#it is just a prettier prison

[nothingwronghere]

You don’t like it?

[cocktailjjrs]

I’ve been going down Soukoku rabbit hole for a few weeks now....anticipating their next in person interaction....which i was expecting in 108, but instead we got 107.5 and a pov change....which i can’t say was surprising, because leaving skk (or sskk or zskk or literally any interaction!) hanging has been a veryyyyyy frequent occurrence.... and then i saw season 5 trailer and.....I am confused

Bsd trailer spoilers (Do we even need spoiler warning for trailers?)

my first thought after looking at this Dazai was - damn, he is so fucking fine, because look at him.....

He’s sooooo pretty!!!!! His Partner must be soooo Lucky!!!

.

.

.

And then the reality smacked me in the face, because his partner looks like -

So like, Yeah....

Now i’m confused who is the lucky one here is....

[fauxnotice]

ive been kinda hyunabrained lately

[tonycries]

FIRST masterlist! This masterlist has all my writing from 06/02/24 up until 01/10/24 — for my recent works click on my SECOND MASTERLIST <3

Men In Uniform Do It Best!

Dirty Lil' Secrets

A Picture Lasts Long (But Not As Long As That D*ck)

I'm Addicted, I Admit It!

Give Me Tough Love

Never Ever Seen This Before!

We Don't Have No Babies!

Like A Fever

Bad Things (To You)

Prettier When Messy!

Care For You!

Green-eyed Monster

So Lonely In My Mansion!

Kiss Me More!

Girl, I Do This Often

Cause, I Love Freaks!

Sl*t Me Out!

Match My Freak!

WAP!

R U Mine?

Hot To Go!

Girl, You Earned It!

I'm A BIG Stepper!

BODY-ODY!

SOOO ANXIOUS

Long Overdue!

THIS P*SSY DEPRESSED!

The Family Matter?!

I-T G-I-R-L!

I Lasted Ten Rounds!

BRAT!

She's My Vitals!

ONE-SHOTS

Three's a Crowd (But Four...) — “So, are they like holograms? Or can you really touch them?” “Why? Trynna cop a feel, sweetheart?” In which you and your boyfriend find very unconventional uses for his powers.

Why Can't I Keep My Fingers Off You? [Part 1] [Part 2] — There were two things missing in the scene in front of you: 1. The aphrodisiac chocolate your friends had given as a gag gift last Christmas that had been hidden away in the back of your refrigerator. 2. Your dear fiancé.

Dream A Little Dream — For the strongest, it was a privilege to dream. Especially when his dream is you. 

Initiation! — “Just a small initiation, nothing too serious.” Couldn’t be too hard, right? So why are you - the all-new frat sweetheart - being pinned to the bed and stuffed full from all ends by your frat brothers?

One More? Please? — A kiss always solves everything! But when a kiss turns into something more…well, it’s only a desperate attempt to unseal yourselves from this damned prison realm, right? Right?

Everybody Knows That I'm a Good Girl, Officers... — You don’t know what’s faster - how fast you were speeding down the highway, or how fast you’re on your knees for the hot officers that just so happen to pull you over.

Hope They Catch Us — When you’re on-screen, it’s always a rivalry to see who’s best - you just never thought that it would be the same struggle in bed.

Unmistakably Yours — In which the strongest bends space and time - literally - after coming back from deatḣ, to do what he’s always wanted to do - you.

Madam Gojo — Gojo Satoru, the strongest clan leader in all of Japan - and the most dangerous, too. You, rejected by the elders, and totally not his future bride, right? Right?

Can't Touch Me (Like Gojo) — In which intentionally making your fríend-with-benefíts jealous ends up with more benefits than you’d think.

The Heir — No, your clan leader husband won’t stop until he gives you an heir. No, you don’t think you’ll make it out alive.

LONGFICS

The Call — After an explosive fight with your boyfriend, you really should feel sorry about being swept up by the blue-eyed stranger at the club - but it’s so hard when he kisses you like that.

Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy — He knows that you would be one of his favorite stories from his travels. And you know that you want nothing more than to stay by his side. After meeting an alluring cowboy at Ol’ Rustcliffe Saloon, both of you are sure of one thing - this must be fate.

Go For It, Gojo! [Part 1] [Part 2] — You wouldn’t fuck Gojo Satoru even if you were paid…is what you thought exactly five minutes before you were shoved against the wall of this cramped closet, his face stuffed in your soaked panties.

Unhoneymooners!? — The universe was surely playing a joke on you. Here you were, trapped on a luxury getaway with your - dangerously handsome, extremely obnoxious - ex. Either you were going to kill each other or end up pinned beneath him, split apart on his cóck. You just didn’t know what would come first.

AITA For F*cking My Sugar Daddy's Son?! — When your sugar daddy just isn’t paying attention to you, can you really be blamed for fúcking his son? Especially when his son is absolutely obsessed with you.

Bad Boys Bring Roses — You’ve never dealt with the yakuza - not once. So why is the future head of the Gojo clan suddenly coming up to you, demanding that you marry him for 30 days?

The Way You Kiss Me — The four times Satoru tries really hard not to kiss you - his best friend’s pretty younger sister. And the one time he doesn’t.

Isn't That Sweet? (I Guess So) — Oh no! Why do your pantíes keep disappearing? Well, maybe your hot roommate knows the answer…

Haunting You — A bIoody trail of vampire attácks, a political marriage, and four suitors you’re forced to choose from - all haunting you. But none as much as the mysterious stranger that makes everything in you scream that you might just be fated for the very thing your kingdom is trying to escape from.

You'll Taste Me Too! — How do you last three days on a work trip with the man you hate the most in the office? You don’t - you end up pinned underneath him, instead.

We Neva Play! — Turns out, the “r” in rivals stands for “really good séx” when a mission becomes a little too hot to handle.

Something Stupid — Five times the strongest would rather díe than tell you he loves you, and the one time he almost does. Almost.

ONE-SHOTS

Initiation! — “Just a small initiation, nothing too serious.” Couldn’t be too hard, right? So why are you - the all-new frat sweetheart - being pinned to the bed and stuffed full from all ends by your frat brothers?

Like An Animal — Of course Toji doesn’t want any more kids. Of course he’s lying as he stuffs your pretty cúnt full of his cúm for the third time tonight.

Whiskey, Neat, With a Side of You — When your date stands you up, you’re lucky that the hot bartender is more than happy to keep you company! 

Everybody Knows That I'm a Good Girl, Officers... — You don’t know what’s faster - how fast you were speeding down the highway, or how fast you’re on your knees for the hot officers that just so happen to pull you over.

F*ck You! (Literally) — Of course, you hated your ex-husband. Of course, you found yourself in bed with him on your wedding anniversary.

LONGFICS

Government Hooker — With the fame and glory of being an international popstar comes the inevitable threat of an overzealous stalker. You just didn’t think that it would also come with a very sexy, buff bodyguard behind your every move.

Madam Zenin — There’s nothing that rouses Toji, the infamous head of the Zenin clan, nothing that will make him lose control - until they take what’s most important to him. You.

ONE-SHOTS

Brooklyn Baby — Everybody wanted to fuck Suguru Geto, lead bassist of Tokyo Special Grades. Said Suguru doesn’t want to fuck anyone else but you. He couldn’t give less of a fuck if anyone walked in right now. In fact, a small part of him wishes someone would.

Initiation! — “Just a small initiation, nothing too serious.” Couldn’t be too hard, right? So why are you - the all-new frat sweetheart - being pinned to the bed and stuffed full from all ends by your frat brothers?

Golden Boy — Falling right back in love with the cult leader you’re supposed to kíll? Happens more often than you’d think.

LONGFICS

ONE-SHOTS

Initiation! — “Just a small initiation, nothing too serious.” Couldn’t be too hard, right? So why are you - the all-new frat sweetheart - being pinned to the bed and stuffed full from all ends by your frat brothers?

A Million Dollar Baby! — Turns out, rent can be paid in much more than one way.

LONGFICS

ONE-SHOTS

Welcome To The Itadori's! — Three times Choso really, really wanted to hold you without his family barging in, and the one time he actually does. 

FIVE! — Five hours - it’s all it takes for Choso’s baby fever to take over. After all, you’d look so pretty with his kid - five of them, in fact.

LONGFICS

Great With Kids? (You Can Have Mine) — When your younger brother gets a new babysitter, only two questions linger on your mind: 1. How come your parents didn’t trust you in charge? 2. How dare the sexy babysitter be so perfect - it made you want some attention too.

Freak On The Cam! — Choso always loved watching you - his pretty lil’ camgírl - from behind the screen. Who knew he’d love being on-screen with you even more?

ONE-SHOTS

Can't Touch Me (Like Gojo) — In which intentionally making your fríend-with-benefíts jealous ends up with more benefits than you’d think.

LONGFICS

Exes who...

Love Is Blind

“She My Best Friend, Yeah We Not a Couple.”

Wanna Do Bad Things To You

I Wanna Get Freaky On Camera

Lemme Ride, Baby!

Can I Fill You Up, Baby?

"Pull On It. Harder."

Little Heaven

©2024 tonycries. All work belongs to @tonycries. Do NOT repost, modify, translate or plagiarize in any way on ANY platforms. This includes themes, headers, and pinned.

[inkdrinkerworld]

hi! i saw you were taking requests for post prison spencer, so hey

i was thinking about spencer meeting a kinda sunshine reader, and it’s like…love at first sight. she’s literally the one to make him smile for good

feel free to add your magic to it, and to ignore it, don’t feel pressure at all!

have a good day/night <3

babe you guys are saving my life with these requests right now! I'm feeling so good about everything I write again <3 enjoy sunshine!reader x post prison!spencer who looks less tense and serious around you

You’re at his desk, sitting there all perfect in your orange button up and flared pants, Mary Janes clicking on the linoleum tile as you tap your pen against your lips. Your hair is scraped back into a ponytail, the plait brushing the spot between your shoulder blades. 

Spencer had asked about you to Penelope, asked about your personality, about how you work- all the important things. What he didn’t ask was if you were gorgeous and Penelope, who loves to divulge, had never said a thing about your looks. 

“Hi, you’re Y/n right?” Spencer’s standing before you, not realising how intimidating he must look till you jolt in your chair. 

You’d been trying to get your morning crossword and read in before the day had officially begun, a habit you’d been trying to keep up with since you started the job. So far it’s been going- the crosswords are boring so you have to pretend to be distracted by it to let it last a bit more than four minutes.

“Oh sorry, I am. You’re Doctor Spencer Reid,” you lean back in your chair, not bothering to hold out a hand to you. Penelope had grilled you on his aversion to germs and touching people more than needed. “I’m sorry about taking over your desk, but they didn’t have any free ones.” 

Spencer shakes his head, you take a moment to look him over. His hair is a bit looser than you’d imagined, Penelope said curly hair and you’d thought tight spirals- he has pretty loose ringlets, dark and mocha-like.

He smells like leather and something else, maybe plum and black currant- it’s a bit of an all encompassing smell that you like already. He’s much prettier too, he looks tired, but still pretty. His stubble presents a problem, you know it’s going to be your downfall. 

“It’s alright, we keep a tight ship. Have they been treating you well?” 

You tilt your head, “The team or the unsubs? Because it’s been too many cases to have real team building.” You grin when Spencer huffs, making his lips twitch. “But I think getting concussed while saving Newbie’s ass counts for something.” 

Luke grumbles as he walks by with his coffee, “You were hired after I was,” patting Spencer on the back when the taller, lithe, man rolls a chair to sit opposite you. 

“Do you still experience headaches or migraines?” Spencer kicks himself when he sees your tongue poke into your cheek- you’re trying hard not to smile at his question. He also thinks he’s doing a shoddy job of flirting but that can be fixed- he’s been in prison for the last three months, he just needs to get back in the swing of things. 

“I’m pretty sure your first official day back starts with you in Emily’s office and not giving me an impromptu physical, Dr. Reid.” His lips twitch again, cheeks jumping as he shakes his head. 

“It’s just a check-up, no physical yet.” he stands, not really giving himself time to overthink what he’s just said. It’s more than a little presumptuous on his part but you don’t call him an asshole or swear at him, so he thinks he’s okay with it. 

“Do you want your desk back, Spencer?” you’re earnest in asking, not wanting to fuck up his routines and his norm. You can tell you like him already and it’s hardly been a fifteen minute conversation. 

“No, it’s okay. I’ll take the one right there.” Spencer points a finger to the desk right in behind yours with a little less severity to his lips, his stubble looking even more attractive as he does so. 

You watch him walk away, willing yourself to be professional about all this, he may be hot but he’s your coworker and you know all about close proximity relationships possibly being shams. You’re not here for that, so Spencer will be a good friend. 

You make your way into the kitchen, steps light as you reach for your mug- a cute blue mug with an orca as the handle. 

“So you come in and the kid’s already obsessed with you?” Rossi’s right beside you, making you jump as you put more than the recommended amount of tablespoons of coffee into your mug. 

“It’s not like that, you all made him out to be this awkward shy mess and he isn’t.” You try to sound as casual as you can, but you profile your own voice and know how it sounds to everyone- wistful. 

“Maybe he’s seen a pretty girl and the ‘awkward shy mess’ melted away,” Rossi places his hands on your shoulders. “He’s a good kid. You can trust in that.” 

You roll your eyes, stirring your coffee. “I’m pretty sure he’s in his thirties, Rossi.” You take the milk from him, pouring it in till your coffee is just at the lip of your mug and smile. “Definitely too old.” 

Rossi waves his hand, “I’ve been married four times, old isn’t a marker for romance anymore. Not when you’re only twenty four.” He leaves you be for a moment, and on your walk back to your desk to fill out the remaining crosswords you mull over his words. 

As you sit, you look down and find it all filled out in black ink, opposed to your blue and you know who did it, if the messy scrawled message is anything to go by- ‘You should get The Washington Post puzzles, much more stimulating.’

[demonic0angel]

Prompt: Dan Phatom as an inmate of Arkham Asylum?

Part 2

Harley hummed. She eyed the newest inmate, a gorgeous hunk of meat with dark raven hair and bright blue eyes. He was wearing the usual orange suit, but he wore it like a model, with the buttons opened and sleeves rolled up, highlighting his broad arms and tight muscles. He was as beautiful as a demon, and even though Ivy was way prettier, Harley still couldn’t help but be curious.

Harley nodded to herself, thinking for only a moment. Then she waved a hand, calling out, “Yoo hoo! You there! Hey, handsome! Why don’t you come here and spend some time with me and Ivy?”

Ivy rolled her eyes next to her. “Harley!” She hissed.

The man paused, tilted his head, and then smiled, flashing his sharp fangs before he crossed the prison yard to sit down with the two. People stared at them, but the man didn’t seem bothered.

“Hello,” he said politely, “what’s up?”

“You’re new here, ain’tcha?” Harley said rhetorically. “What’re you in for?”

The man chuckled. “I thought it was rude to ask?”

“Nahhh, in here? It doesn’t matter. Everyone already knows why we’re here, there’s no secrets around here. So? What’re you in here for?”

The man smiled. “I started teasing a little bird I found and then he started getting mad at me. I didn’t like how he made Batman go after me, so I made a building explode and I was tossed into here. I didn’t even kill anyone though!”

Seeing how large and old he was, Harley was a little worried and had to ask, “Which little bird?”

“The beautiful one with the black and blue suit and the pretty smile,” the man said dreamily, curling a lock of raven hair around his clawed fingers as he looked towards the sky in a daydream. “He was pretty funny too.”

Harley immediately cooed. Anyone who thought Nightwing was funny clearly hadn’t been hit over the head by his escrima sticks while he threw out obnoxious puns, but the way he described him was so sweet! He was clearly insane, so that was completely okay in her books!

“Awww, that’s so cute! Are you a meta or what? Those fangs o’ yours don’t look human!” Harley said, while Ivy shook her head exasperatedly.

The man shook his head with a small smile. “Not exactly. But I guess I do have meta powers.”

Ivy asked, “Then doesn’t that just make you a meta?”

The man shrugged and then asked, “What about you ladies?” Harley knew that he was just dodging the question, but she didn’t mind, so she began to prattle on about the recent museum break-in she and the girls did, but Selina got away while she and Ivy were caught. Selina was planning a break out for them soon, so they just had to sit tight and wait!

The man smiled, fangs appearing again. “Can I join you? I want to see that little bird again.”

Harley beamed, “Sure thing! What’s your name?” while Ivy groaned.

The man smiled and reached over to shake her hand. His hands were cold and large, like a chunk of ice. He smiled and his pupils sharpened into slits, but oddly enough, he still looked friendly, like a tiger in a way.

“Please. Call me Wraith.”

[gghostwriter]

Have Your Cake

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Summary: Spencer notices a change in you that he tries to address Trope: Comfort; Established relationship w.c: 1.8k Trigger warnings: tackles eating disorder and body dysmorphia a/n: this is a really hard topic I personally felt the need to write about (in a way to comfort myself.) Its very personal as I used my past eating disorder here so if its something you’re not comfortable with, please go skip ahead to another fic. Comments and reblogs are highly appreciated! 💗 masterlist

Spencer wrapped the front ends of his coat tighter on his slender body. It did little to no good fending off the cool seasonal air of an October night. His scuffled loafers squeaking from his shuffling feet. 

The line at your favorite bakery was unsurprisingly long on a Tuesday evening. Every night, the shop sells their remaining pastries at a discount To lure innocent commuters, tired from a long day of pushing papers. He usually wasn’t one to give in to the notion of ‘treating yourself’—unless counting out his big spendings on first editions written in its original language.

He gave the cashier a slight smile before listing off his purchase, one slice of their decadent strawberry shortcake and another of their vanilla bean sponge cake—both your favorites. And both an integral part of his perfectly thought of scheme to solve a riddle.

Your mystery.

In simple layman’s terms, they were bribery of some sort.

“Thank you,” he muttered under his breath, side stepping his way out from the throng of customers holding their own trays of pastries and back into the cold October air.

He blamed himself for not noticing the change in patterns early on. His attention otherwise preoccupied by the trauma from his time in prison and the stares that vary from judgement to pity that come from officers outside of the BAU.

No longer was he the shining, new prodigy once hailed to be, now he was just damaged goods. His downfall from grace was an adjustment.

His mind was another matter, all together—could no longer detect subtle shifts in behavior as fast as he used to.

Yes, there was really no one else to blame but himself.

As his long strides covered the way home, the moon shining down on the empty streets, Spencer thought back to the moment when he finally noticed you eating less and less.

———

You pulled down the cuffs of Spencer’s Caltech sweater, leaving only the tips of your fingers peeking through. Everything about it made you self-conscious. How it drapes down your shoulders differently from before. How it wraps around your body, sending shivers down your spine. And how it leaves the lower half of your plush thighs exposed for anyone to see—anyone to judge. 

You hated it.

You hated how hyper aware a single comment from a distant relative made you feel.

**

A voice from a distance called out your name causing you to look around the aisles of grocery and come face to face with an aunt, twice removed from your father’s side. 

“It is you!” She leaned in to kiss your cheek. Her choice of perfume, a sickly sweet artificial scent of oranges, wafting on your nose.

It made you want to gag.

A fake smile donned your face. “Oh, hi Auntie. What a surprise to see you back in Virginia.”

“Oh, I just flew in for my husband’s sister’s birthday. You know how we are, always booked and busy with events,” she waved her hand, the ostentatious diamond ring on her finger catching the light. “I haven’t seen you since you graduated college. You look so different now—more and more like your mother.”

“Thanks, I always did look like her,” you awkwardly laughed.

Her eyes traveled down to your feet and back up again, a tight grin on her face. It made her look vicious, condescending, causing you to catch your breath as she uttered the words that would repeat in your head like a commercial slogan you can’t get away from.

“But you were much prettier when you were thinner—” her eyebrow raised, cataloguing the items in your cart. “Might want to cut down on the carbs a little bit, sweetie.”

She poked a wound inside of you that never seemed to fully heal.

You thought you were better, all those years of talking to your therapist and changing your relationship with food for the better made you believe those dark days were behind you. But those spitting phrases veiled as words of care from a family member amplified the doubts once buried in the recesses of your mind.

“I’ll keep that in mind. It was great seeing you, Auntie.”

**

The jiggling of keys brought you back to the present.

“Love, I’m home!”

You called back from the kitchen, finishing up plating tonight’s dinner—a fresh serving of Chicken Alfredo to share. “In here, Spence!”

With a saccharine smile on his tired but beautiful face, he wrapped his arms around your shoulder for a loving hug. His pillowy lips leaving trails of kisses from your temples, to your nose, to your cheeks, and finally landing on your awaiting lips. 

You giggled at his antics. “I missed you today.”

“I missed you too,” another peck on the lips. “Dinner looks amazing. Thank you for cooking.”

“It’s no problem at all, you know how much I like to cook for you.”

He brought up a mystery package to showcase, eyes tracking every minuscule change on your face. “And I brought us some dessert! Your favorites from the bakery.” 

The smile on your face threatened to drop. “That’s—that’s great!”

———

You felt Spencer’s eyes on you all throughout dinner. One of the disadvantages of dating a man who earns his living by understanding human behavior and its changes—triggers, as he would like to call it, is never having the leisure of keeping a secret.

He means well, you‘d like to believe so, but that didn’t change the fact he knew something was bothering you. 

It made you feel like a riddle he wanted to solve. It made you want to scream and cry.

The only reprieve you could get was within the little confines of your shared bathroom, water beating down your back muffling the sobs that escaped from your tightly pressed lips.

Everything felt too much. 

The devil voices in your head listing off the calories each spoonful contains. The mathematical equation of how long you’d need to exercise to lose every unnecessary bite eaten over dinner. And the facade of keeping everything together—everything perfect.

You picked off the sides of your nails, already raw and starting to bleed. 

Maybe you shouldn’t eat breakfast and lunch tomorrow. Maybe you should walk the 15 minute commute from here to the office. It would take 30 minutes but that’s additional exerc—

“Love, is everything alright?” Spencer asked behind the locked bathroom door. 

You turned, turning off the shower, before hurriedly toweling off the droplets all over your hair and body. “Yes, I’m—I’m almost done!”

Swiveling around the dry area, you realized you forgot to bring in a change of clothes beyond a clean pair of underwear.

You sighed to yourself as you wrapped the towel around your chest. Still feeling uncomfortable and oddly naked even then. 

“Spence, there’s still some hot water left—are you okay?” You ask, having found him sitting on the edge of the bed with a distinct frown on his face. 

He stood up. Hands on your waist, shuffling both your bodies closer to one corner of bedroom.“It’s just—you know how much I deeply care for you, right?”

You slowly answered. “Yes, of course. I deeply care for you too.”

“So I have to ask, are you alright? Really alright?”

“Wha—what do you mean? Of course, I am—I’m completely fine,” you vehemently denied. The lump on your throat making you sound hysterical, even in your ears. If you couldn’t fool yourself, what chances were there that Spencer was fooled—none.

“I’ve noticed you’ve been eating smaller portions lately and you didn’t even take a bite of the cakes I brought home. You’ve also been going to the gym daily, instead of your usual five times a week. And you’ve started wearing my clothes more—not that it’s a problem. I love seeing you in my clothes but you’ve started to prefer baggy silhouettes rather than your usuals. It’s like you’re hiding your body. Are you sure you’re alright? You can tell me anything, I won’t judge.” 

It was the soft tone in his voice mixed with his doe, teary eyes that caused you to break under pressure. Your shoulders shook as sobs that you’ve kept bottled up rose to the surface. It was a wave of emotions that battered through your dam of facade. 

“I hate how I look—I hate that I gained weight,” you cried out. “I hate how a relative pointed it out and how her words won’t leave my mind. I hate it, Spence. I loathe it all—the voices in my head whispering how I should keep track of every meal I eat in a notebook like I did before. Telling me to never go beyond a 800 calories per day, to workout two hours a day twice! It’s just—” you took a deep breath, vision blurring from tears. “—so exhausting and please, make it stop.”

Spencer hugged you tight to his chest, as if wanting to merge you two as one to take away all your pain and sorrow. Your hands creasing his white button down with a grip so tight. 

For a second, it felt liberating to let it all out. But the fleeting emotion had passed, leaving you with only shame from your admittance.

“I’m so sorry you feel that way,” he detangled himself, enough to stare into your eyes. “Love, can I show you something?”

You nodded. He slowly turned you around, back against his chest, to face the full length mirror tucked in the corner. His eyes never leaving yours as his calloused fingers reached up to the tucked ends of the towel wrapped around your body. He tilted his head, asking for your permission to which you slowly nodded.

Your naked body was in full view. Your nails digging onto your palm as you catalogued every minuscule flaw there is—the additional flesh around your stomach and sides and your hips no longer as thin as they were before.

“Do you know what I see?” He softly asked.

You bit your lip before shutting your eyes close, unable to take what was right in front of you. “Me and how I gained weight?”

He placed a kiss on your temple. “No. I see a beautiful adult woman who has curves in all the right places—”

He laid a kiss on your cheek. “I see the love of my life in her full loving glory—”

He kissed the side of your neck. “I see my future wife who loves herself and all the changes that aging and our slowing metabolism entails—”

He placed one last kiss on your shoulder. “—I see you, and I love every piece of you. And I hope you love every part as much as I do.”

Comments and reblogs are highly appreciated!

[timedhoney]

Giving wonwoo hickeys would change my life. Straddling that tiny waist, leaning down as you bury your face into his warm neck. You watch as he squirms against you when your eyelashes brush along his blushed skin.

“Hi,” you murmur smoothly into his ear, just to feel his breath hitch in that gorgeous chest of his.

"Hi," he responds and you selfishly have to kiss those plump lips before you get back to the task at hand. Ok, maybe you have to slide in a little tongue too. You're not perfect. You love feeling how he reacts beneath you, love to feel how those large hands grip deeply into your thighs when you suck his bottom lip into your mouth. You know it drives him wild, and you wiggle your hips in satisfaction against the tent growing in his jeans.

God, what a man. How he manages to make an outfit with no more than a white shirt and pants have you to the point of drooling all over him, you have no idea. But when he walked into the door of your apartment, you immediately had to shove him onto your couch, pull his zipper halfway down, and then throw your legs over his. He looks picturesque in the way you've strewn him about, hair ruffled and jeans sliding down just enough to show a hit of muscle that makes you feel unholy things.

All that can wait though, because the spot just behind his ear is calling to you. You press your mouth there first before losing control and taking the tiniest nip just to watch the color flood up from his chest to his cheeks. What a beautiful gradient.

"You make it too easy, you know?" You say, smiling down at him as he brushes a piece of hair behind your ear, still flushed that cherry red. "One little bite and your'e going to act like this?" He nods shockingly fast, tipping his glasses down his nose with the action. You press them back up with your own nose, winking as you turn back to where you were. No distractions this time.

The noises that leave him always make it worth it. You take no prisoners when you pull at his skin, leaving obscene pops in your wake. You alternate between bites and licks, sucking and nipping. Only once you find the spot that creates the most delicious moan do you stop journeying, pressing your hips tightly into his. Feeling the heat start to radiate further off of him. Tasting the salt off his skin. Letting him writhe against you as you smile into the bite.

You look beneath you to admire your work.

"You're so lucky that I make pretty hickeys," you tell him smugly. And it's true, but maybe it's just that everything suits him. Beautiful blooms in varying shades of red and purple litter the left side of his neck. He groans as he slaps a hand over it.

"Ugh, did you have to go asymmetrical? It's going to be impossible to cover the one behind my ear with a turtleneck...." You laugh as you finally finish pulling down his zipper.

"I know you can't be mad when I just heard how you were behaving." He flips you onto your back on the couch and lifts up your shirt, reaching behind you to unclasp your bra.

"Mine are going to be prettier than yours," is his only reply as he leans down to leave open mouthed kisses to your tits before he begins rival your bruises with his own.

"I love when you get competitive," you sigh dreamily.

[luveline]

Hey jade!! i love your writing so much<3

Also what do you think of prison!spencer × Stripper!reader?👀

im not sure if this is what you meant but I hope you like it ♡ fem, 1.2k

"Too much," you murmur to yourself, tilting your head one way and then the other. The bags under your eyes have been dark lately from a severe lack of sleep, but all this makeup won't help make tips. "Way too much." 

You lean back to ask one of the girls for a wet wipe but the dressing room is empty. Swearing to yourself, you duck down for your bag. You have tissues, and they'll have to do it. 

Things have been hard since Spencer's… event. You don't sleep well without him, worse wondering what it is he's going through right now. His friends don't really know that you're seeing one another, and so being kept in the loop has felt akin to begging for scraps. You miss Agent Hotchner in times like this. He always had a soft spot for you. 

You hum a song under your breath as you rub the cakey makeup under your eyes. Washing your face would be nice. Going home would be better. You've been trying to make some extra money in case Spencer never comes home; you won't have his security to fall back on if things fall apart here. 

You don't want his security. You just want him to come home. Sighing, you pick up your phone and open the gallery app. It's a second hand thing you got at a pawn shop but it has enough storage to keep as many blurry photos of your boyfriend as you'd like. Pictures of him everywhere and doing everything, his big smile like a beacon. 

You stop scrolling when you find the one you want. It's favourited with a red heart at the bottom of the screen. Spencer took it, you remember —you were too busy kissing his cheek to navigate the settings. He looks happy. You could never understand how happy he is to be with you, how through everything, a long time of knowing one another and a hundred thousand acts of a kindness you didn't deserve, he's stayed by your side. He doesn't care that you're a dancer. He's proud of your choices. He loves you for you, even if he does get a little jealous every now and then. 

You lay your phone down on the dressing table, cheek flat beside it. "Time to come home, Dr. Reid," you whisper. 

Your phone pings and you ignore it. It pings again and you turn off your notifications. It's probably Spencer's nice friend Penelope, or one of the girls wanting to borrow something. 

You shed your robe to look yourself over in the mirror. The lingerie you're in tonight's not to your taste but a fan favourite, the bra and underwear both plum in colour with lace and black garters to be clipped. You turn to one side and narrow your gaze at a ladder running up your leg. 

You save a bottle of clear nail polish in your bag for this occasion. 

You're sitting on the floor with your leg out in front of you when someone knocks on the door. The girls don't knock. 

If it's a patron you have a taser, and besides, they don't usually knock either. A bouncer, then. 

"Come in, please!" you call lightly. 

You don't bother looking up, a creature of habit. It'll be the same thing as usual, insert man wants to buy insert dance from you for insert amount of time. Are you interested? 

You hum as you paint the rip in your garter. The nail polish will stop it from ripping any further, but you're going to need new ones. 

"You're prettier than when I left. How did you do that?" 

You tip the bottle over as you flinch, you don't care, you look up at the compliment and the familiar voice, and find Spencer standing in the doorway. 

You've pictured this moment multiple times a day since the day he was arrested, hundreds of reactions. In pretty much all of them you throw yourself into his arms and beg him not to leave again, but all those hours of missing him coalesce on top of you. You want desperately to touch him and you end up crying into your hands instead. Tears quicker than you knew they could arrive, hot and thick as your sob. 

"Hey," Spencer says, kneeling down in front of you. He takes your wrists into his hands. "Hey… don't cry." 

You can't help it. 

He wraps his arms around you and lets you sob. "I thought you'd be happy to see me," he murmurs. 

"I missed you," you say, the words dragged from you like agony on a hook. 

"I missed you too." He rubs your back. If he cares that you're in your underwear he doesn't have much to say about it. He eventually started making jokes about all of this stuff when he realised you wouldn't be offended, but he's never cruel about anything. He's far from it now, pulling your shoulder into his chest as he pats your arms. "I'm sorry, honey. I'm really sorry. It got out of control. But, on the bright side…" 

You sniffle and pull your gaze up to his face. When you see the hollows of his cheeks you almost start crying again. "What?" you ask. 

"Well, now I'm cool enough to be your boyfriend." 

You push him backwards and crawl into his lap, knees on either side of him, weight against his abdomen. Your arms weave behind his head and you push your cheek into his likely too hard to be painless. He just sighs in relief. 

"Do you have something in your pocket?" you whisper, your voice stuffy. "Or was prison very hard?" 

He laughs and digs in between you to pull the little box that had been digging into you out of his pocket. "It's for you." 

"Don't want it." 

"I don't care if you want it. I missed our anniversary." 

"I missed you," you say, clinging to him for dear life.

You can't stop hugging him long enough to look. 

Eventually, he peels you off of the floor and you get dressed to go home with him. It takes a long time —you keep stopping to hug him between items of clothing, checking that he's real, that's he's him, even if he looks different now. He has to take the reins or you'll never make it home, pulling your coat over your shoulders and zipping it closed. 

When he's done, he takes your face into both hands. "You've been safe while I was gone? No trouble?" he asks. 

"Nobody messes with me. My boyfriend's in the FBI." 

"Well, we're taking a vacation." He blows out a big breath. "Jesus, I'm sorry, but I really need to kiss you right now." 

"Even though I look junky?" 

"You look perfect." He kisses you before he's finished, his praise smothered by your lips. He kisses you so hard you can't breathe by the end of it. "I'm sorry," he says, pressing a softer one under your eye. "Prison was actually pretty hard." You lean in, lingering nose to nose with him. "I couldn't sleep without you near me." 

"You're only saying that 'cos you saw me in my underwear." 

"Yeah, that's exactly why." He practically giggles. "No, I just love you."

You couldn't sleep without him either. You get home and sleep for days, tangled with each other in bedraggled sheets. 

[sleepyangelkami]

ROOFTOP SHENANIGANS .vi

 ☆ WORD COUNT - 2.3K

VI (ARCANE) X FEM!READER

 ☆ SUMMARY - vi has been staying with you in your big fancy uppercity house while on the run, one night you both take an exciting trip onto the rooftop while avoiding the 'exquisite ball' beneath you both, organised by your parents, of course.

 ☆ WARNINGS - fluff, petnames, arcane!universe but slightly different, mentions of men, kissing, mentions of rich/upper class reader, mention of reader being 'small', multiple mentions of reader having a mom, use of 'good girl' in a domestic (not smutty) way, intended lower case, nothing i write is ever proofread 🩷

you should be at the party downstairs.

it felt like every second week that your parents were throwing another party. although, they didn't particularly want to call it that. they'd call it a ball, force everyone to get into these big puffy dresses or intricately designed suits. the first five minutes would be alright but soon enough you'd get bored of your parents' business talk with the old folk.

this time, though, you were spending your saturday night in your bedroom, clad in your silky white pijamas instead. vi sat across from you, just aching to get out of this room. and truly, you couldn't blame her.

vi had been on the run for quite some time now. once she got out of stillwater prison, the first place she went was to you. you'd told her where your fancy house was situated beforehand and besides, it wasn't as if it were hard to miss. when the drenched girl arrived at your door in the pouring rain with blood smeared on her face, you couldn't exact turn her away. not that you wanted to. you had to say, smuggling a 'criminal' into your house and keeping them there even though they were wanted was an... experience to say the least.

your parents had no idea, of course, and they never could. they were big councillors and 'your actions would reflect on them and blah, blah, blah.' you'd heard the story a thousand times over. and that was when you weren't standing properly so you could only imagine what they'd have to say about smuggling a wanted criminal.

"uhm, vi?" you questioned, her voice airy. somehow, the girl had manged to persuade you to follow her outside. only downfall, your bedroom was situated on the highest floor of the building.

the cotton candy haired girl looked at you with a chuckle falling from her lips. "here, gimme your hand." and you didn't have to be told twice.

vi was many things. she lived on the dangerous side whereas you liked to keep to yourself, always doing your best to hide in a shadow. you were the type of girl that didn't want to be looked at, vi was the type to not care whose eyes were on her. and somehow, these personalities mixed just a little to well and suddenly she was coercing you onto the rooftop.

your white socks began to get a little dirty by the way you found your feet padding against the wall. you climbed up with her hand in yours and suddenly your back end was sitting atop the roof.

you'd never been up this high in general let alone at your own home.

"pretty, isn't it?" the girl mumbled as she leaned in a little closer, there was a smirk on her scarred lips, lifting them up and curving them.

beneath you, your eyes were strained on the carpet that led people inside your house. you could see carriages with horses driving into your driveway. it was a sight to see, men and women in suits and dresses, all looking much too fancy to be taking a trip to your house. the light from the house hung in the midnight air, shining and emitting a yellowish hue onto the grass.

you hummed, your lips in a straight line. "you're prettier." you teased causing the girl to roll her pretty eyes. only she didn't take them back down, she found her eyes staring up at the midnight sky above you both. "you like stars?" you questioned, assuming she had an interest or something given the fact that her eyes seemed awfully strained on something in the sky. perhaps she knew constellations and what the little shapes meant. you never bothered yourself to learn it.

"no." she spoke, still studying the night sky. "jus' been a while since i've seen that many stars." vi was in prison for a long time. you knew she was innocent, she didn't deserve the place that she got but unfortunately all the money in the world couldn't get someone to listen to you. not a corrupt government like piltover. you hummed once more, letting your head fall on her shoulder. "tired, cupcake?"

nodding your head, you fought off a yawn. you could hear her coo as her hand came down to your own, her fingers gently interlocking with yours. to others, she may seem like the brooding, dangerous girl she was thought to be. but with you? she was as gentle as a butterfly. "you're so warm." you mumbled, nuzzling your way into her.

"you're so cute." she retaliated, watching as you flushed, rolling your eyes with your lips in a tight smile. her eyes glanced back up to the little stars dotted around the sky. "you know, you're kind of like a star."

with a tired pout, you placed your head on her shoulder, looking up at her with those big doey eyes. "how?" people had compared you to many things in your days, but a star? not so much.

"cause." she shrugged her shoulders. as embarrassed as she was to get the words out, she still couldn't fight off that tight lipped smile on her face. "you're like... lighting up the darkest skies." she watched as your face changed a little, not in a bad way, a way of endearment, a pout stretched across your lips. "and, you know." she coughed, attempting to defuse any tension. "you're... small."

you shook your head, stifling a giggle. "you were doin' so well." and she just had to ruin it with her joke, not that vi could ever ruin anything, you were sure.

the sound of mellow music hit your ears. it was low but due to how loud your mother always seemed to blare the music, you were still able to hear it even from your place on the roof. you'd given the lame excuse of not feeling right which is the only reason your mother had left you stay in your bedroom. and as grateful as you were to spend time with vi, you couldn't help but miss the music. it was this song in particular that was your favourite.

any other night, you'd be in the centre of the dance floor. you'd be dancing with someone, no doubt, you didn't care who, man or woman, elderly or one of the kids. but when this song played, everyone in piltover knew to make room. "love this song." you mumbled, hiding your hands in the silk of your pijamas. it was still awfully cold, especially when you were sitting atop of a roof.

vi hummed in thought. she'd heard you play this song many times, she was no stranger to your infatuation with the song. your eyes watched as she moved from you, standing up on the roof. she laid a hand out for you to take to which you merely awkwardly stared. "oh come on. i dragged you all the way from your fancy ball. the least i can do is dance with you to your favourite song." your heart swelled. "will you dance with me, angel?"

and how could you refuse someone so... unearthly? you stood with a giggle, placing your hand in her own.

she helped you get up swiftly.

you breathed a shaky breath before glancing down. it seemed like a good idea at first but it wasn't as if the rooftop was exactly straight. it was still slanted, off to the side as you did your best to hold yourself up. you could say that grace wasn't your thing. but that didn't matter, for in seconds you could feel warm hands on your hips, holding you upright. "careful, cupcake."

you attempted at everything to wipe the smile off your face and failed, of course. "my knight in shining armour." you murmured jokingly, one of her hands moving up to hold one of yours. your free hand came down to sit on her shoulder. "you know how to dance?"

and by the looks of it, she did. her feet moved before you, stepping in, stepping out, she moved so elegantly, so softly. it seemed as though she'd lived on a dance floor. you'd danced with many people in your life, no one had ever compared to vi. "'course, elegance is my middle name." she murmured against your skin.

you giggled as she spun you out, her arm in the air as you twirled. you couldn't stop the sounds from your mouth, pure ecstasy filling your veins and your cheeks by the feeling of the heat that had rose to them.

vi too wore a smile, as big as anything as her pearly whites were on wide display for you to see. your eyes trailed from her own sapphire ones to the tattoo sitting beneath it, decorating her skin beautifully. she pulled you close then, holding her face near yours as she swayed your bodies. "if you were at the ball, would you be dancing with some guy now? some... councillor kid or something?"

you tried to huff out your laugh. vi, in all her glory, jealousy and insecurity seeping into her veins. "vi..." you stopped dancing, though she was still holding you close. the only difference was now you could see her face. "you're all that matters to me." fingers gently twisting the bubblegum locks. "not the balls my mom throws, not the 'princes' i get the pleasure of dancing with, not the money, not the... lifestyle. you. i'd trade the entire city of piltover for you in a heartbeat."

she looked down at you with those lovey eyes, the ones that showed you she knew you were telling the truth. "you're a real idiot, cupcake."

you shrugged, smile on your lips. "that's okay." you mumbled. "you can do the thinking for me."

she couldn't help it. you were so close, the aura was so sweet, gentle light flooding from the windows and doors of the house and the soft music from the ballroom. and you looked so pretty. her fingers brushed the side of your cheek, pulling your face closer to hers.

you didn't fight it, in fact, you melted into her. you felt her soft lips on yours and you kissed back, just as gently. there was something about the way her hands held you, as though you were glass and she was being careful not to break. she'd beg to differ. not glass, more like a painting. you were a beautiful painting and she was holding you so close, engulfing you because she knew ugly people liked to ruin beautiful things. she couldn't risk letting anyone attempt to toss their hands near your heart.

at some point in the night, the music lowered itself, then it was but a hum and suddenly, there was no music at all.

you and vi still sat atop the roof, bodies close as you peered out at everyone who left for their carriages. you commented on a couple people you knew, explaining them to vi. "is he nice?" truth was, she didn't really know anyone in the uppercity.

you shrugged your shoulders. "I don' really know, he smells kind of funny." listening to the way she chuckled against your skin. truth was, you didn't really care for anyone in the uppercity. "'s getting really late." you commented, yawning again. you knew it was getting late for people were going home and god knows your mom didn't throw balls just to end them early. "you comin' to bed?"

she glanced to you, watching your slightly watery eyes from yawning so much, big and doey, ready for sleep. "I'll be a couple minutes, sweetheart. you to bed, alright? i'll be down soon."

and for a sleepy you, it was enough. you nodded your head and bidded your farewell to the girl you loved more than your entire being.

at some point in that night, you'd managed to get yourself into bed, snuggling up against your covers and allowing them to completely engulf you. you had your fists near your chin, holding the blanket close and your eyes shut closed, light breaths leaving them. all this stressing and keeping vi a secret was so tiring, exhausting even, but you wouldn't change it for the world.

you were in and out of sleep, almost as if your body was waiting for her to come back into the room.

the sound of the window closing shut was enough to alert your body. "vi?" your voice all croaky and full of sleep.

vi had swung in the window as if she were spiderman himself. "i'm here baby." she mumbled, kicking off her boots. obviously, she'd been more prepared for the night on the roof than you had. she climbed into your big bed from behind you, her arms immediately reaching out for you. she watched as you turned around, arms grasping around her neck. "why're you still awake?" she mumbled. she'd spent at least another hour out on the roof but she'd assumed by your sleepy eyes that you'd been ready to knock out then and there. she wasn't going to be the one to keep you awake.

you sniffed against her chest, hugging yourself close. her scent was enough to have you sighing in relief for her to be back in your arms. "can't sleep right without you here." your body and mind had grown awfully attached to the cotton candy haired girl.

"you're so cute." she cooed at you, pressing a kiss to your scalp. "go to sleep, sweet girl, i'll be here in the morning." she could feel you relaxing against her chest, eyes screwing themselves shut. "good girl." she mumbled, pulling the blankets above you.

"g'night, vi." your tired whisper barely reaching her ears.

so sweet. "goodnight, cupcake."

main masterlist/vi's masterlist

[mrsdarkandyandere7]

❤ Yandere Lawyer ❤

▶ This is a yandere/dark work and it may contain triggering content so please READ THE WARNINGS before. Do not read if minor.

More at Masterlist

Female reader

WARNINGS: Obsession; Misogyny; slight Power Abuse.

This idea credit goes to @d-lioncourt cause she's the one that motivated me for this idea. Hope you like this :)

--

◾ Yandere! Lawyer who works in the top law firm of the country. He’s cold, determinate and calculative. Always thinking 10 steps ahead of everyone, carefully considering all possibilities and creating extensive back-up plans. 

His job relies on his capacities and he always aims for the top. If he’s not recognized as the best lawyer available, then he doesn’t even know what he’s been doing so far. 

◾ Yandere! Lawyer who doesn't care about how things are done as long as he wins the case in the end. Who said lawyers are saints?

He may be an advocate of the law but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t bend it to his will, finding sneaky gaps to reach his goal: win. 

Isn’t that what makes him such a requested lawyer? Isn’t that what causes every big corporate company to try to sign him up, to offer several millions for him to represent them in court? Because everyone knows that he wins.

No matter what happens during the trials or how badly the opposite side tries, he wins. It’s an irrefutable truth and anyone that tries to contradict it is a complete and utter fool. 

◾ Yandere! Lawyer who is upset enough when he’s informed that he’s gonna have to take a Pro Bono case for a random civilian. It’s frustrating to spend his precious time and expensive resources on a worthless someone.

It’s stupid and he'd immediately refuse it if it wasn’t for the strict order he receives from the higher ups.  

◾ Yandere! Lawyer who rattles you up, insisting on long sessions so he can know your side of the story.

His questions feel like accusations and you hate spending long hours answering him. Makes you feel like you’ve actually committed a crime of sorts when the reality is none of that. 

He knows you’re bothered by the way he pays attention to each of your words, taking mental notes of every minuscule detail so he can bring it up later.

He’s highly aware of how unnerving he can get and it’s fun to see you get so quiet and shy over it. 

He loves it when people get intimidated by him and it’s particularly pleasant when a pretty thing like yourself gets too timid to spare him a few words. 

◾ Yandere! Lawyer who drags the case much longer than it needs to. He could definitely end it in a blink of eyes, it would be so easy for him. A piece of cake. 

But he doesn’t. 

It’s exciting to see you on court, a helpless expression covering your whole face and your eyes at the verge of tears as your future lays on his hands.  

So pathetically weak. You can’t even defend yourself, you need him to do that for you. To defend your honor, to protect you. 

◾ Yandere! Lawyer who makes sure you know that despite it being a Pro Bono case, you owe him. He wants you to know that he’s winning this case for you, wasting his valuable time just to save your pathetic ass from those embezzlement charges. 

That he’s the one saving you from going to prison - despite the very evident fact that you have such a weak personality that it’s practically impossible that you’d steal money from your boss. 

◾ Yandere! Lawyer who takes every chance to hurt your feelings with snide remarks.

You look prettier when you cry, something so enticing about those shiny diamond-like tears that glow in your eyes and the miserable way you furiously blink to keep them at bay - to which you fail. 

You’re crying because of him. That’s enough to make him buzz with a twisted sense of possession and control. He holds that much power over you. 

◾ Yandere! Lawyer whose mind wanders over the tempting fantasies of returning home to you. You’d do a submissive girlfriend, he’s so sure of that. If he gave you a nasty slap and a few harsh words, you’d bend to his will so fast - like a obedient girlfriend should. 

It would be so easy to control your life.

Order you to move in with him. Command you to become his stay-at-home girlfriend. Push you to cut off friends and family until only he remains. 

Those misogynistic ideas keep him thinking about you longer than he should. 

◾ Yandere! Lawyer who isn’t afraid to act upon his wishes and so he does. After a triumphing win on court, he leaves.

Storms off without even looking at you and you don’t even have the chance to thank him, but you forget about that quickly. 

You have more pressing issues to focus on, such as rebuilding your life all again. Celebrate your win. Find a new job. Move on with your life the best as you can. 

Your peace lasts exactly one week. And then everything comes down in rubbles.

Because then he comes to retrieve his payment. 

[pearlywritings]

Wriothesley nsfw alphabet

tw: female reader, established relationship (you two are married), office sex, tiiny mention of consensual somnophilia

word count: 3.9k+ words

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

For a couple of minutes Wriothesley will stay by your side, catching his breath. His palm will always rest on some part of your body, feeling the pleasant heat of your skin under the fingertips. Then, after sharing a little kiss, he’ll promptly leave but won’t be gone for long - with a warm wet towel the man will clean your body and then his (or let you do it if you’d like to). With some briefs on or remaining nude, he’ll bring you something to drink and snack on and as you are leaning into his frame to do just that, he’ll sip some calming tea from his own mug. You share a moment of blissful silence or quietly discussing the most mundane things, like how your days were, and it’s so perfectly domestic, that Wriothesley can’t help but fall in love with you a little bit more.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Wriothesley is not an oblivious person. He is highly aware that once fear from meeting his personа evaporates, many start ogling his body, practically lusting for him. And while he doesn’t feel particularly flattered, he feels pride - after all, he’s managed to build such a physique through the years of heavy labor and exhausting fights. If he has to choose though, then he’ll pick his chiseled jawline, because that’s where you love to leave the majority of your kisses.

When it comes to you, his lovely wife, he’d pick your chest without hesitation. He quickly grew to appreciate burying his face between your soft mounds as you run your fingers through his hair, letting him rest for a moment. He loves how his big hands cupping them look like. He doesn’t fail to moan louder at the feeling of your swollen nipples resting on his tongue. He adores when your breasts move as he is drilling into your pussy. And he cums almost instantly when you give his hard cock a tit job.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Cums a lot, emptying his heavy balls with a wild shiver running down his back. Wriothesley likes being a little messy while at home, not shying from smearing the last drops of his cum over your lips or tits, or pussy. If you are in his office, however, he always has condoms stuffed in one of his drawers just to deal with less mess afterwards. If you let him cum inside though, he wouldn’t mind one bit too.

What he loves more though, is how you always tell him that there is surely some more left in his sack and that maybe you should go for another round to release it. There is something thrilling in how you want to milk his aching member dry.

What he loves even more, is when you cum, or better squirt, on his tongue, letting him lick and slurp your liquids to his heart’s content (or till your next orgasm).

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

This man has quite a number of piercings, both visible and invisible to the eye of a bystander. And every time Wrio sees your bare breasts, he can’t help but wonder if you’d get your nipples pierced to match his. They’d get even prettier and so sensitive, and the metal would roll so wonderfully on his tongue as he’d be playing with them… But he also knows that this thing is not for everyone and that there are people who can’t handle pain as well as he does, so… For now it’s just a fantasy of his.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

There is experience, but for the longest time Wriothesley considered sex as nothing more but meeting his body’s needs, which doesn’t grant one with the pleasure of intimate connection. Besides, what love can you find in a prison? And why would you even seek one in the conditions the previous warden enforced?

He was so happy that he was wrong. When, after months of dating, you allowed him to take you for the first time, he felt excitement. He wanted to show you all the ways he could make you feel good, and when you oh so sweetly expressed your desire to return the favor, he practically melted. That night changed everything for him.

He still fondly relishes in the memory of your first time, even now, years later, with more experience under his belt, and yet still learning new stuff together with you.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Please ride him with your chest in his face or at least hands. He’d beg on his knees if he has to. There is nothing more melodious to his ears than your skin slapping against his and slick making squelching noises as you lift and drop back onto his cock, while also releasing the sweetest moans, and nothing better than feeling the softest curves of your body by his fingers and mouth.

Bending over the table is one of his favorites too, because that’s exactly what happens half of the times when he’s horny and you just happen to visit him in his office. Also has an excuse to put his palms under your breasts because his desk “is too cold”.

However, he can be selfish sometimes and keep you between his spread legs while your throat is occupied with his leaking member. Wriothesley can’t deny that when you are cockwarming him this way on slower sessions, he is on cloud nine.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Your husband is serious, but also so random. While in the process, his mouth runs faster than his thoughts, so he might blurt something stupid out and you’d both share a giggle about it. However usually he’s too focused on your body and making sure you feel good to joke around 

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Now Wriothesley is what people may call a “manly man”. He tries to shave his face regularly, yet the stubble is very quick to reappear. His eyebrows are dark and thick, he has chest hair, as well as on his arms and legs.

So, of course he has a delicious, thick, dark, happy trail starting right under his belly button and traveling down to the base of his cock. He grooms it regularly, but never shaves it off completely, because, even though you don’t voice it, he never misses the way that black and gray line disappearing under the waist of his pants always catches your attention. Or how you couldn’t be more obvious while absent-mindedly combing your fingers through the hairs as your palm rests on his stomach during something as sweet as cuddling, or as dirty as sucking his cock.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

In a long-term relationship - let alone married to you, - this man is a huge teddy bear and seeks for your smile. So, romantic dinners, or seagazing, or baths with flower petals are a common part of your love-making routine. Even if sex happens randomly - in his office, or on the kitchen table in the morning, - he still doesn’t forget to praise you, hold your body close to his, and murmur an occasional “I love you”, while your fingers are intertwined and the rings are catching the light beautifully.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

He grew addicted to you, and with that addiction his attraction and sex drive increased. He doesn’t feel embarrassed about his need to masturbate to relieve some tension when you are not here or do not feel like having sex (he’ll never pressure you). However, Wriothesley finds it endearing, when pleasuring himself is integrated into the love-making process. To see you sitting on the opposite end of the bed, bare, with your fingers thrusting in and out of your squelching pussy, makes his fist tighten around his own wet with pre-cum length and speed up the motion of his wrist.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Scratching. It was by pure accident when he discovered this kink. That night he was giving his all to leave the bed broken by the end of it, fucking into you so hard and animalistically, that you needed something to keep you grounded. Grabbing at the sheets was not enough anymore, so you wrapped your arms around his wide back. With every thrust of his strong hips your nails dug deeper and deeper into his skin, until they raked down in response to a blinding orgasm your lover put you through. Once you both got back to your senses and assessed the damage, you felt like shit for hurting him, but, to your surprise, Wriothesley asked you to do it again next time. And you did, making him cum copiously.

Temperature play. He is blessed with a Vision and is a tease who loves experimenting, so… Enjoys making his palms cold just to make you shiver, especially if you are blindfolded and unaware of where his fingers will end up next. Adores circling around your erected nipples and running the tips of his digits down your stomach or back and then suddenly tap against your needy clit. Makes you mewl every time.

Morning sex with elements of consensual somnophilia. Wriothesley is not particularly a morning person and after you spoiled him by simply being in his life and sleeping with him in one bed, he awakes very slowly and groggily. However, when you wake him up with a nice blowjob or slow rocking on top of his hips, while his morning wood is nicely warmed up between your walls, the man is guaranteed an amazing mood for the rest of his day. He loves returning the favor too - he is not going to spoil his appetite for breakfast if he eats your pussy out first.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Any place that’s hidden from prying eyes and does not make you uncomfortable. This man can adapt pretty quickly to any situation, and even if it’s just an empty room with no furniture to rest your body on, there is nothing stopping him from hoisting you up and making his arms and gravity do their job.

Though he can’t deny that the bed in your bedroom is the perfect option, since it’s the best and biggest space to maneuver your bodies comfortably and then rest between the rounds. And, subconsciously, he knows it’s the one place where he won’t protest should you tell him to take a break and not rush back to finish some of his work.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

The morning sight of you in nothing but his shirt makes his cock stir. The soft bourbon material covers enough of your body, but a couple of buttons undone show him your pretty collarbones, painted with his love bites, and when you turn your back to him and reach for something on a shell, he has an appetizing view of of your backside, which he never fails to squeeze, while planting a kiss to your temple. But also, it's the domesticity of you comfortably wearing his clothes that riles him up.

Also he loves your commanding tone, especially when you chide him for overworking and urge him to take a break and get away from his desk. Usually you don't move too far, ending up on the couch in his office either with his mouth on your breasts or his cock balls deep in that tight cunt of yours. Or both.

On a softer side of him, his heart beats faster whenever you call him by words of endearment. His name isn’t truly his, and he doesn’t feel any connection with it, that’s why when you call him something else, especially yours, he wants to cup both your cheeks and kiss you till you both run out of breath.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Won’t use his work handcuffs on you. They are for catching criminals and are too heavy and harsh for your beautiful wrists, so if you want restrictions - he obtains ones specifically for sex.

Will never share you with anyone. While he is open to experiments, he does not want to include other people, because your relationship is sacred to him and the man’ll rather die than have his trust in you fluctuate.

No mommy/daddy kink. He…just doesn’t want to bring any parent-related stuff into your sex life. 

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Wriothesley is a fan of both, yet leaning more into the ‘giving’ area. Your flushed cheeks, glazed over eyes, trembling bitten lips, heavily rising and falling chest, shaking thighs and fingers in his hair… Please, give him more of your reactions while his tongue laps your pussy. Equally loves you being under him and sitting on his face - a meal is a meal.

When it comes to you giving him a blowjob, the Duke feels like the most important person in Teyvat with the way you look up at him with those pretty eyes as his tip rests onto your tongue and then slides down your throat. If you let him fuck your tits while at it - he’ll become completely putty in your hands.

Enjoys 69, and doesn’t avoid it even if there is no way to lie down. You know first hand just how strong this man is and how easily he handles your body.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Usually he is not rough with you - unless he really is pent up or you ask him to. Though he does prefer faster pace, going for deeper penetration, because it creates the sexiest variation of sounds, reactions and actions. Plus, sometimes you have too little time to finish and he will be damned to let you leave unsatisfied.

On slower nights or in the mornings, his thrusts are not as wild and more sensual, dragging his cock in and out slowly, letting you thoroughly enjoy the rub of his thick veins against your walls. It also gives him more opportunities to stimulate your other erogenous zones with hands and mouth, providing you with the most mind-blowing orgasms. Besides, such pace tires both of you less, so there is a greater possibility to have more rounds than one, and there is nothing more fantastic, especially after long weeks of work, than having you so intimately close to him for longer.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

An integral part of your intimate life. His office is like a second bedroom in the sense of how often you have sex there. You may come just to deliver something to Sigewinne from the city and simply stop by your lover’s office to check up on him, yet still end up on the couch with his face buried between your thighs. With only 5 minutes at your disposal before he has to make the rounds of the Fortress. 

Honestly, the melusine nurse (who is obviously aware of what her work guardian and his wife do, she is not dumb) can’t figure out if you two are just this horny, or you have coitus so often pursuing a different goal…

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Admittedly, Wriothesley’s daily routine can get quite boring, so he is always up to something exciting in your relationship. He’ll do his research together with you on the topic that caught either of your attention, might seek advice from his friends if he knows they practice it. All for your safety.

He’ll be open with his opinion once you try something and he’ll heed yours too, of course. Is up to a compromise as well. 

Lately, he’s had a talk with Neuvillette, and after some personal discussions, the Iudex admitted that, obviously, the nature of his and his wife’s bedroom activities sometimes is more… primal, given their backgrounds. And while the Duke can’t fully experience it, since he is only human, he can suggest you a roleplay of a kind… The thought hasn’t been leaving his head ever since.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Wriothesley is sturdy and can last quite awhile, so in case of durability he relies on how long you can endure. Doesn’t mind exploiting his hand to finish once you are too spent to go any longer, or, if you don’t mind, using his strong arms to push your thighs or breasts together, trapping his dick for friction.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

A fan of restrictions on himself. Entrusting you the power over his body is exciting, and he is always eager to know how you’ll handle him this time. Besides, it’s giving him an opportunity to relax, so he doesn’t complain one bit when you demand to be the one taking care of him tonight and not the other way around.

He has a love/hate relationship with your dildos. On one hand he feels jealous when he sees and hears how this silicone length fills you up and gets to be covered in your slick. On another hand however, you look so hot, lifting and dropping down onto it, or attaching it to the wall and moving your hips back and forth, or sucking on it as he pounds into you with his own cock… Yeah, he can’t make up his mind.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Teasing is like a second nature to him. It comes easier with words, but actions make you crave and languish just the same.

“What is it, princess? My mouth is not enough? But you came two times already and I only fucked you with my tongue… Oh, it’s empty inside? You poor thing… Do you want a finger? Sure, you can have one.”

And then take his time adding the second and the third, making himself comfortable in such a position, which gives you a perfect view of his other hand stroking the cock you want so desperately.

Or being a meanie and paying you back for riling him up at work when he couldn’t take a break a week ago by walking around the house completely naked, semi hard and leaning onto the kitchen counter so fucking sexily with a mug of his morning tea, while you are running like crazy around the apartment, trying to get ready for work and not stare at his invitingly appetizing body. You can survive a day with soaked panties, sweety, he had to with his messy briefs after all.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Has the sexiest deep moans, that get even more cunt-wetting if hoarsely released in the morning. Plus, he grunts and pants, doing it right against your ear on purpose, because Wrio knows how tightly you clench when he does so. Occasionally there is a throaty chuckle when something you say or do amuses him.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Puffs of hot air caress your chest, your lover’s forehead is pressed to your collarbones, gray hairs wet and stuck to the skin. Your hands, suddenly weak and heavy, drop limply to the sides of your body, finally leaving the broad back of the man above you. Next to give out are your legs, yet Wriothesley instinctively reaches to hold onto your knees to unwrap you from around his hips and gently lowering two tired limbs onto the mattress.

A minute passes in silence, which is disturbed by your mutual attempts to catch your breath only. Satisfaction tingles in every cell of your being and a pleasant warmth spreads in your chest, right where the heart is, where his face is planted. Your lover grunts a second later, rubbing his nose against the skin of your cleavage and you smile, forcing your head to lift and kissing the top of his head. Suddenly eyes of bluish steel are gazing at you, and you don’t have time to react when his lips capture yours in a tender kiss. However, the way his body moved forward is hard to miss, when his softened, yet still impressive girth drags against your walls.

Your husband is all too happy to swallow that strained moan, sliding his tongue between your parted lips, lapping at your own squirmy muscle. Archons, he makes you melt.

“How is my princess feeling?” His voice’s murmur caresses your ears and touches the strings of your heart. The lovesick look that appears on your face should be an answer enough for him.

“So-so good, baby… I’ve enjoyed every second of it. Have you?”

“Do you really think I can ever say ‘no’ to such a question?” He chuckles softly when you pout, and in this moment you couldn’t be lovelier.

“Meanie,” you stick your tongue at him and Wriothesley chuckles again, straightening up, sitting back on his heels. Fingers flex on your waist, keeping your pelvises connected as he is gazing down at you, thinking over the next step.

“Who, me? Oh, my dear, I haven’t even started being mean…”

Suddenly your body is tugged forward and with a gasp and a soft moan your chest is flush to his, arms instinctively return to wrap around his shoulders and your ass is firmly planted into his wide palms. All of that with his dick still inside you.

“Now, I have,” his smirk is sexy and is enough to distract you from how he maneuvers you off of the bed and plants his feet onto the ground. Only when he takes an experimental step you realize you are fucked (soon literally).

“W-wrio, s-slow down! If you walk like this, we’ll get horny again!”

“Mmm, didn’t know that’s a bad thing,” he takes a couple more across the room and you have to cling to him and force the needy whimper down your throat.

“The s-semen will le- oh! -ak and get all over the floor again!”

“Nuh, I am plugging your pussy up real good. And even if a couple of drops fall, I don’t mind a little mess.”

“You, dirty man-!”

“You married this dirty man,” he nods at the ring wrapped around the ring finger of the hand on his shoulder. “So, sorry, you are stuck with him.”

And as much as you want to hit him in the chest, you have no way to retort. The best thing you could think of and do is shutting him up with a kiss and letting him carry you to the bathroom as quick as possible.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

His dick is not very long, around 6.5 inches, however it’s thick. Hangs heavily just like his sack and has numerous prominent veins running along the entire length.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

It’s HIGH. He is touch starved (and once you started enabling his desire it only got worse), for the huge part of his day - WEEK - he is barricaded underwater in his Fortress, longing for you, yet understanding you have your own job and daily routine. No wonder every encounter you have is full of even the smallest forms of affection and your love-making is filled with passion.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

It is not uncommon for him to come back to finishing some of his work. Not to leave you alone, he’ll bring the papers to bed, happily welcoming your arms wrapping around his thigh as you settle close to his sitting figure.

More often, however, he is quite easily convinced to lie down to cuddle and will fall asleep pretty quickly, especially if you run your fingers through his messy gray locks, massaging his scalp and kissing his forehead.

[flowerandthesongstress]

complaints I've already seen about Coral Island, a new Indonesian kickstarter cozy game: the barman selling a ruined dish is an uncalled-for jab at restaurant workers! cats shouldn't hang out outdoors! eew, this woman shouldn't display her pregnancy stretch marks! where are all the kippot! why is everyone in such good shape! preposterous! this partially deaf character talking in caps lock is triggering me! no one in doctors without borders would be that tattooed, this dreadful representation is literal murder! no doctor would forget her paperwork at a library, for that matter! why is a japanese fisherman talking like a scottish pirate, this is inaccurate!

meanwhile in the game: I freed a stone statue from a magical underground prison and he put an enchantment on my hoe. his brother asked me if I liked figs is he flirting. my hippie boyfriend is heartbroken because his bucket-wearing pet duck is sick but shhh watching tv will heal him. last night when I talked to the outdoors cat she mentioned that she has a crippling fear of birds and thinks of getting therapy. a stem academic looks like a kpop idol and is getting enough sleep. he wears his astrophysics degree all over himself like a linguist would have worn alphabet necklaces, just to spite his dad but it's not working why is it not working ah shit it's working. mermaids hired me as a janitor. it's not pro bono I'm paid in diamonds. my neighbor is worried that his shiba inu went back to rejoin the mountain whence it came from. a turtle won't let me pass until I serve her spaghetti. I'm fighting capitalism with a literal scythe. the local blacksmith is asking my opinion regarding a legendary battle hammer and if it's worth the logistics hassle. it's been a year crabs are still dancing in celebration their zeal is admirable but their choreography could use some work. this giant monkey covered in two layers of meta wants to sell me a nostalgic souvenir. I know it because he sent me a polite letter. how many propaganda flyers can I fish out of this pond a challenge. I barged into a local lab and upended a barrel of seaweed over intricate circuitry now my flowers are five percent prettier. the scientist at the lab attached a mermish translator to my diving suit via the power of coffee. hold on I'm doing meal prep for next week let me finish putting ectoplasmic slime on okra

[peachdues]

Phantasmagoria (Part III)

Tell Me to Stop (Sanemi’s Version)

Sanemi x F!Reader • Modern AU • NSFW

A/N: read the fucking warnings before you report.

Massive TW: grief • loss of a parent • canon character death • drug and alcohol abuse • panic • references to previous attempted S/A • violence between characters • more descriptions of Douma getting his ass kicked (still deserved) • situation requiring a hospital

CW: 25k words. MDNI. explicit sexual content ahead • multiple creampies • oral (f! and m!receiving) • face sitting • swearing • angst with a good ending • non-sexual intimacy

Oh boy. It’s done.

This one is super personal to me, so I really hope you guys enjoy. Thank you for showing this story your love, I adore you all.

Without further ado!

Sanemi’s Playlist

PART ONE • PART TWO

(Sanemi’s POV)

The Party on 52nd Street

Sanemi couldn’t bring himself to say that he regretted how he’d ended up in handcuffs. Sure, his knuckles were bruised to shit and covered in blood that was and was not his, but at least his face was still a hell of a lot prettier than the sniveling, cowardly asshole curled onto his side on the gravel outside his house.

Granted, the severe swelling of Douma’s face was because of Sanemi, but truthfully, he thought it was an improvement. By the time Sanemi had been yanked off of the barely conscious, campus-resident creep, those freakish, multi-colored eyes had been so blackened and swollen, it was a wonder that Douma had even been able to see the cops swarming his living room at all. 

Sanemi knew the only reason his ass wasn’t being thrown into the back of the police cruiser waiting out behind Douma’s hell den was because Tengen had been the one to escort him out. And, because the local police had been itching to bust Douma for his little drug operation for months, Douma had been hauled out as well, handcuffed for good measure (and for insult) by Tengen.

It also helped that Douma was a dumbass, who’d sent the incriminating photos of his assault on Y/N to the groupchat that included all three of Tengen’s partners. Once he was sure they were safely out of view of spectators and witnesses giving statements to the other responding officers inside, Tengen took care to slam the greasy asshole to the ground, getting a few good kicks in as Douma curled pathetically against the asphalt. 

“I will sue your ass,” Douma wheezed as he struggled to catch his breath. Through the purple black swells of his eye sockets, Sanemi could just make out the sliver of jewel-toned irises as they glared in his direction. “The whore fucking wanted it rough.”

Sanemi lunged for the cowering bastard where he lay, ready to stomp the fucker’s face in once and for all, but Tengen roughly threw him back against the side of his cruiser before he could.

“He’s trying to rile you up. Don’t fall for his shit,” Tengen’s magenta eyes were full of warning as he held Sanemi back. “He was stupid enough to send proof of the assault; ain’t no way in hell anyone buys that it was consensual.”

But Sanemi could only see red, the image of Y/N’s tear-streaked and terrified face burned permanently into his brain, worse than any scar that he bore on his skin.

“I don’t give a fuck, it’s working,” Sanemi snarled, struggling against Tengen’s iron-clad grip on him. “I want him fucking dead.”

“Y/N needs you not to be in prison. Don’t you two have something goin’ on?” Tengen shot back hotly. The young cop’s words stilled Sanemi’s struggle against the police cruiser, his fury deflating slightly.

As Kyojuro’s car had jumped the curb in front of the house, both boys agreed to split up once inside the house. Kyojuro was tasked with retrieving Y/N from wherever Akaza had hid her, because Sanemi had viciously vowed that he would be the one dealing with Douma.

And so, he had.

Party attendants had taken one look at Sanemi’s stony face as he’d made his way through the house to the main living room and parted, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire of the violence promised in his eyes.

He’d found Douma, standing back near the speakers that crackled with some out-of-date, heavy bass music, laughing like he hadn’t a care in the world. Those monstrous eyes had met Sanemi’s for only a split second, but the delighted malice they beheld was enough to make Sanemi want nothing more than to make the monster bleed.

Douma’s answering smile had been brief, unable to withstand the smash of his fist as the enraged Sanemi knocked him to the ground and lunged to pin him down.

Kyojuro’s car was long gone by the time Sanemi and Douma had been dragged out of that party house of horrors by Tengen in handcuffs, Sanemi smirking at the way Tengen kicked at the whimpering bastard’s feet every few steps. But that meant that Sanemi had no idea how Y/N was even doing – or whether she’d sustained more serious injuries than what Douma had shown off.

He didn’t want to think about what else might have happened in that room. If he did, Douma would surely not survive the impending ride to the police station.

Sanemi knew, however, that Tengen was right, however much it pissed him off. Y/N was the priority here, not him or his righteous, violent fury. He would restrain himself – for her. Nonetheless, Sanemi felt a rush of gratitude for the young cop, who, despite cautioning Sanemi away from ripping the cretin apart once and for all, spat directly on Douma’s bruised, bleeding face.

Half an hour later, and Sanemi was being escorted by his friend through the familiar sliding doors of the police station. It took only five minutes of him speaking with two other detectives before he was strolling leisurely back out of the station and into the small parking lot with Tengen, who offered to drive him back to his apartment.

All it had taken was for Sanemi to whip out his phone to show them the picture Douma had sent of Y/N around for them to agree that the benefit of letting Sanemi go outweighed the burden of booking him; besides, the baggies of Wisteria they’d found on the famous party-thrower meant they’d caught the larger fish anyways.

If it weren’t for the looming threat that Douma had perhaps inflicted far more harm upon Y/N, Sanemi almost would have felt good striding out of the busy police station, but the fact that she might be with Kyojuro at a hospital somewhere, in need of treatment, sat in his gut like an icy stone, tempered only by the murderous rage he still felt.

In his stewing, Sanemi almost didn’t realize that Tengen was speaking to him.

“Look, I’m not sayin’ I don’t get your reasoning. I do,” Tengen said lowly, pausing near his cruiser to face Sanemi, though his eyes scanned the parking lot to ensure unwanted ears weren’t listening in. “Frankly, if I didn’t have my job to worry about, I woulda let you keep going. He deserved it.”

“But I don’t wanna see you falling back into old habits.” The young cop sighed, clapping Sanemi on the back. “You’ve been doing so well.”

Sanemi grimaced. “I’m not,” he bit out darkly. “This wasn’t about me. It was about her.”

Tengen eyed him incredulously but sighed. “It’d do you good to remember that. You can’t work things out with her if I’m haulin’ your ass to prison.”

Sanemi didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d long since fucked up any chances of working things out with Y/N.

----------

“This is the third time you’ve been brought in this month,” the young cop chastised him, crossing an ankle over his knee as he folded his massive arms across his broad chest. “And we’re only two weeks into December.”

Sanemi grimaced as he shifted in the dingy metal seat, his wrists going numb behind his back as the metal of the handcuffs around his wrists dug into his skin. He scrunched his nose, trying to stifle the drop of blood sliding down from his nostril before it could reach his mouth, though without much success.

He was growing more agitated as he waited on his best friend to come collect him – yet again, from the Ubayashiki police station, but Kyojuro had yet to show.

“Listen – Shinazugawa, is it?” The cop had a peculiar shade of silver hair, and a cursory glance-over by Sanemi revealed that he had an apparent penchant for fuschia eyeliner, an almost perfect match to the hue of the discerning eyes which watched him. “You’re a student at Ubaya-U, right?”

Sanemi only nodded, ducking his head down to avoid holding the officer’s gaze for too long, lest he see how dead the nineteen-year-old truly felt.

“My name’s Uzui – Tengen Uzui -- I graudated last year,” the man called Uzui said, somewhat proudly. “So I know you’re a smart kid, but you can’t keep getting hauled in like this. You’ve got too much goin’ for ya.”

Sanemi finally made a sound. “I got nothin’ going for me,” he scoffed, finally lifting his eyes to meet Uzui’s stern face. “Spare me the ‘you’re better than this,’ crap.”

Uzui only rolled his eyes. “Look, kid, whatever happened to you before you got here, you’ve gotta deal with it – but not like this.” Sanemi opened his mouth to snap back, but the young cop paid him no mind, only continuing his lecture. “I’m not gonna ask, because frankly, I don’t care that much. But I know a good kid when I see one, and I don’t think you want to live this way.”

Uzui sighed. “Surely you’ve got someone in your life you wanna do right by? A parent, or a girl, maybe?”

Sanemi’s already sour mood dampened even further. He was about to bite out that no, he had no one, when Kyojuro finally pushed through the doors of the police station, amber eyes scanning the intake area until they narrowed in on him.

And he looked tired. So goddamn tired, that for once, Sanemi felt something other than the numbness he’d felt slowly swallowing him whole over the last three months.

He felt guilty; he’d forgotten, that while he may not have cared about his own stupid actions affected himself, he did care about how they impacted his best friend. Sanemi’s only friend, really, though that was entirely his own fault.

But Sanemi’s guilt could not stop him from checking back out as Kyojuro walked over and spoke in a hushed voice with Uzui, both tossing concerning glances his direction every few minutes. Before he knew it, Uzui was standing and unlocking the handcuffs from around Sanemi’s wrists, the latter’s shoulders relaxing as his arms were released from behind his back.

“I’m letting you off with a warning, but with a condition” Uzui said simply, tossing the handcuffs back onto his desk. The young cop produced a small, white card from his pocket and pressed it into Sanemi’s hand. “I want you checking in with me every couple of weeks. We can do it here, or wherever you want – but it ain’t optional.” Uzui smiled wryly at the baffled look on Sanemi’s face. “Think of it as an unofficial probation. Until you settle down a bit.”

Uzui parted with a shake of Kyojuro’s hand and a wink at Sanemi before sauntering off down one of the adjacent hallways abutting the intake area, leaving the two boys behind.

Sanemi shoved his sore hands into his pockets, barely noticing the stinging in his bleeding knuckles as they chafed against the fabric of his pants.

“I can’t keep doing this for you, Sanemi,” Kyojuro’s voice said quietly from beside him, and Sanemi’s head snapped over to his friend. “You’re destroying yourself. I can’t just sit by and watch it.”

Deep down, Sanemi knew his friend was right, and he was a little afraid that he risked losing the fiery blonde for good, just as he apparently had lost his other best friend, though, it wasn’t like she’d been around after…after he died.

But if Sanemi lost Kyojuro for good, he’d truly have no one left, and so, he fingered the card that Uzui had given him as it sat in his pocket, and resolved he would try; if not for himself, then for the last person on earth who still gave a shit about him.

-----

 Later, the nineteen-year-old managed to stumble his way back to his dorm and he collapsed in his bed, not bothering to nurse his bleeding nose or even change out of his dirty, rumpled clothes. His knuckles stung and his body ached from the scuffle, but he found that he much preferred the throb of the bruises blooming across his body to the deep numbness he felt in his heart.

As he began to slip into a dreamless slumber, a pair of pretty eyes and a sparkling smile that had once filled him with so much warmth flashed through Sanemi’s mind. If he concentrated hard enough, he thought he could just recall the sound of her laugh, though it had been months since he’d last heard it.

He frowned as he tossed and turned in his bed, desperate to throw out thoughts of her, because she tended to disrupt his sleep and to make him feel even lower than he already knew himself to be.

And he didn’t want to think about what Y/N would say if she could see him now.

Though, Sanemi supposed, that would assume she would give enough of a shit about him to have an opinion on him at all.

He winced at the thought, so callous and bitter. He didn’t truly mean to be so cruel to her, even in his thoughts; he knew she didn’t deserve it. Sanemi knew it was his fault things had gotten as bad as they were between them – knew it was because of his piss-poor reaction to her admittedly badly-timed love confession that had driven her away.

After Genya’s death, Sanemi hadn’t much of a heart left that he could claim, but he’d known that whatever of it remained surely belonged to her, just as he always had. So, he’d tried to reach out after his brother’s funeral, during one of those rare moments of clarity when he wasn’t just existing on autopilot, detached from the world around him, but she’d never responded.

Her silence had been slowly needling him to death by a thousand sharp pricks to what remained of his pitiful heart, threatening to whittle it away entirely.

Sanemi imagined himself a pendulum that couldn’t decide whether he was angrier at himself or at her; forever swinging between his shame for lashing out the way he had at the train station and anger with Y/N for thinking his reaction had anything to do with her at all.

He’d never imagined himself worthy of Y/N – his best friend, so beautiful and intelligent and kind-hearted, even though he’d been so stupidly in love with her since they were small children. He’d always been too rough, too scarred, too…much. But he’d hoped, no matter how foolishly so, that perhaps one day, he’d work himself up to being worthy of her, be the reason she smiled and laughed and loved.

But, as Sanemi felt his stomach squeeze uncomfortably at the memory of her tear-streaked face, staring at the platform before the train he’d boarded, he was reminded that one couldn’t be worthy of the person they loved if they insisted on shattering their heart like a piece of glass.

-----

In the absence of semi-regular beatdowns, Sanemi had found other ways of distracting himself from the gnawing pit of despair and loneliness that was swallowing him whole, day by day. At the start of the spring semester, he’d finally hooked up with a girl in his mathematics seminar, and then began sleeping with another a month later. For months, he’d alternated between the two, thankful that neither of them had been interested in pursuing what he could not give them. And he’d enjoyed himself, because yeah, sex felt fucking good, but at the end of each affair, he hadn’t been able to shake the way his stomach clenched with the deep-seated disgust and oily squeeze of guilt.

Guilt, because he’d felt like he’d betrayed her, which was ridiculous considering she wasn’t his even if he’d always been hers; even if he knew, deep in his soul, that he always would be.

-----

A few nights later, he was out grabbing dinner on campus with Mitsuri and Obanai, the two lovebirds happily holding hands the entire evening, when they passed Shinobu crossing the green, ignoring her roommate’s kind greeting.

Though, Sanemi reasoned, she’d likely been trying to avoid having to make eye contact with them, so as to conceal her new black eye. While Sanemi would never raise a hand to a woman himself, that hadn’t stopped him from feeling a small bit of satisfaction at the memory of Makio stalking right up to the petite pharmacology student and nailing her square in the face.

In retrospect, Sanemi didn’t know if it was fair to blame Shinobu for Douma’s actions, but it was clear Makio did. Given the general iciness of the group toward the young woman who’d garnered a reputation for dealing Wisteria around campus, it seemed as though the others did, too.

He’d decided to withhold his feelings towards Y/N’s roommate until she, herself, indicated how she wanted to approach their friendship. It was her call to make, given that she was the one who’d been the target of Douma’s retribution.

Not that Sanemi would know of Y/N’s thoughts on the matter anytime soon; they hadn’t spoken since that morning in his kitchen, and she’d not returned any of his texts or calls in the days since the incident at the party. He knew she likely needed her space, so after the third straight day of no response, he resolved to give it to her.

It was hard to accept her radio silence, because it sent him right back to that feeling he’d had last year when he’d been urgently trying to find her after he’d learned her mother had died, and he feared she would disappear yet again. However, the group was set to go to Tengen’s family’s lake house that weekend for one last summer hoorah before classes began once more, and Kyojuro had already confirmed that Y/N was planning on going.

All of them were, except for Shinobu and Giyuu, according to Mitsuri that night as they ate too-greasy food at their campus grill. The pinkette sheepishly admitted she’d spoken with her roommate the night prior, and both agreed it was probably for the best that she stay behind, especially since Y/N was going. The pair of friends, though they lived together, hadn’t spoken since the Douma incident, either. Giyuu wouldn’t have gone without Shinobu anyways, but he was already out of town visiting his sister and her new husband.

So, Sanemi was left to anxiously anticipate the upcoming weekend. The thought of being at the Uzui lake house with Y/N filled him with both longing and dread, especially because he simply did not know the extent of the harm she’d suffered at the hands of Douma.

He’d known that she and Kyo had talked and worked things out – but Sanemi knew his friend wouldn’t divulge details without her permission, so Sanemi hadn’t tried to ask, wanting to respect both of his best friends’ boundaries.

The not knowing, however, was slowly eating him alive; he’d wanted to kill Douma that night, and truthfully, he thought he still might, if the opportunity presented itself.

Not that he was one to claim moral superiority over the bastard; not when he’d spent the better part of the last two years as one of the direct causes of Y/N’s emotional pain.

-----

“It’s Mrs. Y/L/N – she … she died. Last week. The funeral was yesterday.”

-----

Kyojuro’s words split Sanemi’s heart clean in half. There had only been one other time in Sanemi’s life when he’d felt the earth beneath his feet split open and swallow him whole, and that had been when his foster mother called him to tell him his little brother was lying in a morgue with a bullet hole in his chest.

But Sanemi found himself free-falling back into the earth’s molten center, and he couldn’t help but think he deserved to burn away inside its fire, because he’d failed yet again to be there for someone he loved.

Tears burned in his eyes as memories of Y/N’s mother flashed vividly through his mind, a slideshow of kindness and love that he’d been so grateful to receive from the young mother in the wake of his parents’ deaths.

For the first few weeks following the Shinazugawa boys’ discharge from the hospital, Mrs. Y/L/N had been a stand-in mother to them both, and they’d clung to her like dew on grass, craving her motherly comfort and assurance in the wake of the violent collision which had killed most of their family.

She’d been the one to apply ointment on his and Genya’s scars every night, her hands so warm and gentle to make up for the light sting of the medicated salve as she dabbed it delicately against their skin. She’d been the one to make their bag lunches for school, always making sure to pack extra for his younger brother, who never seemed to be full no matter how much he ate.

And now, she was gone. And he hadn’t even known she was ill.

That night, Sanemi sat on the floor of his shower and cried.

He cried, because his still-mending heart had been re-broken with the news of the death of the closest thing he’d had to a second mother.

He cried, because he’d failed to be there for someone he loved yet again, and Y/N had shouldered the death of her mother and the burden of planning a funeral without her two childhood best friends to lean on, and that wasn’t fair.

But even through his tears, Sanemi felt his resolve harden. He’d failed to be there for his brother when he needed him most; he’d failed to be a decent friend to Kyojuro, in the months following the younger boy’s death as he reeled from the pain of the loss. But he would not fail again; he swore he would find her and be there for her going forward. He would track her down, and he knew she might curse at and rebel against any offer of help, but he wouldn’t balk; he’d do anything, be anything for her, if it meant ensuring she wouldn’t fall into the infinite void of despair and grief that he had.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d prove himself worthy of being her friend once more.

-----

The Uzui family’s summer house was a sprawling manor that abutted a pristine, turquoise lagoon of a private lake, complete with a secluded beach area and a large section quartered off for bonfires, should the group of college-aged guests decide they were sober enough to light it.

The house itself was three levels, with a basement and a half-loft. The considerable size of the estate meant, plus the fact that several of them would be sharing rooms with their partners – Hinatsuru, Makio and Suma all sharing one with Tengen, and Obanai and Mitsuri sharing another – meant that Kyojuro, Sanemi, and Y/N each got their own private guest room.

Sanemi had no interest in being anywhere near the room with Tengen and his three, equally loud partners once they all retired for bed later that evening, and so, he’d claimed the room on the first floor, located just down the hall from the grand kitchen, decked out in new, state-of-the-art stainless-steel appliances and marbled countertops. Kyojuro and Y/N had both taken separate rooms on the second floor, apparently sure they wouldn’t be bothered by the sounds that were sure to emanate from their host’s room until the wee hours of the morning.

They’d arrived only an hour earlier, barely setting down their bags before everyone began to change into their swimsuits to head for the sun-warmed water before nightfall, the girls eager to work on their tans. Now, as Sanemi strolled alongside the sandy shore of the lake, only Y/N remained on land, lounging out on one of the luxurious beach chairs the Uzuis had installed in a finished seating area about fifty feet from where he stood, gazing out at the group’s newest couple as they splashed in the water.

A pang of jealousy reverberated through his chest as Sanemi watched Y/N’s pink best friend giggle in the arms of her new boyfriend as he swung her around in the shallow of the lake.

Ever since Obanai had finally confessed his feelings – and his fears – to Mitsuri, the two of them had been joined at the hip, the dark-haired boy's eyes perpetually clouded in bliss every time the vibrant girl fluttered her eyelashes at him or pressed against him to whisper softly in his ear before kissing his cheek.

-----

“If you can’t be honest with her, you’re going to lose her,” Sanemi said quietly as the two men stood at the bar, both nursing sodas as they watched the objects of their heart’s desire dance wildly and carefree on the Kizuki dance floor.

Obanai looked over at him, his eyes full of the kind of pain that he’d come to know far too well over the last few years. “Maybe it’s for the best,” he said quietly. “I’m not good enough for her – I don’t want to hurt her.”

Sanemi felt like he was talking to a mirror. “You’re already hurting her,” he took a sip of his ginger ale, though he hardly tasted it. “Cause you’re breaking her heart by staying away.”

The tortured boy’s misery was palpable as he looked back to where Mitsuri danced, lively and carefree.

“You’ll regret it as long as you live if you don’t tell her now.” In his mind, he saw only Y/N’s face as she transformed from the smiling girl of his memory to the cold, numb woman of his present. “Trust me.”

-----

He was happy for them, truly; but he couldn’t deny feeling a little jealous of the couple. After all, they both got to be with the person they loved.

Sanemi knew he had no one to blame but himself, but still; he wished he hadn’t fucked it all up with Y/N.

When Sanemi discovered the speckle of blood on his sheets the morning after he’d first brought Y/N home, he’d barely made it to his bathroom before throwing up.

It was too grotesque – the thought that the Wisteria had made him lose control so badly that he’d made Y/N bleed was too much for him to bear.

But the reality had been far worse than a simple case of lost control under the influence of an experimental drug and alcohol.

Far, far worse.

-----

(Three weeks earlier)

“Oh please, we all fuck each other here,” Mitsuri laughed, and Sanemi rolled his eyes.

The pretty, bubbly girl was unshaken by Sanemi’s terse rejection of her offer to join her and Obanai in the back of Tengen’s Volkswagen van for a “good time.” Though, whether her unflappability was from the drink she nursed in her hand or from an unshakeable confidence, developed over a lifetime of being beautiful and adored, he couldn’t say.

“Well, actually,” the pinkette chewed on her lip for a moment, in thought. “I guess that’s not totally true. Y/N didn’t sleep with anyone until you, Shinazugawa.”

Sanemi’s hand, which had been reaching for his plastic cup full of water, froze mid-air.

“What.” His voice was hard, monotone.

The pink-haired girl was oblivious as she laughed. “Yeah, that’s why Makio called you ‘The Cherry Popper,’ that one night - since, y’know, you were Y/N’s first.”

Sanemi felt his vision tunnel, his heartbeat loud in his ears as it thudded uncomfortably against his chest. Something pressed against his lungs, making it difficult for him to breathe as the weight of Mitsuri’s confession settled over him.

All this time, he thought he’d simply been too rough with Y/N, under the influence of that cursed Wisteria.

But this was worse.

He’d assumed Y/N had already lost her virginity when they slept together. She’d had no hesitance in stripping him of his clothes, had begged him to go hard, and fast.

But now, as Sanemi’s breath came rough, he’d wondered if he’d misinterpreted her screams of pleasure — had they been cries of discomfort?’

Or her nails digging into his back — he’d assumed they were to spur him on, to beg him to go faster, but what if she’d been clawing at him to slow down? To stop?

If he’d known, he’d never would’ve done it — not like that, not when he was so blitzed out of his mind that he couldn’t make sure she received the kindness and gentleness she deserved.

It should’ve been special; she should have known how special she was to him. Instead, he’d fucked her no differently than any other hookup he’d had.

Was he no better than his father?

He’d been so elated that she’d responded to his kiss with enthusiasm, that admittedly, he’d lost his ability to reason. He’d pined for her for so long — years really — that the moment her lips had met his, all rational thought had flown from his head. And his heart had nearly stopped in his chest when she insisted that they keep going, when she’d laid back against his sheets and told him she needed him.

He’d hoped she would’ve felt some of the happiness he had, when she awoke the following morning; he’d hoped that he’d be able to make her breakfast, and then the two of them could talk and he could apologize for every stupid thing he’d done over the last two years. Maybe she would’ve forgiven him. But he’d gone and fucked that all up.

Because when he awoke, all that was left of her was her blood on his sheets.

-----

(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N watched her friends sprint into the shallow of the turquoise lake with a small bit of envy. She wanted, so very badly, to join them, but she’d miscalculated the coverage that her swimsuit afforded her, and to her horror, she’d realized that the mark Douma’d left on her would be on full display the moment she removed the oversized button-down she’d used as a cover-up.

“Y/N! C’mon!” Mitsuri entreated her as her head popped back up from under the surface of the water, her hair tinged a dark pink from the water.

Absentmindedly, her hand raised to the spot where Douma had soiled her and rubbed, the slight pain from her stimulation of the still-healing wound forcing her to remain in the present instead of back in that blasted, dark bedroom.

“I think I’ll work on my tan for now!” Y/N called back, plastering a wide, fake smile on her face to assuage any worry. Not that she needed to, because before Mitsuri could question her further, Obanai snuck up from beneath her and raised her out of the water on his shoulders, the pinkette laugh-screaming as she flailed about to keep herself upright.

A crunch of gravel next to her caused her to tense, because she knew that all of her other friends were accounted for, splashing about in the serene crystal of the lake.

All of them, except for him.

Sanemi said nothing to her as he drew up next to her, though he maintained a respectful distance. He too, watched their friends laugh and play in the water for a moment, his hands shoved in the pockets of his red swim trunks.

Y/N tried to be sneaky as she allowed her eyes to roam the sculpted plains of his exposed torso, marveling at the muscle that seemed to be carved from stone. Since the summer, he’d gained a bit of a tan, his skin now a lustrous nutty gold, that, against the white blonde of his hair, created an attractive contrast that made her mouth water.

God, he was beautiful; it pissed her off.

The tension between them was electric, as neither wanted to be the first to break the silence growing ever louder between them.

“No one will stare, y’know,” Sanemi caved first, though he did not tear his eyes away from where they were fixed resolutely on the horizon beyond the lake. “They all want you to feel comfortable, so they won’t look.”

Y/N was about to snippily ask him why he was butting in on her business, even though her irritation was because he’d read her mood so easily – too damn easily, for that matter. She tilted her head up, readying her venom, but before she could bite, the words died on her tongue.

Sanemi’s tan hadn’t been able to obscure the scars of varying lengths and thickness which crossed his chest, forearms, and half of his face; if anything, his sun-kissed skin only made the silvery, jagged slashes stand out.

As she’d looked up at her former friend, she was reminded that he knew exactly how she felt at that moment – had felt that insecurity, every day, since they were eleven and a drunk driver had slammed into his parent’s station wagon, killing everyone but him and Genya.

I don’t care if you have scars! She’d told him, once. I’ve always thought you were…were..pretty!

She winced at the memory, but painful and intrusive though it was, she still couldn’t find it within her to throw his attempt at reassurance back in his face. Y/N’s heart might have been a lowly, misshapen, shriveled lump, but she still had one.

And besides, she wouldn’t lie to herself; his words had soothed some of her anxieties, damn him.

“Thanks,” she said softly, and she gave him a small, tentative half-smile. She hated the look of hope that flickered to life in his eyes at the sight.

She hated the guilt that sunk into her gut even more.

-----

It was late and she was restless.

Most of the house had already retired for the night; Tengen had disappeared with his three girls, and Obanai and Mitsuri had snuck away back to her guest room, giggling softly, as the pair had been unable to keep their wandering, eager hands to themselves.

Y/N stayed up a little longer with Kyojuro, laughing and talking about everything and nothing as Sanemi lingered awkwardly by the shore of the sprawling lake that sat before the Uzui family’s handsome summer home. By the time Kyojuro had yawned, the moon hung high in the sky, and even the chirping night cicadas had long fallen silent.

She’d hoped that returning to her own guest room – located on second floor of the Uzui home – would trick her brain into thinking she too, was tired; but hours later, she’d realized, grimly, that she’d not be enjoying such luck.

And so, she’d found herself braced over the pristine kitchen sink in the Uzuis’ kitchen, unable to shake the incessant nag of sleeplessness that prickled under her skin.She’d thought herself alone, until a noise over by the entryway caught her attention, her eyes flashing over to see who’d joined her in her restlessness.

Y/N’s stomach roiled at the sight of Sanemi standing there, shifting his weight from foot to foot, as though he too, would rather be anywhere but there at that moment.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Y/N shook her head, busying herself with dumping out her water glass and rinsing it out. “Neither could I, I guess.” An awkward pause ensued, only disrupted by the squeak of the faucet as Y/N wrenched it off to towel off her drinking glass.

“I tried calling you – last week,” Sanemi said carefully, leaning against the door jam, his arms folding loosely across his chest. “But I never got an answer.”

Y/N chewed on her lip, wincing slightly. She didn't want to admit that she hadn’t really returned anyone’s calls, but that was because she’d spent the majority of the week hunched over her toilet, alternating between dripping with sweat and half-freezing to death as she weathered through the brutal withdrawal from Wisteria.

She wasn’t ashamed per se – but admitting she’d gone through withdrawal meant admitting that she’d become reliant enough on it to have a physical reaction to cutting herself off from it, and that meant admitting she was weak.

“I was…dealing with a lot,” she decided after a moment. She realized that she was oddly grateful that Douma’s assault on her had been the catalyst for her stopping her Wisteria misuse, given that it gave her away around talking about the pitiful way she’d spent the last seven days.

Besides, it wasn’t like it was a lie; between puking her guts out, she’d spent a lot of time replaying the events that had led her to Douma’s bedroom, terrified and crying.

“A-and are you – you okay?” He stuttered, fidgeting with the drawstring of his sleep pants, twisting it nervously around his finger.

Y/N exhaled but gave him a half-smile that was almost genuine. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Sanemi continued to shift nervously in the door, as though he wanted to ask her something else, but was warring with whether he should.

Ultimately, he decided to risk it. “Did he -“ Sanemi’s eyes screwed shut, and when he opened them again, he was fixed on a point over her shoulder, as though the question on his tongue was too much for him to risk meeting her eyes.

“Did he… hurt you,” Sanemi hesitated, his voice quieting to a whisper so soft, Y/N had to strain to hear it. “In a way I can’t see?”

Y/N’s eyes widened, her gaze softening as the weight of his question settled. “No, Sanemi, he didn’t. I promise.”

Her hand jumped absentmindedly to the faded mark where Douma had bit her and rubbed. “He wanted to, that much was clear, but Hakuji…Hakuji came just in time.”

Sanemi’s shoulders curled inward as he relaxed, and to Y/N’s heartache, she saw him nearly shaking under the weight of his unshed tears. “I’m sorry — I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

Y/N’s eyes hardened, and she let out a sardonic laugh. “That’s what you’re sorry for?”

She shook her head. “Why in the world would you have expected to have been there, Sanemi? You weren’t there any other time I needed you.”

“That’s not-“

“Too bad that’s the only thing you’re apologizing for,” Y/N sighed. “If only you would be sorry for the pain you’ve caused me, not for someone else hurting me.”

Sanemi’s gaze was hard, if not a little weary as he considered her words. “Okay Y/N, you’re right. It’s past time for us to do this,” he walked to the door that led out to the patio area, a little away from the house. He looked back to her, and in response to the eyebrow she had raised in question, he exhaled. “We’ve gotta have it out.”

Y/N did not move from her spot, standing with her back to the stovetop burners, merely crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him, her hip jutting out. “I’m not going anywhere. If you want to do this, we can do it right here.”

“Fine,” Sanemi bit, voice stony as he folded his arms across his chest, matching her stance. “Then go ahead.”

Y/N merely raised an eyebrow at him, keeping her mouth clamped tightly shut. She refused to let him order her around, to let him goad her into being vulnerable after two years of nothing from him.

Sanemi watched her expectantly for a moment before sighing. “I guess I’ll start,” and he rubbed at his tired eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me it was your first time? That night?”

To Y/N’s shock, Sanemi looked genuinely upset, and she despised the way it made her ache. For all her attempts to keep him forever at arm’s length despite her need for him, the first sign of his pain was enough to make her want to fall to her knees.

But she kept her face neutral, disinterested. “Why does it matter?”

“Because I-,” Sanemi hesitated, his fingers curling against his palms, hands forming fists. “You should’ve told me.”

This conversation was nearly impossible to have sober, and for a brief moment, Y/N craved the sweet oblivion of flashing neon lights and pounding music and purple pills.

“It was none of your business,” Y/N decided, fingers toying with the ends of her hair as she avoided his gaze. “It was my decision.”

Sanemi opened his mouth as though to argue with her, but she cut him off. “God, this is so like you, isn’t it?”

Her fists clenched, and the anger she’d so carefully kept tucked away inside her began to bubble over. “Is it some weird male possessive thing? You fucked me, so now you think you have some kind of claim to me?”

“I care about you, you idiot, and I thought I’d hurt you,” Sanemi replied hotly. “If I’d’ve known, I wouldn’t have done it at all.”

“It’s not about you caring for me,” Y/N snapped. “Admit it — you feel entitled to me.” You’ve always felt entitled to my affections, ever since we were kids.”

Her leg began to bounce with her irritation. “You’d get huffy if I showed the slightest bit of affection to any other boy — don’t try to deny it. You’d cross your arms and get all broody and it fooled no one.”

Y/N laughed, though it was without humor. “You’re a possessive, jealous asshole, who keeps me around because I stoke your ego. You can’t tell me you never thought, not even once, that I had feelings for you.” Y/N’s eyes burned with angry tears.

“Of course I thought it,” Sanemi shot back. “You think I was that fucking blind?” He cracked his knuckles, an anxious tic he’d had since they were small. “You think I didn’t see the way you looked at me, like I was your goddamn favorite person? How could I ignore that?”

Sanemi shook his head. “Did you ever stop to think, for one moment, that maybe I didn’t say shit because I knew — have always known — that I’m not fuckin’ good enough for you? You’ve always been the smartest out of the three of us, Y/N — but did that thought ever cross that pretty head of yours?”

“That’s such a bullshit fucking reason,” Y/N said, exasperated. “Spare me the ‘I’m not good enough for you’ crap, Sanemi. This isn’t a fucking novel,” Y/N ground her toe into the expensive, stone tile of the Uzui’s kitchen floor in frustration. “Because for all your talk, nothing changes the very simple fact that you cut me off like it was fucking nothing. Like I was nothing.”

Sanemi’s jaw went slack as he gaped at her. “Is that how you remember it?”

-----

“Though, I guess it would’ve been hard to know it was you, anyways.”

-----

(Nine Months Earlier)

As he lazily strolled to his next class, Sanemi’s eyes casually roamed amongst the faces of fellow students as they brushed by him, heading in the opposite direction, when something caught his attention. Or rather, someone.

That someone was a wisp of a person, hunched over and curled into themselves like a wounded animal. From the cursory glance he gave them, Sanemi could see that the student was one, a girl, around his age, and two, looked as though she was about to blow away in the brisk, November wind.

He almost passed her without another thought, when her eyes lifted briefly and collided with his, and Sanemi felt his stomach drop, though he couldn’t explain why. Perhaps the flip in his gut had to do with the deep-set shadows beneath the girl’s glassy eyes, or the heavy hollow of her cheeks, as if she’d not known rest or a decent meal for months.

As quickly as her eyes met his, they lowered again, and the girl brushed past him. Sanemi kept walking for a few steps, content to let all memory of the girl fall into the recesses of his mind.

But her eyes. Something about her eyes made his mind snag, pulled at something in his chest that urged him to stop, turn around, and go back to her.

He stopped; he stopped, in the middle of the crosswalk, though the light was quickly ticking down the seconds he had to finish crossing the busy intersection, because he knew those eyes, even if, to his horror, he hadn’t recognized the face, so worn and thin under the crushing weight of her grief.

He knew those eyes, because he’d spent his entire life loving them.

Sanemi whipped around, eyes frantically scanning the dissipating crowd of students in search of her once more. Though his next class was in the opposite direction, he sprinted back across the street to where she’d been walking, calling her name as he darted in and around scowling students, annoyed at the panic-stricken man calling a name that wasn’t theirs.

He felt the burn of his frustrated and desperate tears begin to sting his eyes as he realized, to his torment, that Y/N had evaded him once more, vanishing like smoke in the wind.

Sanemi felt the familiar howl of crippling, raging despair gathering like a violent sea wave in the midst of a storm within him rearing its ugly head to smash him to bits against the rocky shore of his anguish at the realization that Y/N hadn’t just lost her mother.

She’d been suffering. For months.

And he hadn’t known; hadn’t been there for her to lean on, to make sure that she wasn’t bearing the entirety of the weight of a sick parent by herself, only a nineteen-year-old girl. So stuck in his own grief over Genya he’d been that he hadn’t known the depths of Y/N’s endless distress.

He’d abandoned her, and now, the woman he loved was a shell of her former self; a living ghost, forever out of his reach despite always haunting the corners of his shredded heart.

Any thought of his upcoming class faded from his mind as he began to stumble towards Kyojuro’s apartment, desperate to share the news with someone, anyone, who would understand the depth of his despair, and Sanemi broke down into tears.

-----

“And where have you been hidin’ all this time?”

“I’ve been right here.”

“Nah, you haven’t.”

-----

(Six Months Earlier)

“It’s been months, Sanemi, and we haven’t caught so much as a whisper of her,” Kyojuro’s voice was heavy with resignation as the blonde looked pleadingly at his best friend.

The muscles in Sanemi’s forearms flexed as his grip on his phone tightened while he fiddled with it. “We haven’t looked everywhere – have we tried the Pillars?” Sanemi began searching the address for the nearby apartment complex where over two-thirds of the Ubaya-U upperclassmen student body resided.

Kyojuro shook his head. “The Pillars house over two thousand units – we can’t just start going door to door. We’d look insane.”

But the silver-haired man didn’t reply as his eyes narrowed at his screen. “I’ll bet most of the students are in the same building – most residents don’t wanna put up with a bunch of noisy, drunk college kids.”

Kyojuro only looked at his friend in pity. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be found, Sanemi. Not by us, at least.”

Sanemi finally looked up from his screen and cringed at the docility in his friend’s eyes. “What do you suggest we do, Kyo?” He tossed his phone on his kitchen table in annoyance. “Just give up? D’you really think it’s best to just leave her by herself?”

“You don’t know for certain whether she is alone, though,” Kyojuro countered. “She might’ve found her own group here. Maybe she already has support. Maybe she doesn’t need us anymore.”

Kyojuro’s words hit something soft within him that he hadn’t realized had been left unguarded. For deep down, one of Sanemi’s many fears had always been that Y/N would one day outgrow him, though he’d always maintained that he wouldn’t hold her back should the day come.

But that wasn’t what happened; Sanemi had checked out after Genya’s death, and had only snapped back into reality a few weeks before the news of Mrs. Y/L/N’s passing had reached his ears, threatening to send him back to that dark, lonely island amidst the never-ending sea of his grief.

All he wanted was to make sure Y/N hadn’t been marooned on her own isle. As long as she had someone, then Sanemi could accept that he’d fucked over any chance he’d had of remaining in her life, in any capacity.

But until then…

“We don’t know for sure,” Sanemi said hoarsely, leaning back in his kitchen chair, the worn wood creaking slightly under his weight. “And until we do, I ain’t risking her being left alone to deal with this.”

Kyojuro looked at him with such pity and sorrow that it made him want to squirm. Refusing to meet his friend’s fiery, discerning gaze, Sanemi reached to pluck his phone from the table once more, scrolling through his phone contacts list, scanning the names.

“D’you think she might still be in contact with her old roommate?” He asked though it was more of a rhetorical question, given that he’d already begun drafting a message. “I’ve gotta catch my train here in an hour – but we could always try texting her.”

-----

“D’you really think I didn’t try to find you?”

-----

(Three Months Earlier)

“Three – you’re dating three women?” Sanemi asked, equal parts stunned and impressed.

The suave, silver-haired man nodded, a dreamy grin spreading wide across his handsome face. “Sure am,” Tengen produced a sleek black phone from the pocket of his joggers, and opened his social media profile to search a username. “Suma, Makio, and Hinatsuru. They’re all seniors at Ubaya-U, and roommates.” Tengen wiggled his eyebrows. “Which makes life very convenient for me,”

Sanemi met Kyojuro’s ochre stare as Tengen scrolled, as though waiting for his friend to call bullshit on the young detective’s brag, but the blonde only nodded.

“Hold on, they all went out with a few friends the other night, and I think Suma uploaded a pic with all of ‘em,” Tengen’s eyes narrowed in on what Sanemi assumed was the girl’s profile, scanning. “Aha! Here,” he held his phone out for the two boys to inspect, a proud, smug smile etched into his handsome face.

The photo was of five girls, three of whom Tengen identified as “his girls.” One of the remaining smiles was that which belonged to a girl with curious pink and green hair, wearing what could only be described as rave attire, given that most of her considerable body was exposed, even under the dim light of the club. As for the remaining girl --.

Sanemi’s stomach dropped as he looked closer at the image on Tengen’s phone. For there, sandwiched between the pink girl and one of Tengen’s partners, was the girl who’d held Sanemi’s heart since the day they’d met in preschool.

Y/N.

Only, she didn’t look like herself, not really. The sultry smile she gave the camera didn’t quite reach her eyes, which held that hollow, deadened look of someone who’d long since lost their will to live; who’d long since stopped caring they had.

Sanemi was only able to tear his eyes away from the image of Y/N’s frozen not-smile when Kyojuro pressed his elbow into his gut. He looked back to Tengen, who watched him with an odd expression, and sheepishly, Sanemi realized he’d snatched the phone right from the young detective’s hand.

“Sorry,” he muttered, handing Tengen back his cell. “I’m just surprised. It’s been a minute since we last saw her.”

“Who?” Tengen frowned, looking back at the photo, before recognition lit his eyes. “Oh! You mean Y/L/N? You two know her?”

Sanemi found it difficult to speak, so Kyojuro answered for him. “We grew up together back home. We haven’t really seen or heard from her in a while,”

Tengen hummed disinterestedly, apparently aloof to the way Kyo’s voice had cracked. “I’ve met her a few times – Suma dotes on her.” He smiled as he clicked off his phone, leaning back in the booth. “She’s been over to the girls’ place a few times before, and she seems pretty cool; kind of a party girl, though.”

Sanemi gaped at him, finally finding his voice. “She’s a what?”

Tengen shrugged. “Yeah, one time I met up with their friend group at one of the clubs downtown – the Kizuki Lounge, I think? – anyways, she and Makio decided to have a drink-off, and it ended with my ass having to carry them both out to the car and drive ‘em home.” He chuckled, shaking his head at the memory. “They argued the whole drive back about who won.”

Both Kyojuro and Sanemi sat in dumb silence as the silver-haired man leaned in, his voice lower than it had been. “One of their friends – she wasn’t in that picture just now – but apparently she’s some sort of chemistry whiz. Made a new drug that’s like ecstasy, but lasts longer and has an easier come down.” A conspiratorial smile spread across his face, a devious light in his eyes as he whispered, “The girls swear it helped give them the most intense orgasms of their life. I kinda wanna try it out for myself.”

Tengen leaned back and winked. “Are either of you interested? Even if you don’t want it, you should try hitting up the Kizuki every now and again. Most of Ubaya-U’s student body goes to party there during the summer, and they tend to offer decent deals on drinks.”

Sanemi had frequented bars, but never clubs, and Kyojuro rarely found himself in either. However, if Tengen’s comments about Y/N were to be believed, it was more than likely she was a regular patron of the local joint. She’d managed to evade every other attempt to get in touch with her, but perhaps meeting her on her turf would give him the opening he’d been desperately holding out for.

And Sanemi wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to find out.

He took a swig of his coffee before setting it down, meeting Tengen’s stare evenly, though he fought to conceal the way his hands trembled. “What are you doing this Friday?”

-----

“I looked for you – everywhere, I looked for you.” Sanemi promised, his voice trembling as he pled with her. “Y/N, I knew what you were going through – I know what it’s like --,” his eyes begged her to just listen, but she couldn’t, not when she’d spent so long staying so silent.

“You have no idea!” Y/N burst, and for the first time in two years, she spoke of the night her world had ended, even though for everyone else, it kept spinning.

“I was alone when she died! It was just me in that hospital room,” Her tears flowed in a steady stream down her face, though her voice remained steady and sharp. “I was moving her hand over my hair because I knew I would never again get to feel her stroke my head whenever I was sad or stressed. It was so fucking late, and I was so tired, but I felt something shift, and I looked at her and watched her take her last fucking breath, Sanemi!”

Y/N ‘s hands wrung in her grief. “I had to call the nursing attendant and tell them – even though I could barely speak, I had to tell them my Mama stopped breathing.”  As she spoke, she saw only the image of her mother in that damn bed, still and pale, and her mother but no longer.

“And do you know what happened next? They told me I needed to leave and sign fucking paperwork,” She laughed, derisively, though she only cried harder. “I had to sign fucking release forms and then they just – told me goodnight. I walked to my car. Alone. I drove home. Alone. Without her.”

“I was with you when you found out about Genya – we made sure you weren’t alone! But me? Who was there for me?” Y/N was sobbing into her hands, her shoulders shaking with the weight of all the bitter loneliness she’d been forced to endure over the last two years. “Where were you?”

“Y/N, I get it, I do –,” Sanemi began but Y/N shook her head.

“No, Sanemi, you don’t understand!” Her voice was no longer angry, but pleading, begging him – anyone – to understand just how much she’d been struggling and for how long. “Every night when I close my eyes, I see her, lying there. I hear the beep of her oxygen monitor going haywire because she wasn’t breathing, and I see her take her final breath. Every night, over and over, and I just want it to stop.”

Y/N slumped back against the kitchen counter, exhausted and defeated. “You asked me where I’ve been the last two years, and you were right – I haven’t been here; because I’m still there –in that hospital room. I never left.”

Her sobs finally quieted beneath the press of her hand to her mouth as she tried to stifle the hysterical way her breath struggled to catch. “And I don’t think I will ever leave. It’s been two years, Sanemi, and I’m still sitting there, right where I lost everything.”

“So yeah, I was desperate for an escape. Because, that next day, I woke up, and for some reason, morning, still came, even though my Mom would never again see another sunrise, and even though my world had been obliterated,” Y/N’s voice quieted to a near whisper, her voice hoarse from her tears. “And everybody else just moved on. I wanted to pretend that I had, too, even if only for a little while.”

“I was alone,” Y/N cried softly into her hands. “I’m still alone.”

When Sanemi spoke, his voice was rough and cracked. “I know I left you alone then,” but for some reason, his validation didn’t soothe her the way it had with Kyojuro. “But you’re not alone now – I tried, so hard, Y/N, to find you and make sure you were okay, and I failed,” His eyes shone with his own unshed tears. “I refuse to leave you alone, now. I know that probably pisses you off, but I can’t – I can’t leave you, not when I know --,”

“It’s too late,” Y/N interjected, lifting her head up to meet his eyes. “You can’t just waltz back into my life and decide you care now, not after all this time.”

“It was never about me not caring,” Sanemi sat down in the seat opposite from her, his head braced between his hands as his fingers tugged at his hair in frustration. “I don’t get why you can’t understand that.”

She gaped at him. “You stopped talking to me because I said I was in love with you – I fully understand that it was piss-poor fucking timing on my part, but you tossed me aside like garbage.”

Sanemi’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. “You think that’s why I stopped talking to you?” And suddenly, devastation pulled at his face as his shoulders sagged. “Y/N – that was never the reason --,”

“What other reason was there, Sanemi?” Her tears had dried, but the gnawing ache in her chest only deepened at the look of his despair, because, angry as she was with him, she would never wish him to be in as much pain as he appeared to be in right then. “Even if you weren’t really that angry, it doesn’t change the fact that you stopped speaking to me because of it,”

“Y/N – that’s not –,” Sanemi began, but Y/N wanted no part of it, and she could tell they were only gearing up for another fight. She opened her mouth, ready to unleash all of her acidic, biting remarks about how comfortable Sanemi had been to use her, knowing that she was probably still in love with him, when he spoke once more.

“You aren’t the only one who has been grieving.” Sanemi’s words hit her with a force that knocked the breath from her lungs, and the fight from her blood.

“I lost the last person I could call ‘family,’ too, Y/N.” Sanemi spoke with a brokenness that she knew only she recognized as grief – boundless and all-consuming. “I failed as your friend, that’s true,” Sanemi’s voice quieted to a whisper. “But I failed as a brother, first.”

-----

(November, 2 months after Genya’s death)

Sanemi laughed as the enraged bar patron’s fist slammed into his nose. The blow wasn’t hard enough to break the bone, given his intoxication, but it was enough for Sanemi to taste the blood as it dripped into his mouth.

“You’re fucking crazy,” the man spat, stumbling slightly.

Sanemi’s grin only widened. “I bet your wife would like some crazy in her life. You look as dull as a sack of shi-,” his taunt was cut off as the man landed another sharp to his gut, the breath wheezing out of him as Sanemi felt something inside him crack.

Probably another rib, he groused, gritting his teeth slightly. Just down the darkened alley, Sanemi could see people slowing down, watching as the balding drunkard threw lazy and disjointed punches at the bloodied, laughing man, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the cops were called. And Sanemi, to his annoyance, had promised Kyojuro he would try to stop needing the blonde to bail his ass out of jail every other week. He hadn’t known why he’d made such an inane promise to his best friend in the first place; it wasn’t as if he mattered.

Because the days following Genya’s death had blurred into weeks, which bled into months. For Sanemi, life became marked by the amount of time that had passed since he’d become the only Shinazugawa left on earth.

Since he’d last been someone’s brother.

Two days. Twenty-three. A month. Four months. Nine. A year.

Life post-Genya was a series of blurs; droplets of water on a page that smeared ink into something vaguely recognizable, but ultimately rendered useless.

Just like him.

For so long, his identity had revolved around being Genya’s big brother — his Aniki, as the boy had affectionately called him.

Could one still be an older sibling when they had no sibling left?

Genya had been Sanemi’s pride and joy. He’d been eager to get settled into college, to get his own place so Genya wouldn’t have to share a bunk bed with other kids the state had squeezed into their foster home. He’d lined up jobs to ensure he could buy Genya whatever food he wanted, whenever he wanted it, because Genya was always hungry, and their foster parents had never seemed to have enough to go around.

But then, Genya had wound up dead, and Sanemi hadn’t even been there to protect him. What kind of big brother was he, if he couldn’t even be counted on to be there when his little brother needed him the most?

He didn’t even get to say goodbye. He’d left his brother only a couple of weeks prior, with a promise to come and visit him as soon as he could. Genya had tried his hardest to stifle his tears, but despite his brother’s somewhat hardened appearance, thanks to the scar that cut across his face, Sanemi knew Genya was a sensitive boy, prone to wearing his heart on his sleeve. So the elder Shinazugawa had pulled his brother in tight, ruffled his hair, and told him he’d see him soon.

It had been a lie; the next time Sanemi saw Genya, the fourteen-year-old was a body on a metal table, awaiting Sanemi’s approval to be sent to a funeral home for burial preparations.

And so, the days passed in one, monotonous, never-ending cycle. Wake up; stare at the ceiling; force himself to eat, shower, and go to class. Then, Sanemi would grab his fake ID, head to a bar, take a few shots of some burning, acidic liquid, and then identify the meanest, biggest thug in the joint and pick a fight. He’d let himself get beaten to a bloody pulp and then he’d limp his way home, barely making it to his bed before passing out in the sweet stupefaction of oblivion.

Occasionally, he’d wonder why on earth he was the one who was left alive; why fate had demanded Genya’s life and not his, because Genya had so much more to offer the world than he did.

After all, Genya hadn’t even picked the fight between the two boys from their old foster home, and he’d still ended up dead.

The time never seemed to stop even though his little brother’s heart had; and with each passing day, Sanemi felt himself growing number and number. As the pulsing ache between Sanemi’s ribs dulled, he mused that, with every moment that passed, he was growing closer to becoming just like the little brother who now slept six feet under the frozen ground of the cemetery plot that also now housed their parents and other siblings.

Nothing more than a corpse.

If only it had been him.

It should have been him.

-----

“After Genya died I —,” Sanemi hesitated. “I wasn’t a good person, Y/N. You didn’t need to see me like that.” He ran a hand down his face, his weariness a heavy shadow beneath his eyes. “I’m honestly surprised Kyo stuck through it as long as he did.”

“I fucked up, I know that.” He admitted, his eyes shining with his own unshed tears. “I was an asshole to you, and I could’ve done more,”

Sanemi’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But I needed you, too. And you vanished. You told me you loved me and then you vanished. And it was like losing another person I loved all over again, and I’d barely started mourning Genya.”

Y/N felt her stomach drop to the floor and her vision tunnel. The weight of Sanemi’s words slammed into her with cataclysmic force, and she shot out a steadying hand against the counter to keep her knees from buckling.

She remembered now, the point at which she’d fucked it all up; and he was right.

Y/N had felt abandoned by her friends, but she’d forgotten that it was she who distanced herself from Sanemi first; that she’d done so to protect her own stupid pride and heartache after his apparent rejection of her love. She’d evaded him first, because she’d assumed that was what he wanted, even though he’d tried texting her once. She’d neglected to consider that perhaps, his ignorance of her hadn’t anything to do with his anger that she’d dared to confess; that perhaps, his neglect of her had been part of a general disconnect from the world, in the wake of it taking yet another person he loved away.

At the time, Y/N hadn’t understood what it meant to grieve; hadn’t been able to comprehend the ways in which it could engulf someone like a wildfire before they could ever see the smoke.  

He’s dealing with a lot right now, Kyojuro had told her, sternly. But perhaps Kyojuro’s admonition hadn’t been that at all; perhaps it had been a tired, desperate effort to remind her that Sanemi’s introversion from the world had nothing to do with her at all.

“I’m sorry,” Y/N gasped, her hands shaking. “I didn’t realize – I just knew I felt alone. All I wanted was you, Sanemi. I didn’t care how. I just wanted my friend.” This time, Y/N did not try and steady her voice as the tears welled up in her eyes. “I needed you — I needed my ‘Nemi. But you weren’t there – I-I didn’t think-,”

“I promise you, I wanted to make it right. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did at the train station,” Sanemi gave a great sniff, lifting his head to meet her eyes. “When I snapped out of it, I tried so hard to find you by then, it was too late; you were gone,” His tears fell fast and hot down his face. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Y/N.”

“I failed you; I know that --,”

But the girl shook her head, collapsing back against the kitchen counter. “We failed each other.” She wiped her cheeks, her arms winding tight around her middle as she tried to hold herself together even though the weight of the words that followed threatened to tear her apart at the seam for good. “And I don’t know how to fix this – how to fix us.”

Sanemi leaned back against the table, opposite her. “Maybe we can’t…maybe we can never go back to the way things were.”

Even as he said it, Y/N’s heart seized. She knew he was right, but she wanted so very badly to believe he was wrong; wanted to believe there was still a them to salvage.

“That doesn’t change how I feel about us,” Sanemi continued. “And that doesn’t mean we can't try to make something new.”

His words, so brutally honest and yet hopeful, tugged at the bleeding, mangled pieces of her heart. For the first time since they’d reunited, Y/N felt as though she could finally see him – all of him – and he broke her heart, and not for the reasons she thought he had before. The remnants of her heart ached for him because he looked just as broken and lost as she was, and she realized that perhaps, they hadn’t meant to hurt one another. Perhaps, they’d both been merely victims of their own grief.

All Y/N knew was that she was tired, so very tired of running from him, especially when he’d always been inevitable. And she wanted, more than anything, to ease some of the burden that she’d failed to notice he’d been struggling to carry, too consumed by her own grief and pain and rage.

Sanemi’s stare was weary as she slid off the counter and approached him timidly, hesitating just once before winding her arms around his neck and kissing him, gently.

She kissed him because she did not know what else she could do at that moment. There were no words she could say, no promises she could offer him, other than this small act of physical comfort.

Sanemi kissed her back, soft, though the hand on her face felt more like an effort to restrain himself from going any further. Y/N’s suspicions were confirmed when he broke away from her lips, panting slightly, and moved when she tried to reconnect them.

He pressed his forehead against hers. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he murmured, apologetically. “We’re both all worked up.”

Y/N opened her eyes and peered up at him, nodding. He was right; of course, he was right, but his rejection stung anyways.

He must have sensed it, for he pressed his lips tightly against her forehead, his thumb stroking her cheek. “Let’s just take some time, okay?”

Her lips trembled with the effort to keep herself from crying once more, but she nodded, nonetheless. Briefly, Sanemi’s lips brushed her forehead once more, before he pulled away, and silently retreated to his bedroom, leaving Y/N in the dim light of the kitchen.

-----

The next day and a half passed without event, and Y/N was grateful for it. She’d managed to smile and laugh with Mitsuri and Kyojuro, and goofed around with Tengen’s beautiful girlfriends, but her heart remained heavy in her chest.

Though, it wasn’t an unwelcome weight, even if it made her uncomfortable at times. The fallout from hers and Sanemi’s talk two nights earlier had been both the final knife to her blackening heart and its bandage, and she’d been left to work through the complex tapestry of her feelings towards the man who’d held her heart before she’d even known she’d given it to him.

Such thoughts, however, had not quieted. It was just after midnight when Y/N gave up on trying to sleep. The house was too large and too quiet, and it made the thoughts in her head all the louder and sleep all the more evasive.

With a sigh, she kicked free of her blankets and rose, padding out of her temporary bedroom and into the dark, silent hall of the Uzui lake house. Trust that Tengen, of all people, would come from a family that not only had a summer house, but one large enough that each of her friends had been afforded their own private bedroom for their short weekend.

Clad in only a pair of black boy-shorts and a matching, cropped tank, Y/N clandestinely made her way down towards the large staircase which led to the first floor, but paused before beginning her descent, as she remembered that Sanemi’s room was on the first floor – just before the kitchen.

He’d wanted space, and she’d given it to him. Over the last two days, the pair hardly spoke to one another except for, when necessary, by virtue of the group’s activities under the sun. It hadn’t been out of any malice or anger, not like before. Rather, it seemed that their mutual avoidance of one another had been born out of a curious shyness that had bloomed between them, as both worked through the snarled tangles of their hearts.

If she went to the kitchen, as planned, there was a chance she’d wake him, and even if every fiber of her body missed him, the last thing she wanted was to be the cause of his loss of sleep – at least, more so than she’d apparently already had been.

On the other hand, she was thirsty, and there was a restlessness buzzing beneath her skin that would not quiet, that hadn’t quieted since she’d given up those treacherous lilac pills.

Y/N decided to take her chances, resolving not to turn on any of the stair lights or the light in the kitchen, instead navigating only by the dim light of her phone as she eased her way down the polished wood stairs. She held her breath as she slipped past the door that led to Sanemi’s room, as though the very sound would risk disturbing the handsome man slumbering within.

Once in the kitchen, Y/N blindly felt around for the cupboard containing sparkling glasses and managed to fill one with water without making a great deal of sound. Using the light of her phone screen, she managed to hop up onto the cool, marbled countertop and leaned back against the cabinets as she nursed her drink.

For the last two nights, sleep had evaded Y/N because of the way Sanemi’s words had played, over and over her head, a never-ending tape that showcased her own selfishness on a loop.

You aren’t the only one who has been grieving, he’d told her, brokenly.

He was right, and she was horrible.

For as long as she could remember, Y/N had always feared being selfish. She didn’t know where the deep-seated aversion to looking after he own self-interest had come from, but it was one that was so deeply ingrained within her that she’d long since stopped trying to overcome it. Instead, she’d found herself always trying to do the best for other people, desperately trying not to put herself over her loved ones, for fear they would leave her the instant she did.

When she’d found out her mother was going to die, she’d been left by the doctor to break the devastating news as her beloved mother lay in that hospital bed, fighting so hard to keep her oxygen levels up so that she could get out. Her mother had been asking Y/N to describe all of the autumnal decorations she’d seen go up in town, as though the prospect of seeing fake leaf garlands and pumpkins would be enough to make her lungs work properly once more.

For as long as she lived, she would never forget the broken disbelief in her mother’s eyes as Y/N had tearfully told her she would not live to see the end of the week.

“I thought I had more time,” her mother had wheezed, brokenly, clasping Y/N’s hand as tightly as she could with her dwindling strength.

She’d looked so scared, so lost, and what had Y/N done?

Y/N had cried; sobbed and had been utterly unable to stop. Her mother had needed comfort, and she hadn’t been able to toughen up and stop crying.

I’m sorry, Mama, she’d bawled, I can’t stop crying, I’m so sorry.

Her mother, with tears in her own eyes, had only shaken her head. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

As though it were her fault she was dying; as though Y/N didn’t know that if death were a matter of will, her mother would be here, on earth, with her still.  

In her mother’s most desperate moment, Y/N had been utterly incapable of providing comfort, instead needing to be comforted, like the child she’d been. It was despicable; she was despicable.

To her horror, she’d been nothing but selfish. So, so very selfish, for being unable to check her emotions when it mattered most. And her mother had barely been conscious after that final conversation, which meant Y/N hadn’t been able to apologize for making her mother comfort her in her hour of greatest need. But Y/N had added that great regret to the list of things that would likely haunt her for the rest of her life, hopeful that maybe its presence on her list of regret would serve as a warning for her in the future.

It hadn’t; because Y/N had fallen right back into the sticky trap of her own selfishness and had failed to account for all the ways in which Sanemi had been suffering, right alongside her.

Worse, she’d relished his suffering because she’d thought she’d been the cause of it, and it had felt so damn good to finally get him back for the two years of hell she’d endured, never realizing that he’d been burning, too.

They’d been victims of a shitty hand dealt to them both, but too young and too stupid to be able to see the world outside of their own heads. And now, she had no idea where things stood between them.

Deep in thought, Y/N did not sense the shift in the air that signaled another was stirring until the kitchen light flipped on, and Y/N’s head shot up to see the person she’d most wanted to both see and avoid.

Sanemi looked just as surprised to see her, perched on the kitchen counter. His hand still lingered on the light switch, and his eyes were wide. He seemed to realize he’d been staring, and he quickly looked down to his feet, the faintest trace of red crossing his cheeks.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Y/N huffed a watery chuckle, wiping quickly at the tears that clung to her cheeks. “Neither could I – just a little restless, I guess.”

There was so much she wanted to say, and yet, she couldn’t think of a single word to speak, as he continued to hover by the light switch, uncertainty turning his muscles rigid. An awkward silence ensued as Y/N gave a great sniff and tried, but failed, to fake an ‘everything is fine’ smile.

Not that she would’ve been able to fool him anyway, but still, she mused, it would’ve been nice to try.

“I’m sorry – I’ll go back to my room,” She put her water glass down by her side and braced her hands against the edge of the counter to hop down, but remembered that she was still only in her underwear. It was foolish, she knew, to feel suddenly self-conscious being so exposed in front of him, given that Sanemi had spent the entire summer exploring every nook and cranny of her body with his mouth and hands, but the emotions of the weekend still weighed heavily on her – made her feel vulnerable.

Especially under the microscope of his burning stare.

Sanemi didn’t respond, nor did he comment on her failure to move off the counter. Instead, he only continued to watch her as she wiped at her cheeks, that fathomless heat and longing and hurt in his stare.

“I’ve always hated seeing you cry,” he finally murmured, and Y/N was surprised to see that he had inched closer to where she sat, perched on the kitchen counter.

A door was opening, and Y/N found herself wondering if she should walk through it or remain here, where the line between them was tenuous, but a line nonetheless; safe, and capable of being enforced, if she needed to run.

Y/N recalled a conversation they’d had about Mitsuri and Obanai before the pair had begun dating – back when they, too, had been chained to their own doubts of the other’s sincerity.

They should let themselves try, he’d quietly insisted.

She’d rebuked his words, only to find herself eat crow later; Mitsuri and Obanai had let themselves try, and now they were together, mending and growing as one instead of as two.

Maybe they could try, too.

“But why?” Y/N pressed, because though she’d decided at that moment to walk through that door with no reservations, she still wanted to hear him say it; wanted an explanation, after all these months.

“You know why,” was his only reply, his voice growing hoarse as he drew up within an arm’s reach of her.

Y/N shook her head again, but Sanemi did not stop; his hands boxed her in on the counter, one thick forearm coming to brace on either side of the kitchen counter, thumbs just grazing her thighs.

“You know why,” he insisted.

Y/N finally lifted her eyes to his, the last wavering thread of her resolve dissolving as she beheld the timid, pleading sincerity in his stare.

She exhaled, softly, but she did not move away from him.

“Then show me.”

She’d never seen Sanemi look so shy as he lifted one hand to cup her delicately under the chin. As he leaned in close, Y/N felt a curious tingle in her stomach that only grew in its intensity as his lips – so warm and soft – brushed against hers.

It was butterflies, Y/N realized as her eyes closed, that she’d felt fluttering in her stomach as Sanemi kissed her, because it was everything their first kiss should have been. It was not rough and sticky from mixed drinks and being pressed against dirty club walls in the dark, like the act itself was a shameful secret driven only by lust.

It was gentle, and soft, like the first fall of snowflakes against her cheeks. It was warm like a summer breeze, gently messing the tendrils of her hair against her bare shoulders, as it caressed her skin and promised precious moments of levity and of peace.

Sanemi’s lips moved against hers, still so gentle, and Y/N felt not just the love she’d come to accept he held for her, but also his hope, as tentative and uncertain and yet as eager, as a newborn fawn taking its first shaking steps in the spring.

It was everything; he was everything.

Their kiss grew more heated as they both grew more desperate to consume one another, the desire to make up for all the time lost between them morphing into a base need, as though their minds knew they needed the other to help put themselves back together again; to make themselves whole.

Sanemi’s hands found the sliver of skin exposed between the top of her underwear and the bottom of her tank top, and Y/N moaned, her legs wrapping around his hips to lock her closer to him as she let Sanemi engulf her in his strong, sturdy arms.

He lifted her effortlessly from the counter, his lips never leaving hers, and he began to walk them toward his bedroom. As Y/N’s legs wrapped eagerly around his waist, and her fingers tightened their grip in his hair, she found herself grateful that his room was just around the corner.

His tongue danced slowly with hers as he nudged the door to his room open with his foot and blindly pushed it shut once they were safely inside.

Sanemi’s lips dropped to her neck as he carried her to his bed, laying her out beneath him as his hands skimmed under her tank top, rough fingertips gliding up the sides of her bare waist until his palms rested against her breasts, rolling the mounds between his hands until she was moaning into his mouth, her wetness gathering quickly in her underwear as Sanemi pressed his groin against hers and rolled.

He made quick work of discarding her sleeping top, his mouth closing around one of her nipples as he gave it a hard suck, his hand cupping the other to roll her stiffening nipple between his fingers with a surety that had her whining and tugging at his hair, begging him for more.

Y/N’s fingers clawed at his back, eager to tear his t-shirt from his back so that her hands could greedily roam the stony ridges of his back, his chest. Sanemi groaned as she raked her nails across his shoulders, and he nipped her breast in response for making his way down to where her underwear struggled to conceal her arousal from him.

His tongue grazed over the thin scrap of fabric that separated her bare cunt from his waiting mouth and he groaned, his fingers digging into the sides of her thighs. “I can taste you through your damn panties,” he growled, his eyes dark as they lifted up to her face, flushed bright pink as she watched him slowly drag his tongue up her clothed slit. “Are you that needy for me already, baby?”

Sanemi withdrew himself from between her legs, and Y/N thought she’d fall apart at the loss of his warmth above her. Any protestations she had bubbling in her throat, however, died, as Sanemi shoved his sweatpants down his legs, his thick length springing forth and bouncing against his navel.

No matter how many times she’d seen it, the sight of his cock, long and with considerable girth, with a pretty, mushroom-like tip that grew an angry red the longer he went without stimulation, never failed to make her mouth go dry.

“Let me take care of you, sweet girl,” he cooed, slowly kneeling before where she laid sprawled on his bed as his hands smoothed up her thighs to the bottom of her underwear. Gently, his fingers curled under the fabric and began to slide them down the length of her legs, until he’d pulled them away from her feet.

Before he returned to her, he balled the discarded cloth in his hand and brought it to his nose, eyes closing as he inhaled deeply the scent of her arousal, a soft growl reverberating from the back of his throat as he opened his eyes, amethyst irises full of heady want for her.

“Fuck, I’ve missed that,” he said quietly, his movements slow, teasing, as he knelt on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight, as he settled between her thighs.

Y/N huffed a shaky laugh. “It’s been two weeks, you nymphomaniac,” though she nearly gulped at way his eyes darkened as he exhaled softly along her glistening, throbbing core.  

Sanemi sat back from her, eyes roaming her bare body as he considered her words. “You’re right, it’s been two weeks,” he said evenly, as his hands slide under backside, lifting her up to work himself under her until she was perched on his abdomen, its rocky ridges brushing deliciously against her bare folds.

“W-what are you -!” Y/N’s question was cut off as Sanemi’s broad, warm hands gripped under her thighs and hauled her up his torso, bringing her to hover just above his face as he settled beneath her.

“It’s been too long,” Sanemi grunted, his voice like gravel with his desire. “I need this. I need you.”

His strength had always greatly outmatched her own, but Y/N did not try to struggle as he lowered her bare cunt onto his mouth, his hands braced on her hips as he pushed her full weight down onto his face, groaning loudly as her essence enveloped him.

Sanemi’s head had spent a great deal of time between her thighs since the start of the summer, and yet this was somehow far more intimate.

Intimate, because she was utterly helpless as he held her throbbing core flush against his face, his arms caged tightly around her thighs, prohibiting her from moving away even if she’d wanted to do so, as he devoured her.

From beneath her, Sanemi let out a deep groan as his tongue sank between her folds and began lapping at her. Sanemi’s expert tongue wove in and out of her folds, periodically grazing over her entrance with such teasing fervor that Y/N felt her lower abdominal muscles seize, and she could not stop her hips as she began to grind into his mouth, her head tossed back.

A sharp prick against her inner thigh had Y/N’s eyes flying open as she looked down, surprised to see Sanemi licking the inside of her thigh where he’d nipped her. Even in the dark, Y/N could see the moonlight reflecting off his lavender irises he held her gaze, the hands around her thighs tightening and Sanemi slid his hot, silken tongue into her opening.

Y/N’s responding moan was loud, wanton, her head falling back as her hips ground down into his mouth as she began to ride his tongue. Below her, Sanemi groaned, his laps and sucks at her most sensitive area growing louder as he greedily slurped her juices.

Y/N began to feel that coil deep in her stomach grow tighter as her clit began to pulse and throb against Sanemi’s relentless tongue and lips. One hand slid under her to play with her entrance, his rough fingers circling her opening, sliding into her until his first knuckle before withdrawing, teasing her as her hips bucked wildly against his face, as she grew more desperate for him to fill her.

“Sanemi – p-please,” Y/N begged as his deft fingers avoided sinking into her spasming heat once more, a small scream of frustration tearing from her throat as he continued to tease her.

Though her white-haired lover was prone to continue teasing her, the grip around her thighs tightened as Sanemi pressed her harder against his face, his tongue thrusting in and out of her as his teeth grazed her aching bead over and over. Y/N’s cries grew louder, closer together, as the rough stubble of his jaw scraped against her sensitive flesh.

It was too much; with a sharp cry, Y/N’s thighs seized around Sanemi’s head as she felt a rush of her juices gush out of her, coating his face. The vibrations from Sanemi’s groans of satisfaction intensified the ripple of pleasure that rocked through her, and Y/N could not stop herself from grinding even harder against him in a desperate attempt to prolong her release.

Y/N fought to keep herself upright as she bucked against his face, but the sensation had become too much, and she found herself falling back against his legs. Sanemi didn’t seem to mind, his arms remaining tightly locked around her lower hips as he continued to rock his face against her core, her thighs shuddering around his head at the scrape of his stubbled jaw against her heated, sensitive flesh.

She turned her head and was surprised to see how close Sanemi’s cock was to her face, standing thick and tall as it bounced proudly against his abdomen with every flex of his stomach muscles and thighs as he continued to eat her out like she was his final meal.

Y/N’s lips went dry as her eyes took in the leaking, red tip of him, so demanding and eager, and yet he’d been utterly content to ignore his own need in favor of satisfying hers.

She struggled against his iron-like grip on her hips, trying desperately to turn so she could take him fully into her mouth, but he was too lost in her cunt to realize she wasn’t trying to get away; she wanted him, wanted to pleasure him as must as he insisted on pleasing her.

“Sanemi,” she whined, trying to turn once more, but his arms only tightened around her, a growl of warning reverberating from his chest.

Straining, Y/N leaned as close as she could to his aching cock and stuck her tongue out, just managing to graze the side of it before she had to pull away.

It was enough. At the first caress of her wet tongue against him, she felt Sanemi freeze beneath her, his tongue momentarily pausing mid-thrust into her core as he realized what she was trying to do.

“Fuck this,” he muttered, finally tearing himself away from her lovingly abused cunt and throwing her off him to the side, her breasts bouncing as she settled against the mattress. “I need you – now.”  

Sanemi covered her body with his own, her legs falling to the side with practiced ease as she accommodated his hips. Despite his gruff words, Sanemi bent down to kiss her softly, his lips warm and gentle, as one hand rose to caress her cheek. Y/N locked her arms around his neck, happily sighing into his mouth as his tongue slid between her lips to stroke hers, each caress making the fire in her lower belly burn hotter and more urgent.

Sanemi shifted, keeping one hand on her face as the other moved to grip him at his base, aligning himself with her entrance. His eyes flitted back up to hers one more time, seeking her permission, and it made Y/N’s heart seize. Even after more than two months of sleeping with her, he still insisted on ensuring he had her approval.

Had she been able to form a coherent sentence, she would have begged him to take her, but she’d long since lost her ability to speak thanks to Sanemi’s skilled hands and mouth, and so, she only rolled her hips towards his impatiently, whimpering with her need.

Sanemi groaned in response and the hot, flared tip of his aching cock pushed into her. Ordinarily, Sanemi took his time working his way inside her, given his considerable size and girth; but, thanks to the way he’d insisted she ride his face, Y/N’s core had become impossibly slick that Sanemi sunk into her molten heat in a single, fluid motion, not stopping until his base was pressed flush against hers.

A hitched breath blew past Sanemi’s lips as he buried his face into the crook of his neck. He locked one arm around her upper back, the other encircling her thigh to hold her open for him as he began to rock into her, sloppily and hurried, as though he were getting lost in the feeling of her tight, soaking heat as she clenched around him.

“S-Sanemi!” Y/N gasped, her fingers burying themselves into the pale cornsilk of his hair as she tugged, eliciting a deep groan from the Adonis that ground into her from above with abandon.

Y/N’s hips moved of their own accord as she desperately sought to meet his frenzied thrusts, circling and pushing against him as Sanemi’s cock hit that spot within her that made her toes curl and her stomach dip. She was as wanton and desperate as he was, though the harder she moved against him, the more needy she became.

She needed him to be closer; so much closer.

“’Nemi,” she cried, begging him though she did not know what she begged for, as she moved her hands from his hair to rake her nails down his back, needing him to do something, anything to bring her closer -.

Sanemi locked a steely arm around her middle and in one fluid motion, flipped them, bringing Y/N atop him.

Both groaned in unison as the new position allowed Sanemi to reach even deeper within her, and Y/N felt nearly intoxicated by the sensation of being filled and stretched to her limit. Sanemi’s hands braced at her waist as he began to help her roll her hips against his, his head falling back as his eyes fell shut in bliss, a deep moan falling from his mouth.

Tears stung Y/N’s eyes as she ground against him because she understood what his actions meant even if he’d not uttered a word.

Sanemi Shinazugawa said he’d never let anyone ride him.

But he wanted to be hers.

So, with an unfamiliar yet welcome warmth spreading through her chest, Y/N began move, her hips softly rolling and grinding against his as she braced her hands against his rocky abdomen, fingers digging in slightly as she tilted her head back and moaned his name, loud and unrestrained.

“Nemi,” Y/N gasped, her hips rising and falling and grinding against him with a fervor beyond her control, as she could not get enough of how it felt to fuck herself on him. “Am I — ah — doing this right?”

A loud groan from deep in Sanemi’s chest was her only answer, as her lover lifted his head from where it’d been thrown back against his pillow as he basked in the feeling of Y/N’s silky cavern milking him for all he was worth.

 “Baby, I don’t think you could do wrong if you tried,” he grunted, his voice trembling with his unbounded desire.

She was inclined to agree, because god, even after months of being fucked by him, none of those previous encounters could compare to the way he was making her feel right then, his warm, sturdy hands braced on her hips as he helped guide her up and down his hot, steely length, the room filling with the sound of their skin clapping as she bounced and ground against him.

Y/N’s hands found his at her waist and she pulled them away, in favor of tightly interlocking their fingers as she increased her pace, bringing herself up off his cock before dropping her hips back down again for a needy grind, her walls fluttering around him with each push and pull against him.

She fell forward slightly, pressing the back of his hands down into the mattress and holding them there, just over his head, their fingers tightly interlocked together. She shifted, so that she could brace a little of her weight into him, pressing them even harder into the soft bed as she increased her pace, rolling into him faster as she circled her hips around him.

With his hands pinned above his head, and his eyes squeezed tightly shut as a needy moan echoed from his throat, Y/N swore she’d never seen sight more beautiful than that of Sanemi completely at her mercy.

“I want to finish like this,” Sanemi’s voice had an uncharacteristic desperation in it that bordered on begging, he threw his head back harder against his pillow, the tendons in his neck tensing as he groaned unrestrainedly for her. “Please, Y/N –,”

She only ground down against him harder, his pleas choking off in his throat as his fingers dug harder into her hips. “Sh-i-it,” Sanemi groaned out, his hips thrusting wildly up into her, so lost in just how deep he could reach within her vice-like, silky heat.

Guided by pure instinct, Y/N released his hands and sat up, her own drifting behind her as she began to fondle his swollen, heavy balls while she continued the relentless pull and drop of her hips up and down his throbbing cock.

“Fuck!” Sanemi bucked harshly up into her, his head pressing harder against the pillow beneath him as the muscles in his neck strained, his eyes falling shut in his bliss. One of his hands found its way to her lower abdomen, pressing down slightly so she could feel him pressing against the front wall of her core, Y/N’s voice cracking as she moaned. His other hand lowered to where they were connected, and he began to swirl his thumb around her aching clit, his ministrations causing the walls of her cunt to pulse and constrict around him as her end neared.

Y/N’s thighs began to burn with exhaustion as she bounced up and down his cock, but she could not stop, not until she reached the dizzying height of her pleasure that was quickly coming on the harder she rode him.

Sanemi, however, appeared to sense her growing tiredness. “C’mere,” he said gruffly, one hand lifting to cup her face as the other shifted to press against the small of her back, guiding her to lay flush against him as he claimed her mouth with his own and began to thrust up into her, holding her securely against him.

Y/N groaned into his mouth, as their new position allowed Sanemi to hit a spot within that had her seeing stars as he kept her crushed against him, his tongue dancing languidly with hers. The hand on her lower back moved so that his arm could wrap around her waist and embrace her, as his other hand moved from her jaw to brush a lock of hair back that had fallen in front of her face.

“N-Nemi,” Y/N whimpered, her hips beyond her control as they dropped and rolled and ground against him, in desperate search of her release.

“I know, sweetheart. I know,” Sanemi’s voice was raspy, his arm tightening on her waist in a poor effort at restraint. “I feel it, too.”

Sanemi began thrusting up into her spasming cunt, a renewed string of curses falling from his mouth as the messy sound of Y/N’s honeyed core filled the room. Y/N felt herself begin to tighten around him, the thighs trembling against either side of his waist as she slammed herself back onto him, her cries growing louder as Sanemi brought her closer to her peak. His hips began to lose rhythm as he wildly jutted into her. Y/N’s eyes were squeezed shut as she began to babble, alternating between cries of his name and nearly incoherent pleas for more.

Sanemi’s hand found hers and brought it up against his chest, holding it tightly as his other arm cinched around her waist. “Let go for me, baby,” his voice was hoarse as he leaned up slightly to brush a kiss against her lips.

One, strong grind of her hips later, Y/N shattered around him, her inner walls seizing him like a vice as she tipped her head back and wailed for him, so pretty and so completely undone by him that she did not think she could ever be put back together and be wholly her own, without his touch forever imprinted on her skin, or upon her heart.

She knew, at that moment, as Sanemi’s grunts turned into loud, unrestrained moans as he bucked wildly into her, that running from him had always been futile, because she’d only ever been running in circles, only to find herself as she was then, right back on her knees before him, utterly his.

The difference was, she realized as he gave one last mighty push of his hips up into her still-spasming core, his seed shooting into her with blinding force, as a strangled shout-cry tore from his throat and his fingers seized around hers against his chest, that he’d been running in the same circle, too, just in the opposite direction. But now they’d run out of track to tread, and he’d smacked right into her, knocking both of them off their axes, stumbling and spinning together until they’d finally hit the ground, with only each other to face and nowhere else to run; and she was tired of running, anyways.

Because she knew, as Sanemi’s hips finally stilled against hers and she collapsed against his chest and he on the bed, leaking cock still nestled between her legs, that she loved him.

She loved him.

She loved him.

-----

Neither of them spoke for a long while, both panting hard as they caught their breaths.

“You said you think I’m possessive — maybe I am,” Sanemi said after a long moment, as the two came down from their mutual highs. “But it’s because I want to be yours. I’ve always been yours.”

He paused before continuing, his arms around her tightening. But when he spoke again, his voice was perceptibly softer, more timid, as though afraid of her rejection. “And I want you to be mine, too.” 

Let him into your heart, and he will gladly give you his.

Y/N’s hand found his at her waist, and gently, she removed it. As she brushed her lips over the calloused pads, always so soft whenever they touched her, she lifted her gaze to his.

“You are mine,” she repeated softly, before moving his hand to press against the valley between her breasts, where her heart beat strong against her sternum. “And this has always belonged to you.”

Sanemi’s cheeks burned red as he bent to graze her lips with his, his hand still pressed against her chest. So innocent and chaste was the kiss that it was easy to forget that his cock remained buried within her, his seed still gathering on the sheets beneath them as it trickled from her.

Sanemi’s thumb stroked the skin of her sternum absentmindedly. “What comes next, Y/N?” He murmured, his eyes tracing over the features of her face as she rested her cheek against his bicep. “What do you want this to be – what would make you happiest?”

Y/N thought for a moment and weighed all of the emotions that had sat heavily in her chest for the past two days – the past two years – untangling each knot and snarl that had formed to obstruct the heart of her true desire.

When she spoke, her voice was as soft as a feather.

“I want to be with you. I’ve only ever wanted to be with you. That hasn’t changed.”

Sanemi’s eyes widened with a hope she knew he’d not dare let himself feel ever since their fateful reunion at the Kizuki. “So you’ll stay? With me?”

Y/N’s answering smile was wide as she leaned up to brush a gentle kiss against his lips. “Yes, ‘Nemi. I will stay.”

And for the first time in two years, Y/N felt just as hopeful as him.

“Can I kiss you again?” Sanemi breathed, staring down at her in awe, as though he could not believe that she was real, despite having just had her in the most real way he could have.

Y/N didn’t answer, instead raising her lips to his, as she threaded her fingers through his hair to hold him close to her. Sanemi responded with a soft groan and pressed himself into her. His cock began to twitch to life within her once more as her tongue slid into his eager mouth, gliding alongside his own.

She moaned into his mouth as he began to roll into her, her legs falling to the side to accommodate his body as he settled himself between her thighs. But Sanemi’s warm, rough hands slid underneath her backside and shifted her to lay on her side next to him, her chest pressed flush against his as he began to rock gently into her.

Y/N lifted her leg so that it wrapped around his hips, and Sanemi groaned, one of his steel-like arms wrapping under her upper thigh to hold it in place. “That’s my girl,” he murmured, his lips trailing along the underside of her jaw and down her throat. “Just focus on me, baby.”

The hand of the arm gripping her thigh moved to splay across her backside, pushing her against him as he rolled into her. A cracked moan broke from her throat as Sanemi began to massage her cheek in time with the slow, languid pump of his cock into her, the walls of her cunt tightening around him.

They continued to rock into one another like that, softly groaning and gasping every time Sanemi’s hips stuttered against hers, or every time Y/N’s nails sunk harder into the muscular slope of his back, so lost in the feel of the other’s body that Y/N was sure she did not know where she ended, and he began.

“Sanemi,” she cried, because the feeling of him this close, of him being this gentle, was so overwhelming to her because it was more than just fucking. This was them, raw, and unguarded, moving imperfectly against one another and letting their bodies speak in the words their mouths had not.

“It’s okay, baby, I’m here. I’m right here,” he promised, his lips brushing against hers once, twice. His arm tightened around where it gripped her upper thigh, hand splayed across her backside, as he rocked harder into her, both of their ends rapidly approaching. “I’ve got you.”

Y/N pressed her lips desperately against his, needing him to soothe the ache that grew in her core as she drew near the summit of her pleasure. She hitched her leg higher up on his hip to allow him to push deeper into her, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she felt Sanemi’s balls begin to tap against the curve of her backside as he picked up his speed.

“Come with me,” Sanemi grit out, his brow pinched as he stifled another groan. Y/N chased a bead of sweat as it rolled down his neck, mewling in agreement as she tugged him closer, pressing her chest flush against his.

“I’m close – fuck, I’m close,” Sanemi gasped, his lips crashing down against hers, his teeth tugging at her lip before he pulled away. “Are you?”

Y/N nodded desperately, as a long, high-pitched whine tore from her throat. “I wanna cum – ah – Sanemi, please, I want to cum.”

Sanemi’s hurried thrusts up into her melted into rutting, as his thick length hardly slid out of her sopping and spent heat. “Eyes on me, baby,” he managed, his fingers digging into the plush of her ass as he began to twitch inside her – a sure sign he was mere seconds from his peak.

With great effort, Y/N opened her eyes and met those violet eyes that she loved so dearly, and Y/N’s climax slammed into her with a force that had her crying out. She was the rough, coarse wave that crashed and broke around the steady rock that was Sanemi.

His free hand fumbled for hers, bringing it close against his chest, fingers tightly locked together. Her eyes still locked with his, Sanemi’s soft grunts turned to loud, wanton moans, his thrusts sloppy and jerky, as he came in time with Y/N, filling her with his hot, thick seed until it spilled over where they were connected, staining the sheets beneath them.

Sanemi did not stop pumping into her, could not, as he continued to unload within her, the hand on her ass locking her against him as his hips finally stilled against her with a final, strained cry of her name.

He collapsed against her, his full weight bearing down on her as they struggled to catch their breath. After a few moments, Sanemi shifted like he was going to pull out of her and away, but Y/N whined in protest.

“’Nemi,” Y/N panted, her arms locking around his back and holding him to her as she circled her hips against his, Sanemi hissing as she began to overstimulate him. “Please, can we stay like this for just a little longer?”

She hardly recognized the breathy, needy tone with which she spoke. For so long, she’d denied herself of any intimacy with him that extended beyond allowing him to cum in her, always pulling away and fumbling for her clothes the second his climax ended. But now, Y/N could not bear the thought of tearing herself away from him, because she belonged to him, and he finally belonged to her.

Sanemi’s hands dug into her waist as his head dropped into the crook of her shoulder to bury his face into her skin. She felt him inhale deeply, as though she was the air he needed to breath, and he nodded, apparently unable to form any words as he came down from his high.

After a few, quiet moments, the air around them only occasionally disturbed by the sound of their breathing, Sanemi answered her. “I will always want you to stay.”

-----

Y/N did not remember the last time she’d slept more peacefully than she did that night wrapped in Sanemi’s arms.

When the bright light of the sun finally broke through the gossamer-like curtains hung on the guest room window, Y/N sleepily blinked herself awake, turning to bury her face into the mattress to hide away from the bright, unrelenting light of morning. But what lay beneath her cheek was not the feather-plush soft of the luxurious mattresses the Uzuis had in every room of their summer home; it was rocky, hard muscle covered by warm, scar-speckled skin that made up the man she loved with every fiber of her being.

Sanemi groaned as he felt her face press against his upper abdomen, his hand raising to caress up her spine as he drew his other arm over his eyes to block out the sun. “’S too early,” he protested, drawing a light chuckle from Y/N.

“We have to leave soon,” she whispered, pressing a kiss against the rigid plane of his abdomen before trailing her lips down to where his cock was already beginning to stir. “Let’s at least enjoy the morning.”

Sanemi did not protest as she ducked beneath the covers to take him into her mouth, sighing happily as his hands softly stroked her hair while she bobbed up and down his length. Sanemi, however, was too impatient to feel Y/N’s walls around him once more, and lasted only a minute before he tugged her up his torso and sank her down onto him, his face buried into her neck as his teeth bit into the sensitive skin of her throat.

Y/N spent the remainder of their morning fucking herself once more on Sanemi’s stiff length, relishing the way his broad hands slid under her thighs as she rode him to lift them up so he could watch himself thrust up into her, admiring the way his cock glistened with the pleasure he helped to give her.

A couple of hours later, the group of friends loaded up their respective cars, Tengen and Obanai grumbling under the bright light of day as both fought of their mutual hangovers from the previous night’s inhibitions.

Though Y/N was set to ride with Mitsuri and Sanemi with the boys, neither of them could conceal the small, contented smiles they bore as they loaded their bags into the trunks of their cars, the pair occasionally sneaking a furtive glance at the other, smiles only broadening as their eyes met.

Just before Y/N opened the passenger door of Mitsuri’s vintage Volkswagen, she felt a pair of fingers, rough yet warm and familiar, brush shyly against her own.

“Text me when you guys get back, okay?” Sanemi murmured. On the other side of the car, Mitsuri’s jaw fell open, and her jade eyes gleamed with poorly-concealed excitement.

Y/N closed her hand around his and jerked him down, muffling his grunt of surprise as her lips met his. “I will.” She said as she released him, Sanemi’s cheeks turning pink as he grinned back at her. His hand closed around hers where it rested on the door handle of Mitsuri’s car, and pulled it open, holding it for her as she turned and lowered herself into the passenger seat.

Mitsuri practically tripped over herself as she scrambled into the driver’s seat, though she restrained herself from squealing until the door was shut safely behind her. Keys turning in the ignition, the pink-haired girl turned to her best friend, nearly vibrating with excitement.

“Tell me everything. Now.”

Y/N laughed as the pinkette pulled out of the manicured driveway of the Uzuis’ lake house, and she began to fill her friend in on everything that had changed between her and her childhood best friend.

-----

The lightness that Y/N felt leaving the lake house lasted the entire drive back home with Mitsuri in the latter’s car, her chest feeling full and warm as the two scream-sang along to every song on Mitsuri’s playlist.

The sun was nearly setting by the time the pinkette parked her car in front of their apartment building, the pair having stopped to grab sushi for dinner for themselves. As the two exited Mitsuri’s car, Y/N noted Shinobu’s small, purple sports car parked at the far end of the lot and smiled to herself, knowing her friend was home, where they could talk. As they’d picked up their to-go order from the sushi restaurant down the street, Y/N had made the last-minute decision to grab one of Shinobu’s favorite rolls, having resolved to talk to her other roommate and work things out between them.

Not that there was truly anything for them to work out – Y/N had concluded she didn’t blame her friend for what had happened; Y/N had made her own choices, as had Douma.

The pair of best friends giggled as they walked up the steps to their apartment, takeout bags in hand, ready for a night of relaxing on the couch with sushi, some facemasks, and trashy reality television. Y/N’s key unlocked the front door, which swung open to a darkened apartment. Her fingers flipped the kitchen light on and the sushi bag in her hands dropped to the floor.

For there, sprawled on the linoleum by the kitchen counter in a puddle of her own vomit and blood, was Shinobu.

She wasn’t moving; it was hard to tell if she was breathing.

Everything seemed to slow down and speed up all at once. One moment, the two young women were laughing and talking as they returned from a life-changing weekend at the lake, and the next, Mitsuri was screaming while Y/N heard nothing but the strong roar of panic echoing in her ears. 

“Call an ambulance!” Y/N managed to bite out at her hyperventilating friend as she dropped to her knees beside her unconscious roommate, her hands shaking as she tried to feel for a pulse. “Mitsuri!”

As the pinkette scrambled for her phone, Y/N took note of the odd violet hue of Shinobu’s vomit and the sickly-sweet scent of flowers and synthetic fruit.

With trembling hands, Y/N brushed back a strand of her friend’s inky-violet hair that had fallen in front of her face. There, mixed within the dried blood beneath Shinobu’s nostrils, was the faintest trace of lilac.

Wisteria.

Over the roaring in her ears, Y/N vaguely heard Mitsuri crying into the phone with the emergency dispatch operator.

“She’s twenty,” Mitsuri sobbed. “We don’t know what happened, but it might’ve been an overdose. But there’s blood, too.”

Her pink-haired friend was right; there was an alarming amount of blood, dark and sticky, that had pooled beneath Shinobu’s head. Y/N suspected she’d hit her head on the edge of the counter, either because she’d tripped or because she’d passed out and hadn’t been able to catch herself, but Y/N couldn’t tell where the wound was, and she was too afraid to risk moving her friend’s head and worsening her injuries.

“Is she breathing?” It took a moment for Y/N to register that Mitsuri’s question was directed at her. “Y/N is she breathing?” 

“I don’t know,” she whispered, “I don’t know, Mitsuri.” And, because she was panicked and scared, and utterly useless, Y/N began to cry. “I can’t tell; my hands won’t stop shaking.”

“I can’t tell.”

-----

Half an hour later, Y/N stood against the wall of the small waiting area in the emergency room, leg bouncing in agitation and anxiety. Beside her, Mitsuri sat with her head in her hands as the two waited for any news as to their friend’s condition.

The outer doors to the emergency room slid open and the girls were joined by Hinatsuru, Makio, and Suma, the latter of whom was crying softly to herself. A few moments later, Obanai arrived, face severe, aiming straight for the pinkette as he crouched before her, covering the hands she had buried in her hair with his own and pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. 

The waiting room had become too crowded for Y/N’s frazzled nerves to handle. She tore herself from the wall against which she had been fixed, opting instead to pace the hallway between the waiting area and the main hospital. Makio may have called her name, but the roaring in Y/N’s head had become too loud, the jitter under her skin too incessant, for her to remain still in the waiting room a second longer. 

Y/N finally exhausted herself enough to slump back against the wall, the passing sounds and beeps of the hospital only faint echoes in her ears. But then there were thunderous footsteps walking quickly toward her, and Y/N’s eyes lifted just in time to see Sanemi’s stormy face as he reached for her. 

He crushed her against him, one hand buried in her hair as his other arm wrapped around her waist, holding her to him as though he needed to assure himself that she was real and there, and not the one getting her stomach pumped on the other side of the sealed emergency room doors. 

His lips pressed hard against the top of her head, Sanemi inhaling deeply before pulling back from her, his hand rising to cup beneath Y/N’s jaw so he could tilt her face up toward him, those lilac eyes scanning her frantically for any sign of external injury.

“I didn’t know,” he said hoarsely against the crown of her head as he pulled her back against him. “Tengen called -- only said an ambulance was being sent to your apartment – that a twenty-year-old woman had overdosed.” 

Y/N shook her head against his chest, breathing in his comforting scent and allowing it to still the jitters crawling beneath her skin. “I haven’t used in a week, Sanemi.” 

Her – boyfriend? paramour? exhaled shakily, his arms tightening around her. “I was scared. After last night, I-” Sanemi swallowed thickly. “I was worried you regretted it.” 

Y/N closed her eyes as she let herself melt against his stabilizing warmth. “Not you,” she murmured, “Never you.”

-----

An hour later, Y/N stood in her kitchen, chest heaving as she looked at the wreckage of Shinobu’s bender scattered around her.

There was an empty bottle of peach vodka lying on its side on the floor. Lilac residue was smeared on the kitchen counter, likely the result of Shinobu having snorted it the night before. A puddle of her vomit, streaked with purple, still lingered where the petite woman had lost consciousness. 

Sanemi came around the kitchen counter, his hand resting at the small of Y/N’s back as he guided her away from the cabinet below. He bent to pull out a bottle of bleach and a roll of paper towels, as well as a pair of cleaning gloves that he pulled over his scarred, callused hands, and he set to work scrubbing at the floor. 

Y/N watched him for a long moment before she moved to begin rounding up all of the bottles of liquor and wine that had been stashed in their apartment. One by one, she dumped their contents into the sink and chucked the empty containers into the garbage.

Next, Y/N gathered up all traces of Shinobu’s Wisteria from their various stash spots around the apartment. It had taken her a while to hunt through pharmacology student’s room, given that the young woman had become rather adept at squirreling away those poisonous little pills. Over the course of an hour, Y/N had managed to locate every little baggie and loose pill shoved under her friend’s mattress, tucked into her sock drawer, and slotted between pages of textbooks she’d never opened. 

She’d stood over the toilet where she’d flushed them for a long while after the last of those lilac devils had swirled down the drain. It was not until a pair of warm, comforting arms encircled her from behind that Y/N was aware of the tears slipping hot and fast down her cheeks. 

Sanemi pressed a soft kiss into the back of her neck as she cried, allowing her to press her face into his muscled forearm until her sobs had quieted, before he turned her around. He’d kept one hand on her shoulder as he leaned to tug her shower curtain open and turn the water on, before returning to her. Slowly, and with more gentleness than Y/N thought she deserved, Sanemi began to undress her, chucking her vomit and sweat-stained clothes into her laundry bin before helping her into the shower.

Y/N stood numbly under the hot spray of the water as she waited, the sounds of Sanemi’s belt and pants hitting the cold tile of the floor before he parted the curtain and stepped into the bathtub with her. 

The moment he’d re-oriented the shower curtain to close them in, Y/N melted against him. Sanemi’s hands came to her waist, gently turning her so that her back was to him, as though he knew she was losing the battle against the weariness that had seeped into her bones. His arms locked tightly around her, he guided them to sit on the floor of the bathtub. He situated Y/N between his legs, her back resting against his chest. One arm was wrapped around her upper shoulders, holding her to him, as the other wound around her waist from behind, gripping her hand in his. His lips found the juncture between her shoulder and neck, brushing softly against her wet skin once before he buried his face there and held her, as the hot water beat down upon them. 

They stayed like that until Y/N could no longer tell whether the water on her face was from her tears or the spray of the shower nozzle above. 

Only after the water had begun to cool and their fingers had turned wrinkled did Sanemi help her stand, reaching behind her to shut the shower off. 

Sanemi stepped out first, grabbing a towel from where it hung on the back of her bathroom door, to secure around his waist. He then produced two more from Y/N’s bathroom closet – her two fluffiest – and held them under his arm as he used his free hand to help Y/N out of her shower to stand on her bathmat.

Had she’d any tears left, Y/N was certain they would have been shed as Sanemi gently toweled her hair and body try before he scooped her up and carried her to her bedroom.

Sanemi set her carefully on the edge of her bed before leaving to return to her bathroom once more. Y/N’s eyes were fixed blankly on the carpeted floor of her room, her mind blank and that howling numbness that had become her constant companion over the last two months threatening to swallow her whole once more. She barely registered Sanemi’s return to her room until he, in all of his shower-dampened glory, knelt at her feet, with a bottle of her favorite lotion in hand.

Wordlessly, Sanemi pumped some of the lotion into his hand and began to gently massage it into her skin, starting at her feet and working his way up her legs. Once he’d reached the tops of her thighs, he repeated the action once more, carefully taking the time to ensure that he worked the lotion on every part of her body. With every stroke of his hand against her skin, Sanemi chased away that encroaching numbness, replacing it with the warmth of his adoration and love for her.

“Have you eaten today?” Sanemi’s voice broke the comfortable silence that had settled over them.

Y/N shook her head. “But I’m not hungry – really,” She urged as Sanemi opened his mouth in protest. “Can we just – just lay here?” She patted the soft down of her bed, motioning for him to join her.

Sanemi nodded, rising to turn towards her dresser to pull out a pair of underwear for her and digging out a pair of briefs of his that he’d let her borrow as pair of shorts after one of their earlier trysts.

Once both had pulled their respective pairs of underwear on, Sanemi squeezed himself into the small crevice between her twin bed and her bedroom wall and held out his arm in an invitation that Y/N did not hesitate to accept.

She curled against his bare chest, warm against her own naked skin, and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close as she sighed deeply, inhaling his scent and allowing it to wash over her, and still her mind.

Sanemi’s hands absentmindedly stroked her hair, his lips periodically pressing against her hairline as she began to doze in his arms. Just before the exhaustion commanded her to fall into sleep’s embrace, she spoke.

“I meant what I said earlier – I haven’t used Wisteria in over a week. I stopped drinking. I’m done, Sanemi. I swear it.”

Her face was pressed against his pectoral, so she did not see the tears of quiet, exhausted relief that filled his eyes as he pressed his lips against her forehead once more. “I know. Kyo mentioned on the way back that you’d been dealing with withdrawal for the last week. That it was why you weren’t answering your phone.”

Sanemi’s arms tightened around her as she began to drift off. “I’m proud of you, Y/N.” And then, he added in a voice so quiet that she almost didn’t hear it before sleep’s sweet lull pulled her under. “Thank you for choosing to stay.”

-----

She slept soundly through the night once more, until Sanemi awoke her in the early hours of the morning with his head between her legs, Y/N gaining consciousness just in time to come on his tongue. In the throes of her climax, Sanemi replaced its position at her entrance with his fingers as he dragged it up her messy folds so he could suckle at her clit.

Sleepily, Y/N clawed at his back, an impatient demand for more falling in the form of a whine from her lips, and Sanemi complied. He turned her onto her stomach and his cock found its way between her thighs as he began to fuck her from behind, his hips setting a leisurely pace as they slapped against her ass, Y/N’s soft moans only growing in their vibrato as he brought her to orgasm yet again, his warmth flooding her shortly after as he sighed her name.

They remained in bed for another few hours, talking and holding one another, trading lazy kisses and gentle caresses because they could not get enough of touching each other like they were right then – soft and meaningful, because Y/N and Sanemi were now a them, rather than two people who alternated running from the other.

Sanemi, it seemed, especially couldn’t keep his hands off her, which she found amusing, given that as children, Y/N was always the one who initiated any kind of affection with him, though she suspected that his begrudging acceptance of it had really been a front to conceal his true feelings.

His hand was smoothing up and down her bare thigh as she stroked his hair, his eyelids fluttering shut against her touch, when his phone rang from its place on her nightstand.  Groaning, Sanemi blindly felt for the buzzing device, answering it only with a grunt as he kept his eyes locked on her, his hand still gliding up and down her shin.

His brow furrowed in seriousness, and he nodded, as though whomever was on the other end could actually see him, before he muttered a soft, “thanks, man,” and clicked the phone off, tossing it back onto her covers.

“That was Iguro. Shinobu is awake, and they’re allowing visitors.” His eyes were full of a quiet concern as he regarded her gently. “Are you okay to go right now?”

Y/N was already making her way out of bed, nodding. Of course she was okay to go – she needed to go, needed to assure for herself that her friend was awake and knew she was supported.

She dressed quickly, donning only a matching black workout set and sneakers before pulling a jacket over her bare shoulders. Sanemi merely tugged on the clothes he'd worn the day before.

“I’ll stop at my place on the way back,” he added, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. “If you want me to stay again tonight, that is,”

Y/N turned away so he wouldn’t see the small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she quieted a laugh, so as not to make him feel embarrassed. “I want you to stay.”

Sanemi drove them, though he kept his hand firmly locked around hers the entire ride. Ever since they’d began their physical relationship back at the start of the summer, she’d been adamant that she wouldn’t allow herself to accept any affection from him if he didn’t have his cock buried inside of her while he gave it. It seemed too risky at the time, as though allowing him to care for her would blur some line she insisted had already been drawn, even though she’d been the one to hold the stick marking the ground.

Now, in hindsight, she couldn’t believe she’d denied herself of his intimacy for so long – not when it felt this good to have his steadying, grounding warmth wrapped firmly around her hand, his thumb running over her knuckles as he smoothly worked the steering wheel with his free hand.

This -- whatever this was. It was good.

-----

By the time Sanemi drove them back to her apartment, the evening sky was beginning to shift from a pale blue to a creamy orange, the sun beginning its descent towards sleep for the night.

Y/N, herself, felt an exhaustion so heavy, she wondered whether it had infiltrated the marrow of her bones. Her head ached slightly after a solid hour of crying with Shinobu, the latter offering apology after apology as Y/N held her trembling form close, shushing her with assurances that she’d never blamed the pixie-like girl for what Douma had chosen to do just a few weeks earlier.

Shinobu had confessed she hadn’t been trying to harm herself – not really, anyways. Rather, she’d been so overcome by her guilt and self-loathing that she’d stopped keeping track of just how much alcohol she’d been drinking or how much of her accursed Wisteria she’d been ingesting. The cut on the side of her forehead truly hadn’t been that deep, but it had been the result of a fall she couldn’t break, just as Y/N expected.

Y/N had sat, curled beside her roommate and dear friend, for another couple of hours, until Giyuu materialized in the doorway, deep-set shadows under his eyes and breathing hard, as he took in Shinobu’s vulnerable form, hooked up to various hospital machines, with a thick bandage wrapped around her head.

Y/N had quietly untangled herself from her friend and quietly exited the room, patting Giyuu’s shoulder as she passed him, though the ravenette did not acknowledge her, far too focused on his crying girlfriend as he wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly against his chest.

As they’d walked back to his car, Sanemi told her that Giyuu had driven straight through the night from his sister’s the moment he’d received word of Shinobu’s condition, too frantic to be by her side to even stop for food or rest.

Sanemi swung by his apartment, as he promised, and emerged a few minutes later with a bag full of his clothes and toiletries before he drove the rest of the short drive back to her shared apartment with Mitsuri and Shinobu. Her best friend, however, had decided to stay over at Obanai’s, and given that her other roommate was unlikely to be discharged before the following day, Y/N and Sanemi had her apartment to themselves once again.

After a dinner of vegetable omlettes, prepared by Sanemi, the pair fell back into Y/N’s tiny twin bed, both exhausted from the excitement and stress of the previous four days. Y/N, in particular, had felt more emotionally zapped than she had in a long while, having spent the majority of the holiday weekend crying for one reason or another, and wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her evening wrapped securely in Sanemi’s arms as she listened to his heartbeat lull her to sleep.

She’d stripped herself of her clothes, leaving herself in only her thong, as she pressed herself against Sanemi’s bare chest. Sanemi, however, could sense her weariness, and so they did no more than kiss every now and then, both merely content to simply hold the other and bask in their shared warmth.

“Thank you for being here for me – yesterday and today,” Y/N murmured quietly, her lips grazing his collarbone.

Sanemi’s fingers brushed under her chin as he tilted her face up to meet her eyes. “I told you already, I’m all in. Whatever it is you want from me, I’ll be it.”

Y/N smiled wryly at him as her eyes roamed his face in consideration. “So, does that mean we’re official? Are we boyfriend-girlfriend?”

His responding smirk made her thighs squeeze together as he leaned in close to her face. “You can call me whatever you want, baby,” he kissed her nose before lowering his lips to hers, though he held back, teasingly. “And for however long as you want.”

She giggled as he kissed her and it felt like coming home, and Y/N couldn’t remember the last time she felt like she’d had one of those.

He broke away from her after a moment, hand coming to a rest against the side of her head while his thumb stroked her cheek, a profundity creeping into his eyes.

“I love you, Y/N. With all my heart.”

Y/N thought her heart would fly out of her chest as Sanemi repeated the words she’d uttered to him nearly two years prior. She thought hearing them would cause her to clam up, that they would send her careening back to the dark, lonely hole she’d spent the last half of her university experience trying desperately to claw out of, but they did not.

Instead, Sanemi’s words – her words – mended something within her that she’d long thought to have been irreparably broken. There was no emptiness left in her, no gnawing wound; it had been healed by him and his earnestness, and she only felt her love for him. Love that made her feel pretty, soft, and new, mending her broken heart with its golden light.

“I never stopped loving you,” Y/N’s voice grew thick with the tears that filled her eyes. “Please know that. No matter how mad I was, no matter how low I felt, I always knew I loved you – and I still do.”

Sanemi’s answering grin was so beautiful, so bright, that she wondered why she’d waited so long after making up to say it. His smile made her feel as though she could soar through the sky, breathless and wild and free.

Once upon a time, she’d believed love was pretty; she imagined it would be soft, pink, and shiny and make her feel warm and pretty in return.

Then, as an adult, she realized that love was pretty, but not in the way she’d imagined it would be when she listened to stories of princesses and their knights as a little girl. Love was a blur of many hues, some soft and bright, but some dark and harsh too, melding together to create a kaleidoscope of light and shadows. And it was because of this phantasmagoria of joy and pain and laughter and sadness that love was so beautiful, and so worth fighting for, because in the end, finding herself in the arms of the only person she’d ever loved outweighed any of the heartache which preceded it, and it would be worth whatever heartache was sure to come.

Because loving Sanemi Shinazugawa was worth it all.

EPILOGUE – 2 months later

The sun was golden and bright and the air as crisp as an apple as the couple de-boarded their train at the small station in their hometown, hands clasped tightly together. The blazing heat of summer had quickly given way to October, and the autumn harvest brought with it a new tiding of ruby and ochre yellow leaves.

Y/N was grateful for the loose sweater she’d worn — stolen from Sanemi’s dresser one day several weeks earlier when she’d insisted she needed his scent to take back to her apartment with her, to help her get through the first wave of reading and papers she’d been slammed with. Initially, Sanemi had protested with a grumbled “fuck off,” as she’d tried to lay claim to his favorite sweater.

He’d change his tune rather quickly, however, when his girlfriend then donned the garment whilst giving him what he later called “the best head of his life.” And so, the worn, dark gray sweater had remained safely in Y/N’s care.

As the train doors slid shut behind them, Y/N took a deep, steadying breath, mentally preparing herself for the reason they’d risen early that Saturday morning to return to their sleepy hometown.

The gentle squeeze of Sanemi’s hand around hers as he brought their interlocked fingers to his mouth for a sweet kiss, helped abate some of her nerves and grounded her.

“You ready?” He murmured, his eyes warm and so full of love and concern for the woman beside him that Y/N felt her heart lurch.

She smiled at him, softly, and rose on her toes to press a chaste kiss against his lips. “I’m ready.”

The advantage of living in a small town — no more than a village, really — was that nearly everything was within walking distance, as long as one did not mind a few steep hills here and there. And so, the couple set off from their town’s small train station, towards the grocer to pick up flowers — two bouquets, one for each grave that marked the final resting spot for their loved ones.

Autumnal arrangements in hand, the pair walked in a comfortable silence up the hill leading to the cemetery.

“Genya’s with the rest of my family,” Sanemi said quietly as they passed the iron-gated entrance that gave way to the sprawl of headstones that lined the grassy hilltop. “They’re just over here.”

Y/N nodded, squeezing Sanemi’s hand in assurance as her boyfriend led her up a small trail to a row of graves gathered beneath an old willow tree.

When Sanemi had shared with her that he made this bi-weekly sojourn to visit and lay flowers on the graves of his family, Y/N had cried. She’d held him tightly, offering a litany of apologies for not being there for him more, for the fact he’d been doing it alone.

He wouldn’t hear of it, insisting that she hadn’t anything to apologize for, which only made her cry harder.

A hush fell over the pair as they drew up upon the Shinazugawa family graves, Y/N’s heart breaking a little more as her eyes scanned each name, the life spans etched into the stones far too short.

Wordlessly, Sanemi plucked a flower from the bouquet he carried and laid one at the base of each gravestone, repeating the process until no more flowers remained. Once the last flower was placed, just over Genya’s grave, Sanemi straightened, gripping Y/N’s hand tightly in his own as his other lifted to wipe at his eyes.

“He’d be over the moon, ya know, that we’re finally together,” Sanemi murmured, his voice hoarse with his grief, nodding at the last stone bearing the name of his beloved brother. “He used to give me all kinds of shit for not making a move sooner.”

“He always was wise beyond his years,” Y/N sniffed quietly, her own tears slipping freely down her cheeks. “He used to pester me about it, too – would always ask if I was single, and if I said ‘yes,’ he’d mention that you were also single.” She huffed a watery laugh as the image of the boy’s smiling face flashed through her memory. “Though, I think he did it more so to tease me, because I’d always turn as red as a tomato whenever he’d mention it.”

Sanemi smiled softly as he squeezed her hand. “It’s a family trait, I s’ppose.”

The couple remained at the site of Sanemi’s family’s graves for a little while longer, the last living Shinazugawa tucking his girlfriend tightly into his side as he held her close, her warmth helping to keep him anchored here, to life, rather than wishing he slumbered beneath the hardening ground with his family.

Eventually, they agreed to make their way toward the other grave that had drawn them there, Y/N taking a deep, steadying breath as she prepared herself to visit her mother’s final resting place for the first time since her death.

“I think the map said she’s over this way,” Y/N nodded at a small, winding path that led down a gentle hill to the south of the Shinazugawa plot. “I remember I wanted her over there by the walnut tree – she loved them in the autumn.”

Sanemi nodded and let her lead the way, her fingers clutching tightly around the bouquet in her hands as she drew nearer to the tree which marked her mother’s plot, her stomach twisting with anticipation.

Because she knew, the moment her eyes settled on the stone with her mother’s name and dates of birth and death, that reality would hit her all over again; but she persisted, for the sake of her mother, who’d loved her more than anything.

“Mr. Shinazugawa!” A voice called, and both looked over to see the old cemetery caretaker waving in greeting as the pair made their way towards the section where Y/N’s mother rest.

“Good morning, Mr. Urokodaki,” Sanemi answered, nodding respectfully in greeting. “I can’t believe they have you working on the weekends.”

The grandfatherly caretaker chuckled. “Only the departed sleep; I do not.” He shifted the rake he was holding from one hand to another as he wiped his brow.  “It’s been a few weeks since I last saw you!”

“School has kept me busy, sir.” Sanemi’s hand around hers squeezed and Y/N smiled softly.

“Well, I had a feeling I’d be seeing you soon, so I went ahead and cleared any leaves off Mrs. Y/L/N’s grave for you – and I took the liberty of clearing out the flowers you brought last time.”

Y/N’s breath died in her throat as she looked between the old man and her boyfriend, her eyes wide.

Mr. Urokodaki appeared to mistake her shock for confusion. “He’s such a kind lad, your friend!” The old man smiled warmly at Sanemi, before continuing his explanation to her. “He brings flowers not just for his family, but for a woman he knew growing up – like clockwork, every two weeks, for the last year. That’s why I was worried when he didn’t show up last week!”

Sanemi chuckled softly. “I’m back to the regular schedule now, sir!” And he bid the old caretaker farewell. He turned back to his girlfriend, but froze at the expression on her face, mouth slightly open and eyes as round as saucers.

“Y-you, you’ve b-been,” she stuttered, her eyes welling with tears as she began to shake.

Sanemi hesitantly reached for her, brushing her hair back behind her ear. “I’m sorry. I know I should’ve asked, first, but we weren’t talking yet, and I wanted to make sure --,” Sanemi’s explanation was cut off with a small mmph! as Y/N grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and hauled his mouth down to hers.

After a long moment, she broke away. “T-this whole time, ‘Nemi — you —,” Y/N could hardly speak through her tears. Sanemi’s arms wound tightly around her waist, locking her to him as she buried her face into his neck.

Her boyfriend’s lips found her side of her head and he smiled softly into her hair. “Tch, idiot,” he said, affectionately. “I told you already — there hasn’t been a single moment that’s gone by that I haven’t loved you.”

“And I loved her, too.” He added quietly after a moment.

Sanemi’s words only served to make her cry harder, her arms tightening around his neck as she poured every ounce of her love and gratitude into the force with which she hugged him tightly against her.

Y/N couldn’t stop herself from peppering his face with kisses, as Sanemi’s smile stretched wide across his face. The brilliance of his happiness was nearly blinding, but Y/N knew she would never desire to look away from it – from him.

Y/N pulled back to study his face, her hand coming to rest against the side that bore his scars, her thumb gently stroking the one that crossed his nose. “I love you,” she whispered. The tears still shone in her eyes, but beneath them lay a fierce sincerity. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

His lilac irises glimmered with his own emotion at her words, and his hand reached to intertwine with hers once more, the other lifting to brush the last, errant tear that escaped down her cheek.

“C’mon,” he said thickly after a moment, “Don’t wanna keep your Ma waiting.”

Cries. Thanks for reading!

[corpsebasil]

Bonnie and Clyde Part 2

Ghostface’s girlfriend may not be a killer, but she’s the brain of the operation.

You lay on the couch, your feet propped against the cushions as you stare at the tv, scrolling through Hulu. You’d never felt so bored in your life. It felt like you’d been on house arrest the past few days. The only time you could leave was between one to four am and even then, Wayne wouldn’t let you do anything but walk around the block.

The front door opened with a rustling noise and you groaned, moving to prop yourself up on your elbow. Ethan entered the apartment, grocery bags on his arms, and gave you a smile as he moved to set the bags down in the kitchen.

“Ethan,” you called out, standing up and following him. “Ethan I cant take this anymore.”

“Take what?” He asked, oblivious to your frustration.

“I feel like a prisoner.” You scoffed, moving around the counter to help him put up groceries. “I swear to god I’m going to lose my mind.”

“This was your idea.” He pointed out, raising a brow. “How are you supposed to be dead if they see you out walking around?”

“But how much longer?” You whined, dropping your head on his shoulder. “I want in on the action.”

“No.” Ethan scoffed, pulling away from you to put a bottle of wine in the fridge. “There’s no way I’m letting you anywhere near a knife. Or a Ghostface costume.”

“So Quinn gets one but I don’t?”

“You were the one who said you didn’t want to kill.” Ethan sighed, turning to rest his back against the counter. “Now you’ve changed your mind?”

“I would recreate Saw if it meant I could leave this fucking apartment.”

Ethan laughed and moved towards you, pressing a kiss against your mouth. Then another, then another as you clutched his shirt, holding him to you.

"Relax, okay?" He murmured, biting your bottom lip before he pulled away. "Listen, I'll talk to my dad. You know how he is. But you're the one who's coming up with all the ideas—we can’t risk you.” Then he laughed. “I’m pretty sure Richie would come back from the dead and beat my ass if you got hurt.”

"Just because I'm smart doesn't mean I want to be holed up." You argued, glaring at him. “It was my idea for Richie to get with Sam. Mine. I’m the one that found her in Modesto. I’m the one who convinced Amber to join in. Don’t you think I can handle this?”

“I’m not saying you can’t.” He said, frustrated. “I’m just saying you’re more useful as the mastermind behind this whole thing.” He tilted his head, smirking. “Besides. You look so much prettier without a knife in you. Sam seems pretty hell-bent on killing us all.”

“Ugh.” You groaned. You went to the couch and flopped down on it.

“The theater shit is happening tomorrow.” Ethan said, walking over to run a hand down your leg. “It’s almost over, okay?”

“I want in, E.” You said, glaring up at him. “I’m tired of waiting for—”

The front door opened and you sat up, staring as Wayne and Quinn entered, a Domino’s pizza box in Wayne’s hands. Quinn immediately rushed over to you and you barely had time to screech before she was pouncing, laughing as the two of you fell off the couch and onto the livingroom floor.

“Bitch!” You gasped, laughing as the two of you rolled a couple of inches and Quinn pinned you, a satisfied smile on her face.

“Someone promised me they’d have a Stab marathon.” She said, raising a brow at you. “For inspo. Pizza and a movie?” She wiggled her eyebrows. You rolled your eyes but grinned.

“Fine. Fine. Get off me.” You said, sitting up as Wayne brought the pizza into the Livingroom.

"Stop harassing Y/N." Wayne scolded, passing you a plate as Ethan moved to sit on the ground next to you, immediately pulling you onto his lap.

"She doesn't look bothered." Quinn said, sending you a teasing smile as she got herself a slice and turned on the tv. You stuck your tongue out at her, wiggling in Ethan's lap as his arms looped around your middle.

"Stop moving like that." Ethan murmured, nipping the top of your ear as you squeaked. Quinn made a retching sound as Wayne valiantly ignored you, preferring to watch the intro to Stab over watching his son get handsy. "What's your favorite scary movie, Y/N?"

"You two make me sick." Quinn grumbled, and you laughed.

-

The next night you sat on Ethan's bed as he got dressed, shoving the Ghostface costume into his backpack. He was about to leave to join up with the Core Four, a term that you secretly loathed.

"You sure I can't come?" You asked, pouting as you watched him get his stuff together. "It would be funny. The big reveal."

"If something goes wrong you can keep up the act." Ethan said, moving over to drop a kiss onto your head. "Someone has to make sure we win this time. If we don't come back, you'll say we kidnapped you or something."

"That sounds like the lamest alibi ever." You scoffed. "Kidnapped? Really?"

"Well I don't know, maybe you were kidnapped."

"I practically roleplayed as a human bowling ball when you threw me at Tara."

"You're a talented actress."

"I want to go."

"No."

"Ethan."

"Y/N."

You stared each other down for a moment, his dark expression matching your own, before he pulled his knife out of his backpack and moved closer to you. You ignored the flutter in your stomach at the wicked gleam in his eyes. He grabbed your waist, pulling you closer, before he slowly lifted his hand to run the tip of his knife across your cheek.

"You're staying here." He murmured, brown eyes fixed on the tip of the blade as he moved it to rest on your bottom lip. The blade was cold and, when your tongue darted out to lick the dangerous point, Ethan's eyes narrowed. "You're just as sadistic as me, you know that?" He asked, putting his knife away as you grinned. "Fucking love you."

"Love you." You breathed back, kissing him hard until a knock hit the door and Quinn said it was time to go. "Fuck em' up, baby." You said, kissing Ethan one last time before he grabbed his bag and left for the theater.

So you sat on the couch when they left, bidding them happy hunting, and scrolled through your phone. And you waited, all night, for Ethan to come home.

BOOYAAA part THREE

tags

@tsukilover11 @user27017201172 @nellyboosworld @gcldtom @xyzstar @iheartemmaroberts @heart-an0n @sadieswifenocaplol @laylasbunbunny @isaidoop @marijulila @just-here-to-read-fanfictions @pumpk1n-writes @burningfanflowercash

[muzansfangs]

I just read your "Accidentally sees you naked" fic

AJD EJDNEMRRJBRBRHEBE

IM FROTHING LITERALLY--- 😭❤️❤️

I WAS BLUSHING SO HARD WHILE READING URAHARA, AIZEN AND JUGRAM'S JDBEUBEJE! 🙈🙈

There are hardly any fics about Haschwalth anywhere 😭

If you get time van you write something similar with Haschwalth but both of them receiving the "nice treatment" ya'know (⁠ ͡⁠°⁠ ͜⁠ʖ⁠ ͡⁠°⁠)

Forbidden attraction.

Starring: Haschwalth Jugram x f!reader; Giselle and Candice;

Format: one-shot;

Warnings: nsfw, slight alteration of canon events, dom!Haschwalth, sub!reader, oral sex (f!reader receiving), oral sex (Haschwalth receiving), vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, choking, unprotected sex, creampie, language, kidnapping, biting, mention of murderous intents, verbal abuse, threats;

Plot: while you were a mere human without any valuable ability, you were Ichigo Kurosaki’s adoptive sister. That alone was enough for Yhwach to kidnap you and confine you into a cell in his luxurious palace. Everyone loathed you and that was the main reason why you rarely left your room. That and the fact that you would have rather been alone than spending your time with the people who were trying to kill your friends and family. However, one of the them, the one no one dared to cross, had always protected you from the sharp tongues of his colleagues. He was cold, distant, impeccable, deadly, not bothered by human emotions. But you, you literally drove him nuts.

﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

One month. You started to wonder if your friends had forgotten about you in the chaos of the war. You were almost getting used to the white walls of your new bedroom. Everything radiated a creepy purity that made your stomach clench in disgust. You loathed the grey and white walls, just like you wanted to rip to shreds the snow-white blankets of the king sized bed you slept in every single night, since they had thrown you in that majestic chamber. They did not call it a prison and, actually, it really was not a cell. But your heart felt like you were trapped into one.

The inhabitants of that dull fortress despised you. You could see the way they looked at you, when you were forced to leave your room. You knew they would have loved to tear you apart, scattering your limbs around for your friends to collect. You were a useless human being, after all. They did not get why Yhwach had ordered them to kidnap you. He could have just asked them to kill you right on the spot, leaving you to die an agonizing death and drown in a pool of your own blood.

Yet, there you were. You had a comfortable bedroom, a private space and you were even granted the chance to have all the drinks and food you craved, along with fresh clothes and blankets.

You were sitting on the windowsill, a book in your hand, as you tried to keep your mind focused on something else than the army of psychopaths roaming down the corridors outside your room. However, your door banging opened all of a sudden made you shriek on your seat, your grip on the novel slipping, as the volume landed on the marble floor with a thud.

Eyes widening even so slightly, you flicked your gaze up at the intruders of the hour and your blood instantly ran cold. Giggles and light footsteps echoed in the room as the two wicked Sternritters walked in, closing the door behind them hastily to taunt you out of prying eyes for the umpteenth time that day.

“Ah, there you are! I’m so glad you are still alive…” Candice piped out, her leaf green eyes locking with yours as she folded her arms against her chest to stare you down in disdain.

“Isn’t she pretty, Candice? I mean, I could make her even prettier, if I turned her into a zombie! What do you say? Should I do it? Ah, she looks delicious!” the shorter one, Giselle, chimed in as she strolled towards you with a malicious glint in her doe eyes. Maybe, Giselle was the worst of them all. Those blue orbs of hers had been transfixed on you since the first day you had stepped into that pit of vipers. Her intent was clear.

More than once, even when you were minding your business, the Sternritter Z had tried to approach you and whisper in your ear all the wicked things she wished she could do to you.

Chills ran down your spine, as you gritted your teeth and glared at them “Get out of my room. You don’t seem that smart, otherwise you would think twice before laying a finger on me. If you hurt me, you would probably end up dead too” you stated, clenching your fists down your sides, as you tried to stand your ground.

They laughed at your face, their grins making it painly clear that you were nothing more than a joker to mock and abuse for their entertainment.

“Oh, would you look at that, Giselle? The tramp is finally showing her teeth! Maybe I should just electrocute her” Candice blurted out, her spiritual pressure increasing as she showed you her fist and the familiar sparks of green and blue electricity engulfing it.

Your breath hitched in your throat at the sight of what would have probably determined your death and your heartbeat increased notably. You were hopeless this time. Your lower lip wobbled, your arms raising up in a defensive stance, as you squeezed your eyes shut and waited for the pain to strike you.

For the first time ever, you wished he was there to save you. You never appreciated his assistance, his cold and detached help, but this time your life was in danger. His deep voice, his scent and the sound of his cape fluttering around his slender figure were things you were grown almost fond of. He was the worst of the worst, the man you should have feared the most among those blood-thirsted monsters. Yet, he was the only one who treated you with respect and kindness.

Sometimes, you wondered if he really cared about you. Once you had even dared to ask him why he protected you from his subordinates, although you never received an answer. His stolid façade never cracked.

Maybe, he did not genuinely care about you and, if he had bumped into you on the battlefield, he would have probably sliced you up like a tenderloin, but there was something else in his icy blue eyes, when he helped you clean your wounds, or left new novels on your nightstand for you to find when you woke up in the morning.

He was just executing Yhwach’s orders, right?

“Don’t mess up her face, Candy! I want my new toy to look pretty!” Giselle’s voice abruptly interrupted your stream of consciousness, reminding you of how miserable your end was going to be.

How ironic was it that you were thinking of Haschwalth Jugram in the last moments of your life?

Candice hummed and sprinted towards you, a sadistic smirk gracing her lips as she consumed the distance between you two. You flinched in anticipation, waiting for her fist to make contact with your cheek, but a gust of wind whipping your face and the sound of a sword being unsheathed made you instantly relax.

You could have not been so lucky, right? But his deep voice echoing through your room and the gasps of fear from your aggressors made you lift your lids up to witness to the scene unraveling before your eyes.

“I don’t like to repeat myself, but apparently you two understand only violence. — Haschwalth said, his tone of voice flat but firm — Leave this room and do not even dare to glance at her anymore” he deadpanned, watching as the two Sternritters reluctantly nodded their heads and darted their eyes on you one last time, quick to leave you two alone.

The door closing behind them with a slam made you release a breath you did not know you were holding. He had saved once again. Your fingers were still trembling as you hopped down from the windowsill, your feet finally hitting the polished floor. You were still breathing quite heavily, your mouth dry, making it almost impossible for you to even mutter a simple ‘thank you’.

His back was still facing you, his broad shoulders and his height imposing over you and causing a turmoil of contrasting emotions in your stomach.

“Thank you, Haschwalth” you breathed out then, darting your eyes on the white wall not to be forced to lock eyes with him, when he turned around to look at your shaking frame.

Blonde and long hair, light-blue eyes and that white uniform he wore had always reminded you of how similiar to the popular portrait of a Prince Charming he was, despite his cruel intentions and villainous antics. His exterior jarred with his physical appearence.

“You were lucky I was around” he stated flatly, his eyes intently studying your features.

What was that insufferable feeling consuming him from the insides, whenever you were around him? It was not only connected to the way your beauty whetted his appetites, it was not a lustful and carnal desire. There was more. You were most likely the only person he did not enterily despise.

“Yeah, probably” you replied shortly, fumbling with the hem of your shirt in nervousness. He could sense you were avoiding his gaze, fear and anxiety were flinging around you.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, not moving an inch from where he was standing.

“I’m fine”.

Haschwalth did not trust you. He took a single step towards you, his hand reaching down to raise your face and his thumb and forefinger grasped your chin. Your eyes met for a split second, your heart skipping a beat at the unexpected gentle touch, but you were still way too shaken from the previous events to even bear a confrontation with him. Therefore, you swatted his hand away and took a step back, only to end up against the wall behind you. Your back flattened against it, your eyes half-lidded as you shot a pleading glance up at him.

Haschwalth was not surprised by your reaction but, instead of pushing your buttons further, he dropped his arm back down his side and arched a blonde eyebrow up. You had never really shoved him off of you, when he tended your wounds or checked on you. Something had changed. Was it only fear? The fear of being touched by one of the same people that had tried to harm you was undoubtedly coursing through your veins, glowing into your wary eyes, but there was something more. It was another kind of fear.

“What is it now? Am I not allowed to touch you anymore? You did not seem to be that scared of me before” he pointed out, resting his left hand on the hilt of his sword out of habit.

Cold sweat ran down your back at the accusation. Why had you escaped his gentle touch? It was not the fear of being hurt. You were liking your proximity, his concern, even though it was surely fake, was comforting. You liked his touch and that fact terrorized you to the point that your stomach clenched and twisted at the thought of how you craved some warmth, especially his warmth.

“It’s not—” you started, but a knock on the door cut you off, as Haschwalth immediately walked up to grasp the silver handle and opening it.

A petite woman, holding a refined silver tray in her gloved hands, came in. Her eyes were downcast as she silently settled it on your table, before bowing her head at the both of you and scurring out of your room. She did not fear you. She would have probably been capable of causing you enough damage to kill you, if you two were to engage a fight. It was him the one she was scared of.

“I was just about to wish you a good rest. Enjoy your dinner” he then spoke out, glancing briefly at you before disappearing behind the door too.

Once again, you were alone with your thoughts and contrasting feelings. You were not that hungry anymore, after what had happened, but you needed to eat to keep yourself healthy. As you sat down at your desk and poured yourself a glass of water, you realized that the event causing your lack of appetite was not what had happened with the Sternitters T and Z. It was the Sternitter B’s fault.

A restless night followed your meal. You thought you could find some peace among the silky bedsheets of your bed, but everything about that bedroom reminded you of him. Your eyes darted on the clock beside your bed, sighing as, much to your dismay, you realized it was two in the morning. For three hours you had tried to shift positions, read some more pages of the historical novel Haschwalth had left for you to read, but nothing worked. Your body craved some sleep, but your mind was unstoppable.

In a utter distress, you scoffed and sat up on the bed, bringing your knees to your chest and curling yourself up in a ball. Your forehead rested on the top of your knees, eyes closed, as you listened to the steady sound of the clock ticking. You were tired of being stuck in that place, you were tired of restraining yourself to feel forbidden emotions.

But just when you thought things could not get worst, you heard the door creaking open again. You lifted your head up, alredy alarmed by the fact that someone was entering your chamber in the the dead of the night, when you were supposed to be vulnerable and asleep.

However, as you jumped out of the bed and switched the lights on, you gasped at the sight of Haschwalth holding some books in his hands. He furrowed his brows, clearly not expecting to find you wide awake and ready to throw hands, if it was necessary.

“I thought you were asleep. I apologize, it was not my intention to startle you” Haschwalth declared, settling the three books over the desk.

You shrugged and looked at your feet, realizing how poorly covered you were before him. Your nightgown barely reached the middle of your thighs, granting him the chance to look at the entire length of your legs.

“I can’t sleep. Thank you for the books, anyway” you said, gesturing at the novels he had just brought to you as a form of entertainment from the living hell you were experiencing. It was a small attention he reserved to you, one of the things that made you believe he actually had an ounce of uncontaminated respect towards you.

“It’s nothing. You told me you liked to read, when you arrived here. You mentioned it being the closest form of freedom and escapism a prisoner could get to experience” the tall Sternitter said, his eyes somehow softer as he gazed at you.

Was it an attempt to make a small and civil conversation with you? Whatever it was, you were glad he had given some importance to your words. While the accomodation was something he had provided you under the strict command of his King, this was a small gesture of sympathy and mercy coming right from his core. In that very moment, it was hard believing he was the same cold-blooded man that had massacred legions of shinigamis before your eyes.

You bitterly smiled, making an effort in dealing with reality as you bit the insides of your cheeks. You oughed him some sort of an answer and, judging by his curious gaze, he was expecting you to reply something.

“You were not obliged to lend me your novels. I thought you were supposed to simply keep me alive and hold me captive… — you reasoned, your voice calm as you switched your attention from the blue cover of the book to his pale visage — These small gestures are not your Master’s orders, am I right?” you inquired, hoping this time he would properly retort something instead of walking away and avoiding your questions.

“Why do you care? It’s not the first time you’re questioning my actions” the blonde man noted, elgantly gliding his hand over the smooth surface of the desk.

You hated the way your eyes followed his movements attentively, or the way your mind played tricks on you.

‘How would those huge, calloused hands feel on my skin?’ you asked yourself, before turning around and sitting on the edge of the bed. The tension was palpable and you were more than sure that, despite the umpertubable expression freezing his face over, he could sense it too. After all, if your eyes had acted on their own accord and lingered on him for way too long, his ones were doing the same.

“Because I can’t figure you out” you admitted softly, sinking your foreteeth onto your bottom lip right after it.

You did not expect him to bother keeping this conversation up, but you were surprised as he took a step towards you and looked down at you. His jaw was clenched, eyes boring into yours in what resembled frustration, a battle clearly waging into his logical mind, as he stunned you in silence with his own confession.

“Honestly, I cannot figure you out too and it is driving me nuts” he stated bitterly, causing you to swallow down forcefully.

You tried to speak again, but the only sound leaving your lips was a small gasp of surprise as he wrapped his hand around your wrist and pulled you up on your feet. You craned your neck to look him in the eye and all you saw was a primordial desire, the same flame enveloping your heart and leaving ashes in your chest.

Before you had time to realize what was happening, his hands glided down your spine, until he hooked them behind your thighs and lifted you up easily. Your eyes were wide opened, as your legs were now tightly wrapped around his waist. What followed was a sinful action you did not fully know back then, if you would have ever been able to forgive yourself from having done.

His lips hingrily captured yours, as he made your back flatten against the wall. Your fingers found his hair, as your lips followed the lead of the man used to command and give orders. His tongue dominated yours without any resistance coming from you. It was too much to handle, too pleasurable to stop now.

A small moan left your lips, as he bit down onto your lower lip before he attacked your neck with equal hunger for your flesh, for you. You felt your cheeks boiling, his touch consuming you to the bone as if he was coating you in lava. Each bite onto your neck, or down to your cleavage, was a sign of how much he was conflicted by what he was feeling around you. You made him lose himself, it was unacceptable.

As his hand slithered down in the middle of you thighs, you felt ashamed of yourself for how much you wanted him to touch you. Haschwalth groaned as the pads of his fingers met the damp fabric of your panties, gliding them up and down through the thin item only to increase your arousal.

“Dripping for your enemy, tsk” he rasped, tugging them harshly to the side before drawing irregular patterns over your bundle of nerves.

Electricity coursed through your veins, your toes curling at the dirty remark he had made. The worst part of it was that he was right, there was no way you could deny it, or hide it from you. Not when his fingers easily delved into your warm core. Whimpers of pleasure fell from your lips as you lolled your head back against the wall, chest raising and falling erratically as you tried your best not to make too much noise.

However, despite his long fingers thrusting into you made it hard to think straight, you somehow still found the guts to fire something back.

“I may be dripping but you’re rock hard” you panted, mewling as Haschwalth remove his index from your aching heat and settled you back down on your feet.

His hands meticulously slipped underneath your nightgown, grasping the straps of your underwear and dragging the item down your legs, until they rested on your ankles. He was feral, almost tearing the panties apart as he hastily tossed them somewhere behind him. Haschwalth knelt down in front of you and grasped your right leg, draping it over his shoulder as he shot a lustful glare.

“I liked you better when you simply moaned” he remarked, before running his tongue flatly down your slit. You whined, eyes squeezing shut as your fingers threaded his hair in pleasure. No one had ever gone down on you like that, as if the juices streaming down your inner thighs were some divine nectar.

His lips sucked deliciously on your throbbing clit, making your legs shaking violently as you tried to keep yourself straight against the wall. You could not get enough, your mouth hanging open as you did not even care about who heard you anymore. Who would have complained about what was happening in your bedroom anyway? There was a perverse sting of satisfaction and pride in watching the Sternitter Grand Master delve his tongue into you. He was on his knees for you, serving a prisoner as if she was some queen whose approval counted.

As you whimpered one last time, hips bucking up against his face, Haschwalth growl and squeezed your rear in primordial desire. You came onto his tongue, almost slumping down onto the floor as he pulled away from you and wiped his chin and mouth with a tissue in his double-breast jacket.

More. He wanted more, he was ready for more. He could not fight the attraction he felt for you, therefore he had no qualms about dragging you to the bed and quickly unbuckle the belt of his trousers. Your eyes were glued on him as you watched the way he slowly stripped out of his candid uniform. His abs, his chest, his thighs seemed the precious work of a greek sculptor. Never in your life you had seen someone as perfect as he was.

You thought that removing your nighthgown was the least you could do for him. You did not fail to notice how his eyes gazed at your perky breasts, just like you almost flinched at the sight of his shaft spriging out of his tight boxers.

“Come here” he said, his tone unnaturally soothing as he climbed onto the bed and stood up on his knees. You did not hesitate to follow his command, your mouth watering as you crawled up to him and gently wrapped your hand around his cock. There was no more shame in your eyes, your body almost moving under the influence of a forbidden desire eating you up from the inside.

You heard him suck in a breath, his eyes closing, as you started to swirl your tongue around the pinkish tip to tease him. His hand grabbed the back of your neck and prompted you to give him more, to part your lips and let him experience the warmth of your welcoming mouth. You did not put on a fight, eager to hear him grunt just as much as he had enjoyed breaking you earlier. Each inch you took in made him tightened the grip on your hair, your mouth and tongue working to let him accomodate into your cavity.

“Damn it…” Haschwalth huskily said, a guttural moan falling from his lips, while you bobbed your head up and down to elicit more moans from him. Yet, he stopped you. Gripping on your hair tightly enough to make you pull your mouth away from him, he sighed and pushed you down onto your back.

For a second, you thought you were not doing a good job but, when he hovered over you and spread your legs for him to settle in between, his thumb brushed over your lower lip and he whispered something in your ear that made you whimper in anticipation.

“Don’t worry, it’s just that I intend to empty myself into you” he uttered, hooking one of your leg around his hip before shoving himself into you slowly, gradually.

A strained moan left your lips, as he grunted and bit onto the crook of your neck with each inch he conquered into you. Your eyes rolled in the back of your skull, the intrusion both pleasurable and painful as you adjusted yourself at his impressive size.

As Haschwalth carefully began to thrust into you, your hands cupped his smooth cheeks. Your lips found each others in sloppy and messy kisses, so unlike him, out of his style, out of the world. You could not believe you had allowed him into your bed, the sound of skin against skin filling the room and fueling something inside the composed Sternitter.

His hand found its way around your neck, the other flying up to the bedhead to balance himself as his hips smacked against yours in a feral pace. You did not protest to the blatant act of dominance, the grip on your neck only increasing your pleasure as you could focusing on your sensation.

“H-Hascwalth, I—” you whimpered, eyes watering as you gripped the bedsheets beside you so tightly your knuckles turned white.

“I know… Me too” he rasped, before releasing your neck and kissing you passionately. Your legs shook, your moan muffled by his lips pressing against your as you both came. His forehead was resting against yours, as he panted and gently stroked your cheek.

Sleeping was not hard, after that. You fell asleep over his chest, one of his arm draped over your waist in a firm grip, in which you woke up in the morning. Once again, when he slept, it was hard to believe Haschwalth Jugram was a monster. Haschwalth Jugram was just an angel who had lost his wings down his way to Hell.

AUTHOR NOTE.

Hello there! I am not going to apologize for that long and lewd one-shot. Actually, looking back at all of my works, this is probably the filthiest thing I have ever written in my life, lol! Well, what can I say? Some characters bring out the worst in me… Let me know what you guys think about this! Likes, comments and re-posts are always appreciated!

Until next,

x o x o

TAGS: @stygianoir @byakuyandaizenwifey @shattereddreamssara and my queen @sashi-ya because, if I’m not mistaken, you kind of like our deadly Prince Charming✨