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candycandy00 · 1 day ago

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Welcome to Christmas Island! - A Sanji x Reader Fanfic

You work on Christmas Island, where every day is Christmas! All guests get to make a wish to Santa and have it granted. When the Straw Hat pirates show up, you decide to grant the wish of their handsome blonde cook.

Smut. 18+. Sanji x Fem Reader. Implied that Sanji is a virgin. Oral sex. Cream pie. I haven’t written Sanji in 20 years so I hope I got him right!

Dividers by @animatedglittergraphics-n-more!

Part of CandyCandy’s Kinkmas 2024!

You’ve lived and worked on Christmas Island for the past few years, but you still get excited each time new guests arrive, especially when they’re famous.

It was only a matter of time before the Straw Hat pirates landed on this little island, and all your coworkers were equally hyped up to meet them. You’ve all followed their exploits in the newspapers for months, becoming fans along the way. Even the owner of the island, “Santa”, admires them!

You’ve looked at all their wanted posters countless times, but one of them stood out to you: a silly looking blonde man named Sanji. While your friends were more interested in the more “cool looking” pirates, you found Sanji charming. You know it’s a silly picture, so you’re interested in finding out what he actually looks like.

Your chance comes when the Straw Hats arrive and check into the enormous resort that takes up the entire island. They walk in, most of them gawking at the huge lobby full of Christmas trees and twinkling lights. They’re chatting and laughing amongst themselves, and their reputation for being fun-loving seems to be accurate.

Taming your excitement, you hurry over to greet them in your candy cane striped dress.

“Welcome to Christmas Island!” you say in your cheeriest voice. “Please come in and sit down. I’ll explain how things work here.”

They begin taking seats in the plush red sofas positioned in the middle of the room. You do a mental headcount as you watch them, trying not to seem like an overly eager fan.

Sanji spots you before you spot him. He steps up beside you, gently taking your hand in his. “Such a lovely lady here to welcome us!” he says, placing a quick kiss on the top of your hand. “This island is a dream already!”

When he raises his face to look at you, a breath catches in your throat. He’s way more handsome than you expected! His wanted poster barely resembles him, but the blonde hair and curly eyebrow are unmistakable.

He smiles at you and takes his seat. You give the group a moment to settle down and get quiet before you begin.

“On Christmas Island, every day is Christmas! At this resort, you’ll each write a letter to “Santa” asking for a Christmas present. You’ll receive that gift during your stay. Keep in mind we can only grant wishes for material goods or services. We can’t give you impossible things. For example, you can’t ask us to withdraw bounties or give you skills that can’t be learned while you’re here.”

They seem to understand, a few of them nodding. You pass out fancy notecards for them to write their Christmas wishes on, along with red envelopes for them to seal the “letters to Santa” in.

A woman you recognize as Nami looks a bit skeptical as she eyes the notecard. “How much does this cost?”

Some of the others look at you, curious about the answer.

You smile and shake your head. “No cost at all! There’s normally a fee, but since we’re all fans of the Straw Hat pirates, even Santa said to give you all the VIP treatment at no charge!”

The group seems happy to hear that, a couple of them actually cheering. Then they all begin writing on their notecards. Once they’re finished, you retrieve them and another employee shows the guests to their rooms. They’re all given private rooms, each one beautifully decorated with festive trees and lights.

Later, you and two coworkers are reading the notecards to begin processing the wishes.

“Look,” your friend says, giggling as she holds one out. “The captain just wrote one word: Meat!”

You laugh as you glance at a card in your own hand that says, “A year’s supply of cola”.

Most of the requests are fairly reasonable and fit the crew members’ reputations. But at the bottom of the stack is one that stands out to you.

“A sweet lady who wants to spend time with me.”

Your heart nearly skips a beat. You expected something perverted from the famously horny cook of the Straw Hat pirates, but Sanji’s request is surprisingly cute.

“Can I take this one?” you ask, a little worried that one of your coworkers might have their eye on him.

The two women look at each other and shrug. “It’s yours if you want it,” one of them says. The other nods in agreement.

Thank goodness! You didn’t want there to be any awkwardness with your friends, but you were prepared to argue for this. Thankfully you don’t have to.

One of them leans toward you conspiratorially. “What if he just wrote that as a nice way of saying he wants someone to fuck him?”

You grin at her. “Actually, I’m kind of hoping that’s the case!”

The others squeal in delight and cheer you on. “You get it, girl!”

You return to your own quarters to freshen up and change into your cutest red dress, then you head down the guest hall to find Sanji’s room. You only have to knock once before he opens it. Was he waiting by the door for his “present”?

He blinks as he looks at you, then smiles. “Oh, you’re the one who welcomed us!”

You return his smile. “I’m surprised you recognized me.” There are lots of women working here who wear the same dress you had on earlier. It’s basically the uniform.

He steps aside, opening the door wider and gesturing for you to come in. “I never forget a beautiful lady’s face,” he tells you as you walk into his room.

The comment makes you blush, but you giggle nervously and change the subject. “Are you settled in okay? Do you need anything?”

Looking around the room, you can see the closet door slightly open, and a few dress shirts neatly hanging inside. The bed doesn’t appear to be messed up at all, and everything is in its place. On a small table with two chairs, there’s a glass ash tray that’s nearly full.

“I don’t need anything at all,” he says as he pulls out one of the chairs for you. “But can I offer you something to drink? I’m sure you know what the options are.”

You do. There’s a small variety of alcoholic drinks in the mini fridge, plus a hot water machine with various teas and coffees.

As you sit in the offered chair, you accept his offer, taking a cup of tea. In all honesty, you just want to watch him prepare something. His skills are quite well known.

You watch him fix your tea, his hands moving expertly to prepare it in the perfect manner. Then he sits the steaming cup in front of you and takes the seat on the other side of the table.

The tea is delicious of course, leaving you wondering what you’ve been doing when you make it for yourself. He seems to like watching you enjoy it, a smile practically glued to his face.

“It’s wonderful! I can’t believe it’s from the same tea we use!”

After a few minutes of friendly chatting, you sit down your empty cup and get down to business. “Regarding your wish…”

His smile falters, a blush creeps over his face. “It’s okay if it can’t be granted!” he says quickly. “I’ll just take some new utensils, or maybe some rare spices if you have them here.”

Does he not realize you’re his present? He seems to have the wrong idea about your visit. Just how many times has this poor guy been rejected?

You reach across the table and put one hand on his arm. “We can easily grant your wish,” you say. “In fact, that’s what I’m here for.”

He freezes, staring at you. His stunned eyes shift down to your hand, then back to your face. “You… want to spend time with me?”

“I’d love to!”

He still seems to be in shock. “Are you sure?”

You reach into the pocket if your dress and pull out a folded paper. You smooth it out on the table and slide it over to him. It’s his wanted poster.

He blanches when he sees it, but before he can say anything, you blurt out, “I’m a fan of yours!”

“Huh?”

Now it’s your turn to blush again. “I mentioned before that all of us here are fans of the Straw Hat pirates, but we each have our favorites. You happen to be mine.”

He’s rapidly turning red. “Really?”

You nod. “I even keep your wanted poster in my pocket at all times.”

He glances at the poster. “But it’s such an unflattering picture of me…”

“You look fun! You look like someone I’d like to hang out with. And yes, you’re way more handsome in person.”

If this were a cartoon, steam would be shooting out of his ears. He almost seems to melt into his chair. “You think I’m handsome?!”

“Of course! I was so excited to meet you, so I happily volunteered to grant your wish!”

He has tears in his eyes as he takes both your hands in his across the table. “This place really is like a dream!”

And so the two of you laugh and talk and enjoy more tea for the next hour. He tells you funny stories about their travels and you tell him about some of the craziest wishes you’ve received.

At some point, perhaps growing bold from the friendly atmosphere, you say, “To be honest, I wondered if maybe ‘spend time with you’ was code for something else.”

He seems genuinely confused, which is adorable. “Something else?”

You lean forward, subtly showing off your cleavage. “Something more… intimate.”

It seems like a shiver runs through his body, but then he composes himself and says, “I didn’t want anyone to feel obligated to do that.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” you say, looking as disappointed as you can, “because I was hoping it was code.”

His mouth falls open, the cigarette slipping from his lips. You can almost see hearts in his eyes. He seems to be trying to form words for a reply, but failing.

You stand up and walk around the table to be closer to him. “I’m your present tonight, so you can do whatever you want with me.”

He swallows, looking up at you as if you’re a goddess that has come down to him from heaven. “Whatever I want?”

“Anything.”

His eyes dart about the room, as if he’s worried this might be some prank and someone else is waiting to rush out and tell him so. After a moment, he looks back at you. “Can I k-kiss you?”

You nod. “I’d like that.”

He stands up from the chair and steps right up to you. He slowly places his hands on your shoulders. So gentle! He’s treating you like a delicate little creature that will flee if he’s not careful.

As he leans down, his eyes flutter closed, and you can see the blush across his cheeks. You feel the tips of his golden hair first, then his lips softly press against yours. It’s a chaste kiss, his hands lightly trembling on your shoulders.

You’ve heard so many conflicting rumors about him. Some say he’s a totally lecherous horndog who fucks anything that moves. Others say he’s a sophisticated gentleman who respects women. Still others say he’s a pathetic virgin who can’t get laid to save his life. You’re beginning to suspect the truth is some strange mix of all three.

You reach up and put your arms around his neck, pulling him into a deeper kiss. His tongue finally slips into your mouth, and he tastes like cigarettes and the tea you’ve both been drinking.

When the kiss breaks, he looks positively lovestruck. But his arms are around your waist, holding you closer to him. You can feel the bulge in his pants, and you lightly grind yourself against it. “What else would you like to do?” you ask playfully.

“Lady’s choice,” he says, the smooth gentleman peeking out again. “I’d love to know what youwant to do.”

You grin mischievously at him and say, “Sit down and I’ll show you.”

He moves back to sit in the chair so fast, your eyes could barely follow him. You giggle at his eagerness as he stares at you. You take a moment to pull up the edge of your red dress on one side, up to your hip. It’s enough to show him you’re not wearing panties without revealing the whole present.

His eyes bulge, and you’re guessing something else is bulging even more now. You prance over and then lower yourself to your knees before reaching out and unbuckling his belt. You hear him breathe in through his teeth, and you look up to see his chest rising and falling rapidly with his breaths. You smile as you open his pants and slide one hand in, using it to pull out the prize you’ve been seeking.

He’s bigger than you expected, and elegantly shaped. It’s such a nice cock, such a waste that it’s been neglected for so long. You can fix that.

Your hand wraps around it and you slide it up and down the shaft. You can hear him breathing heavily as he watches, stunned. When you lean forward and give the tip a little lick, his hands suddenly grip the arm rests of the chair. You can hear the wood creaking under the force.

Smiling to yourself over the fact that you can reduce a powerful, famous pirate to this state with one lick, you wrap your lips around him and take his twitching cock into your mouth.

He groans, his head falling back and his eyes closing again as you begin bobbing your head back and forth, your lips gliding along his length. Your tongue swirls his tip, your throat tightens around him when he’s deep enough, and his panting above you makes such sweet music in your ears.

Finally he places his hand on your shoulder and says in a strained voice, “I’m… I’m about to…”

You pull back and grin. “Please cum in my mouth.” Then your lips are around him again, sucking lightly and lapping at his tip.

He looks torn between desire and being a gentleman, but desire wins out. With a moan he releases his load onto your tongue, and you drink it down eagerly.

After a moment, you stand up, licking your lips. You stand nearby while his breathing slows to a normal pace. Then he looks at you. “That was incredible… you’re an angel!”

You laugh and take one of his hands, placing it atop your head as you lean toward him. “You’re supposed to pat my head and call me a good girl.”

His face turns scarlet, but he does as you wish, lightly patting your head and saying, “Such a good girl!”

You giggle at that, then look down between his legs. He’s beginning to get hard again, which is exactly what you’re waiting for.

“So? What would you like me to do next?” you ask.

He looks a little shy and awkward as he says, “Can we… have sex?”

You reach down and pull your dress up, all the way to your waist this time, giving him an eye full. His cock instantly becomes fully hard, his eyes seeming to turn to hearts again. “I thought you’d never ask,” you tell him as you step closer and straddle his lap, letting his lovely cock rest against your slickened pussy. That alone makes his entire body quiver.

When you rise up and position his tip at your entrance, then sink down onto him, a gasp escapes him. His arms wrap around your body, holding you firmly but gently. You have to wiggle a bit to get free enough to begin riding him, your hips swiveling.

Sanji groans as his own hips buck from the chair, pushing deeper inside you. Then he pauses, a worried expression on his face, and says, “I’m sorry! Did I hurt you?”

You smile, pushing your own body down to take him even deeper. “It feels good when you go deep,” you say, and his breath hitches, his eyes widening before he starts fucking up into you, slowly and deeply. One of his hands is on your waist now, the other buried in your hair.

As you grind down onto him, his taut skin rubs against your clit, making your own breaths shallow and quick. His tip hits your cervix, and a shudder ripples through you. When you moan out his name, his cock throbs inside you, making you arch your back in pleasure. When you do, he buries his face in your chest, his tongue peeking out to lap at one pert nipple.

He raises his face to look you in the eyes. “I’m in love with you!” he exclaims, his hands tightening their grip on you slightly.

You smile, but don’t reply. Men always say that while they’re inside a woman, but you have no expectations. In a few days Sanji will sail away from here and you’ll never hear from him again. But you’ll treasure these memories of being with him for the rest of your life.

He feels so good inside you, your clit is practically pulsing. He kisses you again, so sweetly. It’s a romantic kiss, the kind shared by people in love, and his hand slides down from your hair to rest softly on your neck.

It’s all enough to push you over the edge, and you cum while still riding him, your body trembling in his arms.

Watching you cum seems to push him to climax as well, and he suddenly pulls you tightly against him as he shoots his load into your core.

The two of you remain intertwined for a while, both of you breathing hard, then his arms loosen around you and you slide off him, your legs partially numb.

“I’m all yours while you’re on Christmas Island,” you say as you pull your dress back down. “Just call for me whenever you want.”

He looks at you for a long moment, then says, “Why don’t you come with us?”

You freeze. “What?”

He stands up and buttons his pants, then pulls out a fresh cigarette. “I can talk to Luffy. He’s pretty easy going about these things. You could join our crew and sail around with us. We get into a lot of dangerous situations, but we always pull through, and I can protect you.”’

You, joining the Straw Hat pirates? You’ve never even considered something like that before. But it sounds like a dream. You smile broadly at him. “I’d love that!”

He smiles back. “It really is Christmas every day here. I got more than I could even hope for!”

#sanji x reader #sanji #vinsmoke sanji #one piece x reader #one piece smut #x reader #sanji smut

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clemswinecorner · 2 days ago

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I get satisfied [Harry Lewis/W2S]

Summary: Chris’ camera woman- and by now, also the boys’ friends- and Harry get teased about their dating life. No one seems to notice they’re saying exactly the same, though.

Wordcount: 661

Warnings: swearing probably, nothing major

This is third person instead of reader pov, but it's still x reader :))

Main Masterlist

It was were in-between takes of Chris’ latest video, Chris figuring out some things with the team that had to do with the challenges and editing. As one of the camera people she wasn’t too involved, the setup being clear from the get-go, so she was leaning against the fence sipping from a water bottle. She was listening to the conversations happening, occasionally laughing at the boys messing around and their idiotic tendencies, but mostly just looked at Harry. Seeing Harry with his friends was one of her favourite things, seeing him be his carefree, unhinged self. The conversation starts with Danny commenting on Harry’s sex life, saying “Oh, you’ve been getting it good recently, haven’t you,” with a laugh. Harry looks down embarrassed, but with a grin on his face, and shoots the girl a look before answering. “Yeah, yeah, I have, actually,” he confesses, and a slight blush appears on her face. None of the boys are looking her way, which she’s especially grateful for when they ask Harry to specify. “Yeah, mate, you know. Just a nice girl, absolutely beautiful and very much does the right things,” the boys all cheer, surprised Harry’s let out something about a possible relationship, with the girl's cheeks only growing redder. “So, you’ve got a girlfriend now or what?” Joe asks, and Harry frowns, subtly looking her way. The two make eye contact as he talks to boys about his situationship. “No, right now I don’t, we’re just messing around. But potentially, in some time, I could see something more happening,” Harry admits, looking her way to catch her reaction. A small smile appears on her face, though she’s surprised at what he’s saying, since they’d never really talked about it like that. It was very casual, on the low, friends with benefits, but you’re not close friends outside your little thing type of thing. She sort of hoped for something more, but was also happy where she was— she just didn’t know Harry felt the exact same. She’s too distracted thinking about what she should say to Harry later that day when her name was being called. She wasn’t even sure how the conversation got to that point, and she was especially confused how she all of a sudden got involved. Yes, after working with Chris for ages she’d befriended some of the boys over time, and yes, she’d rant about her dating life, but they’d never asked— not in a way like this, at least. “What about you, Y/N, you still looking for a man?” Ethan nods her way, and a grin appears on her face. “Not really, no,” she simply says, not elaborating any further. “What, you��ve found someone?” All you can do is shake your head before Ethan continues, “Or are you saying you don’t need a man to get off?” He laughs as some of the boys groan at his bluntness, her eyes widening. “I get satisfied just fine, thank you,” she just says, and Harry has to hold in a smile. “Just fine, is the bar that low?” George jokes, making the girl chuckle as she moves away from the fence. “No, he's more than fine, I can assure you I’m very well taken care of,” she declared, and Ethan's laugh changes from a joking to a somewhat surprised one. “Oh alright then. We’ll see him when you’re ready,” he comments, and she sucks in a breath. “Don’t think that’ll happen yet mate, very on the down low still, don’t want him intimidated by you lot,” Harry lets out a suspiciously loud chuckle, and looks her way with a daring look in his eyes. She shoots him an innocent smile back, before shifting her attention to Chris, who came her way. “Bet you’re jealous of that lad, huh, Bog,” Ethan teases, having seen Harry checking out their friends more than he could count. Harry simply shrugs, “Seems like we’re both happy how it is, mate.”

#harry lewis #harry lewis x reader #wroetoshaw #w2s #w2s x reader #w2s fic #w2s imagine #harry w2s #sidemen #sidemen x reader

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kiemiu · 2 days ago

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──── STURNIOLO ROMANCE TROPE DUMP PT. 1 ˎˊ˗

synopsis this is honestly just a few cute romance ideas that i've thought of and would love to see implemented into some sturniolo fics :> these are completely free for taking just provide credit if you happen to get inspired! <3

001. 7 days | pathetic!chris sturniolo x brat!reader | the pursuit trope |

all chris wants is 7 days to prove to you that he can be the man for you. and if that means spending all the money on his card or embarrassing himself in the process, he'll gladly do whatever it takes to get you to fall in love with him.

002. unfortunate events | matt sturniolo x reader | soulmate trope |

you and matt can't seem to stay away from each other. always bumping into each other in the most unfortunate ways. accidentally spilling coffee on you before a job interview, him nearly running over you on one of your morning jogs, getting trapped in an elevator together, crashing into each other while riding bikes,, you think this is all just unlucky coincidences but what if he's actually seeking you out with the worst approach?

003. he's all that | outcast!chris sturniolo x popular!reader | makeover magic trope |

your biggest challenge yet relied in the form of chris sturniolo. obnoxious, loud, and a bit gross, he was everything you found icky about boys despite dating the biggest asshole on campus. with prom only being a few weeks away, will you be able to transform him into everyone's dream guy while simultaneously falling in love, or will you fail?

004. kiss me already! | student council!matt sturniolo x cheerleader!reader | grump x sunshine trope |

you, the pretty, popular, cheerleader suddenly interested in him—the nerdy, uptight, student council president? matt doesn't understand your sudden obsession with him, and frankly isn't very fond of it. yet, his constant disdain for you doesn't stop you from asking him out on dates and flirting with him, will his insecurities stop him from pursuing you, or will he finally fall into your charms?

005. love letter | jock!chris sturniolo x nerd!reader | secret admirer trope |

chris has a hard time expressing his feelings verbally, so he resorts to writing poetry. the depth of his work only increasing when he finds a muse. you're quiet, shy, always having your nose in a book, and completely in tune to your own world. nothing like him, yet he wants you so badly. afraid of his friends making fun of him, he decides to keep his poetry a secret, and his identity hidden from the heartfelt letters he leaves in your locker.

006. glass onion | matt sturniolo x reader | forced proximity trope |

the two of you, complete strangers to each other, decide to bind together after a series of tragic murders occur at the fancy resort you're both staying at. the killer is still at large, and could possibly be the man you're partnering up with...

007. secret potion | gryffindor!chris sturniolo x hufflepuff!reader | hogwarts au |

on the cusp of losing the girl he's hopelessly in love with, chris creates a love potion to lure you back into his arms.

008. somebody else | townie!matt x rich!reader | forbidden love trope |

his parents hate yours, and your parents hate his. growing up with a high profile lifestyle and always being in the public eye for one thing or the other, your parents had laid out very strict ground rules for you to follow. the main one being stay away from the sturniolo's. but you were never one to follow rules.

009. p power | playboy!chris sturniolo x playgirl!reader | enemies to lovers + fake dating trope |

chris has to convince his parents he's officially settled down to avoid being forced into a marriage with a woman he doesn't want. to keep playing the field and get his parents off of his case, he decides to make up a fake girlfriend. and who better to use as a scapegoat than one of his old hookups?

010. mine all mine | nerd!matt sturniolo x nerd!reader | friends to lovers trope |

it's obvious to anyone with two eyes that you and matt have feelings for each other, you're both just too shy to take it a step further. with the help from his friends, will he finally confess his feelings to you before it's too late, or will another guy swoop in and take you?

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queen-of-the-avengers · 15 hours ago

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More Than Meets The Eye

Pairing: Bartender!Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~3.7k

Warnings: fluff

Summary: Natasha stays over for a few days and kicks up drama for you and Bucky. She makes you realize that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to Bucky Barnes.

One in a Million Series

Square Filled: day-in-the-life (2024) for @buckybarnesbingo

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

Natasha is usually very pristine and professional. She is widely known across the state as one of the best realtors the business has ever seen. She has clients who go for multi-million dollar homes, and she scores nearly every single sale she gets. If she acts out in public, it can largely affect her business, so she tends to keep to herself.

Not when she has alcohol in her system.

Like tonight. She’s in a fling with a musician who she only needs whenever she’s stressed, but it works for both of them. There aren’t any strings attached and they can still get their work done without the stress of a relationship. Natasha turns into a whole other person when she’s drunk. The slut in her comes out and she becomes even more bold. She’s normally shy and reserved.

Not tonight.

Whenever the musician is in town, he tends to stay at her place since he’s only in town for a few days. She texted you twenty minutes ago from a club downtown where the musician is playing. Clubs are not your thing but you’re there when she needs you. After checking in at the door, you push your way inside where there is a sea of people on the dancefloor.

You’re standing on a ledge that overlooks the club. You can either go upstairs where there are more private areas for people just enjoying the music with some drinks while the party is downstairs. From where you are, you can see Natasha and the musician on the other side of the bar.

“Natasha!” You yell even though you know she won’t hear you. You push your way through the sea of people, trying to ignore the hot sweaty bodies bumping into you. “Natasha!”

She turns when she hears her name. “Thank God, you’re here.”

“What’s going on?”

“I caught him with another woman in my bed! My bed!”

“You were gone. I have needs. What do you want me to do?” the musician groans.

“That’s my apartment, asshole! I want your shit out now!”

“I leave in three days. You get it back then.”

You can’t believe how he’s acting but you really don’t want to do this here and now. You grab her arm and pull her toward you. “Come on, he’s not worth it.”

“He’s at my apartment. I don’t want to go back there,” she groans.

“You can stay with me. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

She’d be more upset if she didn’t just have nearly eight shots earlier. Thankfully, she listens to you and leaves the club with you. Your car is in a gas station parking lot since there wasn’t any parking near or at the club.

“He’s not worth it, Nat.”

“I know, but still. It’s like I’ve got no game lately. All I want is a nice man who will take care of me.”

“Well, you got me.”

She wraps an arm around your shoulder. “I do have you. You’re my best friend.”

“I love drunk you,” you giggle. Ten minutes pass and you’re at your place. In the elevator ride up, you think about what the guys might be doing. “So, listen, the guys are home and I don’t need you to be all sexual and grabby like I know you get.”

“Got it,” she nods.

“I’m serious, Nat. Best behavior.”

“I hear you. Best behavior,” she grins.

“Wait here.” You open the door and walk inside. Bucky is playing video games, Steve is trying to read a book, and Sam is blowing straw wrappers at Steve. Some of them hit him and others fly on his book or lap. “Hey, guys. I have Natasha with me, and it looks like she’s going to stay with us for a few days.” Steve perks up at Natasha’s name. “Just letting you know, she is very drunk and she’s very bold and loose with her body. I am so sorry for whatever she might try on you guys.”

You open the front door and Natasha walks in with a sly smirk on her face.

“Natasha. Wow, you look amazing,” Steve says, forgoing his book altogether.

“Thanks, baby,” she grins.

“Okay, you can sleep on the couch tonight, and we’ll figure something out tomorrow. Let me get you some blankets and a pillow.”

You leave her with the guys and walk into your room. Seconds later, you hear the stereo turn on and loud music is blasted. You sigh knowing this was a possibility but hoped it wasn’t going to happen. When you walk into the living room, you see Natasha, Steve, and Sam dancing along to the music. Bucky is still on the couch, clearly not wanting any part of this.

“Natasha, you should really get some sleep.”

“Dance first! Bucky, come on!”

“I’m okay, really. I’m going to go to bed.”

She shimmies her way over to Bucky who stands up. She pulls him into her body, and he tries to politely get her off him.

“Natasha, come on. He doesn’t want to dance.” She lets him go and he slips by her easily. He looks at you as he passes but doesn’t say anything else. It looks like she won’t be sleeping anytime soon, so you put the blankets and pillows on the couch. “Okay, I’m going to bed. Keep it down in here, please.”

Ten minutes after you leave, Natasha starts to grow tired. Steve jumps at the chance to take her to bed even though he’s not going to do anything with her. He’s a gentleman and that won’t change even if she is intoxicated. He really likes her and if he wants to be with her, he’s going to have to show him he’s not just some fling she’s used to.

“Come on, let me show you to my bed.”

Steve wraps a strong arm around her waist and guides her to his bedroom. She flops onto the bed face first and is out like a light. Steve looks around and grabs a small blanket before draping it over her body. He joins Sam back in the living room and plops down on the couch with a grin.

“Why are you grinning?”

“She’s in my bed. I overheard some conversations she and Y/N have had. All she’s ever had are flings, so I’m going to show her that I can be the gentleman she needs.”

“Yeah, because that’s a way to get a girl into bed,” Sam laughs.

“Just you wait, Sam. It’ll happen.”

In the morning, you wake to Bucky nursing his second cup of coffee. Steve is sleeping on the couch which means Natasha must be in his bedroom.

“Good morning, Bucky.”

“Hey, Y/N.”

“Is that all you’re having for breakfast?” Bucky shrugs and you shake your head. “Not acceptable. You’re a growing man. You need proper food. I’ll make you some.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Nonsense. I want to. Do you like eggs? Pancakes? Waffles?”

“No, Y/N, I’m fine.”

“Eggs and bacon it is,” you smile. “You can have some with me. Plus, I’m sure Natasha and the guys will be hungry when they wake up.”

“I’m fine, Y/N. Stop being so nice to me. You don’t have to…”

“What?” you ask when he stops talking.

“You don’t have to take care of me.”

“Well, someone has to, right? Everyone deserves someone to take care of them every once in a while,” you smile and turn back to the food.

Bucky stares at you in thought. He nods and takes a sip of his coffee. At the smell of food, Sam and Steve wake up. The only person who is sleeping is Natasha, and you can only assume she is going to want a strong cup of coffee, so you start to brew a pot for her. Much like you assumed, she walks out of Steve’s room when she smells the coffee.

“Is that coffee?”

“Brewed a new pot for you. Extra hot. Extra strong.”

“Thank you, Y/N.”

“Natasha. I hope you slept well,” Steve smiles.

“Thank you for letting me use your bed. You didn’t have to.”

“It’s no problem. Our couch isn’t the best, and I didn’t want your back all messed up.”

Sam looks at Steve who smiles knowingly. Natasha pours herself a cup of coffee while you plate the food. You slide one over to Bucky and smile at him.

“Eat. I can hear your stomach growling from over here.”

Bucky doesn’t say a word but accepts the food from you. After a nice breakfast, Natasha hops in the shower to wash of the stink from last night, and Steve strips his bed to wash the sheets. Natasha might smell good, better than most, but she reeked of alcohol last night, and he doesn’t want his bed smelling like that.

You get dressed in a green and white dress that goes down to your knees, and you walk into the bathroom where the lotion is. You pause when you see Sam standing by the sink with a toothbrush in his mouth… without toothpaste. Steve is standing by the towel rack looking at the large amount of products he keeps there. His hair is always silky smooth and his skin always looks amazing. He has some of the best products that you like to steal from time to time.

“What are you guys doing?”

“I’m brushing my teeth,” Sam says in defense.

“I’m just… doing things,” Steve mutters.

Bucky walks into the bathroom and pauses when he notices everyone else. “Is this a normal hangout spot now?��

“Nat, you’ve been in there for ages. Come on,” you say and squirt some lotion onto your hands.

“Sorry, I just can’t seem to find any towels that are bigger.” She slides the curtain back after she secures a towel around her body. All three men are big guys but their waists are slim, so they don’t need big towels, and all of yours are in the washer. “Oh.”

Sam stops brushing his teeth and stares at her while Steve blushes hard. He wants to look but every time he does, his face goes red so he clears his throat and turns away.

“Okay, come on. I have something you can wear.”

Bucky’s brain takes a few minutes to process what’s happening, so he freezes up when she tries to go past him. He barely gives her an inch to move, and you shake your head in disappointment.

“I am very disappointed in all of you.” You look at Bucky. “Especially you. I thought you were better than this.”

“I am sometimes.”

You walk into your room where Natasha is going through your closet for something to wear. You close the door to give her privacy, and she turns holding a shirt you got out of whim. Your style isn’t very flashy but she convinced you to get this shirt that exposes a bit more cleavage.

“No, I haven’t worn it yet. Yes, you can.”

“Thanks,” she grins.

She grabs a pair of jeans that she left over one time and puts those on along with the shirt.

“So, are we going to talk about last night?”

“I blacked most of it out. What happened?”

“You almost gave Bucky a lap dance, and it was cute to watch Steve gush all over you. That boy likes you.”

“Ooh, are we talking about boys?”

“Yeah, like your ex-boyfriend musician. Are you going to kick him out of your apartment?”

“He’s going to be gone in a few days. Can I just stay here until he’s gone?”

“Nat, that’s your place.”

“I know, but you don’t know this guy. He’s a PR nightmare. It’s best if I let him stay there until he’s gone.” You shrug. “Let’s talk about Bucky now.”

“Bucky? What about him?”

“Come on. You say Steve likes me? Bucky likes you.”

“No, he doesn’t. We’re just friends.”

“You can’t be just friends with these guys. Do you really think none of them have ever thought about sleeping with you?”

“Stop, it Nat,” you sigh.

Someone knocks on your door and Bucky opens it.

“Hey, Y/N, I’m going to the store. Do you need anything?”

“Yes,” Nat answers for you. “You should go with him, Y/N, to get that thing you really need.”

“I don’t need a thing.”

“Yes, you do. You need that thing you were telling me about.”

“I wonder what that is,” Bucky mumbles.

“She’ll be right out,” Nat smiles. She closes the door on him and turns to you with a smile. “This is perfect.”

You look at her and your eyes widen. “No, you’re not doing this. You’re not going to come in here and ruin what I have with them. I’m finally happy after Jack, and I really like these guys. I think they’re starting to like me, too.”

“Do you remember telling me about your perfect man? Bucky is everything on your list. Physically strong. Check. Nice smile. Double check. Tall. Triple check. Blue eyes, kind, caring, knows what he wants, and older. Check, check, and check.” She walks closer to you. “Plus, did you see his feet? A guy’s feet always point to what they want, and his were pointing right at you.”

“How would you like him to stand?” You stand and point both feet outward like a duck. “Like this?”

“Come on, go. He’s waiting for you.”

“Hey, are you ready?” Bucky calls out.

“Be there in a sec, bro!”

“Did you just call me bro?”

You pause. “Yeah. I’m coming.” You open the door. “Talk to Steve. I think he can be good for you.”

“Only if you talk to Bucky.”

“Bye,” you roll your eyes.

The ride to the store wasn’t as awkward as you thought it was going to be, but being in the store with all these people, all you could think about were Nat’s words.

“So, how long is she staying?” Bucky asks.

He has a very short list of items to get, and he goes through the different aisles and puts them in the cart.

“Only for a few days. Her douchey ex-boyfriend is staying in her apartment. It’s a long story.”

Everywhere you look there are different kinds of couples. Older, younger, same sex… Everywhere you look, you’re paying attention to their feet. One older couple has both their feet pointed at each other while another couple has theirs pointed away from each other. That couple looks like they don’t enjoy each other’s company as much. Is she right? Bucky says something but you’re too much in your own head to hear what he has to say.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Stop taking care of everyone.”

You look down and notice his feet are pointing right at you. “Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“What?” You look up at him. “Nothing. What?”

“What?” You move slowly around Bucky but he follows you by moving his entire body and not just his head. “What are you doing?” You keep moving around Bucky to get his feet away from you but he keeps turning so that they’re always pointed at you. “I know she’s your best friend, but I didn't mean to insult you. I’m just saying you don’t have to take care of her.”

“I know.”

You do a complete one-eighty around him, yet he still follows you with his feet.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to see…”

“Look, I’m sorry if I insulted you, but what are you doing right now?”

“I’m just… walking like a friend.”

“Okay, we have one more item on our list and then we can go. We just need toilet paper.”

“I don’t use it,” you say slowly.

“You don’t use toilet paper?”

You chuckle nervously and shake your head. “I mean… That’s not what I meant.” There is some right next to you so you grab the first one you see and put it in the cart. “Okay, we can go now.”

“You’re so weird,” he mutters and walks to the cashier.

Fuck, Natasha. She said something and now she’s in your head like a goddamn parasite. You two leave the store and start the journey back home. Bucky stops at the light and turns to you with confusion on his face.

“Okay, what is going on with you, Y/N?”

“Why do you have to do that? Why do you have to say my name like that?” You imitate him. “Y/N. And why do you have to wear old man clothes all the time?”

“I’m not wearing old man clothes. You don’t like the way I dress?”

“No… I just…” You fan your face. “I just need some air.”

All the windows are open but Bucky doesn’t comment on it. Just then, a woman walks up to the window carrying a bunch of red roses and is trying to sell them at stoplights like this one. You respect her trying to make extra money, but you can’t deal with this right now. All you can think about is Bucky and the fact that you saw his giant penis and the way his feet kept pointing at you.

“Roses for the lady?” the woman grins.

“You want some roses? I’ll buy you some.”

“No, I’m okay.”

Still, Bucky takes out some cash and hands it over to the woman who then gives the roses to him.

“Here, take some roses.”

“No, I don’t want them.”

“They were two dollars. Just take the roses.” You have to get out of here. You unbuckle and open the car door before fleeing. “Y/N, what are you doing? It was a joke. Get back in the car!” you take off running down the street. “Y/N!”

You don’t care if you’re going the wrong way. You just needed out of that goddamn car. It takes you an extra twenty minutes to get home when it could have taken you five in the car, but you needed the walk. You trudge inside your apartment to see Natasha sitting on the couch with a realtor magazine in her hands. She likes to keep up with what’s popular around the city.

“I walked all the way home,” you pant. “I got out of the war and walked all the way home.”

“What happened?”

“You happened, Nat. You got in my head! His feet were pointed at me the whole time.” She nods and stands up. “Is it the way I’m dressed? Is it my posture?”

“Look, I’ll talk to him for you.”

“No, please don’t. Just let me handle this, okay?”

The door opens and Bucky walks in with the groceries. “Okay, what the hell happened, Y/N? I’ve been driving around for the last thirty minutes looking for you. We were in the middle of traffic and you just got out and ran away.”

“I was hot,” you mumble.

“You were so hot that you had to jump out of my car and run?” You lean to the right and fix your posture. “Why are you standing like that?”

“This is how I always stand?”

“I’ve never seen you stand like that.” He shakes his head. “Look, I was worried about you, okay? You can’t just… Don’t do that again, okay?”

Bucky walks away and Natasha grins at you.

“Are you even listening to him? He’s trying to tell you that he likes you.”

“No, he’s just saying he cares about me as a friend.”

“Let’s go ask him.” She takes two steps and you jump on her back to stop her. She turns into the fighter that she is and starts to wrestle you, and you two go crumbling to the ground. “I am trying to help you, Y/N!”

“I don’t need your help, Nat. I like being friends with him. Yes, he has a giant penis that I saw. Yes, he saw me naked. Yes, he might be my dream guy, but none of that matters. He’s my friend and all that will go away if I bring this up. What if you’re wrong? What if he doesn’t like me?”

“A big part of my job is reading people. How do you think I managed to score as much as I have? I’ve managed to talk down narcissists and misogynists to buy more than the selling price. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. You never make the first move.”

“I have before, Natasha. I’ve been burned too many times to let it happen again. I like living here and that might go away because ‘you can read people’. I know you want to take care of me like I take care of you, but I have to handle this. Me, not you.”

“Fine,” she huffs out. “Thank you for letting me stay, but it’s best if I kick Troy out of my place. You got your boy drama and I have mine. Plus, I have a showing later in Beverly Hills I can’t miss.”

“You’re always welcome here.”

She leaves the apartment and Steve comes out of his room.

“Is she gone?”

“Yeah, she is.”

Steve sighs and flops onto the couch. “I don’t know how to do this. She’s not like any woman I have ever met. I thought we had a moment while you were gone, but it’s like it never happened with her.”

“Natasha has been hurt so many times. She had flings because in the last relationship she was in, he… I shouldn’t tell you this, but I will say this. She’s going to make you work for it.”

“That’s what makes it worth it,” he smiles.

“Good luck. She could use a guy like you.”

You’re exhausted by the end of the night, so you do your nighttime routine before going to bed. The first thing you do is brush your teeth. The door opens and Bucky walks in just as you start. You lightly blush just as Bucky grabs his toothbrush. You stand there in silence for a few minutes before you spit out the toothpaste in your mouth.

“Hey, I’m sorry for how I acted before.” Bucky looks at you. “Nat said something that freaked me out, but I’m good now. I’m sorry for worrying you.”

“It’s okay,” he says with a mouthful of toothpaste.

He turns to the sink again and continues brushing, and you notice his feet move away from you and back to the sink. To hide your smile, you continue brushing your teeth, and your heart flutters.

Want to be tagged? Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes angst #marvel #marvel fanfiction #marvel fanfic #marvel fic #marvel fluff #marvel angst #mcu #mcu fluff #mcu fanfiction #mcu angst #mcu fanfic #mcu fic

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meetmypointlessaddiction · 2 days ago

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December Fic Day 13 ~ Puppy?

Summary: Your daughters want a dog for Christmas.

Warnings: none that I'm aware of

Pairings: pretty sure this is suitable for everyone (fem!reader/male!reader/gn!reader) but I am still new to writing anything other than fem!reader so any pointers are greatly appreciated.

Enjoy and please like and comment if you do. Something as simple as an emoji literally makes my day better and reblog to share my work :)

You and Logan had made sure that, when raising your girls, you made them appreciate family and the valuable time spent together more than anything else in the world. To them, Christmas time revolved around being together, having fun, cuddling up watching films and decorating. It was very rare that the girls had anything specific in mind for Christmas, normally they would point out a few toys in the store and Christmas would be sorted. That’s why when they came running into yours and Logan’s room one morning, screaming about their Christmas present for this year, you knew you were in trouble.

Logan was still snoring, having worked a late shift the night before, only coming to bed a few hours prior. The girls were usually quite considerate of their father when he was sleeping but this morning that seemed to have flown out of the window. They launched on top of him, Ada laying between the pair of us, looking at Logan, while Chloe laid top of him. The man was awake immediately, watching them carefully with one eye open as he slowly came to. “This better be important.” He grumbled, huffing though he couldn’t help but smile.

“We know what we want for Christmas, papa.” Ada said, resting her chin on Logan’s arm as she looked up at him.

“We saw an advertisement on the way home from school and it’s the only thing we want, daddy.” Chloe clarified and you and Logan shared a look.

“Girls, you know the rules about Christmas gifts…” Logan started but Chloe was quick to interrupt.

“It’s not just for us, daddy. Everyone will enjoy it and the poster said that it will be our new best friend.” Your eyes widened and Logan closed his eyes, seemingly already knowing his answer.

“We ain’t gettin’ a puppy.” He said sternly and the girls both whined.

“But papa…”

“No buts. Get your butts out of here and let daddy sleep.” He told them and they both looked at you, knowing that you could often get Logan to change his mind on most things.

“Don’t look at me. Daddy’s spoken, no puppy. If you wanna go change into jammies and you’re gonna be quiet you can come and get in bed but if not go play with your toys until daddy’s slept some more.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The idea of a puppy wasn’t brought up again for a few days, the girls seemingly taking no for an answer. In fact, it wasn’t brought up again until Christmas Eve morning, the girls had stayed at your parents and Logan had finished work early. He walked into the kitchen and you could immediately tell something was off.

“What have you done?” You said, watching as he approached you.

“Not even a hello? No welcome home kiss? Baby, I thought you loved me?” He started, nervous laughter leaving his lips as he leaned towards you, being stopped by your hands on his chest.

“You bought a dog didn’t you?” He looked away, his hand scratching the hair on the back of his neck as his other hand rested on his hip.

“Yeah… yeah I bought a dog.” He admitted and you couldn’t help but laugh.

“I knew you’d cave!”

“No! No I didn’t! No one of the boys at work needed to get rid, his landlord had changed the terms an-.”

“Logan, where's the dog?” You cut him off, not wanting to hear his excuses when you could be meeting the new addition to your family.

“In the truck. You wanna meet her?” He said with a cheeky smirk on his face and you nodded as he took your hand, pulling you out into the garage with him. “She ain’t a puppy, she’s just over a year old.”

As Logan opened the door, you saw the grey and white border collie sitting proudly on the front seat, one ear floppy with the other half up. “Oh my god… hi baby.” You let her sniff at your hand, only going to stroke her once she had licked you and nudged your hand with her head. “What’s her name?”

“Misty. She’s a beauty ain’t she?” He said, one arm around your waist and the other scratching behind the pup’s ear. “Real good with kids, already potty trained and needs plenty of time outside. I reckon she’s the perfect fit for us.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You and Logan were laid on the couch, your parents were dropping the girls off in the next few hours and you were both making the most of the peace and quiet. Misty was laid on Logan’s legs while you laid next to him with your head on his chest.

“I still can’t believe you caved.” You laughed and Logan shot you the biggest stink eye known to mankind. The kind of look that only a man as sassy as your husband could muster.

“I did not cave. I was helpin’ a friend.” He argued, poking your ribs.

“Definitely caved.” You mumbled and he rolled his eyes though he didn’t argue back, knowing you were right. “I knew it!”

Dividers: @coolcatsgraphics

I'm also on A03 :)

Requests are also open if there is anything that people want me to write 💛

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the-lonelybarricade · 1 day ago

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Rain Check? - Feysand Oneshot

Summary: 5 times Rhysand didn't take his shot, and the one time Feyre took too many

@carrieeve It's me! Hi! I'm your santa, it's me!

For the @acotargiftexchange, you told me you'd like an AU oneshot that was Feysand focused with a friends to lovers plot - I deliberated a long time over how best to bring that vision to life, and then after some light blog stalking, I saw that you're a fan of Jim/Pam from the Office! I started binging the show for research purproses, and a Feysand office romance was born! 🥰

I really hope you enjoy it! It's been such a joy quietly stalking your blog for these last many months, and I look forward getting to know you even more now that our identities are revealed! 💕

Words: 12k

Read on AO3

The first time Rhysand saw Feyre, he thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on.

Only problem—so did every other man in the office. And they didn't exactly disguise their interest in the young, cute receptionist working on the fifth floor of their London skyrise.

After being propositioned by just about every single man in the office, including the ones who fell alarmingly outside her age range—a category which Rhys wasn't confident he was excluded from—he thought the last thing she needed on her first day was another colleague making a pass at her.

He offered a polite hello and welcome, but he intentionally waited until she survived her first week to strike up any further conversation. The chance opened for him when she walked into the break room at the precise moment he was filling up the kettle.

"Hey," he said, tipping the spout to gesture his hello. "Fancy a tea?"

"Oh." She glanced at the kettle, her bow-shaped lips popping open in what he could only assume was surprise. As if she'd walked into the break room expecting anything other than an electric kettle and a pod coffee machine. "I… didn't bring a mug."

"Well, Feyre, I'm not sure how they treated you at your last place, but here, corporate spoils us rotten with communal company branded mugs." Setting the kettle down on the base, Rhys flipped the overhead cabinet open, gesturing to its contents as if he'd unveiled a trove.

The dramatic flair earned him a polite laugh. It was cute, if a little forced. And he craved the chance to learn what her laugh sounded like when it wasn't given out of pity.

He gestured to the middle shelf, which deviated from the monotony of blue logo mugs. "If you do end up bringing a mug in, this is where you can keep it. Though I'll warn you, conversation gets stale here and that almost ensures you'll be asked for its backstory. I recommend bringing in something interesting, unless you want to end up like poor old Drakon."

"What happened to Drakon?"

Rhys gave a hearty sigh as he withdrew two mugs from the cupboard, shaking his head as he said, with the utmost solemnity, "He's known as the guy with a boring mug."

Her lips twitched. He thought that was a genuine smile she might have been fighting.

"If all I'm known for is having a boring mug, I think that's fine by me."

"Oh, believe me, you are far from the danger of that fate, Feyre darling—" the endearment slipped out before he could think better of it. He winced inwardly, trying to monitor her reaction in his periphery. Her brows lifted, and he continued on, hoping he could recover through the theatrics of setting the mugs in front of her, proclaiming proudly, "Because I'm gracious enough to let you use one of mine. Go on, take your pick."

The distraction paid off. Slip-up now forgotten, or so he hoped, Feyre leaned forward to read the print.

Then snorted. "This says Office Wanker."

He grinned. "That was my secret santa gift from last year."

Feyre lifted the other mug by its rather phallic shaped handle. The ceramic was dark green, with small white spikes pinched throughout to mimic a cactus. Feyre grinned as she read the white print on its side: Don't be a Prick.

"I'm sensing a theme."

"That was another gift." Rhys pitched his voice low. "Do you think they're trying to tell me something?"

"I think…" she bit her lip, her eyes gleaming with a mischief that told him she was purposefully building anticipation. "They might be mugging you off."

"That couldn't be it," he said, knowing his deadpan delivery was ruined. He could feel the stupid grin already plastered over his face and he couldn't help it. "My mother is adamant that I'm a delight. She says everyone likes me."

"I'm sure she's right," she whispered, with just the right amounts of sympathy and derision that Rhysand might have fallen in love with her right then and there.

He nodded to the two choices on the counter. "So which mug are you going with?"

"Oh—dear. Hmm. They're both such strong contenders." Feyre lifted the mugs, tilting and examining each with exaggerated scrutiny. Then she shoved the one with the phallic cactus towards him. "I think Prick fits you better. I'll go with Wanker."

"That's quite the statement to make in your second week," he said, eyes locking with hers as he accepted the mug, their fingers brushing just briefly enough to pass as accidental.

Pride warmed his chest when he noticed her cheeks turn the softest shade of pink. It was a similar shade to her lips, he thought. Which was a mistake, because he immediately needed to fight the temptation to stare at her mouth.

"Well," she said, withdrawing her hand, the movement a little stiff. A little uncertain. "At least I won't be known as a girl with a boring mug."

"That you most certainly will not," he purred.

The kettle clicked, steam billowing from its spout, and he was privately grateful for the excuse to pull his attention away lest he do—or more likely say—something stupid and inappropriate.

The entire office was flirting with her. If he escalated this beyond anything other than playful, inane small talk, she would think he was just another jerk trying his luck on the new girl. And really, isn't that exactly what he was?

Rhys lifted the kettle in offering. "So," he said. "Did you want tea?"

"Oh," she repeated. He would have teased her for it, this copy and paste exchange. Why did it keep surprising her that they were in the break room for tea? "No," she said finally, pointing toward the coffee machine. "I'm more of a coffee drinker."

"Ah," he said, pouring the water into his mug and tried to keep his cool as steam crowded his face. This whole time, he thought she was waiting for the kettle to boil. She could have been in and out of there in a minute if she just put the damn pod in.

But she lingered, watching him stir in sugar—which wasn't how he preferred his tea, but it offered an excuse for him to stay in the break room just a little longer.

"Do you—" he cleared his throat— "Do you know how to use the machine?"

"Yeah," Feyre said, waving the offer away. "I've got one like it at home."

"Ah, good."

He set his teaspoon in the sink, not in any rush to leave but faltering for a reason to stay.

If he could go back and do anything differently, Rhys would have chosen that moment to ask her out. Just for a coffee, to get to know each other. To explore what was already an obvious chemistry.

Instead he pinched the handle of his mug and nodded. "See you around then, Office Wanker."

Feyre waved. "Bye, Prick."

The bi-weekly sales team meeting was the bane of Rhysand's existence.

While he was being forced to sit and listen to Tamlin Spring stroke his own ego in front of the executives, Rhys knew his unattended inbox and phone line was being inundated with client inquiries that would prove a much better investment of his and the company's time.

Instead, he was trapped in an hour-long posturing session where each member of the team needed to prove to corporate that they were making enough money to justify their payslip. Something which Tamlin had been struggling with this month, though he was giving quite the performance about the value he had in the pipeline with his "nurturing prospects".

The door clicked open, and every head in the room swiveled towards the interruption.

Feyre stood there, one arm propping open the door, the other fidgeting with a sticky note. "Sorry to interrupt," she said with a wince. "I just have a note for Mr. Night. One of his clients is on line 6."

She waited until one of the executives gave her a nod of approval before scurrying to Rhys, her head ducked down. She didn't linger, pressing the sticky note into his hands, then disappearing as quickly as she'd come. He clenched his jaw when he noticed the trail of eyes that followed her.

Tamlin's gaze, in particular, dipped beneath her skirt-line, then back up. Twice. He shared a lazy grin to his left, not even trying to hide what he'd been doing. Worse, reveling in it.

"I should take this," Rhys said tightly, staring at the note in Feyre's hasty scrawl.

Office wanker,

Hope you're prepared to pay up.

"It's from my contact at Hybern," Rhys explained to the room. "I'm on the verge of closing this deal."

The executive gave Rhys a stiff nod of approval. Hybern had been a prospecting account for upwards of a year, until Rhys had taken over the lead two months ago. It was a big account, one he knew the execs were antsy to close.

Rhys had been waiting for Tamlin to finish fumbling his update to announce Hybern officially signed this morning. The choice had been purely strategic, an attempt to highlight the contrast between their performances after Tamlin tried to undermine him in the last meeting. And, admitedly, he'd been looking forward to the gratification of seeing Tamlin flounder in front of the execs he was trying so hard to brown-nose.

This was far more gratifying, though.

Rhys strolled out of the confrence room and returned to his seat, where he promptly picked up his desk phone and dialed line 6.

"Rhysand speaking."

"You thought I wouldn't do it," Feyre said in sing-song triumph. "You really thought I'd be too scared to do my job because of a bunch of serious old men in suits?"

Rhys blew out a stung breath. "Ouch, Feyre. Old?"

"Sorry, what was that? I can't hear you over your creaking bones."

"I didn't take you as a sore winner," he said, grinning.

"Doesn't matter what you took me as, because you know where you'll be taking me now? To lunch. And I'll be ordering something expensive."

He hoped she would. "Order whatever you want. A deal's a deal."

"Oh, I'm getting a side and a dessert."

"Better yet, why don't I take you to dinner? You can have the full course and drinks."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. One that prompted him to glance towards her reception desk, where he could see her pink lips part open. Her head swiveled towards him, brows merging to assess his meaning.

"Are you asking me on a date?"

"We're celebrating," he said, evading the question. "I closed the deal with Hybern, you won our wager. Let's get drinks."

"Okay," she said. Her smile was shy. "Let's go to dinner."

"Tonight?"

She hesitated. "I… have nothing to wear."

"Blimey, Feyre. I didn't realize you'd come to work nude. A bit bold, don't you think?"

"Shut up," she said, giving an exaggerated eye roll to be sure he could see it across the room.

It was, perhaps, with too much severity that he rushed to add, "You look perfect."

The admission hung a second too long. Rhys cleared his throat before she could mull over the gravity with which he said it—meant it.

"Anyway, we'll leave together after work, yeah? I know just the place."

Feyre bit her lip. It wasn't the immediate agreement he was hoping for, but the pink flush rising over her cheeks was an encouraging sign.

"Okay," she whispered. "I'll wait by the lift."

"Don't want them to see us leaving together?" He teased.

"Are you kidding?" She sounded horrified. "If they see us leave together, tomorrow there will be rumors that we're shagging."

"In rumor only?"

"See how well dinner goes first, Prick."

"That's not a no," he crooned, to which Feyre slammed the phone back onto the receiver.

He couldn't keep the dumb grin off his face, even once the sales team got out of their meetings and Tamlin plunked into the seat beside Rhys.

Tamlin scowled. "What are you so happy about?"

His voice was sour, even for Tamlin. Rhys figured the meeting must have gone south after he left. Ass kissing could only go so far when there's no money to be shown for it.

"I closed the deal with Hybern," Rhys said, deciding to capitalize on what was shaping up to be a superb day by rubbing it in Tamlin's face just a little bit. "Sending it through for approval right…" Click. "Now."

"Congrats," Tamlin muttered, mustering as minimal enthusiasm into the word as possible.

Rhys would have felt bad for the guy. When Tamlin first joined, Rhys had tried to take him under his wing, taking him on sales calls and feeding him solid leads that just needed a bit of nurturing. He'd thought they were something like friends until he'd caught Tam trying to poach his clients six months ago. When Rhys asked him to back off, Tamlin had gotten upper management involved, and things had gotten messy.

Since then, their relationship had regressed into this—Tamlin slumping back in his chair, frowning at his screen as Rhysand's closed deal started making the rounds in their sales channels.

The door to the CRO's office snicked open. "Hey, Rhysand. Can we talk?"

"Of course. I'll join you in a moment."

As Rhys slid out of his chair, he couldn't resist sneaking a glance towards Feyre. He was just doing his job at the end of the day, but he was good at it, and some juvenile part of his brain wanted her to notice.

Their eyes met. It always zapped through him, the sight of those bright eyes, like dragging his feet on carpet and touching something metal.

Feyre ducked her head, smiling shyly at her computer.

When he turned back, he saw Tamlin staring at him. Hard.

"What?" Rhys asked, straightening.

"The quirky little receptionist?" He snorted. "I didn't realize that was your type."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Tamlin shrugged. "I'm only trying to warn you. I hear she's fucked half this office."

Rhys slid his hands into his pockets, obscuring the fingers he curled into fists. He shouldn't let Tamlin rile him. He knew it was untrue, and even if it was, he wouldn't care. But Feyre would be upset if she knew that's what people were saying about her.

"Watch your mouth," Rhys said. "This is a workplace, not a locker room."

"Could've fooled me. I thought it was brothel when I first walked in."

Tamlin's head turned deliberately to Feyre, who's desk was positioned directly in front of the entrance. She was leaning over now, scribbling a note on her desk. At the angle, the cut of her top sloped low enough to show the tops of her breasts. The observation felt like stepping into Tamlin's mind, seeing Feyre the way he saw Feyre.

It was truly a shock to the system to feel repulsed by a sight of breasts—by Feyre's no less, which were magnificent in any other context. Rhys felted trapped between defending her, which would only validate Tamlin's suspicions and make her more of a target, or to let it slide and hope the bastard moved on.

"Each to their own, I suppose," Rhys said, brushing past Tamlin's desk. He slipped a hand out of his pocket to thrum his finger across the wood. "Hey—think they'll give me that promotion for the Hybern deal?"

The deflection worked. Like dangling car keys in front of a toddler, Tamlin's focus shifted back to the CRO's office.

He sneered. "Let me get back to work, Rhysand."

"Right. Right. That Adriata account, huh? Heard it's not going to well."

"Fuck off."

"So touchy," Rhys said, clicking his tongue. "I'm just trying to help. Maybe I'll give you some tips after my meeting."

Tamlin made a low grunt in the back of his throat, a sign that he was retreating into what Rhys and Feyre had dubbed 'beast mode'. Rhys actually preferred it when Tamlin was in beast mode. It meant kept his mouth shut and communicated through nods and grunts until his temper subsided—which, Rhys would argue, was much more effective communication than when his colleague attempted to use words.

It was a shame those sacred moments of Tamlin's silence would be wasted in the CRO's office. Rhys wasn't sure what to expect as he pushed the door open and poked his head inside.

"Come in," the CRO said, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. "I heard you closed the deal with Hybern. Many congratulations—I know that was hard won."

"They made me work for it," Rhys acknowledged, lowering onto the alabaster seat. "But I knew we'd close them in the end."

The CRO nodded. "You did good work."

"Thank you," Rhys said, bracing himself for the pitch. He knew he wasn't called in here for a congrats.

"You're a strong salesman," the CRO continued. "You have excellent people skills, and you're good at getting clients on your side."

Rhysand's brows rose. He didn't think he'd ever heard this much praise come from upper management before. He was still waiting for the catch.

"The deal with Adriata has fallen through," the CRO went on. That was corporate speak for: Tamlin wet the bed.

"That's a shame," Rhys said mildly. It wasn't his deal, and he wasn't exactly heartbroken to hear Tamlin fumbled a big sale.

"I know you have a contact there—Tarquin. You used to work with each other at your previous role. Do you think you could leverage that to recover the sale?"

Rhys paused. Adriata was one of the leads he'd fed to Tamlin through that acquaintance. He could have taken the deal himself, but he thought the new guy could use an easy win. It shouldn't have taken this long—nearly a year—to close the deal and it certainly shouldn't have fallen through.

"Adriata is Tamlin's client," Rhys said slowly. "If I helped close the sale…"

"You'd get the commission," the CRO said, hearing the question that went unspoken. "And the account will be yours. I just want this closed before fiscal."

In other words, before Monday.

Rhys glanced at the digital clock on the CRO's desk, calculating the time difference in his head. "Tarquin's based in L.A. Latest I can get him on a call is five."

"If you stay late and get this done, you can take Monday off."

It wasn't Monday he cared about. It was the date he envisioned with the pretty blue-eyed receptionist. He thought he would finally have the chance to take her somewhere nice and give this chemistry between them a solid chance.

Rhys bit the inside of his cheek. Feyre would understand, wouldn't she? With the commission he'd get from Hybern and Adriata, he could take her somewhere even nicer. Hell, he could take her out of London. Fly to Paris for the weekend. Amsterdam. Art museums. Anywhere she wanted.

"Okay," Rhys said, nodding. "I'll see what I can do."

After that, he returned to his desk. Tamlin was still in beast mode, ignoring Rhysand's existence and probably nursing his ego about the ruined Adriata deal. It offered Rhys the privacy to slip a sticky note from his desk and pass it to reception on the way to the break room.

Have to stay late tonight. Rain check on dinner?

The following Monday, Rhys took the day off.

And later that morning, he was waiting to meet his family for breakfast when he received a call from the police.

His mother, father, and younger sister had all died in a car accident on their way to meet him.

Rhys took the rest of the week off.

It was the day of the funeral.

He was sitting on a bench, staring absently at a flock of ducks wading through The Serpentine at Hyde Park.

He'd just gotten back to London and couldn't bear the thought of going home. So he'd come here, though it was a miserable, foggy day and he could feel the cold burning his nose, cheeks, and ears.

In some ways, the cold felt grounding. This pain was real. Fixable. So much easier to process than the intangible grief he was drowning in.

"Here I thought I was the only person in London mad enough to be out on a day like this."

It was just his luck to run into Feyre on today of all days.

Rhys knew he looked a mess. He wasn't trying to hide it. And he knew it was inevitable she would see him in his grief. Their company only offered five days of bereavement, after all. He'd be back at work on Monday, and he didn't anticipate being any less of mess than he was now.

When she appeared before him, hands settled on her hips, he wondered if this was how it felt to see a mirage in the desert. To glimpse salvation and know it was impossible to reach.

In the dull grey backdrop of English winter, she was a smear of vibrant color. She was wearing a sky-blue overcoat, buttoned over a cream turtleneck and brown suede trousers. Her cheeks and nose were frostbitten, like his own, and it made him feel strangely envious of the cold.

"You look like you're freezing."

Unlike Feyre, bundled in her coat and scarf and mittens, he wasn't dressed for the weather. He was wearing a black suit and tie, and though he'd brought an overcoat with him to the funeral, he was fairly certain he'd left it at the wake.

"I'm fine," he said.

A blatant lie. Usually he was better at those.

"Here." Feyre began unwinding her red knit scarf.

"No." Rhys held up his hands to stop her. "Really, Feyre, I'm—"

Dodging his weak attempts to deter her, Feyre unraveled her scarf and wasted no time hooking it around Rhysand's neck. The scent of lilac and pear coiled around him, constricting like the vise of a serpent.

"Keep it," she said. "It didn't really match this outfit anyway."

"I'm not sure it matches mine," he said, glancing down at the shock of red against his black suit.

"I don't know." Feyre leaned back to admire his outfit with a level of interest that had Rhys reconsidering his whole wardrobe. "I think you look nice with a bit of color."

"It's warm," he granted, pressing his palm to the soft fabric. The heat of her body was still there, though leeching by the second. "Thank you for lending it to me."

"Keep it," she said, taking the seat next to him. "Like I said, it looks good on you."

He could see what she was doing. She even raised her brows, practically taunting him for a response. Something like Clothes tend to look better off me, or it looked better on you.

The mask was in reaching distance. He knew the script. He just didn't have the energy to don the part.

Feyre tried to keep the concern off her face. The only problem was, he'd spent the better part of a year trying to learn how to read her. He knew her tells, and if he didn't, he could still see the crease of concern forming between her brows.

"Where have you been?" She asked, trying to sound casual. "The rumors are crazy, you know. You close the two biggest sales of the year on the same day and then disappear for a week."

Rhys offered her his best imitation of a grin. "Is that your way of saying you were worried about me?"

"You know as a receptionist, it's part of my duty to know all the latest office gossip."

"No gossip here, Feyre." He shrugged. "Just taking some time off."

Feyre frowned. Her voice was soft and devastatingly gentle as she said, "Rhys. It looks like you just came from a funeral."

"Didn't know them that well."

It wasn't that he didn't want her to know. It was that Feyre was one of his last shreds of brightness and he wanted to keep her firmly compartmentalized from this grief.

If he told her, she would worry for him. Every exchange in the office would be weighted. Different. He couldn't stand the thought of her holding him like shattered glass, the way everyone else in his life was doing.

And, most of all, he couldn't stand the thought of burdening her.

"I'm sorry," she said, placing her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers dug into the fabric, as if trying to instill the depth of her conviction. "Even if you hardly knew them, I'm sorry if today was difficult for you."

"Difficult?" He said, the word strained. "No day where I get to see you is difficult, Feyre."

"Do you want to get a drink? You still owe me lunch, remember?"

Rhys pressed his hand over hers, squeezing tighter than he should. But in that moment, it felt like she was all he had to hold on to.

"Not today," he said. His eyes stung and he knew it wasn't from the cold. "Rain check?"

Feyre nodded. "Rain check."

Rhys went back to the office the following Monday.

Things returned to normal. Almost.

The equilibrium of his life had shifted, and normal looked a bit different. Less like living, and more like survival.

He didn't go up to the receptionist counter like he used to, armed with a hundred excuses just to talk to Feyre. He made his own copies. He scheduled his own appointments. He stopped playing mental games with Tamlin.

He just… stopped.

And everything else kept going.

That was the most overwhelming part. The constant, distinct sensation that he was being left behind because he didn't know how to keep up.

Feyre found new people to talk to in the office. Tamlin made different enemies. Corporate started taking an interest in other high performers. He felt like a shadow, an apparition haunting his own mundane life. And he only woke up once they were already burying him.

That was how it felt, anyway, when the news broke the office. Like handfuls of dirt tossed on top of his lifeless body.

Feyre and Tamlin are engaged.

He couldn't breathe. The weight was too much to claw through. Engaged? He didn't even know they'd been dating.

"I hear congratulations are in order," Rhys said to her in passing later that day.

"Oh." Feyre cheeks turned the same red as the scarf he kept in his bedside drawer. He supposed it was inappropriate to keep hold of it now. "Thank you."

"How long have you two been…?"

He was too much of a coward to even finish the question.

Feyre managed to fill in the rest, though. "About four months."

That was all? Christ, he could have been married to her four times over by now. If he'd been brave enough to ask her out on that first day.

But he sensed the way she braced herself for his response, and guessed people hadn't been holding back commentary about their hastiness to get down the aisle.

"Sometimes when you know, you know," Rhys said, reserving his own less-than-complimentary thoughts.

He could think of only one reason Tamlin was in such a rush, and the suspicion was too ego-centric to lend any merit to.

Feyre was a treasure. Anyone with eyes could see that. Even Tamlin.

When Feyre gave him one of her forced smiles, he felt it like another clump of dirt landing on his chest. There were many ways he'd describe his relationship with Feyre, but something it had never been was forced.

He'd hurt her, he realized. When he withdrew into his grief without explaining himself. He should have told her what was going on.

And now he'd lost her.

Rhys thrummed his fingers on the countertop. "Well, I should let you go back to work."

Feyre's solemn nod was the eulogy that finally sent him sputtering, wondering what on earth he was doing buried in this hole.

Tamlin was obnoxious, sure, but at least he was alive.

Maybe it was time to move on. Not just from his grief, but from Feyre, too. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd tried going on a date.

Not since she first started here.

With a heavy sigh, Rhys pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to his cousin.

Rhys: Drinks tonight? x

Mor: I already made plans with a friend. Unless you want to join us??? 👀 xxx

Rhys considered. He snuck a glance at Feyre, catching her in the act of tucking her unruly hair behind her ear.

The sight of her struck him like a punch in the gut.

Rhys: Is she single? x

Mor: I thought you'd never ask 😌 x

It was his first night out in… god knew how long.

He hadn't left his house much in the last few months, and truthfully it had felt good to fall back into the routine of caring about his appearance. Taking a shower, shaving, picking a nice cologne, styling his hair so it wasn't just a sad mop of curls.

He felt… good wasn't quite the right word. He wasn't there yet. But his head felt clearer, and the air felt crisp, and he didn't feel like he was on the verge of suffocating in his own dread.

It was progress.

"Rhys!"

He barely had time to turn before his cousin vaulted into his chest, knocking him back a few steps from the sheer force of her hug.

"You look good!" Mor pulled back, her eyes brighter than the last time they'd met. He could see her relief in them. "Really."

"You do, too."

"You have no idea how many times I nearly sent Az and Cass on a kidnapping mission." She slapped his shoulder lightly in admonishment. "We've been worried sick!"

"I've just been busy," he said, knowing it was a lame excuse but lacking any other armor. "I'm sorry."

Mor sniffed. "You'll only be forgiven if you buy me and my friend a drink."

Rhys scanned the crowd. "Is she here?"

"Yeah. She just went to the bathroom. Asked me to order her a G&T."

"Coming up," Rhys said. "Go find us some seats."

"I haven't told you what I want," Mor pointed out.

"House red. Biggest glass they have."

She grinned, reaching out to ruffle his hair. "I missed you—"

"No touching the hair," he said, batting her hand away. "Seats. Now."

"Okay, bossy."

Rhys rolled his eyes, but there was a smile twitching the corner of his lips. It was nice. The normalcy of bickering with Mor.

It was a busy night, despite being a weekday, so it took a while for the bar to make their drinks. Longer still, for Rhys to take up the precarious task of balancing all three drinks in his hands as he searched for the table.

He caught a flash blonde hair poking over the seat of a leather booth and grinned. There was another girl sitting beside Mor, a brunette, both of their backs turned as he rounded the corner.

And nearly dropped the glasses on the floor.

Bright blue eyes stared at him, wide and achingly familiar. Her mouth parted open into a gasp.

"Rhys?"

He was equally dumbfounded. "Feyre?"

Mor said her friend was single. It shouldn't have been the first thought to bubble up through his shock. But it was.

"How do you two know each other?" Mor said, the question nearly accusational.

"We work together," Rhys said, recovering enough to set the drinks on the table.

Mor's eyes widened. "Oh my god," she said, whipping her head to gape at Feyre, who was dropping her head into her hands. "Oh my god, Feyre!"

"Is something the matter?" Rhys asked, unable to pry his eyes away from the red stain burning along the dainty curve of Feyre's ears. She kept her hands over the rest of her face, but he could see peeks of blushing skin through the gaps in her fingers. How was it possible that she was the one mortified about this?

He could see the mischief spreading over Mor's face, and it made him nervous. "Oh," his cousin said, drawing out the vowel as she plucked her wine glass from the table. "It's just that Feyre darling here has told me all about the people she works with in her office. Neglected to mention names, of course, but I'm starting to put two and two together."

Feyre darling. Smug satisfactions coursed through him at the realization that Feyre had been telling Mor about him. Not Tamlin—or at least, not exclusively Tamlin.

Feyre retreated from her hands just enough to glower at Mor. She wasn't meeting Rhysand's eyes, which likely had something to do with her scarlet coloring. He'd made her blush before, but never like this—never the kind that spread over her throat and collarbones, too. For a distracted second, he let himself imagine dragging his lips across every inch of red skin, just to see how long he could make the color linger.

"Let me guess," Rhys said, knowing he should keep the purr from his voice—she was engaged, for Christ's sake—but his eyes never lifted from her face. "She told you about a devilishly handsome salesman who sits at the desk across from her?"

"Hmm." Mor feigned an expression of deep thought. "That doesn't ring any bells, no. Though I'm pretty certain she mentioned something about a giant prick?"

Feyre's lips twitched, the making's of a smile.

Until Rhys interjected, "I suppose I do wear tight pants."

"You're disgusting," Mor said, wrinkling her nose. Feyre made a sound like she was inclined to agree.

And it was starting to drive him crazy that she wasn't saying anything. Was still refusing to look at him.

He tried to tempt her gaze by dragging her gin and tonic across the table, pushing it towards her as he asked, "What else have you been telling my cousin about me, Feyre darling?"

Finally. Finally she looked at him. Those blue eyes were more wary than he was used to seeing, but still full of challenge. More so, as they narrowed.

"I didn't know you two are cousins," she said, artfully evading the subject.

"Would have kept the finer details to yourself, if you'd known?"

Feyre lifted her chin. "It's not nice to speak ill of someone's family."

"Oh, I'm sure your descriptions were scathing." He smirked. "Do you have a code name for me?"

"Yeah, Prick."

"I know you're more imaginative than that, Feyre. You probably gave her a physical description, too, hmm? Tall, dreamy eyes, dark-haired—"

"Swaggering, insufferable arrogance," Feyre filled in.

Mor shook her head in disbelief. "I should have known it was Rhys from that alone."

"You wound me," Rhys said, clutching his chest. "Both of you."

His cousin rolled her eyes. "I think you'll manage to recover." She turned to Feyre and tapped her half full glass. "Where's the bathroom? There's a cute brunette at the bar and I need to make sure my lipstick hasn't smeared."

Feyre studied Mor's makeup. "You're fine."

"Liar. You just don't want me to leave you alone with Rhys." She slid out of the booth, her white teeth on full display. "I think you two can play nice for five minutes."

"Your judgment is questionable as always, Mor," Rhys said, though it did nothing to deter his cousin from gathering her purse and striding towards the restrooms.

Leaving him alone with Feyre.

He reminded himself to take deep, steady breaths—a task which escalated in difficulty once he noticed the scent of her perfume. Lilac and pear, the same she was wearing the day of his family's funeral. The same scent which had long since faded from the scarf she'd wrapped around his neck.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry for crashing your girl's night."

Feyre shook her head. "Don't be sorry. I knew you were coming. I just… didn't know you were coming."

"And that makes it worse?" He said, ignoring the pang in his chest that she would prefer a stranger's company to his own.

"It makes it… complicated."

"Complicated?" Rhys raised his brows. "Like how Mor asked me to come here to meet her single friend kind of complicated?"

Feyre sat up straighter. "Mor said what?"

Rhys winced. He hadn't meant to throw Mor under the bus. "Just for my own clarity, you are engaged to Tamlin, right?"

"That's also…. complicated."

"Complicated how, Feyre?"

She chewed on her lower lip. A habit he'd noticed at the office, and had sent him walking stiffly to the men's room more times than he'd care to admit.

"Tamlin asked me to marry him last night," Feyre said, her voice so soft that he needed to lean over the table to hear her over the loud atmosphere. "I didn't say yes. I didn't say no, either. I just… I wanted more time to think about it, I guess. But he announced it to everyone in the office today."

Rhysand's grip tightened around his whiskey glass. "That bastard."

"I don't know what to do about it," Feyre said, all in one exhale. Her shoulder slumped. "I feel trapped. If I back out now, it will be this whole big thing. We'll have to walk it back in front of the entire office and it will be so uncomfortable."

The last thing Feyre needed was a big reaction. He could see it in the way she braced herself across from him, holding her body taut as if she was a passenger in some unbridled vehicle, expecting to crash at any moment.

He managed to keep his voice calm as he said, "This isn't the kind of decision that you should feel pressured into. You should marry someone because you want to, not because you feel obligated."

Feyre shrugged. The gesture was resigned, like he wasn't saying anything she hadn't already said to herself.

"I don't know what I want," she admitted.

"Then I think that's your answer. If it's not a resounding, unwavering yes, then you shouldn't do it."

"Will it ever be like that, though?" Her voice was strained. "Do people ever actually fall in love and know that they want to be with that person forever? Without any question?"

Rhys needed to take a deep swallow of his whiskey before he could answer. "Yes," he said, feeling it burn down his throat—the admission and the alcohol and the words he just couldn't bring himself to say. "If it's the right person, you know. Without any question."

Her eyes bored into his, so deep he swore she could see straight to the quick of his soul, where he was still raw and healing and afraid to tell her what he should be telling her.

Don't marry him.

I love you.

Please, don't marry him.

He didn't know what he would do—he didn't know if he would survive—if he unmasked himself completely, revealing every gnarled, jagged edge of jealousy and love and fear, and she still walked away.

"You came here wanting to meet one of Mor's single friends?" Feyre's voice trembled a bit, as if she was also holding back too much, waning beneath the weight. "Like, to be set up on a date?"

"Yeah," he said, shame drying the roof of his mouth. It felt like a betrayal, though he couldn't explain why or how. "It's been a while since I've put myself out there."

Feyre looked down at her drink. "Sorry you got me instead."

If there was one thing Rhys couldn't stand, it was hearing Feyre apologize for something outside of her control. She was always doing that in the office—apologizing for delays due to broken printers and out-of-order lifts.

"I owed you a drink though, didn't I?" He forced himself to wink. To grin. To play the smug arrogance he knew she expected from him. "This is a much better twist of fate."

Feyre opened her mouth, as if she was about to say something else, when Mor saddled back into the booth, lipstick freshly re-applied. "So," she said, tossing a lock of curls over her shoulder. "What did I miss?"

Feyre did, eventually, call off her engagement with Tamlin.

It happened months after Mor's failed setup attempt. Months of listening to Feyre go back and forth with Tamlin in the office about wedding plans, holding his tongue while she was strong-armed through every decision. Months of watching her steadily grow thinner, quieter, duller.

Months of watching Feyre Archeron wilt before his very eyes.

He didn't know what the catalyst was, in the end. All he knew was that one day, he walked into the office armed with a stupid joke to try to make her smile, since she was doing less and less of it these days. And instead he'd met the stern face of their new receptionist, Alis.

So when Mor told him that she'd invited Feyre on their annual trip to their family cabin in the Alps, he'd had conflicting feelings.

One hand, he'd get to spend a week of uninterrupted time with Feyre, where they could deviate from their usual script of jammed printers and pleasant weather. And more importantly, he could finally, finally, enjoy her company without the threat of her impending engagement looming over their shoulders.

On the other hand, what was the appropriate buffer to give the love of your life time to grieve her relationship with the worst man you've ever met? Mor had told him, very sternly he would add, that all topic surrounding Tamlin were strictly off limits.

Did that include topics concerning the absence of Tamlin, and if or when she'd be ready for someone to fill that void?

He ached to tell her how he felt. Now that the Tamlin-shaped dam was finally removed, he was drowning from the weight of holding back years of confessions and unrequited feelings.

Their burden became impossible to carry the closer the trip became, to the point where he considered bailing simply out of fear that he wouldn't be able to control himself. Feyre deserved better than that. After all this time, they both did.

But his fears were unfounded when she walked through the door.

Rhys had long associated Feyre's presence with joy. Even during those agonizing months he'd loved her and believed she would be marrying another man. The sight of her walking into a room still filled him with joy.

Now, he was flooded with distress.

She was thin. He noticed she'd been losing weight in the months leading up to her resignation. But this was drastic.

Feyre looked as if her dread and grief were eating her alive.

He wanted to weep at the sight of what Tamlin had done to her. Weep, then take Cass and Az and three of their best baseball bats and—

"Feyre darling," he greeted, lifting from the sofa with a broad smile. "Look at you, out of work clothes."

"I'm surprised you recognize me in something other than a blouse."

"Well, I wasn't certain at first," he intoned, strolling closer to the doorway. Until he could see the snowflakes on her long eyelashes and every adorable freckle smattered over her nose and cheeks. "But that smear of paint always gives you away."

Feyre turned her head to Mor, her eyes widening as if to confirm, Do I really have paint on my face?

"Oh, ignore him," Mor grumbled. But she did lick her thumb and lean in to rub Feyre's cheekbone, which resulted in sputtered protest that his cousin happily ignored.

Rhys watched Feyre thrash against Mor's hold, a familiar fondness stirring in his chest. "It is nice to see you again, Feyre. I've missed you at the office."

"Why?" She snorted. "Because I was the only sane person there?"

"Precisely for that reason."

He opened his arms to her, and he was relieved that she didn't hesitate for a second to throw her arms around him. Rhys held her tight, trying and failing not to marvel at how fragile she felt. Some delicate, breakable thing.

What happened to the girl who proudly drank from an office wanker mug on her second week? Rhys knew she was still there, hidden behind layers of guilt and sorrow and what he suspected was the subconscious voice of a man who'd tried everything in his power to whittle her down.

"How is… everyone?" She asked, her diction stilted just enough that he knew who she was truly asking after.

He shot a help me glance to Mor, who immediately jumped in and admonished, "You both promised me no office talk!"

Rhys held up his hands. "Okay, okay. How about wine talk?"

"Why dear cousin of mine, how did you know that's my favorite topic?"

"Lucky guess," he said flatly.

He recognized Feyre's laugh. That hollow, polite sound that she used during her first week in the office, when she felt obligated to laugh at every bland, unfunny joke. Including his own.

It was enough that she was laughing—that she was trying to laugh again. And he resolved that if he could do one thing for her on this trip, it would be getting her to laugh. A genuine, shoulder-shaking, clutching-her-stomach-because-she-can't-breathe laugh.

Rhys turned his gaze to her, failing not to notice the dark circles under her eyes. "What about you, darling? Are you drinking wine these days?"

She grinned, though it didn't quite meet her eyes. "I'm drinking anything these days."

That seemed like too much to unpack when she was still standing in the entryway, the open door blowing a gust of cold air at her back.

It was instinct, the way he reached for her scarf to unravel her in the direction of the overstuffed armchair. If he was overstepping, Feyre didn't seem to mind. Her laughter was more breath than anything, but she indulged him by twirling on her toes, helping him to unwrap the rest of the scarf as if it were a choreographed dance. Though, with the way her balance wobbled at the end, Rhys didn't suspect they'd be competing on any dance shows in the near future.

"Careful," he said, bracing her elbow. "The nearest hospital is an hour away and in the next thirty minutes, none of us will be sober enough to drive you."

"You could always bundle me up on a sled," Feyre mused. He let go once she regained her balance and tried not to look disappointed when she retreated from his touch to curl up on the arm chair. "At least if I didn't reach the bottom, I'd be going out in style."

"Sledding!" Mor squealed, clapping her hands together. "Oh, yes, we should absolutely do that this year!"

Rhys shot his cousin an incredulous look. "If I recall correctly, our last emergency hospital visit was the result of sledding."

Mor poked her tongue at him. "Whatever. Cass probably thought it was as worth it for the photos alone."

Rhys explained to Feyre, "Last year, Cass face-planted a rock. Fucked up both his front teeth."

"He was so drunk he didn't even notice until he saw the blood," Mor added, rolling her eyes. "Az took a picture and Cassian made it his screensaver for like six months."

Feyre shuddered. "I think I'll pass on the sledding."

If he was honest, Rhys hoped she stayed exactly where she was for the rest of the trip. Safe, in that oversized chair, in front of the crackling fire, where he could already see some color returning to her expression.

His eyes swiveled to the basket of blankets tucked beneath the coffee table. He knew if he grabbed one for her, he'd be accused of coddling. And maybe he was.

Even so, he couldn't help praising, "Wise decision."

"Lame decision," said a deep voice, striding out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped far too precariously around his hips.

The cabin had four bedrooms, two on each side of the hall, with only one bathroom nestled in the center. No one was exactly thrilled to be sharing a single bathroom between five adults, though Cassian argued half the fun was trying to catch a glimpse of Azriel naked.

"Cassian I presume?" Feyre said from the armchair.

Cass grinned, striding forward on wet, slapping feet. The only thing that dissuaded him from dripping onto the carpet to go shake Feyre's hand—or offer some other, far less appropriate greeting—was Rhysand's sharp glare

"And you must be the renown Feyre Archeron." He slid Rhys a knowing grin that was begging for a punch. "I'll go get dry before the hall monitor gives me a detention for getting his precious carpet wet. But then, you and I have much to talk about."

Rhys couldn't give two shits about the carpet, though it was his parents' and it was cashmere. But he would prefer if Cassian could avoid flashing Feyre when she was only a few weeks post-break-up.

He needed things to go well so that Feyre would consider coming back next year. And the year after. And however many holidays it would take for her to consider that she might like to be part of this group.

And if that was all she ever wanted, that would be good enough. As long as she was happy again.

"Should I be scared?" Feyre asked.

"Of Cassian?" Mor laughed. "No more than you would be afraid of a big, slobbery puppy."

"It's Az people usually find scary," Rhys said, wandering in the kitchen to fetch the girls their wine. "But that's just 'cause he's quiet. Truth is, he's a big softie."

"More like he's got a big softie," Mor muttered.

Rhys straightened. "Pardon?"

"Are we talking about Az's dick?" Cassian called, scrambling back into the room. "Without me?"

The front door shut, diverting everyone's attention to where Azriel stood, a gloved hand still pressing the handle. He blinked at them, sighed, and then walked back out the front door.

"Wait, Az!" Cassian called, cackling as he vaulted over the sofa to get to the front door faster, narrowly recovering from flashing them by fisting the towel at his groin. He managed to catch the door before it closed, sprinting outside with his feet and chest still bare.

"Are they…" Feyre hesitated. "Together?"

It was a terrible time to have handed Mor her wine glass. She sputtered, choking on a mixture of wine and laughter that erupted over her clothes, the sofa, and the coffee table.

Feyre leapt to her feet to help. "Oh my god, are you okay?" She thumped a fist behind Mor's back as his cousin's laughter fizzled into a coughing fit.

Rhys, meanwhile, set Feyre's wine glass on a clean corner of the coffee table and returned to the kitchen to grab some paper towels.

"I'm sorry for—all of them, really," he called to her.

Mor, still wheezing, could only lift her middle finger broadly on his direction.

"To answer your question," Rhys said, coming back to Mor's side to divide layers of paper towel among the three of them. "No, Cassian and Azriel are not dating."

His cousin shrieked at the reminder, launching into another coughing fit.

"Thanks," Feyre said, balling up her collection of towels to dab them gingerly into the carpet. Red wine. His parents were rolling in their graves. "I, uh, think I put that one together."

"Cass just likes to push buttons. And Azriel's the most private among us, which leads to a lot of speculation," he sent Mor a pointed look, "among our group."

Mor, having mostly recovered from her fit, tapped her chest and croaked, "It's the greatest tragedy of Cassian's life that he'll never know if his dick is bigger than Az's."

"We spend every year naked together in a sauna," Rhys reminded her, raising his brows as if to say, what are you up to? Mor didn't usually indulge conversations about naked men to this degree. "Believe me, he knows."

"And?"

Rhys jerked his head, just to be sure he'd heard the question right. Feyre was looking at him with a glint in her eye. She was biting her lip, restraining a laugh just like she'd done on the first day they'd spoken to each other in the break room.

A habit she'd never broken, after all these years.

His lips twitched. "And, what, Feyre darling?"

"What's the outcome of this annual dick measuring contest you three apparently have in the sauna?"

"Why don't you join us this year and find out?"

"Am I allowed to bring my strap?" Mor asked.

The front door shut, revealing cold-flushed yet grinning Cassian and a bewildered looking Azriel.

"I don't know what conversation we just walked in on," Cassian said, "but count me in."

This was a nightmare. At least, Rhys thought it was a nightmare. Feyre, strangely, seemed to be enjoying herself and he thanked the gods that she had a good sense of humor about all this chaos.

"You must be Azriel," Feyre said, beaming at the dark haired male becoming a shadow at Cassian's back. "I've heard so much about you."

Azriel glanced toward the door. Rhys knew he was debating the merits of trying to make another escape. He'd probably already started his car by the time Cassian caught up and dragged his ass back.

"All good things," Feyre assured quickly.

Rhys didn't think he'd ever seen Azriel blush before.

"What happened here?" Cassian said with a low whistle, taking in the mess of wine-soaked paper towels. "It's too early in the evening for you to have forgotten where your mouth is, Morrigan."

"Har har." Mor stood up from the sofa. "Just for that, I'm stealing one of your hoodies."

"Didn't you bring your own clothes?" He complained.

"It wouldn't be a punishment if I wore my own."

"I only brought like two hoodies!"

"You should have thought about that before you opened your big, dumb mouth."

"At least steal one of Az's. He smells better than me."

"If you think so, maybe you should wear one of his hoodies."

"Mor—" Cassian groaned as she strode off into his room. "Mor!"

"I should have warned you they were going to bicker like this," Rhys said apologetically, perching himself against the armrest of Feyre's chair to, at last, hand her a wine glass.

"Oh trust me, bickering over sharing clothes is a staple of sisterhood. I'm used to it."

"That's right, you have two sisters don't you? Nesta and Elain." She looked surprised he remembered. "How are they doing?"

"Well. Nesta is this scary, big shot lawyer who eats suited men for breakfast and Elain is living the dream cottage core life with her husband, Lucien. You remember him, right? He was Tam's—" she winced. Like that name was a bruise she didn't mean to press.

"I remember him," Rhys said, trying to help her past the slip-up. "Redhead, right? Snarky?"

She snorted. "You could say that again."

"Does he treat her right?"

"Oh, like a princess." She rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't believe the way she has him wrapped around her little finger."

"I believe it," Rhy said. He wondered if he had that stupid grin on his face again, the one that proved just how wound he was around Feyre's little finger.

Feyre didn't seem to know how to respond to that, but she shrugged and said, "They're happy."

Rhys didn't doubt for a second Feyre was happy for her sister, but he could see the discomfort on her face at that admission. It couldn't have been easy to have a brother-in-law who was close to her ex fiancé. And he knew first hand how difficult it was to see someone else happy and have that reality feel so distant it was foreign.

"I'm glad," he said. "And I'm glad you could join us this year. It will be a relief to have someone sane in our entourage."

"I don't think that's fair to Azriel," Feyre said. "So far, he's been the most well behaved."

Az smiled. "The night is still young."

Rhys chuckled at Feyre's look of betrayal. "Like I said, darling. You're the most sane person here."

"Maybe that's what I'd like you to think."

He liked seeing something other than resignation in her eyes again. So much that he couldn't resist leaning forward, his voice ripe with challenge as he purred, "Then I look forward to being proved otherwise."

Despite his best efforts, Rhys couldn't convince Mor that it was a bad idea to take everyone sledding the next morning.

They were all nursing hangovers from a concoction of liquors that they'd made the mistake of letting Cassian combine into what he called 'Solstice Punch'. Rhysand had a blistering headache, which wasn't helped by Cassian's noisy attempt to make breakfast. With only four rooms, Rhys had drawn the short straw for who had to sleep on the couch.

Rhys groaned, burying his head beneath a pillow. "There is no way in hell that you're getting me onto a sled today."

"Even if you get to share one with Feyre?" Cassian teased. "You'll get to wrap your arms around her and—"

"Shut up."

"I guess Az and I will just get to enjoy her company instead," Cassian said smugly.

It nearly convinced Rhys to go, until Mor strode into the living room. "Feyre isn't coming," she announced. "She's not feeling good."

Rhys sat up way too fast. "Is she okay?" He asked, blinking away the black spots that burst in his vision.

"Calm down, white knight. She's just hungover like the rest of us." Mor looked at Cassian, frowning. "Maybe we should take it easy today."

"Fuck that. Az is already loading the car. You coming?"

Mor sighed. "I can't leave Feyre."

"Sure you can," Cassian said, grinning over her shoulder at Rhys. "Lover boy will take perfect care of her."

Rhys slumped back into the sofa, ignoring the jab. "You go, Mor. We'll take it easy today."

Mor pressed her lips together, consternation pulling at her brows as she flicked her eyes between Rhys and Cassian. "Fine," she said with a sigh. "I'll go. Someone needs to babysit the idiots. You sure you'll be okay, Rhys?"

"Peachy," he grumbled, squeezing his eyes shut. "Now get the hell out of here so I can go back to sleep."

Rhys couldn't say how much longer he slept for. When he woke up, the cabin was silent. Someone had graciously left the curtains drawn, keeping the living room subdued in darkness and by the same virtue, making it impossible to guess how late in the day it was.

The heating had kicked on at some point, leaving him sweating beneath the pile of blankets. He kicked them off and shuffled into the hall.

"Feyre?" He called, stopping to listen outside her door. When there was no answer, he assumed she must still be asleep.

Rhys pushed into the bathroom, intent on washing off his sweat even if the bright fluroscents felt like a thousand needles shoved into his eye sockets. He groaned, fumbling half-blind as he jerked the shower curtain open and turned on the water.

It was only once he was under the water, steam billowing around him, that he felt his head begin to clear. And that was when he realized he left his clothes in the living room.

Rhys fell forward with a groan, resting his head against the damp tile as he debated the merits of retrieving his clothes now or waiting until he finished his shower. There was no telling if Feyre would still be asleep by the time he finished. At least if he left now, he could evade a potentially awkward encounter.

It took all of his willpower to step out of the warm embrace of water. More, to grab a towel and wrap it around his waist.

He opened the door gradually, peering through the crack to ensure the coast was clear before he hurried with wet, slapping footprints to where his bag rested beside the sofa.

As he crouched to unzip the top, he heard the unmistakable sound of the front door handle turning. He froze.

The door pushed open. He knew he was doomed because whoever stepped through was far too silent to be a member of his family.

Rhys hovered in place, clutching his towel tight around the hips, internally debating whether it was better to let her know he was there or try to flee behind the kitchen counter before she realized.

"Rhys?" Feyre called.

Shit. It was fine, right? She'd seen Cassian in a towel yesterday and hardly reacted.

Slowly, he rose from behind the couch, prepared to play this off with a flirty comment. But as soon as he saw her, his brain deserted every word of the linguistic tongue.

"Oh!" She jumped, faltering to quickly re-secure the towel she had wrapped around her torso.

Rhys decided a Christmas deity must be trying to punish him. There was no other explanation for the ridiculous towel she was wearing, so short her breasts spilled over the top and if she bent, even the slightest, he would be able to see her entire ass.

Where on Earth had she found a towel like that?

Rhys needed to finish mentally reeling his tongue back in before he was able to shape coherent words. And once he did, they came out entirely too rough, like he was scraping them over sandpaper.

"Well, one of us is going to have to change."

A familiar blush was spreading over her chest, but Feyre did a good job keep in her expression composed as she quirked a brow. "I think that depends on who wore it better."

"I won't make any argument on that front," Rhys said. It was taking every ounce of restraint not to drink her in like this. "I'm just grabbing some clothes and I'll head into the shower."

"Or—"

How could such a soft, breathy word strike with enough momentum to take him off his feet? Rhys clenched his hand tighter around the handle of his bag, trying to will his blood flow back into his head.

"You could come join me?"

Fuck. Fuck. He'd never heard Feyre use the voice before—at least anywhere outside of his own fantasies. It was just rough enough to scrape him raw, wondering if he'd imagined the sultry undertone or if he was letting his own ego get to his head.

"Join you where, exactly, darling?"

"The sauna," she said. "I've just warmed it up, and seeing as you're already dressed for the occasion…"

This was how it must have felt to be ensnared by a siren. To see your every desire brought to life, just in reaching distance, and to know it would be your undoing.

There wasn't any scenario where he could go into a sauna with Feyre, alone, and keep hold of the careful distance he was putting between them. He couldn't think of a single outcome that wouldn't end with Feyre in his lap, panting beneath his touch. And he wanted it. So badly he would crash his ship to shore and gladly drown in the wreckage.

But he wanted her to be ready, too. He didn't want to be another man pressuring her into say yes, making her feel trapped. If he was going to kiss her, touch her, do anything more than flirt with her, he needed to do it in a neutral space, where she could leave if it became too much.

Rhys was careful not to let the pain show on in his face. He released his breath through his nose, quiet, measured.

"I think we should wait until we're better hydrated," he said. "I wouldn't want you passing out. Rain check?"

Feyre's smiled dropped. Rhys was starting to feel nauseous again, and it had nothing to do with the alcohol sitting heavy in his stomach.

"Oh." Feyre said. He could hear her disappointment. "Okay. Maybe later, then."

Rhys held himself still as she hurried past, fleeing into her room. His chest pinched at the sound of the door snicking shut, as if a piece of his heart was caught in the doorjamb, begging for it to open.

With a sigh, he gathered his clothes and went back to his shower.

Feyre

Azriel, Cassian, and Mor had returned at some point in the late afternoon with a few nicks and bruises, but no broken teeth. Feyre was assured that meant it was a successful sledding trip. Which was more than she could say about her lazy day at the cabin.

She'd spent most of it in her room, with the exception of her brief attempt to coax Rhys into the sauna. After his mortifyingly polite rejection, she'd spent the rest of the day in her room until Mor came knocking.

"You okay?" She asked, finding Feyre buried beneath a pile of blankets.

This was ordinarily Rhysand's room. Which meant that everything in here smelled like him. Citrus and a dark, churning sea, threatening to swallow her whole beneath warm, chunky-knit blankets.

"Doesyercznlkmm?"

"What?" Mor stepped further into the room, shutting the door behind her.

Feyre pulled her head out from beneath the blankets. "Does your cousin like me?"

"Rhys?" Mor frowned. "Of course he likes you."

"No, that's not what I mean. You know how I feel about him, Mor. Sometimes I think he feels the same way, but then he just pulls away from me."

Mor glanced towards the door, her expression wary. She always grew a little evasive whenever their conversation skewed towards Rhys, and Feyre felt a little guilty for putting her in the middle.

"My cousin can be pretty guarded," Mor said. "He keeps his cards close to his chest, especially after his family died. But… Look in that box, under the bed."

Feyre's eyes followed Mor's gesture to the small gap under Rhysand's bed. Curious, Feyre extracted herself from the bed to fish out a small shoebox. She pushed the lid open, frowning when she saw a red scarf carefully folded inside.

"He took that here last year. Wore it everywhere. It was the first Christmas since his family died and I think it brought him a lot of comfort." Mor shrugged. "He wouldn't say where it was from but I have my suspicions."

Feyre ran her fingers over the soft wool, recalling the anguish on his face when she'd given it to him. She'd always half-heartedly wondered what happened to the scarf, but she'd assumed he'd thrown it out or otherwise forgotten about it.

Mor said, "If you want to know how he feels, you should just ask him. But I think you mean a lot to him, Feyre. Maybe he's just waiting for you to tell him how you feel."

Easier said than done. The last two years was a montage of chances where she could have told Rhys how she felt and didn't. It was always never the right time. He was working late or she was rushing out the door or he was grieving or she was dating Tamlin—or it was just safer to stay in this soft, liminal space between friendship and something more.

Walking away from Tamlin had been easy. Complicated, yes, but emotionally… All she'd felt was relief.

If it's the right person, you know. Without any question.

"Right," Feyre breathed, nodding to herself. "Tell him how I feel. That should be…" Nerve wracking. "I can do that."

Rhys

When Rhys felt something soft wrapping around his neck, his first suspicion was that Az and Cass were pulling a prank on him. It wasn't uncommon to wake up from a drunken stupor in this cabin with a marker mustache and a few drawn-on dicks.

He was convinced when he felt the weight of a body settle over him.

"C'mon Cass," he mumbled. "Not now."

The body above him giggled. Light. Feminine.

"Does that imply Cass usually climbs into bed with you?"

Rhys opened his eyes to find Feyre's face hovering inches over his, her hair cascading around his head like a canopy. Her hands were at his chest, tugging a red scarf around his neck.

"What's going on?" He asked, not convinced he was awake. He didn't even remember going to bed, but the lights were off, so it had to be late. "What time is it?"

"You never gave my scarf back," she said, as if that was a perfectly reasonable answer to his question. "But you kept it all this time."

She was straddling his lap, her ass settled just above his groin. If he moved even the slightest bit, he would grind against her, and he couldn't deny the temptation crossed his mind.

"Are you drunk?" He asked. Which, as he thought about it, was a stupid question. They'd all been drinking—Feyre more than anyone. He had a vague memory of half guiding, half stumbling with her into his bedroom.

Which, as he sat up, was where he realized they still were. Not on the sofa. Christ, he must have crashed trying to get her to bed.

"Not any more than you," she argued. "At least I managed to stay awake. Pussy."

He laughed. "Did you really just call me a pussy?"

"Do you prefer it to Prick?"

"Not really. Though I'll admit, I am fascinated to learn what other filthy words you'd like to call me."

Feyre tugged at the scarf, drawing his face closer to hers. He could feel her breath against his lips as she whispered, "You'll have to earn them."

He fought a shiver at the invitation in her voice. "How?"

"Kiss me," she said, eyes fixing on his mouth.

He wanted to. More than he wanted to breathe. "We're drunk, Feyre."

Her eyes lifted to his. "Pussy," she said again, before grabbing both ends of the scarf and yanking it upwards, crashing her mouth to his.

Rhys shut his eyes, a guttural sound forming in the back of his throat as he slipped his arms around her back, pulling her tighter. It wasn't the kind of first kiss he'd imagined giving her. That had always been soft and sweet, an admission in itself.

This kiss was clumsy and urgent—two people latching to each other as if terrified the other would let go. Feyre wound her fingers into his hair, pulling with a grip he likened to someone hanging from a precipice, where every digit, every ounce of surface area, could be the difference between life or death.

"Feyre," he groaned, trying to pull away. She chased him, mouth crashing back to his, swallowing his protests, and he was simulatenously in heaven and hell. "Feyre," he said again, pushing lightly at her shoulders.

Slowly, reluctantly, she pulled away. He could feel her body trembling.

"Don't push me away, Rhys." Her voice was so small. "Please, don't push me away. Not again."

She might as well have reached into his chest and ripped his heart straight out.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said, securing an arm around her back to keep her pressed where she was, her fluttering heart beating against his. "I'll sleep here. Just—let's wait until the morning, okay? I promise to kiss you stupid once you're sober."

Feyre tugged at her scarf as she thought about it. He knew she made her decision when she sighed softly and slumped into his body, resting her head against his chest.

"Rain check?" She asked, with a small yawn.

Rhys had never been happier to say those two stupid words. "Rain check."

#Rain Check?#Acotargiftexchange #Feysand #Feysand fic #Feysand fanfic #Feysand fanfiction #Feyre x Rhys #Rhys x Feyre #Rhysand x Feyre #Feyre x Rhysand

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lightdancingwords · 1 day ago

Text

Come Find Me - Part Five

Pairing: Beau Arlen x F. Reader

Series Summary: You are a new arrival to Big Sky, Montana, and found gainful employment with the local insurance department next door to the sheriff’s department. A whole new life with your past haunting you, while Beau is still dealing with the entanglements with his ex-wife. Can either of you succeed in overcoming your ghosts?

Word Count: 4,086

Tags/Warnings: Mentions domestic violence, intimate partner violence, police work, very little fluff, lots of fear, angst, escalation of threat

Song Inspiration: My Tears Ricochet by Taylor Swift.

A/N: Beau’s POV plays stronger here. If you want to be added to the tag list, please let me know! Yes, the song inspiration was so darned powerful I had to use it as the chapter title.

Divider: credit to @tsunami-of-tears

Chapter Five: My Tears Ricochet

You’d spent quite a few nights at Beau’s trailer since that night he invited you over. It was strictly platonic, with nothing more than a few hugs and sweet cheek caresses. Beau seemed determined to not overstep his boundaries as friend while you found yourself wishing he’d jump that line and then some. You weren’t sure if it was because he was cautious to not rush what was growing between you or if it was, as Doris said, because of his lingering feelings for Carla.

In the end, you decided it didn’t matter. You were okay with how it was progressing, despite the snail’s pace, because you were just so skittish still. Damn Mark. Damn him to hell for eternity.

After that night at Beau’s, you asked Doris for references for a therapist experienced in domestic violence. You needed the help. You knew you needed it. You had to get used to living alone. You had to get used to having an attraction to a man that was actually a good man. Beau was nothing like Mark, yet you kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You regretted voicing that out loud once to Doris… because later that week, not only did one shoe drop, so did the other.

“I just… I keep waiting for him to get mad,” you said to Doris during lunch Tuesday afternoon. “To get fed up with me asking to come over and sleep outside.”

Doris arched a brow at you. “Girl, it’s freezing at night and you’re still sleeping on those chairs… outside?”

Sheepishly, you nodded.

“Why the hell won’t you go inside? I’m sure Beau has a pull out in that blasted trailer of his. Or make him sleep outside while you take the bed?”

“Because…” You trailed off. You honestly didn’t know, not really. Then it hit you: “Because I feel like I’m imposing,” you said, your voice small.

“Girl.” Doris was exasperated. It was obvious. You found yourself shrinking into yourself. She saw it and narrowed her dark eyes at you. “Stop that.”

“I can’t help it—”

She lifted a hand and cut you off. “Yes, you can. You feel the fear, want to shrink into yourself, to avoid—” Doris stopped herself and sucked in a breath. “Mark threw things at you, didn’t he? You tried to stand up for yourself. You tried to take space, your rightful space… and he threw things at you.”

You looked down, the fear clutching at you. “Yes,” you whispered.

“Jesus.” Doris took a breath. “Hon, listen to me. I need you to really listen to me.” Doris placed a gentle hand over yours and squeezed. “You told me, word for word, that Beau told you to impose on him, to cut into his routine, didn’t he?”

You nodded meekly.

“Then cut into his life and his routine. Take that bed. That boy is used to sleeping in worse conditions. Comes with the job,” she said with a wry chuckle.

“But Doris…” You pushed through the hesitation. “I actually like sleeping outside. No, really, I do. It’s so beautiful. So peaceful. I… I’ve been sleeping so well, I’m actually amazed.”

“You feel safe,” Doris murmured, studying you with those keen eyes of hers. “And it’s not just because it’s Beau’s home.” You shook your head. “It’s because all you see is land for miles.” You nodded. “I keep forgetting you’re not like me. That, and I’ve had time to get over my Stan. You’re still so newly freed.”

You gave Doris a rueful smile. “I wish I was brave like you, Doris.”

“You are brave.” Her gaze flickered between your eyes. “Oh… you don’t remember.”

Your brows knitted in puzzlement. “Remember what?”

“Now, I told you I saw the files. That I spoke to your landlady.” You nodded. “You fought back. Even as Mark was… well, you fought back.”

“I did?” You were shocked. You honestly don’t remember much of that moment of when Mark was trying to kill you. The therapist said it was normal, that the brain automatically tried to protect against trauma. It’s why so many trauma survivors will have blank spots in their memories.

“Yes,” Doris said, leaning forward, squeezing your hand. “You tried to tear out his eye. He’s got this lovely scar down his face because you kept trying to claw at his face.”

You sat there, floored. Your heartbeat was so loud in your ears. A memory, a snapshot of a moment, flashed in your mind. You had a vague impression of trying to gouge out his eye. Slowly, you nodded, and pulled your hand free of Doris’s comforting grip to stare at your hands. Long fingers, with short nails. You’d fought back.

You didn’t want to die then. Nor did you want to die now. Mark didn’t rob you of that.

“I’m glad,” you said at last. “That I fought back. And I hope he never forgets that.”

Doris smiled at you, proud of your declaration. “Good. Now for the love of God, go sleep inside Beau’s trailer. I don’t want you getting frostbite, hypothermia, or a stiff back. Those damned chairs are uncomfortable.”

You laughed, embarrassed. “You’ve been?”

“Yes. Beau invited us all out for Christmas last year. I spent all of five minutes on those chairs and told Beau I’m an old woman. I need cushion.”

“And how did he respond?” you asked with a grin.

“He went inside, got this big ol’ pile of blankets and set them down as a temporary cushion, apologizing profusely the whole time. That boy is bony as hell,” she said with a shake of her head. “I don’t know how he finds those chairs comfortable. Or you!”

Despite the shaky moment during lunch, you found you were grateful that Doris talked to you about what happened. You admired her so damned much. She was brave and no-nonsense. As you were finishing up paperwork on a phone call, the front door chimed and entered an unknown woman.

She was tall, or at least her heels gave her height. She had dark brown hair and dark eyes. She was in a lovely suit, clearly tailored for her figure, if your assessment of her appearance was correct. She had money, you could tell.

“Hi there! Welcome to The Big Guy,” you said, immediately getting up to offer her your hand. There was something wildly familiar with her, but you couldn’t put your finger on it.

“Hi there, thank you,” she said, taking your hand with a firm grip.

“How can I help you? Please,” you added, gesturing to the chair across from you.

She took it and sat down. “Well, I was looking to switch insurance carriers for my car. I’m having issues with mine and, well, it’s time.”

You nodded, understanding that. It was a common complaint. “Of course. Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m Y/N,” you added.

“Oh.” There was a tone in her voice that had you looking up.

“Um… is—is something wrong?” you asked, confused and more than a little anxious.

“I’m Carla De Lugo,” she said carefully. “Emily’s mother.”

Your stomach dropped. You had no idea what Emily told her mother. You had no idea what Beau might’ve told her. Not to mention what, if any, gossip she might have heard. Doris and Beau reassured you that domestic violence gossip was a no-go, but that didn’t stop the other kind.

“Emily told me you were working here,” Carla went on. “I hope this isn’t going to create problems.”

Confusion rose. “Why would there be problems?”

Carla took a careful breath. “Because of your interest in my ex-husband.”

Oh boy. “Carla,” you said gently, “Beau hasn’t said anything about you to me.” Which was true. Beau skirted talking about Carla as much as he possibly could. The closest you got to anything negative of her came from Emily, but you weren’t going to say that. “He’s kept that to himself.”

Surprise crossed Carla’s face. You wondered if she had that strong of a negative perception of her ex-husband. “He hasn’t said anything?”

“No.”

“I… oh.”

You narrowed your eyes at her slightly. “Carla… I want you to know, nothing is happening between Beau and I.”

“But you’re interested.”

Were you? God, there were days when you were glad nothing was happening, because relationships just felt like too much to handle. “I… yes, I am,” you decided. The way he called you “darlin’”, the way he looked at you…. “Yes. I am.”

Carla nodded, then smiled faintly. “I’m sorry. I ambushed you in the worst ways. I knew who you were, but you didn’t know who I was. Emily told me about you, after the festival. I guess… I just wanted to know who had my daughter raving so excitedly.”

You blinked, surprised. “Emily was… she was?”

“Yeah. I’m… Y/N, I’m a protective mom. After last year…” Her voice tightened, and something dark passed over her face. “It was a bad year. I almost moved back to Texas with Emily. Beau said if we did, he’d come with us, because he didn’t want to lose Emily.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“Emily did, actually.”

Your brows rose in surprise.

“Yeah.” Carla smiled a bit at your expression. “Same. But she said that it felt like she’d be running away from everything that scared her. And it…” She paused, clearly being careful in how she chose her next words. “It didn’t change one major fact: her father came and he saved her. Beau kept his promise. He said he’d come for her and he did. So she knew she’d be safe no matter where she went… because he’d be there.”

You felt your heart swell. That was exactly how you felt so far with Beau. He cut through your doubts and kept telling you to mess up his life, impose on him. And he never got mad. Not once. Despite waiting for that to happen, he kept surprising you.

“He’s a good man,” you murmured.

“He really is. I knew no matter what happened between us, I knew Beau would be there when we needed him.”

You smiled, that realization blooming in your heart. Maybe it was time to change the dynamic between you and Beau. If you could gather your nerves. “And now that you’ve met me?”

Carla tilted her head slightly and smiled. “I can see why Emily likes you. I’d like to bring you my business, Y/N, and maybe we can be friends too.”

—

Meanwhile, at the sheriff’s department, Beau was agonizing over a report he had to write. He really didn’t want to. That was the one chore of being a sheriff he honestly hated. He wished he could fob it off on Doris, but he knew he couldn’t. He did the work, the interview, it had to be him that did it. But God, if and when they invent a device that allowed it to transcribe what happened in real time or just took his memory and wrote it down, they’d be billionaires. And then he’d never have to do paperwork again.

He groaned, raked his fingers through his hair. The phone rang, a welcomed interruption, and he reached for it. “Sheriff Beau Arlen,” he said without preamble.

He sat up, the news on the other end ominous. “How long ago?” He paused, then scowled. “Why the fuck did you let him loose? Don’t give me that bullshit! You knew! He nearly killed that girl!”

He saw Doris glance over at him at the rising volume and his profanity.

“Sonvabitch! Get your asses in order and do your job,” he snarled into the phone. “I’ll do my part!” And he slammed the phone down on the receiver.

Doris rushed over, closed the door behind her. She had a look of fearful anticipation. “What happened?”

Beau wanted to flip his table, or possibly throw the lamp. He did neither. It was bad enough he just cussed out Billings PD. “Mark broke bail,” he said with a heavy breath. “They checked his apartment. It’s empty.”

“He’s on the run,” Doris said at once.

“Doris…” Beau swallowed hard. “He knows where she is.”

Doris stared at him, stunned. “Beau… you have to tell her.”

“I know, Doris.” He dreaded it. He didn’t want to see the light that was just beginning to sparkle in Y/N’s eyes fade. He didn’t want to see the fear. “I’ll… I’ll tell her tonight.”

“She’s coming over again?”

Beau fought the blush. The way Doris phrased it made it sound like Beau and Y/N were copulating like bunnies, when he hadn’t even kissed Y/N. Though, God, he really, really wanted to. “Yeah.”

Doris nodded. “You better bring her inside this time, boy.”

“Doris!”

“Bring her inside or no more lasagna.”

He rolled his eyes. “That threat will stop workin’ eventually, you know that?”

“Is it working?”

He muttered something under his breath. Doris nodded with a smirk. It was working.

—

Y/N was so glad the day was over. While meeting Carla had been a shock, it turned into a good one. Carla seemed to be a good person, and you hoped you might be able to be friends. Wouldn’t that be a nice dynamic? You dating Beau, Carla being a friendly ex-wife and Emily….

You froze outside your door, keys in hand. The door was open, just a crack. Your heart stopped, then pounded wildly. You felt stuck in place, your brain screaming at you, but your body wouldn’t move. Couldn’t move.

You don’t know how long it took for you to finally move, to reach for your cellphone, as you ran for your car. Just as you locked the door, Beau picked up.

“Hey darlin’—”

“Beau, someone broke into my house,” you said, your voice shaking badly, interrupting him.

There was a moment of silence, then, firmly: “Stay in your car. I’m on my way. I’ll call Jenny Hoyt. She’s closest to you.” You heard the truck door close, the engine start up. “No, change that. Drive to the sheriff’s department. We got cameras there. Jenny’ll meet you there.”

“O-okay.”

“Darlin’,” he said firmly. “You’re safe. You’re gonna stay safe.”

You suddenly remembered what Carla said. That Beau would do everything to keep his family safe. Did that also include you? You wanted so badly to believe that Beau would raise Heaven and Hell to keep you safe.

“Okay,” you said, your voice teary-edged.

“I’m on my way, darlin’,” he said, and hung up.

With tears blurring your vision, you started up the car and drove to the sheriff’s department. Somehow you got there without a car accident. Somehow you got there intact. The moment you pulled into a parking spot and put the car in park, the tears came. You sobbed, gripping the steering wheel, unable to stop shaking.

You didn’t know how long you sat there, weeping, when Jenny gently knocked on your window. You gasped, looked up, and relaxed at the sight of the deputy. You turned the car on long enough to roll down the window.

“Hey, you doing okay?” Jenny asked, her brows knitted in concern.

“You mean besides my home being broken into?” you asked, wiping at the tears.

“Yeah, that was a dumb question. Sorry.” She glanced over her shoulder, scanning the area, before turning her gaze back to you. “Beau called me. He wants me to stay here with you until we get the all clear.”

“O-okay,” you said, hating how your voice couldn’t stop shaking. “God.”

“Hey. There’s no shame in being afraid.” Jenny grabbed your shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You’re not trained like us. You did the right thing by going to the car and calling Beau, okay?”

You stared at Jenny, then absurdly: “Deputy Hoyt—”

“Jenny, please.”

“Jenny.” You actually smiled, just a bit. “Do you… teach self-defense?”

She tilted her head at you. “I can do private lessons if you’re interested.”

“I am,” you said. You decided then and there that you wanted to learn how to defend yourself. Not just some lucky attack. No… you wanted to really learn.

Jenny smiled. “Twice a week. There’s a gym three blocks down from here. They let me use a room on the side if I need it. We’ll use it there. Sound like a plan?”

“It… it does.” You studied her for a long moment. “Jenny… how long did it take you to learn to hit back instead of cringing in fear?”

“Honestly? It takes a lot of practice. Even then, in the heat of it, instincts are hard for us to break. My instincts, when I’m in a fight, is to hit back. To defend myself. Whatever your reactions may be… don’t hate them. They’re a part of you.”

“So… what do you suggest then?” Your instincts had always been to cringe, to make yourself smaller. You were tired of being afraid.

“Lean into it. Use that fear. If your fear is to make yourself smaller, do it—then, when your attacker comes at you, punch up.” Jenny demonstrated on the parking lot. You watched as she made herself smaller, as though cringing against an attacker, and then doing an upper cut.

You took that in, and wondered how Mark would handle that. You decided he wouldn’t expect it, and determined to follow through the next time you ran into him. Or… anyone else.

Jenny’s cellphone rang and she reached for it. “Hoyt.”

You watched her as she walked away for a moment, her voice low and indistinct. A few moments later, she came back. “Beau’s at your place. He needs you to come with me and see if there’s anything missing. You up for it?”

“Yes,” you said firmly.

“Come on. You’re riding with me.”

—

You got to your rental and stared. There were several sheriff vehicles, all unmarked, but with their portable lights on the dashboards. You hadn’t expected that.

“Did Beau call all the deputies within driving distance?”

Jenny shot you a smile. “It sure looks like it, doesn’t it?” She pulled up to curb just as Beau came out of your rental. His expression was grim, dark, and you were terrified of what could bring that man down.

“Deputy,” Beau said with a nod to Jenny. “Ms. Y/N, I need you to come with me.”

He was so distant, formal. You know immediately he had to be on duty and that meant being business first. You took a breath, vowed to not take it personally. You walked alongside him as he took you inside.

“We searched the perimeter, checked windows, the back door,” Beau said, keeping a hand behind your back. “There’s no other sign of forced entry. What I need you to do is tell me if anything looks moved, disturbed, missing. I know you can’t search the whole place, but first impressions is a start.”

You bit your lip, nodded. You looked over the living room, stopped when you came to an end table. “There’s a photo missing.”

Beau’s expression darkened. “What was on the photo?”

“M-me,” you said, thinking. “And my parents. I was… I was 18, just graduated. High school graduation photo.”

He nodded, noting it on a small memo pad. “Keep going, darlin’,” he said, his voice low. You glanced at him as he slipped with the endearment.

It took an hour. Every photo you had up was gone. Even the one of just your cats when you were a child, one you loved dearly. Nothing else was disturbed, nothing else was missing. Beau noted every single one of them down while a forensic team checked for fingerprints, checked the door for damage.

Then it was done.

You sat on the sofa as Beau did a final check around the home. Jenny was the only one of the deputies to stay behind. She stood by the front door, watching both the interior and the exterior.

“You doing all right?” she asked kindly.

“Why would he take the photos?” you asked, the question having been on your mind for hours. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“To hurt you, is my guess.” She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Break you down, piece by piece. Sentimental pieces at a time.”

“God.” You rubbed your face.

“You can’t stay here,” Jenny said firmly.

“You’re right, she can’t,” Beau said, stepping right up to the front door. “Not until we find him.”

Jenny nodded. “What about the Blue Bird outside of town?”

“That works. It’s down the way from my trailer,” Beau said.

You looked at both of them, confused. “The what where?”

“Blue Bird Motel. Ridiculous name I ever heard,” Beau said, glancing at you. “Pack a go bag, darlin’. Tomorrow, I’m goin’ through this whole place, top to bottom, make sure nothin’ is hidin’.”

“Beau,” Jenny said quietly, grabbing his arm. He glanced at her and she tugged at him to go outside. You heard their voice, low, heated, but not the words.

You hesitated, then decided to go just pack a bag. You grabbed a few sets of clothing, underwear, socks, and even a change of shoes. Then you packed your toiletries. You debated what else you’d need for the next few days. Like a book or music.

“Cell charger,” Beau said gently at your bedroom door.

You whipped around, startled.

“Sorry,” he said, stepping inside. He glanced around your room, at the simple setup. “Nice. I dunno why but I always thought your room would be full of flowers.”

“Flowers?” you echoed in surprised.

“Yeah. Flower… what is it… motifs. Paintings. Duvet.” He shook his head. “You deserve flowers, darlin’. Every day.”

You smiled faintly. “Why?”

“You just do,” he murmured, touching your cheek for a brief moment.

You stared at him, heart pounding. Something soft and dark passed in his green eyes, then quickly concealed once more.

“Poppernak’s here,” Jenny said, poking her head into the room.

“What?” you asked, confused.

“He’s takin’ you to your car,” Beau explained. “I’m gonna follow you there. Then you follow me to the Blue Bird.”

Relief flooded you as you realized that Beau was going to be with you at every step of the way. You felt the knot inside you loosen. “Okay.”

—

The Blue Bird was… quaint. That was the most respectful way you could describe it. It was two stories, with the most obnoxious, giant blue bird sign you’d ever seen. You parked next to Beau’s truck and he walked you inside the front lobby to check in.

Everything went smoothly until it was time to pay. Beau stopped you and offered the cashier his card.

“Beau,” you whispered, confused.

“It’s on the Big Sky sheriff department,” he said in explanation.

That made you pause. You hadn’t expected that. “But…”

“I ordered you outta your house, darlin’, at least I could do is cover the motel bill,” he said with a faint smile.

The cashier quirked a brow at him and you fought a blush. Did Beau not realize how that sounded? It took everything you had to just let him pay, take the receipt and handed you the motel key. You followed alongside him in silence as he escorted you to the room.

“You gonna be okay here, darlin’?” he asked as you walked into the simple motel room. It was a queen sized bed flanked by two night stands, a television set on top of a dresser, and a small table with two chairs. It wasn’t much, but it’d do. You only wished it was his trailer, not some strange motel room.

“Not my favorite idea, but… yeah, I’ll be okay,” you said, glancing around with an internal sigh.

“I’ll find him, darlin’,” he said firmly, holding your gaze.

You gave him a shaky nod. “Thank you, Beau.”

He went up to you, cupped your face, and your breath hitched in your throat. For a brief moment, you thought he was going to kiss you, then he leaned down, pressed his lips against your forehead. “Anytime, darlin’,” he whispered. “Get some sleep.”

When he left, you stood there, shaking. After you finally got into gear, changed into your pajamas, brushed your teeth, you decided to check through the peephole. That’s when you did a double-take. Beau was outside, in his truck, fast asleep in the driver side.

Absurdly, you smiled, and despite being in a strange bed and in a strange room, you actually slept.

Tag List: @spxideyver

#come find me #beau arlen #big sky #jensen ackles #beau arlen x y/n #beau arlen x reader #beau arlen x female reader #beau arlen x f. reader #beau arlen x you #big sky fanfiction #beau arlen fanfiction #jensen ackles x y/n #jensen ackles x you #jensen ackles x reader #jensen ackles fanfiction #jackles #taylor writes #taylor's writing #divider by tsunami of tears

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longagoitwastuesday · 4 months ago

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I am liking Jujutsu Kaisen, way more than I imagined I would, but I foresee it will let me down and it's keeping me from enjoying this as much as I could haha

I think the characters and dynamics are well set, and I think many of them have an incredibly good and deep potential, but I would be willing to bet they'll not get a proper development, enough for them to really hit. A well assembled set of gears is not enough to make the movement go, you have to wind the clockwork.

I think Gojo and Megumi have a fascinating and very complex dynamic, but I doubt it will be given the time and care that imo it needs to actually work. And it is going well enough for now! One could see the intimacy between them was deeper than the one Gojo had with, say, Yuji and Nobara ever since the very first few episodes despite the fact Fushiguro too was a first year. But the pieces forming what they have are extremely complex, and it just wouldn't be realistic if it doesn't show, even if in a not showing way, or if it doesn't have consequences or implications.

It's one of those dynamics that shape one's life, the way one regards the world, the way one establishes or not relationships with other people. It's one of those dynamics that could be full of fondness, gratitude, resentment, admiration, trust, and that imply intimacy, the good kind or the bad, even if in just the knowledge of someone who's been a constant through your life. It could, and would, imply a myriad of feelings, and probably in such a mix it could imply contradictory feelings too. Even the nothingness would weight, even the nothingness would be significant and meaningful.

Gojo took Megumi and his sister under his wing, the son of a man who murdered him, because of both selfish and selfless reasons. Megumi looks like Toji. What does Gojo feel about this? How does Gojo deal with this? How does Gojo go about taking care of Megumi? Would he walk him to school? Make him breakfast? Celebrate his birthdays making him blow candles? Did he take him to the zoo? Does the relationship between them feel professional or is it something more? Gojo appreciates his students, but is Megumi to him just another student? When Gojo faces Sukuna in Megumi's body, did he see the kid he raised, or does he just see Sukuna in one of his students' body? Did he have one faint wavering instant? And how does Megumi feel about this? Is he resentful of him? Resentful of the situation? Of the selfishness behind his actions? Does he feel like a pawn? Is he grateful? Does he resent feeling grateful? Would he rather not? Does he love Gojo? Does he feel nothing about him other than what he could feel about a teacher that sort of annoys him but knows he's reliable in his strength? Does he think it unfair, cruel or unfeeling that Gojo is close, closer perhaps, with Yuuji or Yuta, considering their story? When Sukuna slices Gojo in two, does the remnants of Megumi's soul tremble?

And not just Megumi and Gojo. Yuuji and Nanami, Gojo and Nanami, Yuuji and Fushiguro, Nobara and the boys, or Nobara and Maki, Todo and Yuuji or Yuta, Gojo and Yuta, Megumi and his sister. Gojo and Geto, even! If the pieces are well set, the dynamics are intriguing, interesting, and have potential to be deep, but then the characters have like two plot relevant scenes that punch you hard, but little more, it's not nearly enough. Especially not nearly enough for the enormity that is shonen dynamics and situations. And the potential existing at all, and then not delivering, makes it all the more frustrating when you're left with something mediocre that could have been so good.

The development of dynamics through not only a few plot relevant gut wrenching moving scenes, but also the smallness of life, is important. The friend who recommended this to me said that those things were just unnecessary filler, but I disagree. I think there's a big difference between a large amount of anime-only filler episodes whose existence is based on the fact they had run out of manga chapters to animate, and moments of quietness. The low stakes character-driven moments of quietness can be so telling and so insightful, and they are so satisfactory when brought back later in higher stakes situations. My friend teased me there was no scene of Gojo making breakfast to Megumi, that it would be an idiotic idea, but it would be so telling. How he makes breakfast, what they eat, if he tries hard or if it's all mechanised, if they have personal bowls or if they use whatever, if he just buys them some pastry on the way to school, if the way they have breakfast changes through the years, or if he doesn't make them breakfast at all! All that would be very insightful on their dynamic and its evolution. All that would give a glimpse on how they regard each other and why, even in the present. All that could become meaningful in tense situations and high stakes scenes.

These moments also let the plot breath; if a lot is happening all the time, if every character is always experiencing trauma after trauma, the entire story is so emotionally draining that at some point you don't even care all that much. Besides, these nothing moments or low stakes plot arcs, besides deepening and developing dynamics, also let some in-world time pass, which would make the intimacy and bond between characters more believable imo; between Yuuji eating Sukuna's finger and their last confrontation in December how much time has passed? A few months? Am I truly to believe these characters are so everything to each other in only a few months?

Without some smallness, some repetition, some daily life, some low stakes not plot-centric development, the dynamics don't hit, they don't truly feel fleshed out, and dynamics as complex as the ones Megumi and Gojo have, or as supposedly meaningful as the one Megumi has with Yuuji or his sister, should be fleshed out if they're going to exist at all. Otherwise they'd risk making the writing feel awkward and fake. Besides, if the dynamics felt well fleshed out and realistic, they would shape the way the characters interact and act, and how they deal with situations, thus being plot relevant.

The shonen genre has so much happening all the time, the stakes are so high, the dynamics are so rooted in big events and the relationships carry enormous weight and implications. Yet they barely get developed, and it feels so stupid, so plain, the absence of something so important noticeable like a constant void, a shapeless nothingness present in every scene. It makes the characters feel like cardboard figures. Jujutsu Kaisen is already getting a better job than many, but I doubt it will do enough for what I've heard, and I fear I am bound to feel let down, and bound to feel unmoved.

After all, if not enough time and care has been given to develop a dynamic, I am not going to feel pressured by the high stakes; if not enough time and care has been given to develop the dynamic between Megumi and Yuuji, as good potential as it has I am bound to feel little for this last confrontation between Sukuna and Itadori, and his effort in getting Megumi back.

#It's not that I think everything has to be character driven or take a lot of care about dynamics #Death Note for instance works well without it. There's juice in the dynamic between Light and his father and the role of Matsuda there #and it works well with Light's views and their evolution and the whole Kira situation. It isn't much. It doesn't need more #But Death Note doesn't truly drop something as big as Gojo and Megumi to then do barely nothing about it #('But L and Watari' not the same at all. That was deepened in the anime and besides Watari is not one of the main characters)#Or Megumi and his sister. If we see barely nothing of Megumi and his sister other than shiny flashbacks of her #how am I to feel moved by it all beyond superficial emotions? I don't know. It just feels so like cardboard to me #And it annoys me! It annoys me a lot! Because Jujutsu Kaisen has amazing potential! The dynamics and characters could be amazing!#But I don't trust they'll live to their full potential and the potential existing for nothing is ruining this for me xD #Jujutsu Kaisen #Sorry this time I'm tagging it. I want to find this and see if I was right when I'm finished. I think I'll read the manga too #The condescending filler breakfast comment by my friend was ironic considering the Kramer vs. Kramer breakfast scenes exist #Breakfast can be so telling. And besides he loves the Chainsaw Man coffee scene so I don't get why not breakfast #But truly some small daily life moments can tell us a lot about a character that we could recognise later on in high stakes scenes #such as how they deal in tense situations‚ what makes them snap #how they go about dealing with a problem.#Sometimes it could be smaller moments or conversations what makes characters reconsider things‚ not just having Sukuna rip their heart out #In Pandora Hearts the conversation between Elliot and Oz about the book series they love and their favourite characters becomes key #Oz's development and how he regards things‚ his own person‚ and how he deals with situations will be shaped later on by this conversation #till the very end. The entire main character's development is shaped by a 'filler' conversation.It's not filler. It's just not a fight scen #Shonen manga readers find everything filler except for fights which is ironic considering that many fights in shonen feel unnecessary #Breakfast is unnecessary. Just filler. Fighting thirty seven secondary monsters or chapter after chapter of physical training is not. Okay #Things can be small but plot relevant. If it shapes and fleshes out and deepens a character or a relationship it is not filler #And mainly MAINLY for the love of everything good if you're going to make a fucked up or Meaningful Beyond Everything dynamic #give it time and care. Actually write it. Don't give me two panels and one conversation after some life and death situation. It's not enoug #Especially if I'm to believe they are important. Make me believe they actually are #I don't know... This issue with not trusting the development of very well set potential in Jujutsu Kaisen #has not only been keeping me from thoroughly enjoying the series‚ but actively keeping me from watching for weeks #It makes me doubt if I want to spend my time in this at all since after all time is limited and we can but spend it in a handful of things #A pity. I really love some things and I really think Megumi and Gojo could be everything to me haha the Heathcliff/Hareton vibe gets me

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pepprs · 2 years ago

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my mom isn’t letting my dad go back to his office bc him being out of the house stresses her out and makes her have a flare up and it’s like kind of insane. like i understand why the idea of him doing that would make her panicky and angry as someone who also struggles w separation anxiety and abandonment shit / has physical symptoms from that kind of stress (though not to the same degree ofc) but also he is a grown man. he should be allowed to go to his office and not have to shape his entire life around her needs. and she keeps guilt tripping him out of it and it’s impacting his quality of life a lot and the whole thing is kind of… hm

#purrs #delete later #also she’s guilt tripping me into coming to the stupid fucking potluck on sunday bc she needs the extra help and it’s like… what are you #gonna do when i move out. like i am a grown woman and i should be able to choose how i spend my two precious weekend days. and my dad is a #grown man and he should be able to choose where he works. like is that not a little bit insane. i get it but also….. i do think it s kind of #fucked ip that it’s her way or the highway and her needs take priority over all of ours and she’s asking us to bend to what she wants when #she wants it. like i get it bc she’s sick but it’s not fair for her to expect that from my dad especially. particularly when me and my #brother are back at work / school in more high risk environments than my dad who would be in a private office alll day. and the thing is no #one is brave enough to all her on it bc if we did it would be the END of the world. she even threw a fit on my dads bday and complained bc #the things he wanted to do were things she didn’t want to do like all the man wanted to do was go mini golfing and when that wasn’t good #enough he just wanted to go on a walk and my mom complained the whole time and also scoffed the movie he wanted to watch and said it was #boring and it’s like… wtf it’s HIS birthday??? but what do you expect from the woman who (and in fairness her friends got her these as gifts #but still) has TWO kitchen items that say some variation of ‘a marriage is when one is always right and the other is always the husband’ 💀#i look at that little plaque every night bc it’s in front of the sink when im doing dishes and it makes me so fucking angry. like my dad is #a whole fucking person and he can be right too and he deserves to make choices and be happy and not have his wife put him down all the time.#idk. and she puts down his family all the time too and complains when he wants to do the most reasonable things for his own enjoyment that #don’t align with hers and criticizes his interests all the time and it just sucks to see. he never shows hurt or anything so idk how he #feels about it but it makes me so angry and sad and when i tell her to stop she just lashes out at me so. 🤪. like how do we get her to stop #making her needs more important than everyone else’s bc… she may be our mom / his wife / whateger but that doesn’t make her queen. no one is #(andalso this has only gotten worse bc of covid / her being sick. like this has been a lifelong thing it’s just it’s a lot worse now bc the #circumstances gave her room / forced her to have to take up more space. and it’s just so frustrating. i get it. but none of us are pawns or #dolls or subordinates or anything. there’s 5 adults here and we should all be able to make choices and not be guilt tripped by her. lol #)

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celestie0 · 4 months ago

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gojo satoru x reader | oneshot smut [18+]

title. around the clock

Hooking up with your little brother’s babysitter? That sounds more like a bad porno than a sensible decision.

ᰔ pairing. babysitter/boxing au - underground boxer & babysitter!gojo x college student!reader (f)

ᰔ summary. when underground boxer gojo satoru becomes a little strapped for cash, he gets a day job as a babysitter for a five-year-old kid named yuuji who most definitely has adhd (but that’s besides the point). the kid’s mom gave gojo two rules, and two rules only: don’t accidentally kill my son, and do not flirt with my daughter. he’s pretty sure he’s got a good hold on the former, but he’s got no self control over the latter.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem!reader, smut, casual sex, lil bit of fluff, lil bit of crack, slight age gap (reader’s 22 & gojo’s 27), cum play, creampie, unprotected sex, praise kink, slight degradation, gojo is a sleazebag that cares?, sort of porn-coded smut except there’s a lil bit of lore so it’s kinda porn w plot, uhh having sex with risk of getting caught, gojo beats people up at night & then plays father figure to a 5 y/o during the day, mentions of violence/alcohol/drugs/blood/cigarettes

ᰔ word count. 12.6k

a/n. hiiii friends jeez it feels like FOREVER since i've posted some good ol' smut (still has plot tho xd)...hopefully you enjoy n see ya at the bottom! lmk if i missed any warnings! if you asked to be tagged but didn’t get tagged it’s bc you have your tags off aaa :( even when some ppl tried to fix it i still couldn’t tag them i’m sorry!!

alsoooooo so very much love to @starmapz for beta reading this for me :”) really helped me w my posting nerves haha. she is also a wonderful jjk author pls go check out her works!! 💕 ART CREDITS: @/3-aem

➸ masterlist

2:34 pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): heyy um i’m sorry if this comes off kinda rude i just am kinda bad with this but i was wondering if you could text my mom for questions about yuuji’s care instead of me?

2:46pm Gojo Satoru: Oh 2:46pm Gojo Satoru: Yeah, sure

2:34 pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): sorry i know my mom doesn’t know much ab how to take care of him bc i was the one that took care of him for a while but i just really want to separate myself from that guardian role now that i’ve transferred to NYU yknow? :/ i think it’s not my place anymore. i just wanna be big sis now haha

2:46pm Gojo Satoru: I get it. Sorry if I was making you uncomfortable with my texts

2:48pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): no no not uncomfy by it, thanks for looking after him. it’s just i’m kind of busy n stuff so it can be distracting

2:49pm Gojo Satoru: Ok, got it

2:52pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): and it was kind of an issue with his last babysitter

2:53pm Gojo Satoru: Oh?

2:55pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeahhh like he would keep textinf me n stuff uhh kinda weird things… i told my mom about it and she was super pissed so she fired him

2:55pm Gojo Satoru: Weird things?

2:56pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeah he was always “accidentally sexting me” n like he sent me a dick pic once sooooo yeah

2:56pm Gojo Satoru: Who tf 2:56pm Gojo Satoru: I’ll go beat him up

2:57pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): oh no no its fine lol 2:57pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): please dont beat anyone up 2:58pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i’m not saying you’re like him tho i just think maybe less texting unless its an emergency okay?

3:00pm Gojo Satoru: Are you sure because I will totally go beat him up for you

3:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): NO I DONT WANT YOU TO BEAT ANYONE UP FOR ME 3:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): also no offense but you dont look like you could beat someone up

3:01pm Gojo Satoru: WHAT 3:02pm Gojo Satoru: Tf you mean “no offense” that’s literally the most offensive thing you could say to a guy

3:04pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeaa i mean you have muscles ofc but in the ‘ohhh i wanna look good for instagram’ way and not like real man muscles yknow

3:06pm Gojo Satoru: Ok princess next time you visit home and go on one of your stupidly large grocery hauls I’ll make sure you carry all those groceries in by yourself

3:06pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): NO 3:07pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): I WAS JUST JOKING 3:07pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): YOURE SO STRONG TY FOR ALWAYS CARRYING THE GROCERIES INSIDE 3:08pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): PLEASE KEEP CARRYING MY GROCERIES INSIDE

3:09pm Gojo Satoru: Nah 3:09pm Gojo Satoru: Should we be texting right now? I’m not sensing any emergencies here

3:11pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): pls. my groceries :(

3:16pm Gojo Satoru: I’ll let the kiddo know you say hi 👋🏼

The irony of it all was that, if Gojo really wanted to, he absolutely could beat the shit out of someone. And he has, hundreds of times, pseudo professionally. Although that isn’t something he’d admit to you, out of fear that you might relay that info back to your mom who would then become mortified that she’s entrusted her five-year-old son’s life to the hands of an underground boxer.

But he needed the money. A night-time job didn’t really make daytime money, not when they could easily replace him with the next dude the second he gets knocked out of the ring more than twice, let alone if he let it happen once. And although he sometimes made large sums, it wasn’t stable income. He needed a back-up plan, and so babysitting it was.

The babysitter working nights at unsanctioned dojos and gyms located in the back of cartel blocks, knocking teeth out of men twice his size, would put any decent mother into a coma or induce some episode of syncope, hence why it wasn’t something he put on his resume before he got hired. Not that he even needed to provide a resume; your mom seemed desperate to cover the position as fast as possible, that promotion at work was moving faster than she wanted to, and Gojo’s beneficial attribute that he possessed as a candidate to look after her son, compared to all the other potential hires, was that he had a penis.

He likes the kid. Yuuji. He’s got kind of a short attention span, and makes Gojo weary of his age. Hold up, that makes him sound like he’s geriatric, he’s really only the ripe old age of twenty-seven, but the immortality and infinite stamina that a five-year-old boy has on him is enough to have him huffing and puffing at the end of every single evening shift he takes on with the rascal.

Fighting is all sprint, and no stamina. Sure, there might be some more seasoned boxers that might disagree with him, but for someone as young as him in the field, it’s the tactic he’s been forced to gain. If he draws a fight on for too long, he'll get killed by a forty-two year old man with steroids clogging up his adipose tissue and enough testosterone to grow a full-body beard by the time the sun starts to set. No, his strategy is to knock them out within the first fifteen seconds. Use their weight against them, and whatnot. A tactic he’s found has worked, since he’s been undefeated thus far.

He can never wrap his head around it. The drug lords that run the rings who’ve gained millions the night before from selling crystal meth only to lose it all the night following in the second Gojo hooklines a solid punch to their betting boxer’s chin, making them see God & their Momma before they tap out (if they’re even able).

He doesn’t pocket much money from it, not anything compared to what the men who bet on him end up making at least, but it’s a decently solid sum. How lucrative it really is depends solely on what he thinks the value of his life is.

It’s not unheard of, boxers dying in the ring. Turns out, rich drug dealers care very little about the sheep they’ve captured to perform their entertaining little stunts. But Gojo wasn’t doing all of this to feel some sense of work-life pride, no, it was just sustenance. When basic needs are not met, humans resort to the most animalistic of all behaviors, and while he’s not proud of what he does, he can’t deny the fact that it’s turned him into an adrenaline junkie that gets a rush in his veins every time he knocks a jaw loose.

But balance was key. And hence why he’s a boxer by night, babysitter by day. For at least four days a week, he gets to pretend he’s the king’s most trusted appointed knight, or he’s the radioactive tyrannosaurus rex that wants to tyrannize all the other dinosaurs, or maybe he’s the evil power ranger (he always forgets which color that one was) that is determined to make the world a living hell by smashing mr. potatohead against the bunk bed post a billion times for all the other toys to see. Or whatever other imaginative hyperfixations Yuuji imposes on him in the later afternoon once he’s had his bowl of spaghetti-O’s and is ready to play. Lately, the kid’s been really into space. They’ve got all sorts of space toys these days. Back in Gojo’s day, he just had a good ol’ Buzz Lightyear.

“One rule, that’s it: don’t accidentally kill my son. Actually, one more rule. Don’t flirt with my daughter.”

There’s a part of Gojo that believes your mom kind of knows he’s up to shady shit at night, otherwise why else would she clause for him to not flirt with you if she didn’t read the slight swell to his eye and the healing gash across his cheek as anything other than this boy is trouble and I want him nowhere near my too-good-for-him daughter of reproductive capacity since that’s the exact tale of how I became a single mother in the first place. Or maybe he inherently looks like he’s up to no good? He’s not sure which angle is more offensive, and which one was more flattering. Well in any case, she entrusted Yuuji’s life to him, despite acknowledging the plausibility of harm, and that means she overall thinks positively of him, right? ……right?

The first night he met you, it was awkward to say the least. Gojo spends most of his nights performing deadly stunts for middle aged men with potbellies, and most of his days hanging out with a five-year-old (one who he’d argue is his only friend at this point). Sure, he’s got some people he sees occasionally back in his high school hometown when he can brave hearing about how everyone’s in college now or doing a masters or they’re working respectable nine-to-five day jobs meanwhile he has to lie to his Pops that he’s been working in insurance for the past two years. Listen, in fairness, he probably makes the same amount of money as an insurance broker would anyways, but he can’t exactly own up to the identity of his craft.

Anyways, the point is, he’s not used to seeing other people his age anymore. There’s the occasional hook-up with girls he hasn’t seen since Mrs. Tracy’s homeroom period back in sweet two-thousand-sixteen, or his twice-a-year hangout with Suguru where he only learns the day of where he's visiting from since the guy moves around more than Gojo can keep up with. But save for that, he mostly just sees your mom and then Yuuji.

So seeing you standing in the kitchen for the first time when he went to put Yuuji’s half-finished GoGurt back in the fridge was startling to say the least. When the sight of a woman startled him, he knew he needed to start getting out again.

You were on your tiptoes, reaching up to grab at something over the fridge, and wearing these ridiculously short shorts to where he could see the curve of your ass, his line of sight trailing down the skin of your bare legs. He couldn’t see anything of your form above your shorts, given you were wearing an extremely baggy t-shirt with NYU on it in big bolded university letters. As far as he knew, you were a senior at NYU, studying psychology, made dean’s list consecutively for the past three years given the way your mother posted all your stellar transcripts up on the fridge (he gets that she’s proud of her daughter, but doesn’t that kind of stuff usually end in grade school?) But other than that, it was all the information he had on you.

“Here,” he said, pressing his front to your back, maybe just to get a feel, as he reached over to you to finally grab the box of cereal you were swatting for, the one that he purposefully placed at the back because Yuuji learned how to climb counters recently. “Is this what you want?”

He had heard you gasp, spinning around on your heel fast, staring up at him with wide eyes like you weren’t expecting some random man to be in the house right now, and your first instinct ended up being to grab the knife out of the kitchen knife block and lunge it straight at his torso.

If it wasn’t for his boxer reflexes, he’d have ended up at the ER that evening. Or dead. All depending on the strength you could pack into a stab. But instead, he deflected it, though not without a gash to his torso through the fabric of his shirt, one that you spent the rest of the evening profusely apologizing for and eventually mending to with cotton balls and neosporin.

“I didn’t know you were my little brother’s babysitter,” you mumbled with a small wince on your face as you dabbed ointment on the wound while he pulled the hem of his shirt up to his shoulder. He’s never had an injury tended to before. It was nice.

“It’s fine, I get it, totally acceptable response to seeing a random dude in your house.”

He remembers the curl of your eyelashes while you stared down at his bare upper half, something he imprinted on his memory rather than the concern in your face as your fingertips traced the scars across his chest. He hoped they made you feel better about the one you just slashed into him, because after all, what was one more?

He knows he shouldn’t have, but he kissed you that night. Two minutes before your mom came home, and right after you bid him goodnight with one more apology, he backed you up against the door of your bedroom, his hands on your hips pulling you towards him, and his lips pressed against yours. Something seamless, from candid conversation that was heading towards an end, to full fledged making out against white-painted wood, his teeth nipping at your lip and he wondered just how touch-starved those university boys were leaving you given the desperate way you’d clinged to his shirt for dear life as he deepened the kiss.

The moment only lasted one minute and fifty-seven seconds, and in the remaining three, your mother’s key pushed into the front door and he had to pull away. Always, on the dot, 10PM, she was home. It was how he knew he had two minutes left to make a move in the first place.

So much for no flirting.

6:57pm Gojo Satoru: Bahahah I accidentally forgot where yuuji’s epipen is 6:58pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo] 6:59pm Gojo Satoru: Turns out this can-o-soup was just covering it in the cabinet

7:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): ??? why did you need to find his epipen

7:08pm Gojo Satoru: Oh he accidentally took a bite of my pad thai 7:09pm Gojo Satoru: I freaked cuz I thought it had peanuts in it but I remember I asked for it without any 7:09pm Gojo Satoru: shit’s crazy

7:10pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): WHY THE FUCK DIDNT YOU TEXT ME????????

7:12pm Gojo Satoru: YOU SAID YOU DIDNT WANT ME TEXTING YOU UNLESS IT WAS AN EMERGENCY ?

7:13pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): SATORU YOU THOGHT HE ATE SOMETHING W PEANUTS IN IT AND YOU FORGOT WHERE HIS EPIPEN WAS THATSS A FUCKIGN EMERGENCY

7:15pm Gojo Satoru: THE KID IS DOING FINE HES ALIVE JESUS LEAVE ME ALONE 7:16pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo] 7:16pm Gojo Satoru: See. he’s chill 7:17pm Gojo Satoru: with intact airways might I add 7:18pm Gojo Satoru: Also isn’t he a little too old to still be watching baby sensory videos?

7:20pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeah my mom thinks he has adhd :(

7:22pm Gojo Satoru: oh

He tried to keep his word though (although he doesn’t recall ever giving it) out of the respect he had for your mom. She was a hard-working lady, single mom of two who went from working three jobs to now being a major administrator at a big law firm near the outskirts of town. It was an underdog story if he’d ever heard one, and he loved an underdog story.

But a little texting here and there wouldn’t hurt, right? Or so he thought, until you told him to cut it out with the contact. Maybe you were just trying to be the good one in this situation. After all, hooking up with your little brother’s babysitter? That sounds more like a bad porno than a sensible decision. Still, he’ll eventually get your replies to his which shirt should Yuuji wear to the park? and look, the toothfairy gave him the butt of a joint and a couple thumbtacks for his front tooth. he’s ecstatic texts, although in a less timely manner than before when you weren’t trying to preserve propriety. And when you’d occasionally visit every other weekend, he’d do his best to keep his hands in his pockets, and you’d fill up your nights with hangouts with your hometown friends to avoid spending too much time with him at the house. A silent agreement to not fuck each other, it was.

4:55pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): send pic of yuuji pls i miss him :(

5:04pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo]

5:08pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): IS THAT BLOOD?!?!?!?!

5:09pm Gojo Satoru: chillllllll it’s fake. We’re working on his halloween costume

5:09pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): WHY DOES IT HAVE BLOOD?!?!?!?!?!?

5:10pm Gojo Satoru: He wants to be a baby xenomorph and I'm his parasitic host. You know that iconic chestburster scene from the old school alien movies? yeah

5:12pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): satoru please for the love of god just dress him up as a dinosaur or something

5:13pm Gojo Satoru: I’m not the one that came up with the idea, okay? It was him

5:14pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): because you let him watch adult swim with you before putting him to bed. you’ve deranged his brain.

5:14pm Gojo Satoru: He needs it. Builds character.

Gojo was living a double life, and if someone asked him, he’d say it was less of a Clark Kent way and more of a Bruce Wayne way, although in reality, he knows it’s close to neither. He’s no superhero with a concealed identity fighting crime, he’s a con artist that’s tricked a hard-working woman into hiring him just because he’s trying to save up enough money to get the fuck out of this godforsaken town, given he’s not knocked dead before then for the crime’s amusement.

But Yuuji looks up to him now. And Gojo’s grown attached to him too. He taught the kid how to tie his own shoes and piss inside the actual toilet like a real man. And that kid’s the only thing that’s made him question any of this. Maybe that’s what dads feel, suddenly held to all this impossible responsibility and the pressure to stop doing stupid shit so that you’ll stick around to see your kids get older. The thought that there are eyes on you now, eyes that are innocent and hopeful and learning, and because they know nothing at all, you feel the responsibility to protect them from everything. For fucks sake, remind him to never become a dad.

“Do you like my sister?” Yuuji had asked him out of nowhere one afternoon after he just got home from preschool, stacking a blue cube over a yellow one at the dining table.

“Uhh,” Gojo starts. He wondered if your mom had put a wire on the kid, so his answer was as diplomatic as he could manage. “Yeah, she’s cool. You’ve got a cool sister.”

“But. But.” Yuuji stutters, trying to find his big boy words. He stretches up higher to reach the top of his stack of blocks, but he only has so much arm real estate at the age of five. “Do you like her like you wanna kiss her?”

Gojo grabs the block from the kid’s hand, for a moment questioning Yuuji’s decision to want to put a blue block over another blue block, but he figures aesthetics are the least of a kid’s concern, and so he places the block where Yuuji wanted it.

Why does the kid know what kissing is anyway? Do kids know that kind of stuff at that age? Isn’t a kiss to a five-year-old just something their mom gives to them before they head off to preschool for the day? And not something that happens between adult men and women? Maybe he should stop watching that adult swim in front of him.

“No. I don’t want to kiss your sister,” he says, again, because he is suspicious of a wire. It was a lie and then some, because he wants to do a lot more than just kiss you.

Gojo lifts the RedBull he was nursing up to his lips and watches Yuuji in the corner of his eye as the kid stares at his growing stack of blocks with a concentrated expression on his face, his chubby fingers squeezing tightly into little round dimpled balls, like he’s putting together all his tiny brain cells together to form another coherent thought before turning to face Gojo on the chair.

“It’s ok. You can kiss her if you wan’ed to. You can marry her too,” Yuuji says.

Gojo almost spits out his RedBull. He barely manages to swallow it, a broken cough immediately leaving his throat when some of the liquid goes down the wrong pipe and he’s smacking a fist against his chest to knock the sanity back into himself.

“Where the fu—…where the flip did that come from?” he asks, blinking back tears from the rasp in his throat.

Yuuji’s small shoulders sulk as he sits back on his heels. “I want a papa.”

Oh fuck that hurt. Jesus christ, there was nothing more sad than that. Yuuji has literally never known what it’s like to have a dad, since his had left before he was even born. Gojo’s not really close to his old man by any means, but he had still been a fatherly figure in some pivotal moments when he had needed it growing up. Kids need their dads. And he’s seen enough people lose their way without one to know that the value of them is really underestimated.

He’s also kind of shocked that Yuuji really did think of you as his motherly figure. Maybe since it had always just been him and his dad, Gojo learned how to self sustain from a young age, and he and his dad became accustomed to just looking after their own interests to avoid the headache of tending to one another. My land is my land, and your land is yours, and there was the occasional Saturday night spent together with his dad’s millions of beer bottles emptied dry on the carpet in front of the 1992 box TV as the two shared a greasy pizza from the place down the street. That was the extent of family solidarity that he knew.

But he can’t imagine being barely eighteen and having to take care of your little brother all by yourself because your mom was too busy trying to put food on the table and was too poor to hire a babysitter. Your mom tried so damn hard to keep you away from the single teenage mother life, but somehow ended up giving it to you by proxy in the end anyway. It was no wonder you wanted space now that Yuuji’s a little older and your mom can afford a babysitter. No matter how much you might love your sibling, being their effective guardian out of pure necessity had to have taken a toll.

Gojo clears his throat before he speaks. “Buddy. If I married your sister, we’d be brothers. I wouldn’t be your dad.”

Yuuji’s eyes light up at the word brother. “Brothers? Me and you?”

“Yeah. Bros.”

The kid giggles, all bubbly with cheeks rounding fully and eyes sparkling. Gojo reaches out to ruffle at his hair before Yuuji gets down onto one stubby leg at a time from the chair then bolts towards the kitchen.

“Juice!!” he yells somewhere around the corner out of sight.

Gojo sighs, staring at all the toys he pulled out for Yuuji to play with, all left in a scattered mess across the table. He gets up out of his chair and heads towards the fridge. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get you your juice, you little demon.”

The conclusion he comes to, and it might read like an obvious one, is that kids don’t really know the reality of life, hence why adults hide so much from them.

This is what he thinks of tonight when he wraps his worn out boxing tape around his hands and his wrist, tightening it with his teeth, and he can smell the sweat and grime from them. The back of the underground gym had an old dated locker room, and as Gojo stretches his neck side to side while sitting on the stiff metal bench, he eyes the peeling red paint of the locker in front of him, blurring vision making it look like spilt blood.

His phone pings with a text. He shuffles inside his duffle bag to look for it while his other hand scratches at his bare chest.

1:07am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): hhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 1:07am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): omgomgomg sor y i’m

He blinks at the screen, confusion flashing across his face. He types one letter, but then he sees three dots and a speech text bubble in the bottom left, so he waits for you.

1:09am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i drunk :(

The corner of his mouth ticks up slightly.

1:09am Gojo Satoru: Yeah I can tell

1:10am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): at a apartyyyy

His eyebrows raise slightly, the thought of you tipsy on some frat party couch flashing through his mind, yet of all things you could be doing at that frat party, you’re texting him? Must be a really boring party.

1:11am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): whyyy are you aawake?

1:12am Gojo Satoru: Couldn’t sleep 1:12am Gojo Satoru: Don’t you have a midterm in the morning?

1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): wtf hwo do you knwo that

1:15am Gojo Satoru: Your mom keeps your schedule posted on the fridge

1:15am yuuji’s sister (no flirting): im so fucked;’;(((

He snorts. He’s got a bit more life experience than you, five-ish years to be exact, more than enough time to master the no-hangover hangout, but just before he can offer you some advice, he sees another text from you.

1:16am yuuji’s sister (no flirting): can i tell u smething

His gaze flits up to the ceiling briefly, and he hears commotion outside the thick walls of the locker room. The previous fight was over, and fast. The guy must’ve been knocked out in under twenty seconds tops, which means that Gojo was next up against whatever superbeast just beat him up.

1:17am Gojo Satoru: Sure

He stands up, placing his phone down on the bench before he flexes the muscles in his arms a couple times to get the blood flowing into them. And there’s the noise of another ping. Actually, four.

1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): sonetimes 1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i thikn of 1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): when u kisse me 1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): *kissed me

His eyes widen slightly, irises dry to the ashy cigarette smoke from outside lingering in the air, and his heart rate picks up a bit. An adrenaline junkie with close to no fear in his veins due to the way his amygdala’s been fried to a crisp from years of boxing, yet he’s got his breath hitched from the memory of your soft lips against his. It makes the blood rushing through the muscles of his arms rush somewhere down south instead.

Loud banging on the door of the locker room jolts him out of his trance, and he’s stiff around the edges once more.

“Satoru! You’re up, man,” he hears Danny, the fight coordinator, yell at him from the other side of the heavy & poorly-installed steel door.

Gojo sighs, glancing down at the texts on his phone. To respond, or not to respond. You’re off your face, clearly chatty from the alcohol, and he knows for certain you’ll regret every life decision you’ve ever made once you wake up in the morning and see the self sabotaging behaviors you’ve engaged in tonight. He knows that responding to you might put you at ease rather than straight up ignoring you, but the feeling will pass, and he has a match to win with no more room left to stall.

He makes his way out the locker room, pushing past the crowded halls of people underneath dim flashing club lighting, some dudes angrily jerking to face him when he pushes past them with a stiff shoulder, only for their eyes to widen when they see just exactly who pushed them.

There’s strippers in the ring, doing some routine for pre-match, and Gojo narrows his eyes at the man he sees laying back over the rubber boundary rope, head tipped back up to the ceiling with a wicked grin on his face. So that was his opponent? He’s never seen the guy before. Was he from a different district? Different district talent was tough, you had no background info on them, while they’ve been preparing to be here for weeks. Hence why boxers tend to do better when they visit a different district than they do in their own. There have been rules made to limit these types of fights, mostly over outrage that it was unfair to bid on them, but they were also usually more entertaining to watch. Gojo’s got a sick feeling to his stomach as the strippers clear the ring.

“Hey,” Gojo calls out, grabbing Danny by the back of his collar and dragging him towards him and away from the girls stepping down onto the floor, “what’s in for this fight?”

Danny glances up at the ceiling. “Tarp’s bettin’ tonight, so it can’t be anything less than ten grand for you. I’d say tops fifteen?”

Gojo narrows his eyes further, then glances off into the ring again. The man stands up, and Gojo gets a better look on his face. He’s got short hair, neon green in color with a dark fade underneath and tattoos all over his face. But those eyes. They were freakishingly red, and it made him uneasy. He knows the type. The type of boxers that do this to genuinely hurt people for thrill. Make no mistake, Gojo understands he’s made himself out to be like that too, gaining some kind of rush out of this profession, but this type of fighter was different. The type to literally continue smashing a dude’s face into the floor until they’re a bloody mess even minutes after the winning call, and no referee to stop it because that’s the kind of action the spectators wanted.

Danny reads his line of sight. “That’s Gale. Newton’s new boxing toy. Came outta nowhere about a month ago. He’s undefeated so far in his district, and Newton specifically wanted to see you up against him tonight,” Danny tells Gojo, resting his elbow up on his bare shoulder. “Chances are he’ll compete with Tarp for final bid if you win this one. I’m talking twenty-five grand in the next if you can knock him out in this.”

“Uh-huh,” Gojo acknowledges, rolling his shoulder so Danny’s elbow falls from it. Forget the money, he just wants to make it out of this alive.

He sets his foot up on the square, ducking through the dividing boundary straps and the tacky caution construction tape that the gym thinks creates an exciting ambience. He hears the static of the speakers as the announcers call out Gojo’s name, then this other guy, loud bass club music booming through Gojo’s chest as he tries to take a few deep breaths through the thick air of this low-ceiling arena.

The dim overhead lights flickered, casting shadows over the makeshift ring, and the crowd pressed tight around at every perimeter area, yelling and pushing, one even tosses a beer bottle on the square and it shatters, spreading glass all across, a few shards reaching Gojo’s feet and he looks down at them with a shudder. A fight immediately breaks out in the crowd over something related or possibly entirely unrelated, and he’d have no way of knowing as he swipes the shards away with his heel.

The influential men always sat up on higher seating, off towards the back in their own VIP section where they suck in the smoke of fat cigarettes and peer through 100% tinted sunglasses to assess the boxers they’ve bid thousands on. The light reflects off the golden grills of their teeth with every snarl at any passerby that gets too close, like a lion in its den. That’s what the sanction was called. Lion’s den.

Gojo sighed, eyeing the twisted grin of this Gale guy across from him. Was that his real name? Usually, foreign district guys get nicknames. Gojo’s always thought the nicknames were tacky, and he’s accumulated some of his own over the years, but to his ears, none of them ever really landed, although The White Fox admittedly was kinda nice. Reminded him of throwback shooting games.

He sucked a breath in through his teeth, holding his hands up in front of his chest in weak fists, storing energy in them in the form of pure anticipation alone, and then the bell rang.

His opponent lunged towards him immediately, fists flying in a barrage of reckless strikes, and Gojo’s eyes momentarily widened in the briefest moments of hesitation he had been allowed before ducking and dodging every one of this guy's shots, then jumping a step back to create distance.

Fuck. He was fast. Not just boxer fast, athlete fast. There was a difference. And it wasn’t a good one to be up against.

Gojo picked up light on his feet. He couldn’t win this one fast, that much was certain. One single careless or reckless move, and he’ll get tackled. He knows that by the malicious look he sees on that guy’s face, grin wide like he’s some cannibalistic beast.

Stepping back towards the center, Gojo purposefully set himself up for Gale to swipe a vicious hook towards his head, before Gojo last minute ducked down, crouched to the floor, and swung his leg out to knock the guy off balance by his ankles, and he falls onto his back with a loud thud!

There’s a moment of momentary silence from the crowd, right before Gojo put the man in a torso-lock, twisting him in a way a human body should absolutely not be twisted, hearing the grunts of pain and the crack of spine even through the shouts of the crowd.

He can hear it. Kill him! Knock his fucking teeth out! Snap his neck like a goose, man! FIN-ISH HIM! FIN-ISH HIM! FIN-ISH HIM!

He feels like throwing up.

Gojo looks up at the referee, who wasn’t really a referee, just there to run the clock when there was action and only barely stop it before near death. “This is enough, right?” he asks.

The referee nods. “1-0, next round.”

Gojo lets go of his opponent, leaving him there to heave for a moment before he gets up onto his feet again. Just needs one more, and he’s a winner. Ten grand in his pocket, and he won’t have to come back here for a couple weeks.

Gale gets up, swiping at the spit that had trickled out the corner of his mouth down to his chin, and he had an enraged look on his face. The second the bell rang for the second round, he exploded forward towards Gojo with even more fervor than before, gritted expression with a thirst for violence fueling the storm of punches he was throwing towards Gojo but he tried to remain calm, light on his feet, swiftly duck and avoid before he can find another opportunity to clear a sharp, clean jab right to the ribs—

sometimes, i think of when you kissed me

Gojo misses his strike, leaving his guard wide open, and Gale takes the opportunity to land a solid punch straight to his jaw, sending his mouth guard flying straight out of his mouth into the air, and knocking him backwards onto the ground with a thud and then he finds himself staring up at the rusting metal ceiling and a ringing in his ears that almost matches the roar of the crowd.

His head is in a haze, dizzy like where one second could feel like a millennia. He feels a soreness underneath his chin, a pain that radiates to his mouth, and he briefly swipes his tongue over his front teeth to make sure he still has all of them.

What the fuck was that? That intrusive thought. There’s no intrusive thoughts allowed in life or death situations, not when he was always just one smash to the head away from a permanent concussion. But, fuck, he can’t help it. Can’t help thinking of you. Even when his vision has gone blurry and he should really be weary about what happens next in this ring, his mind’s just thinking about you, at some frat party, tipping back shots of tequila and waiting for a text-back in response to your tipsy ones. Were you even waiting up on him? Have you already passed out on the couch, or were your friends dragging you back to your dorm? Or are you fucking some other dude right now? Has he got his hand up your top, squeezing at you, sleazily feeling you up before spilling beer all down your shirt, and are you kissing him back with the same enthusiasm, your phone now somewhere long slipped between the cushions of the couch and out of sight?

Even though it’s still sore, he tenses his jaw. Grinds his teeth, even. Tasting blood somewhere along the line of his gums, he realizes his lip is split. He licks at it, the flavor of copper more rich on his tongue, and he clenches his fists tightly. Why’s he thinking of that right now? It just pisses him off, the thought of you with some other dude. Maybe that’s what he needs to win this fight. Spite. Although he’s not sure why the guy across from him at the ring has to pay for it.

He lifts his head up off the ground, and while it felt like years he had been down, a glance at the timer tells him it’s only been a solid four seconds. A solid four seconds that his opponent had to fully charge a lunge towards him with the look of death in his face, raising his elbow up into the air in time with his leap, ready to come straight down, and Gojo’s eyes widen at the sight above him from where he’s still lying on the wood.

“Shit—” he cusses, rolling his body over to the side so that the dude falls straight down onto the floor rather than elbow Gojo in the fucking ribs, and then he gets back up on his feet.

Stakes were high, he has to end this, he has to end this now, and he flexes the muscle in his right bicep, channeling everything he has into this one blow, and before Gale even really has a chance to turn around and face him again, Gojo’s already three-fourths set up a knockout undercut that he drives straight up the guy’s chin, with so much force it has him lifting up off the floor, a vertebrate stretch to his spine before he’s sent flying backwards and slammed against the tight rubber lining of the ring to where he was half hanging over it.

The room fell silent for a split second, then erupted in a roar as the referee fell to one knee beside Gale, checking him for any semblance of consciousness, and when he found none, he waves the match off.

Gojo’s eyes flit up towards the lion’s den, the only opinions that he really needed to care about were sitting in those mahogany chairs with glasses of scotch swirling around in their hands, and he sees some of them looking straight at Gojo before leaning towards one another and discretely talking about something he can’t make out because he doesn’t know how to read lips.

He feels someone tug at his arms from behind, pulling him to crouch down and he balances back on the balls of his feet. He glances down through the ring at the floor. Danny was leaning against the wooden surface of it. “Dude. Go.” He jerks his head towards Gale, who still laid there sprawled across the now stretched out rubber perimeter bands. “Go fuck him up. Knock a few more teeth out, I don’t know, get some more blood out of him.”

“What?” Gojo huffs, yanking his arm away from Danny’s grip. “The fuck are you saying?”

“I told you, man, Newton’s here and he’s got his eye on you. Go give him a show,” Danny says, “do it.” And when he sees clear frustration on Gojo’s face he sighs. “Twenty-five grand, consider that, will you?”

Gojo sneers at the man, an awful taste in his mouth as he spits blood towards Danny’s feet. “Go fuck yourself on his cock if he wants a show that bad.” And then he ducks underneath the bands and hops back down onto the floor, pushing past people who were trying to grab at him and pull at him and lift him up and even throw him down until he made it through flashing hallways and back to the locker room.

He shuts the door behind him, sliding the bolt lock into the frame so no one can follow him inside, and then he leans his weight back against the chilling steel before tipping his head back until it hits the surface too.

He lets out of a few deep breaths, then stares down at the sting he finds over his knuckles. Red and blistering from the last punch he delivered, and he’s almost certain he broke a bone in his hand. Fuck. It was bleeding across the cuts, too. He had to figure out a way to get it all healed by tomorrow, as if that was humanly possible, just because he doesn’t want Yuuji questioning him about it.

Yuuji. For fucks sake, when has he ever thought about the kid this much? When has he ever thought about much of anything when he’s out here or in the ring? He’s a babysitter by day. He’s a “part” of your family when the sun is up and normal functioning society is breathing their lives into the clean air. That’s it. He’s no five-year-old’s caretaker in front of all these primetime drug lords, and he certainly shouldn’t be thinking of you when facing big, burly men he’s aiming to rough up, all within the dead hours of night. So then how come these thoughts are on his mind at all times, twenty-four-seven, around the clock?

He heads further into the locker room, glancing down at the bench where he’d left his phone, then picks it up, neck craned all the way down to glance at the screen as he holds his phone by his hip because he doesn’t have any energy to pick it up any further towards his eyesight.

He sees your messages. You never sent any follow-up ones, just your horrendously typed out sonetimes, i thikn of when u kisse me *kissed me across the span of four texts, and Gojo runs a tired hand down his face.

He tips his head back to groan at the ceiling, guttural with no basis other than a release of all the pent up frustration of every sort, then he types in a couple messages to you,

3:23am Gojo Satoru: That’s nice 3:24am Gojo Satoru: I think about fucking you all the time

—and then tosses his phone into his duffel bag to call it a night.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

You’re awoken to your alarm blaring heavily, and you whack your arm across your nightstand table beside your tiny twin-size bed to hit the snooze button, then rub your eye with a loose fist while smacking at the residual taste of alcohol you have on your tongue.

“Mm…” you mumble to yourself. And then the thirst hits you. The overwhelming, intense, unquenchable thirst that leaves your mouth feeling like the Sahara desert before you grab your twice-dented Hydroflask from the nightstand, twist the cap off and chug about twenty ounces of water in one breath.

You let out a deep exhale and fall back into bed, your hand resting on top of your water-filled tummy, and you stare up at the ceiling of your dorm.

Last night was horrible. You knew you shouldn’t have gone to that frat party, especially given you have an exam in—you checked the time on your phone—about an hour, and an hour was not enough time to recover from the raging hangover headache that’s pounding through your head. But your roommates insisted you went, and so go you did. You never knew what to expect, always torn between shaving your pussy before you go or throwing on a stained pair of sweatpants to keep the guys away instead. Sometimes, it was a combination of both. But last night, you ended up drinking more than you usually do, and that always led to poor, poor, poor decisions, in which all the sense of pride you had in yourself was washed down with the puke that you hurled into the upstairs toilet.

You grab at your phone again, briefly seeing that your friends had sent you some photos from the night. You immediately swiped off to the side to dismiss the notifications, because as far as you were concerned, you never wanted to see those photos in your life.

And then, in the briefest of moments, you saw a familiar name in your notifications that made you heart skip a beat.

Gojo Satoru (yuuji’s babysitter)

With an immediate gasp, you pulled your phone to your chest and held it there, blinking up at the pale yellow ceiling, your heart picking up in rhythm.

Oh fuck.

That was right.

You drunk texted him last night.

You drunk texted your little brother’s hot babysitter.

Fuck.

Mortified was an understatement, possibly because you don’t even remember what you said, and so you don’t even want to see what he replied with.

You groan, rubbing both your hands across your face then kick your sheets back with your feet like a child having a temper tantrum because you were so embarrassed you had even texted him at all last night. I mean, he was hot. A little older than you, really gorgeous eyes, tall, and, yeah, you gave him shit for the Instagram muscles thing, but that’s only because you thought he’d find it cheeky that you were trying to humble him despite the fact that he’s more toned and ruggedly sculpted than any other man you’ve ever met. You didn’t want to have a flustered schoolgirl attitude because it would just seep through to his ego.

In any case, he was hot, there was no denying it, so can you really blame yourself? But still. There was collateral with this. You had to see him every other weekend. He knows your family, even your extended since they invited him to Thanksgiving dinner a couple weeks ago. A high-risque drunk text recipient if he ever was one (of course he has been, look at that face). Why couldn’t you have just drunk texted ECON160 guy from last semester who Clit DJ’d you underneath your desk at the back of the lecture hall instead?

The thing that made you nervous about Gojo Satoru was that he was just so…confident? Like, in that I was raised to be this way confident and not that I fought inner demons my whole life to barely end up this way confident, y’know? Never had to fake it ‘til he made it, he just was. At least that was the kind of energy you got from him, and unfortunately for you, it was nerve wracking but enticing all at the same time.

You sigh. “Stupid. Stupid. Stuuuuuupiiiiidddddddddddd. You. Are. So. Stuuuuuupiiiiddddddd,” you sigh, running your hands through your hair to grip at the strands.

You pull your phone away from your chest, and finally brave yourself to read the texts from your notifications screen, but not without blurring your vision a little to further stall. And then you finally refocus it to read them. The first one you see has you gasping—

3:24am Gojo Satoru (yuuji’s babysitter): I think about fucking you all the time

It has heat spreading across your cheeks, and you blink at your screen, then quickly swipe up to read the previous messages with rushed glides of your index finger on the screen to see that he had sent it to you in response to your barely coherent texts about how you still so often think about that time he randomly pressed you up against the door of your bedroom to kiss you that night you first met him.

I think about fucking you all the time

At 3 in the morning? He decided to send that text at 3 in the fucking morning? That was the devil’s hour. What’s he trying to tell you?

Oh come on, you’re not stupid. And you know he isn’t either. The sexual tension was palpable, it was there since the day you two met and you almost stabbed him, and also everytime you were visiting the house, and his shoulder brushes against yours when he’s trying to get past you in the kitchen, or when you’ve got Yuuji in your arms and the kid is clinging to Gojo’s sleeve because he wants him near him at all times. There’s even sexual tension over the phone, in those stupid texts he sends you all the time about meaningless child care stuff, and honestly, those little updates made your day.

But… you don’t know much about him, and your mom would kill you if she ever found out you wanted him. And she’d probably pulverize him if she found out he ever made a move on you. Cremated without leaving a trace behind would be an understatement. She thinks he’s no good and she thinks you’re too good. You know she’s warned him before to not get close to you, as if she was pre-emptively expecting him to try to get in your pants like it was some canon force of the universe, hence why he’s probably so fucking awkward around you whenever she’s there too. Like if he accidentally got caught staring at your ankles, your mom would light him on fire, so he’d rather not risk it by just avoiding looking at you at all.

Your mom has always been protective of you. Your father was a deadbeat, one she thought she loved, only to watch him leave. And she had to raise a baby all by herself. He re-entered your lives right before you graduated high school, knocked up your mom again with Yuuji, and guess what? Left again without a trace. To be doubly humiliated by a man is a fate you wouldn’t wish on any woman, but that’s exactly what your mom went through. It was a wake-up call for her, though. No more living paycheck to paycheck like you had been your whole lives up until Yuuji was born. The kid doesn’t even know how lucky he is with everything he has right now. Your mom worked her way up the corporate ladder and made something of herself and now you guys were comfortable, so it was safe to say she had some sort of right to look after her daughter, of whom she simply doesn’t want to follow in the same naive footsteps of her youth.

You get it. She wants to break the generational cycle. But it made being with men tough on all fronts, let alone dating. You could never bring a guy home because he’d never be enough, even if he cured cancer or could make you orgasm while doing a sixty-nine handstand. And while her overbearing paranoia over what you do or where you are or who you’re with has since dimmed slightly since you officially moved out to finish your last year of higher education at NYU, you can still feel her disappointment from a hundred miles away when you’re making out with some random frat guy on his beer-stained couch at eleven AM on a Tuesday.

But you got to college. You’ve already made it this far. You’re on dean’s list. You graduated high school as salutatorian. You’re the most highly decorated cello player in the state. You won Miss County pageant when you were sixteen for your philanthropic efforts towards feline leukemia. You did online community college for three years so you could stick back after high school and help your mom raise Yuuji, which meant that you had to forfeit your scholarship to Cornell. You’ve spent your whole life being good, you just wanna be bad for a little bit.

And if bad meant fucking the hot and mysterious babysitter, then so be it.

You pick your phone up, begin blasting what the hell by Avril Lavigne on your dorm room bluetooth speaker, then type a message to him that says—

10:34am you: do it then

—then shove your phone under the sheets and belt out the lyrics aaaall my life i’ve been good, but now, ahhhh i’m thinkin’ what the hell!!! while kicking your feet and clutching your pillow.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Gojo has no clue what divine entity has overcast their gratuitous spirit over him on this blessed Monday afternoon, but he’ll thank them for it later once his balls are empty.

He’s got you on your back, sprawled across the couch in the living room, the first fuck being a rushed one that you offered him with before he has to go pick Yuuji up from circle time at preschool, which wasn’t ideal, but he’s delirious at the sight of you underneath him right now. Your little NYU shirt, a tighter one this time, bunched up over your bare breasts, otherwise entirely naked other than the flimsy panties dangling at your ankle, and the view of the tip of his cock looking hot and heavy against the velvet of your cunt, slowly pushing in, feeling the warmth of your walls squeeze around him paired with the sweet moan that leaves your lips, makes him fall forward with a bracing hand dug into the cushion by the side of your head because the sensation feels so fucking good he can hardly keep himself upright.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he grunts, pushing himself in further to try and bottom out but he’s still got a couple inches he needs you to take, and so you curl your hips upwards towards the cieling to make more room for him, practically putting yourself into a mating press and soon enough he’s balls deep, “you on any birth control?”

“Uh-huh,” you moan, eyes closed and head tipped back with one hand squeezing your own tit.

“I can cum inside then, yeah?” he asks you, pushing your knees to your chest, slowly drawing his hips back and you squirm underneath him.

“Let’s get there first, and then we’ll discuss,” you breathe out.

“I’ve been there for the past ten minutes, baby. I could cum at any second with the way you look and feel,” he informs you flatly, because it was just the truth and you had to know it, then he feels himself twitch inside, slowly working up to a languid rhythm, almost fearfully like your mom’s going to pop out somewhere around the corner with a camera crew ready like one of those retro TV shows just to humiliate him on national television for not keeping it in his pants like she’d told him to.

“Harder,” he hears you whisper, and he rolls his eyes shut to just focus on the feeling. The feeling of your nails grazing down the skin of his chest and his abs, tracing the scars he’s collected over the years, and he feels you tightening around him. He leans down to kiss you, fucking you properly now with the squeak of the couch springs echoing across the room, your hums of moans seeping through his lips until he’s fully taking them on with an open-mouthed kiss of sloppy tongue.

The fact that it was wrong felt right to him, and he realizes in this moment he’s lost all sense of control. He wasn’t just an adrenaline junkie that liked to rough up dudes, he was an adrenaline junkie that wanted to fuck you against all better judgement or moral compass. The way your tits were bouncing, the slap of skin on skin, his balls slapping against your ass while you wrap your legs around him tighter, all convincing him that any consequence made it worth it.

“Good,” he groans the praise, pinning your hands above your head as he rams his hips against yours, your cute moans and squeals sounding like literal music to his ears and he feels heat spread all the way up his neck, “goooood, keep squeezin’ me like that, fuck.” He slows down momentarily, just to take a moment and watch, really look and see the way his length disappears inside of your pretty self with every push forward, and then he works back up to a relentless pace that has you tipping your head back with a slack jaw and eyes closed tightly shut, sprained expression of pleasure spread across.

“Oh, oh my god, Satoru—” you mewled and he felt dizzy from the sound of his name from your softly parted lips.

“Fuck, I’m gonna—” His hand finds it’s way between your legs, calloused pads of his fingers brushing against your clit and you jolt underneath him, gasping as your hand shoots out to dig your nails into his bicep for purchase. “I’m gonna cum, better tell me where you want it.”

“In me,” you moan, “nowhere else.”

He presses his mouth against your cheek in a lazy smile, “Atta girl,” he drawls before pushing your ankles down as far as they’d go near your ears, folding you in half and then reigns all hell into your cunt. He should really care a bit more about your pleasure, but testing your flexibility like this with both his hands holding you down was doing sinful things to his brain, and besides, you had yourself covered with the messy circles you were rubbing over your clit. It was hot to see that too, your nimble pretty fingers so close to the place where he was pounding into you.

“Oh shit, shit, shit—” he grunts when starts to see blistering white in his vision, balls straining with a pleasure that was almost painful. The moment he finishes feels like hot flashes in his brain, a heat like the cum he begins to paint inside your walls in time with your release, thrusting over and over and over, each one more staggered as he lets off a long, drawn out groan that comes from deep within his chest with the feeling of you milking him dry and the sound of you enjoying every second of it. He can’t remember the last time he came this much or this hard and even after coming down from the high, he feels the remnant pulse of your orgasm around his now half-flaccid dick.

He leisurely pulls out, hearing you let out a soft whimper as he marvels at the sight of his cum slowly dripping out of you and down towards the couch, before he scoops it up with a couple fingers and pushes it back inside. You grip his wrist tightly, but you weren’t stopping it, that motion of him plunging it all back into you.

“Want a taste?” he asks, casually.

“Mhm,” you nod, face looking flush.

He pulls his fingers out of you, coated with sex, then plugs your pussy with the fingers of his other hand because he kinda likes the idea of you walking around all day with him inside of you, so he doesn’t want it getting out. He’s then pushing his other fingers past your lips, pleased to find he’s met with not even so much as a grazing of teeth, and he grins, “bet you take a dick in your mouth as good as you take it down here.”

Your furrow your brows at him, the pout of your lips seen in the way they were puckered to lick his fingers off clean, and when you release the suction with a smack of your tongue and his fingers were wet from your saliva now, his eyes narrow with desire. You push his face away with the heel of your palm to his forehead. “Flattery won’t make me suck your dick.”

“Alright. So? How is it?” he jerks his chin towards your face, pushing against your hand with his forehead until he’s hovering over you again, “taste good?”

“It’s cum, Satoru.”

He shrugs. “Bad?”

“No,” you say, and you can’t make eye contact, “good.” You sigh. “Hot. I don’t know. Salty, sweet. I’m the sweet. You’re the salty. And this conversation is obscene.”

He kisses you, capturing your lips softly, tongue darting out to taste what’s on yours. “I like it that way. Dirty. Nasty. Obscene, whatever.”

There’s the slam of a car door heard from the driveway, and the two of you instantly make eye contact with round eyes.

“Sa—” you stutter, “Satoru.”

He gets up off the couch in a panic, and heads to the window of the living room fully butt-ass naked, then peers through the blinds to see—

Your mom was making it up towards the front door, rustling with her keys in her purse. And the last thing he sees before he turns around to face you is her pushing the keys through the lock.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” he cusses, finding his boxers off of the floor, hopping on one foot with his cum & slick coated dick flapping around and slapping against his thighs unceremoniously as he tries to get one leg in through them and then the other. You’re trembling as you hook your panties back into place, pull your shirt back down your torso, and even in his extremely panicked state, he’s still sad he can’t freely stare at your tits anymore. You’re rummaging for your skirt in a haste, looking everywhere for it, and he finds it underneath the coffee table before tossing it to you and then he side-to-side hops towards the coat closet while he pulls his sweatpants up over his ass, in time for you to quickly run and shut the door of the closet closed just before the front door of the house swings open.

The inside of the coat closet is dark, barely enough space in there for a six-foot-four two-hundred-and-twenty pound man, but it’s better than being balls deep inside his boss’s daughter on the couch when said boss just came home from work.

He hears conversation on the other side of the door, albeit muffled, and he presses his ear to it to hear better while he tucks his dick into his boxers from where it was hanging over the waistline.

“Mom! You…you’re home so early,” he hears you squeak out.

“Yes,” your mom says, “The rest of my meetings today are online, so I figured I’d come home when there’s less traffic.”

Gojo feels you lean against the coat closet door.

“I see, I see, how was your day at work?” you ask with a tremble in your voice.

“Fine.” And then nothing. The silence could mean that was all she had to say, since your mom wasn’t really a woman of many words, or it could be a silence that means she’s suspicious about something. “Darling, why is your skirt flipped up and tucked into your panties? Your whole butt is showing.”

Through the wood of the door, he hears you softly gasp. “Oh, um, I just went to pee. Must’ve—…must’ve got caught when I pulled it back up.”

“I see,” your mother says, and Gojo can hear her dropping her heels down near the shoe rack at the entrance. “You know, I really don’t like those short skirts you wear often. Maybe it’s just your generation, but I think it looks tacky and cheap.”

“Mom,” you say, in as stern of a voice as you can manage without sounding embarrassed.

Your mother sighs. “In any case, where is Satoru? I still would like him to go pick up Yuuji. I don’t have the patience to sit in preschool & daycare traffic right now.”

“Oh gosh, I don’t know,” you chirp, and then he hears you let out a small oh no before you lean even more weight against the door, this time somewhere lower, and he realizes you’re pressing your ass against it. His eyes narrow with a small frown, and then he realizes— his cum must still be trickling down your thighs. You couldn’t put your panties on fast enough.

Shit. That’s hot. A little fucked up, but hot. He feels his dick harden against the fabric of his boxers, and he rests his forehead against the door, fringe stuck to his forehead with sweat as he slips his hands down his sweatpants and then gives his cock a firm squeeze. The thought of you discretely swiping his cum up your inner thigh and smearing it against your thin panties so your mom doesn’t catch sight of it dripping down your legs has him slowly working up to a rock-solid erection, and he almost lets out a broken grunt from the feeling.

“What?” your mother says, “what do you mean you don’t know?”

“I’ve just been watching TV this whole time,” you say, “last time I saw him…he was…um, in the backyard pulling weeds?”

He lets out a small scoff through his nose at your cover-up. Cute. And not bad.

Your mother sighs loudly, and he glances down at the strained veins on his dick as he tugs it through his hand, the tip rearing and appearing flushed and dripping with precum. God, you were just on the other side of this door. Less than a few inches away, and he’d be inside of you.

“I’m going to take a shower. Go find him and tell him to pick up Yuuji soon. But before then, change into something less revealing,” your mother says in a more or less detached tone, and he can hear the stomps of her footsteps up the stairs from above him in the coat closet.

The two of you wait at least a solid minute, and just when the coast is clear, he hears you turn the knob of the coat closet and slowly crack it open.

“Okay, I think she’s in the shower, I hear the water running,” you whisper at him, “you can go now—” You glance down towards his groin, your jaw dropping. “What—…Satoru, why the fuck is your dick staring at me right now?!” you whisper-hiss at him.

He pulls you into the coat closet, pushing your front against the door to where it clicks shut, and you gasp when his hands pin your wrists crossed behind your back and his dick presses into the plush of your ass.

“You talkin’ to your mom while your pussy’s stuffed full of my cum was the single hottest thing that’s ever grazed my lizard brain,” he tells you, flipping your skirt up and hooking your panties to the side, his index finger briefly brushing against your entrance to find it still leaking from the way your walls were pulsating from his words. And then he aligns his tip to your entrance. “Now keep quiet while I do this, ‘kay?”

“Oh—” you gasp, your cheek pressed against the door as you arch your back and push your ass out for him, “okay—” you say, barely vocalizing the first syllable before he’s already stuffing himself inside of you with one solid glide of a push, making you yelp loudly and he has to instantly cup a hand over your mouth.

“Shhhhhh,” he hisses at you, immediately starting to pound you from behind, “told you to— fuuuck,” he catches sight of his length covered with a mix of your glassy arousal and his white cum, now starting to cream at the base of his cock, “jesus christ—” he breathes out, squeezing the flesh of your ass harshly with his other hand and you let out another yelp, “I told you to fuckin’ keep quiet.”

“I’m—mff,” you muffle against his palm, “I’m trying but,” your hips move back in time with his, “feels good, feels too good,” you mewl, and his hand desperately yanks up the fabric of your shirt so he can squeeze at your breast.

“Yeah?” he grunts, hypocritical for telling you to keep it down when he was slamming his hips against your ass with so much fervor he wouldn’t be surprised if the sound was reverberating across the entire house, “you like it when I fuck you while your mom’s all clueless just up the stairs?” His rhythm falters, feeling his release building, and his hand reaches in front of you to rub your clit, making you drop your head against the door with tightly closed eyes. “Gets— you—wet, doesn’t it?” he torments you, his lips near your ear as he slams his hips against you harshly with every enunciated syllable.

“Mhm, mhm,” you easily agree, or maybe that’s because it’s all you can really articulate, and he angles his hips up so his balls slap more fervently against your clit, making you scream into his palm while he picks up the pace of the circles he draws on your clit and in one, two, three— beats of his pounding heart, he feels you come undone around his cock, gushing wetness leaking out of you, he can feel the mess of fluids splattering on the skin of his thighs due to each of his heaving thrusts as he cusses out a fuuuuuuckkk before spilling his cum inside of you, a short-lived and thicker release this time that has you mewling from overstimulation, and in a few following thrusts, he’s given you everything he had to give.

His eyes open, he wasn’t even aware he had shut them in the first place, and he glances down at where the two of you were joined. Rings of arousal coat the length of his half-pulled-out dick, and the second he retreats all of it, a bulging push of his cum seeps out of you, dripping and pooling all over the hardwood floors.

“Holy shit, I wish I could take a picture of this,” he says, taking a step away to commit the sight to memory, your legs trembling and still slightly spread, ass pushed out and when you wiggle it a little, he lets out a huff of an exhale because he just can’t believe how sexy you are. Are all college girls like this? He’s never been to college, his old man’s been trying to get him to go for years, but maybe this is what finally convinces him.

“No pics,” you breathe out once you catch your breath, standing up straight slowly, “that’s my one sex rule.”

He takes a step closer to you, flipping your skirt back over your ass while you shimmy your shirt down to cover your chest. “That’s the only rule you have? Anything else goes?” he asks.

You spin around to face him, his eyes briefly flitting down to the still exposed skin of your midriff. “I have a feeling I’d be making up more specific rules if it was with you.”

He smiles, his hands grabbing your hips before pressing you up against the door again. “I also had a rule. It was to not fuck you. Wait, no, to not flirt with you. Which, technically, I didn’t do.”

You blink your eyes at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“What?” he asks, genuinely confused, “I didn’t.”

“Huh—” you scoff, “how do you think we got into this situation in the first place?? You didn’t just say wanna fuck? You were insufferably flirty with me.”

“Nahhh nah nah nah nah, baby, that’s not flirting,” he tells you, thumb running circles over your hips, “that’s, like—…I don’t even fuckin’ know how it worked on you to be honest, I was just being stupid.”

“Oh okay so I’m stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid?”

“Well you said you were being stupid so me falling for it must mean I’m stupid.”

“Pshhh. You’re cute. Pulling weeds, by the way? Adorable.”

Your hand slowly roams up the front of his shirt, the fabric bunching at your wrists until you uncovered up to his collar bone, and you stare at his skin. He tries to not let the way his heart’s beating faster show through the heave of his chest.

“Why do you have all these scars, anyway?” you whisper to him.

“Too many girls tryna stab me,” he tells you.

You roll your eyes. “Seriously.” Your thumb traces the one you had left on him.

“I—” He stops himself.

Does he tell you? Should he tell you? What, just because he’s seen you naked and you took his dick like a queen he’s supposed to open up to you about these things now? He doesn’t know. Maybe he could? Maybe you already suspect what he does at night. And if not, at the very least, I’m an underground boxer might make you think he’s hot? At the very worst, you’ll report him to the cops and he’d get fired as your little brother’s babysitter then thrown into jail, but not before the busted cartel gets him first.

“Maybe I’ll tell you some other time,” he says, his hand wrapping around your wrist and pulling it from his chest, “no hyper personal details until you’ve had my dick in your mouth at least once or twice. That’s my one rule.”

You snort. “I could’ve guessed that rule from a mile away.”

He hums. And then there’s the sound of steps creaking down the stairs above the two of you.

You both make eye contact, eyes widening, internally yelling at each other: how the fuck did we get into this situation twice?!

This time, Gojo opens the door and stumbles out of the closet, leaving you inside of it, just in time for your mom to come down the stairs.

“Satoru. I was looking for you,” she says as she rounds the post. “Have you picked up Yuuji? He has to go for his swimming lessons soon.”

“Ah, nope, was just about to head out,” he says, letting out a cough to diffuse tension, “sorry, I was—” he points his thumb over his shoulder to behind him, “…pulling out some gnarly weeds.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I see. Well, thanks. If you want, I can add a gardening stipend to your paycheck. Let me know.” And he’s not sure how to respond because he’s not sure if she’s joking.

He heads out the door, the keys to your mom’s minivan in his palm as he throws them up into the air and catches them a couple times. And just before he gets inside the car, he turns on his heel to face the house and pulls his phone out of his pocket to type in a message for you.

3:22pm Gojo Satoru: Send over those me-specific sex rules soon

[the end]

a/n. hope u enjoyed im shitting bricks posting this bc i haven't posted a oneshot smut since february but thanks so much for reading i appreciate u!! i got way too invested in the whole underground boxer thing 😂😂 but the fact i managed to keep everything under 12k is an accomplishment to me bc if u read my other fics you know i’m a yapper LOL i have another kind of a similarly written smut oneshot n it’s a lil angsty (totally different au tho) i’ll probs post that one next but yea i really like, hmm, i really like exploring entire characters within a short amount of time i enjoy writing the obscure lore drops xd it’s been kinda fun so far anywho much loveee hope to see u around! <3

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chuluoyi · 7 months ago

Text

𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒 !

- gojo satoru x reader // zen'in naoya x reader

you are an empress perfect in every way... until your husband suddenly casts you aside for his expecting mistress. but you won't be dethroned just like that, because the newly coronated western emperor, gojo satoru, sets his sights on you, and thus your revenge against your ex-husband begins...

genre/warnings: 18+ suggestive content—minors do not interact!—might be ooc, kinda slowburn, angst to eventual fluff, divorce, marriage of convenience, heavy pining (from gojo's part), childhood friends trope, mentions of infidelity, misogyny, infertility, explicit smut

note: loosely inspired by and taking some elements of manhwa remarried empress (but i promise you, it's different). my god, for the past month this is all i can think about *sobs* wc. 10.5k ! this is the longest thing i've ever posted here, and if you'd give it a chance, then i'll be really, really thankful!

credit header goes to @/gojokko in twitter!

next. the crown of diamonds | long live the empire

general masterlist | series masterlist

“I accept the divorce.”

Your perfect life was done for. Everything you had worked hard towards— it was now in shambles and tatters.

You, an ethereal, revered empress... someone untarnished in the face of public and private, had just agreed to the emperor’s blatant request of separation.

“My god... how can this be!?”

“Your Majesty! Please reconsider!”

Emperor Zen’in Naoya of the Eastern Empire, your husband—and companion for more than ten years—smirked as he looked down at you, paying zero attention to the uproar in this courthouse.

But then you heard that kind, velvety voice from the back of your head:

“If you become my empress… that will make me the happiest man alive.”

This place has turned into a whopping circus ever since you and Naoya stepped inside anyway. And so, having nothing worthy left to lose, you declared, “And I demand an immediate approval for my remarriage.”

Your boldness once again stirred a wave of clamor among the crowd, and even Naoya was glaring at you in disbelief now. “A remarriage…? How dare you—!”

“Well... is it the time for my grand entrance?”

Deep from behind the curtains, suddenly he emerged, dressed in the most lavish robes befitting his own throne, outshining everyone in the room as if he was the one owning the place.

“Heh.” His low chuckle stunned even the mass as he took big strides towards where you were.

This would seal your fate. From now onwards, you would no longer be the perfect empress. Your messy divorce and remarriage will relegate that image to history.

“My goodness, that’s…” the woman in the front gasped. “Western Empire’s…”

“Gojo… Satoru?” Naoya's eyes lit with genuine fury as the other man took his place by your side. “You couldn't possibly mean…!”

You interrupted him regally. “Yes, he is the man I wish to remarry.”

This event was going to blow up tomorrow, with scandalous titles no less than The Deposed Empress Remarries! And there was no going back, ever.

How did your pristine life turn into such a shameful debacle? None of these turn of events would be imaginable for you several years prior...

SATORU, THE CROWN PRINCE OF WESTERN EMPIRE

To Satoru, you were more than just the east’s breathtaking empress—you had captured his attention long before you ascended to that role.

Seven years ago, you were the renowned noble lady, the paragon of perfection sought after by many lords and monarchs alike.

You were both cunning and fair, pretty in the face, came from an illustrious family known for birthing famous empresses in either western and eastern empires. You were the quintessential template that mothers advised their sons to seek in a wife.

The fairest in the land—that was how people called you. And Gojo Satoru is always and only interested in the best.

“Suguru... look at her.” His eyes would soften at the sight of you as he nudged at his closest ally and confidant, the duke. “She is so... pretty, isn’t she?”

Unfortunately, you had been promised to the Eastern Empire’s crown prince from a long time ago too. There was little that the outsiders, including himself—even if he was the heir apparent to his own throne—could do to sway your heart.

“There's more to women than their faces, Satoru,” Suguru sighed, thinking that what he had was a mere lust. “Moreover, she’s engaged to the Zen’in... and they have a very good relationship. Nothing you can do about that.”

“Hmph.”

To be honest, he couldn’t fathom what you could possibly like about that murderous Zen’in spawn. He was a pompous human being, no less.

How on earth could you stand someone like that? Satoru had always wondered… especially when it was well-known to the land that you and him were on good terms despite your arranged marriage.

—and once, he thought he knew who you are…

. . .

Satoru swallowed the bitterness rising in his throat as he attended the royal wedding of you and Zen’in Naoya. Despite hating the circumstances, he had to admit it was a fairytale wedding—albeit with the wrong groom.

You were the epitome of picture book princess. In his eyes, and in the eyes of the attendees of your wedding.

Oh, and he made headlines too, that day—

“My princess, may I have this dance?”

Two hours hadn’t even passed by after you swore your vows as Naoya’s bride, and there he was, asking for your first dance, in your own wedding ball, right in front of your newly wedded husband.

Everyone bet on you turning him down and making a fool of himself, but instead, to spare his feelings, you put your delicate hand in his, and with a wide, shy smile, you said, “Yes.”

Satoru thought it was his greatest achievement then. To have made Naoya red-faced, to have made him watch as he put his hands on your waist, twirl you around— and come one breath away from your face.

“Princess, you’re…” his breath caught as he pulled you close, staring straight at your face—and suddenly he felt like life was so unfair to him as the slow melody of waltz was all he could hear.

How could you be this close... and yet so far by being somebody else’s wife?

And yet he forced the words out, with sincerity he had never showed anyone else before, even as his heart bled and shattered. “You’re so incredibly beautiful.”

Your eyes widened, sparkling with wonder, before you thanked him with the loveliest of smiles. “Thank you. You’re too kind.”

Satoru was certain... you had ruined him, because no one else would ever be able to turn his world with just a smile like you did, even as you broke his heart too into a million pieces.

. . .

Ever since that day, everyone had branded him as a prince in search of scandal—coveting the princess married to Zen’in clan.

What everyone didn’t know was that it went beyond that. His obsession of you went beyond your beauty and charms and wits. Rather, it goes a long way back.

YOU, THE CROWN PRINCESS OF EASTERN EMPIRE

As inconceivable as it was, once upon a time, you and Naoya were a truly, happy couple.

Handpicked by the late emperor to become his son’s wife, you couldn’t be more proud. With you being the next empress of the Eastern Empire, your clan once again proved itself that it was always worthy of a seat in the monarchy.

But beyond that, you were elated that it was Naoya that you ended up marrying. Your own childhood friend, who often led you around his palace by hand and filled your days with many joy and laughs.

“One day soon, when we are the emperor and the empress—” younger Naoya was always someone who had big dreams about ruling his nation. “We will create a nation in which no one can do anything as they please! We’ll establish order, and anyone who goes against it will be punished! That way, it’ll encourage fairness!”

Not knowing it yourself, you had given your heart wholly to him. You had agreed to all his dreams and visions. You devoted yourself to them all, even more so after your marriage and coronation, as he promised you an ever after.

“From now on, it’s going to be me and you, Empress.”

YOU, THE EMPRESS OF EASTERN EMPIRE

“Your role is to give an heir to the throne, Empress.”

Your title had never sounded so heavy to you before now, especially when Naoya was the one saying it.

You sighed, gathering your wits and scattered feelings before levelling your calm gaze on your husband. “I understand that, Your Majesty. But it is not something that I can do on my own.”

This year would mark the fifth year of your marriage to Naoya. You understood that the fact you still weren’t able to be with his child would raise questions from the court, but still, must you be reminded of this fact over and over?

Your husband—no, the emperor—barked a satire laugh.

“Oh, really? As I understand it, being infertile is not something I can help you with.”

That hurt. It was a searing pain, like being branded with a red-hot iron. And it felt as if he had torn through your chest with his fist alone.

“I’m not infertile.” Your eyes gleamed with pure defiance as you lifted your chin, facing him in his audience chamber.

It dawned on you that lately, one of the few ways you could speak to him was by requesting an audience as opposed to your usual midnight talks in your private chambers.

When did it start to change? Or was Naoya this kind of person right from the very beginning and you were just blinded by love back then?

"Oh? And what would you call being childless for five years then?" Naoya sneered at you from his dais, placing one hand on his jaw. "Bad luck? You must be terribly cursed with misfortune then."

You fisted your dress, summoning all your strength to hold back tears. Don't you dare cry. Not in front of him.

It wasn't as if you didn't want to carry his heir. For many women, holding their baby in their arms is a cherished dream, and when they hold a position of power like yours, it becomes not just a desire but a duty.

You tried everything—calling in the best doctors, consuming horrible potions, even consulting with the oracle. And they all said you were perfectly healthy and fine. You were at your wits end too.

The irony. You were celebrated in public for your competence, while privately, you suffered your husband's cold detachment and cruel remarks.

. . .

"Empress, where should we put the welcome gifts?"

You studied the floor plan of the banquet hall for your annual New Year's ball with a thoughtful hum before pointing at the entrance.

"Place it here. We want our guests to know that we are generous, and it's easily accessible since the parlor is the first area they reach after arriving."

You loved planning festivities. It was therapeutic in a way, and it gave you little time to think of anything else.

"Oh, and I want to have a welcome arch and flowers placed at the entrance too. This is the grandest event of the year, second only to the Emperor's birthday... we must display the grandeur that befits such an occasion."

Your head maidservant, Hanabi, placed a hand on her abdomen and nodded with a warm smile. "That's a very clever suggestion, Your Majesty! I'll ensure they arrange everything just as you wish!"

As she scurried away, you watched her with an assessing gaze. Hanabi had been with you throughout the five years of your marriage, always at your side, assisting with day-to-day matters and serving as your confidant. She was a great aide.

And you were observant by nature... so of course you noticed things.

...and if you were correct, then she was most definitely with a child.

The thing is... she is unmarried. You hesitated to jump to conclusions without evidence, yet the timing struck you as more than coincidental—it nagged at you for weeks now, suggesting a connection you hoped did not exist.

Because if they really did... then...

You didn't dare to think, because it would be more than a nightmare. But you weren't able to let this go either, so you did what was necessary.

You planted a note in Hanabi's chamber, and then you waited in the gardens, the chilly midnight air wrapping around you like a shroud.

You had done everything you could. Five years ago, you let go of everything and had decided to spend your life with your first love—Naoya.

Because you truly and devotedly love him. You give your all for him—for your life together.

"Ooh, Your Majesty~! It's so cold out here, why not in our usual—"

Hanabi's voice faltered as soon as she saw your crimson gown, feeling like the world had collapsed on her. And you rigidly turned towards her, feeling more or less the same.

And yet, what you had received from him is the greatest betrayal.

SATORU, THE EMPEROR OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE

He first realized something was clearly wrong with you during the New Year’s ball that you hosted.

Satoru had just been crowned emperor during this time, and though rulers typically sent envoys to such grand celebrations due to concurrent festivities in their own lands, it had been several months since he last saw you. He wants to see you.

A meritless action, but he wanted to, regardless.

But that day, you were a fantastic actress in this stage called banquet hall and nobody was the wiser… but he would know, because you mattered a lot to him.

"Your Majesty, you don't seem well." He approached you with a glass of champagne, affixing a friendly smile. "Is there anything amiss?"

Taken aback, you didn't expect such close proximity that you took a step back. His smile almost faltered, but he kept it up.

"Emperor Satoru—"

"Ah, none of that, no. Address me just as you usually do, hmm?"

A smile finally tugged at your lips. "How is that fair, when you address me so formally?"

Satoru chuckled. "You, my queen, deserve all the finery and grandeur there is. And I will see to it that you do."

That was his nickname for you ever since you ascended the throne. Both of your countries refer you as “empress”, but he loves addressing you as “queen” instead.

There was a shift in your expression, and he thought you looked melancholic. It bothered him, stirring a desire to erase that somber look from you. Because above anything and everything, you had to be happy and smiling.

"You're still a flirt, I see, Satoru," you remarked, throwing him a soft smile. "It won't do you good if you're seen with me most of the time, you know."

No, I’m doing this just for you. He wanted to tell you that, but he sighed instead. "You've got it wrong. When I'm in the company of the most beautiful woman in the lands, what's there to be ashamed of?"

Perhaps hearing that finally melted you a bit as you freely giggled this time, and Satoru was glad that he made you laugh even a little.

"You would think that, huh..." you fondly mumbled. And then your expression crumbled, and he could've sworn something painful flashed in your eyes—

What happened to you? He so desperately wanted to ask, but then he saw that preying gaze on both of you. Zen’in Naoya. Satoru clicked his tongue as he watched him weave through the crowd, his gaze locked ominously on both of you.

“Seems like we don’t have much time, after all,” he began, urgency sharpening his words. “But rest assured, whenever you want to talk to me, just send a little birdie my way and I shall answer.”

“Huh?” you blinked at him questioningly, totally not getting what he meant.

He winked, then took your hand and placed a kiss on it, eliciting murmurs of surprise from the crowd at his bold gesture. “And chin up, my queen. You have nothing to fear, and if it makes you feel better...”

He leaned in to whisper in your ear, “To me, a diamond is most beautiful. And you… are one that sparkles above all.”

“Naoya, unhand me this instant!”

You were tired of this shit, of Naoya always manhandling you—of him always having a total control over you.

After seeing how close you got to Satoru, Naoya practically saw red. Still, in the prying eyes of public, he remained unperturbed, but his vice-like grip on your arm was sure to leave bruise as he unkindly led you out of the ballroom.

"Naoya!" you raised your voice this time, even louder than before, uncaring even when the wandering eyes of the servants curiously followed the two of you.

You were not made an empress just to follow him. And with that conviction, you forcibly pulled your arm away from his grip right after he shut the door to the drawing room close, not even wincing at the stinging feeling.

His eyes shone with anger. “You insolent—!”

“No—” You stood your ground, and suddenly you got very irate and burst out, “How dare you, Zen’in Naoya!”

He looked at you with equal surprise and mortification, clearly unprepared for your righteous tirade.

"You have made a mockery of our marriage! You have insulted me and your own throne by carrying on with— with the help! My maid!" you screamed at his face, pure anger coursing through your veins. "How could you!?"

Naoya took in your outburst with eerie silence, a sneer slowly forming on his lips. "You get riled up over that? Have you forgotten emperors are free to take mistresses, especially when the empress isn't capable to bear any heirs?"

A burning arrow shot straight to your heart at his response but you willed yourself not to show it. "Regardless, you could've done better and not put our throne to shame by fucking a servant."

"I've told you time and time again. A woman's duty is to bear children, and since you've proven yourself beyond barren, I did you a favor."

"A favor...?"

"As soon as Hanabi births that child, you can raise him as your own," Naoya frankly stated unabashedly, as if proud with his idea. "Saves you the trouble and I get my heir, a win-win solution, no?"

Raise him as my own...? Saves the trouble? You could've sworn that throughout your entire life, you had never been so insulted before now, right in this moment.

"What I do, I always have my throne in mind. And yet you..." his eyes narrowed into unsatisfied slits. "What are you trying to achieve by whoring yourself to that rake, Gojo Satoru? Are you telling people of the ton that you're having an affair?"

His voice made you want to throw up. The realization that everything you thought you had together might have meant nothing to him at all made you feel sick.

And so, hiding your trembling hands and swallowing you unshed tears, you responded to him with a clipped tone—

"You're most despicable, Naoya. And you are a complete fool if you think even for a second that I'd want to raise your bastard!"

He seemed taken aback by your rejection, but you didn't falter. "And oh, since you want to make use of that lowly maid so much, feel free to take her back and track her down yourself, because I've sent that wench away."

With that, you turned your back on him, striding out with your head held high, even as your life crumbled into dust.

Days after your full-blown argument with Naoya, your situation only worsened. By now, even the palace servants knew you had incurred his wrath, while Hanabi had won his favor by carrying his child—possibly the heir to the throne.

The child she was carrying was no threat to your position. After all, you were the empress. A child of your blood would trample over any bastard.

However, you'd be damned if you shared a bed with him again, and Naoya made it clear that his mistress would be elevated to the rank of royal consort. Given the current trajectory—and history's tendency to repeat itself—emperors often divorced or banished their empresses in favor of their mistresses.

Bah. You could only scoff at your laughable predicament. You came from a prestigious clan and were revered, yet now you were no more than a scorned woman.

Dark thoughts consumed your mind for a time—you couldn't deny that you had considered leaving the palace for self-imposed exile or even ending your life. However, reason always prevailed.

You wouldn't give Naoya what he wanted most: your compliance. And around the time when you resolved to do that, a finely decorated envelope arrived at your study, with no signature whatsoever.

Intrigued, you opened it to find an intricate dried rose bookmark and a folded letter nestled inside.

Greetings to you, my queen. Yeah, it's me. Hope you won't be too surprised. But if you do, know that I always mean well.

Satoru. You weren't expecting this. A small smile tugged at your lips. How long had it been since you last smiled so freely?

I've heard you love reading, hence the bookmark. Fun fact: I made it myself, with Shoko's help. She is sooo bad at explaining though so if the flower is wrinkled... please blame her.

This time, you giggled. He was an emperor, for god's sake. Should someone of his station write so informally like this?

Now... I'm no oracle, but even I know that you must be having bad days. And so, let me entertain you with several tales from my kingdom. So, the other day, my good friend Suguru, the duke—you must've heard of him surely (they said he is the most handsome bachelor in the West but they must be missing an eye for saying so because clearly I'm more!)—just fired a pair of his servants because he caught them in a thirst! He is so uptight! Why can't he let two people in love be!?

Before you knew it, you found yourself chuckling at the lines upon lines of anecdotes Satoru had penned in the letter. The way he wrote, it was as if he was right here, saying all of this to you in real-time. For a while, you were completely absorbed in the world of the Western Empire he described, and all your worries and anxieties seemed to fade away.

Okay, that's it for now. This is just a teaser actually, so if you want to subscribe to more tales of my humble little country, you can always be my empress reply to this letter! :D Look out for a white cat near your windowsill during the hour of snake—he is my trained pet, and put your message in his little backpack. Don't worry, he's cute and doesn't bite!

You were so giddy by the end. His message warmed your heart so much that your eyes grew misty. In the aftermath of Naoya's betrayal, you were certain your life would be filled with much sadness to come.

Yet, your friendship with Satoru might just be the thing that would save you.

No matter how much his friends Duke Geto and Countess Shoko urged him to see reason—that you were no longer available and occupied with your duties as the empress of your own empire—Satoru couldn't help but still cast an eye your way.

You were clearly unhappy, and to him, someone as radiant as you should be happy.

And so, that was why he took his quill and started writing that letter to be sent to your place, along with a rose strapped inside.

He knew that, being the kind person you were, you would most likely respond, but still, the moment his cat arrived back with your reply, he was elated beyond measure.

Of course I knew it right away! I omitted your name because who knows who might catch your cat on the way. Anyway, I hope Mr. Cat will arrive back to you safe and sound. Firstly, thank you for your letter. I must say I'm so happy to receive it :) I haven't had best days so reading it made me smile. And secondly, of course I'll subscribe to your stories of Western Empire. I've been wanting to visit it myself but just haven't gotten the chance to... so if you will continue it, I shall be happy to read :D

If anything he wrote brought you joy, then Satoru was content. He had achieved his goal then.

And it was his own little secret that... by corresponding with you, it allowed him to savor the feeling of having you as his own, if only through words.

Mr. Cat's name is Sugu-chan after Suguru but you can call him whatever you wish. And don't worry, he is strong and can fight if necessary! And don't be too formal with me, my queen. We have known each other forever. Anyway do tell me, what is your favorite color now? Let me guess, is it still that specific shade of crimson?

You name your cat after your best friend...? And you're making it hard for me to be less formal when you always address me as queen! Hmm, I suppose so. I love burgundy. I've even had my study designed with that exact color scheme. It just gives me the confidence I need, you know.

So you still love burgundy... I'll keep that in mind ;) Frankly, any shade of crimson suits you—you're always a vision in them. Back then and especially during your coronation. I love blue, so I think we're a match? :D

Back then...? Hmm, surprisingly yes, red and blue would make a good match... Anyway, I believe you promised me unusual tales from your 'humble little country', so please indulge me!

You've forgotten it already? Around the time we first met, back when I was still known as "the cursed prince"? It holds such importance for me but sadly it seems like it was just a passing moment to you :( Oh, yeah, I haven't forgotten about it! So, this time let me tell you about the time when Earl Nanami got wasted . . .

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Amidst the turmoil of your marriage, exchanging letters with Satoru became your sole respite. His stories regarding his own empire amused you, and sometimes it got you to wonder what it was like to live there.

However, running away from your problems would never solve them. Writing to Satoru may have helped you to cope, but still, your real issue with Naoya wouldn't vanish simply just by ignoring him.

. . .

"Your Majesty..."

For a good one minute, you stood still. Your lady-in-waiting had delivered an earth-shattering news—but admittedly, a possibility you thought was in the cards the moment you went against Naoya.

"His majesty has summoned the high priest to his study," the elderly woman added, close to tears. "But it is very likely that he has submitted the petition for—" her voice faltered when she caught sight of the emptiness in your eyes, unable to continue.

A divorce. Naoya had been considering a divorce. And by now, he was set on it.

"I'm so, so sorry..." she choked out, her voice breaking with sorrow to mourn you, but you remained expressionless, lost in your thoughts.

The last time an empress of Eastern Empire was divorced was more or less a century ago, because she had committed a grave treachery against a royal consort by poisoning her. She was sentenced to death by hanging afterwards.

The irony. You were in similar situation, only that you weren't vengeful enough to resort to poisoning Hanabi. Speaking of her, her baby was due in another four months, and now she was living happily in Naoya's quarters.

"Don't be. I'm perfectly fine."

To consolidate his illegitimate child's position, Naoya used the most effective way. Since you wouldn't listen to him, and Hanabi must be a far delightful companion rather than you, he was more than willing to cast you aside in favor of making her his empress instead.

You thought it would hurt more, and yet what you felt the most right in this moment was white-hot anger. This is unacceptable. It was the greatest insult to you both as a woman and as the empress.

Now, all you could think of was how to uphold your dignity and plot your exit from this palace with your head still held high.

If I can't be the empress here...

And after a sleepless night, you came to a daring solution. And your plan—

...I'll be one somewhere else.

It was an invitation, Satoru thought, almost in disbelief. Or it sounded a lot like one, didn't it?

Heart beating a little faster and blushing, he reread the latest letter you had sent him.

It's only the beginning of summer, and the heat is sweltering... I'm considering treating myself to a trip to the winery village on the border between the east and west. I think it'll be nice if I have a companion...

Winery village was right in the middle of the western and eastern empires, and it was a safe zone. Vineyards were vast and thick, but it wasn't exactly a popular vacation spot. So, it intrigued him why you would want to go there.

Just as he was about to reply to you that it was a very good coincidence that he too wanted to pay a visit to the said village, suddenly—

"Gojo! Gojoooo!" Shoko suddenly burst into his study, startling him.

"Shoko! What the heck?!"

Lady Shoko might be a countess, but she, Satoru, and Suguru all attended the same royal academy. Despite their prestigious titles now, Satoru insisted that in private, both Suguru and Shoko address him just as they did before he ascended the throne.

Still, she was ruder than Suguru in many ways. Satoru gave her a stink eye, but his confusion grew as she seemed to be delivering momentous news.

"Gojo, have you heard that Naoya will divorce Y/N?!"

"Wha?" it felt like a ton of bricks suddenly fell down on his head. And then his friend proceeded to tell him everything she knew.

"It wasn't made official yet, but even the townsfolk have been talking about it. They also said that Naoya have taken a mistress, and that she was formerly the empress' maid."

Satoru listened to her in silence, but the moment he heard that the Zen'in spawn planned to divorce you, anger flared within him. And to add insult to injury, he two-timed you with a servant?

The fucking bastard. He never deserved you at all. How crushed must you have been, enduring all this shit?

"Now, I wouldn't normally encourage you this," Shoko took out the cigarette she stashed in the folds of her dress and sighed. "But since you never let go of that weird fixation on her, should the royal divorce happen..." she shrugged as she took a seat in front of him.

"No matter how laughable it is, you might have a chance."

She is so right. These long years of longing for your affections and dreaming of having even a minute more of your time... there was now chance to turn it to reality.

When you arrived at the winery village for your vacation to breathe in some fresh air, honestly, everything was still in shambles.

You couldn't forget the horrified looks from the court when Naoya announced the divorce. Most were shocked and pleaded with him to reconsider. Some from your circle of ladies even sobbed, openly stating that you didn't deserve this fate.

“Empress... His Majesty shouldn't be that harsh...” Hanabi had said to you afterwards, seemingly concerned for you. “Your legacy here… I’ll make sure to carry them on.”

Sometimes you didn’t know whether Hanabi was pretending to be dumb or indeed she was. One thing you knew though...

“I wish you luck on that, Hanabi.” You looked down at her with eyes as cold as ice. “Beware, the Emperor is fickle, be sure to not run out of entertainments.”

You knew you deserved a better fate than being the empress of the Eastern Empire, but seeing those who still cared for you made you solemn. Your loyal maids, those who supported you... and what about organizations you've spent time and energy to?

“My queen, ah, there you are.”

Satoru's voice from behind startled you, interrupting your daydreams. He quickly came beside you and extended his hand, asking for yours.

You offered him your right hand, and he promptly pressed a kiss on it, his bright blue eyes gazing up at you.

It wasn't as if you just noticed how pretty his eyes were, but now that there was no ballroom and scrutinizing eyes around you, you couldn't deny that the way his eyes sparkled as he gazed at you—solely and purely on you—made you breathless.

What... would it be like to have this man... to be your husband instead?

"I missed you. I know we talk daily through letters, but seeing your beauty firsthand is always a sight for sore eyes," he cheekily commented as he let go of your hand. "Now, I get to see you without your pesky husband around, and yeah, you never fail to make my silly heart race."

You chuckled. "You always flatter me..."

He only gave you a toothy smile, and you two strolled the vineyard. For a while, you talked about nothing of importance, like where your ladies-in-waiting were, how things were from his side.

"How do you find being the emperor?"

"It's tiring! It's boring too to look through accounts and oversee those trivial state affairs! And not to mention how many people have been nagging me to take a wife soon!"

"Oh? You haven't been on the lookout already?"

"Nah. No one is good enough, I need someone already familiar with state affairs and such," he said, wrinkling his nose sourly at the thought. But then he cast his eyes on you.

"And frankly, you are my standard," he fixed you a meaningful smile. "No one comes close. If you weren't betrothed to the Zen'in back then, I'd have proposed you in a heartbeat."

Thump. Thump. Thump. Your dead heart suddenly came to life. Gojo Satoru had just confessed his affections for you so candidly, and it got you thinking how much easier your life would be with him. He would love you, take care of you...

And beguile you.

His eyes fondly crinkled at you. "You are everything I desire in a woman to be my wife."

He adores you so easily, so fluidly... and yet, Naoya, who has you fully, is throwing you away.

Satoru observed how your face fell once again, just as it had during the New Year's ball. And now he knew, it was because you were facing your impending divorce.

But he wasn't going to tell you that, instead, he would willingly be your confidant and offer you his very being. He was about to crack a joke to lift your spirits, when you blurted—

"What if I said... I want to be your empress?" you kept your pace, not looking at him at all. "What if I said... I'll leave everything and come to you?"

Huh? What…?

That was loaded. Have you entertained the thought too? Satoru had craved the very idea for so long he didn’t even miss a beat—

“Then I’d marry you.” His voice was straight and true, shooting straight to the most tender part of you that Naoya had torn to shreds. “If you become my empress… that will make me the happiest man alive.”

No hesitation. It almost reduced you to tears. You stopped where you stood, willing yourself not to tremble. There is still one person who sees this much value in you.

“Then I’ll be yours,” you breathed out. “I’ll be your empress, Satoru.”

Satoru could've sworn time had stopped. If one moment ago, you looked like you were about to shatter, now you were a vision of the dignified and perfect queen he had always known you were.

“I’ll be your queen— your everything.” You declared, locking eyes with him, the intensity of your gaze not escaping him.

How many years had he dreamed of this moment? How many long nights had he endured, yearning for you, knowing you were beyond his reach?

Finally, finally... Satoru grinned, swearing to all the divine beings out there that he had never known how liberating it was to finally have what he wanted. “That would be my greatest honor.”

He drew you close—you let him—and after one second of taking in your enchanting eyes, he crashed his lips against yours.

His lips started soft and gentle, then became fiery as his tongue met yours. He pulled you closer, one arm around your waist and the other holding the back of your head. You responded eagerly, pressing against him, fingers tracing his neck and feeling the lines of his undercut.

One is finally having the woman he had wanted for so long, and the other was plotting her escape from her misery.

You were using him. He knew it. Yet, he didn't care. Hidden behind bushes and vines, you shared your very first heated kiss, aware that this moment would leave its mark as both the greatest stain and triumph in your lives.

And when he finally pulled away, lips swollen and wet, with a wolfish grin, he promised you once again—

“Give me everything that is yours... and I swear on my life, I will do everything to turn your life into a living dream.”

“Empress, your husband His Majesty the Emperor, has requested a divorce.”

It was how your once pristine life transformed into the scandal of the century inside the courthouse.

"If you accept this petition, then you will no longer be the Empress of Eastern Empire. You will lose all the rights you have as a senior member of the imperial family..."

You donned your finest attire—the intricate crimson and black dress you had designed and commissioned the dressmaker to create. Today, faced with Naoya's divorce decree, it would be the last time you adorned the colors of his empire.

"The ties that bound you together as husband and wife would be severed—"

Good riddance, you thought.

"If this is not what you want, you have the right to—"

"I accept the divorce."

Your voice cut through the heavy solemness of the witnesses and turned them into a mass of disbelief. You disregarded Naoya's smirk and held the priest's gaze. "And I demand an immediate approval for my remarriage."

The crowd was in for a second wave of uproar when you boldly stood your ground, and they erupted into clamors once again when Satoru made his grand entrance and took his place beside you.

"You—!" Naoya was so furious that he roared. "This is my empire!"

"And?" Satoru challenged with a dauntless smile. "I'm here to propose, and since she accepts your divorce request, I believe she has no relations with you any longer and is free to marry someone else."

You remained motionless, until your cold fingers met warmth when Satoru linked his hand with yours reassuringly.

"This is treachery! I won't fucking permit it!" Naoya hollered as he faced the high priest, who had a grim face while observing this three-way headlock between the three of you.

"Emperor Naoya, that matter falls into the jurisdiction of the church." The high priest let out a sigh and then turned to you, assessing your calm gaze.

Regardless, Naoya paid him no mind. "I refuse to grant you any permission to remarry! You will be banished to the cold palace until the rest of your pitiful days! Not only do you fail miserably by being barren beyond help, you also dare to whore yourself—" he was now rambling curses at you before everyone in the court, and it pierced you deeply—

Until Satoru tugged you behind him, so that you wouldn't have to see his face any longer.

"High priest!" Satoru's voice blared as he clenched his jaw, irate at the string of profanities directed at you. "Do you still truly believe that the deposed empress can't remarry? When she has suffered through this man's downright betrayal?"

Your head was spinning. You wanted this whole ordeal to be over already.

And thankfully, even the high priest saw reason, that you were undeserving of this debacle. In the end, his words held more weight than anyone else's, even Naoya's.

"I accept Empress Y/N petition to marry Emperor Satoru!"

In the chaos of the courthouse after the high priest granted your wish, Naoya shook his head in disbelief, looking at both of you with intense disdain.

"You've always wanted that wench, haven't you, Gojo?" Naoya cackled with a malice you would never have expected from someone who had been your husband for ten years.

You had tuned out all the noise. This dumpster fire was too much even for you. But then, you felt a strong arm enveloping you, sealing your fate as the match made in this courtroom—

"I have, yeah," Satoru replied with a smug grin. "And now that she is mine... it's just the beginning of your downfall, Zen'in."

Your wedding banquet in Western Empire lasted a week long.

True to his promise, Satoru spared no effort to make you happy. The moment he brought you to his palace, he ordered immediate plans for wedding celebrations. Make it grand, make it unforgettable... he took charge himself.

And on the final, seventh day, as you were about to be formally crowned as the empress of the western lands, you were stunned.

"This is your coronation dress, Empress," your new lady-in-waiting, Shoko, said with pride. "Gojo— I mean, His Majesty, specifically has his late mother's dress altered to suit you."

You promised yourself that you would no longer wear any shades of crimson. As much as you loved the color, it reminded you too much of your homeland and Naoya. No matter how much you despised him now, once upon a time, he was everything you loved and more.

And you thought you couldn't possibly love another color until you saw the extravagant navy dress in your chamber. Made of luxurious satin and adorned with literal diamonds, it shimmered under the light and flowed gracefully with layers of brocade cascading to the floor.

To give you something so valuable... You had expected to enter into a marriage out of necessity, but your new husband had no intention of ceasing his ways to win your heart.

If it's with him, maybe... just maybe...

Today is the day.

Satoru sat on his throne before his court in the grand hall of his audience chamber. His hair was pulled back, and he was dressed in his official attire, robe of silk and a crown made of pure gold.

Next to him, another resplendent crown adorned with jewels and diamonds shimmered in the light—the empress' crown. Your crown.

Today was the day this empire would truly acknowledge his queen. He stole a glance at you on his other side, and his breath was taken away.

With your hair tucked into an elegant updo, you were the very vision of a fairytale queen. You were incredibly stunning, almost otherworldly— shade of blue suited you as much as crimson did, just as he thought.

This day would go down in history. But before that, he would ensure that the news would reach Zen'in Naoya. He would spite him so hard.

"Today marks a momentous occasion. We gather here to celebrate not only my marriage and my new wife's coronation," Satoru glanced at his audience with a smirk, his expression widening as he spotted his best friends Suguru and Shoko. "But also the start of her reign... and as we know it already, her fame and beauty are second to none."

The crowd burst into giggles, clearly aware of his scandal at the Eastern Empire's courthouse. And even you smiled.

Satoru shrugged, playfully rolling his eyes. "Spare me, I'm a newlywed, after all. Anyway..." His gaze shifted to the intricate crown, a relic of his late mother's, and then back to you. "Come."

You knelt before your new husband, bowing your head. The whirlwind journey from the East, your remarriage to Satoru... It had all felt surreal until this moment. Now, the weight of reality settled upon you, almost shaking your very core—

But just as the thought crossed your mind, Satoru placed the crown upon your head. As the jewels settled into place and you rose to face the crowd, his voice cut through the air:

"And here I present to you, your new empress!"

The room erupted in applause, the cheers echoing around you. Everyone congratulated you without fail, and your breath was taken away.

It was a sight beyond belief, as they chanted your name, over and over again—

“ALL HAIL THE EMPRESS!”

"I have something for you!"

You wouldn't expect that you would ditch your last night of wedding celebrations along with your husband, and yet here you were, led by the hand by a very giddy Satoru.

"Where are we going?" you questioned him, your pretty dress sweeping the halls in a rush.

He turned to you to send you a wink. "Trust me, sweetheart. You'll love it."

Somehow the way he called you made your heart thump a little faster inside your ribcage. This man is really, truly, your husband now.

He was such a refreshing person, it almost made you let go of everything that molded you into the perfect empress in the east, and be just... you.

"Here." Both of you stopped in front of a grand door, and he ushered you inside. "Come, come~"

A study, you realized as you stepped inside, but then a gasp left your lips—

"How do you find it, hmm?" Satoru put an arm around your waist, proud of how the burgundy walls and mats enveloped the entire space, creating a tranquil sight that perfectly matched your taste.

It was so much like your private study in the Eastern Empire's palace. You might now hate that place, but your private study was filled with the memories of smiles while writing back to Satoru's letters and waiting for his cat to come. And to have this now in your new home...

"You remembered..." you looked up to him, almost tearing up.

"Of course I do," he pressed a kiss on your temple. "I said that so long as you're with me, I'll turn your dream into reality, didn't I?"

This man really treasures you, or at least that was what his actions had proven so far.

"You're everything I've ever wanted and more," Satoru said, wrapping his arms around you from behind in a warm embrace. "You might not realize it, but I've been in love with you since you first visited western lands."

"What?" you turned to him with genuine confusion. "How?"

"That blind boy who you led by the hand... he had no friends," Satoru sighed against you. "The first and only person who asked him if he was lost... is you."

Suddenly, you were thrown back in time to your first encounter with Satoru many years ago. He was known as "cursed" for being born with peculiar eyes, had been blind for a period of his childhood, before he awakened the true extent of those brilliant blue eyes and brought his clan to power by wielding them.

Back then, you thought it was wrong for him to be left alone, so you took him by the hand and escorted him back to the palace, unaware that he was the infamously cursed crown prince.

"You made me feel less lonely. And I thought then... someday, somehow... through some sort of miracle in which I regained my eyesight and could see you... I'd immediately ask for your hand."

But you were named the crown princess of the Eastern Empire. The thought of how crushed Satoru must have felt upon hearing the news pricked at your heart.

You felt soft, you felt loved, and most of all, you felt an overwhelming certainty that with this man by your side, you would finally experience the genuine love that had been missing from your life for so long.

"You have me now," you whispered in response.

Unlike your first kiss in the winery village, this time, you were the one who faced him and pulled him into a searing kiss.

Be it impulse, overwhelming feelings or something else... you didn't care. You just want him.

And wouldn't you know, your new husband... is also a wonderful, dashing lover.

"You're so... fucking beautiful..." Satoru's lips were on yours, claiming them with a fierce passion that left you breathless. His hands roamed your body, tracing each curves and lines.

You moaned into his mouth, clutching his robes. He captured your wrists with one hand, using the other to tilt your head back so he could leave bruises on your neck in the process, making you moan.

"Keep making that sound, yeah?" Satoru rasped, his hot breath giving you goosebumps. "Keep me going with your voice."

As he gripped your waist, it dawned to him once again that you were here, with him.

Seeing his colors on you ignited desire straight to his cock. His empress was stunning, more so now than ever, more than any woman Satoru had ever seen.

He led you to the bed, his movements urgent yet tender. The air was thick with desire as you lay back, pulling him down with you. You arched your back, pressing yourself closer to him, craving more.

This wasn't your first time, yet you had never been this excited before. From heated kisses until somehow managing to get rid of your underwear and left you in your dress... your body nearly thrashed in response.

"Look at you... An queen of two empires, yet rendered putty in my hands," Satoru wickedly grinned as he slipped a hand under your dress, rubbing his thumb teasingly over your clit. You let out a soft sigh at the prodding. You were getting wetter by each second... and Satoru felt his cock straining against the tight material of his dress pants.

"More..." you pleaded, arching your hips. "More...!"

Any of your wishes would be his command, so he pushed two fingers inside you at once, and you let out an erotic gasp. Satoru was so close to tearing his pants off by seeing how tight you clenched around his digits.

Breathy moans fell from your lips with each harsh brush of his thumb over your clit, his fingers fucking you fast—

"Satoru...!" you shuddered, gripping his shoulders as you became limp and came into his hands in spurts.

"My queen..." he then captured your lips in a brash kiss, and you reciprocated it. He pulled away only to press his forehead against yours in an attempt to calm his raging heart. "No matter what."

His watery, sparkling eyes was mesmerizing to you, and you took one breath before you crashed your lips into his, tangling your fingers in his hair, pulling him closer.

"As pretty as you look in this, I'm going to take it off," Satoru murmured with a meaningful smirk, slowly undoing the laces of your dress. "I want to see you completely naked... just for me."

Soon, you laid bare, and the cold air made your body shiver. Satoru clenched his jaw tightly at the scrumptious sight.

It was almost difficult for him to take in all of you at once—your flushed cheeks, swollen lips, erect nipples, and legs spread wantonly for him. Satoru had been here so many times in his dreams, and to see it becoming reality...

"If back then, you had chosen me instead—" he sounded almost heartbroken, which startled you. "I would have treated you right from the start—"

You looked up to him. "You would..."

"Don't you know how many years... I've been just there— watching you and that bastard? Knowing I can do even more than him?"

"Mhm..."

You rose, tugging him closer, before you unclasped his robe, letting it fall to the floor. "Satoru... right now... I'm yours."

He allowed you to undress him and soon he too was out of his stuffy royal attire. Your eyes wandered on each part of his body you touched. His chiseled body, snow-like skin, and then the hardened bulge that sprung out the moment you undid his pants—

The sight of his cock alone only turned you on even more. You gently gripped the glistening head, running a thumb over the tip before gliding your hand towards the base of his length. With a gentle rhythm, your hand moved from base to tip in a slow, teasing motion... before pecking his head.

"Yeah... you're right." His eyes never left yours, admiring you as if you were the most precious gemstone, before catching you off guard. While you rubbed him, he snaked a hand around your waist, pulling you so that you tumbled on top of him.

You moaned loudly as his cock—big, both in length and width—entered you, his hands gripping your thighs to spread them apart so he can shove himself deeper.

You felt so, so full, as you pulled Satoru to you tightly, groaning into his shoulder. And he started to set the pace, moving against you.

"Ahh," you moaned out shakily, fingers clawing into his back. To him, the sounds you made drew him in like a siren's song, it made him throb inside you. "Ahh—hngh!"

"Feel good?" he asked, voice sultry and deep, as he thrusted into you particularly harder, causing you to stifle a moan. "Let it out—hah—sweetheart... I want to hear you, hmm?"

And you did. You felt hot. Your unabashed, nasty sounds with each thrust drove him to the edge. With every lift of your hips, you squeezed him so tightly it almost made his head spin. His breaths came in short pants too.

"You fit me so damn well," he groaned, holding your hips hard enough to leave imprints of his fingers. "So fine..."

One woman. It took just one woman—you—to unravel him like this.

"Satoru, harder—" You commanded, wrapping your arms around his neck even as you trembled. "N-not enough... harder!"

He actually had to swallow, because you and your pussy felt so damn tantalizing. "As you wish, Your Majesty."

He slammed his hips against yours twice—no, thrice the previous speed, and you incoherently squealed. The squelching sound of your hips slamming against each other, and the immense wetness coming out where you two were joined... it was clear: you were addicted.

"Did Naoya ever make you feel as good as I do you now?" he drawled, sinking into you impossibly deeper, squeezing your left mound and flicking your right nipple at the same time. "Did he... ever make you ride him like this?" And then he instantly regretted his words.

Because the moment he said that, you felt cold, reminded of nights in which Zen'in Naoya grabbed you just to forcefully breed you. You winced, and Satoru caught it.

"I..." you shifted your gaze away from him, and he could've sworn that it was sorrow he saw flashing in your pretty eyes. "I-I... don't want to talk about him..."

Feeling remorseful, Satoru reached for the back of your neck and pulled you to him, kissing your lips softly. "I'm sorry—"

"You don't have to—"

"Tonight, I'll make you scream my name so hard you'll forget him," he promised as he pulled away from you, his eyes darkening. "Tonight, give me everything and I'll show you how a man truly loves his woman."

And he followed through. He worshipped you meticulously, treating your body with the reverence one might bestow upon delicate glass. He peppered kisses on every inch of your skin he could reach, lips and tongue trailing down, his relentless thrusts so well-paced and brutal at the same time.

"I'm— close!" You whimpered, and yet still grinding your hips against him. He was watching your every move, every wave of pleasure that was evident on your face— committing it to memory for those moments when he couldn't hold you close.

You gasped—as a mind-blowing orgasm then ripped out of your very being, your hips faltering as you surrendered to ecstasy with a cry of his name, coming all over him. "Satoru... Satoru! Ahhh!"

And Satoru kept his gaze on your face as he too busted inside of you hard, feeling himself filling your womb with his essence, his hands kept your waist steady, memorizing the way your lips part and the way your body went limp into him with satisfaction.

Dear heavens, I love you. The sight of you was nothing but perfection, and with everything he had, he was very sincere when he said—

"You're flawless, sweetheart."

2 MONTHS LATER

"If you give me a son, I'll throne you as the empress right on that very day."

The Eastern Empire's palace was bustling as the royal consort's screams echoed through the halls. The day Naoya had been eagerly awaiting had arrived—his mistress was delivering his heir.

Yet unbeknownst to him, whispers in the dark suggested the royal baby was arriving suspiciously early. Many, still mourning the previous empress who had been dethroned so abruptly, were not exactly thrilled with this turn of events.

"My lady, just a little bit more!" the maid encouraged. Hanabi strained once again as the pain peaked and her body spasmed, letting out the loudest wail as the baby finally slid out of her.

"W-what... is it?" on the brink of passing out, Hanabi asked anyone who might hear her. She had to know, for she was so close to obtaining her throne—

"It's a girl, my lady!" the midwife announced.

What?

Her world crumbled at that very moment. A girl? A girl can't be the heir!

She wanted to sob, to utterly mourn, and right at this moment she was full of fear, because if Naoya knew—!

Like a curse, he suddenly made his presence known in the birthing chamber. His face scrunched in distaste at the scent of blood filling the air. He took one look at Hanabi, tearful and frazzled after the ordeal, then turned to the midwife, who was trembling at his presence.

"A baby girl, Your Majesty."

In that instant, fury flashed through him. He shot everyone in the room a glare before his eyes settled on his consort, full of spite.

"You useless tramp."

Your life with Satoru in Western Empire was wonderful.

He was everything Naoya was not. Satoru adored you, prioritized your well-being and happiness, often humored you, and made your days an endless delight.

And dare you say... you had begun to return his affections as well.

How could you not? Everything he did, he did with you in mind. He eased you into your position so seamlessly, and soon you found your place comfortably at court.

"He is mixing pleasure with his kingly duties," Suguru grumbled, watching his best friend order the gardeners to plant more blue roses simply because you mentioned finding them beautiful earlier. "Empress, you have to keep a tight grip on his leash."

"Well, at least he's happy." Shoko shrugged and nudged you. "Can't you see by now? How much of a loser he is for you?"

You did see him—a man who showed you everything he had. He had given you everything you unknowingly needed.

And you just wished... you could return the same for him. It still made you bitter, knowing you might never be able to give him heirs due to your condition.

. . .

"Sweetheart... what's on your mind, hmm?"

You looked up to him as he pressed a kiss on your cheek, an arm securely around you, sweaty and panting after your steamy session.

With his hair down and messy after you yanked him earlier, your lips curved into a genuine smile. "You look hot like this, you know?"

He clicked his tongue. "Hmm, I am, of course. But no use in changing topics, I know you well enough now."

Your bare body was pressed against his chest, fingertips tracing gentle lines on his skin.

"There's a possibility that... I can't give you any children." You almost felt ashamed saying this to him, unable to look at him in the eye. "I-I... I've failed for many years—"

"Hush," he silenced you with a finger to your lips, his expression firm. "No thinking that, yeah? I don't care."

"But—"

"Children are gifts," he said then, caressing your face tenderly. "It's not up to us to control how it'll take or not. And I married you not because I want heirs or such—I love you, you know?"

Your glassy eyes met his, and you willed yourself not to shed a tear.

He grinned cheekily. "Besides, you've felt it yourself—my sexual potency is undeniable. And I don't believe for a second, that you're what that bastard claimed you to be. I bet he's the one who is impotent—"

"Satoru! You're so obscene—!" you giggled freely and poked his chest.

At that time, you were just relieved that he didn't mind. Though it was still weighing in your mind on some days, you felt a newfound sense of liberation compared to when you were still in the Eastern Empire.

But you were in for another plot twist. Perhaps Satoru is correct, and your doubts are unfounded...

"Ugh..."

Your stomach churned in discomfort, a sickening nausea that seemed to twist your insides and threaten to force its way up. This had happened for days now.

You wanted to find a physician before Satoru was aware of your state. You didn't dare to hope or speculate, because you were tired of it by this point. You just wanted clarity.

Yet, the physician's words left you speechless.

"Your Majesty... it seems that you are with child," he remarked in wonder as he assessed your vein. "Yes, definitely. You are with child."

It was a revelation you hadn't expected. For years, you had been convinced that you were unable to conceive, but now...

You were carrying a new life. Yours and Satoru's.

You felt like bursting with joy as you made your way to his study. Your heart swelled with an overwhelming sense of happiness. Above anything else, you were eager to share this news with him—

...until everything you had known turned on its axis once again.

Right before you went past the ajar door, you saw a glimpse of your husband and his most trusted confidant, overhearing snippets of their conversation:

"Satoru, however you look at it, this is tantamount to declaring war," Suguru sighed, clearly at odds with his perspective. "It's not wise."

"We can finally put an end to them this way," Satoru's tone was steely as he moved a chess piece across the map, positioning it on the border between east and west. "No better time than now."

"The Empress will face the greatest backlash from this. They'll accuse her of being vengeful enough to provoke an attack on her home country—"

"On the contrary, her presence will encourage those still loyal to her to defect. That's why I have her here. We need defectors—"

You let out a choked gasp, backing away from the door in shock. For one good minute, you refused to comprehend what Satoru was implying.

. . .

Did your new husband... marry you for his own hidden agenda?

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