in the August heat. Sometimes you could have bet your life on hearing a faraway voice. But it’s always a comfort to be here for your visit. “Of course he is,” you nod, squeezing Jack’s hand.

“I know.” Jack murmurs softly. “Wish I coulda seen what kind of man he woulda become.”

“He’d be thick as thieves with his brother and sister, and a mountain for his nephews to climb on, just like Jackson.” Of course Timmy would be older by now – outgrown the nickname and become Tim or Timothy – but you can’t help picturing him the same age as your own two kids.

“Yes he would have.” Jack chuckles and closes his eyes, imagining it as he holds your hand.

"Not a whole lot has changed this year, Abby." You've taken to speaking to Abigail so conversationally that sometimes you slip a little and call her Abby like an old friend. "But Janie just let the family know that she's expecting again. It'll be all any of us talk about for the next seven months."

“We’re getting older too.” Jack admits, feeling his age today for some reason. He’s lived twice the years without his first wife and son than he had with Abby. “Slower. You’d laugh at my groans getting up.”

"He sounds like a creaky mattress," you tease, imagining that you can hear the sound of a laugh in the wind.

“It’s what happens when you put my body through the rigors of being an agent for so long.” Jack rolls his eyes but he’s grinning at you. “Still think both of you would be given me hell if you knew one another.”

"I have no doubt." Lifting your connected hands, you press a kiss to Jack's cracked knuckles. There’s more time spent, laughter shared and small snippets of life from the Statesman grounds. Nearly an hour passes before you say your goodbyes and Jack leads you back to the truck.

"Gets harder to get into this thing every year," you laugh, letting your frustration at having to hoist yourself into the tall truck roll off your shoulders instead of getting upset about it. Approaching old age is a privilege that you don't take lightly.

“We might have to get one of those trucks with the fold down steps.” Jack snorts, smirking at you.

“Or convince our daughter to have one vehicle on the ranch that is less than five feet off the damn ground,” you huff good-naturedly. “I might never have been an agent, but I’ve still done a number on my knees.”

“All that runnin’ around in the kitchen.” Jack pats your knee fondly and looks at you before he starts the truck up. “I love you, sugar.”

“I love you, too, honey.” It’s not as easy as it used to be to lean over and give him a kiss, but you still manage it. “Let’s go back home and see the kids.”

“Yes ma’am.” He smiles softly and puts the truck in gear after he starts it. “Been thinking about maybe sneaking you off to the old foreman’s cabin.” Jack hums playfully. “Since it’s empty now.”

“Oh yeah?” The suggestion makes you chuckle, so glad that the attraction between you has never waned. “We could do that.”

“Yeah.” He might not be able to set a pace that completely wrecks you or pushes your – no longer needed – IUD out of place, be he can still make you shake in pleasure.

You hum, watching him as he drives back down the hill toward the main house. "I guess I know what we're doing tomorrow then."

“Still not too old to chase you around the bedroom.” Jack teases, winking at you playfully. His dark hair is nearly white and his craggy wrinkles are much deeper than they had been when you met, but he’s still the same cowboy.

Kissing the back of his hand again, you sit back in your seat and chuckle softly. "I sure as hell hope not. Though I don't know how fast I'm up to running these days anyway."

“It’s been a good day.” The setting sun off to the west is always a view he has loved, going back to when he was just a little thing running around this land. “The perfect birthday.”

"You say that every year." With varying degrees of sarcasm at certain times, of course. But today he seems as sincere as ever. And he's right – at least this time. It really has been a fairly perfect day.

“I mean it to.” He insists. “I’m a blessed man, sugar.”

"You're just excited to have a new grandbaby," you tease, giving his hand a squeeze. Of course you believe him - that he loves his life and feels blessed by it - but you also know for damn sure that a good part of his giddiness comes from that good news. As it should. Being a grandparent agrees with Jack.

“Of course I’m excited to have a new grandbaby.” Jack huffs. “I never expected to have a baby for the longest time, let along three grandbabies. Especially not with another soulmate. I’m damn blessed by you.”

That softens you and you lean against Jack's shoulder as he drives. "I love you, too, honey."

The silence between you is soft, welcomed like a warm blanket. So much time together had been spent that he can almost hear your thoughts. “When we find out what they are having, I want to see what kind of specialty dessert you’re gonna make for the restaurant.” Every one of the kids and grandkids have their own dessert that’s featured during their birthday month.

"Janie said she's been craving onions." Both of you chuckle as he pulls the truck into the driveway of the main house. "So I don't know if it will be a dessert this time. Maybe a tart or an onion tarte tatin."

“Interesting.” Jack chuckles. “If it’s a little girl, she’s gonna be a spitfire.”

"Because would be so unusual for a Daniels." The expression on your face is nothing short of amused. All of you are well aware that spitfire is a description that could apply to anyone in your family.

“Absolutely.” He agrees. “We’re just so…boring.” His eyes slide over to watch your reaction. “No passion.”

"None." You shake your head as solemnly as you can manage, barely keeping your face schooled into something serious. "We are a complete blank canvas. No emotions or opinions whatsoever."

“That’s us.” His chuckles can’t be contained now, rolling out freely as both of you describe everything the Daniels family is not.

"Come on, my love." Unbuckling your seatbelt and stretching, you lean over the center console again to kiss him. "I want to cuddle up with my passionless husband and watch a movie with our kids before bed."

“Sounds like the perfect ending to the best day.” Jack hums, counting his blessings for how lucky he is.

******

In the years since Jack had died, it hadn't made any sense to stay in Louisville. Working the line – or even front of house – at the restaurant was too physical to be sustainable for you and the place was running brilliantly in Jackson's capable hands. It turned out that his soulmate really was a Statesman agent, and you had watched your son take on much the same life that you had lived happily, with his husband.

Retirement had given you options, of course, but you hadn't wanted to be apart from Jack, so you had readily become a full-time grandma on the ranch in Montana. Every day saw another trip to the cemetery on the hill and spending time with your growing grandchildren. Six years went by almost in the blink of an eye, except for the ache of missing your soulmate. That never seemed to dissipate no matter how many wonderful memories you held on to. It lived in your heart each day to be swallowed down like a bittersweet pill, until the day that you had laid down for an afternoon nap and closed your eyes for the very last time.

“Hello sugar.” Jack’s smile is brilliant, young. The lines old age had given him are smooth, the dark spots on his skin clear, his stooped posture straight as he stands in front of you, looking just as hale and hearty as the day he had met you. Holding out his hand, he helps you up from the bed and pulls you into his arms. “I have missed you. So much, but I’ve been watchin’ over you.”

“Jack.” When you can practically jump up out of the bed and into his arms, there is no question of what’s happened. The moment holds only the barest pain, knowing what you’re leaving behind, but the joy you feel at being reunited with Jack completely outweighs it. “Honey, I missed you.”

“I was with you every step of the way.” Jack promises, right before he presses his lips to yours in a kiss that has been sorely missed in the past six years. Watching you and ghosting a kiss over your skin isn’t the same as you knowing it’s him.

“What happens now?” If you had ever worried that you would feel fear in this moment, that worry is soothed instantly by the fact that it’s Jack here to show you what comes next. Or maybe this is all it is, and kissing him really is your own private heaven like you always said.

“Well…sugar, there’s someone that wants to meet you.” Jack murmurs, pulling away and looking behind him with an equally brilliant smile.

“Finally.” A sweet, soft voice has a hint of a happy giggle in it. Abigail steps forward, looking beautiful and healthy although she is not rounded with child. She had appeared to Jack as she had been before the pregnancy. “I have so much to thank you for.”

“Abigail!” There is no question of who this is – you had seen so many pictures of her in your life that you recognize her as an old friend as the two of you fall into a deep embrace. “I didn’t think— maybe I should have— I’m so glad to finally meet you.” Though you can feel sobs shake you a little, there is no sadness. It’s more of a powerful wave of relief that washes over you in this moment.

“I wanted to come. I needed to make sure you know how much I appreciate you.” There’s no jealousy, no bitterness that you spent more time with Jack than she had. There is nothing but joy and elation at finally greeting the woman who has shown her so much kindness and respect. Abigail pulls back and smiles at you while Jack watches the exchange.

“I don’t know what to say,” you admit, feeling a little overwhelmed by the moment. Without fear, you’re left to simply adjust to whatever this next step is. “I’m just glad it’s the two of you here.”

Nodding, she steps back and allows Jack to take your hand. “Sugar, we will always be here.” He promises, and points with his other hand to the side. “And we can always watch over the kids and grandkids.”

You nod, taking Jack’s hand firmly in yours before reaching for Abigail with your other. Though you had never expected her to come, it’s an enormous comfort that she’s here. “I’m ready.”

Jack grins at you and winks. “Ready to go down another rabbit hole with me, sugar?” He asks, overjoyed that he gets to spend eternity with both you and Abigail. His soulmates.

“As long as I get to be with you, we can go anywhere you like.” It’s what you hoped for, when you thought of this moment, and the fact that it’s come true means you’re ready for anything.

“Then let’s get this train a movin’.” Jack squeezes your hand. “Heaven awaits.”

______ Master Tags: @pixiedurango @chattychell @winter-fox-queen @lady-himbo @artsymaddie @princess76179 @paintballkid711 @missminkylove @pedrosbrat @ew-erin @sarahjkl82-blog @sharkbait77 @justanotherblonde23 @lv7867 @recklesswit @mylittlesenaar @f0rever15elf @gallowsjoker @steeevienicks @athalien @sherala007 @skvatnavle @thatpinkshirt @jaime1110 @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @goodgriefitsawildworld @greeneyedblondie44 @katheriner1999 @littlemousedroid @harriedandharassed @churchill356 @ajathegreats-blog @hardc0rehaylz @beardsanddetectives @kirsteng42 @ladykatakuri @adancedivasmom @madiebear @tanzthompson @emilianamason @bigsdinger @xocalliexo @pedr0swh0r3 @avaleineandafryingpan @charlyrmv @avidreader73 @iceclaw101 @loveslide​ @elegantduckturtle  ​

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My Masterlist!

[amaretigris]

Knock-down, Drag-out

Taglist: @luna2034 @notagreekgal28 @mylittlemermaid221 @justagirlthatlovedtoread @daydreamerwithnohobbies @hopeisrising @freyagallileaevans

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Ch. 9 | 2k words | Fluff & smut suggestions

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The next morning, you slowly woke to sunshine, sloppy kisses, and lazy cuddles. Jonah made you eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast. Setting a cup of coffee down in front of you, Jonah kissed your forehead before sitting down at the kitchen table with his own plate.

"So you slept well?"

You nodded with a mouthful of eggs.

"Yeah, I was pretty tired. Your mattress is like a giant pillow," you smiled.

Jonah smiled back at you, dipping his fork into his eggs.

"What'll you do today?"

"I should go see my mom again before work. I need to find out what time she's being discharged today. I don't have to be at the fitness center until nine."

You gulped down a couple sips of coffee.

"That's good. What if she asks you what you did last night?"

You grimaced for dramatic effect.

Jonah chuckled.

"I told her you were coming over, love."

You dropped your fork onto the table.

"What?"

Jonah gave you a lopsided grin before biting into his bacon.

"We're both adults. My mom has no illusions about dating. Besides, she thinks you're great."

Picking your fork back up, you looked down, picking at your food.

"So, are we dating?"

You held your breath while waiting for a response. Jonah set down his silverware, and grabbed your hand.

"I'd say so, yes. You're magnificent, (Y/N). The reason it's taken this long is because of me, not you. I want to be clear about that. I'm still not sure I deserve you, but I can try."

Your heart skipped in your chest at his words.

"I think you're more deserving than most people. Thank you for letting me in," you fluttered your eyelashes at Jonah.

The two of you finished breakfast, saying your reluctant goodbyes.

"I'll see you tonight," Jonah whispered, kissing you softly.

You hugged him tight.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Back at the hospital for the day, you walked to Eleanor's room. You lightly knocked on the panel wall, and opened the curtain.

"Good morning. How are you feeling today?"

You walked to the side of the bed. Eleanor smiled at you, and sat up. She had glasses on as she had been reading a magazine.

"I'm ready to go home," she huffed.

"But other than that, I'm fine deary. How was your night?"

You gulped.

"It was nice. I caught up on some much-needed rest," you smiled awkwardly.

"Good. I hope the two of you had a nice time," she grabbed your hand, and patted it.

"Do you work all day today?"

You nodded, grateful for the subject change.

"Yes, and then I head to the arena tonight."

Eleanor nodded.

"It puts me at ease knowing that someone who actually cares about my son is there to watch out for him," she squeezed your hand.

You sucked in a breath. Why did that statement tug at your heart? You get the feeling that Jonah's been so focused on taking care of his mother, and she's obviously going through some health issues. Who's taking care of Jonah? Who's checking in on him? You determined that it would be you from now on.

"I'll always take care of him, Eleanor," you brought your other hand on top of hers.

You saw Eleanor's eyes light up at your words. She seemed genuinely happy.

"I know he's been ready for you to come home. What time do you get discharged?"

"They said I'll get discharge papers at 11 a.m.," Eleanor beamed.

"Wonderful. I'll text Jonah and let him know," you patted her hand before pulling away, heading for the exit.

"I'll see you again soon, dear," Eleanor chimed.

You turned to her with a smile.

"I'll see you soon."

Leaving her room, you pulled out your phone to text Jonah.

Your mom is doing great this morning. She will be discharged at 11 a.m. ❤️

Hitting send and sliding your phone back into your pocket, you waited for the rush of the day to start.

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That night at the arena, your muscles tensed every time Jonah took a hit. You shouldn't let it affect you so much, and you shouldn't be so terrible at hiding it. You hadn't exactly told people you were dating. You were a fairly private person who didn't enjoy advertising every new development in your life. You prefer to keep things to yourself and your small circle- relationships included. By the end of Jonah's fight, however, you were sure that anyone who was actually paying attention to you would've seen you flinching.

Waiting at the front desk for Jonah as you always did, a warm smile slid onto your face at the sight of him. With damp hair and his gym bag thrown over his leather jacket, you wondered how you'd ever caught the attention of someone so beautiful. Jonah walked you to the parking lot, stopping at your car. You saw that he made no move to climb into the passenger seat this time. Perhaps you were past the car hook-up phase of your relationship now. You threw your medical bag in and turned back to Jonah.

"Are you headed home to go check on your mom?"

Jonah nodded.

"Yeah, I brought her home, and cooked her food this afternoon; made sure she had everything she needed."

You let your arms come out to brush Jonah's sides.

"That's good. I'm sure she appreciates it."

Jonah wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him. He kissed you delicately.

"If you're off tomorrow, you could come by the house," he mentioned as he pulled away.

You bit your lip with a nod.

"Okay."

"Okay," Jonah echoed.

He flashed his adorable dimples at you, giving you one last kiss before he left.

"Good night, baby. Text me when you're home."

"You do the same," you called after him.

He replied with a cheeky grin. Your heart fluttered in your chest as you got into your car. You didn't know what the hell you'd actually do with Jonah and Eleanor tomorrow, but you were excited nonetheless.

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The next day, you drove to the house in the early afternoon. Knocking on the door, you smiled when Jonah answered and you heard him gasp at the sight of you. You were wearing your cutest summer dress, and you'd actually taken the time to style your hair and do a little makeup.

"Good morning, beautiful," Jonah motioned for you to come in.

He grabbed you for a quick kiss as you passed him. He closed the door behind you.

"You look amazing," he whispered, catching a whiff of your perfume.

"Thank you. It's nice to feel pretty sometimes," you shrugged.

"You know I always think you're pretty, but I like you in that dress. I could hike it up, and take you right now," Jonah spoke in a low voice.

His insinuation spiked your adrenaline.

"Is (Y/N) here?"

You heard Eleanor call, snapping both of you out of your bubble.

You cleared your throat, and looked in the direction of her voice.

"Yes, she is. I was just telling her how pretty she is," Jonah replied.

Pressing another kiss to your lips, Jonah grabbed your hand, and led you to the kitchen where Eleanor sat at the table.

"Oh my! You do look very pretty today," Eleanor chimed.

She moved to stand, but you quickly stepped over to hug her, keeping her in her chair.

"No need to get up for me," you smiled.

"Are you doing well today?"

You pulled the chair beside her out, tucking your skirt under your bottom to sit down.

"Yes, I'm doing well. This one won't let me move without checking on me," she pointed to Jonah.

He stood at the counter making sandwiches from the looks of it.

"I only want you to be careful, is all. You need to rest, and not push yourself," Jonah remarked.

You looked at Eleanor and nodded. Jonah turned from the counter.

"How would you like to go on a picnic with us today, darling?"

"A picnic? That sounds wonderful," you clasped your hands together.

Eleanor chuckled beside you.

"Well, aren't you adorable. I'm running to the restroom and to change before we leave," she looked pointedly at Jonah as she stood from her seat.

Jonah held his hands up innocently, watching his mother retreat to her room. Eleanor patted your shoulder as she walked past your chair. You stood up, walking over to Jonah at the counter. You looped your arms around his neck while his hands came to rest on your hips.

"I love picnics. Whose idea was it?"

Jonah smiled, brushing his fingers across your cheek.

"My mum used to take me on picnics growing up when she could afford the extra snacks. We still try to do it from time to time."

You leaned your cheek into Jonah's hand.

"That's really sweet. Thank you for inviting me."

"Of course, my love."

Jonah leaned down to kiss you again, settling his forehead against yours. You two stood like that for a moment, simply breathing in each other's air. You felt such a calm sensation with Jonah.

"Alright," Eleanor clapped her hands as she reentered the kitchen.

The sound made you jump in Jonah's arms, while he lazily looked over.

"Ah, you two lovebirds. Come on, it's a beautiful day," Eleanor smiled.

You smiled back. Jonah's arms pulled away from your waist. He turned back around to finish packing the picnic basket that you hadn't seen behind him on the counter. You helped him finish filling it while happily chatting with Eleanor. The three of you loaded up in Jonah's car, and he drove to a nearby park. Once there, you helped Eleanor climb out of the passenger seat. You grabbed the picnic basket from the back, and you and Jonah walked on either side of her, all joined by the arms.

The three of you sat at a picnic table. Jonah pulled out the paper plates and food. He settled down to eat across from you and his mom. You felt the sunshine soaking into your skin. It really was the perfect day for a picnic. After you all finished eating, you spent the next couple of hours walking a trail at a leisurely pace. Eleanor stopped to admire many flowers, and you pulled out your phone to take photos of her with some. She picked a bright, pink flower, and put it behind your ear.

"There. A beautiful flower for a beautiful lady," she explained.

"Okay, I have to get a picture of you two like this in front of the wildflower field. Say cheese," Jonah instructed.

Pulling up the photo on his phone while you and Eleanor looked at more flowers, Jonah smiled to himself. You looked beautiful with the flower in your hair, and his mom looked giddy beside you. He set it as his lock screen image, and slid his phone back in his pocket.

The three of you slowly made your way back to Jonah's car. Eleanor was becoming short of breath, and it was time to leave. Jonah handed her a pill to take in the car, along with her water bottle. The drive back to their house, you listened as Eleanor chatted about the flowers she'd seen today. It was relaxing.

Unloading everything into the house, you stuck around for a couple more hours before taking your leave. You hugged Eleanor goodbye, and Jonah walked you to the door. He adjusted the flower still behind your ear. It was wilting, but he thought it still looked just as beautiful on you. You pulled him in for a kiss.

"Thank you for today. I had a great time."

Jonah squeezed you to his chest.

"It's no problem. I almost don't want you to leave."

He hooked his chin over your shoulder and sulked. You giggled, gently rubbing his back.

"I know. Don't worry, I'll come over again soon."

"Or I could come to your place," Jonah stood back with hopeful eyes.

"If you want to come tour my tiny apartment, be my guest," you laughed.

"It's a date."

[jungkookjeon0007]

Nights in Vegas | CH. 11 (JJK FF)

☆ summary: When Olivia flies to Las Vegas for her first ever BTS concert w/ her best friend, she was expecting to make lots of unforgettable memories... What she wasn't expecting was to end up with the lead singer, Jeon Jungkook, knocking on her hotel room door only to find her in nothing but a towel. What will happen when the golden maknae wants to see her again? Will it lead to heartbreak, or a promising future for them both?

☆ pairing(s): jungkook x olivia.

☆ ratings: (18+) for detailed sex scenes + harsh language.

☆ genre: smut, angst, fluff.

☆ word count: 4.26k.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

Morning of the Concert.

The members have all been working double time to get ready for tonight's first show, however, two of them in particular were also making sure to spend long nights with both Olivia and Lacie. The boys had been up since 5 am and since today was so important, everyone is busy with preparations. There were last minute wardrobe checks to be done, run throughs of the choreography for each of the songs being performed, and a soundcheck 2 hours before the concert would begin. The members were exhausted, but love what they do so they are pushing through regardless of exhaustion.

. . .

[Olivia's POV]

I stayed the night with Jungkook in his room as Lacie had Hobi in ours per usual. I was sleeping soundly when all of a sudden, the alarm began to sound throughout the room. I grunted as I rolled over to shut it off and as I looked at the alarm, it read 9:45 am.

Shit! We slept in!

I quickly ran down to my room because I knew Lacie was still asleep and used my key card to get in, "LACIE WAKE UP!" I threw a pillow at her face as she started to move around and grunt.

"IT IS 9:45 am! WE ARE GOING TO BE LATE FOR OUR APPOINTMENTS!!!" I yelled as her eyes popped up and she sat straight up in the bed.

I immediately went into the bathroom and after taking the fastest shower of my life, went to my suitcase to pull out the first outfit I could find which was a white t-shirt and black leggings. I needed to at least make this look like I tried, so I tied a knot in my shirt and paired it with my brand new blue Jean jacket and silver slip on Vans.

Next, I needed to do something with my wild and crazy hair, so as Lacie was picking out her outfit, I went back to the bathroom and put my hair in a simple but cute pony tail then started on my makeup. I was aiming for all things quick and easy and went with a natural look.

Once I was all finished, I took a quick look in the mirror and was impressed at how good I did in the short amount of time I had. Walking back into the bedroom, Lacie was finishing up with her outfit and coincidentally, it was similar to mine. Black leather leggings, converses, and a comfy shirt all paired with a jean jacket.

Great minds must think alike.

. . .

[Author POV]

The two friends made it to their first appointment with only 2 minutes to spare. They walked in and the employees grabbed each of them to take over to the massage chairs that had jets for pedicures. As they sat down and got comfortable, Olivia and Lacie's phones received text messages simultaneously.

Shooting each other a confused look, they checked their phones:

Jhope 😎: Hey hey, is everyone here?

Lacie 💗: Yep. I'm here!

Olivia 🌼: Yes sir. I am here also! 👋🏼

Jhope 😎: Ok, perfect. But, we're missing one more person. 🤔

Jk 🐰🖤: Oh, yes hyung I'm here. I just thought you were referring to the girls, sorry. lol

Jhope 😎: I wanted to make this group chat so JK and I could ask you both something together.

Lacie 💗: Okay, what is it?

Jk 🐰🖤: Well, hyung and I were talking..... after the show we want to take you both out for some dinner. We wanted to see if you would like to go on another double date with us. We really enjoyed that when we did it the first time because it was so much fun.

Olivia 🌼: If Lace is okay with it, I am perfectly okay with another double date. It was a lot of fun the first time and we all haven't been on another for a few days so I think it will be great. 😊

Jhope 😎: Yay, that's one! How about it Lace, wanna go to dinner with us?

Lacie 💗: Well of course I'd love to come on a double date! Sorry I didn't respond right away, I got lost in this massage chair. 🙌🏼😩

Jk 🐰🖤: Umm, massage chair? What the heck are you two doing at 10:30 am in massage chairs? 😂😂

Olivia 🌼: 😂😂 we are at the nail salon getting mani pedis before the concert. We have a few appointments today actually. 😊

Jhope 😎: Ahhh, ok. Well go have fun and relax, we will see you both later. One of the security guards will come and find you 10 minutes or so before the show ends and bring you backstage.

Lacie 💗: Okay! Sounds like a plan. We will see you guys in a bit. Have a good day Hobi!! 😘

Jhope 😎: You have a good day too sunshine. ♥️

Jk 🐰🖤: Eww, get a room. 🤪 Since they can be sappy, we will too.. I hope you have such a great day baby and I cannot wait to see you tonight. ♥️

Olivia 🌼: Aww you're the sweetest. 🥺 I cannot wait to see you either Kookie. I wish you the best of luck on your concert! All 7 of you will do amazing! 💗

Lacie put her phone down and turned to find Olivia who was already looking at her.

"What is it?" Lacie asked as she laid her head back on the chair.

"Nothing, I just think we are so lucky to have them."

"But?" Lacie asked, knowing she wasn't telling her everything.

Olivia continued, "I just hate that this will end in the next week or so. I don't want this to be over."

Olivia's smile slowly faded as she glanced down at her hands in her lap.

"You honestly never know what could happen between now and then, Liv. Just don't think too much about it right now and enjoy the present moments. Okay?" Lacie gave her a warm smile as she smiled back nodding. "Okay, I will."

By the time they were finished with conversing, it was time for them to move over to the other side of the salon to get their manicures.

. . .

[Olivia's POV]

We got back to the hotel around 1:30 pm with our fresh sets of mani pedis, hair done, and the cutest outfits to wear for the concert.

We both sleepy and decided that since the concert did not start until 6pm, we wanted to lie down and take a nap for about an hour or so. We crawled into our beds and as soon as my head hit the pillow and my eyes shut, my phone vibrated with an incoming call from Jungkook.

"Hello?" I asked in my sleepy voice.

"Hey, what are you doing right now?" He asked in a hurried voice.

"I am just getting back to my room and was going to take a nap for a bit, what are you doing and why do you sound out of breath?"

The other end of the phone went silent for a second, then he spoke again. "I am coming to your room, I'm so sleepy and want your cuddles."

I sat up confused. "I thought that you had rehearsals and a busy schedule today?"

"We did, but they sent us back to our rooms to get some rest before tonight and I wanted to spend that time with you."

His voice brought me from my thoughts. "Liv? Liv, are you there?"

"Oh shit, yes I'm sorry. You can absolutely come to my room I would love to cuddle while we take a nap."

I could hear him smiling through the phone, "Ok, I will be there in 5 minutes."

The call disconnected and I sighed heavily, lying in my bed staring at the ceiling as I listened to Lacie snore.

»» 5 minutes later.

There was a soft knock on my door and when I got up to open it, I was met with the most beautiful smiling boy standing in front of me.

"Hi beautiful." He said as he smirked at me.

"Hello Kookie, come on in." I smiled, stepping aside as he walked into my room.

As I shut the door and locked it, he turned to me, wrapping his arms around my waist with our foreheads touching. He closed his eyes, sighing in contentment, "I have missed you so fucking much. It feels so good to have you in my arms."

He kissed my nose and I smiled, loving every second as I ran my hands through his hair like always. "I have missed you too, so much. Would you like to get in the bed and cuddle, we are both so exhausted and definitely need sleep."

He lifted his head and looked at me with a smile on his face, then whispered. "How did I get so lucky to find you?" I smiled at him and look down at the floor while biting my lip.

He continued in his soft voice careful not to wake Lacie, "Of course I want to cuddle and fall asleep with you. But..." He grabbed my chin softly, making me look at him. "If you keep biting your lip like that, I won't be able to hold myself back from doing more than just sleeping."

Silence.

I've never heard him talk like that, but shit was it not the hottest thing I've ever heard. I could tell my face was crimson red because of how he was smiling so mischievously. I cleared my throat, immediately changing the subject, "Ahem right, let's go take a nap then shall we?"

He chuckled turning around to follow me, "Whatever you want baby. Your wish is my command."

[communicationthroughlyrics]

I Like Your Blood On My Teeth Just A Little Too Much - 11

You’re a former military, career oriented security executive who has made quite the living for yourself- but it has always been lacking. Your non-committal attitude has led you down a playgirl lifestyle, never really settling. What happens when your new boss throws you a curveball, and as a result? You end up hopelessly involved with a Hollywood starlet.

3.6K Word Count

Ch 11: Army Green Was No Safe Bet

It was now just after 5pm, and you were just leaving Scarletts house after having a VERY long, probing discussion of everything that has been happening to the woman since this ‘mystery man’ has shown up- and quite honestly you couldn’t say you were shocked. You knew Steve well enough, you knew his tactics, and he was going to mentally wear someone down till they made a mistake, and that’s when he’ll capitalize. He was like a goddamn shark in bloody water.

You were sitting in your truck at the base of Scarletts driveway, finishing up a text to Kris to let her know you were coming back to the office, and then a text to Jim about your discussion with Scar today. You were still surprised at how Steve would expose himself enough to be seen at any event that fans are allowed. But then again, he is sick and twisted enough to let you know he is there. Just as you were readying yourself to leave, buckling your seatbelt and starting the truck, you heard a click to the passenger side. Your gaze shifted to the door, taking note of a silhouette on the other side. You unholster the gun underneath your seat, and reach for your door handle. 

You can tell the figure isn’t Scarlett, its too tall. You look back, noting the lights still on in the house at the end of the driveway. “Fuck.” You think to yourself. You open the drivers door, pistol at the ready and you lock the truck, never breaking eye contact with where the silhouette had been standing. A deep chuckle caused the hair on the back of your neck to stand up. 

“Oh, Y/L/N, save us whatever this is,” Steve waved his hand in your direction, then leaned against the truck, lighting a cigarette, promptly blowing the smoke in your direction. “Let’s just save the catch-up chit chat, and the not-so pleasantries. You can probably imagine why I’m standing in front of you, again, talking to you.” He punctuated the fact that this wasn’t the first time, reminding you of your run in at the store back in Idaho. The mans appearance was a stark contrast to the almost nerdy appearance he had the last time you saw him. 

You lower your gun as you wrapped around the rear of the truck, leaning up against the back of it. You wanted to keep distance between the foul being in front of you.

“I always knew you were doltish, Waters, but this? This is a new low, even for a slop sucker like you.” His smile faltered as he took in your words, turning towards you, his cold, dark eyes locking onto yours. 

“That’s rich, coming from a true sucker like you. Pretty pot-kettle, if you ask me. Last time I saw you, you were pretty handily taking me in full.” He smirked, looking at the last of the stick in between his fingers, before refocusing on you. The sheer thought that this memory of you came up so freely for the man, as the feeling of your skin crawling and the ghost of his hand on the back of your head made you want to throw up. “We wouldn’t want that to come up, now would we? I suppose it would be fairly easy for me to paint you as the bad guy, make up some victim-card story, like how you ruined my promising military career, made me loose all my benefits, and tarnished my family name to fuck your way to the top.”

“Well, the last time you saw me, you were fake drooling over my credit card and my car. But I do seem to remember J.A.G. and the MP’s doing their bit. No one asked for you to try your own conversion therapy, Waters.” You spat. 

He approached you getting close enough to where you could smell the lingering smoke on his breath. “A little slut like you? You were practically begging for attention, and no one was willing to give you what you wanted. I gave you what you needed. And then you had to run and cry to your little friends. You probably turned them too, the little heathen you are.”

“Maybe I could have, had they been around long enough.” You respond, pulling the dog tags out of your shirt, one tag was your fathers, one was your grandfathers. The other two? Those were Nikki and Cams. They had been sent out on a tour of duty shortly after you were found that night in the showers, and coincidentally, were sent out with Steve as one of the commanding officers. The last you had heard, he made their lives hell- which was no small feat when you get shipped to the middle of nowhere, tasked with protecting some local villagers who knew the whereabouts of a high ranking terrorist group, but he made it his secondary mission to ensure your closest confidants were miserable. In doing so, their judgement and focus faltered, and Nix was killed in an ambush, and Cam couldn’t cope with the guilt.  You helped to have a funeral for the pair, as both of their families couldn’t, and in turn, their families gifted you the dog tags of their fallen loved ones. 

“Maybe you should have taken the punishment for what it was, then. Maybe they’d still be here.” He sneered, and it took all of you to not throw this man down onto the ground. 

“What. Do. You. Want.” You punctuate every word, having already been over his antics the moment you saw him by your truck. 

“Well, sweetheart. I was supposed to work on ridding the world of the little vermin that your client has proved to be, amongst others- but now you’re in the picture too. So this is…kismet, as they say.” He narrowed his eyes at you, and it immediately sent you back to your last day in his office. “Now, I can make your life hell too, and maybe I will get rid of one of MY problems…” he continued, but all he said slowly faded to black as your mind wandered to all the times you were in the unfortunate presence of this man. Eventually, you had collapsed during the memory lapse, at the foot of Scarletts driveway. The man laughed, leaning over your body and grabbing hold of your chin, whispering a “pathetic” before he kicked your unconscious body, and spit on you, stomping on your injured hand and crushing it into the pavement before stalking away. 

You were awoken by a few quick slaps to your face, and three concerned faces above you. Kris, Jim and Paul were huddled around the sofa in your office, where you now were laying. Jim was leaning directly above you, and had been the one trying to snap you out of what trance you had been in. 

“How did I get here?” You question, trying to sit up, only to be pushed back down to the sofa by Kris. 

“Well, we knew you were having a meeting with Scarlett, and decided to do a security sweep anyways.” Jim answered, settling himself next to your legs. “I noticed that damn car sitting a few blocks away, so I knew he was somewhere. I came up the driveway and saw your truck, and didn’t think too much of it at first. I was about to turn around, thinking you were still inside, but then I saw the outline of an arm, and realized a body was against your truck. I got out of my car, and ran up to where I found you, slumped against the back tire of the truck.”

You groaned, placing your hand on your forehead. “No one else noticed?” You asked, not directly stating that you were concerned if Scarlett had seen you. 

“Not that we’re aware of. We haven’t had any reports come in, at least.” Kris answered, kneeling down next to you. There was a deep look of concern in her eyes. “What happened, Y/N?”

“Paul, can I speak to you-alone?” You ask, turning your face away from Kris. She huffed, and both her and Jim stood from their respective places, Jim moving to stand next to her. 

“Come on, Kris, let’s let her discuss. Give her some space.” Jim placed his hand on the small of her back, turning her away towards the office door. He turned back to you briefly, shooting you a reassuring look. You knew that he was full aware of what happened. Once you heard the click of your office door, you began to put your sentences together. 

“Well, Y/L/N, this isn’t a scenario I ever would have foreseen when I hired you. What’s going on?”

“Timmons, do you remember the redacted portion of my military file? You had asked me if I knew what it was about?”

“Yes? Why?”

“The redacted portion of my file is the reason we were hired to protect a celebrity. The man that has been following her, and harassing her, he was my C/O for a period of time. A military grade bloodhound, if you will. He’s a dishonorably discharged Ranger, turned militant.” You sit up, wincing at the pain from your hand and chest. You look down to notice deep bruising and more fresh cuts on the already damaged flesh. 

“Well, Y/N, it sounds like we have the right person to help her then. You’ll know him better than anyone.” He placed his hand on your shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I know you can handle this. God knows we’ll need to before her big red carpet run.” He smiled at you, and you shot him a questioning glance. 

“Red carpet run?”

“Her group informed us this afternoon of her upcoming schedule, and there is a fair share of red carpet appearances scheduled. They’re adamant about her going, especially due to the interviews and appearances she’s had to cut short or cancel because of this guy. It’s set to start in the next few weeks.” Paul looked down at you, before sitting in the chair next to yours. 

“We’re going to have our hands full then. This guy is a pain in the ass.” You look away, staring out the window of your office to the night sky of the bustling city below. “He is going to require some extreme resources, boss.” You turn and look back at him. 

“You and Grange seem to know what you’re dealing with. Just let me know what you need. I’ll get it for you.” Timmons says, placing his hand on your knee, shaking it before standing and walking away. One the door clicked shut again, you leaned back in the chair, wincing at the pain stemming from your side. “Rotten motherfucker.” You grumble to yourself, before trying to sit back up, and groaning in pain. You hear a shuffle behind you, and a pair of hands on your upper back as Kris swung herself into your line of sight. 

“Y/N, what the hell happened?” She whispered softly as you winced in pain. She had seen you in pain after handling a situation, after fighting with someone who decidedly ignored your warnings and got frisky at a bar, but not like this. 

“Fucking Waters, that’s what happened.” You respond, wincing once more as you pushed yourself out of the chair, and walked towards the bathroom. You needed to get out of these clothes, and take care of whatever injuries you had. She followed close behind, a strong look of concern still present on her features.

“What do you mean? You know him?” She asked, wincing herself when she watched you struggle to unbutton your shirt with an injured hand. She rushed over to help, but her efforts were thwarted by you batting her hands away.

“Yeah, you could say that.” You inhaled sharply as the fabric slid off your shoulders, and you had to wiggle slightly to let it pool at your feet. Kris picked the shirt off the ground, and when she turned, she saw the bruising on your side and chest, with a perfectly visible footprint centered in the injury. 

“God, Y/N/N, what did he do to you?”

“I would guess he kicked me. And stepped on my hand.” You said, looking down at your injured hand. 

“Guess?! You don’t know what he did?” The infliction in her voice was that of disbelief. 

“No, I really don’t. I… I think I blacked out.” You rested your good hand on the edge of the sink, looking in the mirror to the reflection of the woman lingering in the corner.

“But, you haven’t blacked out since before we were together. You said you only did that when…”

“When my PTSD flares? I know, Kris.” She just stared, like she was trying to figure out what to say next.

“You’re not taking the medicine, are you?” She looked at you, stepping closer, shirt still in hand. “You need to be taking the medicine they give you. It helps.”

“Kris, I haven’t taken it in over a year.”

“Why? Is that why you blacked out?” You laugh a sardonic laugh, turning to look at her face to face. 

“No, Kris. No, it isn’t.”

“Well, how can you be so sure? If you had been on the meds…”

“The meds won’t help with this, Kris.” You cross your arms across your chest. “This goes beyond just the PTSD. This is the cause of it.” Your gaze steels, features hardening as the realization hits you that the control that he still manages to hold over you is the sole cause of your vulnerability- and you hate him more for that than anything.  Her face shifts to one of confusion, not full grasping what is being said. 

“Y/N, being obtuse right now isn’t helping. How is this…” she gestures to your bruised body, “… the cause of it?”

“Honestly, Kris. That’s for me to know.” She huffs at your response, shaking her head.

“Typical, Y/L/N.” She threw your shirt on the counter behind you, knocking some of the items off the counter into the sink. Your gaze shifts down to the floor as she steps even closer, pulling your face up to look you in the eyes. “When you quit being so goddamn self-contained, let me know. Maybe we can have a conversation about what the fuck is going on with you.” She turned on her heel, walking away briskly, and slamming your office door. 

“Not likely, Kris.”  You mutter to yourself, before stripping yourself of the pants you were wearing today, and grabbed a pair of gym shorts and a tank top to wear to the gym. You had some pent up frustrations you needed to work out before bed, even if it caused more pain. Making sure to wrap your hand carefully, you grabbed a hat, placing it backwards on your head, and walked out of the office towards the elevator. Pushing the button, you stood by waiting for the carriage to arrive, and noticed a faint light from Kris’s office, and realized she was still here, sitting at her desk staring at the darkness out the window. The ding from the elevator brought her attention to you, as you stepped in and went down to the floor where the training center and gym were housed. 

The dull thud of the punching bag echoed throughout the empty floor, the rhythmic thump of your fists striking the canvas. You had no idea how long your were down there, but your boxing glove was internally saturated with a combination of sweat and blood, and you were absolutely dripping in perspiration as you continued to beat the bag into submission. Your efforts seemed unyielding, but a calloused hand on your shoulder stopped you. 

“While I have always admired your allegiance to fitness Y/N, you need to rest. ” Jim said behind you, his voice offering you some sense of calm. 

“I can’t Jim.” You let your shoulder slump, your head hanging as you stared at your feet.

“You have to. Tomorrow is a big day. Technically, it’s actually today, in a few hours. It’s 2 am, Y/N.” You turned to face the man, your face devoid of any emotion, eyes empty after the endeavors of the previous day. 

“Why, why is it a big day Jim?” Your arms flop at your sides, emphasizing your frustration. 

“First, we have a meeting with Scarlett, but then we have to follow her to a few interviews. I have already coordinated the security.” He looks in your eyes, trying to decipher any emotion or tell as to your thoughts. 

“Cool, that sounds like something for the team, not me.” You state, maintaining the blank stare. 

“Actually, it’s not. You have been requested to be there, by Mrs. Johansson herself. We have received direct threats to her at these events, you will be following her directly.”

“Great. That’s fucking lovely.” You finally show a shred of emotion, albeit anger and frustration at the situation you found yourself in. You were more upset that there was an anticipated threat and you weren’t in the greatest of conditions to handle it. “Fine. I’ll shower and rest up. What time is the meeting?”

“0700. Paul and I will be briefing the rest of the team at 0630, so take a little bit of extra time for yourself, even if it’s only a half an hour.” With that, Jim turned and started to walk away. He suddenly stopped, turning on his heel and facing back to you. “Y/N/N, you need to take it easy on yourself. I know this isn’t easy. But this plays directly into his hands, with you not taking care of yourself. Kris called me a little bit ago, reasonably worried. I know you wouldn’t tell her what’s all going on, but you need to talk to someone. You can always talk to me.” His gaze softened, and he smiled, before circling back on his heel and walking out of the gym. You shook your head, and made your way to the showers. 

You struggled pulling off the glove, but were finally able to work it off of your hand, which was even more swollen than it had been prior to your ten round match with the heavy bag. The tape and gauze you had wrapped your hand in was tinged red and pink with blood, mixed with sweat. You hesitantly unwound the wrapping, grimacing when it got down to the portion making contact with the angered skin. “Fuck. How the fuck am I going to work with this?” You mutter to yourself. Before taking the other glove off, and then ridding yourself of your clothing and hopping into a scolding hot shower.

The familiar screech of your phone alarm alerted you to the fact that it was almost time for people to start arriving back to the building. You don’t even remember getting back to your office, let alone falling asleep. You were just glad is was a dreamless, devoid slumber that had no flashbacks or memories attached to it. You sat yourself up off the sofa, wincing in pain, realizing that you had been so tired you didn’t even bother to pull down the bed, you had just fallen asleep here.  You slowly worked yourself upright, and made your way over to the bathroom, so you could take some medicine for the inevitable pain your would become inundated with. You swallowed the pills dry, before getting an outfit out for work. You knew that it had to be somewhat professional, but if there really was a threat, then it needed to be tactical enough to move around in. 

You opted for a simple black long sleeve, some of your slightly loose black pants, and a black leather bomber, so you could easily access and dress your injuries from yesterday, and keep them reasonably hidden. You gingerly glued some of the deeper cuts to your chest shut, placing small butterfly bandages along them to hold them closed. Turning your focus to your deeply blackened hand, you thought it best to wear some cut off gloves, that way the majority of the injuries were hidden. Combing your hair, you carefully styled your hair before reaching over to spray yourself with cologne, then scooping the coat and gloves to reenter your office. You threw the gloves and coat behind your office chair, carefully sitting down in your chair, and opening your computer to complete some tasks on your laptop.

“Morning, Y/L/N.” Your head snapped up to see Jim popping his head into your office. “Did you get some rest?”

“Yeah, I did Jim. Thanks.” He smiled, turning and walking away from your office, the door latching soon after. You continued to watch the hallway as more people showed up to begin their day. Kris finally appeared out of the elevator, and you anticipated her walking into your office. She didn’t spare so much as a glance in your direction, and went straight into hers, removing her jacket and settling into her chair, presumably beginning to go through her emails. You felt a pull to go and apologize, but were pulled out of your thoughts by your phone. The familiar ringtone called to you from the table in front of your sofa, and you stood yourself up, walking over and trying to hide the shot of pain you felt as you bent over to pick up the device. At this point, you were certain you had at least a couple bruised ribs. As you went to swipe the screen to answer, the call ended. “Seriously? Fucker, fine I didn’t want to t…” you start, before receiving a text from the same number. 

6:23 AM  UNK- “I hope you’re feeling better. You’ll need your strength for today.”

Fuck.

CHAPTER 12