#mad that I can’t draw him exactly how he looked in my dream | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aseplant · 2 years ago

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welp. on god najin it's therapy time (:

There are many benefits to being the Child of Fire. Najin would know—because after discovering that time rewinds after his death, he’s determined to use his pseudo-immortality to save his brother. The universe, however, does not appreciate being blackmailed. —Najin versus god and the lesson he refuses to learn.

Between Najin’s last breath and the next, he wakes.

In a space that is darker than night, Najin meets a being made of smoke and light. It is so powerful that he can’t quite perceive it; it is so powerful that it hurts to breathe in its presence—not, of course, that he needs to. He knows he died on Rune’s sword, his body left to hang on the wall as a lesson for future traitors.

“Child of Fire,” the being muses. “Here so soon.”

He narrows his eyes, shifts his center of gravity. “And what are you?”

The being taps its chin. “A difficult question indeed… Others like you have called me god, but I don’t suppose that would garner any more respect from you.”

Of course not. There is exactly one person in this stupid world who matters, and this haze is most certainly not Nagyunn. “Where are we?”

“In between realities,” it says. “Waiting.”

“For what?”

It tilts its head. It sighs.

“Oh, Najin. You already know.”

He takes a step forward, reaching for a sword that is no longer there. “What d—”

A soft voice. “Jin-ah?”

Najin’s blood runs cold.

He turns. A face exactly like his, eyes wide with confusion, blood marring his shirt.

“There you are, Jin-ah! I was looking for you! The knight said you’d finished training already, but when—”

There’s a roaring in his ears drowning out the rest of Nagyunn’s excited chatter. He turns his attention back on the being, fists clenched, snarls, “Send him back.”

“It is not my place to interfere,” the being says apathetically. “I am but the overseer.”

Najin takes a step forward, both a threat and a promise.

The being remains unconcerned. Its loss.

“Besides…”

Najin is fifteen, with enough hubris to challenge god and just enough skill to pull it off.

“…you will have another chance to protect him.”

He draws his sword.

“Have some patience.”

In this not-quite-reality space, it forms in his grasp mid-swing, white wisps curling into the shape of that which killed him: half-dream, half-memory.

The being stops him with a single finger.

“Now, really, there is no need for that,” it says. “You will rise again, Child of Fire. Such is your nature. Take better care of him this time, hm?”

Najin pulls back his unoccupied fist—

—and Najin wakes.

It is currently eight o’clock. He feels as if he has just woken from a long, vivid dream.

But groggy as he feels, Najin knows he can’t afford to simply brush it off. Nagyunn died in his dream. If there’s any chance at all that was real, then he’s not risking Nagyunn again.

Unfortunately, it seems that Nagyunn has already left for work. Najin knows, from the sword, that Rune killed him in his dream—yesterday—today? So his cover is probably blown, and they’re probably trying to kill him and Nagyunn because they can’t tell them apart.

His plan is simple, then: get Nagyunn from work, pack some bags, skip town. Easy.

…or not.

(He dies on the way to Nagyunn four times.)

On the fifth time, Najin gets annoyed and decides to ambush the masked Dragon’s Descendants who keep ambushing him.

Also a failure. He dies two more times.

In the space between dying and waking, he continues to meet god.

“Seems you’ve had no luck this time either,” it says. “Perhaps a different approach is in order?”

Najin eyes it. He’s had suspiciously bad luck enroute to tracking down Nagyunn, and he can’t help but wonder if there’s been some… divine intervention. Maybe it’s mad because he attacked it that first time?

“Rest assured that your misfortune has little to do with me,” the being says, as if reading his mind. “I cannot interfere, only watch.”

“Then how do they keep finding me before I can find Nagyunn?” he snaps.

“Well…” the being contorts its face, clearly at odds with itself. “I suppose something like that wouldn’t hurt. Let’s say you were tracking someone, intending to kill them when they arrived home, but they kept deviating from their expected schedule…”

“…oh. Oh yeah.”

That makes sense.

Najin wakes.

He goes to training this time. Even though his whole body is itching to take off, go find Nagyunn and take him out of town, he stays the whole time, listening to Fadiyan’s antics and Luzian and Ruth’s dumbassery. When class dismisses he heads down to the town square, where Nagyunn is sure to pass through no matter where he was working today, and when his brother comes by Najin greets him with a big smile and subtly ushers him home.

“Is something the matter, Najin?” Nagyunn asks.

Well, maybe not so subtly.

“No,” he lies smoothly. “Why?”

“You just seem… hm, I don’t know, antsy? Did training not go well?”

“Oh, you know Fadiyan,” Najin says. “Always doing whatever she wants, even though the test is coming up so soon. But, umm”—inspiration strikes—“I was thinking, she said she was gonna be visiting a friend on Monday, so we basically have three days off. Do you wanna go on a trip together?”

Nagyunn’s eyes light up. “That sounds fun! But… I don’t really think I can be gone from work that long…”

Ugh, curse his responsible older brother instincts.

Najin plasters on the saddest face he can muster. “Oh, okay… but this might be our last chance before I become an apprentice…”

“Wow, someone’s confident he’s going to pass,” Nagyunn laughs.

Najin squares his shoulders haughtily. “But of course. Who else would they pick?”

Nagyunn musses his hair affectionately. “You know what, you’re right. I’ve deeply underestimated our village’s genius… I must pay for this sin with death! All hail Najin!”

“Stop that,” he laughs, batting his twin’s hand away. “Is that a yes, then? We should pac—”

It’s only by coincidence that Nagyunn reaches the door first.

It’s only because Najin is too relaxed, high on the relief of finally meeting up with Nagyunn after so many attempts at today, that he doesn’t react in time.

It’s only because they’re twins, because Fadiyan gave him that stupid assignment—no, because Najin wasn’t good enough at his job, because—

“Ah, no good, that one was Nagyunn,” someone says.

—well.

Excuses won’t bring back Nagyunn. Excuses won’t erase the sight of that sword tip plunging cleanly into Nagyunn’s eye, the memory of the blood spray when it pulled back out, the sickening way his body fell to the floor.

But Najin kind of knows how this works by now, so he stands still when the next strike comes, and then there is only darkness.

The being does not come to greet him this time. Najin doesn’t know if it’s respect, or guilt, or something else. He finds he doesn’t actually care.

In the abyss, the last few moments of his life replay over and over. The sword. The expression on Nagyunn’s face when it came out. The river of blood where his left eye should have been. The heaviness of his corpse in Najin’s arms.

If he still had physical form, Najin suspects he would have been sick. But there is only him in this space between death and waking.

Najin wakes. He sits up, feeling strange and out of place in his own body.

(Nagyunn’s weight presses on his arms.)

He lurches to the bathroom and is violently ill.

When his stomach settles again, he takes a deep breath. He has a sip of water.

(The sword pulls out of Nagyunn’s eye, spraying blood and other viscous fluids.)

He grits his teeth, wipes the cold sweat from his forehead, and goes to training. Nagyunn was safe until he went to pick him up last time. He’ll be okay this time too, then. Najin will just be more careful when they get back. He knows what’s coming, and he knows how to fight.

He’ll kill those people if it’s the last thing he does. He’ll save Nagyunn. He will break this cycle.

(He does not.)

The fifth time Nagyunn dies in his arms, the masked group doesn’t touch him, so Najin finishes the job for them.

The being is waiting for him in the in-between space, as it has been for almost all of his deaths. It has not tried to talk to him since Nagyunn’s first death, and Najin has not bothered to say anything either.

Today, he has had enough of this.

In his hand materializes a sword, foamy dream and memory and burning with red-hot anger.

“Leave Nagyunn alone,” Najin hisses, “you sick bastard—”

“Your anger will change nothing,” it says. “Your choices have led here. Your choices will lead you back here if you continue the same path.”

He swings into nothingness.

Najin wakes.

He dies in Nagyunn’s stead. He wakes.

He dies in Nagyunn’s stead twice. He fights god. He wakes.

He dies in Nagyunn’s stead four times. Five. Seven. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty-seven. He loses count.

He fights god.

He wakes.

Najin takes a different route home. He stops going home. He skips training. He suggests they go visit Lauzun.

Nagyunn dies. If the masked group doesn’t kill him too, then Najin brings a sword to his own neck. He will not leave this day without Nagyunn.

The being is waiting for him, hazy and ethereal and unconcerned by any of Najin’s attacks.

On his next death, he does not attack it.

It says, with clear certainty, “You wanted to ask me something.”

“Why does he keep dying?”

“Because he was not intended to survive past today,” it says simply.

Ah. That’s one suspicion confirmed, at least.

“Through sheer tenacity, you have exploited the world’s gift to you to extend your brother’s lifespan,” the being says. “Admirable, truly. But I have told you: your choices will continue to lead you here if you stay on this path.”

“How do I get off this path?”

“I cannot help you,” it says simply. “But perhaps there are others who could.”

…right.

Of course, it’s so simple. He’ll just tell Fadiyan about the problem, and surely between the two of them they’ll be strong enough to take on—

Nagyunn dies.

Unfeelingly, unflinchingly, Najin brings the sword to his neck as well, Fadiyan’s alarm fading into the background.

“Back again, Child of Fire,” the being sighs.

Najin tries to punch it again for good measure.

Najin wakes.

The numbness sets in before the hopelessness. He stops getting sick after Nagyunn’s deaths. He stops hesitating before beginning the cycle anew. He wakes.

Even once the hopelessness starts to set in, even when he loses count of how many deaths he’s had, even as he slowly begins to accept that he’ll probably be stuck in this loop of yesterdays forever, at least he never loses sight of his desperation to save Nagyunn. So even though the exhaustion sinks in so deep that his bones ache at the thought of getting up, Najin continues to force himself out of bed again and again and again.

He leaves training early. The masked group is still waiting for them when they get home. He tries to get Nagyunn to leave with him without going home. Nagyunn finds this wildly irresponsible, reckless, and terrifyingly out of character, so he refuses to come. He tries to bring their things with him to training. Rune must have spies on him, or perhaps even a mole within the knights-in-training, because he is killed on his way to find Nagyunn after work.

Najin wakes. He forces himself up. He tries again.

He’s gotten pretty good at lying to Nagyunn over the years, ever since he joined the Dragon’s Descendants. In all these repeats, Nagyunn has never truly questioned him. But the weariness starts to weigh his feet down, and although he tries to maintain a happy face for Nagyunn, it’s so, so hard, and his brother is so, so perceptive.

All he says is: “Hey, Jin-ah, is everything alright? You don’t look so good…”

Just a gentle hand on his shoulder, a worried furrow to his eye.

It’s such a small action. On any other day, Najin would simply shrug him off and give him a sunny smile, and that’s exactly what he intends to do now—

But instead, Najin, to his horror, starts crying.

Nagyunn is also horrified. Probably for different reasons. “Najin? Oh my god, what’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere? What’s—”

Najin shakes his head and tries to speak, but all that comes out is a wet, choked noise. Fuck.

He gives up and pulls Nagyunn into a hug instead.

Clearly bewildered, Nagyunn pats his back awkwardly. “Was—was it training? Did someone do something to you? I’ll kick their ass, Jin-ah, it’s okay, please don’t cry.”

“I’m tired of watching you die,” he hiccups into his twin’s shoulder.

“Oh, Jin-ah, I’m here for you now,” Nagyunn says. “Did something happen? Did you have a bad dream last night?”

“No,” he sighs. He slumps further into Nagyunn’s embrace, forcing his brother to bear most of their weights. “I just… forget it.”

It’s not like he can just tell Nagyunn the truth. The day will probably start over soon, for one reason or another. He’ll just count this one a wash. Maybe he’ll manage to save him in the next one.

“What? Hey, don’t say that.” Nagyunn pulls back, forcing Najin to look him in the eye. “Jin-ah. Tell me what’s wrong.”

He looks away. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

“Why wouldn’t I? No matter what happens, I’ll always believe you. So just tell me.”

“Well, nothing happened. Still going to say you believe me?”

“Jiiiiiiiiiiiin-ahhh.” Nagyunn pinches his cheek.

“Ow ow ow, hey!”

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he says. “It’s clearly not nothing. Why are you hiding things from me all of a sudden?”

I’ve been hiding things from you for years, he does not say.

“It’s really nothing,” he grumbles. “I’ll figure it out, so don’t worry about it.”

Nagyunn swats him on the head. “What the hell does that mean? Najin, I’m your older brother. I’m supposed to protect you, and—”

He shoves Nagyunn’s hand away. “I’m better at fighting than you are anyway.”

Nagyunn narrows his eyes. “Oh? So it’s a person who’s bothering you, then? Or—no, you’re basically the strongest one in this village except for your teacher. So a group of people?”

Fuck, why is he so perceptive. “No. I said nothing.”

“Najin.”

“Look, just leave me alone, okay? It has nothing to do with you anyway—”

“—you started crying Najin, in the middle of the street, how am I supposed to just ignore that—”

“—okay, wow, sure, just go ahead and bring that up—”

“—don’t try to distract me, Najin, just tell me what’s wrong—”

“I told you there’s nothing!” he snaps. “Stop trying to get involved in every aspect of my life! I just—have a lot on my plate, with the apprenticeship exam coming up, and the last thing I need is you butting your head into things when you can’t even fight that well, and…”

Nagyunn has an odd look on his face.

Najin’s anger and stress evaporates instantaneously.

“…never mind, I’m sorry, Gyunn-ah, I was just saying whatever came to mind, please don’t be mad at me…”

“You didn’t have anything on your mind at all last night,” Nagyunn says slowly. “Where did all this come from?”

“…uh, test nerves?”

“You say I keep dying, even though I’ve been at work all day, and now you won’t elaborate because you’re trying to protect me from something. I didn’t tell you where I’d be today, but you came to find me right after work anyway. You seem—dead on your feet, honestly, but you were fine last night. You didn’t think I’d believe you if you told the truth.”

“Um,” Najin says. Nagyunn’s always been smart, of course, but this is getting kind of scary. “I just… you know…”

“What did we have for dinner last night?”

Najin opens his mouth, then sighs and rubs his eyes.

“See?” Nagyunn says gently. “That wasn’t so bad. And I believe you. So let me help you, Jin-ah.”

“…Alright,” Najin says. “I guess two heads are better than one.”

“Exactly!” Nagyunn smiles. “So do you know what triggers a loop?”

“One of us dying.” Sort of.

“And what have you tried so far?”

Najin rattles off a quick list.

“Hm, I can see why I wouldn’t have gone with you… let’s see… what did Fadiyan ask you to do, exactly?”

“Just—take out some bandits.”

Nagyunn narrows his eyes. “…I know you’re lying, Najin. I hope that wasn’t important information.”

“It’s not.”

“Can I assume that you can get Fadiyan to help us, then?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Nagyunn says. “Well then. They must have someone watching you, because they know to go after you alone when you deviate from your schedule, so they must have seen you leave training at the usual time. They’re probably already waiting for us at home, but when we don’t arrive soon they’ll come looking for us. Let’s go ask Fadiyan for help for now. Do you know where she is?”

“She’ll still be near the training grounds,” Najin says, automatically beginning to lead the way, “but if we stay too long, they’ll try to use you to lure me out.”

Nagyunn falls in step with him. “Then we’ll move somewhere else. I guess you keep trying to talk to her without me overhearing? But now that I’m going with you while knowing the full story, it shouldn’t be too hard to fill her in and move to somewhere harder to find us. Then we persuade her to let us stay with her overnight. That’ll give us some time to think about tomorrow.”

“…right,” Najin says. That makes sense. “You’re so smart, Jin-ah.”

“Well one of us has to be,” Nagyunn laughs. “Cuz it isn’t you.”

Najin feels the corners of his lips quirking up, his first genuine smile in a long, long time. He feels foolish now. After going undercover and keeping his secrets for so long, he’d forgotten how much easier things are with Nagyunn around.

“Alright, I’ll talk to Fadiyan. You just stick near me, okay?”

“I’ll be by your side the whole time,” Nagyunn promises.

Najin wants to believe it, but he knows better by now.

Still, Nagyunn’s plan is as solid as any that he’s tried at this point, so Najin carries it out faithfully. Together, they locate Fadiyan, and he asks her to move to a more private place. He tells her his assignment has been exposed, and that he and Nagyunn are both in danger now. He lays it on as thick as he can—Nagyunn’s only a civilian, but he’s in danger now too—until Fadiyan finally says, “Aw, kid. You don’t have to phrase it like that. I get it, you’re worried. I’ll take responsibility for this. What is it you want from me?”

“Let us stay with you tonight,” Nagyunn says quietly. “You’re a knight. Surely no matter how powerful this group is, they’ll think twice before attacking you in your own home.”

Fadiyan turns to him, eyes bright.

Ugh, catching her interest is never a good thing. Najin resists the urge to step in front of his brother protectively.

“So you’re Nagyunn then,” she says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Nagyunn shows no reaction. “So?”

“Well, I don’t think I’m supposed to show favoritism like that,” she sighs, “but I guess these are special circumstances. Come along then. Let’s get you guys somewhere safe.”

Najin tries to squash the flutterings of hope in his stomach. “Thank you.”

“Wow, I don’t think you’ve ever been this polite with me,” Fadiyan says. “Your brother is such a good influence on you. I should’ve asked to meet him sooner…”

Najin narrows his eyes. He lowers his voice and hisses, “Hey. Don’t even think about it. Nagyunn’s not good at fighting.”

“Ah, but I have a colleague like that,” Fadiyan says brightly. “There’s still plenty he could do.”

“No,” Najin says.

“Well,” she says with a sidelong glance at Nagyunn, who’s starting to take interest in their whispered conversation, “I think that’s for him to decide, isn’t it? Besides, think about it. You came to me because the knights are the safest to be with now that your cover’s blown. You think that’ll change anytime soon?”

Najin stops short, glare murderous. “What’re you suggesting?”

Nagyunn puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Najin? What’s going on?”

Fadiyan glances at him. “I don’t know how much Najin has told you, but if what he’s told me is true, it isn’t safe for either of you to stay in this village anymore. But, lucky you—the apprenticeship exam is next week! Fast way to get out, if you ask me, and you’d be under the knights’ protection. Pretty sweet deal, don’t you think?”

Nagyunn tilts his head. “Do you really think I could pass the exam?”

“We-ell,” Fadiyan says, “that remains to be seen.”

“And you’re encouraging this because?”

“Because she thinks you’d be useful,” Najin spits out. “Don’t listen to her, Gyunn-ah. We’ll figure out something else.”

Fadiyan waves him off. “Sure, sure, whatever you want. But let’s keep walking, hm?”

Najin begrudgingly begins following her again.

Curse her for planting the thought in Nagyunn’s head at all. Behind him, he can sense the gears start to turn in his brother’s brain.

Against all odds, Najin wakes to the crow call and jingle of the weekend peddlers, come from afar to sell their wares. It used to be a signal to go back to bed because Fadiyan doesn’t conduct training on weekends, but it’s the first time he’s heard it in weeks, and it feels almost bizarre now. He’d never thought he’d miss it.

Wait.

He bolts upright. Nagyunn—

“I’m right here, Jin-ah,” Nagyunn says, rolling over in his pile of blankets. “You okay?”

“…Yeah,” Najin says. “Of course.”

Nagyunn searches his face for a moment, then smiles. “I’m glad. You passed out really early last night—”

Fuck, he’d meant to keep watch for any unexpected occurrences.

“—but it makes since, all things considered, y’know? Anyway, I talked a bit with Fadiyan last night, and—”

“You shouldn’t listen to her,” Najin says automatically.

Nagyunn sighs. “I know you’re hesitant, but it really does just make the most sense. Provided I can pass the exam, of course… she wouldn’t tell me anything about that, so we’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.”

“I don’t like it,” Najin insists.

“Really?” Nagyunn says, pretending to pout. “But I thought you’d be happy to spend more time with me. If we both get in, we’d get to see each other everyday.”

“It’s not like that,” Najin says. “It’s just…”

…that Nagyunn will never be able to achieve the level of strength that Najin has, but because they’re twins, everyone will either treat him terribly or throw him into danger anyway, expecting it to work out. And if that gleam in Fadiyan’s eyes is anything to go by…

“Well, do you have any other suggestions then?” Nagyunn asks. “I don’t mind either way, but it’s not like you can just drop out and go adventuring—”

“Yes I could,” Najin says immediately.

Nagyunn levels an unimpressed stare. “Come on Najin, be serious. I’m not going to ask you to give up your dream—or even just, that stable of a future—because of something like this.”

“…you say that like this is just—just some small bump in the road,” Najin says.

Nagyunn winces. “Jin-ah, we can’t let this one thing derail your entire future—”

“Okay, and then what about you?” he says. “Do you—do you not—”

Embarrassingly, his breath hitches, and Nagyunn’s face immediately softens. “Oh, Jin-ah, I’m sorry. I know that yesterday—”

“You know, but you don’t understand,” Najin snaps, eyes stinging with angry tears. “Do you realize how many times I watched you die? But all you’re worried about is me—”

“I mean, I don’t even remember it, so of course I’m worried about y—”

“—you dummy,” Najin sniffs, “worry about yourselffor once, and, and n-now Fadiyan’s gone and convinced you that joining the knights would be safer for you, like they wouldn’t throw you into danger in a heartbeat, and—I… I just want you to be safe, Nagyunn.”

Nagyunn pats his hands reassuringly. “I didn’t mean to dismiss your feelings like that. I’m sorry. I still think joining the knights would be our best option, but if you’re that against it… we could join an adventuring group together?”

That sounds much better than putting Nagyunn in the gaze of schemers like Fadiyan, and whatever other knights are going to be out there, watching the rising star and his twin.

“Yes,” he sniffs. “I do like that plan better.”

“Okay,” Nagyunn says easily, “then we’ll do that. Although… I still think we’ll get out of here faster if we take the apprenticeship exam next week. What do you think?”

“…okay. Just for a bit,” Najin mumbles. “We can train a bit until then. I’ll ask Fadiyan. I’m sure she’ll want to help you.”

Nagyunn grins. “Sure. Look at that! Everything’s settled. We’re in this together, so there’s no need to stress about everything on your own, alright?”

“Alright,” Najin echoes.

Nagyunn reaches up and wipes a stray tear away. “Man, I haven’t seen this side of you in a while.”

The crying, he means. Najin buries his face in his brother’s shoulder and mumbles, “shut up.”

Nagyunn laughs softly.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Your big brother’s here for you. Always.”

He holds him tighter. Yes, he will be. As long as Najin has the power to start over, he’ll kill himself as many times as he needs to to keep Nagyunn safe and sound.

“You better be,” Najin grumbles.

The apprenticeship exam turns out to be a group exam, which is hilariously trivial in the face of Nagyunn’s brilliance and Najin’s fighting prowess. Nagyunn simply observes on the first day, his presence and combat capabilities so weak that Ludika barely even glances his way.

On the second day, two Najins show up. Najin had agreed to this, of course, had even helped Nagyunn cut his hair, but that doesn’t help calm him at all when Ludika goes after the wrong person and he lunges for them both, heart in his throat—

—but Fadiyan parries the attack at the last minute.

“Come on, Ludi, you’ll really kill him if you do that,” she tuts.

Najin releases a shaky breath. God, this is why he hadn’t wanted Nagyunn to join the knights. He’s hung around Fadiyan long enough to know that none of these people are sane.

But it seems he can trust Fadiyan to keep an eye on Nagyunn for now, so he clenches his fists, steels himself, and barks out new orders to the rest of the knights-in-training.

It’s just for a bit, he reminds himself. This is only going to be long enough to get out of Woodion safely and find a safer place to stay.

They pass the exam, of course. With flying colors.

They stay with Fadiyan for two more weeks before Ludika up and disappears on them. And just like that, they leave Woodion behind.

After a dismal performance on their tracking assignment, they regroup with Ludika and a bunch of new faces in the middle of nowhere. Marsha is already there, to no one’s surprise, and she declares in front of everyone that she’d like his babies.

Insanity.

“No way in hell,” Najin scowls.

Nagyunn looks absolutely shell-shocked.

“Jin-ah…” he says, eyes lightless.

“Ugh, it’s not like that,” Najin sighs.

Marsha eyes him curiously. “And who are you?”

Najin slings an arm around him protectively and tells her, quite politely, to fuck off.

Thankfully, the knights begin class before Marsha can escalate things further.

It’s not quite possible for Najin to keep his head down, but Nagyunn agrees to attract as little attention as possible while they’re with the knights. His complete lack of talent for combat is balanced out enough by his quick thinking that most of the knights pay him no mind, instead focusing on Najin’s overwhelmingly visible strength—which is exactly how Najin prefers it. No chance of Nagyunn getting caught up in something weird if none of the knights will give him the time of day.

But somehow, despite both their efforts…

“—and Qilin Squad will be composed of Nagyunn, Nuljin, Ruth, and Yulnia,” the administrator announces.

…Nagyunn still manages to catch the eye of that bastard.

Najin clenches his fists, thoughts racing. Then:

“How does that make any sense?” he asks as obnoxiously as possible.

The administrator blinks, clearly taken aback. “Um… w-well, that was decided among the knights, so…”

“Watch your tone, Najin,” Ludika snaps.

Najin ignores her and pivots on his heel, intending to see if he can annoy Zius into leaving Nagyunn alone.

As if summoned, Zius comes over of his own accord.

“Nagyunn’s not strong and neither are you,” Najin tells him bluntly. “Ruth isn’t that strong either, for that matter. What kind of squad did you assemble?”

“I chose Nagyunn because he’s good at thinking on his feet. I think his keen insights—”

“Isn’t that what you’re for?”

Zius raises an eyebrow subtly. “…Najin. Is there a reason you’re being so hostile right now? It’s well within my rights to choose who I want on my squad.”

A hand touches his elbow.

“Jin-ah,” Nagyunn says. “Come with me for a second?”

He complies, begrudgingly, but not before shooting one last glare at Zius.

“I thought we agreed not to stir up any unnecessary trouble,” Nagyunn reminds him gently. “That means avoiding picking fights with the knights, even the weak one.”

“I wasn’t picking a fight with him—”

“You were about to tell him to go kill himself.”

“Well, he had it coming.”

Nagyunn sighs. “Look, he’s probably just trying to figure out why I’m here.”

“I know,” Najin whines.

“Then why are you being so hostile to him? You have to know that the circumstances surrounding my apprenticeship are odd. If all the knights accepted me blindly, I think we’d have bigger problems on our hands.”

“You haven’t been around knights long enough to know what they’re like,” Najin says petulantly. “You think Fadiyan’s bad? They’re all like that. They’ve been too strong for too long, so they’re all out of their minds. Even if he’s just testing you, he’s going to go about it in the most insane way possible.”

Nagyunn just laughs. “They have no reason to think I’m capable of anything more than I’ve shown in the evaluation matches. Even if he does test me, he'll probably have to do it within the limits of what the other apprentices can handle, so it won’t be too dangerous. Have some faith in me, Jin-ah. There are lines he won’t cross.”

…well, Najin supposes he’ll see for himself eventually. In the meantime, it’s only their first mission, so it’s not like anything too crazy can happen.

Najin reluctantly waves him off as Qilin Squad departs—

—and slams Zius against a tree, days later, with no Nagyunn in sight.

“Why,” he says, enunciating every syllable crisply, “the hell. Did Luzian just tell me that Nagyunn walked off with the enemy?”

Fidorance’s great sword is against his throat in an instant.

“Watch yourself, Najin,” he snaps. “If you can’t control your temper—”

“Leave it,” Zius says, pushing away Fidorance’s blade gently with one hand and crushing a pressure point in Najin’s hand with his other, forcing him to let go. “It’s understandably a difficult circumstance for him. I agree that it was my responsibility to look after Nagyunn, and I failed. As such, when the Fox and the Raccoon arrive, we will go retrieve him. But—Najin, I know, but no, you cannot come with us. That’s my only condition.”

“But—”

“Najin.” Zius lowers his voice so that only the two of them can hear. “I know that you’re very attached to your brother. But you can see why behavior this erratic could be a liability on missions, right? So even though you’re strong, and even if this mission weren’t too dangerous for apprentices, I can’t allow you to join us.”

Najin scowls. His reasoning is, of course, flawless. It’s like talking to Nagyunn.

Doesn’t mean he has to like it.

“Go fuck yourself,” he tells Zius childishly.

Zius just sighs. “I will not be doing that. You—just… try to get along with Fidorance. You’re the strongest here, so everyone looks up to you. Help him keep the other apprentices in line while we’re gone.”

Cool! Najin immediately adds that to the list of things he will not be doing even under threat of death.

Zius pinches the bridge of his nose, but wisely lets it drop.

Najin is… almost surprised, by how fast Zius pulls together an operation to retrieve Nagyunn. He’d been intending to go after Nagyunn himself if they didn’t head out soon, but thankfully Zius has enough sense to understand his urgency, and the knights depart as soon as they’ve gathered.

For his part, Najin can only train distractedly, all the while praying that Nagyunn hasn’t already died at a time that he’s no longer able to return to. He counts the seconds as Fidorance attempts to rally him into actually putting effort into his training. Apparently, his behavior is concerning enough behavior that the knight first tries to talk to him, then sic the Woodion apprentices on him—but joke’s on him, because Najin couldn’t care less about any of them.

In the evening, when Najin is just getting antsy enough to consider resetting the day, just to be safe, the knights finally return with Nagyunn in tow.

Najin immediately breaks away from the rest of the apprentices to tackle him with a hug. “Gyunn-ah!”

Nagyunn laughs. “Missed me, huh?”

Zius glances down at them. “…well, I guess you’ve been through enough for today. We’ll handle Liamin. Fox.”

And then they’re alone.

“Think you could let me up, Jin-ah?” Nagyunn says lightheartedly.

Najin allows it, glaring all the while. “Do you know how worried I was? You dumbass, how could you just walk off with the enemy like that? That was so dangerous—”

“But I’m fine, see?” Nagyunn pinches his cheek. “I know I’m not strong like you, but I can help the others in my own right.”

“Well, they’re all stronger than you. They can handle themselves. Or Zius can, I don’t care. But don’t do things like that again.”

“The knights told me off for that too,” Nagyunn laughs.

“And don’t you think maybe that says something?” Najin says snippily. “I told you they’re all insane, and even they thought your plan was insane.”

“I know. But it was a dangerous situation for everyone,” Nagyunn says gently. “I did what I had to.”

“Fuck the others.”

“Oh, Jin-ah, what am I going to do with you?” Nagyunn sighs, ruffling his hair affectionately.

“…Does that mean you’re going to do it again? Because we can just leave, then. They’ll figure it out themselves.”

“I guess we could,” Nagyunn says noncommittally. “But, listen, I’ve been thinking.”

…That’s not a very reassuring answer. “About?”

“That enemy… he was monstrous. Even three knights struggled against him.”

“Zius barely counts.”

“Okay, then two knights did. And he’s helping the masked group. And, Jin-ah, I don’t know what you did, and I know you don’t want to tell me—but they’re really, truly after us, I think. So it’s definitely going to be a while before we can just take off.”

“They can’t hurt us if they can’t find us,” Najin insists stubbornly.

Nagyunn smiles wryly. “I know. But you’re… a genius, Najin. You’re going to stand out no matter where you go. You know that.”

“I mean, yeah, but—” A sudden thought strikes him. “…hey, how do you even know about the masked group?”

“Oh.” Nagyunn winces. “Well… okay, so please don’t be mad, but…”

“But?”

“…I told Qilin-nim some… things… after we found out about the wizards, because I suspected that one of the Woodion apprentices had been spying on you. And we ferreted out Ruth, and he had a mask that communicated with others, and, y’know, we put two and two together. That’s how I managed to convince the skeleton to leave the others alone, actually. ‘Cuz I was holding on to the mask.”

Najin blinks slowly. “You… told Zius.”

“Yeah,” Nagyunn says awkwardly. “Sorry for not consulting you, but it seemed too dangerous to stay quiet when people were dying…”

Najin squints. “You trust that guy?”

“I mean… no? Not really? But he’s smart. He can be useful, at least.”

Najin lets out a breath of relief. At least Nagyunn isn’t being completely naïve about this.

“Good enough I guess,” he says. “I guess if you don’t feel safe leaving, we can stay until things resolve themselves. Do you think he’s still suspicious of you?”

“Oh, for sure,” Nagyunn says brightly.

“How much did you tell him?”

“Only that we’d had a run-in with the masked group, and they seemed to be targeting you, for whatever reason,” Nagyunn says. “You know. Parts of the truth. He’ll probably ask you some questions too, later, but I don’t think he’s going to lay it on too thick for now.”

Najin sighs. “Okay.”

“If that’s settled, should we go rejoin the others?”

“Sure,” Najin says. “But…”

He finally notices the strangely shaped dagger beside Nagyunn.

“…what is that?”

Nagyunn beams. “I stole it.”

Najin groans, rubbing at his temples. “Gyunn-ah, seriously? Please don’t ever do something like this again.”

Nagyunn stares at him for just a fraction of a second too long with a strange half-smile on his face.

“Alright,” he says. “Promise.”

Liar.

But Najin knows he’d be the world’s biggest hypocrite if he said anything about it, so he doesn’t.

Time passes with the knights. They encounter the Dragon’s Descendants again, but do not manage to fully defeat them, so they stay with the knights and continue training.

The standout apprentices—him, Marsha, Wadrin, Pymel, Tyr, and Luzian—split their time between the capital and special training with Zius and Darang. It means he sees Nagyunn less, but when they do meet his brother still seems to be in good enough spirits, so he doesn’t push for them to leave again.

In the meantime:

Najin improves at an impressive rate, of course. It earns him a lot of attention and popularity among the apprentices, which he mostly brushes off with rude indifference. And Nagyunn grows his strength quietly, away from the limelight, in ways that the apprentices do not take note of but the knights do.

It still comes as a bit of a surprise when brawn-for-brains Fidorance selects Nagyunn to take part in the advanced missions. Najin can’t say he likes the idea of Nagyunn being put in danger like that, but it does mean he can at least continue to keep an eye on him, and Nagyunn seems pleased, so he can’t really bring himself to ruin his mood. They leave the capital along with the other selected apprentices around noon, a bounce in Nagyunn’s step the whole way.

In the afternoon, they receive their mission briefing and some news about runaway apprentices. Pure foolishness, not that Najin really cares except for the fact that it will make more work for him.

They send out search parties in the early morning, Najin with Tyr and Marsha, Nagyunn with Luzian and Wadrin.

He and Nagyunn locate the runaways at about the same time—

—which means neither of them could possibly be fast enough to save Jiroon, who is left to collapse from the dagger wound in her side.

Nagyunn reaches her first. “Jiroon!”’

Najin is sprinting after him, circuit in hand, when the world goes dark.

He opens his eyes to a hazy, half-formed being made of white wisps—

And is more confused than ever.

It’s not that he doesn’t know where he is, although he’d been hoping he’d never have to see this place again, had almost managed to forget the darker-than-dark inkiness of the space between death and waking. But he has no idea how he got here. He’d thought…

“How did I die?” he asks the being, bewildered.

“You did not,” it replies from its nonexistent mouth. “She did.”

Najin stares. “Then why am I here?”

“Because she was not meant to die.”

“But what does that have to do with…”

A horrible thought dawns on him.

“I see you already understand,” the being says. “He lived because of your interference, so the deaths his life incurs will be your burden to bear, Child of Fire.”

“…and the day will keep repeating until I do save her?”

“You do have another option,” it says.

Najin glares. “Fuck off.”

Najin wakes.

It’s early morning. He squints against the sunlight—

Filtering through a window, not tree leaves.

Najin bolts upright. Everyone is asleep except for Toorisun. Yesterday—the time before Jiroon died and he woke—he’d woken up in the forest, where Zius had asked them to gather. But he’s in the capital, so that would’ve been… two days ago?

It’s different from last time. Then…

Najin thinks it over for a moment, gives up, and sighs. Then nothing. There’s too many factors that have changed. Shame that he’s not nearly as good at this kind of thing as Nagyunn, but Najin’s not about to bother him over something this trivial.

He’ll figure out a way to take care of this on his own.

The apprentices gather in the tavern for breakfast. It’s honestly pretty convenient that he’s been brought back to now; all he has to do is approach Jiroon and convince her not to go with the runaways, before heading out with the others who have been selected for missions.

He’s mostly done with his breakfast by the time she finally comes downstairs with Quaring. He tunes out Nagyunn and Lauzun’s conversation, momentarily, to catch her saying—

“—yeah, I just had a really bad nightmare. I’m fine. But thank you for waking me, I wouldn’t want to be late…”

…a nightmare. Had she originally said something like this? Najin doesn’t pay enough attention to her normally to remember.

But he does remember mistaking his first loop for a dream. An interesting possibility.

Najin weighs his options quickly. Even if he approached her now, she’d probably still have trouble believing him; in that case, waiting is probably the better option. In the worst case, it’s just a fluke, and he’ll have to start again—but after the fiasco with Nagyunn, he’s pretty numb to this kind of repetition. In the best case, letting things play out again would save him a lot of trouble.

Mind made up, he finishes breakfast and waits for Nagyunn to head over to the training grounds. He dutifully ignores Marsha’s attempts to make conversation throughout the day, and finally, in the afternoon, after selection, he heads out to the forest with everyone else.

In the morning, they form search parties and look for the three runaways. He makes a beeline for their location immediately, but Jiroon must have misstepped somewhere, because he arrives only in time to see her body fall.

In between one blink and the next, Najin opens his eyes to find himself surrounded by the abyss once more. The being observes him silently this time, offering no commentary.

Najin wakes.

As expected, he’s back in the capital once more; Toorisun is gone, but the others are all asleep. Najin glances over at Jiroon’s sleeping form, thinks about how odd it would be if anyone woke up while he was trying to wake her, and heads downstairs for breakfast instead.

The others trickle downstairs slowly, woken by the morning light or their friends as they begin preparing for the day. Najin sits at the table closest to the stairs and nibbles on his bread, Wadrin and Darigon talking up a storm even though he keeps pointedly ignoring them, wishing desperately that he’d had the foresight to wake Nagyunn as well so the others would fuck off.

Finally, Jiroon comes down the stairs, unaccompanied by Quaring this time. Looks like his guess was right.

As she passes him, Najin grabs her wrist.

“Wait,” he says. “Let’s talk.”

“I think this is the first time we’ve had a conversation on our own,” Jiroon remarks with a small smile as he leads her into the alley just outside the inn. Probably a friendly attempt to break the silence. “You always keep to yourself and Nagyunn. Is there something I can help you with?”

“No,” Najin says.

“Then—”

“You’re the one who needs help.”

Her smile falters. “…Pardon?”

“I’m sure you’ve noticed by now,” he says, “but the day repeats if you die.”

“H-how…”

“So you should stop dying.”

She stares at him wordlessly for a moment, mouth gaping. Finally, she says, “I—I’m sorry? I didn’t… how did you…”

For a moment, Najin considers explaining things to her, but then immediately dismisses his brief bout of insanity. More trouble than it’s worth. Besides, there’s no guarantee that she’d treat Nagyunn the same after. He couldn’t care less about her, but he can tell that Nagyunn likes her work ethic and sincerity, and he’d hate to ruin that.

So instead, Najin says, “I’d have to be stupid not to notice after the second time, wouldn’t I?”

Maybe it’s the wrong thing to say. Najin knows he’s not exactly delicate about things, but Jiroon turns sheet white at that, nails digging into her skin from how tightly she’s clasped her hands together.

“…you’re not going to faint, right.”

Jiroon doesn’t seem to hear him. “Then does that mean the others…?”

“No,” he says, then quickly adds, “—well, I don’t think so.”

She visibly relaxes. “Oh. Okay, that’s…” She tucks a stray hair behind her ear, laughing awkwardly. “Well, I can’t say dying is pleasant, but at least it won’t… traumatize the others too much…”

Ugh. She sounds exactly like Nagyunn.

“So how come we remember then?” she asks.

He shrugs. “How would I know?”

Jiroon laughs apologetically, seemingly unbothered by his rudeness. “Yeah, I guess that was silly of me. I think… um, that was you last time, right? The person who found us first?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for that,” she smiles. “And… I’m sorry to ask you for another favor after that—and I definitely don’t mean to be presumptuous—but do you think… could you tell me where the Qilin and the rest are staying?”

Najin stares at her uncomprehendingly. “You’re still planning to go with Toorisun and Yulnia?”

She laughs softly. “Well… if I back out, they’ll just go without me and get killed. It doesn’t really solve anything, you know?”

“And you think repeating the same actions will? Didn’t you already try that last time?”

“Well… there’s still a lot of things that could change. Maybe if we can avoid those two and stay on track to find your base…”

“That’s exactly how you’ll get yourself killed again,” Najin tells her bluntly.

“I guess it isn’t a very solid plan,” Jiroon agrees amiably. “This kind of thing isn’t really my specialty… but, hm… Nagyunn’s really good at coming up with plans. Maybe we could ask him for—”

Najin slams his fist against the wall. Jiroon flinches.

“Absolutely not,” he says, voice dead calm as he stares her down. “Leave Nagyunn out of this.”

She must be more tenacious than she looks, because she doesn’t back down. “But I’m sure, coming from you at least, if we explain—”

“What part of ‘no’ do you not understand?” Najin snaps.

He thought that’d be a clear enough warning that she’d change the topic, but instead a strange look passes over her face.

“You…” Jiroon says slowly, “are being very… does he already know? Or…”

Ice cold dread seeps down his spine. Najin clenches his fists.

“…perhaps he’s been in the same—”

“You’d better stop talking,” Najin says quietly.

His demeanor is definitely starting to affect her now. She takes a nervous step back, shoulders hunched with hesitancy—

But her eyes remain determined. “Then… at least tell me why you’re so agai—”

Najin bares his teeth. She’s really going to insist on this, huh?

“What,” he says, enunciating every syllable sharply, “makes you deserving of his help in the first place? He’s the weakest apprentice, but you’ll all just flock to him for help whenever it suits you, huh? Can’t you do anything by yourself?”

He takes one step forward. She takes one step back.

“You’ve had two chances already, and all you—”

“Jin-ah?”

Najin freezes, then quickly plasters and eases the hostility from his body language. “Oh, Nagyunn, wh—”

“What’re you doing over here? I’ve been looking for you all morning.” Nagyunn nods at Jiroon—“Good morning, Jiroon.”

Najin opens his mouth. “We were just—”

“I asked Najin for some training tips, since I haven’t been improving very quickly,” Jiroon says.

“I see. I’m glad you’ve finally started helping the other apprentices, Jin-ah,” Nagyunn grins, “because I thought for sure I heard you two talking about time loops—”

Both Najin and Jiroon stiffen.

“—but you wouldn’t keep something like that from me again,” Nagyunn finishes in the same cheerful tone. “Right. Jin-ah.”

“R-right…” Jiroon laughs nervously, as Najin becomes very enamored with the wall beside him.

“Najin.”

“I was planning to tell you later,” he says petulantly.

He can tell Nagyunn doesn’t believe him for a second, but he smiles and lets it slide. “I see. Can you catch me up then?”

He can feel the weight of Jiroon’s gaze on him as he says, “Of course. Tomorrow, Jiroon’s going to die. After selection, Toorisun, Yulnia, and her are going to go off on their own, and they’ll meet a group that ends up killing her. Then the day repeats.”

“Tomorrow?” Nagyunn repeats.

“Yeah.”

“That’s different,” he muses. “It’s probably significant. I would assume today’s the last time you can make any real change, but it doesn’t hurt to evaluate our options. Jiroon, could you tell me anything with more detail?”

She glances at Najin, and finding no sign of fight in him, looks back at Nagyunn and gives him a more detailed recount of her day. She describes the two suspicious mercenaries and how they approach their group, and in the morning, when she ensnares them, the way they attack her.

“I see,” Nagyunn says. “Well, I’m sure you’ve thought of this already, but I think you shouldn’t go with Toorisun and Yulnia to begin with.”

“She says they’d still go without her, so she wants to accompany them,” Najin says.

“They’re a bit… you know, reckless,” Jiroon says. “So I think…”

“Yeah,” Nagyunn says, “they’d definitely be in danger too. Then should we tell a knight? I’m sure the Fox or the Wild Dog could stop them.”

“I mean, that would stop them now,” Jiroon says, “but…”

“You think it’s delaying the inevitable?”

“Yes. And since we’re stuck in a time loop anyway, I thought it might be better to get it out of their system while we have some knowledge of what we’ll encounter.”

On the one hand, Najin is annoyed by how insistent she is on following the same doomed path. On the other, if they change things too drastically and Toorisun or Yulnia dies and joins the time loop, he thinks he’ll stab someone. Possibly himself.

“But I came immediately last time,” he says, “and I still didn’t make it in time. Do you think you’ll be able to change things enough on your own to keep all three of you safe?”

Jiroon twists a strand of hair anxiously. “I… I don’t know. We’re a bit… outclassed… in terms of combat power, so I think it’d be hard…”

“Then how are we supposed to stop this cycle?”

Jiroon seems to shrink in on herself. “I just thought…”

Nagyunn takes pity on her. “It’s fine. There are other things we could try to change. I could probably convince the Qilin to send the search party out tonight instead of tomorrow morning—”

Ah, that’s right. He’d forgotten that the knight has a soft spot for Nagyunn.

“—so you should just focus on staying awake without arousing suspicion.”

“I’ll try, but I still haven’t figured out how they’re drugging us. I haven’t let the others accept anything from them so far.”

“They’re probably slipping something into your water,” Najin says.

“Yes, but I was watching them much more closely last time…”

“Well, to be safe, you should probably avoid drinking anything tonight,” Nagyunn says. “Yulnia probably won’t listen, but if you can, try to convince Toorisun to do the same. Say that Najin uses it as a training regiment or something, I don’t know. It’ll just be for one evening.”

“I see… that’s probably for the best,” Jiroon sighs. “I’ll give it a shot. Thank you for all the help, Nagyunn.”

“Don’t mention it.” He turns back to Najin. “Let’s go to the training grounds?”

“Sure,” Najin says.

“Are you coming, Jiroon?”

“I’ll head over with Quaring,” she replies. “I’ll see you two in a bit.”

Najin shrugs and falls into step with Nagyunn. The walk is awkwardly silent.

When they’ve almost arrived, he clears his throat and says, “So, um.”

Nagyunn side-eyes him.

“…Sorry,” he mumbles.

Nagyunn sighs. “Najin, I just… I don’t know. Am I so undependable?”

“No!” he shouts. He flushes and lowers his voice. “No, not at all, but… I don’t know, I just didn’t think you needed to be involved. Since you didn’t seem to remember anything.”

“I mean, yeah… but—” He sighs again. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve been trying to become more independent. I just… I don’t know. I wish you wouldn’t keep me out of the loop.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll tell you next time for sure, alright?”

Nagyunn searches his eyes to confirm that he’s telling the truth. Najin offers a small smile.

(He’s been keeping secrets from his brother for years now; it isn’t nearly so easy for Nagyunn to read him anymore.)

His lie passes muster.

“Alright,” Nagyunn says. “Thank you.”

Najin relaxes a bit.

“But, also…”

All the tension immediately floods back in.

“And, um, you don’t have to answer this if you’re not comfortable with it,” Nagyunn says, which of course only serves to make Najin even more uneasy, “but… in that first time loop. Are you sure the loop reset if either of us died?”

Najin smiles nervously. “Where’d this come from?”

“Jiroon seems to remember dying,” Nagyunn says. “I don’t.”

What… is he supposed to say to that? If I didn’t die first then I kept killing myself until I could save you. Oh, and by the way, Jiroon’s only dying now because of that.

“Well, a lot of things have changed this time around,” Najin says calmly. “I guess I don’t really know either.”

Nagyunn stares at him for a long time. He can sense Najin’s uneasiness, he thinks, so Nagyunn probably knows he’s lying. But he thinks the truth would hurt him much more than this, and he’s been through enough as is.

Yes, Najin has failed to protect Nagyunn in most of the ways that matter. But he can at least protect him from this.

“…alright, Jin-ah,” Nagyunn says at length. “But you know you can tell me anything, right? I’ll always be there for you.”

“I know,” he says simply. “We… let’s go in. We’re going to be late.”

Mercifully, Nagyunn lets it drop.

In the evening, once Darang has brought news of the runaways, Nagyunn pulls Zius aside and persuades him to send out search parties tonight. In another life, if Nagyunn had had the interest for it, Najin thinks he probably could’ve done well in the knights with sheer charisma and brainpower alone.

As soon as they’re in the forest, Najin splits from the others and makes a beeline for Jiroon’s group. Jiroon must have succeeded in convincing Toorisun, because they’re both awake when he arrives. They both leap to their feet when they finally notice Najin’s approach.

“N-Najin—I’m not going back until I meet with the Qilin!” Toorisun shouts immediately.

Najin groans. This idiot.

Jiroon’s would-be murderers take notice of the commotion and also approach. “What’s—”

The purple-haired girl tenses at the sight of Najin. “You…”

“Oh,” Najin says. People who recognize him and react hostilely, but who he does not recognize. There’s only really one possibility, isn’t there? “Dragon’s Descendants.”

He can see the gears turning in their head.

“What?” Toorisun exclaims. “I—”

Stupidly, they choose to fight.

By the time Fidorance arrives, the Dragon’s Descendants have long fled. Najin has half a mind to follow them and kill them, to prevent any future mishaps between their schemes and Nagyunn, but forces himself to stay behind. Nagyunn said he wanted to stay with the knights and see where it could take them; he’s not going to ruin that with un-knightly behavior.

They return to camp in dour silence. Just before the runaways are led off by Zius—probably for an earful—Jiroon turns back to him and mouths, thank you.

Najin suppresses an eyeroll.

Whatever. It’s fixed then, right? He’s glad to be free of this business again.

Jiroon seeks him out the following afternoon, after Zius has given out the mission briefings again.

“There you are,” she says. “I was hoping I could catch you before you left.”

Najin doesn’t look back, continuing to practice his strike acuity. He only just got Wadrin to leave him alone, and now this? “What do you want?”

“Well… first of all, thank you again, for yesterday.”

“You already told me that.”

Jiroon laughs, undeterred. “I guess I did. You guys are all leaving tomorrow, right?”

Najin switches to a backhand strike. “Yeah.”

“I see. Um… so I don’t mean to pry, but—”

“I can’t tell you where we’re going, if that’s what you’re going to ask.”

“No,” Jiroon says. “it’s not that. I told you already, I only wanted to make sure Toorisun and Yulnia didn’t do anything impulsive. This is about Nagyunn.”

That gets his attention.

Najin straightens up out of his battle stance, turning as he does, but he does not sheath his sword.

“What about my brother?” he asks calmly.

He can tell Jiroon chooses her next words carefully. “So… he’s experienced these time loops before too, right?”

Najin considers that. There’s not really a point to lying about that anymore. “They were different from what you went through. But sort of.”

“He died then, right?”

Najin’s grip on his sword tightens. “Do you actually have a point with all this, or are you just going to keep wasting my time?”

Jiroon sighs. “Najin… I’m not trying to antagonize you. I just… don’t really understand why you were so insistent on leaving him out of this. I had assumed you two were close.”

“We are.”

“Then…?”

“I mean, wasting my time was enough, don’t you think?” Najin says carelessly. “Why are you so insistent on getting Nagyunn involved?”

“But it wasn’t a waste of time,” Jiroon says. “He resolved the situation so easily. Would you have been able to convince the Qilin?”

“I don’t know, would you have been able to defeat those two?” Najin scowls. “You realize that this whole situation arose because you lack the strength to carry out your convictions. You talk about wanting to be a knight, but you knew the future and you still managed to get yourself killed. Where do you get your confidence from?”

Jiroon flinches. “I—that…”

“Cat got your tongue?” he mocks. “Now you finally have nothing to say? Good. If you don’t have the talent for it, then maybe you should just focus on yourself. Stop poking your nose into other people’s business until you have the strength to back it up.”

“But if I hadn’t joined those two, they would’ve blindly—”

“What, let slip some information about the knights?” Najin laughs. “Please. They barely know anything, they’re ranked so low. Even if they had accidentally led them here, Zius and Darang would’ve taken care of them. So what did you prevent, hm? What do you contribute to the apprentices at all? Did you even manage to stop Yulnia from eating anything weird?”

Jiroon is almost shivering now, eyes unfocused. “I…”

Najin goes for the killing blow.

“You’ve been thinking it too, haven’t you?” he murmurs, leaning in close to her. “That we’d all be better off without you.”

He’s so close that he can feel her trembling.

Then, without warning, she shoves him.

“Get away from me. S-so what if I sometimes need help?” she snaps, cheeks flushed, eyes shining with tears. “We were never meant to work alone anyway. E-even the Qilin gets help from others.”

“That’s what weaklings say,” Najin says. “It seems to me that you’re just making excuses for the fact that you don’t have the strength or the conviction to do anything on your own.”

“Yeah, it would seem that way to you,” Jiroon says, “because you’re afraid to ask for help.”

Najin narrows his eyes. “What does that mean.”

“It means you only ever get this nasty when I start talking about Nagyunn!” Jiroon yells. “I don’t know what happened between you two—probably the time loops—I guess you had to watch him die a few times—”

There’s static in his ears. “Shut up.”

“—and—and…” Understanding dawns on her face. “…and you think it’s your fault.”

“You talk a lot for someone who can’t even save herself,” Najin says loudly.

A hard set appears in her eyes. “Look, there you go again. But all this was never about me. You’re overcompensating now, trying to protect Nagyunn from everything—"

“Shut up!”

“—but you’re not any more capable of doing everything alone than I am!” Jiroon yells over him. “So stop shutting people out!”

“What the fuck does it matter to you?” he shouts back. “Leave me alone!”

“Because you’re hurting your brother!” she snaps. “Did you not see his face yesterday? You think he doesn’t know you’re hiding things from him? Do you really think you’re doing him a favor by keeping all these secrets?”

“What would you even know about Nagyunn?” Najin sneers. “Why do you even care?”

“I’m his friend!” she yells. “Which maybe you’d know if you ever pulled your head out of your ass long enough to look around! For the record, he’s the one who’s been encouraging me to keep trying—that’s where I get my confidence from, since you were asking oh-so-kindly earlier!”

Najin blinks, momentarily startled out of his anger. “He—”

“Yes—he has friends unlike someone, because he’s not busy obsessing over his brother and all the things he’s hiding from him,” Jiroon continues hotly. “You know what, maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’re not afraid to ask people for help, you just have no one you can ask for help. You won’t let any of the apprentices get close to you, and you’ve shut your own brother out—”

“I have not.”

“—so maybe you’re right! Maybe I can’t ever be a knight. But at least I can be a human being.”

“I’d ask Nagyunn for help if I needed it,” Najin snaps. “It’s just not necessary. And I don’t care about any of the others, they’re worthless to me.”

She stares him directly in the eye.

“How many times, then?” she asks quietly.

“What?”

“You heard me. How many times did Nagyunn die before you finally asked him for help?”

Najin stares.

“He’s the most important thing in the world to you, isn’t he?” Jiroon says. “But you couldn’t even ask him for help with that? Even though you saw how easily he resolved the problem with me?”

“That doesn’t—it’s not like it really makes a difference—I…”

Jiroon crosses her arms and waits, but no other answer is forthcoming.

Finally, she sighs.

“You know, Najin,” she says, “to be really honest you’ve been kind of a dick to me and everyone else, and I don’t actually care if you ever figure this shit out or not. But I do generally like Nagyunn, and the way you’re acting is not only hurting him personally, it’s also going to drive off anyone else who could ever care about him. So—if nothing else, for his sake, can’t you be a bit more honest with him? I promise you, things get easier when you don’t carry them alone.”

Najin tries valiantly to sort out his jumbled thoughts, to no avail. The only thing he can come up with is:

“…fuck off.”

Jiroon sighs defeatedly, turns, and stalks off without another word.

The five of them leave for the eastern continent after that: him, Nagyunn, Marsha, Pymel, and Zius.

Despite all their preparation, they’re caught almost immediately after disembarking. Nagyunn is led away by the general on his own, and then it’s just the four of them, tense and on edge but forced to pretend they’re still just ordinary smugglers.

Nagyunn is back in less than half an hour, but to Najin it feels like ages, the sinking sun marking time conspicuously across the reddening sky.

“I think it’ll be safe for us to split up,” Nagyunn says.

“Then—”

“No, Najin,” Zius says. “You and Marsha are coming with me. Pymel will stay behind.”

“But Nagyunn has almost no combat power. If something goes wrong—”

(Najin loses the ensuing argument. Badly.)

In the morning, Nagyunn goes to meet the general again. Pymel stays behind, and the rest of them are dispatched to the outskirts of town, where they meet a man who calls himself a dragon.

At first, Najin is disinterested. The strange man really only seems interested in Zius, who is also content to do all the talking, so Najin simply tunes them out. Until—

“Child of Fire.”

He starts.

The strange man grins, lizard-like eyes narrowing into ominous slits. “Oh, so you were already aware. Then you must also know about the imbalances you have brought into the world. The one you have saved… his existence is a bit troublesome for me.”

…Never mind. It doesn’t matter what he knows.

If he’s going to threaten Nagyunn, Najin will just kill him.

Zius jerks Najin back before he can fully unsheathe his sword, eyes glowing gold as he glares at Najin and shakes his head.

Najin ignores him. “I’ll kill you.”

“You cannot,” the strange man says.

“Then I’ll kill myself,” Najin says, ignoring Zius’s alarmed stare and Marsha’s startled confusion, “so don’t even think about it.”

The man sighs. “How bothersome…”

And the world goes black.

The being is waiting for Najin.

Najin is waiting for it too, sword of haze and dreams already in hand.

“Are you with that man?” he demands.

“He has already told you what he is,” the being says, unperturbed.

…so, a dragon. Well, why not. He’s been repeating time to save Nagyunn, and now to save the ones that have died in his stead. There might as well be dragons. Sure.

“You have accepted it,” the being says. “Good.”

Najin sighs. “Who, then?”

“That’s for you to find out,” it tells him blandly. “Or, of course, if you are tired of righting the things that have gone wrong, you could always try to set your world back on its original course.”

“Don’t suggest that ever again.”

“The dragon was right, you know,” the being continues, as if it did not hear him. “These imbalances will continue to form. Do you truly have enough conviction to clean up these messes for the rest of your life, Child of Fire?”

“Yes,” Najin says. “If that’s what it will take.”

“A heavy burden to bear alone. But how very human of you,” god says. “Well, in any case, I suppose a little hint wouldn’t hurt. His name is Naryun—though you may know him better as the Broken Spear.”

…what the fuck.

“So I have to defect?” he asks, but god does not answer.

The between space dissolves, abyssal black replaced by normal darkness once more.

Najin wakes.

He sits up. He’s in the inn they were told to stay in again. Nagyunn and Zius are gone, but they’ll be back in soon to wake the others and head out.

Lovely. He’s not even on the same continent as the Broken Spear right now. He has no idea what killed him or how he’s supposed to fix that. And even if he was back on the central continent, it’s not as if he can work with the guy, not after what Nagyunn pulled. So how…

Unbidden, an annoying memory surfaces:

I promise you, things get easier when you don’t carry them alone.

…like he needed her to tell him something like that.

If nothing else, for his sake, can’t you be a bit more honest with him?

He grits his teeth. Is he really going to let someone like that get under his skin?

You just have no one you can ask for help, Jiroon taunts.

Najin buries his head in his hands and groans. Fine! Fine, he’ll go to Nagyunn for help. He is definitely not doing this to prove Jiroon wrong or anything.

He forces himself up and checks the neighboring room. As expected, he can distantly make out Nagyunn and Zius’s voices.

He pushes the door open a crack.

“Jin-ah!” Nagyunn perks up immediately when he notices him. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Fine,” Najin rasps, voice still creaky with sleep. “Can you come back to our room for a moment?”

“Sure,” Nagyunn agrees, and follows him out.

Once the door is shut behind him, Nagyunn turns toward him expectantly.

Najin hesitates. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. How much should he tell him? Definitely not about the actual cause of these time loops, but maybe a bit about the being he keeps meeting wouldn’t hurt… that would at least explain how he knows about Naryun.

Okay, that should work. He gives Nagyunn a quick rundown of the situation.

“That’s a bit…” Nagyunn brings a hand over his mouth, gaze calculating as the gears start to turn. “Okay, I think… it’ll be tricky, but I can try to convince the Qilin to contact the others and tell them not to get in contact with the skeleton. And you—try to convince the dragon, when you meet him, to help you out. Or at least figure out what he wants. Even if this fails, any information you get from him will help us next time, alright?”

Najin lets out a breath. It really was that easy, for Nagyunn, to see a way out.

…and his shoulders really do feel lighter. Fuck. He hates that Jiroon was right about that too.

“Okay,” Najin says. “Let’s go with that.”

“Alright.” Nagyunn gets up again. “Then I’ll go talk with Qilin-nim before he heads out.”

“Let me know how it goes,” he says.

“I will,” Nagyunn says. He pauses at the door. “Oh, and Najin?”

“Hm?”

“…thank you for letting me help,” he says, and then he steps out, letting the door swing shut behind him.

Alone in the room once more, Najin collapses backwards onto his bed, covering his face with a heavy sigh.

What had that being said—a heavy burden to bear alone? It must’ve been echoing Najin’s thoughts back at him, hoping to dig up some insecurities and persuade Najin to return the world to its original path.

But why did it take him so long to realize?

He was never alone to begin with.

thinking about a Najin time loop au BUT other people are sent back (time loop requirement ambiguous) but only after Najin's successfully survived the day. hell on fucking earth for everyone involved.

Najin's been looping while trying to keep him AND Nagyunn alive for an uncountable number of times and is just getting angrier each time. it takes him way too long to ask Nagyunn for help with this because he's supposed to be protecting him, damn it, and he's just spent so many years hiding everything from him that it just doesn't occur to ask him for help. he keeps trying to attack the author-god thing from Gilgamesh in the space between dying and waking.

oh, just thought of Najin getting trapped in other people's time loops and being forced to help them. he'd be soooo fucking mad. he just got out of hell and now he's stuck in it with someone he probably doesn't even like. what if it's an every time someone dies (in the canon timeline) thing. first Jiroon (counting the day she's stabbed as the death day because she's comatose after which is not as fun and mostly out of people's hands) who is very confused, because she has memories of both timelines now, and the Najin in front of her and the Najin she remembers are very different people, and that scenario is discounting the very real possibility that Najin just dipped with Nagyunn before the dragon's descendants could kill them.

and regardless of how they meet, she also has emotional intelligence and is willing to use it on him, which means his mountain of shit that he refuses to touch is very much about to be poked by the closest thing he's ever had to a therapist, so, of course, he's going to poke at her insecurities much more maliciously than she ever did him. her insecurities about being a knight and how it's gotten her killed in two separate timelines come up so he says she never should have tried and it hurts so bad but she agrees with him. but, well, she's handling this whole situation much better than he ever has, and over the course of it she starts to build up her confidence and she stops just taking it when he's an ass to her and starts giving what she gets and they start kinda getting along, and eventually, he admits that she's probably the most knightly person he's ever met and that she's more than proved herself throughout all this. and she says that he's not so bad himself, and what do you know, that's the loop they finally both survive.

and then days after this he gets stuck with Naryun.

#the ember knight #my writing #tw suicide #tw self harm #they're very minor references but please read with caution #i'm so sorry op this really got away from me LOL #i was like oh it's just gonna be a like 2-3k thing #just gotta get it out of my system right :))#WRONG. 12K. haaaaah.#ahem. anyway. i'm supposed to be studying for exams rn not writing fanfiction #so this is not proofread #so if you see any weird lines or spelling errors pls look the other way #but hope you enjoy anyway G <3 #it's a lil different from your vision probably beacuse i wanted to tie it together a little more cleanly #but definitely very inspired by your post all the same so :)#ta-da?

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sukirichi · 4 years ago

Text

sweet lies (m.)

His lies were way too sweet – and you were too addicted to make him stop.

cw. oral (f receiving), fingering, slight body worship, public sex, multiple orgasm, orgasm denial, dirty talk, praising, titty sucking, nsfw, toxic megumi, fwb, slight angst, the traditional unedited fic

note. choose your fighter, megumi or sukuna 😈 and thank you to besties nie and ellie for editing this STOP SHOWING YOUR ANKLES CHIRREN

series masterlist | 01 | 02 | 03

Megumi slides your shirt down your shoulder to press kisses on the bare skin. Your head tilted to the side to give him easier access. You hate that you feel so weak around him, your hands gripping his thigh you’re currently straddling, already so breathless from his teasing ministrations.

“You should move back closer to campus,” he mutters at the juncture of your neck, pulling another soft gasp from you the moment his fingers dip inside your damp underwear. You feel him smile at your skin, using his deft fingers to push two of them inside your sopping hole. He pumps them in slowly, teasingly slow, coaxing your arousal to coat his fingers while you grind against his palm, eyes shut tight from the pulling knot in your stomach.

“It’s hard to fuck you when you’re a half-hour drive away.”

You scoff against him and roll your eyes. “I wonder why I got kicked out from the dorms in the first place.” Exactly two weeks ago, Megumi snuck in drunk and horny into your dorms, shaking you awake to get rid of his boner.

It was a sloppy quickie, mostly because he’s eaten brownies and got fuck drunk before stumbling beside your bed. The insensitive idiot left his rum bottle under your bed just as he wobbles back to his frat house, and as if things couldn’t get worse, there was a surprise dorm inspection the next day. Not only did they find cum stains all over your sheets, but your bed also reeked of weed and alcohol, resulting in a quick expulsion from the dorms.

If it weren’t for the help of one of your professors, Gojo-sensei, you wouldn’t have been able to find a decent, cheap apartment. It came with the price of rooming with one of his old acquaintances, a muscular, heavily tattooed guy who seemed to be a few years older than you.

He really wasn’t a bad roommate. Other than the fact he seemed really intimidating, the dude mostly kept to himself, either locked in his room or away for work that you don’t really get to see him that much. His place was decent too, your room bigger than the last, so it was a good deal, but as Megumi said, it’s really hard to fuck around when you’re so far away.

“Not my fault, you’re so weak for me, baby,” he taunts as you tighten around him, his pace increasing with his lips sucking love marks on your skin. You can’t help but snicker at his actions; if you didn’t know better, you’d say he was jealous.

But this was Megumi you were talking about – everyone knew he never got jealous.

“I don’t like you here.”

“Aw, sucks for you.”

“I’m serious,” he grips your waist tighter, drawing a drawled-out moan from you. Megumi rubs your clit with his thumb and swallows your moans through open-mouthed kisses, your fists balled into his hoodie. Fuck this, you’re completely aware he’ll never like you the way you like him, but it’s so hard to feel sad about that when he’s knuckle deep inside you and playing you like a violin. As much as you hated him and his pretty face, you have to admit his fingers were fucking magical.

Megumi nips at your lower lip before thrusting his fingers in and out of you at a numbing pace, not taking long until you’re creaming all over his hands. You pant at the orgasm, head falling back into his shoulder.

He brushes your hair away from your eyes and kisses the side of your head, the gesture way too sweet for someone who insisted on a ‘no-strings attached’ sexual relationship. But you don’t complain – this is like a dream come true for you – allowing him to leave a trail of kisses down your jaw instead, his wet hands squeezing your thighs in a possessive grip.

“You should just live with me. I’m not comfortable with the fact you live with a man.”

There’s a trace of jealousy behind his voice that you’d normally swoon at, but he’s pushing you to the edge and fucking around with your feelings so much that you can’t even enjoy the rare moment. You push yourself off him and reach for your discarded shorts on the floor, sliding the material over your legs while Megumi shamelessly stares at your ass behind you, his head resting on his hands.

“Megs, I barely even talk to the guy; he’s always away at work. You’ve really got nothing to worry about,” you tell him, making quick work of tidying your school packets just to ignore his heated gaze. “Besides, you and I aren’t even dating. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

“You never hold back with your words, huh?”

You shot him a look, an angry glare that should be threatening, but the glint in his eyes just tells you he’s enjoying every second of it. “You like it.”

“Hmm, maybe I do,” Megumi tugs you back to the bed, effortlessly, as he flips you under him. In this position, he’s situated right between your bodies, hands clasped against one another. He’s absolutely stunning, bathed in the sliver of the moonlight, in your bed, no less. You’re a flurry of emotions – stuck between wanting to fuck him and kissing him, and then scream at him to let him know he should stop playing with your heart.

Megumi’s eyes darken as he traces over your silhouette, watching the way your chest falls heavily at his touches. He uses one hand to trace the tip of his finger from your breast down to your clothed core, a smirk painting his lips when you buck your hips up at the contact.

Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him.

“Just promise me you’re not letting others see your pretty pussy okay?” he tugs your shorts to the side, tongue darting out to lick at his lips at the sight of your glistening folds. You’ve lost count of the times he’s made you cum tonight with just his fingers; the raging hard-on hidden behind his sweatpants is proof that he’s quite different today by letting you get fuck-drunk on him first. Perhaps it’s his way of keeping you so helplessly wrapped around his finger, fucking you good enough that no one else comes second to him, and he knows this. He sees this from the desire pooled in your eyes.

Megumi scoots down lower to stare at your pussy, which is already embarrassing since you’re so wet down there. He simply sighs at your bare cunt before him, using two fingers to pull the lips apart, followed by a groan at the apparent slick. “This is all mine.”

In your lust-filled haze, you scrunch your eyebrows and sneer, “How about you mind your own business?”

“The fuck did you just say?” he chuckled, his warm breath tickling your inner thighs. “You’re mine, babe. Haven’t I fucked you enough to drill in that in your pretty little head?” Megumi doesn’t waste his time diving straight to your eager, awaiting core. Your hands fly down to tug at his hair as you grind your hips to his face, legs weak from his lips wrapped tightly around your clit. “You know I’ll get mad if you touch anyone else.”

“Fuck off, Megumi,” you spat out, “We’ve been fooling around for a year, and you still refuse to date me every time I ask you out officially. Listen, I understand you’re not ready for that kind of relationship, so you could at least respect that you don’t get the exclusivity of keeping me all to yourself.” Truly, this rebellion is so uncalled for and unexpected. The moment you had your eyes on him and made it your life’s mission to win him over, not once had you complained that he never wanted to take things a step further. But it’s been too long, too fucking long, and too many no baby’s already – your pride was beyond crushed. It was about time you set the boundaries this time, and you quiver around his skillful tongue, strong and firm as you rasp, “I’ll fuck whoever I want.”

“You’re lying.”

“What?”

“You love me,” Megumi pulls away from your clit with an audible pop, his face glistening from the smeared juices all over his cheeks. However, his eyes are narrowed, almost as if he’s scrutinizing you. You can’t focus on the fact he denied you of your orgasm because he’s looking at you so seriously, only to tilt his head to the side, a smirk playing on his lips. “It’s written all over your face.”

“Maybe I do, but are you deserving of it?” you push his head away and ignore the aching in your chest. Megumi shuffles close to you, pulling you in for another cuddling session before you hide under the sheets, making it clear you were not to be touched anymore. “Go home, Megs. I’m tired.”

In all honesty, you want him to stay. You want him to fight harder to win your approval back. He’s not a big cuddler, more of the type to pass out beside you after he’s gotten his own orgasm, but you’ve been so sure that maybe he might be different today. Under the sheets, your lip trembles in anticipation, eyes blinking wide at the dark silhouette outside your metaphorical shield. But as Megumi playfully slaps your ass, his warmth leaving the bed, you’re not really surprised.

He never stayed the night before – why would he do that now?

Silly girl, you chastised yourself.

“Fine. But I’ll be back tomorrow,” you hear him scuffle for his shoes outside, a smile evident in his voice as his words float around the silence of your apartment. “Wear my favourite set like a good girl for me?”

“Go away!”

Megumi’s laughter echoes all the way to where you curl yourself into a ball. You hate that his laughter alone makes your heart skip a beat, even if it doesn’t carry any affection behind then. “See you then, baby,” is all he says before the door slams shut, leaving you alone to your thoughts and insecurities all over again.

His lies were way too sweet – and you were too addicted to make him stop.

You’ve really hit rock bottom; that’s the only explanation for your actions. Megumi was coming over in a few hours, unsurprising that he chooses 3 AM of all times. Not only did it mean his frat brothers would be asleep, but it also meant that his other side bitches would assume he’s doing the same. You know, of course, you fucking know you’re not the only one, but it didn’t hurt any less.

The pain just keeps getting worse every time you think of him, said thoughts always comprised with your shirt trapped between your teeth and your hands down your pants. There’s no denying you’re addicted to him, though being addicted to a never-ending heartbreak was a different story.

A story which you’re not ready to find out yet, so you dress up in your sexiest dress and take the nearest cab, heading to a place where you definitely shouldn’t be.

Two more hours before Megumi arrives. Two more hours before you fall into that endless cycle of fucking and him leaving you alone, promising he’ll be back tomorrow, before it all repeats and traces back to square one. He’s not going to stop, and neither are you, so where was any of this supposed to go now? He doesn’t want you, not in that way, that very much is clear – so why was it so hard to let go of him?

Deep down at the back of your mind, you know your answer. It’s because, like the lovesick fool you are, you’re still hoping that maybe someday he’ll look at you the way you look at him.

Fuck it, is all you think of as you flash the bouncer your ID, not missing the way his eyes fall down your tits that are so close to popping out of your dress a minute longer than welcomed. Snatching your card away from him, you push against the crowd, immediately regretting coming here as the loud thumping of music and stench of sex and alcohol washes over your senses.

You make a beeline for the empty bar, save for the bartender who had his back turned to you as he wipes the glasses over.

You clear your throat to make your presence known. The first thing you see is a broad back, thick lines of dark tattoos outlined even in his white button-up shirt. He places the glasses down and moves expertly before you, sliding shot glasses next to others before procuring a drink out of nowhere, a greeting about to leave his lips when you both make eye contact.

The drink stays still on his hands, blinking for a moment at your equally stupefied face before he says, “It’s you.”

“S-Sukuna,” you greet back, smiling at your roommate. You’ve barely seen the guy the past few weeks other than sleepy good morning’s, and I’ll take the trash out tonight before both of you disappeared into your own worlds.

Sukuna is...well, you don’t know, exactly. It’s not like he’s around much for you to make a proper judgment of, but he’s a pretty nice roommate, filling up the fridge whenever you guys run out of beer. There were times he nods at you as a greeting before leaving for work, too, leaving you alone at the house from midnight all the way to the morning. Other than thinking your roommate is pretty unique from his face tattoos and roguish handsomeness that contrasts his rather frequent sleepy mumbles, you’ve failed to realize he could actually be like a normal human. Seeing him stand before you, his forearms lined with veins and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, taut waist emphasized by a black vest, you swallow audibly.

He’s entirely different from the guy you often see passed out on the couch, but it’s a welcomed sight, nonetheless.

Sukuna’s actually...pretty hot.

Hiding the thumping of your heart – whether out of nervousness or it’s just trying to match the beat of the music – you beam up at him, eyes glossed over with curiosity as he reciprocates with a more mischievous grin.

If he’s easily read your mind that you are indeed attracted to him, he makes no comment about it, focusing on hearing your voice over the music instead.

He leans over to you, not pulling away even as your lips faintly graze his ear. Fuck, he’s got piercings too. You greedily drink in his masculine scent, thankful that the music thumping is so loud he won’t hear the frenzy mess inside your ribcage.

“I didn’t know you worked here. Heck, I didn’t know you were a bartender, but I guess the irregular sleep patterns make sense somehow.”

“What did you think I was, sweetheart?”

His deep voice reverberates all the way down to your toes, his throaty chuckle hoarse. “I-I don’t know,” you pull away nervously, blinking up at him way too innocently. “A gangster, to be honest,” you blurted out. Sukuna tilts his head to the side, and you immediately raise your hands beside your head as you mull over how offensive your words might’ve been. “I don’t mean anything offensive by it, I swear! It was just my first impression!”

“First impressions are usually false. Anyway. It’s fine,” he shrugs, resuming his task of wiping over the glasses.

His hands were so big, his fingers long and slender...your attention is drawn to the adept manner of how he wipes the cloth using the tip of his finger, reaching behind him to get another glass, all without keeping his eyes off of yours. It leaves much room to muse about what else he could do with those hands, and you squirm at your seat, opting to look at his face instead since that would be more polite than eye-fucking his hands.

Sukuna smirks, that cunning twinkle in his eyes matching the dim lights of the bar. Somehow, you suddenly feel so lightheaded.

“If it makes you feel better, I thought you were a shy girl at first, but your boy toy brings a different side of you every time he comes around.”

You squeak in embarrassment, “You’re home by then?!”

“Only sometimes,” he reassures with a laugh. “But I’ve heard enough,” Right. He’s older and definitely more experienced than your sexual escapades with Megumi – this must be nothing new to him by now, and yet, your skin flushes heated. “Don’t look too flustered, sweetheart. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of that,” he nods at you, “You don’t look very happy with him, though.”

“Tch, now you’re assessing my relationship status?”

“I don’t have to,” he shrugs, the gesture so damn reassured. Chuckling at your apparent frown, Sukuna shakes his head to himself. “It’s written all over your face you’re not satisfied with something. You wouldn’t be here if you were feeling good in the first place.”

“How much have you heard?”

“Oh, I don’t care about how you scream his name. That’s none of my business,” he grumbles under his breath rather bitterly – but that could just be the music messing with you. Sukuna holds your gaze as he sets the final glass down before you, his elbows languidly resting on the counter that separates you both. You’re left staring at him in wonder, watching the way he pours the drink right in front of you, the movement of his lips so intoxicating and even erotic you nearly didn’t hear him say, “But as your roommate, I wish you’d stop inviting him around and just kick him out already. He doesn’t like you, you know.”

He doesn’t like you. Megumi doesn’t like you – you know that already.

Glare deepening at your surprisingly nosy roommate, you take the glass from him and down it in one go. Sukuna’s brows shot up in awe, arms crossed against his puffed-out chest as you slam the glass down.

You were fuming.

“You don’t know a single fucking thing about me.”

“That’s right, I don’t,” he answers without skipping a beat, “But we men, we understand each other,” You open your mouth to retort, silenced by Sukuna’s finger pressing against your lips. You freeze at the contact, and Sukuna makes use of your state, continuing right where he left from.

“Listen, take it from me as free advice. I’ll even put your drink on the house.”

Really, nothing is stopping you from biting off this guy’s finger, but he looks like he knows something you don’t that you just choose to keep your mouth shut.

Satisfied at your decision, Sukuna smiles sweetly, reaching over to tuck your hair behind your ear. The gesture puts you under his spell, and he lingers there a little longer, massaging the lobes of your ears before he pulls back just as fast, almost as if he never touched you in the first place.

You fight back the urge to huff.

Why were men so complicated? One moment, they were hot, then cold the next. You would just never get it.

“That guy you’ve been mooning over for who knows how long? He doesn’t give a fuck about you. You’re just someone who warms his cock every now and then, but I guarantee he’s thinking about someone else in his head when he’s with you,” he announces straightforwardly, not giving you the time to recover before he shrugs like his words didn’t just slap you in the face. “Just call quits on him, sweetheart. There’s really no need to waste such a pretty face. Ever heard of the saying – there’s plenty of fish in the sea?” he pushes another drink to you, “Drink up and loosen a little. With a face and body like that, you’ll find someone better soon.”

“I highly doubt I can find someone better when all everyone sees is my appearance.”

“I don’t,” he hinted with dark eyes, “But I assure you it might be what people see first. You do have a face of an angel; men are into that shit.”

Taking the drink from him with a loud sigh, you feel yourself weaken. You bury your head in your hands, replaying all the memories you’ve had with Megumi. It’s foreseeable that almost all of them consisted of you two fucking, nothing but a faint memory of two where Megumi actually cared enough to perform aftercare. The thought makes you wince; he really is an ass, but you’re also so hopelessly infatuated with him that you refuse to acknowledge the truth.

“Megs and I...we’re just complicated, okay?”

“Sure.”

“I swear!” your defenses are hopelessSukuna’s knowing smirk, the man holding back a snigger from your silent rage. “Besides, maybe his disinterested nature is what made me attracted to him in the first place. I like the mystery. It’s not bad for a girl to enjoy searching for answers every now and then.”

“Except he’s already given you a concrete no, and you’re the only one still hanging onto him,” he reminds you. At your dropped jaw, Sukuna has the audacity to wink. That motherfucker –“Pressed a button, kitten?” he pats your head, leaving you to be even more riled up. “Don’t be sad. It’s not like he’s the only guy who can make you feel good.” As if a light bulb went up in his head, Sukuna hid his smile by turning his back to you, pretending to be engrossed in the drinks all laid out in front of him. But even with his face obscured from your view, his words rang thick and clear: “In fact, I bet you your cute ass someone else can change your former perspective on what pleasure really is.”

“Yeah, like who?” you snorted sarcastically, “You?”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” he faces you, absolutely shameless as he eyes your cleavage. Sukuna clenches his jaw at the tempting view before him, sliding his gaze back to yours to look for the answers in your face. “If you want a demonstration, that is.”

Sukuna hasn’t really touched you or even spoke explicitly, but you’re breathing hard anyways, subconsciously clawing the countertop.

You don’t know if it’s your voice or his that’s ringing your ears, the words what’s holding you back? the last thing you hear before grabbing him by the collar, leaning over the counter to taste his lips. Sukuna smiles at the kiss, his large hands cupping your face in them. His thumb traces circles over your jaw as you greedily suck on his lip, uncaring that you’re making out with your roommate in a public place.

As if remembering that he’s still at work, Sukuna pulls away for a moment, diving in for one last peck that has you giggling adorably. Sukuna’s grin grows wider at your flushed cheeks, snapping his fingers at someone from a distance. “Geto, break!”

The guy who must be Geto popped his head out of the backroom, frowning at Sukuna’s words when his gaze lands on you and the not-so-subtle needy grip you have on Sukuna’s collar. His mouth forms into an ‘o’ shape before he gives a thumb up, disappearing afterward.

That’s all Sukuna needs before he’s leaving the counter, breathing in your panicked squeals as he picks you up, your legs flailing to wrap around his.

You’re giggling and laughing all the way to the back of the club, your hands tugging at his undercut and his own squeezing at your ass. Sukuna kicks the door of the restroom open, which is thankfully clean (you made the right choice choosing a luxurious club), settles you down before him, and locking the stall.

His lips are on yours in an instant, his hands tugging off your dress and scowling at it as if it’s offensive. “Calm down,” you tease him, “They didn’t do anything wrong.”

“They were a fucking tease the whole night,” he glares at the lacy cups of your bra, his breathing laboured as he cups them. You throw your head back until it thumps at the door, teeth muffling the moans that threaten to erupt. Sukuna unclasps the material in one swift movement, surprising with just how many times he’s done this before. “Fucking gorgeous tits – why the fuck does your boy toy not want to keep you to himself?”

“He’s – oh fuck,” you scrape Sukuna’s scalp, his tongue wrapping around the swollen bud. He caresses the other one not to leave it unattended, and he’s grinding you against the door so hard, his dick poking at your dress leaving very little to the imagination.

Sukuna chuckles at your broken response, rutting his hips in such a sensual manner you didn’t think he was capable of. “You were saying?”

You glare at him from under your chin, but he can’t take you seriously while he’s sucking at your tit like a child. This man is brave enough to nip it with his teeth, the sting making you hiss and buck against him. “He’s possessive,” you breathe through your mouth, a little in disbelief you’re casually thinking about him while Sukuna gets down on his knees. “He wants me to be exclusive with him, but he’s free to fuck who he pleases.”

Sukuna rubs both palms in front of his face as if preparing to devour a meal, which he’ll do so soon enough. He pushes your dress and bunches it at your waist, tugging your underwear to the side before he groans. The sound is so deep and masculine, so utterly frustrated for some reason you can’t understand.

“Now that’s unfair,” he mumbles absentmindedly, peppering your pelvis with kisses. The feverish touch of his warm lips on your already burning skin has you clutching at the door, feeling your legs weaken.

His eagerness and distrait acts of body worship drive you crazy. Megumi is good at making you feel desired and fuckable – that much you know from his habits of pushing his pants down at pretty much anywhere as long as you were around, claiming you’re a walking ‘boner trigger.’ Sukuna, on the other hand, was a lot more patient and attentive to his movements, taking the time to make you feel you were more than just a body and a hole. It’s odd, hella fucking odd, because this man is older than you and a friend of your professors, but did you care? No. Did you want him to fuck your brains out in a public restroom? Fuck yes.

A wanton moan paints the wall as Sukuna slides your thong off just above your knee, his eyes closed as he buries his cheek in it. You look down with wide eyes, hands grabbing at nothing and everything at the same time. From the looks of it, he’s sniffing your sex, the sight so outright erotic that you only moan louder.

How was it possible to be this much turned on?

By the time he’s opened his eyes, his entire demeanour’s shifted. Gone was the enthusiastic and sly bartender, now replaced with a much more animalistic entity residing beside it.

Before you could make yourself comfortable, Sukuna hooks one of your legs over his shoulder, the tip of your heel grazed against the tight walls of the stall. He licks a flat stripe from your hole that clenches around nothing, moving upwards in such a passionate, languid manner he’s making you forget you’re literally in a fucking restroom. Your breasts heave up and down from how you’re struggling to breathe, his tongue pushing past through the tight ring of resistance until he’s plunged through your core. You wobble above him, remaining upright only by his arm pushing your back flat on your under boob.

Sukuna slurps at your cunt yearningly, the hums he gives every now and then, making your core vibrate. You grind your pussy on his face, the black marks lined on his face glistening.

He moves to suck at your clit, transitioning after each beat to slurping the swollen bud and kissing your lips as if he was making out with it. You’re sure you’re making a mess on his face, but he doesn’t give you time to feel embarrassed about it. He spreads your legs further until your muscles ache from the stretch, the pain accompanied by your stomach tightening.

“S-Sukuna, oh, oh yeah,” you bang your fist on the door, his smug chuckles sending you over the edge. Your pupils blow wide as you feel the impending orgasm weigh down on you heavily, about to send you into overdrive by his tongue swiping at your lips, teasing you to give it to him more, give it to him harder. Turning your head down to warn him you’re coming, the words die on your throat because he’s already looking at you, his cheeks and nose smothered with your shining slick, and the brat is smirking. “Shit, you’re a little—” Sukuna cuts you off by generously sucking your clit one more time, pulling the muscle taut just to show you that it’s rolling between his lips. It looks fucking insane and filthy that you come right there and then.

Your orgasm is so strong that you actually slip from your heels. A scream from you is knocked back into you just as fast, Sukuna moving quick and graceful in one fluid movement. He catches your leg and shoves you against the door, gripping at your hips until you’re bending forward, ass perked, and wiggling just for him.

For a split second, you’re sure you hear the unbuckling of a belt, but it all fades in your clouded mind.

Sukuna enters you in one thrust, the sensation of being filled up so soon rendering you speechless. Literally absolutely silent, palms flat on the door and tongue lolled out, all the burning in your body focused on your centre.

He releases a grunt at finally being inside your plush, warm walls. Sukuna allows you to get used to his length for a solid minute, both of you catching your breath in the meantime. Your tits are sprawled out, and you’re a shaky mess, feeling nothing less of dirty yet so aroused that you can’t do anything about it. Sukuna thrusts in slowly at first, and that’s when you feel the size difference between him and Megumi. Megs was definitely blessed in the dick department, and he’s always been so cocky about it, but goddamn, Sukuna was beyond huge.

You think you could cum again just from him filling you up. He was stretching you out so well that he leaves behind a faint burn, making you feel as if it’s your first time all over again – all for the good reasons.

He soon begins to set his pace, one of his hands tugging at your ponytail so he could see your glossy eyes and mouth hanging open. Sukuna scoffs at your fucked out state, too cock-hungry even to form coherent sentences. His length is slipping past your folds in such a tantalizing, delicious state, the prominent veins of his cock kissing the bumpy ridges of your walls. He was right – you’re definitely changing your perspective on pleasure because you don’t think you’ve felt this good in your life.

With Megumi, it was mostly always about his own release. With Sukuna, he’s making sure you get to feel inch by luscious inch slipping out of you before he slides them back in, his deep moans the dirtiest thing you’ve ever heard.

“Aw, look at you,” he coos, kissing you sideways sloppily. Sukuna reaches the edges of your lips but licks at your skin anyway. His canines revealed to graze at your skin. It’s so animalistic, so carnal, and he’s fucking you with such primal need that you forget everything you once knew about sex. “Your pretty pussy is drooling for cock, sweetheart. Such a dirty little thing, taking me like this.”

Now, this was lust as its purest form, the rhythm of his hips so sinful you’ve lost faith in everything but how he’s making you feel.

The walls are pounding with the bass boosting outside, but soon even the loud volume of the synthesized music is drowned by your whimpers. Sukuna lets go of your hair to place his hands on your hips. If he was dominant before, he only encourages you to scream his name louder, realizing that he was still being nice seconds ago, but now he’s the one controlling you.

He pounds roughly into you until you’re crying, your drool dribbling from your lips and small patches dropping to the floor. It’s the same with your cunt. You’re so wet that you can feel squirts of cum staining his pants and your legs. Sukuna doesn’t stop praising you on how you’re so perfect, how your cunt is the tightest he’s ever fucked, and now he gets why your boy toy could never really let you go. In the middle of it all, he manages to slip in a comment that maybe Megumi’s dick isn’t big enough to stretch you out because you’re wrapped around him like a vice, to which you respond that he’s just massive.

“Fuck yeah, I am,” he agrees cockily, eyes narrowed at where his length kept being swallowed by your pussy. “I’m fucking destroying you, sweetheart. You’ll be broken by the end of this, fuck.”

His words are like ambrosia you’re getting drunk on, the filthiness of his mouth fuelling your desire. Your body heats up at the same time that familiar tingling tightens in your stomach, and you blindly stretch your arm out behind him. Sukuna easily reads your mind and takes your hand, looping his fingers with yours. His palm is right above your knuckle, and the angle hurts your arm so bad you cry harder.

“Please, please, please,” you beg him and snap your hips back to meet his dick thrust by thrust, “I’m so fucking close, please—”

“I got you, sweetheart,” he leans down for a quick peck at your hand, increasing his pace as he twitches inside you. Sukuna is thrown off rhythm by the way you grip down on his dick harder, his breath stuttering as a result. You wrap your fingers around him as your second orgasm that night crashes down onto you in waves, his cock on the brink of being spent from how you’re milking him.

He pounds deep and slow into you, relishing in the warmth of your cunt that he’s losing his mind, basically in the same state as you are now. You’re panting and sweating, cursing at each thrust, and he stills for a moment, pulling out so fast that you wince at the emptiness. Sukuna pumps his dick with his free hand and shoots his load onto your back, his moans guttural and hoarse. You grimace at the warm cum now coating your back because there’s no way you’re using your dress to wipe that away.

Sukuna chuckles at your silence, probably noting in the way you frown at him. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he runs a hand through his hair, his cock growing hard despite releasing a huge load. “Next time, I’ll cum in your mouth. I want to see you swallow me like a good girl.”

“Next time?”

You think you’re so sly by scoffing at him, but Sukuna isn’t stupid. He sees the way you light up at his implications, and he walks closer to you, a hand wrapped around your throat before you pull you flush against his chest. You gasp at the lack of air, blindly patting behind you, but your hand only grazes at his cock, which twitches excitedly at the contact.

“Yeah, next time,” he affirms with a low growl, licking from your jaw down to your neck. It’s so hot, he’s so hot, and you’ve never felt this sexy in your life that you soon become on par with him, pussy clenching around nothing. “I’m not done with you yet. You’re not leaving unless I’ve changed your mind,” he teases the base of your throat to squeeze it tighter, the swift movement of him filling you once more escalating to a tenfold. Your struggle to breathe causes you to clamp down on him hard and Sukuna’s chuckles falter into a quick inhale that’s so satisfying to witness. “What do you think? Still need more demonstrations?”

“Yes,” you choke out. Sukuna’s victorious and award-winning smile is hidden at the sweaty column of your neck where he leaves little kisses in its wake, ones that soon turn into something of a harsh bite. “Yes, please, show me more. Need you, need you so bad, you fuck me better than he does.”

Sukuna does more than show you that night. He makes you feel a thousand more nerves set on fire until you’re nothing but a moaning mess. After all, what better way to change someone’s mind than to mess with it on the inside?

In the end, when it comes down to it, your lies were way too sweet – and he was too addicted to make you stop.

#megumi x reader #fushiguro megumi x reader #megumi x reader smut #sukuna x reader #sukuna x reader smut #sukuna smut #ryoumen sukuna x reader #ryoumen sukuna x reader smut #fushiguro megumi smut #fushiguro megumi x reader smut #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen smut #sukuna x reader imagines #megumi x reader imagines #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jujutsu kaisen x reader imagines #jujutsu kaisen x reader smut #ryoumen sukuna smut

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liriostigre · 3 years ago

Note

hey! I wanted to ask what your favorite poetry books are? I have a few but I want to read new and interesting stuff, and I trust your taste :D

hiii ♡

tbh i only started reading poetry collections like,, last year. i'm subscribed to poetryfoundation's newsletter (poem of the day) so i usually just read random poems

anyway, i'm not sure my recs could be considered new (cause i'm gonna start with Mary Oliver ♡) but feel free to message me if you want to know the themes, style, feeling (vibes, if you will) or anything you want to know about these collections. for now, i'm linking my favorite poems in each collection, i hope this helps you choose! ♡

here you go:

Dream Work —Mary Oliver (“Wild Geese.” “Dogfish.”)

Red Bird —Mary Oliver (“Summer Morning.” “Love Sorrow.”)

Blue Horses —Mary Oliver (“To Be Human Is to Sing Your Own Song.” “Loneliness.” “Little Crazy Love Song.”)

The Wild Iris —Louise Glück (“Sunset.” “Retreating Light.”)

Haruko/Love Poems —June Jordan (“On a New Year’s Eve.” “Mendocino Memory.” “Toward a City That Sings.” *under the cut)

Extracting the Stone of Madness —Alejandra Pizarnik (“Primitive Eyes.” “Summer Goodbyes.” *under the cut)

Ariel —Sylvia Plath (“Tulips.” “The Rival.”)

Prelude to Bruise —Saeed Jones (“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat.” *under the cut)

Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth —Alice Walker (“Coming Back from Seeing Your People.” *under the cut)

I Must Be Living Twice —Eileen Myles (“Edward the Confessor.” *under the cut)

Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth —Warsan Shire (“Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre.”)

The Black Unicorn —Audre Lorde (“Hanging Fire.” “Sister Outsider.”)

Bright Dead Things —Ada Limón (“The Riveter.” “Glow.”)

Night Sky With Exit Wounds —Ocean Vuong (“Thanksgiving 2006.” “Logophobia.”)

Postcolonial Love Poem —Natalie Diaz (“Manhattan Is a Lenape Word.”)

Crush —Richard Siken (“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out.”)

Once —Alice Walker (“So We've Come at Last to Freud.”)

“Toward a City That Sings” by June Jordan

Into the topaz the crystalline signals of Manhattan the nightplane lowers my body scintillate with longing to lie positive beside the electric waters of your flesh and I will never tell you the meaning of this poem: Just say, ‘She wrote it and I recognize the reference.’ Please let it go at that. Although it is all the willingness you lend the world as when you picked it up the garbage scattering the cool formalities of Madison Avenue after midnight (where we walked for miles as though we knew the woods well enough to ignore the darkness) although it is all the willingness you lend the world that makes me want to clean up everything in sight (myself included)

for your possible discovery

“Primitive Eyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

Where fear neither speaks in stories or poems, nor gives shape to terrors or triumphs.

My name, my pronoun — a grey void.

I’m familiar with the full range of fear. I know what it’s like to start singing and to set off slowly through the narrow mountain pass that leads back to the stranger in me, to my own emigrant.

I write to ward off fear and the clawing wind that lodges in my throat.

And in the morning, when you are afraid of finding yourself dead (of there being no more images): the silence of compression, the silence of existence itself. This is how the years fly by. This is how we lost that beautiful animal happiness.

“Summer Goodbyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

The soft rumor of spreading weeds. The sound of things ruined by the wind. They come to me as if I were the heart of all that exists. I would like to be dead, and also to go inside another heart.

“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat” by Saeed Jones

I. Drugged, I dreamed you a plume of ash, great rush of wrecked air through the towns of my stupor. And when the ocean in your blood went toxic, I thought fire was what we needed: serrated light through the skin, grenade in the chest—pulled linchpin. I saw us breathing on the other side of after. But a blackout is not night; orange-bottled dreams are not sleep. II. I was a cross-legged boy in the third lifetime, empire of blocks in my lap while you walked through the door of your silence, hunting knife in one hand, flask in the other. I waited for you until I forgot to breathe, my want turning me colors only tongues of amaryllis could answer for. It owned me, that hunger, tendriled its way into my name for you. III. In a city made of rain each door, a silence; each lock, a mouth, I walked daily through the spit-slick streets, harbingers on my hands in henna: there will be no after Black-and-blue-garbed strangers, they called me Cassandra. (I had such a body then.) Umbrellas in hand, they listened while they unlistened. there will be no no. after

the world will end no.

you are the reason it no. ends

you no. IV. I didn’t exactly mean to survive myself. Half this life I’ve spent falling out of fourth-story windows. Pigeons for hair, wind for feet. Sometimes I sing “Stormy Weather” on the way down. Today, “Strange Fruit.” Each time, strangers find me drawing my own chalk outline on the sidewalk, cursing with a mouth full of iron, furious at my pulse. V. After ruin, after shards of glass like misplaced stars, after dredge, after the black bite of frost: you are the after, you are the first hour in a life without clocks; the name of whatever falls from the clouds now is you (it is not rain), a song in a dead language, an unlit earth, a coast broken— how was I to know every word was your name?

“Coming Back from Seeing Your People” by Alice Walker

Coming back From seeing your people You were So wonderfully Full Of yourself.

But now You have supped With vampires They have fed Feasted On you.

They arise Bright-eyed Fit.

You alone have lost Not only Your sleep But also Your glow The luster of Affection Heart welcome Your people Sent home With you.

Beloved You must learn To walk alone To hold The precious Silence To bring home And keep the precious Little That is left Of yourself.

“Edward the Confessor” by Eileen Myles

I have a confession to make I wish there were some role in society I could fulfill I could be a confessor I have a confession to make I have this way when I step into the bakery on 2nd Ave. of wanting to be the only really nice person in the store so the harried sales woman with several toned hair will like me. I do this in all kinds of stores, coffee shops xerox shops, everywhere I go. And invariably I leave my keys, xeroxing, my coffee from the last place I am being so nice. I try so hard to make a great impression on these neutral strangers right down to the perfect warm smile I get entirely lost and stagger back out onto the street, bereft of something major. It’s really leaning too hard on the everyday. My mother was the kind of woman who dragging us into stores always seemed to charm the pants off the cashier. She was such a great person, so human though at home she was such a bitch, I mean really distant. I imitate her and I don’t do it well. She didn’t leave her wallet or us in a store. I’m just a pale imitation it is simply not my style to open the hearts of strangers to my true personhood. I hope you accept this tiny confession of what I am currently going through. And if you are experiencing something of a similar nature tell someone, not me, but tell someone. It’s the new human program to be in. It would be nice for at least these final moments if we could sigh with the relief of being in the same program with all the other humans whispering in school. I can’t quite locate the terror, but I am trying to be my mother or Edward the Confessor smiling down on you with up-praying hands. I am looking down at the tips of my boots as I step across the balcony of the church excited to be allowed to say these things. Outside my church is a relationship. On 11th street this guy and this woman are selling the woman so they can get more dope. All their things are there, rags and loaves of bread and make-up. And there was— this was incredible. Two men lying by the door of the church giving each other blow-jobs. They were sort of street guys, one black one white. I said hey you can’t do that here. They jumped up, one spit come out of his mouth. If you don’t get out of here I’ll call the cops. Don’t call the cops we’ll go, we’ll leave. That was a shock. That was more than I expected to see in a day. Something about seeing the guy spit come out of his mouth. He didn’t have to do that. I guess I scared him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was scared too.

#btw!!!! i'm sorry!!! SO SORRY it took me weeks to reply 🤕#hope you're having good days <3 #💌

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sbi-au-ideas · 3 years ago

Text

Tommy’s been cornered by SBI, the most well known villains in L’manburg. Tommy is also being cornered by the Dream Team, the top three ranking hero’s. And to top it off, Tommy even managed to get BeeDuo, renowned vigilantes, to join the chase.

So why, in this seemingly inescapable scenario, is Tommy grinning? A huge grin, one that screams chaos and mischief.

His pursuers don’t know what to make of it. A man gone mad?

No. Tommy would never.

Tommy backs up into a vending machine. His fun little group of People Who Want Him Dead- consisting of the 8 most powerful people in the world, who consistently attempt to murder each other on a daily basis- are ecstatic. In fact, they look proud. A temporary alliance formed to take TommyInnit down.

In spite of the alliance, tensions are high. Who will be the first to draw their weapon?

In the end, it’s Tommy himself. Slowly revealing a poker chip hidden in his pocket, he lets the group take a good look.

And then he puts the poker chip in the vending machine, and a hole opens up in the ground, taking him away. It closes so fast it clips a few of the hairs on his head.

As soon as he touches ground, Tommy rushes over to a ready microphone to make his announcement.

“Ayup dickheads!” The camera watching them shows multiple people take out weapons. “Who’s up for a bloodbath?”

He sees beeduo grab hands, intertwining their fingers. “Just kidding, of course, I’m too good of a host for that. You see, I brought you all here for a reason.”

He huffs. “You keep almost killing each other. Which is fuckin annoying for me, for reasons I will not dis-close” he articulates.

“THEN WHY ARE WE HERE?!” Tommy actually winces. He sort of forgot Sirens power was Being Fucking Loud.

“Greeeaaatt question. I can’t tell you why, but I can tell you how to get out. You see, if you numbnuts were paying any attention, you would’ve noticed that I used a poker chip to unlock the exit. Find the one that’s hidden and use it. Ta-da!! You’re free.”

Of course they don’t know that the poker chip isn’t in that room. It’s in a hidden room, in a hidden room. And there are a lot of hidden rooms. They will also have to sort through clues and red herrings. Teamwork is kinda essential if they want to find the chip.

The group takes a moment, with the Blade whispering in Sirens ear. The siren then loudly proclaims, “WHY WOULDNT WE JUST USE OUR POWERS?!”

“Another great question my good man. Although I hate men. You know, it’s kind of offensive that this group has no women. Tsk tsk, points off for mahogany, boooo.”

“ITS MISOGYNY ASSHOLE, AND ANSWER THE QUESTION!”

“Oh right. What was the question?”

“WHY THE FUCK WOULDNT WE JUST USE OUR POWERS TO BUST OUT?!!!”

“Jeez don’t sound so mad. And that’s cuz I’m disabling your powers.” He pauses. “Forever.”

He presses the button that does exactly that, creating an invisible field around the building that blocks powers or hybrids from using their abilities. It doesn’t actually “disable their powers forever” but they don’t need to know that.

The hybrids are made clear as soon as the field is activated. Philza, Ender, and Blade all stumble to the ground for stability. You see, when your ability is partially used to hold up your hybrid parts (i.e. giant ass wings or stupidly tall people) and then you suddenly don’t have that support… well, let’s just say they won’t be getting off the floor for awhile.

Anyone with a mental ability also get a grand reveal. Blade gets a double whammy, clutching his head along with Buzzkill, Nightmare, and 404.

“Wow! 6 of the powerful 8, down for the count! God speed to Siren and Blaze amirite? They’ve gotta carry this group to the finish line!”

Siren clearly tries to scream something, but alas, it doesn’t reach Tommy. “Welp, communications are out boys, looks like you’re on your own! Remember, find the poker chip, put it in the vending machine, and you’re home free!”

Tommy pauses. “Oh, and one last thing.”

He grins.

“I’ve been recording this entire time. If you haven’t escaped by the end of a week, I’ll release this video to the public. Better get along nicely or you’ll all be broadcast!”

#Tommyinnit centric #sbi fic idea #sleepy bois inc #sleepy boys inc #Dream team #beeduo #villain!tommyinnit #evil arc #escape room au #superhero au #supervillain au #superpower au #mini fic

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noteguk · 4 years ago

Note

i was wondering how bad influence! jk and oc started interacting? like what made them start talking

[ ! ] this dabble is a prequel to “bad influence”

— words; 1.6k

Your professor was looking at you with expectation, the small piece of paper hanging between his fingers like the sword of Damocles over your head. You were staring at him in silence for a few seconds now, and the whole situation was starting to get awkward.

“So,” he pressed on, dangling the paper in front of your eyes. On it, the name and phone number of one of your classmates. “What do you say?”

When he asked you to stay after class, you expected it would be something related to tutoring. Your professor had mentioned it in passing a few times before, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise when he told you he had found you someone who really needed your assistance. You were beaming with joy for precisely a minute and twenty one seconds until he revealed the name of your student.

Jeon Jungkook.

Before you had any chance to muster an excuse for why you couldn’t — under any circumstance — get close to someone like that, even less tutor him, your professor already had his card up his sleeve. “It’ll be good for your curriculum.”

And you said yes in a heartbeat.

Jungkook was predictable. You knew that he would be late (after all, his cringy bad boy persona would never allow him to follow one single rule in his life), you just didn’t know it would be almost two-hours-late. By the point that you saw that hurricane in human form walking into the library, you had already finished your homework for the entire week.

He had the nerve to smirk at you, and you swore an oath to yourself that you wouldn’t present him with the irritation he was expecting. And you didn’t — with all the patience and kind-heartedness that your parents had pushed down your throat your entire life, you put on your best commercial smile and greeted him like he was just in time.

“Well, now that you’re here, let’s start with the basics and go over some defense cells.” You tugged the heavy Immunology book towards you, quickly flipping the pages towards the chapter that you had chosen for that first session. Jungkook had already taken his typical slouched position on the chair next to you, looking like he was about to slide down to the carpeted floor. “I’d like to know how familiar you are with it, though. Can you start by telling me about the types of lymphocytes?”

He chuckled, running one hand through his hair. “I have no idea what that shit is.”

You took a deep breath and ignored the irritation that was building up on your stomach. You didn’t know how someone could be so indifferent about everything. “Well... that’s why I’m here,” you managed to keep your voice cheerful.

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re here because you wanna get paid, princess. No need to play the Good Samaritan.”

You thought about telling him that you weren’t getting paid, but the idea wasn’t the best one. He’d probably mock you even more for wasting your Friday afternoon tutoring in the name of your curriculum. Not that he knew the importance of that, anyways.

“This is some bullshit.” Jungkook rested his head on his crossed arms, lying over the table, pushing away your pens and notebooks as he did so. His black hair fell over his features as he grouchily mumbled out, “I don’t even know why I chose this class, it has nothing to do with my major.”

You were surprised that he was even majoring in something, instead of just frequenting the campus as an excuse to meet girls. “Well, I can't answer that for you, can I?” You asked, tapping on his book’s hardcover. That little antibody drawing was staring at you in a silent mockery, wondering if you’d be able to make him study — or even care about anything. “But I can help you with the rest. Now, come on. Types of lymphocytes.”

His eyebrows came down to form a confused frown. Jungkook would’ve probably given you the same reaction if you had just called his mother all the filthy names you could think of. “You’re really trying to teach me?” He asked. “Like, for real?”

You sighed. The time you taught your little cousin how to read was less frustrating than that. “It’s kind of my job as a tutor, you know.”

Jungkook rose from his position and leaned back against the chair, his arms crossing before his chest. Beneath them, his strong pecs stressed against the fabric of his white shirt, but you refused to look. “You know that you can just pretend to teach me, I can pretend to learn, and you’re gonna get your credits anyways, right?” He asked as if you were the stupidest person he had ever met. “You don’t need to actually put in the effort, princess. Especially since I don’t give any fucks about immunology.”

If he called you that stupid pet name one more time, you swore you were going to knock him out. “Well, I’m already here, I’d rather do things right.”

He scoffed, throwing his head back and rolling his eyes. “God, you’re so booooring,” he groaned. “Don't you have some charity work to do or something?”

“I’m doing it right now.” You smiled. “I can see that you’re really trying to fail this class, don’t get me wrong. But I’m just trying to do my job—“

“Boooooring,” he sang, louder than the librarian would ever allow if she was close enough to hear him. Jungkook looked back at you, his eyes narrowed. You couldn’t really tell if he was disgusted or just annoyed. “Why do you even care? It’s just some stupid class, it doesn’t even matter. I’ll tell the professor you taught me everything and we can both go home.”

“I can’t do that,” you said, firm.

“Why not?”

“First of all, because that’s wrong,” you told him. Just as you were about to say that, also, his unavoidable horrible grades would make clear that he hadn’t learned shit (which would make you look like a clown instead of a tutor), his laugh ruptured your sentence.

“Oh, come on. You’re kidding me.” He smiled brightly — not a tender one, of course, but one full of perverse mockery. You had never met someone as condescending as Jungkook, and he was managing to push every single button inside you. “That’s wrong? What are you, six?”

You frowned. “You’re the child here, just trying to find a easy way out instead of putting in the eff—“

“What are your dreams, princess?” He interrupted again, leaning his head to the side. You really, really, really hated him. “Wait, no, let me guess. A family, a suburban house, and a dog? A nine to five? Something like that? Having your husband cheat with the babysitter before you’re forty?”

Some part of you knew that he was just trying to make you so angry that you would give up on tutoring him. Jungkook didn’t know that you wouldn’t throw away your obligations so quickly, but he was able to make you mad enough to get an answer. “What are yours?” you spat, kindness long forgotten. “Remaining unemployed, talentless, mentally trapped in your twenties, and fucking desperate milfs for money until you die from an early overdose?”

If your priest had heard you talk like that, he would most surely faint.

Jungkook, however, didn’t seem so horrified. In fact, his disgusted smile quickly morphed into a diverted one, a chuckle leaving his lips. “Uh,” he mumbled. “Interesting.”

The shame from your previous outburst was starting to weigh down on you, but you managed to keep it undercover. “What?”

“Didn’t know you had a mouth on you,” he said, clearly entertained. In a way, you were glad that he hadn’t taken your words to heart, because he could probably snap you in half if he was feeling like it. “You’re always so shy and shit. I thought you were going to cry.”

“I’m not shy,” you spoke, defensive. You had gotten close to shedding a couple tears, but he didn’t need to know that. You hated confrontation. “I just don’t wanna talk to people like you unless I’m obligated to.”

He raised his eyebrows — a silent threat. “People like me?”

There was a second of hesitation from your part that Jungkook didn’t miss. “Yes.” You couldn’t hold his piercing gaze. As much as Jungkook was annoying the shit out of you, you didn’t actually want to have a full-blown argument with him. Especially on university grounds. “People who can’t even tell me about lymphocytes. Now, are you done with your victimization session? Can we start, or do you wanna tell me more about how you’re burning college money and you are so superior because of it?”

He chuckled and looked you up and down — actually looked at you. Weirdly enough, it felt like the first time that Jungkook was actually seeing you, and not the empty shell of a stereotype that he had built for you in his peanut-sized brain. “You’re really trying here, aren’t you?” He asked.

You didn’t know if he was talking about the tutoring session anymore, but you decided not to bite. “Is that a sin now?” And, before he could say anything else, you added, “Page 124. Come on. Unlike you, I don’t have all day to sit around doing nothing.”

He smirked. “You’re more fun than you look, princess.”

And, for the first time, Jeon Jungkook wasn’t predictable — he actually opened the book on the page you told him to.

One hour later, he was already dozing off, a small puddle of saliva accumulating on top of his chaotic notes. Still, you counted that as a victory.

BAD INFLUENCE COLLECTION

#enemies to fuckbuddies: the fic #jungkook #jungkook fic #bts #drabble #bts drabble #bad influence #bad influence jk #bad boy jk #bad boy jungkook #good girl reader #x you #x reader #jungkook x you #jungkook x reader

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sugar-petals · 4 years ago

Text

sub!Yuzu | nsfw alphabet

🌹 NOTE ⇢ content for our fave figure skater, the legend himself. mr. yuzuru hanyu is 1000% dom candy and i’m here to honor it at length ⛸

— WORDS. 5k

tags + warnings. dom/sub dynamics, femdom!reader, role reversal hc, smut, kinks, cum play, spanking, sex toys, very freaky yuzu, kitten play, mdlb, crying kink, food play, prostate orgasms, bondage, some deeper stuff & angsty bits, asthma mention, aftercare

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

Once the cat ears come off, who is Yuzuru Hanyu not to remain in character for a while. For the shits and giggles, and because it’s cozy. Once a catboy, always a catboy, it’s the law of the land. Curling up, kneading at you for the head pats and massages, you know the programme.

Also: Yuzu is famously soft-spoken and always finds the right thing to say. So, stimulating conversation for the cooldown. This is literally so nice. He’s unafraid to reflect everything in detail, say what he preferred, what you could change up together, what he wants to try next. The afterglow is not just physical, as in you give him something to drink, it’s 70% verbal which is very important to him as a consistent habit.

Of course, not to forget: Always gotta have a Winnie Pooh plushie ready. He embraces it readily and, as we know him, does some roleplay right then and there. Yuzu, professional cutiepie he is, is the kinda sub who treats all plush and pillow stuff as alive and breathing. You as his domme are in on the play and also treat his things as holy as they are to him. That Yuzu lets you into that world is the biggest compliment you can possibly get.

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

We all know Yuzu’s godly ass and thighs. Or the staggering waist and beautiful black hair that makes him a total bombshell in his classic comb-back styles. His face is soft and expressive and so damn unique, his legs muscular and long, his back and tummy chiseled, the list goes on and on. Jesus, he has so many great features. All body parts a masterpiece. That are all capable of god-tier contortionism on top of that, gotta mention it in passing. Just so you know if you haven’t seen him bend his every limb into directions you wouldn’t believe are humanly possible.

Interestingly though. If he chooses, Yuzu picks his feet: They are his most important instrument and weak spot. His ankles are where the magic happens. So, you taking care of them a little would mean the world to him, imagine a candle light massage. Not to worry, no-gross-alert. Yuzu has perfect and cute feet. That’s gonna be a Victorian moment, oh my god I saw his ankles. For his partner, short and simple: He likes a shoulder to lean on. He loves being touchy in general, all body parts are amazing to him. Being in a profession that’s all about the physics, Yuzuru knows about the wonders of the body.

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

Certified king of cumsluts, doesn’t even hesitate. The more, the merrier. If he’s not covered in sticky stuff, Yuzu would be underchallenged. It’s less about the taste, texture or any degradation, for him it’s the playing around with his tongue. Somebody wants his mouth preoccupied. Give the cat his milk. Feed him his own cum mixed with yours. He’s gonna lap at it and swallow.

Since Yuzu’s dream is a mommy domme baking him something, he just loves the smell of dough and hazelnuts and cinnamon and everything — you know what’s coming: Imagine the food play. Nuts indeed. Anything that even remotely looks like a creampie is something he wants to get his lips on. And Yuzu is not the type to be a foodie at all, let that sink in. Sexual-looking food is just too big a temptation, though. And you spoiling him that way... oh my. Surefire way to end up in bed right after.

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

Has a butt plug collection. Once almost went on the ice with one in. The more you know. Also— this guy is the kinda type fantasizing to get absolutely railed on a bed of plushies. He has troubles suggesting it to you because he doesn’t want them to get actually dirty. But the idea gets the two of you kind of horny. Sometimes, a thought is better as a fantasy than actually executing it. You can use it for riling up’s sake, whispering it to him during dirty talk. How you’ll bounce on him and ruin him and milk him while he’s splayed out so innocently on your bed. I smell corruption kink.

Another secret Yuzu keeps is just how much he changed his mind about wanting his partner to control everything in bed. He grew up with a pre-defined ideal type of a cute, nice skater girl who’d let the reins very loosely around him, who he can speak Japanese to because he had problems with English, who is small and someone he will protect. It wasn’t something based on experience and trying things out: It was simply expected of him. People wanted the domineering Yuzuru on ice to be that way in private, and make use of his power, be a man, savior, boss.

The reality being: He never felt truly as tough on the ice, nor was he gender-conforming in person. In fact, that is what he became famous for, and it reassured Yuzuru very often how people would accept and actually celebrate this side of him. Which is so refreshing, and a sight to see. The side that was dorky, clingy, childish, gorgeous, and cute has always been there, but now he embraces it more as his comfort place. He has to know what he’s doing in his skating programme and show competitive spirit to achieve his dreams, but that’s where it stops.

His former ideals are something people wanted to hear, it was an adaptation of the environment rather than thinking it through on his own. So, years later — oh boy have things changed. Yuzuru no longer defines his ideal type that way, saying whoever he likes is someone he’d be with. What was a fantasy template and filter is now gone and adapted to his newfound, own preferences. Yuzu is comfortably open-minded rather than being a copy to mainstream. He found fun in speaking English, opened up to the world at large, had more girls around him who he could befriend, grew more confident in his stature, and is well aware — turns out he’s the cute one. Who needs to be taken under a wing. He likes strong-minded girls and says if he had a wife, she’d dominate him. Yuzuru secretly wants her to be in charge entirely, she owns his body and soul. Not in daily life where things are just normal and everyone goes about their business. Sexually, where he surrenders instead, and is taken care of.

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

The tale of an introvert. What he knows — he hides it well. Has eyefucked a whole lot of people and is the type to lust like mad from a far distance, and nobody will ever know. Crushes harder than peppercorns in a mill. If he loves someone, it lingers in his mind every split second of the day, may god have mercy on him. And if you know him: Yuzu aims too high to keep it light and easy and clumsy. He hates being an amateur, he’s terrified of starting out something. He dreads not knowing what to do, how exactly to behave, talk, touch, breathe, respond, negotiate, prepare. That’s a hundred percent like hell to him.

Ironically, he has a natural feeling for it and he’s literally amazing in bed, has a sense for social interaction is all the way cute with something valuable to say. But what he believes is something way different. Yuzuru is a diehard, nervous perfectionist. He can only think of it as a rated performance since his mind usually has to work that way to skate well. His esteem is on a knife edge depending on how well he thinks he does. So, the inevitable: He will shy away from sex altogether. He draws immense skating passion from staying celibate, in fact it’s his success secret, but it still eats him up from the inside and makes him frustrated beyond measure. Not even for the pleasure, since he’s so ambitious that’s almost forgotten about, but for being told he did well.

That’s how much he believes sex is a drill and capability test. And it’s sad that he thinks it’s like his skating career, racking up points for the impossible things judges want and being in a deadlock when it comes to showing his artistic side. He feels thrown into cold water if he doesn’t know everything beforehand. If he ever works up the courage, which probably won’t happen, he will pay an expert to learn from rather than let something all over the place happen with a random person or even someone he might like.

Yes, you heard that right. He’d rather see a sex worker than ‘mess up’ his first time according to his sky-high standards. So, Yuzu’s experience remains limited since he’s so 100% do or die, and so anxious, and so torn about social interaction, he doesn’t get how his peers can be playboys and get married and flirt with someone they like and all that. He sort of has an easier time with guys, but girls... he can’t approach. To top it off, he also feels like he’d burden his first time one somebody or embarrasses himself, so he will reject and avoid suitors. Those are usually not the people he crushes so hard on to begin with. It’s bound to be one-sided and he knows, so he will abstain and focus on career and use the cheers of his fans as a substitute.

Truth is, he feels helpless and distant from sex sometimes, especially with his practice-heavy lifestyle and hyper-smart mind, Yuzuru has an intelligence that exceeds what most people can grasp. He’s alone on the ice and Brian as a coach is often the only reference person who truly gets him, and leads him well without being controlling. But that’s professional life. Sexually, Yuzuru is metaphorically: coachless. He surely observed it well when Javier (the #1 ladies man, his opposite) was still active and a social butterfly helping him fit in, but Yuzu would always be worried about his extreme fame and spotless image when introduced to someone fangirling over him. He’d rather prefer someone who comes across as a mentor and solid, loyal-to-death person to look up to. So he would do anything to have someone benevolent like that. Most girls would expect him to be the sex god and expert, but he knows that’s only half of the story and based on his characters on the ice. Yuzu crafts these to counterbalance how he really is — withdrawn and indirect.

Yuzu is extremely calculating and selective, he scans suitors well, protects his reputation, and is mortified of failure. So, he’d rather learn it by the book and from someone he’s not emotionally attached to. In a one-night stand that might also be the case, but he doesn’t know what to expect, and he’s absolutely terrified of sudden sexual vulnerability. He himself often says he values his own struggle between feeling so weak and being strong again

Besides: He’d have problems squeezing hookups into his schedule and lifestyle, he’d have to cut down on things and create a double life. Plus, Yuzu is famously inept with social interaction up close, he flees the noise and unpredictability. So, it’s better to have a long-term partner. If he doesn’t know something yet, he has it down in one day like the single axel. Definitely counts on his partner teaching him.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

We know Yuzu’s signature move is the lean-back Ina Bauer. So, whatever position allows for an arch is the real deal (cough, taking the strap — oh my god his ass is made for it). But anyway, he can pull off anything with that stellar flexibility and core strength.

If I think about it. Yuzu might like sitting on your lap very much. I know it’s not a sex position, I mean it can be once his inner lapdancer awakens or you use a strap-on, I rather mean... just for some sweet moments and making out. But yeah: Fathom Yuzu gyrating on your like that. Not in an outright lascivious manner or Chippendales style. The Hanyu way, with embellishments and all the grace. This is gonna be a huge turn-on and perfect foreplay position.

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

Not much to elaborate here: Yep, Yuzu is true goofball indeed. Really flustered and clumsy when eye-to-eye in missionary, and yet: He’s ultra serious towards the end, there’s gonna be an aggressive staredown before cumming. The feeling gets pretty intense, his duality between silly and ‘yeah, give it to me’ is no joke.

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

Would probably die from inflammation if he shaved clean under those tight suits and did all these chafe-heavy skating routines. Doesn’t have a lot of body hair to begin with, but for pits and pubes, it’s alive, wild, and decently long. Out of all people, Yuzu cares particularly about aesthetics, but in this case pragmatism will prevail. He doesn’t care too much about it either as long as it doesn’t get in the way of something. Having sex with Yuzu tends to be well um well all about a hundred types of friction so any stubble would be a bad idea.

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

You haven’t seen a guy in love like that. It’s a figure skater thing for sure. Since he works to portray these sentiments on the ice daily, hardly anybody can play up feelings so delicately and palpably like Yuzuru. Emotion is what his entire career is built on. He knows how to express himself directly, appropriately, intimately. Couldn’t be any more romantic. Yuzu can’t go without it.

Very passionate, ‘for your eyes only’ kind of atmosphere. Yes, he shows off on the ice, it’s his job (although of course, that word doesn’t really sum up what skating means to him). But private Yuzu is someone you can claim as yours. He will make it clear, he wants to belong to you, he’s yours, dedicated, devotion is the entire point. Less with a slant of what some subs like, very hands-on ownership of a mistress. It’s more emotional. He’s really attached and all smitten. Your private little haven is everything to him.

Talking about little: Yuzu can be quite a pillow prince sometimes. At least when the initiative doesn’t go back and forth as it frequently does, you often alternate with suggestions and ways of tweaking an ongoing play session. You blindfold him or tie his wrists, He might be standard tired from practice or just fascinated to watch you work your magic on him.

He also likes music to set the tone for intimacy, who’s surprised. Prepare: Yuzu likes dramatic classical music all the way. He’s probably one of the few people who can make it more than ‘classy’ and definitely more than cringe. He selects pieces very well. This is gonna be a practice template to cum together when the music reaches its peak. Makes the whole thing full of adrenaline.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Lots of fun to him. Would beat it 24/7 if the ice wasn’t calling him. Drowns himself in lube. This guy’s me-time is so rated R, Cardi B would be inspired to remix WAP to wet ass penis as an anthem just for him. A dry dick is a ruined day for Yuzuru, as is a session without teasing his prostate in whatever way he currently fancies. Once he tried it, he never went back. The intensity knocking him out is something that Yuzu thinks about all the time. Strokes like a pro, does all these little moans, can do it forever, loves the feeling, chases the high. Adrenaline junkie on the ice? No different with his hand around his cock.

Will masturbate everywhere in the house and has to really get his head in the game to make sure he won’t ruin any carpets. So, he always has at least two towels with him. In the kitchen, in front of the TV, in the shower, the bed. Watches his fair share of eclectic porn, he gets really desperate. Especially before you started dating, Yuzu would shut himself in until the lotion ran out. Can jack off to something romantic (he starts crying) or something extreme (he loves shocking himself and ).

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Very curious about sadomasochism. Googles a lot of things that make him hard during the day. Often jawdropped by his research, but once he tries things out with you, nothing can really shock him anymore. Absolutely wants to be collared, it’s his biggest fantasy. Another little secret he has, Yuzu is decked out in skating gloves, right. He wishes he could feel you wearing them, or he keeps them on for sex himself, the lacey transparent ones. Looks especially pretty when his wrists are tied so, major photograpy material. Oh yes, Yuzu likes the camera, he can work it. The guy is photogenic in any position and can strike any angle you want. Your phone background is a new Yuzu snapshot every week already, imagine your gallery, 5800 kinky pictures.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

I’m gonna say it. The frozen lake out of town, late at night, condoms and lube with you. A quickie that will leave your genitals frozen. Yuzu might get stuck inside you because it’s -15 Celsius. Call that fantasy on ice. Jokes aside: Come on, Yuzu is the biggest ever hermit homebody. The couch will have a bunch of indents after your week-long fucking sessions after he comes home training. Also, at his desk while he does work for university. You ride him, Yuzu studies. Double the ambition. His dick is completely sore. The lake out of town thing might go down, but without sex. Just skating together under the stars, Yuzu doing amazing spins and spirals around you, very very romantic.

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

Yuzu is a crazed Sagittarius. Have you seen these men? They just want it all. Must be the influence of Jupiter. Zeus was definitely vibing that way. And yes, Yuzu has borderline unhealthy gold medal thinking in bed. He wants to be not just good but damn good with pleasing you. If you don’t have a good time and head home without an orgasm, he’ll consider himself a failure. Yuzu won’t cut himself any slack there. You’d have a hard time changing his ways into something more chill and moderate. Instead, you will see the benefits of rolling with it once you see how improvement fuels him and does make sex really mindblowing.

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

Couldn’t do things like slapping you, spanking. Yuzu makes for a terrible daddy dom, it’d not suit him.

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

Cum-dripping oral mess, Yuzu is the brave kind. Totally into it, and can’t resist a good blowjob. Will act different afterwards, there’s a lot of erotic tension. “This evening again?” is what those eyes are saying.

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

Outstanding kinesthetic intelligence. Every inch of his body follows his intent, and yours if you have him take on certain ways of kneeling. Yuzu can do it all, whatever you want. Tantalizing, moderato, overwhelmingly fast. He can take it, he can portray it. And knows the value of a pause like a true connoisseur. Not just when he wants to prevent cumming early, also just because the moment is right. That’s why cockwarming is a staple, as well as you having him wait patiently for kisses. To top it off: If you give him a blowjob, building up the tension by doing nothing is damn effective. The ruined orgasms you’re gonna give him... delicious.

Everything’s gonna have nice transitions as well, no awkward climbing and rolling and tangling limbs. If he gets something from another room that you need, no slouching. The university course as good as the extracurricular activities. Being inconsistent with any subsidiary details? Not in the Hanyu household, he’s keeping it classy. Yuzu feels like if he makes the bridges to new positions even remotely messy, the feeling is killed and it’s as if he’d break character mid-skate. Although he’ll have to practice and refine and test a lot of things because he’s not super experienced and adapting to your own movements is an individualized thing to do, he’s a masterclass of quality, period.

Even when things get fast and heated, nothing feels off. Having that kind of body smartness also means: Yuzu learns by touch, whatever you do. He knows by the way you pull his hair what comes next. How much saliva drips off your tongue when you suck at his neck, he knows how hard you’ll to ravage him in five minutes. This guy observes things you aren’t even conscious of because his physical understanding is just so fine-tuned.

The sense of rhythm, and every skating programme of him will showcase that, unbeatable. Unless his mood is really impacted by something severe, your guy feels it in every bone. He’s an artist, after all, he listens to music all the time. Dissecting rhythms to turn them into movement is what his line of work is all about. The pace will always fit the mood. Everything is precise, but never crude. Instead, the way he moves is dictated by an inherent flow. With little accents that match right with any thrust, like putting his hands on your sides when you’re on top of him.

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

Hit it Shakira: Whenever, wherever! He seemingly carries an entire condom factory with him. Or, to be more exact: At least three of them.

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

This one’s a complicated case. Yuzu being reckless on the ice may or may not mirror in your private life. He might need some downtime, so bring out the soft domme stuff. No trial and error stuff, just going through a routine of things you love the most. On the other hand, he always gives it all. This guy’s endurance at your hands is amazing. Advanced kinds of BDSM he will not feel deterred from at all. Rough toys, anal hooks, sounding, whips, why not is Yuzu’s motto. But then again. He has such a confusing mix of innocence and feeling like he’s completely hardcore. You might end up experimenting a lot, but also not daring the leap sometimes because the mood is different. And then rather go for softer hours, where Yuzu will be all shy shy and more bursting with excitement than ever. A good, interesting mix is what I’m saying.

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

Yuzuru, once he gets a bit of practice to gauge the situation... Viagra on two legs, absolute unexpected powerhouse. You might end up pondering to work out a little and go for a run because this guy is in a consistently outstanding shape to say the least. Olympic athletes are literally hard to fuck with. And since Yuzu is starfishing sometimes (which is very adorable), or he’s in bondage for some time, that presents a further problem: For a second round, he’s full of energy, while you already spent energy. So, you alternate with who’s active, and the other leans back entirely. He has to remind himself since his body is programmed for it: This is no contest — the point is feeling good.

You might ride him reverse cowgirl all the way while you watch TV, and after the overstimulation fades he will eat you out ad nauseam, full course slobbering, sweeping the whole menu. That way, it’s less about keeping up with him, which would be hard for most people not doing sports at his galactic level. He understands, Yuzu knows he’s not normal in that regard, you don’t have to worry. Some exercise still doesn’t hurt, just to further increase the quality of sex anyway.

Then again: Why go jogging and do some laps wasting valuable together time when Yuzu’s lap is the best workout? And running doesn’t guarantee your stamina in bed is perfect even if it does help. You rather wanna manage how to draw out the arousal. It’s a self-control thing, with the goal of having you match up in every aspect as good as you can. In which case, you can count on him to pull it off: Have you seen Yuzu doing jumps side by side with a bunch of female skaters? Copy paste. This guy knows how to synchronize with the ladies.

Something that has to be mentioned beside that, though. Yuzu has asthma since 2 years old, and it’s often a mind thing to him still these days. He doesn’t let it stop him from sleeping with you because as always, he’s not letting anything get in his way. He has learned to live and thrive with it. But you both have to mind the possibility of an attack, he prevents it with inhalers, and the mood plays a crucial role. Yuzu being comfortable and confident is so important to his breathing, and keeping a good rhythm rather than being chaotic in bed. So, you will plan most of your sexual activities rather than improvising.

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

Would stuff an entire sex shop into his every available orifice. Yuzu is a toy freak, he wants to try everything. Motto: a new one every day. Well, almost. But he can afford it. Buys stuff he uses solely on himself, things you use on him, things he uses solo and you use on him, and as the cherry on top, every possible high end vibrator on the market for you. Any size, too. This bitch will browse through the latest innovations, prepare to get off. He’s obsessed with seeing you use it on yourself. Yuzu owns a separate phone just for videos of you buzzing your clit, and him fingering you for minutes and minutes.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Extremely so. Loves to be a total brat only to get put into his place. He does it so you’ll pull the chin grab on him. He likes getting choked out as a punishment as well. Yuzu also tends to be very around the corner if you will when it comes to soft subbing, he lays over expecting cuddles but doesn’t say so. Buds his head against your chest, nuzzles, and so on. Lighter forms of teasing come to him very easily. Loves to prompt. Roughhousing, banter, favorite thing.

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

Moderately loud because his voice is very very light, but unsurprisingly — he’s just beautiful. What a nice tone. Gorgeous whimpering sounds. And when you go hard on him, voice cracks! And really heavy breathing. What’s gonna be the most striking though is his expressiveness. We know it from the ice and interviews, and he can really amp it up even further. No need for screaming, that face will speak the volumes.

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

You’ll be blessed with him if you have a huge crying kink. Yuzu definitely opens the waterworks every other week in bed. Happy tears, horny tears, relief tears, aftercare tears, orgasm tears, masochist tears, romantic tears, subspace tears, he has it all. He also begs for the type of pain that makes it stream down his face for minutes. He’s touchy-feely all the way and feels like he can really connect with you that way.

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

His ass twitching is kind of a spectacle, but I don’t have to tell you, do I. Yuzu has muscles for the gods in there. So voluptuous, you can’t call it any other way. Big booty boyfriend, Jesus you can show him off, he loves it. Around the house, he will flaunt them big ole athlete buns in particular, acting like it’s unintended. Um, Yuzu, those are joggings. Smack it, he is sure to moan.

And may I respectfully mention as well — this guy has some major big ass balls figuratively and literally. How else would someone be motivated to jump a triple axel like it’s nothing. Not kidding, they’re big and round and ugh. His love for tight pants doesn’t help. He knows what your eyes like and dresses just to flex the goods. Screams for more spanking and pinching if you ask me. Yuzu is definitely serving it. Well-endowed, you lucky girl.

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

Mega horny, ready when you are. On a scale from zero to hundred? Breaching into the 90 percent right there. Yuzu’s hormones are literally insane. On paper he’s 26, but his dick wants the 18th birthday party. Jesus is he gonna be clingy when he’s in the mood. All wrapped around you in a backhug in the kitchen or when you iron a costume of his, and that’s sexy of him. He’s not gonna hide what’s filling out those sweatpants. He’ll desperately grind up against you like it’s Christmas.

Paired with his puppy eyes and little “Do you have some time... I’ll iron this tomorrow” — instant pounce. He’s admittedly a bit hard to keep up with sometimes, though. The reason: With that level of exercise, he has major pent-up energy. That machine is definitely running. Heavy sports changes your hormones, nervous system, and especially blood flow. Now take that to the scale of his performances and regimens? That equals a firework of horny. No wonder he masturbates all the time.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Takes some time. He cools down, sweats it out, chugs water. However, don’t underestimate how tired Yuzu can already be. His daily routines and competitions have a toll on him. Ironically, he’s not a deep sleeper, however. Yuzu might toss and turn and have sudden energy bursts, or ideas, or gets hungry. So, he needs his plushies, he needs a weighted blanket, warm pajamas, a hot cup of his favorite warm drink, a light snack, and you by his side. Spooning him excessively and sometimes even humming to him. Yuzu looks like a certified angel on his pillow, his well-deserved rest from everything is so important, too.

NOTE - hope i could indulge you, thank you for reading!

#yuzuru hanyu #figure skating #yuzuru hanyu smut #yuzuru hanyu smut alphabet #yuzuru hanyu x reader #sub!yuzuru hanyu #sub!yuzu #dom!reader #fs #smut alphabet #smut abc #smut a-z

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scullysflannel · 4 years ago

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☕️ not really a topic but i would LOVE it if you try to convince someone who has not seen a single episode of x files (me) to watch x files

thank you for this dream assignment. I’m unhinging my jaw now.

Mulder and Scully aren’t like their reputations. they get talked about like these big ideas—the Believer and the Skeptic—but they are so not dry or one-dimensional or anything else that you might be expecting. they’re the most human characters I’ve ever seen on screen. Scully is curious and earnest and so eager to succeed, but she throws away her definition of success to do the right thing (and because she’s a little rebel. I’m not spoiling anything beyond the first few minutes of the pilot to say that she’s assigned to Mulder to spy on him, but she likes and respects him too much to do it). Mulder is hardworking, kind, restless. so idealistic it looks selfish. he sees his lost sister in every victim. he has trouble sleeping, and I love that it’s not part of the plot. it’s just part of him. some procedurals don’t like to go home with the characters at the end of the day. The X-Files feels like it’s always going home with Mulder and Scully, even when they’re on the road.

every good thing about the show goes through them. that’s the whole point of the story: you think the truth is “out there,” but it isn’t—it’s in other people. and that might sound sentimental or obvious, but The X-Files makes you feel how heavy it is to love and be loved. a lot of Mulder and Scully’s connection is unspoken. and yes, sometimes that gives them communication issues, which I personally think is very sexy and interesting of them, but it’s also so powerful. here are these two people whose job forces them to question everything about the world, but they don’t question each other.

I know I’m getting very Always Sunny conspiracy board about this, but nothing else feels like The X-Files. it’s a mood at the highest level. the whole philosophy behind the show is that knowing there’s a monster in the shadows is scarier and more interesting than seeing that monster. the most powerful things are the ones that can’t really be understood or explained. it’s the same with Mulder and Scully. Chris Carter, the creator, fought so hard against making them romantic, but the joke is on him for a lot of reasons, like (1) he cast David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, who have more chemistry than anyone else on this sad little planet and who like kissing for fun, (2) nothing is more romantic than an intellectual partnership between equals based on trust and mutual respect, and (3) the more he refused to define their relationship with words, the more powerful he inadvertently made it, because, again, the most important things are too big for words. it’s like the show respects Mulder and Scully’s connection too much to try to explain it.

The X-Files made me realize how sick I am of bickering on TV. a lot of shows want us to think that love looks like a little boy pulling a girl’s hair on the playground. but Mulder and Scully have a friendship between adults. they like each other. I know I literally just went on about how their relationship is so powerful it transcends the bounds of fiction etc., but it’s not stuffy. there’s a fun little kernel of madness and codependence at the center of their relationship, which I love because I love watching women in fiction pick their own poison. and Scully’s is Mulder. they’re a little bit mutually destructive with each other, but they’re even more self-destructive on their own. it’s compelling.

shifting to a different corner of my conspiracy board. Mulder and Scully are as great as they are because The X-Files understands exactly where they fit in the world of the show and what brings them together: their shared integrity in the face of the FBI’s manipulation. The X-Files is really about the abuses committed by the government; the villains are men in suits who would do anything to hold on to the power they feel slipping away. this show can go hard when it wants to. I can’t and don’t want to absolve it for being written and directed almost exclusively by white men, which comes through in all kinds of toxic ways. but as far as cop shows go its perspective on the world holds up impressively well—better than shows that are on right now. I can think of a hundred ways The X-Files could have been a better version of itself, but every other show still wants what it has.

even when The X-Files is bad it’s good. sometimes the frustrating things about it only make it more interesting. it’s a show that draws you in; it makes you part of the process of interpreting what’s happening and assigning meaning to it. there wasn’t a writers’ room for the writers to communicate with each other (a concept), which means the story can sometimes feel fragmented, but that also gave the show the capacity to look at Mulder and Scully through a lot of different lenses, which ultimately only makes them more vibrant. they can fit into a comedy or a tragedy or a thriller. they can be unbearably sentimental one week (or one scene) and unbearably withholding the next. but that’s real. people are inconsistent. it also makes it possible for the monster-of-the-week episodes to keep getting better and more inventive even as the mythology starts to fall apart. the great standalone episodes are like short stories, and even the worst ones have Mulder and Scully.

I don’t find The X-Files scary in a jump-scare kind of way; it’s cozy, and it’s got a powerful sense of wonder at the the world. but it does get at the creeping horror of realizing the world doesn’t make sense. what makes the story hopeful is that Mulder and Scully keep trying to make sense of it anyway. they tear down everything they thought they knew because the comfort of a lie is less important than the truth. I just love that the little grey men and the UFOs and the tractor beams all look exactly like you’d expect them to, but belief still isn’t easy. it’s not a show about what exactly real-ass aliens might look like. it’s about how the truth can be really simple and really hard to accept at the same time.

#anon #i can practically feel you training a high-powered rifle on me as we speak #this is too long and possibly nonsense and I made you wait a day and a half and I'm sorry!!#BUT if you're reading this and if you do watch txf please keep me posted #txf #msr #xf thoughts

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doctorstethoscope · 3 years ago

Text

Moment || Aaron Hotchner x gn Reader

A/N: hiiii besties expanding on a lil prompt from the weekend due to popular demand! Thank you to @the-modernmary for helping me with it!! If u liked this teeny bit of angst u will love her fics!!

just a little note for those of you who read The Right: I am going on vacation this coming Saturday-Wednesday. I will have the chapters queued to post for y’all, but I will not be able to respond to taglist requests or update the masterlist until I come back! Still let me know what you think about the chapters though, they’re some good ones! ok onto this fic.

contains: slight cursing, alcohol consumption

wc: 1.7k

You take a deep breath as you walk out of Strauss’s office, taking exactly one beat to regain your composure before hastily making your way over to Hotch’s office, letting yourself in without knocking.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” you said by way of greeting as you crossed his office and settled into one of the chairs across from his desk.

“Tell you what?” Hotch asks, looking up from his paperwork with confusion knit across his brow.

“That Strauss was going to harangue me the second I walked into the building this morning. I seriously didn’t even make it past security before she nabbed me.” You told him, disgruntled.

“I didn’t know. What did she want?” Aaron asks, and you look up and see that he’s telling the truth-- he really didn’t know.

“Oh… I assumed she would have cleared it with you before she asked me.” You said, your boisterous energy deflating the longer you sat in the chair.

“Is she pulling you for undercover work? She always does that, and she never asks if we have anything coming up or what your consult workload is--”

“No, Hotch. She’s, uh, she’s not pulling me for undercover work.”

“What is it?”

“She said the director tapped me to lead the field office in Vegas.” You confessed, looking up and seeing the air leave Aaron’s chest.

“Wow.” Aaron says, blinking.

“Yeah,” you agreed.

“And you’re going to take it?” He asked.

“I told her that I needed some time to think about it.” You answer him.

“What’s there to think about?” He wonders.

There’s a moment where you think you might actually roll your eyes at him. There’s a moment where you consider begging him to give you a reason to stay. There’s a moment where you consider crossing the desk and depositing yourself in his lap, kissing him with the weight of all of the feelings that had you wanting to stay.

But, after a moment, you realize that none of that’s happening. He’s sitting across from you, looking at you like you’d be the biggest fool in the world not to take advantage of this opportunity, and maybe he was right. Maybe you would spend the rest of your life wanting him one-sidedly, wondering what good you could have done for the world if you had simply accepted that he’d never love you back.

“Nothing,” you answered, after a moment. “There’s absolutely nothing to think about at all.”

****************************

Aaron’s barely even distracted when you swing his door open and plop yourself into one of his chairs first thing in the morning. He’s used to it, by now. He may have been a less-than-willing participant in your friendship at the beginning of your relationship, but now he was glad to call you someone he was close to. His closest friend, really.

His ears perk up when you mention Strauss. “Is she pulling you for undercover work?’ He starts to rant, already planning the tirade he’s going to deliver to Erin when he notices your demeanor change. You’re… shy, all of a sudden. You’ve never hidden from him before. He doesn’t like it.

“She said the director tapped me for the field director position in Vegas,” You revealed. The sentence hit him like a punch in the gut.

“Wow,” is all he can manage to get out, fighting the way his throat threatens to close up. “And you’re going to take it?” He asks, although he knows the answer will break his heart.

“I told her I needed some time to think about it.”

“What’s there to think about?’ He asked, allowing himself to hope for a moment that you’ll make some grand confession, to imagine for a moment that you might possibly feel the same way he does, to believe for a moment that he’s worthy of your love. But he’s not.

“Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing to think about at all,” you tell him, standing up and leaving with a forced casualness.

Aaron had been married long enough to know that that tone and those words together mean the exact opposite of what they are supposed to mean-- but he was still confused. What could possibly make you stay? And how could he find it before you left?

*****************

The following days between you and Aaron had been chilly, to say the least. You didn’t bounce ideas off of each other on cases like you normally would. You came to the opposite conclusions at every turn. You were out of sync, and everyone felt it. So when the case wrapped up on a Friday afternoon, you were more than happy to rush home to a bottle of wine, a pint of ice cream, your moving boxes and some trashy reality television.

You’d given up on packing after about an hour. Your heart just wasn’t in it. So instead, you lounged in your pajamas, sipping at your wine in the hopes that it would guide you to your first full night of sleep since you’d spoken with Strauss. You’re just about to head to bed when there’s a knock at your door. You swing it open, revealing Aaron, holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other.

“I was an asshole.” He offers. “Am I interrupting anything, or?”

“Just packing,” you say, wanting to twist the knife a little bit even if it wasn’t truthful. Aaron is undeterred, and steps inside anyways.

“I didn’t want you to leave with us still in the middle of the fight. You can be as mad as you want in the morning, but have a glass of champagne with me?” He asks, with those big brown eyes you could never refuse.

“Fine,” you sighed, still easily won over by him, even when you were heartbroken and mad.

“Here, you open it. Congratulations,” he tells you, handing over the bottle. You start picking at the foil, and he speaks up in the silence. “Things are going to be different without you, you know. I like that our team is structured the way it is… as a team, but you know, in a lot of ways, it was nice to have a partner in you.”

“You know, come to think of it, I’m not sure if I even have cups. They might be packed away,” you say, still picking at the foil and decidedly not looking Aaron in the eye. He chuckles a little at your comment.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do when you’re gone. I mean, who else can rein in Derek, or get to see me the big picture, or talk Emily off the ledge when I’m sure she’s about to go rogue?’

“It’s going to be okay,” you tell him, setting the bottle on the counter, still unopened. Aaron heaves a sigh.

“You should stay.” He says, after a moment.

“What?” You say, blinking, because surely you must be drunk or dreaming or something else.

“You should stay here. You don’t have to take the job in Vegas.”

“Haha, very funny,” you joked, bringing your attention back to the bottle to avoid looking him in the eye.

“I’m serious. Listen, I know I said there was nothing to think about, but I changed my mind.”

“Oh, did you? And what if I haven’t changed mine?” You asked, getting angry now.

Not able to hold back for another second, he takes your face in both of his hands and kisses you. “Just, think about that before you board a plane. Okay?” He says, and before you can even speak, you hear the door swing shut behind him.

Damn you, Hotchner.

You don’t sleep a wink. When 8am finally rolls around, you pull yourself out of bed and get dressed, heading over to Aaron’s. As you buckle your seatbelt, you realize that you know you have to go over there but you have no clue what it is you even want to say to him. You hope you’ll figure it out without sounding completely insane as you knock on Aaron’s door, and he swings it open, still in his sweatpants and incredibly surprised to find you on his doorstep.

“I’m even more mad at you right now than I was last night,” you tell him by way of greeting.

“That’s understandable. I haven’t been very fair to you,” he agrees, and the fact that he’s being so reasonable only makes you angrier. You slip past him and step inside the apartment.

“I don’t get it. You couldn’t just let me move on, start a new life and forget about the torch I’ve been burning for my boss the entire time I’ve worked here? You had to have the last word, even if I was leaving forever.”

“No,” Aaron says, and you bite your tongue, trying to allow him a moment to respond even if you weren’t feeling all that gracious. “No, I couldn’t let you move on thinking the torch you were carrying ws unrequited.”

You’re struck by his words. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter. It’s a great opportunity for you in Vegas. I’m happy for you, and you shouldn’t let this--”

“Hotch, what are you trying to say?”

“Just that I’m proud of you, and I know that you’ll do excellent work, and--”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to hide from me.” You call him out, and he looks at you for a moment. This time, you don’t break his glance.

“I’m not trying to hide. I’m just too late.” He tells you, looking down at the floor.

“Tell me, Hotchner. Tell me, please.” You beg of him, shifting to try to get him to look you in the eye.

“I love you, and I figured it out too late.”

You draw in a sharp breath, and he’s sure he’s ruined any vestiges of friendship that still existed between the two of you in this moment, and that you’ll board your plane to Las Vegas and he’ll become a creepy old boss that you never think about again. He takes a moment to look at you, a moment to mourn what might have been, a moment to remember the way your laugh made him smile while the memories were still fresh. He takes a moment, and then you speak up.

“No,” you correct him. “You figured it out just in time.”

tagging: @choppa-style @wanniiieeee @zheezs14 @torykjamie @maureen4y

@ssavanessa22 @isthatme-thatsme @g-l-pierce @ssahotchie @infinite-tides

@itsmytimetoodream @averyhotchner @msmarvelsmain @hotforhotchner11 @hotchinkevlar

hi besties I tried to tag everyone who said they wanted to be on my regular hotch list and a few of y’all who regularly interact with the right but if i made a mistake/u want to be removed u can lmk I will not be offended!!!

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner x reader #hotch x reader #aaron hotchner x y/n #hotch x y/n #aaron hotchner x you #hotch x you #aaron hotchner one shot #criminal minds #criminal minds fic

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clefairymuke · 3 years ago

Note

oiiii i have a request for a oneshot or maybe something fun to add to your regrets fic (whatever you find better) I think it would be funny a reader x the scouts drunk and levi finding them and being all cute taking care of reader :3

thank you for this request!! sorry for how long it took, but it managed to pull me out of some writers block that’s been kicking my ass lately. thank you for suggesting it and reading!

as always, much love! <3

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

Red Wine | Levi x Reader

pairing: levi x reader

themes: fluff

tw: swearing, alcohol use

word count: 2511

True fun and relaxation is not something you typically experience.

Of course, when you signed up for this whole Scout Regiment thing, you weren’t expecting nights out in bars and plush queen-sized beds with wool blankets. You expected exactly what you got: exhausting days and mostly sleepless nights, demanding grief and waking nightmares. One thing you hadn’t expected, however, was how stale it would get. These thoughts are why you ended up where you are now: propped lazily against a wall surrounded by your friends, loud laughs bubbling freely from your ever-smiling mouth, and a bottle of wine in hand.

While the “why” is clear to you, the “how” is a bit more cloudy. Around the complete euphoria in your head stands a thick fog blocking your memory — that, or the fact that your drunkenly dwindling attention span can no longer support a thought lasting more than a second or two. All you know is that you’re here now, and you’re having the time of your life. Your eyes and ears skirt past Eren and Jean arguing without stopping to listen in as you pass the bottle to Mikasa.

For once, you aren’t thinking about how Levi could make this experience better. Although you love being in the company of your boyfriend, you can’t help but imagine his disdain if he were to witness your situation. You can almost feel the ferocity of his razor sharp-glare creeping up your spine as you picture it within your mind.

You lay your head back on the concrete wall that keeps you upright and close your eyes. Although you had shown to be quite social when the bottle first began to be passed, you now wanted nothing more than to take a nice nap — or to go vomit just to ease yourself of the queasy feeling that was overtaking your stomach. Either would suffice. You listen to your friends chatting mindlessly around you, their care to be inconspicuous slipping away with the wine. You watch Connie drain what was left in the bottle, leaving you to curse at the fact that you would be stuck in the uncomfortable kind of drunk that left you a bit nauseous while still conscious enough to be prone to anxiety.

You sit there in a dizzy oblivion for what could have been five minutes or fifty, tuning out the antics of the rest of the people in the room as they laugh and roughhouse. Your stomach stirs and turns, but your mind begins to clear: you notice Connie and Sasha choreographing a dance routine to music only they could hear; Mikasa and Armin sit quietly chatting behind Eren as he and Jean argue over who is more adept at fighting; Ymir and Christa are making googly eyes at each other over their giggles.

“Hey, guys?” you say, your brain lagging behind your mouth by at least a few seconds. “I’m probably about to throw up.” You quickly discover that you’re right, as your gut begins to bubble and your mouth begins to water.

“Oh, fuck,” Connie mumbles as he looks around the room desperately. Sasha looks disappointed as he stops dancing and approaches where you sit against the wall, gripping your wrists in his hands and helping you to your feet; with both of you being drunk enough to show it, stumbles are surely present. Time skips, and you’re kneeled in front of the toilet, Connie leaving to give you privacy — you’re decidedly much drunker than you thought you were.

Just as you start to vomit, you hear Eren defeatedly say, “Oh, fuck me.” That can’t be good.

The space goes silent save your groans. The most imaginative depths of your brain think that perhaps a titan is looking in the window, waiting to bring you all to your doom. How convenient for half of the newest scout recruits to be intoxicated and defenseless. When you hear Levi’s voice say, “Stupid fucking brats. Where is she?” you wish it were a titan instead.

A chorus of voices answer, “Bathroom.” What a bunch of fucking sellouts, you think to yourself. Your heartbeat begins to pound in your throat again as you hear his footsteps grow near; when he taps at the door a few times, you let it all out — out of fear or simple drunkenness you are unsure. “God damn it,” you hear him mumble before the door handle turns and his hands find your hair, pulling it back into a makeshift ponytail.

He rubs your back in a manner you can only describe as passive-aggressive. You can tell he wants to scold you — and you’re definitely in for it once you get to feeling better — but you can also tell that he wants to care for you. That’s why you try to pretend not to hear his curses as he lectures you on responsibility.

“Why the hell are you drinking with these idiots? I wouldn’t be mad if it was a glass or two, but there are three empty bottles on the floor in there. Three. No wonder you’re puking your fucking guts up,” he mutters, voice low enough for only you to hear despite his angry tone.

You feel your eyes watering as your stomach settles for another brief moment. “Levi,” you say, your breathing labored, “now is not the time.” You hear him scoff before you begin to dry heave, his hand moving a bit more caring across your back as he holds onto your hair. Your gut starts to feel a bit better as your brain realizes there’s nothing left. He places his hands under your arms and lifts you gently to your feet before flushing the toilet. You stumble awkwardly to his lead as he escorts you to the sink.

He reaches around you to turn on the water, which is cold to the touch as he holds your hand beneath it. “Clean your mouth out,” he says, nudging his hand around yours until you form a cup. “It’s disgusting.” You oblige him, lifting it to your lips. You feel it drip down your chin as you swish it around between your teeth, looking up in the mirror to see your blushing cheeks and droopy eyes. Levi stands behind you, dressed in no more than a grey t-shirt and some comfortable-looking pants. His hair is neat and combed, which doesn’t quite match the rest of his attire, but you aren’t complaining. He looks as ethereal as always. After you spit, he grabs your shoulder and spins you around to face him.

“You okay?” he asks, brushing the tears that had formed on your face away with his thumbs. You shake your head at him, your eyes trailing down to the ground. Here comes the scolding.

He sweeps you off your feet, to your surprise, holding you bridal-style as he carries you out of the bathroom. You lay your head against his shoulder, seeing the walls of the room and the faces of your friends go blurrily by as he strides to the door; they all look terrified.

“Laps,” you hear Levi announce to your friends, his voice icy. “At dawn. I don’t give a shit if you’re hungover.”

A chorus of groans is the soundtrack for your exit as the door slams shut. The walk back to Levi’s suite is spotty at best; you’re unsure of exactly how long it’s taking. The scenery around you feels more dreamlike than anything — you find yourself hoping that you’re still propped against the wall with your friends, sleeping soundly and dreaming of Levi catching you red-handed. When time jumps and he’s laying you down on his couch, you’re pretty sure you’re awake.

You hear rustling around as you lay there, still half waiting for a scolding. He rejoins you rather quickly, setting some things down on the side table and gently lifting your head. He sits, letting you back down slowly to lay in his lap. “I brought you bread,” he says, taking it from the table and placing it in your hands. “It’ll soak up the alcohol. There’s water over here when you need it.” You inspect the bread lazily before nibbling on it. The very idea of chewing something and swallowing it is enough to make you nauseous, but you trust his judgement.

You feel his hand fall atop your forehead and his fingers draw circles in your hair. You don’t fight the grin threatening your lips. “Are you okay, my love?” he asks, his voice soft. This is the tenderness you had fallen in love with many months ago; the one thing your friends are blind to. He carries himself with such coldness for the public — he is rude, and blunt, and insufferable, and unobtainable. With you, however, he could be kind. He could be loving. The speed with which his gentle voice melts your heart never lessens. This is Levi at his most vulnerable.

“I’m just drunk,” you tell him, your words slurring into each other. “I’m not dying.”

You hear a chuckle barely pass over his lips like a spring breeze, the sparkle in his eyes reminiscent of the way the sun reflects off the surface of a pond. The peaceful nature of your position is a worthy opponent to how your insides wage war on one another: nausea, dizziness, and the beginnings of what will become an absolutely splitting headache all contained within one disoriented body. “I would’ve gone with you, you know,” he says suddenly after a serene moment of silence. “I would’ve known when you needed to stop drinking.” He combs his fingers against your cheek, silvery eyes softening into pools of undeniable adoration.

“You would’ve been a complete buzzkill,” you reply, half joking as you close your eyes and enjoy the rare affection.

You hear a cross between a scoff and a laugh come from above you. “Keeping those brats from getting you so wasted that you start puking isn’t being a buzzkill. It’s called taking care of you.”

“I think I’m not drunk enough,” you say honestly. “We ran out of wine right at that stage where you could go to sleep or start throwing up, but there’s absolutely no chance of having a good time.”

He taps the top of your head with two fingers, prompting you to let him up. You oblige him, using the opportunity to lay down your bread and take a sip from the glass of water that rests on the side table. You watch as he saunters back toward the kitchen, wondering what he was doing somewhat, but mostly just trying to get a grip on your senses. You sit up as you wait on his return, laying your head back against the plush upholstery and taking deep breaths.

He’s back as quickly as he left, both hands behind his back in a feeble attempt to hide the wine glasses as their stems poked around to your view. You feel a smile creep onto your face as he unveils his master plan: a bottle of red wine and a glass for each of you. “Don’t expect this often,” he announces as he sets it all on the table, pulling a wine key from his pocket. He joins you on the couch, scooting in close so that your knees brush before you hear the satisfying pop of the cork and the relaxing swish of liquid on glass.

“You’re expecting me to believe that Captain Levi is offering to get drunk with me?” you giggle, almost nervous to reach for the wine in front of you. He laughs off your comment, reaching in front of him and lifting the glass to his lips; he takes only a sip before looking at you in expectation. You take yours as well, holding it up to his jokingly before you both bring them to your mouths.

After your first gulp, time begins to melt away. A movie-esque montage begins in front of your eyes: the sight of the man you love, once so stoic and so stiff, loosening and laughing the night away at your side; the feeling of typically isolated and scarce hands trailing carelessly along the length of your arms, warm against the sensitive skin of your wrists and your thighs; the smell of red wine spilled innocently on hardwood and upholstery without complaints or uprooting to clean it; the sound of his velvet and brass voice with his uncensored expressions of love, whispered and melodic; the taste of mint and jasmine tea on his unusually wandering lips.

What might be thirty minutes or three hours passes in a flash, leaving you sprawled across the couch with the drunken mess that is your typically reserved lover, legs utterly entangled so that you were unsure where you ended and he began. He’s whispering to you — that much you know — but his words are slurred, and you’re unbelievably distracted by the feeling of wet kisses being peppered along your jaw and ear. He grasps at your back, massaging and caressing and leaving no inch uncovered by his calloused hands as his touch reminds you why you breathe and laugh and plainly exist.

“Levi,” you whisper, your mind a tangled ball of twine save for the feeling of his breath on your cheek.

He hums in response, not bothering to look up at you. You can feel his grin against your jaw.

“We should get to bed, love.”

You’d be left to wonder how the two of you made it into the next room when morning came; rest assured there would be a trail from the couch to the bedroom door made from clumsily knocked-over knick knacks and your discarded clothes from the day to clue you in. If you were sober, you’d care enough about Levi’s wrath tomorrow to clean up behind the two of you; however, you aren’t sober, and you don’t care enough.

The two of you fall into the bed you share, intertwining your limbs like the threads of a tapestry, laying out plainly and beautifully the comfort you find in him. Your head finds his chest and his hands find your lower back, pulling you flush against him as his eyelids begin their threats to close before he is quite ready. He murmurs out your name, his hold on you growing more snug when it passes his lips. “I love you, s—” he falters, nuzzling his face in the top of your head. “So much.”

It’s short — and a pretty common thing for someone to say to the person they love — but it means everything coming from him. “I love you, Levi,” you tell him, praying to whatever is up there that you’ll remember this in the morning.

Soon, the two of you stop stirring and whispering. As you breathe him in, you try to hear his words in your mind as many times as you can before you slip out of consciousness. You begin to drift off to sleep, peaceful and content in his arms as you’ve ever been.

#levi ackerman #levi x y/n #levi x reader #levi x reader fluff #levi attack on titan #captain levi #levi fluff #attack on titan #aot #snk #aot fluff #aot levi #drunk levi #aot fic #aot oneshots #levi oneshot #levi ackerman oneshot #levi ackerman x you #levi fanfiction

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dreamiesdotcom · 3 years ago

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[01:29pm] Renjun draws you in the most beautiful ways possible. It doesn't matter what pose you're in; you could be sat on a stool or you could be laying on the floor or you could be in the middle of the room he keeps his art in, cold underneath the pure white silk linen covering your body, the image of a piece of a broken sculpture amongst perfected artworks perfectly played by you — he makes you look so beautiful it seems real, even though it's rehearsed.

Always, he drew you like he loves you. Your favorite has to be the sketch he's drawing right now.

"Don't move," he furrows his brows, sighing softly. His hands move gently to capture the soft curves of your silhouette.

You blink at him, looking down at the floor next to the bed. He's sat on the futon he's supposed to sleep on because of a particularly heavy storm outside making you unable to go home. By ritual, you had to take a bath before going to sleep — leading you to this situation, sitting in the middle of his bed with one of his sleeping clothes on, hair a little damp and face bare.

"God, you look like a divine being right now. Why are you so cruel?" He laughs, shaking his head. His eyes darkens as it shifts to you, voice dropping a few octaves when he speaks, "Why are you sitting there looking so adorable? If you keep looking like that..."

"You told me... not to move, Renjun."

He smiles sweetly, resuming his gaze to the paper he's drawing on.

"Exactly. So drive me crazy and make me mad, Y/N."

He does not love you. Yes he speaks like an open book, but books are liars — they make painful things seem beautiful. He might say that he loves you but he doesn't; maybe he does but he wouldn't, he doesn't love you enough to be in love with you. Artists like him feed on breaking their own hearts.

With his particular liking to how you looked with little tears, he no doubt will enjoy breaking yours, too.

You were his masterpiece. He would dream of how beautiful you'd look once he's done with you, and after that for a while he might even grow fond of you, but you know all too well the end of this romance: he'd grow tired of you, look away, learn to look back, and find some sort of... loathe in his heart. He'd hate you, at the very end.

He put too much of himself in you. He sees himself in every angle you stood.

And God knows how much he can't stand himself, let alone feel love for more than fleeting seconds.

So he doesn't love you.

"I like the way you look right now."

But he doesn't love you.

"Be my muse forever, okay?"

But he doesn't love you.

"Oh God, you are beautiful."

He doesn't. Love. You.

But he draws you like he does, speaks to you like he does, treats you like he does — art is pretense, and in a way, you're as much of an artist as he is. Maybe that's why it doesn't hurt as much as it should.

You were way too used to keep your rehearsed smile, and feel your rehearsed emotions. You were his muse, his masterpiece, his art.

And art was pretense.

#nct dream #nct dream imagines #nct dream x reader #nct dream blurbs #nct dream drabbles #nct dream fluff #nct dream angst #nct dream timestamps #nct dream scenarios #renjun imagines #renjun drabbles #renjun blurbs #renjun timestamps #renjun x reader #renjun fluff #renjun angst #artist!renjun

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nastybuckybarnes · 4 years ago

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In a Heartbeat - Five

Pairing: Fireman!Bucky X Reader

Summary: You’ve always been careful with your heart. With your condition, you don’t exactly have any other choice. The last time you let someone in, you paid the price. A price you don’t plan on paying again. Until Bucky comes in and shatters your carefully crafted world.

Warnings: Language, Fluff, Smut (18+),

Word Count: 3.7K

A/n: hi I hope you enjoy this! So I’m thinking this will probably have two more parts and maybe an epilogue. I’m very very excited. Also my carpal tunnel has been hurting a lot lately so I haven’t been able to write much, plus I've been super tired. I hope to post more regularly and update stuff more often but I make no promises. Anyway, Enjoy!

Series Masterlist

~*~

“Going somewhere, Barnes?” The brunet smiles, raking a hand through his damp hair.

“Hell yeah, I am. I’ve got a date with the most gorgeous woman in the world.” Steve chuckles, shaking his head at his friend.

“Barnes doesn’t stink. What's he planning?” Sam asks, eyeing the way the brunet towel-dries his hair as he gathers his things.

Showering at the firehouse is something he likes to avoid at all costs. But smelling like sweat and fire before meeting you for another date? That’s ten times worse.

“Shut up, Sam.”

“He’s just jealous that no one wants to go out with him,” a female voice calls.

The men look to the doorway, smiles growing as they see Natasha standing there.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky asks, eyeing the cupcake in her hand.

“I come bearing gifts. Some better than others.” She steps aside and you smile from where she was standing, a Tupperware of cupcakes in your hands.

“Hey, (Y/n)!” Steve calls. You wave weakly at him, smiling nervously as you walk over to the table where he sits.

“Hey, doll. What are you doing here?” Bucky asks, eyes devouring your figure.

“Hi. Nat said she was popping by so I thought I’d go with her. Save you the drive over to my place, too.” You look at Bucky as you say the last part, smiling timidly at the grin on his face.

He walks over to you and leans down, pressing a soft kiss to your lips while his arm wraps around your waist.

You pull away when Sam whistles, giggling softly and shaking your head.

“I uh... I brought some cupcakes for you and the guys. Nat said I should leave them for her but I thought you guys might want some.”

Sam and Clint are diving for the container before you’ve even finished speaking, and you can’t help but laugh at their eagerness.

Bucky moves to stand behind you, his chin on your shoulder and his arms wrapped around your waist.

“You okay?” He asks softly. You nod, bringing your hands up to rest on his.

He knows how you get around his friends, nervous that they won’t accept you. When he introduced you to them for the first time you’d had to excuse yourself to take nearly a double dose of your pills.

“We can head out right away. I just need to grab my things.” You nod your understanding and he presses a soft kiss to your cheek before letting go of you.

“Well if you’re trying to win us over, it worked. These cupcakes are amazing, (Y/n).” You smile at Clint then over at Nat who gives you a knowing look.

The drive over was filled with you panicking and freaking out, hoping that they didn’t hate the cupcakes or think you were weird for making them.

“If Nat kept these to herself I think I’d die,” Sam says, interrupting your thoughts.

“These are the leftovers from our Halloween party. I’m not gonna eat them all and I don’t think it’s healthy for Nat and James to share two dozen cupcakes between the two of them.” Bucky pinches your butt and you yelp, swatting his hand away.

“I could’ve devoured those in ten minutes.” You nod, smacking his chest. “That’s what I’m worried about. There’s only room for one of us to have a heart problem in this relationship.”

Steve chokes on his cupcake and Nat cackles, shaking her head at you.

In the time that you and Bucky have been together, your confidence has grown so much, and for that Nat is very grateful.

“It’s okay to laugh,” you say, noticing the way Clint and Sam are staring at Bucky. The brunet shakes his head, hugging you tightly and chuckling into your hair.

“Always a comedian, huh?” You shrug, “one of us has to be funny.” Sam laughs then, Clint snorting while Steve coughs the cupcake out of his lungs.

“Alright. Enough of that. Let’s get going.”

You bid goodbye to everyone and walk with Bucky to his truck, smiling when he starts driving.

“So you’re my girl then?” He asks after a while, a smile on his face.

“I thought it was obvious after our first date,” you reply coyly, heart skipping a beat as you remember everything that took place.

Since then you’ve had your fair share of make-out sessions, each ending in him pulling away with the excuse of wanting to wait.

He chuckles softly, eyes on you for a long moment.

“Well, I just never know. Don’t want to assume anything.” You hum, pondering this for a moment.

“Have you been ‘playing the field’ then? Waiting ‘till we’re a real item to put yourself off the market?” You’re half-teasing, but he can hear the nervousness beneath your words.

“No way. With a sweet thing like you by my side, I’d never even dream of someone else, even if we weren’t official.” You feel reassured and relax into the seat.

“Where are we headed?” You ask after a moment, realizing you don’t know what his date plans are for tonight.

“Well, I figured since it’s the start of the weekend, we could have a delicious dinner of Italian bread, tomato spread, cheese, vegetables, and meat. Maybe top it off with some gourmet pureed milk with fresh vanilla, frozen to the perfect temperature.”

You blink at this then shake your head. “Pizza and ice cream?”

“Pizza and ice cream.”

~*~

You’re cuddled up next to him on his couch, head tucked on his shoulder and legs thrown over his lap. He’s got his metal hand on your knees and his flesh around your shoulders, holding you close to his body while the two of you watch the movie.

You’re tracing tiny patterns on the back of his metal hand, marvelling at how warm the material is beneath your touch.

Your fingers gradually make their way up until you’re drawing on his forearm.

He shifts slightly, hand resting on your hip and tugging you up until you’re seated on his lap. The position is nice, but not the one you want to be in, so you quickly shift to straddle his lap.

His eyes snap up to your face, beautiful blues capturing your gaze and looking straight into your soul.

“Hi,” he murmurs, tongue darting out to wet his lips. Your fingers find their way to his hair, combing through and nails gently scraping against his scalp.

“Hi,” you reply, voice just as soft as his.

Something in the atmosphere changes at that moment, the two of you taking note of it at the same time. The tension grows swiftly between the two of you as you each glance at the other’s lips.

“It’s been over a month,” you whisper, lips just hardly brushing over his. He nods, hands gripping your hips tightly as he pulls you hard against him, forcing you to feel the outline of his hardening cock.

“It has. And you haven’t run away screaming yet so I must be doing something right.” You chuckle, lips pressing gentle kisses to his neck. “If tonight goes well, I don’t think I’ll ever run away.” He groans and his hips thrust upwards, making you gasp.

“A-are you sure?” He asks, genuinely concerned as he pulls back.

“I don’t wanna hurt you... and I don’t wanna get your heart going too fast.” You smile softly at him, cupping his cheeks in your hands.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything, James. I want you. And if my heart gets too high, we’ll put my pills on the nightstand. I just want you. Please.” He lets out a big breath and you sigh, pushing off of his lap and scooting away from him until you’re at the opposite end of the couch.

“Babydoll, I didn’t say no. I’m just worried.” You say nothing. Instead, you keep your arms crossed over your chest and stare at the TV screen.

“C’mon doll. You’re not gonna be mad at me for caring about your heart, are ya?” You look over at him finally and sigh.

“It’s my heart, James. And if I wanna risk my health to have sex with you, that's my choice.” He chuckles and shakes his head, crawling over to you. His hands are on your body then, flipping you so you’re laying with your back against the arm of the couch. He climbs between your legs and grinds his hips against yours.

“If your heart needs a break you tell me, okay? I don’t care if I’m about to cum, you stop me and you take your pills. Your health is more important than anything to me.” You nod, eyelids fluttering closed as he grinds against you again.

“Do you promise? I won’t do anything unless you promise to tell me if it’s too much.” Yo open your eyes when he stops moving, hands coming up to his shoulders.

“I promise I’ll tell you if I need to take a breather, okay?” He nods, happy with your answer, then dives down to press a searing kiss to your lips.

The passion behind it is like nothing you’ve felt before, and you’re startled for a moment before kissing him back just as forcefully.

He grinds his length against your core through your clothes and you moan softly against his lips.

His tongue darts into your mouth, getting re-acquainted with every inch while his flesh hand shoves your shirt up just enough for some skin-to-skin contact.

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him down harder against you and rocking your hips up to meet his.

“You gonna let me eat you out?” The way the words fall breathlessly from his kiss-swollen lips makes you moan, nodding desperately. He chuckles softly, mouth making a wet trail down your neck.

His fingers come to the neckline of your shirt and, with little effort, he tears the fabric straight down the middle.

The blatant display of strength has you wiggling your hips in a pathetic attempt to alleviate the growing tension between your thighs.

His fingers dart behind your back, unclasping your bra expertly and tossing it aside.

Lips wrap around your nipple, tongue darting out for a moment before he nips at it with his teeth.

Your back arches up into his touch and he uses that to his advantage, groping your other breast and pinching at your nipple.

He pulls away after a moment, eyes dark and focused on your face while his hand slides up to rest on your throat, fingers pressing against your pulse point. You roll your eyes but he seems determined to make sure you’re not overworking yourself.

“Just checking,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your lips quickly before climbing down your body. He tugs your pants down, panties coming with them, and lays on his stomach between your legs.

You bring one hand up to cover your face, heart skipping a beat as he places kiss after kiss on your inner thighs.

“Relax for me, doll. Lemme treat you right.” You nod, taking deep breaths to try and calm down while he brings your thighs over his shoulders.

His tongue darts out and licks you from entrance to clit, sending sparks shooting from your core to your toes.

He repeats the action a few times before focusing on your clit, tongue swirling and massaging over the bundle of nerves. Your thighs clench around his head and your heels dig into his back.

“F-fuck.” You’re surprised at how quickly he gets you to the edge, but you pay it no mind for now. Instead, you bask in the feeling of his mouth on your core and his beard scratching your thighs.

Your hands grab at his hair, pulling him in while your hips buck up off the couch.

Mouth open in a silent scream of bliss, you convulse. Your thighs tremble atop his shoulders and your hands nearly rip his hair from his head, but he doesn't mind. No, if anything the pain spurs him on.

It isn’t until you give an intentional tug on his hair that he lets up, eyes finding yours as he slowly lowers your legs and sits back on his haunches.

His hands rub gently over your thighs while you catch your breath, his tongue darting out to lick his lips.

“You okay?” He asks, concern lacing his voice.

You nod, heart beating fast but not nearly fast enough to be concerning.

“Do you wanna take this to the bedroom?” He’s genuinely wondering if you want to continue and you find yourself smiling softly at him.

“Yeah, I really really do.” He nods, a smile spreading on his handsome face before he scoops you up in his arms and carries you into his bedroom.

He’s so gentle in his movements, carefully placing you on the bed, kissing every inch of skin he can reach.

He only stays with you for a moment before standing up and darting out of the room. You prop yourself up on your elbows in confusion, waiting nervously for him to come back.

When he does you feel your heart warm.

He’s got your pills in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

“Just in case. So you don’t have to go far.” He sets them down on the bedside table then stands sheepishly beside the bed, cheeks pink. You crawl up onto your knees, grab the collar of his shirt, and yank him down onto the bed with you.

He collapses on top of you, catching himself at the very last second with his metal arm. Your lips find his in a kiss that's all teeth and tongue.

“Take off your clothes,” you whisper against his lips, fingers toying with his belt buckle.

He pulls back and yanks his shirt over his head, tossing it to the floor in a quick flash. Before he can come back, you’re tracing your fingers gently over his chest, eyes finding the angry red scarring on his shoulder.

His eyes are focused on your face as you trace over the scars with feather-light fingers, a frown tugging on the corners of your mouth.

“What?” He asks, worried that you’re disgusted with him.

“Do they hurt?” Your voice is a hushed whisper, almost as if you’re afraid of breaking the atmosphere of the dark room.

“Sometimes. But I deal with it.” You shake your head and look up at him, tears glistening in your eyes. “You shouldn’t have to.” His arms snake around your waist and he pulls you tight against his chest.

“We all have things that we shouldn’t have to deal with but we deal with them. I’m no exception.” You lean your head against his shoulder and press soft kisses to the place where metal meets flesh.

His fingers dance along your spine for a few minutes before he pulls away. You tilt your head back to look at him just as he leans down. His lips find yours, moulding against them so gingerly and expressing things that words could never.

Your arms wrap around his neck as he slowly leads you to lay down on the bed. Your legs come up around his waist, squeezing his waist and holding him tightly.

“You gonna fuck me?” The words slip out before you can stop them, but the growl that rumbles in his chest is enough for you to feel no regrets.

He leans back on his haunches and nearly tears his belt in half in his haste to get it off. His jeans are pushed off next, boxers coming with them until he’s naked before you.

You relax on your back as he leans over you, his hands coming to rest on either side of your head. You hold his biceps as he spreads your thighs with his knees.

“M’gonna treat you so well, darlin’.”

You nod, mouth dropping open in a gasp as he slides his hot length through your dripping folds.

He repeats the action a few times, coating himself in your slick before positioning the tip right at your entrance.

His eyes are locked on yours, holding your gaze as he slowly pushes into you, fire alight in his eyes at the choked moan that leaves your lips.

You finally manage to tear your eyes from his, staring down at where he’s pushing inch upon inch of his thick cock into your tight cunt.

There’s a brief moment of panic when you wonder if you’ll be able to take him fully.

“Look at that,” he murmurs, lips brushing gently over your temple. “Fuck, you feel so good... so nice...” You tilt your head back, relaxing further into the mattress as he bottoms out, hips flush against yours.

Your breathing hard, eyes shut and hands holding his biceps tightly as you adjust to his impressive size, the intrusion so foreign after so long.

“You okay?” He asks gently, voice laced with concern. You nod, taking a moment to actually check in with yourself. Your heart is beating fairly quickly, but it’s nothing you can’t handle.

“I-I’m okay. Can you...?” You trail off but he gets the idea, pulling his hips back only to press them forward. You moan softly, nails biting into the sensitive skin of his right arm and he hisses at the pain, snapping his hips forward harder and finding a steady pace.

Your head digs into the mattress, pleasure bubbling up and filling up the space inside of you with sparks as his cock hits the spot inside of you that makes your toes curl.

“Fuck... right there... fuck...”

He assaults your neck with rough kisses, his beard scratching at the sensitive skin and adding to the intense feeling of euphoria like gasoline to a fire.

Each thrust of his hips pushes you closer and closer to the edge, and your heart picks up speed as your climax approaches.

His metal hand pushes its way between your bodies down to where the two of you are connected, immediately working your clit and successfully pushing you into your climax.

Your entire body ignites, every nerve on fire and every cell up in flames. It rolls over you in wave after wave, drowning the rest of your senses so that all you can focus on is the feeling of him between your legs, pushing you headfirst into the most intense orgasm of your life.

The feeling of your walls clenching around his cock brings him rushing to his own release, hips faltering as he tries to maintain his composure and fuck the two of you through your highs.

He cums in hot bursts, painting your walls white and filling you with his seed. Your chest heaves, breaths coming in hard and fast in both an attempt to get oxygen and slow your heart, and also come down from your high.

Bucky pushes himself off of you upon hearing your laboured breaths and after one glance at your heaving chest, he’s pulling out of you and reaching over to grab your pills and the glass of water.

He balances them both in one hand and helps you sit up carefully, handing you the small bottle and then the glass of water.

You take your pills as quickly as you can, avoiding his eyes until your heart stops racing, and even then you don’t look up.

“Hey, look at me,” he whispers, taking the objects from your hands and setting them back on the table.

You slowly do, eyes glossy with tears as you bring your knees up and hug them to your chest.

“What’s wrong? Why the tears?” You shake your head, closing your eyes tightly and taking a few deep breaths.

“I ruin everything,” you whisper softly, pressing your forehead to your knees as tears drip down your cheeks.

He’s quiet for a long while, trying to figure out what’s making you say something so ridiculous.

“What... why would you say that, sweet girl?” You shake your head, sniffling.

“My stupid heart ruins everything. We were having a moment and I-” “Hey, you listen to me.” The urgency in his voice has you looking up instinctively, but you find nothing but softness on his face.

“Your heart is anything but stupid, okay? Your heart is amazing and it makes you who you are. I couldn’t care less if you have to stop and take your pills every time we have sex. If you wanna have sex again. I mean, I enjoyed it and I hope you did too, but if you didn’t that's okay, but maybe let me try again so that you can enjoy it more. But if you don’t want to that's totally fine, I don’t want you to feel pressured into having sex with me again if you don’t want to.” He stops himself and shakes his head, sighing heavily.

“What I'm trying to say, is that you could quite literally stop me as I'm about to blow my fricken load and take your pills and I wouldn’t be upset. We could be fighting, and if you need to take your pills it’s all behind us. Just because your heart needs a little help doesn’t make it any less important, okay? I will always put your health above anything.” You let out a shaky breath then nod, new tears welling up in your eyes at his words.

“Oh no. No more tears, doll.” You shake your head, a teary smile spreading on your face.

“You’re the nicest man I’ve ever met. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you.” He’s got you wrapped in his arms in an instant, metal arm tight around your back and flesh hand holding the back of your head gingerly.

“Oh, darlin’...” His own eyes prickle with tears as he presses his lips to your shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, pulling back after a moment and giggling softly.

“Don’t be. This is how I want things to be. I want us to be able to cry and laugh right after sex. It’s how we should be. And I’m so happy that you’re comfortable with me.”

You sniffle and nod, fingers toying with his metal hand.

“How about we go take a shower then get nice and cuddled up in bed? I’ve been meaning to catch up on some of that show you introduced me to.” Your eyebrows raise and he chuckles.

“How’s that sound, pretty girl?” You nod, a small smile on your face. “It sounds perfect.”

#fireman au #firefighter au #fireman!bucky #fireman!bucky x reader #bucky x reader fireman au #bucky x reader #bucky/you #bucky/reader #bucky/reader smut #bucky/reader au #bucky x reader fluff #Bucky Barnes x reader fireman au #Bucky Barnes x reader firefighter au #bucky barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes x reader fluff #Bucky Barnes x reader smut

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grasshopperjay · 4 years ago

Text

wanting was enough (18+)

pairing: jay halstead x female reader

song: august - taylor swift

word count: 4.1k

summary: jay and the reader are old friends who meet at a bar. neither of them are in a good place, but their night gets a lot better with the others company. however, there’s something important that jay forgot to mention.

warnings: swearing, angst (of course), yelling, smut, unprotected sex

“Am I dreaming? God I sure hope not.”

You’re already rolling your eyes at the horrible pick up line, taking a swig of your drink to get the confidence to shut this guy down, and then you see him, and you nearly choke.

“Holy shit.” You stutter out. “Jay Halstead.”

“Holy shit,” He repeats, “Y/N. I can’t believe it’s you.”

He opens his arms and you shake your head, laughing in disbelief as you hug him. “How are you?” You ask, and he grins, occupying the seat beside you and you look him over for a minute, trying not to stare. He’s bigger, muscles filling out his previously boney stature. A lot has changed since high school and you can only hope he’s looking at you the same way, liking the developments you’ve made since you were seventeen.

“I’m good! Yeah, great. How are you? You look amazing.”

“Thank you,” You murmur, trying not to blush. “So do you.” You avoid the topic of yourself altogether, opting to not mention how little you’ve actually accomplished since high school. Sure you have a degree and a good job, but you seem to be lacking the happiness so many of your classmates have achieved. “What have you been up to? Last I heard you married Abby,” You blurt out, and he laughs, shaking his head in disapproval.

Is it bad that the wedding ring that was not on his left ring finger was one of the first things you noticed?

“Yeah, it was uh-, it was a military thing. Nothing more.” He confirms, and you nod suspiciously.

“So you’re not with Abby then?”

“No,” He laughs, “Definitely not. I mean she’s a great girl and everything, but, not for me.”

“Wow, I wish you would have realized that in high school.” You blurt out, and then your hand is covering your mouth, a reflex response to stop anything worse from coming out.

Jay raises his eyebrows, chuckling at your stunned face. “What does that mean?” You shake your head but he prods further. “Nope, you don’t get to do that, what do you mean by that?”

You’re giggling like a little girl and suddenly you’re seventeen again. This is how it always was, Jay charming as ever and you completely mesmerized. One crucial part of the picture is missing this time though, and you’re hoping it works for the better for you.

“I just mean... I did a lot of pining senior year.” You murmur, and he narrows his eyes.

“Elaborate.” It’s a demand.

“Do I have to?” He nods. “Ugh, I was just always second place to her.”

He wants to respond with humor, but you can see in his eyes for just a split second that he knows exactly what you mean.

He remembers what happened behind the mall, sitting in his car, so close to getting everything you’d ever wanted until his phone rang. Who else but Abby on the other end of the line. You had spent the whole summer together but no matter how far you’d come you were always just a step behind her. And just when you thought you were getting somewhere, August came. And you were off to school, Jay enrolled in the military. And the rest is history.

“You were second place?” He clarifies, and you nod. “Well so was I.”

You raise your eyebrows at him, and he nods, tilting his beer to his lips. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Dan,” You haven’t heard that name in years. “I only went along with Abby because you were obviously into Dan.”

“I was not into Dan!” You shriek, and Jay laughs. “I’m kind of offended that you thought I was...”

“You so were,” He accuses, and you keep giggling, covering your mouth to try and control how hard you’re smiling. “I liked you, like really liked you. But Abby told me you liked Dan, so I never did anything.”

“She lied,” You say, shoulders shaking with hysterics. “I hated Dan.” Jay is laughing now too, and goodness, you’re so happy you decided to stop at this bar.

When the laughter fades, your eyes lock and for a moment the wind is knocked out of you.

Even though you’re probably gonna regret it, you decide to take the leap you never were bold enough to take in high school.

“Jay, I never thought about Dan a minute after high school... You, on the other hand? Everyday.”

A small smile grows on his face, and then he says, “Yeah I thought about you a lot too.”

You talk for hours, just catching up, and it’s so familiar. He asks about your job and your degree; laughs with you about your brother and how he’s managed to stay reckless after all this time; pries about your relationships in the last ten years. He tells you about his job now, and you soak in every moment as he talks louder, hands motioning like crazy when he gets to the crazy parts of his stories. You hold his hand while he opens up about things that happened on his tours, you can see the pain in his eyes even though he tries to put up a strong front.

He’s so different from how he used to be, but still so similar. And even though a decade has passed, you’re still just as smitten with him as you were ten years ago.

It feels like no time has passed since Jay approached you with his stupid line, but when the lights turn on, you realize what time it is. 2 am. You’ve been talking for five hours.

“Shit,” You mumble, because you’re not ready to go.

It’s like Jay reads your mind though, because he slides his hand over yours, giving you a small grin when he says, “Do you wanna come back to my place? I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to you yet.”

The answer is yes. A thousand times yes. But you can’t give in so easy. “Jay Halstead... We’ve only just met and you’re inviting me back to your place?”

He rolls his eyes, pulling your jacket off the back of your chair with a smirk. “I promise I’ll be the perfect gentleman. No risky business.”

And that’s how you end up in his apartment, sitting five feet apart on his bed like you’re still in high school. There’s a movie playing but neither of you are paying attention.

However, it’s probably your fault that he’s so far away. When he guided you to his room, you, like a teenage virgin, poked a finger at his chest- his extremely broad chest- and said, “I’m not here to have sex with you.”

You said it because you didn’t want to seem desperate, or easy... But it’s Jay, and you’ve known him since high school. You feel like you’ve waited ages for him. And you’ve changed your mind.

But how do you tell him that without telling him that...

You turn your head to look at him, and the corners of his mouth tilt up as he realizes you’re watching him. He turns to look at you, extending his arm, “You know you can come over here and cuddle with me, I won’t bite...”

With a sly grin you crawl over to him, settling in his arms. And damn, pressed against his hard body you’ve really changed your mind. “I wouldn’t be mad if you did... bite...” You say, words falling off towards the end.

You freeze for a minute, locked in a staring match with him before you’re pushing yourself up to kiss him. He’s not surprised, his free arm wounds around your waist, his tongue slides into your mouth and all you can think is what have you gotten yourself into.

You kiss him harder, trying to get even closer to him but he stays steady, his hands sit comfortably, resting on the outside of your thigh and your waist, thumbs drawing circles through the fabric of your t shirt dress.

He makes no moves to go any further, and your timid nature prevents you from doing so either, but you’re walking a thin line. You want so much more.

Finally you say fuck it, disconnecting your lips and tilting your chin up. He gets the hint and he scrapes his teeth across the soft skin. You whine, grabbing his t shirt while you mumble his name.

“Please,” You whisper, trying to pull him closer. You hate that he’s made you so weak. All he’s done is kiss you and you’re nearly falling on your knees.

“What do you want, baby?” He whispers, pressing delicate kisses to your neck.

“I want you to touch me,” You whisper, cheeks tinging red at your confession. He doesn’t seem to mind though, with a smile he brings your lips back to his. His tongue slides into your mouth, and you hold onto his shoulders a little tighter. Slowly, his hand makes it’s way from the outside of your thigh, to the inside. And then he’s pressuring your knee, pushing your legs apart.

“Jay,” You mumble, and the second his green eyes meet yours, you’re lost.

“You okay?” He asks, and all you can do is nod.

“Are you sure about this?” Another nod.

You’re so beyond wet from just kissing him, it’s almost embarrassing.

He’s so gentle, hands sliding further and further up until their fiddling with the waist band of your underwear. You raise your hips, thinking he’s going to take them off but he doesn’t, he only applies slight pressure to your mound.

His hands are working so slowly and the anticipation is building and building. His fingers work their way down, humming over your clit and passing until they’re ghosting right over where there is probably a wet spot. You can feel your cheeks start to burn red at the thought of it, and it makes you mad at him for being so annoyingly hot.

He presses more firmly, and even though it’s not quite where you want him to be, it still feels good, so you kiss him harder. He responds eagerly, nibbling on your bottom lip. Then he’s ducking his head into the crook of your neck, teeth and tongue grazing the spot just below above your collarbone.

You can’t help the moan that slips out, and you dig your nails into his shoulder when he chuckles against the skin there. He connects your lips again with a smile, and it’s so smug it’s irritating. You really just want him to do something other than tease you, so one of your hands leaves his shoulder, latching onto his wrist that’s under your skirt. When you push his hand up he laughs against your lips, pulling his hand from your grasp. “Jay, do something,” You grumble, tilting your head back.

He leans into your neck, dragging his lips over the skin. “I thought you weren’t here to have sex with me.”

You internally roll your eyes, “This isn’t sex,” You reply and he laughs.

“Touche,” He says, and then he’s moving his hand up, yanking down one side of your underwear. You help him out, tugging down the other side, he slides them down your legs, and then slowly slides his hand back up, taking his sweet time.

When he finally gets to where you want him, your shoulders slump, miles of tension being released with his simple touch. He dips a finger down to feel how wet you are, spreading it around he rubs slow circles on your clit, and you release exasperated little breaths against his lips. Your legs instinctively open wider, and Jay’s touch grazes lower, his middle finger teasing your entrance. It dips in, and you try to sink lower, but his hand on your hip holds your firmly in place. He pulls it out, and then goes in again, this time with two fingers. You buck your hips slightly, the pads of his fingers brush your walls, and your back arches while you ache for more. Getting his fingers in even further his palm presses hard onto the hood of your clit, and then you know you’re not going to last long after that. Your head is tilted back, chest heaving up and down and Jay watches in awe, working his fingers while you move with him. His fingers are continuously pressing against your g spot, and you’re practically grinding onto his palm now. It feels so good, and his lips are so soft against yours. He’s like a drug, and now that you’re almost to the edge you know one high isn’t going to be enough. “Jay-” You pull away from his lips, head tipping back.

“Let go,” He mumbles, pressing a kiss to your neck.

Another rock against his hand sends you over the edge, your eyes squeezing shut, and Jay stretches his hand back, avoiding your clit while you ride out your high on his fingers. Slowly they stop moving and your eyes flutter open when he pulls his hand out from under your dress. He sucks them into his mouth and surprisingly a hot moan slips past your lips at the sight. Fuck you need him. You fall back onto the bed, grabbing his shirt to yank him with you.

“Bab-” He starts to speak but you latch onto his neck pulling his lips down to meet yours. When you wrap your legs around him you feel his hard on press against you and it’s almost enough to make you moan embarrassingly loud again.

Hands sliding down, you tug up the fabric of his shirt and he pauses to get it over his head. He chuckles when your fingers hook into his shorts, “Slow down, babe.”

Ignoring him you push his shorts and boxers down, and he holds himself up with one arm to help you out. His cock is hard and you bite your lip at the sight of it, the tip red an soaked with precum.

When he leans back down, your hands grip onto his waist, legs wrapping around him in preparation. He slides his cock in between your folds and you jerk when he grazes your clit. “You sure, baby?” He asks.

“Jay, if you stop now I might combust,”

He grins, pressing a kiss to your lips before standing on his knees, grabbing hold of your calves he yanks you to the edge of the bed. Then he raises your legs so they rest on his shoulders, and he’s pushing into you so slowly it’s almost painful. You need him so badly, and he knows. You cry out when he sinks fully into you, knotting your hands into his hair. He has his feet on the ground for momentum, using your thighs to push you down and it has him so deep you think you could pass out. Every time he moves its like your whole body is getting shocked with pleasure.

“You feel so good,” His grip on your waist is getting tighter, and you grip onto his shoulders to pull him down to you, desperate to feel his lips on yours. When your mouths connect you feel like your lit on fire.

You sling an arm around his neck, wanting to keep him as close as possible. He presses short kisses to your lips while he continues to grind into you, he feels amazing and you know you’re climbing up quickly to another climax. His head tilts back, mouth falling open and it’s like a whole other stimulant in itself, seeing the pleasure that you give him. Nothing turns you on more.

“Jay,” You murmur, pressing a kiss to the underside of his chin. He responds by connecting your lips again, kissing you through your second orgasm. It’s long and incredible, and it crashes over you so hard it feels like more than just one, but he continues to fuck you through it, getting himself off. He presses you into the bed, and you admire the way his muscles flex, and the way he clenches his jaw while he’s coming undone.

He is so beautiful.

Finally he collapses on you, catching his breath before he rolls off. You both take a moment to let your thoughts catch up, labored breaths filling the room. “Wow,” He finally says, and once again, all you can do is nod.

Breathlessly he stands, grabbing his boxers to tug on before he winks and leaves the room. When he comes back minutes later, he has two glasses of wine in hand and you grin, you picked a good one.

“Wow, if I wasn’t in love with you before I sure am after that little performance. Now this?” You smile, taking the glass. “You’ve out done yourself.”

“Anything to impress you,” He teases, clinking his glass against yours.

You lay there for another few hours, tangled in the sheets just talking more. And you’re wondering if it’s possible to fall back in love in less than ten hours.

Eventually Jay nods off, and when you look at your phone you realize it’s six in the morning.

You didn’t exactly plan on staying at the bar later than eleven, work at nine usually is enough to prevent you from going home with a guy but apparently Jay doesn’t count.

You don’t really want to leave but you should probably go home and shower, so you quietly put on your clothes, trying your hardest not to wake Jay up in the process. Before you go, you steal his phone, going to settings to get his number so you can shoot him a quick text goodbye.

You’re typing as you sneak out of his bedroom, writing out a cute message about how much fun you had when a voice scares you.

“Looks like you guys aren’t fighting anymore,”

With your startle you accidentally press send on your unfinished text, muttering a shit as you look up to see who’s talking to you. If you remember correctly, it’s Jay’s brother, his hair still as fiery red as ever.

When he sees you he freezes. You’re obviously not who he was expecting because he stutters out, “You’re not Erin,”

And no, you’re not.

You feel your stomach drop, and you’re praying that the best night of your life isn’t about to get ruined, but by the dire look on his face, it is. “Who’s Erin?” You mumble, and Will’s face falls, like he actually feels bad for you.

“Jay’s girlfriend.” He whispers.

Your whole body goes still, a cold impulse spreading throughout your body as you realize what you just did. You can’t bring yourself to say anything else, you just run out of the apartment as fast as you can.

You’re not really thinking, just acting as you walk down the street, clicking fast on your phone to order an uber, anything to keep you from actually digesting what just happened.

And that’s how the morning continues, you don’t stop for a minute, occupying your thoughts with literally anything other than him. It works for a while, you can keep your mind off him while you shower and get ready for work, but then you’re sat at your desk, staring at your phone that has not stopped ringing since you sat down.

It’s an unknown number but you know exactly who it is. There’s seven missed calls, numerous texts but you’re not looking at any of them. You’re busy thinking of what happens now.

What if she finds out? What if she finds out and finds you? You’ve maximized jumping to conclusions and gone straight for diving off a cliff into a lake of worst case scenarios.

There’s more missed calls and texts by the time lunch rolls around, you’ve had concerned comments from just about everyone of your coworkers, but it’s easy to brush off their worry, your own however? Just about impossible.

How is it that you became a home wrecker without even knowing? Was there some sign of her that you missed? Because you feel like you should have known.

You’re still sitting at your desk, staring blankly at a computer that has yet to be turned on today when your receptionist, Maggie, knocks on your office door.

She looks like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide as she says, “There’s a client here to see you,”

“I don’t have any appointments today...” It’s Friday, you never schedule client meetings on Fridays.

“I told him that, but he says it’s urgent.”

For her sake, because she looks terrified, you roll your eyes and nod. “Okay send him in.”

She steps aside and then your client is sauntering into the room, badge on display for everyone, including poor Maggie to see.

“Is this a fucking joke?” You cry, and Maggie nearly jumps out of her skin. You want to tell her to drag his ass out of here but she’s clearly had enough excitement for one day so you dismiss her with clenched teeth, eyes unwavering from the shithead in front of you.

“Are you kidding me, Jay?” You growl, “Showing up here? I’m working. How the hell did you even find me?”

“I’m a cop, Y/N. I found you in two minutes,” He shuts the door behind Maggie and you can see the intrigued glances from your coworkers. “And besides I wouldn’t have showed up here unannounced if you would just pick up the phone when I called.” He argues, and you scoff.

“Do you actually think you deserve that? After what you did?”

“You never let me explain!”

“What can you possibly have to explain, Jay? You turned me into a homewrecker!”

“I didn’t mean to-,” He starts, but you cut him off.

“I asked if you were with anyone! You said no!”

“You asked if I was with Abby.” He counters, “I didn’t lie.”

Your eyes go wide, jaw nearly dropping to the floor. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. That’s your excuse? A technicality?”

He shrugs, and you resist the urge to throw your penholder at him. “Who is Erin, Jay?”

“My girlfriend.” He admits, and you actually reach for your ammunition, but he continues, “Sort of.”

“She uh, we haven’t been on the best terms lately, we were living together, but I moved in with Will a little while ago to give her some space. She got offered a job with the FBI in New York.”

“But you’re still together.” You state, and Jay winces.

“Technically?” Now it’s your turn to cringe. “I went to her apartment before work yesterday, to try and talk through things but she was gone. Her place was completely clear. I didn’t even tell Will. That’s why I was at that bar last night, I was drinking my sorrows away.”

“How am I supposed to believe you?” You whisper, teary eyed. You’re trying to take in everything he’s saying but you just don’t know if you trust him...

With a pained look Jay picks up him phone tilting it so you can see while he scrolls through his contacts, stopping on a name with a blue heart by it. He clicks on her name, and a picture of the two of them comes up as the line rings once, and then an automated voice chimes in.

The number you have dialed is no longer in service.

“I’ve sent her a hundred texts messages, but none of them have delivered.” He says, and his bottom lip is quivering. “You have to believe me, we’re over.”

It sure seems that way... But the pain of thinking you were the other woman has quickly been replaced by the pain of realizing you’re the rebound.

There’s no good outcome, any which way you spin this.

“So I was a rebound then?” You say, voice nearly breaking.

He can’t say no to that, and it hurts you even more. “I don’t-, I don’t know. But I needed you last night. I saw you and I didn’t even think about her for the entire night. I felt okay for the first time since leaving mine and Erin’s empty apartment and I wanted to hold onto that. I still do.”

“Jay,” You whisper, “I don’t know if I can be that for you... It feels like high school all over again. Your second choice, again.”

“You won’t be.” He reassures you, and then he steps forward to pull you into his arms and you shouldn’t let him but you do. “I promise you won’t be a second choice.”

He can’t really promise that, though. He can try and you convince you of that, but he’s always been someone else’s. Never yours to lose. Tears roll down your cheeks and you try to pull away from him, but he’s not letting go.

“I’m not ready to say goodbye to you yet.”

.....

taglist: @nevertoofarfromivar @samanthavitale @malrunaway @bluecrush129

#jay halstead #jay halstead x reader #jay halstead imagine #jay halstead smut #chicago pd imagine #chicago pd #jesse lee soffer imagine #jesse lee soffer x reader #jesse lee soffer

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