#limply dropping

[qu1etdays]

A hypnotist needs her sleep.

📸: @hypnovibing

[yharnamesque]

Finally sat down and banged out the rest of the Shaman King remake the past couple days and.......I ain't gonna lie............I think I prefer the 2001 version so much more

There were bits from the new adaption I adored like Matamune, actually getting to see Yoh and Anna meet for the first time, seeing Yoh's mother and the other Patch officials!!! But Hao was not a threat or even slightly intimidating. The stakes honestly stopped being important when death stopped being a real threat and barrier to the group. Manta had no real arc or even purpose to being there except to show up and whine, Ryu getting shafted so badly as a whole, and it got way too frustrating to see some of the minor characters be SO CLOSE to getting their moment only to be immediately slapped down by Anna or someone and essentially shoved to the side for no reason

Beautifully animated and I love the updated style, but ultimately a disappointing experience

[qu1etdays]

So sexy, this art we enjoy.

She thought she was safe in the audience

[sttoru]

“oi,” sukuna grumbles as he walks down the dirt path, carrying your slumped body in his arms. he can’t believe you fell asleep on him. you were the one who was so excited to take a walk with him, yet here you are, snoozing peacefully in his embrace.

“what a fuckin’ brat,” the king of curses cusses under his breath. he isn’t much of a gentle partner, so he definitely isn’t going to let you sleep like any other lover would in this situation.

sukuna shakes your body with all four hands. “wake up. y’re droolin’,” he complains once a drop of saliva makes contact with the bare skin of his shoulder. he flicks your forehead which finally wakes you up.

you blink a few times before looking up at the pink-haired man. “mgh, lemme sleep,” you whine and close your eyes once more. you nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck. it’s too comfortable to let go of him.

sukuna isn’t having any of it. you said you wanted to spend time with him, so you’ll have to do exactly that. “no, get y’r ass up,” he grunts and smacks your butt once as a warning. “you beg me to spend time with you, only to sleep through it? idiot.”

you whimper at the slap against your ass, body jolting for a second, before relaxing again. you don’t move an inch even after hearing sukuna’s rough voice in your ear, clearly warning you. it’d be a waste to let go of the precious warmth his body radiated.

“sorry,” you murmur and kiss his throat subtly while still half-asleep. “you’re just too comfy,” you add and smile lazily against his warm skin. if it was up to you, you’d stay in sukuna’s embrace forever.

the king of curses tries waking you up again, but he knows it’s futile. he feels your sloppy kiss against his throat and he freezes for a simple second. he refuses to admit the fact that it made him feel content— experiencing your affection.

“yeah, whatever. i’m dropping ya,” sukuna rolls his eyes. you didn’t expect him to actually drop his arms from around your body with the intention of letting you fall. however, you are faster than him this time.

your legs wrap around his waist and your arms are around his shoulders the moment you feel the lack of support. you grin in victory, having outsmarted your partner, who groans in annoyance.

sukuna even tries to tug at your kimono, but you still don’t budge. it’s like you’re glued to him. you keep your eyes closed, the victorious smirk on your lips never disappearing.

“. . tch. y’re impossible,” the grumpy man sighs out of frustration and defeat. he doesn’t try anything else after that. if you choose to give into slumber, then so be it. even when he would like to spend more one on one time with you.

sukuna continues to walk aimlessly into the forest with you clinging onto him. one arm comes up to balance your body on it, holding you up by your backside. the others hang limply by his sides.

his lower pair of eyes stays focused on you throughout the entirety of the stroll— secretly checking you out. it’s endearing to see your face from up close as you hold onto him like there’s no tomorrow. he takes pride in the fact that you feel safe around a dangerous creature like him.

“never takin’ ya out again. what a pain,” sukuna mutters to himself. that’s a lie.

sukuna would never admit it, but he enjoys hearing your voice and having you walk beside him as he holds your hand in his. which is the secret reason why he wants you awake right now.

your rambling about all kinds of topics that he doesn’t seem to care about at first glance, the way you fail to catch up to him as his long legs quickly stride forward, how you’d stop to look at flowers and pick one for him—

that’s what he misses. though, it seems like that would have to wait for a while.

[l0vergirlv0mit]

domestic caitvi ୨ৎ

caitvi x reader

cw: pet names, kissing, hickeys, biting, gets a little hot and heavy but idk what else.

a/n: I love writing domestic scenes this brought me joy:)

You met Caitlyn first when you got into the training academy to be an enforcer. She quickly took an eye to you watching you train combat when she would do walk throughs in the facilities. Meeting eyes through the window that goes into the hallway, she gives you an approving smirk. You smile back at her your face covered in sweat and chest heaving.

After that she made sure to bring Violet with her to show how good of a fighter you were. Violet was greatly amused watching you drop a man on his head. She leaned up against the glass becoming more invested in watching how your body moves with every hit you land. Caitlyn looks over at Vi and Vi looks back at her sharing the same look of understanding and excitement.

This leads to you getting called into her office for outstanding work and being taken out to lunch for it. Which leads into you meeting Vi and eventually being invited to outings having nothing to do with work. You were quick to accept their offer of going out as an item after building steady tension filled friendships with the both of them.

Caitlyn’s poise and Vi’s playful demeanor contrasted so beautifully. But you soon learned that wasn’t the truth about them, this only furthered your intrigue with the two women. They took care of you in a way you never thought possible. Making past relationships feel like a distant nightmare. There was only Caitlyn and Violet.

That’s what brought you to the present. Waking up in Vi’s boxers and Caitlyn’s silky tank top with the bed empty. You groaned at the sun hitting your eyes shoving a pillow over your face. There’s a depression on the side of the bed and the sound of a cup being place on the night stand. You feel two strong arms pull you and man handle you.

Vi’s dopey face looks down at you as you lay limply across her lap. “Good morning sunshine.” She giggles as you huff out an annoyed whimper not yet opening your eyes. “I know I know~” she pushes hair out of your face and litters kisses all over your cheeks in an attempt to pull you into consciousness. When your eyes finally do open your met with a beautiful vision of a backlit angel that is your girlfriend.

You smile sleepily and sit up to wrap your arms around her neck, pressing your face into her skin. She scoops you up holding you with one arm her other holding her coffee as she walks you to the kitchen. Your legs wrap around her waist and you place a kiss to her jaw inhaling deeply to fill your lungs with her scent. Caitlyn hears heavy footsteps looking over her shoulder. She abandons her place at the stove coming to rub your back.

“Are you hungry my love?” She whispers softly fixing the strap of your tank top. Vi let’s you down to your feet softly. “Very.” You move stiffly to go sit at the kitchen table eyes squinting from the light. Vi can’t wipe the dumb smile off her face as she makes you a cup of coffee. Her and Caitlyn giggle to themselves and you perk up. “What.” You ask plainly looking up at Vi as she hands off your cup to you.

“Nothin’ your just cute.” Her tone is sweet and low it’s like honey coating your ears. She winks at you before turning away. You sip your coffee watching Vi hold Caitlyn’s waist as she cooks. She hums to herself swaying the both of them. Watching them like this fills you with warmth. The way Vi whispers sweet nothings into Caitlyn’s ear. You overhear Caitlyn tell her, “It’s only 9 am.” And you roll your eyes resting your head against your palm.

“Do you need help Cait?” Calling to her she shakes her head. “No I’m almost finished honey.” She sweetly calls back you to.

“I’m not talking about the food.” You smirk smugly your eyes shifting from Caitlyn to Violet. Caitlyn laughs and Vi looks at you as she kisses Caitlyn’s shoulder smirking back at you. “You just stay put where you are sweet stuff, you’ll get your loving in just a second.” You throw her a fake pout bating your lashes in exaggeration.

Caitlyn plates up your food bringing you an almost mathematically perfect omelette. They sit down on either side of you talking about the plans for the day. That and internal affairs you probably shouldn’t be hearing. Not that you actually pay attention to all the technical stuff. You ramble on about your coworkers in the lower ranks. Being well on your way to being an esteemed officer Caitlyn listened intently while Vi cackled at the the shit you and your coworkers do during training.

Once breakfast was finished you join Caitlyn in the bathroom to get ready for the day. Leaning closer to the mirror to do your mascara you feel her come behind you, both her hands caging you in against the counter. Her hips pressed against you and you stand up straight with your back against her chest. Turning to be face to face with her, her tall figure looms over you. Caitlyn’s slender fingers move hair from off your neck and she presses a trail of kisses from your jaw to your collar bone. “So pretty baby.”

You smooth down her silk robe and bite your lip looking up at her. “Speak for yourself.” She raises her brows at you. “Yeah?” She questions her eyes trailing down your figure.

“Yeah.” You replied nodding as you spoke. Vi was watching in the doorway not daring to make a sound. That is until Caitlyn was pushing herself between your legs and kissing you deeply. Already messing up your makeup, when Vi pipes up. “It’s only 9 am!” She said in a mocking playful tone. Caitlyn continued even after hearing her only breaking away to to give her a short reply. “Well it’s 10 now actually.” Caitlyn retorts and you giggle but quickly stifle it seeing Vis change in expression.

“Somethin funny pip squeak?” She walks over and leans against the counter its hard to focus with Cait kissing and nipping at your neck. “N-no.” VI’s eyes reading darker than usual didn’t make you feel like challenging her. She smiles at you sweetly, “Didnt think so.” joining Caitlyn in attacking your neck.

“So pretty isn’t she?” Vi mumbles to Cait. “Mmm that’s what I said.” Caitlyn and Vi talk about you like you aren’t even there going back and forth. “Her skin is so soft.” Caitlyn adds. “I could just take a bite.” Vi says softly biting your shoulder. You were almost limp from all the affection, all of your senses stimulated at once, whimpering and lulling your head back. After they’d been torturing you for a little Caitlyn smiles into your skin moving to kiss your cheek. “Need a break sweetheart?” She asks stroking your cheek. You shake your head no but she stops anyway looking at the time.

Vi doesn’t get the memo instead taking up the space Caitlyn left. Her arms wrapping around your waist and her lips finding yours. Caitlyn rolls her eyes fixing her hair in the mirror before deciding the both of you had enough and pulling Vi by the belt loop. “What! It’s 10 am.” Vi remarked hand still gripping your waist.

“Go put your shirt on and finish getting ready we need to get going.” Caitlyn sets her straight and Vi backs away with her hands up. “Aye aye Captain.” Caitlyn looks at you with a soft annoyed smile and does a double take at your neck. “Shit.” She spins you towards the mirror with a look of utter shock. You were covered in small red marks except for one especially deep purple mark Vi left on your shoulder.

Both were equally guilty but Caitlyn was unfortunately right there to take the blow. You looked back at her in the mirror unamused your arms crossed. “Your covering this up.” Caitlyn nodded her lips in the thin line.

“Of course. You do look cute though.” She teases you one last time before you huff at her. She kisses your temple and pulls out her makeup again.

Thank you for reading!

[cheriecoke]

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ SAFEGUARD — dazai, chuuya, akutagawa

summary . . . they save you after you've been injured and captured by an enemy.

contents . . . sfw, f!reader (chuuya & dazai) and gn!reader (akutagawa), violence / blood, threats, injuries, hurt/comfort, angst, established relationship, and it's pmboss!dazai bc i can't help myself — 3.5k total

notes . . . i got this request so long ago lol. not my best work, but i have been in the worst writing slump ever and just wanted to finish something. i've also never written for akutagawa before so pls be nice <3

𝐂𝐇𝐔𝐔𝐘𝐀 . . .

there are very few times that chuuya feels he’s been outsmarted. he knows he’s not the mastermind of the port mafia, but he certainly isn’t a fool. when it comes to you and your well-being, though, his mind short-circuits, half of his intelligence draining away while his emotions take hold. 

your relationship isn’t a secret to anyone in the port mafia, which means that it isn’t a secret to your enemies either. and while most people know it’s hard to land a finger on chuuya directly, his pretty little girlfriend doesn’t have the power of a god nestled inside of her.

the rage sparks through him, growing fiercely into the blaze of a forest fire, until all he can think of is getting you home safely. he thinks of your sweet smile as he rips the door of the enemies’ base off the hinges, crushing it into a million pieces with the force of gravity. 

the men are quick to react, but chuuya hurtles the crushed door towards them, knocking three of them to their feet. another group charges at him, but their guns do little against his skill. after years of fighting some of the strongest ability users, simple criminal organizations are as easy to step over like ants. 

chuuya kills them all — except for one.

the man’s knees are wobbling, hand shaking around the gun as he realizes that these will be his final moments. there is fear in his eyes, brown ones that rest wide open, and chuuya almost hesitates. his remorse doesn’t last long, though, before he’s wrapping a hand around the man’s throat, thrusting him backwards. 

“where is she?” chuuya asks, voice sharp and commanding. 

he can feel the man swallowing. 

chuuya knows that backup is probably on the way, but it won’t matter whether they show up or not. he’ll crush the rest of his enemies just as he’s crushed the last twenty men. the poor soul in his leather hold seems to know that as well. 

“i-i’ll take you to her,” he rasps, dropping his gun to claw at chuuya’s hand. 

he drops him, lets him take a few heaving breaths and coughs, before he’s kicking at him, forcing him back to his feet.

the young man takes him up the elevator, weaves him through a hallway as chuuya leaves a scattering of bodies in his wake, not hesitating to kill a single man that gets in his way. there is nothing that can keep him from you. 

how fiercely and loyally he loves you — it drives him to near insanity. 

finally, with blood coating his face and his clothes, the young man enters a room, locked with a code, revealing you. 

chuuya’s rage is almost as blinding as his corruption, as he gazes at the sight of you. bloodied and bruised, tied up in a chair, so visibly harmed. his hands clench into fists. “get the fuck away from her,” he says to the man who seems to be monitoring you.

“what are you doing in here?” the men left in the room panic, but they don’t have time to react before chuuya throws them back at the wall, so quickly, with so much force, that their spines snap. they hit it with a sharp crack, skulls shattering against the plaster, the wall crushing beneath the weight of them. 

limply, they fall to the floor. 

chuuya rushes over to you. 

the young man that led him here disappears, but chuuya isn’t worried about him. he’s a coward; he’ll likely flee from the country and never look back. the men that truly hurt you are already dead, and he’ll burn this building to the ground once he’s gotten you away from it. 

“hey,” chuuya says, cradling your cheeks gently, trying to coax you back awake. he’s not sure if it’s exhaustion, blood loss, or the obvious head trauma that caused you to pass out in the first place. but you’re still breathing, so he counts that as a blessing. 

“hey,” he whispers again, kissing your forehead, like it will heal all your ailments. “wake up, baby. we gotta get you out of here, okay?” 

it takes you a few seconds to come to, eyes glazed over and shell-shocked as you blink at him. “chuuya?” you say; your voice is so hoarse it makes chuuya want to keel over and vomit. “is it really you?” 

guilt gnaws at him, almost crushing, at the fact that thirty-six hours passed, and you’re delirious enough not to recognize him. you probably haven’t eaten, either. 

he should’ve been there. no one should’ve ever had the chance to hurt you, yet…

“it’s me, i’m here,” he says, kissing your lips, your temple, brushing your hair away from your face. the strands are sticky with blood. “shit,” chuuya nearly shouts, pulling a knife from his pocket, sawing through the thick ropes around you as quickly as he can. “i’m so sorry, i’m so sorry.” 

he can’t get you free fast enough, and you smile at him, drowsy, your eyes fluttering shut once more. “it’s okay, chuuya,” you say, leaning your head on his shoulder. “you’re here now.” 

“you have to stay awake,” he says desperately, realizing your head is still bleeding. he doesn’t know how hurt you are. chuuya’s no expert when it comes to medicine, but he’s smart enough to know that internal injuries could be even worse than the external ones. 

“stay awake for me, okay, honey? i’ll get you back to the boss and we’ll find you a doctor. you’ll be just fine.” 

“okay, chuuya,” you hum, weakly gripping his back. seconds of silence pass before you mutter, “i just want to go home.” 

"i know." his heart pulls, and he almost lets out a cracked sob. but he refrains, knowing that there is plenty of time to drown in his sorrows later. 

finally, he gets the ropes under, lifting you from the chair. you’re so much lighter, weaker, and it makes him sick as he carries you. “let’s get you home.” 

𝐀𝐊𝐔𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐖𝐀. . .

the call comes just as akutagawa is getting ready to head home for the evening, his tasks completed, eyes heavy with exhaustion. 

normally, he doesn’t stick around to say any goodbyes, sneaking off into the darkness of the night like a shadow, blending right in. but, something about the evening, so gloomy and drizzly with spring rain, feels off. 

with a heavy knot in his chest, so much different than an incoming fit of coughs, akutagawa heads back up to mori’s office, if perhaps to only ensure that everyone else’s jobs had been completed. he’s a lot of things, but he’s never been a slacker; and he’ll do what it takes to ensure that his position in the mafia is eternally secure.

though, he doesn’t have the opportunity to get all the way upstairs before he run into the boss, who is calm, but with an air of irritation clouding him. 

he explains the current situation to akutagawa in a clipped tone, bored — an enemy group has kidnapped you, holding you hostage. 

“how rude is it to bother a man, just as he is getting ready to go to sleep?” mori says, sighing histrionically.

but what is a minor inconvenience to mori sends an entire wave of dread through akutagawa, his entire body feeling as if it’s been dipped in ice. he can’t explain the horror that washes over him, not really, because he shouldn’t feel so panicked. it is rare for him to get worked up about the danger his subordinates find themselves in, save for his sister, of course. 

but you… you’re different. 

“can i trust you to diffuse the situation?” mori asks, impatiently glancing at his watch as if that will change anything. “i can call someone else, but they will not be so quick.” 

akutagawa doesn’t even think before he accepts the job, hating the way he sounds pathetically desperate for more details. his hands flatten the edge of his cloak, as if his ability is going to take on a mind of its own. 

he calls for a driver, calm but breathing so heavily that an aching cough rises up in him. his throat feels as if it may begin to bleed, but he swallows, glances away from the driver and gets himself under control.

there’s a ransom — bring them the money and they’ll return you, mori had told him. you’re only a lower ranking member of the mafia, and someone that makes for a pretty poor bargaining chip, so the motive is questionable. 

mori probably would’ve let you die, akutagawa knows, his teeth gritting together, so much so that a splintering sound comes from it. but the boss, in his infinite, concerning wisdom, seems to also know that his loyal dog has an soft spot for you. 

as regrettable as that may be.

akutagawa has no doubt that whoever the enemy is, they are no match for him. still, a twinge of anxiety settles in his stomach, fingers jittery as the driver, despite the decreased traffic of the hour, seems to drive impossibly slow. 

“are we not in a rush?” akutagawa snaps, leaning forward.

“apologies,” the driver, says, not daring to even look at akutagawa from the mirror. but the car speeds up, enough for akutagawa to be able to notice, at least. it cools the simmer that has already begun deep in his chest.  

even so, the car seems to go at a snails pace, minute upon minute flying by, with you in the clutches of an enemy. 

akutagawa doesn’t care who they are. he doesn’t care why, or how they captured you. he wants them dead. he’ll rip them apart, easily, and he’ll make them suffer — they’ll be alive for all of it, for every second that he peels the skin from their bones, ripping the smaller ones out of their sockets. 

what he feels for you… well, it’s too hard for him to admit to himself. he has no experience with what it means to care for another person, doesn’t even know if that’s his goal. he just knows he wants to protect you.

and he can’t do that if you’re dead.

finally, the car pulls up to an old warehouse, one at the very outskirts of the port, beyond the docks and the shipping carts. it’s tucked far back, an obvious lair for some villainous organization that doesn’t want to be found. 

akutagawa gets there, but there is nothing. he hears nothing, feels no signs of life as he trudges through the puddles left behind from the earlier rain. 

a small string of panic begins again, as he wondered if maybe the call that mori had told him was only a ruse. maybe this entire time had been a distraction, a way to lure him away. there are other skill-users in the mafia, but none quite as dangerous as him. 

though, he hears it, then. a small little sound, muffled and hoarse, full of pain. 

he ducks into another corner of a warehouse, and you’re there — bound with chains and a gag across your mouth, one of your eyes blackened with bruises, your nose bleeding. 

his heart aches. never in his life has he so quickly made his way over, used the sharp edges of his ability to shear through the chains, falling to his knees as he unbinds the cloth from your lips. 

“where are they?” he rasps, mouth opening and closing, hating the sound of his own voice. he recognizes his desperation, his anger, but the affectionate sound that clips at the end is unfamiliar, as he shakily pulls himself closer to you. 

you glance up at him, eyes glossy and wide, and though you are scared, hurt, he’s so thankful you are alive. his heart flips once, as you grasp at his cloak, the material that has the blood of so many staining the threads. 

“gone,” you say, throat chalky, words nothing more than a note against the wind. “they fled when they heard it was you coming.” 

“and left you?” he asks, jaw clenching, as he hopes that the emotions aren’t as visible on his features as he thinks they are. “were you not a ransom?” 

“no,” you swallow, hard, as if in pain. he notices bruises around your neck, the shape of fingerprints indented there. “i was bait.”

anger rises up in him like a wave, engulfing him, wholly and relentlessly. he is no stranger to that, like he is the kindness you show him, the way you look at him as if he is your protector, rather than a bringer of destruction. “i’ll go after them. where are they headed? they’ll pay, i’ll slaughter—”

“ryunosuke,” you say, reaching for him as he stands, expression pleading as he backs away. “stay.” 

he has half a mind to ignore you — the enemy escaped, after all. but your voice. your eyes… you look so small sitting there, bloodied and bruised and broken. 

“please,” you try again, near tears, and though he has never been good with obvious displays of emotion, something within him snaps at the desperation in the word. 

he nods, slowing his pace as he returns to you, lets you wrap yourself in him, cling to him. his hands fall, naturally, to your waist, somehow knowing where they belong, even if akutagawa never has a clue what he’s doing with you. 

“i’ll call hirotsu,” he says simply, before pulling out his phone, not bothering to untangle himself from you. 

𝐃𝐀𝐙𝐀𝐈 . . .

dazai is not a forgiving man, and will never learn to be. forgiveness is not a luxury he is often able to indulge in in his line of work, and his heart has hardened enough that until the end of time, those that are branded his enemies will remain his enemies. 

though, in his blackened heart, one soured over the course of time, you have carved out your own little space, lit it up with golden rays of light that are fiery enough to melt the stone casing of his chest. 

his only love — his only weakness. but it is a weakness that his enemies know about as well. 

dazai tries his best to keep you safe. he always has, and he knows that, sometimes, his grasp on you can be a little too tight. that the way he tries to keep you under his watchful eye can sometimes be stifling, frustrating. 

but he can’t always be there to protect you. and it is in times like these, that he regrets letting you go without a bodyguard. he regrets that he listened to your insistence that you could keep yourself safe. 

he should’ve at least told you to take a friend. 

“boss,” his subordinate says, bowing his head, his voice pleading, desperate. “i’m so sorry. your wife—”

“if anything… anything happens to her, you will be the one responsible, do you understand?” dazai says, his eyes cold as he glowers down at the man, only a few inches shorter than him, but feeling so much smaller. “i will personally see that this act does not go unpunished.” 

“of course, sir,” the man says, and he, at the very least, has the decency to sound resigned. to accept his fate and suffer the consequences, for allowing the boss’s wife to get herself into such a situation. 

and dazai means it, every last word; if he finds you in a state closer to death, anyone who put you in harm’s way will be torn apart from the inside out. he isn’t able to think of anything but bringing you home safely, his hands shaking with rage as he sends more than enough people out on a search to find you. 

with all the strings he’s able to pull as the mafia boss, it doesn’t take long to find you, for those that have bravely — or stupidly — used his wife as bait to come forward, and offer an attempt at some sort of negotiation. 

there’s little of the conversation that dazai remembers on the phone, even less that he remembers after that. the anger bubbles up in him and grabs hold of his conscience, the emotion directing his movements with a mind of its own. 

he’s already sent out every last one of his people into the field, ensuring that the organization that had the gall to threaten you is wiped off the face of the earth. deleted from every corner of the world, buildings flattened to the ground. by tomorrow, they won’t have ever existed. 

today, he doesn’t care what happens as long as he finds you alive. 

you’re held hostage by two men — so completely beaten that they’ve given up on any restraints. whatever they wanted from you, you seemed to refused to have given up, lip bleeding, eyes swelling so badly that you can’t even open them. 

dazai doesn’t hesitate before pulling the trigger on the first man, then turning to the other, shooting the hand that holds the pistol. the man recoils, shouts, and drops the weapon completely, as dazai lands another bullet to his knee, causing him to fall. 

slowly, dazai walks up, firing again to his other arm, a loud snap echoing throughout the room. the man winces, trying to crawl to the gun, one last desperate attempt to stay alive. 

he kicks the gun away, watching, as, pathetically, the expression in the enemy’s face changes — any of his remaining hope vanishes. 

“you told me she was unharmed,” dazai says, bending down, his coat flaring out behind him as he squats. 

the man coughs, gasping for air as the blood seeps out of him. “we lied.” he smiles cruelly, and though he shares the same sort of darkness as those in the port mafia, there is something even more twisted in his smile. 

dazai hums. “you the leader?” 

the man doesn’t give an answer, but the slight twitch of surprise on his face is all dazai needs. he’s no one — just a grunt whose life was put on the line to guard you. 

“didn’t think so.” dazai shoots him once, straight through the forehead, instantly killing him. but he is vindictive, angry, and the man he truly wants to destroy, the one who took you, is nowhere to be found. another bullet lands, tearing apart the flesh of his temple, then another, and one more, his skull beginning to cave in from the force of it all. 

dazai heaves, letting the gun clatter to the ground as it runs out of bullets, and then he realizes, all this time, you’ve just been watching him. the ugliest side of him — the worst side of him. 

you’re no stranger to it, of course. how can you be, when you’ve shared a life with him for years? but that doesn’t mean he wants you to see it, see how bloodthirsty he can become. 

he stumbles over to you, where you’re still sitting on the ground, your wrist in your lap, bent at an angle that he knows isn’t right. bruises are littered across your skin, and your hair is matted from the blood that pools at your temple. 

it takes every ounce of restraint he has to stay calm, a million feelings swirling under his skin. ones that he was never familiar with until he met you. 

“i’m sorry,” he says, taking your face in his hands so, so softly, worried that he’ll hurt you even more. “i’m sorry, darling. i should’ve — i should’ve been there.” dazai notices his hands are shaking and he balls them up into fists, leaning back. “fuck. fuck — i’ll kill them all, just tell me who it was. anyone who laid a finger on you. i’ll cut them down one by one.” 

“osamu,” you say, and your voice is raspy, cracking, as your unbroken arm reaches for him, squeezing his shaking hand. “i—”

you open your mouth to continue, but only tears come streaming down your cheeks, over your bloodied lips, saltiness soaking your jawline. no words don’t leave you, but a soft sob chokes itself up your throat.

“hey, hey, hey.” dazai’s voice softens, every muscle in his body relaxing as he draws you nearer to him, into his chest with a touch that’s barely there. “you’re safe. i’m here, okay? they’re not going to hurt you again, sweetheart.” 

you sniffle, barely making a sound, but he can feel the tears drop onto his clothes, soaking the material.

“can you walk? are you hurt anywhere else?” 

you hesitate for a moment before answering; he’s not sure if there’s a reason you only answer the first question. “i can walk.” 

dazai nods, and though the rage is still bubbling there, underneath the surface, there is a coolant streaming through him at the vision of you alive. the men who did this will pay the price, but he still has you — and that’s all that matters.

thank you for reading !!! ❤︎

[luvergirl777]

Cleanin' Baby | Dean Winchester

Pairing | Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count | 12.5 k

Genre | Enemies to Lovers, Smut

Summary | Dean can't stand new people, especially people intruding on his life and telling him what to do. You drive him insane, Sam having to separate the two of you before fists and teeth start flying. You finally get under his skin for the last time with your dumb stunts, pushing him over the edge.

Index | Dean and reader fight constantly, Sam is the babysitter, Dean hates you because you are him, you're also incredibly hot, not that he'd admit it, perhaps maybe just a bit he admits it. Unprotected sex, wrap it up folks. Soft dom Dean, a bit of sub Dean. He's whipped and will listen to a pretty girl. Two idiots in love.

Dean is never fond of new people, it takes him a very long time to warm up to newcomers. When the two brothers find you battered and bruised, barely still alive after fending a demon off on your own, he’s a bit impressed. Upon further investigation, Sam watching over you, Dean realizes you had managed to damn it back to hell all on your own. Even more impressed, Dean is confused as to how you managed to survive. “You said it was aggressive?” Dean double checks, wondering if you somehow got lucky and encountered the impossible, un-aggressive demon. Sure, that would explain how you managed to survive on your own. 

“Are you fuckin’ stupid? You think I beat myself up after killing the damn thing?” 

“Well you didn’t technically kill it but-” 

“Oh shut up, pretty boy.” You grit, rolling your eyes as you hold onto Sam’s arm to stand up. Sam, ever so caring, nearly lifts your weight with no effort. He’s supporting all of your weight easily as you try and hobble along to safety. 

“Easy now sassy, you’re about one hit away from dying.”

“You gonna hit me?” The face you give him is unreadable, and Sam is preparing himself to jump in between the two of you if needed. You’ve stopped walking, completely turned around as you face Dean behind you. Dean, never one to back down, takes a step closer to you. 

“Guys, c’mon.” Sam intervenes, pushing his brother by the chest to create some distance between the two of you arguing. “You two sound like a couple of 5 year olds.”

Both you and Dean roll your eyes, and you’re hobbling your way out the door to get to some sort of hospital to get a check up. The pain is actually ridiculous, and if you weren’t so battered, you probably would've fought with Dean more. “Here, let us give you a ride,” Sam offers, quickly chasing you in fear you would topple after leaving his side. 

“She is NOT bleeding all over baby,” Dean protests as Sam walks you out of the door, taking you to the car. Dean closes the door behind him after glancing inside once more, still in disbelief of what the hell is happening. They burst open your door expecting to damn something to hell, and instead found you bleeding out in the middle of the floor. And now you and Dean are arguing as you hobble your way to the back of Baby. 

“You call this car baby?” You roll your eyes, “You gotta take care of her better if you’re gonna call her a fucking pet name. This thing has 2 years of fuckin’ dirt on it. Baby my ass.” Dean almost stops in place, arms raising slightly in defense, jaw dropped as he looks at Sam. Usually you're more pleasant, however, you're battered and bruised and in pain.

After absolutely giving it to Dean, you’re opening the back door and limply climbing in. You’re collapsing against the seat before Dean can jab at you. Dean wants to dish it out once again, and Sam slaps a hand over his mouth. He can’t deal with the two of you, he really can’t. Closing the door behind you, Sam’s turning around to talk sense into his stubborn older brother. “She damned a demon on her own, she could help us.” 

“Her, help us?” Dean scoffs, “Yeah, I’d rather be kicked in the balls.” 

“I’m about to if you don’t shut the hell up,” Sam shoves him around the car, “It could be good, finding someone to put you in your place every now and then.” 

That's how you met, and it’s been years already. Despite being together almost 24/7, you and Dean are still constantly at each other’s throats. If you’re not lashing out at Dean, he’s dishing some snarky shit out to you. Sam stays as uninvolved as he can, always letting you two at it before it’s clear intervention is needed. 

--- 

“You really don’t have to sit there and watch me like some hawk,” Dean’s annoyed as you perch yourself on a stool, watching as he works on Baby. It’s about a million degrees and Dean has refused to drink anything but alcohol and coffee for the past 24 hours, and not to mention it’s the middle of the day with the sun beating down overhead. “I don’t need a babysitter. “

“Sammy’s worried about you, said you’re going to have a heat stroke or pass out. Figure I’d come out here and pester you into coming back inside.” You shrug, completely unbothered as you don’t move from the stool. Your tone is nonchalant, only getting on his nerves more. Baby is technically sound and purring like a kitten on the road, Dean’s just been itching to tinker and a distraction from you waltzing around the bunker. “God know’s Sammy’s not gonna do it-” 

“Stop calling him that?” 

“Calling who what?” 

“Sammy.” Dean mumbles, already turning around from you to focus back on the engine. You’re already getting on his nerves, and if he looks at you any longer you’ll succeed in pestering him back into the house. “Go back inside and tell my nerdy little brother I’m fine out here. By myself.” 

“Sam’s not gonna take that for an answer.” You’re still calm and collected, leaning forward on the stool as you get a closer look at what Dean’s doing. You watch his hands work, nimble and quick as he easily gets into every corner he wants. There’s a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips at your thoughts, and you’re trying awfully hard not to laugh loudly. Dean can almost hear the joke writing itself in your head, and feel the smile growing on your face. “You know you’re really good with your fingers-” 

“Okay! You win!” And he’s storming back into the bunker to get water from an expectant Sam in the kitchen, already in a glass with ice. “Don’t.” He speaks to him, raising a finger to Sam. He can already hear the thoughts in his head, too. 

---

“Oh really, that’s your smart ass plan?” You mumble, listening to Dean attempt to explain the plan of waltzing into a bank and trying to sweet talk a bank teller to the vault. It would never in a million years happen, regardless of how annoying charming Dean could be. No one is that stupid, not even a bank secretary who doesn’t know who Dean is. 

“Well, if you have anything better, please enlighten me.” He’s slamming the folder down on the table in front of you, crossing his arms. 

“Anything is likely better-” When you stand up from your seat, and Dean steps toward you, Sam is quick to intervene before you two start dishing it out. 

“OKAY!” Sam basically yells to get your guy’s attention. You two calm down, you sitting down, Dean stepping away from you, and Sam finally taking a breath. 

---

Or the one time you drove Baby, absolutely full throttling her around turns as if you were a professional driver. In your defense, you didn’t crash and actually handled it quite well. Poor Sam is laying down in the back of the car, injured and praying you get to the hospital soon. But Dean was about to have a heart attack in the passenger seat of his car. He’s pressed against the door with the force you’re jerking the car around, gripping anything he can reach. 

“Never again, never again.” Dean almost prays underneath his breath, but he’s not and never will be a religious man.

---

Or the one time you were the bait for some creepy old man, needing to steal a weapon he had on display in his house. You were in the middle of his bed, about to fake vomit as he ran his hands along your waist. “Listen, I heard something you had. Something very impressive, an ancient weapon of sorts.” You purr, rolling your eyes as he goes along with it. 

“Of course I do, it’s in my office. I can show you after we’re done here.” He mumbles, and you’re swinging and clocking him against his temple, toppling him over. He lands with a thud on the hardwood floor, knocked out cold. At the commotion, Dean is bursting through the door. 

“HEY!” Dean screams, puffed up and ready for action. 

“He’s knocked out, dick for brains.” You mumble, climbing off of the bed and adjusting your dress which had ridden almost all the way up to your waist. He swears he catches a peek of the pink panties you’re wearing, but for his benefit, he’s trying to convince himself he saw nothing at all. News flash, not and never was going to work. Dean watches with wide eyes, his gaze following and trailing along your bare skin down to your thighs as you cover yourself back up. “Thanks for caring, pretty boy.” 

Dean rolls his eyes, walking over to the man that is unconscious against the hardwood floor. He’s mumbling something underneath his breath, landing one more blow onto the old bastard, before finally catching back up with you in the office. 

—-

You and Dean are on a hunt the first time he lays hands on you. You both had been separated, running and hiding in respective locations of the mouldy, broken down house. Dean’s frantic and stressed after hearing you yelp on the other side of the house, rushing over to find you and seeing no one. He's running around the house at this point, stopping for two seconds in the middle of the hallway to try and find his thoughts. 

A hand grabs his shoulder, grip hard enough to leave bruises underneath his jacket. He's whipping around before he can even think another thought, hand balled up into a tight fist as he spins. It’s too late to pull his punch when he realizes, eyes wide as he makes contact with your confused expression. He can pull it about 90%, softening the impending blow to your cheek bone. He's yelping for you when his fist makes contact with your skin, already groaning at himself. 

“Fuck! Fuck! Sorry! You scared me.” Dean’s explaining immediately, arms catching you before you even have the chance to stumble backwards from the blow. He cradles you before you can air out your grievances, one hand coming to hold your cheek in betrayal. “I thought they had you, god I thought they had you.” He mumbles as he holds you, reassuring both you and himself that you’re okay, or trying to at least. 

“Dean, god.” You groan, peering up to look at him. “Let's finish this job, please, without any more collateral damage.” You mumble, shuffling around to find your knife. “Fuckers took my blade.” 

“It's okay, I'll get them.” Dean mumbles, quickly pressing his lips to your hairline before letting you go. You stay behind Dean, this time a considerable distance, as he finishes the job and gets the both of you out of there safely. Dean has reason now, speeding out of there like hell after killing anything in his path. 

Getting back to the bunker, Dean parks the car and doesn’t move an inch. You already know why, and you already know the speech he’s about to dish out. “Listen-“ 

“It’s not your fault.” You immediately cut him off, shaking your head. You already have a bruise forming on your cheek despite Dean doing his best to pull his punch. The guilt eats him every time you look at each other and he has to divert his eyes. 

“Alrighty,” Dean presses his lips together as he thinks of another solution. “Give me one,” Dean nods, waving his hands to get you to come closer. You scoff at him, shaking your head as you fight off the laugh that bubbles. You’ve seen him and Sam go at each other like this, getting even in a way only brothers can. He taps his cheek, looking to the side. “Give me two, actually. One to make it even, one for putting my hands on a woman.” He waves you closer, dead serious. 

“Dean-“ 

“Lay 'em on me, one at a time, back to back, hard as you want, doesn’t matter, come on.” He’s still looking away from you, refusing to take no for an answer and he waits for the blows to land. He didn’t mean to, you know it, and you know he’s going to feel bad for a while. You scoff and shuffle, Dean tenses as he waits for the blow. You kiss his cheek, grabbing his face and turning it, before kissing his other cheek. 

“There, two blows, back to back.” You smile, “Now let’s go inside so I can get ice for my cheek.” 

Dean’s blushing like an idiot before scurrying after you, “I'll get the ice, you go lay down!” 

---

You had been sick for well over a week while the boys were on a job, sitting by yourself in a house and working as the information specialist for the time being. When they would call, you’d give them all the information you had been collecting within the past couple of hours. Always hours, never days, because you’d get too worried about them. Dean, not admitting it, also calls every couple of hours to make sure you’re still kicking. You sound like hell, and it’s becoming increasingly clear to him that you are not taking care of yourself while they’re away. 

Sam’s out on a home visit, and Dean is fidgeting with his phone in his hands. Pressing buttons, deleting the numbers, and the cycle repeats itself. Finally putting his big girl panties on, he dials your contact and calls. “Dean? Is everything okay?” Your voice is worried, the call slightly random from the semi-schedule you guys have grown accustomed to. 

“Hey, hey, yeah we’re good. Sam’s just out making some runs, you know.” He sounds awkward and like a loser, he already knows it. He can pretty much hear Sam’s voice mocking him. “Just wanted to call, see how you’re holding up. Taking that medicine I got? Eating everyday?” He’s interrogating you, for your well being of course. 

“The medicine you got me is like ketamine…or something.” You laugh. 

“What?! It is not-” 

“It so is! Some random pills you got from who knows where, from who knows, and you’re telling me to take them?” You’re scolding him softly, but he can still hear the humour in your voice. 

“Whatever, when we get back I’m gonna smother you back to good health.” You roll your eyes at this, Dean knows that without even being in the room with you. “Pills and all.” 

“Dean, whatever. Just don’t die and get back here soon.” You laugh softly on the other side of the phone. Dean can hear the tone of your voice, almost pleading with him. In your defense, the two of them had been gone for over a week on the job including travel time to get there. 

--- 

Dean will never admit it but after that he gets softer around you, starts looking out for you more than he lets on. He’s a softie, even if he won’t show it. The first time Dean almost dies since you’ve joined the team, it’s the first close call the three of you have had to someone actually dying. Sure, the three of you have been hurt and wounded, but nothing quite like when Dean’s guts were outside of his body for far too long to actually be okay. 

He’s been in surgery for hours at this point, Sam had left a while ago to try and put some distance in between him and his brother possibly dying in front of him. You’re left in the cold waiting room by yourself, elbows on your knees as you wait. Your face has been rubbed more times than you can count, one more and your face will come off. You curse Sam for leaving you alone, but part of you does understand as well. 

You rocket out of your seat at the beginning of “D-” whipping around to face the nurse before she can even finish his name. You’re frantic, sure, but you can’t help it. “Dean? Is it for Dean?” Your voice comes out more of a mumble, the poor nurse nodding her head softly. She leads a shaky you to his room, heart in your feet. The nurse stops at the front, stepping to the side to allow you to walk in on your own. It takes all willpower in your body to not immediately crumble to the floor at the sight. Dean’s eyes are open, squinted almost completely shut, as his head rolls over to the side to look at you. 

His eyes widen the slightest bit at the sight of you and not Sam and the tears immediately begin flowing down your face. You try hard not to audibly sob, but it’s taking a lot of effort. “H-hey, Dean.” You sound pathetic as you shuffle over to the side of his bed, almost scared that your presence alone will send him back into a near death state. As soon as you make it to the side of the bed, his arm reaches over and brushes against your leg. “You fucking dick!” You’re hysterical as he makes contact. “You can’t scare me like that! Ever! Don’t ever do that again!” Absolutely ridiculous as you crumble down onto the bed, your arms wrapping around his head. 

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. We’re okay.” He’s quick to comfort you, arms weakly wrapping around your waist. He grunts with the effort it takes in his current state. You’re almost climbing into the bed with him at this point, not wanting to let go of him. He’s trying not to cry with your state of general mess, seeing you so upset is getting him emotional. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, Dean. God, I was so scared. Sorry. Sam is just out to get some air. You know how he deals with this, I’m sure they’ve called him.” You’re prying your arms away from his form, sitting down on the bed next to him. Maybe it’s the hysterics, but you’re running your fingers through his hair and gently holding his face in the other hand. Leaning forward, you place the shakiest kiss on his forehead. “You’re never allowed to go by yourself ever again.” Sam walks in on the two of you like this, you obsessively petting his head while holding his face in the other palm. Your entire face is wet at this point, tears soaking your features. 

Sam lets you sit for a moment longer, the wet patch on your shirt indication that this is needed. Eventually, he has to butt in otherwise Dean will think his brother hates him. When he finally clears his throat, you almost scatter away from Dean.  

---

Eventually, you become a part of the little family they have. It takes a long time for Dean to come around, and Sam takes less time. When Sam lets you call him Sammy for the first time without correcting you as he does everyone else, Dean knows you're in for the long haul. Technically it’s the first and only time you’ve called him Sammy in front of him, the circumstances and situation making you talk before thinking. 

Sam and Dean had been fighting the entire job, at each other’s throats for something you couldn’t quite pinpoint. Usually it’s banter and general sibling bickering, but this time it’s different. The tipping point comes when Dean mumbles something under his breath in the hotel room after a long day, Sam immediately reacting as he jolts up. Before you can even comprehend what the argument is about, fists are flying and the two are grappling each other. You’re watching with wide eyes, never quite seeing the two get this distant from each other. Sam is Dean’s baby brother, he’d do anything for him. 

“Guys, what, stop!” You mumble, trying to intervene as Sam has gotten Dean pinned by the throat underneath him. You know they wouldn’t do any permanent damage to each other, but you still feel your stomach flip at the position. “Guys, please!” Your eyes are watery and you’re trying with all of your force to pull Sam off of him. Sam, easily outweighing you, doesn’t budge an inch and is just more annoyed at you pulling him. 

“If you want to leave, leave. We don’t need you.” Dean spits, pushing at Sam’s arm that remains at his neck. Sam clenches his jaw, clicking his tongue. 

“I won’t come back this time.” Sam spits, deadly serious. You’ve never heard Sam this serious in the entire time you’ve known him, not on a hunt, not on an investigation, nothing. Dean’s about to say something before you’re slapping a hand over his mouth. You’re crying at this point, pathetically holding Sam’s arm as you rest your face against his shoulder. You can’t move him. 

“Sammy, please.” You cry, a horrid sob leaving your throat as you plead with him. Even Dean looks sideways at you, shocking him as well. At the plea, Sam steps back, releasing the pressure he’s holding Dean to. “Sammy, stop. You can’t leave us, we need you, please.” You cry softly, letting go of Dean’s face to hold Sam’s arm instead. 

“I- I’m sorry.” Sam mumbles softly, shrugging you off his arm in favour of pulling you into his embrace. “It’s okay, we’re okay. I’m not going anywhere.” Sam mumbles, trying to console you. You nod into his chest, reaching over to hold Dean’s face rather than slapping your hand over it. Dean leans into it, pushing his cheek into your palm. For the first time, it’s you being the negotiator between the two brothers rather than Sam being in between you and Dean. And for the first time, it was actually scary. 

---

With Sam, Dean doesn’t keep tally on who saves who’s ass. He’s family, it’s expected. And with you, he doesn't either. (He totally does, he just won’t admit it. However, you’re two up on him, and it kills him every time he thinks about it.) He swears to himself he’ll make it even eventually. 

---

Dean’s final straw is you washing Baby, wearing an all too small bikini as you wash the grime off of her. You had been giving him shit for it for awhile now, always quoting his dad on how he should’ve been taking better care of the car. It kills him, always being lectured about his precious baby that has been HIS car for years now. 

“What are you doing?” Dean asks, the front door of the house you’re staying in swinging open. He’s walking out just enough to watch closer, arms crossed as he stands on the sidewalk to the front door. You’re in the driveway, squatted down, washing the rims when he interrupts you. 

“Washing your dirty ass car.” 

“And why would you do that?”

“I have to ride around in the thing, it might as well look nice.” You shrug, continuing to wash. Your back is facing him when you talk, and Dean is watching almost your every move. His eyes trail down your back, over the curve of your ass, before landing on your thighs. They flex underneath your weight, a sight for sore eyes as he watches you. 

“No, smart ass, why are you doing it? Shouldn’t I be the one to wash my own car?” Dean mumbles, moving closer to you. You don’t budge, still crouched down next to his car. When he walks closer, it’s immediately a bad idea, and it’s too late before he realizes. 

“Well, you haven’t in let's say, the better part of 2 years so,” For the first time since he’s talked to you, you break your focus to look at him. Much closer to you, you have to crane your neck to look up at him. Still squatted down, in that tiny ass bikini you’re wearing. It covers enough of you to be legal, but god damn it, he’s reeling. 

“Don’t, don’t fucking do that.”

“Do what?!” 

“Acting like you don’t know what you’re doing.” Dean grits his teeth, squinting his eyes as he stares down at you. 

“What I know I’m doing is washing your car. You’re the one that came out here for whatever reason. To fight with me? Who fuckin’ knows.” You turn your attention back to the car, “You can help me, instead of sitting there and bitching. Shirt off though, that’s a requirement.” You laugh out the last part, reaching to the side and throwing soap at him. It makes his white shirt see through, showing his skin through the cloth. 

“This is ridiculous,” Dean sighs, rolling his eyes. For a moment, you don’t think he’s going to play along. For a moment,  you’re sure he’s just going to walk back into the house. You smile softly when he’s pulling his shirt off, throwing it somewhere back towards the front door. You giggle, now playing a game with him. You smile as he reaches into the bucket, taking another sponge and beginning to wash the back rim. 

In the time you’ve known him, Dean is easy to rile up. Some good banter, a few batted eyelashes, maybe even look up at him, and he’s a goner. You’ve seen him get more numbers at bars than you can count on both hands and feet, never leaving a town without one. It’s a part of why you’ve never made  a move, because you know him. And you know his type, and you know what he likes to do. Just a little bit of fun, a little playing here and there. Regardless, it’s fun. 

You giggle, moving from the rim you’re washing to the hood. You’re leaning over the hood, bending at the hips to reach the top. Dean stands up from the back, determined to watch you wash the hood. He scoffs softly, walking around to you. “You’re doing this wrong,” He mumbles. 

“You haven't washed this in years and you’re lecturing me?”

“Just, shut the hell up for a second.” He mumbles, reaching around you to move your arm. He moves the sponge in circular motions, leaning over you. His hips barely make contact with yours, only the side of his hip brushing against your ass. If he moves over a single step, he’d be completely behind your bent over form. Suddenly, it’s all too much, he’s too close, and you’re so incredibly warm. “What, you’re finally listening to me for once?” Dean chuckles at your silence. 

You’re quiet, face beginning to flush. “Not listening, smart ass. I’m just learning the right technique, according to you.” You’re pressing your ass against the hip that’s next to you, trying for the life of you to get him to move. His hand flys down to grab at your waist, holding you still. You’re still in this ridiculously small bikini, and his hand is now on your bare skin. 

“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?” Dean mumbles, his head falling forward slightly. His forehead hits your shoulder for a moment before he’s pulling himself up. Putting some space in between you, his hand still remains on your waist. For a moment, a realization hits him at how small your waist is, especially compared to his hands on your skin. 

“If i’m not, who else would be?” You giggle, leaning further forward to reach the very top of the hood. From his teaching, you wash small circles. “You know, everyone’s out of the house until later tonight, right? Some dinner, poker match. I’m surprised you didn’t go with them.” 

“What’re you saying, hm?” Dean mumbles, once again leaning over you. This time, he’s slightly more behind your hips, giving you more leverage to press back against him. 

You smile, feeling his chest hit your back as he leans forward, head beginning to nestle in the crook of your neck as he talks, lips brushing against your ear. As his weight falls further onto you, you allow your arms to fold as he presses against your back. You rest on your forearms, the change in position pressing harder into his hips. 

“Was this your plan the entire time, hm?” Dean grits, one hand moving to adjust your jaw, pushing your head to the side to make you look at him. “Wear this slutty excuse of a bikini, walk out here and wash my prized possession, get me to join? Hm?” 

“I wouldn’t say the entire time,” You giggle. “Maybe just since you walked out here.” You shrug, whining when he adjusts his hand, allowing his hand to move from your jaw to your neck. 

“This is unfair,” Dean mumbles, softly biting into your shoulder. “My favorite girl, out here washing my favorite car, and you expect me not to take the bait?” 

He allows his hand to move, instead of holding your waist, he holds your abdomen, pushing you back against him. You can feel him pressed against your skin, able to slot his hard cock in between your folds when you move a certain way. The fabric leaves little to the imagination, and he can feel the heat in between your legs. 

“You gonna be mean, and take me right here? Or be nice and take me to the bedroom hm?” You tease him, moaning softly when he grinds against you. 

“You know me, I like it all. So both.” He smiles, and though you can’t see it, you know. His fingertips dip underneath your bathing suit bottoms, trailing down to exactly where you need him. “You’re fucking soaked,” Dean mumbles, “You were thinking about this for awhile, huh? Pretending to just be washing my car, what a load of shit.” Dean mumbles, groaning softly as his fingers slip through your folds. He rubs gentle circles into your clit, slowly building pressure. 

“You, I, just maybe.” You whimper, immediately weak in the limbs as he toys with you. The circles speed up, drawing out the softest whines and whimpers. He chases the noises as if it’s his own high, humming along softly when you let out a particularly loud whimper. 

“How long have you been thinking of this, hm?” Dean asks, snaking one arm behind you as he gently slips a finger into your pussy, slow and careful in his movements. You whine even louder, tightening around his fingers as he slips in another, fucking into you while rubbing your clit with his other hand. He’s adamant, chasing your high before thinking of himself. “Answer me,” 

“Not long, since you’re all over every single girl you can get your hands on.” You mumble, riling him up. He fucks more roughly into you, grinding harshly against your g-spot. “Just need some relief, and you’re the only one here.” You’re lying through your teeth. 

“You know all that shit is just me messin’ around, and you’re a bad liar, you know that?” Dean mumbles, beginning to kiss along any skin he can reach. “This wet? And you expect me to believe this is for anyone, hm? I bet if Sammy came out here, you would’ve immediately covered up, huh, hide all of this.” His hands reach up to pull at your bikini top, exposing your tits to his touch. He roughly gropes and feels your skin, twisting and pulling at your nipples, punishing you for riling him up. 

“Okay, maybe not Sammy.” You shrug, “I could find a cutie at the bar, though, I’m sure.” His hand moves forward to wrap around your throat once again, squeezing just enough to make your mind fuzzy and to stop talking like a smart ass. 

“But you wouldn’t, if you wanted to, you would’ve already done it.” He shrugs, you can feel the movement against your shoulders. You’re close, squeezing down around him. You don’t even have to tell him, he’s already teasing and pulling your strings before you can speak. “See, who else can rile you up like this, hm?” 

“Can you make me cum, or are you all talk Dean?” You grit, almost unable to speak with him all over you like this. Every sense of you is filled with him, he’s all you can think of. 

“Yeah, sure,” He laughs softly when you clench hard around him, teetering close. “You don’t have to tell me you’re close, I can feel it. If you keep being smart with me, I can stop. It won’t take much, you know, rip this pretty little orgasm away from you in a second.”

His fingers slow, no longer giving you the stimulation you need to actually cum. “Please, please, I’m sorry. Please make me cum.” You plead with him. 

“There she is,” He laughs, speeding up once again to allow you to fall off the edge. When you come undone, it’s violent. Your legs shake, you tighten around him, and you thank god for baby underneath you to hold your weight up. Dean forces you to ride out the high, slowing down only barely to not push you into over-stimulation. 

“Fuck me.” You mumble, roughly pulling him closer to you. It doesn’t matter how, you need it. “Now, Dean, unless you can’t get it up in your old age-”

He slips one of his fingers into your mouth, roughly pulling on your cheek. “A please would be nice, huh Pretty girl?” Dean mumbles, and you can hear the sound of his belt unbuckling. It’s fast and hasty, and you already know he’s pissed off with you constantly nagging him. “Just demand demand demand, whine whine whine.” Dean grits, roughly pulling your bottoms to the side, “Is that all you do, huh?” He’s pushing into you before you can react, pulling a loud moan from you as he holds your mouth open. 

“Fuck, fuck, thank you,” You whimper, squeezing around him tightly. He bottoms out, grinding against your hips as he savours the feeling of being completely inside you. His hips are rough, battering into you with little remorse. Fucking the smart ass out of you, that’s what he’s gonna do or die trying. From the mewls and whimpers slipping past your lips without your control, he feels he’s doing a pretty good job. 

“That’s more like it, there’s my girl.” Dean groans, cock throbbing at hearing you finally shut up for the first time, literally, since he’s met you. For once in his life, you aren’t spitting some sarcastic ass shit at him, and he’s not spitting it back at you. “Feels good hm, does my girl feel good?” Dean’s deep voice sends goosebumps across your skin, the vibrations running through you like a live wire as you work yourself up further. 

“Your girl, hm? That’s new.” You mumble, moaning softly when his grip moves to press down on your tongue, stopping you from talking. Drool pools around his finger, and he groans when you wrap your lips around it, tongue moving slightly underneath his touch to run along the pad. 

“Is that a problem?” 

You can’t respond, and he knows it. You clench tightly around him, a vice grip in response, and he almost genuinely laughs at how needy you are for him. His hips react immediately to you, thrusting rougher into you, chasing the pleasure the both of you are feeling. Moving his grip from your waist, he begins rubbing tight circles against your clit, trying to get you over the edge. It doesn’t take much to get you to fall over the edge, legs shaking underneath both of your weight. 

“Good girl, easy, easy, ride it out. Don’t hurt yourself now,” Dean patronizes you gently, continuing to chase his own high. 

“Cum, cum Dean, please.” You mumble around his fingers, tightening around even further. You’re so tight and just absolutely soaked that he’s spilling into you soon after, chanting your name gently in your ear as he comes undone. “Fuck, fuck,” You mumble, finally beginning to relax as he slows down his movements. 

“C’mon pretty girl, I gotta give you the second half of my promise.” Dean laughs softly, “Or not, if you can’t take it.” 

“If I can’t take it? Are you kidding me?” You smile, carefully pushing yourself up on your hands, glancing back at him. “Let’s go, your bed so I don’t have to wash my sheets later.” At this, Dean rolls his eyes, of course. Still, the second you turn around to face him, he’s hoisting you up onto his waist, pushing at your legs to get you to wrap around his torso. He carries you easily, walking through the empty house and straight to his room. Your back hits the bed, Dean toppling with you soon after. 

“Gonna make soft mushy love to me, huh Dean?” You joke with him, your legs still wrapped around his torso, arms holding his head in your palms. 

“After bending you over Baby, yeah. Best of both worlds or whatever they say.” Dean smiles, his characteristic smirk etched on his face. His head dips down slightly, softly kissing against your jaw, moving down to your neck, before sucking light marks into your chest. Far enough down not to be interrogated by Sammy later, but enough to leave a reminder of him. His head continues to trail down, hands pulling at your bikini bottoms while he bites at your thighs, once again leaving his mark on your otherwise perfect, unbroken skin. 

“Never would’ve thought I’d have you here like this, hm?” He’s rolling his eyes at you, moaning softly when your hands come to pull at his hair. Your thighs rest on his shoulders, tightening the slightest bit around his head when he draws closer, finally making contact with you. “Fuck Dean, you gonna be nice, Dean, please?” 

“To you, of course.” 

Dean is skilled, to say the least. He knows what he’s doing, where he needs to work, what strings he needs to pull, how to get you there. Dean isn’t quiet about his skills either, you’ve heard sly remarks about the girls at bars, road side pubs, and everything in between. He’s living up to his legend, your thighs clamping around his head within minutes. You don’t let him get any smart ass remarks in, pulling him closer when you know he’s about to make fun of you. You control him so easily, muscular legs holding him in place. He’s not going to tell you, you’d never let him live it down, but he’s absolutely shaking at the thought of the hold you have over him. 

“Gonna cum for you Dean, you’re gonna make me cum.” You whine, thighs flexing to grind against his face. He moans into you, caught off guard by your movement. You do it again, whimpering when you realize he likes this, he’s into this. “Cumming, fuck, cumming.” 

His hands move to run along your thighs, trying to calm the shaking underneath his touch. “Good girl, so good for me.” Dean praises. Before he can react, you’re ripping him up. You're holding anywhere you can, forcing Dean to hover over you, legs once again around his waist. 

“You gonna let me kiss you, or is that crossing a line?” 

“Are you fucking kidding me? Please.” Dean mumbles, sighing deeply when you immediately connect your lips. Your arms immediately wrap around his neck, pulling him as close as physically possible. Dean wants to melt into you, fuse with you. He’s riling himself up, he knows that, but he swears your lips on him are heaven sent, curing his soul from whatever horrors it has been forced through. Like a breath of fresh air, like he’s alive again. He’d never tell you that, he can only imagine your reaction and the shit you would give him. 

You’re kissing him as if your life depends on it, hands tangling in his hair. Dean could kiss you for hours and not complain, he could do this all day if you’d let him. He’s unsure of how long you’ve been kissing him like this, so needy and whiny underneath him, but he doesn’t care. When he pulls away to catch his breath, your lips are slightly swollen, slick with saliva. Your face has flushed a bright red from the kiss, making you look cute despite being in such a lewd state. 

“God, you’re beautiful.” Dean mumbles, pupils blown wide as he stares down at you. 

You blush softly, but you try to hide it as just flushed cheeks. “Don’t get too sweet on me now.” You smile, tightening around his waist with your legs. 

“Right, right.” Dean smiles, fighting off a laugh when you reach to unbuckle his belt. He’s kicking the jeans off in record speed, you can’t remember the last time you’ve seen him move that fast. He’s back with you just as fast. “Holy shit,” Dean mumbles, shaking as his cock slides in between  your folds, easily sliding with your slick. It’s so intimate that he’s unused to it, and there’s the smallest fear in his chest that he won’t last having you like this. “Fuck, pretty girl.” 

You whine as he pushes in, so slow that it makes you squirm underneath him. Bottoming out, he allows his head to fall forward, landing in the crook of your neck. “Dean,” 

“Just, fuck, give me a second.” 

“It’s okay,” You mumble, understanding his situation. While you’re understanding, you’re not forgiving as you clench around him like a vise. Your hands reach around, holding his back as you pull him close. You kiss along his skin, waiting until he calms down. 

Dean groans, unbelievable, it’s unbelievable how he’s stuck like this. “I can’t believe this shit,” Dean mumbles, drawing away from you to hook your legs over his elbows, folding you in half when he leans forward again. Finally having some sort of advantage, he’s able to target exactly where he needs to hit. “I feel like a fuckin teenager again.” 

“I’ll take it as a compliment,” You laugh, relishing in the moans that slip past his lips. Finally getting his wits about him, he’s able to finally move, grinding against you. Dean’s not going to last, he knows that, as he begins gently rubbing light circles into your clit. He’s gotta get some sort of leverage, something. Bending further forward, you’re covered entirely by his weight. When your lips gently connect with his, Dean thinks he could conquer the world. Kissing him so gently, so sweetly, has him absolutely reeling. 

“I love you,” Dean blurts, before he can even think to stop it. You don’t think he means it, not in any other way than being horny and worked up. “God, I fucking love you,” He mumbles again, shrugging your legs off of his arms in favour of caging you underneath him, head in between either of his arms as he kisses you. His hips don’t slow for a second, kissing you and chasing his high as if his life depends on it. He’s hitting your g-spot and grinding against your clit at the same time, kissing you as if he would die otherwise, and pressing all of his weight onto you. 

You can’t answer or speak, can’t tell him off for saying that shit mid-fuck. Maybe it’s the position that has him acting up, or it’s the softest he’s fucked in awhile and he doesn’t know how to behave. You’re pulling him closer by his back, kissing him back just as feverishly. 

“Cum for me pretty girl, please, need to feel you wrapped around me.” Dean moans, trailing a hand down in between your bodies. He’s on a mission, truly, needing to get you there before he can allow himself to. “Wanna feel you cum on my cock.” 

“Dean,” You whine, “Sensitive, ‘m sensitive.” You complain, overstimulated and worked up. 

“I know, I know. You’re doing so good for me, just one more. Come for me one more time, please. I need it, hm?” Dean pleads with you, “Doing so well for me, taking my cock so well.” Him talking you through it is almost all you need to tip over the edge, the smallest bit of stimulation you need. Throwing your head back, you can’t even look at him when you come undone. Dean kisses along your exposed neck, not leaving any marks for your own sake. 

“Please, please, Dean. Come, no more.” You whine, tightening around him from over-stimulation. You need him to cum, and have a break. You don’t have to tell him twice, hell, you don’t even have to tell him once. He’s been on edge since he brought you into his fucking room. His head is buried in your shoulder, and you whimper when he bites down into the skin. 

You’re so sore and over-stimulated, mumbling as his hips finally slow in their movement. “Y/n,” Dean is mumbling along with you, “Easy pretty girl, you’re okay,” He attempts to soothe you. “Listen, what I said.”

“Don’t do this Dean, it’s okay.” 

“I meant it, I mean it still.” Dean explains, carefully sliding out, careful to not accidentally stimulate you any further. You’re still caged underneath him, his arms around your head. 

“You don’t have to tell me that, it’s okay, really. Heat of the moment, or whatever.”

“Please, listen. I mean it.” He’s speaking so softly it’s genuinely been awhile since you’ve heard this tone, and it’s never been with you. With Sammy, likely. “I know you don’t believe me, and I wish I saved it for a more romantic moment, I do. But I do mean it.” 

“Is this what you say to every girl-”

“I haven’t been with anyone in forever, you know that. Getting a number is different, that’s just me trying to get information Y/N.” Dean speaks, pulling himself further off of you, giving you space. He’s reaching for his bag, trying to find something to cover you with. He finds a t-shirt, carefully putting it over your head. It goes down to your thighs, covering you. He’s snatching his boxers next, he’s gotta have some decency for this conversation. “I love you, Y/n. You don’t have to say it back, but you deserve to know the truth at least.” 

He’s fully prepared to be shut down, given your reaction thus far. You lean forward, and he thinks you’re about to climb away from him, move out of his bed. Your lips softly connect with his, the gentlest kiss. He’s smiling like an idiot into the kiss, almost unable to kiss you from the extent of his smile. “We can’t tell Sammy, he’ll think you’ve lost it.” Dean almost giggles at this, yes, giggles. What has gotten into him? What the actual hell is happening right now? Still, he nods along with you in agreement. 

“We can’t tell Sammy, or you don’t want to tell Sammy?” 

You’re rolling your eyes. “We don’t have to tell Sammy, he’ll know.” It’s the truth, he’ll figure it out before you or Dean even have a chance to tell him. Dean nods again, the faintest of smiles beginning to spread across his face again. It grows tenfold when you’re leaning forward, cupping his face in your palms, and once again kissing him. He’s shaking when you lean forward, forcing his back to hit the bed, your legs soon straddling his hips. You’re fully seated on his lap, legs underneath his body to give you more leverage to plant yourself against him. 

Your hands wrap around his head, pulling him into you. “Dean, say you love me again.” You mumble, diving back in to kiss him. He can barely mumble the words out, speaking with your lips on his the entire time. Not knowing it was possible, you’re kissing him harder. 

“Riling yourself up, pretty girl?” Dean chuckles softly, hands holding your waist snugly. His grip tightens when you grind against him, drawing out a strangled moan. Dean’s head falls back, face scrunching up. He can’t watch you grind against him in his t-shirt, he really can't. You’re so warm it makes him shake, completely bare as you grind against his boxers. You’re soaking through the cloth, he can feel it. He curses his old age in the back of his head, regretting he can’t recover as easily as he used to. You’re not too much younger than him, but it’s still making him frustrated as you’re ready for round 3. 

“Dean,” Your voice comes out as a whine, your body slumping forward as you curl into his warmth. Your hips continue to grind against his, lips running along his skin. You’re fighting off the urge to leave marks on his skin, losing yourself in the feeling of being close to him. 

“C’mon pretty girl, show me what you’re made of.” Dean’s already regretting his words. He knows you’re quite literally going to make him eat them. Your feet remain underneath his body, flexing as you seat yourself more heavily against him. Your hands move all over his body, finally stopping in his hair as you connect your lips with his. Deans losing his mind. He feels his thighs shake when you lift your weight up and reach down, pushing his boxers down past his hips. He assists you momentarily as he lifts both of your weight off the bed for easier removal. “Gonna make me regret my taunting?” 

“You know it.” You almost giggle, and it only solidifies his belief that he will, in fact, eat his words. You’re soaking wet as you make contact with him, easily sliding through your folds as you slowly and carefully rock your hips. Without warning, in one swift roll of your hips, he’s sheathed inside of you all the way to the hilt. 

“Fuck, fuck, goddamn it.” Dean’s head is thrown back against the pillow, muscles straining in his neck with the force he’s exerting. Your hips grind and roll against his, drawing the prettiest moans from yourself. Dean knew this was gonna happen, and yet he’s shocked that it is. “Should’ve, fuck, picked my words better.” 

Dean shuffles against the bed, sitting up so his back rests against the headboard. He easily pulls you along with him, hands securely holding you by the hips. He’s closer this way it feels like, can smell the sex and heat rolling off of your body. Your arms wrap around his head loosely, leaning down to connect your foreheads together. “Wanna cum like this Dean.” Your breath is basically a pant, grinding rougher as you chase whatever high you have left. 

“Do what you want, please, use me.” Dean’s losing it as he leans forward and marks your skin, too fucked out to even think about what he’s actually doing. You’re going to scold him for this later, something he’s almost sure of, but he can’t bring it in himself to care. You’re coming undone embarrassingly soon, clenched tightly around him as your thighs shake gently. Your hips never stop moving, riding out your high long past the comfortable point. “My girl, my good girl,” Dean is cooing, almost babbling when he watches you use him. 

He’s so overstimulated and so worked up it hurts, but he’ll grit his teeth and bare it if it means he gets to have you like this. You’re arguably more overstimulated than he is, legs shaking and small mewls or moans unconsciously slipping past your lips. He’s moving before you can react, your back hitting the bed. His hips pick up immediately where yours left off, pace barely faltering. You’re soaking wet, the sounds sending a shiver up his spine. “You’re so good to me, holy fuck, this is what I've been missing out on for years. Are you kidding me, fuck.” Dean groans, neck burying into your shoulder. 

“I just, fuck, haven’t been touched in awhile. Easily excitable,” You joke, legs moving to wrap around his torso. With the amount of effort it takes to whine that sentence out, he knows you’re lying. He huffs slightly in annoyance, a small smirk on his face at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation the two of you are in. 

“You’re so full of shit,” It’s gruff and harsh, his brows scrunching together with the effort he’s exerting. His abs have never been clenched harder in his life, torso rock solid from the over-stimulation and effort. “Even if you could quiet down and stop whining, you’d still give yourself away.” He teases you, and you know he’s right. “Wanna try it, hm pretty girl? Shhhh,” It’s gentle and soothing rather than rough, despite his situation. He gently shushes and coos to you, eventually getting your whining and moaning to mere pants. Like he said, you still give yourself away with the slick noises each time his hips roll into yours. “Do you fuckin hear yourself? Listen pretty girl, just listen.” 

You’re beyond fucked out, listening as Dean explains to you. Your lips are caught tightly in between your teeth, fighting hard to keep as quiet as you possibly can. Your head is thrown back against the bed, straining as your legs lock around his torso harder than before. “Dean,”

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. I know, I know. You give yourself away, hm?” He mocks, hands coming to run along your thighs, squeezing the muscle underneath. “One more for me, just give me one more and I’ll clean you up all nice and gentle.” 

“I can’t-”

“Don’t be like that.” It’s soft, but just enough to be patronizing. 

“Please, let’s cum. Last one.” You whine, tightening almost impossibly around him. It’s hard to push in, so overworked and sensitive. Dean’s voice alone works you up more than you ever realized, and having him so close, talking in your ear like this. It’s bad news. Dean’s hips are stuttering as you wrap your legs tighter around his torso, working himself up now. The noises you’re making would be embarrassing if it wasn’t Dean, who’s so beyond into it. Maybe it’s the both of your instincts being heightened from years of fighting fuck knows what, but the front door opening has the both of you immediately stilling. 

Dean has never seen your eyes widen this much, almost comical as you look at him. There’s a wicked smile on his face as he shuffles his arms around, ever so gently placing his hand over your mouth. “Quiet, pretty girl.” Dean’s whispering in your ear, hips slowing just enough to grind into you, clit grinding against his skin. You’re fighting hard to keep quiet, opting to bite down on Dean’s hand instead. He’s hissing softly, repositioning so you bite into the side of his hand. 

“C’mon, give me some slack. Cum for me, please. I need to cum pretty girl, you’re gonna make me cum for you.” Dean swears your eyes are going to roll back and out of your skull and he’s going to be permanently like this with how you’re wrapped around him. Dean’s about to beg, he can feel the words on his tongue. Plead with you, even. His silent prayers are granted when your head throws itself back, your arms moving to wrap around his biceps. With the force you’re holding him, he thinks you’ll leave bruises. He’s following you soon after, hips faltering as he comes undone inside of you. Your legs lock around him and suddenly you’re a bodybuilder with the amount of strength you have. 

Your legs are securely locked, not allowing him to rock anymore, needing no more stimulation. Like you thought, you would be embarrassed with how wet you are if it wasn’t Dean who was the one making you sound like this. “The others are back, I have to go.” You whisper, immediately faltering when your weight settles on your legs. Your bottoms are put on with the help of Dean, who keeps you upright. Too fucked out, your legs are almost unusable as you wobble your way towards the door with bikini top in hand. You have to get going before everyone comes into the back of the house, that you know. 

“You can’t even walk straight.” Dean’s right behind you, trying to keep you up on your feet. He’s trying very hard not to laugh at your condition, but you can hear it in his voice. 

“We can’t scar Sam like this.” You’re trying hard not to giggle, slowly peeling open the door. Dean catches you before you can sprint away from him, yanking you back into his embrace. He's grinning down at you, lips softly pressing against yours. You're distracted, beginning to get lost in the kiss. Reminding you, Dean begins to peel the door open slightly. Once it’s open enough, you’re making a sprint for your room. You hear footsteps soon after you make it to your room, ear pressed against the door to listen. 

“Dean, do I wanna know why I just saw Y/N sprint across the hall in your tee shirt?” 

“No, no you do not.” 

The next case you work, Sam doesn’t mention a single thing. In fact, Sam doesn’t mention anything, ever, even the next morning when you’re awkwardly making coffee in the kitchen while he sits at the kitchen counter. Perhaps you should have asked how he felt about this before you went and created your master plan of you and Baby the other day. You’re sucking in your bottom lip as you’re thinking about how you’re going to bring this up, Dean out for the next half hour or so as he grabs food. 

“Sammy?” You mumble softly, placing a mug of black coffee on the table for him. He won’t drink it with cream or sugar anymore, neither does Dean. 

“Hm?” He asks absentmindedly, thumbing through the newspaper as he reads. He’s not listening to you, you know that. When he reads, he’s entirely immersed in the information he’s processing. He fumbled around for the coffee mug, and you slid it closer to where he’s smacking the table so he can actually find the handle. 

“It doesn’t bother you, right?” You ask softly, waiting for him to process what you asked after he finishes whatever sentence he’s currently on. You don’t have to specify, you already know he knows what you’re referring to. Finally, he breaks his focus from the paper to look at you since you’ve walked into the kitchen and started making coffee. (You don’t know it, but he looked at you to make sure you grabbed his mug as well.) 

He laughs, and for a second you’re disheartened. “Are you serious?” 

“I-what?” You don't know whether to be confused or offended. You were going to genuinely hear him out, but this is not the tone you were expecting. 

“You and Dean have been at each other’s throats since you met. I’m surprised you guys didn’t jump on each other sooner.” He laughs, sipping his coffee and shaking his head softly. He laughs at you more, “You think I would care about that? Oh my god, I’ve never seen Dean run out of the house faster this morning to get you food, wide eyed and bushy tail. I think he thought he was gonna surprise you with breakfast in bed.” 

“Fuck, should I go lay back down?” You genuinely wonder, making Sam laugh even harder. 

“You guys are ridiculous. You’re telling me this is the first time? I honestly thought you guys have been hate fucking since we met.” 

“Sammy, pleaseeeee.” You whine, tossing your head back. Sipping your coffee, you want to whine and pout. 

“No offense, but I don't care what the two of you guys get up to. As long as you’re happy and don’t die on a hunt because you’re distracted, it’s not a problem.” 

“Right, right. It won't interfere with hunting, I promise.” You nod your head to him, “But seriously, should I go get back into bed?” 

Sam laughs, shaking his head as he refocuses on the newspaper he’s reading. You don’t, because Dean’s walking into the door soon after your conversation with Dean. Making eye contact, his face falls completely and Sam was definitely correct with his guess of breakfast in bed. Regardless, Dean pretends he just got food and had no other motive. “Breakfast has arrived,” He announces, placing the bags on the table. “What, no coffee for me?!” 

“Oh come on, give me a break. You were nowhere in sight this morning.” You defend yourself, “Not even a BRB note, how was I supposed to know when you were coming back?” 

“Oh, but you’ll make Sammy one-”

“Sammy was sitting in here in the kitchen when I woke up-”

“In the mug you know I like-”

“What?! That’s his mug!”

“It totally isn’t! Just because he uses it more often than I do-”

“OKAY!” Sam interrupts, and he’s smiling like an idiot when you turn to look at him. Nothing has changed between you or Dean, and this just proves that. Sure, you’re eyeing him up like a starved woman, and Dean is trying hard to ignore you in your little pajamas, but nothing has changed between the two of you. “You guys gonna eat or fuck against the kitchen counter?” 

Both you and Dean groan in annoyance, sitting down at the table and rummaging through the bags. After breakfast, you guys go over the main points of the new case you’re working on. The drive makes you want to bash your face into Baby’s window over and over, and you can already feel the tiredness in your bones. You guys start the drive not long after, packing up everything and getting a jump start to the job. 7 hours in and Sam switches with Dean to drive, now in the passenger seat. 

You kick the seat when he leans it back and pins your legs to the backseat, “Don’t make me come back there!” He threatens, to which you stick your tongue out at him. Another seven hours in and you’re switching with Sam, who sleeps in the backseat. 

You and Dean talk in the front. “So, Sammy doesn’t care then?” Dean whispers, and you shake your head no. You’re whispering in an attempt to not disturb Sam, even though you think Sam could sleep through an earthquake. Giving him some type of courtesy, you try to keep the noise down to a minimum. 

“Sammy said he thought we had been, quote, hate fucking since we first met, end quote.” You giggle, glancing over at him with a sheepish smile. Dean is trying awfully hard not to howl laugh right now, and god is it hard. You giggle softly, shaking your head at him. 

“Well, in that case.” Dean shrugs, reaching over the front bench and grabbing the inside of your thigh as you drive. 

“Winchester.” You warn, genuinely warn, as your voice remains low and calm. 

“What? You said he doesn’t care.” Dean mumbles, chuckling softly. Glancing back into the back seat, Sam is passed out. He wouldn’t do that in front of Sammy, but he can push your buttons. Dean slides his hand closer to your hip, slipping down onto your inner thigh further. You give him no reaction, knowing the second you do it’ll only fuel the fire. Dean bites at his lips, trying extremely hard not to laugh at your resolute attitude. His fingers dip underneath the waistband of your shorts, making your hips jolt back into the bench. 

You’re grabbing his hand, ripping it backwards and twisting his arm. “Fuck, I love it when you’re rough with me.” Dean groans softly, a smile still playing on his features. “Okay, okay sweetheart, I hear you loud and clear.” He smiles, pulling his arm free and kissing your knuckles. 

You finally get to the motel after what feels like 2000 years, you driving the last leg of the trip. Sam shuffles into the motel without saying a word to either of you and Dean, still half asleep as he pushes into the room. He’s  falling into the bed and back asleep in no time, and you and Dean share a look. Dean has a soft chuckle, and you giggle when he slides his hand across your thigh, pulling you by your hips across the bench of Baby. 

“No, no, no pretty boy. You made me drive the shitty shift.” You mumble, shuffling so you’re pressed against him. He’s easily manipulated, allowing his body to fall back against the passenger side door. Your legs easily swing over his hips, settling down on his lap with ease. You hate driving at night, and he knows that. “And you’ve been teasing me for the past 20 miles. I’m gonna do what I want, and if you ask nice enough by the end of this, i’ll let you cum, hm?” 

Dean whimpers from underneath you, eyebrows knitting together as you speak to him however you like. When you slam your lips down onto his, he groans into it. You’re frustrated, and annoyed, and slightly angry but not exactly at him. You need an outlet, and Dean is a willing one. Your hips press heavily down into his, using your legs underneath him as leverage to seat yourself against him. Your hands are everywhere and anywhere, running all along his skin underneath his clothes. There’s a whimper that escapes him when you rip off your shirt, not allowing him the pleasure of doing so. 

“This isn’t fair-” You grip his face in between your hands, holding his chin. With the slight pressure, his lips pucker out slightly. You gently peck his lips like this, releasing some of the grip you have on his face. Dean’s hands land on your waist, gently brushing and rubbing along any exposed skin you’ll allow him. 

“Be good, Dean.” You mumble, “You’ll be good for me, hm?” You ask softly, picking your hips up enough to yank your shorts and underwear off in one swift movement. “Let me ride your fingers, baby, get me ready to take you.” You command, voice leaving zero room for disagreement. 

“Yes, yes,” He mumbles absentmindedly, hands shuffling to slip further down your hips. You hiss softly as he makes contact with your clit, well practiced and well trained at this point. He gently rubs along your clit, drawing soft, tight circles into the bud. There’s a small gasp as he slides a digit in, expertly curling and moving in the way he knows you like. You pant softly when your hips grind against him on their own, searching for any touch or stimulation he’ll allow you to have. You chase it like you need it to live, to breathe. And Dean chases the little whimpers and whines as if he’ll die without them. Another digit makes you slump down against him slightly, seeking his warmth and closeness, hips still moving against him. 

“My pretty boy Dean.” You whimper, mumbling partially against his lips as you talk. One of your hands rest behind his head, the other one running your fingers through his hair. Dean reels at the soft compliment, head pushing into your hand as he seeks for your touch. You’re using him like a goddamn toy, and he can’t help but twitch at the thought. He’d let you do anything, anything you ask if it’s from your pretty little mouth. You kiss him hungrily, breaking contact more often than he wants as you moan and pant against him. He seeks your kiss, neck craning up. 

Your hands sloppily fumble with his jean buttons, wanting them off right this second, losing your patience. You push them just below his hips, freeing his cock from his boxers. “Easy, pretty girl, you gotta let me make you cum first.” Dean mumbles, leaning forward to kiss your neck that is burning up. 

“Need you,”

“Need you to feel good, baby.” Dean mumbles, working more feverishly into you to push you past the edge. There’s a boost in his pride when you fall apart against him, arms locking around his head gently as you cum. 

“Dean, wanna fuck you. You gonna let me do that?” You mumble, carefully taking him in your hand. Dean hisses when he slips in between your folds, head thrown against baby for some sort of stability as he tries to compose himself. Cumming when she wants me too, he reminds himself. Your hands are gentle but firm, and dean’s more than aware you’re not giving up your current position on top of him. 

“Gonna let you do anything,” dean mumbles, picking his head up slightly as he watches you line his cock up. He fights to keep his head up, watching as you devour inch by inch of his length. You’re grinning wide when you catch him. 

“Gonna watch me take you? Gonna watch me fuck you, hm?” you pant softly against his lips, snapping your hips down against his. You grind and rub against his his pelvic bone, fully seated against him, tip of his cock rubbing against your cervix. Dean’s head falls back against the door, unable to watch. He can’t watch this without cumming earlier than your word. He groans when you hear the tsk sound as you kiss your teeth, whimpering when you pick his head up. 

“I’m trying to listen to you, don’t wanna cum early sweetheart.” Dean mumbles, biting hard onto his bottom lip. His eyes are half-lidded as he watches you take him, a shiver running up his spine as he tries not to think about anything for too long. You’re so tight, and wet, and just absolutely pulsing around him. He’s sure there’s a pile underneath him from how wet you are around him, his abs clenched harder than he thought possible as he fights off his orgasm. “God damn it, baby. You’re gonna fucking kill me.” he groans, reaching down and rubbing tight circles into your clit. The sharp gasp sends goosebumps up his arms, listening to your soft noises. 

“This is cheating Dean,” You moan, continuing to fuck yourself down onto him. 

“C'mon baby, lemme have it pretty girl,” Dean whimpers, doing his best to snap his hips up against you. Your weight jolts against him, allowing him more room to snap his hips up. He grins, as he finally has some advantage as he fucks into you. When you come undone, it’s shaky and messy, hips slamming down against Dean's to get the movement to stop. His hips continue to rut into you, milking the orgasm for as long as you’ll let him. 

“Being so good Dean,” You coo into his ear, your face burying itself into his neck. Dean's quite literally fraying at the edges trying to hold himself together. He could cry, eyes watering as he screws his eyes shut. 

“C'mon baby, cut me some slack,” He groans, sitting up abruptly to lean into your body. You squeal slightly at how quickly he jostles you around, your legs wrapping around his torso as he moves. 

“I like seeing you so pent up, ‘s cute,” You mumble, holding his head in your palms as you kiss him. Reaching around, you softly pull at his hair, scratching his head where you’re pulling. Your hips grind against him, doing more for you than him. Dean's hands grip your waist and thighs, moving you against him. 

“Wanna be good for you,” Dean groans, leaning forward to bite into your shoulder. 

You smile, holding him gently by his neck as you lean back, taking him with you. He’s groaning into your skin, head falling into your shoulder. “C'mon, want you to feel good,” You mumble, catching his lips gently when his head picks up to glance at you. 

“I do feel good. Feel good if you’re feeling good,” Dean grunts, hissing softly when you push his hips before pulling him back in with your heels. He almost wants to let you make him cum like this, but the shake in your thighs assured him you wouldn’t be able to. “My girl,” Dean moans softly, snapping his hips into you. Your soft mewls spur him on, groaning softly when your hands pull at his hair. Dean's losing it, moaning into the crook of your neck as he buries his face into your skin. 

His weight is pressed entirely against you, elbows digging into the seat on either side of you. You're whimpering in his ear, and he’s been holding off for what feels like years at this point. You pick his head up, pressing your lips to his. The both of you are moaning and panting so hard it’s difficult to kiss, riling yourselves up. “Feels good, Dean, do I make you feel good?” You pant against his lips, legs squeezing tighter around his waist. Your hands are all over him, touching any inch of skin you can, feeling every muscle flexing with the effort of his ministrations. “Talk to me Winchester, my pretty boy.” You moan, one particular thrust sending goosebumps across your skin. 

“I- fuck- can't.” Dean almost grunts, lips never leaving yours as he talks. “ ‘s too good, this pussy, fuck, made for me.” He groans, lips leaving yours to kiss along your cheek and jaw. Your hands settle on his biceps, trying hard to ground yourself here with him. “Never wanna leave it, never wanna leave you.” He groans, pulling you closer by the back of your neck to properly kiss you. “Fuck, please let me cum.”

You hadn’t realized he’d been waiting for you, a giant smile creeping over your face at how good he is. “Cum, Dean. Cum inside me, please, need it.” You mumble, grip tightening to hold yourself against him as he roughly fucks into you, chasing the high he’s been craving. You squeal and jerk under him as he bites into your shoulder, roughly laving over it with his tongue to relieve the pain. You squeeze tighter around him from it, making his hips falter in their place. You’re over-sensitive, beginning to squirm. “Cum, Dean, please, can’t take it.” You whine, tightening almost impossibly more. 

“Fuck, taking it so good. Just a bit more, be patient for me sweetheart.” Dean groans against your ear, thrusts becoming more erratic as he finally lets himself go. Your legs are practically numb as he buries himself to the hilt, cumming inside you. You complain softly as he lazily fucks his cum into you, enjoying the absolute mess you’re making underneath him. 

“Please-” You hiccup, pulling his hair softly. Dean slows, stilling as he kisses you properly for the first time in forever, no longer panting and moaning against you. You relish in it, not rushing as you kiss him back. 

“I think I’ll make you drive the shit shift more often.” He’s smiling, carefully getting you cleaned up. He’s proud of how fucked out you are, pride oozing from his demenor. You have the same pride, knowing the second he touches that motel bed he’ll be out for the night. 

You peck him quickly, not wanting to rile him up again. “Sure, but next time you wont cum.” You giggle, taking off before he has the wit to catch you and pin you to baby again. Running into the motel room where Sam is knocked out, you're in the shower before Dean can catch up to you. You hear a snarky remark from the other side of the door, making you giggle.

[cxrrodedcoffin]

Route To Sin - Eddie Munson

Likes are always appreciated but reblogs and feedback keep artists going!

Summary: eddie decides to go on a roadtrip with you to visit your sister in vegas, when you stop at a themed motel on the way, things quickly take a filthy turn.

Word Count: 4.1k

A/N: my first eddie munson fic!! i’ve loved this man for two years, i just finally decided to put it on paper lol, please let me know what y’all think!!

TW: dom!eddie, slight brat tamer!eddie, reader has a sister, drug use (weed), food mention, marriage talk, dacryphilia, breeding kink, daddy kink, bathtub sex, oral fixation, unprotected sex (don’t do this), creampie, cowgirl, mirror sex, degradation (brat, whore), porn mention, spanking mention, pet names (doll, babydoll, sweet girl, sweetheart, angel), hair pulling, fem + afab reader, reader gets slightly insecure at the end

Rating: R, 18+

——

A waft of earthy smoke billowed from the open driver’s side window, the familiar smell pulling Eddie’s attention back to the van. You knelt on the bench seat, body stretched across the expanse of the front cab to rest your folded arms against the edge of the window frame, silently watching your boyfriend pump gas. The last of the joint you’d been passing back and forth dangled limply between your pointer and middle finger, careful to avoid dropping the simmering butt and accidentally lighting the whole place up.

“If you keep blowin’ that roach shit my way I’m gonna leave you here.” That signature sarcasm rang heavy in his tone, canines peeking out from under his top lip with the smile he flashed at you.

He shut the fuel door, grabbing the roach out of your hand before snubbing it out against the heel of his boot and tossing it into the ashtray on top of the nearest trash can.

“I gotta go in to pay, do you want anything?” He fumbled with his wallet, pulling the wad of crumpled bills out of the worn leather.

“Get me a slice?” You asked, tilting your head toward the neon in the window that read ‘Pizza: Hot To Go’ in blinking red letters. He nodded, hitting a light jog into the convenience store, wallet chain slapping against his thigh with every step.

When you suggested a roadtrip to visit your sister in Nevada, you hadn’t fully taken into account how long you’d need to be in the van. Hawkins to Vegas wasn’t exactly a short trip, two thousand miles to be exact, and as much as you loved spending time with Eddie, the old, worn out seat of his van was starting to make your tailbone ache. Being 16 hours into a 28 hour drive had you feeling more stressed out than usual, you definitely needed to sleep in a real bed tonight if you hoped to get any relief before your big weekend in Sin City.

Eddie came bounding across the cracked pavement, pizza box in hand and you perked up, his goofy smile illuminated by the final sliver of dusk and the dingy glow of the old gas station sign above.

“I got a whole pie, Rick wasn’t fuckin around when he said that new stuff would make you feel like you’re starving.” He yanked open the door, the metal creaking loudly on its rusty hinge. You took the box from him, setting it on the bench between you as he hoisted himself into the driver’s seat, starting up the van to continue your journey.

“Eddie, can we stop at a motel tonight?” You asked, opening the box to lift a piece of pizza out, folding it down the center and bringing it to his face.

“M’not sure if there’s anything on the way, but we can stop if we see something, doll.” He turned his head, keeping his eyes on the road through his peripheral as he took a bite from the slice in your hand.

‘Welcome Home (Sanitarium)’ by Metallica blared through the speakers either side of the van’s tape deck, vibrations from the heavy bass flowing through the vehicle and melding with the warm haze your high pulled over your mind, your body relaxing into the stained upholstery of the seat. You kicked your bare legs up onto the dashboard, white lacquered toenails pulling Eddie’s eyes off the road briefly. His gaze shifted down to your ankle, then your calf, then landing on your plush thigh, your soft skin peeking out from under your short pajama shorts.

“Eddie, there!” You pointed toward the sign glowing overhead through the dirty windshield, reading ‘Heart’s Desire Motel’ in faded letters atop a large metal heart. His attention was quickly pulled away from your soft skin, pulling the van off the highway and into the small parking lot. The place was quaint, baby pink paint peeling from the siding, with an old ‘vacancy’ sign blinking in the window of the front office. You pulled your sandals on and jumped out of the van, slipping Eddie’s jacket over your shoulders to shield your bare arms from the chill in the night air. Eddie followed quickly behind, catching up to you with ease as you reached the front door.

A small bell rang when you pulled open the office door, the only source of light in the small room being a desk lamp situated behind the front counter. You waited for a moment, hearing a ‘be right with you!’ called from an adjoining space.

“How can I help ya darlin?” A sweet older woman emerged from a back storage space, setting some paperwork down and taking her place behind the counter.

“Can we get a room for the night?” You asked cheerily, excited to finally lay down on something that wasn’t a blanket in the back of Eddie’s van. She smiled and nodded, flipping through the room log book, and you took the opportunity to glance at your surroundings. The walls were the same light pink as the exterior, with heart and cupid motifs scattered across them to really hone in on the theming. The kitchy aesthetic was endearing, a reminder of the bygone honeymoon resorts of the 60’s.

“All our double twin rooms are booked for the night so we only have single queen rooms available, is that alright?” She looked between you and Eddie, knowing her question may as well have been rhetorical.

“That’s actually preferred, it’s our wedding night.” Eddie lied to the woman, a shiteating grin stretched across his face when you turned back to him and shoved his shoulder.

“Well in that case I’ll put you up in our honeymoon suite! It’s not much different from our standard rooms, but there’s a heart shaped tub for you two lovebirds to enjoy.” Her face lit up with the sweetest smile and your heart melted, guilt sitting low in your chest knowing it was a lie. You didn’t have the heart to tell her or question why she’d believed it given the way the two of you were dressed, but you shrugged it off, just happy to be able to finally relax.

You took the key from her as Eddie handed her the cash to pay for the room, twirling it between your fingers, a red keychain etched with the same logo as the overhead sign on one side and the room number above a small heart on the other. Eddie shoved his wallet back into his pocket, his arm wrapping around your waist to usher you out of the main office, calling out a ‘thank you’ as you left.

“What the fuck was that?” You grabbed your bag from the back of the van, shooting him a death glare only to be met with that ridiculous smirk he so loved to taunt you with.

“What, you don’t wanna be my bride?” He faux pouted, dark waves falling in his face as you reached for his bag. You over-exaggeratedly rolled your eyes, starting to walk toward the room.

“Guess it’s the atmosphere of this place getting to me, babydoll.” He slammed the door of the van, jogging to catch up with you as you started putting the key in the door lock. Your cheeks burned in embarrassment from how that little nickname made your heart want to burst out of your chest, Eddie always knew exactly how to push your buttons in the best way and this was no exception.

The sight that greeted you beyond the door was like something out of a 70’s porno, wood paneled walls framing crimson velour window trimmings, a matching velvet comforter sprawled across the queen bed. Two poorly painted angels sat perched atop the heart shaped headboard, like prying eyes seeing every depraved act carried out on the altar below. Sure enough, at the far end of the suite was a heart shaped jacuzzi tub, tiled steps leading up and mirrors lining the walls of the corner it was tucked into.

You dropped your bag on top of the mahogany dresser across from the bed, and as you turned on your heel to shut the door behind Eddie, you couldn’t help but burst into a small fit of laughter at the cross hanging above the door frame. The idea that anything happening in this sex den was god-honoring was definitely scoff-worthy.

“What d'ya say we put that thing to use? My back is killing me and I bet those jets would feel killer.” Eddie’s fingertips dug firm indents into the flesh of your hip, a not-so-subtle indication of what his intentions were for the night.

“Whatever you want, daddy.” You winked, taking a step forward until his large hand gripped your forearm.

“What did you just call me?” He questioned, brow quirked in curiosity.

“It’s our wedding night, remember? Don’t you wanna start a family?” Your tone was playful but truthfully something about this place was stirring a feeling so raw inside of you that you weren’t kidding in the slightest.

“If you keep that up you won’t be able to walk in the morning.” Eddie released his grip, slapping your ass as you walked away to turn on the faucet for the tub.

“Won’t need to anyway, I’ll be sitting in your shitty van for 12 more hours.” You knew exactly how to push his buttons, and insulting any of his women (his guitar, his van, and you) was the quickest way to do so.

“That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble.” He half-snapped at you, digging through his duffle bag in an ill-fated attempt to stop himself from watching the way you wiggled your ass while you bent over the side of the tub, watching the waterline rise.

“What are you gonna do, spank me?” You found yourself deliberately arching your back toward to accentuate the curve of your ass, hoping with every fiber of your being he’d stop what he was doing and manhandle you a little.

“Only if you don’t stop with the bratty attitude.” He glanced over at you and immediately dropped the shirt he was pretending to fold back into his bag, finally giving up on his resistance and approaching you from behind, the rough denim of his jeans rubbing against your bare thighs. His fingers slipped into the waistband of your pj shorts and underwear, roughly yanking them down to expose your ass.

“Gotta get you outta these if we’re gonna take that bath.” His tone had returned to that lighthearted sarcasm that you loved to hate, and you almost let yourself sink back against him. Instead, you stood upright again, taking the hem of his tattered Iron Maiden shirt in your grip and lifting it up his torso until he pulled it the rest of the way over his head.

Just as he reached to do the same to your tank top, you turned away and reached for the tap again, putting a stop to the stream of running water. He gripped your waist, pulling you back against him before pulling your tank over your head, leaving you fully naked.

“Get in.” He whispered against the shell of your ear, sending a shiver up your spine that had goosebumps rising over your skin. Maybe it was your residual high, or the lovesick atmosphere of your surroundings, but everything felt heightened, your skin more sensitive, his presence behind you more intimidating, his voice more intoxicating.

You ascended the short step and sunk into the bath, the water level rising to not quite cover your chest as you laid back into the left arch of the heart. Eddie watched your every move, eyes glued to your hips to drink in the way your form shifted with every step. He made quick work of removing his jeans, letting the stiff denim pool at his feet as he watched you settle in, your gaze drifting to the waistband of his plaid boxers. He pulled them down at an almost agonizing slow pace, exposing inch after inch of his semi-hard shaft to your waiting eyes until his cock sprung free, the sheer weight of him causing his length to slap against his upper thighs.

You absentmindedly pressed your thighs together, trying to dull the ache between them to no avail. You never truly got used to seeing him fully naked, blushing like a naive virgin every time you had the privilege of seeing him like this. The muscles of his thigh flexed as he took the step up to level with the lip of the tub, towering over you before sinking into the water beside you. He was an Adonis, all toned muscle under a tender layer of plush tissue that made for the perfect sleeping partner, strong and comforting all the same.

“Come here, doll.” He patted his thigh, the water swaying with the movement alongside the low hum of his voice. You rose to your knees, floating to the other side of the tub and straddling his lap, your core sitting dangerously close to his cock. His hands found your hips, calloused fingertips digging into your soft skin with a squeeze before gliding up your sides, his thumbs ghosting over the sides of your breasts almost teasingly while he admired the way water droplets dripped down over your nipples.

“Always so gorgeous.” He groaned, strong hands finally encompassing your breasts, kneading tender flesh as his rough palms gave your stiff peaks the friction they desperately craved.

His touch lit a fire within you, and as much as the way that he looked at you with such admiration made your heart melt, your need was becoming more and more unbearable by the second. You shifted forward, rubbing your folds over the length of his shaft with a hunger, desperate for stimulation.

Before you knew it he had dropped his grip from your chest, threading a hand into your hair to yank your head softly back, drawing a gasp from your throat.

“Did I tell you you could move?” He questioned, cocking his head to the side and raising his eyebrow. He couldn’t help his sarcastic nature, it just came so naturally to him, and knowing that he had such an immense effect on you gave him the ego boost of the century. You shook your head as much as you could given the grip he held on your tresses, and choked out a soft ‘no’ in response before clearing your throat.

“I-I think I deserve some relief after being in the van all day.” You tried to put up a fight, not quite done riling him up, but your tone was quickly losing all conviction and Eddie could see you slipping further into desperation.

“You don’t deserve anything, you’ve been a pampered little passenger princess for 16 hours while I’ve done all of the work to get us here.” He yanked your hair back even further, craning your neck to look up at the baby pink popcorn ceiling. The sting in your scalp brought tears to your eyes, the liquid breaching your waterline leaving dark mascara trails down your cheeks in its wake.

“You’re being awfully bratty, doll, where’d my sweet girl go?” He cooed, free hand cupping your cheek as he loosened his grip ever so slightly to allow you to look at him.

“I’m sorry Eddie, I’m just so sore.” You sniffled, tears still falling from the shame the disappointment in his tone made you feel.

“Don’t cry baby, just need you to listen, okay?” He dropped his grip on your hair, both hands cupping your face, looking lovingly into your glazed eyes. You could feel his cock growing beneath you, the sight of dark makeup running down your tear stained face serving as the perfect aphrodisiac. He adored seeing you all messy like this, his perfect angel looking like a filthy whore, only for his eyes to see.

“Think we can both get some relief tonight if you’re good, can you be good for me?” You frantically nodded your head. “Yes, I promise!” Your enthusiasm made him laugh low in the back of his throat, that goofy smile returning to his face.

“Need you to use your words and tell me what you want, can you do that?” His tone held sickly sweet condescension and you could feel yourself slipping into that mind numbing headspace, wishing he could just slip into your mind for a moment and see all the dirty things you wanted him to do to you.

“Need you inside, please.” Your words came out barely above a whisper and he knew he wouldn’t get too much more out of you before you devolved into a mewling mess, too lost in your own mind to articulate your thoughts, but he couldn’t help but play with you a little longer.

“Inside where, sweetheart? Here?” He mused, bringing his free hand to your mouth, pointer and middle fingers prodding at your parted lips. You quickly took them in, sucking softly on his digits as you shook your head no, oral fixation too strong to pass up the opportunity to have any part of him in your mouth.

“If that’s not what you want then you need to tell me, don’t be greedy.” He pulled his fingers from your lips with a pop, his tone falling an octave. Your eyes widened, nodding in acknowledgment, willing to do anything to please him at this point.

“I-I need you down here, please.” You took his wrist in your shaky hand, guiding him down to dip into the warm water, lifting your hips slightly so his hand could fit in the tight space between your bodies, pressing his fingertips to the tight ring of muscles at your entrance. You stopped, releasing his wrist, not wanting to break any unknown rule and let him take the reins from there. He brought the heel of his palm up to rut firmly against your clit, drawing quiet whimpers as you did your best to stay still.

“What do you want here, doll? My fingers, or something else?” He teased, dipping two of his fingers inside only up to the first knuckle, the slight stimulation almost torturous as he scissored his fingers inside, stretching open the first inch of your cunt.

“God, something else, please.” You sighed, eyes rolling to the back of your head.

“What then?” He stopped his movements, withdrawing his hand and you groaned from the lack of friction.

“Your cock, Eddie, please just let me ride you.” You swore you were trying to be good, but you were starting to feel like you’d lose your mind if you didn’t get the stimulation you were in desperate need of and you didn’t care how impatient you sounded.

“Only because you asked so nicely.” He laughed, his hands gripping your hips to guide you up just enough for his cock to stand upright in the water, the tip bumping against your weeping cunt. “Whenever you’re ready, babydoll. You want it so bad, you’re gonna do the work.”

You took his hint, bringing your hand beneath you to grip his member, finally sinking slowly down onto him until you could feel him in your stomach, the all too anticipated stretch making you cry out in relief after his teasing. He groaned, running a hand through his curls as he settled back against the edge of the tub, watching you start to slowly grind your hips, just feeling how full he made you feel.

After a few minutes you lifted your hips once more, starting a steady pace bouncing on his lap, the head of his cock rubbing against the tender patch of nerves deep inside your cunt, velvety walls engulfing him with every movement. The water surrounding you started to roll like waves, splashing against the sides of the tub, threatening to spill out onto the tile surrounding it. You took notice, slowly your movements to lessen the potential mess, and Eddie sighed.

“We’ll clean it up later baby, just let go.” He reassured you, secretly just as desperate as you were to get off. He didn’t care about a little clean up, let alone wiping some water off the floor.

You were hesitant but returned to your previous pace, angling your hips back to really allow his cock to hit the sensitive place inside you, euphoria slowly building in your core. Your gaze slowly shifted from his face and when you caught the sight of yourself in the mirrors surrounding the tub you gasped, the lewd image of your makeup stained face and your tits bouncing with every movement of your hips was something almost pornographic, really living up to the atmosphere of the room.

Eddie caught where your eyes had shifted to and groaned, throwing his head back to properly watch you get off to your own reflection.

“Look at yourself, bouncing on my cock like a desperate whore, making such a mess.” His hand came down to press against your lower stomach, his thumb rubbing quick circles over your clit until you were a moaning mess, your thighs burning with the almost brutal pace you were now maintaining.

“Want you to make me a daddy.” He moaned, his breaths becoming more labored. His statement broke you from your trance, your gaze falling back to his as you searched his eyes for any hint of sarcasm, but you found none, he wasn’t kidding.

“Can I knock you up, babydoll?” He reiterated the sentiment, increasing the pressure on your clit and feeling you pulse around him, your orgasm dangerously close.

“I need an answer before you or I can cum sweetheart.” He was panting, straining to prevent himself from finishing, and you did everything you could to pull yourself together enough to answer.

“Yes, Eddie, please!” You maimed, tears threatening your waterline from how close you were to the edge.

“Say it.” He groaned, locking eyes with you one last time.

“Please cum inside me daddy, please!” You cried out, tipping over the edge with one last slam of your hips, pleasure rolling over you in tandem with the waves of the water around you, your walls contracting over and over around him until his warmth spread throughout your cunt. You wrapped your arms around his neck, hugging him tightly against you until the aftershocks stopped wracking your body, relaxing on his lap.

“You okay angel?” His voice was strained but sweet as ever, always concerned about your wellbeing above anything else.

“Yeah.” You mumbled, smiling silently against his neck.

Once you were fully recovered, you raised off of him, both of you wincing at the loss momentarily before sinking under the now lukewarm water for one final rinse. You began to step out, Eddie right behind you to grab your waist when your foot almost slipped out from under you because of the slick tile.

“Careful babydoll, don’t want you to slip.” He held you firm as you stepped down, making sure you were safe on the ground level before following you out, handing you one of the fresh towels from the pile next to the tub. He wiped up the excess water off the ground as you dried yourself off, and you didn’t know if it was the cold air or the rational part of your brain turning back on, but something started to eat at you as you watched your boyfriend dry himself off.

“Is it okay that I called you that?” The worry in your voice almost made Eddie’s heart break into a million pieces, and he quickly wrapped the towel around his hips before taking you into his arms.

“I loved it, babydoll, I promise I would tell you if I didn’t.” He smoothed your hair away from your face, giving you a kiss on the forehead.

“How about we put on our pajamas and turn on a movie.” He smiled down at you, waiting for your approving nod before going to your bags on the dresser and pulling out your second pair of pj’s. He helped you into them before pulling on his own old band shirt and fresh boxers and crawling into the gaudy bed with you, cuddling up to watch whatever cheesy horror flick was airing on late night tv.

——

tags: @xxbimbobunnyxx @your-nightmaredoll

also tagging: @babygorewhore @taintandviolent @littlexdeaths @eddiesxangel @bimbotrashcan bc i thought you might be interested, please message me if you’d like me to remove you

please message me or send me an ask if you’d like to be tagged in future eddie fics!!

[qu1etdays]

The eye of her affection.

How a kitten feels about her Kaa, while doing everything under hypnosis.

📸: @renegadelittlekitten

[gracexthoughts]

Māzigon arlī naejot issa.

(Come back to me)

jacaerys velaryon x betrothed!reader

warnings; talk of injuries and blood, canon divergence, angst ending with comfort summary; reader was sent to rook’s rest and when she returns injured, jace nearly looses his mind  a/n; reader is targaryen and in my head she is maybe rhaenyra’s cousin but i didn’t feel like fleshing out a whole family for her so you can use your imagination. 

Jacaerys has been going mad. The Lady Y/N has been gone for hours, and every second more that the Prince was ignorant of her fate was a second closer to him flying off in search of her. She’d volunteered to fly to Rook’s Rest and face Cole’s army herself. Her dragon, Silverwing, is the largest dragon with a rider second only to Vhagar, but she’s been gone too long for the prince’s liking. He’d begged her not to go, begged his mother to send him instead, and neither had listened. He couldn’t deny the logic of the choice, but the longer she stayed at battle, the more images of her broken and bloody flooded her betrothed’s mind. 

The Prince and the Queen stand on the balcony off his chambers. Queen Rhaenyra has tried calming her son, but to no avail. The sun nears the horizon, setting the sky on fire in shades of gold and red, but Jacaerys only watches for signs of his betrothed. 

“I’m going after her,” Jacaerys blurts out, unable to contain himself any longer, pushing off the stone half wall. 

“No,” the queen says firmly, moving to block her son’s path. Ever since the death of Prince Lucerys, the queen has kept her eldest son close, refusing to send him out on dragon back. 

“She should have been back by now! I will not just sit here and await news of her fate,” the prince argues, his voice strained and fraught. The Queen’s heart aches at the panic in her son’s eyes. 

“Y/N is a fierce dragon rider. I am confident she will return soon,” she says placatingly, reaching up to cup his cheek, but Jacaerys pushes her away. 

“No, I can’t just sit here. She’s to be my wife; I’m meant to protect her, not sit safely by in a castle while she risks her life protecting my birthright!” The prince exclaims and pushes through the doors to his chambers, but a dragon’s shriek stops him in his path. He whips around, his eyes scanning the skies for the sight of his betrothed. And then he sees her. 

Jacaerys sprints through the halls of Dragonstone, his steps echoing against the stone as he makes his way out of the castle. He should feel relieved, but the prince cannot shake the fear clutching at his heart. 

As Jacaeryrs reaches the mouth of the Dragonmount, all his fears come to the forefront. Y/N isn’t in the saddle; instead, she’s clutched in the silver claws of her dragon, her arm hanging limply down. Silverwing sets her down gently before landing herself, and Jacaerys swears he can see the sadness in her massive silver eyes. “No, no, no,” Jacaerys mutters, dropping to his knees next to her body, tears blurring his vision as he pulls her body to him. Her clothes are covered in blood and singed, an arrow lodged in her shoulder, and a gash on her side. Her silver hair is dark with ash and crimson, but breath still moves through her lips shallowly, a small beacon of hope. Without any thought but her care, he scoops her into his arms, cradling the body of his betrothed to his chest and running as fast as he can back to the castle. 

“Call the master!” He bellows to the first guard he sees, his voice fraught and cracking, the princely tone he maintains forgotten in his panic. “Hold on, my love.”

As he pushes his way through the doors of the castle, the Grand Maester and the queen, followed by Ser Lorrent, rush towards the pair. “Help her!” The prince shrieks at the maester, all manners forgotten, and his expression is wild with fear. Used to such behavior, Grand Maester Gerardys simply nods and inspects the body in the prince’s arms. 

“We’ll take her to her chambers. I’ll meet you there,” he says and turns, hurrying off to gather supplies. Ser Lorrent steps forward, his arms outstretched, to take the girl from the prince, but Jacaerys pushes past him, following after the maester up to the stairs and hurries to her apartments. 

As they reach her chambers, the prince lays her down gently on her bed, not caring for the state of her bedclothes. He stays close to her side as the maester gathers his things, watching her closely to make sure she stays breathing. Soon, Geradys comes to her side. “Excuse me, my prince,” he says softly to the young prince, but he doesn’t seem to hear. Rhaenyra steps forward, her hand wrapping around her son’s shoulder. 

“Darling, let the Grand Maester work,” she says softly, pulling Jacaerys back a few steps. Rhaenyra tries to coax him away to wash and change, as he is now covered in his betrothed’s blood, but he refuses. 

“No, I won’t leave her,” he says, pulling against his mother. 

“We won’t; just give him space, my darling,” she coos, pulling him to her and wrapping her arms around her darling son, whose body is shaking. He relents to his mother’s pull, allowing him to be held like a child as he watches the maester struggle to keep the love of his life in the world of the living. 

Nearly an hour later, the maester turns to the prince and queen, blood staining his front and hands and his eyes weary. “I’ve done all I can, your Grace, my Prince. It is up to her spirit and the gods now. But she is a fighter, if ever there was one,” the Geradys says, his eyes soft for the Prince of Dragonstone. The Queen thanks him, but Jacaerys isn’t listening, moving forward numbly. He kneels next to the bed, his shaking hands reaching for hers, the ash and blood washed clean by the maester. He presses a gentle kiss on her skin, gripping her hand tightly between his own. 

“Y/N, my love,” the Crown Prince whispers, reaching up to brush a strand of silver hair from her brow. “You have to fight. Please, you can’t... I can’t lose you as well, please. Kostilus, māzigon arlī naejot issa. Ko-Kostilus,” he begs, his throat closed tightly as tears slip down his cheeks. Please, come back to me. 

***

It’s a full day before Y/N wakes, and Jacaerys has refused to leave her side. Late afternoon light shines into the room, beams of light cutting the air and washing it in an amber glow. Amethyst eyes flutter open, blinking in the brightness of the room. 

“Jace?” She mutters; her voice is rough and her throat is burning. 

“Y/N!” Jace gasps, jumping up from his seat in the center of the room to kneel at her side, gingerly taking her hand in his. “You’re awake!” he laughs in relief, his vision blurring with tears of joy. He drinks her in, her weary smile, and the lilac swirls in her eyes he thought he’d never see again. 

“How long-?” She begins groggily, attempting to sit up by the wound in her abdomen, causing her to grimace. Jacaerys gently pushes her back down to the pillows.

“Don’t move, my love. Silverwing brought you back one evening past. You were,” the prince swallows, his throat constricting at the memory, “badly wounded. Gods, I feared you’d not wake.” He reaches for her, his calloused hand cradling her head. 

“I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, my prince,” she smiles. Even wounded and weak, her humor remains. Jacaerys laughs through his tears, moving to sit on the bed and covering her face in kisses, making her giggle until it causes too much pain in her stomach. 

“What happened?” Jace asks, sitting back and holding her hand tightly. 

“Aemond was there, and Aegon. It was a trap,” she sighs, grimacing. “We were engaged with Sunfyre when Vhagar appeared... I had to fly close to the ground to get out from between the pair, and their archers took advantage.” 

“Gods, I will kill both of them for laying a hand on you,” the prince says, his voice crackling with anger.

“I’m alright, Jace,” she coos, reaching up to cradle his beautiful face in her hands. His anger subsides at her touch, her gentleness soothing the fires raging inside him. 

“You’re wounded; you nearly died. If you’d arrived minutes later, you would have been passed by the time you returned to me. My love, Icouldn’t bear it if you-”

“Jace-”

“Promise me. Please just promise me you’ll be more careful,” the prince implores, his amber eyes fierce and wide. 

“I promise, Jace. I do, and I will,” she says earnestly, their eyes locked for a long moment. “Come here,” she whispers, pulling on his hands to bring him closer. “Lay with me?” 

“I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“You could never. Please?” Y/N’s eyes plead with the prince, and he forgets any notion of courtly manners or what is proper for two betrotheds as he comes to lay in her bed. Careful of her injuries, he wraps his arms around her, pulling her frame into his, and she rests her head against his chest, sighing in relief at returning home to him. There they lay, the future king and queen of the Seven Kingdoms, basking in each other’s warmth and thanking the gods for another day of safety in this war.

[myfamilycrestisthedemonofdeath]

I'm thinking of how the 141 men react to you cracking your joints, either purposefully in Price's case, or accidentally on the others. Suggestive towards the end , MDNI

~~~

Like with John, you do that trend where you put pretzel sticks inside your mouth and ask him to pop your back and then bite down into the pretzels as you act limp. He'll immediately pick you up and start rushing you out of the door to bring you to an ER, panic evident in his face, jaw clenched, but his eyes are focused. He looks at you sternly when you explain to him what happened before bringing you back inside the room, still in his arms, and you can still feel his heart racing, muscles still tense but calming down as you soothe him, feeling bad about your prank.

You're laying on your stomach on the floor in Simon's case, just being in the way of where he wants to move, maybe with various objects around you as you are occupied with your phone. He'll ask you to relocate your activities, but you refuse to get up, and so he warns he'll just walk over you. He nudges your side with his foot, and when you just grunt at him, he places his foot on your lower back and exerts slight pressure, eliciting a groan from you until you both hear a loud pop from your back. He'll drop immediately to his knees, not minding if some of your stuff is digging into his legs as he worriedly checks on you, checking multiple times that he didn't hurt you. You just tell him how good that felt as you lay limply, assuring him that you are okay, that was a good pop. He'll then carefully pick you up and move you to your bed even with you protesting, and then comes back with all your stuff and rearranging them around you.

Maybe in Johnny's case, you two are sparring, he's got you in between him and the ground mat. Both of you sweaty as he tries to subdue you while you are doing your best to fight him off. He gets you into a headlock with his (strong, meaty) biceps, and you twist your head a little. Both of you froze as you hear your neck joints pop, and he quickly loosens his hold on you, cradling your neck with utmost gentleness, worriedly asking if you are okay and if you can still feel your limbs. He'll lay you down gently and refuse to let you get up until you assure him multiple times that your neck just popped, it didn't hurt and you are fine. He'll beam his worried blue eyes over you and refuse to continue sparring, opting to just hug you protectively into his chest after, leaving you with no choice but to be sticky with both of your sweat cooling off.

Or you are making out with Kyle, his big, warm hands roaming over your body, your curves, as you grab at his slender neck, both consumed in fiery passion. You gently push him off you, away from the wall where you both heatedly started when your simmering gazes and coy words weren't enough to dampen the heat in between, and you guide him towards the sofa, him falling back on it with your nudge, his brown eyes roaming over you appreciatively. You slot your lips with him again, trying to clamber over and straddle him, when you hear not just one but both of your knees pop as you try to settle. He pries his mouth off you urgently, moving you to relieve pressure off your knees by sitting you sideways in his lap, inspecting and checking over as you laughingly told him it was just your joints cracking. Oh you best believe he will be the only one on his knees when he picks you up and brings you to your bedroom.

~~~

Power is out in my house since last night due to thunderstorm, which is apparently when my creative juices start flowing. I'm glad I'm a prepper who has a powerbank for my phone as well as a battery-powered fan, a bunch of flashlights, and a hand-crank emergency radio/flashlight/charger

[past31bvnn]

just want to remind everyone that Krauser threw his knife directly into Luis’s spine. I mean clearly he aimed to kill. (srry for bad quality pic)

but what’s more is that very rapidly you lose function of your nerves if that happens, eventually becoming paralyzed (at least partially; ie. everything below the wound) from such damage to the spine.

That’s why it’s so devastatingly impressive and powerful that Luis was able to muster up the last of his strength and force his hand to shoot at Krauser-hitting directly at his knife that would have killed Leon.

as he’s shooting, Luis is leaning against something, unable to stand on his own, and after Krauser leaves, and he falls to the ground he sounds very pained. His body looks to be stiff and his arms fall limply. Shooting Krauser to save Leon was not an easy thing to do. But very obviously it meant a lot to Luis to be able to do it. Perhaps even one final concrete good thing. Even if it was right before his life ended.

of course this is also why Luis can’t properly use his lighter and needed Leon to do it for him. after his hand trembles and he drops the lighter, we do not see him move his body for the rest of the scene. (that wasn’t included in the above clip sorry but you can find it)

to me this is why this scene is one of the most potent in RE because holy shit,,when you rlly think about what it meant for Luis to be able to save Leon, and what it meant for Leon to light his cigarette for him,,,capcom when i fucking get you

[sttoru]

·.⌇ 𝐒𝐘𝐏𝐍𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐒. love; you wonder if the king of curses is capable of feeling that emotion too. so, you take on a more direct approach to ask him.

word count. 1.7k

note. sukuna brainrot sorry. . .

tags. true form!sukuna x female reader. angst (+ comfort) / fluff. size difference mentions. eh sukuna’s a bit mean. established relationship, but you’re like v early into the relationship.

it was a calm sunday evening. both sukuna and you had fulfilled your duties for the day. all you needed after working hard was the presence of the person you admire most. thus, you had made your way over to sukuna’s chambers. to your surprise, you already found him sitting on the engawa which led to the connected backyard.

sukuna noticed your presence, but didn't utter a word. he simply shot you a glance before continuing to stare into the distance. he seemed to be in deep thought about something. you didn’t want to bother him when he was like this, but the voice in your head told you to stay.

you silently kneel next to him and gather your hands in your lap. your eyes automatically move to focus on sukuna again. two of his hands are supporting his weight as they rest flat on the wooden surface. the other set rests limply on his thigh.

your gaze falls on his bottom left hand. the one he uses to kill, but also the one he uses to hold and caress you. you could easily recall its feel without having to touch him; rough, callused and warm. you reach your hand out towards his without hesitation.

sukuna’s eyes dart over to your small stature next to him. he allows you to grab his hand, to pull it over to your lap and let it rest palm up on your thighs. it’s almost funny. how big his hand is in comparison to yours.

the comfortable silence continues. the rustles of the leaves and the water movements in the koi pond in the yard are soothing to the soul. your finger traces the lines on sukuna’s palm, following them until they end before switching to the other.

the king of curses watches you play around with his hand. still with that stoic expression on his face. however, feeling your delicate touch on his skin and seeing you smile to yourself for whatever reason makes the corners of his lips curl up. for a split second.

a faint, amused grin. you sure are an interesting creature in his eyes.

“sukuna, can i ask you something?” you break the silence with a question. there is an unknown feeling in your chest; one that makes you restless at night. your smile slowly drops into a small pout when you think about what you want to ask him.

not a single action goes unnoticed by the man next to you. he lifts an eyebrow, but other than that, there’s no reaction visible. he answers you with a hum of approval, “mmh.”

you lift your head and look up at him. sukuna was already staring right at you—his piercing eyes catch your soft ones. he squints. there is something wrong with the way you are looking at him. normally, the smile you give him would reach your eyes. now it doesn’t.

that same smile completely disappears over time.

“do you.. are you..” you stammer. you don't know how to articulate your question. it’s probably dumb. to both you and him. sukuna watches you struggle to ask him whatever is on your mind. he firmly grabs your wrist and squeezes it. not too hard. he doesn't want to inflict any unneccesary pain.

sukuna sighs. a heavy sigh. one thing he dislikes is when you leave him in the dark. it isn’t the first time you did so during the past week. asking him if you could ask him a question and when he grants you the permission to, you back down or change topics.

it’s getting tiresome.

“spit it out.” sukuna grumbles. he pulls your body closer to his by your wrist, your arm stretched upwards with your hand hovering near the side of his face. his breath hits your wrist, causing goosebumps to form on your skin.

crimson orbs stare right into your soul. you gulp and feel your body warm up. when you try to avert your gaze, one of sukuna's free hands grabs you by the jaw and steers your head to face him. his thumb presses down on your chin. he’s not letting it go today. he needs answers.

before sukuna could add to his words, you breathe in sharply. like you’re ready to ask him what had been weighing on your mind ever since a couple days back. oh, stupid it sure is. you know. you’re probably making it too big of a deal. when it isn’t. not in the slightest.

your eyes water. you blink the tears away. you don’t want to embarrass yourself any further by sobbing. your bottom lip trembles as you finally muster up the courage;

“do you love me?”

there it goes. you try to squirm away from sukuna’s grasp after that. you feel flustered. embarrassed. you just want to crawl into a hole and rot.

sukuna does not tighten his grip on you. instead, he loosens them. your wrist slips from his hand. your chin no longer restricted by his fingers. he lets you go.

a painful sting in your heart. you secretly hoped that he’d resist. pull you closer maybe. you don’t know why you expected that. you learnt not to get your hopes up around him and yet you always wish for him to do something.

a silence falls between the two of you again. you act like you didn’t ask him anything. you try to ignore the way sukuna clenched his jaw. how he subtly clicked his tongue. how he let you shuffle away from him.

you clear your throat. with hesistance this time, you gently grab one of sukuna’s hands again. that he allows you. you appreciate that. at least it means he isn’t completely upset. you know sukuna does not allow just anyone to touch him so without permission.

you hold tightly onto his hand like it’s your last hope. his fingers don’t close around yours, though. you don’t mind.

“what a foolish question.” sukuna scoffs and looks the other way. his voice was hoarse. probably from not speaking for quite what time. you silently nod. an expected answer, at last.

you stay silent after that. it hurts. more than you want it to have hurt. maybe it was too early into your relationship to ask such a question. you got into it, knowing fully well how harsh the man next to you could be sometimes.

what you can’t deny is that soft spot sukuna has for you. you see it. uraume sees it. the maids see it. sukuna probably.. knows of it, but doesn’t speak on it. he does not speak up about his feelings much anyway.

but it’s visible in his actions. the king of curses allows you to say and do whatever you want around him. he makes sure his subordinates treat you well. he looks at you with a hint of softness hidden in those red eyes. when he touches you, it’s firm but gentle. like he desperately craves to touch you, though knows not to make that yearning accidentally hurt you in any way.

the latter is what you love most about his soft spot for you. sukuna handles you with utmost care. even uraume had told you that it surprises them greatly whenever they witness the way their master treats you in general.

especially at night. you can’t count the amount of times you quite literally melted into his arms. those four, beefy arms that know just how to make you feel protected. you never sleep in unease. you know that nothing could hurt you when you’re laying against his chest.

sukuna’s actions speak volumes. despite all of that, you wish he’d at least tell you with his words. how much you mean to him.

“my apologies.” you give up. for today, you’ll let him be. the slight irritation in his voice earlier nearly made you cry. he needs more time and you’ll give him that. you slowly detach your small hand from his big, warm one, “i won’t ask you that again.”

sukuna frowns and grumbles something under his breath. you think it’s still because of your previous question, yet his gaze tells a different story. he narrows his eyes as he glares down at his now empty hand. you connect the dots once you see the man take a glimpse at your hand on your lap.

your touch. the sudden abscence of your touch.

“i didn’t say you could do that.” sukuna murmurs. his tone low and maybe even upset to a certain degree. you blink a few times and freeze on spot. the king of curses starts to get grumpy the longer you fail to take the hint.

he kisses his teeth out of impatience. sukuna tightly gets ahold of your hand again and softly yanks it towards him. you squeal as your body stumbles closer to his.

sukuna holds eye contact with you as he brings your hand to his mouth. his tongue wets a spot on your palm—specifically the area that connects your thumb with your wrist. your lips part, your tummy doing flips from the sudden touch.

“don’t let go again,” he bares his teeth before slightly sinking them into the soft flesh. it isn’t a hard bite. more a nibble that leaves a faint mark. what you didn’t expect was for sukuna to kiss that same place after marking it. his thumb runs over that exact spot as well, “got that?”

you nod. you’re unable to refuse him. those feelings of disappointment from earlier long forgotten. you intertwine your fingers with sukuna’s and unlike the previous instant, his fingers do curl back around yours. your skin is still tingling from the feeling of sukuna’s kiss.

the king of curses keeps your entwined hands on his lap this time. he stares off into the distance for a couple seconds before returning his gaze to you. he scans your face and finds what he had been missing;

that tender smile of yours. it was back, tugging at your lips. one of your fingers resumes its soothing motion on his rough skin again. sukuna’s face relaxes. his jaw unclenches.

“good.” sukuna nods at the sight. he turns to watch the night sky again—secretly (yet not so secretly) enjoying this moment of peace.

you’re content with how that ended. and, you’re sure that you don’t mind if it takes days, weeks or even months for your relationship to fully blossom. when you’re with sukuna, one thing is clear: actions do speak louder than words.

[silentscrying]

🐾 snowprints

vet student!megumi x dog owner!reader

summary: when you find yourself in need of an emergency trip to the local vet clinic, it's late and the sign on the door is flipped to closed. luckily for you, animal science student megumi fushiguro is still around, and he's willing to help you and your dog out—and maybe get a little more than he bargained for in the process. but he's not used to letting people in, and you've never been particularly patient. when winter rolls around, will you be spending the holidays alone?

content/warnings: 20.7k words. complete. sfw. f!reader, you have a dog, megumi has his dogs, they are unbearably cute, megumi doesn't know how to communicate for shit, language, no use of y/n, christmas yay!!, aged up characters, including riko, she's in college, and she's a menace, (light) angst with a happy ending, mentions of deceased parents (typical fushiguro canon), soft, fluff, you know when your sister psychoanalyzes you at the kitchen table, car crash, alcohol, reader studies environmental science but can't keep plants alive for SHIT, so much unnecessary pining, gratuitous overuse of italics and em-dashes

note: this takes place in the same universe as out of my mind, but you don't have to read that to know what's going on here! though it may help with some context. happy hella late birthday megumi fushiguro you will always be famous

PART I // BATMAN & ROBIN

IT’S TEN O’CLOCK and dark when Batman decides to cause problems.

Batman, of course, being your three-year-old German shepherd mix, the one currently whining and staring up at you with big, dark puppy eyes while he holds one paw up limply.

“Oh, little buddy,” you sigh as you squat down in front of him, despite the fact that he hasn’t been little in a very long time. He’s been restless all night, so you caved and took him on a late night walk, and it’s so dark you can’t tell what’s wrong with his paw even in the glow of the phone flashlight.

God, fuck. Where’s the closest vet? The one in the city is definitely closed. You’re fairly certain there’s a smaller one somewhere on the outskirts of the JU campus, though, one that the pre-vet students use for clinicals.

“C’mon, champ,” you murmur, tugging gently on Batman’s leash. “Let’s go get you checked out, huh?”

The early September air is chilly, a little bit of a bite to it. You’re glad the temperatures haven’t yet dropped below freezing, so you don’t need to let your car defrost before going. “Up,” you say, patting the passenger seat with the door held open for Batman.

You punch the clinic into maps and pull out of your suburban street into the busier roads. It’s not far, thankfully, and you make a beeline for the door with Batman on your heels, not noticing until you’re right in front of it that the massive sign hanging on the door is flipped to CLOSED.

“No,” you groan, leaning forward and pressing your forehead to the cool glass of the closed door. You close your eyes, wondering what the fuck you’re gonna do, and then—thump.

You nearly jump out of your skin, eyes flying open and gaze raising to meet the amused eyes of a guy on the other side of the door, who’s trying and failing to suppress a smile that feels a little teasing. Oops.

You step back and wave sheepishly, and the boy unlocks the door and swings it open, taking in the sight of you and your limping dog.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt. “I know you’re closed and it’s some ungodly hour on a Tuesday, I just didn’t know what else to do—”

“It's fine,” he says, waving it off. “I’m just cleaning up, it’s not a hassle. Come on.” Batman has no qualms about following the guy through the open door, so you follow, glancing around the small clinic. It’s pretty sparse, save for the bulletin board overflowing with pet photos on one wall.

“Fushiguro,” the guy says in introduction, glancing back over his shoulder at you. He’s got deep blue eyes that match his dark scrubs, and his hair sticks out every which way in a manner that feels intentional. He must be around your age. It takes you a beat to remember yourself and give him your own name, stuttered out as you pass into the back exam room.

There’s a white coat tossed haphazardly over a spinning chair, and the guy—Fushiguro—picks Batman up like he weighs nothing and situates him on the metal table.

“Hey, bud. What’s your name?” he asks, scratching behind Batman’s ears. Your dog is usually weary of vets, but today his tail pounds on the metal of the table as he raises his head to sniff at Fushiguro’s face.

“Batman.”

Fushiguro’s gaze snaps to you and he blinks, evidently thinking you’re joking. “No.”

“Yes.” You hold your index fingers up above your head to imitate your dog’s pointy ears. “Batman.”

“Oh. My god,” he says. “And what, you’re Robin?”

“I am not the sidekick in this situation.”

“Batman dragged you out here at eleven on a school night. You absolutely are the sidekick.”

You scoff, moving up to the table and stroking Batman’s fur. “Am I just a sidekick to you, little guy?” you coo. “You wanna be a hero so bad?” He noses happily at your palm.

Fushiguro side-eyes you, half-grimacing as he grabs Batman’s paw to look at it. He doesn’t seem to mind, which is honestly a shock. He hates people touching his paws, even you. “You baby talk your dog?”

“You judge your patients?”

“Course not,” Fushiguro says, smirking as he looks back at you. “Just their owners.”

You roll your eyes but can’t help the huff of laughter, and his dark eyes reflect the fluorescent overhead light as he turns away. He’s undeniably attractive—you don’t remember seeing him around campus.

“You go to JU?” you ask, and he nods.

“Sophomore. Pre-vet. D’you?”

“Nah, Kaisen.” Your school is a lot smaller than the neighboring Jujutsu University. They’ve got something of an athletic rivalry with Kaisen College, but you really don’t care. “Environmental science.”

“You know everything there is to know about trees, or what?” His tone is teasing, and you know he doesn’t mean anything by it. The fact is you do know more about trees than normal college students probably should. Doesn’t mean you can keep plants alive for shit, though.

You’d guess there’s actually a fair bit of crossover between your course of study and a pre-vet student’s bio track, but you say, “I specialize in rare long grasses, actually.” It comes out so deadpan that he glances at you, brows knit together, trying to gauge if you’re being serious. You only last a second before you crack under his scrutiny, and he shakes his head and huffs as he turns back to Batman, who is now trying to lick Fushiguro’s nose.

“Excuse me,” he says. This only seems to encourage the dog kisses, but Fushiguro decides to just ignore them. He hums, grabbing a pair of tweezers and squinting as he moves to pull something out of Batman’s paw. “Just a splinter. The pad of a dog’s paw is one of the most sensitive parts of their body, so it’s not surprising he was so worked up about it.” You watch as he pulls out a thin sliver of wood, probably from stepping on some splintering twig, and drops it into a tray on the table.

You watch as your dog drops his paw back to the table and stands up, tail wagging at lightning speed, like nothing was ever wrong. He jumps off the table before Fushiguro can grab him and bounds over to you, rubbing himself along the outside of your leg like a giant cat.

“How much do I owe you?” you ask, pulling out your card, but he waves you off.

“It was literally a splinter.”

“But—”

“Honestly, it’d be more work to boot up the payment system again anyway. Don’t worry about it.” He holds your gaze, and you can’t tell if he’s lying about the payment system or not, but you slide your card back into your wallet without complaint.

Something passes between you, some weird spark of recognition—not that you’ve met before. You know you haven’t. But you don’t typically have this kind of easy banter with strangers. Something about this guy intrigues you, and you don’t particularly want to stop talking to him.

But you’ve already kept him past close, and you need to get home.

The moment breaks when Fushiguro clears his throat, leaning over to grab something off the counter. “Right. Well, give me a call if he starts limping again, but he should be alright.” He holds out a hand and you realize he’s offering you a business card, weirdly professional for a student.

M. FUSHIGURO Veterinary Technician Trainee, JU

His number and email are printed beneath it in small sans serif lettering.

“Oh, you’re fancy.” You raise a brow at him, tucking the card into your jacket pocket. “Thank you. Seriously.”

“Well, who am I to refuse Batman?” he says wryly. He walks you to the door, and you try not to think too much of it—he just needs to lock up behind you, probably.

Before you slip out, he leans down and pats Batman on the head, earning a happy little tail-wag in response.

“Drive safe, Robin,” he calls, and you groan at the nickname as you unlock your car.

At home, you key his number into your phone and save the contact as fushiguro (cute vet). You sit there for way too long debating over whether you should text him—Batman’s fine, and it’s late, and he gave you a business card. Not exactly an invitation to flirt, tempting as that might be.

But you really want to.

“Should I text him?” you ask your dog, who’s decided to curl up right beside your bed and look up at you, waiting for an invitation. Your twin bed is not big enough for this and he knows it, but he always seems to think he’s a smaller dog than he really is.

Batman, unhelpfully, tilts his head at you, his perky ears flapping with the motion.

Maybe it’s because it’s past eleven and it’s dark out and you’re exhausted and you don’t have the best sense of judgment right now. Maybe it’s because Fushiguro’s just really cute.

“You’re right,” you say, nudging Batman with a socked foot. “No use waiting. Say cheese.”

you: [1 Image Attachment] you: gotham city’s savior says thank you

It’s kind of embarrassing how you sit and stare at the screen for two minutes, waiting for him to answer. Batman snorts, like he’s making fun of you, and you lock your phone and toss it on the bedside table. “Oh, don’t start.”

Your roommate and best friend, Setsuko Sasaki, is studying abroad in Japan for the semester. It’s been lonely, strange without her occupying the second bedroom of your little rented townhouse. You’d like to say this is why you’ve resorted to talking to your dog, but that would very much be a lie, because you’ve always done this. Sometimes, when she’s home, Suko adopts a gruff, low voice and answers for him.

You jump when your phone buzzes and make yourself count to three before checking the screen.

fushiguro (cute vet): don’t mention it. always had a soft spot for batman, anyway. fushiguro (cute vet): his sidekick’s alright too.

“Oh, he likes you,” you tell Batman. “Wingman. Thanks, little buddy.”

you: well, send a bat signal if you’re ever in mortal peril and i might show up

After that, you try to push Fushiguro to the back of your mind. He doesn’t go to Kaisen, so it’s not like you can stalk him in the university directory. You have no reason to run into him around town. As the semester ramps up and you fall back into your routine of classes and exams and friends, you don’t think too much about the cute vet tech who happened to be around that one night.

Or, you don’t for a grand total of six days.

You’re on a jog with Batman, afternoon sun making up for the fall chill in the air that’s hung around since it stormed last night. You don’t intend to stop, but Batman abruptly sticks his nose in the dirt about halfway through your run and refuses to move.

“Dude.” You backtrack and see that he’s discovered a couple pairs of dog prints, pressed faintly into the damp earth. “Oh, you smell friends, huh?” He tugs you forward, following the scent of these other dogs. “Hey!”

The thing about having a massive German shepherd mix, even one as docile as Batman, is that he is inarguably a lot stronger than you. So you don’t really have much of a choice but to stumble along after him as he bounds across the grass and comes out on the other side of the path—you don’t normally come this way, because there’s a dog park over here and he gets way too excited.

But today he’s on a mission, and you only see two other dogs in the fenced-in park—two huge balls of fluff, one white and one black. “Fine,” you say begrudgingly, undoing the gate and letting Batman off his leash. “Go play. But we aren’t staying long.”

He bounds off toward the other dogs while you latch the gate behind you, and then a familiar voice has you spinning around with your eyes wide. “Bat signal wasn’t me,” Fushiguro says, raising both hands in a gesture of innocence. “They did it.” He points at the other dogs, who are now engaged in a butt-sniffing circle with yours.

“Fushiguro!” You grin, making your way over to him. Once the other two dogs have deemed Batman a worthy playmate, they move on to you, sniffing at your palms and circling around you until the black one jumps up and nearly knocks you over with the force of it. “Oh, hello!”

“Kuro,” Fushiguro chides, rushing forward to tug at his collar. “Hey. Down.”

“It’s okay,” you promise through a fit of giggles as Kuro tries to basically hug you. “Oh, you’re cute, aren’t you? Hi, Kuro.”

Fushiguro huffs out a breath of relief when Kuro finally gets down. “That’s Shiro,” he says, gesturing to the white dog, who is now chasing Batman around the park. “Think she’s found a friend.”

“He dragged me all the way here,” you tell Fushiguro. “Guess he missed you or something.”

“Just him?”

You grin. “What, you think I was out here pining after you?” He only smirks in response. “I don’t even know your name, M. Fushiguro. What good is a business card without your first name on it?”

He hums, shoving his hands into his pockets, considering. “Guess.”

“Guess,” you echo. “Okay. Um. Michael.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Max.”

“Nope.”

“Um, Maverick.”

“What the hell?” He looks at you with furrowed brows. “Who in their right mind would name their kid—”

“Okay, hey,” you interrupt, holding up your hands. “I just watched Top Gun, okay? What do you want from me?”

“M—”

“Nope, out of tries for today. Three strikes, you’re out.” He shrugs, wholly unaffected, like this is just how the world works and he’s got no say it in whatsoever.

You gape at him, planting your hands on your hips in affront. “I hope you know I will be insufferable every single day until I’m right.”

Batman trots back over, prancing between you and Fushiguro until he crouches down to pet him. “You come here a lot?” you ask, glancing around the empty park. “I’ve never seen you here. Or your dogs. I think I’d remember giant balls of fluff like that.”

“Yeah, not often,” Fushiguro says, pushing back to his feet. “But Kuro’s been so restless all day. Had to let him run his energy down somehow.” The dog in question is chasing his own tail in circles while Shiro looks at him, unimpressed. “You live over here?”

“Few blocks out, yeah.” Your place is between the two campuses, an easy walk to both places because Suko takes Japanese classes at JU. Apparently Fushiguro doesn’t live too far away, either, just on the other side of the skate park where you know your friend Hajime hangs out all the time.

By “hangs out,” you mean he probably (definitely) buys weed there, but that’s not your business. Maybe he and Fushiguro know each other—they both go to JU. But Hajime’s a senior, so probably not.

You don’t get the chance to ask because Fushiguro’s phone rings, and he sighs and answers it with a glance at you that might be apologetic or might be mildly irritated. Hard to tell with him.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he says gruffly. “Okay. See you.” He hangs up and tucks his phone back into his pocket, then whistles for the dogs. “Time to go.”

“Good to see you,” you blurt before he can turn away. He seems a little taken aback, but you don’t break eye contact, and you think he might be on the brink of a smile.

“You too, sidekick.”

—

After that, the two of you start texting more often, gradually moving from photos of your dogs to real conversation. And you keep your promise to be insufferable about finding out his name. You send him new M-names every day, never seeming to get any closer to the truth. For his part, he refuses to call you anything but Robin, cementing your existence as a superhero sidekick and nothing more.

you: new theory you: the M stands for mr you: monsieur you: m’lord

He dislikes the messages in response, and you send him a teary-eyed emoji and hope the guilt is enough to get him to tell you.

It is not.

You and Fushiguro are in some sort of convoluted orbit around one another, sometimes colliding, sometimes drifting away. There’s really no reason you should keep stumbling across him, considering you go to different schools, live in different places, study different things.

But after that first day at the dog park, you might take Batman there a little bit more often.

Every time you talk, Fushiguro starts to take up more and more headspace. You find yourself searching for his flash of ink-dark hair, spiky and disheveled, in every crowd. Every set of fading prints in the grass or mud might be his, might be Shiro’s or Kuro’s. It’s stupid, how much you’re thinking about this boy.

At some point you start dragging your friends out to the coffee shops between your two campuses to do work, rather than the one in the student center. You justify it to yourself with the half-assed excuse that if you run into your friends less, you’ll get more work done, but really you’re just hoping he’ll be there. And your friends are happy to oblige, especially Riko, if it means she’ll get a glimpse of this mystery vet man you don’t shut up about.

Riko’s a year below you at Kaisen, but you know her from back home. She’s a frenetic ball of energy and indignation, and she’s fully prepared to go to every coffee shop in a ten-mile radius for the purposes of what she calls “the mission.”

But the coffee at the second place you try is actually god-tier, and you wind up there regularly after that, hunkering down to grind out your assignments in your spare time. It’s there that he finds you, sliding into the seat right across from yours so abruptly that you nearly fall out of your chair—your noise-canceling headphones really block out the entire world. He smirks as you sheepishly tug them down around your neck, glaring.

“Warn a girl, Jesus!”

“I did,” he drawls, taking a sip of his coffee. “Twice.”

“Boo.” You kind of forgot about your own drink because you were so into your work, and you pick it back up now, mostly for something to do with your hands. “Well, hi. What’re you up to?”

“Same as you, I think.” He nods at your laptop. “Mind if I hang out here?”

“You certainly can, but you’ve just stolen someone’s seat and you might have to fight for your life when she gets back from the bathroom.” His eyes widen almost imperceptibly, and as if on cue, Riko is beelining toward the table from across the room.

“Well hello, Mr. Seat Thief. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Fushiguro seems to be gauging Riko, and you realize this is kind of the first look he’s gotten into your private life outside of your dog, and you’re irrationally nervous about it. But he scoots over and grabs a chair from the next table over, giving Riko a mocking bow in response.

“Better?”

Riko nods, and then grabs his coffee and takes a long drag out of it. He doesn’t object, and that should have been your warning—you can see when the bitterness of it hits her all at once, her face twisting in some combination of shock and despair and mild outrage.

“Oh my god,” you say as Riko grabs her water bottle and chugs to get the taste out of her mouth, aggressively shoving Fushiguro's coffee back toward him. “Of course you drink coffee black, you fucking loser.”

“What, you dump six cups of sugar in yours? That’s not coffee.” You flip him off instead of justifying this with a real response.

“I was gonna use that as payment for your crimes,” Riko gasps dramatically, leaning over the table, “but I was instead punished. You’re in my debt now.” She glares at him fiercely, turning up her nose, before abruptly abandoning the bit and grinning at him. “I’m Riko, by the way.”

He snorts, but a very small hint of a smile appears in a corner of his mouth. “Fushiguro.”

Riko nods and glances from him to you, as if to say really? This guy? You can already hear the analysis she’ll be giving you on the way home. Easy on the eyes, I get it, but does he like, have a personality?

“I did research,” you tell Fushiguro, nudging Riko’s shin under the table in warning. “On you.”

“You stalked me online, is what you’re saying.” You’re learning that he’s not a very expressive person. He treats laughs and smiles like rare currency, and everything you need to know about what he’s thinking is in the tiniest shifts—a downturned brow, a blink, a tilt of the head. You’re still learning, but you like to think you’ve got it down enough to know that this doesn’t actually bother him, despite the resting angry face.

“Yes,” you say, shameless. “Except when I typed in Fushiguro and your school, I got all these results for the editor of your campus paper. You have a sister?”

If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. “Tsumiki, yeah.”

He doesn’t offer more, so you push. “Older?” You already know the answer, but best let him believe the depth of your internet stalking is shallower than it really was.

“Two years. She’s a senior.”

“Cool. I don’t know a ton of siblings that go to the same school.”

“You’d be surprised,” he sighs. “My cousin and her twin sister both go there, too. And one my roommates’ half-brothers.”

“Convenient, I guess,” you concede. “Sibling discount or something?”

“Nah, but it was easier this way,” he says, pulling a textbook out of his bag. “Go—uh, our legal guardian works around here anyway.”

Riko raises a brow but doesn’t ask, which is a remarkable show of restraint for her.

Legal guardian. Parents aren’t in the picture, then. You want to ask but you don’t, not yet.

The three of you buckle down and get some work done, casually exchanging conversation over the next few hours, and eventually Fushiguro has to head out. “Rehearsal,” he says.

“Rehearsal?” Riko asks, glancing at you as if you know what he’s talking about. You don’t, but you have some absolutely ridiculous mental image of Fushiguro in choir and you almost laugh out loud.

But he just says, as if it’s nothing at all, “Oh, yeah, I’m in a band.”

“What?” you nearly shout, jumping out of your chair so fast it pushes across the floor with a scrrcck. “You’re in a band? You didn’t think to tell me this before? What’s it called? Can I listen—”

“Nope.”

“But—”

“Nice to meet you, Riko,” he says loudly, cutting you off as he slings his bag over one shoulder. He mock-salutes you, two fingers to his brow as he turns to go. “Robin.”

You sink back into your seat and watch him leave, only turning back to Riko when the door swings closed. She opens her mouth and you hold out a hand. “Don’t start.”

—

At some point you start calling, letting yourself fill the silence of your little townhouse with idle chatter as he listens. He’s not one for small talk, you learn, and he’s a good listener. And he pays attention. He remembers the stupid little details you give him, the names of classmates and professors you can’t stand.

“Katie from Ohio?” he asks when you’re ranting one day about the partner you’ve been assigned in enviro. “We don’t like her, correct?” We.

“We do not.” Katie from Ohio does not pull her weight in group projects, and it’s driving you up the wall.

“You tell your prof about it? Isn’t this your favorite one?”

“Yeah, he is,” you groan. Haibara teaches your conservation bio class, and he also taught ecology your freshman year, and he’s the best teacher you’ve ever had. “But no. I don’t want to bother him about it. It’s whatever.”

He hums, unimpressed. “Is it?”

You groan, feeling like you’re getting lectured by your parents. You hate when other people are right. “You want me to talk to him.”

“I’m just saying, if you get a shit grade and it’s Katie’s fault, don’t come crying to me.”

“I will, though,” you say, putting your phone on speaker and setting it on the counter while you pour dog food into Batman’s bowl. “It’ll be super dramatic. I’ll sob in your arms and everything.”

He snorts. “Talk to your prof, Robin.” You stick your tongue out like he can see you.

But you do talk to your prof, and Haibara is your favorite for a reason. Katie gets a shit grade. You do not. Fushiguro does, in fact, say “I told you so.”

By mid-September, you still have no idea what Fushiguro’s first name is. You’re at the end of your rope.

you: GOOD MORNING MASON fushiguro (cute vet): no. you: MORT fushiguro (cute vet): no. you: why don’t you want me to know. is it crazy you: melvin fushiguro (cute vet): NO. you: marie you: meghan fushiguro (cute vet): … you: well, that’s it you: i’m calling you maleficent until you tell me you: i’m gonna do it in public too you: so loud

INCOMING CALL: FUSHIGURO (CUTE VET)

You don’t greet each other when you pick up—you never have. Instead, Fushiguro just says, “You could’ve picked like, ten other Disney characters and you went with Maleficent?”

“Don’t hate. You’d rather be Mufasa? Boy’s dead.”

“Oh my god.” Everything Fushiguro says sounds long-suffering. You wonder what it sounds like when he laughs, really laughs, if those walls ever break down and he lets himself actually outwardly express his emotions.

“I can call you Mickey Mouse if you really want—” Batman starts barking from his spot at the window, and you groan, waving your hand at him pointlessly as you try to get him to stop. “Hey! No! There is nothing outside, what are you on about?”

“He probably just thinks you’re barking with him,” Fushiguro says unhelpfully.

“Oh, and yours don’t bark out of turn?”

“Not really.”

Now that you think about it, you actually aren’t sure you’ve ever heard Shiro and Kuro bark aside from excited greetings at the dog park. “What the fuck, dude? Do they teach you the secrets of the trade in vet school?”

“Nah, I’m just a natural.” He says it so deadpan you aren’t sure if he’s joking or actually being cocky.

“Come over and help, then,” you say, before you can think it through. It’s a Saturday night, and clearly neither of you have anything better to do.

You aren’t sure what exactly you’re expecting him to say, but for some reason you’re surprised when he just responds, “Okay.”

“Bring the dogs.” You text him your address, and half an hour later he shows up with the dogs in tow. Meeting him at the door, you see his car parked along the curb. It’s small, black, as unreadable and practical as everything else about him.

“That,” he says, pointing to the long-deceased cactus in the pot on your front stoop, “is dead.” Probably because it’s been there since August and you forgot it was there after one week.

“Yes, thank you, very astute.”

“Isn’t keeping plants alive your whole thing? What are they teaching you?”

“Okay.” You start to close the door, but Shiro bounces forward and noses between it excitedly, and you laugh, opening it to let her and Kuro in. “Be nice,” you warn Fushiguro, letting him step inside. He rolls his eyes as he passes, and Batman nearly knocks him over with how excitedly he leaps up to greet him.

He’s also barking, and you raise a brow at Fushiguro expectantly. “Okay, Dog Whisperer. Do your thing.” You close the door behind him, and in the two seconds that you’re turned away, Batman fucking stops barking.

You whirl around, planting your hands on your hips, and find Fushiguro kneeling in front of your very silent, very happy dog.

“What the fuck.”

He looks up at you with the most smug expression on his face, and you throw up your hands in exasperation.

“Hey, don’t pout about it,” he teases, standing and following you into the living room. “That’s what you wanted.”

“I wanted you to teach me how to make him stop, but apparently you just slipped him treats behind my back.”

“Insult to my talents,” he says, hesitating when Kuro leaps onto your couch. “Are they allowed—”

“Ah, yeah, it’s fine.” Batman follows suit. “Got enough dog hair on that couch to make another couch, probably.”

You suddenly find you don’t really know what to say. Because Fushiguro is here, in your house, on a Saturday, your dog is not barking, and you’re alone. Alone with a guy you are very much attracted to. Suddenly you just don’t know any of the words in the English language.

But Fushiguro seems entirely at ease. He always does, really. There’s a quiet sort of confidence about him, and you aren’t sure if it’s fabricated or not. He just looks like he belongs wherever he is, nonchalant about everything.

“Done any more stalking?” he asks, sitting next to Shiro on the floor. You flush a little, feeling weirdly caught out when you aren’t the one bringing it up.

“No, but I might if you don’t tell me more about this band of yours.”

He shakes his head, absently playing with Shiro’s fur. “Just a crazy idea my housemates had. We just practice in the basement. Probably not very good.”

You opt to sit on Shiro’s other side on the ground, and Batman uses the opportunity to lick you directly in the face, since he’s on the couch and you’re now eye-level. “Thank you,” you tell him dryly, shoving his snout away.

“Don’t get humble now,” you tell Fushiguro. “What do you play? Or do you sing?” You really can’t imagine him singing. Everything about this guy screams quiet bass player.

Apparently you’re right. He won’t tell you the name of his band, and allegedly he doesn’t have any gigs this month, so you let it drop—but only for now. “Cagey,” you accuse him, but you’re smiling.

You talk about your courseloads for the semester—his is pretty bio and anatomy-heavy this semester where yours is mostly ecology and conservation-focused, but there’s a bit of overlap in your curriculum, and you find that it’s easy to make conversation about your respective career paths, even though he won’t stop bringing up the fact that you managed to kill a cactus.

“They’re notoriously hard to kill,” he drawls. “Did you try to?”

“No!” You cross your arms over your chest indignantly. “Mean.”

“Honest and mean aren’t the same thing.”

You don’t really notice the sun going down until the living room is swathed in shadow and you have to flip on the floor lamp. It’s been hours by now, but it’s felt like minutes. Every thing you learn about Fushiguro opens up ten new lines of questioning, and you want to know so much more about him. But he shrouds himself in this mystery you can’t seem to get around.

Eventually you stand up to grab snacks from the kitchen, and when you return you find Batman practically on top of Fushiguro, licking his face while Fushiguro just takes it. Cute, you think uselessly.

Batman. But also Fushiguro. And also just the sight of Fushiguro playing with your dog and looking entirely at home on your shaggy living room floor. Fuck, he’s really cute.

“Have you always had dogs?”

He shakes his head as he sits up and nudges Batman off of him, gaze going just a little distant. “Not ‘til I was a teenager.” There’s more there.

“Your idea? Tsumiki’s?”

He shrugs it off, picking at loose threads on his sleeve that don’t exist, some nervous tic he’s developed that seems to only show up when you try to talk about him. Hence, shroud of mystery.

Like you gathered at the coffee shop, his parents aren’t in the picture—dead or absent, though, you’re not sure. He does tell you a little bit about his legal guardian. His name’s Gojo, and according to Fushiguro he is certifiably insane. He says this enough that you know he means it fondly—if he didn’t, he just wouldn’t bring Gojo up at all.

It shouldn’t be possible to talk so much and learn so little, but the hours keep slipping by and finally neither of you can hide the yawns punctuating your conversation. “I should go,” he says, and you reluctantly lead him to the door, crouching to say bye to Shiro and Kuro before you open the door.

“Drive safe, Fushiguro.”

You don’t expect him to respond, but he pauses halfway down your drive, turning to look at you over his shoulder. The moon is out now, and it casts him and his dark clothes in silver. You suddenly find you can’t look away.

Not that you really want to.

“Megumi,” he says.

“What?”

“My name.” He swallows, looking away quickly before looking back. “You can call me Megumi. If you want.”

Chill. Be chill, you tell yourself, trying to school your features into that same neutral expression Fushiguro—Megumi—always has, but you know it’s not working. You can’t help but smile. You feel, weirdly, like you’ve earned something.

“Okay,” you say, leaning on the doorjamb. “Megumi.”

Megumi.

You do one last little bit of internet stalking that night, because you just want to know.

His name means blessing.

—

Everything about Megumi’s house speaks to the collision of three wildly different college-aged boys tempered by the saving grace of one girl.

Remotes for a range of gaming consoles are sprawled across the floor, there are way too many half-empty bags of Doritos, and you’re pretty sure there’s just a single half of a drumstick stuck between two of the couch cushions. But there are also nice, dark tapestries pinned to the walls, string lights bordering the room, a couple plants that are better-kept than any of yours have been.

You know very little about Megumi’s three housemates except that one is a golden retriever in human form, one is a skater boy, and one is a senior named Kirara who somehow keeps them all in check.

“Sorry for the mess,” he says, gesturing at the controllers and chip bags that honestly don’t constitute a mess in your book. Not after all the boys’ dorms you’ve seen, including Hajime’s.

“I like it,” you say honestly. “Also, it smells good in here. I’m proud. Kirara?”

“Kirara.” He nods and leads you to the couch, where you confirm that yes, that’s a broken drumstick.

“I don’t even—Jesus,” Megumi says, pulling it out of the gap between the cushions and tossing it onto the low coffee table. “He breaks more of these than I think is normal.”

“He being skater boy or golden retriever?” you ask as you tug your legs onto the couch to sit cross-legged, facing him. You dragged Batman with you—Megumi said his dogs would appreciate the company—and he’s taken it upon himself to sniff every corner of the house before deeming it suitable for playtime.

“Golden retriever. His name’s Yuji. Skater boy is Ino.” None of his housemates are here—it’s a random Thursday afternoon and the two of you happened to not have classes after two thirty.

“How’d you meet them?”

“Kirara went to my high school, so I knew her before coming here. I knew Ino too, actually. Yuji—I don’t know that anyone really meets him so much as gets forcibly adopted by him?” He somehow manages to make his scoff sound affectionate. “Him and our friend Kugisaki. They’re crazy, but we were all in the same orientation group freshman year.”

“Your friends sound fun.” You like the idea of two outgoing freshmen just deciding Megumi had to be their friend. “How’d you know Ino?”

He tugs at the sleeve of his black henley, picking at a nonexistent string. There’s a bit of a pause before he says, “His—I don’t know, his mentor? Nanami, he knows Gojo. So he was around sometimes.”

You don’t really know what to ask, simply because there’s so much to ask. It doesn’t take a detective to know there’s a lot to unpack in Megumi’s past. “How long have you been…” What’s the proper term for this? “Has Gojo been around, like… since you were a kid, or...?”

Despite your attempt to catch his gaze, Megumi’s eyes are trained on the far wall. “Kind of. Yeah.”

When he doesn’t elaborate, you fight to keep your lips sealed, to not push. You don’t have a right to his past. He can tell you if he wants to. But you’ve always been impatient.

And it’s starting to become a pattern, this strange caginess about his own life. His family, his friends. Every so often he lets something slip, and then it’s like you can see the doors in his mind slam shut—six deadbolts holding you out.

You know a little bit about Gojo, but that’s where the information stops. You drop hints that you want to meet Tsumiki, and whether he’s protective or just too oblivious to pick up on them, you can’t tell.

Maybe, then, the issue is that you haven’t given him much either. He’s met your dog and Riko, but maybe you need to offer him more of yourself before he’s comfortable reciprocating.

So you do. You tell him about your family, sitting on his couch with Shiro at his feet and Batman between you, Kuro unable to sit still. He listens while you talk, unsettlingly attentive eyes intent on you. You live about a half-hour drive away from your parents' place, you tell him, though you don’t go home often.

“It’s not that I don’t like my family,” you sigh, leaning back into the couch cushions and stroking Batman’s fur. “It’s more just that they’re never there, always on business, wrapped up in their own shit. So there’s just… no reason for me to stick around, except a couple times a year on holidays.” You shrug. “At least here it’s not an empty house. Or it’s not usually. When my roommate’s not in fucking Japan.”

“At least Japan’s cool,” he says, shrugging.

You sit up, leaning toward him. “You’ve been?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, once. Gojo said Tsumiki and I weren’t allowed to hit sixteen without having been on a stupid-long flight somewhere. Which sounds insane, but that’s pretty standard Gojo logic for you, I guess.”

“That’s so cool,” you sigh, part of you wishing you could be on a stupid-long flight right now. On the way to somewhere warm, preferably. Fall is starting to give way to an early winter, and you’re not looking forward to running Batman in the cold.

Travel, at least, seems to be a safe topic, and the two of you trade stories about road trips and flights and different cities. You challenge Megumi to Mario Kart at some point and immediately regret it, because why is he so good?

After he thoroughly kicks your ass, you sink back into conversation, walk the dogs, and eventually part ways so you can get some work done.

megumi (cute vet): you know when somebody says they’ll text you when they get home megumi (cute vet): and they don’t? you: SHIT SORRY megumi (cute vet): you’re not dead. you: NOPE you: sorry i got back and then batman knocked over a lamp megumi (cute vet): you don’t have to cover for his vigilantism, sidekick. i already know.

You do feel bad for forgetting to text him, but part of you is a little warmed by the fact that he was worried. Not that he’d ever admit to being worried about anyone, except maybe a dog.

you: okay fine he was stopping a robbery you: happy? megumi (cute vet): depends on what they were trying to steal

The work on your desk says you should stop texting and buckle down on your assignments, but he starts teasing, and you start feeding into it, and then you’re on the phone again, and by the time you finally hang up it’s too late to reasonably get anything done.

You can’t say you’re particularly upset about it.

—

The semester ramps up quickly, and you’re drowning in work. That’s your excuse when your basil plant by the kitchen sink dies a week after you bring it home—you’re just busy.

Megumi notices, and the next time he’s over a rosemary plant mysteriously appears in its place. He denies any involvement.

When you aren’t with Riko or Hajime, on the phone with Suko, or hanging out with friends from class, you’re with Megumi. His place, your place, the dog park, the coffee shop. It hasn’t reached a point where your friends comment on how much time you spend together (except Riko, who has a loud opinion on everything and does not care if other people don’t want to hear it), but you like the hours you steal during the week just walking around or drinking coffee or trading idle conversation.

You even visit him at work one Sunday when the clinic is slow, watching him handle the few dogs and single cat that come through. He’s easygoing with the clients and has that same calming effect on every animal—like he speaks some secret language, understands them in a way other people don’t. You love watching him like this.

You like this guy. It’s not rocket science—you put him in your contacts as “cute vet” the day you met him. The hard part is that Megumi is too difficult to read. If he has feelings for you, you have no idea. You don’t think he’d go out of his way to spend time with someone he didn’t genuinely like, but whether it’s platonic or not is so fucking over your head.

Until you finally meet one of his friends.

It’s Riko’s doing, really. The two of you are at the coffee shop when she strikes up a conversation with a redhead in line, and it doesn’t take long for her to make the connection, probably because they’re both talking ten miles a minute and not holding anything back.

“Oh my god!” Riko screeches, turning to you after you place your order. “Hey! This is Nobara. She’s friends with Fushiguro.”

She beams at you. “How do you guys know Fushiguro?”

Riko answers for you. “The vet. She has a dog, the clinic was closed, he was there. It was probably super romantic.” You groan.

Nobara’s mouth forms a small O and then she says, “Ah, you must be the sidekick.”

You can’t stifle your laugh. “He even calls me that when he’s talking to other people?”

She laughs, shaking her head. “No, he doesn’t tell anyone anything. Ever. But that’s what you’re in his phone as, and I saw his screen before he could hide it.” She leans in conspiratorially. “He won’t tell us who you are, which means he’s into you, y’know that, right?”

“Um. Is he? I don’t really—”

“Girl,” Nobara says flatly. “He doesn’t talk to people. Yuji and I have to force that guy out of the house half the time. If he’s hanging out with you, it’s because he likes you. Not that he knows that, probably. He’s horrible at feelings. I offered to give him a free therapy session and he said he’d rather become a monk.”

Riko mutters something about how that wouldn’t be too far off from whatever aesthetic he has going on right now, but you’re hung up on something else—Yuji and I.

“Oh my god,” you say, realizing something. “You’re Kugisaki.”

Her entire face lights up and she bounces on the balls of her feet. “He told you about me?” she squeals. “Ooh, he does love me! I’m gonna give him so much shit! What did he say? Was it good?”

The three of you end up talking for half an hour, after you all get your coffee and find an empty table. Nobara talks a mile a minute, but you can’t help hanging on to every word she says—she has a lot to say about Fushiguro, and you feel like you might be learning more about him this way than from the numerous conversations you’ve had with him.

She lives down the street from his place. She knows Gojo, who is apparently exactly the way Megumi described him—loud and eccentric and kind of stupid, but a guy who obviously loves his kids. She and Yuji, true to Megumi’s recollection, basically forced their friendship upon him on the first day of school, and they’ve been a trio ever since.

“He doesn’t tell anyone shit,” Nobara says, echoing her own words from earlier. “I feel like I probably know more about him from Gojo than anything. Or reading his notifications over his shoulder.” She smirks. “But he’s a good guy. I wouldn’t put up with his shit if I didn’t mean that.”

“About—what you said earlier, about him… maybe having feelings for me,” you start.

“Definitely having feelings for you,” she corrects. “Whether he knows or not? Undetermined.”

“Right. Uh.” You don’t get the idea that Nobara is a person you ever want to argue with. “Could you not… mention anything about that? To him?”

She sighs. “Course I won’t. Y’know, the guys always say I can’t keep my nose out of things, but two of my roommates have been in love for years and haven’t done anything and I haven’t said a word. Even though it sucks out part of my soul every time they’re in a room together and they just stare longingly when the other one isn’t looking. They’re so stupid.”

“You and Fushiguro are also stupid,” Riko says helpfully. You glare at her, and she throws her hands up in exasperation. “What? You like him, right? You can’t look me in the eyes and say you don’t like him.”

“He is a good friend,” you say, feeling the burn in your cheeks give you away even before Riko starts cackling.

“I like you,” Nobara tells her, sizing her up. “I might regret saying this, but I think I need you to meet one of my housemates. You could be chaos goblins together. I feel it in my bones.”

Riko rubs her hands together like she’s plotting something, and you think you should probably keep her as far away from said housemate as possible.

Eventually, Nobara pushes to her feet, draining the rest of her coffee and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I gotta go, but I’m so glad I ran into you. I feel like a spy, knowing Fushiguro’s secret girlfriend.” She wiggles her brows at you, and you don’t bother denying it, just burying your head in your hands instead. “You guys should give me your numbers. I can give you Fushiguro intel.”

Riko immediately accepts Nobara’s phone. You wonder how Fushiguro will feel about all this—fond exasperation seems like the default emotion when it comes to his friends. But you give her your number, waving goodbye as she skips out the door, and lean back, thinking as Riko immediately starts to tease you about your boyfriend-not-boyfriend and how at least he has cool friends, even if he doesn’t have a personality.

You just keep looking out the window, trading snarky comments with Riko as it gets dark—earlier now, at the end of September.

“Are you ever gonna tell him?” Riko presses. “I don’t wanna watch you pine for the next six months.”

“We haven’t even known each other that long,” you insist, tracing patterns aimlessly on the tabletop. “And I don’t… I don’t know. I kind of want him to be the one to say something. Because if Nobara’s wrong and he isn’t actually into me, I could fuck everything up—”

“Isn’t actually into you?” Riko exclaims. “Oh. My god.” She waves a hand in front of your eyes. “Can you see? Do you need to get your vision checked? Do you—”

“Okay!” you laugh, swatting her hands away. “Message received, Jesus. Chaos goblin was right.”

“I wear that as a badge of honor,” Riko says solemnly.

Yeah. She can never meet Nobara’s housemate.

—

It’s a Wednesday, and you and Megumi are walking back to your place from the dog park. His car’s at your house, and the dogs have just had a very high-energy playdate that hopefully knocks them out for the night. The air is chilly and the sky dimming, and everything about it feels immaculately fall.

That’s where your conversation has ended up—the upcoming fall break, which is really just a Friday where neither of your campuses have classes. A three-day weekend really shouldn’t be called a break, you think. It’s misleading.

“You’re not going home?” he asks, and you sigh, shaking your head.

“Parents won’t be home. Not really much of a point.”

“We could—” He clears his throat. “We can hang out that weekend if you want. If you need the company.”

“You’re not going home either?” You glance over at him, a little puzzled. “Like—to Gojo’s?” His lips become a thin, tight line, and you wonder if you’ve somehow crossed some invisible boundary. You’re about to tell him he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to, despite being on the brink of insanity because he doesn’t tell you anything, ever.

But then he says, “He’s a bartender. Not around weekends, usually.”

“Ah.” Nobara mentioned that.

You did tell Megumi about running into Nobara in the coffee shop, and he immediately looked like you told him that you hung out with Gojo and saw all his baby pictures.

“She’s nice!” you insisted, and he sighed, raking a hand through his hair.

“She has no filter.”

“She’s fun.”

“She’s Kugisaki.” He shrugged. “Learn anything interesting?”

You told him about your conversation, minus the whole feelings thing, and he agreed that Riko and Toge Inumaki should never, ever meet. “For the good of the entire world,” he said solemnly. “People would die, Robin.”

Now, as the two of you turn onto your street, he glances at you like he’s trying to find something. And maybe it’s how tired you are, maybe it’s the way his eyes look so bright even though they’re so dark, maybe it’s that weird streetlight-night aura that makes everything feel a little bit not real, but you find yourself studying him right back, meeting his gaze without shame.

You want to know him, to be a part of his life in the way he’s become a fixture in yours. You want to meet his housemates. You want to meet his sister, his family. You want him to open the door and stop acting like you’re going to rob him or something the second you get inside. He knows you better than that, right?

He blinks, and you smirk. “I win.”

“Wh—that was not a staring contest.”

“It’s okay,” you tell him sympathetically. “You can’t be good at everything.”

His laugh—his real laugh—isn’t anything like you thought it’d be, but somehow it’s even better. It transforms his whole face, some blink-of-an-eye shift that lights up his eyes and makes everything about him brighter, louder.

You want to make him laugh like that again. As often as you can, really. Always.

“What?” he asks, staring at you, the light lingering in his eyes, some sort of afterimage of his joy.

“I just—I like your laugh.”

He stops, and you realize you’ve reached the end of your driveway. You drop Batman’s leash and let him run around the yard, and Megumi’s dogs follow suit, knowing better than to go far.

“I like your laugh, too,” he says, a crooked smile spreading across his face. And somehow that feels more like a confession than anything he’s ever said to you.

You’re very close.

He’s leaning in and you’re almost subconsciously reaching up to meet him, heels leaving the ground, and he’s still got the slightest curve of a smile lingering on his lips, and—

“Oh!” Shiro jumps on you from the side, tail wagging excitedly.

When you look back up at Megumi, laughter on your lips, his smile is gone, and he’s looking away, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Megumi—”

“That’s my cue,” he says, a forced-sounding chuckle punctuating the sentence. “I should, um. Get back.”

“Oh. Um, right. Yeah. Totally.” You’re kicking yourself now, feeling stupid, foolish. Did you just mess this whole thing up? Was it too soon? Did you read it wrong?

Megumi opens the back door of the car and lets the dogs hop in before circling around to the driver’s seat. “Robin…”

You look at him, trying to squash the hope adamant in your chest. And he looks like he doesn’t know what to say, for a moment, his lips parting and then closing and his eyes darting around before they finally land on you again. “Night,” he says quietly.

“Night, Megumi.” You lift a hand in a half-wave. “See you.”

Batman stares at the street long after the car has disappeared around the corner, and so do you.

“Fuck,” you murmur, and then again, louder, “fuck.”

—

Megumi’s texts over the next week are less frequent and more distant—at least, you think so. Maybe you’re getting too in your own head about it.

From then on, he’s pretty quiet. You wonder if you fucked up. You haven’t talked about it, the kiss. Almost-kiss. Your texts start getting fewer and far between, and in the chaos leading up to midterms you almost don’t notice. Almost.

Lots of almosts, lately.

you: still on for break?

Part of you expects him to go back on his word, say something came up. Especially when he takes a half hour to respond. He’s just busy, you tell yourself. Stop being dramatic.

megumi (cute vet): your place at 5, right?

“Oh,” you say aloud to nobody but Batman, smiling a little. Well, that’s good. You can ask him what’s been on his mind lately. He just seems… preoccupied.

When break rolls around, you spend Friday out with friends and Saturday catching up on schoolwork until Megumi comes over. You’ve hung out so often—you don’t know why you’re nervous.

And it seems contagious. He still shows up at your door and immediately picks up a conversation you left off on the last time you texted him, but he just seems slightly out of reach, somehow. You let it slide for about twenty minutes before you sit him down on the couch and ask.

“Okay. What’s going on with you?”

“What?” You don’t know if he’s playing dumb or just actually doesn’t realize he’s been acting strange.

“You’ve been… look. You’re acting weird. And I feel like we need to talk about whatever happened last week.”

The ensuing silence makes you want to take it back, or say something else, or do anything to create sound in the little bubble of waiting that's formed around the both of you. But you make yourself wait. Give him the space to find words.

“I guess… there is something I wanted to talk to you about,” he says suddenly, flatly, without looking at you. Your mouth slams shut and you find yourself drawing back a little, the remoteness of his voice almost physically distancing.

“Uh,” you say, like the eloquent person you are. “Okay?”

He swallows once, hard, and he looks at you with so much reluctance you almost wish he’d just look away. Your heart is twisting itself into knots.

“I think we should… take a step back.”

“What?” you whisper. “What do you mean?”

He sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “I mean—this is going… do you want a relationship?”

The question feels so abrupt you’re momentarily shocked into silence. But you know where he’s going.

He doesn’t want this. Doesn’t want—you. And it hurts more than you thought it would. It’s not so much a sharp stabbing sensation as a thousand needles worming their way into the crevices of your heart, slow and numerous and deadly.

Because you do want this. You want him.

“Yes,” you admit, quiet.

And he says, “I don’t.”

In general, you want to ask, or with me? But the words stall in your mouth, all blocked up and sticky, and you don’t say anything at all.

“You shouldn’t,” he murmurs, looking down. “Want that. With me, I mean. It’s…”

“It’s what?” you ask, hesitant. Another long, horrible silence.

“It’s never going to work,” he says, detached. Almost cold. “Us. This.” He’s still not looking at you.

“Let me ask you something, then,” you say, hating the unsteadiness of your voice. “Do you want it to?” Do you have feelings for me? You want to know if this is something he’s denying himself or if he really just doesn’t like you.

You know your own intelligence, though. You haven’t made up whatever this feeling is between you.

He doesn’t answer your question. Just murmurs, “You don’t know me.” And somehow it sounds like an accusation.

“You won’t let me!” you burst out, your voice louder than you intended. But all this caginess, this dancing around everything real, it’s got you at the end of your fuse. Shiro looks up and whines, Kuro leaping off the couch to stand in front of the both of you, curious. “I told you everything! I told you about my family and my friends and my classes and my hometown and my car problems and fucking Katie from Ohio, and you don’t say anything, Megumi, you won’t talk about your family, you won’t introduce me to your roommates. You won’t tell me about your band or your childhood, you took weeks just to give me your first name! What—are you just embarrassed of me? Do you think I’ll judge you? Do you not trust me? Is that it?”

“No,” he practically growls. “God, it’s just—you don’t understand—”

“You’re right, I don’t!” you exclaim, throwing your hands up. Batman paws at your leg, wondering why you’re shouting. “So help me understand. I know I’m not patient, but if you have shit you’re not ready to talk about, that’s fine. But just say that. Tell me to wait and I’ll wait. Just—give me something.”

He looks at you and he’s utterly unreadable, doors slammed shut.

“If you don’t want me in your life, just fucking say so,” you spit, but your voice is wavering now, uncomposed and only loud so it doesn’t shatter. If he really said it, said I don’t want you, you don’t know what you would do. It would be too sharp, too painful, too much.

“You don’t want this,” he says instead, averting his gaze. His tone is measured and even and emotionless.

“Don’t tell me what I want,” you seethe, but your words come out quiet. “If you really think I don’t want this, it’s because you won’t let me.” You’re whispering now, worried that if your voice raises any more, it’ll crack the paper-thin walls holding back your tears. “Megumi…”

“S’better this way.” He rubs the heel of his hand over his eyes, a messy movement that seems so at odds with the evenness of his tone. “I… I have to go, Robin.”

And the strange, unstable feelings of betrayal and confusion and hurt morph abruptly back into something hotter, something angrier. Because how dare he come here, spend fall break at your house, listen to you spill your heart onto the carpeted floor? How dare he run away, say he doesn’t want this, and then still call you that stupid, endearing fucking nickname?

“Yeah,” you say icily, glancing away with your arms crossed over your chest. “You do.”

You count to five, silently, before he moves, and you don’t look when he does. You blink tears out of your eyes when Kuro hesitates, nosing at your hip before following Megumi out the door.

It slams, hard, and Batman stays perched at the entry, tracking him as he walks out of your house, your life.

You don’t move for a very long time.

INTERMISSION // A REAL GOOD START

MEGUMI FUSHIGURO IS in deep, deep shit.

That is to say, he’s lost control of the situation, which is the one thing he does not allow to happen. Ever.

He can’t stop thinking about you.

Sleep is hard to come by in the days after he fucks everything up. He keeps thinking about how it could have gone if he’d just—if he’d done anything else. If he hadn’t run off after he almost kissed you, traitorous heart thumping in his chest even while his brain screamed danger!

You became part of his life so fast and so naturally he didn’t know it was too late until the damage had already been done. If he let himself kiss you, he would drown.

But he didn’t. He shut you down instead, on a Saturday night that could have been different.

He makes excuses when Gojo invites him over Sunday afternoon, going into work early just to avoid him. Even if Megumi’s perfected his poker face, nothing gets past Gojo. It’s like he has some sixth sense for when his pseudo-kids are in emotional turmoil. He’ll force Megumi into a talk therapy session (run by the most unqualified bartender of all time) and he’ll die of embarrassment on the couch.

So instead of talking to someone, anyone, he throws himself into his work, into rehearsals, into school. He goes to the clinic early and leaves late. His fingers are sore from plucking the same lines out on his bass until his housemates go to sleep. His eyes are dry from staring at his laptop until three in the morning. But it doesn’t matter what he does. He can’t. Stop. Thinking. About. You.

The thing about being in a band with all of his housemates is that there’s really no world in which they don’t notice something’s off. They’re spending even more time together lately than usual with the Battle of the Bands going on, and his only relief is that none of them say anything—at least not aloud. There are a number of raised brows and the occasional questioning shoulder nudge, but it seems Yuji, Ino, and Kirara know him well enough by now not to push. That, at least, he’s grateful for.

Nobara Kugisaki is a different story.

It’s a Monday when she storms into his living room—she didn’t even bother knocking on the front door. Shiro and Kuro run happily around her legs, and normally she’d be fawning over them, but today she looks furious. He can almost see smoke coming right out of her ears, eyes narrowed to dark slits as she stares him down.

“Fushiguro.”

“You,” he points out, “do not live here.”

“And you,” she seethes, “have one minute to explain to me what the fuck you did.” Before he can say anything, she waves her phone around in the air and says, “Hi, Nobara, I was just wondering if Fushiguro seems okay to you? Things kind of fell off and I would feel weird reaching out but I’m just a little worried.”

She’s quoting you.

Texts from you.

Shit.

Megumi knows that you and Kugisaki have met, but for some reason it just did not cross his mind that you might have exchanged contact information.

Control the situation.

He clears his throat, refusing to break eye contact. “Well, she said it,” he huffs, his usual toneless expression. “Things fell off.”

You still wanted to check on him. He treated you like that and you still…

“You broke up with her.”

“We weren’t together—”

“You broke up with her. Are you a fucking moron? This girl—” She jabs her finger into her phone screen so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t hurt— “is so fucking cool. And she puts up with you. And you like her. And now you’re acting all weird. So what, you go over there and tell her you can’t be together? What the fuck, dude? Why?”

What a loaded question that is.

“Because,” he grits out. “It wouldn’t have worked.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Kugisaki repeats flatly, walking over to the couch and making herself at home way too close to him, staring him down. He turns his head away. God, she is so persistent. She is so annoying.

“Yeah, congrats, your hearing works. Can you leave me alone?”

“Tell me you don’t have feelings for her and I will.”

“I—”

“Look at me and say it,” she snaps.

Megumi looks at her. “I don’t,” he mutters.

Kugisaki rolls her eyes so hard Megumi can’t believe they stay in her skull. “Okay, sure,” she says skeptically. He doesn’t like this tone, where it’s going. “So if I set her up with Toge, you wouldn’t mind?”

“I—” He clamps his mouth shut, hands curled into fists. “Kugisaki, that’s not—”

“That’s what I thought.” Normally she’d look smug, victorious after pulling one over on him, but this is worse. She just looks… concerned. He hates it.

“Look,” she sighs. “You’re not going to talk to me, so I’m not going to waste my time. But when you figure this out—and you will figure it out, or I might kill somebody, and it will be you—I’ll be all ears.” Her gaze might as well be pinning him to the wall with how fierce it is. Sometimes he lets himself forget how much of a force Kugisaki can be, and right now, she’s got that glint in her eyes that he hates, the one that makes him feel like she knows something he doesn’t. “Understood?”

“If I say understood, will you get out of my house?” he grumbles. She says nothing, just looking at him, and he thinks maybe she could win a staring contest with a fish. For a long, tense minute, he doesn’t say anything, and neither does she.

Whatever. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’ll forget about it eventually.

He sighs, tipping his head back against the wall.

“Understood.”

—

Things seem to happen around Megumi, to him, not because of him. The last conscious decision he made was to end things with you, and now he’s just a passive witness to his own life. Ino has something going on with Nobara’s housemate, Yuji’s scrambling to pass his midterms, Kirara bounces between their house and Hakari’s place faster than he can keep track of, and Megumi… he just exists in the periphery, goes through the motions.

He keeps finding his thumb hovering over your contact name. A dog with a silly name comes into the clinic and he wants to text you about it. He hears a song that reminds him of you (every song reminds him of you) and he wants to play it for you.

He wonders if Riko has him on a hit list yet.

A voice in the back of his head that sounds an awful lot like Kugisaki keeps repeating, Why?

Why did he end things? Why did he bite the bullet so fucking hard?

Because you deserve better than him, honestly.

You don’t know me, he told you. What he didn’t say, though—because you wouldn’t want me if you did.

Part of him knows that’s probably unfair to you—your words keep playing back in his mind and not even his music can drown them out. You won’t let me! But there are things he can’t imagine saying out loud. Explaining the way his dad disappeared, not even showing his face again when his mom died—eighteen-year-old Gojo from across the street on their doorstep, promising he and Tsumiki wouldn’t go into foster care. Bloody knuckles from fighting middle school bullies. Gojo and Geto trying to raise a bunch of kids when they were still kids themselves.

Gojo didn’t leave, but he should have. Megumi knows he threw away so much of his life for him, for Tsumiki. He could have done so much more. He could have done anything he wanted. But Megumi held him back.

Maybe he’s holding him back even now. He knows Gojo would deny it.

The point is, Megumi has shit to figure out for himself, and you shouldn’t have to sit by and watch him deal with it. That’s not fair to you. Yeah, he went about it wrong, but—but this is for the best. You can find someone who actually gives you everything you deserve, and he can… whatever.

Megumi’s band, Shibuya Incident, doesn’t perform this Friday at The Fix—Shoko and Geto’s bar. They’ve already made finals. Tonight will just decide who their opponents are. But even if he’s not up there playing, the Battle of the Bands is a welcome distraction. Even if Ino’s just making lovesick puppy eyes at the stage the whole time and Yuji won’t shut up about wanting Taco Bell. Megumi lets himself get a little lost in the music, and Kugisaki’s band is good, really. He votes for them as soon as the digital form opens and then vows to never tell her.

They should win, but Black Flash takes it again. Kasumi Miwa and Maki’s sister and their friends. They won the whole thing last year. Great, Megumi thinks.

The night comes and goes, and he dodges Gojo on his way out of the bar despite knowing he’ll get a text about it later. And then they’re all piled into Yuji’s car on the way to get his beloved Taco Bell, and he’s just about convinced he’s done with feeling anything at all when Kirara screams.

For a second, there’s nothing at all.

And then the world comes back to life around him in a shock of colors and sounds and a lot of cuss words, mostly coming out of his own mouth.

“Holy shit!” Yuji shouts, yanking the wheel hard to the right, and Megumi can barely process the sight of the white car barreling toward them before there’s crunching metal and shattering glass, and it’s like he feels the collision as an aftershock, shaking all his bones back into place. The airbags go off and he’s blind, wind knocked clean from his lungs, and then he’s moving—no, he moves. No more passivity. This is real.

“Everybody out,” he demands, wrenching the passenger door open and taking in the sight of the crash. Smoke is billowing from the hood of Yuji’s car, the vacant passenger side of the other one entirely smashed in. “Everyone okay?”

Yuji circles around the back of the car and Megumi clocks immediately that he’s holding his wrist weird, wrong. “Yuji—”

“Ino, come on—hey. Hey. Ino.”

Kirara’s got one knee on the edge of the backseat and one hand braced on the roof of the car, and Ino is not making any move to get out.

Sirens. Who called the cops?

“Kirara?” Yuji asks, moving to help her, but she holds up a hand and looks back over her shoulder.

“Don’t. I got it. We’re fine. Just—bad memories, I think.”

Megumi knows Ino hates driving. He doesn’t know why, but he can guess. So he doesn’t push it. Kirara’s the psych major, after all. And probably the one with the most emotional intelligence and any semblance of tact. She’s got him.

He’s about to turn to Yuji when somebody stumbles out of the other car. The car that had been driving in the wrong lane,directly toward them. If Yuji hadn’t reacted so quickly, they’d all be dead.

“What the fuck,” he hisses.

It’s his cousin.

“What,” he says, louder, “the fuck? Naoya!” He storms over and grabs Naoya by the front of his shirt—his breath reeks of alcohol, and he’s laughing, like he didn’t just almost commit vehicular manslaughter. “What the hell, man? What’s wrong with you? Are you—”

He hears… screaming?

But not from here. Not in person. It’s…

Megumi looks at the cracked phone on the ground, having been flung straight through Naoya's shattered windshield. He looks at his shitbag cousin, who’s half tipping-over, legs like jelly under him.

“Naoya,” he growls. “Who. Is. That?”

“Hah,” he slurs. “Mm. My ex! My ex. She is… she is.”

He’s not making sense, but Megumi might get back into Yuji’s car and drive it into his cousin on purpose. Naoya was dating this girl—Megumi knows her. She's friends with Yuji. Some brand of art major, he’s pretty sure, and she's nice, way too good for him. And then what, she finally gets away and he still torments her? By drunk calling her from the car, letting her listen as he crashes? The blood in Megumi’s veins might as well be venom.

He shoves Naoya back with a scoff, letting him stumble over himself, and grabs the broken phone off the ground. “Hey,” he says, and she’s still screaming, this poor fucking girl— “Hey! Hey. Calm down. It’s—hello?”

“Naoya? What the fuck, Naoya—”

She’s definitely talking through tears, maybe angry, maybe scared.

“Not Naoya,” Megumi sighs. “Uh, this is Fushiguro.” She’s quieting a little on the other end, and he hears a guy’s voice trying to talk her down. “Listen. Naoya’s fine. Just… drunk. And an asshole. Are you okay?”

After that, the entire night is a blur.

He talks down Naoya’s traumatized ex-girlfriend on the phone, Ino’s girlfriend shows up and calms him down, and then Gojo and Nanami and Shoko are there and Hakari shows up and Gojo’s dragging Megumi to the ER with Yuji to get his wrist checked out and it’s sprained and Tsumiki is running into the waiting room and hugging the life out of him and Maki calls and Naoya’s got a DUI and then finally, finally they’re home. Megumi can barely keep his eyes open. He doesn't know what time it is.

He sleeps harder than he has in months.

—

Megumi is so fucking exhausted that when his phone starts buzzing the next morning at the kitchen table, he doesn’t actually think it’s real for a second.

INCOMING CALL: SIDEKICK

He’s hallucinating. Sleep deprivation, or something. Or maybe he actually got a concussion in that car crash and now he’s seeing things that aren’t real. That’s the only explanation.

That or you butt-dialed.

He doesn’t bother explaining himself to the others as he stands up and retreats to the hallway, almost letting the phone ring out before steeling himself and swiping to accept the call.

“Hey?”

He’s never greeted you like that before. It sounds so fake. He usually picks up the phone and just starts talking about whatever you texted him, or whatever weird thing he saw that he has to tell you about. Not hey. Hey is for people he doesn’t know. Doesn’t care about.

“Um. Hey.” It is stupid, what just the sound of your voice over the phone does to him. “I just saw this article about a car crash? Are you—”

“I’m fine,” he says, too fast, too sharp. Stop it. “Sorry. I’m—yeah. We’re all fine.”

You clear your throat on the other end of the phone. “Okay. That’s—that’s good. I just… wanted to make sure.”

He pushed you out, and you texted Kugisaki to ask if he was alright.

He pushed you out, and you’re calling to make sure he’s okay.

I’m not, he wants to say. I fucked up. I fucked this up.

I miss you.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I… appreciate that.”

Maybe he can still salvage this. Still be friends with you, at least. But that’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? He’ll just hurt you again. But…

“It was my cousin,” he offers, not really knowing why he’s saying it. Maybe as a peace offering. He didn’t tell you things before, important things. Maybe he can start now. “Drunk. On the phone with his ex.”

“Oh,” you say. You sound surprised, but Megumi isn’t sure if you’re more shocked about his words or the fact that he gave them to you. “That’s… awful.”

“Yeah,” Megumi breathes. “Um. Yeah, he’s taken care of now.”

“Good. That’s good.” A dog starts barking, and Megumi feels his lips twitch up into an almost-smile.

“There he goes,” he murmurs. You laugh, and he’s actually smiling, now.

“There he goes,” you say fondly. “I should… go calm him down. I’ll…”

“Yeah, yeah, go,” he says, not sure how to end this. “Um, good… luck.” Stupid. That was so fucking stupid.

“Thanks. Bye, Fushiguro.”

“Bye, Robin,” he says, but the line’s already gone dead.

—

Megumi sees you three times in the month of November, and every time he feels ten times closer to a train wreck.

It snows in November, because it’s stupid and cold and winter comes early here, and there are prints leading toward the dog park. Imprints of dog paws and boots, side by side, and he’s a vet student. He knows what size dog those prints mean. He knows exactly who it is.

He lets Shiro and Kuro tug him all the way to the dog park, and he doesn’t even remember letting himself through the gate. He just knows that you see him right after Kuro starts panting excitedly, and you freeze.

He half-waves in the most pathetic, lame response ever known to mankind.

“Robin,” he says, the nickname falling off his tongue like nothing ever changed.

“Fushiguro.” You smile, hesitant, and he wishes it didn’t feel like a needle that you used his last name. He walks over to you—just following the dogs, he tells himself, that’s natural. Batman almost knocks him over in his excitement.

Megumi can’t not smile at a dog. That would just make him a bad vet, wouldn’t it?

“Hey, bud,” he says, crouching down to pet him. “Yeah, I missed you too.” When he looks back up, your gaze is a little distant, and he closes his eyes for a second, collecting himself. He pushes back to his feet and turns to you.

“Did you know I’d be…” You don’t finish the sentence, but he knows what you mean.

“I… snowprints,” he says, shrugging. It seems to be enough of an answer for you.

“Snowprints,” you echo. “We found you with tracks too, the first time. Didn’t we, Batman?” Like he understands, Batman slaps his tail against the ground and flicks his ears forward and back. Yep. Sure did.

He scrambles for something to say in the silence—small talk is the bane of his existence, but is it ever small talk when it’s you?

Small talk doesn’t matter.

Everything you say matters.

“So. They teach you how to keep plants alive yet?” he asks, and has to fight not to physically cringe after he says it. God, it’s like he never learned how to talk. But you laugh, which he counts as a win.

“No, but someone is significantly less barky, so thank you for that.”

He has you for five minutes before your phone rings, and you chuckle, showing him the screen.

“Ah,” he says. Riko. He doesn’t object when you go, slipping out through the gate with your phone pressed to your ear, because he doesn’t have the right.

But you text first, later.

sidekick: it was good to see you sidekick: and the dogs. obviously

“Look at that,” he mutters to Kuro, whose nose is nearly touching his phone screen. “You’re my good luck charm.”

megumi: you too, sidekick. megumi: and batman. obviously.

The second time, you’re crossing paths in the coffee shop, both of you on your way to other places. It’s brief and stilted and still leaves him feeling like a mess.

“Black?” you ask, nodding at his coffee. You’ve got a hat tugged haphazardly over your head to ward off the persistent snowflakes outside, and it’s—you’re cute. Fuck.

He huffs a laugh, looking down at the sleet-stained floor just to avoid staring at you and your cold-flushed cheeks. “What else?”

“Vanilla latte,” he says, glancing at your cup, because he wants you to know he remembers. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but he thinks you look pleasantly surprised.

The third time, you don’t see him.

He knew you had friends at JU, but he’s never seen you around campus before. You’re with the guy with the blue hair, always pulled up into two knots on the top of his head—Hajime, maybe?

You throw your head back and laugh at something he says, and it’s like—fuck. Laughter shouldn’t sound that poetic.

And he knows he can’t lie to himself anymore.

It’s time to talk.

Kirara would probably kick his ass the second he told her anything. Ino’s busy with his new girlfriend, Yuji’s an idiot, Kugisaki is… well, she’s Kugisaki, and he can’t handle that lecture right now. And he sure as hell isn’t gonna talk to Gojo.

Which means he only has one option.

When he knocks on the door of Tsumiki’s apartment, she takes one look at him and sighs, long-suffering.

“You finally ready to talk?”

This was probably a grave miscalculation. If Kirara would kick his ass for the way he treated you, Tsumiki might actually hang him from his ankles out the window and leave him to die. But not before he apologizes to you. So at least he’s got time.

He walks in without responding and ignores her invitation to sit, pacing the kitchen instead in an uncharacteristic show of nerves. “I fucked up.”

“Yeah, I gathered,” Tsumiki says dryly, but she hops up onto the counter and looks at him, patient as ever. Tell me, she doesn’t say, but Megumi hears it anyway.

“I think I might be in love.”

—

To her credit, Tsumiki is dead silent for the entirety of Megumi’s rambling explanation. He’s a little hoarse by the end of it—honestly, he never talks like this. He feels like he just dumped his heart onto his sister’s kitchen floor and is awaiting some sort of judgement.

“Also, I think she hates me,” he finishes, finally sinking into a chair at the kitchen table. He tilts his head back and stares at the popcorn ceiling. “And I deserve it.”

For a beat, Tsumiki is silent. And then she says, “You wrote a song about her.”

He snaps his gaze to her so aggressively it hurts his neck. “What?”

She rolls her eyes and pulls something up on her phone, sliding up the volume and pressing play. She scrolls to some random point in the song, and Ino’s voice sings, “She’s got me up late starin’ at my phone, waitin’ for a text, feelin’ all alone.”

“Tsumiki—”

She turns it up, and Megumi looks anywhere but at his sister. There are plants everywhere, warm light filtering in through the windows onto herbs on the kitchen windowsill and succulents in the living room and god, everything reminds him of you.

“And she don’t even know what she’s doin’ to me, all my hopes are high-strung and she’s just gonna leave, no!”

“Okay! Okay, stop, I get it,” he huffs, dragging the heel of his palm down his face and trying to ignore her smug smile. “How did you even know?” he mumbles. “I’m not on the credits.”

“I know you,” she says dryly. “I also know Ino, and his lyrics are not that… I don’t know, poetically nihilistic.”

“I really can’t tell if you’re trying to insult or compliment me right now,” he says, sighing.

“Also,” Tsumiki says pointedly, “because this is what you do, Gumi.” He gives her a quizzical look in lieu of a response. “When people get close to you, you lash out and then you run away.” She hops off the counter and crosses the room to the table, pulling out a chair across from Megumi.

“No, I don’t,” he grumbles, tilting his chair away on its back legs and inadvertently proving her point.

She just looks at him until he relents, burying his face in his hands.

“I don’t think it’s unprecedented,” Tsumiki says gently, “considering the way we grew up. But you can’t keep shutting down good things, Gumi. You wouldn’t even be friends with Itadori and Kugisaki if they hadn’t forced their way past your bullshit. And you love them, right? They’re great. You know they’re not gonna hurt you.”

“Nobody knows that,” he huffs. “College will end and we’ll all go our separate ways and I’ll never hear from—”

“Nope,” Tsumiki says loudly, cutting him off. “Okay. My turn to talk. Shut up.” She glares at him, planting her elbows on the table. He feels stripped raw. “The whole pushing-people-away-before-I-get-hurt thing? You need to stop. You cannot look me in the eyes right now and tell me you don’t have people who would die for you, Gumi.”

He opens his mouth to object, but she swipes a hand through the air, silencing him. “I’m not done.” Megumi has only seen his sister like this a few times in his life, and he is fairly certain that if he tries to interrupt her again he might not leave this apartment alive.

“You have me. You have Gojo. You have Geto and Shoko and Nanami. You have all of your housemates, and Kugisaki, and probably all of her housemates too,” she says. “And none of us are going anywhere, okay? No walking out on the kids, no betrayal, no kicking you to the curb. So you need to get your head out of your ass, Megumi.”

Well.

“Look. It’s a defense mechanism. I get that,” she says, a little gentler now. “But you are not doing yourself any favors. And this girl? You’re in love with her, Gumi. That means she’s pretty special, okay? Because I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you look twice at a girl in your whole life. And I know she doesn’t deserve this, just as much as you know. So you have two choices.”

Megumi doesn’t think he’s going to like either of the two choices.

Tsumiki leans back in her chair, shrugging. “You can let her move on without you and keep screwing yourself over, or you can go tell her you fucked up and ask her to forgive you.”

He’s never liked asking for things. Tries to avoid it, actually. But he’s finding there are a lot of rules he’s willing to break when it comes to you.

“But if you’re going to ask this girl to step back into your life, you need to make sure you’re ready for it,” his sister says firmly. “You need to have your shit together. You need to know how you feel.” She pauses, catching his gaze, and once she has it she might as well be holding his face in her hands. He can’t look away, not when she’s looking at him this intently, like she’s waiting for an answer she already knows. “So. How do you feel?”

When he doesn’t answer right away, Tsumiki knocks on the table, like a dismissal. “Okay. You think about that, and when you know—you know.” She looks at him for a long moment after he stands up, those eternal curled locks of hair falling into her face, and he’s suddenly hit with a wave of affection, of gratitude, so strong he can barely stand it. Yeah, so he doesn’t have a mom. And fuck his dad. But Tsumiki—thank god he has his sister.

“Miki,” he says, before he can stop himself. “Uh—thank you. I…” He swallows once, hard. “Love you.”

Her smile is slow but wide, the kind that makes her eyes narrow just a little. “I love you too,” she says softly, and then she winks. “Hey, those words? That’s a real good start.”

—

When Megumi sees you next, he’s going to be ready. Just like Tsumiki said. He needs to know how he feels. So he thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks.

There’s a notebook in the bottom drawer of his desk, scrawled song lyrics he’ll never let anyone see. He fills page after page after page trying to figure out what’s going on in his head, in his heart, how he can make it make sense. Fit together like two hands, two sets of prints in the snow. He tries to imagine what he’ll say to you, how you’ll react, but every word he thinks of falls short, everything just sounds stupid in the face of how much you deserve and how little he can give.

He keeps thinking.

It’s December 19, Kugisaki’s Christmas party before everyone parts ways for break.

Megumi won’t admit it, but he’s having a good time. He brought the dogs, and he and Yuji have been bouncing around talking to their friends. Tsumiki’s here too, and when he loses track of Yuji he makes his way over to her, leaning silently against the wall.

“They’re cute,” she says fondly, and he follows her gaze to the hall—Ino is standing there with his girlfriend, Skipper, and there’s mistletoe hanging right above them. No doubt Kugisaki’s doing. Skipper laughs and pecks Ino on the lips before he says something and drags her down the hall, and then Maki and Yuta glance up at the mistletoe, look at each other in mutual horror, and pointedly do not walk beneath it. They’re finally together, but they wouldn’t be caught dead kissing in front of other people.

And he wonders what you’d do, if you were here standing under it with him.

He doesn’t have to say anything. Tsumiki reads him like a book.

It’s like this:

Megumi is very well-acquainted with loss. But he’s not sure he can handle this one.

He let his own insecurities ruin a good thing, a bright thing. He shut it down before it could start. He struck first and he fucking regrets it.

That’s it, then. Pity party over. Delusions down the drain. It’s time to get over himself, to get real.

Because the truth of it is that he doesn’t give a shit about his birthday, about Christmas, about the trees and the lights and the stupid fucking carols, if you’re not there with him.

Oh, he thinks. His sister has the audacity to smirk.

He stays, because this is Kugisaki’s party and despite everything, he does love her. He’s getting better about that, about acknowledging it—he has people who care about him, and he has people he cares about.

But when he heads out just a little bit early, after whispering your name in Kugisaki’s ear, she nearly slaps him for not going sooner.

“Shiro, Kuro,” he calls, heading for the door. “C’mon. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

PART II // TO TRYING

FOR A WEEK after Megumi walks out your front door, you drown in self-pity like the flower you killed in September with too much water. 

And then you open your computer and type his name into the search engine with jujutsu university and band. It’s not hard to find—one of the first results is some Instagram advertisement about a Battle of the Bands at JU, from a couple of weeks ago. One of them’s got to be his. You could just ask Nobara, but—it feels weird, somehow. Wrong. Like you’re encroaching on part of his life that he so clearly doesn’t want you to be a part of.

You can’t helping asking her to check on him, though. You just—it’s probably stupid, but you want him to be okay. Not that you think him pseudo-dumping you would tear him up or anything. But there’s a not insignificant part of you that doesn’t believe what he said that day. Part of you that knows a defense mechanism when you see one.

The thing is, you could’ve asked your friends about him. Hajime goes to JU. He might know Megumi, and if not he could’ve found out. But you wanted this for yourself, this mystery of earning his first name and his history and his heart, except you thought you’d gotten two of the three and it turns out he’ll only ever give you one.

You start typing in the bands one by one, figuring eventually one of them has to be his. A search for Black Flash turns up an artist image of a group of people surrounding a grinning girl with bright blue hair. No Megumi, though.

Shibuya Incident, then. You key it into Spotify and rub your eyes when the artist profile comes up, like you’re maybe seeing it wrong. No. It’s him.

There’s a dark-haired girl who must be Kirara leaning on a familiar-looking guy with pink hair, face split open in a smile. Front and center is a brown-eyed boy with a beanie tugged lopsided over his hair. And in the back, standing, looking characteristically bored, is Megumi Fushiguro.

Why are you doing this? You shouldn’t be doing this.

But you’re scrolling before you know it. Most popular songs. They have an EP called Over Duress. And they have a single—released recently, it looks like.

Strike First.

You only allow yourself one second of hesitation before you press play.

“Catch feels real quick,” a voice sings—Ino, must be. “And they go real deep.” You can’t help paying attention the bassline. It’s steady, constant, holding the rest of the band together as Ino sings. The lyrics almost sink into the background until the chorus snags your attention, and you have to go back and replay it.

“I can hear the heartbreak saying, ooh, I’m on my way. So you strike first, strike first ‘cause she’s not gonna stay.”

Oh.

You understand, then, even if his name isn’t listed in the writing credits, even if you have no proof. Megumi wrote this song. You can hear him in the unfamiliar voice of the lead singer. You can feel him in the pattern of the words. It’s his.

He didn’t want you to leave, so he left first. Is that it?

You understand, but it’s not enough. Abruptly, you’re just—you’re angry. What a stupid reason to let something fall apart. You don’t owe him patience. If he’s not ready to commit, that’s not your problem, it’s his. He needs to figure himself out, learn to let people in, and you can’t just sit here and wait for him to do it. It’s not your responsibility.

It’s not.

There’s some sort of grim satisfaction in knowing that there’s nothing else you could have done.

“Forget that,” you mutter, closing out of Spotify and intending to just toss your laptop on the bed. Case closed. Moving on.

But something in your search results catches your eye first.

JU senior issued DUI after crash on 34th and Olson Blvd Friday night

Okay. So. Nothing to do with Megumi, right? Except it’s showing up in your search of his name. You click on the article, heart suddenly pounding.

Jujutsu University Campus Police responded to an emergency call at 11:41 last night after an automobile collision on 34th Street and Olson Boulevard, four blocks from the popular campus live music bar, The Fix.

“No,” you breathe. “What the fuck?” You keep skimming, everything in you loosening up when it says nobody was seriously hurt, but it just—whose car is that, Yuji’s? It’s bright red. Not Megumi’s.

You’re not really thinking when you make the call. It rings for so long, and right as you’re about to give up, he’s there on the other end of the line, and you realize you have no idea what you’re supposed to say.

“Hey?”

“Um. Hey.” You sound more breathless than you should, just sitting here on your bed with your laptop open to a student news publication. You don’t wait for him to ask why the hell you’re calling, barreling on before you lose your nerve. “I just saw this article about a car crash? Are you o—”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly. Defensively. Oh.

Right. This is overstepping, probably. He doesn’t need you checking up on him. You should’ve just texted Nobara. You should’ve just not read the article, actually, shouldn’t have typed his name into your search engine. He probably thinks you’re a creep who put Google alerts on for his name or something. You don’t have any real excuse for how you stumbled across this fucking article.

But then he says, “Sorry. I’m—yeah. We’re all fine.”

Thank god, you think. But you just clear your throat a little and say, “Okay. That’s—that’s good. I just… wanted to make sure.”

The silence is so long you think for a moment that he’s hung up on you. But then, very quietly, he says, “Thank you. I… appreciate that.”

You don’t really know where to go from here. He’s fine. Of course he’s fine. Why the hell did you call him in the first place? It’s not like he’s going to offer you any information. Because he doesn’t tell you anything, which was the whole problem in the first place—

“It was my cousin.”

You blink.

“Drunk. On the phone with his ex.”

“Oh,” you say, more of a surprised noise slipping out before you can bite it down. It’s less shock at the actual words than the fact that he’s giving you something, that he’s offering you this. You scroll down in the article. Naoya Zenin. The senior in the headline who got a DUI. “That’s… awful.”

“Yeah,” Megumi breathes. “Um. Yeah, he’s taken care of now.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Batman chooses this moment to start barking at absolutely nothing out the window. He actually has been a lot better about that recently, but it’s like it’s his mission today to embarrass you on the phone with the guy who dumped-not-dumped you.

“There he goes,” Megumi says lightly, and you laugh a little, because he sounds almost fond when he says it.

“There he goes,” you echo. “I should… go calm him down. I’ll…” What? You’ll what? See you around? No you won’t. Talk to you later? Unlikely.

“Yeah, yeah, go,” he says. “Um, good… luck.” With what? Batman? Life?

“Thanks. Bye, Fushiguro.”

You slam your finger down on the red button before he can reply.

You don’t want to know what he says. Your name, or sidekick, or Robin, or nothing at all.

—

You try to forget about him, but it’s hard.

Every time your phone buzzes with a message from your friends, classmates, family, your heart jumps, foolishly thinking it might be him. You follow Batman to the dog park without making the conscious decision to, and berate yourself when you realize, lead him off in another direction. Your rosemary plant dies and you hear him in your head, teasing you—isn’t the environment your whole career? Better shape up, sidekick.

Riko prepares a half-hour long PowerPoint presentation about all the reasons he didn’t deserve you in the first place. She must’ve told your roommate, too, because Suko calls you in the middle of the night, Japan time, just to check in.

A week into November, it’s dulled a little bit, the hurt. You’re still startled when he shows up at the dog park, but… not unpleasantly so.

“Snowprints,” he says when you ask if he knew you were here. One word, but it means more to you. Snowprints means he knew what he was walking into, and he came anyway. Snowprints means he saw a chance and followed it to you on purpose.

That’s progress, isn’t it?

You see him at the coffee shop and he remembers your order. It shouldn’t mean anything, but it does. Snowprints and a vanilla latte.

He said he didn’t want this, but you just… don’t believe him.

But you’re not waiting for him. If the cute guy from ecology asked you out tomorrow, you’d say yes. This boy isn’t dictating your life while he figures himself out.

You hope he does figure himself out. But you won’t hold on to scraps.

And you do start to forget, a little. The cute guy in your ecology class does not ask you out, but your friends and your studies and your needy dog are enough of a distraction that Megumi isn’t in the front of your mind all the time. The semester is flying by, and you make an effort to keep in touch with Nobara despite everything—she really is fun.

It’s approaching break before you know it, and you’re going home for the holidays soon, though you’ll probably be back before the new year because Setsuko needs a ride. Man, you’re excited to have a roommate again.

Your suitcase is half-packed, poorly folded clothes covering the whole of your bedspread in some futile attempt at organization. Christmas is in six days—well, five, you think idly, glancing at the clock. Half past midnight. You should go to sleep, but your bed is covered in clothes and you need to finish packing for your drive home in two days.

“Hey, no,” you lecture as Batman sniffs at a shirtsleeve dangling over the side of the bed. You can tell he’s considering making the leap and taking a nap on top of all your freshly laundered clothes. “No. Stay down.”

You push to your feet, yawning, and then Batman freezes in place, his ears perking up and forward like he hears something.

“What’s up?” you mutter, and then his head snaps toward the door. “Dude, what? It’s past midnight—”

The doorbell rings.

“The shit,” you mutter, trudging to the front door. Irrationally you wonder if your roommate’s home early, but that’s stupid—she’d have needed a ride from the airport, and she has a key.

You don’t know what you expect when you nudge Batman aside and open the door into the cold night, barely holding him back from the cracked door with your leg.

Oh.

You’re face to face with Megumi Fushiguro, and your heart does a diving, spinning leap into the bottom of your stomach.

His lips are slightly parted like he stopped speaking mid-word, eyes wild with urgency, and you suddenly wonder if he’s in trouble, if something’s really wrong. Snow peppers his dark hair, the porch light bouncing off the white specks and making him look like he’s sparkling.

You can’t find any words. None at all, nothing that can actually articulate the shock and confusion and barely-squashed hope. What is happening?

“Robin,” he says. And then he says your name, your real name, and—it’s like a dam breaks.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry. I—I’ve had some time to think and I really, really messed up and I don’t know how I’m ever going to make it up to you but I have to try to explain, I—it’s me, it was all me, all my fault, you’re amazing and I’m insecure and I let that get in the way of something really fucking good and that was stupid, so stupid, and I like being with you and I like knowing you and I want you to meet my friends and my weird messed-up family and I want you to know me, I want to let you know me, and I’m sorry I didn’t just because I got too in my own head about it, about you. You take up so much headspace it’s insane and I haven’t stopped thinking about you since—since, I don’t know, since I fucking met you, and I—”

The multi-colored Christmas lights strung between the pillars of your front step cast colors and shadows over him as he rambles, his cheeks red from the cold and maybe something else, and you can’t take it, watching him like this, desperate.

“Fushiguro.”

But he’s on a roll now, the words spilling from him like they’ve been building up in the hollow space of his throat for years, and he’s not stopping now. You’re not sure he even hears you over the rapid, panicked lilting of his own confession.

“You should turn around right now, slam the door in my face, I get it, I deserve that, and I don’t have any excuse that matters, but I realized how important you’d become and that scared me more than anything I’d ever felt because that meant I could lose you, you could leave—”

“Fushiguro.”

“And it’s—I fell in love with you months ago,” he breathes. “I’m sorry, and I love you, I’m so in love with you, and I—”

“Megumi.”

He finally stops, panting, every part of him frenzied and undone. His lips are still parted around a word he hasn’t said, freeze frame, the remote in your hands. “Will you just come inside?”

The silent second feels like ages, years, maybe, and you can see the disbelief in his irises, like he’s afraid to trust this, afraid to hope.

“No,” he breathes suddenly, and something comes dangerously close to cracking in your heart. Did he come here, say all this, only to leave you again?

“I—”

“No, because I brought the dogs and they’re sitting in the back of my car right now,” he explains, sheepish. An unbelieving, slightly hysterical laughter bubbles up out of you, warm and surprising and not at all unpleasant.

You grab Megumi by the dark fabric of his coat and yank him toward you, pressing your lips to his cold ones, hand slipping up to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s like your warmth leeches into him limb by limb, slowly unfreezing him both from the cold and the frantic fear that you’d turn him away again, and it’s below freezing but he’s melting beneath your touch, and you missed him so, so much.

You pull back, your breath fogging in the air like an echo. “You idiot,” you tell him. “Go get them, I want to see them.” You cross your arms over your chest, leaning on the doorjamb and finally processing how cold it is out here. It’s like it’s sinking right into your bones. “And then get your ass inside.”

He smiles breathlessly, standing still for a moment, and then it’s like he just snaps into action, like he’s afraid you’ll change your mind if he waits another second. The dogs run up the path before he does, and you let them barrel into you and then have their little reunion with Batman while Megumi catches up.

“Come sit down,” you tell him, shutting the door and closing out the cold air. “And tell me more.”

It’s almost like nothing ever changed.

You talk for hours in the lamp-lit living room, surrounded by three tired dogs and a record spinning in the corner. But this time, Megumi talks more than you’ve ever heard him talk. He tells you everything.

How he pushed you away and justified it to himself by saying you deserved better, when really you deserved the truth. How his dad left and his mom died young and Gojo was barely legal when he took him in. How he had a lot of issues with his self-worth growing up, and even now, and how it took him a very long time to accept that people care about him. How it was Tsumiki's idea to get the dogs, because after their mom died he couldn't stop having nightmares. How he wanted to call you every day and then he finally cracked and he went to Tsumiki and she psychoanalyzed him at the kitchen table and he sorted out all his shit so he could show up here like an absolute nuisance and beg you to give him another chance.

“That’s all I wanted, you know,” you tell him, the both of you on the floor, leaning against Shiro and Kuro as they sleep. Batman’s made himself comfortable on the couch, occasionally using his vantage point to lick you right in the face. “You, being honest. You didn’t have to tell me about your parents, y’know, if you didn’t want to. But just…”

“I know that now,” he murmurs sheepishly. “I’m sorry. Really. But I’m trying to get over the whole self-sabotage thing. Trying to… try. In general. With people.”

And he means it. Because the only time Megumi has ever lied to you was the day he told you he didn’t want this, and you knew even then that it wasn’t true. He might try to be all stoic and poker-faced, but he’s not a very good liar. You smile. “That’s a good start.”

You’re facing each other, knees touching, and you reach out, hand palm-up between you. He glances at you before he makes any move, like he’s asking—are you sure? But then he laces his fingers through yours. His hands are way bigger than yours, fingers folding over your own, warm and encompassing. Something about it feels very right.

“So I was wondering,” he starts, and this new side of him that is so hesitant but also hopeful is maybe the most endearing thing you’ve ever seen. You squeeze his hand a little, and that seems to embolden him enough to ask whatever it is waiting on the tip of his tongue. “Uh, would you… want to meet my housemates?”

—

“They’re crazy,” Megumi says, standing outside his house with you the next day. “I mean it. I don’t know how to prepare you for—”

“Megumi,” you cut him off, laughing. “No disclaimers. I’m friends with Riko, remember?” This actually seems to be an effective argument, because he smiles a little, putting his hand on the door.

“Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”

You are tackled the second you cross the threshold.

“Hi!” someone practically shouts in your ear, full-on bear-hugging you as you stumble back, laughing.

“Oh my god,” Megumi groans. “Itadori—”

“Sorry!” he yelps, pulling back and awkwardly offering a hand like he didn’t just squeeze the living daylights out of you. “I’m Yuji. Kugisaki’s told me all about you and Fushiguro said—”

“Itadori,” he says again. You immediately understand what Megumi meant. This boy is legitimately no different than the two dogs who have come to crowd around your legs. Actually, Shiro and Kuro have greeted you significantly more calmly than Yuji has. It’d be difficult not to like him, you think.

“No, you’re fine,” you laugh him off, using the handshake to pull him back in. “You’re fun. I like you.” Yuji grins victoriously at Megumi and lets you go, and you finally move out of the entryway and into the familiar living space.

“Ino,” you say, pointing at the boy in a beanie, and then shift to the girl crouched in front of the TV, rummaging through a bunch of games. “Kirara.”

The conspiratorial smirk Kirara gives you—along with the way the Wii games are scattered all around her like a personal hurricane—makes you think she might not actually be the long-suffering order in a house full of chaos. More likely, she and Ino and Yuji are only kept in check by Megumi’s neat freak tendencies and blunt nature.

“Hey.” Ino grins. “Okay, I gotta ask, is your dog actually named Batman? Because that’s awesome.”

“She’s been here for two seconds,” Megumi chides, but you nod happily. You are very proud of your dog’s stupid name.

“Well, I approve,” Ino shrugs, patting the space next to him on the couch.

And it feels natural, the way you fall into place with the rest of them. For all Megumi pretends they drive him insane, it’s obvious he loves his friends, and he seems relaxed around them even as you waste away the afternoon chatting and arguing and getting your ass kicked in Mario Kart (specifically by Kirara, whose undefeated record pisses off all the boys but makes you even fonder of her).

By the time night falls, you feel like you’ve been friends with all of them for years. You learn all about the band—Megumi didn’t tell you that they won the Battle of the Bands, which you plan to give him shit for later. They ask you about your school and friends and seem to actually, genuinely want to meet them.

You go home for Christmas, getting your annual few rare days of quality family time, but Megumi sends you photos from Gojo’s with Tsumiki and the dogs. You respond with a picture of Batman in a Santa hat.

megumi: they really want to meet you when you get back. if you want.

A smile splits across your face before you can stop it. Because this is exactly what you wanted—for Megumi to want you to meet his family, to know that part of his life.

“What are you smiling about?” your dad asks from the couch, and your blush must be answer enough, because he turns to your mom with a raised brow and mouths boy. You shove your phone in your pocket. You weren’t prepared for the interrogation, but it’s too late now.

The thing is, if your family had asked you if you were seeing anyone even last week, you’d have nothing to say. And maybe you shouldn’t dump all this information on them when it’s still so fresh, so new.

But something tells you this is going to last. He wants you to meet Tsumiki, to meet Gojo. You won’t keep him from your family if he doesn’t keep you from his. Plus, your parents leave on another trip in two days. You’re not sure when else you’ll get the chance to tell them this in person.

“So,” you say, before they can start grilling you. “His name is Megumi.”

—

There are prints in the snow.

It feels uncannily familiar, walking your usual path with Batman and seeing the two sets of paw prints and accompanying boots. You place your own footsteps in their wake, laughing at how they dwarf your own shoe size.

You aren’t supposed to see Megumi until he picks you up to go to Gojo’s tonight, but it seems fate—or Batman—has other ideas.

You let him drag you all the way to a big, snowy clearing, where you see your boyfriend and Kuro standing in the snow. It takes you a whole five seconds longer to make out Shiro, who basically blends right into the landscape.

The dogs, per usual, see you first, and Megumi turns at their excited noises to see you. He wastes no time setting off across the field toward you, and you grin, meeting him in the middle.

“So is this a coincidence, or is someone following me?” he asks, meeting you at eye-level as you crouch to greet the dogs. Batman basically shoves his nose in Megumi’s face in response.

“Snowprints,” you say, gesturing to the trail behind you. “Seems to be a theme.” Behind the wall of Kuro’s dark fur, you plant your hands in the snow, letting a mischievous smile grow on your lips. “Anyway, I’m glad I ran into you, because—”

You throw a massive snowball right at Megumi’s face.

“Oh,” he says, swiping a gloved hand across his eyes but leaving flakes of white stuck in his brows, on his lashes. “You’ve done it now.”

“Protect me,” you whisper to Kuro, and then you run.

All-out war. The dogs are thrilled at every snowball that misses its mark, all of them leaping to catch the wayward projectiles in the air, and you and Megumi chase each other and trip over the snow and wind up in a big, snow-covered mess on the ground, staring up at a shockingly bright afternoon sky.

You can barely breathe, you’re laughing so hard. “You’re crazy,” you pant, pushing yourself up onto your elbows, then your palms. An absolute mess of snowprints—his, yours, Shiro’s, Kuro’s, Batman’s—cross over each other in the snow, revealing patches of browning grass here and there, showing the signs of your battle. “Aw, hey. It looks like a giant heart.”

“Sap,” Megumi snorts.

“Buzzkill.”

“Instigator.”

“Oh, yeah?” You grab a fistful of snow and put it right on his head, letting it melt into his tousled, snow-streaked hair. “Well, I’ll instigate, then.”

He laughs, shaking his hair out like a dog, and tackles you back into the snow. “Then I’ll instigate something else.”

You’re so cold you can barely feel half your face, but it doesn’t matter. Not when he kisses you like this.

—

The first thing you think when Satoru Gojo opens the door is damn, he’s tall.

The second is holy shit, those are the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

“Gumi!” he shouts, enveloping him in a very one-sided hug.

The third thing? Yeah, you like him.

“Gojo,” Megumi grumbles, half-heartedly pushing him away, but the fondness of the interaction doesn’t escape you.

“And I’ve heard all about you,” Gojo grins, pulling you into a hug as well—you don’t hesitate to hug him back, because now you know exactly what this man has done for Megumi and Tsumiki. And he’s important to Megumi, so he’s important to you.

Megumi telling you about his childhood and Gojo was one thing, but him actually wanting you to meet his family is another. You feel warm all over as Gojo ushers you into the apartment, where Tsumiki is already busy making dinner. She nearly drops the pan in her hands at the sight of you. “Hi!”

“You all hug so much,” Megumi says flatly when she hugs you too, and she just grins and forces him into an embrace as well.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

“Shut up.”

“Love you too.”

“So,” Tsumiki says, turning back to the stove and insisting you sit down and make yourself at home when you offer to help. “Tell me about you.” Instead, she enlists Megumi to be her kitchen assistant, and you aren’t sure why it’s so surprising that he knows how to cook, but it is.

The four of you talk about school and the dogs (who are at home with Suko, now that she’s finally back from Japan) and your families and friends, and you can see Megumi growing more comfortable as the night goes on, once he’s sure that Gojo isn’t about to whip out a bunch of embarrassing pictures of him as a kid or tell you all his darkest secrets. Tsumiki is sweet and you take a liking to her immediately, talking all about her job running the campus paper. Gojo tells you about the bar he works at, about his college friends who founded it.

“Do you have to work tomorrow, then?” you ask between bites of the best meatballs you’ve ever had.

Gojo shrugs. “Yeah. But if I wasn’t, I’d be hanging out with all the same people I work with, anyway. Not so bad, huh?”

“We’re actually probably going to swing by the bar tomorrow,” Megumi says, avoiding Gojo’s gaze in favor of looking at you. Gojo lights up. It’s endearing, how excited he is at the prospect of seeing all of Megumi’s friends. “You coming?” Megumi asks Tsumiki.

“To the bar or the house party?”

“Both,” Megumi shrugs.

“Only if you are,” she says not to Megumi but to you, teasingly.

“Yeah, I gotta meet the rest of his friends. All of Nobara’s housemates.”

“Oh, I love them!” Tsumiki says. “Mm, you’ll get along with Yuta. I mean, everyone does. Oh god, and Toge. And S—yeah, okay, all of them, actually. Have you met our cousin Maki?”

“No, but they all sound great,” you say honestly.

“They are!” Gojo says loudly. “They can give you so much dirt on Megumi.” Megumi glares at him with a complete lack of heat.

“You and my friend Riko would get along,” you say, but as soon as you say it you’re not sure it’s true. Either they would immediately gang up on Megumi and make his life a living hell, or Riko would have the same dynamic with Gojo and they would argue until somebody threw a punch.

Megumi stares at you incredulously. “They can never meet. Ever.”

Except they do, because you bring Riko to the bar the following night. You feel like this might have been a dire miscalculation, because not only does this mean she’s meeting Gojo, but it means she’s meeting Nobara’s housemate who, in her words, is a kindred “chaos goblin.” This means that they’re both comm majors with too much time on their hands and they make it everyone else’s problem.

Toge Inumaki is the very possibly the only person you’ve ever met who can match Riko in terms of sheer chaos. It is terrifying. They’ve known each other for a grand total of five minutes before they’re planning a full-on bracketed Just Dance tournament with Rasputin as the final battle.

“You’re insane,” you tell Riko fondly, and she grins at you.

“I think we’re brushing over the fact that you think Rasputin is the hardest one on there,” Gojo says, leaning over the bar incredulously.

“What, you think your old man knees can handle it?” Riko asks shamelessly, and you excuse yourself as they launch into bickering worthy of siblings.

But nothing explodes, and you meet Shoko and Geto and Utahime and Nanami, and all of Nobara’s housemates, including Megumi’s cousin. She’s very no-nonsense in a way that you appreciate, and after you shit-talk Naoya with her, you feel like you’re probably going to be very good friends.

It’s well past eleven by the time you all get back to Megumi’s place, leaving Gojo to ring in the new year with his own friends. Someone puts the ball drop on the TV in the living room and you all scatter across the space, a swell of conversation and laughter as midnight inches closer.

It’s like this:

A living room full of your friends and his, laughing and smiling and teasing and playing Just Dance really aggressively (but that’s just Toge and Riko, really). Megumi’s knee pressed against yours as Tsumiki forces him to smile for a picture with you. Nobara throwing her arms around you, insisting you settle a debate between her and Yuta about the superior shape of pasta noodle. Sneaking off to Megumi’s room while Yuji is distracted, stealing kisses in the dark. Listening to his whispered commentary in your ear as the drinks and sleep deprivation start hitting Toge and Yuta and they get existential on the floor. Suko telling everyone all about Japan and the occult club she started at her university there. Yuji being way too into the idea of starting one between JU and Kaisen, launching animatedly into a discussion of all his favorite conspiracy theories.

Five minutes to midnight, Kirara pops open a bottle of champagne and passes you a glass, and you wave it in front of Megumi teasingly.

“What, you wanna toast to something?” he teases, leaning in toward you. “You gonna say to us? That’s pretty Hallmark movie of you.”

You hum, swirling the glass, lifting your gaze to meet his. “To trying,” you say. “And also vigilantism?”

And there’s his laugh, better than the ball drop, the streamers, the disco ball that came from god knows where in the corner. “I can get behind that,” he says, clinking his glass against yours. “To your superhero dog,” he says, leaning in closer. “And his pretty cool sidekick.” He kisses you as the countdown hits one, and you’re laughing against his lips, savoring the warmth of his hand on the back of your neck.

When he pulls away, it’s only by centimeters, just enough for him to lock eyes with you. “And,” he breathes against your lips, “to trying.”

directory // my masterlist | out of my mind !

jjk taglist open: just send me a message!

@shutuppeter @mikikkoo @reactwithjan @theclassbookworm @lilactaro @bisforbuse @risararelywrites @idkidk32 @gojodickbig @stargazing-with-choso @anonymity-222 @honeyyhuggs

a/n: sorry this took like twenty years and it's SO LONG. heh. i'm incapable of short-form content. it was fun to write though. let me know what you thought, and be sure to pop over to out of my mind (and, if you're curious about naoya's ex, greta's sukuna spinoff, if you are NOT a minor)! thanks loves :)

[wileys-russo]

mapi “surprised it could fit around my bicep”

oh capitana II m.león

thinking back, you should have clocked your girlfriend was up to something the moment that cocky little smirk had settled on her face when you woke up in bed together.

instead you'd just assumed it had something to do with the activities you'd partaken in last night, the evidence which was scattered across both of your bodies, your chest in particular covered in an array of red and purple bruises.

"bon dia guapa!" the defender had greeted cheerily as you finally joined her in the kitchen after a shower, a plate of breakfast waiting you as she pushed you to sit down at the table, stealing a kiss and nudging your chair in.

"you are very smiley today maría." you chuckled at her clearly gleeful demeanor as she tucked into her own plate of eggs with a shrug. "why not? it is the first game of the season mi amor!" mapi beamed as you hummed, the pair of you quickly falling into regular conversation.

but now as you sat in the stands watching your girlfriend lead her team out with the captains armband snugly wrapped around her bicep, her behavior and glowingly cocky aura all morning suddenly made sense.

you'd of course figured it out for yourself when the team lineup was posted and you saw the little (c) by her name, but by then the dirty blonde was warming up and you had no way of being able to yell at her for withholding the news from you.

as much as you wanted to strangle her for the secret keeping you also couldn't deny the immense and overwhelming sense of pride which flooded you at watching her both play and lead her team brilliantly.

knowing mapi always made time for the fans after the match you busied yourself chatting with some of the other girls families who'd been at the game and sat nearby, having met most of them before.

but tired from a hard fought ninety plus minutes you didn't need to wait long, mapi appearing with a few of her teammates up in the family and friends section in what you'd deem as record time, the cool breeze of the late evening also discouraging most of them from staying out with the fans for too long as thunder clouds were forming up above.

meeting her eyes across the room you excused yourself from speaking with patri's cousin and stepped away, shaking your head slowly at your girlfriend who strode over with the same infuriatingly attractive smirk plastered on her face that had been there when you'd woken up in bed beside her this morning.

"hola princesa!" mapi grinned, hands on your hips as she pulled your body into hers, your arms still staying firmly crossed across your chest. "hola capitana." you quirked an eyebrow as her grin only widened.

"good surprise amor, sí?" mapi questioned with a smug smile, letting go of your hips to wrench your arms apart and forcefully wrapping them around her.

"see? much nicer bebita." mapi sighed happily, moving your arms back over her shoulders as you let them fall limply to your sides, giving in and hugging her properly with a small chuckle.

"tan irritante." you shook your head, your girlfriend kissing your cheek a few times with a mumbled apology as the two of you pulled away, your hand held securely in hers as she lifted it and kissed your knuckles with a charming smile and wiggle of her eyebrows.

though once alone together in the car the defenders confidence tripled, the same smug smile never once dropping from her lips for even a second as she drove the two of you back home, hand securely gripping your thigh.

"focus on the road león." you warned her for the third time as her hand moved higher, making it even harder to pretend the simple gesture wasn't affecting you as much as it was, not needing to give her anything else for an ego boost.

"lo siento bebita, i am just thinking about the ride you will be taking later." mapi shrugged, your eyes widening not missing the insinuation poorly hidden behind her words as her lips curled into a smug grin and you wrenched her hand off of you with a shake of your head.

"-surprised it could fit around my bicep, tan enorme!" mapi stretched her arms behind her head purposefully flexing as you closed the front door after her, the defender sending you a wink as you looked on unfazed.

"you are not as cute as you think, minúscula." you pinched her cheek and ducked under her arms, finally succeeding in getting the smugness to fade from her features.

"minúscula!" the tattooed spaniard scoffed in offence, her lack of height really the easiest way to hit at her ego most days when it was getting a little insufferable like right now.

"minúscula!" mapi repeated with a scowl, glaring at you from the middle of your bedroom as she tossed her dirty jersey to the side and you rolled your eyes.

"how many times maría? cuándo aprenderás." you huffed, picking it up and moving it to its proper place in the laundry basket, not in the middle of the floor where you'd be sure to trip over it lately.

"why do you always have to go after my height mi amor? you know it wounds me!" your girlfriend clutched at her heart dramatically as you rolled your eyes.

"you really should treat el capitána de barcelona, with a little more respect." the smug smile was back as she wiggled her eyebrows at you and you bit the inside of your cheek to stop a smile of your own forming.

"bien. do your washing then, capitana." you smacked her cheek playfully as again you ducked under her arm and out the door.

but you barely made it downstairs and two steps into the living room before her footsteps thundered down after you and suddenly you were in the air.

"maría!" you gasped as she spun you around and effortlessly dropped you onto the lounge on your back, pouncing on top of you before you could move an inch.

"i dijo, with a little more respect." mapi purred, grinning wolfishly as you suddenly noticed the new addition.

"en serio. you brought it home with you amor?" you sighed as the yellow and red armband was again wrapped around her bicep.

"eres bienvenido bebé." mapi smirked, sitting back on her heels and making a show of flexing her arms in different poses and pulling faces, grunting and posing like a body builder as you withheld the urge to smile.

"are you going to be giving up football for body building then tonta?" you shook your head at her theatrics. "maybe. what is it that the kids say? i am a tank." mapi grunted, continuing to pose and flex as you couldn't help but snicker.

"well there is no height restriction to body build, minúscula." you smirked beneath her as she stopped, tattooed arms suddenly either side of your head caging you in as her lips curled into a pout.

anything you went to say next was lost as she kissed you, much less softly or as sweetly as she normally would, often treating you as if you were made of glass and could shatter at a moments notice.

your hands tangled in her hair which for once was out, pulling her even closer as hers squeezed your hips, and before you could even blink she'd moved so that she was sitting up on the sofa and you were sat on her lap, lips not even disconnecting for a moment.

your breath hitched as mapi rolled your hips against hers, using the momentary lapse to slip her tongue into your mouth. "why do you always do that?" you pulled away as she smiled into the kiss.

"hacer qué? ven aquí bebita." mapi laughed, trying to lean in for another kiss as you ducked back.

"smile like a twelve year old boy getting a very first kiss!" you teased, thumbs tracing down her jaw with a shake of her head. "que? i do not!" mapi's eyebrows furrowed and another frustrated pout settled on her rosy pink lips.

"you do mi amor. every time we makeout, you smile like that." you shook your head, pressing your forehead against hers. "que? i can't be happy to kiss a pretty girl?" mapi smiled softly, rubbing her nose against yours making you let out a laugh.

"mi niña bonita." the defender whispered, stealing a kiss as her eyes shone with so much adoration you felt your cheeks heat up beneath the intensity of her lovesick gaze.

"capitánas are not supposed to be so soft." you teased, pecking her lips a few times but moving your head back as her mouth chased yours to deepen it.

"maría!" you squealed as she suddenly stood taking you with her and raced upstairs, your legs wrapped around her waist before suddenly your back was meeting the mattress and again she hovered on top of you.

"i show you how capitánas kiss? not so soft." mapi raised an eyebrow, fingers digging tighter into your hips pressing you down deeper into the bed with a smirk.

"when you smile it will be very soft." you teased again, her smirk melting into a cheeky grin as she flexed her arm and the bright yellow armband tensed around her bicep.

"cállate y besa a tu capitána."

[kalystatheevil]

picture scaramouche bent over, hands tied behind his back, face pressed to a coffee table with you holding him from behind

tw: cursing, cnc, praise, humiliation, dom reader, unhealthy use of ellipses; (amab reader), 18+

you rub your glistening cock between scaramouche's spread asscheeks, almost moaning from the view alone. your precum is already leaking into the cracks, moistening them prettily.

"fuck, scara… what did i tell you, huh?" a sharp slap resounds, and scaramouche's right cheek immediately starts turning pinkish. the boy grits his teeth.

"go to hell you fucking psycho."

"mhhh…" your thumbs leave little indents in the supple skin of his ass. between them, a throbbing hole clenches nervously. "a psycho, am i."

scaramouche moans as you push the tip past the rim. you're sure he didn't mean to, but it still escaped his lips. slowly, you push just the tip in and out, watching intently as the skin spreads around the gland, swallowing it greedily.

"you stretch so beautifully, scara," you coo, a soft blush on your face. "so incredibly beautiful"

"stop— stop looking!" scaramouche growls. "it's—" he gasps loudly when the tip enters him yet again, face already red from all the blood gathering in his head.

"it's what, scara..."

"it's— ugly…"

at this, you click your tongue and stop. "ugly?"

scaramouche becomes angry, deflecting from his quickly rising shame. "yes, ugly. seriously, stop with this stupid game you're playing, i don't need you to act like you're into th—"

you thrust into him, deep and hard. scaramouche's words are lost in a strangled gurgle as his eyes roll back.

"it seems i need to fuck that thought out of you."

with one roll of your hands, you shorten the rope connected to his tied wrists, tugging them upwards. slowly, you start to roll your hips back, watching as the rim catches and slides over your cock. you moan. "aah, scara… you look so, so pretty like this"

"fuck… you… ngh— a-aahn…"

you breathe heavily. "fuck. fuck, scara. you take me so well. look at you, moaning like a slut..."

"shut— shut up. fuck. i'll kill you. i swear i'll fucking kill y— MGH!" you slam back into him. any further protest is drowned by the sound of thighs hitting flesh in sharp slaps as you start pounding into him. harder and harder you thrust back inside, needing to reach deeper, faster, harder.

it doesn't take long for scaramouche to lose his composure. on the surface of the coffee table, he rolls his head almost limply to the side. his eyes are blurry with pleasure, but still he tries to look at you out of the corner of his eye - to make you see exactly what you are doing to him.

you breathe a laugh, panting hard. under scaramouche's mouth, a steadily growing puddle of drool forms. he twitches, legs giving in.

you grab his hips so hard his skin will certainly bruise. scaramouche is not yet allowed to stop taking you. you stare and stare, fucking him until the world starts to tilt, until your cock feels numb from sheer pleasure, until you start twitching so hard that it's visible on the front of scaramouche's stomach—

you cum hard, gasping for air. white stars form in your vision, and you can feel your hands tremble on his soft skin.

"haha…" you laugh, out of breath. under you, scaramouche whimpers quietly.

after a moment, you pull out slowly. a thick line of cum connects the tip of your still slightly twitching cock with scaramouche's warm, fluttering hole. "ahh… fuck. my cum… hahaha… deep… deep inside you…"

scaramouche lets out another whine. his hole clenches before releasing a white drop of liquid. he whimpers, trying to say something.

"mh?" you ask, using your thumb to smear the droplet around the throbbing hole. "speak up, scara…"

amidst his wordless whimpers, you push your thumb inside and laugh again, feeling scaramouche milking it powerlessly.

"i wonder when you came…"

"mmglh…" scaramouche answers. when something warm touches his freely leaking cock, he flinches lightly. a moan tumbles over his lips. with the palm of your hand, you rub the tip of his soft erection.

"or rather… how many times." scaramouche's eyes slowly roll backwards. with a grin, you raise your hand back up and glide your tongue over the palm, humming appreciatively at the taste. "yum ~"

"no…more…" scaramouche finally breathes. "can't…" your arm slings around his belly. with ease, you lift him up. "ahn—"

"no more? no more, scara?"

"no... more..."

"but baby..." you place a soft kiss on his temple.

"we were just getting started."

[formatting shamelessly stolen from scara smut writer @hanxku]