#let them all be sweet and happy together

[lordgrimwing]

Friends And Family #06

Rain drummed against the roof in a steady rumble. Outside the old and wavy glass of the window panes, a summer storm drenched the land in sheets of rain. Grasses and brush not flattened by the downpour danced in the wind. The creaking of the trees couldn’t be heard over the wind and rain, and the heavy clouds forced the day into a premature dusk so forest was hardly visible beyond the yard.

Elros sat cross-legged on the rug next to Elrond and Celebrimbor, elbow on his knees and chin propped up on his hands. He disliked storms like this. He no longer had nightmares about the storm that swallowed his parents when storms raged outside, possibly because he couldn’t fall asleep with all the noise. At least the rain and wind were bad enough today to keep most everyone else inside too. 

Elrond leaned his head against his shoulder and yawned. “I’m bored,” He murmured.

Celegorm sat in a chair next to the fire, taking advantage of the light it cast to whittle away at a block of hardwood that was starting to look like an animal. He nudged Amrod with his bare foot.

The redhead looked up from the peas he was shelling into a wide bowl. “No,” He said, knowing exactly what his older brother was conveying. “I’m doing the peas. If Mae and Pa survive this and make it back home, I’m not going to be the one he accuses of having idle hands, again.”

“Yeah, we’re busy.” Amras agreed after swallowing a mouthful of peas.

Celebrimbor elbowed Elrond. “Sheesh, not so loud next time. Are you trying to get us put to work? This is the longest I’ve sat down all week! Pa’s had me digging out a spot for the new kiln so much I think he’s decided I’m some kind of mole. I didn’t think that’s what Papaw meant when he said I could start working with him at the forge.”

He glanced furtively toward the kitchen where his father was sharpening and cleaning an assortment of knives, from heavy ones used to butcher animals to the tiny, curved blade Nerdanel used to unpick stitches (usually when it was time to unhem clothes as the three children grew up into their uncles’ hand-me-downs). He sent him scouring the house for an hour to find any lost knives that somebody forgot to return to their proper places. Luckily, Curufin gave no indication that he was listening to them.

Maglor walked out of his and Maedhros’ bedroom. His braids, done in two loose lines down either side of his head, were still damp from his dash to and from the barn to tie the doors and window shutters closed to prevent the wind from blowing them open. He'd changed to dry clothes that gave every indication that he planned to spend the rest of the day relaxing. He had the soaked shirt and pants draped over an arm. Dragging a chair over from the table, he joined his brothers by the fire. 

“Ma wants those for supper.” He reminded Amras as he laid the clothes over the back of the chair to dry.

The redheads looked at each other.

“Shell faster.” Said the younger twin.

“Eat slower.” Suggested the other. 

Maglor shook his head and took his fiddle and bow down from the mantle above the hearth. He looked down at the children on the rug, “What are you three doing?”

Elros shrugged.

“Nothing,” Elrond said.

Celebrimbor groaned. “You’re the worst,” He muttered, standing and mentally preparing to be put to work around the house.

“Well then,” Maglor continued. “Brimby, since you’re up, bring the music box out here. This kind of weather calls for some entertainment.”

Finding this task far less onerous than what he expected, Celebrimbor hurried off to do as bidden. Maglor leaned against the wall and began testing the tune of the old instrument. Elrond and Elros moved over to sit by his feet. 

“Can I play the dulcimer?” Elros asked, perking up from the slump he’s been in since the clouds rolled in.

“Certainly,” The musician began sawing out a simple tune to warm up the fiddle and the audience. 

Celebrimbor returned then with the box Maglor kept his collection of instruments in to avoid them getting lost or broken in the often boisterous home. He’d already claimed the pair of joined wooden spoons Curufin carved a few years ago to replace the pair ruined by one of Celegorm’s half-feral dogs after someone—Celebrimbor—forgot the instrument outside. He left the box in the middle of the half circle around the fireplace. 

Elrond and Elros came over to claim their favorite instruments. While they were distracted, the youngest child stole Elrond’s spot closest to the warm bricks around the fire.

The kitchen door banged open and a sopping-wet Maedhros and Fëanor came in with an angry wail of rain-soaked wind. The eldest son’s thick hair was plastered to his face and back as though he’d gone swimming fully clothed. Their father didn’t look any better, summer linen shirt clinging to his arms and chest and clutching the satchel of tools in a white-knuckled grip. 

Celegorm looked up from his whittling as they entered. Amrod and Amras kept their intense focus on the shrinking pile of peapods. Curufin paused sharpening long enough to glance over at the pair. Maglor lifted his bow in greeting, letting his young accompaniment take over for a few moments.

“How was it?” He asked.

“Wet,” His father answered laconically, dripping all the way to Nerdanel's and his room. The door closed with a bang behind him.

“That bad?” Maglor asked his older brother.

Maedhros nodded. “You know Pa.”

They were not prepared for this degree of downpour when they left to check the charms and sigils placed at important locations around the homestead and other areas and trails the family frequented. Nerdanel warned they could expect rain in the afternoon, but Fëanor was confident they would return well before that. 

They had not. Several charms needed to be repaired, the feathers and string worn away by the weather and small, nibbling animals. Then Maedhros’ large gelding became oddly spooked by something hidden in a dark thicket. After investigating the spot and finding nothing out of the ordinary, Fëanor insisted on building a basic sign to keep foul presences away until he could craft a proper charm to block the beast from its newest foothold on the mountain. The rain came as Maedhros hung the twine and bone charm high in a tree. The horses made their displeasure with the turn of events clear on the ride back to the barn, the patriarch muttering with them.

Fëanor did not like getting wet.

His hair leaving a thin stream of water behind him, Maedhros sloshed across the main room to his bedroom to change. “I like how that’s sounding,” He added over his shoulder, nodding to the fiddle as he disappeared to get dry clothes. 

“There’s more where it came from!” Maglor called after him before turning his attention back to the song. He tapped his foot to help the children keep time with him.

Amrod drummed his fingers on the bowl. Amras shelled peas in rhythm. Celegorm murmured his version of the lyrics as the wooden dog took shape in his hands.  

Maedhros came back wearing only his damp underpants, wet boots held tightly in his hand and dripping clothes thrown over his other arm. Clearly having the same idea as Maglor, he tossed the clothes over the back of a chair and then carried the chair over to the fire by slipping his arm between the slats in the back. Celebrimbor scrambled aside to make room for him and almost dropped the musical spoons. The boots went on the hot bricks, though not so near the flames as to risk damage. In no hurry to leave the warmth of the fire or the companionship, he sat between Elros and Celegorm, long legs filling up the space as he crossed them.

The music picked up as they settled down. Celebrimbor caught the rhythm again after giving a few spoon taps at the wrong time. Elros leaned his shoulder against Maedhros’s side as he strummed the dulcimer’s strings and picked out an occasionally offkey accompaniment to the fiddle. The large elf smiled and wrapped an arm around him, careful not to bump the instrument with the end of his arm. He combed out small tangles from his hair with his fingers.

The music bounced along.

“Curu,” Celegorm called, having run out of his crude version of the song. He tossed the block of wood at his younger brother after he didn’t look up when called. 

Curufin rubbed his head and shot the blond a mildly peeved expression.

“Get over here.” 

Celegorm skillfully caught the rag his brother balled up and threw before leaving the knife sharpening behind. Tucking his knife into his breast pocket, he unfolded the oily fabric and laid it out on his knee. Smirking, he patted the knee and looked up at Curufin, inviting him to take a seat. Uninterested, Curufin slapped the back of his head where he kept his hair shorn close to the skin and leaned against the way instead, arms folded across his chest.

Celegorm put on a hurt look. Curufin threw the wooden dog at him. Amrod and Amras snorted. Celegorm ducked. The dog bounced across the floor, the noise the closest thing it would ever make to an actual bark.

To his eternal relief, Celebrimbor was too busy tapping his spoons on Elrond’s toes to see his uncle blow a kiss at his father. He finally stopped when Elrond kicked his hand and he dropped the spoons onto the bearskin rug.

“Ow,” He complained.

Elrond raised his eyebrows to question why the nine-year-old was surprised by the consequences of his actions. He might have said something too, but his mouth was occupied with his tin whistle. 

 He retrieved the musical spoons and settled down again into the rhythm. Soon, the uncles were all singing along to the song. 

Suddenly, Amras jumped to his feet. He grabbed his twin’s hands and hauled him up to his feet too, pushing the bowls of peas out of the way with the tip of one shoe. 

“Come on!” He exclaimed and tugged his brother into a dance. The hard soles of their shoes stomped and tapped against the floorboards, keeping beat with the music and adding their own flare to it. 

Celegorm whistled at them and began to clap in rhythm.

After a few seconds, the cellar doors slammed open (Fëanor added an entrance down into the cellar from the kitchen during one of his episodes of nearly unstoppable energy and questionable late-night decision-making). Caranthir’s head and shoulders appeared as he climbed up the ladder. 

“Land-o’-goshen!” He shouted at the ruckus. “What is going on up here?” 

He and Nerdanel went down into the cellar to take stock of her supply of dried plants and fruits for making salves and teas. Judging from the half-forgotten mushroom he had in one hand and the dirt sprinkled across his hair and shoulders, he’d been checking the light-sensitive mushroom log just below them when the twins began dancing.

Nerdanel came up after him, equally as dusty. 

Caranthir looked like he was trying to stay annoyed at his siblings, despite the levity brightening up the gloomy day. He scowled and shook his head, dirt tumbling down from his loose hair. He tried, but when Amrod waved at him to join the dance, he came after only a moment’s hesitation, discarding the mushroom cap on the table.

Nerdanel smiled to see all her children and grandchildren gathered around the fire, healthy and laughing and happy. There had been years where she feared she might lose one or more of them to the dangers of the mountain. There had been some very hard times, times she couldn’t even talk to her husband or find support from him, so intent was he in the childish belief that everything would be fine, that his sons just needed to rest, and that there was nothing, no injury, she could not heal. Somehow, though, they managed to survive year after year—not untouched or unchanged by what happened but alive and together.

Speaking of her husband, she soon noticed Fëanor’s absence. No doubt he’d tucked himself away in their bedroom to work on something and hadn’t even noticed the noise from the main room. Maedhros would not be so relaxed if anything happened while they were in the trees.

Shaking her head a little, she walked to their room and slipped inside.

As she suspected, she found Fëanor at his desk, scribbling in one of his many notebooks. The clothes he’d dressed in that morning were discarded near the door and he sat wrapped in a blanket made from the wool of their oldest sheep (the ewe was a decrepit thing now, her teeth worn down to nubs, her fleece patchy and thin over her bony body. She’d be gone before winter, either on her own or because they would not let her suffer the cold given the state she was in. Nerdanel was surprised he hadn’t taken care of her months ago; Fëanor did not usually allow the animals to linger, fading from life for this long. Celegorm’s dogs met a swift end if they became too ill—they rarely grew old—and the others were no different. She could not guess why he kept putting it off this time).

“Fëanor,” She began.

He raised a hand to stall her. “I’m busy.” He said, hunching over his notes. His hair left a damp spot on the blanket.

“They are singing and dancing. Come and join us.”

“I need to write this down. Things are changing. I need to make sense of it, of what and why.” His voice tremored with the beginning of agitation. “It’s changing.”

She walked to his side and laid a hand on his shoulder. Quickly, before she could see the pages, he closed the notebook and hid it under his hands. No one in the house could make sense of the code he devised for recording these particular thoughts, but he disliked them looking anyway, even for a moment. She brought her other hand to his cheek and slowly he looked up at her. His lips were a thin line across his face, his expression nervous. 

“My dear,” She began again. “We have a brief time before life carries on and takes our sons out again on their journeys. Come with me. Worries and storms will be here when we are done, but for now, there is joy and family, and together we are safe.”

She took one of his narrow hands. He let her guide him to his feet. The blanket slipped down his shoulders, and she adjusted it, tucking in a corner to keep it in place. His free hand, wrapped inside the blanket, clutched at the fabric under his chin. She let her hand linger on his cool cheek for a few moments longer, then pulled it back. They left the room like that, his hand in hers.

Maglor was watching the door when his parents reappeared, the others still caught up in the revelry. His fingers stuttered on the strings and the fiddle squealed as his bow arm jolted. He would have stopped playing, concerned by his father’s drawn face and short stride, but Nerdanel smiled and nodded for him to continue. He did, raising the others’ excitement by jumping into another tune and seeing how long it took the children to catch up to him again. Celebrimbor stumbled along until Elrond helpfully tapped the beat out on his thigh with his foot.

Maedhors rose and grabbed a chair, bringing it back to the group and placing it between Celegorm and Curufin, leaving enough room for a second chair. Nerdanel brought Fëanor to the seat and he sat down without prompting, the tension around his eyes softening. Maedhros brought a chair for her and she settled down to laugh and clap along with her children. This was just as much fun as some of the town hall dances she went to during her youth wandering from town to town with her family. 

She cheered when Amrod grabbed Curufin’s hand and dragged him into the dancing. Broad-shouldered and heavy-footed, he lacked the speed and grace of the twins and Caranthir, but he clonked along slightly offbeat with them with a grin. Soon, he pulled his son up to join him. Celebrimbor muttered something about never getting to just sit around but started dancing, clacking the spoons together on his hip or an upraised palm.

They continued on in that manner until the last of the light faded and the storm blew itself down to a whisper.

[tommygotwrittenoff]

bobby says to eddie one shift where buck is home sick with chris. going home to see your boys? eddie smiles and says. yeah. and your boys just Sticks in eddies brain and when he gets home he sees chris and buck curled up on the couch asleep and the sight makes him pause cuz. yeah. those are his boys

[silkpages]

if i had a nickel for each otp i have that's destined not to be together because ultimately their stories are not about a happy romance but rather of coming-of-age/maturity and deep mutual affection that can't be destroyed even by the bittersweetness of the narrative and the recognition of the barriers that stop them from being together, then i'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[mars-ipan]

some postgame doodles for pride month

[stupidlittlespirit]

One thing I'll tell you for free is that I fucking love being niche. I love enjoying very specific genres and I love creating for a very specific subset of people.

There is no group more dedicated to one another than the 5 freaks who all smoke in the parking lot together while they share pictures and stories of this one hyper-focused thing that only they enjoy.

[spookitordukeit]

In your fic tbasawas was there anything specific that inspired you to do your specific stories and or ships?

Yes and no—

For the story itself:

Originally, I only had concepts for Aeiisy, a dark fic with a skeleton reader who is constantly having a Bad Time. But, as with most of my ideas, it got split into two different paths. (This is how I end up with most of my fic ideas btw) You might see a few similarities, or even direct reflections between a few of my works, and that’s because they are all directly or indirectly formed from a few of the same ideas, split into separate paths.

Like an au I guess???

Tbasawas was made as a direct counter to Aeiisy, so I wouldn’t pass away from angst and could have something sweet a fluffy to write whenever I got burnt out. (Ignoring the amount of angst that ended up in Tbasawas anyway… and the fluff that got put into Aeiisy…. Don’t look at me!!)

So Tbasawas was inspired by Aeiisy, and Aeiisy was inspired by the need for a skele reader, Monster Frisk, and an apocalypse fic. Not sure how any of that connects, but that’s how it went down.

Tbasawas is a soft apocalypse, if that’s even a thing. Their changes aren’t gory and the world isn’t riddled with war and violence. Just people treated like lost puppies in a cozy adoption center waiting for their ‘forever home’. For the most part.

I take a lot of inspiration directly from animal adoption processes. The whole shebang. Paperwork, wait time, vetting, inspections, background checks, introductions, acclimation— Hell, even the Assigned Nurse can be compared to a Foster. The Mimic Monitors are essentially juiced up microchips.

I’m pretty sure I even used a template for the adoption of a dog from a serious breeder for the letter that Abbee gives Nerma to explain to process. And the email Edge receives  in chapter one.

There’s a lot of themes in Tbasawas going on. Another one is the grieving process, as hinted at in the title of the first chapter. Arc one: Shock.

I’m using this version of the grieving process in particular:

I’m not sure how strictly I’ll follow it, but it’s definitely there in the background, at the very least.

As for inspiration for the relationships:

It’s all kinda based around these themes and how I think the characters would be changed by them.

I’ve changed these characters a lot. Maybe not much physically for most,(that you can see.. wink wonk) but I’ve taken a lot of liberty with their stories and backgrounds. And in the tags for Tbasawas, this universe is listed under post neutral route… not pacifist. Do with that information what you will.

Based on these changes, I think about how they might act. What makes the most sense. What they feel, what kind of person would they feel most comfortable around and what kind would they hate? Do they have insecurities? Are there any fears that they might be judged? Would that stop them from getting close to specific skeletons in the pack? *cough* Sparrow *cough*

Are they jealous or possessive? Holding on to the one good thing that’s happened to them and waiting for the other show to drop?? Even if it hinders the others ability to seek out relationships with others of the pack??? *cough* Red *cough*

I kinda just zone out and smash dolls together in my mind until I get something I like. Not all that cool of a process, but it’s what works for me.

Speaking of! Let’s use Red and Sparrow as an example!!!

*grabs my mental dolls of Red and Sparrow in my hands and smacks them together*

*loud incorrect buzzer sound*

Yep. Knew that would happen. See— Red is chill around the pack, but there’s not a lot of… feelings??? He has this disconnect inside him, whether from his LV, his trauma, or if that’s simply just how he handles his emotions, I’m not sure.

There’s this wall that he has up. He cares for the pack, and for his brother, of course he does! He’d kill for them. That was never in question. He’s just… distant. The only one who can really, really get close is Comet. And that’s mainly because they’re so similar it hurts. They’re in the same, sinking boat. Drifting out in the middle of the ocean as they keep hammering in nails in hopes they won’t drown.

Red is heavily complex, and no one knows just how to solve him and tell him to stop making so many damn holes in his boat before it’s unrepairable.

He’s smoke and mirrors with knives that will cut you if you take a wrong step.

Sparrow, is also withdrawn. But for very different reasons.

He’s not shy, per say— but he’s very conscious how he looks and how he’s perceived. He knows that he’s not as handsome as he once was (lies), he knows that he looks frightening, even to other Monsters.

His self esteem is very low, it’s been getting better thanks to his pack, but it’s still not great. He hides a lot of things about himself, whether out of shame or for the perceived benefit of the other person is a 50/50 at any given moment.

His status as a sigma doesn’t help. There are already enough stigmas about people like him and Star, if Sparrow can’t do what’s expected of him— if he falls into stereotypes—

…he doesn’t like to think about it.

He’s not as able bodied anymore, and his senses are both dulled and heightened to uncomfortable degrees. He needs to be able to trust the people around him. He needs to know that they won’t think lower of him for his weakness. He needs to know that he can depend on them and they won’t just up and leave.

Red has given no indication that he is capable of providing any of those assurances. He has in fact proven quite the opposite.

At this point in time, Red and Sparrow could never be in a relationship. Sparrow would likely end up cut on Red’s knives and shattered glass, and Red would keep hammering more fucking nails into his boat. Unaware that it’s the very thing that keeps brining in more water.

Augh. So long story short: insanity.

The idea for the story popped in my head and then I stared at characters until the imploded in my brain like a super nova and then they kept forming fun new galaxies for me to explore.

I guess it’s my characters that give me inspiration. I just wanna slap my dolls together and see wtf happens, I have no idea where I’m going and I’m equally as surprised as you are at every chapter🗿🗿🗿

I just wanna see Edge be soft and have his little found family, and to feel like he’s allowed to exist in the world despite his sins.

I wanna see Grim be an absolute menace and Get Bitches, because he loves his idiots and just wants to live life at his laziest.

I wanna see Bear put a ring on as many hoes as he likes and get to be happy and smug and purr as he crushes them (lovingly) in his nest.

I wanna see Stretch be soft and fuss about his mates and then punish them for their stupidity with various pranks.

I wanna see Star huff and lovingly bully his mates into being kind to them selves, forcing them to take it easy or face the wrath of Self Care days.

I wanna see Comet get yoinked out of his tiny shell and actually mean it when he smiles his little bastard smiles, and to be able to reach out and form other relationships within the pack.

I wanna see Black get his ass Wooed and his icy rain bloom into spring showers because he feels loved and able to be soft and love in turn.

I wanna see Blue live his life to the fullest and prioritize his own feelings sometimes and remember that it’s okay to want things.

I wanna see Sparrow have each and every one of his boo boos kissed and told that he’s handsome and I want him to accept it and be confident.

And I wanna see Red get a happy ending. I want to see his sharp edges, both the ones facing inside and out, to get smoothed out. I wanna see this bastard get soft and mushy. I’m gonna turn his ass into a grumpy marshmallow just you wait.

And of course, I want to see Nerma be the spark that gets this thing moving.

I’m just a simp…. That is all 😔

[tackrusso]

show tempe gang crossover with the morris islanders would actually have been the best episode of bones ever. btw

[shima-draws]

Just got back from my friend’s wedding :’) I think it says a lot that I was the only high school friend that showed up

[sapphicides]

in honor of black history month 2025, i’ve put together a list of books written by black sapphic authors for you to read in the month of february

non-fiction essays/memoirs:

all about love: new visions by bell hooks

black lesbian in white america by anita cornwell

sister outsider: essays and speeches by audre lorde

mouths of rain: an anthology of black lesbian thought by briona simone jones

blues legacies and black feminism by angela davis

does your mama know?: an anthology of black lesbian coming out stories by lisa c. moore

fiction:

the color purple by alice walker

loving her by ann allen shockley

the gilda stories by jewelle gomez

in another place, not here by dionne brand

pomegranate by helen elaine lee

the summer we got free by mia mckenzie

these letters end in tears by musih tedji xaviere

dead in long beach, california by venita blackburn

young adult:

escaping mr. rochester by l.l. mckinney

this ravenous fate by hayley dennings

faebound by saraa el-arifa

so let them burn by kamilah cole

where sleeping girls lie by faridah àbíké-íyímídé

adult:

honey girl by morgan rogers

the deep by rivers solomon

sweet vengeance by viano oniomoh

come back (love concealed) by terri ronald

house of hunger by alexis henderson

short stories:

girl, woman, other by bernadine evaristo

the secret lives of church ladies by deesha philyaw

additional info:

-> “why wasn’t this book listed?” probably because it wasn’t black sapphic-centric, the author isn’t a black sapphic themself, or i just simply haven’t heard of it! so feel free to add on if it meets those two criteria

many of these books require trigger warnings, especially some of the older ones that are more likely to feature racial struggles of the time. please do your due diligence and search for tws if you want to read them!

please feel free to add onto this list in the rbs or comments! happy black history month

[beloveds-embrace]

Imagine 141 moving into a quaint little town post retirement and you’re the only baker in town. You love making sweets, breads, and desserts and own a cute bakery to show for it, know everyone in your town so these four new men who come early morning to try your breakfast deal immediately excite you because- new perspectives and tastes and opinions! It’s become a habit of yours to share bites of whatever new item you plan on adding to the menu, so the more diverse opinions the merrier in your opinion.

And you are glad you didn’t let their demeanor- big gruff men, especially the one with the black surgical mask- scare you away because they are sooo nice, calling you sweetheart, doll, birdie, and bonnie. So many nicknames, it has you blushing the sweetest pink shade. And they are all too happy to help taste-test for you, giving you lots of praise.

(Though you never quite notice their immense disappointment at seeing the little ring on your finger.)

Still, at the very least one of them comes over to your bakery once a day. Sometimes they come together, sometimes only two of them- but they come anyways and tip you every time despite you insisting otherwise. It’s a lovely friendship you build with them. But they do note you never mention your partner much.

Until Simon drops by one day, intent on buying one of your apple pies and maybe fluster you enough to turn the same shade as an apple, and he sees the bruises that peek out just so from your sleeves and the collar of your outfit. Puffy eyes, more makeup than usual, your smile not quite there…

And he understands. He knows this all-too-well. And the fact that it’s happening to an embodiment of sunshine like you? Unfair. Unbelievable. Unacceptable.

Simon gently takes your hands, squeezing them so lightly. “Everything’ll be well, luvie. Promise.” And that’s all he says.

And maybe it’s cruel of you to be happy when you receive a call a few days later, the sherrif of the town telling you your husband was found mauled to death by one of the bears that roam around the woods occasionally, but you just… don’t care.

A week later, when it seems appropriate enough, you open up the bakery again and your smile is blinding as you greet the 141 men and tell them for today, everything’s for free.

part 2

Other works + help me choose a title for this 😩

[ghoulishcreep]

.

[metranart]

Imagine Gojo setting a condition to his Clan for him to give them an heir. "It's HER or no one." The elders aren't happy that he chose a non-sorcerer, but they reluctantly agree... that is, if Gojo manages to convince you.

“Come here-...I’m far from done, kitten.”

God, Gojo still makes you nervous, with his mouth buried between your legs for longer than you can even imagine. Why are you still so nervous? Is it the proximity? Is it the way he leans in to make eye contact while he licks you? Is it those blue piercing eyes? Or that immensely amused smirk that twists his lips just enough so he can keep eating you out?

"Mmmmm... stop moving so much, (Y/N). We are making a mess of my desk..." he purrs, all too pleased to watch your eyes roll to the back of your skull. "That’s my good girl..." the man between your legs, praises, "my future bride to be...-"

"T-...that's still u-...under discussion, S-Satoru." Your quivering protests are sweet chords of music for him, "I already t-.... told you that I d-don't want to be part of the jujutsu world.... nor b-belong to a-.... any clan."

"Not any clan, pretty. MY clan." 

You hear him slurp greedily at your folds and feel a warm trick of saliva run down your ass, and when your mouth is about to throw another protest-... Satoru Gojo makes a vacuum on your quivering clit with that annoying mouth of his. Your thighs tense and the muscles of your stomach follow, a quake that rakes your entire form, making you a pathetic mock of a human.

Both your hands fly to cover your mouth and Satoru chuckles deep, amused rumble that cracks the rest of your self-control. Your cheeks grow in the most adorable shade of pink, and your breathing hastens.

"So CUTE~"

Satoru whimpers, dumb founded, his broad chest puffing with so much fervor, so much blinding endearment that he feels like about to explode. He can see the doubt in your beautifully contorted features, and he dips his tongue inside you, fucking you with that fat tongue to try to make you agree to his terms, to be HIS.

Dammit! You feel… amaaaaaazing. Why? It’s like a flip inside you only he can switch at will—... even so, he’s dangerous, you remember. He’s a special grade sorcerer, you remember. He’s a mystery, he’s unpredictable—he’s invincible, unreadable, impenetrable and lethal with a playful smile, and you really know absolutely nothing about him. 

Yet, he insists that you belong together. He insists on putting his child inside you, he insists that he will take care of you and his life will be yours. He insists that you belong in his world and if you're not there, he won't be there either. He insists on fucking you stupid every chance he gets, bending you over surfaces, of course! Always putting his coat or his shirt or any piece of his clothing, just so your skin never comes into contact with any unworthy surface. He insists, he insists and insists and insists...

“Fuck—” he growls, grabbing your hips, “—why are you... h-how do you manage to always have me wrapped around your little finger—?” 

“I want you, Satoru-u... but I can't-” 

He stops you with a soft but firm, squeeze to your waist. 

“Not like this,” he pants, tipping his head to slowly lick a strip down your sweet cunt, a farewell caress, the whisper of a kiss to his last effort before lunch time is over and he can try again, later. “Let me pretend just for a little longer that you said yes—"

Your gaze drops to his trembling thighs and the warmth that settles in the pit of your tummy is intensified by the clear drop of precum shining at the tip of his gloriously thick and long cock, now achingly swollen and a mouthwatering shade darker in color than the rest of him.  

“I'm yours, Satoru-” you offer in a quiet whisper and can feel him shake his head. “You aren't.... but I’ll make you change your mind. You, just watch me, kitten."

➡️ 👀 NSFW Sneak Peek artwork HERE ;)

➡️ FULL NSFW ART of this story

[nezuscribe]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨

pairing: gojo x fem!reader

part two of the arrangement

summary: life was going well. better than you could have ever imagined. the whirlwind marriage between you and gojo satoru that started as an arrangement blossomed into something sweeter and more tender after you both fell in love. but that storybook life you've been living soon shatters when you're told that a bitter king wants you two to separate so gojo could marry his daughter. either that, or he promises a war to follow. you live between selfishness and sacrifice as the fate of the kingdoms rests in your, and your husband's hands.

warnings: 18+ mdni, angst with no comfort for a while, near-death experiences, gojo sometimes struggling to be reasonable, small panic attack, heavy making out, heavy smut, unprotected sex, loss of virginity, (reader's first time), creampie, (happy ending)

word count: 38k+ (sorry again)

note: act two is finally done! (nearly lost my fingers writing it) art credit: _3aem

jjk masterlist + series masterlist

One year ago you were told about an arrangement. The arrangement. 

It offered you a chance of freedom, a lick of life. You didn’t have time to question why the most sought-after bachelor of the six kingdoms was asking for you to be his bride, and only a daft, bumbling idiot would seek out the answer when time was given. Gojo Satoru was the man you soon called husband, but the true act of having an actual husband didn’t come around till months later. 

At first, the dinners you spent alone were now spent together. Albeit in silence, but sometimes you’d catch his stare from the other side of the long, mahogany table, and the two of you would quickly look away. On other days you’d walk around the estate only to catch him when he was training with his men, his loud voice booming around the walls as he commanded them. You’d watch them from the balcony, leaning over the railing as you rested your chin in your palm. Sometimes he’d look up and see you, not doing anything to hide his surprised expression, other times he tried puffing his chest out so he’d seem even bigger.

All of the unspoken feelings, lingering touches, and longing glances morphed into the two of you spurring out your thoughts to one another, elated and relieved to find that the other felt the same.

Months would pass and a part of you wondered if perhaps what he felt was only momentary. But those worries quickly seemed to pass the more you surveyed him. Because the most esteemed man, the most worshiped warrior destined to lead his lands to greatness, could not seem to survive apart from you for longer than five minutes. 

“Love, we have to go.” 

It’s your fifth time telling your husband about the urgency of getting out of bed, and the fifth time he’s tugged your squirming body closer to his bare chest to get you to stay in bed. His arms, which are the size of tree trunks, prove to work more than your pathetic flails, chuckling when you let out a deafening, annoyed whine. 

Months ago you never entertained the idea of the two of you sharing a bed, let alone the man you married turning into such a leech. Seeing how you were first sleeping on separate sides of the estate, you always assumed you had ended up in one of those marriages in which the only time you two ever saw each other was during meal time (if that) and at gatherings. 

But things took a turn, and after a while, that turn never stopped. And you found yourself here. With no complaints, of course. 

The days when the two of you weren’t burdened with the life of being the Lord and Lady of the North, Gojo would whisk you away to wherever you pleased. Sometimes you settled to bake some sweets in the kitchen, other times you requested to go into town and look through the bustling markets. He would always oblige, taking you down to the epicenter of Northern life, watching as you carded your fingers through the fabrics and stocked up on your spices. And though you enjoyed prancing around with your husband attached to your side, most days, these were the moments you loved the most. 

Other days you’d find yourself with newly made friends, women you had slowly gotten closer to the more you socialized. It took a while for you to move away from the quietness you had been accustomed to for so long, but you preferred walking around the town or the estate with them, arm in arm as you laughed about something minuscule. 

Nights were spent with each other, skin to skin, sharing the warmth. Mornings like this would come and he’d awake before you, pulling you closer to his chest as he nudged his nose against your ears. He’d whisper how much he loved you, how pretty you were when you slept. It proved to be a nice and easy way to wake up, but on the days where you were particularly stubborn and wanted to sleep more, he’d bite your ear, chuckling when you would let out a fake whine. Afterward, you’d grumble about it, like now, but other times you’d laugh softly when you’d turn and see his blushing face. 

“People might gossip if they hear you,” your husband muttered against your head, his lips pulled back into a large grin, “They might say I’m torturing you, leaving you unsatisfied.” 

Your cheeks heat up at his implications and you wrangle a hand out of his hold to slap at his torso, rolling your eyes as you give up, going slack in his arms as you relax against him. You might’ve put up a tougher fight if this wasn’t a daily occurrence and your overall zest to equal the strongest man ever known was decreasing.

“You’re so lude,” you comment, and he just shrugs in response, knowing that you weren’t lying. If anything, this was him being more than tame. Sometimes he’d corner you in a hallway that had heavy foot traffic and kiss you senseless, his plush lips growing into a sly grin when somebody caught the two of you.

“You make me lude,” Gojo remarks and you sigh, pretending to find him annoying instead of endearing as you look away. In reality, you loved your mornings together. With how busy the two of you got throughout the day, these little blips of being alone together were heavily enjoyed.

You rub at your eyes, yawning a little bit as you stretch your legs out. You find yourself sleeping better than you ever have in this bed, and whether it be the fact that your husband was asleep next to you or that the bed was constructed of goose feathers, you didn’t care much to question it. 

“We should go into town today,” Gojo says suddenly, and you turn your neck slightly over to him as you raise a brow. He mirrors your expression as if he isn’t riddled with duties that need to be taken care of.

“A ride into town alone takes an hour,” you argue, bringing his hand closer to yours so that you can fidget with his slender fingers. 

“I’m well aware,” he says, “But you were saying last night that you need more cinnamon sticks and that your honeycomb stash is nearly gone.” 

You try to hide your smile, try not to let him know how pleased you are that he remembers the little things you mention to him on a whim.

When you don’t say anything in excitement to his plan, he pours slightly, nudging at your shoulder with his nose. 

“Have you grown tired of me?” His voice is slightly muffled against your skin and you laugh a little bit, the sound making him smile slightly, hiding it against your collarbones, “Do you wish to cast me aside and take on a different lover?”

Your mouth drops open in a loud laugh, shoving your shoulder upwards so that his chin would fall off and you look at him in shock. 

But there’s a teasing grin on his face, one that truly just wanted to see you smile. 

“I’m just trying to be sensible,” you say with a pout, craning your neck as you glance up at him, your legs sprawling out on his, “You have that meeting with your advisors and I have to pretend I’m not listening to your meeting with your advisors.” 

Gojo’s eyes crinkle upwards, soft and gentle as he looks at you like you raised the moon, and pinches your arm slightly. 

“I’ve told you if you want to join us you’re welcome to,” he says against the skin of your neck, his lips moving fast and you try to hide your bursts of giggles at the ticklish feeling, “I’d much prefer having you inside with me than standing alone outside.” You also try to hide the way you burn up wherever his fingers are, which at the moment are gripping at your hips.

“But it’s more fun when it feels like I’m learning state secrets,” you murmur teasingly, turning around a bit so that the two of you are face to face. So close that you could count the amount of eyelashes he had and the little dust of barely visible freckles on his cheeks. He was training more than usual now, spending more time in the sun. His pink lips pull into a wide smile when he finally sees you, all of you, and runs a hand under your calf and up to your thigh to hike it up over his waist. 

Gojo’s eyes trail over your features for a silent second, admiring your appearance early in the morning, disheveled from a good night's rest. You feel like hiding, but admire the endless attention you receive from him at the same time. You feel foolish when you note how his features soften, his smile genuine and bright when his thumb traces over the hairs of your eyebrow.

A part of you never thought you would have a husband who looked at you the way he does. When you were younger you always assumed you’d end up a spinster or married off to an old man in need of an heir. This is why you so eagerly accepted the Gojo family’s initial proposal, but you never expected much to come from it. Never in your dreams did you envision the Gojo Satoru holding you close to him with such tender care, or that he’d gingerly run his fingers across the slope of your nose just to memorize your bone structure.

Never this.

Gojo Satoru was somebody who you had grown up with but observed from a distance. You always assumed that he and his family would prefer for him to marry a girl with a more…favorable background than you, but by a force of fate, you were the lucky girl they picked. You found yourself immensely lucky seeing that it was either him or evil incarnate himself, but some mornings you wake up and expect to blink yourself out of this dream. That you’ll turn around to find some other man than him, somebody with an oily smile and evil eyes. But just like this morning you woke up to fluttering kisses on the exposed skin of your shoulder and slender fingers trailing up your arm. 

“You have that look,” Gojo murmurs gently, his eyes tracing the way your lips part, the way they do when you’re in your world, “The one where you’re deep in thought,” he says, his voice a little softer as your gaze settles back onto him.

You think a little longer, eyes squinting as you smile. 

It’s been a while since the two of you have had a decent amount of time alone together. Mornings together, dinners, and then nights climbing into bed seemed to be the only blips of time when he wasn’t riddled with counsels and you with overseeing and trying to take care of problems the people of the neighboring towns were dealing with (last week you had to carefully settle a dispute with two farmers arguing over a goat, claiming it was their own.)

“I'm thinking….” you chew on your bottom lip a little bit, “I’m thinking I want to go away,” you say with a sigh, resting your back upon the headboard behind you as Gojo leans upwards, resting his weight on his arms. 

His white brow cocks up, not confused, just curious. 

“Where to?” He asks, and you know he could’ve asked something more extensive, but he’s gotten to know you and your strange requests, knowing you preferred simple questions instead. 

You hum, crossing your legs across the bed as you bring his hand back to yours and play with the wedding ring on his finger. He lets you do it, his fingers curling a bit so that they can hold onto yours, limiting your movements just a little bit. 

“Your summer home,” you say, tilting your head towards him, a gleam in your eyes, “The one near the ocean. Do you remember? The one where we all used to go when we were younger?”

Gojo nods a little bit, his pink lips and pink cheeks pulling upwards in a little grin. This was something he would very much be willing to fulfill. 

“I think that’s doable,” he says and your smile widens, “We can invite-”

“No,” you cut him off, shaking your head, eyes flitting to his momentarily before they dropped back down to his large hands, which were freckles slightly as well, “Just us.”

Gojo nods a little bit, swaying his head from side to side as he thinks about how quickly he can put all of this together. Maybe if it were any other man he’d be taken aback by the strange and unexpected request, but he was your husband and was used to your nature by now. 

“I’ll tell my men, I’m sure we’ll be able to pull some strings and be there by next week,” Gojo tells you after a minute of thinking and you grin, going to say something but get interrupted by a steady knock on the door.

“My lady?” One of the girls, Alina, calls out, and you look back at Gojo with a smile, knowing the slight angry pout that’s going to be taking over his face. 

“Coming!” you respond after a beat, pressing a soft kiss to your husband's forehead as you brush the white strands of hair away from his face before pushing the blanket off of both you and your husband as you swivel your legs around the bed, sitting up as you stretch your arms above your head and yawn. 

You hear the bed squeak as Gojo does the same, the wooden floor creaking as he stands up, walking over to your side as he leans his back on one of the pillars of the bed, waiting for you to stand. 

When you finally do he leans down to press a chaste kiss to your lips, knowing how much you were averse to his breath in the morning, and another one to the tip of your nose. His hand rests at the back of your head, gentle and soft.

“I’ll bring up the trip to my advisors today,” he starts, and your eyes twinkle, “And I’ll see you at dinner,” he tells you, and you nod, running your hand up and down his sturdy arm. You pinch at the muscles and he yelps a little bit, looking down to where your fingers are and you can’t help but laugh, soothing over the spot.

“I’ll see you then,” you say with a smile. There’s a little silent beat before he speaks.

“I love you,” Gojo’s voice lowers slightly, knowing that the women outside can’t hear him, but still wanting his words to only grace your ears. 

You giggle, your cheeks pulling upwards as you smile brightly, your hands trailing upwards to tangle in the hairs at the nape of his neck. 

“I love you more,” you reply giddily. 

---

Once your maids came in and got you ready for the day, you bid farewell to Gojo, knowing that with how long his meetings with the advisors and counselors went you most likely weren’t going to be seeing him till later in the night. 

You don’t miss the way the younger girls blush when they see him kiss you farewell on the side of your forehead or the way they stare longingly at his musculature figure as he leaves the room, but you don’t care much. They can stare as much as they’d like. You’ll stare at them. You know you’re the only one he looks at anyway. Especially when you catch the wink he sends your way before closing the door shut. 

The five girls come bustling in as usual, helping you out of your sleeping garments, although you’ve told them countless times that you don’t need help to undress yourself. They help lace you up in your corset and bodice, helping you with your chosen outfit of the day. As usual, you find yourself in the plush chair as they dote over your appearance, swiping honey over your lips and dusting powder over your cheeks.

It was a routine you had slowly gotten used to. A far cry from your old life where you’d turn out of bed, get dressed in your sister's old clothes, and walk through the pantry and into the kitchens to find something to eat. But this was better, far better than that.  

But despite those younger girls and their bubbly personalities, there was something off with the way your usual maids were acting. Alina, who usually was the most talkative out of the group, only met your eyes in the mirror a couple of times, her lips pressed into a thin line as she quickly looked away. 

Two of the other girls, Maryam and Lilly, seemed to be whispering together in hushed tones. It was ineligible from where you were sitting, and you tried to make yourself seem as discreet as possible as you slightly angled your head towards them, but to no avail. Sometimes, when you could look up for them to clasp the gold necklace around your neck, courtesy of Gojo, you saw the way they glanced at each other and then down to you with pursed lips and downcast eyes. 

When Alina went to dot some lavender oil on your wrists you saw how her hands were slightly shaking, her fingers cold and clammy. 

“Alina?” You said with a little laugh, eyebrows pulled together in confusion, “Are you alright?” You pressed the backs of your fingers to her cheek and then her forehead. A couple of months ago she would’ve pulled away in shock, telling you how unorderly it was for a lady to get this close to her maid, but she’s gotten used to it, and she only pulled away after a few seconds.

The other girls around you pause as you speak, but you don’t notice how they seem to mirror Alina’s expression. 

You watch as she swallows thickly, nodding her head down low as she places the glass bottle of oil down on the vanity. Her brown curls bounce a little bit with her movements, her large brown eyes wavering, as if she couldn’t bear to look at you. 

A look of perplexity takes over your face. Had you said something?

“Is something wrong?” You press again, turning around in your chair as you look at the other girls who have now fallen silent. None of them seem to be looking at you. 

You let out a curt laugh, arms resting on the back of the chair as your head tilts slightly. 

“Alina?” You ask one more time, your voice dropping a bit out of genuine worry. But you can only watch as she takes a deep, shuddering breath, her head still facing downwards as if there was a weight on her shoulders. 

You go to stand up but she quickly ushers for you to sit back down, though you see the way she brings her palms up to her eyes, trying to wipe something away. 

Was she crying? 

“What…?” You reach your hands out, trying to see what is wrong, but she looks up quickly and you’re taken slightly aback by the way her eyes seem bloodshot and wet cheeks, stained with tears. 

She shakes her head again, lips trembling as she quickly bows her head to you.

“I’m s-sorry my lady,” she says in a choked voice, “We’re done. I’ll see you tonight.” And before you can ask what was going on, to see if she was okay, you watch as she almost runs out of the room, leaving your other maids standing in a heavy, awkward silence. You look around to see what the other maids are looking like, surely as startled as you were, but if anything, they seemed to be struggling as equally as Alina was. 

“What’s….what’s wrong? Do you know-” “We have to leave, my lady,” Maryam quickly says, cutting you off unintentionally as the other girls mirror her movements and bow their heads down in respect, “I apologize.”

You sputter, trying to find something to say, but fall silent as you watch them file out in your room in the same hurry as Alina. 

You stand still, staring at the large wooden door.

What was that? 

—-

You try going about your day like normal. 

You asked around, trying to see if anybody had seen where Alina or the rest of your maids had run off to, but nobody seemed to find an answer. 

Not only that, but it seemed like the girl's strange behavior was reciprocated around the entire estate. Wherever you went, people would look at you for a second longer. You try not to make it obvious, and after years of being surveyed, you’ve gotten rather good at discretely listening in on what others are doing and saying. 

Walking around the halls alone, you keep your head down and ears open. You don’t miss the way some of the servants murmur things to each other behind their hands, their stares never leaving your frame. You’re grateful that today was one of the days Shoko, who you had become good friends with, wasn’t able to join you. With her rapid talking you doubt you would be able to hear any of the gossip even if it was shouted in your left ear.

You felt like you had been transported back to your old home, with your father's wife and your sisters. The constant whispers wherever you went, the eyes trained on your back. It was benign and odd, something that had never, ever happened until today. 

Something was wrong, and nobody was telling you what it was.

You had initially wanted to eavesdrop on the meeting Gojo was having with his advisors, but with the pit in your stomach and the dizzying feeling you were having everywhere you went, you decided to hide the rest of the day in the library, finding a little alcove where you could nestle away from everybody else. 

Truth be told, you had known something was wrong for the past week. Although today was the first physical evidence of this hunch you’ve had, there’s been something off in the air and you didn’t have the heart to voice this insanity to your husband. You tried brushing it off after the first couple of days. 

As somebody who grew up around maids and servants, cooks and cleaners, you were aware of how they were often the first to learn of any news. Words traveled fast with those who worked, and it didn’t take long to settle. You had been the subject of whispers and subjected others to being the victim of it, but either way, you saw firsthand how quickly gossip would and could spread. Especially when it was good. Even more so when it was bad. 

You could only wonder what it was that was plaguing the mouths of everybody around you. Has somebody passed? Somebody you knew? Your palm grew sweaty at the thought. There were only so many people you were close to and one of them you saw alive this morning. It couldn’t have been your father, they wouldn’t drag it out like this. You chew your lips raw, thinking. If it wasn’t a death, then it must be regarding the social circle sphere that you’ve recently found yourself a part of. 

You stare at the walls lined with books, blankly blinking as you rake your mind. 

It had to be serious and it had to be important. But as much as you tried to think, you kept drawing blanks. 

And so, as much as you tried telling yourself it was nothing, you knew deep down it was something. Today you had seen the people around you exhibit what you were more fearful of, but this past week you could pick up on hushed and worried voices. You could barely even read the first page of the book you had blindly selected from one of the many shelves, and when the sun set in the large window behind you, you had to remind yourself that there was still dinner to be had. 

You begrudgingly made your way to the dining hall, knowing you could barely stomach a block of cheese let alone a full meal. You had spent the last couple of hours letting your mind run over all the horrible things that could be coming your way, and having to mull over all those horrible things over food might cause you to become sick.

The guards open the large double doors for you as you begin to enter, and you feel a part of you deflate seeing that Gojo isn’t already there. 

You slowly make your way to your seat, moving in a trance as you pull your chair in, looking around to get a sense of the mood in the room. Heavy, from what you could tell. Perfect, you think to yourself.

The servants bring in different assortments of food prepared tonight, and had you had a better appetite you might’ve finished them the second they had arrived. But it felt like there was cotton shoved in your ears, barely hearing anything they were telling you. 

You swallow your bile down, your head ringing as you look up from your plate and to the man in front of you, your forehead dotted with sweat. You like your chapped lips, fidgeting with the ring on your finger. 

“Where,” your tongue feels heavy in your mouth, “Where is my husband?” 

The servant blinks once, then twice. 

He rubs the back of his head apprehensively, looking behind him to the closed doors, and then back to you. You could feel the way he was taking in your sick appearance, the way you seemed to be swaying side to side in your set as a means to help your queasy self. 

“Lord Gojo won’t be joining dinner tonight, my lady.” The man tells you. You know his name and have seen him countless times, but you can’t think about what the first letter of his name even starts with. 

“Did he say why?” You think your hands are shaking, and you grip the fabric of your dress to calm them down. 

In all honesty, you don’t know exactly why you’re freaking out the way you are. It could be something simple that’s happened and Gojo’s only stalling to tell you because he doesn’t find it to be important. But in all the time you’ve lived at this estate, have become the Lady of the North, you’ve seen things going right and things going wrong. You’ve observed the way the maids and servants act with one another and how they act with you when things aren’t going well. They’ve taken a deep liking to you, and respect you and your title. They care about you, which you still have trouble accepting given your past life, but they do things out of the goodness of their hearts. So if they were talking behind your back, it couldn’t be because they no longer care about you. It’s worse, and you can’t fathom what it must be.

“No…my lady, I apologize.”

You glance up at the man again and nod slowly. 

“Thank you,” you chew on the inside of your cheek, “That, that’s all.” 

He bows down, giving you a small smile, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and exits. 

You look down at your plate and heave out a breath.

—-

Dinner was spent in total silence, but that was a given seeing that Gojo never showed up. 

You don’t know how long it took for you to walk up the stairs that led to your shared bedroom, but you know it took longer than usual with the way it seemed like your legs were weighing you down.

When you entered the room, all you were reminded of was this morning with Alina and the other maids, and it only worsened your already raving heart. You tried to sit at the edge of your bed and calm your breathing, but slowly you realized that you needed to be moving. Sitting was only going to worsen your condition.  

You paced around the expansive room, fidgeting with your ring, moving it up and down your finger as you tried to busy yourself with taking off your other pieces of jewelry. 

You had also requested for the girls to not come in tonight. You needed to be alone, not knowing what you’d do if you were to see their pale, fear-stricken faces again. 

With shaky hands and multiple efforts, you were finally able to unclamp your necklace and take off your earrings. You tried to wet some cloth and drag it across your face, hoping the cool water would help. It didn’t. 

A part of you tried to force yourself to think that you were simply overreacting. There was nothing to worry about. But deep inside, you knew that that was a lie. You felt this same way when you were a little girl and your father's men raided you and your mother's little home to take you away from here. This was the same feeling you had when you were informed of your marriage with Naoya Zenin. It was the same, deafening and nauseating feeling whenever you’d walk into a room and know that everybody there knew your secrets before you even knew them. 

There was a moment in which you thought perhaps that part of your life was left behind, but it seemed like with every creeping shadow, it was still following you around. 

Still, you did what you could to distract yourself. You were able to unlace the back of your bodice and corset, pulling your shaky legs out of your petticoat and skirt. You ringed around your wardrobe and found a shift that was suitable for the summer breeze. 

There seemed to be only a few seconds where you wouldn’t look at the door, but you couldn’t help yourself. You’d glance at the old grandfather clock in the corner, feeling your blood roar in your ears as the hands ticked away later into the night. It was unusual for a meeting to take this long. And if it did, Gojo would’ve warned you ahead of time so that you wouldn’t worry the way you’re doing now. 

It took nearly another two hours of your frantic effort to stay awake when your bedroom door creaked open and Gojo walked in. His white hair was messy, eyes sunken in. When he saw that you were awake his glare softened slightly. 

You could only blink when you saw him, your nails digging into your palm, surely leaving little crescent moons indented into your skin. 

There was an unwelcome silence that followed afterward. You watched as he shut the door, rubbing his tired eyes, and looked back up at you through furrowed brows. 

“You’re not asleep?” He groggily asked as he began to take off his boots, his back rippling with muscles from under his tunic as you gnawed on your lips and he stood up from his position on the floor.  

“I couldn’t,” you simply said, moving forward a couple of steps and slowly leaning into his outstretched arms as he pulled you into his chest, planting a tender, heavy kiss on the side of your head. One of his hands pressed tightly against your back, not moving.  

There was another moment of silence, one heavy and unknown as you listened to the sound of his heartbeat. 

“Is everything alright?” Your voice was muffled, but still audible, as you finally asked the question that was searing into your head. 

There was another beat of silence, but this one was uncomfortable. Gojo hadn’t let go of you yet.

“Yes,” he finally said, but you had heard better lies from your sisters after they ate your pastures and said they didn’t than this. 

Your brows furrowed as you looked up to him. 

“What took so long?” You pressed, pulling away slightly as his lips formed into a thin line, and he dragged a hand down his face. 

“Just…state affairs,” he turned away from you, against eye contact as he ran another hand through his hair. 

You scoffed, rolling your eyes as you crossed your arms over your chest. You thought that he had at least begun to trust you enough not to lie this blatantly. 

“Have one of the states suddenly terminated their subject's existence?” You tried to tease, but your voice was flat and you couldn’t hide the curiosity and hurt behind it. Gojo didn’t laugh, which hurt even more. You leaned back on one of the pillars of your bed and watched as he stood with his back to you, contemplating something in utter silence. 

How you loathed silence. 

“What’s wrong?” You ask again, your tone heavy, not leaving any room for him to stay quiet. 

Your brows furrowed even more, arms tighter around your middle as he heaved a heavy breath, and when he finally turned you wished he would’ve just stayed hidden from you. Because there were spots of red in the whites of his shimmering eyes, and that was more fearful than the quiet. 

You tilt your head, not knowing what to do, and see his breath in shakily. The only time you had seen him break was that night he confessed to you in the field. Never again. Not until now. 

You take a tentative step forward, eyes searching his but he can’t bear to look at you. 

“I know there’s something wrong,” you say shakily, taking a deep breath as you pinch the bridge of your nose, “Alina nearly broke down in front of me today and everyone around the house seems to be walking on glass. So…so please just tell me what it is.” You’re pleading with him at this point, and you don’t care if you’re losing a shred of dignity. 

Gojo takes a deep breath, his hand searching for yours as you oblige. It’s warm, comforting. His thumb rubs up and down your wrist apologetically. 

His nose picks up on the smell of lavender oil, one he’s come to associate with you. It’s calming, a gentle reminder of his home, the one thing he fights for. When he looks at you and sees the worried crease of your brow, it only tugs on his heart more. 

“You’re…aware of how there’s been some conflict with the South for a while, right?” Gojo finally asks, though it seems like speaking is physically hurting him, “And how tensions worsened when my father stepped down?”

You nod slowly, knowing of this. After all, you might’ve been kept in the shadows in your old life, but you weren’t daft. You tried to keep up with the relations of the state as much as possible. Your father also did what he could to inform you of the North’s relations with the other tribes and nations before your wedding. Given its sudden nature, there were some things you weren’t able to fully learn until you got here, but it was common knowledge that the north and south were always teetering on an edge. 

It was centuries of conflicts that dated well before your time. Bloody disputes over land, women, and coin often seemed to be the root cause of all the troubles, and however petty they might seem, they’ve mended themselves deep in the current rulers of the country. Gojo’s father, the previous Lord of the North, was a peaceful man, but there were tensions even he couldn’t solve. The Southern King often ruled with an ironclad fist that only grew more spiteful when the old lord stepped down and Gojo took his place. 

You remember your father sitting in front of you with an ancient book spread out in your old home's library, a candle flickering in the background as he told you all this. And the final thing that you couldn’t forget he said regarding the current relations between the north and south were embedded in your mind. 

“I know the king isn’t happy with this arrangement at all,” your father had said as you flipped through the crinkly pages, smoothing over the wrinkles on his forehead as you glanced upwards. 

“Because of the Princess?” You asked, looking down briefly to read a passage on one of the northern wars that happened nearly three centuries ago. 

“Partially because of that,” your father agreed, his eyes glancing over your features. 

In the candlelight, when it was dim and nobody was around, he was allowed to look at you and see his daughter, not a bastard child everybody swore you were. Sometimes when you looked at him, he saw your mother. And when that happened, he had to look away. 

“But because of you. Because of who you are. Never forget the blood that runs in your veins is the blood that old lords and kings fought over.”

Your eyes narrowed, trying to think back to your sister's history lessons you listened to behind closed doors. 

“Me?” You parrot, confused. Your father nodded, his fingers scratching at the slight stubble on his chin. 

“There are greater enemies than ones gained from lost land, and the South would never forget those who allied with the North to get them where they are now.”

So you knew that it certainly didn’t help that Gojo married a daughter of the Western ruler, a union that in its nature was egregious to the South. 

“And before I married you, my,” he squeezed his eyes shut, breathing deeply, “My father had agreed for me to marry the Southern princess to mend our relationship.” 

You knew of the women Gojo had lined up, some in his favor and some not. The Southern princess was one of them. You had seen her a handful of times at the old gatherings you were forced to go to when you were younger. There was always a circle of girls circling around her, their voices chirpy and pitched like canaries, and whenever she said something, loud laughter (faux) would fall comedically from their lips. Your sisters always tried to befriend her, but you knew it wasn’t your place. You’d observe them from afar, taking note of the ridiculous amount of jewels and stones that decorated her bodice, her neck, her wrists, her hair. The boys would stare at her from a distance, talking to each other, trying to decide who should approach her first. The princess was indeed a true beauty, perhaps the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen, but that was the last bit of knowledge you had regarding her.

Much like you who was initially supposed to marry another man, Gojo was close to accepting the South’s proposal to marry him off with their only daughter. But something happened, and the former Lady of the North proposed for you to marry her son instead. 

“So?” You shake your head in confusion, your stomach churning, “You’re married to me now,” you state the obvious, but you see the way he smiles softly at that, nodding. 

“The Southern King wasn’t fond of our marriage,” you watch as he twirls his ring around, “They’ve been holding off on trade with the North and anybody who’s pledged allegiance to us. They’ve formed naval blockades around parts of our ocean that stop us from reaching our traders across the sea.” Gojo jams his palms into his eyes. For a moment he doesn’t look like the ruler he is or the warrior he’s always been but a scared boy who doesn’t know what to do. 

You take another step forward, leaning into him as he deflates into you, one hand protectively going around your shoulders and the other around your waist. 

“Well, surely there are ways to figure this out,” you say as confidently as you can, “We’ll ask for a smaller cut of their exports than usual….or offer another northerner of higher ranking for their princess,” you offer, looking up at him only to see his eyes wavering, the tip of his nose pink. 

He swallows thickly. 

“We did,” he mutters, “We did all of those things. All of those things and more. but…”

He trails off and you shake your head, eyes wide. 

“But what?” You press and he rubs at his eyes, at his stray tears. 

He goes to open his mouth but he can’t. You’ve never seen him like this. 

“The Southern King, he-” your husband's voice cracks and you pull away in shock, in fear, in terror as he tries to control a sob. The most feared man of all the land fighting down a sob, and all you could do was watch in fear. 

“He’s promised war if we don’t abide by his terms.”

Your tears have stung in your eyes, maybe because you were terrified of the response because a part of you knew that something good like this could only last for so long. That your moments of bliss were only to be cherished at an arm’s length, good, but not eternal. Perhaps you should’ve known from the start, should have braced yourself for something as terminal as this. 

But war? You never could have prepared yourself for this. It had been years since the land had seen war of any kind. Minor battles and conflicts were impossible to avoid, but a declaration of war from a king was beyond what you could have comprehended. 

Your eyes blink rapidly, your fingers twitching as they reach upwards to cover your mouth. There were only so many routes Gojo could decide to go down on. Depending on the conditions of the statement the king had set forth, there might be a way to avoid any senseless bloodshed. But you knew your husband, knew how much he cared for his land, for his people, for you, and if any one of those things were at stake…

“And,” your lips tremble, and how Gojo longs to kiss it away, if only his hands weren’t shaking and heart pounding, “And what are his terms?”

A grim look takes over his face, one that looks like a knife has been dug into his stomach and has begun to twist. He opens his mouth once, twice, and fails. He can’t speak. He can’t say the wretched words out loud. 

“That,” Gojo’s voice is wavering, and it’s a strange, unnerving thing to hear, “That I uphold by the initial promise. That I marry his daughter. That I separate from…” he blinks slowly, his mouth closing and then opening, a little gasp of horror leaving your lips as you piece together what he was saying.

You’re shaking your head, lips trembling, moving away from him as you walk around the room until you’re standing near your vanity, your chest shaking with quivering breaths as you try desperately to keep your stinging tears at bay.

You can hear him shuffling, but with your back to him, you can only feel his presence come up from behind you as his hands try to grasp at your elbows, trying to move your hands away from your face. But it’s no use. It’s as if you’ve been petrified, turned into a stone statue. The only sign of movement was the way your chest heaved up and down with each gulp of air you were taking.

He’s calling your name, but you feel like a fish underwater. You can’t hear anything correctly, can only hear the pounding, shuddering beat of your dying heart. You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to hold on to the cries that are threatening to spill from your lips. You realize now what it was that the maids were talking about, why Alina was crying. It was no surprise to you that they were able to get word of them before you did. And you were no longer confused by their sullen responses.

Because there truly was no answer. No good answer, at least. 

You couldn’t justify a war over a marriage that didn’t work out. You couldn’t find it in yourself to allow Gojo to go through with it, despite knowing that was most likely what he was planning to do. An image of marching men, heading straight through a firey unknown, swords raised, and arrows drawn. You think of bloodstained letters finding their way home, wives crumbling upon finding the news of their husbands dead. Children left abandoned by their fathers and siblings. All of it in the name of a marriage. One marriage to survive while others withered away. Your eyes widened at the horrifying thought, trying to humor the other one. 

The one that included your separation.

Separating from the only man you’ve ever loved, who you consider to be your other half seemed…barbaric. You couldn’t imagine a life where you wouldn’t wake up next to him, couldn’t think of a day where he wouldn’t sneak through hallways and corridors just to surprise you with some flowers he had picked from the garden. Your mind flashed, thinking of what separation truly meant. Banishment, for you. Your old life wouldn’t accept you, his new wife wouldn’t want you near. There was nowhere you could go that you had any familiarity with.

You felt your knees give out from beneath you, falling to the floor as you hunch over, cradling your thighs to your chest. You feel stupid, knowing how childish you must’ve looked to him. But you felt like you had been plagued by every sort of emotion, and it was tethering you downwards, down where you felt more safe. 

Somewhere in the midst of this you could feel his guiding hands sprawl on your back, one slowly circling your shoulders. Gojo must’ve come down to meet you where you were, and you felt like a shell of a person as he gingerly pulled you toward his chest. 

One of his hands moved upwards to cradle the side of your head, his thumb rubbing up and down your forehead, as he shakily tried to wipe your watery tears away. If only you knew how much it pained him to see you cry. He wished you knew that he’d rather be shot with a thousand arrows than see you cry tears of sorrow.

He was talking, you knew he was because you could hear muffeled noises from above you that mirrored his tone and voice. But you couldn’t hear anything, trying your best to focus on the pieces of woven threads of the carpet beneath you.

“...alright,” you think he says, making out some words, “...will figure…out…alright?”

You can only nod. 

Alright?

—-

Nothing was alright. 

You’ve barely slept ever since you got the news. 

The people around you seem to have pieced together why you’re acting the way you are, and thankfully, they don’t push it. Alina doesn’t ask why you’ve suddenly grown so silent, none of your other maids jest stupidly when they feel you’re especially down, and even the younger girls don’t pretend to fawn over Gojo, gently applying rose water to your hair as they give you soft smiles. 

Everybody in the estate knows what’s happening, and nobody dares to bring it up. Wherever you go there seems to be a darkness that follows you. People go quiet when you walk past them, and looks of pity and solemness are clear on their faces. You feel like a ghost that’s wading through the halls with nowhere to go. You feel like a dead body roaming the land of the living. 

There were several of these meetings you went to, knowing that these ones should not be heard behind a closed door. You were told to come to more of them, but you slowly realized that the more you heard, the more sick you felt. 

A part of you was screaming at yourself, begging to see what was truly at stake. A simple marriage was not worth the countless lives at stake. No matter how long this feud was going on between the North and South, you knew that using your marriage was just another scheme to worsen it. 

The more you allowed yourself to think about the situation at hand, the more you felt yourself going mad. You knew that war wasn’t the right answer, and it wasn’t the one you wanted. You couldn't even begin to think about the piles of bodies, the smoke rising into the ashen sky as they were set on fire in Northern tradition. You think with a shudder about the homes raided, the women assaulted, just how much men turn to animals when war turns lawless. You think about the years to come, when there’s nothing left of you but bones. How you’d be remembered in the stories, as the selfish whore wife that wouldn’t separate from her husband and would rather watch lands be torn apart instead. So no, war wasn’t the option. 

But separating from your husband? How on earth was the better choice?

Perhaps a while ago you wouldn’t have wanted to separate from him because you refused to go back to your old life. You didn’t want to go back to your old room that could only be accessed through the dingy pantry and a dimly lit corridor.

You didn’t want the constant reminder of your untrue blood, how much of a bastard reminder you were to your fathers life. Months ago you would’ve tied yourself to a tree and let a bear feast off of you then become the social outcast again because you had lived through it once and would rather wind up dead. 

But now, you’d chain yourself to that tree because leaving Gojo might be the other thing that would tear you apart. 

You never thought it would be possible to be loved by another person who you love just as much. You had forced yourself into believing that tender care and pure adoration wasn’t something you would ever receive in this lifetime. In all honesty, you didn’t expect to receive it from Gojo Satoru either. But you did, and living a life without it would be more than empty. You knew you could never have him the way you do now, casted aside as another woman takes your place. And perhaps he might come to love her just as much, even more. But another part of you, the part that’s been trying to claw its way out ever since you were a little girl is screeching. Screeching that you deserved that shot of happiness, of joy, that those moments you shared with your husband should’ve only been shared by you two alone. 

A part of you wilts when you even begin trying to think of mornings without him. Without him pulling you into his chest, murmuring words of nonsense into your ear as you pretend to sleep. Your heart burns when you begin to think of him kissing another girl the way he kisses you, bringing her to parties and balls tied around his elbow. You know the ton would appreciate a princess with the lord of the north far more than you, and you can’t begin to imagine what would happen if Gojo began to prefer another union. One that benefited him more than it benefited his partner. 

You weren’t a jealous person by any means. Sometimes you got snippy, and sometimes you glared when women looked too long at your husband. But this was more than simple jealousy. It was biting away at you, taking away from the brightness that once bloomed across your entire body. 

Maybe deep down you thought you deserved that chance of a better life, and maybe that part of you was just too optimistic knowing the hand you’ve been dealt with up until now. 

But gods would sooner fall out of the sky than you tell all this to Gojo. Not the latter, at least. But regardless, it seemed to brew more and more arguments between the two of you as of late. 

“I don’t understand why this is something that still needs to be discussed,” Gojo bit out one night as he was undressing to sleep, taking off his uniform as he angrily hung it up. 

You had one hand wrapped around the bedpost, fidgeting with your necklace, the singular pearl moving back and forth as you shook your head. 

You knew it was a bad idea bringing up the war plans right now. It was one of the first nights where Gojo was actually free from his meetings, earlier than what had become the norm. But it was also the first time you had properly seen him in almost a week, and your mind was nothing if not still. 

“I’m not saying we terminate the marriage,” you pause when he snaps his neck over to you, his eyes darkening with a glare, “But surely we can’t be thinking of war. ‘Toru there has-”

“There is no other way,” his voice is deep, his back to you as he takes off his bottoms, kicking his heavy boots off as the thud against the wall, “I’ve told you this countless times I’m not separating from our marriage.”

Your chest is heavy, your heart churning, and he can’t tell. You know there are thousands of other things that are riddling his mind right now, but you wish he could see what you’re begging him to see. If there was one thing you’ve grown to know about Gojo is that his stubborn nature was unbridled and steady. 

You wanted him to take a second and understand, or perhaps he did understand but chose to see this as a black and white matter, the gravity of what he was suggesting. It had been years since an actual war had been fought. Years since men were sent in blind with only their swords and their wits to keep them alive. None of you had seen the true calamity of war, the sheer destruction that followed from it. Gojo was thinking as the cold hearted warrior he had been trained to be, but not like the man you had fallen in love with.

“What if you…gods,” you groan, exasperated and tired, “What if you take the princess on as another wife?” The suggestion itself tastes like poison, bitter poison on your tongue, and maybe it soothes you just a little bit when Gojo lets out a bitter chuckle, his hands gripping the table as his knuckles turn white. 

“Do you want me to do that? Truly?” He spits it out and you let out a deep sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose as you shrug helplessly. 

“No, fuck. No, I don't want you to do that! But what else can-”

He raises his hand upwards, something he does when he wants to interrupt you, and you clamp your mouth shut. 

“We’ve declared war today,” he glances at you from over his shoulder and your eyes widen, “It’s final.”

You crumble against the wooden pole, fingers curling into the bed sheets as you choke on air. Final? Your fingers are trembling, your lips quivering as it feels like you’re struggling to breathe. No, you know you are. You feel lightheaded, the little bits of dinner you had surging upwards, bile filling your mouth.

He hadn’t told you about any of this, had silently refused to tell you the status of this situation because he knew how loudly and adamantly you would protest it. But it was done now. There was nothing else you could do. 

Gojo looked over at you, his face that was once cold and unmoving shifting to one of worry. Moving away from the warrior he was forced to be this past month and back to your husband. 

He moves to where you were, but you shake your head, not bearing to look him in the eyes as you shakily make your way over to your side of the bed, climb in without a word and watch as your shoulders shake with silent sobs. 

His mouth opens and closes. He shuts his eyes, jamming his palms into his eyes as he clenches his fists. 

“I love you,” he whispers finally, and the words seem to carry slowly between your two bodies that to him seem oceans apart, “So much,” he feels like he’s choking on your silence, it’s thick and settles deep in his throat. He’s been punched, hit, kicked, beat and thrown before, but none of them have knocked the air from his lungs much like you staying utterly quiet. 

“I’m doing this for us,” his voice is wavering, why can’t you understand that he wants to yell, but won’t, he’d never raise his voice at you, “When this is all over we’ll go to the house near the ocean,” your heart cracks, “Remember how you wanted to go?”

Gojo watches as your shoulders stop shaking, the only sound in the room becoming your labored breaths. 

“Please, darling, please say something. Anything.”

You’re the only person Gojo would beg to. The only human who could hear his desperate pleas, the way his commanding voice would crack and crumble and shatter all at your mercy. You sniffle quietly, pulling the blanket closer to your chest. You love him, gods above you love him. You don't know yourself how much you love him. Sometimes it frightens you how much you do.

But in this moment, the man behind you was the Lord of the North and not your husband, and so you stayed quiet, letting the only sound that he heard of you be your cries.

—-

You can’t seem to find reasons to leave bed most of these days. 

Every time you look in the mirror, you feel like you’re staring back at a stranger. There are dark circles beneath your eyes, your lips chapped and cracking. Your cheeks have fallen, sullen and flat. Smiling has become a chore, laughing a rare occurrence. As the North was beginning to prepare and brace for the oncoming war, your home was starting to look more like housing quarters for troops rather than the place you used to adore.

You haven’t seen Gojo in a while, and each day it seems like he’s pulling away from you. At night, you barely see each other. He comes to sleep far later than you do and wakes up earlier and earlier with each passing day. Sometimes you’re awoken to the bed dipping when he climbs in, other times you pretend to be asleep even when he presses a lingering kiss to the side of your forehead, your fists balling up when he whispers a quiet I love you in your ear before he sleeps.

It’s not that you don’t love him. And you don’t fear him, you never have. Sometimes you curse yourself when you don’t mutter the words back, but you’re suddenly and crudely reminded that outside your bedroom walls, there were people actively preparing for a war being fought in your names, and it stills you from moving. 

It was becoming rare sharing a meal with your husband, even rarer to see him anywhere but the counseling chambers, and it no longer felt like it did months ago. Every time you walked past him, you two were so busy and wrapped in your own minds that you didn’t even acknowledge each other until it was too late, your neck twisting as he walked on by, and his body turning when you rounded the corner to another hallway. 

You wonder if this was truly the love that was fated to emerge from this marriage ever since the beginning. That the feelings you felt were mirrored in an act that Gojo was putting up with until this point, if this war was bound to happen and using the arrangement between you and Gojo as a catalyst for the chaos that was to follow. 

The idea that was slowly planted in your head began to flower, and it caused you to see things for what they weren’t. Eventually leading to looking blankly at the wall when he walked into your bedroom one night, hours earlier than when he usually comes, and you don’t even spare a glance to him.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.” 

Your head slowly turns to where he was standing at the door, eyes gradually making their way upwards to his face, lips parted. You were leaning on the headrest behind you, twisting and turning the ring around your finger. 

In this moment, you allow yourself to look at Gojo. You take in his disheveled appearance, the white stubble that was dotting across his jaw. A couple months ago you might’ve felt your cheeks heat up at the sight, never expecting for him to look so ruggedly handsome looking like this, but now, all you’re able to think about was how much this cursed war was taking away from time he cherished being able to shave himself clean. He looks worn down, aged, no longer the youthful and cheerful man you remembered. How was this happening? How was any of this real?

You blink, shaking your head a bit as you come back to reality, biting your tongue for a few seconds before you speak. 

“Leaving?” You finally ask, watching ashe nods, nearing where you were sitting on the bed, leaning down the untie the straps and leather clasps of his boots, letting out a sigh of finally being able to relax as he shrugs his coat off, running a hand through his white strands that seemed to be longer than from the last time you saw him. 

He nods dimly, his lips pressed into a thin line as he looks you over, his eyes falling when he takes notice of your crestfallen state, the way the light that was in your eyes has seemed to die out. 

“I have to go rally more allies across the West,” he explains, slowly making his way over to the bed as he drops down on the corner of it, his hand reaching out for yours but you don’t move, “Your father has promised us his troops but there are smaller cities scattered across that still need some convincing.”

Your fingers curl around your blanket, eyes pulled together in a furrow. 

“Let me come,” you tell him but he stares at you for a few seconds, trying to see if you were joking. 

When he realizes you're being serious he shakes his head, his blue eyes a dark color as he looks away for a second to stare at the wall. 

“It’s dangerous-“”

“But I know the cities!” You cry out, the first time you’ve heard your voice be this loud in a while, and it takes him by surprise as well, “I can help! I’ve been sitting here feeling like a duck waiting to be shot! I…” you stop for a second, the stupid tears that have seemed to become a common occurrence burning your eyes. 

You look away, biting your lip to keep it from shivering, hoping he doesn’t come near you. 

“This is my fault,” you whisper, “Everything that’s to come, it’s all my fault. If only I didn’t…” your voice cracks, your chin falling to your chest as your eyes wring shut, wanting to keep everything and everyone away. 

But Gojo, like always does, is drawn to you like a moth to a flame. You hear the sheets rustle as he moves across the bed and settles in beside you, his tall and lean frame shadowing over your body as you refuse to look at him, not wanting him to see how weak you’ve become. 

You feel one of his hands reach for your jaw, his fingers curling around your ear and holding the back of your head as he gently turns you to face him.  

You try desperately to keep your eyes somewhere else, focusing on his knees rather than him, but when you feel a tear escape and roll down your cheek, being wiped away by his thumb, you break, barreling yourself into his chest as you cry. 

His hands circle your body, caging you to him as you feel your chest shake. It’s painful and it burns, but you can’t seem to stop. You can feel his heartbeat ratting against his chest, a faint smell of smoke clinging to his skin. 

“None of this is your fault,” he murmurs against your head, “You’re not to blame for anything.” 

“Satoru, I,” your hands curl as they rest on your thigh, a tear catching on the tip of your nose, “I’m s-scared,” you choke, the words slurring on your tongue, “I’m so terrified all the time. This…this war, these plans, the strategies e-everyone keeps talking about,” your hand curls against his tunic, gripping into the fabric as if it was tethering you to the earth. 

Gojo takes in a deep breath, and you feel his lips pressing to the crown of your head, soft and warm. Oh, how you missed his lips. 

“There’s nothing to be scared about,” his voice is slightly muffled, but it’s steady and sure, “Everything will be alright.”

But you shake your head, a fresh wave of tears sprouting. 

“How do you know?” you’ve been asking yourself the same question over and over, “None of us have even lived through a war, l-let alone fight in one.”

“I,” Gojo sighs, and you imagine the pensive look on his face, “I don’t know. I have no idea how any of this is going to go. And,” he pauses, thinking briefly, “I’m scared too. I’m scared that all of our plans will go to shit and we’ll encounter a force we never expected. Everyday I examine different escape routes we should go through, creating different maps that might save us. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time,” he admitted with a solemn laugh, “But…but no matter what, I’ll still come back to you when all of this is over.”

Your breathing shudders, and you raise your head to look at him. You’re sure you look like an absolute mess, with tears staining your face, you’re constant sniffles to keep your nose under control, the reds of your eyes. But Gojo still smiles, his hands moving to either side of your face, his thumb moving back and forth across your cheeks. 

“There’s my girl,” his voice is barely above a whisper, but he sounds proud, his blue eyes lightening up a little bit. You let out a little cry when you see his tender smile, the way he looks at you like you’re the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. 

“P-promise, promise you’ll come back to me,” you say through broken sobs, wiping messily at your cheeks, your palm rubbing harshly against your chin so that the tears don’t fall against the sheets, “Promise me that you will come here again.”  

He nods, his own eyes wavering when he understands just how much this has been tearing you apart. One of his hands moves to cradle your head, bring you closer to his and he rests his forehead against yours with a quiet thump. 

His nose nudges yours, and his lips inches away from your trembling ones. Your eyes close shut, hands refusing to move away from his sturdy chest. 

“I, Gojo Satoru, will come back to you,” his voice is clear but heavy as if he intended for his words to travel across the world and through different lifetimes to end up back here, “I promise this to you. As your husband, as your friend,” his voice slightly cracks, “And as the man who loves you most ardently.”

You don’t give him another second before you pull him a little bit closer by the collar of his tunic to slam your lips against his. You hear him groan instantly from underneath you, but you don’t care. Your teeth move cruising against each other, your tears mixing with your spit. 

It’s messy but needed, an anchor that you’ve so desperately been craving. 

Gojo’s large hands move from your back to under your ass, cupping the flesh as he grips your thighs, pulling you into his lap as his finger trails upwards to your waist, his favorite spot. His slight stubble scratches against your skin, but you’re surprised to find that you like the feel, like the way he feels. 

He bites your bottom lip, slipping his tongue past yours when your mouth opens slightly and you moan against him, fingers curling tightly in his white strands of hair, tugging them harshly. It earns a deep groan from him, his fingers digging into the skin of your waist in a desperate attempt to keep himself steady. 

Your back arches closer, nails raking his scalp as you tilt his head back upwards for your lips to capture his. He moves at your will, slotting himself against you, working in tandem as your chests rise and fall at the same pace. 

You feel starved, needing to taste him, to feel him. You can’t remember the last time you’ve kissed him this feverishly, as if you’d die within moments if you didn’t have your skin melting against his. 

The seconds seem to blur together, and before you know it, there was a loud knock at the door. You squeal, almost shoving yourself off of him as the two of you look back to see what it was. 

“My, my lord?” The voice behind the door squeaks, most likely a younger soldier, “There’s been a slight shift in tomorrow's plans. The general wants to speak to you.” He clears his throat, most likely having heard your moans and you feel your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. 

You look back to Gojo, and see the way his head falls and his hands curl into fists on his thighs. 

Your hand traces the hot skin of his jaw, your thumb hooking underneath his chin to bring him back up to you. 

“Go,” you say quietly, a small smile on your face. You try to hide your disappointment, knowing this is more important.  

There’s a storm happening behind his eyes, swirls of blue and gray mixing together as his chest slightly heaves, his cheeks dusted with pink. One of his hands grips your waist, pulling you forward with no force as he kisses you once, twice more. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, kissing your cheeks softly, “I’ll come back tonight and I’ll wake you before I leave tomorrow.”

You nod, hoping he knows that you’ll be okay, and shift away slightly from his lap so that he can go. 

“I love you,” he mutters against the side of your head, looking deep into your eyes before he presses his last kiss against your forehead, “Sleep well, love.”

Your smile cracks slightly, and you swallow the lump in your throat as you cross out a measly love you most and watch silently as he puts his boats and coat back on and leaves within seconds. 

You stare at the messed up sheets and then to the door, accepting the fact that this would be your life from now on. 

—-

Gojo left the next morning, before the sun was in the sky. 

“It’ll only be three weeks at most,” Gojo assures you, and you look up to see his men preparing their horses, throwing saddles across them as they prepare their satchels of food and gear, “Two if I flatter my way through the cities.” 

You giggle a little bit, rolling your eyes, the most you could muster yourself to do and wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him closer to your body. 

“I’ll miss you,” you mutter, hoping nobody could hear the way your voice was barely surviving it’s need to break, “Come back as soon as you can.” 

Gojo sprawls a hand across your back, tipping you up by the chin to meet his lips in another kiss. A while ago you might have felt shameful and scandalous for kissing your husband like this out in the open, but everybody was so distracted with their own tasks that they wouldn't bother to look at you right now.

You pull away slightly, cheeks heating when his pupils grow slightly, and place a hand across his sternum, rubbing up and down the vigil of the North that was pinned to his coat. 

“I will,” he says, pulling you in for a tight embrace as you hug him with as much strength as you have, your cheeks pressed against his shoulder as his chin rests on the top of your head, “I’ll be back before you even realize I was gone.” 

That was a few days ago, but with how little you already saw him before he left, it felt a little bit true to his words. You were so busy trying to help the war efforts around the estate that missing your husband happened in the quiet moments when you were allowed to have some silence to yourself, or in the late hours of the night when you hugged his pillow close to your chest. 

When nights would come and you had had your dinner and were making your efforts to sleep, you requested to only have Alina help you get undressed and ready. She was the one you felt closest too, and the only one who never seemed to bombard you with sympathy. And after a grueling day, that was all you needed.

“Would you like some lavender oil?” 

You look up from the counter, putting your necklace back in its case as your eyes meet her brown ones in the mirror. 

“Not tonight, Alina, thank you,” you say and she nods, setting the glass bottle back down as she picks up some of the rose water, native to the North, and begins doting it across your neck, head and wrists.

There was a slight breeze that was wafting in through your open window. Fall was quickly approaching, but you were trying to hold on to the last bits of the cool summer air before the biting winds staked their spot until the next spring. 

“Would you like me to close the window?” Alina glanced over to the rustling curtains, flowing freely, and you shrugged, taking off your earrings as you placed them down gently on the little plate Gojo had given you as a gift a while ago. 

“I prefer the breeze,” you reply, wiping your face with a damp cloth, “Thank you, though,” you offer her a small smile, one that she reciprocates. 

Alina finishes up some things, and the two of you work in comfortable silence. She knows just how much you need these little things to help keep you sane, and as much as she’s been trained to help out her lady in any means possible, as your friend, she lets you do some things alone.

After a few more minutes pass Alina clasps her hands on her hips, and you let out a small giggle, knowing she was done. 

“I don’t see why you need me here,” she grumbles, pushing some hair away from her face and you snort, standing up from your chair as you flick her shoulder gently. 

“You’re good company,” you simply say, moving around your room as you go to the little corner where you keep some of your books. 

Alina pushes the chair back in and makes her way to the door, bidding you a good night before she pauses, looking back at the window. 

“My lady?” She says, and you look up from the shelf, glancing over to her. You raise a brow, waiting for her to continue. 

“I know it’s not my place, but my mother always told me to sleep with the windows closed. You never know how cold the night might get and I don’t want to see you waking up with a fever.”

You look back to the window and the rustling curtains and grin, nodding. 

“I’ll close them in a bit,” you tell her and note how her shoulders ease and a smile makes its way onto her face. 

“Goodnight my lady,” she tells you, and you say the same thing, making sure she’s all gone before you let the smile drop, your cheeks hurting, and look back to the bookshelf. 

You’ve seen how worried she’s gotten as of late regarding your nature, so you’ve tried being a little more cheerful around her even if it pains your soul to act like nothings wrong. 

Your fingers card through different books, reading the spines as you try to find something that might help put you to sleep. Finally you find a title of a book you’ve read before, maybe a few years ago, and pull it out, examining the cover. 

You move around to your bed and place it near your pillow. You fill the glass on your stand with some water from your pitcher, setting down as you go to the vanity to blow out the candles that were lit. 

There were only a few left, and you just wanted to save the one next to your bed so you could read. You move past the window, going to the corner of the room, blowing the third remaining candle out. 

You feel the hair on your arm prick up from the sudden rush of cold air, goosebumps trailing in their wake, and you walk back to the window, pushing aside the long drapes as you reach your arms out to find the knobs that would pull them in towards you. 

Until a sudden force knocks you down to the ground. 

It takes you half a second to realize that you hadn’t tripped on something, and that the reason why your head didn’t hit the floor causing a thud to be heard was because something, somebody, was on top of you. 

A man. There’s a man lying on top of you. 

This can’t be happening. 

You go to scream, but a hand flies to cover your mouth, pinning your legs and wrists down by a heavy leg and their other hand, effectively holding your writhing body still. 

Your eyes are squeezed shut as you try to move, biting the hand that’s over your mouth but it doesn’t budge. You feel your heartbeat as fast as it ever has against your ribcage, your fingers trying to grab something, anything, that could help you. 

“If you make any noise I’ll cut your tongue straight from your mouth, you hear me?”

Your eyes slam open, looking straight at the face hovering above yours. 

A brute of a man is looking down at you. You yell again, but he presses his hand down even harder, his rough skin meeting your teeth as your voice becomes muffled. 

He’s gigantic, looking more like an ogre than a man. His hooked nose and sly lips are pulled into a sleazy smile as he looks down at you, his greasy black hair pulled back behind his ears. His arms are the size of boulders, his legs looking like they were strong enough to push boulders. His teeth are yellow and crooked, and he lets you see them when he talks. 

You feel something sharp press to your side, and in your frantic state you’re able to wiggle a little bit to tilt your head down to see what it is. Your eyes widen when you see the glimmering dagger, its edge serrated. Its tip was so sharp that you could feel it cutting into your skin and you knew he wasn’t pressing as hard as he possibly could. 

“Stay. Still.” The man grunts again, licking his teeth as you shake, shaking your head as your hands open and unopened, not knowing what else to do. 

“I’m going to move my hands from your mouth,” he says next, slowly and quietly, “There’s a couple things I need you to do for me. But I swear that if you make a single squeak, any fucking noise, I’ll gut you like a fish, hm?” 

Your eyes are shaking, brows pulled taut as you try to move around but to no avail. The knee that was pressing down onto your thigh digs in deeper, his bone searing into your flesh as you whine in pain. 

“Do you understand?” He whispers in your ear, his hot breath fanning over your skin. The knife is still pointed at your hip, and he presses it just a bit deeper, and you’re sure if he goes any more he’ll draw blood. 

You look at the man, at the deep set scars that run all across his face. You take in the glint that shimmer in his eyes, the pure evil that drips from his grin. You can smell the blood drying on his clothes, and can almost taste iron the closer he gets to you. 

You want to fight back, but you can’t. 

Your mind races back to those days when you had asked Gojo to let you spar with him, wanting to know how to defend yourself. There were some moments when you felt like you could take him down, but he’d always find a weak spot of yours and bring you tum biking to the ground. But he would always help you up with a gentle smile, apologizing profusely as he kissed your cheeks. This man was far bigger than Gojo, and his smile wasn’t kind the way he was. You knew you couldn’t overpower him, not in the slightest. 

So you slowly nod, your tears falling freely from the corners of your eyes, rolling back onto the floors as the man grunts. 

Slowly and surely, he moves his hand away from your face, still keeping the rest of his body pinning yours. Your lips are trembling, your body almost convulsing as you wait for him to speak. 

He gives it a second, making sure you weren’t going to pull anything before he decides you’re compliant enough, or rather not willing to die, to listen to his orders. 

“Good job,” he mutters, his voice pricking at your skin like a thousand needles, his greasy smile making you want to hurl, “There’s three things I need you to do. Nod if you understand.”

You look back at him. He presses the knife into your hip, and your teeth dig into your lip, knowing that he for sure broke skin. 

Your eyes squeeze shut in pain as you slowly nod. 

“First, from here on out, be as quiet,” his voice is low, “Don’t let anybody outside think anything.”

He pushes himself slightly off of you, trying to get a feel of how loud the floorboards creaked. When he was satisfied that they wouldn’t make a sound, he moved his hulking body away from yours, carefully standing up. 

You feel your heart lurch when you see him at his true size, nearly three heads taller than Gojo, and even more packed with muscles. 

“Stand up,” he motions for you to do the same, not until he warns, “Slowly.” 

You’re frozen in place, your arms and legs losing all function. The man looks down at you through his dark stare, seeing that it’s taking you too long, and bends down to loop a hand around your elbow. 

He drags up upwards like you weigh nothing, your lungs refusing to work as you gasp for air. 

When you're on your feet, you feel like throwing up, your head dizzy, nose wrinkling at his strong odor that reeks of onions and ale. 

“Walk over to that table,” he nudges his chin over to the desk that is littered with Gojo’s maps and scrolls and your books, “And sit down at the chair.”

You can only stare at him, biting your tongue, hoping this was all a nightmare. 

But the man just stares back at you, waiting. He flashes you the dagger again, it’s too stained with your blood, and your legs, however weak, seem to work faster than your mind. You feel like a newborn lamb learning how to walk as you somehow make your way over to the table, his presence never leaving from behind your back. 

Your legs shake as you set yourself down on the wooden chair, tears biting at your cheeks as you wait for his next instructions. 

Behind you, you hear something rustle. You don’t want to look to see what he’s doing, but you’re able to pick out a bag being opened carefully, some papers scratching against each other. 

It takes a few more seconds but the sounds stop, and suddenly a piece of parchment falls down next to you. 

“Write down on a piece of sheet that repeats what is written there,” he tells you, and your eyes dart down to the parchment, tears blurring your vision. 

“W…” your words are slurring together, and you can’t hear your own voice, “What?”

You’re quiet, but the man hears you. 

He just shoves the parchment closer to your face, saying nothing. 

Your eyes fall down to the words scattered across the price, black ink staining its yellow color, and you blink your eyes a couple of times to read what it says. The handwriting is foreign to you, something you can’t recognize. You don’t know how, with everything your mind was going through, you were able to read properly, but you felt your stomach drop when your eyes scanned through the first couple of sentences. 

My love, with a heavy heart I write to you, but there is no other way to break my thoughts to you. I can no longer sit and watch what you plan to do in my name…your eyes skim a further but down, the blood you’re willing to spill is unlike what I thought you to be capable of. You’ve become cruel and inhuman, and I refuse to have myself tied to a man that desires death the way you do…

Your mouth drops a little, your jaw slacking when you realize what the note was saying. This was a goodbye letter. 

I have to leave. I could never, under any gods’ sky, pretend to keep loving a man as barbarous as you.

Your heart stops. 

“Write that down girl,” the man’s gruff voice interrupts, “Here.”

He scavenged through the piles of discarded plans and strategies, finding a clean sheet of parchment that was untouched by ink. 

You shake your head, looking over your shoulder as your tears drop from your chin. 

“I,” you swallow thickly, trying to force down the vomit that was at the back of your throat, “I can’t…write…”

The man snorts, his arms crossing over his large chest as he shrugs. 

“If you don’t write, I’ll gut that girl that you favor so much,” he twists the daggers handle in his large palm, “The only with the curls. Gods, it’d be a shame though. I might have a taste of her before…”

You tune him out, ears filling with water as you realize he’s talking about Alina, your fingers trembling against the wood of the table as you look down at the pre-written note and the blank parchment he had set in front of you. 

Your mind was blanking as you try to ration what’s happening. 

You look a little bit to your left at the pot of ink and the quill Gojo was always scratching away with. Before you can think any other thought, you feel cool metal pressing against your neck. 

The man is right behind your chair, his daggers blade a breath away from your skin. He’s holding your jaw in place, forcing your head down at the table. 

His fingers are rough and calloused, stained with blood and dirt, and you gasp slightly, eyes blurring once again as you turn still. 

“Write.” He whispers thickly in your ear. 

You don’t move, and the dagger presses down, your lips falling open in a silent cry as you feel it cut through some skin, blood beginning to stain your nightdress. 

Mindlessly, your hand moves to the ink and quill. You feel like you've left your body as your fingers grasp the quill, dipping it into the little pot, and set it down to the paper. 

You feel like you’ve left your own self as you look back to the note, chewing your lips raw as you write down the first word. The dagger is still against your throat, unrelenting as you begin to write. You don’t know how none of your tears have yet to stain the paper, but you don’t what the stranger would do if that were to happen. 

A part of you blacks out when you write, your eyes open but not understanding anything in front of you no matter how hard you try.

Your quill suddenly stops, and you feel the man leaning in behind your shoulder, the dagger loosening away from you as he lifts the two pieces of parchment up. 

You don’t know when you finished, or what you write, but in the silence that it takes for him to read yours through, you get the grasp that you must’ve done something correctly because he seems satisfied, setting your version down on the table. 

He steps away from you, and you watch from the corner of your eyes as he takes the original piece to one of your candles, holding it over the flames as it catches fire. He watches as it burns, the ashes falling into his other hand. When it’s all burnt up, he scatters it out the window, the wind doing its job as it takes any remains of what it was away from here. 

He looks back at you with a smile. 

“Last thing,”

Your head sways. 

“Fill this bag,” he holds up an empty satchel, “Fill it with things you’d take if you were to run away.”

You blink slowly at him, your mouth going dry. 

You can’t speak, but he can tell you’re confused. 

“We need to make it seem like, well,” he shrugs, his lips pursed together, “That you wrote that note and ran away. Pick out some clothes, jewelry, and coins. Make the room messy.”

Your heart beats slowly in your chest when you start to understand what it was he was asking you to do. 

He holds up his weapon, its edges shining red with your blood, and he points it to the door. 

“I know you’d hate to hear her scream,” he says, and you dimly nod. 

You set the quill down gently on the table, moving carefully from your chair as you walk towards his outstretched hand. Your fingers tremble as you take it from him, walking slowly towards your dresser. 

He’s right behind you, the knife pointed at your waist so that you don’t think of doing anything, and you quietly open the door, grabbing some hoods, slips, common clothes, nightwear and undergarments. You shoved it in until the bag was nearly full. 

You did as you were told, taking the rest of your clothes and scattered it across the ground, throwing some things onto your bed. 

He grunted behind you, most likely a little surprised with how compliant you were. 

You drift to your vanity, shoving some necklaces and earrings in the satchel, not wanting to take all because it was actively killing you to do this. 

“That’s good,” the man says after a couple minutes and you pause, your back still to him. 

You set the satchel down and turn slowly around, hoping this would be enough. That your night was done and that he would let you go. 

“Oh, and,” his eyes drop down to your empty hands, pouting the tip of the blade to your finger, “Leave the ring.”

Your eyesight goes blurry.

You feel lightheaded, gripping into the edge of the table as you heave for air. Leave the ring? Leave? Leave?

“We don’t have all night,” he explains, making that his reasoning for why he so suddenly takes your hand, his large fingers circling around yours as he roughly yanks off the piece of jewelry, throwing it next to some other pieces you had lying on the table. 

You can only stare blankly at it as he moves around, stare as the gold glimmers in the soft candlelight. It looks the same way it did the first time you saw it, when Gojo had placed it on your finger when he was saying your vows. It was a simple ring, a gold band that didn’t have any stones on it. Gojo later explained that while he had told you earlier it was usual something he had picked out, his mother had gifted it to him. 

You feel a force hit the back of your head and suddenly, everything goes black. 

—-

Waking up hurt. 

You blink once, twice and then for a final time before you feel like you can see accurately again. Your head was throbbing, a dull pain at the back of your skull. You go to rub it, but notice that your hands are bound together by rope. 

Coming to your senses you realize that the rope wasn’t the only problem. The wobbling motion you first had wasn’t from your stomach ache, but because you were rocking back and forth on a horse. 

You sit up a little bit in shock, but the motion causes you to wince, your body sore and aching. 

“I wouldn’t move if I were you.” 

That voice. 

So it wasn’t a nightmare. 

The wall that you felt behind your back wasn’t a wall, but was in fact the same man who had forced his way into your room at night, made you write that letter, packed your things and leave…

Leave home. 

All around you was a sprawling field, no sign of life from as far as you could tell. You had no idea how long you were unconscious, or how long you had been on horseback, but the North usually didn’t get grass to grow this tall seeing how the cold winters usually killed them. There was a breeze, but it wasn’t as biting as it should be. 

You were glad to see that your mouth was wrapped shut, but that also put a strike of fear through you. If the man wasn’t afraid of you screaming, then there surely wouldn’t be anybody around to save you. 

You were alone. 

A part of you was on the verge of breaking down, screaming until you coughed up blood and your throat became raw. But you knew that if you wanted to stay alive, if you wanted to go come, you had to keep onto your wits. It was either that or you froze, not moving, becoming a shell of a human, the same way you were that night when this all happened. And you had seen what it could do, had seen how your own body would betray you, and you vowed to never let that happen again. 

“How long has it been?” 

Your own voice shocks you. Your throat is dry, seeing how you haven’t opened it in a while, and the sentence comes out like a croak. You swallow some spit, hoping it would help with the scratchiness you were feeling. The horse moved slowly through the pasture, the sun shining but not beating down on your face in an unforgivable way. 

The man clicked his tongue against his teeth, his hands holding onto the reins. 

“Nearly six days,” he says gruffly, and your eyes widen, not expecting for it to have been almost a week that you’d been out, “Thought I’d killed you.” 

Five days? 

You try to do the math in your head. It had been almost six days since Gojo had left when the man came into your room, and with these five days, it would be almost a week since Gojo was gone from home. If the travel West took as long as it did for you, then he’d be almost there by now. But you didn’t know how mail would travel, or how long it would take till he’d come back home to figure out what the problem was. 

Depending on which direction the man was going, it could take weeks until they found you. Fields like this weren’t uncommon in the North, but the weather wasn’t. It reminded you a bit of home, but Western nature was dry and glaringly hot. Even in the fall, you’d still break a sweat after being in the sun. 

And given how prepared this man was, he surely wouldn't be heading there, most likely knowing that Gojo was there as well. You had seen enough maps and heard enough talk around the counsel to know that it would take almost two weeks to travel Westward, but almost three weeks to arrive in the Eastern nations. 

Judging by the landscape you had seen on paper and that you’re surveying now, this man was taking you somewhere East. 

“Did the king send you?” You ask, your head dipping downwards so that you could angle your ears to hear him better. 

He pauses, and you wonder if you’d asked the wrong question, if he was going to make you suffer in some way for crossing the line. You still couldn't work out his motive. If he was truly sent by the king, then why wouldn’t he have killed you in your room? Why go through the hassle of making you seem like you had run away?

Killing you and showing the North your body would send a greater message than whatever this was. Taking you without making it seem like an abduction was strange, even for the South, and so you desperately wanted to know what it was that had put you in this situation.

“A friend of his did,” the man finally says, and when he falls quiet, you realize that this was all he was going to say. 

So he was from the South. And he didn’t seem like he’d be a lying man, he’d have no reason for it. The more you thought about it, it made more sense that the king didn’t send direct orders to abduct you. But that made you furrow your brows in confusion. If the king was ready to wage war, why would an abduction be something he wanted hidden? 

“Why didn’t you kill me?” you ask after a beat of silence, your body swaying in tandem with the horse. You could feel your dried tears crusting near your eyes, your lips battered, iron coating your tongue the more you spoke, causing the wound to open up.

“I will, but not here.” 

You bite your cheek, your hands shaking. 

“Will you take me up to your king to make a spectacle out of me?” You try to keep your voice from wavering, from showing him any signs of fear. 

The man chuckles, spitting to the road. 

“I’ll kill you somewhere where there’s a lot of trees, hide your body so that nobody can find it,” he explains, and you feel your heartbeat in the palms of your hands, “Make it seem like you ran away.” 

You try not to let your lips tremble, instead, you try to piece the clues he was giving you together. If the king truly wanted to make it seem like you were running away, then it means that he would want your spot as Lady of the North to appear vacant. He would want Gojo to think that you didn’t care for him anymore, and that you wanted out of this marriage, which would make room for… 

His daughter. 

But if the king wanted his daughter to marry into the Gojo family, you wonder why he didn’t do this whole abduction in the first place. You sigh deeply through your nose, looking down at your hands, your fingers moving around slightly but to no avail. While you’re trying to see if there was any wiggle room, a thought runs through your head.

The king wasn’t expecting this…

You wonder if perhaps the king promised war in a way of bluffing, or hoping that Gojo would terminate the marriage and take on the princess to avoid any trouble. This wasn’t his first plan, you decide, but him trying to save the skin of his teeth. He wasn’t expecting the North to retaliate, to declare a war of their own. He didn’t see Gojo carrying this much for his arranged bride, and didn't think that the young lord would rather die than marry another woman. But the king underestimated Gojo, and sent this man to answer for his mistake. 

If it seemed like you found Gojo repulsive, that you no longer loved him, then he could search all he wanted to, but if he never found you, or your body, then he would come to the eventual conclusion that you had run away. Either way, this would make it so that he would call off the war. Maybe in attempts to fix the now shattered relationship between the two nations, a marriage between Gojo and the princess might actually take place.

Your hopes deflate, knowing the letter you were forced to write might also be more realistic than some Southern scribes realized. With the way you had argued countless times with Gojo over the chance of ending the possibilities of war, he might read it as an actual goodbye. 

The thought makes you sick. 

So, you decide to busy yourself with trying to find an escape option. 

Your wrists were chafing with how tightly the rope was tied, but the knot around it was tied in a way that seems to have shifted in the days you had been riding. The man behind you is tall, but sitting down, he can only see above your head, and he’d have to force himself up to peer down at your lap. 

Slowly, over the span of a few minutes, you’re able to position the rope closer to the bottom of your palm, your thumb and pointer finger reaching for the knot. A small smile graces your face when you're able to pinch it between the two fingers. 

You stop your movements, not wanting to make anything obvious, and then start back up after a couple minutes of silence passed. 

With the knot now closer to your finger, you begin picking at it with your nail. You know your nail is dull and cut through it, but you think that if you nudge at it enough, you might be able to create a small opening that would allow you to slip your pointer finger through it and unravel it. 

“I think it would be fair to share your name,” you say, not wanting the man to think anything of your silence, and you begin to execute your plan, fiddling away with the rope with your finger as you raise your head up, not wanting to keep your stare directed at your lap, looking ahead at the field. 

Wind blows through your body, ruffling the nightdress that you were still wearing. The man at least had some decency to put a cloak over you, hiding your body from being entirely bare. The more you looked at the field, the more it reminded you of the one that surrounded the Gojo estate. You blink and see him sitting there, his back on the grass, an arm resting behind his head, his white hair sprawled out as he held you close to his chest, telling you stories from his childhood. You blink again and see nightfall, see him with his tunic off, telling you about the scar on his torso. You see him professing his feelings, telling you how much he loved you. You blink again and see the field, your nose twitching slightly.

“My name?” The man repeats with a slight chuckle, most likely shaking his head in disbelief. Out of all the people he’s taken, out of all of the people he’s been sent out to kill, you’ve been the weirdest behaving out of all of them.

You nod, your finger working away at the knot, and you cough to cover up the noise when you make a particularly loud scratch. 

“My name changes based on the man who hires me,” he says after a minute, and you almost want to look back at him in confusion.

“What was the name you gave to the employer who sent you out to find me?” You ask, trying to wiggle some fingers around, bracing your thighs around the horse, trying to keep yourself balanced and upright. 

The man breathes deeply through his nose, as if he was contemplating telling you. There’s no reason not to tell you, if his plan is to kill you anyways. But you plan to escape, and you want to know the name of the man who put you through this hell.

“Toji,” he finally says, and you commit it to memory, your mouth falling in the shape of the name, “But I’ll change it for my next employer.” 

You go to say something else, but almost let your disguise slip when you feel your finger make its way through the knot. You move it in circles, moving it across, and slowly you feel the knot begin to unravel. You keep your hands pressed tightly together, but in a few seconds the rope has become undone. 

You stare at it in shock, not expecting for it to take so little time to unravel, but you look ahead again, shifting a little bit as you begin to think about what to do next. 

You can feel the sheath of his dagger digging into your back. You remember how it looked when you first saw it, and can confidently say that this was the thing that was there. It was large, but given how large his weapon was, you weren’t surprised to find it had an even larger cover. 

You didn’t know how fast you could move, nor how fast he could. You didn’t know if there was a latch or specific way to take the weapon out, but as far as you could remember, that was the only weapon he seemed to operate with. If you were able to harm him in some way and get him off of the horse, you might have a chance of escaping.

Though there was the obvious challenge, he knew how to fight far better than you. What’s to say that you get the dagger but he doesn’t get it out of your hands even faster? And if you did manage to wield it, how fast would it take for him to understand what had happened, how fast his reflexes were? If he’s had multiple employers before, then he must be skilled in his trade, putting you at an immense disadvantage. 

But you knew that if you didn’t try, you’d die at his hands. You knew you’d rather die fighting and on your own accord than at the merciless dagger of a stranger who was paid to kill you.

You let the silence grow, wanting the man to think that you had fallen asleep. You let your head hang down, your chin to your chest, and you slowly, quietly and gently begin the snake one hand out from the ropes. 

The man grumbles to himself from time to time, spitting to the side every now and then, but from what you can tell, is still unsuspecting. 

You know it’s a matter of seconds that gives you the advantage, and that any slight fumble or mistake will be catastrophic. You tell yourself that you have to twist your back quickly, pull the weapon out with your right hand, and strike him through the chest. You don’t know if one strike would be enough to take him down, but it would be enough to have you force him off the horse and take the animal for yourself.

You breathe deeply through your nose, calming your nerves. 

And then, you turn. 

You’re met with his face, your hand reaching for the weapon, and see the way his eyes slowly fall down to your fingers, and then to you, but you’ve calculated his brutish daftness enough to know that a moment of surprise would be his doom.

It doesn’t take much effort to get the dagger, but his hand quickly shoots for your throat, his fingers wrapping around your skin as he squeezes tight, restricting your airways. You choke, trying to cough, but with the way he’s seated on the horse you know you can’t falter. Your hold on the weapon weakens, but you still drive it forward, and are met with the satisfying sound of his groan. 

His hand around your throat falls, and you pull out the dagger only to drive it further up his chest, into his ribs.

The man, Toji, grips the handle, but you push with as much force as you can muster at his shoulders. You wonder if he’s ever had people fight back, if he’s ever dealt with somebody striking him hard enough to draw blood. 

With the way you’re positioned; your dress and robe still underneath him, he takes you down with him. You fall to the ground with a hard thud, wincing at the pain that shoots again through your head. Your vision has gone blurry again, but you can make out the man stumbling on the ground, grasping at his chest in shock. 

You place your hands on the ground, forcing yourself up. Your head is spinning, swaying up and down, but you know you have to get back up on that horse. 

He’s shouting at you, saying something but you stand up, almost falling back down with how your legs are shaking, but you hold yourself upright by the horse's saddle. You’re shocked that it hasn’t been spooked away, but don’t find time to question why. 

You’ve ridden enough times before to know how to haul yourself up, but it’s a trying effort that takes a couple swings. The man is still on the ground, clutching at his wounds, and you can’t revel in your victory just yet. 

When you’re up on the horse you feel your vision start to clear up a bit and your ears stop ringing. 

You look down to the man, trying to make out what it was he was saying. 

“...can’t go back,” he spits, blood coating his lips, staining them red as he coughs out more, “they’d never take you back.”

You stare at him, dazed. 

“You committed treason,” his voice is hoarse, and he tries to grab at your foot but you kick it away, “That letter? Don’t you remember?” he smiles darkly, and his teeth as red, “And if you go back, the king,” he chokes, spitting out some blood, but he chuckles, a mad look in his eyes, “The king would kill every single person you care about. He’ll rip the throats from your maids, send an army of unkillable men to kill y-your dear lord.” 

You look down, his words slowly making their way into your brain. 

The letter. 

You remember now. It wasn’t just a goodbye, but a confession of even further betrayal. You had denounced the North and its power, had said that the Lord of the North was an enemy of every state. 

And even if you did go back to prove that you were forced to write it, what’s to say that his words weren’t correct? If he was able to spy on you long enough to know your schedule, your maids, when to attack, then the South was truly capable of sending in more assassins. And Gojo might be able to take them, but what about Alina? What if the king decided to target Gojo’s parents, your friends, people you’ve come to care deeply about? 

The man grins cruelly when he sees the way you begin to understand his words, the threat behind them. 

The man wasn’t standing up not because he was weakened, but because he knew that even if he didn’t kill you, you’d wind up dead anyways. He knew you’d give up and let him go through with his initial plan. Because in that case, only you’d be dead. But you returned back to the Gojo estate and would have you killed, alongside everyone else you loved. 

But…but if you ran, ran away to somewhere hidden, it might be avoided. The war, the bloodshed, everything. You could actually be doing something good. 

He laughs, blood falling from  his lips, staining the floor when he sees the tears fall down your cheeks. You go to wipe them away, but it doesn’t matter anymore. In that moment you’ve made up your mind, have seen that there was no other way. 

You’d be leaving behind the man you loved in return for saving his life, as well as everyone else's. 

You think about his smile, the way his lips felt against your skin when he kissed you goodbye. You think about the way he laughs, a hearty sound that makes you laugh in turn. You think about the warmth you felt when wrapped in his embrace, the way he smelled like cinnamon after spending time with you in the kitchens. Your heart churns when you think about the love you hold for him, just how much it drived your everyday life. How you’d do anything to save him, even if it wasn’t a lot. You think about Gojo, and how for a little moment in time, you truly had the world in your hands. How he would do the same if the roles were reversed, knowing that the way you feel for him is just as intense as how much he feels for you.

And you finally think about how leaving might preserve those little things, even if not for your experience. If you were to disappear, this might all be forgiven. And that was a price you decided there that you had to pay. 

You turn away from him, and maybe under different circumstances you might have gloated at the confusion that takes over his face, not knowing why you weren’t stepping down. 

With shaking fingers and a shattering heart you look ahead, kicking the side of the horse as you send it running. You could hear his yells from behind you, calling for you to come back, but you kept repeating in your head that this was the only way.

Your eyes were blurring with tears from just how fast the wind was hitting your face, your cheeks and nose growing cold. You leaned forward, holding onto the reins with all the strength you had. 

Please forgive me Satoru, your mind begged, please forgive me.

—

“Miss?” 

You dream of a sound, a soft, gentle sound. It circles around you like a mothers tender care, making the coldest parts of your soul warm slightly. You smile a little bit when you imagine it again.

“Miss?”

A shower of icy water, colder than anything you’ve ever felt, washes over you, and your eyes sprout wide open, your mouth open in a loud gasp as you sit up as fast as you can, your chest heaving up and down with labored breaths. Your fingers jump to your face, trying to wipe off the freezing feeling away, and blink rapidly, trying to get a grasp of where you were. 

“Miss?” 

Your head swivels to the voice, and you feel your eyes burning. The voice is overshadowed with the burning sun behind them, but they crouch down over you, shoving you with a little force. You blink again, trying to make the spots go away. 

A woman, you think. Not Gojo. 

The last thing you remember was going to sleep, your stomach empty after multiple days of night finding any food, shivering your soul away as you curled up. The horse that you had stolen was set free a couple days ago after you felt bad for not being able to provide anything for it to eat or drink. Knowing that it had left somewhere for itself puts you in a better state of mind. 

You couldn’t remember how many days it had been since you had run away. You lost track after the twentieth night. You had no map to guide you, nobody you trusted to tell you where to go. You walked around with a hood over your head, looking through different towns and villages, scrapping around for their garbage.  You were running both from the man that had been sent to kill you, but your old life as well. You didn’t know if Gojo believed the letter, if he had sent people out to look for you. You knew you just had to get as far away from the North as possible, even if it meant you die trying.

After a few days of doing this, your feet had given out, marked with blisters and scraps, and you fell in your spot, sleeping near a tree as you let the exhaustion finally settle deep in your bones. You remember closing your eyes, thinking of the time when Gojo woke you up with sweets from the bakery you adored. You could smell the sugar beneath your nose, your fingers itching to grab one, your mind not able to tell what was imagination and reality anymore. You would wager that hunger was making you do this, but you couldn’t care anymore.

You can only look at her, forgetting the words needed to form a proper sentence. 

“Are ‘ye alright?” She asks you finally, and you can slowly begin to make out the crease in her face and the color of her eyes. You can see the wrinkles that adorn her forehead and cheeks, all scrunched up together in worry as she looks down at you.

Your hands pat themselves across your body, trying to make sure you weren’t dead. It had been a while since you had spoken to someone, especially when they weren’t throwing sticks at your head to get you to stop looking through their discarded piles of vegetables. 

You swallow thickly.

“Can ‘ye hear me?” She asks louder, bending down a little closer to you as she rests her hand on your forehead. 

She doesn’t seem too old, most likely a few years older than your father, but you feel stricken by her appearance. A part of you wonders if you truly have died and this was the afterlife; an old lady taking care of you. 

But with how hard she’s jamming her finger into your ribs it makes you think otherwise. 

“Are ‘ye hungry darling?” She continues to talk, her gray brows pinching together as she glances over your frail appearance, “Would ‘ye like something to eat?”

Your eyes widen slightly and she takes note of it. 

A small smile makes its way onto her face as she eases back upwards. 

“My husband and I own a small tavern,” she says, and with the sun framing her head she looks like a divine power, “I’ll take ‘ye there.”

You stare at her outstretched hand, look at her fingers, at the way they’re reaching out to you. You can’t remember the last time somebody offered you help, or looked at you like you were more than a common thief. You’d cry if there was any water left in your system. 

But slowly you raise your hand, holding hers as she heaves you up. You show her your feet, and she tells you not to worry. She sits you on the back of her donkey, telling you that the animal looks stronger than you’d think. 

You don’t have any will to argue, letting the old woman, who told you to call her Miss Murray, guide you and the donkey through a dirt road. You sway in and out of consciousness, blinking to find the scenery changed from what you last remembered. 

Miss Murray talks to you, but you don't have any energy to respond. She checks behind her shoulder sometimes to make sure you were still alive, and would only look back to the road when she was satisfied you were. 

It takes nearly another thirty minutes before you start seeing little homes begin to appear from over the hill. There’s a town in the distance, one that you see is bordering a vast blue ground. 

The ocean?

You blink to make sure you were hallucinating. 

You were only aware of larger cities that bordered the ocean, but this was a small little town at most. The roads were dirt and unpaved, the homes made of wood and layers of hay. The cities you were aware of were far richer, their structures made of sturdy stone and glass. And you knew that despite your delirious travels, you hadn’t rerouted and gone back up North, the only other place you knew that had cities near the water. 

“Home,” Miss Murray says with a content sigh and you look at her, your eyes slightly squinted in confusion. 

You swallow some spit, trying to wet your mouth. 

“Where,” your voice sounds foreign to you, and even the woman looks back in surprise when she hears you trying to speak. Your fingers are at your throat, wanting to have your voice sound normal. 

“Where a-are we?” You finally get out, and the woman smiles gently at you. 

“As far east as ‘ye can get,” she replies and you look back to the ocean. The water is shining off of the sun, the cold air that’s biting at your skin is a reminder of the winter that’s about to come. 

The color reminds you of a pair of eyes, the same eyes you often thought about before you went to sleep, not knowing if you’d wake up. 

“I’d wager yer a far way from home dear, no?”

Your body sways with the donkey's gentle movements, and your mind is slow. You know you need food and water, but her question isn’t one that reminds you of this. It’s a cut that runs deep through your aching soul, one that hurts to admit. 

So you only give her a little nod, one that she seems to understand quickly. 

“D‘ye plan to stay here?” Her gray curls frame her face in a nice way, her plump cheeks pink and soft.

You look to the water and then to the town. It’s a far distance from the North, and hidden enough that nobody would recognize you or find you. It’s surrounded by a forest, a densely thick mass of trees that stretches as far as the eye can see. The town is quaint, at most a few hundred people inhabiting it. Even if the news of your runaway had heard their ears, it was doubtful that they’d recognize you. Especially now, that even without a proper mirror you’re sure your appearance has changed drastically.

“Yes,” you mutter, your throat raw and unused. 

She hums, pulling you carefully down the grassy hill and closer towards the busting town. People were walking and shouting to one another, carrying trays of breads and pastries, flowers and fabrics from one place to the next. 

“I’ll fix ‘ye up something to eat when we get to the tavern,” she promises, having surely heard your eager stomach, but you shake your head slowly in a form of protest. 

“No, no coin,” you tell her, your eyes falling down in embarrassment, “I don’t have…any coin,” you say slowly, your tongue heavy in your mouth. 

Miss Murray looks at you for a second before throwing her head back and laughing. 

“Dear, I’m sure ‘ye need that food more than I need that coin.”

Your heart beats a little faster, your eyes glimmering slightly. 

You want to tell her why you’re like this, that you weren’t this way a few months ago. That you had a husband who you cared very deeply for, people who you loved helping. You want to tell her that you would give her all the coins you and your name if you could, but you bite your tongue from doing so. 

You no longer were the Lady of the North. You were married to Gojo Satoru, and you had no title, no coin, no amount to your name. But you still had respect and dignity, knowing you couldn’t lose every shred of yourself while trying to stay alive. 

“I’d like t-to…pay you back,” you stammer out, “I want to pay you back, please,”

You watch as Miss Murray pauses, the donkey halting its movements as your body lurches forward slightly. 

You watch silently as she observes your face, looks at the cracks in your skin, the stained clothes you were wearing, and your lack of proper hygiene. She feels something when looking at you, something that wasn’t right. There’s a certain stubbornness, a fight in your eyes, one that somebody only gets after surviving for so long. 

She knows you won’t back down, especially after you’ve had something proper to eat. 

“‘Ye need a job, no? Some coin?” She finally asks, and you look down at your torn up clothes and your bones fingers. 

You look back up to her and nod. 

She thinks for another moment before starting her walk again. 

“‘Ye can pay me back by working for the tavern,” her fingers curl around the donkey's rein as she controls it through a winding road, “Aye, we’re in constant need of firewood. It will make us even for this meal, and every day after that I’ll pay ‘ye for yer help. Deal?”

You feel a little light shine down, maybe from the gods as she turns her head to look at you, raising a brow as she waits for your answer. 

For the first time in a while, you feel your lips quirk upwards, a small, miniscule grin on your face. Miss Murray smiles at the sight. 

You nod slightly before you murmur a quiet, “deal.”

——

Miss Murray took you to her tavern and fixed you a large meal, something even your old self would gawk at if served at the estate. 

And she introduced you to her husband, the other keeper. She told him that she found you and knew you were willing to work, to which he took one look at you and decided she wasn’t going to budge on her decision. 

The old man showed you after a week of rest what it was you had to do. He demonstrated how to use an axe, how to cut up the logs in a way that would fit into the tavern's fireplace. He showed you which trees would be easiest for you to cut down, and which ones to avoid. 

The old man told you that his previous lumberjack had left town in search of a new life, and with how strenuous the job was, he couldn’t find anybody to do it eagerly in the short amount of time he needed. His son, who you slowly became familiar with, would do a majority of the workload, meaning you’d just have to bring in the smaller branches and twigs that kept the fire going throughout the night.

Miss Murray also showed you an old shack they had been using to store some equipment, saying that you could stay here for as long as you liked as long as you cleaned it out yourself. It was a little way away from the tavern, but still close enough that you wouldn’t have to drag the logs for a great distance. You were near trees and a few homes scattered around you as well so that you weren’t isolated. She told you she would’ve given you someplace nicer, but this was all she had. 

It takes a while for this strange new routine to become normal for you, but you quickly decide that chopping wood and lugging it around beats the hunger and cold you felt for weeks before you found this little town. That the motions almost became therapeutic, and offered you a peace of mind, letting yourself try to forget about your previous life, your husband, Gojo, and focus on getting your job done. 

You get the old shack as clean as you can, pleasantly surprised to find that underneath all the rubble and blankets there was a fireplace with a chimney still intact. You set a little bed up for yourself in the corner on the floor, made out of multiple sheets all piled on top of each other (all borrowed from Miss Murray) and a pillow that she had given you. 

You never told Miss Murray of where you were running from, who you were running from. You didn’t tell her that you were married or that you were from the North. Though she asked about why you ran, you never gave her a clear answer. It hurt thinking about him, let alone voicing the fact that you had left a loving husband in hopes of sparing thousands of people their lives. Some days, the pain was so numbing that you didn’t know how to move. You would hear his voice in your thoughts, could see his smile when you closed your eyes. In these moments you wondered if he misses you as much as you missed him. If he still slept in the same bed, or had his room completely changed. Did he get rid of your books, your oils, your clothing? A part of you hopes he did, hoping that he didn’t have to be cursed with the memory of you after what you had done. The more time passed, you wondered if he had decided to forget about you, if the thought of you was something he decided was better hidden rather than called upon.

Slowly, you began to turn the shack into your home, delivering the firewood as your daily routine, and made the town that bordered the ocean somewhere that you considered safe. 

But each night that passed and you went to sleep you dreamt of your old home, your old bed, the strong arms that wrapped around you, and you woke up, pretending the tears that had drenched your pillow weren’t there. 

Though you knew that after a while, when the talks of the Northern soldiers died down, that you had to move on. And when Miss Murray excitedly knocked on your door, a month later, telling you that the war had been called off, you offered her a gentle smile, knowing that you had done the right thing. She showed you the papers that were making their way across the kingdoms, the ones that said the North had agreed to pull their forces out from near the Southern border, releasing their final statement of neutrality. You skimmed the page, your heart hammering when you read that The North credits their Lord for the sudden decision, claiming that after months of searching for his missing wife with no luck, he agreed that continuing war efforts were barbarous and unnecessary.

Your vision goes blurry for a moment. 

He had been searching for you? For nearly six months?

It had been almost half a year, if you had done the math correctly, since you were first informed that a war would be happening. Six months of hardship, pain, tears, blood and half of your soul to end it all. Nobody in your little town knew of what you did, and you knew to keep it that way. Hiding your true nature was safe, no matter how much it stung when you realized that the North had most likely decided to forget you. That night you stayed in your little cabin while everybody was in the square celebrating and crying, not knowing what else to do. They were partially tears of joy, but mainly an accumulation of guilt and longing, wondering why your absence was what was needed to end a war.

Slowly, that pain began to seep into your bones, but you knew that you must go on with your life if you ever wanted to make it worth it. The days and nights turned into weeks, which then turned into months, and after some time, you no longer considered yourself the old Lady of the North. You melted into this life, and pretended that this was what you were destined to live from the start. You cut wood, collected pieces of dry bush and twigs to help keep the fire going at Miss Murray’s tavern. On the days when they didn’t need any fire wood, you helped her and her husband out with food and serving drinks. When she wasn’t busy, you found yourself listening to her talk, filling your silent moments with the gentle-hearted lady.

When a year had passed since you came to this town, you let yourself forget about everything. Everything your mind began to tuck away, all but for the lingering ache that longed for the man you loved so many moons ago.

—

Winters in a town near the ocean was something you never experienced until last year, and this year you knew how to prepare yourself.

The North was notoriously known for its freezing winters, but this town could rival it, you’d wager coin on this fact. The lakes in the woods nearby would freeze, snow piling on the ground, reaching a little bit below your knees in some areas. The ground was sometimes slick with ice, and if you didn’t have a careful eye to catch it you’d often come tumbling down, your cheeks heating in embarrassment when people nearby would laugh.

Last winter you had barely gotten on your own two feet before it had hit, but Miss Murray helped you out as much as she could. She spared some meat cakes from the tavern, bringing you what was left of their bread when the night was over. She lended you some of her old winter clothes, ones that she had outgrown, and you took it appreciatively. There were some nights you were sure you’d freeze to death, and other mornings when you weren’t sure you weren’t going to wake up. But you reminded yourself of all that you had been through, everything that you had survived, and pushed to open your eyes. So, in these past months, much like others in the town did, you prepared for this icy season, knowing this year you had to learn on your own. 

You stocked up on breads and pastries in a corner of your home which was always keen on never staying warm. You kept jars of jams, pickled vegetables and potatoes near the breads, somewhere dark and away from the morning sun. You learned from other townspeople how to prepare for when the cold settled in your home, how to fight it off late into the night. You watched the baker as he explained how to keep your bread from going bad, and how to store it properly. When you were content with the amount of food you had accumulated over the summer and fall months, you then prepared your clothing.

You had learned over trial and error to begin with wrapping your hands up once with some gauze (this would also prove to help once you were using the axe and looking through the shrubbery for things that could easily burn, seeing that it provided a buffer zone) and a thick pair of gloves that Miss Murray knit for you. You always had a fire running in your own fireplace, tending to it from the moment you woke up till late in the night when you went to sleep. The tavern needed its delivery each night, so until then, when you weren’t chopping, you either bundled up with a couple blankets or walked through the town, looking through the bakery and small bookshop (those two stores always were toastier than the rest).

If you had some spare change you’d buy a couple of loaves of bread and see if there were any old books the bookkeeper was going to throw out, and in between your free time, this seemed to be the best way to go about the freezing months instead of wasting away in your little cabin.

When night came, you hauled the wood, leaves and twigs into the wheelbarrow Miss Murray had lended to you and headed for the tavern, making sure your scarf was tied around your neck multiple times before you left the warm retrieve of your home.

It was only a ten minute walk from where you were to the inn, and if you hurried enough you could finish it in almost eight minutes. The colder it got, the slower your joints would work, but you also reminded yourself that the faster you got there, the faster you’d be met with the tavern's overwhelming and comforting warmth. You had the hood of your cloak around your head, keeping your ears from freezing and your scarf wrapped tightly around your neck. It was hard pushing the handcart through the snow, but you had learned where to go over the past weeks, which roads were more forgiving.

It had become clockwork as you neared the oak doors, the windows lit orange from the amount of candles inside. You could smell the meat roasting and see the smoke from the brick chimney as you neared it. You were already hearing the loud boisterous laughter from inside, some from town natives, some from travelers making a stop at the place for the night. You knew to walk around back, follow the track that led to the stables and ultimately the smaller door that would lead inside the kitchen, open it with the key Miss Murray had given you. You make a note of a couple of men standing near the horses, the usually empty rooms now filled with the animal. They were most likely tending to them, trying to keep them warm.   You’re greeted with the familiar sound of the bustling kitchen; the cooks yelling at the other cooks about what to get ready, the loud roar of the fire, the sounds of knives chopping away their vegetables and meats. You can smell the usual pies and stews they made nearly every night. This night seems to be their specialty of chicken pie with potato gravy soup. If there was a moment you could slip away and taste some, you reminded yourself to do so.

Glancing around the large room you take in the sight of the visitors of the night. There are a few wooden beams that restrict your vision, but you don’t need eyes to know just how packed it is. The sounds inside are even louder than the ones you heard walking near the place, and you’d wager that there are far more people staying here than usual. You’d guess that with the recent and abundant snowfall, some travelers were forced to re-route, and by the looks of it, you see far more strangers than familiar faces.

But you don’t let that distract you, walking over to the fireplace as you crouch down, making sure your cloak and skirt weren’t bunched up under your boots. You set the cart down near the fireplace, taking your gloves off as you held it near the heat for a few seconds. The gloves did a great job with keeping the cold from your hands, but they limited your mobility, and when you had to unload the logs, the branches, twigs, and everything in between, you wanted to do it as quickly as possible. You place them all into the large basket, observing the flickering flames. It’s still going strong, but there are some embers of coal that seem to be dying out, and so you tug carefully the door of the fireplace open as you place some wood inside, fanning it so that it would grow a little more.

You brush your hands against your legs, getting rid of the spare bits of bark and wood, and hold it back up to the fire as you feel the tension in your fingers and wrists begin to melt away. 

“We don’t pay ‘ye to keep up our space, y’know,” 

You turn your head around to the voice, smiling when you see Miss Murray standing behind you with her hands on her hips, her apron stained with spilled ale and some food splatters. Her gray curls are pulled underneath her cap, her full cheeks red and rosy, her lips pulled into a slight frown.

She tries to look serious, but her act slips away instantly when she sees you, moving closer as she wraps her around around you from behind, her arms reaching your shoulders, just barely, as you crouch a little to pull her in for a hug. 

It’s only been a night since she sees you, but this is always how Miss Murray greets you. 

“Are ‘ye warm?” She asks, her eyes worried as she looks at your hands and your slightly runny nose. 

You chuckle, nodding your head so that she doesn’t fret. 

“I’m warming up,” you tease your brow slightly raised, holding your fingers up to her cheeks to show that they were no longer cold, wiping your elbow across your nose as you go back to holding your hands over the fire, “And dare I say it’s my right seeing how it’s my wood that’s burning?” 

Miss Murray chuckles, pinching you softly on the side as you yelp, moving a little bit away from her as you giggle.

She stands next to you, looking over the crowd as she takes in who needs more beer and food, making a mental tally in her head. Once your entire body has finally thawed, you stand up straighter, turning around to look at the busy crowd, not a single chair going unused. 

“It’s busier than usual, no?” You ask, crossing your arms across your chest as you look to Miss Murray, tucking your hands into your elbows to keep the warmth. 

She nods, her eyes turning to yours slightly before she goes back to assessing each table. 

“Aye,” her voice is slightly lowered, not wanting others to hear, “The storm caught many travelers by surprise. There’s a group of young men coming in from Lolygrad,” a Western town, you note, a name you remember from ages ago, “Said they wanted to go up ‘nor but their horses cannae walk through the snow.” 

You chew on your lips, looking at the large group of men gathered near a corner, their beards and shaggy hair covering up most of their faces. Most of them had their backs to you, and the ones facing outwards were hunched, their shoulders sagging as they leaned their ears in to hear clearly what was being said. The rest of their features were pinched together as they let out howls of laughter, swinging their mugs of beer around as they listened to one of their members tell an animated story. 

You slightly smiled at the hearty sound, against your own will.

“Oh, dear, before I forget,” Miss Murray suddenly turned around, gently holding your hands as you look a little bit down, “Ewan,” her son, another worker at the tavern, the poor fellow who was tasked with almost every job, including getting the hefty tree trunks cut into bits, “Said he saw ‘ye heaving that barrow through the snow-” you began to shake your head, knowing what she was going to say but she raised a hand midway to stop you. 

“He told me to tell ‘ye to leave it near the stables. When the snow has settled and thaws a bit, he’ll bring it to ‘ye.” 

Your brows furrow, lips parting slightly as you go to protest. 

“But what about the firewood? I can’t lug it up on my own,” you joke a little bit, your lips quivering as Mis Murray smiles, patting your arm as she shakes her head. 

“Ye’ve brought us enough wood to supply a week, maybe even more,” she says, and you look behind your shoulder at the overflowing bin, knowing there were at least three more filled with logs waiting out back, “Give yerself a rest dear.” Her kind face looks at you in such a way that you can’t argue, sighing deeply through your nose as you debate it. You have enough coins to last you for a while, and seeing that you already have some bread and food prepared, it shouldn’t be much of an issue. So you nod.

You move to get your gloves, pulling them on as you head back out through the kitchen. You brace yourself for the cold, wrapping your scarf tighter around your neck and throwing your hood over your head as you open the door, quickly leaving and shutting it, knowing how much he cooks bickered when you let the air in.

You keep your head down, nose scrunching as your boots crunch as you walk through the snow, nearing the corner of the tavern, the one that rounds into the road that leads you back home before a yell catches your attention. 

It comes from behind you, the sound slightly muffled with the hood and scarf slightly covering your ears, but you glance over your shoulder to see what it was. 

In the distance, one of the men is waving over to you, his body illuminated slightly from behind from one of the lit torches that hang on the wall of the stables. Your eyes squint, moving a few steps closer as you try to make out what he was saying.

“...glove,” is all you make out, the wind roaring around you not helping. But he waves a red glove around, and you look to your hands to see that your right glove was missing. It had been so cold that you didn’t notice it had been blown away, the only thing covering your hand being your bandages. 

You shake your head, rolling your eyes at the thought, and slightly jog back, bringing your hand to your lips as you blow some hot air on it. Your cheeks feel like they're on fire with how freezing it is, the tip of your nose about to fall off, but you’re able to muster up a thankful smile as you near the man. 

“Thank you!” you call out, laughing a little bit at the absurdity of it all, boots scrunching and sounding like ice being shaved as you run a little bit closer to him, the man taking a few steps himself so that you wouldn’t have to go the full distance, and you squint your eyes more, trying to make out his blurry appearance that’s slightly coming to as he nears another torch, “It’s so cold that I didn’t even notice…” 

You stop. 

It seems like time has stopped. 

The snow seems to have frozen in mid-air, not falling as it stops around you. The wind no longer howls, but has fallen silent. The snow on the ground doesn't glisten, the torches lit with fire slowing down.

Your lungs don’t work. You can’t feel any air coming in through your nose. It might be because your nose refused to inhale. You can’t feel your heart, can’t feel a singular beat to keep you alive. Your pulse has fallen silent, your ears hearing every sound but no sound at all.

Gojo seems to have stopped breathing as well. 

His hand is still reaching out, your glove held tightly in his fingers as he stares, 

And you stare back. 

Your chest heaves out a single puff of air.

You blink once before everything suddenly goes black. 

—

“...is it really…?” 

“...never found a…thought she had…there must be…” 

“..last time I saw him look like that…”

There are multiple voices that blend together, and you can’t tell what’s happening aside from the fact that you can’t feel your limbs and your eyes feel like they’ve been turned to lead. You can’t open them, can’t move, can’t do anything but try to figure out what is happening around you.

“...doubt he knew,” a voice, louder and more clear than the rest fills your ears, sounding a little less like it was coming from underwater, “...searched for months…looks like her…” 

Her? 

The conversations around you continue, and you feel your fingers slightly twitching, a good sign that you weren’t completely incapable of moving. You feel your lashes flutter, lips parting a little bit. 

You try to listen more to the voices, but suddenly a loud slam happens from somewhere in the room. You nearly flinch, eyes moving back and forth between your lids and you will yourself to sit up, to do something.

The voices suddenly all fall silent, and your ears are becoming more in tune because you can pick up on the heavy thud that rings around the walls, loud but quiet at the same time, heavy and deep.

The sound nears your ears before it completely stops. 

You feel a touch, light, barely there, but you feel it. It’s the grace of a feather upon your body, a fingertip that slightly moves across skin. Your pointer finger moves a little bit, but it’s so miniscule that you doubt the touch noticed. 

It’s familiar, you think to yourself, you’ve felt this touch before. It wasn’t Miss Murray, for her fingers were more round and rough. It wasn’t foreign, because sometimes you still got off put by a stranger's touch. This was something you knew once, had carded somewhere in your mind when your skin felt raw and barren.

“Nothing?” 

The voice, it’s even more familiar. You hear it not only settle deep into your eardrums, but it rattles around your head, flowing down into your blood, seeping into your bones. Your brows scrunch a little bit, and you feel like a little bit of life is flooding back into you. Your toes curl in your boots, fingers itching against the wooden surface you feel yourself lying back upon. 

“Nothing at all?” 

That voice. The touch. The feel of those fingers against your skin, the way the voice breathes. 

Gojo.  

Your eyes suddenly snap open, your chest concaving in as you take in a big gasp of air. You shoot upwards, your hands resting on either side of you as they balance you on the table, your chest moving up and down with big movements as you look around wildly. 

The men that surrounded the table were the same men you saw earlier that night. But you know them all. Samson, Ren, Kenji, Declan, Koji. You remember now, how they all challenged each other to grow the longest hair and beard in the winter months, the winner taking the head of a hog they had hunted. Malcolm, Oisín, Shiro, Genji. 

They all stared back at you, their faces clammy and pale, as if they were staring at a ghost. 

Your body is shaking, your neck turning when you look to your side. 

Gojo. 

There’s a hitch in your breathing, your lips trembling when your eyes take in his face. 

Those eyes, the same eyes that stared back at you the day you married him. A foggy storm, oceans clashing upon each other, dark and messy. His hair was as white as the falling snow right outside the window, slightly longer than what you remembered, but still the same shape. 

His lips, red as the blood that stained the bandages around your hands. You take in the shape of his nose, the lashes upon his lids. The sharp line of his jaw, the slight twitch of his eyes. You take in the lifeless appearance of his skin, his cheeks lacking their usual pink hue. His figure looks even sturdier, more pronounced muscles around his shoulders and chest, the fabric around his arms tight. He looks exactly like you imagine him each night. 

You had forgotten some little things over time; like the scar near his left ear or the mole above his brow. You don’t remember how there was a slight crook in his nose from when he had broken it as a child from falling down a tree, but it’s still him. It’s Gojo.

Your fingers itch to touch his face. Your nails dig into the wood. 

You look at him. Look at the way his chest rises with each breath. This wasn’t a dream. This was him. He was real and staring back at you. 

You had to get out. 

It feels like a force pushes your body forward. You don’t know what strength it was that allowed you to swing your legs over the table, what power it was that allowed you to lurch yourself away and fall into him. He doesn’t budge, doesn’t falter, but you hear the others around you exclaiming some things in surprise at your sudden movements. 

You don’t stay on him for too long, forcing your feet that feel like iron ore to take one step at a time. You limp and stumble your way through, blindly grabbing for things as you pick up your pace, not looking over your shoulders as your hand reaches for the door. 

“Come back.” 

It’s his voice. You feel yourself shiver at the sound. 

But you don’t know what to do except escape, your palm touching the door knob. 

“Come. Back.” His voice is steady, biting, warning, and he doesn’t say anything else because this itself is the extent of what he’s willing to say. 

You pause, not looking behind you, your knees shaking as you support yourself upright on the door, one hand sprawled out on it as you heave. You feel like throwing up, feel like your head is about to burst. 

This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. 

You feel your body shaking, your arms quivering, your legs wobbling. Your shoulders are moving up and down as you struggle to breathe again, and you feel your legs slowly give out beneath you, and you crumble down onto the floor, your hand still on the door as the other one covers your mouth, trying to keep your broken soul contained.

“My lord, should we-” 

“Get out,” Gojo says, barely above a whisper, but perhaps the most forward and heavy command you’ve ever heard him give. 

There’s a confused silence that follows, his men faltering with the sudden order. 

“But-” 

“Out!” He roars, and you don’t make a move from the door, can’t find a bone in your body that has the ability to pull yourself away. 

Thankfully, you think this is one of the more advanced rooms of the tavern, and when you hear the patter of footsteps and a door latch open from another side of the room, one that most likely leads to an office that has another door out to the hallways. It takes a minute, but the footsteps begin to slow and finally they cease, the door quickly clicking shut as the last man closes it behind him. 

But there’s still one person remaining, and you could distinguish who it was by the sound of his breathing alone.

Your back is still facing him, your hands moving to hold your head as you fall sideways to the wall next to you, your hands moving down to hide your sweaty and clammy face from the one person you had convinced yourself you’d never see again.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move. 

You curl your legs up to your chest in an effort to hide as much as yourself away from him as possible. It feels like your heart isn’t working correctly. It rattles around at an odd pace in the limited space of your rib cage, bouncing around erratically, trying to warn you that something was wrong. Your hands grasp at your chest, fingers digging into the skin as you try to calm it down. 

But you soon realize that that’s not your only problem. Your head was spinning in a way that made you see twos of everything, your forehead beading with sweat. It feels like you’ve lost control over any of your movements, your body working as one, your mind as a totally separate entity. You wondered if this was you dying, if your body had suddenly given up.

“Slow your breathing down.” 

You falter, eyes looking above your direct line of sight which was staring at the wall adjacent to you, traveling upwards when you slowly looked up and saw muddy boots, then a familiar pair of black trousers, upwards till you landed on his chest and then his chin. You see his face, looking down at your form, his eyes dark but focused on your face, his lips pulled into a thin line. You hadn’t heard him come near you, but you also doubt you’d hear a canon go off in this state. 

Gojo.

You shake your head, looking instantly away from him as your lips tremble, snot falling from your nose as you look anywhere else. It seems difficult to breathe, the simple but tiring task bordering on impossible.

You can’t see him, but hear a small thump sound a few seconds later. You glance from above your lashes to see that he’s taken a seat, resting his back on the wall that’s facing yours. His legs are sprawled out, long things that you used to tease him about, and the tip of his boots almost reach your knees. 

“Reach your hand out,” he says after a beat of silence. 

You almost scoff at the insanity of it. 

But you look at him, truly look him in the eyes this time, and see that he’s being serious. 

You look back down to your shaking hands, cold and still bandaged up, and then back to him. It feels unreal. You feel your hands shake even more when your mind computes again that it’s Gojo that’s two feet in front of you. 

“One hand at a time,” Gojo says, his voice lowered, and he demonstrates by sitting up a little bit, leaning a breathe closer, still feet away from you as he lifts his hand up from where it was resting on his thigh, holding it up in the air, fingers sprawled from each other, “Like this.”

Your mind tells you to move, just a little bit, and your fingers twitch against your knees that were sitting close to your chest. It takes a few seconds but you will raise your hands upwards, slowly, gently, just like he did. It’s shaking, he isn’t, but he doesn’t say anything about it. 

His eyes look over the bandages on your hand. Some spots are dotted with red blood from your most recent cuts. He looks at your fingers, the dirt beneath your nails and the way they’re cut at odd angles. He finally focuses on your fourth finger, lingering on its bareness, and you don’t realize in that moment just how much he was mourning the absence of your wedding ring. 

“Bring it away from your body,” his voice is barely a whisper, thick with unspoken emotions that have plagued him for the past year and a half, his own eyes glossing over slightly when he takes you in, just as you were doing to him.

You find that in these last moments your erratic breathing has slowed down a bit, so you go the distance, gingerly stretching your arm out so that your hand is straight in front of you, still trembling just a bit. 

“I’m going to hold your hand with mine. It helps, I promise.” 

I promise. 

Your teeth clatter against each other, your tongue laying flat and like a stone in your mouth. You can’t speak yet, but there’s a sharp look in his eyes. The same one that happened whenever he made his promises to you. Ones he’d never break. 

So you slowly tilt your head down in a small nod. 

He watches this, observing your behavior. He shows you his hand, never putting it down, just carefully outstretching his arm like you did, and he moves a little bit away from the wall to get a little closer to you.

You never blink as you watch his hand stretch out towards yours, fingers straight, and in a few seconds they hover above yours. He’s not wearing his ring, you note, but put your focus on the fact that in another moment his skin is touching your skin, his fingers curling slowly over yours. In another moment, his hand moves, gently holding yours in his. That touch, the same touch you feel like a lingering ache at night.

The two of you don’t say anything, looking at where your hands meet with bated breath.

The touch was grounding. You feel his fingers against your palm, long and steady, unlike your own. His skin is warm, comforting, inviting. It’s not soft, but it never was. Years of yielding swords, bows, spears, using his fists as means of destruction caused that. But when he held you, it never felt like the hands of a warrior, just of a man. Your own fingers stretch outwards, your tips gracing his large hand, slightly above his wrist, where his pulse point is. You try to forget that the last time you touched him was so long ago 

“Better?” He asks simply, taking in how your chest had slowed its movements, the sweat on your forehead stopping. Your eyes are still glossy, but he knows it’s more than just an episode that’s causing that. 

You swallow thickly, looking down at your hands and not to him as you nod again.

There’s a silence that follows, the only sound being the small exhale that you would give, and his slight inhale. 

You’re the first to move, your hand going slack in his as you begin to pull away. His own finger twitches, not wanting to let go for a minute, but he falters and lets you move away, resting your back up against the wall as you cradle the hand close to your chest, as if it was searing. 

Gojo moves back too, his shoulders square as his hands go to rest on his thighs again, letting out a large puff of air through his lips. After another moment his head dips, fists clenched as he pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezing shut as if he too can’t believe any of this. He runs a hand through his white hair, pushing it back, before he allows himself to open his eyes again and stare at you. 

“I’ve looked for you for sixteen months.” 

You look at him blankly, but inside something cracks. 

“I thought you were dead after the first eight,” Gojo says, “So I've just been searching for your body.”

You look away from him, the sight of him here and speaking to you too much to bear. 

He waits for you to say something, anything, a flash of anger crossing his face, his nose flaring and lips stretching thin as he tries to control himself. He had convinced himself for a while now that you were dead. He wondered what he’d do if he found you somewhere, not knowing how to prepare himself for the sight. 

But in the beginning, when he was sure that he’d find you, Gojo wondered about what he might say to you if he ever saw you again. He told himself that he’d yell, he’d beg you to tell him why you ran away, why you never wrote back, but his anger faded and dissipated the minute he saw you. The anger, the frustration, the pain, hurt, breaking, everything that he feels now is from seeing you alive, knowing that you were alive this whole time and never once said anything. The tears and the bite in his throat he has to fight back being from the sole reason of how much he missed you. 

He sees you here, alive, your chest moving with each breath. He sees the flutter of your lashes against your cheek, the plump of your lips. He sees your eyes, more tired and filled with unknown sorrow, but still that burning color he loved so much. He watches the way your arms wrap around yourself, the curve of your jaw and the way you try to blink away your tears. Gojo sees you and though there are small changes to your appearance, still remembers you being as beautiful as the day he last saw you.

His wife, Gojo thinks, his wife was alive after all this time.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he thinks his voice comes out breathy, almost like he was trying to stop himself from cracking in front of you, “Why didn’t you send a letter? Or…or a sign?”

You bite down on your lip, your head turned away from him so that he couldn’t see your face. You feel yourself choking as he speaks, your eyes stinging with tears again. You can’t do this, you can’t.

You blindly walk back into the other part of the room, where he and his men originally were. You hear him move instantly behind you, as if he was fearful you’d try to make a run for it again, but you’re searching for a pitcher, your throat dry and aching.

You stumble around, wiping away at your wet cheeks, hands stiff as you turn desperately to find anything, something to just wash away the biting and choking feeling you had that was settling deep in your chest. 

Your eyes almost light up when you see a pitcher, making your way through it as your fingers grasp the handle, finding a cup next to it as you bring it up. It’s heavy, filled with water, and although you’ve gotten stronger these past months lifting and carrying wood, you can’t seem to properly pour. 

It must be from how your hands are still shaking. Water pours messily from the sprout, getting everywhere but the cup. You let out a frustrated cry, wiping the tears away from the corners of your eyes with your elbow as you try again. 

Something stops you. You look over your shoulder to see Gojo, his hand hovering over your arm that’s holding the pitcher. Silently, he grabs it, fingers curling around the handle as you let go. He reaches for the cup in your hand, which you give him, and sniffles when he calmly pours some water for you, handing it back with the cup full. 

You take it after a beat of quiet, bringing it to your lips as you chug it down. You finish it in seconds, wiping your lips as you squeeze your eyes shut, feeling his heat radiating off of him from how close he was to you.

“You have to leave.” 

Your voice comes out frail and hoarse, and you're staring at him through tear stricken eyes, your lips pressed firmly into a little frown, one that you do to help you from crying even more. You cross your arms over your chest, wincing slightly when your bandage rubs the wrong way, but you refuse to drop your gaze from his.

“Y-you can’t know I’m here,” you’re shaking your head adamantly, stuttering as you think of everything that has happened and what it means, the repercussions that could come from it, all of your sacrifices amounting to nothing, “None of you can…please, gods, I…” You let out a gasp, hands covering your mouth as you frantically walk away from him, pacing around the vastness of the empty room. 

You run your hands over your face, wringing your fingers, fidgeting with the fabric of your bodice as you shake your head repeatedly. They know you’re here, they know you’re alive. If anybody finds out, if word gets out of where you are and your true identity, gods, what if the king finds out?

You’re muttering words to yourself, tears catching on your cheeks, chin, falling into your lips, and you phase Gojo out. You act like he’s no longer there. It feels like what you’ve done for the past year, pretending like his ghost, the thought of him, wasn’t haunting you when in fact it was at every single second of the day.

“Leave!” You shout, your voice hoarse, “Get out! Leave! Please!” You’re pleading with the gods above to make him listen to you, to cast away his stubbornness and pride and make him listen to your words just this once.

“Leave?” He says with a stutter, a chuckle of disbelief falling from his lips, “What are you sa-” 

“Get out!” You scream, cutting him off, pointing at his chest and to the door, “I don’t want you here! Go!”

He shouts your name, loud and clear, and you instantly stop. 

Your brows are furrowed down the middle, a crease between them, and you feel like your eyes are slightly twitching. You must look mad to him, not the person he once remembered. You hope he feels disgust, wanting to leave as soon as he gets a few words in. That would be ideal. Maybe he despises you so much he doesn’t talk about you ever again, satisfied to see just how poorly you’re doing by yourself

But to be fair, he doesn’t look any better himself. 

There are dark circles under his eyes. His skin seems flushed, but not in a good way. There’s a bead of sweat above his brow bone, his lips moving slightly as if he wants to yell, scream, cry, shout, but can’t figure out which one to do. The more you get a look at him the more you’re able to see the cracks in his usual appearance. The way he hides behind his strength but fails to use that strength to keep himself afloat. 

But oh, how you wish to walk to him, run to him. How you long to collapse in his chest, to feel his heartbeat against our cheek. How you want to feel those sturdy hands wrap themselves around you, give you an embrace you’ve been chasing for so long. You want to feel his skin, taste his tears. You want him, all of him. But you can’t, you remind yourself. He’s not yours to have anymore. 

“That’s it?” He bites out, his tone furious, “You haven’t seen me in over a year and that’s it? I have to leave?” He sputters, a bitter laugh falling from his lips as he rubs a hand across his jaw in disbelief, as if he can’t fathom the person that’s standing in front of himself right now is the person he nearly died trying to find.

You glance out the window, the snow storm still going strong. It’s as dark as ink outside, the only light that’s illuminating your faces coming from the candles lit that scatter across the room. You wish you were in the snow than in here, the freezing winds better than the hot and burning sensation you feel at the moment. 

“You…you don’t understand,” you plead quietly, “This isn’t-”

“What?” Gojo snaps, cutting you off as your mouth clams up, “This isn’t what? Simple? Easy to grasp?” He’s cracking, his demeanor slipping from calm to angry, ”How you ran away without any fucking warning? How you evaded all my guards? How you wound up here? What can I not understand? Because I’ve spent a year and a fucking half coming up with every single theory that could explain this!” His voice bounces off the walls and you wince slightly, face cracking as you sniffle, “So what? What is it? What can I not get that’s so difficult to comprehend?”

A strand of his hair has fallen onto his face and his eyes have gotten as dark blue as they can get. You let out a little sob, covering your mouth as you turn away from him, shaking your head again and again as you try to think, try to will yourself out of this. 

How could you explain any of this? How could you tell him without anything happening as a consequence? There’s no simple way. If you tell him the truth, who’s to say he’d believe you. And on the off chance he does, there’s no way he’d sit still and take it. All your efforts of keeping the two nations from war would break. If Gojo believed that his wife had been abducted due to order from the Southern king, a war was no longer the worst thing that could happen but full fledged destruction. Years of bloodshed and violence and everything you did would be for nothing. 

But if you didn’t tell him? If you lied? You didn’t know what to do or say, not expecting or preparing for a moment like this because you never thought it would happen. You tried to live blissfully unawares, hoping that your past life had eventually faded away. 

“Tell me,” he says again, his voice cracking, and his tone has fallen, it’s not angry, not the facade he was putting up because he could never be angry with you, could never yell at you and immediately regret his actions, “I’m here, I found you, so, so please, just…just tell me why,”

You jam your palms into your eyes, beginning to pace around the room again as you breathe deeply. 

“I, I didn’t know,” you don’t know what to say, how to lie, what to do to make any of this make sense, how to satisfy sixteen months of questions, prayers, hurt, in the little time you had, “I can’t…” you sigh through your nose, looking at him apologetically, cheeks shining in the candlelight as your lips tremble and you shake your head, giving him a small shrug, “I-I can’t tell you.” 

“Was it because I left?” He takes a few steps forward to get closer to you but falters when he sees how you take one back, his eyes confused, full of pain as he stammers, “Were…were you scared? Because I came back,” you let out another cry, hiccuping when you heard the tenderness and hurt in his voice, “I came back like I promised you I would.” And you shake your head to that and he pauses, hand clenching and unclenching as he tries to figure you out with your minimal words and even more limited movements.

“So…so why? Darling, please, just tell me why,” He’s begging you, and Gojo never begs. Not unless he needs to. Not unless it’s without anybody other than you. 

“You don’t - don’t understand,” your voice cracks as you wipe away your falling tears, “It’s n-not that.” How could he think you didn’t believe him? The thought that he even believed that, using it as a hypothesis breaks you even more and your chest shakes, fingers itching to hold him and tell him everything that happened.

Gojo looks like he’s struggling to think, like he doesn’t know what to do as he throws his arms in the air, his eyes pleading with you. You see a slight sheen in them, see the way they quiver, how maybe he too is crying. Maybe from frustration, maybe because he just missed seeing your face. 

“Then what?” He takes another tentative step closer and you don’t move, frozen in place, and he takes one more step to you, until he’s only a foot away, “Was it because of…because of the war? Because of what I did? Were you angry with me?” 

You lick your lips as you pursue them, squeezing your eyes shut as you cry even more. A sound tears from your throat, a sort of wail that you can’t control, and it’s one that you don’t mean to let out. You furiously wipe at your face, your head hanging low as you cross your arms across your stomach. It doesn’t take another second until you hear his boots thump along the floor, bringing himself to you as he pauses. And slowly, before you or Gojo knows what’s happening, you feel one of his arms circle your shoulders. Unknowing, a movement he wasn’t sure of. 

But then you break, falling into his chest as you sob, your arm flying upwards to grasp onto anything you could, fingers digging into the fabric of his coat, into his shoulders, around his waist. You can smell the faint lingering smell of smoke on him, the little hint of leather. You sniffle, fingers moving up towards his hair, wanting to feel it beneath your skin. You wanted to cherish it for a moment longer, like you should have all those months ago. You feel the sturdiness of his chest against yours, feel the buttons that engrave into your cheek. You feel him, all of him that there is to offer. 

You don’t realize how he does the same as you. The anger instantly faded when he felt your body against his, when he wrapped his arms around your frame. He could feel the flesh of your cheeks as he moved his hands across your face, over and down your torso as he grasped onto your waist. He wanted to push you away, force you to feel the pain he had all those months, but he couldn’t. He had you now, and he didn’t know how much longer he was allowed to. His lips are a breath away from your forehead, and he presses them to the crown of your head, his chest shaking as he cries silently, his tears wetting your hair. 

You don’t know why he holds you like he used to, why he comforts you like he still loves you. After all this time you thought that the only way he’d touch was if he were to touch you with a sword, banishing you from the North and from any of their territories if he saw you again. Not this. Never this.

If only you knew how upon feeling you, holding you close to his chest, he first took a breath of air in sixteen months. If only you knew how his heart started to pump, pump, pump, the way it was supposed to, and not the pathetic little beats it did just to simply keep him alive but wasn’t living until now. Because the truth was that he’d already forgiven you for what you did. He’d forgiven everything you had done up until this point and would forgive everything you do later, even if he wouldn’t be there to witness it. 

“I’m s-sorry,” you cry into his chest, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you chant, your words slurring together in a mixture of apologies, guilt, longing, hurt, and every emotion you’ve bottled up and decided to put away, hoping you’d never have to touch them again. 

It was a culmination of months away from the only man you had ever loved. Months of barely surviving, living through peoples scraps and trash as you tried to run away as far away from the only home you had ever known in a last ditch effort to be of some help to the people you cared about. It was a broken plea for Gojo to hear everything you had suffered in just two repeated words, knowing that he could never truly know what you had done and why you had done it unless you told him yourself. He just hugs you tighter, his arms caging you in as you bring yours close to your chest, your hand lying against his torso as your body shakes with cries. His hand rubs up and down your back, fingers curling into your cloak as he just nods, not trusting his own voice, just holding you with as much strength he could muster without crushing you.

Gojo waited for sixteen months, and he’d be damned if he let go of you now. Not after countless nights of staying awake and days riding across the four nations, through rain and mud, snow and storm, heat and desert, weeks spent without barely a blink of sleep, all in efforts to find you. And now he has. And he isn't letting you go. Not now, not ever again.

“Did you mean what you wrote?” He asks against your head, his lips falling open in a silent cry as his hands shake against your body. You squeeze your hands, balling them into fists against his chest. No, you want to scream, no!

“I have to leave. I could never, under any gods’ sky, pretend to keep loving a man as barbarous as you,” his voice is choked, the sentence falling from his lips at such a heart wrenching rate, and a part of your mind flashes to that fated night when the man put that knife to your throat and forced you to copy down those words, the same ones he’s saying now, the words that he memorized after reading your farewell letter over and over again, the letters searing into his mind, “Did you mean that?” You hear how Gojo’s voice cracks, as if hearing you admit to that would be a fate worse than death, as if he regrets asking the question that’s been plaguing him for months. 

You feel your tears soak through his coat, your teeth biting into your lips as you control yourself, taking every part of your soul that wants to crawl out and scream, from shaking your head. So you just go limp against him, nails digging into your palms.

“Look at me,” he whispers, his hand trailing up from your back, floating over your side as it comes upwards to grab at the side of your head which was hidden away in his chest. You don’t fight him as his fingers latch under the skin of your jaw, or when he cups your face as gently as he possibly could, his touch like a feather as he angles you upwards to look at him.

When you see his face you let out a little shaky exhale, wet and messy as you feel his warmth travel from his fingers to your body, tingling everywhere, a certain type of warmth that you had been missing for a while and only came back because the other half of your soul did. 

“Tell me you meant it, p-please,” his voice travels across the walls of the room, heavy, barely above a whisper but you hear every crack, every single way he breaks down, no longer able to keep himself strong, “That you ran away because you never loved me, and I’ll…I’ll leave,” his thumb rubs up and down your jaw, a movement he doesn’t even realize he’s doing, something that’s second nature to him and a tear falls from the corner of his eyes, his lashes fluttering as he tries to blink them away, “I’ll leave and you’ll never have to worry about me ever again.”

No, no no, no this can’t be happening all over again. You feel like you’re going insane, his thumb wiping away your tears as you stare silently at him, your lips chapped as you shake your head slightly, knowing the movement itself just cost you everything.  You see the way a little spark makes its way onto his face and you shake your head even more at that, not wanting him to get any sort of idea. 

“N-no, no, no,” you mutter, gasping for air, his hand falling a little bit but you chase after his touch, your head falling into his palm like it was meant to, “No, I…I didn’t want to, I m-mean I didn’t, I,” you’re stammering, words falling out like vomit and you can’t control them. 

You press your cold fingers to your eyes, shaking your head as if it’s the only thing you can do.

“I,” you sigh, looking up at him with a breaking look, “I d-didn’t but,” he deflates a little bit and it hurts to see the most strongest person you’ve ever seen look so broken, “But I can’t,” you whisper the last word with as much strength as you could, “I can’t go back.” 

Gojo lets out a puff of air, his shoulders rising and falling, his hand pulling away from your face, most likely thinking you didn’t want it there when it was the only thing you wanted, the only thing you longed for when you were alone and slept with one eye open.

He looks lost, confused, not knowing what to say to make any sense of this.

You take a step back.

“Then,” he runs a hand through his hair, something he does when he is stressed, not knowing what else to do with his hands, “Why did you write it? Why…why, why did you leave?”

You look away, your mouth opening slightly before you close it again, knowing your best option was to stay silent.

“Was…was there someone else?” There’s a slight tremor in his voice, no malice, no blaming, just curiosity, “Someone here?” 

You quickly shake your head, hiccuping a little bit as your nose scrunches up, sniffing when you vehemently try to silently tell him no, that the only person you’ve loved and can ever love was him. That you’d rather stab a stake through your heart that makes room in your heart for anybody else but him.

“Y-you didn’t do anything,” you murmur, a tear slipping down your nose as you shudder, “It wasn’t because of you.”

“Then why?” He presses quickly, pleading, his cheeks red and flushes as he begs for you to talk, to say something other than the empty clues you’re giving him, “If, if not because of another person then…then what possible reason did you have for leaving?” Gojo pauses to catch his breath, glancing away from you as he tries to regain composure, “You left without any other reasons telling me why, coming to a random town on the eastern coast with nobody you know here. It’s,” he laughs to himself, shaking his head as he shrugs indifferently, “It’s not like you were forced to leave, so…so why, why darling, why?” 

There’s a hitch in your breathing when he utters the simple words. It’s not like you were forced to. 

Your mind flashes quickly with memories of that night, the man on top of you, the knife pressed to your throat, urging you to write that letter. You remember waking up on his horse, your hands bound, trying to piece together what was happening. You think back to his greasy hair, the oily smile, his cruel eyes. You can still hear his gruff voice in your ear, the way he ordered you around your own room as if you were his dog, doing whatever he asked you to to spare the lives of those outside the door. You remember his hot breath on your skin, the weight of his body on yours, the way his eyes raked over your figure. You remember him lying on the ground, bloodied, calling you names as you ran away with his horse. 

Gojo calls your name, once and then twice when you don’t acknowledge him the first time. 

He stares at your body with furrowed brows, taking in the way your chest heaves, your fingers digging into your sides as you stare blankly out the window.

Gojo takes a few brisk paces to where you were, his hands grabbing your elbows, not tightly, just to force you out of your busy mind, his head shaking in utter confusion at the way you suddenly left, and you slowly blink out of your stupor, looking at him and his questioning eyes. 

There’s a strange look on your face, one he doesn’t recognize. 

His mouth parts a little bit, eyes squinting together as he assesses you. He lets out a small laugh, a disbelieving, questioning one, one that he can’t control because you didn’t react like this to any of his other questions.

“You…” his hand falls from your elbow, hovering over the back of your head, gently holding your nape, and you feel like a magnet, drawn to him, your hands balled by your side to keep you from doing something you’d regret, “You weren’t…forced to leave…right?”

You just stare at him.

You count to five, trying to steady your breaths. You want to shake your head, to disagree with his question even though it was the only correct thing, but your body stops you from doing that. Maybe it was fighting back, begging for you to tell him the truth. You evade eye contact from him, your tongue resting on the roof of your mouth and you swallow thickly, forcing down the bile.

But Gojo knows you, knows how to read your quiet expressions and little ticks. You don’t do anything but stay quiet. Soon, after a few seconds pass and he stares longer at your face, your silence becomes your only answer.

His hand falls away from your head, taking a few steps back as if the air had been punched from his lungs.

It was one of the first things he thought when he was given your letter. Thought you had been abducted, and entertained the idea for as long as he could. But there were just no signs of a forced entry, your bags packed and missing some clothes. He read your letter over and over again, and when they never found you, he began to believe the words you had written down. Different ideas came to him, ones of a different lover, ones that made him believe you truly never loved him, ones that said you had run away on your own free will. 

He covers his mouth with his hand, a tremor in his breath when you glanced at him with a sheen in your eyes.

“But…?” 

There’s no answer, no need for one.

You shrug a little bit, wiping at your cheeks once again as you purse your lips together, sniffing as you try to keep everything at bay.

“I, um,” you swallow your spit back, biting your lip as you think for a second, think before the dam breaks and you realize it useless to keep any of this in anymore because Gojo knows and it’s worthless to keep it a secret, “A man came a few nights after you had left. Through my window.”

You peek over at Gojo and quickly glance away because the look on his face is too much to process. You keep your eyes trained on the corner of a carpet, at the fraying end as you decide to continue. 

“He was huge, ‘Toru, like nothing you’ve ever seen,” you say with a small laugh, one because this entire situation is too much to handle, your hands moving away from your body as you show his width with the space between them, “He told me he’d cut my tongue out if I screamed, so I…I didn’t.” 

You sniffle again, chewing on the inside of your cheek, pausing slightly as your jaw ticks the more you recall that night.

“H-he had this letter in his, uh,” you sigh, trying to control your breathing as you blink rapidly, brows furrowed as you motion to your chest, “In his pocket. He told me to write the same words down b-but in my own handwriting.” 

Gojo feels his knees give out, holding onto one of the pillars of the bed next to him to keep himself upright, his eyes never leaving your lips, his head suddenly feeling like it was about to detach from his body. 

“I was told to pack some b-bags and clothes,” you wave your hands around as if that wasn’t important, “And I think he, uh, hit me in the back of my head,” your hand rises to your head, as if you could still feel the pulsing feeling from when you had woken up days later, “So I was out for five, six? Six days, I think, before I woke up again and was on his horse.”

The words fell from your mouth like silk, things you had been wanting to see forever spilling like water from a pitcher, and you couldn't stop yourself, the only thing your mouth was willing to do was continue.

“He said that somebody had sent him. Some bidding for the king, I guess. I think sometime between his talking I realized he was sent to kill me, dump my body in the woods so you’d think I had left. So I knew I had to leave, fight my way out somehow. And…and I don’t know…how, but,” you chuckle to yourself, shrugging at the thought of you when you broke free from your restraints and overpowered him, the look of surprise in his gnarly face when you dug the knife into his ribs, “But I was able to get away from him. I might’ve killed him, I didn’t check.”

Your blurry eyes blink upwards to Gojo as your head tilts to the side as you give him a small smile, full of unsaid words and melancholy feelings.

“I wanted to go back, back home to you and - and everything but,” your teeth dig into your bottom lip as the two of you stare back at each other through tears and even more tears, “But he said that if I had committed treason of the highest degree, that,” your teeth rattle, “That you’d never take me back. And that if they’d send more people like him. To hurt people l-like you, like Alina, my friends, your parents, e-everyone I cared for, everyone that you care for,” you can’t control the little cry that escape your lips, your hand flying upwards to your throat as you give yourself a second, “And I thought to myself that…that maybe if I ran away, if you thought that I no longer wanted to b-be your wife then,” one shoulder lifts up in a sad shrug, “Then maybe everything would resolve itself. That there’d be no war to fight, no cause to die for.”

You wait for a second, air lodged in your lungs.

“I nearly ended up dead on the side of a trail,” you motion around you, to the tavern, the snow, the town, “A lady found me and took me here. I,” you swallow thickly, tears caught on your lashes, “I’ve been here ever since.”

You look at him but he isn’t looking at you. You want him to look up, just this once, but he doesn't and you allow him his own time to think. You gnaw on your lips, fingers fidgeting with themselves as you tilt your head a little bit.

“I…” Your head tilts down to your chest, your words dying on your tongue, but there’s a sudden warmth that takes over you and you feel your legs being lifted from the ground as strong arms circle around your waist, your body almost flying back with the force and speed you were picked up with. You feel your arm go to circle around your head, holding you close to his face as he hugs you to himself like he never has before.

Your legs wrap around his torso, your cheek pressing against his and you cry, you let yourself let go of the tears, let go of the lost time, let go of all the feelings you told yourself you aren't allowed to feel, and wrapped your arms tightly around his shoulders and neck, holding him as close as you could to you.

“I j-just wanted to help,” you murmur wetly, choking as you sob, “I didn’t want anybody else to - to get hurt,” you tell him in broken phrases, “I didn’t want you to get h-hurt…”

He shushes you, lips kissing the side of your face, the corners of your eyes, your cheeks, the crown of your head, your ears, everything he could reach, feverishly. You could taste the saltiness of his own tears on your tongue, could feel his heart beating quickly from the pulse on his neck. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers against your skin, his eyes squeezing shut as he shakes his head over and over again, “I’m so sorry sweetheart, I’m sorry,” his arms grasp onto you tighter, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, gods, I’m sorry, I’m sorry darling, oh gods, I’m sorry,” you laugh weakly at his muttered apologies, at the way it sounds like he’s praying and apologizing at the same time; for your forgiveness, for you to believe that he was more sorry than any man has been and could be in his life.

“I s-should’ve stayed,” he cries out, his lips trembling as he kisses your forehead, between your eyebrows, your lids, “I should never have left,” you shake your head, trying to stop him but you can’t, “I…I shouldn’t have left, shit, gods, it’s m-my fault, I should’ve-”

“It’s not your fault,” you murmur against his ear, kissing his jaw softly, pulling away a little bit so that you could look him in the eyes, shaking your head a firmly as you could, holding onto the side of his face in your shaking hands, “Don’t you ever, e-ever, say that...you couldn’t - you couldn’t have known.” You shake with cries as you try to smile, try to rake your fingers through his hair to calm him down, twirling his hair around like you used to when you’d wake up next to him. You unlatch your legs from his waist, slowly setting them down as you stand up on your own, your hands still tangled with each other in his hair.

“I never stopped loving you,” you whisper, watching the way his face crumbled upon hearing your words, “When…when I was starving and didn’t know if I’d make it through the night, I tried to pretend you were beside me. And,” your shoulders shake again, “And when I didn’t want to wake up I pretended I was in o-our bed, about to wake up next to you. Everything - everything I did was for you, and I…I know you might hate me for it, despise me for running away but…” you trail off, your thumb running across his cheekbones, his brows, his nose, “But I hoped that one day you’d understand why.” 

You finish your words, staring at him as he stares at you, a storm happening behind those irises you loved so much. You deflate, knowing that this must be your final goodbye. That he’d never want to get back with somebody who’d ruin their life so easily, who’d break his heart so quickly and without any remorse. You try to cherish the way he looked, try to engrain the little features you had forgotten in your head for when he eventually pulled away and wasn’t yours again. You open your mouth, wanting to tell him that you understand if he no longer shares the same feelings.

“I’m-” 

His lips slam against yours, his hand behind your head to keep you steady as you stumble a little bit. Your arms go up to hold onto his, surprised and taken aback by the sudden movement. He pulls away almost as quickly as he had moved in, an apologetic look flashing across his face.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters breathlessly, his lips shining with spit, “I-” 

This time it’s you who cuts him off, reaching your hands upwards to tangle back into his hair as your lips slot against and move roughly against his, mixing your tears, spit, love and pain with one another as he eagerly meets you in the middle with another hand sprawled out across your back, pulling you closer to him.

You angle your head upwards, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as your lips press harshly against one another. They move in tandem, in perfect synch, as if you hadn’t spent one day away from each other but still with so much passion as if to make up for the months spent without one another.

You moan slightly, your lips opening as the sound escapes you, and he surges forward, his tongue meshing with yours as he licks into your mouth, wanting to taste you, to drink from you as if he hadn’t had a proper sip to satiate his thirst in over sixteen months. His lips are soft and plump, just like you remember, and your eyelashes flutter against your cheek at the feeling of him panting into you like a mad man who was suddenly becoming sane.

The hand that he had resting on your back moves upwards, grabign and kneading at your hips, cupping your waist as you whine at the spark his touch brings, feeling lightheaded when he pulls away slightly just to bite down on your bottom lip with his teeth, his nose nudging against yours as you try to catch your breath. 

“I missed you,” he whispers against your lips, two hands cradling each side of your face, “So, so much. I never stopped looking for you,” you laugh through your tears, your eyebrows quivering as you hold onto him, “I could barely sleep since you’ve been gone and the only reason I did was so that I could dream of you.” 

You pull his neck down to press one, two, three chaste and salty kisses against his trembling lips.

“I would have taken you back even if you had burned the entirety of the North,” Gojo tell you in a low tone, “I would have taken you back even if you carved my heart out,” he kisses the tip of your nose tenderly, “Which you damn near did with that letter.” You laugh softly, his thumbs on either side of your lips as he cradles your face in the palms of his hands.

“I wish I never wrote it,” you say quickly, scrambling, your eyes darting around, “I never…” but he hushes you, shaking his head as he bring your head forward to place a longing and slow kiss on your forehead, one hand at the nape of your neck to force you look him in the eyes. 

“If he,” he pauses, his nose flaring at the mention of the man who tore you away from him, he controls the anger that boils and bubbles at his flesh at the thought of him touching you, threatening you, hurting you, taking you away from him, but he knows it’s not the time for that right now, he’ll deliver chastisement when he gets the chance, “If that man told you to kill me, to kill an entire group of my men so that he wouldn’t hurt you, I’d let you it in a heartbeat,” you feel him wipe a tear away, looking at your features, taking in everything he had been nearly dying without for so long.

“I’m so proud of you, my darling girl,” he says delicately and your eyes well up at his words, never hearing them before and never expecting Gojo to be the one to tell you after everything that you had done, “Going through what you did? Surviving on your own? Gods,” he lets out a little chuckle, dipping his head down so it could rest on your own, smiling at you through his own tears, “That’s what I’d expect from my wife.”

Your mouth parts a little bit and you sniffle, holding onto the back of his arms like he’s your anchor, a tether to reality, to show you that this isn’t a dream and that you’d wake up in your shack but that he’s here.

You feel his arms go lower though, grabbing your thighs from behind your skirts and petticoat, a sign that he wanted you to jump. So you oblige him, knowing he’d catch you regardless, and you silently wrap your legs around him again as his lips find yours once more, your chests moving up and down with labored breaths, but you don't’ need air, you just need him.

“Bed,” you murmur against his feverish lips, in between his dizzying kisses as your fingers slightly pull at his white strands, “P-please,”

Gojo pulls a little bit away, his eyes falling to your lips and then back up, almost in silent questioning. You nod once, needing for him to move, but he gets the gist, a smile, the first one you had seen that night, the first one from him you had seen in over a year, breaks onto his face, and he moves slightly back, nudging you with his nose to kiss him again and you do. 

When his thighs hit the back of the bed you feel like a feather as he twists you around in his arms, your hands never disconnecting from his shoulders he gingerly puts you against the mattress, climbing over your body to resume his movements. 

The two of you work in tandem, and you know when he’s growing restless, when he wants to explore the rest of your body. His lips trail from your lips to your jaw, pressing wet and splotchy kisses against the skin you have there before his lips move downwards, towards your throat. 

You lift your chin a little bit, giving him more access as he sucks your skin into his mouth. You let out a little whimper at the feeling, his teeth grazing your soft skin, and one of your mouth slowly falls open in a little part. 

Gojo feels like he’s finally taken his first breath of air when he sees the way he’s marking up your skin, and he knows that once he’s started, there’s doubt he’d ever stop. There’s sixteen months of his lips and touch and mark absent from your skin, and he wants to make up for that.

His hands are at your waist, but his fingers dig into the fabric covering it, frustrated with the barrier that’s still between the two of you.

Your eyes creep open when you feel him pull away, looking at his large body looming over yours with a little pout, one that disappear and melts into a little grin when you see him fumbling with the knot of your cloak, looking even more frustrated with trying to take off your bodice as quickly as possible.

“Here,” you whisper gently, your hand holding his as you move it away, sitting up on your elbows as you undo the knot, shrugging off the layer of warmth as you throw it to the side, “There’s a lace up in the back,” you say, about to twist your body around to show him how to undo the bodice before you hear a loud, almost animated riiip!

You stare down at shock, your chest completely exposed to him, naked and bare, and then to his hands, the culprits for tearing the fabric as if it was a piece of parchment and not heavily lined and stitched top.

Your mouth drops open, hands flying to cover your breasts, but he tsks, swatting your hands aside. 

“H-hey!” You exclaim, laughing a little bit at the way his eyes look at you, his brow cocked, heat blossoming across your cheeks and chest, your nipples pebbling in the cold air, “You can’t just - just rip it!” 

Gojo chuckles, rolling his eyes, moving up to get closer to your face as he leans down, pressing another searing kiss against your lips. 

“I didn’t wait all these months just to be halted by lace,” he mutters, his voice thick and primal and your breathing hitches at the sound, the near growl he has in his tone, and you don’t have it in you to argue with him, desperately needing his hands on you as if you’d die without his touch.

His head dips as he looks down, his eyes finally falling onto your tits, your nipples, your chest that moves up and down with each exhale, and feels his mouth suddenly go dry. He remembers the first time he saw your naked top, remembers that night in the fields vividly, but now that he’s spent so long without being able to look at them, it feels as if he’s seeing you like this for the first time all over again.

“Wait,” you sputter out quickly, your hands going up to your chest again and this time Gojo moves away, quickly and giving you some space as you sit up a little bit against the pillows and backboard, chewing on your lip in embarrassment, “I, um, I might look different, from…from the last time you saw me.” 

His white brows pinch together in confusion, but he lets you have the time to gather the words, no matter how much they make you want to see yourself aflame in shame.

The bandages around your hands had slipped off with all the movement, your skin riddles with small scars and bruises that came with chopping and hauling woods. You sometimes looked in your little mirror and saw somebody different.

“My hands,” you say, looking down at them, at the scratches from leaves and twigs, the coarseness on the pads of your fingers from wielding an axe for so many months, and you feel subconscious when his stare falls down to them, “And I…I don’t know, the rest of me, it’s not-” 

He cuts you off, pulling your hands away from your chest, but not for the reason you’d expect. He brings them up to his lips, pressing a kiss against each knuckle, the backs of them, the bottoms of your palms, and the only thing you could do is watch with bated breath.

“Do you want to know what I thought when I saw you again? Just outside, in the snow?” 

You shake your head, eyes peering at him with an air of curiosity.

“At first I thought that I had died,” he says with a chuckle, “But when I saw you, saw your face, your nose, your eyes, your eyebrows, your cheeks, your hands,” he saws with a little grin, squeezing them in his hands, “I thought that I was dreaming. You looked just like you did when I dreamed of you. And when you woke up, and I saw your eyes again, I felt the happiest I have since the day I last saw you.”

Your shoulders fall, the tension in them dissipating, and you smile gently at him. Of course Gojo would know how to ease your worries, even after a year and counting of not seeing you. And he pauses, a silent talk happening between the two of you, one where he wanted to make sure you were still comfortable. To which you nod, biting your lips a little bit in nervousness, good nervousness, as you do.

His large hands falter, fingers reaching to grab the soft mounds. You watch through your lids that were slightly dropping, the anticipation causing a heat to blossom in your core, and you bite your lip as you wait for him to move.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says in a hushed tone, wonder dripping from his voice as if he was seeing a statue come to life, a painting moving in front of him, “As beautiful as the day I last saw you,” his fingers rub soothing circles on your waist, “My beautiful girl,” he mutters, a small smile on his face that you mirror.

After another second of staring, Gojo makes his first decision, long slender fingers trailing up from your stomach, up your navel and to your left breast, cupping it, his thumb rubbing across your hard nipple as a small sigh escapes his lips. 

“G-gods,” he stammers, squeezing the flesh, feeling like a teenage boy rather than the man he’s grown up to be, “Soft,” he chokes out, leaning his head down, “So soft,” he murmurs, his lips latching onto it as you let out a gasp, his tongue rubbing over your areola and your back arches up into him. 

He sucks the tit into his mouth, his other hand moving upwards to squeeze and knead the other one, not wanting to leave her unattended. Your lashes flutter at the feeling, mouth dropping open in a quiet sigh when you feel his teeth scrape against your nipple, biting down on it a little bit as your fingers curl into his hair. 

“O-oh,” you’re able to say, “‘Toru, oh, oh gods,” you can’t think, can’t formulate a thought as he latches off with a pop, his chin dragging across your chest, his eyes never leaving yours as wrapped his swollen pink lips around your other tit.

He smiles a little bit at the sight of you crumbling from his mouth, flicking your nipple over with his tongue, biting down on this one as well as he moves upwards, sucking the skin around your breast, watching in satisfaction as dark hickeys bloom in the wake.

Your nails rake against his scalp, tugging a little harshly, but his eyes roll back at the feeling, loving the sting.

His lips continue to kiss your chest, moving down from the valley of your breasts and goes down, his spit shining in the candlelight as he kisses the soft skin of your stomach, just above your belly button and then lower, where the tear from your corset ends and the loops of your work skirt begins. 

You let out a whine, a keel as he sucks the skin into his mouth. 

“You’re s-such a tease,” you stutter out, and he looks at you from his white lashes as his lips make another mark, his tongue moving as he licks the spot, lovingly, and you try to smile back, but your head falls back against the pillow no matter how hard you tried. 

“I’m taking my time darling,” he corrects you, his hands moving the hem of your skirt, tugging it down a little bit but eyes eyes squint when he feels some resistance, “I need the woman I love to know just how much I cherish her,” he kisses your hip slowly, “Want her, “another kiss to your lower stomach, “Need her,” and he finishes by moving a little up to press a kiss to your sternum.

You catch your bottom lip beneath your teeth, one hand wringing into the sheets of the bed as you sigh shakily, the heat that’s in your core turning into a fire, one that is growing and burning you from inside out. 

Before everything happened, the two of you were burdened with the ever impending need of consummating the marriage. Gojo’s parents were understanding, never pushed the two of you, but the outside world seemed to ponder why your belly hadn’t grown in the months you had been together. Truth be told, you were always nervous, not knowing how to do it, what to do, where things go, and so you’d freak whenever the two of you got close to having sex. So Gojo would always pull back, assuring you that your comfort was the most important thing to him. And though there were nights when he's eating you out, bringing you to ruin on his tongue and fingers, but that was it. But now, it feels different. There was a growing desire in you that felt like it was about to burst the longer you didn’t feel him inside of you.

You can feel the ghost of his touch on your legs, the way his fingers trail slowly up your calves and to your knees, not long before settling on the meat of your thighs, squeezing them as he feels the soft plushness beneath him. 

It’s all so maddening.

“‘T-toru?” Your hands search for his, your chest moving with each labored breath, and you feel his hands move upwards, lacing his fingers between yours as his eyes search for what it was you wanted, “‘Toru, please, oh, please, I need you,” you murmur weakly, “Need you i-in me, please,” you beg, and see the way his pupils grow, his eyes barely even blue when you say the words inches away from his lips.

He lets out an animalistic grown, his eyes rolling back in his head as he plants a sloppy kiss against your lips, his hands falling down to the waistline of your skit, fingers fumbling to find the loop before he gives up, scrunching up the fabric between his fingers before you hear another rip. Looking down you see your skirt in tatters, the fabric looking like it had been mauled by a bear, and watch as he bundles it up and throws it to the side somewhere.

You go to argue but he raises a brow, wondering how you expected him to stay calm and put together when you utter such filthy words in his ear.

It takes you a second to find that you’re now completely naked beneath him, and while that doesn’t cause you to cover up the way you expected, you find yourself pouting a little bit, something that Gojo notices. 

“What?” He asks, his hand immediately cupping the side of your face, worried, “Is everything okay? Do you want to stop?” 

But you shake your head, hands pawing at his coat, nails scratching as you try to unloop the buttons. 

“‘S not fair,” you mumble, pointing to his chest and then to yours, your lips quirking up a little bit as your pout deepens, eyes all wide and open for him, the way you know makes his words turn to slurred speech, “I’m all bare and you’re…not…s’not fair ‘Toru,” there a little whine in your voice, one that causes his cheeks to go pink.

He grins, kissing your cheek apologetically as he nods in agreement. 

“You’re absolutely right darling,” he says, able to make quick work at tearing his coat off, swift finger fumbling to get his arms out of the sleeves, his hands going the either side of the tunic beneath him to lift it off and above his head, but the sudden touch of your hands against his skin makes him stop. 

He looks down to where your fingers are lying, atop his neck, your eyes wavering when you hook something out from underneath the dress shirt.

How could you have forgotten? 

You think to yourself, looking at the ring he had resting on the delicate gold chain. His wedding ring, the one he had told you ages ago he keeps around his neck so that it does fall off during training. Your fingers rub against it, feeling the cold sting of the gold, a familiar thing. But that wasn’t what caught your attention. No, your eyes fall to something next to it. 

The matching ring. Yours.

You let out a little shaky gasp, looking up to Gojo to only see him staring back at you, trying to gauge your reaction. 

“I…” he sighs, holding your hand in his, the one that was holding onto your ring, “I thought-” 

But you don’t let him finish his rambling, pulling him down by the chain of the necklace as you slam your lips against his, a new set of tears sprouting in your eyes as you feel the rings dance around your neck. 

Your fingers curl into his hair, digging them deep as your tears wet his cheek, your lips trembling against his as you hook a leg around his waist, your other hand holding onto the side of his face as you kiss him feverishly. You need him near you, need him to know just how much you have missed him, longed for him, need him.

But after a few seconds pass, he pulls away from you and your head moves up to chase him, but he sits up completely, your leg falling away from his waist as you watch him move his hands up to the necklace, tugging at it as it unclips from the back. 

You watch silently as he slides your ring off of the chain, holding it in the palm of his hand as it shines brightly in the candlelight. His white lashes flutter against his cheek as he twists the ring around. 

“May I?” Gojo says quietly, and you falter, looking down at your hand. 

The hand that you’ve lived by for a while, using it for cutting logs and trees, to collect twigs and leaves. The hand riddles with scars and bruises, some fading, some new. The hand that always felt light, no matter how many things you were carrying in it. The reason you always knew, but never wanted to admit it.

You bring it closer to his own, watch as he turns the ring around to face your finger. You feel like the seconds have turned into hours, your mind flashing to when the last time he placed this ring on your finger, when you were a little bit younger and naive, not knowing he’d be placing it on your same finger nearly two years later, but this time out of love and not from an arrangement. 

When it finally slides on you sigh a breath of relief, a tear escaping the corner of your eye, falling into your hairline as you hold the hand up, admiring its lost component that you’ve missed so dearly.

“My wife,” he whispers softly, almost to himself as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, bringing your hand up to his lips as he presses a kiss that lays over the ring, holding onto your hand tight, giving it a squeeze as he gently set it back down on the bed. He places the necklace back over his neck, taking his tunic off with one fluid motion after it clasped into place. 

You smile, full, content, and you lie back down against the pillows after a minute passed, your legs spreading a little bit to make room for him between them. His touch goes back up to your thighs, fingers searing in their place as his gaze finally, finally, drops down to your aching, burning core.

You watch as he undoes the buckle of his pants, his trousers being kicked off, his eyes never leaving your glistening folds, and you feel your heart rattle in your ribcage, waiting to just jump out. 

Your eyes rake over his naked torso. Gods, he looked even bigger if that was possible. He riffs with even more muscles all across his chest, his arms, and his abs, looking even more pronounced from when you last saw him. His shoulders stand broad and sturdy, a thick vein running across the white trail of hair leading down, and you feel yourself growing wetter at the thought. You’re so busy staring at him you don’t even realize that he too has put his focus down. Down to where you need him the most.

Your mouth goes dry at the sight. It’s the first time you’ve seen it in its entirety. Sometimes you’ve seen the outline from afar, feeling the length from layers of his clothes, but never like this, never so raw. 

It’s long, you think, and though you’ve never seen anyone else cock before, you know this must be above what was normal. It curved upwards, not fully standing up from how heavy it was. You wanted to guess that it was at least eight inches, and gods, he was thick. His cockhead spurted more precum, pink, almost red, and it looked like it was about to burst. 

Little white hairs grow from its base, soft and plush, and your eyes almost blur from lust at the sight. 

Gojo scratches the back of his head almost in embarrassment, a little flush to his cheeks as he snaps his fingers in front of your face to get you to look back at him and not his little friend downstairs. You gulp, slowly finding his gaze as you stare at his pink face. A blush had traveled across his cheeks and went to his nose and jaw. Your head tilted slightly, bottom lip caught underneath your teeth as you squinted a little bit. 

Was he…shy?

“Are you…” You almost want to laugh, but stop yourself, a questioning look in your eyes as you sit up a little bit, resting on your elbows as you grin, “Are you blushing?” 

Gojo rolls his eyes at your teasing tone, pinching your waist as you squeal a little bit, a fit of laughter falling from your lips when he refuses to answer. Though he tries to look tough, his demeanor cracks when he hears the musical sound of you giggling, a new noise that seems to bring a fresh wave of colors back into his dull grey colored life.

“I know you haven’t,” he swallows, his throat bobbing when he rubs a thumb slowly up and down your thigh, a comforting touch, “I know you’ve never done this before. And if you want to wait-” 

“No,” you say instantly, shaking your head, “No, I want this. I want you. I…I need you, Saotru, I need you so bad I think I’m going to start going crazy if you don’t…” you trail off, swallowing thickly as you look back to his groin, and your fingers itch to hold it, to touch it, to feel the velvety skin beneath yours.

Gojo’s mouth goes dry, his lips parting as his pupils grow again. 

You need him. You need him and oh gods does he need you. He thinks his heart will stop if he doesn’t have your warmth circling him, pulling him closer to you.

He nods slowly, gnawing on his lip as he continues to rub soothing circles on your thighs, scratching his jaw as he thinks about how to go about this. Though he hates to even think about it, this wasn’t his first time the way it was yours. But it was his first time with the woman he loved, and it felt like he was learning how to do it all over again.

“O-okay,” he says shakily, and here he looks like a young man in love, not the Northern warrior people forced him to become, just your Satoru, “I’ll go slow, okay? Hold my hands, squeeze them as tight as you want. If it becomes too much…” his brow furrow, heart lurching at the thought of hurting you.

“Then I’ll let you know,” you finish with a smile, a promising one as you lean up to rest your forehead against his, “And I’m a strong girl,” you say with a little tease, trying to relax the tension, “It takes a lot to bring me down.” 

Gojo chuckles, nodding at your words as he leans a little closer to peck at your lips. You fall back down to the pillows, your legs spreading again as his hands move away form your thighs, going to your cunt, spreading some of his slick on them as he brings it to his cock, breathing slightly through his teeth as his fingers make contact with it, lubing it up as he lines it up with your entrance. 

He looks at you once, and you nod, smiling, telling him you were ready. 

He pushes the tip in, and feels your walls clench instantly around him. The stretch is there, and your eyes flutter shut, his hands traveling up through the sheets to grab at yours, your fingers lacing together as he brings them to your head, watching your reactions, fearful that it was too much. 

But you nod again, wanting him to continue. 

He pushes his way in little by little, your tight cunt fluttering and squeezing around him with each inch, biting down on your lips to keep the sounds in. It’s not too much, but you know that if Gojo heard he’d stop it immediately. Because while it does hurt a little bit, the sting is good, and the more he lets you settle in it, the more it actually becomes pleasurable. 

Gojo lets his cock sink into, letting you take all the time you need to adjust to his size, squeezing his hands as your fingers dig into his skin.

“G-good? Do you want to stop?” He’s able to bite out, feeling like he was about to cum with the way you’re clenching around him. But his eyes are still filled with worry, not knowing what you were feeling with the way you were staying quiet. 

You take a deep breath, biting the inside of your cheek as you slowly open your eyes, looking down to where your bodies were connected, and a little gasp escapes your lips when you see that he’s somehow managed to fit all of himself inside your tight walls, your cunt spasming around his girthy cock. 

You moan, mouth falling open as you grip onto his hands again, quickly nodding, needing him to move.

And Gojo takes it. 

He slowly begins to pull out, your cunt weeping wetly with his absence, and he gives it a second before he slams back in. 

“Umph!” You whine, eyesight going white when his cockhead hit the spongy part of your cunt, nudging at it as you feel achingly full, a good full, “Oooh, oh, ‘Toru, it’s…ohh,” and he knew it was a good oh because you were growing wetter around him, your slick staining his dick and the sheets beneath you.

He pulls his hips back out before he goes back in, creating a steady rhythm that makes your legs feel useful, wrapping around him to keep him as close to your middle as possible. You can hear the squelch whenever he pushes himself back inside, and can feel the way you spurt around him.

“You’re doing great darling,” he says encouragingly, praising you as your finger clench and unclench, “Doin’ so great for me, you know? So perfect, my perfect wife, fuck, oh, s-shit,”

He pulls the back of your hand to his lips, kissing it before he lets go, bringing your now empty hand up to his shoulders, his own hand falling in between your bodies as his finger find your clit, rubbing and pinching at it with such a speed that you feel like you’re finally going towards the light. 

“S-so tight,” he moans out, head falling down to your chest as he takes in a nipple between his teeth, sucking your tit into his mouth, needing something to with his tongue, “You’re s’warm, fuck, it’s so, so fucking good,”

You nod feverishly at his words, mewling in agreement, the ability to talk dying right in front of you, your walls turning to mush the more he slams himself inside of you.

It feels like lightning when his fingers continue their movements on your pulsating bud, his cock molding your cunt into its shape, your hot warmth trapping him inside like a honeypot, barely allowing him to move but pulling him back inside whenever he pulls away, needing to chase after the intoxicating feeling. 

You feel like crying and laughing, never expecting to have this moment happen. You want to pinch yourself, to see if maybe you were dreaming. You feel all your emotions wash up as Gojo kisses your chest, feel the excruciating pain you first felt when you ran away, the lonely feeling when you were surviving on your own, to live by yourself, pretending that he’d be there to wake you up.

And sure, you dreamed that you’d see him again, but you never thought he’d believe you, let alone forgive you. You never thought he’d be like he always was, kind and caring, loving you with such tenderness that it feels like you never left. You never thought he’d fall in love with you twice, but maybe that was your biggest mistake. Because Gojo Satoru never stopped loving you just like you never stopped loving him.

You feel tears prickle as your eyes, your nose scrunching up to hide your sniffles, a sound that quickly catches his attention. 

He looks up from your sternum, fear flooding through his eyes when he sees the tears that roll down the side of your face, the watery look of your eyes and the way you turn your head away so that he wouldn’t see you.

He instantly stops, pulling out of you as his hands quickly go to your cheeks, tapping your jaw, worried, anxious as he begs for you to look at him. 

“Hey, hey,” he mutters quickly, his hands slightly trembling, thinking he had hurt you terribly, “We can stop darling, it’s okay, don’t worry,” but you shake your head, a tremor in your lips as you look at him, hands covering your face as you feel tears wet your finger.

“It’s not that,” you whisper, choking on a cry, “‘S not that, it feels good, really good,” you add, sniffing again as your nose scrunches up. Gojo falters, rubbing away your stray tears, eyes looking everywhere to figure out what was wrong. He lets you find your words, even if it takes a minute.

“I…I just,” you sigh, pushing your lips together tightly as you look at him, “I missed you so much Satoru, I m-missed you, and,” you feel his eyes gloss over, “And I’m sorry I didn’t write o-or tell you anything. I love you,” you tilt your head up slightly to kiss him softly, “I love you so much. I know this isn’t what-” 

“No,” he interrupts, shaking his head to cut you off, knowing that you might spiral, “I don’t care about the time, darling, I don’t care how long it took to have you again,” a tear off his falls on your cheek, “Just that I have you again. That I have the woman I love back in my arms is enough for me,” he promises and you laugh wetly, rubbing at your eyes. 

He kisses your tears away, balancing himself above you as he nudges his nose against yours, something he does when he wants to catch your attention, when he knows you’re lost in your own mind. 

You smile again, your hand falling in between your bodies to line himself up again with your entrance. He stutters, going to stop you, but you shake your head, wanting this, wanting  this more than anything, and let your legs wrap around him again. 

“I love you,” you whisper against his lips, feeling his cockhead push a little bit again past your aching walls.

His head drops down to your chest, not wanting you to see him break. Not wanting you to see the way he cracks because he never thought he’d hear you say those words again, never thought he’d see your lips form around those tender words, to give him such a divine feeling. 

“I love you,” he says huskily, gasping it out as he sink in a little deeper, “I love you so much, so so much,” he kisses your chin, “So much that even if it took a century to find you I’d still love you as much as the day I first loved you,”

You giggle a little bit, kissing him messily as you moan against his lips, your cunt stretching again to fit his size, cradling the side of his face in your hands.

“I’m…I’m never letting go of y-you ever again,” you stammer, a little moan escaping you when a vein scratches deliciously against the side of your pulsing walls, “‘M yours, S-satoru, all yours.” 

He groans, hands finding purchase on your waist as his eyes squeeze shut, too many feelings, all good feelings, coursing through him.

“Everything I have, e-eveyrthing I am and will be is yours,” he says, his voice breaking, “I was always yours to begin with.” 

Your nails scratch down the flexing and large muscles of his back, leaving red lines in their wake as he picks up his face, your own tears, spit, juices, everything, mixing together as you moan in tandem.

“So good!” You whine, toes curling, your arm wrapping around his neck to pull him down to your chest until you were flush against each other, kissing against him messily, licking into his open mouth as you moan even louder when he angles his hips a certain way to reach even deep inside of you, if that was even possible, “T-think…think I’m ‘gonna…!”

That same buzz grows, that feeling of an incoming orgasm approaching you quickly. You were warned that it was difficult for a woman to finish during sex, and some of your friends often told you how they usually lay there until their husbands finished. But it wasn’t like that with Gojo, not at all. You have no idea how much time has passed, but it feels far quicker than usual.

His fingers never give up their pace on your clit, and your walls clench around him, a new feeling growing inside of you.

“‘Toru, I think I’m ‘gonna c-come,” you hiccup, your orgasm building up, “I t-think…” 

He nods, biting your bottom lip between his teeth, feeling his own release creeping up on him, feeling the white hot flash grow in his groins.

“I know darling, I k-know,” he mutters, kissing the side of your mouth as his motions quicken, needing to feel you come with him, “I know, let go, come on, I know you can, let go for me darling, there it is.”

You let out your last moan when you feel your orgasm wash over you. 

It’s blinding, exhilarating, and for a second you think you nearly died from how good it was.

You spray around his cock, gushing with your release. It wets his balls, dripping down onto the sheets, his abs shining wet from the way you squirted all over him. You want to feel embarrassed, but quite frankly can’t because of how utterly spent you feel.

Gojo opens his mouth in a silent exhale when his own orgasm happens, spilling his cum deep inside of you, painting your walls white with his seed as he spurts, seeming like it was never ending. 

You feel yourself clench around him at the feeling, your entire body feeling even warmer at his cum reaching deep inside of you. He came so much that it overflows from inside, coming out from the sides of your cunt, mixing with your own juices as the two of you try to calm down from your mind-shattering climaxes. 

And despite how tired you feel, a giddy smile makes its way onto your face. 

Your husband is right next to you. You could have only dreamed this moment happening.

Gojo looks down at you, smiling too, his head tilting to the side. 

“W-what?” He asks with a quiet chuckle, his cock still nestled inside you, and the thought makes you feel even giddier, turning your face to the side, smushing it against the pillows to mute your bursts of laughter.

But it’s no use, because Gojo leans down to the side of your face, kissing your cheek and jaw gingerly as he smiles against your skin, wiping the excess tears away from the corners of your eyes. 

“What’s got you laughing, hm?” He says, his voice slightly muffled against your cheek and you giggle even louder, unable to control it, his fingers not helping as they place tickling and fleeting touches all over our naked and sweaty skin. He can’t help himself and laughs too, the sound hearty and loud, bouncing off the walls as you squirm around, your lips pulled wide, a toothy smile etched permanently onto your face. 

“S-stop!” You wheeze out, his fingers everywhere, your arms, legs, thighs, stomach, fast and unforgiving, trying to squeeze every but of the wonderful sound out of you so he could bottle it up and keep it forever, “S-satoru, s-stop! Please!” 

You push at his chest, eyes bright and full of mirth, looking back at the man you loved, his smile bright and blinding. You want to have this moment forever, over and over again, never ending, and you never want it to end. He finally pulls away, looking down at you with such adoration and love in his shining eyes that you feel like you’re about to go blind.

He pulls himself out of your warmth, kissing the back of his teeth when you pulse around him again, and his limp cock hangs satisfied. He pushes the mixture of his cum and your juices back in with his thumb, something primal filling him seeing you full of his seed. 

Your legs twitch, slapping his curious hand away when it starts to trail back up to your clit, and watch him send you a little wink, a little sign for what’s to come later. Not now, though, because he sees the way your eyes are drooping, your hands resting on your stomach as you pat the empty space next to you. 

Gojo obliges, falling down on the rumpled sheets, turning to the side to look at you.

You sigh, happy, full, and breaking at the seams with love. He lets the same sigh out, his pink lips pulled into an easy grin, months of exhaustion washing away from his body as he loops an arm under your waist, tugging you closer to his chest.

The two of you stay there in comfortable silence, grieving the months you lost, celebrating the moments just spent together, finding each other over and over again even if it tore you apart in the process. 

He kisses your hairline, your forehead, the corners of your eyes. You preen like a cat, humming when you feel him kiss your cheek and your lips, pressing his last kiss to the tip of your nose, something he used to do when you were about to go to sleep. 

“Sleep now” he whispers against the side of your head, pulling the blanket to cover your bodies, his hold of you never letting go, “I’ll be here when you wake up,” he smiles, pausing before saying, “I promise,”and you smile softly, craning your head up to look at him. 

You fight back the tears, at the thought of waking up next to him, just like you always dreamed you would. 

“You promise?” You murmur, feeling one last tear fall, one tear of joy, utter joy, and he catches it with his thumb, his blue eyes wavering like a clear sky without a singular cloud, and you watch as his throat bobs, eyes roaming all over your face, still can’t believing you were real. He hums deeply, tipping your chin up to meet him in one last longing kiss, lips moving gently along one another.

“I promise.”

[artemisiasmuse]

rafe cameron x sweet virgin!reader

she told you she celibate but she told me I can nail her shit

cw: mdni 18+, virgin!reader but has some other experience, lowkey a freak tho, toxic rafe, corruption kink : >, size kink, first times, rafe goes a lil crazy, sweetie pie reader x insane yandere bf rafe is lowkey my favorite trope

~ 6k words

a/n: happy valentine’s day my loves <3 i didn’t read this over and i’m so sorry if there’s hella mistakes i will fix it later! this may or not be self-insert yes even that part

the trouble all began with sarah cameron and her big mouth. well really both of you were to blame, but you’d think she would be quieter when her older brother was lurking around. you were older than her by a few years, closer to his age than hers, not that it mattered though, rafe treated you like you were practically wheezie’s age. you didn’t let it sting you any more you had long gotten over trying to be seen as a woman in rafe cameron’s eyes. or maybe you just stopped watching him, he’s always noticed you but you felt out reach, until now. when he overhears his sister’s words he almost breaks the glass of water he’s holding.

“a virgin at 19 looking like you do is insane” sarah looked you up and down as you tried on the dress you’d bought together at the mall. you got shy at her words, you knew she wasn’t judging you but instead genuinely in disbelief that men weren’t throwing themselves at you. you had long mastered the art of looking unapproachable and uninterested after too many bad experiences.

“stoppp is it so hard to believe, you know how bad it’s been for me?” he really hopes no one sees him leaning against the wall next to his sister’s door, he’d look like such a weirdo. wheezie would never let him live this down, she’d barely held back on letting his little crush slip before. if sarah ever found out he’d be in another hell.

“fuck you’re right, if they can’t make you come what’s the point?” rafe winced at his sister’s words, willing away the temptation to gag. he was trying to focus on the fact that no guy had made you come before instead.

“you’re awful, but i’m done with men for a long time. im gonna focus on college and not waste time on them.” he relished in the twisted feeling that no one could touch you, even if the losers before had a chance they clearly couldn’t cut it.

“righttt being in a dorm filled with horny guys is gonna make that easier.” sarah deadpanned and you shoved her, seeing her point. you hadn’t thought about it like that.

“okay leave me alone i’ve been successful so far”

“oh my god speak of the devil, john b’s calling me over, can you cover for me? i’ll be back in like two hours max, promise.” you were a little disappointed she was leaving you but you knew how difficult it was for her to see him without someone covering for her. you nodded and pulled out your phone.

“fine but i’m ordering pizza,” rafe didn’t know if he should be terrified or elated that you two would be home alone for two hours. why did it have to be today that the rest of his family fucked off? was this divine intervention?

“save me a slice!” rafe could hear his sister rustling around, getting ready to go, so he did the same.

“you’re gonna be too busy eating di-“ rafe promptly ran off at that. he’d heard enough, his imagination would run wild with this new information.

it was half an hour later when, like clockwork, rafe made sure to be near the front door for the pizza delivery. he paid and tipped the guy, while you were making your way down at the sound of the doorbell. he hurries back upstairs, nearly running into you on the stairs. your eyes trace his pretty features and then land on the box in his hands, shock and horror cascading your face. rafe can’t believe that you look so good even now, you’re wearing a crop top with seemingly no bra underneath and high waisted sweatpants. to him you look like a model.

“hey! that’s my pizza” rafe laughs and continues up the stairs, you turn on your heel and follow him up. you’re kinda hangry and your pizza being held hostage is not helping your mood.

“i just paid for it so i don’t think so.” you both reach the top of the stairs but rafe isn’t stopping, he’s going to his room instead. this won’t do, he’ll lock the door and slam it in your face, you quickly move to stand in front of him blocking the path to his doorway. rafe thinks it’s cute that you think that would stop him, he feels a bit stir crazy over how small you look gazing up at him

“i’ll pay you back!” your hands shoot up against the doorframe, blocking entry even further. he wants to tease you a bit more but the idea of sharing a pizza in his room is way more tempting.

“nah it’s fine just let me have some.” you release your blockade and let him move past you, still with his-your pizza in his hold, following him mindlessly. if you were less hungry you would’ve realized eating pizza with your longtime crush and best friend’s brother in his room sitting on his bed was in fact not a great idea. but that fleeting concern is out the window when he opens the box and you climb onto his bed like it’s second nature. rafe does his best to stay concentrated on the present, it’s difficult when your shirt rides up and a sliver of your stomach is displayed, it looks so soft and untouched and he really isn’t hungry for pizza, he never was.

“i was gonna offer anyways for the record.” you say it while picking up a slice and rafe mirrors your action, laughing at your tone.

“yeah sure you were princess,” you ignore the way his voice sounds, the way he says your name, the way his room smells like him and it’s making your head spin.

rafe watches you eat transfixed when you lick the tips of your fingers, he can’t believe that he’s struggling to control himself over pizza but your words are ringing in his head.

“rafe do you have any napkins?” you hold up your greasy fingers and he nods his head dazedly, getting up to grab some for you and taking the pizza box off his bed with him. you move to get off then, looking around his room, you knew he wouldn’t appreciate if you snooped through his things so you just look at the pictures on the wall, the books he has. rafe finds you standing near his desk when he comes back, wordlessly handing you the napkins.

“i always forget you have a motorcycle.” your head motions towards the helmet resting on the surface of his desk.

“i don’t use it as much now.” he leaned back against the footboard of his bed, arms crossed against his chest as he watched you look at his stuff. he couldn’t figure out why you were still in his room, were you that curious?

“can i ride it? i’ve always wanted to try.” yeah rafe might just pass out now. you don’t even know what you’re doing to him, head cocked to the side looking at him so innocently he can barely hold back much longer.

“sure but i gotta teach you the basics so you don’t crash.” rafe is proud of himself for even stringing a sentence together in response. you notice a slight flush to his cheeks and ears.

“okay that’s fair.” you turn towards him, mirroring his form and leaning back against his desk. there’s a few feet between you but rafe thinks it would be so easy to lift you onto the mahogany and kiss you until you can’t breathe. his shorts feel so restrictive and he’s grateful he’s wearing black. he can’t hold back any longer, he has to know.

"is it true?" the words come out rushed, unsure of if they should even be said in the first place. but rafe’s not a quitter and he doesn’t shy away from anything really, even if the past few hours feel like a dream he would have in middle school.

"is what true?" your head does that thing again like a puppy and he nearly keels over, you’re too adorable for your own good. his gaze flits away for a second, he has to commit. your trusting expression and your airy tone make it all the more hard.

"no guy's made you come before?" you blink in shock twice before covering your face with your hands. this must be the most embarrassing moment of your life.

"ugh you heard that?"

"yeah you guys aren't exactly quiet" you might have to kill sarah cameron in her sleep, if she even comes back that is. you don’t know why you answer him, you could have just ran away but the magnetic pull of rafe cameron coaxes you to answer.

"yeah it's true" you sound defeated and rafe has to hold back a snicker, he watches you peer through your fingers at him, watching his expression.

"well i can rectify that..you know for the sake of mankind and all" there’s a smirk on his lips as he says the words that will haunt you forever. you’re sure he’s just messing with you and you huff a breath of disbelief. did he know about your little crush? you’d been hiding it so well for the past few years!

"don't tease me, rafe" you step away from his desk, moving to leave his room. even if it was just the two of you in the house you’d much rather sit in sarah’s room or watch the tv than be ridiculed.

"i'm not, it'd be a shame if a pretty girl like you gave up on men, especially for me." it’s almost as if someone dumped a bucket of cold water on your head when rafe cameron speaks. pretty girl the first time he’s called you anything that might suggest you’re not just his sister’s friend. the world spins on its axis and you try to grasp onto his words, try to understand that he might be genuine but you can’t. there’s still that voice of doubt telling you he’s just messing with you. rafe watches your expression go from shock to disappointment, you don’t believe him. he supposes it’s not that believable when he’s been purposefully avoiding you for a while. you must think he’s just messing with you, but he’s dead serious. he’ll just have to prove it.

“whatever rafe i don’t have time for your games.” you mumble it and leave his room, slamming the door a bit harder than you intended. the next few hours are torture. rafe cameron planted an insidious weed in your mind and it’s growing exponentially.

of course it’s not the first time you’ve imagined it, you’d often thought about what his long thick fingers would feel like. or how his biceps would feel under your hands if you held onto them for support. you’d fantasized about every part of him, even the tip of his nose. so the idea that it might just be within your reach had you spiraling. you took a cold shower, not that it helped, your underwear was still soaked after. no guy you’d been with had made you so wet, let alone before even touching you. it was as if the universe was testing you. a sick thrum in your body had found its way into your bones, vibrating with need and you paced in your best friend’s room thinking over all the consequences.

when you’d reached the conclusion that even if he was sincere it was still a bad idea, your phone pinged. a text from sarah that read: “i’m gonna be staying the night here, if you’re already asleep i’ll see you in the morning 🤍” with all your internal turmoil you hadn’t realized it was past the two hours she’d said. she would be out all night. you and rafe were home alone, all night. you swallowed down the lump in your throat, your heart pounding your chest. your feet were moving faster than your head, the pitter patter of your footsteps almost as fast as your heartbeat, and before you knew it you were in front of his door. you hesitated for a second breathing in deep once before knocking, the light was still on so you knew he was awake.

“yeah?” rafe did his best to hide the satisfaction he felt seeing you twitchy and shy in front of his door. you swallowed down again, looking up at him with as much confidence as you could. there was a few seconds of silence, he gave you the time you needed, looking down at you with bright inviting eyes.

“is your offer still on the table?” his face split into a grin, moving aside to let you in like you’d done before and with no hesitation you pushed past him. even the small graze of your shoulder against him set his skin ablaze. he was going to lose his mind.

“‘doesn’t really have an expiration date.” your mind was blanking at his every advance, you tried not to think about his words, you couldn’t afford to fall deeper for him.

“just don’t like tell anyone about this?” you murmured, watching him close the door behind you two and getting a bit nervous. if sarah found out you’d be in for hell. losing your virginity to your best friend’s brother wasn’t exactly a great conversation to have.

“i’m not topper don’t worry.” you believed him, rafe despite his other faults, was always respectful.

“can i kiss you?” you nodded fervently, rafe held back a laugh at your enthusiasm. he walked up to you slowly as if giving you the chance to run and slid his hands from his hips to the curve of your waist. you stood on your tiptoes, your arms going around his neck and rafe couldn’t believe this was real. maybe if he pretended it was a dream he wouldn’t be so nervous. he’d have to do just that. one of his hands cupped your face, thumb stroking along your cheekbone and your eyelashes fluttered closed at the touch. he pressed a tentative kiss to your lips.

his lips felt soft and you breathed out in relief after, as if some sort of spell was lifted. rafe kissed you again, this time letting himself breathe you in. you felt so small and delicate in his hold, he wanted to take his time with you. you had other ideas. kissing rafe cameron felt even better than you’d imagined, when he pulled back you surged forward this time, biting his lower lip making him groan into your mouth. another chill of desire wracked your body at the sound and you tested the waters by licking the seem of his lips. rafe pulled you even closer and bent down to kiss you deeper. his mouth opened and his tongue met yours. you tasted so good to him he couldn’t stop himself from sucking on your tongue slightly, making you whine in his hold. the sound flipped a switch in his mind, he wanted more of the sound, he needed to hear you say his name in that airy desperate sound again. a string of saliva connected your lips and snapped off in the middle, your breathing was heavy and his was too. you caught your breath all the while looking up at him, he held your gaze. the furrow of your brows grew deeper the longer you looked.

“we don’t have to do anything else.” him asking for consent again drew in another crushing wave of arousal, you were a lost cause. okay maybe your standards were in hell. even his cologne was better than any other guy, something woodsy and heavy, mature, not like the shitty ones you’d had to smell before.

“no-no i want to,” he’d have to ask you later why you looked so mad after kissing him, right now he had too much else to do. you could only watch as he lifted you by the grip on your waist, your legs going around his hips in fear of falling. he’d done it so casually you couldn’t process it in time. rafe set you down gently on his mattress, his weight pressed into you and your legs tightened around him. he kissed you again, already missing the taste of your lips, and leaned back. you realized what he was about to do as he sat back on his knees.

“no i-can you just come up here?” you felt far too shy for him to eat you out and although rafe respected your wishes he was a bit disappointed. he’d just have to make sure there was a next time. there were other ways to taste you anyways. he followed your lead, leaning back over you and kissing you again, tongue and teeth clashing together in need. one of his hands moved from your waist up and under the hem of your shirt, traveling up slowly until he reached the fat of your breast. the feeling of his fingers on your nipple jolted your body. usually you didn’t get anything out of a guy touching your boobs but him you were arching into his touch, huffing into his mouth. rafe loved how sensitive you were, reacting to every touch of his. he massaged the tit in his hand, reveling in how you squirmed underneath him. if you kept moving you’d feel how painfully hard he was in his shorts.

after giving up on kissing you he peeled off your crop top, trailing kisses down your neck. he bit at the skin and sucked, surely littering your neck with hickies. you smelled so sweet to him and he couldn’t get enough, biting hard in the juncture between your neck and shoulder. you squeaked at the feeling, shocked at how pleasure blurred the lines of the pain you should be feeling. being marked by rafe was transcendental.

“look at you, so fucking pretty.” you met his gaze, his eyes raking down your chest and back to your face. the compliment made your head even cloudier, you’d let him do anything he wanted already, and it didn’t even scare you. his mouth trailed lower, biting at the tops of your breasts before latching onto your nipple and sucking, biting and laving over the sensitive nub with his tongue. you writhed under him, desperate for some friction between your legs. you huffed out a breath in frustration. he took his time bruising your chest with his marks. everyone should know who you belonged to. he leaned back to admire his work, his eyes finally meeting yours and seeing your waterline filled with unshed tears. god he was being so cruel, you just wanted to come and here he was doing as he pleased.

“rafe can i have your fingers please?” he was about to take pity on you anyway but the desperate sound of you begging was too delicious to give up. he looped his fingers through yours, hands intertwined against the silk sheets next to your shoulder.

“fuuckkk when you ask like that how can i say no?” his eyes nearly rolled back in his head from your voice, he might just come from it alone. “how d’ya want them?” he knew, of course he knew, he just wanted to hear you say it. your lips were swollen from his kisses and you still managed to look so innocent under him, he wanted to mark every inch of your body so no one could touch you again.

“you know!” you huffed out, a pout on your lips that he kissed away, you still looked at him with frustration. your underwear was practically sticking to you now, you felt so warm and uncomfortable between your legs, desperate for friction. you’d never felt like this before, completely wrecked with need, unable to think about anything besides addressing your desire.

“spell it out for me, i can’t think clearly right now.” he kissed under your ear coaxing you into submission, a purr curled through you at the feeling. his lips were featherlight against you, soft and adoring and you couldn’t remember why you were holding back.

“‘wan you to fuck me with them.” it was a small mumble, slipping past your lips but rafe caught it nevertheless. his free hand hooked into your pants and pulled them down, you kicked them off and let him settle back between your legs. at least being out of your pants gave your legs some reprieve but the cool air only illuminated how drenched your underwear was. rafe’s large hand skimmed past your breasts to your stomach and rested against your waistband. he looked to you for admission and you nodded your head. instead of dipping underneath the band he trailed downwards, over the flimsy material. the ghost of his touch near your clit had you jerking under him, your hands flying to his shoulders. two large fingers pressed against the fabric, right above your opening, his fingers felt moist and he clicked his tongue at the feeling.

“baby you soaked through your panties, whose got you so worked up?” you whined, a pretty throaty sound that you’d been holding in and he vowed to pull more from you. his fingers were skimming along your opening, teasing the fabric and not quite touching you. your legs wanted to close on his hand but your hips moved closer, trying to make him touch you.

“you!” you screamed out, eyes squeezed shut as he removed his hand completely. you’d start leaking through them if he didn’t do something soon.

“that’s right me, not those fucking losers, just me.” his free hand, closed around your chin making you open your eyes and meet his. he looked crazed, pupils blown and overshadowing the blue with hooded eyes and a satisfied grin curling his lips. when you met his gaze he finally dipped his fingers beneath the band and pressed his thumb against your clit. he found it with such ease your eyes rolled back into your skull, gasping at the feeling of finally being touched. “i got you baby,” your legs spread wider for him, pulling him into you as his fingers slid through your drooling folds all the while his thumb ground against you. his fingers were so much larger than yours you could feel him everywhere. he prodded your hole with his index finger, grunting at how tight you were. streams of arousal kept pouring out of you, you needed him to do something. you squirmed under him again and rafe acquiesced, shoving his finger in. you were so tight and warm around him, slippery and soft walls hugged him as he stretched you out with one finger alone. “f-fucking tight,” he was gonna start soiling his shorts from the way you felt around his finger alone. he fucked you slow and deep, feeling along your insides for your sensitivity. he knew as soon as he found it because you screamed his name, hands clutching his arms tightly.

“feels weird,” he let you get used to the feeling, his thumb grinding against your clit. you were already feeling close and he’d barely started.

“poor pussy probably never felt this good huh?” you whimpered at his words, he was being so filthy and usually it turned you off. nothing about rafe could do that at this point. you shook your head, affirming his suspicions and his middle finger circled your opening. he was gentler this time, moving his fingers in inch by inch until you stopped clamping down. the pressure of him stretching you wasn’t unbearable but you didn’t know how you’d ever take more than his fingers at this rate. he accurately hammered against that spot, out for blood, while his thumb circled your clit. you were dripping onto his hand, coating him with your juices and the squelch of his fingers fucking into you filled the room. the sounds were so obscene you tried blocking them out with your pathetic little whines but rafe was determined to hear your soppy cunt crying for him. it wasn’t long before you felt the encroaching of your release and he knew it he could feel it in the way you clenched around him and whined when his fingers pulled out completely. one more carress of the sensitive gummy spot inside you had you seeing white. your vision blurred as you shook in your release, holding his wrist so he’d stop his motions, shivers wracked your body as you came the hardest you ever had. your walls fluttered around him, more of your release dripping down your cunt and soaking the sheets below. he was sick enough to leave them like that for the night, you smelled so sweet and he bet you tasted even better.

his fingers dipped out of your underwear and your eyes opened to watch him, probably a mistake on your part because just the vision of rafe cameron licking his fingers clean and groaning at the taste made you ready to go again. his eyes rolled back in his head at the taste, his eyes ground shut at the sugary flavor coating his tongue and teeth. he really hoped you’d let him have more later because now that he’d had a taste he wanted the full meal. you shivered at the way he reacted, your whole body on high alert from your orgasm, but even as sensitive as you were you couldn’t help but be greedy.

“rafe, can we go further?” his heart might just give out, you look nervous even now after he’s already addicted. he moves back slightly, pulling his shirt over his head and your eyes are drawn to his chest.

“thought you’d never ask.” you’re not even trying to hide how you ogle him, seeing him at the beach is one thing but in front of you, when you can touch him is another. rafe watches you reach a hand out, slightly out of range and moves closer to you, letting you touch him. your smalls hands traverse the expanse of his shoulders, his pecs, and trace the outline of his abs. when they reach the tuft of hair above his waistband, rafe has to stop you. the tiny fleeting touches make him twitch in his pants. he moves your hand to rest against his shoulder, pulling your underwear all the way off and looking down at how he completely drowns your body out.

“fuckkk can’t believe im the lucky one who gets to break this little pussy in,” he kisses along your neck, hands squeezing your waist and marveling at how diminutive you feel. he can’t wait to be inside you, he wonders if you’ll even be able to take him.

“s-so dirty” his words are heating up your entire body and you’d feel embarrassed if you weren’t arching into him. rafe moves to pull down his shorts, waiting a beat before he does.

“you sure you want this?” while taking your virginity was something he could only dream about before he needed to be sure.

“yes i want it to be you, i trust you.” you say it as normally as you can.

“we can stop whenever you want, like i said ‘offer’s not gonna expire.” you hope you can take it up even after this, maybe not even once or twice. if he could make you feel like this why would you need anyone else? then he pulls his shorts off and you start to regret your decision.

“oh-is th-that gonna fit?” his cock sprung out and slapped against his stomach, long and thick and way too big for you. you could barely take his fingers this would never fit. it looked so angry white precum dribbling down stark against the flushed pink curling along the veins and curving with him to the right. you wouldn’t survive this.

“you’ll do your best right?” you nod enthusiastically, you wanted to take as much as you could. “good girl.” oh, you’d have to explore that later. you nearly moaned at him calling you that. rafe caught it though, he knew your reactions well by now. he lined it up over your stomach, seeing how far it would go and your eyes nearly bulged out of your head. your belly button was completely covered, not that it mattered he was halfway up your torso. rafe’s grip on your waist tightened, he’d ruin you for anyone else, stretch you out and mold you just for him. no one would feel as good as him and he nearly drooled at the sight.

despite how feral he felt, he made sure you were still wet enough for him to slip in, you were. his tip pressed against you, he let you drool onto him, juices swirling with his and making a sick plap plap plap sound as he tapped against you. he’s far wider than his fingers and you tried to relax. you motioned for him to come closer, his lips out of reach and you kissed him sweetly. when he could feel you relax he pushed in, instantly being shoved out. so tight he couldn’t even get the tip in. “fuuckkkk gonna have to marry you.” you don’t even process his words and he doesn’t really know he’s saying them out loud either. he tries again, pulling you slightly onto his length and you gasp at the stretch. you’re gripping him like a vice and it’s nearly uncomfortable but being inside you breaks something inside of him and he’s drooling into your mouth. you don’t even care you want more. “doin well angel-hah-taking me so well.”

the pain is an afterthought now, you want him to stretch you and fill you until you can’t breathe. you don’t know if you’ve wanted anything more in your life. so you do the unthinkable, you try moving down his length. rafe can’t be held responsible for his actions after that.

he gives into your silent plea, skewering you on his cock and pushing past your gooey rings of resistance until he’s halfway in. you held your breath the entire time as he curved into you, tip smearing precum along your walls as he molded you to him, his veins catching on your entrance and making you jolt at the feeling. you push at his chest, the pain making you scream his name as he lets you adjust. there’s tears trailing down your cheek that he licks away. he kisses you until the ache between your legs becomes distant, it’s salty and sloppy but it distracts you enough. rafe makes the mistake of looking down, sees the way you’re gaping for him and how it looks like he’s splitting you in half and he bottoms out. the snap of his hips against yours makes you moan, he’s filled you up now and you can feel him in your throat. you swear you feel him get bigger when you whine his name pathetically, his dick twitching inside you.

it’s too much and you try running from it, shoving up the length of the bed but rafe just pulls you back down. “t-too big hng can’t-“

“come on i thought you were-fuck-a big girl,” he groans into your ear, you shove against him once more and he slips out a few inches, just enough for you to relax. you can still feel him nestled against your cervix, he’s leaking into you and your thighs are coated in both of your arousal. you tap his shoulder for him to move again, pulling out until his tip is the only thing inside and then spearing all the way back in. the feeling makes you cross-eyed, his throbbing tip bumps along your sensitive spot until it nestles against you, as far high up as it can and you think you might be coming on every thrust because you’re so obscenely wet more slick just pours out of you every time. rafe knows it’s because there’s no space for anything but his cock and he can’t help but grin, watching your pussy engulf his length despite how small you are under him. every thrust sends your whole body upwards but his grip on you keeps you close, he’s almost fucking you back onto him.

“feels good hah,” you finally murmur into his neck, wrapping your legs around his hips so he can drill into you better. his thrusts are deep and slow, letting you get used to the feeling but you don’t think you like it like this. if he’s going to ruin you he might as well do it properly. “h-harder.” rafe moans your name at your request, his voice sounds so wrecked you clench down at the sound alone.

“turned this pussy into a slut, ‘couldn’t even take-hah-two fingers now look at you.” really he’s proud of you, proud that he made you like this. although he wants to tease you he can’t hold back much longer either and it’s your first time so he’s gonna be nice to you. rafe pulls out and slams back into you setting a faster rougher pace, your skin is slapping against each other and you think he might bruise your hips. your head is shoved up the length of his bed until it threatens to bump against the headboard, he puts his hand between you and the wood, his other hand holding onto the frame for support. your legs are being bent and pressed to the sides and the new angle makes him hit that spot with blaring accuracy. a sick ring of white forms at the base of his dick and his balls are slippery from your arousal. you still have a vice grip around him, something he won’t get used to but is definitely get addicted to. the room smells filthy and the sounds of you chanting his name combined with the squelch of your cunt is pornographic.

“gonna be a good girl and come around my cock?” your walls flutter at his words, like his permission has you ready to come. you come undone with one more thrust, your cunt is milking him as if coaxing him to come. “fuck fuck fuckkkk.” he pulls out just in time to come onto your stomach, shooting thick gooey ropes onto your soft skin. the white contrasts the blue and purple that is starting to bloom around your neck and tits.

you blearily watch it happen, disappointed he didn’t come inside, but warm and fuzzy from your release. there’s one thought nagging you though as you rest comfortably on his sticky soaked sheets. “it wasn’t a one time offer right?”

“no fucking way, i’m never letting you go.” rafe looks at you like you’re crazy, he’s ready to propose. there’s no way in hell he’s making this a one night stand. after all he’s broken you in, now it’s the fun part.

taglist: @ggraycelynn

[charmedimsure]

Hello! Can I order a Dae Ho one-shot? about the reader who comes to the game pregnant and meets Dae Ho there and they have some kind of connection and he tells her that when they get out of there he would like to be with her and the baby.

thank you and happy new year <3

*slams bell* ORDER UP! (im sorry that was so cringey)

THE THREE OF US || kang dae-ho

pairing: Kang Dae-ho x f!reader

summary: Trying to make it out of the games with both you and your baby's lives, you meet a man who is determined to help.

word count: 6.3k (i did not expect it to be this long thats what she said)

warnings: pregnancy, guns, death, blood, squid game stuff

A/N: i love jun-hee, but the reader replaces her in this fic. reader has no connection to myung-gi (333). if you find any mistakes no you didn't <3

Part 2: After the Games

The second game is about to start, and time is running out for you to find a team. You've approached a few groups, but have been turned away by all of them. Turns out most groups don't want women on their team.

Out of the corner of your eye you spot the man who had won these games before, along with the man who beat up those other players the day before. Figuring you might as well take a shot, you approach them.

Just as you get to them, a handsome man comes running over, pulling a player along behind him. "Sir! I got someone! He'll definitely risk his life to win."

The man he brought salutes the others. "Victory at all costs!"

The shorter man in the group, player 390, smiles and salutes back. "Hey, were you in the Marines?"

"Class 946, sir!"

Player 390 laughs. "Boy, with three ex-Marines, we'll be invincible." He turns to players 001 and 456. "What do you think? I like him."

Great, you think to yourself. Now they get to pick between an ex-Marine and a woman who can barely stand for more than 20 minutes at a time. Still though, this is a good team, and you'll be damned if you don't at least try.

"Excuse me," you say, getting the group's attention. "Please let me join your team."

Player 390 speaks up. "Sorry, we've already got five people."

Fuck it. Time to pull out the big guns.

"Please help me," you plead, leaning back a bit and putting your hand up to your swollen belly. "I'm pregnant."

All five men grow silent as they look down to your stomach.

<>

"Time for team selection is up."

You can feel the stares of your new team on you as the second game is announced. You just look forward, trying to listen to voice.

"The game you will be playing is Six-Legged Pentathlon. You will start with your legs tied together. Each player will take turns playing a mini-game at every ten-meter mark, and if you win, the team can move on to the next one. Here are the mini games. Number one, Ddakji. Number two, Flying Stone. Number three, Gong-gi. Number four, Spinning Top. Number five, Jegi. Your goal is to win all the mini-games and cross the finish line in five minutes. Please decide players for each mini-game."

Player 390 turns to his friend. "It's good that we got a woman." He turns to you. "You can play Gong-gi, right?"

You give him a sorry look as you shake your head.

His smile falters. "Don't girls play Gong-gi anymore?"

You look down at the sand. "I've played it, but I was never good at it."

You can see the disappointment on his face as he nods.

Player 388 takes a deep breath as he turns toward 390. "Actually, I can play Gong-gi."

390 gives him a confused look. "You? And ex-Marine?"

You give 390 a weird look. Is it really that hard to believe that a military man has played a kid's game before?

388 gets embarrassed. "I grew up with four older sisters. I used to play it with them from time to time."

You smile, thinking it's sweet that he used to play games with his sisters.

390 claps him on the back. "That's right. There's nothing a Marine can't do."

Player 456 leans forward to look at all of you. "Everyone else, what game are you confident playing?"

You take a deep breath. Jegi was the game you were best at growing up, but you don't think you'll be able to play it in your condition. You lean forward as well. "I can play Ddakji. At the subway station I flipped the guy's on my first try."

390 nods. "Okay. Miss 222, you can play Ddakji. I'll play Flying Stone. I was a pitcher for my baseball team. I'm good at throwing."

As 456 and 001 decide who will play Jegi and who will play Spinning Top, 388 turns to you.

"Did you really beat him on the first try? It took me at least eight."

You breathe out a laugh and give him a small smile. "Yeah. I probably could have paid off my debt if he had let us keep playing." Your smile falters as you rest your hand on your swollen stomach. "It would have been safer for the baby."

388 frowns sympathetically and scoots a bit towards you. "We will get out of here. And after that, we will go home. You and your baby will be safe."

Although you don't completely believe him, you still give him a smile and thank him for his kind words.

You feel movement in your stomach and let out a small yelp at the unexpected feeling, looking down towards your hand.

"Are you alright? What happened?" 388 asks, concern clear on his face.

With a smile, you lift your head to look at him and the others who have directed their attention to you. "I felt the baby kick."

Player 388 breaks out into a smile as he looks to your belly, seemingly fascinated by what is happening inside of you.

Player 001 lets out a loud laugh. "The baby wants to play Jegi."

You let out a chuckle as the men laugh. You made a good choice asking these players for help.

"All right guys, bring your hands together," 390 says, sticking his hand out in front of him. "All together now."

You need to scoot over a bit, but you put your hand on the pile on top of 388's, who gives you a shy smile.

"On three, we go, 'Victory at all costs.' One, two, three..."

"Victory at all costs!"

<>

The walls open and forklifts are brought in holding boxes with pink bows on top. You watch as the bodies of both teams are separated from each other and placed into each box. One team had made it past the fourth mini-game, while the other had only just finished the second. Both teams were executed.

The bodies are eventually cleared out, but the blood remains on the track. The second team lines up and you recognize the sweet old lady who had given you her egg this morning, as well as her son. Shit, you really hope they make it.

The gun fires and they're off. The first girl, player 095, looks so nervous I'm worried she won't be able to throw the Ddakji. Her first three attempts fail, and she looks as though she won't be able to continue. Player 120 whispers something to her and she nods. She picks up the Ddakji, turns in over in her hand, and smacks it to the floor. Success.

The group celebrates as they move on, and you make a mental note of that little trick for when it's your turn.

Next is player 007, the son. He throws the stone and misses. Instead of panicking like the past groups, they quickly grab the stone and move backwards to the line, saving lots of time. As 007 is preparing to throw the stone again, his mother whispers something to him. A look of anger washes over his face.

"That asshole ruined my fucking life!"

A perfect hit. The entire crowd cheers as they advance to the next mini-game. You smile to yourself. They can do this.

Next is the mother playing Gong-gi. She drops her first two tries. You're guessing it must be at least a few decades since she last played.

"Old hag! What are you doi-"

Player 120 puts her hand over player 044's mouth to shut her up.

You watch as 007 speaks to his mother. With a new look of determination in her eyes, she blasts through Gong-gi until she needs to make the final catch. You and player 388 sit on your heels to get a better look. Her son speaks to her again, and face turns to one of rage.

"Rotten bitch!"

All five pieces end up in her hand.

"She did it!" Player 390 says, getting to his feet, 388 following after him. You try to get up but fall back as you lose your balance. Player 388 notices and holds your arms to help you up, keeping a hand on your back to keep you steady as you stand to watch the next game.

044 fumbles the top as she's wrapping it, but quickly retrieves it and tries again. She fumbles a few more times before stopping. Her team freaks out as she stands there mumbling to herself.

A gasp rings out through the crowd as 120 slaps 044 twice, picking up the fallen top and pointing it threateningly at 044's eye.

"Oh shit," you say under your breath.

Player 044 wipes away the blood streaming from her nose and tries again the wrap the string around the top. She gets it on her first throw and the crowd screams in joy as they move to the next one. Everyone is standing now to watch, chanting along to each step.

Player 120 is handed the Jegi and requests that everyone turns around. Not wanting to mess them up, everyone turns without hesitation. The room is silent besides the sound of the Jegi hitting 120's shoes.

Once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Five times.

It's done! They did it!

The rooms bursts into screams as the team crosses the finish line at the last second. You turn and hug 388 in pure joy as he jumps up and down. He quickly pulls away so he doesn't do anything to harm the baby, but keeps his arm around you as he celebrates with 390.

The teams keep going, with everyone celebrating the wins and wincing at the gunfire until it is finally your turn.

As you walk to the starting position, a hand gently grabs your wrist and you turn to see player 388. "Make sure to be careful. Take it easy and don't strain yourself."

You nod with a small smile and thank him, taking your spot in the outer ring of the small track. You take deep breaths as the harnesses are secured around your ankles.

"It's a little sad that we have no audience, isn't it?" 390 says, worry in his voice. He nudges 388. "Hey, are you scared?"

"No sir!" 388 yells, making you jump a bit as you were not expecting it. "It's quiet and easier to focus without anyone watching."

390 looks towards the other team. "Hey guys! We'll see you again at the finish line! Victory at all costs!"

The other team yells back their thanks and support before the pistol is fired and you're off.

When you approach the first mini-game, you take the blue tile and turn it over in your hand to match 095's. Throwing it hard at the floor, you yell in delight as the red tile flips over.

You move on to the next game, holding your stomach as you walk.

As 390 takes the stone, 388 yells out "Let's get this done the first time! I believe in you!"

"When I played baseball, my pitches might have been slow, but I had excellent ball control." You watch as the stones collide and yell out in victory as you move to the next one.

388 takes the Gong-gi pieces and you all crouch down.

390 faces him. "Dae-ho, stay calm. Even if you mess up..."

Player 388, or Dae-ho, puts his finger over his mouth to shush him before facing the board, rolling his wrist a few times and dropping the pieces. As quickly as he can, Dae-ho flawlessly gets through the game and catches all five pieces. You and your team members look at each other in awe of what you just watched. It seems that even Dae-ho can't believe he did it.

He lets out a scream as the guard confirms that he passed.

"That was amazing!" Player 390 yells. "Dae-ho, my boy!"

As you move to the fourth mini game, Player 390 looks down at you. "You're expecting, so be careful."

You nod but try to keep your pace, leaning on the small green table once you get to where you need to be.

As player 001 wraps the string around the top, Dae-ho bounces excitedly. "We might get through everything on the first attempt!"

Player 001 throws the top and it falls lazily to the floor as you all frown.

"It's okay, we have enough time," 456 says. "Let's go pick it up. Ready, go."

You all move forward together to grab the top. "No fun passing everything without a hitch," 390 says.

"That's right," 388 confirms. "You can't grow without failure, right?"

You guess he's right, but it would've been nice to pass everything easily. At least you still have three minutes left.

001 grabs the top and you move back to your spots. On his next throw you watch helplessly as the top flies behind your group. You would have laughed in any other situation.

Player 001 apologizes and you move back to grab the top, with 001 taking his sweet time to pick it up. To save time, he tries wrapping it as you walk forward again, but he breaks out of the arm link in frustration. This time he throws it as soon as it is wrapped. It doesn't spin, but at least it lands directly in front of him so you don't have to move again.

Player 456 picks up the top as 001 sighs in frustration. "What the hell is wrong with me?" He screams and you gasp when he starts slapping himself and calling himself an idiot.

456 takes his arms to stop him. "Try to remember the times when you had fun playing this."

001 nods and takes the top and string again. You take the time to look at the clock and feel a wave of worry wash over you when you see that you have less than a minute left. This time, 001 throws the top with his left hand and it spins perfectly on its axle.

You yell in joy as you quickly links arms again and move to the last game. Player 390 checks on you again as you move, and you just wave him off. The stress can't be good for the baby, but it's definitely not as bad as a bullet.

456 grabs the jegi and moves the pink soldier out of the way. He throws it up.

One hit. Two hits. Three hits. Four hits...

You watch in horror as the jegi flies in front of 456. Quickly, 001 kicks his foot out, making you all almost fall as the jegi lands on top of 456's left foot.

"Pass."

You all yell out victoriously and quickly move, crossing the finish line with a second to spare.

As you're all hugging each other, you flinch at the sounds of gunshots coming from the other side of the room. The other team didn't make it.

The main room is oddly quiet as you walk in. As happy as everyone was to see people pass while watching the games, they don't seem to be very happy about it now. Player 390 next to you waves at someone, and you look in the direction to see the woman and her son.

"That sweet old lady," he says with a smile. "I miss my mom."

You smile at the lady and bow your head to her as she gives you a big smile and two thumbs up.

As you sit down to rest and wait for the pink soldiers, 001 speaks up. "I'm sorry about earlier, everyone."

"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have made the last kick," 456 says and you nod.

001 looks at you. "Player 222, are you feeling alright?"

You nod. "Yes. Thank you all for letting me be on your team."

Dae-ho smiles shyly and nods.

"She smashed that ddakji and flipped it on her first try, that was impressive," 390 says, making you smile at the praise. "She did great, even while carrying a baby. We were lucky she joined our team."

Dae-ho nods. "What about your Flying Stone play? You hit it with one shot! With an underhand pitch at that! Bam!" You let out a small laugh as he reenacts 390's throw. "You were like Kim Byung-hyun."

"And you?" 390 says. "Was Gong-gi the only game you ever played?" He quickly moves his hand around to imitate Dae-ho. "I could barely see your hand. It was like a martial arts movie."

Dae-ho laughs. "I'm the only son for two generations. My mom only let me play at home with my sisters."

"And yet they let their precious son join the Marines?" 390 questions.

Dae-ho hesitates. "My father's idea, he wanted me to be more of a man. He fought in the Vietnam War, you see."

"He sounds like a great man," 390 says and Dae-ho nods. "Was he a Marine, too?"

You can see the discomfort on Dae-ho's face and he quickly excuses himself from answering the question, instead standing up to face everyone. "Listen. Perhaps we should learn each other's names. I still don't know your names, gentlemen." He smiles a bit more when he looks to you. "Or your's, Miss. I'll start. I'm Kang Dae-ho. 'Dae' means 'big', 'ho' means 'tiger'."

"'Big tiger.' Cool name," 390 says. "My name is Park Jung-bae. 'Righteous' and 'twice'. My parents wanted me to be twice as righteous."

You go next, stating your name for the group. "I don't know what it means, though."

001 says your name, getting your attention. "When you get out of here, go see a doctor right away. You've been under a lot of stress. You need to get yourself checked out."

You nod. "Okay."

"I'm Oh Young-il," 001 says. He points out how it sounds like his number and the group laughs at the coincidence. Young-il turns to 456. "Oh, Gi-hun, what's your last name?"

"My name is Seong Gi-hun," Gi-hun says.

"'Seong' literally means 'last name'," Young-il laughs aloud by himself.

A loud buzz is heard and the guards enter the room. After revealing the results of the game and announcing the next vote, your team turns to each other.

You look down at the red X on your track suit, and look up to see the blue 'O' on Dae-ho's. He sees your gaze and frowns down at his patch.

"I'm telling you, we'll get out this time," he says to the team, though he is mainly looking at you. He looks down at his patch again and curses under his breath. "A Marine should think strategically and know when to retreat." He puts a hand on Jung-bae's shoulder. "Isn't that right, brother?"

"Yeah, you're right," Jung-bae says weakly. "Marines aren't invincible. We should get out." Despite saying this, the look on his face and the nervousness in his tone contradict his words.

"We have to end the games here," Gi-hun says. He turns to look at you. "I will help you guys when we get out. Please trust me and support this vote."

You smile and nod in thanks.

"Guys, all huddle up again," Dae-ho smiles as he sticks out his hand.

"Victory at all costs."

<>

You frown as the buzzer goes off one last time. There had been some... complications during the voting. This lead to the final vote being 116 for X and 139 for O. Standing next to Dae-ho, you don't miss the look of betrayal on his face as he looks over to Jung-bae with the blue patch on his chest.

Dae-ho lets out a loud sigh as you eat your bread. "Brother! Brother Jung-bae!"

You can see Jung-bae tense up from his spot behind the beds.

With a sigh, Dae-ho stands up and approaches the man. "Hey, just come back here."

"No, I'm good here," you hear Jung-bae answer. You roll your eyes.

"Oh, come on." Dae-ho grabs Jung-bae and drags him to face the group.

He stops and stares at you all before speaking. "I'm sorry. I borrowed some emergency cash, and the creditors are harassing my ex-wife and kid. If I play one more game, I think I'll be able to settle my debt."

"Jung-bae," Young-il addresses the man sadly. "You of all people shouldn't have done it. It's not twice as righteous." He sighs before continuing. "But, looking at the results, even if you had voted against, we would still have been outvoted."

Jung-bae jumps at this. "Right? It's not entirely my fault."

"Alright," Dae-ho steps up. "To be honest, I understand why you did it. The money isn't enough for me either, so when I went up to vote, I did think about playing one more game."

Jung-bae hugs the man. "You did?"

Dae-ho pushes him away. "I said I get it."

The shorter man turns back to the group. "Thank you for understanding. But I voted in favor partly because I feel confident. We did so well as a team, didn't we? If we stick together one more time, I'm sure we'll be fine." He turns to you. "I'll make sure we survive the next game-"

"'The next game'?" Gi-hun cuts him off. "In the next game, we might have to kill each other."

There is silence before Young-il speaks up. "Gi-hun, that's a bit much. There's nothing we can do now, so let's try to stay positive. We should eat, pull ourselves together, and try our best again." He picks up his milk and hands it to you. "Here, you can have mine too. Hang in there until the next game."

You shake your head. "No, that's okay."

"Take it. I don't drink plain milk."

You thank him as you take the milk.

Jung-bae takes the bread out of his pocket. "Have my bread, too. I don't deserve to eat."

You smile as you take it. You have been feeling hungry and one piece of bread would definitely not be enough for you, so you're grateful for the men around you.

"I'll take your milk then," Dae-ho says to Jung-bae.

Before you can stop yourself, a loud laugh escapes from your mouth. The others smile before laughing along as well. You look over to Dae-ho to see a blush covering his face as he smiles.

<>

"Pass it to me."

The guys hand each other mattresses as they move them to under the beds. You had been put in charge of collecting blankets and pillows so you wouldn't strain yourself.

"Is this really necessary?" Jung-bae asks. "I don't like sleeping under there."

"Once the lights go out, somebody might attack us," Gi-hun says as he pushes another mattress under a bed frame.

"What?" Dae-ho asks. "Who?"

"The prize money still goes up if we kill each other. It's part of the game they designed."

"Gi-hun, I think you're overreacting here," Young-il says. "Even if that were true, people wouldn't do that."

Gi-hun turns to face him. "In the previous games, dozens of people killed each other at night. Right here. You have no idea how people can change in this place."

Young-il apologizes and you hand the blankets in your arms to Jung-bae.

"We need to take turns keeping watch after lights-out," Gi-hun says. "I'll take the first, you should decide the order for the rest."

The order decided was that Jung-bae would take over after Gi-hun, then Dae-ho, then Young-il would be last. You tried to volunteer to keep watch but they immediately shot you down, saying you needed the rest more than them.

<>

After a trip to the bathroom with players 149 and 120, whose names you still did not know, you come back to find Dae-ho keeping watch. You try to quickly wipe the tear stains from your cheeks as you walk back to the makeshift shelter. You give a quick nod to Dae-ho before trying to move past him, but he calls out your name, making you stop and turn to look at him.

He looks up at you with concern. "Are you okay?"

You put on a smile and nod. "Yes, I'm fine." As you try to walk away you feel his hand gently grab your wrist to stop you.

"No you're not," he says. You sigh, upset that you've been caught. He moves to the side to give you space and you sit next to him, figuring you're not gonna get out of this. "What happened? Was it the baby?"

You shake your head, feeling tears start to well up again. "It's everything." You put your head in your hands. "I never should have played Ddakji with that guy, I never should have called the number, I should have just stayed at home and prepared for the baby."

Dae-ho gently rubs your back as you cry into your sleeves. Even though you really only just met, he feels connected to you. Maybe it's just because you survived the second game together, but he cares for you and doesn't want anything bad to happen to you. He was stunned when you had walked up to the group before the game and asked to join, immediately regretting picking anyone besides the beautiful stranger that was standing in front of him.

"What about your husband?" Dae-ho asks. "Does he know that you're here?"

You shake your head. "I don't have a husband. I don't even have a boyfriend. It's just me and the baby." You turn to look at him and although he's too kind to ask you how you got knocked up, you can see the question all over his face. "My ex-boyfriend is the reason I got into so much debt. He made a lot of bad investments and when he ran out of his own money, he started using mine. When I told him I was pregnant, he freaked out and left. Didn't even say anything, his stuff was just all gone one day."

Dae-ho feels himself getting angry at this. If he found out a man had done this with one of his sisters, he would do something to him that would probably land him in prison. It takes two people to make a baby. Just because the mother is the one that carries it doesn't mean that the father isn't responsible for the child.

"He's a fucking coward," Dae-ho says, making you snort a small laugh. "And he's an idiot to leave you."

"It's for the best, though," you say. "He wasn't a good boyfriend, I knew that even while we were dating. But he was my first love, and we all do stupid things the first time we're in love." Dae-ho nods, watching as you bring your hand to rest on your stomach. "I only wish that my child would have a father in their life."

"They will have an amazing mother, though," he says, making you smile.

"I hope so," you rub your swollen belly. "Hey, Dae-ho, can I ask you something?"

Dae-ho nods, looking at you with intrigue.

"Earlier you told Jung-bae that you had thought about voting to stay. Why didn't you?" You ask.

The man takes a deep breath. "Honestly, I thought of you. You and your baby. When you told us that you're pregnant, it really hit me that I'm not the only person in here, that there are other lives at risk. If you died, it wouldn't just be the end of your life. Your baby doesn't deserve that. You don't deserve that."

You can't help the smile that blooms on your face at his words, as well as the small blush. "Thank you for thinking of me. You're a very sweet person, Kang Dae-ho." You watch as he gives you a shy smile, a light dusting of pink on his face. "What about you? Do you have a girlfriend waiting for you back home?"

He shakes his head. "No, just me." You give him an incredulous look and he chuckles. "Dating wasn't easy while in the Marines, and I guess I just never found anyone that interested me enough after."

You let out a small laugh. "Sounds like you have high standards."

He chuckles. "I'm just waiting to find the one. They say that when you know, you know."

"That's going to be one very lucky girl," you say, watching as the blush on his face deepens. "I hope you find her soon."

"I can't explain why, but I feel like I will." He smiles down at you with a look that makes your heart skip a beat. After a few moments he takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry I've kept you up for so long, you should get some sleep. You'll likely need your energy for tomorrow's game."

You nod, standing up. "You're right, I've been up too long." You start to move towards your mattress, but stop. "It was nice talking to you, Dae-ho."

He smiles at you. "Goodnight."

You smile back. "Goodnight."

For the rest of his watch, Dae-ho sneaks peaks at your sleeping form, a warm feeling running through him when he thinks about your words.

<>

You awake to the feeling of someone shaking you. Groggily opening your eyes, you see Dae-ho leaning over you.

"The next game is starting soon, we need to get up," he says.

You hear the classical music that has played before every game and nod, allowing him to help you get out of bed. "Nothing to start the day off like a sadistic game and fearing for your life, huh?"

Dae-ho lets out a chuckle as you make your way to the doors. He walks behind you on the stairs to make sure you don't fall, and stands right by your side as the curtains are opened to reveal the game room.

"Welcome to your third game. The game you will be playing is Mingle. All players, please step onto the center platform. When the game starts, the platform will begin to rotate, and you will hear a number. You must form groups of that size, go into the rooms, and close the door within 30 seconds."

"Oh, this game?" Jung-bae says. "We used to play something similar on school trips. We formed groups by hugging."

"I played it too," you say. "But we would hold hands instead."

Together you set up a strategy. If the number is five, you'll all go together. If it's more than five, you'll grab however many people we need. If it's smaller than five, you'll break off into groups. When your strategy is done, you put your hands in the center.

"Victory at all costs."

<>

"Let the game begin."

The platform jerks as it starts rotating, and you almost lose your balance, but Dae-ho is there to grab you and steady you on your feet.

"Ten."

Everyone starts looking around like mad as they try to find ten players.

Gi-hun looks to a player behind him. "How many are you?"

"Four," the woman replies. You recognize her as one of the women who came to the bathroom with you last night.

"That makes us nine!" Jung-bae says.

A man from another group comes running over. "Are you five? We need five!"

Before any of you can answer, another player yells back. "We have five people! Come with us!"

The two groups go running off towards a door.

"We have to hurry!" Gi-hun says.

"There's no time, Gi-hun!" Young-il tells him.

"We need one more!" the tall woman yells. She spots someone by herself near the center of the platform and grabs her. "We have ten!"

"Room 44! Green door! Hurry!" Young-il yells, already running off in the direction of the door.

You run as fast as you can towards the door as Young-il holds it open for everyone to get inside. You feel Dae-ho's hand on the small of your back the entire way to the room. Before you get the chance to even think, the clock runs out, and the lock clicks on the door.

Screams and gunshots can be heard from behind the door, the sad fate of those who didn't make it in time.

Dae-ho turns to you, putting his hands on your shoulders. "How are you feeling? Is everything okay?"

"A bit out of breath, but I'm okay," you say, and he nods. Taking the chance to look around the room, you see that the other five is the first group that passed the pentathlon the day before.

"You're alive thanks to me!" Player 044 yells out, making you jump. She looks over everyone before stopping on you and stepping closer, making you take a step back. Dae-ho holds you close to him as the woman looks down at your stomach. She then looks up at Dae-ho and gives him a knowing smirk before leaving to speak to Gi-hun.

You look up at Dae-ho, who is still holding you to his chest. He watches the woman walk away before look down at you, your faces so close that your noses are only a few inches apart.

Once the bodies are removed from the playing area, you're let out of the room and make your way back to the center platform. The next round is four people to a room, and Young-il goes off on his own to find three more as the rest of you run to a room with a purple door.

Once you're let out, Dae-ho and Jung-bae yell for Young-il before a voice calling Gi-hun's name grabs your attention. You look over with relief to see Young-il jogging up to your group.

"I knew you were going to be okay!" Jung-bae smiles as he pulls Young-il in for a hug. "I knew it. You're not just anybody."

"I was worried," Gi-hun says. "I'm glad you made it."

Young-il smiles. "I'm a likable guy, so I'm good at games like this." He turns to you. "Are you feeling alright?"

You nod with a smile. "Yes, I'm alright. I'm glad you're back."

Young-il gives you a smile, but his face turns serious. "Wait a minute," Young-il says, "if the next number is six, we won't need anyone else, will we?"

"Why not?" Dae-ho asks.

After a moment, Jung-bae laughs. "Oh, in her tummy?"

Dae-ho lets out a loud laugh. "Right, that makes six."

You smile as they joke around, looking down to your swollen belly.

The next round is three, so you, Dae-ho, and Jung-bae run to a room with an orange door. With every round, you can feel yourself growing more and more tired, and your feet are begging for relief from so much standing and moving.

Once you get out of the green room with Dae-ho and players 120, 095, 007, and 149 (you make a mental note to ask for their names once you're back in the main room), you feel exhausted. As you step onto the platform, Dae-ho grabs your arm to support you.

"Now, the final round will begin."

The platform begins to rotate and you lean on Dae-ho to keep yourself upright.

"What do you think it'll be this time?" Jung-bae leans forward to ask Gi-hun.

"Two," Young-il answers, getting our attention.

"Why?"

"There are 126 people left, and there are 50 rooms. So there won't be enough rooms for everyone, only 100."

"Are you alright?" Dae-ho asks you, concern on his face.

You shake your head. "I don't think I can run anymore."

The platform stops and the lighting dims.

"Two."

Before you can tell what's happening, you are lifted off the ground. You hold on tightly to Dae-ho as he sprints to the nearest door with you in his arms. Once inside, he places you on the ground and moves toward the door, pushing his weight against it to keep anyone else from getting in and pushing you out.

You keep your gaze on the man. He saved your life. He saved your baby's life. Without hesitation. Hell, he even voted to leave for you yesterday. This man who only came into your life a day ago has shown you more unwavering loyalty than anyone else has before.

Then the realization dawns on you: you don't want to do this without him. You don't want anything to happen to him. You want to protect him, just as he is protecting you. Not just in the games, but always.

The lock on the door clicks into place and screams are heard from the other side of the door. Once the screams finish, Dae-ho kneels beside you.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

You shake your head, still in awe of the man in front of you. You examine his face and a surge of confidence rushes through you.

"Can I do something really stupid?"

Dae-ho gives you a confused look. "What?"

You grab his zip-up and pull him to you, planting your lips against his. You feel him stiffen and worry that you've made a terrible mistake, but before you can pull away, you feel one of his hands slide into your hair as the other moves to cup your cheek.

For a perfect moment, you're not in this crazy place. There's no debt, there's no death, there's no fear. There's just you and Dae-ho.

You pull away first but Dae-ho chases your lips, giving you a peck before resting his forehead against yours as you both try to catch your breath.

"I promise you that I am going to get us out of here," he whispers to you. You feel his hand move down to your stomach. "The three of us. If you'll let me."

You gasp at his words, tears forming in your eyes as you nod. This time, you believe him. Dae-ho pulls you in for another kiss and you smile against his mouth, feeling him smile as well.

The sound of the door unlocking gains your attention and Dae-ho pulls away. Voices can be heard beyond the door.

Dae-ho stands up and holds out his hands for you to take, helping you to your feet. He wipes the stray tears from your cheeks and plants a kiss on your forehead before lacing your fingers together and leading you out of the room.

Dae-ho tags: @whatthefuckeryfuckityfuck

Lmk if you want to be added to the Dae-ho taglist!

[personapeters]

✰ 𝐛𝐟!𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐱 𝐩𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞!𝐠𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

— rich boyfriend rafe and his whole heartedly pogue girlfriend

rating: sfw — cw: none

— boyfriend!rafe who… actually gets annoyed when you spend your money instead of his: “look, baby, i know you can but why when i’m literally throwing my card at you?” he questioned. “i’m not taking it, rafe,” you rebutted. “yeah? okay, don’t,” he mumbled, casually dropping a banded stack of cash onto your lap.

— boyfriend!rafe who… absolutely judged a book by it’s cover when you first met, knowing you were from a side of town he didn’t favor, but your beauty was something he couldn’t ignore. though, his outlook barely shifted; technically, not all pogues were trash, but he considered you to be the one and only exception.

— boyfriend!rafe who… is used to getting what he wants, so he was highly taken aback when you declined his first offer to go out. it was new and completely foreign, but it only made him want you even more — he’s always had a desire to obtain the ‘unobtainable’

— boyfriend!rafe who… caught so much shit from topper and kelce when they found out about his relationship with a pogue; so much so that rafe almost fought them over it, telling them to ‘get the fuck over it’ and to never speak on you again.

— boyfriend!rafe who… on occasion would reluctantly let your pogue friends go out on his yacht with the two of you for the day, which ultimately would end with him dropping them off an hour (or four) early. he wants them miles away from his pristine boat but loves how happy you look when you were all together.

— boyfriend!rafe who… hears you mention liking something once and makes sure it’s in your hands before the following day ends. they were always simple things like a cute t-shirt or sunglasses, which, to him, were so cheap and mundane that he found it rather adorable when you’d cherish them like literal gold.

— boyfriend!rafe who… isn’t too fond of where you live — your house being small, somewhat falling apart, and overall something far below rafe’s standards. he wishes you’d take him up on his offer to simply get you an apartment on his side of town: “okay, but it’d be so much better for you… and you’d be closer to me,” he mumbled, a small smile pulling at the corners of his pink lips.

— boyfriend!rafe who… takes you riding on his dirt bike to go sightseeing across figure eight, often taking the long way home just to feel your arms wrapped around his waist for just a little longer. you once asked if you could drive it, which would have been your first time, to which he immediately said, “fuck no, what — you tryin’ to break your neck? no.”

— boyfriend!rafe who… tried his first ever boxed mac and cheese with you, as random as it was, after you insisted it’s the greatest inexpensive food on earth; him beforehand saying, “what? y/n, that’s fucking powder…” but after he tried a bite of yours, he reluctantly said, “it’s not that bad… i might see the appeal.”

— boyfriend!rafe who… gives you ‘ultimatums’ when buying you clothes (although, you always insist you don’t need them), saying he’ll get you whatever you want as long as you try on some of his picks first. he would have gotten whatever you wanted regardless, he just liked seeing you model for him, which, secretly, you knew.

— boyfriend!rafe who… buys you extremely expensive jewelry and lies about the price, saying it’s a hundred times cheaper than it is to avoid you trying to give it back. he enjoys watching the dainty bracelet on your wrist or gold studs in your ears glint in the sunlight, knowing that you’re clueless on that fact that they’re the nicest money could buy — he needs only the best for his girl.

— boyfriend!rafe who… truly hated physical touch until you showed him it could be gentle — that it could be sweet, and warm, and kind, and didn’t have to leave him bloody or sore. he loves when you run your nails gingerly across his scalp or hold his hand in your lap, twisting absentmindedly at the rings adorning his long fingers; a type of touch (and love) he’d never felt before

— boyfriend!rafe who… craves your validation, no matter how big or small. he just needs to hear that he did something right, something good, something you’re proud of. he wants to hear you tell him he did a great job at making you dinner or picking out a dress for your spontaneous outings — your approval means so much more to him than you’d ever know.

— boyfriend!rafe who… uses his high status to (begrudgingly) help your pogue friends get out of whatever trouble they land themselves into, knowing it means alot to you and takes a weight off your shoulders: “m’doing this for you, alright? not them, you.”

— boyfriend!rafe who… is pretty heavy on pda. he doesn’t care whose watching when he lazily drapes a possessive arm around your shoulders, or when he kisses you messily with full force; whether it be a kook or pogue witnessing his shameless affections, he didn’t care — who’d dare to say something about it?

 personapeters 2024 — all rights reserved • masterlist