#it’s not bleeding there’s no bone sticking out

[steddieas-shegoes]

slowly, then all at once

for @steddielovemonth inspired by the quote "as he read, i fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once." from the fault in our stars by john green

rated t | 731 words | cw: nightmares | tags: pre-relationship, feelings realization, literal sleeping together, cuddling

📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖

Steve��s nightmares aren’t a secret. The severity of them, along with the frequency, and how shitty he feels after, those are all secrets. Not even Robin quite knows how bad it gets sometimes.

The summer is worse: the memories of the Russians, the way the pool reflects off his window at night, the humidity clinging to his skin reminding him too much of the way dust and ash and mud clings in the Upside Down.

He feels stupid after spring break, that he should even still have traumatic memories when Eddie almost died. But he does. They’re worse now. He isn’t being tortured, Robin isn’t even in these ones. It’s always Eddie.

Eddie bleeding.

Eddie’s broken body.

Eddie not breathing.

Eddie dying.

It’s weird how quickly he took over Steve’s brain, how he went from being someone Steve barely knew from school to being one of his closest friends. Near-death experiences tended to do that, he supposes.

But it’s almost every night, and he rarely gets more than a couple hours of sleep before they hit, so he’s in a constant state of exhaustion these days. It’s not great for all the volunteering he does, and the usual taking the kids where they need to go, and trying to find a new job, and trying to convince Robin he’s fine. The bags under his eyes and the constant slump of his shoulders says everything.

She worries, but she knows he just has to get over the hump.

They all do.

Eddie stays with him late into the night a lot. It’s like he senses that being alone is the catalyst.

He finds excuses, tries to make it seem like he’s the one who doesn’t wanna be alone. Steve appreciates it, but he’s far past the point of feeling any shame for being afraid of being alone.

He doesn’t turn him away, though. Eddie sticks around for hours most nights, well past the point he should. Sometimes they watch movies, sometimes they just turn music on and sit quietly in the living room. Eddie is always moving a little, fingers tapping, leg jiggling, head bobbing. It’s good, though. It’s nice.

And sometimes he lays down in Steve’s bed with him until he falls asleep. He doesn’t touch him, or really do anything more than just exist in the space while Steve closes his eyes and drifts off. He’s always gone when Steve wakes up.

Tonight, he’s got a book open and Steve’s curled up under his blankets. His bones ache from how tired he is, and he wonders if his body will ever get to the point where exhaustion keeps the nightmares away. Steve’s eyes are closed, but he’s not asleep. Not yet.

Eddie’s voice is soft, accents coming through for some characters, colorful inflections describing the scenery. Steve smiles to himself as his eyes start to feel heavy.

It’s nice to be read to. He doesn’t know which book this is, but it sounds like a dream.

Maybe he’ll dream about this instead of bats circling a body he loves.

Oh.

His eyes open and he looks up at Eddie, who doesn’t stop reading, even when Steve knows he can feel his eyes on him. It’s a beautiful thing, to see Eddie so enraptured in a story that he’s probably read before, to see him still putting the effort into giving Steve a show even though Steve was mostly asleep.

He loves him.

Steve loves Eddie.

Not the way he loves Robin, or the kids. Maybe closer to how he loved Nancy, but even that didn’t feel quite like this.

This feels like a later sunset after a long winter, a fresh breath of air after being stuck in the Upside Down, a glass of cold water in the middle of summer.

It’s refreshing, and waves of calm take over his body.

He settles.

He reaches out, places his arm over Eddie’s stomach, curls his fingers into his shirt. He buries his face into Eddie’s side.

Eddie pauses for a moment, just long enough that Steve worries he shouldn’t have done this. But then one arm covers Steve’s body and he continues, voice softer but no less enthusiastic.

Steve closes his eyes and falls into a deep sleep.

When he wakes, it’s calm. There’s no crying or screaming, no thrashing, no fighting.

Eddie’s there, holding Steve against him.

He loves him.

[lanadelrafe]

Ok so why is no one talking about mob boss! Rafe LIKE HELLO. I think we’re gonna need more🫶🏼

as much as they fight, mob wife!reader can’t sleep until she knows rafe is safe.

— tw: mentions of a gun, attempted sexual assault, murder, blood.

— author’s note: i’m so glad people actually like this au! i know it’s not all sunshine and rainbows but i’m under the impression that being a mob wife isn’t that great. but they actually kinda like each other in this one.

there was a break in once when rafe was out doing god knows what. mw!reader was home alone with no protective detail. had there not been multiple men who rushed around, breaking things, she would’ve put those training sessions to work and defended herself. instead, she called rafe and locked herself in their shared closet. rafe hurried home, gun loaded and ready to be used. she could hear the shots even from her hiding spot. once it got quiet, she began panicking because she had no clue whether it meant rafe was alive or not. she heard the sound of the door knob being turned and she held her breath. when the door didn’t open, whoever was behind it began to jiggle the knob it abruptly.

she knew right then and there that it wasn’t rafe.

the only thing she had to defend herself were her heels. the memory of the incident at the club flashed in her mind. she grabbed a single heel and held it up, ready for the attack. when the masked stranger finally broke down the door, she lunged at him. he struggled for a moment, bleeding from his scalp, before he managed to pin her arms to her sides and flip her onto her stomach. she laid flat against the floor, thrashing and trying to break her wrists free from his hold.

the moment she felt his grubby hands push up the oversized t-shirt she was wearing was when she really started to freak out. she started screaming and threw her head back against his nose. she heard a crunch and a pained groan. he released her and she took the opportunity to crawl out from underneath him. she didn’t make it far when he grabbed her by her ankles and dragged her body towards him. he flipped her onto her back and she scratched at his face, beginning to cry. “get off of me!” she shrieked. she pushed off his mask and gasped when she saw the bone sticking out of his crooked, bloody nose.

he grinned down at her. “don’t worry sweetheart. it’ll be something you’re used to.” he was pressed against her core while her legs were on either side of his waist. he reached down to yank her panties off, laughing deeply.

before anything else happened, they both heard a whistle. she stopped her cries, craning her neck to see where the noise came from. rafe stood at the door, leaning against the frame while cradling his bloody arm against his chest. he pointed his gun in their direction and pulled the trigger. the bullet hit straight between the stranger’s eyes, blood splattering onto mw!reader’s face. she let out a choked sob and shoved his lifeless body off of her.

she stood up and ran into rafe’s arms. he groaned at the impact, having been shot in his shoulder. but nonetheless, he pushed through the pain to wrap his uninjured arm around the back of her neck.

“i was so scared rafe,” she whispered later to him while they laid in bed. the bullet in his shoulder was long gone and he was bandaged up, curtesy of the private doctor he had hired for situations like this. “thought he was going to-”

he cut her off, “i’ll never let anyone hurt you again.” he traced his fingers up and down her back while she clung to his body.

“yeah,” she replied softly. and for the first time in a long time, she believed him.

after that night, rafe installed a high level security system, had armed guards posted outside the mansion’s gate and every entrance to their home. despite the new safety measures, mw!reader would still stay up into the late hours, paranoid. she didn’t close her eyes until she was tucked into rafe’s side, arms wrapped her protectively.

[charleemoon]

dunmeshi is so great for people who enjoy seeing their faves bleeding out and suffering and being tortured but get too emotionally distraught when they actually die. because someone will just get their throat slit and then get back up. get their head exploded, get crushed, stabbed through the heart, limbs torn off, broken bones sticking out, gushing blood, and then they just. get healed and revived and all is well ^_^

[area51-escapee]

Bought stuff so I could ensure I’d have lunch tomorrow but the expectation that everything is washed immediately after makes it impossible to actually do. I am in so much pain and using my hands at all hurts so badly I more or less have to choose between using them to make food or using them to clean and decide which is worth the pain. I’m so tired. I want somebody to make my lunch for me.

[whumperofworlds]

Whump Dialogue

"Are you okay?"

"Does it look like I'm okay?!"

[ghostedbunnie]

nightmare in the daylight

knight!ghost x fem!reader

based on my prompt that you can find here.

warnings: non-con/dub-con, size kink, spanking, oral (f.receiving), fingering (f.receiving), thigh riding, biting, creampie, breeding kink

a/n: i feel so rusty so please be gentle i rewrote this way too many times, it was a lot longer and had more plot but i might just end up writing pt.2 if there is interest, I added a tag list for those who wanted to see this! 🫶

Ghost hadn't anticipated encountering a robbery on the forest trail while en route to collect his king's future wife. It was unexpected but not unwelcome; he was yearning for a skirmish, for blood and broken bones. The recent tranquility had left him restless. These bandits wouldn't pose much of a challenge, but they would at least satisfy his craving.

The skies began to pour as soon as he dismounted from his horse, startling the highwaymen. They were engaged in a one-sided fight with a few knights who had undoubtedly been sent to protect the carriage on its way to his kingdom. Before any of them could react to his arrival, heads started rolling. Chaos erupted once more, with screams of terror cutting through the forest and startling the remaining fauna.

After the final enemy fell to a sword through his abdomen, Ghost approached the carriage with slow, deliberate steps. As he opened the door, he was taken by surprise as a curtain was thrown into his face and a shard of glass was aimed for his neck by a scrawny, wild-looking maid. Despite your trembling, there was a fierce determination in your eyes, a vow that you would not give up without a struggle. Beneath his face plate, the corner of his mouth curled up, and with a wry snort, he deflected the shard from your bleeding hand. Seizing you by the back of your neck like a feisty kitten showing its claws, he pulled you out of the carriage and dropped you onto the chilly, muddy ground. As he turned back to the carriage to retrieve the princess, he realized she was no warrior; she had fainted at the sight of his imposing figure silhouetted against the moonlight.

As he carries your mistress to his horse, you launch at his back, kicking and screaming, trying to make him let her go. He unceremoniously deposits her on the horse like a sack of potatoes. Finally, he turns back to catch your hands, which have been beating at his back, with one of his much bigger hands. Your eyes go wide with terror as the reality of your position with this beast sinks in. He can't help but relish in the look of you now, wet hair sticking to your face, wild eyes, and scratches on your cheek from the broken glass. You look like a tasty meal for his beastly appetite and he's been starving for far too long. You are unaware of it but attracting his attention will be the worst mistake of your life. As he draws you closer with your bound wrists, he whispers into your ear so that you can hear him over the pouring rain, “Yer brave but stupid, girl.” After that, he hits the back of your neck and everything goes black.

The next thing you know, you are standing in front of the king who explains the entire situation. However, somehow that doesn't help the sinking feeling in your stomach, especially when the king mentions a reward for the behemoth of a man towering over you. He is still covered in blood, and daylight doesn't make him any less terrifying. He stalks around like a nightmare in black leathers that hug his form tight and emphasize his width. As if sensing your thoughts, he takes a step closer, taking up more of your space, and before you can move away, you catch the last words uttered by the king: “You brought me, my bride, Ghost, it's only fair you get a reward. Take your pick - anything you wish for will be yours.”

A weighty, gloved paw settles on the nape of your neck, causing you to startle. "I'll take 'er." Your mistress immediately starts to protest but despite her objections, the king simply nods and smiles, disregarding you entirely. You have no option but to allow the beast, that he called Ghost, to guide you away with a firm hand on your nape.

After navigating through several twists and turns, you find yourself in an unremarkable room. It contains only the absolute necessities—a bed and very little else. The one thing that draws your attention in the room is the sizeable tub that is still emitting steam, indicating it was just filled a few minutes ago.

Silently, Ghost pushes you towards the tub, and you promptly begin to retreat away from it. You refuse to bathe in his presence. Even though you are just a servant, you are still a virtuous lady.

“Either you go voluntarily or I'll throw you in kickin' and screamin'.” He growls and then says, "I'll relish it either way." You can sense the predatory undertone in his voice. You're fighting a losing battle, as going willingly gives him complete control, yet resisting might provoke an even more... primal response.

You break free from his hold, realizing that he let you go willingly. 

"Can you... turn around?" he scoffs, moving to a chair that creaks under his weight. Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he gestures for you to proceed. Though you want to scream or lash out, you hold back, sensing that he's waiting for you to lose control. Instead, you turn around and slowly peel off your muddied and torn dress. As you reach the chemise underneath, you sneak a peek and notice he has removed his helmet and face plate, revealing short dirty blond hair, black coal marks around his eyes, and prominent scars cutting through his lips and brow. Despite his broken nose, he remains strangely alluring, which frightens you. Hastily, you turn back, slide the chemise down, and attempt to hide under the steaming water.

"Good girl," he growls, satisfied with your obedience. Just as the relief that maybe this is all he wanted starts to sink into your bones, it's replaced with dread when you notice he starts shedding his clothes too. He loosens up his dark, blood-stained leathers with ease and deftness you wouldn't expect from a man his size.

"What are you doing?" Panic is evident in your question, but it doesn't seem to bother him at all.

"Can't bathe with my clothes on," he answers matter-of-factly. Once again, a wave of indignation courses through you, but it's quickly overshadowed by a pang of heat that forces you to rub your thighs together underwater. Your eyes can't help but stay glued to him, just as he did to you when you were taking your dress off. He is now down to his breeches, and when he pulls them down his thick thighs, you audibly gasp when you notice he is not wearing anything underneath. This earns you an amused chuckle, especially when he catches you looking again through your fingers.

Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him, but before your thoughts can drift to what lies between his powerful thighs, he steps into the tub with you. Water spills over the edges, though he doesn't seem to mind. He pulls you close, turning you so your back presses against him, your body nestled between his legs, leaning on his firm chest. The light tickle of his hair brushes against your skin, and his strong arm rests across your stomach, fingers splayed making you feel even smaller. The contact makes you squirm, but as you try to pull away, you only stir the hardening length behind you, making you flush with heat.

“Relax,” he grunts into your ear, more command than a suggestion.

“How can I possibly –ah.” Your reply gets cut off by a moan as his other hand falls from the edge of the tub and wanders between your legs. Your attempts at closing your legs seem futile even with one hand he is strong enough to force his way in and drag his fingers through your folds nearing the opening. Your spine arches instinctively and he answers with a nip to your neck and jaw, while forcing a finger up to the first knuckle in. 

“Gotta loosen you up a bit, pet.” You have no choice but to surrender to his touch as he sinks his finger in and curls it, drawing a moan out of you before you clap a hand over your mouth to keep the sounds in. But all that decorum is forgotten when he adds a second one and scissors them before slowly prodding you with the third making you see stars. The tension building in your body suddenly snaps, sending you reeling, legs going numb and your fingers digging into his arm still wrapped around your stomach. 

With your mind hazy from your first-ever orgasm, you don't even register that he pulls you out of the bath, drying you, and carrying you to the bed in the center of the spacious room. Your body already half asleep.

His gravelly voice pulls you out of your post-orgasmic haze. “Naive, little thing.” Suddenly he is trailing hungry, open-mouthed, and nippy kisses down the length of your body. Marking your neck and collarbones with angry red marks, biting down harder than necessary on the underside of your breast leaving behind imprints of his teeth, and making you hiss when the pain mixes with the pleasure, he licks a trail down your stomach and in a moment of clear-headedness you try to fist his hair and tug him up and away from your center but his hair is cut too short for any leverage. When you lock eyes with him, between your legs forcing them open with hunger and lust written all over his face you try to get away just for him to deliver a loud smack to your outer thigh before dragging you closer and licking a stripe through your folds with a loud guttural groan that you feel more than you hear it.

His thumb circles your clit while he alternates kissing, sucking, and fucking you with his tongue. When your squirming in an attempt to get away turns into grinding your hips against his face, his other hand rests on your stomach adding slight pressure and making you cry out which only spurs him on. The sounds that reverberated through his chest were nothing short of animalistic and when your second orgasm shot through your core, you fell limp against the sheets with a moan that would make you blush if at least half of your brain was still functioning properly. A new wave of panic sets in when you realize that he isn't stopping. On the contrary, he probes you with his fingers in addition to his tongue. You can feel the coil in your lower belly tightening again, heating up with his ministrations.

You plead with him, saying you can't take anymore just for him to disregard it with a growl, “You've got plenty more in ya.” 

You've lost count of how many times you came when he manhandled you around onto your hands and knees propping your hips up with a pillow. You turn to look at him with heavy-lidded eyes and your breath catches in your throat at the sight of him standing behind you with his massive hand tugging at his thick, angry-looking, and leaking cock with his eyes glued to your core, still pulsing and wet from all your previous orgasms. Without warning he grabs your hips, aligns the blunt head of his cock with your entrance, and pushes in. Your fingers dig into the sheets from the sheer stretch as you mewl and whimper when he drags himself all the way to slam back in. Everything is too much and not enough at the same time, with every thrust his fingers dig into your hips and you are sure there will be fingerprints left with how hard he is gripping you and the idea makes you wetter. Prompted by the delicious drag of his cock your walls keep tightening around him, as he pushes you closer and closer to your release. One of his muscular arms circles your waist, his chest flush to your back, as his other arm comes to rest next to your head with one of his legs still firmly planted on the floor and the other resting next to you on the bed for better purchase. This new angle combined with the gravelly grunts so close to your ear become your undoing and you hurtle full-force into another mind-numbing orgasm with Ghost following close behind.

“Come f'r me, pet.” Again, not a suggestion but a command and who are you to refuse him? So you do as he says, pussy fluttering from the aftershocks as he fucks you through it, thumb circling your clit before he fills you up, not allowing you to move an inch, keeping your hips propped up and when he pulls out which drags another set of whimpers from you he meticulously pushes his spend back with thick, calloused fingers. “Gotta make sure it takes.” 

If your consciousness weren't slipping away, you'd likely be alarmed, but instead, your eyes begin to close again, and this time, sleep claims you.

You wake to a heavy weight pressing down on your back, and it takes a moment for your mind to catch up with the events of yesterday. When it does, your entire body flushes and you attempt to move out of bed, only to find it futile. You're pinned beneath strong arms marked with scars—some from arrows, large and small, and others older, circular, and still appearing raw.

Your thoughts are abruptly interrupted as a thick, muscular thigh presses deeper between your legs, forcing them apart. Without much thought, you begin to grind against it, a primal urge stirring within you. Despite the lingering soreness from yesterday, a fresh wave of need starts to build, and any trace of resistance fades in the face of overwhelming pleasure. It feels shameful, but you can't stop the tentative movements, slowly finding a rhythm—until the sudden flex of his thigh makes you gasp, your eyes rolling back.

“So needy,” he growls close to your ear but there's no trace of anger in his voice, if anything he sounds pleased. “Come on, ride it harder.” He punctuates the sentence with yet another flex of his thigh and a nip to your neck, making you shudder but follow through with his command. As you grind back against his thigh you take a note of his cock stirring, resting heavy and hard between your bare ass. You push against it absentmindedly and find yourself pinned under him, your legs still held apart with his thigh that's now embarrassingly slick with your arousal. The visual of it makes you turn your head away, eyes closed and whimpering. Ghost doesn't like that. His massive paw of a hand grabs at your cheeks, your lips puckering involuntarily while he grunts at you to keep those eyes open for him. As he licks into your mouth, it suddenly dawns on you—this is your first kiss. You had already let this beast inside you before even sharing a kiss, and everything felt so out of order, that it made you want to scream and cry. Instead, you settle on throwing your hands around him and clawing at his back as he aligns himself with your needy, sore pussy and thrusts to the hilt without so much as a warning.

Even after yesterday, the burn of the stretch to accommodate his length makes fresh tears spring up into your eyes and roll down the apples of your cheeks. You swear you see his scarred lips twitch up into a savage smile at the sight of them before he licks them clean off your cheeks with a satisfied groan. In retaliation you dig your nails deeper into his sturdy back, hoping to break the skin and leave a mark that only ends up urging him to fuck you harder, faster. The sounds reverberating in the room drive you crazy; over them, you don't even notice a soft knock at the door but whoever it was scurries away registering the sound of the moans he wrings out of you with one particularly hard thrust that pushes so deep you swear you can feel him in your throat. Effortlessly he manhandles your legs on his shoulders to hit a different angle. As you struggle with the overwhelming feeling of fullness he leaves a deceptively soft kiss on your ankle before he folds you in half again and wrestles another mind-shattering orgasm out of you and succumbing to one himself, painting your insides with his spent. Pulling out, he doesn't bother moving, he simply rests his head on your chest between your breasts, squeezing the air out of your lungs with the sheer size of him. “Rest now, pet. Plenty of time for more o' that later.”

At that moment, you know there is no turning back; you've been taken, branded from the inside out. You wonder if this is truly so horrible, perhaps this nightmare of a man will drive away all the other nightmares plaguing your mind.

Or perhaps he is even more dreadful than your imagination could have ever conjured.

taglist: @a66-1 , @ghostlythots , @rttxcmt , @september-22-1998 , @fluffysmiko , @gyusbrownie , @bumblebeesfromvenus , @magicalforestcat , @nommingonfood , @tami-doodles , @fateisnotafactor , @m-a-l-a-c-z-a-r-n-a , @nicolebarnes , @msdevil333 , @lilpothoscuttings , @tealeaftallulah , @not-reptilian , @moonfloweronmars , @aliceinwonderland-5678 , @marshmelloe , @i-love-you-just-the-same, @lazyperfectioniste , @tragedyinwaves , @thisisforthebest97 , @talkingcorn , @hxnneydew , @resplendantrosewood , @telvannitea , @the-casual-act , @hello-lemons, @kiwicopia , @just-a-sewer-goblin

[sceletaflores]

well, all right i’m bad, but then you’re no prize either…

pair: joel miller x fem!reader

wc: 8.6k

contains: 18+ SMUT MDNI, no ellie, general violence (only referenced), age gap (56/26), swearing, so many spacers lmao, not quite friends to lovers and not quite enemies to lovers but a weird other thing, kinda mean!joel for a good sec, dressing wounds, joel miller TUMMY, loss of virginity (reader is a virgin but she's not completely oblivious and weirdly infantile about it lmao), fingering (fem!receiving), p in v, unprotected sex whoops, size kink, belly bulging, pussy pronouns, porn with a tiny plot, no use of y/n.

nat’s note: well, i finally caved y’all. baby’s first tlou fic! this literally took me forever to write and even longer to post cause i was so terrified LMAO so please give me some grace if it’s shit and he’s ooc and timelines are a little fuzzy cause i barely know what i’m doing. thank you chickens love you mwah mwah mwah. kisses!

dividers by lovely @saradika-graphics!

joel found a lodge house…

You don’t know what you did to make Joel Miller hate you so much.

He's never outright said it, but you know it’s there—in every sharp glance, every clipped word, every deliberate avoidance.

Besides, his silence is worse than anything he could say. A quiet condemnation that settles in your chest like stone.

You tell yourself it doesn’t matter, that you don’t care what he thinks, but the truth is harder to swallow.

You do care—more than you want to admit. His approval, his respect, hell, even a sliver of kindness from him feels like an impossible prize you’ll never win.

And you hate yourself for wanting it. For needing it.

It's not just the weight of his disdain that eats at you, it's the not knowing why. God, do you wish you could ask him why.

What did you do to make him look at you like you’re some necessary evil he has to tolerate. Why does he hold some unspoken grudge that's manifested itself into something you couldn't dream of ever comprehending.

But the thought of confronting Joel feels like standing on the edge of a cliff, staring down into a void that might swallow you whole.

So instead, you do what you've always done. You keep your distance, try to match his indifference with your own, and tell yourself it’s better this way.

You were young when the outbreak hit, six years old.

You’re sure that’s part of it. That that’s how Joel sees you, as some bumbling, naive child who’s more of a hassle than anything else.

Another mouth to feed, another back to watch, baggage.

You've been with him for almost seven months now, traveling side by side when you may have well been miles apart. Trekking through abandoned cities, overgrown highways, and every godforsaken patch of wilderness in between.

In the beginning, you did everything you could to prove him wrong.

You pushed yourself past your limits, hunted, scavenged, fought, kept up. You did everything that needed to be done without hesitation.

All to show that you were more than what he made you out to be. It never seemed to matter much.

After you lost your parents in the early days of the outbreak, it was just you and your sister. She taught you everything you know, taught you how to survive.

It's because of her that you know how to shoot a rifle, how to skin a rabbit, how to start a fire with nothing but sticks and dried moss, how to snap bones and locate which vital arteries bleed out the quickest.

It's because of her that you've been able to hone some sick skill in the maiming of clickers.

A skill you never thought you'd need to use on her.

You were supposed to be safe in the QZ. You weren't supposed to be fifteen years old, aiming a gun at the one person you had left.

Your own flesh and blood wasn't supposed to be the very first in a long list of red tallies under your belt.

It’s been years and you’ve still never forgotten that day. December 19th, 2012, the date burned into your brain like someone took a branding iron to the tissue.

You can’t count the amount of times you’ve been ripped from your sleep drenched in a cold sweat with the tail end of a scream tearing at the skin of your throat.

The image of what was left of your sister, slumped on the ground lifeless as her blood painted the wall behind her flashing behind your closed eyelids. The sound of her last labored breath ringing in your ears louder than any shotgun blast.

You ran that same night, with the weight of her death on your shoulders.

Your entire world spinning out around you as you clawed through barbed wire fencing, not caring where you were going or what would happen to you—just needing to escape.

There was nothing left for you to do after that but survive. And that’s what you did, for years, scraping by in a world that had already chewed you up and spit you out a mangled mess.

You learned how to be ruthless because of it.

How to harden yourself against the loss, the pain, the brutality. But there were cracks, too. Cracks you hid well, buried deep beneath layers of stubbornness and distance.

The endless days blurred into each other. Empty houses, hollow streets. A life reduced to scavenging, hiding, and the occasional, fleeting moment of human connection that inevitably ended in loss. 

And then you found yourself with Joel.

You hadn’t exactly found him, though. More like crashed into his orbit by accident.

A few desperate days spent scavenging through the ruins of a small town, a chance encounter that left you both wary and unwilling to turn your backs.

But, inexplicably, you somehow became part of his traveling routine.

He wasn’t like any of the others you’d met before. At first, you thought he might be different. A man who seemed broken, but different nonetheless.

As the days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, you began to see the truth. Joel Miller wasn’t concerned with you. He didn’t need you. And, more than that, he didn’t want you around. 

You didn’t know what to do with that.

It’s a bitter kind of irony. You’ve survived all this time completely on your own, fought tooth and nail to stay alive, but with him, you might just crumble.

Joel found a lodge house. It's a small, weathered place tucked away in the dense trees of the wood surrounding it.

He only deemed it suitable after an extensive perimeter check and a thorough sweep of the interior.

It's not much—just another run-down place in the middle of nowhere—but for the first time in what feels like forever, it’s a roof over your head for the night.

The walls are sturdy, though the windows are cracked and half of the floorboards creak like they're about to give out at any moment.

You explored the second floor alone, creeping through the desolate rooms and taking in all that was left behind.

Old family photographs covered in thick layers of dust, worn clothes riddled with holes still hung in the few closets you stumble across.

The oddest of all was an old jewelry box tucked away in a dresser draw, tarnished silver dull and muddy.

The sound of familiar footsteps comes from somewhere behind you. The door creaks open slowly.

Joel. Of course.

He clears his throat, the sound abrasive in the quiet of the house.  

“Fire’s low,” he says, voice rough from its lack of use today.

You don’t turn around, not yet. You take the box in your gloved hand, running your fingers across the intricate design of the lid, touch trailing over winding vines and small roses.

“Okay,” you mutter, your voice coming out quieter than you intended. “I’ll grab some more wood later.”

Another beat of silence. Then, “It’s gettin’ cold out, I’ll go.”

Your fingers pause their ministrations, moving to flip the lid open. Empty.

“Suit yourself,” you reply after a moment, your tone just as neutral as his.

Joel doesn’t leave right away. You hear the floorboards groan beneath his weight, his presence lingering in the doorway. 

You wonder what he’s waiting for, or if he’s waiting at all.

Finally, he speaks. “Don’t touch anything.”

With that he turns and leaves the room, you wait until you can’t hear his footsteps trailing down the stairs anymore to let out the scoff festering in your chest.

You snap the jewelry lid shut with a little more force than necessary. “Asshole.”

Joel's been gone for a while now. Longer than it takes to chop a few logs for firewood.

You came down from the upstairs a few minutes after hearing the tell-tale sound of the heavy door opening and closing. The main room is quiet, save for the soft crackle of the dwindling fire.

You're perched on an old armchair near the entrance, peering out the dirty window that has the best view of the treeline as you nervously pick the skin around your nails.

You tell yourself not to worry. He’s probably fine, he’s been doing this a lot longer than you. And if Joel is anything, it’s annoyingly competent.

Still, a nagging doubt itches at the back of your mind. It's been at least half an hour, maybe more.

You’re just about to grab your own pack and go looking for him when the front door creaks open.

Joel stumbles inside, the frigid evening air rushing in behind him before he slams the door shut. At first glance, he looks fine—no more haggard than usual. 

But then you notice the way he favors his left side, the way his free hand is pressed against his ribs, blood seeping through his fingers and staining his torn undershirt.

You’re on your feet in an instant.

“Fuck,” you say, voice sharper than you expected. “What the hell happened?”

“Raiders.” Is the only explanation you get as he tries to brush past you like it’s nothing. The stiff way he moves and the tightens of his jaw betray him. “S’just a scratch.”

“Bullshit,” you snap, stepping in front of him and blocking his path to the fire. “Sit. Now.”

He gives you a look, one of those deep, withering glares you’ve seen him use to intimidate countless others into submission. But you stand your ground, chin raised and jaw set–defiant. 

His stubbornness finally meeting its match in your own. 

Finally, with a low growl of frustration, he drops onto the couch. “Happy now?”

"Not until you let me take care of that." You motion toward his side, where the blood is still spreading.

“I’m fine,” he mutters, lolling his head back to rest more heavily on the couch.

“Sure you are,” you snap, crossing the room to rifle through your bag. “And I’m the fucking Queen of England.”

"Said I’m fine," he bites through gritted teeth, but you’re already moving, heading back to him with the first aid kit from your pack.

"You want to bleed out on this ugly-ass couch? Be my guest," you shoot back, dropping to your knees in front of him. "Otherwise, shut up and let me help."

Joel surprisingly doesn’t argue any further, just sighs heavily and reluctantly sinks further into the couch cushions.

You push the front of his jacket open to slide it off his shoulders as gently as you can, peeling back the layer of his flannel next.

The smell of blood hits you immediately.

The gash is about five inches long, trailing the span of his ribcage. It’s deep—but not fatal—just an angry red and oozing blood.

Definitely not the simple 'scratch' he made it out to be.

Your stomach churns at the sight, but you push it down. No time for that.

“Jesus, Joel,” you mutter under your breath, reaching for the alcohol in your kit. “You really know how to underplay a situation, huh?”

He doesn’t respond, just watches you with those dark, calculating eyes of his. Always watching, always assessing.

It’s unnerving, but you focus on the task at hand, grabbing a clean cloth and soaking it with alcohol.

“This is gonna hurt,” you warn, though there’s a part of you that doesn’t mind the idea of causing him a little discomfort.

A petty, vindictive part that still stings from all the scorn he’s thrown your way.

“Just get it over with,” Joel grits out, his voice low and gravelly.

You don’t give him any more warnings as you wipe the soaked cloth over the wound. He flinches, a harsh curse slipping through clenched teeth, but he doesn’t pull away.

You work as quickly as you can, wiping away the blood and dirt with steady hands, your movements as gentle as possible given the situation.

You let out an annoyed huff when the torn fabric of his shirt gets in the way of your hands for a second time.

You lean back on your heels, glancing up at Joel. “You need to take your shirt off.”

Joel raises a brow at you, his lips pressing into a thin line. “That really necessary?”

“Yes, it’s necessary, Joel,” you huff, already losing patience. “Unless you want me to sit here and cut around every thread of this ratty thing while you bleed out, then by all means—”

He sighs heavily, cutting you off as he shifts forward and grabs the hem of his shirt. He tugs at the fabric, grunting in pain each time it strains his ribs.

You roll your eyes at how slow he’s moving, and your patience—already worn thin by the day's events—snaps.

“Jesus Christ, let me help,” you huff, reaching forward and grabbing the fabric.

Joel jerks back slightly, his hand shooting up to stop yours mid-motion. “I got it,” he growls, a sharp edge in his voice.

You glare at him, your hand still caught in his grip. His palm is calloused, his hold firm enough to make your pulse jump unexpectedly. 

For a moment, the two of you just sit there, locked in a silent standoff.

Then he releases your hand and pulls the shirt over his head himself, wincing as the movement pulls at his side.

You wait with your arms crossed, trying to ignore the awkward flutter of nerves in your stomach as the fabric peels away to reveal his chest.

Joel’s broad, solid frame isn’t new to you. You’ve seen him shirtless before—brief glimpses when bathing in rivers or changing in run down houses between stops.

But this time feels different, more intimate somehow.

You’re staring, and you know it.

The firelight cast shadows over his skin, illuminating old scars, faint lines of muscle, the barely there jut of his stomach over the hem of his jeans.

You had been getting more game kills recently, two hunters are always better than one.

Joel clears his throat, dragging your focus back to the present. “You gonna gawk all night, or can we move this along?”

You snap out of it, scowling to cover your embarrassment. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

You finish cleaning the gash and grab the small needle and thread lying next to you.

“This’ll hurt worse than the alcohol,” you say, threading the needle easily.

Joel snorts, a rare sound. “Figures.”

The needle pierces his skin, and this time, you catch the smallest hitch in his breath. He doesn’t make a sound, but his jaw tightens, the veins in his neck standing out like cords.

His hands grip the edge of the couch hard enough that his knuckles turn white with it, but he doesn’t tell you to stop or slow down.

He’s too damn proud for that.

You shift closer, your knee brushing against his leg as you position yourself to work from a better angle. You feel his eyes on you, that intense, scrutinizing stare that makes your skin prickle.

“You’ve done this before,” Joel says after a moment, his tone less sharp than before. It’s not quite a question, more of an observation.

You shrug, keeping your hands steady. “Of course I have.”

“Who taught you?”

The question catches you off guard, Joel’s never shown much interest in what your life was before you met him. You glance up briefly, catching his gaze. There’s no malice there, no judgment—just curiosity.

You swallow hard, dragging your eyes back to stitches, half way done now. “My sister.”

You don’t elaborate and Joel doesn’t push.

Maybe it’s the sudden tightness in your tone or the look you know must be clouding your face that keeps him quiet.

You finish off the stitching, tearing the thin strand of thread with your hands before you’re leaning away again.

“Good as new,” you say, dabbing some more alcohol on your own hands to disinfect. “Try not to tear these open anytime soon.”

Joel leans back, strong arms spread across the back of the couch, his face unreadable as he peers down at the fresh stitching on his side. 

“Could’ve done it myself,” he mutters, but the edge in his voice is gone, replaced with something softer, almost resigned. 

You roll your eyes with a scoff, not even trying to hide your irritation as you rise from the floor. “Sure you could’ve, right before you passed out. You’re welcome by the way.”

You gather your supplies and turn to head back to your bag, but Joel’s voice stops you in your tracks.

“You’re always like this, y’know,” he says, and the words carry that same gravelly drawl, but there’s something new there—something heavier.

You pause, your hands tightening around the kit in your grasp. “Like what?”

“Pushy. Stubborn,” he replies, his tone cutting, though it lacks the usual venom. “Like you’ve got somethin’ to prove all the damn time.”

You whip around, your patience officially gone. “You think I’m stubborn?” you shoot back, your voice rising. “Coming from the guy who would rather bleed out on a fucking couch than admit he needs help?”

Joel’s jaw tightens, and his hands flex against the couch cushions, but you don’t stop. Not now. Not after months of this.

“I’ve been busting my ass since day one to prove that I’m not dead weight to you. I’ve fought for us, for you. And for what? Just to get more of your bullshit attitude?”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about,” Joel snaps, pushing himself upright despite the obvious strain it puts on his freshly stitched wound. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me.”

“Because you won’t let me!” you fire back, stepping closer, your voice rising. “All you do is look at me like I’m some burden you can’t wait to get rid of.”

Joel’s glare sharpens, his lips parting as if to respond, but you cut him off.

You really can’t stop yourself now that you started, all the anger and frustration reaching a fever pitch hot enough to burst the tight lid you’ve kept on your emotions.

“If I’m such a hassle, why didn’t you just leave me back there, huh? Why didn’t you just walk away like I know you wanted to?”

Joel’s breathing is heavier now,  his broad chest rising and falling as his dark eyes bore into yours.

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. Then, he stands, and the sheer size of him forces you to tilt your chin up slightly to keep your glare fixed on his face.

“You think I wanted this, kid?” he growls, his voice low and strained, like he’s barely holding himself together. “You think I wanted to be responsible for someone else? To have someone else’s fuckin’ life on me?”

“Don’t call me kid,” you spit, shoving a finger into his chest, ignoring the way his jaw ticks at the contact. “I’m not a fucking kid.”

He scoffs, casting his eyes to the ceiling disbelievingly. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Fuck you, Joel,” you growl, fists clenching at your side. “If you hate me that much, why the hell are you still here? Why didn’t you tell me to fuck off the second you met me?”

“Because I couldn’t!” Joel snaps, booming voice filling the small space.

The confession slips out like it pains him. His fists clench at his sides, and for a moment, he looks like he might break something.

You’ve never been scared of Joel, even though you’ve seen first hand just how scary he can be.

Now, as he looms in front of you, eyes blazing and jaw working furiously beneath his skin, it’s the closest to scared you’ve felt.

“I’ve seen you out there,” he continues, tone low and dark. “You’ve got a fuckin’ death wish. You’re too damn stubborn to just stop, and I’m not gonna let you go so you can run off and get yourself fuckin’ killed.”

Your heart pounds in your chest, his words hitting far too close to home.

“I’m just trying to survive, Joel,” you snap, your voice shaking. “That’s what we do, isn’t it? Survive.”

“Survive,” Joel repeats bitterly, his gaze burning into yours. “That what you call it? Throwin’ yourself into every goddamn fight, gettin’ stabbed and shot right fuckin’ in front of me and expecting me to brush that shit off?”

You let out a humorless laugh, nodding your head exasperatedly. “Yes, yes I do expect you to just brush it off, because that’s what you always do.” 

“Well I can’t,” he grates out, taking a step closer. “I can’t ‘cause despite whatever it is that you may think about me, I don’t hate you. I care about you too damn much and that's my goddamn problem.”

That shuts you up, your mouth snapping closed with a sharp click of your teeth as you stare at him, shocked.

Joel holds your gaze, lips pressed into a thin line. “That what you wanted to hear?”

It’s in that moment that the fire finally fizzles out, the dull hiss of it the only sound left in the room.

You’re quiet for a beat, stunned into silence. The heat of his anger, his frustration, it radiates off him, and you realize suddenly that this isn’t just about you. 

It never was.

“Then show me,” you challenge softly, your heart pounding in your chest. “Show me that you don’t hate me.”

Joel’s eyes darken, his head cocking to the side as he searches your face for a sign. You don’t say anything, you only square your shoulders and raise your chin, your eyes just as hard as his own.

“I want you to prove it.”

The tension snaps like a rubber band stretched too far. 

You shouldn’t—this shouldn’t—happen. Not like this. Not after everything that’s been said.

But when Joel’s lips crash against yours, hot and desperate and urgent, it makes everything blur into nothing. 

It’s not gentle, not soft—this is anger and longing and frustration all wrapped into one. It’s messy, frantic, like a fight that’s been brewing for too long.

He grips your arm, pulling you closer, almost too roughly, but it feels like it’s everything you’ve both been avoiding.

His other hand moves to cup the back of your neck, grounding you as his lips press harder against yours, like he’s trying to pour everything he can’t say into this single moment.

You respond just as fiercely, nails digging into the skin of his shoulders as you kiss him back with all the pent-up emotion that’s been simmering beneath the surface.

The coarse hair of his beard scrapes against the skin of your chin deliciously, the scent of blood and firewood filling your senses as his arm wraps around your waist, dragging you impossibly closer.

Close enough that you can feel the wild beat of his heart booming against your chest.

You pull away for a second, breathless, both of you looking at each other, your eyes wide and pupils blown.

“Goddamn it,” Joel mutters, his voice thick with frustration and something else you can’t place. He presses his forehead to yours, the deep brown of his eyes dark than before. “What the hell are we doing?”

You don’t have an answer. You’re not sure if you even want one.

You reach for him again, arms looping around his neck to drag his mouth back to yours.

This kiss is nothing like the first, it isn’t a clash of frustration–it’s filthier, rawer. A near feral thing, all teeth and tongue, a surge of hunger and need that borders on violence. 

Joel groans into your mouth, a low, guttural sound that sends a shiver racing down your spine. His teeth catch your bottom lip, pulling just hard enough to make you gasp.

He takes advantage of the sound, his tongue sweeping into your mouth to slide against yours with wet, messy desperation, like he’s trying to claim every inch of you.

The taste of him—salt and iron and something distinctly Joel—makes your head spin. 

Your fingers knot into the chocolaty curls at the nape of his neck, surprisingly soft to the touch. His own hands roam the soft curves of your body, rough and insistent, like he can’t decide where he wants to touch you most.

“Joel—” His name spills from your lips like a plea, and he answers with a deep, guttural noise that sends heat pooling low in your belly. His tongue follows the path of his teeth, soothing the bites with lazy, deliberate strokes that make your knees weak.

You’re moving before you even realize it. Joel dragging you across the room and down onto the couch with him, using the strength he’s built up after all these years to manhandle you until your thighs are spread wide on either side of his lap.

“Joel,” you gasp again, rearing back enough to break the kiss. “Your stitches–”

He cuts you off with a sharp nip to the sensitive spot behind your ear, tearing a high whine from your throat. “Can hardly feel ‘em.”

You make a displeased sound, but it’s undermined by the way you tilt your head to give his wandering lips more room. His hands find a home on your hips, one slipping beneath your shirt to press against the soft skin of your stomach. 

His fingers splay wide across your skin, his palm callused and rough. His pinky just barely brushes the underside of your breast, and you’re suddenly rearing back. 

“Wait,” you say, your voice barely a whisper.

Joel’s hands immediately loosen their grip on your hips, his brows knitting together in concern. “You okay?”

You nod quickly, your heart pounding in your chest. “I just...I need to tell you something.”

His jaw tightens slightly, but he stays quiet, waiting for you to speak.

You take a beat, chewing at the skin of your bottom lip nervously.

“I’ve never...” You pause, swallowing hard as your cheeks heat up. “I’ve never done this before. I mean, I’ve never been with anyone like this.”

Joel pulls back slightly, his expression unreadable as he processes your words. For a moment, you think he might pull away completely, but then he exhales a long, slow breath.

“Christ,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand down his face. “You’re tellin’ me this now?”

“I didn’t exactly plan for this to happen,” you snap back, crossing your arms over your chest defensively. “It’s not like I had the luxury of a high school sweetheart to pop my cherry out here.”

Joel’s gaze softens at your tone, and he reaches out to cup your cheek, his thumb brushing against your skin. “Hey, hey, I didn’t mean it like that.”

You glance away, suddenly feeling self-conscious under the weight of his stare. “I just...I wanted you to know. But I want this, Joel. I want you.”

His thumb stills against your cheek, and he swallows hard, his adam’s apple bobbing as he considers your words.

“I don’t...” He pauses, the most hesitant you’ve ever heard him. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

It’s the most vulnerable he’s been around you, round eyes shining with something so raw and so earnest it makes your heart ache in your chest. 

“You won’t,” you insist, your voice steady despite the nerves fluttering in your stomach. “I trust you.”

Joel’s jaw clenches, and for a moment, he looks like he’s going to argue. But then he nods, his shoulders relaxing as he cups the back of your neck, pulling you closer until your foreheads touch again.

“At least let me do this right,” he murmurs, his voice so soft you almost don’t hear it. “Not here. Not on some goddamn couch.”

You blink up at him, surprised by the tenderness in his tone. “What?”

“Upstairs,” he says, his thumb tracing lazy circles against the side of your neck. “There’s a bed up there. It ain’t much, but it’s better than this.”

You can’t do anything but nod, your pulse racing beneath your skin fast enough to combat the cold night air seeping through the walls.

“Okay,” you say softly, voice barely above a whisper. “Upstairs.”

Joel stands, gently pulling you to feet and taking your hand in his. He leads you upstairs, each step feeling heavier with anticipation. The small bedroom is dimly lit, the faint glow of moonlight filtering through a broken blind. 

The bed isn’t much—an old mattress on a worn frame, covered with a patched-up blanket—but it doesn’t matter.

Joel shuts the door behind you, the sound of the latch clicking into place sending a shiver down your spine.

“Last chance,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “You say the word, and we stop. No questions asked.”

Your throat tightens at the sincerity in his tone, the way he’s giving you an out even though you can see the strain in every line of his body, the way his hands flex at his sides like he wants nothing more than to reach out and touch you.

But you don’t hesitate.

You step closer, placing your hands on his bare chest. You bite back a smile at the goosebumps that break out all along his skin at your touch. 

“Jesus, Miller,” you mumble teasingly, nails lightly scratching through the salt and pepper hair scattered along his chest. “How long are you gonna drag this out before you get it through your thick skull that I want to fuck you?”

"Christ." Joel huffs, shaking his head as the corners of his lips turn up in a small grin. “Like I fuckin’ said,” he starts, big hands kneading the meat of your hips. “Pushy.”

Joel walks you backward until the backs of your knees hit the edge of the bed, and you fall onto it with a soft gasp.

He follows you immediately, crawling over you, his body covering yours, his weight a comforting pressure. “I’ll take care of you,” he murmurs, his lips brushing yours. “I’ll make it good for you, I swear.”

His fingers are everywhere, unbuttoning your shirt with a practiced ease that has your pulse racing. His lips follow the path of his hands, each touch a branding mark, each kiss leaving you wanting more.

“Pretty girl,” he mutters softly, pressing a kiss right between the valley of your breasts.

You feel his cock stirring against your stomach, and it makes the ache between your legs flare to life, the weight of it, the hardness of it, driving you crazy with need. 

You want him so badly you can barely think straight, but when his lips graze over your collarbone, you can’t stop the quiet whine that escapes your throat.

Joel growls in response, a sound that resonates deep in his chest, and you know then that he’s as far gone as you are. His hands slide down to the waistband of your pants, tugging them down your legs with urgency. 

As your skin is exposed to the cool air, you can feel the heat of his gaze on you, like he’s memorizing every inch of you.

“You’re fuckin' perfect,” he mutters, his voice thick with desire.

Joel's hands find your thighs, parting them with a deliberate slowness that makes your breath catch in your throat. He positions himself between your legs, his body weight pressing you into the mattress, his chest rising and falling with the same frantic rhythm as yours. 

The anticipation is almost unbearable as his fingers trace the line of your panties, the fabric damp with want.

“Jesus, she’s drippin’ for me already,” he mutters, voice rough, as he slides the material to the side, his thumb brushing over the sensitive swell of your clit.

Your body jerks at the contact, a desperate sound escaping your lips, but Joel doesn’t relent.

“You touch yourself down here, baby?” he asks, working tortuously slow circles over your clit.

"Please," you beg, your hands grasping at the sheets, pulling at them as if they can anchor you to the moment.

He looks up at you, his gaze dark and filled with an intensity that makes your stomach tighten. “Asked you a question, honey.”

You whine, high and loud in your throat as your thighs clench desperately around his wrist. “Yes, I touch myself.”

Joel’s lips curl into a satisfied grin, sliding his thick index finger through the messy wetness to slip inside your clenching hole, making you gasp. Your hands grasp at the sheets, pulling at them as if they can anchor you to the moment.

“Good girl,” he breathes, eyes darkening at the broken moan that bursts from your lips. “When’s the last time you touched yourself?”

Your brain feels hazy as you search for the answer, pleasure clouding your mind slow and sweet as molasses. “A–a few nights ago.”

Joel hums idly, slipping a second finger alongside the first. The stretch has you whining, his fingers a lot more to take than your own.

Your hands come up to claw at his shoulders, relishing in the way his broad muscle ripples and shifts beneath your greedy palms.

“Joel,” you whine, hips canting down against his hand impatiently.

He just shushes you softly, free hand brushing soothing circles along the skin of your inner thigh. “I know, honey,” he mutters, the pace fingers speeding up. “But I gotta get her nice and ready if you wanna take my cock.”

The gush of your pussy around his fingers is loud in the stillness of the room, a filthy wet noise that burns your ears each time he plunges them into your aching hole.

“I am ready.” Your breath hitches as your body begins to tremble beneath him. “Please, Joel—fuck—please, I need—”

“Need what?” His voice is thick with dark amusement, but there's a hunger in his eyes that has your stomach twisting. “Tell me, baby. What do you need?”

“I need you,” you rasp, your nails digging little crescent moons into his skin, your body pleading for release. “I need you inside me.”

Your hands grab at his hair, pulling him back up to meet your lips in a feverish kiss. 

The pressure of his body on yours, the way his hard cock grinds against your trembling thigh, drives you to the brink of madness. 

Your hands trail down his chest, past the waistband of his jeans, finally reaching the bulge straining against the fabric.

Joel groans when you rub him through his pants, feeling his cock twitch in response. He pulls back, breathing heavily, his lips curling into a smirk. 

“Yeah?” he asks, his voice thick with lust. “You want my cock in this pretty pussy? Want me to show you how good it feels to be fucked?”

“God, yes,” you answer, desperation lacing your tone as your hand moves to unbuckle his jeans. “Want it so bad.”

He lets you push his pants down just enough to free his cock, and you gasp, your eyes drawn to the way his length stands, thick and hard, just waiting for you. The tip flushed an angry red, drooling pre-come onto the scratchy sheets.

Joel pulls his fingers from you, using his hands spreading your legs wider, positioning himself between them with such careful precision that you can barely stand it.

The head of his cock drags through the mess between your legs, slipping all the way down till it catches on your soaked entrance.

Joel pauses, looking down at you, waiting for your signal, but the only answer you give is a pleading whimper, your hands pulling at his shoulders, urging him to move.

His mouth captures yours once again as he slowly slides into you, the stretch of his cock filling you steadily, making you gasp into his mouth. 

The slow burn of him carving a place for himself inside of you is almost too much, your body trembling as you adjust to the feeling of him.

“Fuck, baby,” Joel mutters against your lips. “You’re so tight, so fuckin’ perfect for me.”

As he sinks deeper into you, his thick cock finally buried to the hilt inside of you, the feeling is overwhelming. You gasp, nails digging into his back as the pain slowly shifts into pleasure.

Joel groans into your mouth, his hands moving to your hips, guiding you as he rocks gently against you. 

The rhythm is slow at first, deliberate, as if he's savoring every inch of you. Your body quivers beneath him, every inch of your skin tingling with sensation. You clutch at him, your legs tightening around his waist, needing more, wanting more.

"That's it," he murmurs, his voice thick with desire. "Take it, baby."

You screw your eyes shut tightly, trying to steady yourself as he thrusts deeper, harder. The angle shifts just enough to make your breath catch in your throat. 

Every stroke feels like it’s hitting the deepest part of you, sparking heat in places you never knew could burn so hot.

"Fuck," you gasp, the sensation too overwhelming, too much in the best way. "Joel... please..."

"Please what, sweetheart?" He pulls back slightly, teasing you with a slow roll of his hips before driving back in with a grunt.

Your nails dig into his shoulders, urging him to move faster, harder. "Don’t stop," you breathe, your voice trembling. "I need you to fuck me, Joel. Faster. Harder. Please."

The sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room as Joel finally picks up the pace, each thrust harder and deeper than the last.

Your back arches off the bed, chest pressing flush to his as your body coils tighter and tighter, already so close to the edge.

Joel reaches up to take your wrist in his, dragging your hand down to press flat against your lower stomach.

“Feel that?” he asks breathlessly, the speed of his hips knocking the dingy bed frame into the wall with every thrust. “You feel how deep I am?”

His own hand blankets yours, pushing down so you can feel the way his cock punches up against your palm on the next thrust.

Your pussy clenches desperately around him at the feeling, your slick lips dropping open on a loud moan.

You can barely hold on. The heat in your stomach tightens, coiling painfully as your free hand scrambles to find purchase on his skin. "I can't—I'm gonna—"

He grits his teeth, his jaw clenched as he drives deeper, pushing you closer and closer to the edge. "Come for me, baby," he growls, his voice dark and commanding. "Let me feel it."

With a strangled cry, you finally release, your body clenching around him, every nerve igniting in a white-hot explosion of pleasure. 

You’re lost in it, your world spinning, your senses overwhelmed by the sensation of Joel’s body pounding into yours, the way his cock brushes against that sweet spot behind your clit enough to make sparks go off behind your eyelids.

Joel pulls out of your velvety warmth, hand coming up to fist his dripping length until he’s bowing over you tightly and coming with a deep groan of your name.

His release paints your stomach with milky strands of white, rope after rope of warm come claiming you in a way no one has before.

He finally collapses against you with one last shuddering breath, both of you breathing heavily, your chests rising and falling together in the quiet aftermath.

For a few moments, neither of you speaks, the only sounds are the soft creak of the bed and the quiet hum of your racing hearts. 

Joel rests his head against your shoulder, his breath warm against your skin, and you can feel the tension begin to slip away, the weight of everything that’s happened between you both settling into something new—something different, but still there.

Your hand slips down the sweaty expanse of your stomach, your fingers swiping through the sticky mess of his release curiously.

“Christ, quit that,” Joel groans, tearing his eyes away from the sight to press his forehead against your shoulder.

“Why?” you hum, brow raised in amusement as you drop your hand back to the mattress. “Can you even get it up again?”

Joel pinches your side hard enough to make you squeal, your body flinching away from him as a surprised laugh bubbles from your chest.

“Watch it,” he warns, though there’s no bite to his tone. You only laugh in response.

The two of you settle into a comfortable silence, wrapped in each other as crickets chirp from outside the window.

Then Joel clears his throat, fingers idly tracing different shapes on the skin of your hip as he gathers the courage to speak.

A circle, a square, a diamond, a circle, a heart, a heart, a heart.

“I’m…” he starts, trailing off softly. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a real fuckin’ prick, and you didn’t deserve it. You never did.”

You turn your own gaze to his chest, hand coming up so you can trail your fingers along the jagged scar decorating his shoulder. Your touch featherlight over the rough patch of skin.

All the anger seeps from your body, a heavy weight gone until you feel so light you could float off the mattress and into the cold night air.

“It’s okay,” you whisper softly, so soft you think it gets lost in the quiet darkness of the room. “I understand now.”

And for the first time in what feels like forever, you both just lay there, tangled in each other, not worrying about the world outside, about the chaos that waits. 

Just you, him, and the soft glow of moonlight.

tags are now in the comments! if you want to get tagged for any of my works just fill out this form!

mini nat's note: should i add joel to my taglist...i do kinda want to write more for him in the future but i'm not sure yet...lmk chickens <3 bee tee dubs sorry the ending absolutely sucks i could not for the life of me figure out how to end this LMAO

[a-shade-of-blue]

Urgent: Help Mahmoud's 17 Family Members Escape from Frequent Bombings!

Hi everyone. Mahmoud (@mahmoudfamily1) is trying to raise fund to evacuate 17 members of his family (including no fewer than 5 children!), and he has asked me to share his story.

Mahmoud found out the bombing of her sister Tasnim’s husband’s house, the house his entire family was staying at, on the news. He could not contact his family for 3 days after that. He knew that several people had died and several more injured, but he did not know whom among his family survived, and who didn’t.

When he finally managed to reach them, he found out that a close relative, named Alaa, had been killed, along with her children: Ahmed and baby Iman who was not even one month old yet. Alaa was a beloved member of their family. She was optimistic and tried hard to cheer everyone else up. For the longest time, Alaa believed that the world would not turn away from their suffering and the war would end soon. But an airstrike took her and her children’s lives, the bombing continued, and the world remains indifferent.

Mahmoud’s sister Tasnim, was severely injured in the bombing. The attack happened while the family was sleeping, and Tasnim woke up to find her body injured and broken, bleeding heavily with bones sticking out of her leg. She found her 6-month-old daughter under the rubble, severely injured, but thankfully still alive. Tasnim's leg was fractured in multiple places, so severely injured that they all thought it had to be amputated. Tasnim’s husband and her 6-month-old daughter, her father-in-law, her brothers-in-law and Alaa’s husband were all severely injured by the bombing.

A few days later, Mahmoud’s family narrowly survived a second bombing on the street, as the people behind them, too slow to escape from the attack, were killed. They hid in their car, watching the plane flying above dropping bombs, praying that it would not target their car.

Given Tasnim and her 6-month-old daughter’s severe injuries, the family used a lot of money and exhausted all means to get them out of Gaza to receive the essential medical treatment they require. While Tasnim and her youngest daughter managed to evacuate, the rest of Mahmoud’s 17 family members, including Tasnim’s 2-year-old daughter who sustained first degree burns from the bombing, are still trapped in Gaza.

Mahmoud’s 17 family members (including no fewer than 5 children!) risk being killed and injured from the frequent airstrikes every day. They have narrowly escaped death no fewer than 5 times. On 31 August, the IOF dropped bombs on the tent next to theirs, killing 9 young men and women, and Mahmoud’s family woke up to their broken bodies.

Look at the photos Mahmoud sent me. These children, they are all trapped in Gaza where bombs may fall on them anytime. Please do not look away. Please help Mahmoud’s 17 family members reach safety!!

Mahmoud’s campaign is vetted by association. Mahmoud is @hazempalestine's friend, see post here for proof. @hazempalestine is vetted by @/el-shab-hussein and is listed as #281 on the verified fundraiser list by @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi.

I’ve been trying to boost Hazem’s campaign, but we are both worried about Mahmoud’s campaign as donations are coming in really slowly for him. I hope you will support Mahmoud’s campaign and help him evacuate his 17 family members as well!

Extremely Low Funds! As of 3 September, Only $147 CAD raised of $80,000 goal! Last donation was 19 hours ago!!!

Please follow Mahmoud on @mahmoudfamily1 to get updates on his family's situation! And also, please, please, share/reblog, and donate if you can! Every donation helps!!

[rqnarok]

summary: make up sex with old man!logan.

cws/tags: smut, mdni! oldman!logan. insecure!logan. petnames. logan calls reader ‘kid’. jealous!logan. daddy kink. oral (f receiving). not proofread. 

Logan can’t be ‘mad’ at you for more than a day. He just fucking can’t, alright?

He tried to keep his hands to his own as a protest of yesterday's quarrel. Logan still doesn’t know if it’s meant to be a punishment for you or himself. 

The older man does know that when he’s jealous, he’s doing it in a self-destructive way.

How he isolates himself and avoids you instead - because he knows that he doesn’t deserve you. A fucking hundred-year-old something who’s angry all the time, who’s aloof to the world, and who’s pining over someone as pretty and young as you. 

It fucking wound him too when he pretends nothing ever hurt him, that the way you laugh too loud at the guy’s jokes at the pub did not have any effect on him. That he had to pretend as if he’s not an insecure old man who just wants you all to himself by making things worse. 

“C’mon.” It’s all that Logan could force out as he skims through whatever he’s pretending to read, ignoring the way his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth in ferocity, “What’re you on, huh? Y’ve got no reason to throw a tantrum like this, kid.” 

He sees the moments when your gaze changes, hurt bleeding into the orb, “You’re mean, Logan.” It wounds him - but this kind of confrontation is all he’s ever known. 

Hell, he doesn’t even know why you decided to stay with him. He thought you’d leave in the middle of the night of the first month after figuring out how much of a failure of a man he is. 

So when he goes back from his tiring work and still sees your figure cooking dinner for him in the kitchen, he fucking loses it. His breath gets stuck in his lungs as he watches you stroll around with one of his henley shirts, humming softly the tunes of your favourite song. 

Maybe he’d use a different type of confrontation now—maybe he’d talk about his feelings more often. He’d do everything not to lose this sole sight: His pretty girl being so domestic that he can’t help but get so shamelessly hard.

The way he tried to gain composure and not to lose his coolness but fails miserably at the sight of his your shirt riding up to give him a good view of your perky ass as you reach something from the top cabinet. 

Logan takes you by surprise when he wraps his arms around you, nipping and kissing the soft skin below your ear—his way to say sorry - it’s all my fault.

“Will ya’ forgive your old man, sweet girl?”

He hates how he sounded so unconfident - so different from his younger self.

But when you lean your back onto his chest and shyly nod, his worries are buried. Logan hauls you up with a smile, the bone-cracking sound reminds him of his old age. He rumbles in laughter when you squeal in surprise before spreading your thighs apart on the kitchen counter, pulling your legs around his head so he can eat his dinner. 

His big nose drapes around your clothed pussy before groaning at the smell of you. Cursing himself from avoiding you yesterday when he could have had this. “Y’ve got such a pretty pussy, baby. ‘S mine, huh? My pussy.” He says as he takes off your panties.

The statement itself and the scratchy feel of his ragged beard made you arch your back from the rough surface, “A-ah, ‘s yours, Daddy.”

“Tha’s right.” Logan licks a stripe of your dampening pussy, deeply humming in delight when you let out a high-pitched whine and subconsciously locking your legs tighter to pull him closer. You trail your hands down and tug at his greying hair while he laps you up and fucks you with his tongue. Making you come undone in just a span of a short time.

Logan wipes his mouth and beard as he stands before you in quick breaths, looking at you all apologetically: I’msorry I’msorry I’msorry-

You’re teary-eyed, blinking up at him - whining for him to fuck you hard now - to make up his stupid faults. 

Stupid old man who thinks he’s not worthy of you.

 Logan groans as he tosses away his belt, holding the base of his cock as he teasingly drags the head on your wet folds, “Ssh. Let Daddy make it up t’ya, alright? Daddy’s gon’ give it to you now, baby.” 

[yandere-wishes]

༺ 𝐻𝑜𝓌 𝒹𝑜 𝒮𝑒𝓁𝒾𝓃𝒶 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝐵𝓇𝓊𝒸𝑒 𝒻𝑒𝑒𝓁 𝒶𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝒟𝒶𝓂𝒾𝒶𝓃'𝓈 𝒸𝓇𝓊𝓈𝒽 𝑜𝓃 𝒞𝒶𝓇𝑔𝒾𝓇𝓁? ༻

ᓚ₍ ^. .^₎ᓚ₍ ^. .^₎ᓚ₍ ^. .^₎ᓚ₍ ^. .^₎ᓚ₍ ^. .^₎ᓚ₍ ^. .^₎

The problem with bats is that they tend to solely rely on their instincts, their carvings. They tend to forget their surroundings, that other creatures exist as much as they do.

Selina rings her arms around your frame pushing you closer, nose nuzzling your ear and cheek. Her hug only loosens when she hears the bat speak his echolocation ringing clearly through her ears.

"Daimian brought her home last, he's...he has a crush, I think."

Wasn't there some sort of new bat-eating fungus discovered in the north?

For a moment she debates asking Oswald to export in a batch or two.

"It's inevitable," Selina says, laying a bowl of food at the foot of the counter for the cats. Exhaustion seeps through her words, she speaks from experience, experience too deep to voice. "Bats are tenacious rodents, and robins are hard to kill. Mix that with demons blood and I'd say we're just about doomed." Your eyes stare up at her, even sideways, and anxious she's gorgeous. You'd always dreamed you'd grow up to be her. Inherit the claws and whip and lust for the endless shimmer.

But you're starting to think you'll never make it to that.

Not with the bird, who shows affection by breaking bones and spilling blood.

Selina doesn't like it, not fully, not utterly. She doesn't trust the boy wonder, doesn't trust a future she can not see. The boy is young and overbearing, he'll only end up trapping you within a glittering cage. Domesticating the girl he loves, satiating her by handing her pearls and diamonds and gold. He won't let her take, won't let her bleed for own life. She's seen one too many men like that, she's escaped every one of them. The bat may believe in freedom but his heir does not. And after all this time, all these years she refuses to let your sovereignty be stripped of you.

Be silent thy traitorous voices screaming sanguinity inside her wry head.

Voices that utter such affirmations, that say this is destiny, that this too must happen. Who safer than the son of the bat, the blood son at that? Freaks stick to freaks, masks, and capes, and cowls. Selina would never trust a normal man to treat you the way you deserve...

But she knows a Wayne never could either...

Selina watches as the Boy Wonder's kick nests in between your ribs. He wasted no time, swinging straight for you. Your body tumbles back, finally gaining enough momentum to filp landing on your feet, knees bent ready to pounce. Your claws tear through the flesh of his cheek, scrapping up the skin, freeing the red letting it mar the concrete. But the bird only slithers in closer, pecking your lips before, slamming his head into yours. Selina's eyes land on the bat, the darkness at the ledge, he stands immobile, as if actually watching a cat and bird fight, as if thinking this is nothing more than a cartoon playing at the drive-through theater.

She extends her whip, lashing it through the air letting the leather coil around Damian before pulling him away. The demon boy shrieks in anger, he kicks, and writhes vying for freedom. You land behind your mentor, hiding behind her. For the first time ever Selina is almost sorry her suit is so tight, sorry she can't provide more shelter.

"Can you please keep this one a leash, bats? It's starting to annoy my kitten."

Batman doesn't say anything, he only cuts away the rope and drags his son away.

"Aren't bats just rodents?" You ask arms crossed as you finally crawl out of your temporary sanctuary.

"Yes, why?" It takes Selina another moment before she finally tears her eyes away from the disappearing silhouettes in the skyline.

"So why haven't we just killed them?"

It's only back in the apartment that both you and Selina realize he took your stolen jewels too.

Selina curses she really liked that new necklace.

This could all be a cruel joke, Bruce thinks as he watches Damian sulking on his bed, arms crossed. Robin suit still on.

After all, what's funnier than the son you unknowingly sired with your ex-lover falling so madly in love with the adopted daughter of your complex midnight affair, who you may or may not be madly in love with...

Bruce can't think of one,

He doesn't even think Joker could come up with anything better.

Or worst.

He's too tired to fully tell.

"Hey, Bruce?" Tim asks, poking him with the sharp end of a frame. "Can you hand him this when he's done brooding? I'd go in but I need my bones intact for the next few days." Bruce sighs, taking the frame from Tim and inspecting it with worry. Sure enough, it's a picture of you crouching in an ally, stalking some prey or another.

He can't help but think his sons are progressively getting worse.

Regardless Bruce leaves the frame in Damian's room.

When he closes the door a little pride bubbles in his chest.

Bruce knows that freaks stick to freaks.

Masks, and capes, and cowls.

Who better to understand you than another who wears your endeavors?

Who can love an anomaly if not for another anomaly?

Bruce leaves, missing how the young heir, gently kisses your photo.

Running his hands across your photo, muttering a silent, simple 'I love you'.

Damian pricks his finger on his tooth.

Drawing a bloody heart around your face.

"You'll be mine my love" he promises.

He swears it on his cape and cowl.

He swears it on his lineage.

Tumblr keeps eating my asks when I try to answer 😭😭

But anyway heyy Anon, so to answer your question:

Selina is torn because she wants you to be free and live the life you want. This includes picking who you fall in love with and how the two of you spend your lives together. She finds Damian's obsession annoying, if not dangerous. She knows he'll try to "domesticate" you, to make you into nothing more than his doll. And really she just wants to buy you as much time as possible to be free. However, she also knows, deep down, that the only person who can really understand you is another "freak" whether a rogue or a hero. Someone who knows what it's like to wear a second skin. She just really wants you to pick who that "freak" is.

Bruce on the other hand is simultaneously proud and amused. A part of him really really understands why Damian would fall in love with Catgirl. It just goes to show how similar Damian is to him. A chip off the old block if you will. He also shares both Damian's perspective of seeing this all as legacy, as passing on the torch, feeling like in a way Damian is really ready to step in as the next Batman if need be. He however also shares Selina's perspective of "freaks" being with "freaks", really approving of his son falling for someone with obsessions and desires, someone twisted like they are.

[fawnindawn]

the line between thieves and healers (Luke Castellan x apollo fem! reader)

Summary: Luke Castellan returns from his quest as a ghost of his old self with a bleeding scar to prove it. With his golden boy exterior all but shattered, no one in camp has tried to approach him since his return. This changes when you stumble upon the son of Hermes when he decides to go back to his old roots, stealing from your infirmary at midnight.

pairing: luke castellan x apollo fem! reader

Content: forced proximity, tending to wounds, luke develops a little crush, set after Luke's failed quest in the Garden of Hesperides, mentions of injuries and scars, Luke tries and fails at being mean, hurt-comfort, fluff

masterlist for this series (everything in between) every part in this series can be read as a stand alone!

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

"Come on." One of the campers prodded despite your obvious discomfort. "I'm sure you've squeezed something out of Castellan by now. He's been silent about what happened during his quest for days."

"I told you, I know nothing, and even if I did- patient confidentiality exists." You repeated for the ninth time in a week. Ever since people found out Luke had come personally to you to tend to his wounds, they had lost all decency over the hope of digging for some good gossip. If you were asked one more time, you were sure you would tell them to stick their noses right back up their asses and leave.

Even after his return, Luke Castellan remained a constant in word of mouth around camp over his sudden change in persona. His usual grin and charm was replaced with a dark gloom unfitting for the son of Hermes, who used to light up any room he entered. The scar that permanently rests on his face didn't make it easier for him to avoid watching eyes either. After refusing to play in Capture the Flag for the first time in history, whatever patience the camp was trying to uphold dissipated into chaos.

Sure, you could see why it was a big deal. If you're a person with a sane enough mind (of course, not guaranteed in the premises of Camp Half-Blood), you’d understand why the fellow camp counsellor of the Hermes Cabin was popular. With his constant presence around camp as the cool, attractive camp counsellor helping other campers with that small quirk up his lips, or through word of mouth of how talented and kind he was, it wasn't a huge surprise that he attracted as much attention as he did.

Once the ninth camper in a row finally gave up and left with a huff, your eyes lingered over the bed where you first tended to Luke.

_

It was the dead of night when you were woken by the sound of creaking wooden floorboards and the cold chill of the wind that had snuck into the infirmary. Somehow, you had overslept again on your shift and no one had bothered to wake you up or even check for your missing presence.

Groaning at the awkward shift of your bones from your horrible sleeping posture on the desk, you were halfway through your stretch to crack your stiff neck when you heard the sound of footsteps. Freezing in place, you paused to listen in once more only to heard the soft thud once again. Peering to the left side of the infirmary, your heart stopped.

"Hey, listen." You spoke with that awkward crack in your voice whenever you go too long without speaking, causing the large shadow to flinch, pausing in its pursuit through your medicine cabinet. "I may not seem like it, but I am the best in combat in my cabin so whoever you are, step away from the cabinet and put your hands up."

Gee, that's convincing, you sound like an unnamed extra from the first few minutes of a horror movie before they end up six feet under. Cursing yourself internally, you watched the shadow raise to full height from its bent position. Gulping at the height that seemed to be at least six feet, you wonder if you should have just left this cabinet thief be and go to sleep for the night.

Why would anyone even want to ransack an infirmary at midnight?

You quickly grabbed for your oil lamp situated beside you, still flickering with the smallest of flames and you stood from your chair, causing it to creak back and scratch at the wooden floors as you made your way around the table to approach the thief.

The light was dim, but you spotted the familiar outline of a broad back and curls before he even fully turned.

"Castellan?" You gasped in half-asleep shock, disbelief obvious in your tone as you moved the oil lamp nearer to prove your eyesight wasn't playing tricks on you.

He didn't respond verbally to the call of his name, but when he turned around, his eyes narrowed on you as if you were the intruder. You barely had the chance to form words, questions- before you spotted the dripping crimson liquid near his eye.

"Oh gods." You muttered, grabbing at his arm and tugging him towards the nearest bed. "Why didn't you wake me up? It's not like you could wrap this up yourself."

With some struggle, he finally gave in, plopping down the edge of the bed and watched you scour through the medicine cabinet for bandages and other supplies, muted and stiff.

"I seriously don't understand why you didn't wake me up. Would you rather bleed to death or get an infection?" You scolded, your inner concern bleeding through your usual sense of politeness for injured visitors.

"Maybe." You thought you heard him mumble, but when you turned to look at him, he was facing the window right beside the bed and staring out into the shadows of the forest, the glow of the moonlight illuminating his features like a haunted painting, blood dripping down his cheekbones like fallen tears. You waited longer for an elaboration but there was none. You assumed you heard wrong, or at least you hoped you did.

You got off your knees, splaying out the supplies on the surface of the bed beside him, and pulled up a stool for you to sit at. He was still facing away from you, and your irritation combined with your lack of sleep made you more reckless than you'd usually be with an injured patient.

You gripped at his chin, forcing him to look at you, watching with satisfaction as his eyes widened at the sudden force. He looked more alive when he was caught off guard, his face devoid of the usual disinterest and distance it had ever since he arrived back from his quest.

"How do you expect me to treat you if you keep looking away from me, Castellan?" You challenged, gazing back into his eyes with fire you hoped was fierce enough to break down the coldness in his gaze.

After seconds of nothing but two stubbornheads trying to win a useless battle of eye contact, he sighed. "..Fine."

You were more gentle after that, letting go of his chin and reaching for the cloth. Your hands remained delicate on his skin that seemed to have pulled at the edge of the scar, where it was now bleeding again through its previous stitches. You mumbled a warning before dapping a wet handkerchief on top of the wound to soak in the blood, and he unintentionally grabbed at your thigh as he tried not to hiss out in pain.

You froze at the sudden tight grip, moving the cloth away from his skin and he was quick to retract his hand, positioning it awkwardly on top of the bedsheets instead.

"It's okay if you grab me." You reassured. "It'd be easier for me to gauge if you need me to stop when it gets too painful. You could give me a squeeze if you need a breather?"

You waited, watching his thoughts flicker through his narrowed eyes before slowly, his hand went to rest around your thigh again.

Ignoring the warmth of his palm on your skin, you cleared your throat. "Ready?"

He nodded stiffly, and you went back to work. After the cut had stopped bleeding, you were quick to grab the gauze and bandages. Tenderly, you placed the gauze above his wound, then wrapped the bandages around his face, from the top of his head to below his chin. This was the closest you had ever been to him, and you could feel and hear both his and your breathing in the quiet silence of the infirmary, with no living signs of life aside from the two of you on the infirmary bed and the dim orange hue of the oil lamp.

You could feel his intense gaze on you from his one good eye, while you concentrated on tying a secure knot so it wouldn't fall loose. The moment felt oddly intimate, knowing how sensitive his temper had been ever since he arrived back at camp, scarred in ways not even ambrosia could heal fully.

His hand resting around your thigh felt hot, and you tried to ignore how your mind subconsciously kept track of every time his thumb would brush over the material of your pants.

"Next time.." You hinted, hopefully not crossing his boundaries. "If this happens again, you come straight here, got it? I don't care if I'm sleeping or attending someone else. You are not allowed to take care of a wound like this yourself, especially since I remember how reckless you can be."

Luke Castellan may be an excellent swordsman, but his cockiness was one weakness that he failed to keep controlled, and on days where it won over, he would always end up at the infirmary with a bashful smile as he tried to explain to you on how he ended up with a dislocated shoulder. That felt like eons ago, when that cheeky smile would always be present on his face, his signature move in getting away with any chaos he caused.

Staring at him now, you caught sight of that smile for such a split second you could've sworn you mistook it.

You couldn't stop the teasing smile that slipped past your stern attitude. "Was that a smile I saw, Castellan?"

He cleared his throat, his face falling back into practiced nonchalance, wearing a frown too forced to be real. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I may be sleep-deprived because a certain someone decided midnight was the best time to ransack an infirmary, but I'm not blind. For making me work overtime, I at least deserve to know what you found so amusing."

He made a face, and you were sure if his face wasn't tightly bandaged, he would roll his eyes in exasperation. "I wasn't amused. Just don't remember you being this.. unhospitable with someone that's injured. And I am not reckless."

You scoffed, causing him to look over at you. "I'd say trying to steal from an infirmary is pretty reckless. I thought Hermes kids were supposed to be good in stealing?"

You realised all too late that you may have touched on a sensitive topic, with the mention of his father, but he didn't seem to notice over the frank insult of being called a bad thief.

"I am excellent in stealing." He bit back so quickly, you choked on a snort. Hermes kids and their egos. "I was just going easy on you because you were knocked out at your desk. Oh, and you snore, you know that?"

"I do not."

"Do too."

"You're a liar and a thief. Don't get why your reputation is as marvelled upon as it is, Castellan. You don't live up to the hype at all."

"Oh, and what about you, Miss Sunshine?" He retorted. "Aren't you suppose to be the famous sweetheart who sings all injuries away with a smile on your face?"

"Don't call me that ever again." You must have looked extremely repulsed because he let out a laugh so genuine, it wiped any disgust off your face at the sound of pure heaven flooding into your ears. God, you forgot he could laugh like that.

"Yeah, I suppose it doesn't suit you, does it?" He murmured. "Maybe Apollo kids are only nice when others are around to see it."

"You've only come back meaner, Castellan." You scoffed. "I almost regret helping you. Would much rather see you stumble over trying to deal with this yourself if I knew you'd be so ungrateful."

"Sounds righteous of you." He nodded with a sarcastic hum. "Leaving me to bleed out to death while you watch. I understand why the camp has such high stakes when it comes to survival now. Never knew there was a sadist hiding in you, sunshine."

"I told you not to call me that." You reminded. "And I'm doing the best I can to keep everyone here alive so don't come to my infirmary talking about stakes when I've just saved your ass from blood loss."

Your response triggered something in him and he grew silent, his gaze locked on you as if analyzing you. That was when you're really reminded of how awful you must've looked. With your bed hair, sunken-in dark circles and sunken shoulders from the lack of sleep, you did not exactly feel the most confident. You didn't know what happened to make the casual atmosphere disappear as fast as it did, but you were anxious that somehow, you had shut him up again and you'd never get the chance to see him that way again, with his playful banter and light-heartedness of a teenage boy that he should have.

"You shouldn't have to." He muttered, almost to himself rather than to you. A seriousness unlike the previous few quips he'd thrown at you took ahold of him, and you had a feeling this was a slither of who he had really become through his rapid transformation, hidden under the jokes and sarcasm.

"What?"

"You shouldn't have to." He repeated a little louder, trying to get you to see his point. A point he'd been trying to tell Chiron, his friends even- ever since he came back here, only to be meet with pitying looks like he was a madman who spoke nonsense to try and make sense of his failure. "Lives should not be your responsibility. You're younger than me, and yet, you're dealing with kids that are near death's door every time they make it past that barrier. I barely made it back here. Some don't even.."

Luke tried to breathe, remembering how he got to camp in the first place. The unnecessary sacrifice that had to be made, the tree that now rests at the barrier of camp, the sound of thunder and pouring rain beating at his face.

"Now, I'm stuck with this disgusting scar on my face for the rest of my life, a stupid reminder every single time I look at myself, that I failed my only chance at proving I was something more than just wasted potential. Now I've gone and screwed it up for everyone because I couldn't do some easy quest someone else already accomplished-" He winced suddenly, grabbing onto the bandaged part of his face that seemed to grow more irritated and inflamed as he spoke.

You were quick to reach for his hand, knowing his aggression may harm the wound more. "It is not disgusting." You answered for him, and slowly, your hand rested over his, removing it from his face so he wouldn't accidentally cause the wound to start bleeding again. "You are not a failure, Luke."

"Don't take pity on me by saying words you don't mean." He muttered. "Everyone expected me to succeed, I could feel it in their gaze when they looked at me. I was supposed to be the best, and just because everyone told me that, I believed it. Now, I'm nothing but a disappointment to everyone."

He didn't know why he was saying all this to you. Maybe because you were the only person to treat him normally in the past two weeks, to really listen instead of trying to get him to move on, and maybe because his heart felt like it was growing too heavy to carry on his own. The insecurity and vulnerability made him feel sick, and he found himself trying to tear his hands away from you out of the need to run, which only made him feel more disgusted with himself. Like a coward, his mind taunted.

You remained stubborn, holding onto his cold palms because you know he has had no warmth, no real genuine words spoken to him since he returned. No one to see him when it was clear he was suffering, that he needed all the time in the world and more to heal, and that he deserved more than self-loathing and an absent father who sentenced him to this fate.

"I am not pitying you." You insisted, and you leaned closer so he couldn't look away from you. "Your scar does not make you ugly or less valuable to anyone. It is not pity, it is a fact. You are a person who has survived a fate so close to death, and any feat to survive death is strength. You are strong, and you made it back here alive with a scar to prove it. It is not a sign of weakness."

"Anyone who tells you different has no right or say in your situation because they did not go through what you did." You said with a stern voice, your anger not towards him, but for him. "Not your father, not anyone."

Luke finally looked at you, like looked. His eyes were scanning all over your face as if not quite believing you were real, but the fire in your eyes was so magnetic, he couldn't look away. The pinch between your brows, the addictive warmth of your hands in his, and the close distance between the two of you, and yet, it didn't make his skin itch with the need to pull away. To hide in his corner and wallow over the heavy weight of knowing his world had ended in the Garden of the Hesperides. Or had it?

Your eyes looked right through him, and for once, he felt like there was someone there for him.

"I suppose I can see where your reputation comes from now, sunshine." He responded weakly, and his heart gave a thump when you smiled back at him.

"Healing's what I understand best." You shrugged casually, as if you didn't just silence his thoughts for a moment of peace, or that you have somehow dulled the internal blades that bled with self-hatred and world-consuming anger pointed at himself, and at the injustice of the gods who could not give a damn about their children. “If I can help you even a little, why shouldn’t I?”

He could feel time ticking again in the back of his mind, the night slowly passing into a new one, and he thinks as he holds your gaze, that maybe this world wouldn't be so painful to live in if he had someone to look at him the way you did.

"I don't know how I'm going to go back to normal. Or if I'll ever be normal again." He admitted, softer in his voice now that his mind didn't deem you as a threat.

"Normal can be lots of things." You said with a comforting smile. "It's normal to have a breakdown when you've nearly faced death. Multiple even. It's normal to feel fine one moment then not in the next. Healing isn't linear, and when you come to terms that you have a right to feel upset and a right to exist without being held to any expectations of others or what you think others want from you, it'll feel easier to just allow yourself to exist throughout the day. Not the perfect camp counsellor or a hero with no faults. Just as yourself."

He let your words sink in, his thumbs subconsciously rubbing over your knuckles, feeling the healed scars of your own from what he assumed must be from previous combat training. "I'm not that great as myself. You might find me disappointing."

You quirked your lips at that, and shook your head. "I don't believe in that one bit. You're already great just as you are now."

He raised a brow. "Even after trying to steal from your infirmary and having a mental breakdown past curfew?"

"Well, just be glad I was around because I'm much more understanding than Will would be with four hours of sleep."

"I am glad." He insisted. "That it's you."

"I'm glad it was me too." You reassured. "It is midnight though and there's Capture the Flag tomorrow, meaning someone's going to end up whining and moping in here in about eight hours so why don't you let me close shop and come by tomorrow, Castellan?"

"Luke." He corrected, giving you a smile you're sure must be the one the other campers rave about all the time. The charming one that made your heart stutter, even with half his face bandaged and eyebags resting below his caramel eyes.

"Luke." You tested it on your tongue tentatively, and it only seemed to spark an electricity between the two of you that you were sure he must've felt too. In the dark corner of the infirmary, with nothing but crickets and your hushed voice, you spoke again with a heavy heart when you needed to tell him to leave. "I have to close this place up or someone else might try and steal from the medicine cabinet, not that I thought it was possible before but.."

"Fine." He complied, getting off the bed and rising to his full height, towering over you and blocking the moonlight from your view. "I'll wait outside and walk you back to your cabin. It's the least I could do."

You tried not to seem too elated over the idea that you could spend a little more time with Luke, though you're sure your glowing smile must've shown. "Sure you're not just trying to improve your image around me, thief?"

He smirked, following you out to the front door while you wrestled for the keys in your pocket to lock up for the night. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

_

"What are you smiling about?"

You looked up from your daze to see Luke leaning over the door frame, watching you with a smirk over his face.

"Can't a girl smile just for the sake of it?" You bit back, cheeks flushing at the idea that he could've possibly seen your focus lingering a little too long on the bed he had sat on. "Why'd you drop out of Capture the Flag? You know your cabin's going to lose their streak to Ares at this point."

"Wanted to see someone." He replied with a shrug, pushing off the door frame to walk towards where you sat, leaning over your desk and watching you compile the latest stock of ambrosia into a box. "Plus, Athena and Hermes are joining for today so Annabeth's got it handled."

He shuffled his fingers along the edge of the table, outlining the curve before clearing his throat. "I heard you covering up for me just now, and I wanted to say thank you."

You looked up at him then, and his eyes seemed to convey that he was thanking you for more than just that. He looked like he wanted to say more, but didn’t know how to.

"Eavesdropping on me now?” You teased. “Careful or you might end up becoming obsessed with a poor, overworked healer."

He scoffed exaggeratedly. "You wish. Just take the thank you. Should've known not to show my gratitude to an Apollo kid."

You stuck your tongue out at him before going on about how mind-blowing it can be that some kids really did not have emotional intelligence when it came to basic decency. Listening to you ramble on as you went on to arrange your first aid kits, Luke realised for all the disappointment he has experienced in his life, maybe there was one good thing his father led him to.

a/n: Couldn't resist writing how this duo met because I live and die for banter. inspired by 'my reputation's never been worse so you must like me for me' trope which is what i live and breathe for. His reputation as the perfect golden boy is in shambles, and sunshine couldn't care less.

taglist: @stars4birdie @elysiandumbash @kehlanislefttoe @mqg125 @madzlovez @0revna0 @auroraofthesun1 @idli-dosa @buubsii @kaylasficrecs @that-daughter-of-hephaestus @itsdragonius @moonlightfoxs-cantina

[howtofightwrite]

So. There is no safe place (in the body) to be shot. There are places that are slightly safer than others to be stabbed (i.e. being stabbed in the meat of your calf is less likely to be lethal than your torso). For the purposes of an arrow wound, which feels like a combination of shot+stab for a swords n sorcery world, is there a “less lethal” place to take an arrow? My character is traveling with companions and gets into a fun little goblin skirmish. I need her to catch an arrow somewhere that will be concerning, but not immediately fatal. Magic Bullshit™️ will keep the wound from healing properly for a few days, but I’ve accounted for field wound care (cleaning and bandaging and such) as she’s being taken on horseback to get proper treatment.

Not deeply.

So, the problem with all of these is tissue disruption. If the injury gets deep enough, the chances that it will hit something vital (especially on the torso) increase dramatically. So, getting stabbed and having the blade catch bone, instead of getting in deeper is “relatively” safe. Similarly, getting stabbed (or shot) in the hand or foot is unlikely to kill you (though, those injuries are likely to result in permanent damage impairing the use of injured appendage.)

Arrows are a little different, in a couple of ways. First, if you get shot, you do not want to pull that off (nor break it off and push it through.) That will increase the risk of bleeding out. Arrows make fairly large holes in people, but if the arrow sticks in the wound (which, it should) it will actually limit the amount of bleeding. Effectively the wound has a partial plug in it. Pulling out the arrow means that plug is no longer there, and they can happily bleed to death on the spot.

The second thing about arrows is that they actually pin muscle together. Think of it a bit like holding two pieces of meat together with a toothpick. If the toothpick isn't there, the pieces can slide across each other without issue, but that's not possible when there's a wooden shaft running through them. Your muscles are a complex web of meat, that slide over each other as you move. Pinning those together means that part of your body will actually lock up. For example, if you're shot in the shoulder, you won't be able to adjust the position of your arm. It's been toothpicked, and it's not going anywhere.

Arrowheads can get wedged in bone. If it's a broad head, or hunting tip, that will be obnoxious to get out.

At the risk of reading too much into your setting, goblins often means poisons, or other nastiness. Though, really, even just getting a tetanus infection (it used to be called “lock jaw”) from their blades is a pretty horrific potential fate. Even if the wounds themselves were relatively minor (cuts and scrapes, maybe a graze or two), a couple days might still result in some pretty horrific harm after the fact.

Also, remember, it's unlikely that bacteria will be understood by the medical science of your setting. So, first aid would still run a real risk of secondary infections.

Depending on their skill in first aid, anything outside of a severed artery or catastrophic organ damage should be (technically) survivable, though the wounds could easily result in permanent impairments, depending on exactly what was hit. A punctured lung might not kill her, but it could result in permanent respiratory issues, such as a cough, and chronic pain while breathing heavily from then on. It could also result in pneumonia and death, which is also, usually, pretty permanent.

Some of this depends more on where you want to land on a spectrum between dark fantasy and swords & sorcery. The genres are similar (and potentially overlapping), but can scatter out into dramatically different works. But, you do have some options on how you want to proceed.

-Starke

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[fourmoony]

GOING TO SLEEP WITH A MARAUDER AND YOU'RE IN BED, HES SHIRTLESS AND READER AND HIM JUST TALK AND KISS AND ALL THAT FLUFFY STUFF THANKS LOVELY

this went a little angsty! thanks for requesting :)

cw: mentions of chronic pain, painkiller use, mentions of car crash, brief mention of post-car-crash-trauma, scars

remus lupin x f!reader, 1.5k

Remus is propped against your pillows, the room glowing with the light of the television, when you exit the bathroom. He turns the volume down when he hears the door click shut, turns his head until he’s looking at you with a tired smile. He looks so soft, buried in your nice, clean bed sheets; hair a mop of curls that’s starting to rest on his forehead the longer he avoids going to the hairdresser’s. His eyes bleed with exhaustion from a busy day.

You’d spent the morning in a cafe with Sirius, the afternoon at the park with Harry, and the evening having dinner with Hope and Lyall. It’d been nice, both in company and in weather, but the excessive walking and being on the go has taken it out of Remus. That much is obvious by the way he has a throw cushion tucked under his knee, poking out from under the blanket. He tries to throw the blanket over his leg, tries to hide the obvious admittance of pain.

You slide into bed next to him, a frown on your lips. “You’re in pain?” You ask, pulling the shoddy attempt at a cover up job back until his elevated leg is on full display.

Remus jolts with the blast of cold air, his stomach muscles flexing. The skin of his torso is on full display, the moonlight coming from the window showcasing his skin in a silvery light. There hasn’t been a day since you met Remus where you haven’t found his beauty astonishing. He is truly the most stunning person you’ve ever come across, even if he refuses to believe you when you tell him. The scar on his hip bone juts out from the band of his boxers, followed all the way up by a collection of raised scars that litter his skin like constellations.

Your fingers brush the particularly jagged scar across his rib cage as you lean in to look at Remus’ swollen knee. He huffs, clearly irritated that his plan of hiding the pain has been foiled. His knee is warm to the touch, the skin around it swollen. “I’m always in pain, dove.” Remus replies, flatly.

You hate that it’s true. Your boyfriend has good days and he most certainly has bad days, but he never has days where he’s not in some sort of pain. Remus’ illness has taken a lot from him; his childhood, at times, his social life, his freedom. You think maybe Remus thinks if he lets you know how bad it can truly be, it’ll cost him you, as well. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times you remind your boyfriend that it won’t scare you away, it never seems to stick.

“Okay, tough guy,” You scoff, finding that Remus often responds better to sarcasm and tough love than being babied or fussed over, especially when it gets bad, “fancy getting up to get me a glass of water?”

“Get it yourself, lazy girl.”

You can’t help the startled laugh that falls from your lips, eyes wide as you catch the sly grin on your boyfriend’s face. Remus laughs soon after, leans forward to press a loving kiss to the crown of your head. His own way of saying you know I’m kidding. You do know he’s kidding, so you kiss the underside of his jaw in return.

“Take some pain killers, baby. You know they’ll help, even if only enough to help you fall asleep.”

“Already have.” Remus chirps, pulls you by the shoulders until you’re resting across his chest.

Your boyfriend runs like a furnace at all times, the familiar feeling of warmth mixed with the signature scent of his shower gel has your muscles uncoiling as you relax into him. You’re cautious of putting all of your weight onto him until he shifts, further into the pillow mountain he’s created and pulls you along with him. He breathes deep at the relief he must feel from the new angle, reaches onto his bedside table for the television remote.

“Any requests?” He asks, words mumbled into your hair.

His arms are tight around you, thumbs brushing where they meet in the middle of their waist. You settle in, hook your leg over his good leg. One of his hands slips to the curve of your bum at the opportunity you’ve presented him, a gentle, nonsexual touch, but intimate nonetheless. “Not really. Just whatever you like.” You hum quietly.

He turns the volume back up a smidge on the sitcom you both like. His touch is soft and feather like, a comfort that pulls you fast stead towards sleep. The slow rise and fall of your boyfriend’s chest has your own breaths syncing up, lips turning every now and then to press kisses over his heart.

“Do you ever think about the crash?” You ask, eyes focussed on his raised knee.

Remus doesn’t startle. He might have, at the beginning of your relationship. He’d only told you in bits in pieces, back then, that he’d been in a terrible crash as a boy; the reason for his terrible joint and muscle pain.

You feel him shake his head, lips still firm against your hair. He presses a kiss there, then dips his head until he’s closer to your ear. His voice is quiet, tired, perhaps a little sad when he speaks; “Not as often, now. When I was a teenager, when I was in constant pain because I was growing all the time - yes. I thought about it every day and I thought about how unfair the world was, how unfair my life was.”

“What changed?” You ask, quietly.

He’s silent for a moment, only the sounds of his breathing and the quiet drone of the television can be heard. You can tell he’s thinking it over, a sense of unpleasant nostalgia somewhere in the way he audibly swallows and the slight twitch of his fingers against your skin. Eventually, he sighs, “A lot of things, really.”

"I changed doctors, for a start. They're much more understanding of my condition at the one down the road, much more patient and less skeptical of whether I'm faking it for the free codeine."

You laugh a little at the idea. Half the time, Remus refuses to take pain killers at all. "I like Doctor Frank, he's nice." You tell your boyfriend, who hums in agreement.

"He is," Remus agrees, "And then there was becoming an adult. Hard enough without carrying around so much anger. I was sort of forced to just let it go. Accept that this was my life and I was still capable of so much despite my illness."

You can't help but smile at that. Remus is the gentlest person you know. He's rough around the edges, a sarcastic, smart ass and a mean flirt, but he's gentle, all soft beige cardigans and old library books, gentle touches and even gentler kisses. Your boyfriend has never once dared to raise his voice at you, even in his moments of utter agony. He's kind and has a big heart and you can't imagine fifteen year old Remus, angry and hateful and mad at the world. It wouldn't have suited him.

So, you're proud of how far he's come. Even if he still deals with the trauma of the crash, the hatred he has for the scars it left him with and the pain he lives in. It's less. It's dialled down to one, maybe a two on his bad days. Your Remus looks at the world like a challenge, now. A challenge to overcome, to be the best he can be, to keep fighting. You love him so, so much, and you place a kiss to his heart as the feeling washes over you. Bright and light and floaty.

"And you, dove."

Your lips curl upward at his words, spoken so soft you're not really sure if you were supposed to hear them. Remus pulls you impossibly closer, holds you tighter as he ducks down to your ear, breath fanning across the skin and leaving goosebumps in its wake.

"If there was ever something to live for, something to not be angry about. It's you. The way you love me, your patience, your laugh, your smile. I think you were the universe's apology for that crash." Remus presses a kiss to the side of your neck when he's done and it sends a shiver through you.

There's tears in your eyes. Blinding you until your boyfriend becomes a blurred cheeky grin amidst the blue light of the television. But you're happy. So happy and so in love.

But you can't fight the urge to tell Remus, "Your consolation prize."

His startled laugh is music to your ears, a softness breaking through the storm clouds of your heavy conversation. He tuts a moment later, kisses you for the millionth time, "I prefer God given solace."

You roll your eyes. The man doesn't believe in God, but you'll take the compliment, you decide, as you curl back into him.

"Thanks for opening up. I know it's hard."

You feel his shrug, "Anything for you, dovey."

[yuwuta]

YUUTA OKKOTSU’S DECLASSIFIED JUJUTSU TECH SURVIVAL GUIDE (AN APPETITE HAUNTING THE HEART)

❝i know this tastes too good to be healthy. the more it melts, the sweeter it gets, so take my heart out because i need all of you.

*this is yuuta okkotsu’s fool-reviewed plan for navigating all things curses, sorcery, and love. 

pairings. okkotsu/reader

content, warnings. canon-adjacent, reader has a cursed technique, friends to lovers, smut (uhh... no triggers i think? other than implied virginity loss on yuuta’s part), mentions of violence/curses, possessive/intrusive thoughts... he starts of kinda sweet and weird and then just gets... weirder and worse lol, so mostly yuuta being... yuuta &lt;2

notes. jujustu tech is a college not a highschool, yes i brought naruto in this, i believe in sasuke slander only from a place of pure love, real sasuke ridicule will not be accepted xoxo

word count. 12k i told you i could yap about him all day

playing. candy/baekhyun, untouched/the veronicas, cream soda/exo, lacy/olivia rodrigo, pure honey/beyoncé

#1 — Do NOT touch Maki Zenin’s tools (but if you do, the cute girl who hangs around Inumaki might help to patch you up).

Yuuta hadn’t meant to piss off Maki. He was trying to be helpful, but Yuuta learned the hard way today: do not touch Maki’s cursed tools, at all, for any reason whatsoever. He intended to hand it back to her, but she was prompt in assuming that was part of an attack, snatching it from under his grasp and giving him a jab on the wrist with the dull end of the stick. If the beatdown he’d endured during training put Yuuta on his deathbed, then that hit was the final nail in the coffin.  

The crack! sound of his bones made everyone pause their sparring, and Gojo winced the loudest, “Ouch! That one had to hurt, kid!” It was also Gojo who gathered everyone to stand around and look down at him clutching his wrist in pain, before making the executive decision to appoint you as Yuuta’s caretaker.  

“This is definitely something you can handle!” he cheered, patting the top of your head, “Take our dearest Yuuta to the infirmary and patch him up, please and thank you! With the way Maki’s been kicking him into the ground, those cuts are sure to get infected sooner rather than later. The two of you can join us for dinner when you’re finished!”  

Yuuta tried to refute, on the grounds of “No—no! I—ouch—this really isn’t worth using any kind of cursed energy over!” Which was quickly met with a mischievous raised eyebrow from his teacher, “Oh? Are you insinuating that my precious student doesn’t have the skill to fix a simple fracture?” That prompted Yuuta to spill a flurry of apologies, none of which were coherent, and ended up with him trailing behind you sheepishly to the infirmary with a broken wrist, several bleeding wounds, and probably early heart failure.  

Now, Yuuta sits with his feet dangling off of the edge of the examination chair, shivering from the chilliness of the room, and all of his nerve endings rattling at the realization that this is the first time that he’s been alone in a room with you since you’ve met. He winces, first at the sting of disinfectant into his wound, and then internally—mostly out of embarrassment—because his outward reaction made you pause your actions to question if he’s okay.  

Okay is relative, he thinks. In the grand scheme of things, he’s okay. Concerning his current injuries, he’ll be okay eventually. Concerning this… whatever this is he feels for you… maybe not so okay.  

“Sorry,” he stutters, too loud for the atmosphere and proximity of your bodies to each other, and, so, he winces again, cheeks staining red to match his embarrassment, as if he or you needed any confirmation of it. He doesn’t mean to be a difficult patient, but he has an adversity surrounding hospitals and medical care, and that alcohol really does burn, and you’re really close to his face, and—and you giggle a little, but Yuuta hears a chorus, instead; warm, spring-like, with violins and a piano and cellos strumming in perfect harmony, and the buzz of bees and butterfly wings flapping the melody.  

“You apologize a lot,” you tell him, a kind smile on your lips. You step forward, just a bit, as you peel off the band-aid adhesive and gently press it over the bridge of Yuuta’s nose. It’s Hello Kitty themed. It makes him want to scream.  

“Yeah, uh—sorry about that!” Yuuta apologizes, once again too loudly. He scratches at the back of his neck with his left hand, and his eyes go wide after a few beats, “No, wait—I didn’t mean to apologize again. I just... I, uh... thank you. That’s what I wanted to say. For helping me, you have my sincerest thank you.” 

Yuuta dips his head to bow, and when he raises it again, you’re blinking at him owlishly, and he thinks he’s really done it now. You must think he’s a freak, if you didn’t already. He thinks you’re gonna tell him off for being pathetic and a weakling, but instead you laugh again—that precious sound that pauses Yuuta’s world for the better.  

“You’re awfully formal. There’s no need for that, or to thank me. We’re friends, afterall,” you reassure him, “Even if Gojo did force you to be my practice dummy.” 

It’s his turn to reassure you, his uninjured hand moving from his neck to shake frantically in front of him, “It’s completely okay,” he does his best to give you a smile as warm as the one you give him. It probably doesn’t work, but he tries anyway—he’s always been an awkward smiler, too wide-mouthed and toothy, “You can do whatever you want to me, I trust you.”  

Your face seems almost solemn at his declaration, and the panic instantly kicks in again. Yuuta scrambles when his words play back in his head, “I’m sorry, was that weird? I meant that I trust your judgment. You can, uh, fix me up however you best see fit—or just leave it! I’m sure it’ll heal on—”

“You’re awfully self-sacrificing, too,” you cut him off with a laugh, your usual warm nature clicking back. Yuuta shrugs, feeble; you smile wider, “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. I keep staring, and I’m sorry to have made you uncomfortable.” 

“Not at all! You don’t... make me uncomfortable, I mean. You could never,” Yuuta rushes, curling back into himself after his outburst, “You... it always feels really nice when you’re around. I can’t explain it, but everything is calmer.”

Your eyes flutter across his face, before you turn away from him, “I can tell it makes you nervous—I can hear the changes in your heartbeat,” you tell him, opening the cabinet to return the alcohol to its rightful place. You must also be able to hear his thoughts, chiming in just as Yuuta continues to wonder if his heartbeat is really that loud, “It’s part of my technique. I don’t mean to intrude on your heart.” 

Is it an intrusion if Yuuta left room for you? If he wanted you to be there? Was it crazy to think that he’d give you his heart to hold and trust you to take care of it, even though you’d only met a few months ago? Maybe it would be easier if he let you squeeze tight enough to put him out of his misery already.

Luckily, you keep talking before he can say something stupid like that out-loud again. 

“It’s just that... you remind me of somebody that I used to know. You’re kind like him, and you both share a well-intentioned recklessness, too. I see so much of him in you that it’s hard not to stare sometimes,” you admit, turning back to face him, and gingerly taking his wrist between your hands. When your hands start to glow, Yuuta can feel it—your reversed cursed technique is warm on the surface, but chilly underneath, like a heated blanket on top of perfectly cool sheets. 

“I don’t mean to say that you’re just a replacement,” you continue, slowly rotating your hands over his injury. It stings a little, then soothes, “I’m just still in awe of how nice it feels being around you. It feels strangely—” 

“Familiar,” Yuuta interjects, “I understand. You feel that way, too. I think... that’s what I meant before.” He understands your words perfectly because you remind him of someone precious to him, too; someone he used to and still loves alot. “You—it makes me happy, that’s why I seem so nervous.”

It seems as though you understand him, too. His heart sings, and you can probably hear it, but Yuuta doesn’t quite mind so much now. What he feels for you is consuming, maybe concerning, but knowing that you know what it’s like to love like him brings him an odd sense of comfort. Maybe he should be jealous that you’ve had someone to love that much before, but he’s not exactly in a position to talk. What matters is that you can hear him and feel him—his heart and his love and his sad and his happy, and it doesn’t push you away. 

It makes him want to burst. He owes you a thank you for putting something so precious in his life. He owes you an apology, for ever doubting that you couldn’t handle his symptoms. He should have realized that you can handle his love.

“You feel really warm, too,” he blushes, scratching at the back of his neck with his free hand, “And, uh, not just because you’re holding my hand.” 

The twinkle in your eyes turns into confusion, then surprise when you look down to see that the hand below his wrist had moved to rest underneath his palm instead. His wrist was well healed by now, and you’d been, effectively, massaging his skin and muscles with your technique for the latter duration of your conversation without realizing it. 

Yuuta couldn’t tell when it went from healing to hand holding, but he’s not complaining—and he doesn’t think he could have stopped it either. Another quality to your technique that he couldn’t understand was how your energy felt sticky, flowed like honey; how it managed to run into broken crevices and bruised dents with a mind of its own. Even if he’d wanted to pull his hand away—and he didn’t, he absolutely did not—he wouldn’t have gotten far from you. He never wanted to be. 

“You already have calluses on your palm,” you note, dispelling your healing energy, holding onto Yuuta’s hand only by want now, “You train hard. You’ll catch up to Maki and Toge, quickly, but not if you don’t take care of yourself.” 

Yuuta almost chokes when you rotate your wrist so that your fingers are aligned. Your hand is so much softer than his, warmer than his, and maybe he’s idealistic, but your fingers seem to slot perfectly between his when you curl them. 

“I’m not always going to be around to fix you up,” you warn him, “So don’t go around pissing Maki off too much, alright?” 

Yuuta can feel the heat from your body flow through him. From his palm, up his arm, down into his chest, and everywhere else. It doesn’t feel real. You’re holding his hand, you’re smiling at him, you’re right there and you’re so bright and beautiful, so Yuuta doesn’t know why his thoughts are so gray and dangerous; you wouldn’t hurt him, and he doesn’t want to hurt you, so why can’t he stop thinking about keeping you like this—of stitching your hands together forever to keep you by his side, or letting this heat consume and burn you both. 

Yuuta shakes his head to wiggle those thoughts away, but to you it seems like he’s saying no to staying off of Maki’s radar. When he realizes it, he nods too reverently to make up for it; surely looking like an idiot, and then to top it off, he squeaks, “I—yes, ma’am!” 

Another foolish outburst on his end, perhaps, but it makes you giggle, fills the room with springtime for a moment, so to Yuuta, it was worth it. “Good,” you nod, release his hand and beckon him off of the chair, “Come on, we should go eat before Panda takes all the good sides for himself.” 

Yuuta follows you back to the dorms with his stomach already full of love, love, love. He loves you, and you can hear, and see, and feel exactly what you do to him, and you don’t run. Yuuta thinks maybe you should, even though he doesn’t want you to. Surely you know what he did to Rika when he loved her. 

Rika seems to like you, actually, if the humming of her voice in his head as he takes his seat at the table next to you is any indication. He can vaguely make out some of her words as you pass him the dumplings—warm, kind, loyal. He agrees. Pretty, too. No disagreement there. 

In such a short amount of time, you’ve shifted Yuuta’s ethos for life. He wanted to die to be with the person he loved before, and never quite understood why Rika would stop him, why she would want him to suffer in this life alone; but maybe this is what Rika was always trying to tell him; that his love was not lost and buried with her, but flowing towards you, his heart, a beacon for you to locate. 

You’d mentioned that he reminded you of someone you knew before, that you couldn’t see anymore. Yuuta doesn’t know what happened to your person before he came along; he can only hope that you’ll allow him and his heart to be a vessel for your love someday, too. He won’t disappoint you. He won’t let you let go of him. 

It shouldn’t be hard. You already have his heart in your hands. 

#2 — Gojo is more than a teacher. He is also the school event planner, once ranked Diamond in Overwatch, and is the only person blacklisted from any and all kitchens on campus. He also gives pretty good (sometimes questionable?) advice. His eyes are kind of scary.  

You’re there when he and Toge are nearly decimated by the Grade 1 curse in the abandoned market. He still doesn’t understand much about sorcery at this point, so seeing people like you and Toge in action is awe-inspiring to say the least. Yuuta knows that Toge is nothing short of amazing, but he can’t help but to be drawn into you, you, you—your energy, your fighting style, the seemingly never-ending applications of your technique. Cursed energy in and of itself is still a foreign concept to him, so perhaps it’s that seeing you use the reverse of it so effortlessly is even more novel to him. 

He can hear Rika strumming in the back of his mind, an indistinct itch and hum that sounds vaguely like laughter at his self-justification. He chooses to ignore her. 

After, while he’s still buzzing with the tingly warm sensation of your technique after you’d patched him up, Gojo finds him, and Yuuta, unable to keep up a façade, pours all his anxious, worried, inquisitive feelings about his mission on the table. 

“The way that (_____) can heal wounds... is that something I can learn?” Yuuta questions his teacher, eyes tired but genuine and earnest.  

And Gojo, all knowing and absolutely singing at the implications, smiles so wide he’s certain his newest student could see the crinkles in the corners of his eyes, even through the dark tint of his glasses. “Maybe.”  

He goes on, leaning back into the old loveseat, one leg crossed over his other knee, “You’ll probably be able to learn to heal yourself with reversed cursed technique, but using it to heal others is difficult and rare. Shoko and (_____) are the only people I know who can do it.”

“Is… did she get to learn it because she’s a Grade 1?” He remembers Maki explaining the ranking system for Jujutsu sorcerers. You and Toge were ranked the highest in the class, and amongst the other Kyoto students; it would make sense that you two have learned more applications of your techniques due to your higher placements.

Gojo chuckles, much to Yuuta’s confusion. “That’s not quite how it works—and if it were, then you’d already know because you’re a Special Grade. You don’t unlock new lessons as you move up, you move up because of how well you’ve learned to control and apply your own cursed technique.”

Right. That makes sense. Except Yuuta knows that his classification of Special Grade is a bit of a cheat because he can’t control or apply his cursed energy half as well as any of his classmates. He has Rika to thank for his immediate promotion, not himself or his own skills.

“In any case, if you do learn it, you’ll never be able to execute it like her, that’s for certain. Reversed cursed technique is complicated to learn and nearly impossible to teach. It’s one of those things you truly have to figure out for yourself when the timing is right—I only got it when I was on the brink of death. It’s 100% effective on the person doing it, but only 50% effective when applied to other people by the user,” Gojo says, “Except for (_____). She was born with reversed cursed energy, which is why she has an almost 100% output on herself and others, so she’s extra special. ”

Yuuta frowns. He never expected to do anything half as well as you, but knowing there’s only half a chance that he could, literally, only ever meet you half-way is frustrating. You can save him time and time and time again, as you already have, and all he can do is be a wound for you to stitch back together. 

It must be difficult for you. A similar thought had crossed his mind when he first met Shoko-san, feeling bad for her having to carry the burden of healing others, knowing that she could never receive the same treatment in return. It’s worse for you, though, to be an angel amongst the men on this Earth—it’s not fair that you can give so much to help, and nobody can do the same for you. Yuuta wants to give something to you, he wants to devote himself to you, so at the very least, you have that. If he can’t give you anything else, he can give you himself.

Gojo laughs at Yuuta’s silence, kicking his legs up on the coffee table. “That’s hard for you to hear, huh? Ha! You truly are a lover, not a fighter, Yuuta.”

Yuuta blinks at him. “I, uh... thank you?” He says, even though he’s not so certain that those two things are discernable.  

“Right now, the best thing for you to do is focus on controlling Rika and your cursed energy. That way, (_____) can also focus on fighting, and not healing, when you’re on missions together. The stronger you are, the less she’ll have to clean up after you,” Gojo advises.

He puts his feet back on the floor and uses the leverage to lean over, a bit too close for Yuuta’s comfort. “The only thing you can do for her is to learn to help yourself.”

Yuuta’s eyes go wide. He wants to—he wants to help you, wants to help himself, wants to help others, too. There’s a selfish twang for a moment, the thought of not needing you anymore tugging at his heart, but Rika reminds him that he’ll still want you. 

Then an even scarier thought crosses his mind. “What happens if I don’t learn to control this? What happens if I curse her instead?”

Yuuta trembles at the thought, breathing and heartbeat erratic, his sensei moving back a bit. Rika is there again, reassuring him that he never hurt her, that his love never hurts, that the only person he’s ever truly harmed is himself by isolation of his own feelings. Trust her, Rika demands, she can handle this.

You can. Can you? You have, so far. You don’t run, you don’t push, you give, and give, and give to him; Rika was kind and playful and took and took and took Yuuta’s loneliness and sickness in stride and he still cursed her, seemingly for all eternity. He wants to love and be loved, but not if it means hurting you—isn’t it bad enough that he’s already inept at healing your wounds? Why should he risk giving you more?

“Yuuta,” Gojo calls him out of his thoughts, “I’m disappointed.” 

That truly breaks Yuuta’s cyclical monologue. “I—disappointed?” 

Gojo ticks his tongue, shakes his head and points a finger in accusation, “You should know your fellow classmates better by now. (_____) is not that weak or scared,” he chastises, “You’re so worried about cursing her that you haven’t realized that she is the only person so far to have effectively used her curse on you.”

Yuuta pauses, eyes wet with the awful realization that Gojo was right. You have already cursed him; your technique has already gotten past the barrier of his curse. You’ve cursed him. He never stopped to think that it was possible, worried only about himself. How selfish—he shares Gojo’s disappointment in himself. 

He’s spent so much time loathing his jealous mind and decaying heart that he hasn’t opened his eyes to see you that you’ve found him. You can poison anything he does, and make the antidote with equal ease; how stupidly naive of Yuuta to think that he could be the one to diagnose or treat you better than you could him, or yourself. 

“I’m sorry, sensei,” Yuuta dips his head, and also spares you an internal apology, “I understand better, now.”

“Is that so?” Gojo muses, leaning back into the sofa. His eyes scan Yuuta’s when his head is raised again, that knowing grin creeping back up on his lips. “Well, if you still want to know more about reversed curse technique, or want help learning it, it’s not an entirely lost cause. I’m definitely not the person for this lesson, but, you know who is?” 

Yuuta feels a sense of whiplash from the change in Gojo’s demeanor. Confusion clouds his mind again, and he shrugs, “Um... Shoko-sensei?” 

Gojo makes a loud buzzer noise, complete with crossing his arms in front of his chest in a big ‘X.’ Yuuta frowns again. Is that where Toge learned to do that? 

“Wrong! I’m talking about (_____), obviously!” Gojo claps his hands together, before lowering his glasses to wiggle his eyebrows, “Tutoring is a textbook way to get some alone time, kiddo. You want to spend more time with her outside of class and missions, right?”

“I want to spend all my time with her,” Yuuta confesses, mindlessly. And foolishly, he soon realizes, when he sees that Gojo’s grin has tripled; and he’s quick to flash his hands to correct himself, “No—not like that—not in a creepy way! I just... I want to get to know her better, like you said.”

Yuuta’s awkward chuckles fill the space, and he can feel his insides burning from his cheeks all the way down to his hands. Would he ever be able to think coherently or tactfully when it came to you? 

“So, uh... I... it’s okay if I ask her about this stuff, too?” 

“Some sorcerers don’t like talking about their cursed techniques. But (_____) might not mind. You won’t know until you try.” 

Yuuta nods shallowly. Try. He can do that—if not for himself, then for you; he can try for you. All you need from him is to accept your course of treatment; to love you is to let you curse him, completely. 

“I’m a firm believer that all’s fair in love and war,” Gojo stands, stretching into Yuuta’s space to ruffle his hair. He leans down further, giving him a glimpse of his glowing eyes before sparing him a wink, “So, be a little greedy, and give it your best shot.”

#3 — Social media is the most twisted curse out there. It makes you feel so close, yet is a stark reminder of just how far you are from the person on the other end of the screen. 

Yuuta has never considered himself good with technology. Even before Rika’s incident, he often felt ostracized by his peers because he didn’t have the same interest in or experience with games and cartoons. He had no reason to have a computer or a phone until enrolling at Jujutsu Tech, and there was an evident learning curve in navigating the devices. Toge often snickered watching Yuuta use his smartphone with the dexterity of a senior citizen. 

He only barely set up Instagram and TikTok accounts with Toge’s help, but he doesn’t really get the idea of followers—why would people who don’t know him want to follow him? Why would he follow them? He doesn’t know many memes or jokes and even after seeing them, he doesn’t think many are all that funny, but he laughs anyway. 

He doesn’t have much time to perfect his social media and meme skills, anyway. He’s dedicated to training and gaining mission experience—which pays off when Geto declares war on the school by the end of the year. Yuuta remembers how you returned his phone to him the next day, a few cracks and black, dark spots on the screen, giggling that you’d found it in the rubble, but that even your reverse cursed technique couldn’t fix its scars. 

He thinks he gets the hang of it in the end—the basics of communication and the appeal behind connection with others through it—even going so far as to trade selfies with Gojo sometimes, who always seemed happy to receive them, no matter how much post-exorcism curse gunk Yuuta was covered in. 

He also frequently exchanges texts with you. He much prefers to see you in person, but when you’re stuck for long hours in the ER, or away from campus on your own missions, Yuuta has grown fond of receiving your messages. He always attempts to read them in your voice and imagine your facial expressions to match those of the emojis you send. He hasn’t quite gotten the hang of those yet, doesn’t understand what Toge means when he says that not all smiley faces are created equally, so to save himself the trouble, and potential embarrassment, he’s opted to use emoticons instead. Which, if you asked him, has been working out in his favor, seeing as you call them cute. 

Yuuta also uses the safety of his phone screen to implement some of Gojo’s advice; picking your brain about curses, sorcery, and healing via text message for just long enough for you to say it’s easier to explain in person to come to him and teach him in your spare time. Soon these study sessions turn into texts asking to hang out outside of class and missions and work, and Yuuta couldn’t be more elated. The screen he once scorned at seemed to be his one-way ticket to being able to talk to his favorite person constantly. 

But Yuuta never thought it would become his only means of communication with you. He’s devastated when you break the news to him, over half-finished oolong tea and nervous finger-twiddling. 

“You’re leaving?” He echoes, hoping he doesn’t sound too much like a heartbroken child, even though that’s exactly how he feels. 

It’s quiet outside of the tea shop where you two sit, nearing seven in the evening; only the soft sounds of other customers conversing behind you two inside, distant cars on the main street, and the sound of Yuuta’s heart beating frantically.  

“Not leaving leaving,” you clarify, pausing your finger twirling to place one of your hands over Yuuta’s on the table, “I’m still studying, but I’m being sent abroad for a bit.” 

He should be focused on the fact that you’re touching his hand—Yuuta should be happy! Rika still cheers for you in his mind, but her voice is quieter now—but Yuuta can’t. He’s focused on everything else, spiraling about the implications of your words. You’re leaving... going away from him when things are going so well. 

Yuuta was so happy when you taught him the reversed curse technique, even happier when he realized he did have the ability to heal others, knowing it also meant having the ability to help you relieve some of your burdens. That didn’t mean that he didn’t still want to give himself to you, he would if you’d have him—but now he wouldn’t have the chance.  

“I haven’t told anyone else yet—Gojo only told me this morning,” you mumble, “I’m going to miss you all a lot, but we can still text every day! I don’t know how long the time difference will be, but we can FaceTime.” 

It’s not lost on Yuuta that he is the first person that you’ve told about this. It’s another thing to be happy about, another little victory he never thought he’d achieve, but it’s still overpowered by the dread of you leaving him. 

He blinks, placing his other hand atop yours, sandwiching them between his, “How long?” Yuuta can’t read the expression on your face, but you don’t pull your hand away. He’s glad. He didn’t think when he’d done it, but the lack of rejection feels good—your touch always feels good, reverse cursed energy or not. 

“I’m… not sure—a few months at least, maybe until the end of the year,” you admit, squeezing his hand, “There are some cursed objects and scrolls they want me to help recover, and Gojo says I get to work with another Special Grade sorcerer, too.” 

His hands feel so good, so warm, but everything else about Yuuta feels cold, icy with dread and fear. You’re going away for a long time, and he won’t get to see you or hear you laugh or feel your warmth while you’re gone. His sunny days are going away, and Yuuta honestly doesn’t know how many more overcast skies and rain clouds he can take.

And it’s selfish, he knows. He should be happy for you—you were chosen for this mission, for this training; you’re getting the chance to use your skills to help others, and train even further. So, why couldn’t he be happy for you? Why could he only feel a pit in his stomach about the thought of you leaving and meeting some other Special Grade who’s rightfully deserving of their title? Not only had he lost the thing that brought him to you in the first place, but you’re about to find another replacement. Sure, with or without Rika’s curse, Yuuta had become so much stronger, but what’s it worth if he couldn’t keep you by his side?

“Tsukumo is supposed to be really cool, but you’ll always be my favorite Special Grade, Yuuta,” you taunt with a smile. 

Yuuta’s eyes go wide and watery with wobbly lips and flushed cheeked and sweaty palms to match. Favorite. Favorite, favorite, favorite. The word spoken in your voice rings in his head like a beautiful chime, the tones washing over him and erasing all his fear and doubt and insecurity. 

You had called Yuuta your favorite. Sure, he’s still upset when he and the other first-years drop you off at the airport too weeks later, he still cries the first night you’re gone, still nearly breaks his knee trying to jump for his phone the first time that you call; but it’s okay because Yuuta is living off of the temporary high of being your favorite. 

And also, because, in the end, your separation seems to have been inevitable. Not a month after everyone bids you farewell from Jujutsu Tech, Gojo tells him that he’s next on the docket to be sent abroad. He’s happy for a split second, thinking that he might get sent off to Europe where you’re still working with Tsukumo, but then Yuuta learns his true fate: studying under the tutelage of Miguel in Kenya; equal parts away from his classmates in Tokyo, and from you in Barcelona. 

Whoever said distance makes the heart grow fonder was a liar and a bitch, because the favorite boy honeymoon comes to an end when Yuuta settles into his new room and makes his first call to you from Nairobi. The feeling and reality of being alone, and even further away from you finally hits him. Still, he relishes in the sound of your voice; fantasizes that when you reach for your phone to show him your new things, it’s you reaching for his hand; dreams of you laying next to him when you fall asleep on the call, and desperately wishes that he could touch you, hold you, kiss you. 

He really wants to kiss you. He thinks he’s probably always wanted to kiss you, from the very moment his feelings for you started to grow; even if he couldn’t discern them at first, he knows now—Yuuta knows that he misses you like he’s never missed anyone before. The grief of losing part of Rika, and then losing his proximity to you merely weeks apart is finally catching up to him, and it’s morphing into a yearning that tugs on his heartstrings and rattles his brain. 

He knows that the rate of growth of his feelings for you hasn’t been steady, but he blames you for that. You’re the reason he loves you so much, the reason he can’t sleep at night, the reason he learns how to bring Rika back—because he thinks of you, you, you, and how he lost Rika once, and he’d be a fool to lose you twice.

Yuuta thinks it’s no coincidence that your cursed technique has the ability to alter him in mind and body. You have so much ownership over him and you probably don’t even know that Yuuta has spent every single moment of his life living and breathing for you since you’ve met. 

And you take his breath away yet again, when he gets to see you in Germany. Miguel is taking him to Switzerland on a classified mission, and you and Tsukumo are on your way to Austria, and by some great miracle, your layovers align. When he sees you waving to him down the long corridor in the airport, it feels like a scene straight out of his dreams. Yuuta spares no time trying to look cool or nonchalant; making a beeline to you, desperate to feel your touch after so long. 

He’s breathless in those ten minutes that you’re reunited. Everything is too short, but he does his best to live in it all. He speaks a mile a minute, cramming in anything he hadn’t already revealed to you in your many late-night FaceTimes, and swallowing everything you tell him. He wants to believe that he’d made the best of what little time he had with you, but the truth is he didn’t. Because while you were smiling and hugging and telling him that you missed him, all Yuuta really wanted to do was kiss you—and if he were a smarter man, a better man, he would have. 

He thinks, for a split second, that you might have wanted to kiss him too—when you rock back on your heels after saying good-bye, hesitating for just a moment, almost expectantly, before your eyes flutter away. He’ll never know, because he never asked, he never tried, he never said—only whispered, pathetically, to himself as he watches the silhouette of you and Tsukomo before you disappear for boarding, that he loves you. 

He almost believes that you hear it when you turn over your shoulder after his quiet confession. Would it have been better that way—if he kissed you, or confessed in the heat of the moment—or would it be taking advantage of an otherwise beautiful moment? Yuuta will never know, and the what if tantalizes him.

He takes his phone out of his pocket and opens the thread of your messages. He starts typing, then stops. Backspace. Start typing. Pause. Read, re-read. Delete. Groan. 

What’s the point? He can’t kiss you through the screen, and he’ll be damned if the first time he tells you that he’s in love with you is via phone call. He slumps his shoulders, and Miguel gives him a pity pat on the back. Yuuta goes to lock his phone when he sees the gray thought bubbles pop up below your last message and his entire body goes rigid in anticipation. 

[received] 03:27 PM — [attachment: 1 image] — you should keep a closer eye on your things yuuta — i miss you already (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤ 

Yuuta’s heart stops when he sees the picture of you in your seat, wearing his white uniform jacket. He doesn’t know when you snuck it away from him, but that doesn’t matter—like anything else, he would have willingly given it to you, and then some. It looks much better on you anyway, and Yuuta pinches his eyes shut for a brief moment, to swallow down the thoughts threatening to swarm his mind of you in his arms, in other clothes, in his bed. 

He opens his eyes, takes a deep breath, and lets the warm, gooey feeling settle into his veins, and moves his fingers to type. 

[sent] 03:38 PM — keep it, you can have anything of mine you want — i miss you more (๑′ ᴗ ‵๑)♥

You heart his messages and let him know you’re taking off soon, and putting your phone on airplane mode until you land. He’s not so confident to send a picture in return, unless you ask for it. Maybe you will, when you’re in Austria. He’ll have to work on his selfies.

He takes another once over the picture you sent, committing the idea of you in his clothes to memory. He knows the messages won’t delete themselves, but he takes a screenshot for safekeeping anyway. Maybe phones aren’t so bad, afterall. 

#4 — Do not kill Itadori Yuuji. Under any circumstances. Even if some days you really feel like it. Also, sign up for a Crunchyroll subscription. 

Yuuta can confidently say that his training abroad was both the most difficult and fulfilling thing he’s ever experienced. He believes that the change he’s endured is mostly good—he’s physically stronger, emotionally wiser, and overall more confident in himself and his cursed technique. One year ago, he would have been content with dying, but now he has more than enough reasons to keep living. He has people who care about him, and who would miss him if he were gone; and he’s got someone he would miss a whole bunch, too, should anything happen to them.  

By miss Yuuta means that he might burn down a small town, might level a city, might flip the entire world on its axis if something were to happen to you. In his defense, he’d go to extremes for most of his friends—but for you, there’s truly nothing he wouldn’t risk.  

He figured that out in his time abroad, too; came to terms with the fact that he’s selfish with his love. He loves too much, too hard, too close, and he isn’t very willing to share. He doesn’t see it as a bad thing, anymore, either—Yuuta knows now that the way he loves makes him who he is, and right now, he has the confidence to say that he likes that person, and that he loves you, undoubtedly. 

So, forgive him if there’s a cloud of negative energy the size of a coach bus looming over him at the moment, because since you’ve returned to campus, Itadori Yuuji has been slobbering over you like a lovesick puppy.  

Because apparently, you happen to know Itadori Yuuji—as in, since you were four and he was three, all the way up until your senior year of highschool, when you were scouted by Gojo, who, believes that you coming home from your study abroad trip would be the perfect time to reunite two best friends who hadn’t seen or heard from each other for the better part of two years—all while keeping this little reunion a secret from everybody, including you and Itadori.

A surprise, it certainly is, when the first time that Yuuta and the other second-years see you in months is on the dingy couch in the common room, under a cuddle pile of the first-years. Nobara’s arms wrapped around your left arm, body slumped against your side, Megumi’s long limbs stretching over Itadori’s torso, leaving the palm of his hand resting on your thigh. Far too close for Yuuta’s comfort. The only saving grace is that the jacket he loaned you is also spread across your lap, offering another layer between your body and his palm. And then there’s Itadori Yuuji, squished right between you and Megumi, with his head on your shoulder, his arms around your waist, and your free arm slung around his neck. 

Yuuta should have been relishing in the fact that you were finally home, but all his focus is drawn to the way your position allows Itadori to cuddle right into you, to the way your arm is around his shoulder and your cheek pressed against the top of his head. You two might as well have been in your own little world, and Yuuta hates it. And, as if that’s not enough, the realization that he was not the first person to hug you or welcome you home clicks, and his anger bubbles deeper.  

Next comes dread, that creeps in slowly when you and the first-years wake up, and you and Itadori go on and on and on about how surprised you were to see each other at the airport, how Itadori just assumed that when Gojo said he’d assigned them to “pick up something super special,” that he was messing with them, how you couldn’t seem to take your eyes off of your precious, precious kouhai that you’d missed so dearly.

Childhood best friends brought back together through sorcery. Yuuta’s seen that one before, and he didn’t like the ending.

You and Itadori mend the gap in your friendship like two years of no contact was nothing, falling into a pattern that’s so easy and familiar, that it’s painful for Yuuta to watch. The assumption that you’d died, and the knowledge that Yuuji had actually died only served to strengthen your vows to protect each other in the name of your friendship from here on out.  

Yuuta considers putting his own sword through his chest if it means you’ll swear your devotion to him. If he died, would you cry for him? Would you pray over his grave and beg for him to come back to you?—or would you find comfort in those who kept living, find solace in a friend who came back for you and can still hold you in his arms? 

“Tsuna tsuna,” he hears from his left, followed by a mischievous giggle. Toge’s taunting is hardly enough to pull Yuuta out of his cloud of rage, but the blunt end of Maki’s staff is.  

“Will you stop pining so damn hard?” she sneers, whipping the staff back to her side and placing a hand on her hip, “Not only is it pathetic, it’s gonna attract curses like flies to honey.”  

“Why am I the only one getting hit?” He turns to his right to motion to Megumi, who seems to be brooding just as hard. Megumi respects you, but it was easy to see that he was reaching his limit on sharing his recently revived lover with someone else. Maki huffs, “Because he doesn’t have a literal cloud of darkness looming around him.”  

Yuuta sighs, doing his best to reign in his feelings, but it’s pointless once he hears your laughter across the field—light and airy and sunshiney and all because of Itadori Yuuji. 

What were you two talking about? If Itadori were out of the way, would you pledge yourself to Yuuta? Did he ever hold a space comparable to Itadori in your heart—would you let him?

A broken chord strikes Yuuta’s heart when he realizes that Itadori is the person you told him about last year; the person you missed so much, and you never thought you’d be able to see again; the person that Yuuta reminded you of; the person he was happy and eager to be for you. And now, in knowing Itadori, Yuuta thinks that his willingness was beautifully naive—to think that he could compare to someone like this. Itadori is light, where Yuuta is dark; he sees the best in people, where Yuuta manages to come off on the wrong foot always; he perseveres in faith and determination, where Yuuta is fueled by an anxious desire to prove, prove, prove himself to be worth something to anybody. 

He can see how easy it is to love Itadori. It’s easy to cling to faith, to believe in something higher than yourself, to know that someone above can pull you up. Yuuta cannot compete where he cannot compare; he’s a shadow that engulfs you, takes you away from light, a dream that’s hard to wake up from. He could never be bright to you; his best attempt would probably drive you and him too close to the sun, martyred for love in burning flames.

Still, even in all his jealousy, Yuuta comes to the even more sobering realization that making Itadori disappear wouldn’t fix his problems. You told him he wasn’t Itadori’s replacement, but maybe that’s because he could never be him; maybe he doesn’t have to be. Yuuji could never be him, and he could never be Yuuji, but whether Yuuta likes it or not, he and Itadori are two sides of the same coin; and as such, Yuuta has, begrudgingly, grown to feel the same sense of responsibility over the younger boy that you do.

So, even though he never expected that they would both be at the mercy of your hand at the same time in this lifetime, he absolutely cannot kill Itadori Yuuji. Not only would it make you sad, but it would probably make Yuuta even sadder in the end, somehow. What a bother. 

He’s about to get up—to leave, maybe go over there, he doesn’t know yet—but he stops when he hears a calm buzzing by his ear. Yuuta blinks, slowly, shoulders relaxing unconsciously, allowing the larger than normal honey-bee to land on him. He recognizes it as one of your shikigami—and even if he hadn’t, that familiar, cooling sensation that washes over him would have let him know—so, gently, he lifts a hand across his torso, allowing it to crawl onto his finger, and strum its tune.

Yuuta can feel a few more, hear them humming around him, and he closes his eyes, lets the small group of bees flutter around him and all that looming jealousy dissipates from his body. 

Faintly, past the calm hum of the small swarm, Yuuta can hear the call of Yuuji’s voice, petulant, “Aw, no fair. Fushiguro, I want calming shikigami, too! Can you bring out the bunnies? Please.” 

Beside him, Toge and Maki seem bemused by his newly calmed state, then amused when Megumi sighs, stands, and reluctantly pulls his hands together before a couple dozen white rabbits flood the field and hop onto Yuuji. 

The buzzing grows softer, and then quiet. Briefly, Yuuta feels a bee land on his cheek, before it flies away, leaving the smell of fresh pollen in his wake, and when he blinks his eyes open again, you’re there, in front of him with a smile sweeter than anything he’s ever known. 

“Hope they didn’t scare you,” you muse, waving a finger before the last bee hovering around you disappears, “You seemed upset, everything alright?” 

He’s about to open his mouth to say something, anything, when he’s cut off by Itadori Yuuji once again, with one bunny on either shoulder, and three more cradled in his arms. “Hey, doesn’t (_____) totally remind you guys of Sakura!”  

Maki scoffs, albeit with amusement, as she points her staff at Yuuji’s hair. “If anyone bears resemblance to Sakura, it’s you, Itadori.”  

Yuuji actually makes an attempt to look at his own hair before chuckling. Yuuta flashes a look to Megumi, who looks equal parts exasperated and enchanted. Yuuta doesn’t get the reference, and when Inumaki starts making gestures about how Yuuji is like some Naruto guy and Yuuji screams about how Megumi resembles a Shikamaru, he becomes too afraid to ask.  

You seemed charmed at the end of the discussion, when everybody fundamentally agrees that you’re the Sakura of the group. Yuuta is far less charmed by these comparisons (and it has nothing to do with the fact that he didn’t get one). He doubts that this Sakura person can do what you can do, doubts that Sakura is even worthy enough to be compared to you, whoever she may be. 

And maybe Yuuta goes back to his room to watch several compilation videos about ships in Naruto later that day, but nobody has to know that. From what he’s gathered, Sakura is pretty cool, and even though Yuuji bears the most physical resemblance to her, he can see why everyone agrees that your healing abilities compare well to hers. Yuuta thinks you’re better, and he’s still holding out hope that there’s some other character equivalent for you that Itadori didn’t think of, that Yuuta can, just to prove that he knows you better. He doesn’t fight any comparisons between Gojo and Kakashi, though. That one honestly freaked him out a little. 

If it turns out that you’re Sakura, then he should hope to be Sasuke, but Yuuta thinks this dude is kind of a dick. From the 47 minutes of scattered Naruto content that he’s consumed, he actually much prefers the dynamic between Sakura and Naruto, even if that does equate to Itadori Yuuji having a crush on you, at least you’re out of his league and chasing after somebody else. 

Still, he thinks Sakura would be upset if Naruto actually died, or worse, if Sasuke actually killed him—never mind the fact that apparently he tried to kill her? Yuuta would never do that, but Sakura still seems to like Sasuke after all of that... in any case, Itadori Yuuji must live, and Yuuta must accept his fate as Sasuke reborn. 

Though, to Yuuta’s understanding so far, Sasuke and Naruto are destined to duke it out and if only one of them has to survive, then maybe it’s not so bad to be this guy. Yuuta doesn’t know how it ends between them, but he thinks he could take on Itadori Yuuji if he had to. He won’t because he’s your friend, and Yuuta’s friend now, too, but if Itadori or the curse inside of him acts up, then Yuuta can at least rest assured he can put a stop to it. That’s not something he could have guaranteed a year ago, but now, he can. 

Yuuta sighs, finally locking his phone and shoving his head under his blanket. He’s been knee deep in analyses about Sakura ships for the past two and a half hours now, and he’ll admit Sasuke is growing on him, but not much. His only saving grace seems to be that Sakura is madly, unconditionally in love with him; Yuuta wouldn’t mind having that kind of devotion from you. He turns to lay on his back, staring up at the blank ceiling and wonders: if it came down to saving only one of them, would Sakura pick Naruto or Sasuke... would you choose the boy who’s loved and looked up to you since you were kids, or the boy who sacrificed everything in hopes of gaining enough strength so that what happened to him never happens to anyone else. 

Maybe they answer that in the series, Yuuta reasons. 720 episodes, at 20 minutes per episode... if he devotes about half-a-day to watching Naruto, then he can breeze through it in a little over two weeks, maybe sooner if he uses his weekends efficiently. That’s plausible, and by the end of it, Yuuta is certain that he’ll have the answers he needs—and even if it doesn’t, then at least, he’ll have one more thing to talk to you about.

In the end, Sakura picks Sasuke, Naruto marries somebody else, and Yuuta understands that the two were never opposites, but complements, and that Itadori Yuuji-shaped pit in his stomach dissipates. Still, about three weeks later at breakfast he makes the argument that if anything you’re more akin to Tsunade, minus the gambling addiction, and that gets him rave reactions from everyone, including you, who is more than happy to show him your new slug shikigami as a means of commemorating your new Naruto kin. 

Believe that, Itadori. 

#5 — None of this matters if you don’t kiss her. You have to kiss the girl—or she’ll get mad enough to the point where she’ll kiss you.

The following month comes your indictment into the Semi-Special Grade hall of responsibility. Yuuta vaguely recalls Gojo’s lecture on how people don’t really get promoted to Special Grade—it’s classification you’re born or cursed with, like himself, or Yuuji, or Tsukumo—but, you, of course, defy all odds and expand everything Yuuta knows. Nobody is surprised—Yuuta thinks everyone was among the similar thought that you were undoubtedly unique amongst your classmates, in a way that was different from him or Yuuji. Being born with a body that generates reversed cursed energy instead of cursed energy is deserving of Special Grade status if you asked him; he doesn’t know what pushed the higher-ups into finally acknowledging your skill, but he knows it’s well-past due. And while he’s happy you’re getting recognition for your efforts, Yuuta would never wish to saddle you with half of the shit the higher-ups put him through. 

They better hope that Yuuta doesn’t find out that they’re plotting anything with you, lest they meet the end of his sword.

Part of your promotion entails a dual-degree program that will have you starting medical school next fall. Yuuta almost cries at the thought of you being sent away again, until you tell him that Gojo managed to pull a few strings this time—to fund everything and keep you in Tokyo. 

And even though you’re not licensed to treat civilians yet, you’re already more than experienced with taking care of and healing your fellow sorcerers, which lends Shoko’s promotional gift to be a shiny new office, right across from hers. Yuuta is the first person you invite inside, and he brings you a photo of you, him, Maki, and Toge from last year—honestly, probably the only photo the four of you have together—to christen your desk, and a plaque with your name on it for the door, that he may or may not have fantasized about it reading with your first name and his last name on it instead.

To no surprise, your office becomes a safe haven of sorts. Yuuta would define any time or place with you as a safe haven, but there’s something special about this place. Maybe Yuuta is still leaping from this being the second time you’ve chosen him. He’s the first person to see your office, the first person to sit at your chair, your first official patient when he stubs his toe against the corner of your desk (where he left the first decorative object). Maybe it’s a little far to say that this place has him all over it as much as it does you, but Yuuta likes the sound of that. 

When he comes back from gruesome missions, he’s invited to let himself in, no matter how much blood he’s covered in, and you’ll be there to take care of him. It’s not different than before—not different than even last year when he’d waddled in your shadow to the room across the hall and sat down with heart palpitations while you fixed his wrist—but something about this feels special. It holds a different weight than hanging out in your dorm or cooking together in the kitchen; this office is yours, the things you say and do to him here are confidential, the yearning for and almost-kisses you almost have are for you and him alone; within these four walls, you’re free to curse him completely. 

So, he’s understandably upset when your office becomes a cozy corner for the other students as well. Maki likes to take refuge inside to study alone, Panda and Toge have been caught on more than one occasion attempting to wrap gauze around each other like zombies, Megumi uses your supplies and basic first-aid lessons to prepare small kits for him and the other first-years, hell, even Gojo has been found asleep in your office on more than one occasion. He gets why people are drawn to you like a magnet, why you’re comforting, and welcoming, and a source of warmth for them, but that doesn’t mean that Yuuta likes to share you. It’s much harder to almost-kiss you this way. 

He must have pouted loud enough about it, because shortly after, instead of inviting Yuuta to your office for lunch, you ask him to meet you on the field. Not one to question you, he obeys, and soon, instead he’s met with an entirely new safe haven, sitting criss-cross inside your domain with all your shikigami slithering and fluttering and buzzing about him. A butterfly lands on his nose, and Yuuta’s nose crinkles. You lean in to let it crawl on your finger instead, and don’t lean too far back when you slowly begin to explain to him the intricacies of your domain and how it all comes together. 

It’s amazing, surely. Yuuta listens as best he can, but it’s hard when there’s a halo of butterflies around you, and a symphony of bees buzzing in his ear, and a slug kissing at his hand, and a snake coiling around his body and gently massaging his muscles, and your voice sound so soft and warm, and you look so pretty and, and, and he wants to kiss you again. 

He wants to kiss you really badly. He wonders if that’s part of your domain—honestly, he’d wondered if that magnetic, honey-like attraction he has to you is in any part influenced by your healing nature—wonders if the confines of your space exacerbates the flow of blood to his heart and his cheeks and his—

“Are you listening?” you question, that glowing, addictive smile on your face, “You know I can make the snake bite, the bees sting.” 

God, Yuuta wants to kiss you. He wants to live in the spring garden of your love forever, and ever, and roll around in the grass and drink honey with you, and kiss you and kiss you and kiss you. You could keep him here forever, he’d be perfectly content with living his days wrapped up in your curse. 

Yuuta shakes his head to snap out of his daydream, disrupting a few butterflies in the process. “I—sorry,” he apologies, “I’m listening now.”

You hum, folding your legs underneath your knees and sitting before him. Yuuta’s certain he looks slightly ridiculous, covered head to toe in animals and small insects and burning underneath your gaze—wasn’t this domain supposed to help people feel better? Is there no cure for lovesickness that you can use on him—or, at the very least, embarrassment?

“I asked you why you won’t kiss me.” 

Yuuta knows that if he weren’t in your domain right now, he would have fallen to a sudden death. “I—I, um,” words, Yuuta, words; a bee lands on his cheek, he takes a deep breath, “I’m sorry.” 

That doesn’t seem like the right answer, judging by the twist of your lips. Of course it’s not—because it’s a lie, and you know it, and you know he knows that you know it. How could he be sorry for wanting you, for spending every last waking moment breathing for you, hoping that you’ll end his laborious breaths and pour air into him yourself?

“You know, I brought you in here to make sure that you wouldn’t run or pass out on me,” you confess, reaching out your hand towards him; the tip of your finger barely grazes his cheek as you allow the bee to crawl onto you, “I worry about your heart more than I should.” 

You flick your finger gently, allowing the bee to flutter freely and your eyes to focus back on Yuuta’s, “Right now, in this domain, it’s mine to control. To stop, to beat.” It’s yours outside of here, too; to fix, to break. He knows. He knows, he knows, he knows. “Why won’t you let me have it, Yuuta?” 

Yuuta gasps, and despite his surprise, despite his extreme lovesickness, despite his dark desires, his heartbeat remains steady, his body remains perfectly tempered and cool, his voice resonates clearly—all because of you. 

“You’ve always had it,” he confesses, “Always. From the moment I met you.” 

He can’t read your expression. He’s suddenly hyper aware of the power struggle here; domain aside, you can hear everything about him, sense the slightest physiological change in him, alter any one of his bodily functions at your whim and Yuuta doesn’t know what goes on in you. Would it be wrong to confess that he likes it; that this feels like you having him, that he likes knowing you can take him? 

“I thought so, maybe,” you enlighten him, “Last year with all the calls and texts,” you lean over and set free a butterfly from his shoulder, “And then in the airport,” then guiding the snake to coil around your arm and around your torso, “And then I thought maybe you’d have said something when you were jealous of Yuuji,” this time your hand touches him, a feather-light touch to his elbow, “But you didn’t, and I was beginning to wonder if I was hearing your heart beat for someone else, instead.” 

Yuuta grabs at your hand erratically, “No—no. Never.” 

He’s senselessly in love with you, and if it weren’t for your healing hands, Yuuta’s certain his ribs would have cracked from the pressure of his happy heart by now; but then again, maybe he should ask you to let it break—let that fracture serve as an entry point for you and yours, to prove to you that it beats for you and you alone. 

“So then what is with you? You have a habit of giving girls your heart and not kissing them, or asking them out—is it always straight to marriage with you?” 

It’s torture hearing that word fall from your lips. He doesn’t have time to even begin to process it. Yuuta’s eyes flicker to the smile on your lips, the slight tilt of your head. He says something he shouldn’t, “Would you be opposed to that?” 

“I’d like a kiss first,” you tease, “Would you give me one?” 

And how could he ever deny you anything. There, with a harmony of beautiful insects and warm sunlight, Yuuta finally, finally, takes the last move forward to kiss you. It’s everything he wants and exactly as he’d imagined—he can feel the rush in his bones, the want in his stomach, the love against his skin when you fall into him. 

It’s one kiss, and another, and then Yuuta can feel your tongue against his, greedily falling into the rush of you. He’s everywhere, hands on your neck, lips on yours, body stradling yours when he carefully leans you backwards; Yuuta has you, and you have him, and he won’t let this moment go to waste. He pulls away for a moment, only a moment, to take in your kiss-swollen lips and commit this vision to memory. He’ll have to take another visual photograph outside of your domain, when your bodies are free to breathe erratically and equilibrium is broken so you and truly, truly, feel all of Yuuta’s love in earnest. 

He wonders if it’s the effect of your domain that prevents his nerves from running haywire when you take off his shirt, when you let him take off your pants, when you have your hands on his chest and his on your hips. It must be. Yuuta knows for certain that otherwise, he’d be a blushing mess of fumbling limbs and stuttering words. 

Still, Yuuta thinks, domain or no domain, he wouldn’t let this moment pass him. It’s not nerves when his hand brushes over your clothed clit and he hears you moan—even if it had been, that would have been the antidote to his poison. Lust, pressure, possession wash over him in excruciating waves. He wants more. He wants you. 

Impatience when he adds pressure with his hand, bliss when you buck your hips to add more of your own, greedily grinding against his fingers. Yuuta kisses you again, swallows your moans and feeds you his own when slips his hand past the barrier of your underwear, and he feels your warm, wet cunt against his fingertips for the first time, and when he pushes two fingers into your heat, he thinks he could cum right then and there, from this alone. 

“Yu—Yuuta, more,” you plead. Your hand on his neck, fingernails scraping into his skin that should leave a mark. They probably won’t. He’ll be sure that next time they stick. 

And Yuuta, unable to deny you anything, obeys. He curls his fingers inside of you, thrusting gently at first, and then with more confidence—and warning, when he hears you snarl about not teasing. Ironic, he thinks, as he watches your lips fall open, since you’ve had him strung along since day one. 

“I wanna—wanna cum with you inside,” you moan, a sound that Yuuta promises to commit to memory. Later, when his brain is working better, and the coil in his stomach isn’t so tight, and you’re not clenching around his fingers. 

You’re greedy, and Yuuta’s never realized it. You suck him in and still want more, and you must know that he’ll give it to you. It should serve as a warning, you have the high-ground to take him any which way you want—for a fool, for granted, for yourself, for nobody else; so what does it say about him that it only spurs his arousal, that it makes him impossibly hard and he can feel himself leaking from the thought of it. 

“I want that, too,” he reassures you, leaning down to press his forehead against yours, because you’re perfect for him, “But I want this first. Give me this first, please. Please.” 

He thinks you might cry. The rational part of him knows you can regulate it, that you probably won’t; the sick part of him wants to see it, wants to know what it takes to make you lose control. 

You call his name like a prayer, once, twice, and on the third time, Yuuta can feel it as much as he can hear it. He can feel the moment that your walls clench, and your eyes screw shut, and your body convulses around him. You’re beautiful, irreverent, and Yuuta thinks that being responsible for this is the greatest achievement of his life. 

He wears your orgasm with pride, raking over you as you blink your eyes open to him again. You’re lucid too quickly, he really is going to have to take the time to enjoy this somewhere less controlled later, eagerly wrapping your hand around his wrist and forcing them to his mouth. Yuuta groans when he tastes you on his tongue, nothing short of euphoric, and he’s sure to taste every last drop. 

You smile, and then laugh—an almost inaudibly giggle that has Yuuta smiling back reflexively. Like always, he follows your every move and succumbs to all your whims when you lean up to kiss him, and then coax off his pants and underwear, and line the tip of his dick up with your slit and pull him in, again, by the neck to bite at his ear, “Come on, Yuuta. Give it to me.” 

An order, a promise, a plea—Yuuta vows to fulfill them all, determined and spell-bound when he sinks into you. He can only imagine what it feels like for you, but for him it’s warm, wet, soft, snug, sticky—like honey, like a bee drawn to sweetness. It’s good, too good, Yuuta doesn’t know how to last when you feel this good. 

He can feel you everywhere, around his dick, your hands on his back, your breath on his cheek, your skin against his. He feels stuck to you, stuck in you, mind, body, and soul as one, unable to differentiate him from you, from you, from you. 

“Fuck,” Yuuta stares, carefully swiping a thumb over your browbone, conscious but not in command on how deep he’s thrusting into you, “You’re so—fuck, I love you.” He wants to hear you say it back, he needs to, he has to. He can feel it again, stomach in knots, and nerves on fire, and skin sticky, and Yuuta has to know—“Please, please. Do you love me, too?” 

You stutter, only from the rock of his hips into yours, reaching for his face and cradling it between healing hands, “Of course I love you, Yuuta.” His mouth opens, wobbly, and tears flow over his eyes—briefly, Yuuta thinks that it’s cruel that you’d let him cry; that you have command over every function in his body and that you’d let him cry, but he can’t bring himself to be upset. He’d probably have cried regardless, because hearing you say that you love him is a rush comparable only to burning tightness in his gut right now. 

You tangle your fingers in his hair, pulling his lips to yours when you finally let go together. Yuuta can feel you tight around him, when he cums; and an unfiltered harmony of moans and skin on skin when he lays on top of you, sinks into you. Your hands don’t leave his hair, and Yuuta finds bliss in your affection, in being in your arms, in being yours. 

He doesn’t know how long you two stay like that, he doesn’t know if physical time passes in your domain, but it doesn’t matter. He’d stay here forever with you, let you use the full extent of your prowess to eat his heart out as sustenance, bleed for you to quench your thirst. He’d be everything you need and more; he’ll make sure that he’s all you want when it’s done and over. 

[jasntodds]

can i request a jason fic 🥺 i was reading through the prompt list and saw two ("here's a spare key, so you don't have to keep coming through the window" and "i didn't know you could cook this good") and i thought they'd make a cute setup for a friends to lovers moment 🥺 sorry for not being around! i've been struggling with reading on my phone for long periods of time the last few months 😭 -guiltywaves

@guiltywaves omg hey!! I love friends to lovers so much dkjf but no no it's totally okay!! No worries!! I totally understand!! It happens to me all the time lmao I'm so sorry this took so long!! I wanted it to be perfect and make sure it wasn't super long!! I hope you like it!!

Maybe I'll do a part 2

Pairing: Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

Words: 3,045

Warnings: Fluff, mentions of injuries

masterlist | tag list | requests: open

Jason climbs through your window. A routine of sorts, really. After patrol, he comes by and always through your window. Sometimes he’s injured and lets you help him before you offer your couch to him. Sometimes he just stops by with a snack. But, he always comes in through the window.

Tonight is no different.

It’s after three when your window creaks open, Jason noting to himself to fix it for you. He crawls through your window, your apartment dark as it usually is when he comes by this late. He flips on the floor lamp to your living room before taking his helmet off and making his way to your kitchen to rest it on the table. He finds a note, your handwriting scribbled across the page containing Nightwing symbols at the corner.

Jason rolls his eyes but reads the note.

Leftovers in the fridge please eat

A smile tugs itself onto his lips before he pockets the note, folding it neatly beforehand. He’s quiet, reaching for the fridge where he finds the leftovers already in a bowl for him with a note that has his name on it, something that almost always makes him laugh. He's the only one you ever save food for.

This note has the Robin symbol.

He doesn’t think you even own anything with a Red Hood symbol and a very large part of him knows it’s because you do it to fuck with him.

It works every time.

He grabs the bowl, pulling the plastic wrap from it before he pops it in the microwave. He grabs a fork from the drawer and leans himself against the counter with hooded eyes, sleep tugging at his chest and bones. Patrol wasn't too bad tonight, that's not really it. He's standing in your kitchen and it's comfortable here. He's allowed to breathe with ease in your apartment and sometimes, that alone can make him crave sleep. The white noise of the microwave is only contributing to the heaviness of his eyes until it’s suddenly interrupted.

“Knew you’d be hungry.” Your voice tugs Jason from his almost sleep.

You look tired.

You sound tired.

“Thank you.” Jason’s cheeks turn a pretty shade of red as he rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. “Just gonna eat and head out.”

“You can stay.” You roll your shoulders.

“Nah.” He shakes his head. “‘M fine.” He gives you this toothy grin as some sort of proof he isn’t injured tonight though you’ve already pieced that together with him heating up his food.

“It’s late. You’re just gonna be more tired after you eat, Jay. It’s not like you don’t stay half the time anyway.” You roll your eyes at him before you disappear down the hall.

The microwave dings and it sends Jason quickly reaching for the handle to get it to stop. The noise is so jarring in your quiet apartment it sounds like his ears might bleed. The bowl is hot on his fingertips as he grabs it, quickly stirring before he puts it back in for a bit more time.

“I got you something.” You state as you reemerge from the hallway.

Jason’s brow quirks up. “What?” He let out a half-scoff half-chuckle.

The microwave barely gets a ding off before Jason grabs it and removes his bowl. He places it on the counter before you approach him. Jason faces you, eyeing you carefully before he sticks his fork into the pile of pasta.

“Here’s a spare key.” You stick out your hand and open your palm, revealing a painted red key. It matches his helmet. “So you don’t have to keep coming through the window.”

Jason thinks he might have a panic attack.

He’s comfortable around you. You’re his best friend. You’ve been friends for years, long before Red Hood. You know everything there is to know about him. It’s why he’s so comfortable walking into your apartment and grabbing his food. It’s why he can get some sleep when he’s here. But, having a key feels serious. It feels like a large responsibility. It feels like a commitment to something he’s not sure he knows what to do with.

He's staring at your palm like the key might try to bite and you have to hold your breath. There's always a chance he says no and it really shouldn't be a big deal because he's your best friend but you hold your breath anyway. You tell yourself it's just a key because Jason Todd deserves to feel welcomed somewhere at all times and that somewhere is here.

“Jay, you’re here all the time.” You tell him before you grab his hand and put the key in it. “Just use the damn key. And whenever you want.” You shrug. “I know sometimes you just don’t want to be alone so you can just come over whenever. I don’t know. You’re just always welcome.” You glance to the key in his hand and then up to him, hoping he takes it.

“I can’t do that.” Jason shakes his head, still holding out the palm of his hand.

“And why not?” You challenge.

Jaosn’s different than he was when you were kids. He’s guarded, cautious, you think he’s scared. When he was a kid, he was a little fearless and a little reckless. It wasn’t anything too crazy but a little reckless. He was open and welcoming. He was still cautious but it was more that caution just came from needing to survive from one day to the next. Jason’s caution today makes him look over his shoulder, look at every single person near him to see if they have a weapon. It makes him hide a gun under your couch and in one of your cabinets. He has a stash of food in his apartment he thinks you don’t know about. He’s different now than he was. So, you offer patience while still testing him. He doesn’t need to be different with you.

“Not trying to impose.” Jason tries to play off his own fears. “The window’s fine.” He tries to deflect. “It’s not even a bother anyway and—“

You let out a sigh cutting him off. “You’re not imposing if I’m inviting you which I am. The window’s fine until someone spots you and wants to know what the fuck is going on. The door is right here.” You point over your shoulder to the door. “Just take the key and use it.” You offer him a soft smile. "I want you here." You clarify.

Maybe it’s not the key itself that makes Jason want to run through a window. It’s the implication of what a key could lead to. And what if you ask for it back?

What if you change your mind?

“I painted it to match your helmet.” Your eyes soften, a hint of innocence behind them.

Jason's eyes go to the table, spotting his helmet and his chest feels like it’s on fire. Most of the stationary you own has to do with the bats. You have random collectibles of theirs, too which may have actually been gifted to you but you have them regardless. But the key to your apartment is Red Hood red.

You think you see a smile forming.

“Fine.” He caves, curling his fingers around the key before stuffing it deep into his pocket. “‘M gonna thank you for it then.”

“Okay, Jay.” You shine, relieved he took it.

“Can I eat now?” He points to his bowl of food that's no longer steaming.

“Yes, yes you can.” You chime.

Jason picks up his bowl, leaning his lower back against your counter before he twirls the pasta around the fork. You sit in front of him on your table just watching him. He’s your best friend but it’s hard not to notice how the armor compliments his muscle. It’s hard not to notice how pretty he is even in the low light of your apartment. You think he’s always been pretty but since reconnecting, you can’t help but think he’s stunning and tall and big. Your mind wanders to his hands, the way he holds the fork with large but delicate fingers as if he could break the metal with ease. You think how it would feel to hold his hand in yours, knowing Jason’s always radiated heat. You think how his palms are probably calloused and how they’d feel against your skin and—

Nope.

You shake your head of your own thoughts. He’s your friend and you’re just extra tired and touch-starved lately.

“How was patrol?” You ask with ease, kicking your feet in front of you, just missing his legs.

He shrugs. “Not too bad.” He answers. “Stopped a few robberies.” He states as he twirls his fork around his pasta.

“You look tired.”

He hums softly before taking his first bite, not even realizing how hungry he was until now.

“You look tired.” Jason quips back with the nod of his head towards you.

“That’s because it’s four in the morning.” You laugh softly. “Most people are tired at this time.” You widen your eyes at him to tease him.

"You can go back to bed, don't have to watch me eat." Jason widens his eyes back at you in response.

"No, that's okay." You smile back at him, not wanting to go back to bed when you could be out here with him.

“You know,” Jason starts as he points his fork at you. “Gotta get you different stationary. Tired of your Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin bullshit.” He changes subject, a little relieved you want to stay up a little bit with him. He feels guilty you're up with him but he does really enjoy your company.

“Aww,” You give him a pout. “But don’t you just love Dick and Damian and Tim?”

Jason blinks at you a few times as he keeps a straight face before taking another bite.

You let out a laugh and Jason thinks your laugh could cure him of all of his sadness.

“They’re your brothers.” You giggle.

“Exactly.” Jason answers.

“I could have painted your key Nightwing blue or the Robin colors.” You tease him with a cheeky grin.

“Can’t pick Spoiler or Orphan?” Jason says it more sarcastically than anything else.

“No, you like Steph and Cass.” You laugh.

“Swear, if I show up to Batman shit, I’m out.” Jason laughs back.

You make a mental note to pick up a Batman mug tomorrow just to fuck with him.

“Of course not.” You scoff but Jason knows he's given you the bad idea.

Jason laughs softly before taking another bite. “Go to bed.”

You let out a sigh before you hop down, noticing Jason is almost done eating anyway. "Pillow and blanket are already on the couch for you."

Jason glances to the couch, seeing a pale blue blanket peaking out from the arm of the couch.

"Thank you." Jason offers you a sincere but small smile. "Goodnight."

“Goodnight, Jay.” You smile softly before heading back to your room.

The next morning, you’re awakened by the smell of something cooking in your kitchen. For a few seconds, you think you’re either dreaming or hallucinating. But the longer you lay in bed, the more you become positive there’s definitely food being made.

It smells a little sweet and warm. It actually smells warm. And yet, it’s almost completely silent in your apartment. You figure it’s Jason because Jason can cook but you have no clue how he manages to be so quiet about everything he does. Sure, it’s his training and his life depends on it, but every time you try to cook anything, you drop at least one pan onto the floor and utensils usually go flying somewhere. You feel bad for you downstairs neighbors.

You grab your phone from the charger, pocketing it before you head out to the kitchen, still wiping sleep from your eyes. The smell grows stronger and you finally figure out it’s your favorite breakfast food. A smile pokes at your lips because, in all your years of friendship, you and Jason have only done breakfast a handful of times but he remembers anyway.

He’s attentive. That’s also something that comes with his training because his life depends on it. But, you knew him before Rd Hood. Before Robin and Batman. Jason Todd has always been attentive and you don’t think it’s something about living on the streets. It’s something that’s embedded into his DNA, pay attention to small things. Maybe that’s because of his mom, his overall childhood of having to take care of her but maybe it’s also just him.

“Morning.” You greet as you stretch your arms over your head, bending your back back a bit.

“G’morning.” Jason greets as he turns around from the stove.

He sounds well-rested.

He looks well-rested for once.

“You’re making breakfast?” You question as you walk over to your coffee maker, an empty cup already ready sitting there for you.

“Told ya I’d pay you back.” Jason states as he continues cooking.

“You really know the way to my heart.” You joke as you get your coffee going. “Always food.”

You watch Jason continue to cook and you think you could probably be mesmerized by everything he does. He's not really doing anything special but it seems that way because it's him. He could trip over a rock and fall into a lake and you'd still be mesmerized.

"Hello?" Jason calls, waving a hand in front of your face. Your eyes snap up to his as you feel your cheeks starting to burn. "I asked how you slept." Jason chuckles as he starts to plate the food for the both of you. "You alright?"

You shake your head, almost fumbling for words. "Yeah, sorry. Zoned out." You clear your throat before you start to pour your cup of coffee. "Good, to answer your question." You let out a breath with the roll of your shoulders. "You?" You ask with a soft smile before you make your way to your spot at the table.

Jason always tends to sleep better here. Your couch isn’t exactly the most comfortable or the biggest but he still feels like he gets real sleep whenever he’s here. He could sleep a few hours and still be more rested than had he just slept at his place.

Jason doesn’t mind being alone, it’s always a bit safer if not for him then for the people around him but being alone gets pretty lonely. He doesn’t have to feel alone here. You’re here and he thinks he’d never be lonely again if you were always around.

“Good.” Jason answers, not willing to elaborate on his thoughts. “Your breakfast is served, princess.” Jason smirks at you with his quip as he sets the plate down in front of you.

“Ass.” You retort with the roll of your eyes just as Jason goes to take the plate back. Your hand grips his wrist. Your hand is no match for him, it’s tiny compared to him and his strength alone is enough but he stops anyway. “No, no, I’ll take this thank you.” You push his hand away and guard your food.

He laughs with the shake of his head and you hope the walls are absorbing the sound. Jason stays at your apartment a few days a week but he’s never here when you wake up. The blanket is always folded on the arm of the couch with the pillow placed perfectly on top. There’s always some sort of note thanking you for letting him crash. Sometimes, if you sleep in because work sucked or you're sick, he picks up some of your favorite snacks and takeout, leaving it in the fridge for you for when you wake up. But, he’s never here.

You find yourself thinking you could get used to this though. His laugh in the early morning and him looking so comfortable.

His hair is all tousled from sleeping. He looks a little disheveled. You see him disheveled all the time because he always has helmet hair and he’s always getting himself into trouble. It kind of comes tih with territory, you think. But, today, it’s just because he slept here. He looks disheveled because his hair is messy and he’s comfortable. He looks comfortable and warm and you’d go as far as to say he looks beautiful.

You hope he chooses to stay more.

“Okay, I didn't know you could cook this good.” You states after taking a few bites, genuinely surprised. Is there anything Jason Todd is bad at?

A rosey shade of pink dusts over his cheeks as he shrugs. “What? Thought I only eat pasta and whatever else you managed to save me?” He quips, trying to ignore the warmth spreading through his ribcage.

“Well…yes.” You let out a laugh while Jason offers you his fake glare.

“Like to cook sometimes, got good at it.” Jason shrugs a shoulder with his minimal explanation.

“Well, now you have to cook more.” You shrug easily as you offer him a grin.

“I have to?” Jason raises a brow at you, taunting you to rethink your words.

You don’t.

“Yes. I said so.” You laugh back at him.

“Not sure I want to now.” Jason shrugs his shoulders dramatically.

“Awww, pretty please, Jay.” You give him a pout and not even a single ounce of him actually believes he’d ever be able to say no to you about anything.

“What’d ya want for dinner?” Jason asks before he goes back to his food.

“Wait, really?” You beam and Jason glances back to you.

There’s always this sort of pull in his chest when things feel good, like he’s undeserving and he needs to wait for the other foot to drop. It feels like this now. He feels comfortable here. He’s happy here with you. You’re his favorite person and you're always the person he wants to talk to you about a new book he read or something insane one of the bats did. You’re the first person, the only person, he goes to when he’s been hurt on patrol. Jason swears you’re his best friend despite the beating and rumbling through his ribcage.

“Unless you’re bored of--”

“I’m never bored of you.” You cut him off immediately. “Okay, I’ll think of something and I can help.” You beam back at him with excitement before going back to your food.

A smile tugs at the corner of Jason’s lips and despite the worrying and fear of this whole thing blowing up in his face, he finds himself thinking he could get used to mornings with you, just like this.

[team-frightfur]

Thanks to the colour palette choice it also looks like she's facing down Yuri (and I guess her 'guilt in her 'responsibility' in her own mind). It's nicely symbolic and full of double meanings! Nice A+ work. Also forgot to mention but I love the addition of heartlands insane streets. I can see them lurking in the bg. No safety rails. Death city.

Birds and Stones.