#like hes been keeping everything in for too long

[bewaryofpity]

NEXT STEP IS LOVE - L. HUGHES

[2.0k] luke brings you to the family skate, surprising his teammates, and the usual “i didn't know you had a girlfriend” comes up, but this time luke has enough of calling you just his best friend.

warnings: none ! just some cute ol' fluff; probably really cringey 😔

a/n: she's a short one, and i’m not really fond of it but here it is anyway. sorry guys :(

“Didn’t know Luke had a girlfriend.”

“That’s because he doesn’t. That is his best friend.”

“Bullshit.” Kovacevic laughed in Jack’s face before turning his head back towards Luke near the bench.

Luke was kind of a private person so the idea of him having a secret girlfriend would have made sense to anyone, especially to the new guys he wasn't close with yet. But when Jack revealed that the girl in front of Luke was simply a friend had to be the biggest lie Kovy ever got told. Because friends don’t look at each other that way.

Luke’s fingers were trembling as he tied the laces of your skates carefully, making sure they weren’t too tight or too loose. He felt nervous having you here with him, which was strange because it wasn’t like you’ve never been around the guys before, but the new season meant new guys too. Which also meant that the same old dreaded question was going to come up at any moment.

“Good?”

You nodded in response before stretching your hands out so Luke could help you up the bench. You were wobbly at first, as he tried to hold back the teasing grin creeping on his lips, definitely not used to being on skates as often as him. 

You slowly made your way onto the ice, clutching his hand like your life depended on it. He couldn’t help but keep his gaze on your concentrated face, cheeks flushed from the chill of the arena as you found your rhythm. He was lost in his thoughts, stomach filling with butterflies when your hands squeezed his tighter. And if it weren’t for the little squeak you left out, he would’ve let you fall.

“Sorry,” he said with no hint of honesty in his voice while you shot him a playful look. 

It wasn’t long before you found your footing and let go of his hands to skate side by side. There weren’t many chances for you to hang out with Luke in these settings. The last time you skated together was when he was still a rookie, and he almost got in trouble too many times for using the rink after hours just to teach you how to skate, but you loved every single moment of it. So when he realized your day off coincided with the family skate, he didn’t hesitate to mention it and you couldn’t wait to be there for him, doing something you know would make him happy.

Though, the only thing that was different from those times was the fact that holding Luke’s hands now had your heart doing funny tricks on you. The newfound warmth that has taken over your body in his presence this past year or so was unexpected and scary because you were well aware what this meant and you couldn’t lose Luke over a stupid crush. 

If only you knew that he too got to a point where hiding his feelings for you was actually painful. He tried everything to spend as much time with you as possible. Faking being too tired to drive back to his place and sleep on your couch, missing optional skates, staying up at night before an away game just to hear your voice, letting you nap and waking you up only to convince you to spend the night at his place because i don’t want you to drive, it’s too dark outside and dangerous. It was all worth it in his eyes. But the ache in his chest everytime he had to leave you was becoming harder to suppress than he thought and he couldn’t take it anymore.

As he tried to grab at your brushing hands, Pesce stopped abruptly in front of you and almost knocked you down in the process. 

“Didn’t know Rusty here had a girlfriend.” He said with a grin before turning his attention to Luke, wiggling his brows in a teasing maner.

“Oh, no, I'm just a friend.”

“Oh.”

“His best… friend, actually.” You tried to smile as sincerely as you could. The question never bothered you before, you two were close enough that such was expected, but the way Luke couldn’t look at you during the exchange with his teammate created a pit in your stomach.  

Before he could take you away from the awkwardness of it all, Cotter skated over too. “Here we go,” mumbled Luke. 

“Meeting the girlfriend without me?” 

“Not the girlfriend apparently.”

"Really?" He asked, his tone skeptical as his eyes flicked between you. "Could’ve fooled me."

Luke groaned, not missing the way his teammates exchanged knowing looks and chuckling under their breaths. He couldn’t really blame his teammates for jumping to conclusions. If he were in their shoes, he might have assumed the same thing, it happened way too often anyway.

He grabbed at your hand and pulled you towards him, skating as far as possible from everyone. Was it really that obvious he liked you? Yet, you were still by his side, seemingly not phazed by the constant nagging and teasing from outsiders about your relationship, which could only mean that you didn’t like him back. 

Luke was tired of all of this and the months he spent burying his feelings for you, convincing himself that your friendship was enough, were all coming down on him now with everyone assuming you were a couple. Feeling heavy, he hoped the family skate came to an end soon.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry about them.”

“That’s okay.”

You nodded but didn’t press further, not yet at least. Your hand came to rest around his bicep, seeking his warmth and pretending to need balance as you grew tired. 

The easy rhythm you found earlier was now gone. Luke could tell you were trying to bring yourself comfort by staying close to him, though you kept your gaze on the ground which could only mean you were absorbed in your thoughts. And he hated that it was all his fault, he hated the idea of you thinking he was embarrassed or annoyed by the assumption that you were together. Because he wasn’t, he had dreamed of being your boyfriend more times than he‘d like to admit. And he wanted nothing more than being able to call you his. 

Sensing your exhaustion, he led the way towards the bench to change back into normal shoes. The rink was quieter now, families thinning out. You leaned back, stretching your legs, and looked at him with a small frown on your lips. You didn’t have time to reach down when he brought up one of your feet to untie your skate.

“What’s on your mind, Luke?” 

Luke hesitated, his fingers fumbling with your skate laces. “Nothing.” 

“It’s not nothing, Luke. You’re too quiet, what’s wrong?”

“Does it not bother you when people ask if we’re a couple?”

You blinked at him, startled by the question. It wasn’t what you expected, and for a moment, you didn’t know how to respond. Luke had stopped untying your skate, his hands frozen mid-motion as he waited for your answer. His expression was unreadable, but you could see the tension in his shoulders and the way his jaw tightened.

“Bother me?” You repeated softly, the chill of the rink seemed to seep into your skin, though you weren’t sure if it actually was the cold temperature or the sudden shift in the conversation. “No, not really. I mean, it happens all the time, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Luke nodded slowly, looking down at your skate again. He resumed working on the laces, but his movements were slower now, almost hesitant. You shifted slightly, your other foot tapping lightly against the rubber mat beneath the bench. 

“Does it bother you?” You tilted your head, watching him carefully. 

Luke let out a quiet sigh and dropped his hands on your leg. “I don’t know.” He admitted. “Sometimes, I guess. Not because of what they think, but… because of what it implies.”

“And what does it imply?” 

You echoed, your voice barely above a whisper. Your heart began to race, the steady rhythm you’d been clinging to slowly slipping away. You couldn’t help but search his face for clues, for anything that might explain the sudden vulnerability in his tone.

Luke hesitated, his green eyes flicking up to meet yours for something — permission, maybe, or courage. And for a moment, he seemed to be weighing his next words, his brows drawing together in a way that made your chest ache. 

“Luke…”

“I like you,” he said, the words tumbling out in a rush, as if he was afraid he’d lose his nerve if he waited any longer. “I’ve liked you for a while now and I’ve been trying so hard to pretend that I don’t. I can’t stand being apart from you, I need you close to the point where I am not my own person anymore. I’m tired of the ache in my chest everytime I have to leave you, not just for roadies, but every time we part ways, it’s like I’m a different person without you that I can't recognize.”

“When they say stuff like that, it just makes it harder because I want it to be true. I want us to be more than just friends. I want to wake up next to you and come home to you every day.”

You blinked, clearly caught off guard. You tried to open your mouth as if to speak, but he pressed on, the words tumbling out like water breaking through a dam. His words started fading in your racing mind. His confession hung in the air heavy and raw, and all of it felt like you’ve been hit by a truck. Luke, your best friend, liked you and you were glad he hadn't stopped talking because, truly, you didn’t know what to say.

Luke’s heart felt like it might burst from his chest, every beat echoing in his ears as he braced himself for rejection, for awkwardness, for the possibility that he’d just ruined everything. The silence that followed when he stopped taking felt like an eternity. And for a moment, you just stared at him, expression unreadable. 

“You don’t have to say anything. I just… wanted you to know.”

You dropped your foot to the ground and scooted closer to him. As he turned to face you, your hand pressed against his cheek and you leaned in to place a delicate kiss on his lips. It was soft, almost hesitant, but it was enough to make Luke freeze. His mind blanked, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it. When you pulled back, your face was mere inches from his, your hand still lingering on his cheek. Your cheeks were flushed, though whether from the cold or the weight of the moment, he couldn’t tell.

His heart pounded in his chest as you bit your lip, your hand dropping from his face to rest on your lap. 

“It’s always been you, Luke.” Your gaze met his once more, the blush on his cheeks making him cuter than he ever looked. Luke’s eyes widened, still incredulous even after your kiss. 

“Really?”

“Really.” You smiled, a small, tentative curve of your lips as you nodded.

He leaned forward slightly clearing his throat, his eyes searching yours. “Can I kiss you again?” He asked, voice barely audible.

This time, the kiss wasn’t hesitant or fleeting. It was soft and tender, a promise of everything you both hoped to build together. When you finally pulled apart, your foreheads rested against each other, and for the first time in a long while, everything felt right.

“Hey, lovebird! Tone it down a bit, there’s kids around.”

Luke groaned at one of the guys’ teasing from the other side of the rink, and you laughed at his antics, the weight on your shoulders had finally been lifted off. 

“So… does that mean you’ll be my girlfriend?” You didn’t know your cheeks could flush any more, and smiling at his question, you reached up to brush a stray strand of hair from his face.

“Eh, I’ll have to think about that.”

[kirammanswifey]

Will you, pretty please, make a pt 2 of arcane characters breaking up with their so? You know, some fluff to cure our wounds…

arcane characters reconcile with you after the breakup x fem reader

characters: viktor, jinx, vi, caitlyn, jayce, ekko, silco, mel and sevika.

writer's note: let's be honest, both you and i needed this, i love a bit of drama but a bit of fluff is also necessary sometimes, and it was so nice to write this, i loved all the reconciliations, especially caitlyn's. thank you so much for all the support you give me, it makes me want to keep creating more and more content. as you know the requests are open ;)

break up link:

alternative sad final link:

@sugurulefttesticle thanks for the support babe :3

Viktor

The laboratory was shrouded in an unsettling gloom, the shadows cast by the machines seemed longer, darker. Loneliness had settled in every corner, but at the center of it all, Viktor was there, hunched over his plans, as if the weight of his thoughts was crushing him.

Since you had left, time had lost its meaning. The hours blurred into sleepless nights and frantic days of work. But nothing, no formula, no discovery, could fill the void you had left.

The door opened with a soft creak, but Viktor didn’t turn around. Perhaps he had imagined that sound before, hoping it was you, and he feared that this time it would be another illusion. However, your gentle steps echoed on the metal floor, and then his heart skipped a beat.

"Viktor..." your voice was barely a whisper, laden with emotion. "Please, look at me."

He closed his eyes, as if he needed to gather all his strength to do so. Slowly, he turned towards you, and seeing you there, a mix of surprise and something akin to relief crossed his face. But his eyes were filled with something deeper, a sadness he couldn’t hide.

“I didn’t think you would come back…” he said with a broken voice, barely audible. “After everything I did… I didn’t think I deserved your return.”

You stepped closer, each step carrying the intent to close the distance he had put between you. "Viktor, it was never about deserving. It’s about understanding that we need to face this together."

“I pushed you away because… I’m afraid,” he confessed, his voice trembling with the emotional weight. “Afraid that you’ll see me fail, that everything I am won’t be enough. Afraid that one day you’ll realize you can be happier without me.”

The weight of his words hit you like a wave, but you didn’t waver. “Viktor, we all have fears. But running from what scares us doesn’t make it go away. I’m here because I don’t want a future without you, even if it means facing our fears together.”

Viktor lowered his gaze, a silent tear falling down his cheek. “You are... the only thing that has kept me human. Without you, I become a machine, soulless, heartless. I don’t want to lose myself… I don’t want to lose you.”

Hearing those words, your own tears began to flow. You stepped closer to him, your hand reaching his face, gently caressing the cheek where the tear had fallen. “You won’t lose yourself, Viktor. Not as long as we’re together.”

He finally lifted his gaze, his eyes searching yours with a mix of desperation and hope. “How can you keep loving me after everything I’ve put you through?”

“Because I love you,” you said without hesitation. “Not for what you do, but for who you are, even when you can’t see it yourself.”

Viktor let out a sob he had been holding back, and without thinking twice, he moved towards you, wrapping you in his arms. It was a fragile embrace but full of promises. In that moment, you knew that, although the road would be difficult, together you could find a way to rebuild what had been broken.

Jinx

The night was heavy with rain and despair. Jinx stood at the edge of a building, her feet barely touching the edge as she gazed into the abyss below. The icy wind whipped her body, but she didn’t feel the cold. She was trapped in a whirlwind of dark thoughts, each more desperate than the last.

“End it,” the voices in her head whispered, cruel and persistent. “It’s best for everyone. Get rid of all the pain. You don’t deserve more.”

Her gaze was empty, lost in a place no one else could reach. She closed her eyes, letting the tears mix with the rain, allowing the weight of her emotions to push her further toward the edge.

But then, through the sound of the rain, she heard something. A voice. A familiar voice, filled with anguish. “Jinx, no, please... don’t do it.”

She opened her eyes slowly and saw you, soaked by the rain, your face marked by desperation and tears. You had run to her, not stopping, not thinking of the danger. Now you were there, fighting to reach her, fighting to bring her back.

“Why did you come?” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I told you to stay away... not to come back.”

“Because I can’t leave you alone,” you responded, taking a step closer, each movement filled with fear and love. “I love you, Jinx. I can’t lose you like this.”

She shook her head, the tears falling uncontrollably. “You shouldn’t love me. Not after everything I’ve done. I’m a mess. I’ll ruin you, like I ruin everything.”

“Let me decide that,” you said, your voice broken but firm. “You’re not a mess. You’re my baby, and I love you, even when everything seems to fall apart. I won’t leave you alone.”

Jinx stepped back slightly, as if your words hurt her more than anything else. “I always hurt people... I can’t stop. I don’t want to hurt you, but I always end up doing it.”

“I can take it,” you replied, stepping closer, extending your hands toward her, knowing you couldn’t rush her. “Because I’d rather be with you in your worst moments than lose you forever. You don’t have to face this alone. Let me help you.”

She trembled, the weight of her emotions too much to bear. “I’m scared... scared that I can’t stop, scared that this darkness will consume me. I don’t want you to sink with me.”

“We’ll sink together if we have to,” you promised, your hands still extended, waiting for her to reach you. “I don’t care how much it costs. I’m here to stay, Jinx. I won’t abandon you.”

For a long and painful moment, Jinx remained silent, her gaze filled with a sadness so deep it seemed impossible to heal. But finally, her hands moved, barely brushing yours at first, then clinging to them as if they were the only thing keeping her anchored to this world.

“Promise me you won’t leave me,” she whispered, her voice broken by anguish.

“I promise,” you said, squeezing her hands with all the love and desperation you felt. “No matter what happens, no matter how dark it gets, I’ll always be with you.”

With those words, Jinx stepped back from the edge and collapsed into your arms, her body shaken by heart-wrenching sobs. The storm still raged around them, but at that moment, they were bound by something stronger than fear: the promise not to abandon each other.

Vi

The weeks without Vi have been torment. Each day feels like a part of you fades a little more, as if her absence is slowly tearing your soul apart. Today, you’re in the gardens of your home, holding a photo in your hands: the first one you took with Vi, both smiling, happy, unaware of the pain that would come after. Tears blur your vision as your heart breaks over and over with the memories.

Then, you hear footsteps, and there she is, standing, her eyes filled with a mix of regret and desperation. You quickly try to dry your tears, to hide the photo, as if that could erase the pain consuming you.

“What are you doing here?” you ask, your voice trembling, not sure if you can bear what’s to come.

Vi takes a step forward, her expression more vulnerable than ever. “I miss you,” she says, her voice broken. “I’m sorry for everything I said, everything I did. I can’t live without you.”

You close your eyes, feeling every word of hers like a direct blow to your heart. “None of that matters now, Vi,” you respond, trying to maintain your firmness. “My family has decided to marry me to a member of the Piltover council.”

Vi looks at you, her face pale. “Marry?” she whispers, as if the word were a curse. “You can’t do it. I know you don’t love anyone else. You can’t love anyone but me.”

Tears threaten to return, but you hold them back. “It’s not my choice, Vi. They decide for me. You’re the one who left me, who pushed me into this destiny.”

“I was an idiot,” Vi admits, taking another step toward you. “I know. But I can’t let this happen. I’ll fight for you, even if I have to face the whole world. I won’t lose you, not like this.”

“And what will that change?” you shout, unable to contain the pain any longer. “You can’t fight everyone! You can’t change who I am, what they expect of me.”

Vi stops, her gaze fixed on yours, with an intensity that leaves you breathless. “The only time you’ll stand at an altar will be with me by your side,” she says with unbreakable firmness. “I won’t let you marry anyone else. Not as an act of pride, but because I love you, and I don’t want to live without you.”

“Vi, please,” you whisper, the tears now falling freely. “This is bigger than us. You can’t fix it with pretty words.”

“Then I’ll fix it with actions,” she responds, with a resolve you hadn’t seen before. “I’ll go wherever necessary, face your parents, that damn council, anyone who tries to come between us. I won’t let them take you from me.”

Her voice trembles, but her determination does not. “I don’t want you to be my savior,” you whisper, your voice almost inaudible. “I want you to be my partner, my equal. But I can’t do this alone, Vi. I can’t keep fighting if you’re not by my side.”

Vi comes closer, until the distance between you both disappears. “You’ll never be alone again,” she promises, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I love you, and I swear I’ll fight for us, until my last breath. I won’t let them separate us, not them, not anyone.”

The weight of her words envelops you, and finally, you let yourself fall into her arms, allowing all the pain, fear, and contained love to overflow. Vi holds you tightly, whispering promises of a future together, promises that, this time, you’re willing to believe.

Caitlyn

The trial is a public spectacle, a circus meant to satisfy Piltover’s thirst for justice. You stand in the center of the room, hands tied behind your back, as the council leaders gaze at you coldly. The accusations fly over your head like sharp daggers: treason, conspiracy, disloyalty. All because you tried to talk to Ekko, to seek a peace you believed possible between the two cities.

Caitlyn stands at the back of the room, her face impassive, her gaze fixed on you. She hasn’t said a word since the trial began, and the emptiness in her expression breaks you more than any word of condemnation. You know she’s fighting internally, but her silence feels like a sentence in itself.

Finally, the judge announces the decision: "For the charges of treason, this court decrees that you will be stripped of your position as Enforcer and permanently exiled from Piltover."

The verdict falls like a hammer on your heart. You feel your world crumble in an instant. You look at Caitlyn, searching in her eyes for some sign of support, of compassion, but she remains motionless.

As the judge is about to strike the gavel to conclude the session, Caitlyn steps forward, her voice resonating with dangerous calm. "One moment."

The entire room turns toward her. Caitlyn advances with the elegance and authority she has always possessed, but there’s something new in her eyes, a spark of defiance.

"I cannot allow this sentence to be carried out," she says firmly. "This isn’t justice; it’s an act of fear and repression. The person you’re accusing only sought peace, a diplomatic solution to prevent more bloodshed."

The judge frowns, but Caitlyn continues before he can interrupt. "I am the leader of the Enforcers, and my loyalty is to true justice, not a system that punishes hope. If you expel my partner from this city, if you strip someone whose only crime was trying to save us all, then you’ll be provoking a rift you cannot control."

Caitlyn takes another step forward, and her voice lowers, but each word is a sharp edge. "I could easily take control, dismantle this corrupt system from within, and there would be nothing you could do to stop me. But that’s not the justice I seek. What I want is fairness, compassion, and truth."

The silence in the room is deafening. The council members exchange glances, understanding they are not dealing with someone who can be manipulated or intimidated.

After what feels like an eternity, the judge finally relents. "We will review the sentence. The accused will be sanctioned and will not be allowed to leave Piltover, but she will not be exiled or stripped of her position."

Caitlyn nods slightly, then approaches you, freeing you from your bonds with her own hands. "Let’s go," she murmurs, her voice soft yet filled with authority.

You leave the courtroom with her, and once you’re away from the others’ eyes, Caitlyn stops. For the first time, you see her tremble. "I’m sorry," she whispers, her eyes finally filling with tears. "I shouldn’t have doubted you. I shouldn’t have left you alone."

The vulnerability in her voice disarms you. Despite everything, despite the pain, you know Caitlyn did what she could to save you. "Cait," you say softly, taking her face in your hands. "What you just did... was the greatest act of love you could give me. You chose between authority and me, and you chose me."

She closes her eyes, tears falling freely. "It will always be you," she says, her voice trembling. "No matter the odds or the problems that come, I will always choose you. You are my justice, my reason, my everything."

The words sink into your heart, bringing overwhelming relief. You kiss her softly, sealing with that gesture the love that binds you. "You are my everything too, Cait," you whisper. "You always have been."

She holds you tightly, as if she’ll never let you go. "Together," she says in a whisper, her voice laden with emotion. "No matter what happens, we’ll face everything together. Because you are my choice, now and always."

Jayce

The air was thick with tension as the words that had been kept bottled up for so long finally exploded. Everything about him was focused on his ambition, on his vision for Piltover, and everything in you was hurt, torn apart by his indifference.

The last time you saw each other, it was a goodbye filled with cruel and cold words, an ending with no way back. You had decided that you could no longer be the shadow of his dreams, an accessory to the side of his grand plans. You didn’t want any more empty promises. You didn’t want to be the sacrifice.

But now, all that seemed about to change.

One day, you find yourself in your laboratory, lost in your thoughts, trying to push away the lingering pain. The door opens with a familiar creak, and your heart skips a beat without warning. It's not someone you expected to see. It’s him. Jayce.

Silence rises between the two of you. The air is heavy, as if time itself had stopped. He’s there, looking at you, but his gaze no longer holds the confidence it once had. In his eyes, there’s something else now: uncertainty, a faint glimmer of regret.

"I thought I understood," he says, his voice deep but hesitant. "I thought that what I was doing, the ambition, the future of Piltover... I thought it all had to be that way. That I had to leave everything behind, even you, if I wanted to get to where I am now."

You remain silent, the pain still fresh in your veins, but something inside you urges you to listen. You know that everything you’ve been through together can’t be left behind without an answer. You can’t help it, but something inside you breaks again at the sound of his voice, the same one that used to calm your fears, now trembling.

"But I haven’t forgotten you," he continues. "I haven’t stopped thinking about you, about us, about what we were. About what we could have been... if only I weren’t so blind."

You look at him, his presence so intense that it almost makes you doubt everything you thought you knew. "Then why are you here?" you ask, your heart pounding in your chest. "After everything you said... after everything that happened, why?"

Jayce takes a step towards you, hesitant but determined. "Because in the end, I realized that nothing is worth it if you’re not by my side. No matter how great Piltover becomes, no matter how grand my legacy is, if I don’t share that greatness with the person who truly matters."

His voice breaks at the end, as if he’s finally acknowledging something he had avoided all along.

A lump forms in your throat, and your hands tremble slightly. "Jayce..." you murmur, not knowing whether you want to believe him or if you’re afraid it’s too late for all this.

"I’m sorry," he says, his tone filled with remorse. "I’m sorry for not listening to you. For not realizing what we had until I almost lost it. I don’t know how to fix it, but I want to try. If you’ll let me... I want to try to make it right. I want you to be part of my life, not just a secondary option, not just something I pushed aside."

He gently takes your hands, almost as if he’s afraid you’ll break in his fingers. "I want to be better for you. And if that means changing, if it means prioritizing you, I’ll do it. Because I need you. Not just as part of my life, but as the center of it."

Jayce’s words envelop you like a warm embrace, but you’re still afraid. Afraid that this promise might be just another lie. However, a part of you wants to believe that all of this can be real.

"Do you really understand?" you ask, looking into his eyes with an intensity that reflects your doubts and hopes. "Because I don’t want to be a shadow anymore. I don’t want to be the sacrifice on your path to something that doesn’t include what we shared."

He nods, the determination in his gaze revealing that he’s not here just to talk but to prove it. "I promise you, I understand now. What we have is the only thing that truly matters."

Your breathing calms, though the uncertainty still lingers. "So what are you going to do? Are you going to stop fighting just for Piltover and start fighting for us?"

Jayce smiles, a vulnerable but sincere smile. "I’m going to fight for what really matters, for what I didn’t want to lose. For you."

A weight lifts from your shoulders, and for a moment, you feel that the pain of everything lost can be healed. Because, in the end, it’s not about power or control. It’s about what the heart chooses, about what people decide to cherish.

You step closer to him, gently touching his face, and at last, after so long, you allow yourself to be vulnerable. "I don’t want to lose you again," you whisper.

"And you won’t," he responds, drawing you even closer, as if there had never been space between you. "Never again."

Ekko

The cold wind of Zaun blew strongly as you entered the house, the echo of your footsteps resonating like a forewarning. You didn’t know what you were going to find, but something told you that Ekko was no longer the same. The house, once filled with laughter and camaraderie, now seemed empty, desolate.

Ekko was there, sitting in front of a table, his hands trembling slightly. When he saw you, his eyes widened, but there was no surprise, just a flicker of something else. Regret.

"Ekko..." you whispered, your voice breaking. In the distance, the image of the battle came to mind. That night when you almost lost him forever. It had been a brutal blow. The fear of never seeing him again consumed you.

"I saw everything, you know?" Ekko began to speak, his voice softer than usual, as if he were searching for the right words. "When I fell… when everything seemed to be ending… the only thing I saw… was you." A long sigh escaped his chest, as if those words had cost him as much as a contained scream. "I saw your face, your pain… and I realized, too late, that the only battle that truly mattered, the one I didn’t want to lose… was ours."

Silence filled the room, your eyes welling up with tears as you processed what he had just said. "Ekko, why...? Why couldn’t we make it work before?"

He looked at you deeply, as if each word was a struggle, as if he were slowly building up what he felt. "I told you that you weren’t enough... but it was me who wasn’t enough. I, who thought I could save everything, who thought I could be everything for everyone, but when I looked at my life… I saw nothing. I saw what I had lost the most. And it was me who pushed away the only thing that truly mattered."

He stood up with effort, his eyes filled with regret and pain, the way he looked at you was so intense it hurt. "I… I fought for Zaun, but the only real fight I should be fighting, the only one that matters, is for you." His words flowed out of his mouth, but it seemed he was seeking his own forgiveness. "I failed you. I failed you because I didn’t understand what it meant to have you by my side. You were always enough, and you always will be."

He approached slowly, his face now close to yours, and though his gaze was tired, there was something new in it: vulnerability. "Would you let me fight for you, even now, even though everything is broken?"

Your voice trembled as you looked into Ekko's eyes. "Why are you asking me now? Why when everything is already broken?"

"Because I saw you leave, I saw how my life dimmed without you. And I realized that despite everything, the only thing that keeps me standing is knowing that I can still fight for what I love the most. And that's you. You are my reason to keep going. My only reason." His eyes glistened, and for a moment, it seemed that time had stopped between the two of you.

The air was heavy with palpable pain, and your tears fell uncontrollably. No matter how much damage had been done, the love between you had never left, it had just been buried under layers of pride and distance.

"Ekko..." you whispered, your voice broken. "What if I'm no longer what you need?"

"You’ll always be. You always were. And you always will be, baby" he said, his voice cracking as he took your hands with a desperate strength. "I’m so sorry."

Finally, words were no longer enough, and in an impulse, you both leaned in, letting yourselves be carried by the need to heal what was broken. Ekko's tears mixed with yours, the pain transformed into something that needed to be healed, and within the shadows of the house, you both finally understood that although the path to reconciliation would be difficult, there was still a chance to fight for the love that hadn’t completely disappeared.

Silco

The warehouse's dim light wrapped around you like an ominous forewarning, the thick, heavy air clinging to your skin. You had fallen into the trap, and although you knew it, you couldn't stop fighting, trying to free yourself. You had been at the brink of death more times than you cared to count, but this time it was different. The face of the man who held you prisoner was not one you knew well, but you did know that he was under the orders of someone much more dangerous. Silco had never fully explained the world he moved in, but something about the surroundings told you there would be no escape. This wasn't just any kidnapping. This time you wouldn't be saved so easily.

The ropes binding your wrists tightened as your mind spun in search of a way out. Your breathing was uneven, and every attempt to calm yourself only multiplied the fear. The man in front of you, with harsh features and cold eyes, watched your every move with a cruel smile. The sense of threat was palpable, yet you tried to defy him, even though you knew it was a vain attempt.

"Silco?" You called, but your voice trembled, betrayed by panic.

"Do you think he'll come to save you?"

The man let out a mocking laugh, stepping closer, the blade of a knife catching the warehouse's dim light.

"Silco has too many problems to deal with you," he said with a calm that only made the situation more terrifying. "You should already know, in this world, there's no room for weakness. Especially not for a little whore like you; you whores are replaceable. And apparently, he's already replaced you, everyone knows it. But my boss thought it would be a courteous gesture to send him your head as a small gift."

Your thoughts blurred with the sound of the door bursting open, and a chill ran down your spine at the familiar echo of firm, controlled footsteps. It was him. There was no doubt.

The man didn't seem worried, his arrogance had blinded him. "What's the great Silco doing here? Jealous that I have your former little bitch now? Relax, I'll give her back to you once I'm done with her. You can keep a leg or both, but her organs are mine, I'm sure they'll fetch a good price in the market."

There was no response. Silco didn't say a word, but the tension in the air was so thick that the entire room seemed to hold its breath. His eyes, cold as ice, scanned the man before you and then fixed on you, without showing a hint of emotion. Without hesitation, his hand slid to the back of his belt. In the blink of an eye, the sound of the gunshot echoed through the room, and the man fell to the ground, his life fading so quickly he didn't even have time to comprehend it.

It all happened in a matter of seconds, but for you, the world seemed to stop the moment Silco's figure approached. The intensity in his gaze, that palpable energy that used to envelop you in his presence, was now just a reminder of everything you had lost. He freed you from the ropes without a word. The contact of his hand as he touched you sent a shiver down your spine, and though his gesture was practical, you couldn't help but wonder if, in some corner of his being, there was still something of the person he had been before. Something that had loved you.

"You'll be fine," he murmured, his tone cold and distant as always. But this time, it wasn't the tone of the protector, the leader who had cared for you. It was the voice of someone who had forgotten what it meant to feel.

You tried to pull away from his touch, the same touch you had once desired with all your being. You couldn't bear it any longer. You couldn't bear him, his indifference.

"Why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep saving me? If you hate me so much, why save me?" Your voice was a broken whisper, but the pain in it was clear.

Silco remained silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on you with an intensity that burned. You could see the internal struggle in his gaze, that shadow of doubt that had arisen between him and you. Finally, he took a step towards you, his face implacable, but his hands trembling as he approached.

"You didn't understand anything," he murmured, his tone low, more vulnerable than you had ever heard. "What I told you... it was all a lie. I didn't want to lose you, that's why I pushed you away. I didn't want you close to this world, to this hell... but I couldn't. I couldn't let you go. I thought if I pushed you away, you wouldn't suffer, but..." His voice broke briefly, and silence filled the space between you both.

You looked at his face, puzzled by the contradiction in him. Everything he had said before, everything he had done, seemed to crumble now before your eyes.

"You don't understand, do you?" You whispered, still fighting the lump in your throat. "What did you think? That I didn't know what I was getting into when I decided to stay with you? That I didn't know death would always be at my back? That I would always have to live on the edge because you insisted on being the damn king of a world like this?"

Silco didn't respond immediately, his face softened slightly, and a shadow of regret crossed his gaze.

"I know," he said in a hoarse voice, "I know everything I said was cruel. But what I didn't tell you... is that, even if the whole world collapses, the only thing that matters to me... the only thing I've truly loved... is you."

The impact of his words hit you, and for a second, time stopped. The pain, the rage, the uncertainty, all of it seemed to dissolve into the air. But above all, there was something else, something you never expected to hear from him.

"I chose you," you whispered as you slowly approached him. "Despite everything, I chose you. I chose you, and even knowing what it would mean, I would do it again. Because that's what love really is. Choosing the person despite everything, even knowing death is just around the corner."

A flicker of emotion crossed his eyes, something you rarely saw in him, and for a moment, all the hatred, all the anger that had existed between you disappeared, leaving you alone, vulnerable, but finally honest.

"Then, come back, please," he pleaded, his voice trembling, his hand seeking yours. "I can't bear a world without you. I can't lose you. I'll keep protecting you, no matter how many times I have to dirty my hands with blood."

You approached, touching his forehead with the softness of a caress that, in that moment, was the only thing that could heal the wounds you both carried.

"I'm here, my love," you whispered to him, as he closed his eyes, letting the pain and hope dissolve between his arms. "I'll never leave you again. No matter what happens. It will always be you and me against the world. Always and forever."

And so, in that moment, the broken words and wounds of the past were left behind. In their place, there was only the certainty that, in the end, the love they shared couldn't be destroyed, even if the whole world was in ruins.

Mel

It's close to three in the morning when you hear a knock on the door. You're half asleep, your head heavy, but something in the air alerts you. With every step you take towards the entrance, you feel your heart racing, as if you know something is about to change, something you can't stop. You open the door, and there she is.

Mel is not the same as before. She isn't wearing the luxuries that always accompany her, the perfectly applied makeup, or the golden jewelry that always shone on her skin. She's a mess, her gaze lost, her face haggard. The strong woman who always seemed in control is now broken, empty. And when she looks at you, her eyes are not the same. They are filled with pain, with a suffering she hasn't been able to hide.

Before you can say a word, Mel throws herself at you. She takes you by surprise, but you quickly wrap your arms around her. Her body is trembling, as if her entire being is collapsing. You feel her tears soaking your shirt, and in the silence of the early morning, she begins to speak through sobs.

"I faced her..." her voice is broken, and every word costs her more than it seems. "My mother... she told me... she told me I would never be enough. That I'm not. You were right." She pauses for a moment, unable to continue, as if the weight of those words is too heavy for her soul to carry.

You hold her tighter, even though the words coming out of her mouth are like daggers in your chest. "Mel, please... don't say that," you murmur, though the anguish in your own voice is as present as hers. "You're not what she says. You're not."

"I'm her puppet," she responds bitterly. "She manipulated me... manipulated me to make all this happen. To put Piltover in her hands. I started a war, and now... I can't stop it. I'm to blame for all of this." Her crying intensifies, and you can feel her pain as if she's tearing herself apart inside. "She called me weak... called me a disgrace to the Medarda clan..."

Those words leave you cold. You feel the air catch in your throat. But you can't let her fall. You can't let her sink further into that darkness. You pull her away slightly, holding her face in your hands, forcing her to look into your eyes.

"No, Mel," you say firmly, even though your heart is shattered. "You're not weak. You're not a disgrace. You are... you're Mel Medarda, an incredible woman, not Ambessa's daughter. And that's what you'll always be to me."

She shakes her head, as if your words are merely an illusion. "You don't see it... you don't understand," she says, her voice broken by the sobs. "I am everything she wants me to be. Everything she told me to be. And now I don't know who I am... I don't know if I'm what you need."

You move closer to her, almost brushing her lips, and you can feel her desperation. "What you need isn't to be what your mother wants, Mel. What you need... what you need is to be yourself. You are enough. You are more than enough. I want you, with everything you are. It doesn't matter what she thinks. I love you just the way you are."

Mel closes her eyes tightly, as if she wants to block out the pain of your words, but even she knows that something in you is true. You feel that, though she doesn't want to admit it, your love for her is a refuge, a sanctuary from the torment she's lived her entire life.

"I promise I won't leave you alone in this," you continue, holding her face in your hands. "We'll figure it out together, Mel. We will. You're not going to lose me. I'm not going to lose you."

Mel finally looks up and meets your gaze, her eyes filled with tears, but there's something different in her expression. It's not the emptiness she gave you before, it's a spark, something of hope that begins to ignite deep within her.

"I don't want to keep fighting alone," she says softly, almost as if it's a lost whisper. "I'm so afraid... so afraid of all this. Of what I've caused. But... I don't want to lose what we have. I don't want to lose you."

"You won't," you reply with a sigh, holding her tightly, as if you could embrace all her fears. "I won't leave you alone. I promise. We'll figure it out. Together."

Time seems to stop at that moment. The world outside keeps turning, but you and Mel, in this instant, have only each other. And although the future is uncertain, you know that as long as you have each other, nothing can tear you apart.

Sevika

The sound of heavy footsteps is the first thing you hear. It’s late, the city is shrouded in darkness, but something in the air tells you this time it’s not a dream, not a nightmare. The knocking on the door startles you, and when you open it, you see her.

Sevika is standing in front of you, slightly swaying, her breathing uneven. The scent of alcohol is strong, mixed with the sensation of sweat and exhaustion emanating from her body. Her eyes, usually so firm, are now dull, almost lost, as if she’s searching for something she doesn’t know how to find.

“Sevika… what are you doing here?” you ask, your heart pounding in your chest, confused and worried to see her like this.

She doesn’t respond immediately, just stands there, watching you, as if she wants to say something, but the words seem stuck in her throat. After a long silence, she finally speaks, her voice deep and broken.

“I went to the brothels…” she murmurs, her head hanging low, as if it’s a confession, something weighing heavier than anything else. “To forget you. To stop thinking about you. I was with other people… so many other people. But everything I did reminded me of you. Of you and how… how I lost you.”

Your stomach churns at her words. The betrayal cuts you like a sharp knife. You step back from her, feeling the pain grow in your chest.

“No… why? Why did you do that?” The anger and hurt are clear in your voice, but there’s also a vulnerability you can’t hide. “Is that why you left me? To be with other people?”

Sevika lifts her head, her eyes reflecting a remorse so deep you can almost feel it as your own. “I didn’t do it to hurt you,” she says, her words faltering. “I did it because I thought it was what I should do… because I hurt you, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t want you to need me, I didn’t want to drag you with me into this damn abyss.”

Your heart beats so fast you feel it might burst out of your chest. Every word from Sevika hurts more, but there’s something in her gaze, in the way she’s opening up to you now, that makes you hesitate.

“But…” she continues, taking another step closer. “None of it worked. None of it. I remember you in every one of those faces. I remember you when I’m alone when I try to forget you. And the worst part, the most painful part, is that I can’t… I can’t stop wanting you.”

The words hang in the heavy air between you. The silence becomes unbearable. Sevika takes another step, closer to you until you can feel her ragged breath. She’s so close you can see every line on her face, the fragility you never thought she had.

“I… I never wanted you to see me this way,” she says, her voice breaking, as if every word costs her a world. “But please… listen to me carefully. There’s nothing I want more in this damn world than to be with you. I don’t want to keep living without you. I can’t. I love you. I can’t keep running from it. I can’t live with the weight of not telling you this sooner.”

The air freezes between you, and for a moment, the world seems to stop. The hate, the confusion, the betrayal… it all mixes in your chest, but deep down, you know what she just said is real.

“What?” you manage to whisper, your eyes filling with unshed tears. “Are you serious?”

Sevika closes her eyes, as if fighting against herself. “I love you,” she repeats, her voice softer now, as if she’s giving you everything she had, everything she had kept in her heart. “I love you, and I don’t want to keep living this lie. You… you’re the only thing that matters to me. You’re my only reason for being here. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you to keep suffering because of me. Please…”

Those “please” are like a plea, a silent scream that pierces through all the walls you had built around your heart. Sevika, the strong and fierce woman who always showed you her darkest side, is now on her knees before you, vulnerable, open, filled with a desperation you hadn’t seen before.

And in that instant, you feel everything crumble. The pain, the resentment, the confusion… it all disappears. Only love remains, raw and real, so strong it almost chokes you. Without thinking, you throw yourself into her arms, your arms wrapping around her with a desperate intensity, as if you fear that if you let her go, she’ll disappear forever.

“I love you too,” you whisper against her neck, the tears falling uncontrollably. “I love you so much it hurts.”

Sevika holds you with the same strength, her body trembling against yours. “Then let’s make it not hurt,” she murmurs, her words filled with a mix of relief and pain. “Let’s not let it separate us again, please.”

“That won’t happen again,” you reply, your lips seeking hers, not caring about anything else. “I won’t let it happen. What we have is forever.”

When your lips meet, the kiss is fierce, filled with the passion of everything that has built up, of everything that was left unsaid. It’s a kiss filled with desperation, love, and unspoken promises. It’s the beginning of a new chapter, one where the darkness won’t separate you, where love will keep you together, always.

[missarchive]

american jesus² ☆

spencer reid

part one

summary; Spencer continues to spoil you with thoughtful gifts and lavish attention, each gesture reinforcing the growing bond between you both. Despite the lingering questions and unspoken emotions, Spencer becomes more protective and possessive, revealing his vulnerability and need to care of you. As you begin to navigate the complexities of your unconventional arrangement, the lines between business and genuine affection begin to blur, leaving you both caught between desire and uncertainty.

cw; +18 minors dni, sugar baby/daddy dynamics, inexperienced reader, pleasure dom spencer, fingering, dirty talk, munch!spencer, unprotected p in v, multiple orgasms, reader calls spencer "sir"

an; thank you for so so much love on the first part! as always, feedback is greatly appreciated. P.s. this is written with jesus reid in mind <3 xoxo

You exchanged messages almost daily after that. His words were always careful, deliberate, as if he’d spent hours considering each one. He asked about your life—not in a prying way, but with genuine curiosity. He wanted to know your interests, your struggles, the little details that most people overlooked.

In return, he offered glimpses of himself. He told you about his love of books, how his job kept him busy and isolated, and how he’d joined the site not for anything shallow, but because he craved a connection that he hadn’t found anywhere else.

As the days turned into weeks, your messages grew longer, more personal. You learned that he didn’t like crowded places, that he drank too much tea, and that he had a habit of quoting obscure facts when he was nervous.

But despite the growing intimacy of your conversations, there was always a wall between you—a hesitance to reveal too much. Neither of you had shared your real name or details about your work. It wasn’t unusual for this kind of arrangement, but it made everything feel more fragile, like the wrong word could shatter whatever it was you were building.

And then, one night, he sent a message that changed everything.

@ thefourthdoctor; I’ve been thinking... I’d like to meet you in person. If you’re comfortable, of course.

Your heart raced as you read the words. You had been expecting this—waiting for it, even—but now that it was here, you weren’t sure what to say.

@ laceandliterature; Are you sure? 

@ thefourthdoctor; I am. But only if you feel ready. I don’t want you to feel pressured.

You hesitated, your fingers hovering over the keyboard. You wanted to meet him—you couldn’t deny that. But there was a part of you that was afraid. What if he wasn’t what you expected? What if you weren’t what he expected?

@ laceandliterature; Let’s take a little more time. I’m not saying no. Just... not yet.

@ thefourthdoctor; Of course.

@ thefourthdoctor; I’ll wait as long as you need. No pressure.

The conversation continued, and for the next week, things went back to normal—if what you had could even be called that. But the thought of meeting lingered at the back of your mind, growing stronger with every message he sent, every piece of himself he shared.

One night, as you lay in bed, scrolling through his messages, you made up your mind.

@ laceandliterature; Okay, Let’s meet.

@ thefourthdoctor; Are you sure, angel?

@ thefourthdoctor; Yes. I want to meet you, Spencer.

After a few more exchanges, you settled on a quiet café in the city—neutral territory. He insisted on keeping things casual, saying he didn’t want to overwhelm you. If anything, he was a gentleman.

The night before the meeting, you barely slept. You went over everything in your mind a hundred times, questioning your decision, wondering if you were making a mistake. But when the time came, you found yourself standing outside the café, heart pounding as you pushed the door open.

The first time you met Spencer in person, it wasn’t anything like you expected. You had imagined someone cocky, a man accustomed to throwing his money around to get what he wanted. But Spencer wasn’t that. Not even close.

He had chosen a quiet café for your meeting, one tucked away from the bustling city streets, its low lighting and intimate atmosphere offering a sense of privacy. When you arrived, you saw him sitting at a corner table, his long fingers wrapped around a cup of tea, his gaze fixed on a well-worn book.

You almost didn’t approach him. He looked so out of place, like someone who had wandered in by accident, unaware of the implications of what this kind of meeting entailed. But then he glanced up, and his eyes met yours.

You’d recognise those eyes anywhere. They were just as captivating as they had been in his profile picture—intelligent, kind, and curious, but with an edge of something deeper, something darker.

“Hi,” you said, hesitating at the edge of the table.

Spencer stood quickly, his movements awkward but endearing. “Hi. Please, uh, sit. I—I’m Spencer.”

His voice was softer than you expected, but there was a certainty to it that made you feel at ease. As you slid into the chair across from him, you couldn’t help but study him. He was... handsome. 

His hair, a dark cascade of curls that fell just past his shoulders, framed his face like the softest of shadows. Each strand seemed to have a life of its own, unruly and free, yet perfectly suited to him, like a secret kept between the universe and his skin. The golden highlights that kissed the tips caught the light in a way that made him seem almost ethereal, as if sunlight was always seeking to touch him, to linger just a little longer.

His eyes—those eyes—the colour of moss after rain, deep and mysterious, filled with an intelligence that left you feeling both seen and understood, and yet so very far away. There was a quiet intensity in the way they studied everything around him, always searching, always analysing, as though the world was a puzzle he had yet to fully solve. But when they turned toward you, it felt like he was letting the world slip away, if only for a moment, letting you glimpse the tenderness he rarely allowed anyone to see.

His face, pale and angular, was sharp with youth and burdened wisdom all at once. His lips, though soft and pale, would part when he spoke, revealing a mix of shyness and urgency, like every word he shared carried weight. The stubble that traced the sharp edge of his jawline only emphasised the boyishness that lingered beneath the layers of genius and mystery. But it was his smile—rare and fleeting—that truly made your chest ache, a smile that cracked through the fortress around him, like the sun breaking through clouds.

There was something effortlessly magnetic about him, something that made you want to inch closer to understand the stories written in the lines of his face. And yet, just as quickly as he drew you in, there was always an invisible barrier, a space between you and the man that you were still trying to figure out. Spencer Reid was an enigma wrapped in vulnerability, each glance, each gesture, leaving you wanting more of the puzzle to unfold.

The first few minutes were stilted, filled with polite small talk about the weather and the café’s menu. But as the conversation flowed, the tension between you began to ease. Spencer wasn’t like anyone you’d ever met. He spoke with a quiet intensity, his words precise and thoughtful, and he listened just as intently, as if everything you said held a weight he couldn’t ignore.

And then, inevitably, the topic shifted to why you were both there.

“So,” he began, his fingers fidgeting with the edge of his napkin. “I’m not, um... particularly experienced with this kind of arrangement.”

You raised an eyebrow, surprised by his candour. “You mean being a sugar daddy?”

He winced slightly at the term but nodded. “Yes. That. I—I don’t want you to think that I see this as transactional, at least not in the way it’s usually framed. I’m looking for... connection, I suppose. Someone to talk to. To spend time with. And if financial support is part of that, then I’m happy to provide it.”

His words caught you off guard. Most men on the site were upfront about their intentions—dinners in exchange for companionship, gifts in exchange for discretion. But Spencer’s tone was different. He wasn’t trying to seduce you or impress you with his wealth. He was just... honest.

You leaned back in your chair, studying him. “And what do you expect from me?”

He hesitated, his eyes flicking away for a moment before meeting yours again. “I don’t have expectations. I only have... hopes. That you’ll be honest with me. That we can build something that feels mutually beneficial. And if, at any point, you’re uncomfortable, you can tell me. No strings, no pressure.”

There was a sincerity in his voice that made your chest tighten. This wasn’t a game to him. It wasn’t about power or control. It was about something deeper, something more human.

“Okay,” you said, nodding slowly. “I think we can make that work.”

Over the next few weeks, your relationship settled into a rhythm. Spencer was generous, but not in a way that felt overbearing. And then there was the money.

He transferred it to your account without fanfare, always with a note attached. For groceries. For that art class you mentioned. For you.

At first, it felt strange, accepting so much from him. But Spencer never made it feel transactional. He never demanded anything in return, never made you feel like you owed him. It was simply his way of showing he cared.

The calls became a nightly ritual. He’d ask about your day, encouraging you to share every mundane detail as though it were the most important thing in the world. He never interrupted, never rushed you, and his thoughtful responses made you feel like the centre of his universe.

In return, you learned more about his life. He told you about the pressures of his job, the long hours, the cases that weighed on him. But he never dwelled on the darkness. Instead, he focused on the small joys: the satisfaction of solving a puzzle, the camaraderie of his team, the books he escaped into when the world felt too heavy.

And then there were the gifts.

It started with little things: a beautifully bound notebook because you’d mentioned wanting to journal, a box of your favourite chocolates, a scarf in your favourite colour. But soon, the gifts became more extravagant.

A delivery driver showed up at your door one afternoon with a box containing a designer handbag you’d admired in passing. Another day, you received an email confirming that Spencer had paid off your car loan, the subject line reading simply: You deserve this.

“Spencer,” you said when you called him that night, clutching the phone tightly. “You didn’t have to do that. I never asked for—”

“I know you didn’t,” he interrupted gently. “But I wanted to. Please let me do this for you.”

It was hard to argue with him when he sounded so sincere.

The next time you met in person, he handed you a small velvet box across the table. You opened it to find a delicate gold bracelet, simple but exquisite, the kind of thing that felt like it belonged in a museum.

“Spencer,” you whispered, your voice catching. “This is too much.”

His expression softened, his fingers brushing against yours as he helped you fasten the bracelet around your wrist. “Nothing I give you will ever feel like enough,” he said, his voice low and earnest. “But I’ll keep trying.”

He spoiled you in other ways too. He insisted on picking up the check whenever you went out, no matter how much you protested. When you mentioned that your laptop was acting up, a brand-new one arrived at your doorstep the next day.

But it wasn’t just about the money or the gifts. It was the way he made you feel cherished, valued, as though your happiness was the most important thing in the world to him.

One night, as you lay in bed after a long call, you found yourself smiling at the thought of him. It was more than just an arrangement now. Somewhere along the way, you’d started to care about him—not for what he could give you, but for who he was.

The low hum of your phone’s speaker filled the quiet of your bedroom as you lay sprawled across your bed, Spencer’s voice soothing and familiar on the other end of the line. Tonight’s call had started like all the others—a mix of light teasing and genuine curiosity—but somewhere along the way, you felt the tone shift.

“Can I ask you something?” you ventured, fiddling with the bracelet he’d given you, its delicate chain glinting in the soft light of your bedside lamp.

“Of course,” Spencer replied, his voice gentle.

“How do you afford all of this?” you asked, hesitant but unable to keep the question bottled up any longer. “The gifts, the...everything. I mean, you’re so generous, and I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful, but I can’t help but wonder.”

There was a pause on the other end, long enough for doubt to creep into your mind. You opened your mouth to take it back, but then he spoke, his tone thoughtful.

“It’s a fair question,” he said softly. “I suppose I owe you an explanation.”

You heard him exhale, the sound heavy with something you couldn’t quite name.

“I wasn’t always this...comfortable,” he began. “For most of my life, I never cared much about money. I didn’t really need to. My job covered the basics, and I didn’t have anyone to spend it on—not until now.”

His words made your heart tighten.

“What kind of job?” you asked tentatively.

“I was with the FBI,” he said, and though his tone was steady, there was a weight behind the words. “I worked as a criminal profiler for over a decade. It wasn’t easy, but it was...fulfilling, in its own way. We dealt with some of the worst humanity has to offer, but knowing we were helping people made it worth it.”

You sat up a little straighter, the revelation catching you off guard. “That sounds...intense.”

“It was,” he admitted. “But I loved it. The work gave me purpose. Until I got injured in the field,” he said quietly. “A knee injury. Nothing life-threatening, but bad enough that I couldn’t keep up with the demands of the job. I had to retire early.”

You could hear the mix of resignation and lingering frustration in his voice, and it tugged at you.

“I’m sorry,” you said, meaning it.

“Don’t be,” he replied, a hint of a smile creeping back into his tone. “It gave me time to focus on other things—like figuring out what I wanted out of life. I realised I’d spent so much of my time chasing after criminals and trying to make the world a safer place, but I’d never really lived for myself.”

You bit your lip, unsure what to say.

“I had money saved up,” he continued, his tone matter-of-fact. “I never spent much on myself. Just the necessities and the occasional book. So, when I found myself with all this extra time and money... I didn’t know what to do with it. And then I found the site.”

The mention of the website—the place where your strange, beautiful relationship had begun—sent a rush of warmth and something like embarrassment through you.

“I wasn’t looking for anything romantic,” he said quickly, as though reading your mind. “I just wanted...connection. Someone to talk to. And then I found you.”

You smiled, your heart softening. “And now you’re spoiling me rotten.”

Spencer chuckled, the sound low and warm. “I don’t see it that way. I like taking care of you. It makes me happy.”

You felt your cheeks flush. “You don’t have to, though. You’ve already done so much.”

“I want to,” he said firmly, his tone leaving no room for argument. “I spent years putting my energy into a job that left me drained. Now, I finally get to do something that feels good. Something that matters to me. And you matter to me.”

The words hung in the air, heavy with meaning, and you felt your chest tighten with emotion.

“Spencer,” you said softly, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” you murmured, your heart full.

“For what?”

“For being you.”

The silence that followed was warm, comfortable, filled with the unspoken understanding that no matter how unconventional your relationship was, it worked. For both of you.

The next time you saw each other, things were different. You could feel the air between you crackling with an electric charge. The conversation flowed easily, but there was an undeniable tension lingering beneath the surface. Every touch seemed to hold more weight, every glance more meaningful.

After dinner, Spencer invited you back to his apartment. You could tell he was being cautious—he didn’t want to rush anything—but you could also feel that he was testing boundaries, subtly claiming his space. As you sat next to him on his worn out leather couch, his hand brushed against yours, and it felt like the world narrowed down to just the two of you. The quiet intimacy of the moment was powerful, and you both knew you couldn’t keep pretending that your relationship was just a simple arrangement anymore.

His voice broke the silence.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about us,” he said, his words low, careful. “About what we’re doing, and what it means. I can’t keep giving you everything and pretending it’s nothing. It’s not just about the money or the gifts anymore. I want to be more than that for you.”

You felt a surge of emotion, something between excitement and fear. This was what you had been afraid of—the moment when you’d realise that you wanted more, that this wasn’t just some transaction for you either. And you could see in Spencer’s eyes that he was struggling with the same feelings.

“I don’t want you to think that I only care about the money,” you said, your voice quiet but steady. 

Spencer’s gaze softened, and for a moment, there was something vulnerable in his eyes that you hadn’t seen before.

“I know,” he whispered, his hand slipping into yours, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. “But I can’t stop myself from wanting to give you everything. I’m not used to feeling like this. Like I’m needed. I’ve spent so much of my life in control, always keeping my distance... but with you, it’s different.”

You squeezed his hand, understanding what he meant. You didn’t need him to explain further. There was an unspoken connection between you two now—a bond that was undeniable, something more than the surface-level arrangement you’d initially started with.

“I want to give you everything too,” you said softly, leaning in closer. “But you have to promise me something—promise me that this isn’t just about the money. Promise me that you actually want me.”

Spencer’s eyes held yours with an intensity that sent shivers down your spine, his gaze so deep it felt as though he could see every hidden part of you. The air between you thickened, the unspoken tension finally reaching its breaking point. He took a slow step forward, the warmth of his body enveloping you, and for a heartbeat, everything else ceased to exist.

His hand lifted, cupping your cheek in a soft, yet possessive way, as if he was both cherishing and claiming you all at once. “I promise,” the gentle brush of his thumb over your skin sent a flutter through your chest, and before you could process it, his lips were on yours.

The kiss was slow at first, tentative, as if both of you were testing the waters, savouring the newness of it. But the moment you responded, the kiss deepened, urgency flooding in. Spencer’s lips moved against yours with a fervour that mirrored the racing pulse in your veins. His hands, once gentle, now framed your face with a desperate kind of need, pulling you closer, as if he couldn’t get enough of you.

Every touch, every press of his lips against yours, was electric. You could feel the raw intensity of everything he was holding back in that kiss—the longing, the desire, the tension of months spent on the edge, waiting for this moment. And when his tongue traced the line of your lower lip, a quiet gasp escaped you, and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss further, drawing you in like a magnet.

Your hands, almost instinctively, found their way to his hair, fingers tangling in the strands that had once teased you from a distance, now so close you could feel the weight of them. His hair was soft, the strands slipping between your fingers as you tugged him closer, urging him to kiss you more fiercely.

As he kissed his way down your body, you could feel the anticipation building inside of you. You loved how he savoured you, like a piece of art he needed to take his time with. His fingers slid along your inner thighs, spreading you open for him. He groaned, his breath hot against your skin. “Fuck, baby,” he murmured against your clit. “Look at you. Already dripping wet for me. What am I gonna do with you? Perfect, perfect girl.”

Your breath caught in your throat as his tongue swirled around your clit, the sensation of his warm mouth sending waves of pleasure through you. You arched your back off the couch, your hands tangling in his hair.

“Please,” you begged, your eyes squeezed shut as you felt the pressure building. “Please, sir. Please make me cum.”

Spencer moaned, his tongue dipping inside of you before returning to your clit. Teasing it gently with his tongue, his fingers slipping inside of you, working you open. You were already close, your walls tightening around his fingers as he fucked them into you slowly. Picking up the pace, his mouth latched onto your clit as you fell apart, your body trembling with your orgasm. 

Spencer didn’t give you a second to catch your breath before he was kissing you again, his tongue pushing past your lips to taste you, tip of his cock nudging against your cunt. You weren’t even sure when he’d taken his clothes off, not that it mattered now. You whimpered as he slid inside of you, his cock stretching you open. He pulled back slightly, hips rolling against your own. “Keep your eyes open,” he commanded. “Need to see your face when you cum. Need to see what I do to you.”

You nodded, your fingers digging into his shoulders as he picked up the pace. He was relentless, slamming into you with deep, powerful thrusts. 

You weren’t used to coming more than once in a row, with your poor excuses of previous partners, but with Spencer, it felt natural. He pushed you higher than you knew was possible, taking you to the edge of sanity every time you were together. And when you came, it was like a floodgate opened up, and all of that pent-up desire came pouring out of you.

He was whispering things to you, things that made you blush and preen, words that made you feel beautiful, wanted. You’d never felt like this before. You felt like a completely different person with him, someone who was capable of more than you ever thought.

“That’s it,” he encouraged. “Give it to me, princess. Let me feel you. Fuck, you feel so good around me,” he kissed you deeply as he drove inside of you, the pressure inside of you growing. “Cum for me, angel. Cum all over my cock.”

You heard him through a haze, your body trembling and shaking as the second orgasm rolled through you. You felt his cock pulse inside of you as he came, his teeth sinking gently into your neck as he rode out his own release. Wrapping your arms around him, you pull him as close as possible as you hold onto him, his body pressing into yours.

Pressing soft kisses to your shoulder, he whispers into your skin. “Stay the night?” He asked. “I don’t want you to leave yet, just got you here.” His voice was soft, gentle, and you found yourself melting into his embrace. You didn’t want to go either. You wanted to stay like this, wrapped up in his arms, for as long as possible. And that terrified you more than anything else. “Please?”

He looked at you, his eyes dark and sincere. Your heart fluttered at the look he was giving you. It was one you’d never seen before, one that made your breath catch in your throat.

 It was a look that said he wanted more, and that scared you. But it also filled you with a warmth you couldn’t deny.

“Yeah,” you said finally. “Okay.” And as Spencer pulled you back into his arms, kissing you gently, you realised that you might just be in trouble. He was already pulling you in, tempting you to stay. You were already falling for him, and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do to stop it. “I’ll stay.” You agreed.

 “For tonight.” You added. You weren’t going to admit to more than that, not yet. “Just tonight.” Spencer nodded, his lips returning to yours.

You knew it was dangerous, you knew you were playing with fire, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

You wanted to be his, even if it was just for one night. You wanted to let him own you, let him love you. Even if it was just temporary, you wanted to feel that love for as long as you could. You knew it would hurt in the end, but you were too far gone to stop it now.

And when he whispered your name against your lips, you almost believed that it was real. That this wasn’t just temporary, but forever. Almost. You allowed yourself to be swept up in the moment, to believe the things he whispered to you. To believe that maybe this was it.

Maybe he was your forever, and you were his. Maybe this was something that could last longer than just one night.

Won't you take me to heaven tonight? You know you're my weakness American Jesus, save me You're the greatest love of my life

[taviokapudding]

For those that don't get why he's scared- lemme explain as someone who is working on my branding as a vtuber in the making. Sit down *hands you popcorn*

Ben Shapiro is so bad at being a CEO that I had to stop and look up what his company is because I genuinely did not know until now.

I have heard a lot of bs (I could do without) in regards to Ben Shapiro, but I have NEVER heard he's a CEO nor do I know what his company does.

And what doesn't help is "I Hear Everything" is the WORST name for a company and their website does a shit job explaining what they do. I'll link it so you all can see what I mean.

Putting aside the website, if I wasn't posting this- would most people know that "I Hear Everything" is a podcast and audio media distributor run by Ben Shapiro? No.

What is the point in having a CEO like him, constantly running around & ruining things like a headless chicken, if NOBODY CAN NAME YOUR COMPANY?

There's 2 major reasons to have CEOs but lemme clarify 1 thing first

I hate Elon Musk but everybody knows he the guy who bought Tesla & Twitter. Walt Disney is literally ashes but 100 years later people are pissed his company his shitting on his legacy. Donald Trump owns multiple businesses and has gone bankruot 6 times as a CEO long before he ran for president the first time around.

Whether we all like it or not, a rich (usually white male cis/presenting) eccentric weirdo running your company can be good or questionable but still effective marketing- doubly if you lack a mascot or want to run multiple companies. At some point macot CEOs usually hire people to help run it because they are too locked into whatever their hyperfixation and/or crimes are. They become a face, name, or symbol for marketing rather than a genuine CEO.

But overall mascot CEOs are not good CEOs- they can and will be replaced because they are not running their company as the priority. Disney's marketing of how they present their CEOs to the public is a fantastic example- they keep rehiring guys who wanna be the next Walt but when they're not, the real board of elites who run things use them as a scapegoat when in reality they are all complicit in their financial and business failures. It's a terrible business strategy long term and it's why they are struggling right now.

So what makes a good CEO? 2 major things.

1. Being financially and morally responsible for how your company is run

2. Maintaining good brand recognition and public relations

Most of you may not know his name but David Menashi is why AriZona Green Tea is everywhere. Bro locked in to focus on running his business and only earning what he needs btw- but is it a perfect business? No. Look it up- it's around 50% of employees dislike working there for various reasons from pay, racial discrimination, not enough breaks, and managers sucking. But when people quit their reasoning is never "I hate the CEO because he's an eccentric weirdo who only focuses on what he wants to do/hoards all earnings on themself/ has a whole boys club blah blah blah" you get with mascot CEOs.

Has there ever been a mascot CEO who could do the other 2 things?

Short answer- No.

Long answer: Because I include moral responsibility- most CEOs are going to some kind of hell for greed related decisions. Mr. Menashi is just barely skirting by as a normal CEO only if you ignore the 3 times he donated to Republicans. It's borderline impossible. But guys like Ford, Rockerfeller, and even Jobs understood that being a macot and at least doing point 2 was the bare minimum.

But if you can't do number 2 & be a mascot CEO- you shouldn't be a CEO at all.

Ben Shapiro does nothing for brand recognition and public relations for "I Hear Everything" co. I thought (and looking at the replies of his tweets & all the social commentary since he posted his thoughts) he was a mascot for only his podcast and nothing else.

And that is why he's scared- bro has made a living off creating enemies for himself via his podcast and could straight up die tomorrow with 0 impact on his company because he can't even mascot correctly. Like in the sea of CEOs he's the least deserving of the title from a business standpoint.

This is a good time to remind you that Ben Shapiro is a CEO himself

That explains the horror he has been expressing over the UHC shooting incident and the reaction to it by the working class

[ceilidho]

fear of god

There's someone outside the spacecraft. You don't remember them being part of the crew. Part 8 masterlist

-

Another day passes. Sleep and wake again. Take the long hand on the clock and spin it back around, the same day starting over again. 

Coffee and breakfast in the galley on your own this time. It’s too early for anyone else to join you. Movement in needle-point inching, creeping through the hallways under the glare of the fluorescent lights. Everything feels too hollow and too bright. 

When morning briefing comes, you stand by the wall closest to the door and mask your anxiety as best as you can. 

Gaz is already in the cockpit when you arrive, chatting on the other side of the room with Alex, their conversation too low for you to eavesdrop on. He sits with an ankle crossed casually over his knee in a figure four and his hands resting on his upper thighs. One of the guys must have lent him a shirt because he wears one of their standard issue heathered grey long sleeved shirts, the fleecy material stretching a bit tight across his shoulders. 

The commander claps his hands together, tearing your attention away from Gaz’s shoulders.

“Okay, we’ve got a lot to get through today, so listen up.”

More of the same that you force yourself to pay attention to even though your mind keeps threatening to drift off. You didn’t sleep especially well the night before, tossing and turning over something that you can’t wrap your head around. You’re suffering for it now though, eyes burning from lack of sleep. 

“We’ve also got some good news, finally,” Graves says. “Cruise control is operational again, thanks to Gaz.” 

A smattering of applause and you can only stare. You clap along with the others, the gesture more instinctual than celebratory. 

Gaz’s smile is bashful, a classic, ah, anyone could’ve done it. But anyone didn’t and his faux modesty grates on your nerves. 

Amidst Graves’ usual rundown of the day’s tasks and schedule, you notice something. Or rather, the absence of something. 

With a fresh layer of petroleum jelly still clogging your nostrils, you can’t smell anything in the room. For the first time since Gaz boarded the ship, you stay rooted in your body, not swept away by the sense memory of another time and another place. If your mind drifts, it’s only because of what you’ve been ruminating on these past couple of days. 

You observe and take note. 

Then the briefing comes to a close, the crew dismissed for the day. You only stand up after Hadir and Nikolai take leave, still staring across the room from the corner of your eye.  Despite being dismissed, Gaz doesn’t leave his seat beside Alex, still deep in conversation. He doesn’t so much as glance your way as you step from the cockpit. 

You don’t know why that stings. 

Nausea hits you out in the hall. You stumble down the stairs leading up to the cockpit before you have to steady yourself with a hand against the wall and breathe until it subsides. Less than two days later and he’s already ingratiated himself to the commander. Graves isn’t a complicated man; he wears his favouritism like a badge of honour, happy to let his underlings fight for his approval. 

You don’t know why it bothers you, but it does. Deeply. In the months since you first met Graves, you’ve hardly graduated from lukewarm pleasantries, and yet somehow within less than forty-eight hours, Gaz has earned the commander’s praise and respect. It doesn’t make sense.

The door to the cockpit abruptly slides open and a figure breezes past you, quick legs taking them halfway down the corridor before your brain even registers who it is.

“Farah?” you call out, making her stop in her tracks.

Already at the end of the hall, she turns at the sound of your voice and waits for you to catch up with her, poised like a sickle-footed dancer. She holds a tablet in front of her, the edge resting against her sternum. Dark eyes follow you all the way. 

“Can we talk?” you ask when you’re close enough to speak at a clandestine volume. 

Her eyebrows pull together. “What’s that on your face?”

“What? Oh, it’s nothing—it’s just Vaseline. Can I ask you something?”

“About what?” 

“First just—” Quiet suddenly, head twisting around to stare down the long corridor behind you. There’s no one there. Farah seems mildly unnerved when you turn your focus back on her, but when is she not these days? Maybe you are fraying at the edges. “I’ll walk with you, okay?”

Instead of responding to that, she spins on her heel and keeps walking. You take her silence as permission to follow her down the hallway towards the cargo hold. You keep silent until you’ve descended below the orlop deck, the sheer distance from the cockpit making you lower your hackles. 

Finally, it feels safe enough to speak. “What’d you think of him?”

“Gaz?” she clarifies, and the question immediately irritates you because who else would you be referring to? Who else emerged from nowhere? 

“Yes.”

She doesn’t respond immediately, her eyes drifting back down to the tablet in her hands, taking her attention away from you again. Her fingers flit across the screen as she types up a quick message, not missing a single stride as you continue down the narrow, vent-lined hall towards the main cargo hold door.  

“Farah?” you prompt. 

Her eyes flick towards you again. “He’s…helpful,” she finally answers. “Nikolai walked me through how he fixed the autonomous navigation yesterday. It was an oversight on my part to not think of fixing the GPS receiver before, but it’ll be beneficial to have someone else around to catch those slip ups.”

You frown. “I thought you and Nikolai had already tried fixing the GPS receiver.”

She stops in her tracks so abruptly that you nearly trip over your feet as you skid to a halt as well, then stares at you for a beat. Her brow furrows. You’ve never seen Farah look lost before, but she comes as close as you’ve ever seen. Faintly foggy-eyed, lips unconsciously slipping into a frown. 

“Farah?” you prod again.

That snaps her out of it. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “No. It was an oversight.”

You open your mouth to argue, certain that you recalled Nikolai mentioning it before, but decide to just let it go. Not worth arguing about. “Okay, fine, it doesn’t matter—look, I just…I know things have been…weird lately. I’ve been weird, but…” You swallow, nerves making your stomach turn. “I just think…that something feels…weird about all of this. And you can tell me if you think I’m crazy, but I thought…the other day you seemed…—it just seemed like maybe we might be on the same page.”

“About Gaz, you mean?”

You just nod. 

She levels you with a sidelong look, Mona Lisa without a smile. Inscrutable woman. She looks at you like she’s trying to communicate or understand something or study you or impart something on you, but you don’t know what. Or maybe she just means to look until you do the work for her; until your mouth opens wide and you pour your heart out—

She breaks your stare, looking away. “Okay. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

That surprises you; you somehow expected more resistance. Maybe you expected her to call you crazy. “You will?”

“I trust my own judgment more than anyone else’s. And—” Farah bites her tongue at the last second, holding back whatever comment she’d been about to make. Curiosity nearly makes you question her further, but she finds her words before you do. “…It’s better to be cautious and diligent, even if it amounts to nothing.”

The relief of not being dismissed out of hand nearly bowls you over. “Yes. Yes, thank you. That’s all I’m asking.”

She powers down her device, turning her body to face you fully. “That’s all you wanted to talk about?”

“Yeah. Yes—that’s it.”

“Alright.” 

The dismissal is clear in her voice. She doesn’t even have to say it for you to get the request to leave. Even though it comes as no surprise, it still stings. 

You only make it a handful of strides down the hall before her voice stops you again. 

“And, doctor?”

You pause, looking over your shoulder. “Yes?”

“I’m doing this as a favour. So don’t get anyone else involved with this unless we absolutely need to,” Farah advises. “Okay?”

“Okay. I won’t.”

And then she disappears into the cargo hold without a glance back, the doors sliding shut behind her. 

At half two, there’s a knock on the medbay door and you pause in the middle of your sentence, stylus poised in midair.

It only occurs to you why someone might interrupt your research time when they knock again and a tinny, familiar voice calls out from the other side of the door, “Doctor?”

Your stomach clenches. You put the stylus down and rise to your feet. 

He’s there when you press the button to open the door, all smiles and fulsome charm, cloying like overripe fruit. Pungent and on the brink of spoiling, perfuming the air with a sickly sweet aroma, saying in a different language, this is your last chance, so take it while it’s still here. It won’t be long until this is all gone. 

But you step to the side and let him in because you promised him you would.

“I’m not too early, am I?” Gaz asks, giving you an out, and you almost take it. 

It’s tempting just to say yes and send him on his way, no follow up appointment scheduled. Maybe you’ll always be too busy to see him. Why invite him into your sanctuary after all, the only place on the ship meant just for you?

But you’ve hardly kept him out, a little voice in your head reminds you. Hasn’t he been here before? 

Again, that lingering suspicion. No evidence to back you up and yet your gut is firm in its conviction. You think of walking into the medbay the day before and stopping in your tracks, overcome by the sense that someone had been there just before you arrived. 

“Nope,” you reply with a tight smile. “Come in.”

The room feels a lot more cramped with another person in it. Particularly a man of his stature. Though you’ve treated other men before, some even more formidable than Gaz, he has a certain enigmatic quality to him that seems to take up a room. 

Your eyes subconsciously track the sway of his hips as he walks over to the exam table and takes a seat in the middle of it, waiting patiently for you to join him.

“What first, doctor?” Gaz asks, hands clasped in front of him. 

Hesitant, you smooth your hands down your lab coat and move towards him. “Um. Just—just sit for a second and I’ll grab my things.”

His stare is a physical weight on your back, but you have to keep it turned to him while you gather all the requisite equipment. 

“Sorry if I caught you at a bad time. Were you busy?” 

“…No,” you answer, shaking your head. “I wasn’t. I’m—well, honestly I’m probably the least busy person on the ship. Half the time I’m just twiddling my thumbs in here.”

You say it blithely, almost a joke, but when you turn back to Gaz, you find him staring at you with sympathetic eyes, as if sensing a deeper undercurrent to your words. “You wouldn’t be here if that were true.” 

The sudden shift to earnestness makes you feel almost awkward, embarrassed. You distract yourself by ripping apart the velcro sleeve of the blood pressure monitor. “Can you hold your arm out, please?”

He does, letting you wrap the sleeve around his arm, his bicep bulging around it. 

You conduct the litany of routine tests in silence, careful to avoid eye contact or conversation. The silence feels too delicate to break.

The evaluation consists of a series of standard tests that you’ve performed countless times before: measuring his height and weight, taking his vital signs—blood pressure, heart rate, temperature—which all come back normal, listening to his organs—which all sound, to your ear, perfectly fine—and a visual and physical examination. 

You’re not exactly sure what you expect to find. Hypotension from dehydration; decreased skin turgor; weak and thready peripheral pulses. Anything at all that might indicate the fact that he just spent the last few days stranded without food or water. Anything to indicate starvation or dehydration or lack of oxygen. 

But with each successive test, you find yourself less and less sure that he experienced any hardship at all. Everything looks fine. 

Even with the examination table lowered as much as possible, he’s still a bit too tall for you to properly perform your evaluation, necessitating that you pull up a stool at one point. It forces you to get far too close for comfort, only a hair's breadth from being pressed up against Gaz’s side when you hold the otoscope up to his ear, peering into the canal. Acutely aware of the heat emanating off his body and your nipples beading under your shirt.

He’s quiet too, for the most part. Breathes heavier when you touch your hands to his skin, but you chalk it up to reflex. Ignore the way your hands tremble and your sex aches from his presence alone. 

His lips part in a crooked grin when you switch to palpating his lymph nodes. The exhaled laugh makes your hands twitch against his neck. “Sorry—that tickled.”

“It’s fine.” Ignoring the way your face heats up, you feel around the nodes again, digging your fingers in enough to be sure that all seems well. Still nothing jumps out at you.

It’s a hundred times worse when you have him lie down on the table so you can feel around his abdomen, checking for anything abnormal. You shake a bit when the muscle doesn’t give under your questing fingers, rock hard. Beneath the shapeless spacesuit that he always used to wear his bulk was mostly hidden, but you feel it now, the solid muscle of his core undeniable. 

Enough. It doesn’t become you to objectify your patient, but there’s not much you can do besides ignore it and hope the impulse goes away on its own. 

When it finally comes time for his blood test, you step down from the stool and leave his side to go fetch a fresh needle and syringe, a couple vials, and adhesives for after. His eyes never leave your back. 

You tie off his arm and study the crease of his arm until you see a vein, cleaning the spot while keeping your gloved thumb pressed against the skin. 

“Okay, deep breath if you need to,” you whisper. 

He doesn’t flinch or wince when the needle presses in, lips not even twitching. Calm always in spite of the situation at hand. 

It’s oddly intimate, standing so close to him with your fingers resting against the inside of his arm while you fill vial after vial with his blood. Lulled by the sound of his breath, his chest rising and falling with each inhale and exhale. Almost a dreamlike space. You find yourself avoiding his eyes again, lest they distract you. 

When you’ve drawn enough for your tests, you extract and discard the needle and syringe, bandaging the prick. Your hands linger on his arm, finger still tracing over the delicate skin of his cubital fossa. 

“Anything wrong with me, doctor?” Gaz asks teasingly.  

Surprisingly, no—at least, nothing you’ve been able to detect so far. That leaves you with far more questions than you originally had. He’s the picture of health as far as you can tell from your cursory exam, though his blood tests will reveal more. 

“Nothing so far. I’ll let you know when your bloodwork’s ready though,” you let him know with a brittle smile. 

His gaze drops to your neck, half-lidded eyes watching the way your throat bobs when you swallow reflexively, suddenly nervous. Avoidant disposition; you’ve always pulled away from things that have tried to pull you in. You don’t know why that thought comes to you now. 

“What’ve you got there, love?” Gaz asks in a low, purring voice, staring at you intently, and suddenly it’s like a bubble has formed around the two of you. The outside world melts away, fades into the background. A faint hum fills the space between you. 

“What?” you reply, a bit doltish, breath catching in your throat when his eyes narrow and he leans in. 

“That…right there…” he murmurs, leaning in closer to you, a hand coming up to rest against the side of your face. “Under your nose.”

Body rooted to the spot, you don’t do anything when he drags his thumb under your nostril, wiping away the mess of petroleum jelly jammed under your nose. There’s nothing you can do but let him clean it off, your arms dangling by your sides like lead weights, each pass of his thumb wiping away more and more. 

“There, that should do,” he hums, wiping the excess off on his shirt, leaving a dark, oily stain behind. Dark eyes flick up to meet yours again.  

You can’t think of anything to say; your mouth goes dry instead. He lets another low chuckle out, eyes crinkling at the corners. As if your distress were written across your face. 

It’s like he can see right through you sometimes. 

“I—” you choke out. “T-thank you.”

“It was a good try, but…something like that isn’t going to help.” It’s said like a fact, not a warning. “I’m already up here.”

Two fingers tap your forehead, lingering there for a second. You tremble under his touch. 

And then, in the back of your mind, something moves. Something of you and not of you. It’s there and then gone, so fleeting that you barely notice it. But you do. 

Ice all the way down to your core. There’s a fear in your heart slowly leaking out, clotting in your veins. Aware that maybe he isn’t just speaking facetiously, that even now you can feel something slithering around in the back of your head and maybe it isn’t just your anxiety speaking to you. 

“What do you mean?” you whisper. 

His smile splits into something wider than his face. Your fingers are numb against the inside of his arm. “You still trust anything just because it’s right in front of you?” 

Nimble fingers brush yours aside to peel off the bandage you just applied, revealing smooth, unblemished skin. 

Your breathing goes haggard. You can’t answer him. Any coherent thought has been ripped from the soft tissue of your mind, replaced by a cold, churning fear. 

Gaz lifts himself off the table quite gracefully, righting his shirt when he’s back on his feet. The fluorescent lights make everything seem so flat. Even he seems flat, towering over you like a monolith, an obelisk from deep space. Reality sloughs off him when he stands at full height, like he can’t help but shed it. 

You stare down at the plaster crumpled up on the exam table. No trace of blood on the soft middle pad. 

Right before leaving, he looks at you from over his shoulder. “Let me know when you have my results, doctor.”

All you can do is nod, and then he’s gone.

[b3ach-bunn7]

READ YOUR MIND

You're roommate and her boyfriend are incredibly loud, so you decide to spend the night at your hot friend Jason's house.

fluff, college!au, confessions, one bed trope

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

It takes about twenty minutes of internal conflict before you find yourself outside Jason’s dorm room. 

You feel stupid. It’s not like you haven’t been in Jason’s room before. You guys were friends. He’d slept on your couch after a movie night gone too long, you’d stayed up for hours writing essays together on his bedroom floor. This was nothing weird, nothing new. 

But for whatever reason, today it feels different. 

It might be the fact that you’re seeing him differently. You’re not sure when, but the line between friend and something else has started to blur. You don’t know how you didn’t notice the strong slope of his jaw, the fact that he was probably strong and muscular enough to throw you over his shoulder. How funny he was, how kind he was. The fact he studied English, how smart he was at it. It’s really no one's fault but his own. You’re surprised you’d lasted this long without crushing on him, anyway. And maybe the way his eyes lingered a little too long on your own. Innocent touches felt like something else, a hand holding your hips as he stepped behind you, a thigh against your own as you sat in impossibly tight lecture halls.

Whatever. There’s no point looking at it like that. You love your friendship with him too much to let a little crush ruin it. 

If you were in any other situation, you wouldn’t be here. But it’s late and you know of all your friends Jason’s the most likely to be awake. You don’t want to bother him but you can't spend another night third-wheeling with your roommate and her boyfriend. That, and the fact that it gets particularly loud whenever you come to sleep. 

After a deep breath to steel yourself, you knock on the door. It takes only a few seconds before it swings wide open. 

And God, you take back everything you just said. Because he's wearing a pair of grey sweats, and an old band shirt that is showing off his delicious arms, and you don’t know if you can blame the fact it’s nearly midnight on the thoughts running through your head. His movements are slow, sleepy, as he blinks at you confused.

He pushes his glasses up his head, tufts of brown hair falling over his face. “Oh. Hey. Is- Are you okay?”

“Oh god, did I wake you?”

“Nah, you’re good.” He leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms.

It takes a second before the words come out of your mouth. “I- Lily. She has- She has her boyfriend round, and I don’t sleep very well when he’s there.” You laugh awkwardly, scratching your arm.

You hold up the books and paper you brought with you. “You mind if I crash here tonight? I bought stuff to keep me busy, so I’ll be out of your hair.”

Jason smiles easily, pushing the door open further. “Of course, yeah.” 

You step in, thanking him as he grabs the stuff out of your hand and puts them on his front table. His dorm is so boyish. Him and his roommate, an eccentric boy everybody called Gar, were not the best at interior design. Their couches are dark grey with red pillows, jarring against the white carpet you’d bought them as a housewarming gift. The kitchen was an amalgamation of whatever plates and mugs they’d found at thrift stores, their fridge filled with pictures from Gar’s old polaroid camera. It was cute and very them, and a warm place to sleep that wasn’t accompanied by the sound of your roommate and her boyfriend doing whatever the hell they got up to alone.

“Thanks again. I can’t stand another night with those two.”

Jason snorts a laugh, sitting down on the couch. “It can’t be that bad. They’re nice people.”

“Yeah, sure. But all they do is remind me of how painfully single I am.” You huff, sitting beside him.

He’s close enough that you can smell the expensive cologne he wears. He’s shown you it once, a fancy glass bottle. He’s spritzed it on your wrist and the smell lasted all day. He nods at your words, and you turn your head towards the TV to avoid his gaze.

“That guy you saw last week didn’t work out?” 

Your eyebrows furrow. Honestly, the date had been crap, and you’d forgotten about him the second you’d gone home. You’re surprised he remembers. You tell Jason about all of your romantic adventures, hoping it will have some effect on your feelings for him. It hasn't been very successful so far. And while Jason looks disinterested as he asks you, eyes focused on the movie on screen, his leg taps up and down, and he looks a little restless. You think about lying for a split second, but you can’t bring yourself to do it.

You scoff. “I haven’t spoken to him since. He was boring. And stupid.”

Jason laughs, his eyes crinkling. “That’s rude!”

“He couldn’t hold one conversation with me! Like, I asked him what his favourite book was and he said Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We are nineteen years old!” You whine, hands covering your face as Jason cackles next to you.

“So that’s all women want. A man who reads?” There's a teasing lilt to his voice and you roll your eyes.

“Well, duh. I am studying English after all. I’d like to be able to hold a conversation with him about what I do.”

“That’s a fair dealbreaker, I'll be honest.” Jason hums, resting his arm on the back of the couch, brushing your back slightly. “Is that all you’re looking for in a man?”

The TV blares quietly in the background. Some random show on the food network where the contestant currently on screen looks like they're about to drop the tiered cake in their hands. His question rings out in the room, and you know you only have a few seconds before your silence is considered awkward. But you can’t help but think his question is so suggestive. Does he want to know why out of innocent curiosity? Or does he want to know out of something else?

“Well. Obviously not.” You finally say, bringing your knees up to your chest. “But English comprehension would be nice.”

Jason snorts a laugh. “That being said. He has to be funny. And tall, at least taller than me. And he needs to be smart. And fit. Like, physically.”

Jason watches you with a small smile on his face, nodding, like he knows you're just trying to describe him in a roundabout way. You laugh, a little nervous under his gaze. You reach across the couch and grab the remote.Your arm brushes against his leg and the contact is fleeting but it makes your skin burn.

“And all these guys at uni, and you haven’t found one who fits?” 

His voice is lower when he speaks again, and when you look at him he’s looking at you so intensely. And it’s then you notice that the two of you are sitting quite close on the couch, considering it's one big enough to fit about four people. 

“Well. Yes. I- Maybe.”

He just nods again. You take a quick breath in, quickly grabbing your book from the table. “Did you finish the essay for next week?” 

Jason groans, leaning his head back on the couch. “Fuck. No. I completely forgot.”

You wave your own essay in the air. “Well. I was gonna ask you to read over mine, but. Nevermind then.” You sigh dramatically.

“Shut up. Lemme read.” He takes it out of your hand, slipping his glasses back on his face. They’re thick rimmed lenses that make him look older than he is and you love them.

You watch him as he reads, fingers playing with his bottom lip as his eyes skim over your work. Some part of you feels the tiniest bit self-conscious, because he is a hundred times smarter than you, but you know he’d never make it feel that way. Jason suddenly looks up and his eyes meet yours. You smile, face heating, as he raises an eyebrow.

“Enjoying the view, sweetheart?”

“Shut up.”

You tap the edge of your paper. “Good?”

“Great. Can you write mine too?”

You snort. “You wish.” Jason pouts and drops your paper back on the table.

“It’s fine. I’ll do it tomorrow. Right now I’m hungry.”

You sit up immediately at that. “Yes. Let’s order food.”

Jason looks back at his kitchen. “I shouldn’t. I’ve eaten takeaway every night this week, I think. It’s also,” he quickly glances at his watch, “barely half twelve. What’s even open right now?”

You groan, shaking his shoulder. “Jason, don’t be responsible! I’m here, this is like a sleepover. We need to eat something junk-foody.”

Jason just frowns. You flick the centre of his glasses and he tuts. “Hey.”

“I’ll even pay! It’s on me.” You nod and pull out your phone. You’re opening UberEats before he can protest again.

“See. Burger King is open. We love Burger King!”

“We do?”

“Yes. What do you want?”

“A whopper.”

You spend the next ten minutes deciding and then the next thirty waiting anxiously for your food. The thing with Jason, and probably the reason you like him the most, is that you can talk to him about anything. Tonight, it’s his brother Dick’s birthday party. He leans in to show you the picture on his phone, and you try not to laugh at how unhappy he looks to be photographed.

When the doorbell rings Jason runs to grab the food, before bringing it back to the two of you. It takes another twenty minutes for the two of you to finish eating, old episodes of Friends humming in the background. Sleep circles your limbs and you yawn, sipping on blue slushy that had come with your order. It’s entirely too sweet and stains your tongue blue but you keep drinking it anyway.

“I don’t know. Bruce is always asking me to come over, but. Things are still weird.”

You nod. “Yeah, I get it. But it’s good you’re trying. I-“

You're cut off suddenly by Jason yelling and pointing at your arm. You screech, dropping your slush and shooting off the couch.

“What! Oh my god, what is it?” You yell, hands rubbing at your sleeves.

“You-“ Jason tries to speak but his words are cut off by a laugh. “It was just a little bug.” 

“Jason. That is not funny! You freaked me out, look!” You whine, pointing at the now spilt slushy all over your hoodie.

“Ah, shit. Sorry, sorry.” 

He gets up and grabs some tissues and you furiously dab at your hoodie. The couch is also now blue, and you frown. “There goes my bed, too. Guess I’m sleeping on your bedroom floor today.” 

Jason perks up where he’s blotting the couch. He frowns, thinking for a moment. “You’re not sleeping on the floor, what? Take my bed.”

Your hands drop to your sides. “Well what about you?” 

“I’ll take the floor. It’s my fault you split this, anyway.” 

“It’s your bed. I’m not gonna make you sleep on the floor.”

“Well, it’s my dorm so. I think I’ll have the final say, sweetheart.” He teases. 

You bite your bottom lip, thinking, and toss the used tissues on the table. “Why don’t we just sleep together?”

The tips of Jason’s ears turn a dark red and he looks a little shell-shocked at your words, before it’s replaced by a smirk. Your face flushes too, and you quickly shake your head.

“I- Not like that, I meant- Stop laughing.” You snap. But the sight of him laughing behind his hand makes you giggle a little too.

“I just mean, like. I don’t mind sleeping in the bed with you. I just- I don’t think there’s any point in one of us sleeping on the floor, if there’s a perfectly good bed that can fit us both, you know?”

You’re well aware that you’re rambling, and the way he tilts his head and smiles at you is not helping. He gives the couch one last wipe and stands.

“Alright. That’s cool with me if it’s cool with you.  I can also get you something else to wear.” He gestures at your now blue hoodie and you smile gratefully.

You’ve been in Jason’s room once or twice, to grab something or take a call. But this time it’s different, because you’re looking at his bed and you’re going to be in it in about five minutes. You ignore the band posters plastered on his walls, the messy stacks of books all over his floor. You sit gingerly on the edge of the mattress and wait. He comes in only a moment later. He starts rummaging through his drawers and you just watch. He glances at you over his shoulder and shakes his head, huffing a laugh.

“Stop staring. You’re making me nervous.” He whispers.

“Man up.”

He throws a hoodie at you and you catch it. “You know where the bathroom is.”

You walk into the toilet and quickly get changed. You leave your old hoodie in the hamper. Jason’s one is bigger and smells like him, and you don’t see yourself giving this back anytime soon. You give yourself a quick once over in the mirror, fixing your hair and wiping mascara from under your eyes, before you head back to Jason’s room.

When you come back, Jason’s already in bed, doing something on his phone. You linger in the doorway and he looks up.

“You want a formal invitation?”

You roll your eyes and shuffle your way over. You gingerly lift up the sheets and climb in. You are so painfully aware of how close he is, your shoulders brushing as he puts his phone to the side and lays down properly. The room is silent other than the two of you breathing. Just when you're about to speak, he beats you to it.

“Night.” He whispers.

“Goodnight.”

You’re not crazy, right? This is weird. Maybe if it was Victor’s room. A boy friend who was completely platonic, it wouldn't mean anything. But you’ve felt the tension between you and Jason, the subtle flirting, the lingering touches. You know that whatever is happening between you guys is not just friendship. And you have no idea if it's just you, because Jason is breathing so evenly you think he’s fallen asleep already. 

You shuffle a little in the sheets, uncomfortable. They smell like Jason and it’s not helping to calm your thoughts down. You turn around to lay on your side, and when you do, you’re met with a face right in front of you, looking back. 

It doesn’t take long for your eyes to adjust to the darkness and this close, you can make out the spattering of freckles on the bridge of his nose, the grey hairs he’s growing at 20 that he always complains about. His eyelashes are so long, and you smile sleepily.

“Hi.” 

He smiles too. “Hi.”

“I can’t sleep.” You mumble, eyes fluttering shut. “Those burgers woke me up.”

Silence. You don't get a reply. You open your eyes again and Jason is just staring.

“Is there another bug on my face?” You joke. But he doesn't laugh.

“No. You just look so pretty right now.”

Your mouth opens to speak, but no words come out. Jason looks like he’s telling you the time of day, so casual. He lifts up his hand slightly, and brushes a strand of your hair from out your face.

“I- Thank you.”

He doesn’t say anything again. You don’t know what to say. A silence settles over the room again. The two of you just look at each other. And just when you’re about to break it, he sits up so fast it makes you jump.

“Jason, what-”

“I can’t do this, I-”

You eyebrows furrow and you sit up, watching Jason flick on the lamp on his bedside table. The room is enveloped in a soft warm light, and his hair is tousled a little, his shirt wrinkled from how quickly he got up.

“What is going on right now?” “Did you know Gar isn’t home?” He says.

You say yes, because the fact you can’t hear him yelling at COD or something else, and the fcat he didn’t come say hi, is enough clue that he’s not home. 

“Right, so. When I made you spill your slushy, which was an accident by the way, I could’ve easily just let you stay in there. He wouldn’t care.”

“Okay.” You say slowly.

“And. I didn’t. Because I knew that you wouldn’t let me sleep on the floor and i wouldn’t either, and then we’d be in this position, and I’d finally get the chance to fucking tell you how i feel.”

“How- How you feel?”

“Yes. And then I pussied out and I just said goodnight, and. And then you looked at me, and, fuck. I can’t take it anymore.”

And then Jason turns to look at you, and he looks so desperate as he grabs your hands, his skin calloused as he tightens his grip. 

“I like you. A lot. And, you know, I’d like to think I'm pretty smart, but I know I am horrible when it comes to people, at feelings. So I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to say that.”

This is a dream. There’s no way this is real, that the Jason Todd, biceps and all, is confessing to you on his bed. You want to pinch yourself because the way his thumb is rubbing soothing circles on the back of your hand is making your heart squeeze in your chest.

You watch those pretty brown eyes furrow slightly at your silence. 

“I- If you don’t feel the same way, I-”

You don’t think before you reach forward, palms grabbing his jaw and pulling him forward so you can press a kiss to his lips. And he barely waits a second before his eyes flutter closed, hands tangling in your hair to pull you impossibly closer. Your arms slide down to curve around his neck and you toy with the hair on the nape of his neck, and he groans. You finally let go and he leans his forehead on yours, kissing your nose, your cheek.

“I like you too, by the way. If the kiss wasn’t tell enough.”

He grins, boyish and handsome, and you want to kiss him again.

He sighs happily, hands slipping up the edge of his hoodie, eyes waiting for your nod of approval. When he gets it, he smiles again, pressing a kiss to your jaw.

“God, thank fuck for Lily and her boyfriend

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nia try not to write a college au mission impossible... I LOVEE JASON TODD! In my head any alternate universe hes not emo so i write him nice and cute.

thanks to all who voted in the poll! im gonna make my way through all the guys on that list so look out for it! next up will be shinsou because of a very nice commenter ;P i hope u all enjoy this, leave any fic ideas in my ask box!

[gifsbysimplysonia]

Hola otra vez! For anyone not familiar with my annoying rambly feedback, ahead there be

This is the end of the first paragraph of the story and it's just so fcking ... like it works SO well for me, it makes me wanna spike a football

it's hard to find places where he's thought of as a stranger. no familiar faces, no conversation, no fuss. just logan, a bottle of whisky and time.

logan had no reason to keep count. until he saw you.

Well, if there's any indication a man is smitten, I'd say it's when he decides to keep counting after 200 years on Earth cuz of YOU *ded*

the bar was busy, as it normally was. he didn't mind it this way, less attention on him, less chances of someone trying to pick a fight with a specific stranger. not that they'd win, but logan had grown too tired for petty fights these days.

It's super interesting to think about Logan in relation to time and age. We just went from him deciding he's got a reason to keep counting the years to him being so tired that he doesn't want to get into petty fights. And as someone who grew up with Logan on the XMen cartoon lol, I know Logan to BE petty. So whilst we can't always think of Logan in terms of age, cuz looking at his appearance can make us forget, to hear that he's so TIRED that he doesn't even wanna squabble up on occasion? Well, that's impactful. The author makes it hit home in this other way and I really like it.

And here's another example of the author getting across to us where Logan is at when we meet him in life:

you're easy on the eyes, especially to these tired old hues that have grown accustomed to staring at the same old walls.

Straight up now we have the word tired, but also old. And not in relation to himself, but what he's got eyes on. It's such a clever thing the author has done here, and I really am appreciative of it.

logan can't let himself look too much, he isn't allowed nice things, especially not pretty little things such as yourself. he's poison, tainting everything he touches, spoiling it. he's experienced enough heartbreak, enough losses for a lifetime and more.

Sad face. This is very in line with the Logan I think most of us know (and adore). Gotta take all the blame, gotta punish yourself, gotta try to protect others from you by denying yourself connections. Wanna hug him.

he wonders if you know most of the tips you receive by the end of the night are from him. you're diligent, you work hard, and you deserve more than the minimum wage you're probably getting.

Also very on brand for Logan. Sees a need, fills the need, but doesn't want credit for it. He's also seeing someone he believes is worthy (and perhaps not in a way he feels he could ever be?) of more so he tries to be the provider.

it's not even lust on his mind either, he just finds himself captivated by your presence. he wonders about your life, your interests, your dreams. . .

And again, we are seeing how smitten he is because the man who has been painted as weary and bored suddenly has questions and wonderings again. That is, in the context of Logan's long a$$ existence, quite magical. But that magic is immediately followed by

though he'd be lying if he said he'd never pictured bending you over against the bar and fucking you senseless. he is an animal, after all.

and it's like

relying on others was a weakness. besides, what would you be to him but just another person he'd lose someday? it wasn't worth it. you weren't worth it. fuck.

"Relying on others was a weakness" is just hella relatable to me, so I key in on that. And then that ire being followed by showing vulnerability by thinking of her as another person he'd lose; Logan's heart has always been huge and you just know he remembers the faces and details of each person he has had to lose and she has that status already. Logan trying to lie to himself with the "not worth it" talk only to have to curse himself cuz he KNOW he's lying is also peak Logan behavior, and once again on a personal level, hiiiiiiiiiiiiiighly relatable lol. I'm always lying to myself about my own feelings.

you were strangers, this was stupid, it was all fucking stupid. but the mind of a lonely old man is a desperate one, and what logan really craves isn't just eye candy.

"Lonely and desperate" self descriptions and Logan referring to himself as "stupid." I'm sure we all wanna shake this old man, right? LOL because when he let's himself think about the truth:

he craves a touch, that first touch that sparks electricity throughout your every nerve ending, causes goosebumps to ripple along the skins surface. he craves something, anything. he was so fucking hungry. always so fucking hungry. a rumbling hunger that starts at the pit of his stomach and gnaws through him like a rabid animal frantically trying to escape a suffocating metal cage. it's a hunger he can't satisfy, he knows he can't satisfy. but he'd been alone so long.

It's connection, and it's gnawing at him. Loneliness is a helluva thing, and I think a lot of us know this. But this author is shining in the way she is describing it for us, outside of the usual age/years gone by methods. Tired, lonely, and now ravenous. And while we are in the space of a more spiritual hunger, here, it so easily slides right back to physical as well because he's thinking about a woman and wonders

surely one bite couldn't hurt?

Me literally screaming into my pumpkin pillow cuz I'm like NO IT COULDN'T LOGAN, GO GET HERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR cuz I know what's gonna follow is gonna be liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

switching bars wasn't particularly appealing to him, but it was better than having to look at you and feel that familiar ache.

The self loathing and denial is top tier Logan. He will inconvenience and punish himself just as long as it's in line with denying himself cuz he just "doesn't deserve it." Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Logan then proceeds to go drain the snake before he beings his newest self inflicted penance, but she comes in to clean the bathrooms thinking they were empty.

Gurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl lol

your eyes lock on one another for just a split second before you quickly busy yourself with the mop again. but that split second was enough. it was enough to notice how you were looking at him.

HOW WAS SHE LOOKING AT YOU, LOGAN?!?! It's funny how if it was almost any other man, I'd snort and be like, sure buddy. But it's Logan so I have ZERO issue believing whatever he saw in her eyes let her know she DOES indeed know him and want ... well, something.

you lean back against the bathroom stall divider, eyes drifting across logan's figure. he was tall, big. this is the first time you're really able to look at him, to study the features of his face. this time he's not hiding behind a glass or a bottle.

How interesting to see the contrast of her view of Logan because while he's always looking at her and sworn that he never caught her looking his way, she's letting us know she has definitely looked his way enough to notice he was a man in hiding. And she actually acted respectfully to respect that and not ogle him, which bummed Logan out lol.

the hunger in his gaze is obvious, but it's dulled, like he's just barely holding back. you think he looks lonely, there's a distinct air about him that practically screams that he needs to be touched.

Oof, she's intuitive! So she SEES what he needs and seems to be quite willing to, ahem, deliver for him but WILL HE LET HER is the big question.

logan pushes himself from the sink and approaches you slowly. was he really doing this? after a month of pining and longing for you, a stranger in a bar, was he really going to give in to his desires? would you let him? the lust was clear in your eyes and he knew he was reflecting it right back tenfold.

you eye the stranger who's been watching you, tipping you. of course you've noticed, you'd have to be pretty stupid or oblivious not to. you've come to expect him at each shift, but his presence intrigued you more than the other regulars. not just because he was more handsome, considerably more handsome. no, it was those sad eyes that seemed to say a million words while his mouth remained firmly shut that had you curious. even now as he stands before you so silent you could hear a pin drop, when you look into his eyes you can feel a sea of words brewing.

I do so love the fact that she's intuitive, curious and sees beyond the big burly handsome cover. He never speaks but look at his eyes and boy, are there a thousand stories waiting to be told. And it's the SAME WAY in the present with her. Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike, it's about to go off.

oh how you wanted to open him up, to peer inside behind that rough exterior, to take a peek behind the facade. you're sure you're easier to read than he is.

Again, I love that this goes beyond physical with her and that she's genuinely intrigued by him and by what probably most others don't see in Logan.

"i've seen you, you know," you mumble bravely, "looking at me." logan doesn't seem surprised, he brings a hand up to hold your chin, turning your face from side to side to get a proper look at you now that he has you up close. "yeah?" "yeah," you reply shakily, "thought i was imagining it at first. but by the second night it was obvious." he smirks, so he's not as subtle as he thinks.

No because how is he the King of Self Denial but somehow automatically is giving Dom the first time he approaches a woman he means to get to know? Not even embarrassing at being caught at his blatant perusal of her. SIR.

logan grips your wrists, not the suit. he wasn't talking about that now, he had to shut you up.

When I tell you this BROKE me. King of Self Inflicted Penance. I stg. And it's quite the conundrum to be going through an emotional gut punch when it's immediately followed up with

he leans in, capturing your lips in a passionate kiss as his strong hands keep a firm grip on your wrists. you submit, leaning back against the cubicle divider as you let him slip his tongue into your mouth.

and we know it is OFF TO THE RACES!!!

"taste so fuckin' sweet," he mumbles against your lips, kissing you between words, "you do this often? let men kiss you in the bathroom?" you mumble a 'no' under your breath, ". . . just the ones who tip good," you grin.

OH SH!T, WE HAVE HAN AND LEIA BANTER! They are my OTP so I'm always gonna call a combative in love couple that, but this dynamic is MY JAM and I love that what we seem to have here is a clearly dominant male with a bratty female. I am in Heaven lol

logan feels himself chuckling, biting your lower lip. oh, he liked you.

WE DO TOO, LOGAN!

his hand travels upwards, finding purchase around your neck. you gasp in response, moaning. he eagerly swallows your moan with his mouth, drowning out any sound that threatens to escape.

Always a trip when I am personally attacked by a fic lmaoooooooooo

he kisses you like a man starved, like he'd devour you if you let him. and you would, you think, if it felt this good.

"shhh, shhh," he whispers against your lips, "feel good? i know it feels good, but you gotta stay nice and quiet."

I want to diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie at the giving of instructions and reminder that, HEY WE ARE IN PUBLIC but we are absolutely NOT stopping.

"you wanted this just as much as i did, huh?" he growls into your ear, "need it, need me to fuck you."

Excellent dirty taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalk

he nods against the side of your cheek, his stubble scratching against your soft skin, "there we go, attagirl. . ."

And he praises? *dies again*

"yeah i am," logan smirks, he knows he's big, and he knows exactly how to use it. you just have time to gasp before you feel one of his hands connect harshly with your skin, the sound ringing out in the small bathroom of the bar.

"you've been thinkin' about this since you started your shift," logan says confidently, his words confirmed by how you drip around him, "thought about me fillin' you up, nice and full?"

I once again must mention top tier dirty talk!

and fuck does it make him harder to know that you've thought about this just as much as he has.

Once again, Logan's vulnerability is illustrated here because it's very human and natural to WANT TO BE WANTED so that it's exciting for him makes all the sense.

he knows if he lets you look at him, look up at him for too long, he'll lose it. he can't have your soft eyes on him while he fucks you, he doesn't deserve it.

*shakes him* He's still so Logan. Trying to convince himself again he is just not worthy. But I also do this to myself which is no doubt why I key on it, mention it, react to it. That just means the author is striking a chord with me and isn't that what we want? To feel resonance and know we are not alone in our experiences?

because he can't describe the shame that swirls in his stomach, that this is how he relieves himself, a quick fuck in a bar. this dirty older man who's seen so much sin, perpetuated sin with his own hands, who longed for the young pretty little thing in the bar. logan doesn't deserve nice things, this he knows.

It's a jarring feeling to be really into some hot smut and then have there be an intermission of this caliber. Cuz again, we are seeing into Logan's heart and his internal self who just screams and screams about not being worthy. And it's so painful and wretched for us as an audience cuz we KNOW it's not true and we just wish HE WOULD SEE IT.

you can't help but smirk, mouth stuck open as you moan softly, he likes it when you talk to him during, huh?

Even in her blissful state, she is noticing what he likes and trying to provide that for him and I love her for considering him and being thoughtful with him. HE doesn't think he deserves it, but we readers know that he absolutely does so it's sweetness in this midst of lust and shows us that she cares beyond whatever is happening now in this bathroom.

Y'all NEED to go read this cuz the smut is rough but because of the well established connection the author built between these two, it's very intimate despite the circumstances which don't necessarily lend themselves to anything other than a "quickie." Because of what's going on between these two and how well laid out that is for us, we know that the reason this is so rough and intimate is BECAUSE it's not meant for just here and now. But will Logan allow anything more?

standing on trembling legs, you lean up, giving him a surprisingly soft kiss. your hands take over his, helping him back into his jeans, zipping them up, clasping the buttons together and buckling his belt. all the while your lips are on his, slowly, passionately intertwining together.

And again, I love her for her thoughtfulness. She's being soft and tender with him. I'm not sure if it's a conscious effort to keep him from screwing things up (by trying to now brush her off) or if it's just naturally who she is and giving into her instinct to want to be gentle with him and keep him close. Either way, I love love love this moment.

". . . does that count as your tip for the night?" you joke with a smirk, hoping to see a flash of his smile again, hoping to alleviate some of that shame he's carrying.

Adore her for infusing humor into the situation and wanting to bring light back into his eyes. Whoever is going to be with Logan needs to have a sense of humor and give him as good as he gives.

the shame seems to settle, begins to dissipate. it feels less like satisfying an urge and more like. . . exploring something new. his eyes drift back to you.

Is Logan ACTUALLY going to give this thing a chance, and more importantly, HIMSELF a chance?!?!

I hate to quote too much in a story, especially an ending becuase I WANT PEOPLE TO GO READ FOR THEMSELVES but I need @silverskyeline to know that the last 3 paragraphs of this piece are SO FCKING GOOD.

The breakthrough and revelation he has, the tentative willingness to let himself release a burden and not self flagellate? OMGGGGGGGGGGG. Literally all the applause and bravo on this amazing piece. I really really fcking enjoyed it and am so grateful to you for creating and sharing.

It's really a wonderful character analysis or look at who Logan is, the person he think he has to be, with some hot smut that actually isn't a pause in the narrative but continues the throughline of exploring who he is and what he thinks he deserves and how he's giving himself permission to be a man again. I just ... I love this so so much. Thank you again.

'hunger' 18+

worst!wolverine x f!reader (3.9k words) summary: logan can't tear his mind away from the new barmaid at his usual haunt. he tries to resist you, he really does. but when you're both alone in the bathroom, he finds he's not the only one plagued with filthy thoughts. tags: for the 'longing' prompt for logan promptober, set in the bar from the movie, kind of angsty, filthy, pent up logan, alcohol consumption, doggy style, creampie, biting, light choking, pinning wrists, hair pulling, spanking, rough sex, implied age gap, sweet ending.

his usual haunts offer comfort, safe nests tucked away down isolated roads, usually requiring quite the drive to find - it's hard to find places where he's thought of as a stranger. no familiar faces, no conversation, no fuss. just logan, a bottle of whisky and time.

time spent staring into the grain of the old wood on the bar wondering how the fuck he ended up here. he'd stopped keeping count a long time ago, how long he'd been around, been alive. things get kind of hazy after two hundred years. logan had no reason to keep count.

until he saw you.

the bar was busy, as it normally was. he didn't mind it this way, less attention on him, less chances of someone trying to pick a fight with a specific stranger. not that they'd win, but logan had grown too tired for petty fights these days.

he's sat at the bar when the bartender clocks off, switching with someone new, someone he'd never seen before. you walk in and his eyes immediately scan your face, your build, your outfit. it's a habit of his, one he hoped he'd grow out of - but logan has learned that he'll never stop assessing for new threats. it's just in his dna.

but what he finds isn't a threat.

you're easy on the eyes, especially to these tired old hues that have grown accustomed to staring at the same old walls. he drags his eyes back down to his glass like he's forcing himself to look down the barrel of a gun rather than looking at you, before settling on you once more.

logan can't let himself look too much, he isn't allowed nice things, especially not pretty little things such as yourself. he's poison, tainting everything he touches, spoiling it. he's experienced enough heartbreak, enough losses for a lifetime and more.

. . . but what harm can looking do?

a few weeks pass, logan notices you're in every few nights from now on, must have been put on the regular rota. he wonders if you know most of the tips you receive by the end of the night are from him. you're diligent, you work hard, and you deserve more than the minimum wage you're probably getting.

you've never noticed him, or at least, he's never caught you looking in his direction. but he finds himself craving it, willing your eyes to meet his even for a second. the extent of your interactions have been sliding a glass or a bottle in his direction before continuing with your other duties.

it's not even lust on his mind either, he just finds himself captivated by your presence. he wonders about your life, your interests, your dreams. . . though he'd be lying if he said he'd never pictured bending you over against the bar and fucking you senseless.

he is an animal, after all.

he wonders if he should switch bars just to distance himself. he couldn't let himself become comfortable with the idea of you. relying on others was a weakness. besides, what would you be to him but just another person he'd lose someday? it wasn't worth it. you weren't worth it.

fuck.

logan curses himself under his breath for even having this internal debate. you were strangers, this was stupid, it was all fucking stupid. but the mind of a lonely old man is a desperate one, and what logan really craves isn't just eye candy. he craves a touch, that first touch that sparks electricity throughout your every nerve ending, causes goosebumps to ripple along the skins surface. he craves something, anything.

he was so fucking hungry. always so fucking hungry. a rumbling hunger that starts at the pit of his stomach and gnaws through him like a rabid animal frantically trying to escape a suffocating metal cage. it's a hunger he can't satisfy, he knows he can't satisfy. but he'd been alone so long.

surely one bite couldn't hurt?

no, he finds himself shaking his head as he stands from the bar. he'd take a leak, and leave early. it'd only been a month since he first saw you, he could get over this. switching bars wasn't particularly appealing to him, but it was better than having to look at you and feel that familiar ache.

the bathroom door swings open and he walks inside, situating himself at one of the urinals. a few moments later, the door swings open again, logan doesn't bother to look over.

"oh, thought these were empty, sorry."

his head turns quickly. it's you, mop in hand. there's an uncomfortable silence that follows.

speak, fucking speak. "it's fine."

you pause, then nod a little and begin mopping the floor.

his eyes are back on the urinal, swallowing hard. was this really going to be your first conversation? with his eyes glaring into old porcelain, dick in his hand? he tries not to picture you stealing glances at him, but he can't help it. is that what he wants?

maybe.

finishing up, he quickly makes his way over to the sinks, pushing his hands under the cool water and rubbing with soap. his eyes flit up to the mirror. and he catches you.

your eyes lock on one another for just a split second before you quickly busy yourself with the mop again.

but that split second was enough. it was enough to notice how you were looking at him.

"all done," you say with a sigh after a few moments, standing straight and gripping the mop but making no effort to leave just yet.

logan eyes you in the mirror, watches how your eyes dance across the room before inevitably landing on him again. he turns to face you, noting the distance between you both in the room.

you lean back against the bathroom stall divider, eyes drifting across logan's figure. he was tall, big. this is the first time you're really able to look at him, to study the features of his face. this time he's not hiding behind a glass or a bottle.

the hunger in his gaze is obvious, but it's dulled, like he's just barely holding back. you think he looks lonely, there's a distinct air about him that practically screams that he needs to be touched.

you rest your mop against the wall, "you're in here often." you state, it's not a question.

"guess i'm a regular," he replies curtly.

swallowing hard, you continue, "i noticed. i always have to restock the whisky when you come by."

logan pushes himself from the sink and approaches you slowly. was he really doing this? after a month of pining and longing for you, a stranger in a bar, was he really going to give in to his desires? would you let him? the lust was clear in your eyes and he knew he was reflecting it right back tenfold.

"i like a drink." he says with a subtle shrug, just a step away now, eyes never leaving yours.

a small smile tugs at your lips, "i know."

you're not sure what you're really doing. you're supposed to be on shift, designated five minutes to clean the bathrooms. five minutes you'd much rather spend doing someone something else.

you eye the stranger who's been watching you, tipping you. of course you've noticed, you'd have to be pretty stupid or oblivious not to. you've come to expect him at each shift, but his presence intrigued you more than the other regulars. not just because he was more handsome, considerably more handsome.

no, it was those sad eyes that seemed to say a million words while his mouth remained firmly shut that had you curious. even now as he stands before you so silent you could hear a pin drop, when you look into his eyes you can feel a sea of words brewing.

oh how you wanted to open him up, to peer inside behind that rough exterior, to take a peek behind the facade. you're sure you're easier to read than he is.

you're not sure when or how it happened, but he's right in front of you now, his body almost touching yours. you look up at him with a feigned innocent look.

"i've seen you, you know," you mumble bravely, "looking at me."

logan doesn't seem surprised, he brings a hand up to hold your chin, turning your face from side to side to get a proper look at you now that he has you up close. "yeah?"

"yeah," you reply shakily, "thought i was imagining it at first. but by the second night it was obvious."

he smirks, so he's not as subtle as he thinks.

your hands snake down, finding his belt buckle and brazingly begin to unbuckle it. he watches you, eyes fixated on the way your fingers move. he swears he's about to start drooling. but then you move, hands winding up to the buttons on his shirt. you splay your hands across the fabric, eyes widening when you feel what's underneath.

"are you. . . is that-"

logan grips your wrists, not the suit. he wasn't talking about that now, he had to shut you up. he leans in, capturing your lips in a passionate kiss as his strong hands keep a firm grip on your wrists. you submit, leaning back against the cubicle divider as you let him slip his tongue into your mouth.

he moans, relishing the taste of you, the taste he's thought about for so fucking long. he brings your hands up, pinning them above your head, shifting his grip so one hand easily pins your wrists, leaving his other hand free.

his free hand plants firmly across your upper chest, the rough pads of his fingers brushing against your collarbone as he explores your mouth with his tongue. you're lost in the sensation, knees going weak as you allow the older man to have his way with you. he needs this, you know it.

"taste so fuckin' sweet," he mumbles against your lips, kissing you between words, "you do this often? let men kiss you in the bathroom?"

you mumble a 'no' under your breath, ". . . just the ones who tip good," you grin.

logan feels himself chuckling, biting your lower lip. oh, he liked you. his hand travels upwards, finding purchase around your neck. you gasp in response, moaning. he eagerly swallows your moan with his mouth, drowning out any sound that threatens to escape.

the kiss grows in intensity, you wonder how long it's been since he's kissed someone. he kisses you like a man starved, like he'd devour you if you let him. and you would, you think, if it felt this good.

his hand on your neck gives a gentle squeeze before running down your torso, palming at your jeans suddenly. you try to whimper in pleasure, but he's silencing you with his lips again.

"shhh, shhh," he whispers against your lips, "feel good? i know it feels good, but you gotta stay nice and quiet." logan can feel the material of your jeans begin to damp and he resists the urge to growl, feeling the way the fabric beneath gives way.

you nod, whispering small affirmatives as he touches you through the material. "just give me more," you whine.

and that spurs him on. in a flash he's pushing you into the stall, stealing a few more kisses where he can before he turns you, pushing your back against his chest. his lips find your neck, pressing hot open-mouthed kisses along the skin he finds there.

you're like putty in his hands, melting back against him as his hand returns to your crotch, rough hands massaging circles against your clothed core. you resist a moan, exhaling shakily instead as you let him use you.

"you wanted this just as much as i did, huh?" he growls into your ear, "need it, need me to fuck you."

you nod quickly as you feel his lips curve into a smirk against your skin.

"yeah, thought so," he nibbles on your earlobe, breathing deeply through his nose as he tries to steady himself, preserve the moment. but how can he when you feel this good beneath his fingers, taste this good on his tongue? "tell me you want it."

"want you to fuck me," you whimper almost immediately, suddenly feeling so very needy. there's a hot ache growing between your legs, one you're desperate for him to fill.

logan laughs, "you can do better than that, honey, know you can."

"please," your voice cracks and you swallow back moans as you squirm beneath his touch, "please fuck me-" it becomes apparent to you at that moment that you don't even know his name. your cheeks flush at the thought of letting this stranger, this older man fuck you in the bar bathroom, but actually, you kind of like it that way.

he nods against the side of your cheek, his stubble scratching against your soft skin, "there we go, attagirl. . ."

with that, he pushes you forward, forcing your hands onto the tank of the toilet to support yourself as he bends you over. his hands find your waist, his hips connecting with yours and slowly grinding his very apparent, large bulge against you.

you let out a whimper, arching your back a little at the sudden contact.

"feel that?" he mumbles, guiding your hips to grind back against him, "feel what you do to me?"

a gasp, "fuck, you're big." you can already tell, the way his bulge is pressing against you, demanding to be felt. you swear you can almost feel it throb through the material.

"yeah i am," logan smirks, he knows he's big, and he knows exactly how to use it.

pulling back slightly, he roughly pulls your jeans down, practically manhandling you, your underwear disappearing with it. he grabs handfuls of your ass before kneading the skin. "look at that, pretty little ass, all for me."

you just have time to gasp before you feel one of his hands connect harshly with your skin, the sound ringing out in the small bathroom of the bar. "f-fuck!" you whine, feeling the sharp sting, knowing there's a bright red imprint in the shape of his large palm on your ass.

there's some jingling, the sound of his belt being moved out of the way, a zipper. you prepare yourself, or at least you try to, but his cock is already slapping against your backside before you have time to steady your hazy mind.

"you gonna take all of me?" he asks, biting his lip as his aching length slaps against your skin, "think you can?"

you nod quickly, looking over your shoulder at him, "mhm!"

"if you say so. . ." he smirks and positions himself, one hand on your hip and one aiming his cock at your tight little hole.

then, all at once he's sinking in. you gasp, he gasps. and fuck, he is big. you feel that sweet stretch, his cock throbbing against your tight walls as it slowly glides inside. you're whining as it slowly fills you, eyes rolling back at the sensation. but he pulls out a little, only to push back in again.

he's working you up just right, mesmerised by the way you take his cock. his eyes are fixed on your tight hole begging him to enter, loving the slick sound as it pushes inside.

"you've been thinkin' about this since you started your shift," logan says confidently, his words confirmed by how you drip around him, "thought about me fillin' you up, nice and full?"

despite the way your cheeks flush bright red, you can't deny it. you've thought about it more than once, fantasised about it in bed, hoping that one day that stranger from the bar would fuck you so good you forget your own name.

you don't need to reply either, because he knows. he knows from the way your wet hole flutters around him, and fuck does it make him harder to know that you've thought about this just as much as he has. he begins to pump into you at a leisurely pace, firm hands on your hips.

"holy fuck, so fuckin' tight," logan grumbles, his deep slow strokes hitting you deep as he bottoms out inside of you.

you try to turn your head, to look up at him, but he grasps the back of your hair, pushing your head down. "nu-uh, keep that head down."

he knows if he lets you look at him, look up at him for too long, he'll lose it. he can't have your soft eyes on him while he fucks you, he doesn't deserve it. he'll take you, just like this, with your head down and your ass up and his cock buried deep inside you.

because he can't describe the shame that swirls in his stomach, that this is how he relieves himself, a quick fuck in a bar. this dirty older man who's seen so much sin, perpetuated sin with his own hands, who longed for the young pretty little thing in the bar. logan doesn't deserve nice things, this he knows.

you feel his thrusts grow rougher, your legs slipping apart as you attempt to hold yourself up, hands planted firmly on the tank of the toilet. you're squeaking softly with each pump, feeling him use you to release his pent-up frustrations. and it felt so fucking good.

with his firm grip on your hair tightening by the second and his other large hand digging into your hip, you begin to bounce back against his motions, sending him even deeper. you both moan in sync with the feeling and you pant softly, cheeks flushing further at the soft 'plap plap plap' of his hips connecting with you, the sound reverberating around the small cubicle.

"that feels so fucking good," you sing, closing your eyes. logan gives a particularly hard thrust, speed picking up. you can't help but smirk, mouth stuck open as you moan softly, he likes it when you talk to him during, huh? "keep fuckin' me, just like that, so good. . ."

he groans, wrapping your hair around his fist as he relentlessly pounds into you. harder and harder, deeper and deeper, you're sure you'll have bruises littered over your body before the day is through.

"harder!" you cry, feeling your legs tremble. you're not gonna last long like this, and by the way his cock is twitching inside of you, he isn't either. "i'm gonna cum, you're gonna make me fuckin' cum!"

another groan slips from his lips, gritting his teeth as he uses you, watching you take his throbbing cock beneath him. "look so pretty like this, bent over, takin' what i fuckin- shit. . . takin' what i give you."

your body grows hotter, sweat forming on your forehead, each impact pushing you forward roughly. you're really not gonna last long.

he begins to hunch over, his chest flush with your back as he huffs against your neck, fucking you like a rabid animal. you're squealing now, the pleasure swirling in your lower stomach, threatening to send you crashing into bliss. at this point, you don't fucking care if someone walks in and finds you like this, sees his feet planted behind yours underneath the stall. in fact, the thought of the risk sends a bolt straight to your gut.

"yes yes yes," you mutter, feeling your orgasm approaching steadily. you swear you can feel him in your guts. you begin to flutter around him, begging for release, knowing it's going to completely destroy you.

logan can't even form words, just grunts slipping from his lips against the side of your neck. and then he feels it, his cock twitches, his mind reeling with the imminent release. he needs this, oh he fucking needs this.

he bites down on your neck, teeth sinking in slightly as he feels himself release deep inside you, his cum spilling out in strong waves. you feel your knees buckle, but a strong hand planted on your tummy helps keep you upright as he fucks his release deeper into you.

the animalistic nature of his thrusts combined with the sensation of his hot cum painting your insides sends you flying over the edge, your orgasm milking him as you clamp around his aching cock. he slams his hand against the stall wall with a loud metallic bang, splaying his fingers across the metal as if to ground himself as his thrusts falter.

his tongue lazily licks the indents of his bite mark against your neck, groans easing their way from the back of his throat. you can hardly catch your breath, legs still shaking from such an intense release. it's hard to think straight with his dick still buried deep inside, feeling it twitch with every aftershock.

you both stay like that for a solid minute, panting, coming down together. he's planting soft kisses along your neck as your breath slowly comes back to you.

he pulls out, stepping back as he stuffs himself into his jeans. you collapse onto the toilet seat, shakily pulling your jeans and underwear back up as you look up at him. it's clear he's looking to leave, a distant look in his eye, maybe a little shame creeping into his features.

standing on trembling legs, you lean up, giving him a surprisingly soft kiss. your hands take over his, helping him back into his jeans, zipping them up, clasping the buttons together and buckling his belt. all the while your lips are on his, slowly, passionately intertwining together.

you pull back, buttoning your own jeans as you continue to look up at him. ". . . does that count as your tip for the night?" you joke with a smirk, hoping to see a flash of his smile again, hoping to alleviate some of that shame he's carrying.

and there it is, a small smirk on his lips as he glances away. "maybe."

the shame seems to settle, begins to dissipate. it feels less like satisfying an urge and more like. . . exploring something new. his eyes drift back to you.

"i'll see you tomorrow?" you ask, tilting your head.

he blinks, suddenly remembering time exists outside this small space seemingly crafted just for the two of you. "yeah," he says, quietly.

"good," you pat his chest before moving past him, leaving the stall. you stand, looking back at him. a beat, "or, you can meet me after my shift ends?"

his eyes widen, taken aback. fuck, had he forgotten how to do this? his eyes flit to the side, before making up his mind. he gives a firm nod.

you smile before leaving him in the bathroom, returning to the bar through the door.

logan stands there for a few moments, running his fingers through his hair. he smooths down his shirt, feeling the suit beneath, a stark reminder always of his past.

but maybe he could begin to take a few steps forward. maybe he deserves more than to suffer forever, forced to keep everyone at arm's length. maybe he could allow himself this small happiness, a date, or whatever this was.

maybe it was time to satisfy his hunger, his loneliness, for good.

[springismss]

ᱬ⛧ you needy? s. gojo

sum: being the wife of the world's strongest sorcerer meant being away from him for days or weeks at a time - of course, he came back as needy as ever.

pairing: satoru gojo x wife! reader

content: established relationship (marriage), pet names (baby, sweetheart, etc), wall fucking, cock warming, needy gojo, suggested multiple rounds, fingering, oral (f! receiving), suggested cum stuffing, unprotected fun

a/n: based on this post. ageless blogs/minors - dni. lowercase intended. ik this sucks but posting anyways. cross-posted on ao3. as always likes, comments and re-blogs are deeply appreciated!

all was calm and somewhat quiet in the dimly lit household until the sound of the front door being slammed shut shattered every piece of that quietness. a small thud sounded a second after the person responsible for the initial noise let their head fall back against the wood, hand coming up to rub their tense temple as an exasperated sigh passed their lips. all they needed was a moment, a moment to finally breathe after what felt like the longest mission of their life to date. not only had the main curse been a pain in the literal arse, but the smaller curses that were around made it a little more difficult to exorcise it in good time, which even they had to admit made the situation more frustrating.

dropping their hand, they let their head return back to normal as they remained on the door, taking a moment to try and figure out what day it was, let alone what time. of course, they knew it was nighttime at least, given how dark it was before they stepped through the door. everything seemed to have blended into one long day, mind-numbing as they let out a frustrated growl before taking their time to indulge in the now quietness that enveloped them. a welcome relief from the nose they'd had to endure while away.

despite the material covering their eyes, they took a moment to scan the hallway settling on the area the light flickering from the front room came from, signalling the other person inside was awake, so it wasn't too late much to their relief. that's when they saw the head of said person sticking their head out of the door, a warm and welcoming smile tugging at their lips. "satoru, you're home!". at the sound of the name reaching their ears, the figure pushed off the door and rushed forward, wrapping their arms around the smaller figure as they giggled.

satoru gojo was the strongest sorcerer in the world, the only surviving member of the gojo clan and a literal force to be reckoned with. Yet here he was after an exhausting few weeks with his arms wrapped tightly around his wife. you'd been an anchor to him many times before, keeping him grounded after long days of either teaching or exorcising. how he'd missed this, the feeling of you in his arms, your frame fitting perfectly against his as you welcomed him home. after a few seconds, he pulled back to look down at you, your head tilting before you let out a playful squeal at your body being easily picked up, back pressed against the wall at your side as large hands rested on either side of your head.

you knew exactly where this was going and you couldn't deny a part of you loved it. even though you hated him being away on missions, the desire you both felt after he returned made you shiver each time.

everything that happened in the minutes after that passed in a blur of emotions - desire and need being the main ones driving the actions of your now needy husband. plump lips pressed against you before you felt sharp teeth dig into the sensitive flesh, tugging your lower lip into the hungry mouth of the man now responsible for the fire in both your gut and between your legs. letting out a whine you raised your hands and gripped onto broad shoulders, pulling him closer. god know you missed him so much these past few weeks, especially when your fingers couldn't hit the places his longer ones could, drawing out those sweet highs from deep within.

managing to tug your lip free, you looked up at him and sucked in a quick breath at the bites now being placed directly below your jaw. this man would be the death of you and he hadn't even gotten to the part you both enjoyed yet. "toru, p-please". the pressure on your neck disappeared after a second, lips returning to yours as kisses grew sloppier and needier. the small grunts sounded before silence greeted you once more and the cool air lapped at your once heated lips. furrowing your brows in confusion, you watched as satoru dropped to his knees, lips now decorating your thigh with the same warm, sloppy kisses that you felt only a few moments beforehand.

letting your head fall back slightly, you blinked mindlessly into the darkness above you as you felt those kisses trail up higher, closer to the one place you needed him the most right now. those same kisses halted once again as you felt the waistband of your shorts and underwear being tugged, ripped away in tatters before you had time to look down. letting out a whine, you pressed a hand to your head and gnawed on your bottom lip before speaking, making sure he heard how annoyed you were. "for fucks sake, i've only just bought those toru, i swear if i didn't love you, i'd have booted you by now". that was when the sound of his deep chuckle reached your ears, making you weak in the knees as his kisses resumed on your inner thigh, hand supporting the back of your flesh in his grip, words escaping between each creeping peck. "i know you~" kiss "would but~" kiss "let's face it~" kiss "i'll just buy you new ones".

with the last of his words out, satoru brought his other hand and using little to no force, pushed your supple thighs apart taking a moment to admire the way your already wet pussy looked in the soft glow of the light. letting his tongue glide across his lips, he tilted his head up to you before smirking hands reaching up to pull your hips forward as he began to devour you like you were the essence of his very existence. skilled tongue lapped at your clit while his slender fingers easily slipped into your eager pussy, your warm gummy walls welcoming after being starved for so long. all it took was one movement, one simple stretch of his fingers to have your head falling back, moans and whimpers escaping as you let your hands drop onto his head. the pads of your fingers rubbed small circles on his scalp before you gripped onto the snow-white strands of his hair, back pushing all the wall in an arch as you blinked back the tears pricking at your eyes, hips starting to move as you helped rub yourself against him. you didn't realise how long it had been since you felt his tongue, but you were sure you weren't going to last that long the more his long fingers stretched you out, another being added to the two already buried knuckle deep, making you feel full yet not full enough at the same time.

although satoru enjoyed the sounds falling from your lips he couldn't wait any longer, growing bored of his face being buried between your legs. with almost no warning, he slipped his fingers out of your pussy as his tongue detached from your clit, a whine passed your lips in both shock and desperation, you were building to your climax so beautifully but he had to rip that away from you. blinking your eyes to regain your composure, you dropped your head back down just in time to see him rising to his feet, reminding you of how much taller than you he was. "toru~".

the breathy pass of his name made satoru hum before he ripped off his uniform with little to no effort, tossing the now remnants somewhere to the side as he pressed a hand to your thigh again, gripping the flesh under his fingertips, savouring the feel before guiding your leg to wrap around his waist. with a quick nod of your head knowing what he wanted, you let your hands travel up his torso savouring the flex of his muscles before they drape over his shoulders, fingers locked together as you felt your body being hoisted until you were at eye level with his parted lip, the tip of his cock now rubbing between your puffy pussy lips. "i can't wait any longer, sweet stuff, ffuck, i need to feel you around me".

blinking at his words, you gave a quick smile before leaning forward, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth, slowly dragging your kisses up his cheek until you stopped at his ear, hot breath causing him to shiver slightly. you let the echo of a moan slip from your throat before smirking, pressing a small peck to the shell of his ear, not before you whispered words he'd been dying to hear for what felt like a lifetime. "well, what are you waiting for honey, use me, fuck me".

it was like a switch had been flipped, the rubbing you had felt stopped suddenly, soon replaced with the obvious sensation of your ring of resistance being pushed past. sucking in a breath between your teeth, you squeezed your eyes closed before letting soft pants fall from your mouth as you felt your husband bottom out into you, walls stretched to what felt like their limits and more as it took you a moment to remember just how big he was, his thickness being the best part of his cock aside from the tufts of white hair settle at his base. it felt like it had been years since you were as close as this, yet it had only been a week or two at max.

after a few more slow seconds, you felt satoru's hips pull back as the fullness disappeared for a second before returning forcefully, knocking the air from your lungs with a harsh jolt. eyes screwed shut as you let your head fall, lips parted as whines and moans of pleasure began to fall from your mouth, hands gripping onto his shoulders and you tried your best to keep that last of your sanity in check but you were fighting a losing battle. between the pressure building up in your gut and the cock inside you splitting you open with each hard snap of his hips, you knew it wouldn't be long before you were completely lost in the throes of pleasure. "fuck, that's it, baby girl, you take all of me so good".

oh, how his words had you clenching your walls around him, sucking him into the deepest part of your very being as you dug your nails into his shoulders before dragging them down his milky back. you knew those pretty crescent moons and red marks would be there for a few days at least, and they looked so pretty on satoru's skin. while yours left marks on his back, his fingers gripped onto your hips as he held you closer to his body, a grip that would no doubt leave small bruises, not that you would complain. him marking your body in different ways was par for the course on most days.

to say you were pinned between a rock and a hard place was an understatement but right now, you couldn't have cared less. not when your legs are wrapped around hips that gave relentless thrusts into your pussy, dragging the most sinful noises from deep within. not when your arms were dragging pretty marks down his back for the world to potentially see, a reminder that the strongest in the world belonged to someone and that someone was you. not when the rest of your body bounced painfully against the wall as thrusts continued to get rougher making you want that release to hold off so you could continue to enjoy this moment for a little longer. "toru~ h'ah, feel so, fuck, full". letting your head roll back, you opened your mouth to let chants of satoru's name fall from your lips as you moved a hand, cupping his face to help keep yourself grounded. you were close to your climax and you knew he could feel it as well, the way your gummy walls began to pulsate a little faster, gripping his cock a little too tightly.

moving one hand from your hip, satoru brought it up to his face and tugged down his blindfold effectively trapping your hand in its place as his eyes now looked you over. the way you let your head fall back to now look at him, the reddening of your cheeks and droll slipping from the corner of your mouth had him smirking. despite being able to see and perceive everything around him thanks to his eyes, he never felt more powerful than right now. he was the only one who got to see you like this, bare in front of him making the most sinful noises for only him to hear. his blue eyes always drove you crazy, they were the first thing you remember seeing when you first met him all those years back and they were the only eyes that would ever get to see you in such a state. "t-toru, p-please, i'm gonna~".

squeezing your eyes shut, you let out a shaky moan and you felt the pressure in your gut build, walls pulsating signalling you were close to your climax. without any further words, satoru placed his hands on the wall behind you, steadying himself as he began to position his hips into you, the mushroom tip of his cock slamming against that spongy spot deep inside. the new sensation caused your gummy walls to pulsate faster around him, helping to milk him closer to his end, daring him to fill you with his seed. and that is exactly what he did after a few more frantic thrusts into your pussy, of course, he wouldn't have been a gentleman if he didn't let your climax wash over you first. your vision flashed white as you gripped his cheek, nails pressing in slightly as a loud cry of his name slipped from your lips, your walls pulsating harshly, sucking his cock into you deeper than you both thought was possible right now. with a few more harsh thrusts, satoru's hips stuttered to a stop as he shot thick ropes of white into your now eagerly awaiting pussy, no doubt taking up a new home deep inside your womb. the deep rumble in his chest of the moans you drew from him made you shiver more as heated lips caught yours once again.

after a few minutes of finally regaining yourself thanks to the kisses you were getting, you found yourself lying on cool silk sheets as you blinked in confusion, your gaze falling on your husband who only smiled brightly at your confusion. tilting your head, you looked around the room before smiling softly, turning your attention back to satoru, mouthing a quick thank you as you felt the material of his blindfold being removed from your hand, being placed on the table at the side. "toru, you didn't have to do this you know". shaking his head, satoru looked at you and hummed a little. he knew better than anyone this was where you were most comfortable when you were both intimate, he just couldn't help himself after the mission he'd just had. he missed you and your touch for so long that he just had to have you right there and then even if it was again at the wall that wasn't exactly the most comfortable of places.

"it's the least i could do, i should have waited a few more minutes to make sure you were comfortable".

you shook your head and looked him over, taking in every single piece of him you could as he smiled wider at you, hand cupping your cheek as he peppered kisses all over your face, whispering how much he's missed you and that's not leaving you for more than a second next time. you both knew the missions he undertook were dangerous and potentially fatal, one mistake and he might not come back to you. and that scared the life out of you. the both of you.

he had two choices every time a mission was presented to him - one, the most obvious one was to undertake the mission, exorcise the curse or curses and let everything return to as normal as it could be before the next mission that he was needed for, or two, decline and spend his time locked away from the world, being only in your arms as he tried to make every second count. he was no stranger to losing someone he loved, he'd been through what felt like hell and back before he met you at such a young age. you were the one to help him battle his inner demons, the one who made him feel better after all the long days and nights he spent away, but most of all, you were the one who loved him with everything you had to offer, helping to heal his soul one day at a time and he'd be damned if he would ever give you up.

it still didn't feel real that this was your life, that the strongest sorcerer in the world was now your husband, if someone had told you this when you were younger, you would have laughed in their faces and told them to get a life, someone like him would never end up with the likes of you. yet here you were, still connected in the most intimate way you could be, taking on the world together. lifting your other hand you cupped his face and brought your lips to the tip of his nose, giving it a quick kiss before moving down to his lips, placing a sweet yet hungry kiss against them before pulling away, scanning your eyes over his face once more as you smirked.

quickly moving your leg, you draped it over his hip, hand resting on his shoulder before you rolled him onto his back, placing your legs on either side of his as you straddled his waist, keeping his cock snuggly inside your cunt. letting your hands fall onto his chest, you placed them crossed over where his heart was, feeling the thumping quickening the more he looked over you, anticipating what your next move was. the smirk on your lips widened as you uncrossed them, letting your body fall forward slightly cupping his cheek again, hot breath fanning over his ear as you let a small giggle sound. "satoru, you know since we're somewhere more comfortable, i was thinking you should fill me up~".

straightening your back, you let your head fall back as you rolled your hips, making the mushroom tip of his cock rub against that spongy spot again, another sinful moan dragging from your throat. "~stuff me so full of your come that it ends up slipping out my puffy pussy~". letting your head return to normal, you bit your lip and grabbed ahold of his hand, fingers lacing together as you pulled his torso off the sheets into a sitting position, shifting yourself so you were pressed firmly in his lap, hips moving with every other word. "~so you have to fuck it back into me until i can't take any more. until it runs messily down my thighs and legs like the tears from my eyes at the pleasure".

satoru swears he forgot how to breathe when he looked up at you eyes lidded slightly as you continued to roll your hips into his, his cock beginning to harden once again, begging him to move his hips in tandem with yours. "well, if that's what my sweetheart wants~". it all happened within seconds as your back hit the sheets, a gasp sounding out as your husband began to roll his hips into yours rougher than you were a few moments ago, eyes fluttering shut. moving one of his large hands, he placed it just below your navel, pushing down as he continued to roll into you, loving the feeling of your body squirming below him trying to get off on the friction against your clit alone. after a moment, that same hand moved to grip ahold of your tit, beginning to knead the flesh, nipple hardening underneath his grasp. "~that's what my sweetheart gets, to be stuffed full of my come until she can’t take any more".

letting go of your chest, satoru placed his hand beside your head, while his other hand ran down your side, grabbing ahold of your thigh he moved it up and pressed further into you. his body pinned you in place as you felt yourself shift slightly until you could feel the burn of your thigh muscle, your gummy walls contouring to the shape of his cock again as he snapped his hips forward once more, dragging more of the sounds he loved from your throat. being sure to fulfil the desire to be filled full of his come, in one way or another.

when it all came down to it, satoru gojo was hopelessly in love with you. you’d come along when he needed someone the most, at a dark time in not only his life but his story as the strongest. due to that, he just wanted to spend as much time as possible with you, however, that might be because he knew one day he'd leave you behind in this cruel world, with nothing but the memories he'd made with you. be that spending time with you, showering you with endless gifts which you were adamant you didn't need, but secretly loved regardless, fucking you for hours on end, loving the feel of the way you writhe for him as you would show him you wanted it as much as him. watching you lose yourself in the pleasure that only he could provide to you.

at the end of the day, all satoru gojo was to you was your husband, the man who you loved more than anything in the world. not a weapon to be used. not the strongest sorcerer with the weight of the world on his shoulders. no, he was just the man who you loved more than life itself, and you were forever grateful he chose to spend the rest of his with you.

[wistsandmagic]

No Way Out (Brother I Let You Down)

Welp. I finally caved in to one of the plot bunnies @keferon 's Mecha AU keeps putting in my brain. So here, have some Swindle and Vortex ANGST.

(under the cut because it's over 2k words)

It was the middle of the night. The lights in the hangar were dimmed, the sounds of the skeleton crew that worked as night shift far away in the mechanics’ sector, not on the hangar floor. The mecha stood still in their refuel bays, waiting on the next time the Quintessons attacked, when the alarms would blare and the hangar would become a frantic cacophony of activity.

For now though, things were quiet. Still.

Lonely.

Swindle walked silently across the catwalk strung between the mecha, the smell of oil and gear lubricant seeping into his nose like an old friend's aftershave. He didn't smell that often enough nowadays. Sometimes he missed it.

Sometimes, he thought, turning at a path junction to walk down to one particular mecha's bay, one that towered over everything else in the hangar. Sometimes he just missed the people that the smell accompanied.

No one would have ever guessed that he and Vortex had been close friends. They fought like cats and dogs, always sniping at each other, yelling and picking at each other until Onslaught had to break them up before things got too physical. They'd both ended up in medbay more than once after a fight hadn't been broken up quickly enough. They were the youngest of the group, after all, and so close in age that fights seemed almost inevitable.

Swindle had thought of Vortex as the closest thing he'd ever had to a brother. When he didn't come back from that ill-fated mission...

The former pilot stopped in front of the giant mecha in the bay, the faint hint of old blood adding itself to the scents mingling in his nose. Vortex's mecha always smelled vaguely bloody, though since that young medic-turned-pilot, First Aid, had taken over, things weren't as strong. Swindle thought that might be a good thing. Maybe.

He wasn't one to really believe in ghosts, not in the way people meant. A spirit that haunted the living? Seemed improbable. Ghosts were the memories that lingered when you stared at the things the dead had left behind. The scents that once followed them suddenly wafting through the air, the feel of a missing presence, an ache that never went away. That was a 'ghost'.

But when Swindle stared at the red visor of Vortex's mech – it would always be Vortex's mech to him, no matter who piloted it or for how long – it was all too easy to imagine the other kind of ghost. All too easy to give in to the superstitions surrounding this mecha, to believe that a malevolent spirit haunted it, for all it seemed to at least like First Aid. One pilot it didn't want to kill.  

The visor stared back blankly, and Swindle caught sight of his own reflection, warped and twisted by the thick, bullet-proof plexiglass. Somehow the warped reflection felt more like it was the real him than the him that existed in his own skin, at that moment. All of the stress, the heaviness, the days of lying through his teeth and pretending he cared less than he did, that all he was in things for was the money, that the pilots that came back to base maimed and traumatized didn't matter to him as long as the program got the money needed, that his best friend who couldn't even remember that he was Swindle's best friend was laying in a hospital bed, half of his body burned and his mind in tatters didn't matter beyond his ability to bring in investors...

It was too much. It was just...too much.

"H...hey," he managed, flinching at how much his own voice cracked. Where was the smarmy car-salesman he pretended at being? The smooth operator, the con man? "...Vortex, if...if you're in there, buddy, y'mind? I just..." Tears pricked at the corners of Swindle's eyes, startling him and making him put a hand to his face. Man, he was losing it, wasn't he? "I...I just needed..."

Before he knew it, Swindle found himself slumping to the catwalk floor, his back to Vortex's mech. Knew that if the ghost stories were true, that might not be a good idea, but he'd always trusted his friend. His brother. Saw no reason to stop now. "I miss you, y'know that?" He murmured, trying to stem the flow of tears without letting his voice hitch. "The entire...the entire program's shit. I know we knew that already, but...Vee, it's got so much worse. And here I am...actively promoting the damn thing 'cause we have no other choice. " ...he hadn't called Vortex 'Vee' in years. It was usually "Tex"; that was what Vortex had preferred. Swindle was the only one that could ever get away with calling him Vee without getting punched, even so. Swindle had reserved it for special occasions, knowing he held privilege. Now seemed like as good a time as any. Vortex wasn't there any longer to half-heartedly gripe at him for the affectionate diminutive.

That didn't make it better.

Swindle leaned his head back until it thunked against the catwalk railing, letting him stare up from behind his rose-tinted glasses toward the ceiling, heedless of the tears streaming down his face. "I dunno what to do to stop it, Vee. You were always the one c-coming up with the harebrained schemes that somehow worked. You always were smarter than I am, just damn crazy. We worked so good together, like brothers, you 'n me." He laughed mirthlessly, a shaking hand coming up to cover his face as he sobbed, unable to stop himself. "...though guess I'm probably the crazy one now, h-huh. Talkin' to your mech like somehow you c-can hear me through it. Like you're gonna act like my crazy older brother again and somehow tell me this's all gonna work out in the end, and I'm not a heartless monster for doin' this, goin' along with this shit."

He didn't pay attention to the faint nudging at his side at first, figuring it was just the edge of the railing digging into his ribs. When the touch became more insistant, however, he looked down, blinking away tears. Only to stare dumbly at the very large fingertip pressed ever so gently against his side. His breath caught, and for a moment Swindle couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't move, because that was the hand of Vortex's mech, his index finger pressed almost lovingly to Swindle's side, rubbing up and down very slightly now that Swindle was actively paying attention. Almost as if it were trying to comfort him.

Dashing tears from his eyes with the back of one hand, Swindle switched his attention from the massive finger at his side to the head of the mech beside him, expecting to see First Aid curled up inside the cockpit controlling things. But no, the cockpit was empty, the faint lights inside just enough to let him see through the visor before everything flared to life, the visor turning bright and opaque as the mech's head turned slowly to look directly at Swindle.

He'd spent years pretending there was no such thing as ghosts, hating that Vortex's mech killed pilots, but refusing to believe it was anything other than glitches. To say otherwise would be having to say that something of his friend, his brother, still lingered, and Swindle couldn't help him. Now, though, he couldn't deny it. He could feel Vortex there, staring at him through the mech, through that red visor so much like Vortex's own remembered helmet. He blinked as the sound of soft static filled the air, a mechanical text-to-speech voice whispering through the speakers embedded in the mech's head. "Swindler, c'mon now. You never were one for tears, little bro."

If...if Vortex intended that to stop Swindle from crying, it had the exact opposite effect. Sure, the voice was mechanical, it sounded off, but that was still, somehow, Vortex's voice, and Swindle hadn't heard it outside of old recordings for far too long. He shakily got to his feet, one hand covering his mouth to muffle himself while the other scrabbled frantically for Vortex's finger, any and all fears about the rogue mecha deciding to crush him into paste fleeing from his mind in his desperation to have some part of Vee touching him. Only Vortex ever called him "Swindler". Only Vortex ever called him little bro.

"A...are you really in there, Vee?" Even to Swindle's own ears he sounded pathetic. Not like himself at all. It was the stress. It had to be the stress. That was the only explanation.Maybe he was crazy. Maybe watching Blurr almost die was the final straw that broke him, and now he was headed for the looney bin as soon as someone found him. Damn. But hearing Vortex's voice, even distorted by machinery, coming from his mech, broke something inside Swindle's soul, and grief came pouring out whether he wanted it to or not.

Again that soft static, again that voice. "In the figurative flesh, Swindler." Somehow it even managed to retain Vortex's characteristic croon, the way he only spoke to those he actually liked, not the bitten-off snark of those he tolerated, or the open hiss to those he actively hated. Vortex carefully raised his hand over the railing, making Swindle step back a pace, and lowered a couple of his fingers, beckoning carefully. "C'mere. Can't hug you, know you need it, but c'mere anyway." Swindle should have thought twice. Every protocol to do with Vortex – the mech, not the long-dead person – screamed about caution and wariness. But this was Vortex. The person, not the mech. Crazy, full of bloodlust, stay out of his way on the battlefield, don't make him hate you, sure, but above all else he was Swindle's mech partner, his brother, his friend closer than a brother. The one who always had his back on and off the battlefield, in ways Onslaught never could.

He stepped into Vortex's hand without hesitation, trembling hands coming down to help hold himself steady as Vortex's fingers and thumb gripped him in a hold too gentle to come from a mech's default pilotless programming. He saw the visor open, and before he knew it he was deposited gently inside, warm air that smelled vaguely of vanilla – had First Aid hung an air freshener somewhere? – already wafting through the cockpit.

The speakers crackled to life. "Find a seat, little bro." Cabling hissed out of hidden apertures, operating oddly like hands and arms as they found Swindle, pulled him in closer to the emergency jumpseat off to the side of the pilot's seat, designed for maintenance and a place to stretch if trapped in the cockpit for too long, pulling it out from the wall and ushering Swindle to sit. Like Vortex knew Swindle couldn't bring himself to sit in the pilot's seat of a mech that didn't belong to him, that still belonged to Vortex, even if First Aid was 'sharing' it now.

"Vee..." "Hush." The voice was rough, kindness having always been oddly difficult for Vortex to manage, always making him sound like he was angry at himself for daring to show any kind of humanity. That was the case now, of course. Death hadn't changed some things. A lot of things. Still, Vortex's cabling wrapped gently around Swindle once he sat, draping over his shoulders and snaking across his lap like one of Vortex's annoying full-body hugs that had always been so good simply because of their rarity, even if he had to be drunk to give them. The thought made Swindle want to tear up all over again, grief and stress radiating off of him even as he reached out to brush over one of the cables, feeling unseen eyes watching him as he did his best to gather himself, unable to feel any fear for the faint malevolent presence that surrounded him, because he knew that malevolence wasn't directed at him. It never had been."I...you didn't come back," Swindle whispered, swallowing to try and keep his voice steady. "You died, Vee, and everything else went to hell after. It's only gotten worse now, and I...I didn't...I didn't even know you were still in here. You died."

"Yeah, I died. But. Still here, little bro. Got me a good pilot now that I like, finally, but I'm still here." Vortex's voice softened a little, in ways that would make almost anyone who knew him before his death stare at him like he'd lost even more of his marbles. Nobody ever really got to see this side of him other than the one pilot in their group who was younger than him; Swindle had been the only one to deserve the softness he was capable of, and even then only in secret. "Can't get rid of me that easily. I still got your back, y'know?" The cables wrapped around Swindle tightened slightly, reiterating Vortex's point and enclosing him in just that little bit of security. A hug from his dead friend, who was not entirely dead, and always closer to being more than even a brother would have been.

"Okay Swindler. Let's talk, you'n me. Let's come up with a plan. I'm here, little bro." "Always will be."

[keferon]

Swindle would…could…should visit.  It’s not like before, when Blurr had been injured or in hospital racing and they were separated by living their lives in very different circumstances.  Before, when the best Swindle could do was find out on the news like everyone else and maybe send a card, because he needed to be where he was told to be in mecha.  Or find out about minor incidents that never made news some indeterminate amount of time later when his and Blurr’s lives met at one of their rare intersections.  But something still holds him back.

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

Swindle doesn’t go back to the hospital in the immediate aftermath of the mecha collapse.  He tells himself that it’s because he’s busy.  And he is busy.

There’s Shockwave looking to take advantage.  Use the destruction to overwrite everything Swindle and Onslaught have been working towards with his own vision.  Keeping him at bay is taking nearly all of Swindle’s resources on the public front and Onslaught’s time behind the scenes.

And then there’s the more mundane aspects of business that still need to be handled.  Construction contracts for rebuilding.  Recognition of emergency responders.  Resources for impacted staff.  Assisting the incident investigation.  Redefining protocols for responding to attacks so that mecha can’t get caught by such a trap again.  All that paperwork makes it’s way through Swindle – sooner or later – and he has to deal with it.

And finally there’s Blurr himself.  Swindle is managing Blurr’s hospital bills.  His publicity agents.  The press conferences that were already scheduled.  Advertising deals.  The restoration of Blurr’s mech exterior.  And all the while trying to downplay to everyone involved the severity of the incident.

So yes, Swindle’s busy.  But even amidst his busy schedule, he’d found time when Blurr first called.  Had found something in that brief conversation, in just knowing his friend was still alive – even as it was too short, as Blurr’s voice faded too quickly into exhaustion.  He’s found time since – both to call Blurr about relevant decisions (even when it wasn’t strictly necessary) and to take Blurr’s calls.  And he’s noticed how Blurr’s voice has gotten stronger, their conversations longer.  The calls more frequent and now interspersed with hints at Blurr’s boredom.

Swindle would…could…should visit.  It’s not like before, when Blurr had been injured or in hospital racing and they were separated by living their lives in very different circumstances.  Before, when the best Swindle could do was find out on the news like everyone else and maybe send a card, because he needed to be where he was told to be in mecha.  Or find out about minor incidents that never made news some indeterminate amount of time later when his and Blurr’s lives met at one of their rare intersections. 

This is different.  He and Blurr are not just friends, but business partners now.  Have been working in the same place, at the same job.  There is nothing and no one physically stopping Swindle from seeing Blurr during his recovery. 

No one but himself.  A part of Swindle finds it easier to sell the lies he has to go out and tell – that Blurr’s condition is overexaggerated, that everything will be fine – when he hasn’t physically seen any of the evidence to the contrary.  Even as his mind also knows this is not true. 

Swindle was a pilot long enough to see the results of enough mech crashes, particularly under the old safety systems, where the pilot couldn’t or didn’t walk away.  It was never fucking pretty.  It was more than Swindle had ever wanted to see or know.

Swindle had thought they were changing all that.  The new safety systems should have changed that.  They were designed to prevent deaths and injuries.  Like Orion’s, Shockwave’s, Vortex’s.  Blurr’s. 

And yet.  Swindle glances again at the report on the top of the pile on his desk.  The report that does credit the newer safety systems with saving lives – with saving Tailgate’s life.

Only…it wasn’t enough.  The only reason there weren’t any confirmed casualties didn’t come down only to safety systems, but to no small amount luck.  Because what happened to Blurr – trapped, half crushed, in a burning mech – is a nightmare that’s haunted Swindle since the old days, the days before he and Blurr had ever first met.  And Swindle knows as bad as Blurr’s condition was when he was pulled from the building, it could have been worse – could have been much, much worse.  (Could have been dead.)

So, Swindle isn’t sure he wants to see Blurr.  Is afraid of what he might find if he actually looks too closely at his friend.  Is perhaps more afraid that despite the frequent phone calls, despite what Blurr says, he doesn’t really want to see Swindle. 

Because, having now worked closely with Blurr and observed his interactions, Swindle is more certain than ever that Blurr knows how to act – how to say the part that he’s expected to say, and keep close the full knowledge of whatever else it is he knows.  And if that is to act the part of a continued friend to his boss, would that really be so different from every other act Swindle’s witnessed since Blurr joined mecha? 

And Swindle isn’t even sure he could blame Blurr if it was.  Because Blurr is only here – was only ever here – because of him.  Which means what happened is because of him, doesn’t it?  But what would have happened if Blurr hadn’t been there?  How many lives would have been lost?  How much blood spilled?  Swindle’s own?  When now there had been hardly any.  Hardly any except for that of one of the only friends Swindle’s ever had.  Was it worth it, in the end?  What they’ve gained for mecha pilots compared to what might now be lost for Blurr?

That’s a thought Swindle tries very hard not to think about.  Because he knows there’s no good answers.  There never were.  There never will be.  So, he tries to push those thoughts to the back of his mind under the sea of other tasks that need handling.  But they always floats back to the surface no matter how hard he tries to keep them at bay.

A knock at the door mercifully pulls Swindle from his thoughts.

“It’s late.”

Swindle looks up to see Onslaught standing in the doorway, the hallway behind him darkened.  Reflexively, Swindle feels himself relax slightly and realizes his hand is loosening a grip on the edge of the report on the mecha collapse.  He runs a hand over the edges, attempting to smooth out the crumpled paper while Onslaught watches.

“You going to go?”  Onslaught asks the question in the same manner he’s always handled information regarding Swindle and Blurr’s friendship – without judgement or condemnation.

Only this time – this time the neutrality stings.  Stings because Swindle feels guilty regardless, guilty for staying, guilty at the thought of going.  And perhaps he wants someone else to recognize that guilt too.  Wishes it could be as easy as someone else telling him what the right thing to do is, when it feels like everything he’s done and everything he’s thinking of doing is wrong.

“I—” Swindle begins.

“Don’t tell me you can’t,” Onslaught interrupts.  “Or at least, don’t tell me it’s because you’re too busy.”

Because we both know it’s not true.

Swindle tags the words on to the end even though Onslaught doesn’t say them.  And he realizes, looking at Ons, that he knows – at least something of what’s going through Swindle’s mind.  Swindle wonders whether Ons, as the leader of their group, felt the same responsibility -- the same guilt – when one of them was injured, when Vortex was lost (when Vortex died), when Blast Off and Brawl were taken away.

“I don’t know,” Swindle says.

But that’s not entirely true either anymore.  Because Swindle suspects he does know the answer.  Has felt it in the hand on his shoulder, the weight settling on the end of his bed, that carefully neutral tone every time Swindle took a risk – even if he hadn’t ever realized at the time what it was.

Swindle grabs his coat from the hook in his office and makes for the door.  Onslaughts hand rests briefly on his shoulder as he passes.  And Swindle knows.  When he reaches his car, it’s the hospital that he sets for the destination.

------

The few steps it takes to go from the hospital desk, where they’ve assured Swindle that yes Blurr’s awake and receiving visitors, down the hallway to the door of Blurr’s room feel like some of the longest Swindle’s ever taken.  Swindle forces himself through the doorway before he can change his mind and – Blurr, the side of Blurr facing the hospital door…. If Swindle’s being honest with himself, much as he doesn’t want to recognize it – Blurr looks terrible, like he should be dead.  Swindle’s worst fear, in the flesh. 

But then Blurr turns.  And he looks…alive.  As alive as Swindle’s ever seen him.  A light gleaming in his eye as he recognizes who it is that’s standing in the doorway.

“Swindle!”  Blurr exclaims, pushing himself up so that he’s sitting more than lying against the pillows stacked behind him.

“Come in.  It’s good to see you!”  Blurr waves one hand enthusiastically towards the side of the bed.  Maybe not as fast as the gesture once would have been, but still fast, still Blurr.

It’s been too long, Swindle thinks.  As it always has been between their meetings.  But maybe not too late, this time. 

Swindle smiles as he pulls a chair up to the bedside. And as it always has been, Blurr's equally bright smile beams back at him.

AH FUCK THIS HURTS SO GOOD KFKFKFJNFHFHDGDGDOUFHF. I LOVE HOW MANY LAYERS THIS STORYLINE IS GETTING ITS LIKE A FUCKING ONION THAT WE ALL CAN COLLECTIVELY CUT AND THEN CRY

………..anon when I get you. When I geT YOU ANON

[airaatsu]

Hiii, I really loved your first fic!!! I was wondering if you could do another threesome request with se-mi again and dae-ho this time 🙈. my absolute faves

Could be with se-mi and reader already being a thing but her gf has a crush on cute little dae-ho. Flirting and teasing him throughout the games while se-mi watches her gf get what she wants.

Dae ho finally gets the pretty girl but doesn’t realize he has to share until he hears her whimper for her pretty gf to join them ;)

«—Se-mi x F!Reader x Dae-ho—»

⁍Sharing is Caring⁌

Summary: Se-mi notices how her girlfriend currently has a crush on Dae-ho. Instead of getting mad and jealous as you suspected she would, she encourages you to hang out with him. Things take a turn and the two of them end up sharing you. Dae-ho and Se-mi reaches an agreement. Se-mi loves seeing her girlfriend get everything she wants, after all, it's what you deserve;)

A/N: This request was in my inbox for like, 2 days? 😭 I'm sorry this took so long😭😭🏃‍♀️💨 Anyway, hope you guys would enjoy this‼️ I'll be working on another fic later, pray I won't get writer's block🥲 (I SUCK AT SUMMARIES🤕)

Warnings: NSFW, p in v, creampie, fingerfucking, handjob, SMUTTTTT

Se-mi leaned against one of the metal beds. Her gaze lingering on you a bit longer, watching you stare at someone from that man, Gi-hun's group. She continued to stare at you before she let out a sigh, when you didn't seem to notice, she sat down next to you and let out another louder sigh.

"What is it?" You murmured, sitting up straight as you faced her. "What do you mean." Se-mi looked away, resting her chin on the palm of her hand. "You've been sighing since earlier. What is it?"

"I don't know. Why were you staring so much at that guy." She questioned, glancing at the group you were staring at earlier. A small pout forming on her lips. You peeked at them over your shoulder before looking back Se-mi, raising a questioning brow at her. "Are you jealous?" You teased, smirking as you poked at her sides.

"No I'm not." She shot you a glare before her gaze softened, grabbing your hands to stop them from poking her. "Why don't you just talk to him? That guy- Dae-ho or whatever his name is." She stood. "Se-mi.. you're not mad?" You asked, stuffing your hands in your pockets. She scoffed,"Mad? Why would I be." She replied, flicking her finger on your nose. You giggled, playfully pushing her. "Maybe because we're in a relationship? And I'm having a crush on someone?" You stood up. Wrapping your arm around hers.

"I'm not mad at you, babe.. besides, I'm quite good at sharing." Se-mi leaned closer, placing a kiss on the corner of your lips before pulling back. "If you really want him, go for it. I don't mind sharing my princess, and it's better with him than those.." She glanced at the purple haired man across the room from them, with that friend of his that was also a drug addict. "Assholes.."

"What do you think, babe?" Se-mi smirked, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear. You smiled, shaking your head. "Of course! Thank you!" You pulled her in a hug, peppering kisses on her face. Causing her to laugh at your sudden display of affection. "Alright, alright. Now go get pretty boy." She sighs, nudging you back into the direction of the group Dae-ho is in.

You and Dae-ho hit it off quite well. Perfect, really. He was such a cutie, a gentleman too. The way he blushed when you would tease and flirt with him even during the games was simply too adorable for you. The way he would look away and pull up the zipper of his jacket, causing the fabric to ride up and hide the lower half of his face whenever you teased him made you giggle. Right now, you were sitting beside him wuth his teammates. You listened to them talk and plan for the next game, but you couldn't help your attention being drawn to someone from across the room. Turning your head, you lock eyes with your girlfriend. Se-mi has been keeping her eyes on you ever since you approached Dae-ho. Watching the both of you converse, how your hand would linger on his arm a bit too long for it to be friendly. But she wasn't jealous, no, Se-mi could never be jealous because of that. Instead, she was enjoying the scene. It filled her with pride seeing how her princess could literally pull anyone without even trying much. The way Dae-ho looked at you was already a clear sign that you've already won his heart over with just a few touch and your sweet words. Whenever you giggled or laugh, Se-mi could see Dae-ho's eyes soften and a smile forming on his lips. Who could help it though? You're beautiful, she could see that, anyone and everyone could see that.

You didn't even know how you got here. Well, maybe you did.. making up an excuse to the guard and managing to sneak into the bathroom with Dae-ho in tow was something you thought would never happen. You were just going to tease him more, flirt with him, some subtle touches here and there. You never thought things would get too heated. But then it did. So here you are now, bent over one of the sinks. You're arms could barely hold yourself together, head dangling between your shoulders as Dae-ho's hips snapped against your own. The sound of skin slapping skin echoed in the empty bathroom save for you two. His left hand snaked from your hips to your neck, his hand wrapped around it, but he made sure it didn't hurt nor suffocate you. He pulled your head back gently, making you look at yourself in the mirror. Making you looked at your fucked out face, remnants of tear stains could be seen on your cheeks. You whimpered out his name, feeling his cock throb and twitch inside you. Dae-ho groaned into the nape of your neck, biting down on the sensitive skin, hard enough to leave a mark, but not enough to break skin. He gave your warm, gushing cunt one last sloppy thrust before you felt hot, thick liquid filling you up. Moaning out his name as you came around his cock, a white ring forming on the base of his dick while he continued to thrust in and out of you slowly, helping you come down from your high. He didn't even seem to notice the bathroom door open and close, not until you whimpered out a name.

"..Se-mi..!" You whimpered, your legs trembled, you would've collapsed on the floor if it wasn't for Dae-ho holding you by your hips. Keeping you steady. "Se-mi? Who.. why is she here?" Dae-ho whispered, glancing between you and at the newcomer. Confusion written all over his face. "Hm, you seem to be enjoying yourself, baby." Se-mi smiled, walking over to the two of you. She raised her hand, taking ahold of your chin, tilting it up a bit so you could look at her properly. "You can't even look at me properly, did pretty boy here fuck you that good?" She teased, using her thumb to wipe away the remnants of your tears on your cheeks. "What's happening here?" Dae-ho sounded super confused. His hips still connected to yours.

"Oh, did princess here not tell you?" Se-mi tore her eyes away from you and lands it on the man. "Tell me what?" Dae-ho questioned.

"That you're gonna have to share her." She replied, placing a kiss on the corner of your lips. "Like I shared her to you."

All three of your jackets were now laid on the floor. With you laying on your back on the fabrics. You moaned into Se-mi's mouth, legs wrapped around her hips, her fingers stuffed inside your cunt, Dae-ho's cum oozing out of your tight heat while she pumped her fingers in snd out of you, her thumb flicking over your oversensitive clit. Making your melt under her touch. Meanwhile, Dae-ho was thrusting into your fist. The two of them seemed to have reached an agreement, that the two of them shared you.

"Come on, baby, you can give me one more, hm?" Se-mi whispered so sweetly into your ear,"Pretty boy here looks close too, seems like your hand just feels that good." She smirked, burying her face into the crook of your neck. Nibbling and kissing your neck, leaving subtle marks on the sensitive skin. You didn't last much longer, not with how Dae-ho fucked you earlier, and now with Se-mi.. you were just too sensitive. You came around Se-mi's fingers, making a mess on her hand. Dae-hi didn't last much longer as well, that much you can tell, his cock twitched, spurting out ropes of warm cum on your face.

Now you were an absolute mess.. but you know you love it.

[kirammanswifey]

helloo!! can you please write about ‘arcane characters when you get in an argument’? i absolutely love ur writing btw!! 🫶🏻

arguments with arcane characters x fem reader

characters: viktor, jinx, vi, caitlyn, jayce, ekko, silco, mel and sevika.

writer's note: i love when you guys request this kind of interesting dynamics, it's so fun to write about it! also my favorite this time was sevika's, I meannn it was kinda hot and spicy. requests are open ;)

Viktor

The sound of the keys under his hands seems to fill the air, but what resonates most is the silence between the two of you. The room is steeped in an unsettling calm, while he keeps working as if nothing else exists. It’s been days since he last rested, and you know it. His skin is paler than usual, his eyes glassy, as if all the world's exhaustion is about to devour him. The scent of machine oil and metal permeates the room, but what hurts you most is the fragility of his being, the one he insists on ignoring.

Slowly, frustration begins to simmer within you. You love him more than anything in the world, but watching him so neglected, so absorbed in his work that he doesn’t even stop to eat, burns you.

You approach him, and suddenly, you can't take it anymore. Your tone isn't raised, but the fury is felt in every word. "Viktor, stop," you murmur, almost pleading. "You’re killing yourself. You haven’t eaten in days, not even slept. Do you know what you're doing? You're letting yourself go. Your body is crying out for help, and you're ignoring it."

He doesn’t look at you, doesn’t react. He keeps working as if your words don't reach him. Frustrated, you step closer. "You can't keep going like this, Viktor! What are you expecting? For someone to come and save you from yourself? This isn't just about your work, it’s about you!"

Finally, he looks up, but his eyes don’t seem to truly see you. Only a shadow of exhaustion. "I do it for them... for the people. The work... my research, it’s all that matters now."

"And you? Don’t you matter?" The anger mixes with something much deeper. Something that has to do with fear. "Your lack of self-love is so evident, Viktor, even I can see it. You're losing yourself in this obsession."

The words come out harsher than you intended. But seeing the flash of pain in his eyes, you realize what you've just said. A lump forms in your throat.

You fall silent, feeling the air grow thick. Guilt quickly invades you, and before you can think, you kneel in front of him. "Forgive me," you whisper, the anger already dissipated, replaced by sincere pain. "I didn't mean to be so harsh. It’s just... I don't want to see you like this, so lost. I don’t want you to hurt yourself because you are what I love most, Viktor."

Your hands tremble as you take his face in yours. "Please, take care of yourself. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to see you like this anymore, fighting alone against everything. Because, to me, you are everything."

Viktor says nothing at first. He just watches you, the conflict in his gaze. Then, as if releasing a sigh he had been holding for too long, he responds softly, "I’ll try... I promise I’ll try."

You look at him with a mix of relief and sadness. Finally, you stand up and take his hand firmly. "Now come with me. I’m going to make your favorite dinner. You need it."

The change in his expression is almost imperceptible, but it’s there. Something in his face softens, and for the first time in a long while, he gives you a faint smile. "You know, that sounds wonderful," he says with a tone that mixes surprise and gratitude.

As you prepare dinner, the atmosphere changes. The tension slowly dissolves, but there’s something else in the air, a silent understanding between you two. After dinner, you look at him with a mischievous smile.

"Viktor," you say, your voice full of complicity. "How many days have you gone without bathing? Because, honestly, I think it’s time you do."

He visibly shifts in discomfort, his face taking on a pink hue. "Honestly... I don’t know," he replies, as if trying to evade the question, looking down. "The truth is, I haven’t had time to think about those things."

Your laugh is soft but teasing. "I think you’ve forgotten a bit about yourself. So, what do you think if after dinner, we take a bath together?"

Viktor blushes even more, but before he can say anything, he has already conceded, and with an exaggerated formality only he can pull off, he responds, "Well... that... that would be very pleasant. If you don’t mind, of course."

The tension from before has transformed into something softer, lighter. You, amused by his so formal response, take his hand and lead him to the bathroom, feeling that, in that moment, all that really matters is that he’s finally willing to take care of himself.

Jinx

The sound of the spark igniting the fuse fills the room. Jinx has a playful smile on her face, but something isn't right. The bomb is making strange noises, as if it's about to fail. The sparkle in her eyes fades for a second, but it's accompanied by a nervous chuckle.

"What's wrong, Jinx?" you ask, raising an eyebrow. The moment feels out of place, and for a moment, you sense that something is very wrong, very out of control. "That... doesn't sound right."

But she just stands there, watching the bomb intently. She doesn't move. The air grows heavy, and suddenly, the bomb makes a terrifying click.

Your eyes widen as you see the timer on the bomb speeding up. A chill grips you, and in an instant, you act on instinct. You leap toward the table, your breath quickening, and deactivate the bomb just before it fully triggers. The explosion is seconds away from ringing in your ears, but you manage to stop it.

A sigh of relief escapes your lips, and you quickly turn to face Jinx. She’s still there, motionless, her eyes fixed on the deactivated bomb, as if hypnotized. She doesn't look scared or relieved, just... empty.

"Why didn't you do anything?" you confront her, your voice trembling with a mix of anger and disbelief. "Why did you just stand there? You could have died, Jinx! We could have both died!"

Jinx stares at the floor, her demeanor shifting in a second. The mockery dissolves, the mask falls, and in its place appears the scared girl she so often hides. "I... just wanted to see what would happen." Her response is soft, trembling, as if she doesn't know how to process what just happened.

Those few seconds of silence feel eternal. The air around you grows heavy, as if the whole world is waiting for something else to explode. And it does. You can't take it anymore. Fury takes over, and you lash out at her.

"What did you want to see, Jinx?" Your voice is harsh, filled with frustration. "Did you want to see us both die because of your stupid curiosity? Is that what you wanted?"

Jinx shrinks, her expression transforming into something so fragile it burns your heart. Her face is filled with regret, but her eyes can't meet yours. Tears begin to well up in her eyes, but she keeps staring at the floor, feeling small and scolded.

"I didn't mean to... I swear..." she murmurs, almost in a whisper, her words choked by the pain of having gone too far.

Your rage starts to dissipate, replaced by something deeper. An irrational fear, the anguish of watching Jinx destroy herself. You walk toward her, kneel to her level, and gently take her chin, lifting it so she looks at you.

What you see stops you cold. Jinx's nails are deeply embedded in her palms, red marks that have hurt her, as if she wants to punish herself for something. You stare at her intently, the pain reflected in her eyes and her gesture.

Quickly, you take her hands, without saying a word, and kiss them softly, your lips touching the small wounds on her skin. The blood from her hands stains your lips, but you don't care. "You know I hate seeing you destroy yourself," you murmur, your voice broken by the fear you still feel. "Please, Sweets, don't do this to yourself. Don't do this to us."

You stay still, waiting for her reaction. Finally, the door that had closed in her heart opens, and Jinx lets out a deep sob. Tears fall down her face, like an unexpected rain, and her body trembles.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." Jinx sobs, clutching you tightly. There are no more laughs, no more jokes. Just pure pain. And you hold her with equal intensity, rocking her in your arms, trying to soothe her, to erase the suffering she always carries inside.

"Pain isn't the solution," you whisper, stroking her braided hair, trying to convey all the love you feel for her. "I'll always be here for you, Sweets. You don't have to carry all this alone."

She remains silent for a moment, her sobs calming, but her embrace is still desperate. Finally, after a few seconds, her eyes lift, and with a small smile, she says:

"So... want to make bombs, but in a fun way? With less blood this time!"

The laughter that follows fills the room, and even though you know the battle isn't won, this small step in her recovery gives you renewed hope. Taking her hand, you lead her back to the table with the tools, ready for another night filled with madness... but this time, with a little more care.

Vi

The air in the Undercity feels heavy tonight, a cold that seems to seep into your bones. The sound of metal echoing through the structures, the distant murmurs of shouts and laughter, mix with the echo of your footsteps on the iron bridge that crosses the dark, grimy avenue. You walk in silence, but the tension in the air is palpable.

Suddenly, a drunk, staggering with a vacant stare, approaches you. The stench of alcohol wafts from his breath, and his eyes settle on you in a not-so-friendly way. His rough, hollow laughter resonates in the air, as if nothing he was about to do mattered.

Before you can react, his hands touch your backside without warning, sending a wave of revulsion through you and a shiver down your spine.

A choked scream escapes you, but before you can push him away, you feel Vi’s furious gaze, like a storm about to break loose. The anger on her face is palpable, and not a second later, the drunk is on the ground, receiving blows that thunder like hammers. His face is soon covered in blood, and the sound of fists pounding against his body leaves a disturbing feeling in the air.

Vi doesn’t stop; each punch is more brutal than the last. People in the distance quickly disperse, leaving only the echo of the hits. Your heart races, worry consumes you as you watch Vi unleash her uncontrollable fury.

"Vi, stop!" You lunge toward her, but in the process, one of her fury-fueled punches lands directly on your lip. The immediate pain stuns you, and when you touch your face, your hand is filled with blood. The split lip burns. Vi stops abruptly, looking at her bloodstained knuckles—her own, the drunk’s, and now yours.

She stands frozen, her face, once filled with rage, now shows a look of horror. “Oh, God…” she murmurs, seeing what she has done.

You tremble, not just from the pain in your lip but from the brutality of her actions. You’re not used to violence, not on this magnitude. Fear knots in your chest, and you let out a shaky sigh as you watch Vi, her face now wrecked with guilt.

"I didn’t mean to!" Her voice is broken, as if the guilt is overwhelming her.

“Let’s go home,” you respond coldly, more out of fear than anger, "and when we get there, we’ll talk."

The walk home is silent, the tension hanging between you like a taut string about to snap. When you arrive, you enter the kitchen and quickly tend to your lip, while Vi watches silently, unable to articulate a word.

Once you finish, you turn to her. The air is thick with the weight of what’s unsaid. “Vi…” you begin, your voice soft but firm. “You need to learn to control your anger. This time, you just didn’t hurt someone else. This time, it was me too. Me, the person you love the most. Do you realize that? Do you realize how I felt when your blows landed on me?”

Her eyes fill with tears, and her throat tightens as if she wants to say something, but the words are stuck in her chest. “I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorry,” she whispers, her voice breaking.

You continue, your words coming out with more pain than you expected. “Sometimes… I’m afraid of you, Vi. Not because of what you might do to others, but because of what you might do to me. I don’t want to live in fear of your rage hurting me. It hurts so much. It hurt so much.”

Vi collapses in front of you, breaking down. Her tears fall one after another, and she throws herself into your arms, holding you in a desperate embrace. “I don’t know why I’m like this… I don’t know how… how to control it. I always have this rage inside, and sometimes I don’t know how to stop it. When it explodes, everything goes to hell, I know…” Her voice cracks as she clings to you. "I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to hurt you."

The softness in her tone hits you harder than any punch, and in that moment, you know she understands. "Vi, I… I don’t want you to hurt anymore," you murmur, caressing her back. "I don’t want that rage to control you."

She pulls back slightly, looking into your eyes, her face soaked in tears. “I’m so sorry. I swear it wasn’t my intention… but sometimes…” her words trail off in a sigh.

A small, sad smile forms on your face. “Have you thought about boxing? Maybe it’ll help you release all that. And I’ll go with you! But promise me you won’t use me as a punching bag, okay?" you joke with a smile, trying to lighten the moment.

Vi finally laughs, a laugh that feels like relief. “I promise. Just, please, don’t leave me, okay?”

You approach her, tenderly kissing her, careful to avoid the wound on your lip, and you feel the softness of her lips, the calm that finally settles between you. “I would never leave you, babe,” you whisper as you both embrace, knowing that, even though everything is complicated and painful, there is something between you that always keeps you together.

Caitlyn

The door bursts open, and Caitlyn enters the room with a face marked by a fury that seems to burn inside her. Your eyes lift from where you're sitting, a little surprised by her abrupt entrance, but you quickly see what has been happening.

"I can't believe what I had to hear today," Caitlyn throws out, her voice cold and cutting as she drops her jacket on a chair. "All because of your... damn ideas of justice. Do you have any idea what that means in this place?"

You stand up slowly, the tone of her voice making the air grow denser, heavier. "What happened, Cait?" you ask, though part of you already knows it has something to do with her ideals.

"It's not just what happened, it's what's happening. All the damn time," she responds, walking toward you with contained rage. "You go on and on about doing what's right, without understanding that ‘right’ isn’t always what people in high places think. You think you can change something, but all you're doing is making it worse."

Your heart races, and a spark of frustration rises in your chest. "Make it worse?" you repeat, feeling indignation begin to spill out of you. "Is that what you think? That my actions aren't worth it? You're so blinded by your perfect view of the world that you can't see what's really going on in the streets! Evil isn't just in the ‘high society,’ Caitlyn. It's everywhere."

Caitlyn looks at you with an intensity that almost seems defiant, but also wounded. "I'm not blind, the problem is that I can't understand why you keep going against the whole system. Every time you do, you just feed more chaos. You have to think about the consequences, about the people who can't afford those ideals you're defending like you're some fairy-tale hero. Not everyone can afford that luxury."

"A luxury?" Your voice rises slightly, now stronger. "What you call 'luxury' should be a right. Do you really not understand that people are suffering? That your 'system' is letting all of this crumble just to maintain power? I can't just stand by because you think it's fine because it looks neat from your tower."

Caitlyn steps back, as if your words hit some deep place inside her. "Not everything is as simple as ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ Sometimes things aren’t black or white. Sometimes you have to make concessions to move forward. What you’re doing is just putting yourself in the center, without understanding that there’s more at stake."

The words hang in the air between you two, and the intensity of the argument seems to rise with every exchange. Caitlyn is so convinced of her point of view that you can't help but feel frustrated by the barrier between you.

"What I understand, Caitlyn," you finally say, with a tense calm, "is that sometimes you do more harm by trying to follow the rules than by breaking them. And I know your intentions are good, but I can't stay silent watching you justify the unjustifiable."

Caitlyn closes her eyes for a moment, as if taking a breath to calm herself. When she opens them again, something has changed. It’s not that her anger has disappeared, but she seems more exhausted, as if all this is wearing her down. "I’m not asking you to agree with me. I'm just asking you to understand that sometimes, even if it hurts, decisions aren’t as easy as you see them."

There's a long silence between you, the air thick with discomfort and tension. You both know you're not going to come to an agreement this time, but you also know that won't change what lies between you.

Finally, Caitlyn sighs and sits on the edge of the table, letting the exhaustion take over her. "Sometimes I feel like I can't do anything right, no matter what I try," she murmurs, more to herself than to you. "And you... you make me see everything that's wrong with me."

You move a little closer, calmer but still hurt. "Cait, that's not what I want. What I want is for you to realize you don’t have to carry all of this on your own. You don’t have to keep walking down this path if it doesn't make you happy. I’m here for you, even when we don’t agree."

Caitlyn looks at you, her eyes reflecting some vulnerability, something she doesn't usually show. "I know. I just… I’m scared that I could lose everything I’ve built because... because I don't know when to stop."

You sit next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You’re not going to lose it, Cait. No matter how much we fight, what matters is that we’re in this together. But you also have to learn to take care of yourself, not just the world."

Caitlyn nods slowly, and for the first time in a long while, a small smile appears on her face, though it’s sad. "I guess sometimes I forget that."

The tension begins to dissipate, although the brush of differences is still there. Deep down, you both know that these kinds of discussions won’t end anytime soon, but you also know that you're both moving forward for something bigger than the disagreement.

Jayce

There was something heavy in the air that night. An uncomfortable silence that hadn't been able to break for the past few days. Despite being in the same house, in the same room, you felt farther away from Jayce than ever. It wasn't just the lack of physical contact, it wasn't just the absence of the small gestures that usually made everything work between you. It was something deeper, something that had been growing inside you without him realizing it.

Finally, you couldn’t hold it any longer. You sat on the bed, staring into the emptiness in front of you, and when he walked in, that feeling of discouragement completely overwhelmed you. Without looking at him, you started.

“Jayce, I don’t know what to think anymore,” you said, your voice quiet but firm. “It’s been days since… since we’ve had anything. And I’m not just talking about sex, I’m talking about everything. I don’t even feel like you desire me anymore.”

Jayce, who had been in his own world as usual, looked up at you, confused by your words. “What are you saying, honey?” Surprise was evident in his voice, but it wasn’t enough to calm the torrent that had been unleashed inside you.

“You don’t get it, do you?” You stood up from the bed, walking towards him, words pouring out like a torrent. “Every day, I feel like I’m just here, fitting into your perfect life. Everything we do, everything we plan, it feels like you’re doing it because you have to. What about what I want, Jayce? What about us?”

Jayce took a step towards you, opening his arms as if he wanted to get closer, but something in your gaze made him stop. “No… I don’t understand. What do you mean by fitting into my perfect life?”

Your breathing quickened. “What I mean is that sometimes, I feel like I’m just an accessory, another piece in the puzzle you’ve been putting together. Like what matters most to you is making everything look right, fitting, but not us. I don’t feel desired, Jayce. I feel empty, like I don’t matter, like I’m just here because I fit into your life, not because you actually want to be with me.”

The pain in your voice was palpable, and although Jayce tried to step closer, you moved away from him. “I’m so tired of feeling like we’re nothing more than two people sharing a space. There’s no passion, no connection… Just the idea of what’s expected of us.”

Jayce looked completely lost, like he never imagined you felt this way. “I can’t believe you’re saying this. You know how important you are to me. But I… I’ve been so focused on work, on everything we need to achieve, that…”

“That what?” you interrupted, unable to keep bearing what felt like a pile of excuses. “That you’re too busy to see what’s right in front of you? I have my own problems too, Jayce. Not everything revolves around your projects, your perfect image. I’m a person too, and my feelings matter too.”

The words hung in the air, between rage and pain. Jayce didn’t say anything, and that only increased the feeling of abandonment you were experiencing. Frustration and sadness took over you more and more. Finally, the silence was broken, but not in the way you expected.

“Honey…” Jayce started, his voice softer now, but still full of confusion. “I didn’t want to make you feel this way. I didn’t realize I was leaving you out. I didn’t want you to feel… unwanted.”

Your eyes filled with tears, the emotional pressure of being unheard for so long finally bursting. “I don’t want to be just another option in your life. I want to be loved, I want to feel desired, I want you to look at me like you’re afraid of losing me. And I don’t feel that from you. I feel like everything we do is a routine, just fulfilling what’s supposed to be.”

Jayce slowly approached, now understanding the gravity of your words. “I… I don’t know how I didn’t see all this. I’m sorry, honey. I really am. I don’t want to lose you. I’ve been so focused on everything else that… I’ve failed you.”

A heavy silence fell between you. You didn’t know what to think, just felt a knot in your stomach, but when Jayce took a step towards you, taking your hands, you couldn’t help but look him in the eyes, searching for some sign that he truly understood how you felt.

“Please don’t leave me,” he whispered, his tone full of sincerity. “I promise I’ll change, I won’t take you for granted. You’re the most important thing to me, and if I made you feel like you weren’t, it hurts me deeply.”

You looked at him intently, seeing in his eyes the truth of his regret. “I know… but I need you to act instead of just saying it.”

Jayce nodded, a glimpse of a smile appearing on his face as his hands caressed yours. “I will. From now on, you and I… we’re a priority.”

Your heart lightened hearing those words, and when he hugged you, you held him tightly, knowing that the road to healing that disconnection wouldn’t be easy, but at least, finally, there was a beginning. And that promise to rebuild what had been lost was all you needed to start healing.

Ekko

That afternoon, it felt like the tension between you and Ekko was thicker than ever. You had been working together on a project, and the small jokes and dismissive attitudes from Ekko, which you usually let slide, began to affect you more than you expected.

"Wow, did you really think that was a good idea?" Ekko said, his biting tone making the sarcasm leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

Your breath became heavier, and although you tried to ignore it, something inside you snapped. You looked at him, furious, and without thinking twice, dropped the tool you had in your hands. "You know what? I'm leaving."

Ekko looked at you, somewhat surprised by your reaction, but before you could walk away any further, he let out a light laugh, as if nothing was happening. "What's up, got your period or something?"

That was the breaking point.

You stopped in your tracks, feeling a lump form in your throat. You turned to him with eyes shining with frustration. "You know what, Ekko? It's because of you. Because sometimes you don't seem to think about what you say, and you don't care how I feel."

Ekko furrowed his brow, trying to understand what you were saying, but before he could speak, you continued venting.

"You make me feel like my problems don't matter, like everything I do isn't up to your standards. Always so... so carefree, like you never have to think about how your words affect me. Have you ever thought about that?" Rage and pain built up in your voice as you spoke, but the words kept pouring out like an avalanche.

And then, without warning, what you hadn’t been able to say before came flooding out. "You know what's the worst? That I feel insecure, Ekko. I feel like I'm not good enough for you, like I'm not smart enough, not attractive enough... Because you never show jealousy, you never show anything. Like you never care. And that makes me doubt myself."

Ekko went silent, looking at your face in surprise, an expression that showed he finally understood what you had just said. The mockery from his previous joke faded, and his face shifted from confusion to deep seriousness.

"I... I didn't know you felt that way," he said finally, his words soft and filled with guilt. "I never meant to make you feel that way. I'm sorry, really. I'm not good at showing what I feel, I've never been."

He slowly approached you, not trying to interrupt the flow of your emotions. "You know, I grew up in a world where showing emotions was seen as weakness. Life never gave me time to process them. Since I was a kid, I was always at war, always on the move, always worried about surviving. But I never wanted that to affect you."

Your eyes softened a little as you listened to his words, and for a moment, the weight of frustration lifted slightly. "I... I didn't want you to think I cared less. It's just that sometimes, I get so caught up in my own stuff that I forget that the people close to me also have feelings. And I don't want you to feel belittled, I don't want you to feel like you're not enough."

There was a tense silence between you both, but something in his tone softened the atmosphere. "I'm sorry, really. It was never my intention to hurt you. You're incredible just as you are, and you make me feel like I can be more, like I can improve."

For a moment, everything seemed to calm down, but Ekko, with a mischievous smile, added, "And if it helps, yeah, I do worry a little when others look at you. But I'm not so good at showing jealousy."

You couldn't help but smile a little, even though you still felt the open wounds. Ekko, seeing this, moved a bit closer and gave you a gentle hug, as if it were a small gesture of comfort you so needed.

"I really care about you. I don't want you to feel insecure. I don't care if you're smarter or not, because what really matters to me is that you're you."

And before you could respond, Ekko joked with his usual playful attitude. "Although, if I ever catch you with someone else, you'd better be ready, because I’m not going to sit still."

You laughed despite everything, feeling the tension slowly disappearing, as if everything you had kept inside had finally found a way out.

"I love you too," you replied, as you hugged him again, knowing that, although the path wouldn’t always be easy, at least you both understood each other a little more.

Silco

Silco's office was shrouded in shadows, barely illuminated by the dim glow of a lamp on his desk. The phone conversation he was having was filled with frustration. "No, that won't work. We need something more decisive, something more substantial," he growled before hanging up with a sharp click that echoed through the wood.

From your position at the door, you could hear every word, feeling the tension in the air. You couldn’t help but intervene. "Maybe you could try..." you began, suggesting a plan you had come up with after hearing his problem.

Silco looked up at you, his cold, calculating eyes locking onto yours. "Shut up. You don't know anything about this," he snapped with disdain, his words cutting through you like a knife.

The coldness in his voice felt like a blow to the chest. Without saying another word, you turned around and stormed out of the office, slamming the door with a force that resonated down the hallway. Frustration burned in your chest as you climbed the stairs to your room.

Surprised by your reaction, Silco followed. Reaching the closed door, he knocked forcefully. "Open the door immediately!" he shouted, his tone a mix of anger and confusion.

"I won't! Go away!" you replied from inside, your voice trembling with both rage and pain. A sound from inside made his heart race. Fearing the worst, he broke down the door without thinking twice.

Inside, he found you packing your things with trembling hands. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, his eyes fixed on you, trying to understand the magnitude of your decision.

"I'm done, Silco. Done with you not seeing me as someone capable of helping you, done with you constantly underestimating me," you declared, your voice trembling but resolute. "I’m a human being, just like you, and I can handle matters and plans. I’m not just a decoration in your world."

Silco scoffed, crossing his arms in impatience. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Do you want me to buy you something? You look hysterical."

That was the breaking point. You turned to face him, your eyes fiery and filled with tears. "Silco, remember where you found me. I was a worker in that horrible brothel, sold by my parents at eleven. I thought that by freeing myself, I would have a voice, that finally someone would see me as an equal. But it’s not like that. You don’t even listen to me."

Silco looked at you, his eyes softening as the weight of your words sank in. He approached you cautiously, his fingers touching your cheek with an unusual tenderness. "It's not personal," he murmured, his voice heavy with regret. "I’ve always been like this, I prefer to work alone. I’ve been through so much to earn respect in the Undercity that sometimes I minimize the opinions of others. But I never meant for you to feel this way, not you."

The wall of pain you had built began to crack under the weight of his words. "I’ll change. From now on, I’ll listen to what you have to say. In fact, tell me that plan you were going to propose earlier."

A pause lingered, but then, with a sigh, he added: "But before that, there’s something more important."

His words echoed in the silence before Silco took you by the waist, pulling you toward him. He kissed you with a passion that overflowed with unspoken apologies, a fire that spoke of promises of change and a renewed understanding between you both.

Mel

The luxurious bedroom was bathed in soft lights that enhanced the golden and ivory tones of the walls. You turned in front of the mirror, admiring how the dress flowed around your body, highlighting your curves and cascading elegantly in a fabric waterfall. The excitement of the night reflected in your eyes, waiting for Mel's approval.

When you stepped out of the dressing room, the smile on your lips quickly faded as you noticed the disapproving expression on her face. Mel looked you up and down, her gaze critical and stern. "Take it off," she ordered in a cold, distant tone. "Put on the one I chose for you."

You frowned, surprised. "Why? What's wrong with this one?"

"It’s not that there's anything wrong with it," she replied, crossing her arms with an air of authority. "It’s just not what I want for you tonight. Change your makeup and hairstyle as well. Something more sophisticated would be better."

The heat rushed to your cheeks, a mix of embarrassment and anger. "Nothing I do is good enough for you, right?" you exclaimed, your eyes sparking with indignation. "It feels like you always have to correct me."

Mel raised an eyebrow, her voice firm and unapologetic. "You should be grateful. I'm helping you make the most of your appearance. I need us to be perfect tonight."

"You mean you need to be perfect," you corrected, unbuckling your heels and throwing them to the floor with a sharp sound. "Because I'm not going anywhere."

Without waiting for a response, you made your way to the terrace, needing fresh air to calm the whirlwind of emotions stirring inside you. The cool breeze caressed your face as you leaned on the railing, trying to hold back tears.

It wasn’t long before Mel appeared behind you, her elegant silhouette illuminated by the moonlight. "Why are you acting like this?" she asked, her voice softer now, but still tinged with confusion.

"Seriously, Mel?" you turned to face her, your voice shaking with frustration. "Nothing I do seems right to you. You always correct me—the way I walk, the way I talk, and now even the color of my lipstick. It’s extreme and stupid."

Mel looked at you with a mix of surprise and reflection, as if your words had struck her for the first time. "I hadn’t thought of it that way," she finally admitted, her voice quieter. "I guess... I’m really hard on myself, and I project it onto others."

You took a deep breath, your eyes still shining with contained emotion. "I don’t want you to be like that with me. I’m not an extension of your standards, Mel."

Silence stretched between you for a moment before Mel took a step forward, enveloping you in a firm, comforting hug. "I’m sorry," she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. "I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. You’re fine just as you are, and I apologize for projecting my insecurities onto you."

You leaned into her, feeling the tension slowly fade. "I understand," you replied softly. "I know you were raised to be perfect. But please, when you feel those things, communicate them in a different way. Don’t impose them."

Mel nodded, her gaze meeting yours with a mix of regret and affection. "I will," she promised. "Please, come with me to the party. Without you, I won’t have the strength to go."

You hesitated for a moment, looking at yourself with insecurity. Mel noticed and gently cupped your face in her hands. "That dress looks amazing on you," she said with a warm smile. "It highlights everything I love about you."

Her words and the kiss that followed dispelled any doubt, filling you with renewed confidence as you agreed to accompany her, knowing this time, you would go as yourself, not as a perfected version to satisfy Mel's standards.

Sevika

The apartment door opened slowly, revealing Sevika's figure in the dim light. She walked in with tired steps, the weight of the night reflecting on her shoulders. You, who had been waiting patiently for her return, stood up from the couch with relief, but as you approached to embrace her, something stopped you. A strange scent, sweet and foreign, emanated from her skin, a fragrance that didn’t belong to any perfume you knew her to wear.

Your heart raced as you took a slight step back, your eyes fixed on her. "Who were you with?" you asked, trying to keep your voice calm, although a mix of anxiety and distrust began to rise within you.

Sevika looked at you in surprise, not understanding the reason for your unease. "I was at the bar, drinking. My ex joined me, we talked a bit, had a good time." She said it with such casualness that every word pierced you like a poisoned dart.

Anger began to bubble up inside you. "Why are you talking about it so casually?" you spat, feeling your voice start to tremble.

She frowned, confused. "What do you mean?"

"You shouldn’t have gone out with your ex!" you exclaimed, frustration coloring your words. "You owe me respect."

Sevika crossed her arms, her gaze hardening. "I do what I want," she replied coldly. "If you don’t trust me, maybe you should leave."

Your eyes widened at her comment. The idea of walking out that door tempted you, but sadness and rage kept you rooted to the ground. "Is that what you want?" you whispered, your voice shaking. "For me to leave?"

Sevika seemed to realize the weight of her words. She took a step toward you, extending her hand as if trying to stop you. "Wait, I didn’t mean that," she murmured, her tone softer, almost pleading. "You know I’m impulsive."

"Of course, impulsive... and nostalgic too," you replied bitterly, your eyes burning with contained pain. "You miss your ex, don’t you? You want to get back together with her?"

She frowned, stepping closer until her hands rested on your shoulders. "What’s your problem?" she asked, her voice low but firm. "Why are you saying all these things?"

The emotions you had kept under control for so long finally exploded. "Because I’ve been cheated on before!" you confessed, tears beginning to well up in your eyes. "I know the patterns when I see them. I don’t want to feel stupid and used again."

The hardness in Sevika’s expression melted away, replaced by deep understanding. Her hands, once firm, slid down your arms in a gesture of comfort. "I’m not those people, you shouldn’t compare me to anyone," she said, her voice firm but full of empathy. "If I didn’t want to be with you, I would tell you. I don’t need to lie to anyone. I love you, only you."

Her sincerity pierced your insecurities, breaking down the wall of fear you had built. Still, doubts lingered. "Then why did you go out with her?" you asked, still needing an explanation.

"Because it was a coincidence," Sevika explained, her gaze sincere. "We ran into each other by chance, and I thought there was nothing wrong with sharing a couple of drinks. But now I see it bothers you, and I don’t want to do anything that makes you feel this way."

Her words resonated within you, slowly calming the internal storm. You nodded, allowing the warmth of her promise to envelop you. "I want to believe in you," you whispered.

Sevika stepped closer, her lips finding yours in a deep kiss, full of promises and silent regrets. When she pulled away, her soft voice broke the trance. "Are you better?" she asked, gently caressing your cheek.

"I'll be better when you take a shower and get that cheap perfume off," you joked, your tone still slightly irritated but with a hint of humor.

Sevika laughed, a low, guttural sound that echoed in the space between you. She pulled you by the waist, drawing you even closer. "Then I’m going to need your help," she whispered in your ear, her voice laden with seduction. "Tonight, I feel especially incapable."

Your smile widened, a spark of mischief lighting your eyes. "I guess I can help with that," you murmured, letting the intimacy of the moment take over, knowing that despite everything, you were in the place you wanted to be: by her side.

[thanosscross]

hiii :)) i’ve been thinking abt this for a long time… okay, so, imagine thanos and reader know eachother before the games, like, they’re exes in squid game, and so, he flirts and all, protects her and she always is in his team because he wants so.. he swears reader is like a harmless bunny in all of this game. so.. they get back together, in mingle, when she sees thanos kicking out a guy from their team and betraying se-mi, she gets scared that thanos may kick her out or betray her, when they say two, she is pretty much expecting thanos to send her to find another person, but he does not, he runs with her.. but now a player pushes reader and like because they were almost at a door thanos did not have time to react and boom. the door closes and he is not with reader. he may be high, but, when he realizes, the effects wear out because oh boy he was screaming at trying to open the door while watching reader in that weird square in the door.. and when the timer reaches to zero… boom, you dont have to specify that she dies and can just end the fic when the door closes!! 🩷🩷 thanks for even reading this lame request lol

Harmless- Choi Su-Bong/ Thanos x reader

Summary: After a rough breakup you were forced to be on Thanos's team, only to be forced right back off during Mingle.

warnings: Your usual squid game gore

You and Su-bong were close, you always had been even in high school, it was the typical bad boy smart girl relationship for you, He was constantly getting into fights and trouble, doing drugs and running around doing underground rap battles. You were quite the opposite, just trying to keep your head down, finish school, and get away from everything your sorry hometown had to offer, until Su-bong changed everything for you.

Standing in your shared apartment you raised your eyebrows "You want me to what?.." You asked in shock "Come on! I got everything we need!" He groaned throwing his head back "Listen, you know you want to help me, beauty flower" Su-bong smirked placing his hands on your sides "Please?"

That's how you ended up dying his hair and giving him a neck tattoo in just twenty four hours. He laid face down on your shared dining room table (Him claiming it'd be easier for you) as you held the tattoo gun nervously "A-Are you sure, Su-bong?..What if I like..ruin your body?" You asked, you were both too high for this, and you could tell by the way the tattoo gun felt like nothing in your hand even though it was weighing it down. "Just do it, baby" He smirked "It's just some lines, you've done more than just two" He teased, you glared smacking his back "Shut up!" You scoffed before shaking your head starting to push the needles into his skin, squealing as he winced gripping your thigh "Did I hurt you?!" You gasped leaning closer to examine the small black line at the base of his hairline. "No! no, just keep goin" He grunted, you continued for what seemed like a couple hours, until you realized the sun was up and you had spent all night and half the morning finishing his tattoo.

Whenever you finished you watched him stand proudly "Hell yea, how's it look baby?" He asked trying to see his back in the mirror, failing miserably "Looks amazing" You smiled, giggling as he spun you around planting a sloppy kiss onto your lips.

That would be the last time you saw Su-bong and had any pleasant feelings towards him, after that, he changed, always screaming about debt and how he was going to kill some guy from youtube, you brushed everything off until you caught him at a club with another bitch sitting practically on his lap, he didn't even deny it either, just saying in his stupid voice 'nobody can tie down the greatness of thanos' You left him almost immediately after that situation, choosing to move on from that phase of your life, learning rather quickly, his debt wasn't just his, it was yours aswell.

Four months. Four months of thinking you were free of that asshole, until you heard a familiar voice complaining about limited edition shoes, you immediately darted in the other direction, successful in avoiding your asshole of an ex, until the first game. "Senoritaa..." You heard his sing song voice behind you while you were stood frozen, trying not to focus on the dead body laying right next to you a few feet to the right. "Where have you been!? I've been looking everywhere!" He cried out, the creepy doll head turning to face the tree again, sending you in a soft sprint forward "Beauty flower!" He shouted out again, you tried your best to ignore him, almost getting away until you passed the finish line and his hand grabbed your wrist tightly.

As you turned to face to him, you could see he was clearly high "I don't want anything to do with you, Su-bong" You snapped, he just pouted "Beauty flower please!" He cried out, you just clenched your fists, trying your best to keep yourself from losing your cool in front of you. He stayed on you for the rest of the night, even sending another player to speak with you about him. The next game, he didn't really give you a choice, quickly snatching you away from the mingling crowd before someone could claim you to their team "Stop it! I don't wanna be on a team with you!" You huffed, trying to fight him and his friend off "You need a team" He snapped, stopping so he could stand in front of you and make eye contact "Not if it has you on it" You growled, he sighed continuing to pull you. "You can't make it here, y/n you'd yell at me for killing bugs outside!" He shouted, you just rolled your eyes, of course he'd think you couldn't do it. "Because they were innocent babies, you are an entitled dick!" you argued, Thanos just rolled his eyes leading you over with him to sit down with the others "These people are crazy, beauty flower! You need someone there for you!" He shouted, you were starting to grow annoyed with his high ass, letting him drag you around with him, letting him shove you to the far end where you were only attached to him.

Walking into the main room afterwards with your team, Thanos shouted and cheered walking to his bunk, his hand never leaving your wrist, you tried to pull away as he sat down but he just gave you the same look he used to whenever you would get into an argument and try to leave the room. You huffed, trying to stand your ground, but your heart was still craving him, so instead you offered him a soft smile, sitting down next to him, and slowly sliding your wrist up, to where you were holding his hand now instead, neither of you said anything, instead just exchanging looks, Su-bong offering you a shocked but scared look, while you just offered him a sympathetic but stern look. He continued on talking to his friend, asking everybody their names and how old they were. You were stuck in your own thoughts to really pay attention though, you couldn't believe yourself, here you were sitting next to Thanos like a dumbass love sick idiot all fucking over again.

Whenever the lights cut out, you slowly made your way to your bed, hoping the conversation Thanos was having would keep him distracted enough. You managed to get to your bunk and start to doze off whenever you felt a warm body press against your back "Why'd you sneak off without me, beauty flower?" Su-bong asked softly, wrapping his arm around you "I didn't sneak off. I went to bed" You stated, your tone coming off a little harsh "Why'd you leave me?...before..this" He asked after a moment "Su-bong.." You warned, giving him a chance to retreat on the subject before you got angry, but he just continued "I-I got home..and you weren't there.." he whispered, even with his low whisper, you could still hear his voice breaking, his hand tightening in your jacket "I-I got scared.."He admitted, you sighed keeping your back to him "Su-bong. You had another woman basically sitting on your lap, your hands were all over her...and you didn't even deny it..you said that I couldn't tie down your greatness" It still hurt even thinking about his words let alone saying them aloud, it was completely different, saying it felt like you were confirming it. You both sat in silence for what felt like hours, Su-bong just pulling you back into a hug tightly "I never meant to hurt you, Beauty flower" He whispered sadly, now you decided to turn around, letting him pull you as close as he could without being ontop of him. "I am so sorry" He repeated, you never spoke though, choosing to savor the moment as you fell asleep.

Walking into the giant room with a carousel in the middle, made you feel a different type of anxiety, as the loud speaker explained the rules, you watched Nam-Gyu and Su-bong both take a pill. You chose to stand closer to Se-Mi and Min-Su, all of you exchanging looks before the spinning platform stopped "Four players" The speaker announced, Su-bong and his friend rushed over to the three of you starting to shout at Se-Mi and Min-su "Rock paper scissors! Winner comes with us!" It became a chant as you nervously watched the two, feeling your hear sink seeing Min-su form scissors with his hand, before Nam-Gyu grabbed his wrist, Su-bong grabbing yours, both of them dragging you away from Se-mi. You fought against his grip as he shut the door and it locked, you shoved Su-bong to the side looking out of the window, desperately trying to find your new friend anywhere. You ex just grabbed your arms pulling you away "Don't look, someone so beautiful and sweet as you, doesn't need to see that" He said, you could tell by his tone he was trying to flirt with you, you just shrugged his hands off of you, shooting all the men in the room a glare. As soon as the door unlocked you rushed out "Se-Mi!?" You yelled looking around, sighing in relief running a few doors down to hug your friend as she emerged from the room, you chose to stay by her the next round, or at least tried to, Su-bong just kept sending Nam-gyu after you to remind you that you were on Thanos's team, which meant stay with him. as the speaker called out five players you were relieved, watching as everybody funneled into a room

You couldn't shake the feeling you had though, that at the next second, he'd ditch you just like he did Se-mi. As the round continued, you didn't even realize, Thanos had moved closer to you and the others, the platform stopped and the speaker called out "Three players" You looked at Thanos, just in time to catch him glance between you and another boy, thanos had basically kidnapped into his team "Gyeong-Su! You're out!" He yelled before delivering a harsh kick to his chest sending him falling back, before you could react, Thanos was already dragging you into the room.

You were in a trance walking back and spinning on the platform, stuck on the fact that this round, Su-bong might actually leave you for dead, as the platform stopped your heart dropped "Two players" The speaker called, your heart started to race as you stayed in your place, maybe if you didn't act like you were going, you wouldn't have to deal with the rejection "Beauty flower! Come on!" He shouted grabbing your hand pulling you towards the room, maybe you were wrong, maybe Su-bong had changed, before you could say anything the air was knocked out of you, watching a blur of color run past you slamming Su-bong into the room shutting the door.

Su-bong screamed loudly, rushing to the door desperately trying to break it open "No! Please! Five more seconds!" He screamed out of the small window in the door, trying to break it open further to see if he could see you, but you weren't there anymore. His screams only amplified as the timer dinged and rounds of gunshots were heard echoing off of the walls outside. His fist slammed against the wall, slowly turning around to look behind him "You" He growled looking at the player who stood there terrified.

Gasping the doors opened, letting you all out, ready to play another round.

[rafesplaymate]

Off to the Races

Chapter iv- Date Night (part 1)

Older!Rafe Cameron x Stepdaughter!reader.

ੈ✩‧₊˚ navigation. ੈ✩‧₊˚ masterlist. ੈ✩‧₊˚ series masterlist.

warnings: infidelity (emotional / physical). pseudo / stepcest. dom / sub dynamics. dd / lg dynamics. man-handling. groping. dark themes / adult content.

a/n: finally updating. date will be broken into two parts to build up tension for storyline. enjoy!

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By the time Rafe is finished getting dressed, putting the finishing touches on himself —the sun is barely settling. Pouring out a beautiful orange haze over Kildare that makes the environment feel all too dreamy. Making him all the more excited for his night alone with his girl, the knowledge that his wife was out of the house satisfying his desire to be alone with his darling girl. He spritzes a couple sprays of colonge over himself before securing his black ‘rolex’ and the gold chain his wife bought him as a wedding gift. A nice gold cuban link that cost her a pretty penny. The memory of receiving it ingrained in his head; reminding him he married her almost 6 months ago and how in fourth months their marriage has changed so drastically.

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The night she gifted him the chain —they’d be in an ambiance of passion. Newlywed, honeymooning in Bora Bora for 2 weeks. Days of passionate sex and meaningful conversations. Strengthening their bond and pushing it over the line of surfaced attraction and reasonings for union. They’d been eating dinner when she presented him it to him, smiling with red painted lips as she watched him open the red velvet box. His eyes widening with intrigue at the opulent piece of jewelry, while she uttered a, “I know how you like chains.” He looked at her with a side smile and grabbed her by the face. Pressing a long and soft kiss to her lips while they smiled into each other —whispering a sweet thank you.

In the moment he’d felt like he was actually sure this was true love. Taking her on their hotel bed, his body laid on top of hers as he buried his face in her neck all night. It wasn’t crazy or intense, but it was satisfying. And it fulfilled him in the moment. His mind pensive with the thought that his days of passionate love-making was over. But he could handle that, because the long-term end goal was something he was willing to build and sacrifice for. Or so he thought at the time.

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Now almost 4 months later everything has changed. A complete 180° over taking Tannyhill the moment y/n came bounding into his life. The day his body, heart and soul burned ablaze —her the flame. She completely and irrevocably changed his life, in so many ways. Leaving an indelible mark on his heart. The love he once felt for his wife dissipating by the day as the love he has for his darling girl builds like an uncontrollable flame every, single day. Leaving him feeling subdued and put out whenever she’s not near him —needing her presence like a fish needs water. His mood soured and snappy whenever she’s not hanging off his arm or napping on his office couch while he works.

His stepdaughter is the the most valuable treasure he’s ever found —even more valuable than the royal merchant everyone’s constantly chased around Kildare. Him included at one point. The high of needing that fortune now replaced with something he cherishes way more. Something he wants to keep locked away in his home and near him for the rest of his life; feeling that her beauty and presence alone was too priceless for the leering looks of everyone on the island.

So now as he finally finishes, adjusting his sleek black blazer. Running a hand over his shaved head as he opens the bedroom door. He shuts it behind him, shuffling softly to stand right in front of his stepdaughter’s bedroom door. Listening intently against it and smiling softly to himself as he heard her melodic voice softly singing along to music. What he assumes is makeup products clacking around as she gets ready. He taps a bent index finger two times on the door, leaving small but loud enough knocks. Listening as the music lowered slightly and her sweet voice letting out an inquisitive, “who is it?" Rafe replies almost immediately with a, “you good, princess?” He waited for a response, nothing coming out for a second and his mouth was already opening to ask again —when the door opened. In that moment, Rafe’s blazing body reignited with an intensity —his stomach and chest burning with a potency that almost felt like it hurt.

There she was. His beautiful, little stepdaughter —the apple of his eye. Wearing nothing but a ‘Victoria’s Secret’ robe, the middle undone and exposing the expanse of her body. Yet, covering the parts he was dying to get a glimpse of. Cursing himself for leering on his darling girl but how could he not? She stood there with her pretty eyes already on him, makeup done flawlessly. Their eyes holding onto each other’s for a second as tension noticeably built —once more. His eyes darkening with indisputable lust as he stares into her decorated ones. Hers echoing his as she took him in as well. He held her eyes for a good second, before they began wandering down. First falling on her glossy, pale-pink lips that look every bit as bite-able as they do in his daydreams. His eyes trailing lightly over the soft skin of her delicate neck that makes him want to sink his teeth in. The chain of the white-gold, diamond encrusted initial necklace he bought her sitting wrapped around it. But it’s when his eyes began following it down, did his jaw tick and a harsh breath left him.

There sat the diamond initial between her perky breast, gleaming against her smooth skin that sparkled with body glitter. His eyes moving to both sides of it slowly as he took in the peaks hidden behind the satin layer of robe. Lingering on them as he took in her nipples just barely covered by the ends of the robe. Fuck. They sat there so enticingly; the rationality in his brain fighting with him that he was leering at his stepdaughter. Overpowered by his lustful need as his chest sucked in with a harsh breath and his eyes continued their journey over the flawless architecture of her body. A temple he fought with the desire to defile.

He shakily breathed out as his eyes then wandered down her beautiful torso that was sexily decorated with silver body glitter, each ridge of it looking so alluring —valleys he wanted to explore with the tips of his fingers. His eyes wandering to the peak between her soft thighs decorated with white, lace that did almost nothing to cover it. Her thighs glistening with some kind of oil and glitter; that made him want to grip them in his hands and dig in until grape-sized bruises the shape of his fingertips were engraved in her skin. His eyes falling lower till they landed on her pretty french-tipped toes; her right ankle decorated with her preferred white-gold anklet. The same toes he wants to kiss presses to every time she walks around barefoot or has them decorated with rings.

His lips pursed in a soft, low whistle as he finally broke the long —suffocating silence that overtook them. Cobalt eyes snapping back to hers with a lustful glare. Watching as she bit her lip and her turned in knee swayed, her pretty eyes returning his same lustful glare as the corner of her plump lips quirked in a devious smile. “Hi daddy,” she finally breathed out, her soft voice full of seductive undertone. Her head tilting to the side as she pushed her chest out; nipples threatening to expose as the fabric moved along with her movements. Heat built in-between her thighs after taking in her stepfather the same way he did her.

Rafe’s pink lips quirked into a satisfied smirk at her acknowledgment and the title she’s so rightfully granted him. Bringing a ringed hand to scratch his chin as his bottom lip curling over his bottom teeth; a small scoff leaving him. He walked closer to her, reaching his arms out quickly and wrapping them around her. Holding eye contact as his left hand wrapped around her lower back. Landing on top of her perky butt, and digging his tips in as he pulled to his chest roughly. A small gasp falling from her sparkly lips as he pressed her tightly against him. Her robe falling open with his movements and pressing against the fabric of his shirt. Moaning as her sensitive nipples brushed against the fabric of his black button up. Internally satisfied with the reaction he’s given her.

While his right hand dug into her hair, gripping at her scalp tightly as he pulled her head back and her hair cascaded over his arm. Another gasp falling from her lips, this time pained as he shuffled them forward into her bedroom. His eyes holding hers as he man-handled her forward. Walking her until she was in front of her vanity, hand now gripping her ass and giving it a harsh squeeze before he roughly turns her around. Her robe flailing open with his movements as he faces her to the large mirror of her vanity that shined with led lights on the edges. His hands sat where her waist pinched in, squeezing roughly and feeling the soft grip of skin under his palm. His fingers digging in roughly.

He then moves his right hand back into her hair, forcing her to look into the mirror at herself. His large frame towering over her smaller body as he lowered his head to her left, to level their eye contact. Running the tip of his nose over her silky hair and taking in the sweet smell of her vanilla shampoo —shutting his eyes in satisfaction. Running it all the way down to her temple and then down her cheek with his eyes closed, tugging her head to the right harshly as she let out another soft, pained gasp. His nose then running over her jawline before finally finding its way down her neck; pressing in deeply and sniffing before letting out a harsh purr that vibrated in his chest. Her expensive perfume enticing him, but it was her natural scent that overtook him so much more.

He stayed there for a cool second as she watched him in the mirror, watching as he nuzzled his face into her. His hand on her waist reaching around and covering her stomach to press her right against him —into his erection. Her face contorted in pleasure as she reached her left hand back to cradle his head against her, scratching his scalp with her nails affectionately —while reaching her right hand back and digging into his thigh. Pressing herself against the rock-solid erection pressed right in between her ass. Eyes fluttering shut as she let out a soft moan. The sound causing him to let out a soft groan of his own as his lips then brushed over the expanse of her neck all the way to her shoulder.

He brought his left hand to grip her bare breast, harshly fondling it as he pressed a kiss to her smooth shoulder. Eyes opening and glaring at her lustfully through his eyebrows, watching as she writhed against him with pleasure. His grip on her hair tightened even more and tugged her head back, whispering a gruff “look at me.” That went ignored, she was too caught up in the feeling of his large hands fondling her. Something that not only delighted Rafe but frustrated him all the same, that she didn’t listen to him the first time. She always does.

“I fuckin’ said-“ his large ringed-hand that was fondling her body came to grip her neck; wrapping round it harshly —the desire to grip her face overcome by the knowledge that she will whine at him for ruining her makeup. “Look. at. me.” Squeezing the sides as she gasped louder and her eyes finally fluttered back open, faux lashes making them look oh-so-enticing. Slight tears building up from his handling and the heat of the moment. That’s when they finally made eye contact in her vanity mirror. And the sight in front of them was something that teetered their relationship further over the line of boundaries they loved to push.

Sure, she’d press her lips to his cheeks —as well as her tits to his chest every time he came home. Hard nipples poking against him as she lips a sloppy kiss on his cheek that leaves a glittery mark. Sure, maybe Rafe would meticulously rub sunscreen and tanning oil over her skin while she sat laid in front of him in the luxurious backyard of their home. His large hands leaving no inch unchecked under the guise of being thorough —long fingers daringly ghosting over her breast and the peak between her inner thighs so lightly it almost wasn’t there. And sure, they’ve definitely been tangled in his arms one too many times while he soothes her to sleep or cradles her while she cries about her mom. It’s nothing new for them to share affectionate caresses … but this.

This was something entirely different, and they both knew it. This wasn’t excessive affection under the guise of fatherly / daughterly love —no. This was primal impulse. The suffocating tension that constantly surrounds them being slightly cut into —just enough. The unspoken desire between them disguised by actions of parental affection. It was almost freudian. Yet, neither of them seemed to care. Not even a bit, not even at all. It was a blazing act of paroxysm that pushed them further to teetering off the cliff of their natural inclination toward each other. It felt like it was meant to be and it burned so deeply in both of them they would be branded for life.

After a long moment of unspoken words being exchanged through fiery glances; harsh breathes coming from both of them. Rafe finally let her throat go, his fist in her hair loosening at the same time. Pushing his body slightly back, pushing his erection away from her. He brought both hands to her waist; groping affectionately as he pressed a soft kiss to the crown of her head. Their eyes still on each other, the heat in the room almost unbearable. Rafe then grabbed both sides of her robe, bringing them to overlap one another as he tied it back up for her gently. Pressing a couple more soft kisses to her head before finally turning her around to face him. Her eyes now softening and looking up at him with unadulterated adoration —his gazing into hers with the exact same earnest.

He cupped her face softly in his large hands; careful not to mess with her meticulously done makeup. Pressing the tip of his nose against hers lightly before nudging it slightly; turning their heads to the side as he pressed a soft lingering kiss to her pretty lips. Their eyes falling shut and a harsh breath leaving both of them. After a moment, he pulled back and smoothed his hand over the top of her head to fix her mused hair; giving her a soft smile and pinching her chin. His once lustful gaze now replaced with the same adoration he adorns for her everyday.

“The sun’s setting”, he finally spoke once more. His voice calm and in a low drawl, as if he hadn’t just spoken in her ear with a lustful grit mere moments before. He continued to stroke her chin with his thumb as she gave him her entire regard; hanging onto every movement and drawl from his lips. Her brain going fuzzy and shutting off as she lets her stepfather take reign of her entire being once more. “Should start getting dressed, princess.” He pressed a soft kiss to her lips once more, “tonight’s going to be all about you.” He whispered lowly against her lips, brushing them against hers as they let out harsh breathes into each other. Her hands coming to grip the lapels of his blazer as she whined softly and pressed her self into him. Eyes fluttering shut as she sought out for more kisses. Falling completely into the man who consumed her entire being once more.

Rafe quirked an open mouth smile at her reaction to him, satisfaction settling in his chest with the knowledge that she’s just as whipped for him as he is her. Chuckling lowkey before stopping her movements, and pulling his head back. Watching as her beautiful eyes fluttered back open, another whine falling from her lips as her grip on his jacket tightened —confusion plastered along her gorgeous features. He just smirked down at her with a patronizing quirk of his lips, tapping her right cheek with his left hand a couple times lightly before turning her around once more. Smacking her on her ass lightly, but with a prominent clap as her pushed her toward her closet. Urging her to get dressed as he began strutting his way out of the room. Leaving her mind hazy and not completely there.

“Now, hurry up.” he called behind him as he walked out of her bedroom. His voice growing louder as he descended down the stairs. Shouting out one final, “you know dad doesn’t like waiting long. I have plans for us tonight, princess.” The promise of the night being all about them —about her driving her body into action. Quickly bouncing into her large closest with a pep in her step to get dressed, daydreaming briefly about a life where her and her stepfather were more than the title that was granted them for right now. Her music still playing lowly in the background.

“My old man is a bad man

But I can't deny, the way he holds my hand

And he grabs me, he has me by my heart…”

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

a/n: phew! i am so sorry this took so long i lowkey lost motivation, but we’re so back baby. i hope yall aren’t too made i broke this up into two parts. yes the series is based off “off to the races” by lana. i wanted to build up tension. as always any feedback is always deeply appreciated. much love.

taglist: @xcinnamonmalfoyx @iknowdatsrightbih @inthelibrarybtw @pretty-pink-princess @enjoymyloves @stoned-writer @rafesfuckdoll @unrealmirrorball @khaibdl @idksmtms @queenvane64 @xoxohoneymoongirl @vogueprincess @loonysbarn @heartsforrafecam @cl4uus @spideysimpossiblegirl @littlelamy @sunset-euphoria @slut-4-gojo @katekells @theater-bitch @faephoria @slutforlanadelslay @matthewswifeyy @pillowprincess4him @drewsphwife @rafeysangelbaby @wearemadeofstardust0 @inthelibrarybtw @adrianalovesevispresley @theeternaloptimistt

if i’m missing anyone pls lmk >.<

[blondieeu]

easy lovers. yuji i.

yuji itadori who waits for you. he waits because he knows if he doesn't, he'd ruin everything.

yuji itadori waits for you out of respect for your relationship, because he listens when you tell him you seriously want to be with this guy - even if he knows that douche isn't the one, and he is.

yuji itadori admires you from a distance, just far enough that you don't notice how much you take his breath away. though, he's still close enough to relish in your beauty. you shined like the moon and didn't even realize it.

yuji itadori doesn't only see your beauty on the outside. every single day. even in the small moments when he gets a chance to be around you - he can see the beauty in your kindness and the way you act within the world. you were his universe.

sometimes, he wonders if he's making the right call. if he'd been too patient, or too kind with his heart. but every time he thinks about making a move, he just remembers what you said—how bad you wanted it to be that damned guy. he couldn't bare to be the reason you regret picking someone else, let alone him.

At times, he wonders if he should move on, and find a girlfriend of his own. it wouldn't be hard, he wasn't unattractive or anything - but it'd be even worse to make someone who loves him feel like they're the second choice because he knows he'll always end up picking you instead.

yuji itadori tries not to think of it, or even let it show, but sometimes when you look at him and talk about your boyfriend, it feels like someones squeezing all the air from his lungs, forcing him to breathe manually—in. out. in. out. in. in. in. Over and over. Until the weight feels absolutely unbearable. He wonders if the quiet ache in his chest will ever ease. How long will he have to keep pretending?

every now and again, he even pretends that when you're talking about your boyfriend, you're just talking about him. all the places he took you out, the snacks you shared, the love you made - but reality quickly sets in and his heart sinks when you mention his name.

yuji watches you, and wonders why you decided so quickly that it would be your boyfriend and not him. why couldn't it be yuji? what makes your boyfriend so special, or better than him? he listens to the way you talk about him, as if you're trying to convince yourself that you're 'destined to be.' yuji knows, deep down, that this isn't it. you deserve someone who sees you, and understands you the way he does. but he’s not the one to say it, so he waits for you to notice.

yuji itadori who waits for you with absolutely no expectations because he knows that love—true love—and when its real, doesn't need to be rushed. it just exists, like the quiet glow of the moon in the dead of night. soft, steady, and always there—for you, specifically—no matter what.

blondieeu xx

[reiding-writing]

please please please write a part two to adrenaline, i bet Spencer would be so worried about cold!reader in the hospital

OXYTOCIN — SPENCER REID!

you wake up in the hospital after the explosion, and spencer hasn’t left your side.

spencer reid x cold!reader | 2.0k | h/c? | cold!reader masterlist.

part one. | main masterlist.

a/n — singing sabrina carpenter in my head whilst reading this request

When you wake, it feels like you’ve been hit by a truck, repeatedly. The sterile scent of antiseptic and faint hum of machines confirms your location before your eyes even open. A hospital. Great. Just great.

You groan, blinking against the harsh fluorescent lights overhead. Everything hurts. Your thigh feels like it's been through a meat grinder, and even breathing feels like a chore.

“You’re awake,” a voice says from your side, a mixture of relief and exhaustion colouring the words.

You turn your head—too quickly, judging by the sharp sting in your neck—and find Spencer sitting in a chair near your bed. His hair is a mess, his clothes wrinkled, and his face is pale. There’s a small bandage on his temple and soot still clinging to the creases of his shirt, like he hasn’t left since the explosion.

“What... what are you doing here?” Your voice is raspy, dry. You try to clear your throat, grimacing as the action sends a dull ache through your chest.

“I...” He shifts, looking momentarily sheepish. “I didn’t want to leave until you woke up.”

You narrow your eyes, trying to ignore the way your stomach flips at his words. “You should be resting. You were barely conscious when we got out of there.”

His brows knit together in concern. “You were bleeding out when we got out of there.”

You don’t have a good retort to that. Instead, you glance down at yourself, noting the IV in your arm and the thick bandages wrapped around your thigh. A hospital gown replaces your smoke-stained clothes, and your boots—well, they’re long gone.

“God,” you mutter, leaning your head back against the pillow. “I hate hospitals.”

Spencer lets out a soft chuckle, though it’s tinged with guilt. “I know. You need one though,”

You scoff. “Yeah, yeah, whatever,”

The faintest smile tugs at his lips, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He shifts in his chair, his hands wringing together in his lap. There’s a heaviness about him now, a weight he seems unable to shake.

“What’s wrong with you?” you ask bluntly, unable to help yourself. “You look like someone ran over your cat.”

He winces at your choice of words, his fingers tightening around each other as he leans forward, his elbows braced on his knees. “I didn’t notice,” he says quietly.

“Notice what?”

He meets your gaze, his eyes glassy with guilt. “The injury. Your leg. I didn’t notice it when we were trying to get out. You were helping me the whole time, and I didn’t even see that you were hurt.”

You frown, watching as he rubs a hand over his face, frustration etched into every line of his features.

“It was chaos,” he continues, his voice trembling. “And I relied on you—again—to keep us alive, and I didn’t even—” He breaks off, inhaling sharply as if to steady himself. “I should’ve seen it. I should’ve done something. Instead, you almost—”

“Reid. Shut up.” The words come out harsher than you intend, and his mouth snaps shut. You sit up a little straighter, ignoring the stab of pain that radiates from your thigh. “You’re spiraling, and it’s annoying.”

“Annoying?” His voice is incredulous, his brows knitting together.

“Yes,” you say firmly. “Because none of this is your fault. Do you hear me? None of it. Not the explosion, not my injury, nothing.”

His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“You couldn’t have known about my leg. Hell, I didn’t even know about my leg until I was half-unconscious on the ground. And as for relying on me—” You pause, exhaling sharply. “That’s what we do. We rely on each other. It’s how we survive. You’d have done the same for me if the roles were reversed.”

“But—”

“No buts.” Your voice softens, though your tone remains firm. “You’re not a superhero, Reid. None of us are. We make do with what we’ve got, and we did. We’re here. We made it out. That’s what matters.”

He stares at you for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Finally, he looks away, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I just— I hate that you got hurt because of me.”

You let out a dry laugh, shaking your head. “Don’t flatter yourself. It wasn’t because of you. It was because some lunatic decided to blow up a building while we were inside it.”

That earns a faint smile from him, though it’s fleeting. He rubs the back of his neck, his posture still tense. “I guess I just... I don’t know. I keep replaying it in my head, thinking of all the things I could’ve done differently.”

“Join the club,” you mutter. “But fuck that, it’s over now,”

He nods slowly, though the guilt doesn’t fully leave his face. You watch him for a moment, the vulnerability in his expression tugging at something deep inside you.

“You’re too hard on yourself, you know that?” you say softly.

He glances up at you, his brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders like it’s your job,” you reply. “You don’t have to, Reid. Not with us. Not with me.”

Something in his gaze shifts at your words, a flicker of emotion you can’t quite place. He sits back in his chair, his hands resting in his lap as he looks at you.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he says quietly, the honesty in his voice catching you off guard.

You don’t know how to respond to that. For once, the words escape you. Instead, you reach out, your pinky finger brushing against his. It’s a small gesture, but it’s enough. He looks down at your hand, his lips curving into a faint smile.

For a moment, the two of you sit in comfortable silence, the weight of the day easing just slightly. And despite the sterile surroundings and the ache in your body, you feel... okay.

And then the door opens. And you regret even thinking such an absurd thought.

“Hey hey hey, look who’s awake, how you feeling?” Derek Morgan strides into the room with a grin that’s entirely too bright for the situation. Behind him, Emily and JJ trail in, their expressions a mix of relief and exhaustion.

“Oh, fantastic,” you say dryly, pulling your hands back to drag them down your face. “The circus is here.”

Morgan chuckles, unbothered by your sarcasm, and sets a small bouquet of slightly wilted daisies on the bedside table. “We were starting to think you’d sleep forever. Reid here hasn’t left your side, you know.” He gives Spencer a pointed look, one eyebrow raised. “We had to practically threaten him just to get his head stitched up.”

Spencer shifts uncomfortably in his chair, mumbling, “I was fine.”

“No, you weren’t,” Emily chimes in, her tone matter-of-fact as she crosses her arms. “You were one sneeze away from collapsing yourself. But of course, you’d rather run yourself into the ground than listen to medical advice.”

“Runs in the family,” Morgan quips, throwing you a knowing glance.

You roll your eyes, already regretting being conscious for this conversation. “I don’t need a play-by-play of Reid’s stubbornness, thanks. I’ve lived it.”

“That’s true,” JJ says with a small smile. “You’re the only one as bad as he is when it comes to ignoring injuries.”

You open your mouth to respond—probably something sarcastic—but Emily beats you to it, her voice softer now. “We were worried about you,” she says. “Both of you.”

The words catch you off guard. You glance at Spencer, who looks down at his hands, avoiding the weight of Emily’s gaze. Your own throat tightens, and for once, you’re at a loss for something snarky to say.

“I’m fine,” you manage eventually, though you’re not entirely sure if it’s for their benefit or your own. “Just... ready to get out of here.”

“That’s not happening anytime soon,” JJ says gently. “The doctors want to keep you overnight, at least,”

You groan, leaning back against the pillow. “Of course they do.”

“Could be worse,” Morgan says with a smirk. “At least you’ve got Reid here playing nursemaid,”

“Don’t tempt me to throw something at you,” you mutter, glaring halfheartedly at him.

Spencer clears his throat, his cheeks tinged pink as he stands. “I should, uh, give you guys some time. I’ll grab coffee or something,”

“You’ve had six cups already,” JJ points out.

“Then I’ll grab water,” he counters, already heading for the door. He pauses just long enough to glance back at you. “I’ll be back.”

“You don’t have to hover, Reid,” you call after him, but he’s already gone.

The room feels quieter without him, though not exactly peaceful—not with the three pairs of eyes now fixed on you.

“Okay,” Morgan says, clapping his hands together. “Let’s hear it. What’s going on between you two?”

Your stomach drops. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” he says, grinning like a cat who’s cornered a mouse. “You and the boy wonder. Something’s different,”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You fold your arms across your chest.

“Sure you don’t,” Emily says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Because it’s completely normal for you to nearly break down a wall looking for him and then collapse from blood loss without saying a word about it,”

You glare at her, though the heat in your face betrays you. “That was the adrenaline. And the smoke. It messes with people.”

Morgan raises an eyebrow. “Right. So the way you two were holding hands when we walked in—definitely adrenaline?”

“We weren’t—” You groan exasperatedly, and then grimace the pain it causes your throat. “I was comforting him. He’s got a guilt complex and I don’t want to deal with that for the next however long if he insists on staying.”

“Sure, sweet stuff,” Morgan smiles. “Maybe I should start calling you a puddle with how fast you melt around Boy Wonder,”

“Don’t you all have something better to do?” you snap, wishing desperately for an escape hatch.

“Not really,” JJ says with a sly smile. “Unless you count pestering you as ‘better’,”

You groan, dragging a hand over your face. “There’s nothing going on. Drop it.”

“Fine,” Morgan says, though the mischievous glint in his eyes tells you he’s anything but convinced. “But if you change your mind, let us know. We’ve got bets going,”

“You what?”

But before you can unleash your full indignation, the door opens again, and Spencer steps back in, a bottle of water in his hand. He looks between you and the team, his brow furrowing slightly. “Did I miss something?”

“Nothing important,” you say quickly, shooting a warning glare at the others.

Morgan grins but says nothing, and for once, you’re grateful. Spencer hands you the water, his expression softening. “How are you feeling now?”

“Tired,” you admit, taking the bottle. “And ready to get out of here.”

“I’ll talk to the doctors,” he offers. “See if they can expedite things,”

The warmth in his voice makes your chest tighten, and you look away, focusing on twisting the cap off the bottle.

The team watches the exchange with barely concealed amusement, but thankfully, they choose to keep their commentary to themselves. For now.