#mostly i would like them to talk to each other about their jobs in both funny and sad ways

[certifiedducky]

i mean they could’ve had both. their dynamic(like everything involving adrien, chloe, and character depth in this show) had so much potential, and the show really just let it all fizzle and die.

like, for starters, in the show they’re longterm friends, and adrien stays friends with her despite the fact that she’s a bully but it just comes across as very unsympathetic to his new friends, especially marinette. he kind of just says “oh that’s how she is, we’ve been friends forever” and it makes adrien look really shitty.

But if we got more depth from them? Like, after Audrey left Chloe spent a lot of time with the Agrestes because her dad was ALWAYS working. If Emilie was a super-involved mom, I bet she became SO important to Chloe. Further cementing Adrien and Chloe being siblings. Chloe would get to go to school and then she’d come back every day and tell Adrien all about it, and when they were younger they’d play games about being in school because they both wanted him there.

Adrien got enrolled in school after Emilie died. There’s no way he would’ve been able to do that on his own, and absolutely no way Nathalie would’ve helped him. After Mr. Agreste started becoming more distant, I bet Chloe felt it as her job to comfort Adrien the way he and his mom comforted her after Audrey left. But they aren’t little kids anymore, and Gabe’s being super controlling about when Adrien can see other people. So she pulled strings and helped him enroll in school.

They’re EVERYTHING to each other. And, yeah, Chloe’s a little clingy but it’s because she remembers when her mom left and how hard it was, so she wont stop pestering Adrien to make sure he’s okay, in her own way. She hasn’t quite realized that she loves Adrien like a brother, and is mostly just really scared that once he goes to public school someone will convince him to leave her, too. I’d imagine those first few days, she was GLUED to his side.

But Adrien craves social connection, so he started making friends with other kids in the class, and he had to separate himself from chloe to do that. it could’ve been a really hard decision for him, maybe she didn’t talk to him for a few days. but they’re family. and he still talks to her and she leaves for lunch with him, and nino and alya and marinette really hold it against him for a while until everything comes out about audrey, and that’s when adrien explains the history they have.

Adrien and Chloe being found family is one of my absolute favorite missed opportunities in the show. They know each other’s tells. Chloe comes off as a snobby rich kid, but she’s protecting herself and Adrien. He may come across as unsympathetic, but he can’t very well disown his sister when they’ve been through so much together. He definitely could’ve been a crucial part of her character development as well.

Adrien and Chloe could have had the best found family dynamic but nooooo they needed a mean girl character

[qoldenskies]

That preview for wwww has got me so excited aaaaaaaaa i want to know more i cant wait- is there anything you could talk about with Leo and Donnie that isn't spoilers??

oh yeah! here are some backstory details about them that are mostly silly, just for the fun of it

im personally just going with the idea that splinter named them early for simplicity's sake, the names are the same as canon.

draxum took a little too long to see them as children instead of weapons, which is an influence on their behavior. he's always treated them with this adult-like seriousness that was questionable when they're younger, but it makes them INFURIATED when people talk down to them or treat them like children as teenagers.

this will influence their dynamics with raph greatly.

donnie was the stickler/tattletale between the two, but to call leo the troublemaker would be an UNDERSTATEMENT. huginn and muninn literally could not take care of him in draxum's absence because he would go full fucking home alone on them. with donnie at his side they would make Death Traps

this is actually how they ended up meeting big mama. draxum went to a meeting with her and had to bring leo along because he wouldn't behave, and donnie tagged along because leo threw a screeching fit when draxum said they were going to leave him behind and would not stop until he gave in, they were like 6. big mama adopted them immediately.

leo calls her auntie by her request and learned a lot of his tactics from her. i am under the opinion that she would be a HORRIBLE mother but she's a wonderful aunt you only see occasionally. she spoils them rotten and likes them way more than draxum, that bad bad man. they're too good for him! (THEY ARE MENACES)

if they learned about what she did to splinter they wouldn't even be surprised. leo would be impressed, really

they were pretty well-trained in combat from an early age, although they slipped up a lot. leo has stabbed donnie several times, mostly on accident but probably on purpose at least once. they are extremely casual about this and treat it like a funny joke to the horror of their family

they are also utterly inseparable. they dont keep anything from each other ever and have an insane amount of separation anxiety and codependence going on. they also try to kill each other on a regular basis /hj

since draxum is head of security in the hidden city, they've done some odd jobs before as training and know their way around it like little nepo babies!!!!

speaking of, the fact that theyre technically rich means i can make both of them fashionistas and annoying as fuck about it. theyre so intense about the outfits.

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N already exists in a way that went down very similar to smart lair lmao. leo reprogrammed him because he was being annoying, and then broke him when he was being annoying again despite the fact that it's literally his fault. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N continues to get broken a lot and donnie just rebuilds him.

he thinks its mildly annoying how much leo dislikes him, because he's "closer to S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N's father than [he is]." like man the fuck up and pay child support you baby.

draxum is very indulgent in donnie's hobbies and investment in building despite his limited knowledge of human technology, honestly more than splinter is in canon. although he is secretly a little scared of him and what he's capable of.

donnie was given a bo staff because it was the most non-lethal option draxum could think of

draxum regrets giving leo a sword a lot

[squeeneyart]

[Image description: A digital pencil comic of Loid and Yor Forger. Panel 1: They sit on a couch, Loid slightly hunched forward and Yor slouching into the seat back.

Yor: You know...

Loid: Hm?

Yor: When Yuri moved out, I remember thinking- Eventually we'll run out of 'clients'. It has to end at some point right? "When does the fighting stop?".

Panel 2: Yor from Loid's pov, slightly turned away.

Yor: And here I am.

Panel 3: Loid looking forward with a look of exhaustion.

Yor (off-screen): Still on call.

End ID]

gotta do everything myself. anyway the ramifications of a war that never truly ends, causing people to do terrible things in the name of a peaceful future that may never happen due to powers much bigger than them

[epicfirestormer]

What I love about Hellboy and Abe Sapien's dynamic in the comics is that, if you came into this blind, you'd expect Abe to be the voice of reason or the straight man to Hellboy's impulsive and hotheaded personality. But no, Abe is more often than not the crazy one. Hellboy would deal with fighting evil monsters and bad guys by just sighing and getting it over with, while Abe is going rabid over tearing the creature apart when he does get into a fight. Hellboy acts like it's a 9-to-5 job and will reasonably talk things out with a guy that had nearly killed him before, Abe acts like a madman in a slaughter house and his first instinct is to shoot first kill second and ask third. They're both insane, but on completely different levels.

[peachdues]

COMPASS

bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW

A/N: Peach?? Not having any self control when it comes to writing a fic?? It’s more likely than you think.

This was supposed to be a bad boy!Sanemi takes your virginity drabble that spiraled into a meta-analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred that then blew up into a fic with plot. All of those elements are still present but surprise!! Enjoy 24k words of my brain rot.

Inspired by @homo-homini-lupus-est-1701 ‘s wonderful meta analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred and his scars.

CW: 24k • explicit sexual content • MDNI • gang-related violence • mentions of blood and broken bones • mentions of murder/death • loss of virginity • creampie • vaginal fingering • some angst

I have plenty more of this AU written, so if y’all want more, just let me know 🫡

MASTERLIST HERE

There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.

The first is simple: once you’re in, you’re in.

Never outwardly confirm or deny rumors; let others talk, but don’t even think about opening your fucking mouth about the things you see or the whispers you hear.

And don’t be stupid enough to think you can cling onto any vestiges of your old life. There’s no splicing your life within the Corps with the one you’d had before. No separation. You’ve whored yourself to their cause, and for better or worse, you’re there until either someone important says otherwise or you end up in a morgue.

This is especially true for someone like Sanemi, so hopelessly entrenched within the organization that he’d allowed himself to be branded at the age of seventeen upon his ascension from rank-and-file street member to full-blown Hashira — the elite of the Corps, just short of the higher-ups who ran it.

The hot sear of iron between his shoulder blades had hurt like hell, but it was a welcome pain. A reminder that he’d not only outlived his father, but had actually made an impact, enough to be noticed and entrusted with more strenuous duties.

Each Hashira is assigned to a particular field. Uzui, silver haired, boisterous and extravagant, deals in bodies — mostly women, but men too, and he runs all of the strip clubs and escort services west of center city. Kocho, a child prodigy in chemistry, leads an intricate narcotics network.

And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.

Largely monetary debts — collecting on behalf of loan sharks, gambling debts, or that which is owed to his fellow Hashira, when their customers forget that there are no friends in business.

But the brand seared into his flesh has nothing to do with money — it is a reminder that above all, he is to ensure debts of another kind are paid.

Life debts.

In the three years since his initiation, Sanemi has only had to carry out this oath twice. Both had been scum, responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Their executions had been quick and without fuss — or much mess. A quick trip to an overpass abridging the Wisteria River. A march to the barrier in the dead of night, when no other cars were out and about to see or hear pleading sobs and bargains for their pathetic lives. A bullet to the head would quiet them, and Sanemi would let the rapids below take care of the clean up for him. Job done.

But even though the spray of their brains hadn’t touched him, their blood still stains Sanemi’s hands.

He will never be able to wash them clean.

But this is the life he chose, so Sanemi will endure the consequences — for the sake of his brother, the only living person on earth he gives a damn about. For whom he’ll do anything — be anyone — if it means Genya does not have to pick up a gun and sell himself to the very gang that owns his elder brother.

The second rule is simpler: no patterns. Patterns signal comfort and comfort may as well be a target on your back, begging for someone to come and take their shot (or several).

And finally, the third and arguably the most important rule, is don’t get attached. Keep your circle small so there’s less collateral to be used against you — against the organization that owns you.

This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.

For the longest time, Sanemi Shinazugawa found Rule Three to be the easiest one to follow. He has his brother and no one else. His parents are dead; he has no friends beyond those in the Corps with him, and he knows better than to get overly invested in any of them. His inner circle is as tight as it can get.

But then he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in and that’s when everything falls apart.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Sanemi mutters, anxious eyes tracking the large hand on his watch as it ticks the seconds by.

They were late.

The job was simple, and well within Sanemi’s capabilities. Maeda, a local dealer in stolen goods, had run up a sizeable bill at one of Uzui’s joints that he’d yet to pay. And while the slippery lech was quick to come sniffing whenever news spread that Iguro, a fellow Hashira, had managed to hijack a semi-truck full of luxury items, he was surprisingly difficult to connect with when it came time for him to pay for company he couldn’t get elsewhere.

He glanced down at his bruised, swollen knuckles and smirked. Sanemi couldn’t say he loved that his worth was measured in the number of bones he could break, or the amount of teeth he could punch out, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t relish the chance to smash the pervert’s face in whenever the opportunity arose. Nor could he deny the rush of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d thrown open the steel door of the Maeda’s small office, crowbar in hand, and watched the snot-nosed pervert piss himself, stumbling over his words as he’d begged for mercy Sanemi hadn’t been hired to give.

The stupid, greasy fuck.

By the time he’d finished, Maeda had been little more than a quivering, helpless lump curled in on himself on the sticky, slate floor. His office had been left in shambles, drawers yanked out and emptied, only to be thrown aside (or cracked over the vermin’s back as he sobbed). But he’d had found the money, right down to the last dollar, just as he knew he would.

And that’s how Sanemi finds himself standing in the alley tucked behind Maeda’s small warehouse, Uzui’s payment split into two rolls that he’d shoved down into boots. All that was left was for the two junior Corps members he’d brought along for watch to bring the car around, and then they’d return to the abandoned factory that served as their headquarters.

Normally, this would have been a solo job, and Sanemi would already be on his bike, speeding off to safety. But he’d received an order to take along two, new Hinoe so they could get experience with higher level jobs.

Conveniently, his instructions had omitted the part the fact that the two lugs were utterly useless, bumbling idiots, contrary to what their recent promotions otherwise suggested.

Because neither of the two juniors are anywhere to be found. Nor is there any sound signaling that his getaway ride is approaching.

Sharp, lavender eyes scan the alley before him, but to his dismay, it remains empty — disquietingly so.

Leave it to a couple of rookies to set his teeth on edge.

Sanemi’s eyes drop down to follow the large hand of his watch as yet another minute ticks by. It’s been six minutes and their window had only allowed for four.

He knows how to be patient when the circumstances call for it, but now is not one of those times.

One minute, he decides, shifting his weight between his feet. They get one more fucking minute and then he splits —

A sudden screech of tires at the opposite end of the alley makes his stomach flip. Sanemi looks up just in time to see his escape car grind to a sharp halt, its rear jolting up as the driver slams on the brakes.

The passenger door flings open, and one of the Hinoe stumbles out, his feet barely connecting with the pavement before the car guns away, the side door flapping open.

The familiar howl of police sirens accompanied by distant shouts is enough for Sanemi to know this simple little debt collection has now gone tits-up.

“Pigs!” The Hinoe who stumbled out of the getaway car calls to him. “Pigs!”

“Shit,” Sanemi growls. No doubt Maeda’s bruised ego sold them out. He should’ve taken the time to smash the asshole’s phone.

He’ll be dealt with later — and with relish. But right now, Sanemi needs to get the fuck away.

Part of following Rule Three means not worrying about your fellow comrades when the cops come. None of them are stupid enough to actually risk talking to law enforcement about the Corps’ operations, but the fewer of them who get caught, the better.

So Sanemi takes off, adrenaline pumping fast and jot in his veins as he hears the swine behind him split off. He can’t be sure, but he can make out two, maybe three pairs of footsteps trailing behind him.

He scowls; shaking one cop is a breeze; having to shake off three is a bitch.

He hurtles over a pile of wooden crates and shoves a stack of delivery pallets over behind him as he runs, darting down random alleys and side streets that he knows will eventually lead him to a safe house.

The backstreet he shoots down is a fork, but only the path straight through will lead him to a rust yard of abandoned warehouses and shipping containers that Sanemi knows like the back of his hand. He could lose them there, could vanish between freights and wait the bastards out, and once clear, he could slip back into the district marking the outer territory of the Silo and get back home.

Iron pumps hotly in his veins. Almost there, almost there —

A car skids to a stop at the end of the middle ting of the alley, police lights flashing and alarms blaring.

No good.

“Fuck.” It isn’t the end of the world, but the blocking of the alley meant he had to reevaluate his escape. While he’s familiar with the path now obstructed by the police cruiser ahead, he hadn’t the chance to fully scope out his only other two options — the side streets to the left and right.

Without much thought, Sanemi darts sharply left and prays to whatever deity is listening that he hasn’t fully fucked himself.

Only one shop remains open; a tiny hole in the wall, tucked in between two old apartment buildings at the end of the street — one that borders the city’s western wing.

It’ll have to do, he decides, especially as the police sirens grow louder with each passing second.

He explodes through the front door, wide eyed and panting. Vaguely, it registers to him that this is a bookshop — a thankfully empty, cluttered bookshop.

But his abrupt arrival does reveal that the shop is not totally empty. There is one other — the store’s lone employee, who startles out of her seat behind the clerk’s counter, nearly knocking over a small cup of coffee.

He regards her for a moment, and she him, with matching expressions of wariness and shock at the presence of the other.

Behind him, the police sirens grow louder; more urgent.

It’s now or never. And, because he’s desperate enough to try, he risks a move he knows better than to take.

“You got someplace I can hide?”

——-

You blink, stunned as you stare at the frantic, pleading man anxiously looking between you and the door behind him.

His name registers dimly in the back of your mind. Here. In your store. And, evidently, on the run, if the distant echoes of police sirens growing steadily closer to your store is any indication.

Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You know him; you’d known him most of your life, even if you’d never spoken to him. You’d gone to the same school in your youth — all thirteen years of it, in fact. He’d been an abrasive loudmouth in the hallways, but a quiet, even polite boy in the classroom.

You know he’s from the Silo — a worn down, derelict part of the City that housed only the poorest residents. A cruel nickname meant to mock the poverty of its population.

But the Silo was also well known for being the epicenter of operations for the notorious group known only as the Corps.

It was the Corps who owned a majority of the City, its reach extending from the Silo, through the West and East wings, and all the way into Midtown. And, as was the case with most leeches, the Corps relied on the most desperate and hungry to carry out its biddings, offering some level of protection and security for the poor souls who needed it most.

Hence, its presence in the Silo.

So you hadn’t been surprised when you’d heard Sanemi had joined the Corps. Most kids from the Silo did; what had surprised you were the rumors that he became a high-rank member by the ripe age of seventeen, before he’d even graduated high school.

You shudder to think what he had to have done — what he’d become — in order to achieve such status and notoriety.

If he’d been anyone else, you wouldn’t have helped; you would’ve screamed, alerted the police to his presence, maybe even outed him as a suspected Hashira.

But you owed him.

Years ago, before either you or your siblings could drive, you all relied on the city bus to get to and from school.

But one afternoon, when you’d had to stay late for a club meeting, your little sister accidentally got on the wrong bus. Rather than being dropped safe and sound a block away from home, she’d ended up in a bad part of town that just so happened to have been the stomping grounds of the scowling delinquent now shoved under your cabinet, contorted between boxes of blank receipt rolls and stacks of returns.

Had anyone else found your sister, there would be no telling what would have happened to her. The Silo was not a place known to be kind to lost little girls.

But it was Sanemi who discovered her, sniffling and red-faced at the dilapidated bus stop. And though he’d been nothing more than a scrawny ten year old, he’d put your sister on his back and carried her not just the six miles back to safe part of town, but the additional two that led right to the front doorstep of your parents’ home.

You’d watched him curiously from the stairs as your parents profusely thanked your sister’s white-haired savior. They’d offered Sanemi dinner, or at least some sort of reward for his efforts, but he’d only waved them off, briskly telling them it was “no big deal.” As though carrying a six-year-old nearly eight miles was par for the course, as far as he was concerned.

His eyes had flitted over to you once during the exchange, briefly lingering before he turned and left, a single hand held up in casual farewell.

You’d been ten at the time. And now, here you are, twenty years old, running a shabby bookstore, and the opportunity to pay him back has finally arrived. The chance to show your gratitude for sparing your sister of a fate he himself, had not been able to escape.

Quickly, you motion him to you and without explanation, you cram him under the clerk’s counter, holding the cabinet door shut with your knee just as the police burst through the store entrance.

There are three of them, and they do not bother announcing themselves to you. Instead, they begin to prowl through your aisles, flashlights out and guns drawn while they comb the quiet corners of the store, searching for signs of anything that did not belong; anything misplaced.

A bead of sweat slides down the back of your neck, but you keep your face and your stance casual. Below the counter you cross your fingers, hoping and praying that the criminal stuffed inside your cabinet isn’t stupid enough to try and shift.

One officer rounds back into the main part of the store and locks in on you, stiff and anxious behind the counter.“You haven’t seen anything suspicious?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what you mean.”

The cop grimaces. “You haven’t seen anyone who looks out of place? Maybe seems like they’re running?”

You feign an easy, sweet smile, even as the leg holding the cabinet door shut begins to tremble. “I’m afraid you’re my first customer of the day, sir.”

The officer grumbles under his breath something along the lines of not your customer, but he questions you no further. He only waves to his comrades and the three of them shuffle out through the door, one muttering into the walkie strapped to his shoulder.

Several moments pass, tense and thick. The silence is broken only by the sound of your heart hammering against your sternum. You remain still, fingers curled tight against the counter’s edge listening for any sound signaling the cops have returned, that their stiff departure had been a ruse to lull you into a false sense of security, as they waited for you to reveal your deception.

But all remains quiet. And you cannot stomach the silence any longer.

“They’re gone,” you mutter, finally moving aside to let the cabinet door below you swing open.

There’s a faint thumping and a few, muffled curses as the scar-speckled fugitive unfolds himself and spills free from the under-cabinet.

In a way, Sanemi still resembles the boy of your memories. His eyes and hair have always been distinctive: a shocking contrast of violet framed by thick, dark lashes that do not match the mop of silvery-white atop his head. But it’s the faint scowl he wears as he stands, the tinge of annoyance that tugs at the corners of his mouth, that scrunches his pale eyebrows, that feels familiar.

That expression, a portrait of vague irritation with the world around him, was one you came to know well — at least, at a distance. One that remained constant even as you grew; his default.

However, it is still not nearly as memorable as the shy embarrassment that had turned his cheeks slightly pink, had made him cast his eyes down as your parents showered him with gratitude.

But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.

He wears a patterned, short-sleeved button down. Though rumpled and a tad dirty, you suspect the top three buttons were left open intentionally, rather than being the product of whatever scuffle he’d found himself in before he decided to make it your problem.

You try not to linger on the very obvious hint of the well-defined muscles revealed by his open collar. Nor do you let yourself consider the bulging mass of his biceps as he runs a hand through his cornsilk hair.

He has scars he’d not had in your youth — jagged, silvery lines that cut halfway across his cheek and forehead. Yet their presence does not dull his good looks.

A scrawny ten year old no longer; Sanemi Shinazugawa is now tall and roguishly handsome. But his infuriating good looks aside, your debt to him has been repaid; now, he needs to get the fuck away.

“Can’t thank ya enough,” he shoots you a devilish smile as he straightens his shirt. “You really saved my ass —“

“Get out of my store.” You order, your voice hard. “Take your trouble somewhere else and leave me out of it.”

Sanemi’s eyes narrow at your use of the word trouble, but he says nothing. Instead, he only rounds the counter with a loping, infuriating swagger, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“As you wish, Princess,” and you bristle at the sarcasm dropping from the word. He pauses to scan the shelf marked New Releases. “Just need somethin’ for the road.”

He snags a small novel — a fantasy story, judging by the cover - and he tucks it under his arm.

“Later,” he calls, waving a lazy hand over his shoulder.

You stare after him, slack-jawed and incensed. “You have to pay for —“

But the door bangs shut behind him, and Sanemi Shinazugawa disappears into the night.

—-

By the time Sanemi returns to his shabby apartment, it is well after midnight. He’d met up with Uzui and forked over Maeda’s payment. Though, the Corp’s head pimp hadn’t been particularly pleased that his money rolls had been shoved deep down in his boots, his nose wrinkling as Sanemi dropped the crumpled, slightly damp wads of cash into his waiting, magenta-nailed hands.

As it turned out, Maeda hadn’t sold them out. Rather, one of the Hinoe had stupidly gotten into a scuffle with some brash, young teenager and in his anger, pulled his gun on the kid.

Right in front of two, marked cop cars.

One of the idiots had been caught and cuffed, and was now spending his evening locked in the damp, cold jailhouse pending bond. The other — the driver — had managed to escape, though he’d been carted off to Iguro for punishment.

There’s a reason he prefers working alone, he thinks bitterly as he kicks his boots off. He fucking loathes incompetence.

He pulls his gun free from its place in his waistband and sets it gently atop his ratty kitchen table. Sanemi then trudges over to his futon, collapsing heavily on it with a groan. A shit day, he decides, pulling the stack of cash he’d received as his cut for the job free from his pocket, thumbing through it. A shit day with shit juniors.

He shifts against a lump that sits under his ass. Frowning, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the book he’d swiped from your store and turns it over in his hands. Surprisingly, it has managed to remain in pristine condition despite its rather unceremonious storage in his pocket.

Your face flashes in his mind, but before he can fully appreciate it, your words echo in his ears.

Take your trouble somewhere else.

Sanemi scowls, tossing the book onto his coffee table, annoyed. The implication underlying your use of trouble and the venom with which you’d spoken it is a thorn in his side he cannot ignore.

You know what — who — he is. In Sanemi’s world, that’s a liability.

Though, in fairness, he can’t really be surprised that you do. Gossip is a free commodity in this town, and it’s a coveted one. It wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that you’d overheard one of the rumors about him and his ties to the Corps.

What concerns him is he doesn’t know what your connection is, if any, to his world. Maybe you’re really just a girl in a bookshop who paid back a decade-old favor.

Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.

The Corps isn’t the only gang operating within the city; there is another, crueler and far more violent that had arisen west of the Silo.

The Kizuki.

In the last six months, the Kizuki have managed to overtake the Western Wing, nearly expanding their reach into center city.

Their takeover had been swift; practically achieved overnight, following the systematic execution of every known Corps members in the area. And their violence hadn’t been limited to active members; the Kizuki had brutally maimed and murdered anyone tangentially connected to those Corps members.

Neither women nor their children were spared. And now, it seemed the Kizuki had set their sights on the Silo.

There are whispers that they’ve expanded into their operations into the neighborhood adjacent to the one in which the bookstore sits. That alone is enough to make Sanemi suspicious — perhaps you’re in league with them, and you’ll hand him over the moment it’s most convenient for you to do so.

Admittedly, that theory seems doubtful. You’re a bookseller. Not the kind of girl he knows is prone to becoming involved with the seedy underground world of organized crime. And your apparent disdain for him and his trouble only supports that theory.

But that’s an assumption, and in his line of work, assumptions are precarious; risky. Too much so for comfort.

Either way, he doesn’t know, and that uncertainty is a breeding ground for the parasite that is doubt. Toxic enough that were it to take root in his brain, his judgment could be compromised, leading him to mistakes he can’t afford to make.

Sanemi doesn’t tolerate blind spots. He will keep you on his radar until he determines the threat you pose and once he knows its severity, he’ll decide how to proceed.

He eyes the book he’d swiped from your store. He likes reading, though he hasn’t had much time for it lately (or, ever). But, if he’s going to hang around you while trying to identify the threat you pose, he might as well have a strategy for getting you to talk.

Sighing, he grabs the novel from his table and thumbs to the first page as he pads into his kitchen, in search of something to quell the grumble in his stomach.

—

His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.

You work at a bookstore. Your parents sold off your childhood home and retired to some beach down south. Your siblings are spread out across other cities and don’t visit home often, if ever.

Only you remain, abandoned by your family to fend for yourself in a crumbling city with only a shabby bookshop that sits on the furthest end of an otherwise safe street to keep you busy.

Truthfully, the bookstore probably is more interesting than you, at least on paper. But it’s that dirge of information that piques his interest; makes him look at you more as a mystery worth unraveling.

Besides, the smart thing for him would be to keep a tab on you until he can confirm you are in fact, as boring as you appear.

Or so he tells himself.

The image of a ten-year-old you peering at him from your parents’ stairwell flashes through his mind once more.

He’d felt your gaze burning a hole into his head, and shyly, he’d looked back at you, only to find himself unable to look away. Only your mother’s prodding about him joining your family for dinner had broken your temporary enchantment over him.

The memory of how you’d looked at him — a mixture of curiosity and awe highlighted by a faint blush in your cheeks when he’d met your stare head on — remained fixed in his brain for years after.

And though the two of you never spoke, you always smiled at him whenever you locked eyes in the school hallway or cafeteria. A real, genuine smile.

He wonders if he ever smiled back and finds himself irritated that he can’t remember if he had. He should’ve; especially now when it seems as though he’s unlikely to ever see that gentle, radiant smile again.

Sanemi’s phone pings and all thoughts of you come to a screeching halt. The message that flashes on his screen — instructions, only by way of an address and an amount — chase away the images of you and your sweet smile, like a hand scattering smoke.

With a sigh, Sanemi dials the number for two, lower-ranked Corps members to serve as scouts. With watch secured, he shoves his phone into his pocket and runs a tired hand over his face.

He wonders what will kill him first — whether it will be a bullet or whether it will be because there’s nothing left of him to whore out on the Corp’s behalf.

Ultimately, he knows it doesn’t really matter. He won’t die as himself; as Sanemi, the boy from the Silo who wants a life that’s anything but this. He’ll die only as Shinazugawa the Hashira. He’ll die under the mask he’s forced to wear so often, he wonders if it hasn’t yet bonded with his skin.

But as long as he remains in one piece, he must continue on as a puppet in this this tedious show. So, Sanemi grabs his gun from where he’d placed it on atop the cheap plastic of his kitchen table and he tucks it into his waistband.

And by the time his apartment door slams shut behind him, Sanemi has slipped the mask down over his face, and he is Shinazugawa once more.

—

Two weeks pass before he ends up back in front of your bookstore.

Sanemi doesn’t really remember how he got here. He awoke well before sunrise to his phone chiming with orders that he go collect on a sizeable gambling debt owed by one of Iguro’s regulars, an owner of some pawn shop.

The sun was already high overhead when he finally left the pawn shop, knuckles bruised and arm aching. He’d kicked his bike into gear in a familiar daze, one that always slipped over him after he completed a job. A kind of numb quiet that settled into his bones, a dull static in his brain that did not fade until the tremor in his hands subsided.

That paralysis needs to be broken. Contrary to popular belief, desensitization was not an ideal state of being for someone like him. It made him apathetic and careless to the world around him, and that was little better than painting a giant target on his back, begging his enemies to come and do their worst.

So, when the numbness still lingered by the time his bike roars past a rusted water tower that marks the outer limit of the Silo, Sanemi knows of only one cure. His go-to.

His bike is still hot by the time he lifts his phone to his ear, just outside his shithole of an apartment.

He doesn’t know her by name — only by description, as told by the series of emojis that accompany her number on his phone. But it’s surprisingly easy to charm her, though perhaps that’s because she’s looking for an escape just as much as he is.

Less than ten minutes later, the girl pulls up beside him in the parking lot.

Her hands are already roaming down his chest and playing with the buckle on his belt as Sanemi unlocks his door and pushes her inside.

At some point between the front door and his bedroom, the girl has stripped herself of her outer clothing, leaving her only in her undergarments as she tugs Sanemi down by his neck and into her kiss. She’s licking and nipping at his lips in a way he’s not sure he likes, but he allows it because his cock is painfully hard and throbbing where it strains against his pants.

And, after all, he’s the one desperate for relief.

“I’ve only got ten minutes,” she warns, kicking off her underwear as she falls back onto his bed. Sanemi only smirks as he slides his hand down the length of her leg, gripping her by the ankle and flipping her to her stomach.

He shifts away long enough to quickly wiggle free of his pants. He grabs a condom from his nightstand and rips the foil with his teeth. Fingers toying with the girl’s clit as she moans into his mattress, Sanemi rolls the latex down his cock. Protection secured, he reaches for her again, yanking her by her hips until her backside is flush against him. One hand pushes down between her shoulder blades while the other snakes up her neck, and Sanemi nudges the tip of his cock up against her entrance.

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he winds the long tresses of her hair around his fist and gives her a sharp tug. “We’ll be done in five.”

—-

Even an hour after he tossed the girl her clothing and not so casually suggested she leave his apartment, Sanemi still feels restless.

He cannot shake the images of the afternoon from his mind, and so, Sanemi resorts to walking.

He does so without thought as to destination or the rapidly setting sun. Sanemi only focuses on the activity itself. One foot in front of the other; pace even and quick, each step accompanied by a flash of that day’s sins.

The crash of a garage door as it slammed back against the wall. Wide eyes that quickly filled with panic at the sight of him and the flash of metal tucked against his hip.

Step.

A plea; a desperate promise to pay, one that he’d heard a thousand times from a thousand different mouths. None of them ever seemed to understand their word wasn’t worth shit when they’d already defaulted on their obligations. Yet still, they begged.

Step.

The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.

Step.

The crush of bone under the iron pipe he’d found discarded on the garage floor. The agonized futility of trying to scoot back and away from him, despite a shattered leg.

Green; the color of the money he’d found stashed in a duffel, the debtor’s desperate attempt to hoard the wealth owed to the Corps.

Step. Step. Step. All the way down the street leading until he finds himself on a distantly familiar stretch of pavement that ends at the bookstore’s front steps.

For a moment, he lingers outside the shop, hesitant. He should turn around; there is no reason for him to be here. His investigation into you is not a priority by any means, especially where whatever poking he has done has revealed so little.

The book he lifted from the New Releases shelf is tucked carefully in his jacket pocket. He doesn’t know why he’s carried it around with him, all this time. Sanemi finished the novel the very night you’d helped hide him from the cops.

He should leave; but then his feet carry him up the walk leading to the store, and he’s pushing the door open.

His arrival is punctuated by a cheerful ring of the old bell nailed above the door. At first, the store appears deserted; but then you pop up from under the counter, surprise coloring your features.

That surprise melts quickly into cold disdain that makes something in his chest flutter as he strolls toward you. With every step, that numb haze of his disperses and instead, Sanemi feels himself returning to normal the closer he brings himself to you.

“This isn’t a library,” you chide when he plops his borrowed novel back down on your counter. “You have to pay for the books here.”

It’s incredible how easily he is able to slip back into the skin of the suave, smug playboy, and your adorable glare only makes him smirk. “I brought it back, didn’t I? Look — didn’t even crack the spine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you reply coolly, snatching the book up and tossing it on a small cart marked Restock. “That loss came out of my paycheck — which is scant enough.”

That piques his attention. “Didn’t you say this was your store?”

His question makes you turn pink, and you’re quick to put your back to him, pretending to shuffle through new releases waiting to be shelved. “I work here,” you mutter quietly, but when you turn back around, you stick your chin out, defiant. “But I am the only employee, so it is my store, in a sense. The owner doesn’t ever come by.”

You wrinkle your nose. “So yes, lost profits affect me, and me alone, you thief.”

Sanemi cocks his head, his eyes running over you in consideration.

You’re beautiful; he’s always found you cute, even as a kid, but the transition between your teen years and adulthood have been kind. Even if you’re glaring at him like you would a crushed bug stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

But your words strike a chord in him. His job is to collect money from those greedy lowlifes who waste it; who use money to carry out their bad deeds, who use it to fuck over others.

He doesn’t take it from those who need it; from those who are barely scraping. by. Sanemi knows the agony of having to choose between keeping the lights on or feeding a hungry stomach far, far too well.

“Fine, here,” he tosses a random novel on your counter and a crumpled twenty dollar note. You ring him up, eyes flicking up to glare at him every so often as you count out his change.

He only continues to watch you, the heat of his stare ignites an itch under your skin that makes you squirm.

Your restlessness boils over. “What?”

“Nothin,” he shrugs. “Just think it’s interesting that you of all people are still lingering in this shit hole.”

Your head snaps up, your task of totaling out his change forgotten. “I live here, idiot.”

He snorts. “Didn’t you want outta here? Do somethin’ different?” He leans forward, elbows propped on your counter as he rests his chin on his fist.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He’s dancing dangerously close to a sore spot of yours — that you are alone in your hometown, working at a failing bookshop, with no one and nothing to justify your stagnancy.

“This can’t be your dream life.”

You don’t have to answer; you know that. But his line of questioning is puzzling. Because, no matter how casual he manages to keep his tone, his nonchalance is betrayed by his eyes, sharp and inquisitive.

Like he’s waiting to dissect whatever answer you give him.

Sanemi continues. “It’s strange for people not to want for more — to not dream about somethin’ different.”

“And who are you to say I don’t?” You bristle, slamming your cash drawer shut with more force than necessary. “I have a dream of my own. Just because it’s not one you would pick for yourself doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

He blinks, taken aback. “Woah, woah, I never meant any offense.” He pushes back from the counter. “My bad.”

His response feels genuine but your ego is already bruised. Stiffly, you finish counting out his change and drop it into his waiting palm.

You slide his book across the counter. “Have the day you deserve.”

His surprise morphs into amusement at your iciness. So haughty, he winks. “You too, Princess.”

You turn aside in clear dismissal. He makes a show of taking out his wallet and stuffing his change inside, but your pointed ignorance of him means you don’t see him toss another note on the counter.

He’s already halfway out the door when you call after him, urgent. “Sir, you dropped your —“

“Nah, I didn’t,” he raises his hand in farewell as the bookstore door bangs shut behind him, leaving you to stare open-mouthed after him.

Clutched tightly in your hand is his crisp, one hundred dollar note.

—

His next visit is unplanned, but not in the way that Sanemi avoids routine. It’s unplanned in that he’s annoyed and it’s partially your fault, so that means the onus is on you to fix it.

You’re in the process of double checking delivery logs to ensure all your new inventory has arrived when a large thud against the clerk’s counter startles you.

You frown. It’s him again — all ivory hair and silvery facial scars that somehow are less imposing than the irritated scowl he wears.

“This book was shit,” he scoots the novel across the counter to you with distaste. “I want a refund.”

You level his pout with a frosty glare of your own. Wordlessly, you lean over the counter and tap a single finger against a laminated sign duck-taped to its edge.

Return-exchange only. No refunds.

“But it was shit,” he repeats, as though that will somehow spur you to change a policy you didn’t create. “You let me waste twenty bucks.”

“I did nothing,” you rustle the pages of your delivery log in pointed dismissal. “You’re the one who decided to buy a book before checking it out.”

You glance down at the discarded novel. “Figures,” you scoff. “He’s not even an author. He uses ghost writers and takes all the credit.”

“Woulda been nice if you’d told me that before you let me give him my money.”

You hum idly as you cross off the log’s boxes for new releases. “I suppose I was too stunned that you even knew how to read. Guess I wasn’t really paying attention to your shit choices.”

“Oh?” And you glance up to see Sanemi smirking at you. “The Princess has claws, does she?” He leans against the counter, propping his cheek under a loose fist. “So, what are your recommendations, gorgeous?”

“I’m not your Princess,” you snap imbuing the nickname with as much venom as you can muster. “Call me by my name or call me nothing at all.”

His eyes drop to your name-tag, pinned neatly on the front of your sweater. That insufferable smirk of his only widens. “Alright, alright. What are your recommendations, Y/N?”

The syllables sound rich and honeyed and suddenly, you wish you’d let him stick with Princess, as grating as it was.

Because your name should not sound so sweet, should not roll off his tongue so seamlessly, as it just did.

You’ve never been one to indulge in rumors. But in this city, as economically fractured as it is, gossip is a currency everyone keeps in their back pocket. And though you keep your head down and mind your own business, even you have heard the rumors swirling around town about the eldest Shinazugawa child.

Rumors that he has ascended the ranks of the same Mob that claimed the life of his deadbeat father long before the bastard was shived in the back for a debt he’d owed (their words, never yours).

Rumors that he holds a unique position within the gang, known clandestinely only as the Corps, and that position requires him to do things most won’t speak about.

But the rumor that screeches to the forefront of your mind has nothing to do with his alleged status with the Corps. It’s his reputation as a flirt; a rumored womanizer, through and through, that is a splinter under your skin.

Determined to pick him out, a wicked idea blossoms. “Fine, here.” You stalk purposefully to the section marked Literature. Your finger drags down a line of titles before finally settling on one. You pull it free with a soft grunt, the book sitting thick and heavy in your hand as you dump it into Sanemi’s.

“Read that.”

His eyes flick between its cover and you, incredulous. “This ain’t a book; it’s a brick.”

“It’s a classic,” you counter. “One that examines age-old question of destiny versus free will, generational curses.” Your head cocks to the side, a challenging smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Love and lust.”

His eyebrow raises and you cross your fingers. If he falls for it and ultimately ends up hating the book, then perhaps he’ll decide your taste in reading material is indeed shit, and maybe then he’ll leave you alone.

Sanemi considers you for a moment but then he takes the bait. “If you say so,” he sighs. “But if it’s shit, I’m taking my refund.” And then he leans in close, so close that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body.

His breath is hot against your ear. “Regardless of your shitty little policy.”

You refuse to let him see how much he’s knocked you off-kilter. “So I can expect to be robbed? Will it be at gun or knifepoint? Just so I’m prepared.”

His chuckle, low and dark sends goosebumps skittering down your arms. “Worse,” he promises before he draws back. His grin is wolfish, all teeth and feral hunger. “You’ll owe me a date.”

He looses a low, appreciate whistle as he steps back and takes his eyes over your rigid form. “Though, I might just take you out anyway.”

“You assume I’ll say yes — or are you planning on kidnapping me? I’m sure you’re rather proficient at it, given your occupation.”

Something dark flashes across his face, and it’s enough to make you step back, a sudden fear creeping up the back of your spine.

Stupid, you chastise yourself. You never know when to keep your mouth shut.

But the shadows in his features recede as quickly as they appeared, and Sanemi’s mouth eases back into that same, cocky smile.

“You’ll say yes, Princess. You won’t be able to resist the temptation.”

“Temptation?” You force out a laugh. “And what makes you think I can’t?”

Sanemi’s eyes find your current read, open flipped over on the counter, marking your current page.

It’s a mystery novel. Your third of the month, born of a new hyperfixation on the genre.

You want nothing more than to wipe that smug grin of his clean from his face. He gives an affectionate snake of his head as he turns and makes his way toward the door. “Habits, Y/N. It all comes down to habits.”

You should throw it at his head, but Sanemi exits the store before your hand can find its spine.

——-

Over two weeks pass without so much as a whisper from the enigma that is Sanemi Shinazugawa.

Loath though you are to give him that sort of credit, you cannot deny that he utterly confounds you. He is everything you expected while simultaneously nothing at all what you’d imagined. He is brash and cocky, and he struts around with an insufferable self-importance that can only come from years of being at the top of his game (no matter how he got there).

Yet, he also reads. Enough to have opinions, even decent ones, about certain authors, and he’s open minded enough to accept your recommendation even if it feels as though he has an ulterior motive for doing so.

And, he’d been bothered by the dock in your pay as a result of his mischief; so much so, that he’d slipped you more than enough to make up the loss. That is the action that puzzles you the most, even weeks later. You’d assumed that someone like him, so used to ensnaring people into various schemes, wouldn’t have given two shits if he’d stolen money from some broke girl at a bookstore. After all, his business was all about money — and the lengths some would go to keep it.

Yet he’d paid you back — paid you more than you needed, if you were honest.

Since that day, you’ve had your ears tuned to any mention of his name, any whispers of the mysterious, scarred gang-member who has occupied nearly all the open space in your head. You’ve managed to glean small things here and there. That he’s a Hashira, and Hashira means he’s only one step below what is known ominously as the Master Family — the heads of the entire organization.

That he’s rather feared, even among seasoned Corps members; that he’s known for his swift brutality.

That he’s more than just a flirt; he’s a virile lover. Not picky in the slightest about who warms his bed, though no one has ever been able to pin him down longer than a handful of one-night stands.

You stop poking around after that particular revelation, embarrassed that you now know exactly what makes him so popular.

Apparently, his flexibility pairs well with his near inhuman stamina. And he’s said to be very well-endowed.

It’s more information than you care to know, but you can’t deny that your curiosity lingers.

You brush aside your inquisitiveness as nothing more than a natural side effect of your own inexperience. And you’ll be damned before admitting that your interest in Sanemi Shinazugawa isn’t limited to rumors of how good he is in bed. That, perhaps your curiosity stems from something deeper, from a desire to know if that bad boy persona is authentic or a mere facade, and boy on the stoop still lurks somewhere beneath his mask.

—

“You look like shit.”

You startle up from where you’d been resting your head on your arm, wavering between consciousness and sleep.

You know that gravelly voice before you lay your eyes on him, and your irritation is quick to flicker to life.

Nearly a month has passed since your last encounter, and for a moment, you’d thought you’d been freed from his nuisance. But now, Sanemi stands in your store, wearing a half-amused expression on his stupidly handsome face.

“Is that the only descriptor you know?” You ask miserably, hands working quickly to smooth down your mused hair. “Is everything either shit or not-shit to you?”

Sanemi shrugs. “Pretty much,” and he holds something out to you, waiting. “Here.”

It’s a to-go bag from a cafe two blocks away. One known for their almond croissants, for which you have a particular penchant.

Your stomach grumbles fiercely. You’d foregone eating breakfast when you realized you’d overslept your alarm, and had to rush out of your apartment to ensure you’d be here in time for the weekly delivery truck.

The sweet scent of butter and sugar wafting from the bag makes your mouth water.

But this is Sanemi Shinazugawa, and you should think to know better. “Is it poisoned?”

He rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to drug you, sweetheart, I’d pick a far more convenient way to do it — and one that didn’t involve me getting up at the ass crack of dawn for some overpriced pastries.”

Warily, you accept the paper bag, and Sanemi surprises you again by handing you a to-go cup of coffee. He watches as you, ever the dramatic, sniff tentatively at the lid and frown, apparently dissatisfied that you can discern nothing but the rich, aromatic scent of espresso.

Sanemi takes a deep drink from his own cup. “It’s a thank you. For that book you recommended,” He smirks. “It wasn’t shit. It was good.”

You fish a pastry out of the bag, and nearly drool as you behold its buttery, flaky goodness. “You sound surprised.”

“Maybe I was. Your success rate was only fifty-fifty. I had every right to be skeptical.”

“You’re the one who grabbed that last book,” you take a large bite out of your croissant and you fight to keep yourself from moaning. “That had nothing to do with me.” You swallow thickly before taking a large sip of coffee to wash down the pastry. “So, no date, then?”

The smile he gives you is almost apologetic. “Sorry, beautiful. I don’t actually date.” And you nearly double over at the bewildering taste of disappointment creeping sourly up the back of your throat. “Gotta keep things casual in my world.”

The once-over he gives you is razor-sharp. “And you don’t look like a casual girl.”

You resist the urge to cross your arms. “You seem awfully certain, Shinazugawa.”

“Experience,” he offers easily. “I know casual women.” He turns his head away before quietly adding, “And you ain’t one of ‘em.”

It’s odd; you know of his rather wild reputation among women, and yet he seems almost embarrassed by its acknowledgment. But as you’re slowly learning, Sanemi Shinazugawa is a conundrum you haven’t yet been able to pick apart.

You could throw it in his face; you could spew some barb about his experience, rub your salt right into his obvious wound. You have no reason to spare his feelings, not when he’s been such a consistent pain in your ass.

Your eyes drift to the empty pastry bag and coffee cup before they find him again, and suddenly, you don’t see the swaggering, cocky Corps member with a reputation for being just as dangerous and violent as he is flirtatious.

You see only the boy on your stoop; the one who’d gently removed your sister from her place on his back and handed her back to your tearful, relieved parents.

And it’s because you cannot stop seeing that boy, that you offer before you lose the courage to ask, “So, friends, then?”

Sanemi whips back to you, surprise coloring his features that quickly melts into a smile — a real, genuine smile.

And thus, Sanemi Shinazugawa, ruthless member of the Corps and a ranked Hashira, befriends a girl who runs a bookshop.

—-

In retrospect, Sanemi knows he’s probably fucked himself.

His only intention in visiting your shop after that first day had been to discern what level of threat you posed to him, if any, and to address it accordingly. Befriending you was never his goal. After all, he prided himself on his staunch ability in following the unspoken Rules of the Corps — number Three, in particular.

But he has always interpreted Three has a warning against forming bonds within the Corps. And though he knows it’s good practice to keep his circle outside its operations small as well, he rations he’s entitled to indulge his curiosity in you. He doesn’t have friends, not really. Just Genya, and his little brother lives well over an hour away, enrolled in a school in a far better — far safer — city.

It would be nice to have someone a little closer to home that he could relax around.

Yet, he can’t recall whether Rule Three would bar him from associating you outside work hours. Caution would dictate he shouldn’t, but Sanemi never claimed to be a careful man.

He never visits the same day or at the same time. Rule Two says no patterns, and though he’s steadily blurring the lines of Rule Three with each passing day, he convinces himself that as long as he abides by the first two, he won’t be in as deep shit as he, in theory, could be.

It starts out slow; tentative. Despite what he’d thought otherwise, you’re not nearly as prim and haughty as you’d tried to make him believe.

You’re sweet. Genuine, in a way that’s rare for him to encounter in his world.

Gradually, he begins spending more time with you. At first, your relationship is confined strictly to discussions of books. You swap favorites, debate which author is at the top of their genre, and you occasionally needle each other over your respective guilty pleasure: yours, bodice rippers. His, fairytales.

He spends a great deal of his free time at the bookstore, though he’s never consistent with his visits. You never ask him about it, and for that, he’s grateful. But eventually, your conversation turns to other interests — movies, shows, music — and each new mutual interest only further enamors him with you.

And when you invite him over one day after you close the shop to watch an old movie you’d swiped from the store’s limited collection, he can’t find it in him to tell you no.

The first time he visits your apartment, he is appalled.

For starters, the neighborhood you live in isn’t the safest. It’s not the Silo, by any means, but it’s an area he frequents as part of his job and that fact alone sets him on edge. He knows what kind of people linger here; knows that they tend to borrow cash that ends up in Uzui’s business — another Hashira.

And when he sees the shoebox you live in (a studio, you’d proudly boasted, as though the distraction of exposed brick and industrial piping made up for its shit location and shit security), Sanemi finds himself clutching his proverbial pearls.

He supposes he can see its appeal — you’ve certainly turned it into a home.

You’ve made a small living room out of a single couch, thrifted coffee table, and a faintly stained rug. Your TV is laughably small, but he supposes it gets the job done.

A small kitchen stands to the right of the entryway, and there is a bathroom to the left. You have a wall of closets with folding doors, and the wall directly opposite of him boasts three large, arched windows. Sanemi supposes during the day, they provide enough natural sunlight to negate any need for any overhead lighting, of which you have none. But he can’t tell if they open from the outside, so he resolves to furtively check once you’re distracted.

Your bed stands on the furthest wall, tucked into a corner and laden heavy with colorful pillows and plush throws. Books are stacked everywhere — in shelves, in corners, by plants and furniture. All well-worn and loved, their spines cracked and covers stained.

It’s lively; warm. And it has you written all over it. That alone is enough to slightly endear the place to him.

But it’s still a shit apartment in a shit neighborhood.

Worse, your door is little more than a flimsy piece of wood that latches with a single turn lock — the easiest to break, if someone was determined enough to try. He tells you as much and you roll your eyes, brushing aside his concerns as though he’s not precisely aware of what kind of filth might linger around the corner.

The next day, he brings over a deadbolt, a chain, and a drill. He bats off your indignant protests as he installs it on your door. And, because he’s petty, he forces you to sit through a painfully detailed demonstration of how to properly latch and unlatch the chain once he’s finished.

The weeks blend seamlessly into months, and Sanemi finds himself spending more and more of his free time with you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working at the bookstore or enjoying a night of brain-rotting entertainment on your shitty little television. He just wants to be near you, and he finds himself unable to stay away.

Four months into your friendship, you start a weekly movie night, though the date is always subject to change. Still, Sanemi finds himself craving more of that precious time with you. The hours spent in your store or at your apartment fill a void in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been harboring, and it’s a fullness he quickly becomes addicted to.

It is an odd thing, this new ritual (never routine) of his. The alternation between visiting the scum indebted to the Corps, to feel bones crush and snap beneath his hands or the iron of a spare crowbar, or blood griming to his knuckles, only to return to your bookshop or apartment, cheap beer and greasy takeout in hand, isn’t the kind of switch he imagined he’d ever make. But you make taking off his Hashira mask so damn easy, and every time he leaves he finds it more difficult to slip back on.

With each passing day, he learns you more and more. He gathers information like a dragon hoards its jewels, each new tidbit a precious gem that he tucks safely away in a mental box labeled with your name.

He learns that, while he prefers tea, you prefer coffee, but you’re picky about your order. If it’s hot, you want it black or with only the faintest splash of cream. If it’s cold, however, you want every sweet syrup and topping known to man, even though it only makes you crash like a freight train once the sugar high wears off.

He learns you think cooking means pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and calling it a day, and it’s a revelation that makes him have to walk away and collect himself, lest he start lecturing you on the importance of proper nutrition, just as he does with his brother.

In exchange, he opens up about the more sacred aspects of his life — namely, Genya. He confides in you the great pride and adoration he has for his little brother, and admits his deep-seated fear that Genya will somehow be pulled into his violent, hostile world of his. And each time Sanemi begins to feel that anxiety rear its ugly head, threaten to settle into the marrow of his bones and send him into a spiral, you’re always there to pull him back.

Sometimes you ask questions, and Sanemi tries to answer them as best he can. But there are some subjects he can never touch. Never wants to.

He can’t tell you whose blood stains his knuckles or is splattered across his shoes. He can’t tell you where he goes when his phone vibrates late at night or at random during the day. He can’t tell you what his fellow Hashira do; the specialties they oversee.

Sanemi does make a point to assure you there is one sacred creed by which they all abide: no kids. This seems to put you at ease, as though this tepid moral line somehow absolves him of the other shit he’s guilty for.

It’s selfish, this thing he has created with you. He knows that. And his blossoming friendship with you likely breaks more than one of the sacred precepts of the Corps. But you’re the first person he’s met since his initiation who knows what he is and doesn’t cower in fear, and that makes him desperate to cling onto you. You know what an ugly, beastly creature he is, and yet you do not run away from him. Even when you probably should.

So, he makes a promise. He won’t show you the Shinazugawa who belongs to the Corps; a formidable member of the Hashira, known because of the things he can do to others to make sure they pay their debts. What he does to them when they don’t.

With you, he wants to be Sanemi; only Sanemi.

And so it goes, for the better part of a year, the two of you learning one another, pretending the ease you feel in the company of the other is merely the product of two people relieved to find a friend in a city that cautions against such ties, and not something in danger of becoming more.

As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.

—

“You never told me what your dream was, y’know.” Sanemi says one night while you finish up inventory at the store.

“What dream?” You hum as you scan the shelves reserved for non-fiction releases, your lips pressed into a firm line as you run your pen down the entries of your log.

He leans against the bookshelf, arms folded across the considerable mass of his chest. “Your big dream — the one you bit my head off for insulting that one time.”

You look up long enough to roll your eyes at him. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Dunno. Curious.”

“Thought you’re not supposed to ask questions in your line of work.” And you shoot him a sly grin. “You ought to be careful.”

Sanemi snorts but he nudges your foot with his. “I’m serious.”

Your eyes dance back and forth between him and the log before you. There’s no real harm in it, you decide. After all, he’s the only friend you have. “I want my own bookstore.”

“Yeah?” He raises a pale brow and waves his hand vaguely around behind him. “Aren’t you practically running this one? That ain’t enough?”

“I don’t own it, though.” You frown, setting your clipboard down. “I just work here. You’ve seen my paycheck.”

And he had, having found a paystub when he’d gone snooping under your counter. You would’ve been furious at his invasion of your privacy had you not been so mortified at the way he’d stared in horror at the pitiful figure reflecting your earnings after two, grueling weeks of work.

His insistence on bringing you meals at any and every opportunity afterward only compounded your embarrassment.

“I want something that’s mine — that I own.” You continue. “I’ve begged the owner to let me organize author meet-and-greets as a way to promote the store for months, and he always says no. If I owned my own store, I wouldn’t need anyone’s permission.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth. “I wouldn’t have to live under anyone’s thumb.”

Something shifts in the way Sanemi watches you, a certain profundity creeping into his eyes.

Your cheeks heat. “I know it sounds stupid —“

“It doesn’t,” Sanemi says earnestly. “Wanting your freedom can never be stupid.”

You soften then, as understanding passes between you. Of course he would know all about that — arguably better than anyone you know.

Sanemi clears his throat. “So, a bookstore?” And he gives you a broad smile as he pulls out his wallet and tosses you a twenty dollar note. “Consider me your first investor.”

—

Sanemi spends the rest of the evening watching you work, fascinated by the way you meticulously organize your store shelves, and count the cash in your register. When it comes time for you to heave boxes of excess inventory to the back storeroom so they can be shipped back to their distributors, Sanemi plucks them from your hands, batting off your protests as he carries them for you.

By the time closing arrives, every new shipment has been unpacked and its contents have been shelved.

You flick off the overhead lights in the main store, relying on the backlight of the exit door to light your way out. You tug on your coat and find him watching you, expectantly. “Are you walking me home?”

“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”

You grin and it’s enough to chase away some of the sourness twisting in his gut. He shouldn’t do it, as often as he does. He’s risking enough as it is by constantly redrawing the lines around Rule Three to justify the way he’s beginning to bend the parameters around the rule against patterns. But it’s dark and late, and you don’t have a car, and he’ll be damned if he lets you brave the walk home alone.

Better he’s there to protect you from the dangers he can anticipate and see than to stick to his code and risk your harm from those he cannot.

Thankfully, the journey back to your apartment takes no more than fifteen minutes, even when he stops to thumb free a cigarette from the spare carton he keeps tucked in his jacket. You wrinkle your nose at him in mock-disgust as he lights it, the smoke curling out of his mouth reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon.

He wouldn’t do it if he knew it truly bothered you. But you’d once shyly confessed you liked the faint smell of tobacco that clung to his jacket, especially in cold air like this. So he only shoots you a wink as he brings it to his lips and takes a long drag.

Besides, he thinks as he looses a slow exhale. He needs something to help him take the edge off; to guide him in making that transition between Hashira and Sanemi.

He escorts you all the way to your front door, the two of you trading quips and jokes. And Sanemi savors how utterly extraordinary something as ordinary as walking you to your door feels. Almost as if he’s ordinary, the way he so desperately wishes he could be.

You fidget with your keys, sliding them into your lock. “Did you finish that series I recommended?”

Sanemi grins. “Last night. I think it was your best suggestion yet.”

You duck your head, a bashful smile spreading across your pretty lips and its sight fills him with a golden warmth.

Your door gives way and you turn back to him. “‘Til next time?”

It was what you always said; you never asked him when you could expect to see him again, and he appreciated it. Appreciated not having to explain himself, when most outside his world would likely demand he try.

“‘Til next time,” he confirms, returning your smile with one of his own.

You hover in your doorway, fingers drumming on the frame, eyes roaming his.

“You never told me yours — what your dream is.”

He should leave. You’re treading in murky waters, ones made dangerous because he almost wants to tell you — tell you the truth, at that.

That he dreams of more. More life. More stability. More everything. He’d settle for anything, really; anything at all.

As long as it was more than this.

But Sanemi only responds with a wry grin. “To wake up in the morning, Princess. That’s all I can ask for.”

———

Sanemi’s answer lingers with you long after you emerge from your shower, warm and toweling your damp hair.

To wake up in the morning, Princess.

He’s full of shit and you know it.

Over the course of the last year, you’ve learned a handful of crucial details that make up Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You’ve learned he loves matcha, but he really loves the expensive kind. While you can’t afford to buy the high quality powder, you make do with what you can afford at the grocery, and you make it for him as often as you can.

He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.

More importantly, you’ve learned what it means to have a friend involved in the Corps. Not that he’s merely involved with the notorious gang — at least, not any more than the two of you are just “friends.”

Town gossip aside, Sanemi’s affiliation with the Corps is made obvious by his own actions. Like the way the two of you only ever hang out at the bookstore or your apartment; how he never invites you to visit his place, over in the Silo.

Or how he insists on scoping out your apartment every time he comes over, his eyes alert and sharp as his hand lingers at his hip, ready to pull out the gun you know he keeps tucked into his waistband at all times.

It’s evident in the way Sanemi never sticks to a consistent schedule. He varies the days and times of his visits at random, never allowing himself to settle into a routine, even if that means going an entire week or longer without seeing you.

But perhaps the most significant detail you’ve learned about Sanemi over the year of your friendship is this:

He wants out. Dreams of it, even.

This revelation does not come from the scarred Hashira himself. It is the product of months of observation, of studying how his face darkens when his phone pings! while you’re watching some sitcom on television, or when he sees a familiar face pass by your shop window, and suddenly he has to leave because he must be Shinazugawa again, and you won’t see him for the rest of the day.

It is evident in the way he talks of his younger brother, who, by all accounts is a star student and athlete, with a promising future in collegiate archery.

Sanemi is saving every penny he can to send his brother — Genya — to school, far, far away from the Silo. The conviction with which he speaks of Genya’s future, full of college and internships and promise, breaks your heart, because you know Sanemi hadn’t anyone to want those things for him.

Sanemi does not speak of any future of his. You suspect it’s because he doesn’t believe he will have one.

That has to be why he answered your question with his vague desire to wake up every morning. It was an easy answer. One that relied on you making certain connections between his life and his words and deduce that he truly had nothing more to live for other than life itself.

A cop-out, is what it is.

But his reading habits betray his darkest secret — betray the truth — and that’s exactly how you know his flippant answer is utter bullshit.

The book Sanemi carries around the most is a series of classic fairy tales, bought off your sale table a few months back. He’s read the whole thing cover to cover, but he keeps a bookmark on one specific page, and periodically, you catch him flipping back to it.

He made the mistake of leaving the book on your coffee table one night when he excused himself to use your bathroom. Realistically, you knew it was no big deal to flip through it, but somehow, the thought still felt like an invasion of his privacy.

But your curiosity got the better of you so you snatched it up, and thumb quickly to the bookmarked page, desperate to know which story has so captivated him.

You opened to the first page of of a tale — an old French story, about the daughter of a merchant who is sent to life with a beast in a distant castle, as penance for his theft of the beast’s rose.

You smiled to yourself; you were familiar with the story. You know how it goes — the beast everyone believes to be the villain is saved by the woman, and revealed to be a handsome prince. And the two live happily ever after.

Your smile faded as you recalled how the woman saved her Beast. True love’s kiss, or something along those lines.

True love.

And as Sanemi returned from the bathroom and plopped down next to you on your couch to watch a rerun of some old sitcom before he has to leave for the night, you mulled over Sanemi’s apparent fascination with the tale of the beast and the beauty.

And that’s how you drew the series of conclusions which enabled you to see right through his thin facade.

He wants out.

He wants a happily ever after. He doesn’t think he’ll get it.

And, above all, he dreams of love.

—

If any doubt lingered as to the magnitude of his ties to the Corps, it disintegrates one night, about eight months after he’d first burst into your bookstore.

It is well after midnight, but you are still awake, too engrossed in a new fantasy novel to pay particular attention to the lateness of the hour when your phone buzzes on your bedside table.

Sanemi’s name lingers above the notification, which reads simply, Outside.

You untangle yourself from your blankets and pad over to your front door, hastily tugging on a pair of sleep boxers over your underwear.

You open the door and the flutter of excitement you’d felt upon seeing his text is chased away by shock at the sight before you.

There is a bruise forming along Sanemi’s cheek that you almost would have mistaken for dirt if not for the swelling. His hair is rumpled, his clothes in disarray. Though it winks away the second he sets his gaze on you, you swear you were able a cold fury in his eyes; foreign, and violent.

The fury that belongs to a Hashira, not to the friend you know.

Wordlessly, you step back and allow him to limp past you.

“You got liniment?” He rasps, plopping heavily down in your kitchen chair. “And water?”

“You mean icy-hot?” You’re already filling a glass from the tap that you set on the table next to him before you retreat to your bathroom to rummage the cabinets.

You return a few moments later, tub of minty topical gel clutched in hand. You nearly drop it when you realize that Sanemi has stripped himself of his shirt already and is now bare from the waist-up, his forehead resting against his arms where they’re propped up on the back of your chair.

You’ve known for a long while that Sanemi is well-built (obscenely so).

Once, in the early days of your friendship, you’d snapped at him to button his shirt properly if he insisted on hanging around your store, dramatizing over how obscene it was for him to prance around with his chest half-exposed.

Sanemi had only grinned at you before he unbuttoned two more, revealing a generous glimpse of infuriatingly toned abs. Your open-mouthed, scandalized stare was met only with a wink.

He kept his shirt like that for the remainder of the day. You’d hardly been able to look at him without flushing a deep scarlet that only seemed to inflate his already generous ego even further.

But, you’re only human. And as the months passed by, and your friendship with the scarred mobster grew, you found yourself sneaking the odd peek every now and then. A glimpse of pectoral here; a hint of his rigid v-line when he stretched his arms over his head there.

And now, here he is, sitting in your small kitchen area awaiting the relief of the icy hot clutched in the tub that grew more slippery between your rapidly sweaty palms, every mouth watering inch of his upper body on display.

Beautiful. Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Sanemi is unbelievably beautiful.

“Need ya to rub it into my shoulder, if you don’t mind,” his voice is muffled against his arm. “I hate asking, but I dislocated the damn thing and had to reset it — fuckin’ hurts, now.”

You know better than to suggest he go get an x-ray. No hospitals, he’d once explained. Not unless you’re bleeding out.

You also know better than to ask how he dislocated it, and so you only pad silently over to him, grateful he’s turned away from you so he cannot see the tremble in your hands or the blush creeping across your cheeks.

Eager to give yourself something to do besides ogling, you focus on unscrewing the lid on the jar of liniment, your nose wrinkling under the burn of its stringent odor. You scoop a generous amount of the salve into your palms and warm it between your hands.

“Motherfucker,” Sanemi hisses as your hands spread gently across his shoulder, your fingers gingerly massaging the topical into his swollen joint. “Shit stings.”

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” you chide, carefully prodding along the joint in search of anything that may be amiss — an odd lump or gap, signaling something hasn’t been reset properly. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Your medical expertise is astounding,” Sanemi drolls, but he winces again as your fingers press against a particularly tender spot. You step away from him with a huff and fish your phone out of your pocket, hands still slathered with ointment.

“I’m not a doctor,” you shoot back. “And since you refuse to go see one, the best I can do it give you the advice of the internet.”

You ignore his grumblings as you search for treatments for dislocated joints. You tap on the first link that appears and scroll, eyes narrowed as you read.

“You’re in luck. It seems like you won’t die,” you say dryly. “But you’re going to have a nasty bruise.” You purse your lips, eyes scanning the article on your phone. “And this says you’re supposed to rest — not overexert the joint.” You reach to tug playfully on a lock of his hair. “I don’t suppose you’re actually going to do that, though.”

He twists and flashes you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “You know me too well, Princess.”

You roll your eyes and snort, tossing your phone onto your table in favor of reaching for a discarded kitchen towel to wipe off the excess icy hot from your hands.

You’re about to tell him to put his shirt back on and stop flaunting the muscles he just can’t seem to help but show everyone he has when your eyes snag on a mark that rests squarely between his shoulder blades.

You wouldn’t have noticed it but for the shiny redness surrounding it, a clear contrast to the rest of his skin. But the longer your stare at it, the more clear its abnormality. The mark is puffy and raised, but there’s a distinct pattern to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck curl.

A brand, you realize with horror. Someone has branded him like cattle.

Your finger reaches to trace over the ridges seared into his skin before you can think the better of it. Sanemi twitches under your touch, a small shudder skirting down his spine as he tilts his head back toward you.

“Ugly, ain’t it?” His tone is unreadable. “Like a collar, ‘cept it’s permanent.”

Though he tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to discussing the Corps, you at least know what is role is within it. He told you: debt collector. Mostly monetary debts.

But the brand has nothing to do with money. No, the symbol burned into his skin — the one that stands for Kill — is a neon sign of a reminder that Sanemi’s duties can and do entail another kind of collection.

A chill snakes down your spine. You’d had your suspicions, of course, you’re not stupid. But seeing it confirmed by a brand of all things is a lightning rod through your chest.

Sanemi must sense your stare against his back, and you hear his rueful smile though you can’t see his face. “Guess it’s fitting, since I’m their dog.”

There it is; confirmation of what he is, as though it were possible to forget. You don’t know why you’d held out in letting its weight settle over you. Nor do you know why your brain had refused, for a moment, to reconcile the Sanemi who brought cheap beer and greasy fast food to your apartment for a night of trash television and book reviews with the one before you now, branded with inexorable reminder of what his duties are when he steps outside and debts go unpaid; when scores go uneven.

Your eyes slide to his gun, resting atop your table. It may has well have been smoking.

“It’s barbaric,” you murmur. You never offer much of an opinion on the tidbits of information about his life he shares with you, unwilling to make him feel as though you aren’t someone he can confide in.

But the sight of the brand scorched between his shoulder blades stokes something ugly and angry within you. You’re grateful his back is to you so you can furtively rub your hand over your prickling eyes before he can see you do something stupid, like cry.

He tilts his head back until it rests against your abdomen. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.

You freeze for a moment, your anger temporarily suspended against your uncertainty of whether you should step back or remain. You’ve touched Sanemi a thousand different ways — you’ve grabbed his arm, smacked him upside his thick head, and elbowed him more times than you can count.

But this; this is something far different from your teasing nudges of the past. This small gesture feels infinitely more tender. Gentle.

Intimate.

Sanemi has never not been the picture of cocky brashness, especially around you. His priggish smirk was a constant, only ever dampened by the occasional alert on his phone — the one that meant he had to stop being yours for the night, and go be theirs.

But this Sanemi? This peaceful, eased, vulnerable version of your best friend is wholly uncharted territory. And perhaps it’s because he looks so unguarded this way, his face relaxed and his eyes closed, that you feel so flustered.

You brush his hair away from his forehead. At the first graze of your fingers along his scalp, Sanemi leans further into you with something akin to a moan.

Hot; everything feels so damn hot, the air in your apartment suddenly too thick. Too oppressive.

Yet, you don’t stop; your fingers keep raking through his hair, surprisingly silky.

You think he may have fallen asleep in your chair, but after another moment of your hands carding through his hair, Sanemi stands. You step away instantly, and you avert your eyes while he pulls his shirt back over his head, cursing softly as he works it over his injured shoulder.

Sanemi turns to you and clears his throat roughly. “Thanks again. Don’t know what I would’ve done without ya.”

You wave him off with an exaggerated eye roll, eager to conceal the redness in your cheeks. “Oh please, I’m just your neighborhood book supplier and occasional first aid nurse.”

A sudden sobriety passes over his features, clouding over that all too familiar smirk with something heavier.

“No,” he murmurs and his hand absently lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “No, you’re more than that.” His palm lingers against your cheek and his voice quiets to a hoarse whisper. “Much more.”

For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lean in; if he’ll show you whether his lips are as warm as his touch.

His eyes drop briefly to your mouth and your stomach somersaults at the thought he might be considering it, too. But the clouds part and Sanemi withdraws from you with an affection flick against the tip of your nose.

And then he turns and leaves.

You sink back against your door after you close it behind him and slide to your floor. You remain there for a long while after, your mind little more than a gnarled tangle of brambles you can’t begin to pick through. But even despite the complicated mess of thoughts and emotions knotted together in your head, one thing stands clear: you’d wanted to kiss him.

And for a moment, you swear he’d wanted to, as well.

An old rumor, one you hadn’t considered since your very first interaction with him, resurfaces in your mind. The one that had less to do with him in the Corps, and more so involved his activities outside of it.

The rumor that he cycles through the bodies he uses to warm his bed more frequently than you change the sheets on yours.

Your cheeks heat, and you shake your head to clear away the sudden, intrusive images of Sanemi tangled in the throes of passion with some faceless stranger that fill your imagination. You don’t care what those blasted rumors claim; you know him. And what’s more, you know that what you feel for him is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt toward anyone.

You’re in love with Sanemi.

It is his face you see at night before you fall asleep; it’s his touch you imagine in those secret moments in your bed or in the shower, when you’re desperate and aching.

It’s he who makes you feel most at ease; the one person you feel truly sees you, thinks you’re actually worth something.

You’ve never really known love before. But it’s because you’re such a novice that you know your feelings are true; powerful. You know what he is — what he thinks he is. And you know that you will never want anyone else; you can’t.

You won’t.

—

Three rules. That’s all he had to do, was follow three simple fucking rules.

Don’t speak. No patterns. And don’t get overly attached.

It had been easy, so easy, to follow them. If there was one thing Sanemi believed he could pride himself on, it had been his steadfast adherence to the Corps’ rules. Number three, in particular.

Until you. Until the day he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in.

Because that was when Sanemi decided that those rules were really more like guidelines; malleable. He’d let himself cast them aside out of a desperation for human connection. And he’d justified his carelessness by convincing himself that as long as he maintained some semblance compliance with the unspoken code of the Corps.

Sanemi had built his own set of rules around the foundation of his friendship with you, a wall of stone around the glass castle meant to ensure you would not be cut by its shards should it ever shatter.

He would not be your liability, nor would you be his.

But now, he’s too deep; Sanemi knows he’s gotten in way too fucking deep with you.

Until this moment, he imagined he’d managed to toe the line of this internal code that applied only to his relationship with you, save a handful of instances when he’d let himself blur it.

As it turns out, he’d been dead fucking wrong. Because he’s pretty sure you just asked him to cross the last major boundary he’d set for himself when it came to you.

So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”

You huff, impatient. “I want you to fuck me.”

You say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world — as though you haven’t just ripped the floor out from beneath him and sent him falling directly on his ass.

If he didn’t know you were dead serious, he would’ve laughed in your face. And that’s how he knows he’s fucked.

You’re a virgin; he knows that, because you’d drunkenly confessed it to him two weeks prior, tipsy on the cheap beer he’d brought over for your weekly movie night together.

Admittedly, he’d been surprised. You were beautiful — not that beauty was a requirement for a good fuck, but you didn’t seem the type to go for random hookups, unlike him. Still, he would’ve thought you’d had some prior relationship where the opportunity would have arisen.

As it turned out, you’d never been in a relationship, either.

Between long gulps of your drink, you’d asked him to fix it and he’d turned you down — his tolerance for watery beer far surpassed your own, and Sanemi Shinazugawa wasn’t the type to sleep with someone who couldn’t fully consent.

So he’d let you down — but not before he kissed you. It was only once; soft, the way you deserved to be kissed. His lips met yours and suddenly, the gaping hole in his chest felt smaller; fuller. Kissing you felt like coming home, even though Sanemi was sure he’d never fully known what home truly felt like.

And then he parted from you with an affectionate flick on your nose to cover the way his heart clenched at the visible disappointment in your eyes.

He’d boldly kissed you twice more after that night — one a quick, cheeky peck when you went in to hug him, an act done more to fluster you than to sate any desire of his, no matter how he craved more of you.

The other happened only three nights prior, and it was anything but soft and sweet.

One of Sanemi’s fellow Hashira, Kanae, hadn’t been seen in several days, and no one had been able to get in touch with her. When she’d missed a scheduled patrol of one of the neighborhoods in the Silo, he and another member, Iguro, had been sent to check on her.

They’d found her in the kitchen of the small home she’d shared with her two sisters with a hole in her head and her brains splattered across the floor.

Curled under the protective stretch of her limp arms, had been her two sisters, both bearing matching bullet wounds to their skulls.

Kizuki, most likely. They were the only ones brave enough to target someone as high ranked as Kanae.

Their blood had still been fresh, and the stench of decay and rot hadn’t yet set in, which only told them that the girls had been held for several days, forced to endure unknown horrors at the hands of their murderers.

He hadn’t been particularly close with the woman, but as his rank equal, she’d had his respect. But now she and her adolescent sisters were nothing more than smears of brain matter and skull fragments to be scraped off the linoleum of their kitchen floor and quietly buried. Forgotten.

The hours passed by in a blur once Kocho’s death was called into the higher-ups, and Sanemi didn’t remember cleaning up the scene anymore than he remembered the solitary trek back. His mind and his body disconnected, and he only snapped back to reality when he realized he was standing in front of your apartment, unsure of how or when he’d begun walking in its direction.

He knew he should turn around and go home; there was nothing you could do for him right then, he shouldn’t bother you —

His fist was pounding on your door before he could think better of it.

Despite the late hour, you’d greeted him with a broad smile and a shy hi. Your hair had been damp, and he could smell the floral sweetness of your shampoo still mixed with the steam from your shower as it spilled into the hall.

Safe; you were safe.

Your door had still been hanging wide open as Sanemi surged forward, trapping your face in his hands to crash his lips down against yours, his kiss heavy and hot.

You’d broken away long enough to ask, “S-Sanemi — what —?”

“Shut up,” he’d snarled, slanting his mouth back over yours, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip. He’d half expected you to shove him away, perhaps to even aim a knee right at his crotch, yet you’d only buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him closer.

He backed you up against the wall opposite of your entryway, though he’d moved his hand to cup the back of your head to keep it from banging against the exposed brick.

You moaned into the kiss and Sanemi lost whatever shred of sense he’d managed to cling onto. His tongue swept along your bottom lip, and the hand cupping the back of your head loosely pulled at your hair, tugging your head to the side and signaling you to open up — to let him in.

And you did. And the first brush of his tongue against yours as he licked into your mouth ignited an inferno within him that he did not know how to tame.

His hands pushed under your sweatshirt, seeking out the comforting warmth of your skin. Higher and higher they rose, until they came to rest against your ribs, and Sanemi realized you were bare — completely bare — beneath your hoodie.

That you’d allowed him to toe so dangerously close to a line neither of you could cross had clouded every bit of his judgment. The thought that he’d only have to move his hands mere centimeters to touch you in a way no other had before had sent him reeling, and his hips were beyond his control when they pinned yours against the wall and ground into you.

But your single gasp into his mouth broke the spell, and with more regret than Sanemi knew he should feel, he broke away, leaving you both breathless and panting.

Without a word, he’d turned around and stalked right back out of your apartment, closing your door firmly behind him.

He’d sent a text only a few minutes later — a single, ominous reminder to you to lock your door, deadbolt and all.

He hadn’t the stomach to explain his cryptic warning; not as the sight of Kocho remained burned into his retinas.

So, yes, he’s blurred a few lines when it comes to you. But those had only been kisses; heavy touching aside, he’d never allowed himself to go further than that.

No matter how much he wanted to.

And it’s because he knows he can’t cross this last line — can’t open you up to risk more than he already has, that he meets your expectant stare with a rueful smile.

“You’re better off asking someone else, Princess. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”

Never mind that you’re already tangled up with him — but he’s managed to uphold this last boundary, and Sanemi has convinced himself that as long as it remains in place, he can’t ruin you the way Kocho and her young sisters were ruined.

“I don’t want to ask someone else,” you fold your arms across your chest and cock your hip out, defiant. Normally, Sanemi finds your stubbornness endearing, if not adorable, but not now; not when you should know better.

A low growl of your name is his warning. “You don’t know what you’re asking —“

“It’s you I want. I don’t care what the rumors say, I don’t care what anyone thinks — including you.”

The sincerity in your eyes nearly scalds him. “And I am not asking as a friend. You and I both know this is more than that.”

He wants to throttle you. Not literally of course, he could never — but he wants to shake the sense you’re so clearly lacking back into you until you see; until you understand.

Of course he wants you. He has wanted you for months — so much so, he hardly can focus on anything else. And he’s pent up. He hasn’t had the stomach to fuck anyone else. Not since he began falling asleep and waking up to thoughts of you and your touch, of how you might look under or above him, wanton and desperate. Or how you might feel in his arms; on his tongue.

Really, it’s been quite a blow to his rather wild reputation throughout the Silo. But God knows he has tried to fill the you-shaped void in his heart, but nothing — no one — has come close.

More than anything, he wants you to be his, and for him to be yours. He longs to be the Sanemi who takes you out on dates, who kisses you freely without the compulsive need to check over his shoulder, to make sure there aren’t any enemies watching and plotting to strike him right where he’s weak. He wants to be the Sanemi you come home to after a long day at the bookstore. The one with whom you plan a future, utterly and completely yours.

But he can never be just Sanemi. He is nothing more than the property of the very organization he’s sworn allegiance to; the group whose brand he bears on his skin.

He is not good. He is a curse that will infect you, a poison to your life.

He will rot you from the inside, out.

His friendship with you is selfish. He knows that — he’s always known that, and yet he did not stop. It is selfish because he deluded himself into believing he could actually be someone else when he was with you. Someone worth befriending; perhaps someone worth a little more.

You were right to call him a thief, that day. All he does is take your time and affection when he knows damn well he won’t give you anything in return, no matter how he wishes he could.

Sanemi won’t label that thing he holds deep inside his heart which is formed in the shape of your name; not when it could so easily doom you both. But he knows his feelings for you are dangerous, and he cannot allow you to sniff them out.

Because if he does, then this only ends one or two ways: either he lets you in only for you to abandon him once you realize the truth of what he is, or you’re used as a weapon against him.

In either event, he loses you. So it is better to cut this off now, to force you away before either of you become more invested than you already are.

He will not hurt you, but neither will he allow himself to be hurt by you.

You take a step toward him, and the soft whisper of his name sounds like a holy prayer on your lips and that’s how he knows this is wrong.

Your obstinate refusal to recognize him for what he is is a needle digging into his skin, one that whittles away at every wall he has managed to build around his heart, that damnable, soft, dangerous thing that he will not allow you to find; he cannot.

You’re confusing your roles. He is the vulture and you are his prey, not the other way around. he is not here to give. He is here only to take, and you will let him and then he will leave.

And he will not be the carcass you pick clean only to discard once you’ve had your fill.

(A lie, but it’s one Sanemi almost believes. Almost.)

But Sanemi knows you; he knows you better than he knows anything else. You are a constant he has become far too dependent upon, and you are precious — far too precious to him to continue to indulging.

He knows you are too good, too loyal in your feelings to forget about him, even if he disappeared from your life entirely.

A clean break. it is the only thing that will force you to forget him and move on, find another, someone good and whole and not a broken, misshapen thing like him.

He will show you who he really is. He will show you that he could never be just Sanemi, and he sure as hell can’t ever be yours.

Better; you deserve better, so he will become worse.

He advances on you, his step heavy and imposing, and you have enough sense to scurry back from him. But he is too quick and soon he has you caged against the wall of your studio, literally backed into a corner.

“You want me?” He is scathing and he loathes himself for it, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s desperate to save you from the blight of himself.

You shouldn’t; you can’t.

But you nod, damn you. Wide-eyed, you nod and he resents the certainty reflected in your gaze.

His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. “You want to say you’ve had a taste of the lowlife, huh?“

Your eyebrows knit together. “Sanemi, that’s not —“

But he can’t stop his venom. “Bragging rights, that’s all you’re after, right? You want to be like one of the characters in your stories — the good girl who makes an honest man outta the good-for-nothing villain.”

“Stop it,” you bite, and your eyes harden. “You’re acting like an asshole.”

You’re angry. Good. Sanemi knows how to deal in anger.

“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I’m not acting like an asshole. I am one.”

Your hackles raise, and you step away from the wall and toward him, bold in your fury. “I know you want to believe you are, but you’re not —“

Sanemi’s hand shoots out to grab a fistful of your hair. “Is that so?” You yelp as he wrenches your head back, your neck straining. “Then maybe I oughta bend you over and fuck you like I would any other cheap whore. Then you can tell me what you think I am.”

Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.

Good, he thinks savagely. Let you see the monster he truly was, let you know he was his bastard father’s son, and that he’d be no different, no different at all. He’s a brute, and you don’t want that, you don’t want him —

“You can do whatever it is you want,” you manage, you throat tight. And Sanemi’s eyes blow wide at the soft, watery smile that forms on your lips despite the tears that escape the corners of your eyes. “Do to me what you like; I don’t mind, as long as it’s you.”

All at once, his ire with you and your bewildering devotion to him melts away, leaving nothing behind but a deep well of guilt, bitter and acerbic.

It isn’t that you think he might take you forcefully and harshly; after all, he’s only shown you he’s entirely capable of doing so.

It’s that you would let him. Without a shred of doubt, he knows you would offer yourself to him to use however he wants, and that you’d do it with a smile not unlike the one you’re wearing right now, soft and earnest.

Fuck, you just did.

And it’s that realization that has Sanemi’s hand loosening from your hair, his eyes softening. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and he moves to brush it away, but you close your eyes the moment you spy his knuckle nearing your face.

You do not flinch, but you are steeling yourself in anticipation of expected cruelty, and the front he’s put forth crumbles to dust.

He is a monster, but not for the reasons he’s used to justify this ugly display of his. He’s a monster because he has made you believe that this treatment is acceptable — an unavoidable cost of intimacy, no matter how fleeting.

Worse, he’s done the one thing he’d sworn never to do to any woman, let alone someone as good and as dear as you.

He’d only wanted to disgust you; enrage you, so that you would kick him out of both your apartment and your life, right out on his sorry ass like he deserved.

But this is worse. He has frightened you.

He recoils from you like a kicked dog. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stands awkwardly as you stare at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, and each second that ticks silently by only amplifies the oily well of guilt in his stomach.

He clears his throat. “I’ll go,” he says roughly, too ashamed to meet your eyes. “‘M sorry, I didn’t —“

Your hand grabs his bicep, anchoring him in place. “I want you to stay.”

“You don’t owe me anything —“

“It’s not about owing you,” you interject, lifting your hands to take his face between your palms. “I want you. I want this.”

You prove your point by taking his hand and guiding it to your waist. You hold it there, mouth set in a determined line as you inch closer to him.

“You deserve someone else,” Sanemi can’t stop the admission from rolling off his tongue. “Better.”

But you’re already shaking your head, as though you somehow know different. “There is no one better; I only want you.”

Idiot, he thinks as you rise up on your tiptoes, your arms winding around his shoulders as the distance between your bodies grows narrower. You’re an idiot.

You can’t possibly believe he’s as good as it gets. He’s used you as a distraction this whole time, a chance to forget the things he’s done and what he’ll be required to do in the future. Surely, you must know that.

He will hurt you; it’s in his nature. It’s unavoidable. He can’t be what you deserve.

But then your lips brush gently against his and the last of his resolve crumbles.

Sanemi melts into your kiss. He brings one hand to cradle the side of your face as the one braced against your waist shorts, until he wraps his arms around you and tugs you closer to him.

This kiss is gentle in every way the last was not. Sanemi’s lips are soft moving against yours, his hands almost hesitant in how they hold you. For a moment, he imagines himself not as the selfish, hard brute he knows he is, but instead as the gentle, giving lover he wants so desperately to be. One who is worthy of someone as kind and vibrant as you, and not the trash you’d be better off leaving out on the street.

The tentativeness with which he kisses you tempers some as his tongue flicks out against your bottom lip. You answer his silent request with enthusiasm, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as you haul yourself closer. The moment Sanemi’s tongue sweeps into your waiting mouth, you buckle against him with the sweetest sigh he’s ever heard. One of pure relief, as though you’d been burning and he was your balm.

Ironic, considering he’s only adding gasoline to this fire between you.

But there’s nothing he can do now except allow the flames to consume you both.

Soon, the shy curiosity with which he explores your mouth gives way to a mutual hunger, evident by how he feels as though he’s boiling alive while you gasp and sigh into him, your fingers tugging pleadingly at his hair.

You want more, and he needs you, too.

His nose nuzzles against yours as he bends down, his hands running along the bare expanse of your legs. The ground beneath your feet disappears as Sanemi gathers you up easily into his arms.

One of your arms is looped around his neck while your other hand cups his face, turning it toward yours as he carries you to your bed. Your thumb smooths absently over the scar that cuts across his cheek and then your lips seek out his once more. His kiss is as gentle as the hand squeezing your waist, his fingers slotting into the gap between your sweatshirt and the top of your sleep shorts, stroking your skin.

He lays you out upon your mattress, grateful you’d at least purchased a full bed rather than some shitty twin. Your hands untangle themselves from his hair and instead seek out the waistband of your sleep shorts, but Sanemi covers them with his, halting you.

“Don’t,” he murmurs between quick, messy kisses. “Let me — please.”

Before you can respond, Sanemi sits back and grabs a fistful of his own shirt, yanking it over his head.

Your pupils blow wide at the sight of him and he feels himself hesitate. Sanemi has always felt an easy self confidence when it came to stripping in front of his partners for the night. He’d always been quite proud of his physique, relying on his considerable muscles to mask his deep loathing of his scars.

But in front of you, all sense of self-assuredness goes flying out the window, and suddenly he feels too exposed. His eyes drop to scour the planes of his chest — have his scars always been this prominent? This thick?

“Holy shit,” your soft sigh snaps his attention away from the howling inside his head. For one, petrifying moment, he thinks that you are as disgusted with his body as he is, but then he sees the pink flush staining your cheeks.

Your eyes roam hungrily over him and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. You meet his gaze and your pupils are blown wide with desire — rich, hot need for him.

Your voice is little more than a sultry whisper. “Come here.”

He moves eagerly to cover your body with his, his hair rumpled and his eyes bright as his lips press hurriedly against yours. Your hands smooth over his pectorals and tease down his abdomen until he’s panting, but the moment your nails rake along the skin on either side of his navel, Sanemi moans.

More. He needs more.

He hauls you up from the bed, straddling you across his lap, his hands notched behind your knees as they press into the mattress. You reconnect your lips in a heated kiss, one hand playing with the ends of his snowy hair, the other dropping down his back, settling over the brand seared between his shoulder blades. Covering it.

Yes, he thinks as he nips your bottom lip, urging your mouth to open so he can slide his tongue in to dance with yours. Yes, this is fitting. Because in his ideal world, his life with you would come before any other — including his with the Corps.

Sanemi’s lips begin trailing hotly down your jaw, pausing when he reaches your neck. He finds a particularly sensitive spot with a nip of his teeth that he soothes with his tongue, and he hums in approval at the faint, breathy whimpers that squeak past your lips as you tilt your head, offering more of yourself to him.

The ache burgeoning in his groin in response to your display is enough to drive him insane; he has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants this — you.

As his mouth continues its heated path, his hands find the hem of your hoodie. With a gentleness that surprises even him, Sanemi begins charting your skin with his fingers. With every new plane of your body he explores, he pushes your sweatshirt up, up, up, until he guides it over your head.

He tosses it to the side, not caring for where it lands. His attention is focused solely on you as you fall back against your bed, now bare from the waist up.

“Beautiful,” he marvels, eyes running over the slope of your shoulder and tracing the curve of your breasts. “So fuckin’ beautiful.”

He savors every hitched breath, every chill that ripples over your skin as he explores your body with his mouth and hands. Over the years, Sanemi has become well acquainted with the magic of the female body. He’s always liked how soft women were compared to him. He isn’t a picky man; he’ll celebrate them all, regardless of their shape or size.

But you? Celebration isn’t enough; you deserve nothing less than outright worship.

“You feel so damn good,” he mutters against your breast before closing his lips over your nipple and sucking hard. You bow off the bed with a keening moan that gutters out into something more ragged as his hand covers the other, pinching and rolling your stiffened bud between his fingers.

He could spend all night like this, lavishing your soft mounds with his mouth. But Sanemi knows that won’t be enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at both of you, so with a tinge of regret, he forces himself to move on, descending your body in alternating kisses and nips.

He reaches the waistband of your shorts and his eyes flash to yours as he tugs on it with his teeth. The hot exhale of his breath below your navel sends goosebumps across your skin. Sanemi’s fingers inch below the hem of your shorts until he loops his hands around the waistband, and he yanks them down your legs in a single, fluid motion.

His eyes rake down your body, taking in every beautiful inch. A blush forms on his cheeks as he realizes all that separates you from him is your simple pair of black underwear.

He sits back, eager to join your near-nudity. His hands are quick, if not a little clumsy, as he finds his belt buckle. The instant the metal clicks and the leather around his hips loosens, Sanemi shoves off his pants, eagerly kicking them off your bed until he is left in nothing but his briefs.

Your eyes fall to where the evidence of his desire protrudes stiffly from between his legs. Sanemi watches your throat pulse as you try to stifle your small gulp, your thighs tensing beneath him in an effort to press together.

He can sense your nerves; can see by the way your eyes dart anxiously between his and the rigid tent in his briefs.

With a gentle smile, Sanemi leans in and soothes your unease with his lips. “We’ll take it as slow as you want. I’m not in any rush.”

“N-now?” You murmur between kisses, and he nearly seizes at the hesitant, questioning brush of your fingers against the underside of his shaft.

“Not yet,” he groans against your mouth. “I gotta make sure you’re ready first.”

“I am ready -“

“Not like that,” he cuts off your protest by ghosting his fingers up the covered seam of you. Sanemi circles his finger around where he thinks your clit is, and he smirks when your head tips back against your pillow, your mouth widening in a silent o.

“Found you,” he croons, repeating the movement again until your legs begin to twitch beneath him.

He makes quick work of your underwear, tossing them over the side of your bed without much thought. The sight of you bare beneath him nearly stops his heart dead in his chest. His eyes drop to the neat thatch of curls resting at the apex of your thighs, and his mouth waters.

You blush under the intensity of his appreciative stare, and your legs twitch, as though you mean to close them.

A hand sliding between your thighs restrains you from doing so. “Uh-uh,” he tuts. “Can’t hide from me now, sweetheart’.”

He smooths his hand down the length of your leg until it hovers just outside where he’s most eager to explore. The heat radiating from sends his pulse skyrocketing.

One, tentative finger circles your entrance, testing. Sanemi leans in to capture your lips with his as he pushes in, swallowing your soft gasp with his tongue that he slides into your parted mouth.

A moan vibrates in his chest in time with a faint whimper that sounds in the back of your throat as Sanemi begins exploring you. You’re tight; almost impossibly so, clenching and pulsing around the single finger he gradually sinks inside you, pushing deeper with every gentle pump of his hand.

The thought of your tight, wet heat constricting around the aching length of him just as you were around his finger makes him dizzy with want.

He won’t go down on you, he decides. Not tonight. Not when he’s throbbing this badly after just a couple of fingers; not when your breasts are so plush and soft pressed against his chest where you’re already arcing up into him, sending his mind wild with thoughts of how you’ll move under him; how you’ll moan.

His lips are hot against your neck, trailing down past your collarbone. Left behind are a series of purplish-maroon whorls blooming beneath his mouth, your skin quickly becoming a tapestry for him to display how badly he wants this. You.

You cling to him, one hand buried in his hair, pulling and tugging at him as the other clutches wildly at his shoulder, your fingers digging hard into his muscles. Your teeth are buried into your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your whimpers, but a needy whine slips out as Sanemi sucks one, soft breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking out across your pert nipple.

Another finger slides into your entrance as his thumb works your clit, and before long, you’re vibrating beneath him, unrestrained in how you moan and cry out for him so beautifully.

“Sanemi! I think — oh, I think I’m -“ but then he crooks his fingers, brushing against a rough spot deep within you that makes you writhe. You thrash back hard against the bed, your hips grinding against his hand with abandon.

He smothers a curse into your skin. You’re close and he knows it; can feel it in the way your walls flutter and pulse around him. And as desperate as he is to study how you fall apart, it’s too soon.

“Not yet,” he pants against your breast, circling your nipple with his tongue before imparting a final nip at the soft flesh and drawing back.

Remorseful, he pulls his fingers away from you, leaving you panting and flushed under him. But the hot, searing flames of desire burning beneath his skin intensify still, as he takes your hand and guides it between your legs.

“There. Feel how wet you are?” His voice is husky with want. You peer up at him through heavily lidded eyes as you nod, a whimper vibrating in your throat as Sanemi grinds your hand against your sensitive flesh.

“For you,” your voice is syrupy and warm, and damn if Sanemi doesn’t feel like he could get drunk on it. “It’s all for you.”

His tone sharpens into something possessive; hungry. “That’s right,” and he pushes your hand firmly against your clit and rotates it, eliciting a deep moan from you. “Because you’re mine.“

It’s not fair. But he wants to pretend like it’s true, if only for a while.

Once your fingers are sufficiently shiny with your own wetness, he brings your hand to his mouth, his tongue peeking out from between his lips. Slowly and languidly, he drags it up the side of your digits, and his eyes burn into yours as he slides your fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.

It takes everything in him not to moan at the sweet taste of you that floods his tongue.

He’d made the right decision in not going down on you. If he had, he’d never be able to pull away; not until his face had become so adorned with your essence that he could not comprehend anything that wasn’t you. Not until you were trembling under him and begging for a break.

The first time you cum will be on him; with him. So as much as it pains him, he resists your temptation.

But not before you know; not before you understand exactly how wild you drive him. How much you threaten his sanity.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasps as he pulls your hand away from his mouth. “Here.”

His hand his gentle but firm as he grips your chin, squeezing your jaw until your mouth parts. The question in your gaze dissolves, your eyes instead rolling back into your head, as Sanemi slides the two fingers he’d just had between your thighs, still covered in your wetness, past your lips.

“Go on,” he orders, his other hand brushing your hair from your face. “Taste how fuckin’ perfect you are.”

The moan that slips free from your lips is one he wishes he could bottle up as your tongue caresses his fingers, your cheeks hollowing so fucking perfectly around him as you dutifully clean yourself from him.

Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

But some of the burning he feels ebbs as the sobering weight of what’s to come settles over him; the magnitude of what he is about to do. Because no matter what happens after, nothing between you will be the same. Whatever else you are after tonight — whether that’s something or nothing — you will never be just friends again.

Sanemi supposes the punishment fits his crime; this is what he gets for getting in too deep with you, even if it means losing you entirely.

He chases away those thoughts by running his hands down your sides before he pulls back, leaving you in favor of shucking his briefs down his thighs.

Finally bare, he’s quick to drape his body over yours once more, his hands smoothing up and down your sides, unable to quench his need to feel your skin against his. But a foreign uncertainty stills him, and his eyes flash to yours, hesitant.

“Are you sure?”

You answer only by reaching to grip the back of his neck, tugging him down to meet your lips, your kiss feverish and urgent.

He doesn’t have a condom but he’s in too deep now to stop. In a way, what is about to happen is new to him as well. He’s never fucked anyone raw before. No matter who he’d had in his bed, no matter how much they begged him or assured him they were on birth control, he’d always been sure to have protection on hand.

Children are a gift, but he’d be damned if anyone tried to come after him and demand he raise one in his fucked up world. Either Sanemi got out or he never became a parent; there was no middle ground.

But once again, he is blurring boundaries where you were concerned, and Sanemi doesn’t think he knows how to stop himself from having the full taste in the indulgence that was you.

“It might hurt a moment,” he admits against your mouth, his voice raspy. “But I promise I’ll be gentle — as gentle as I can.”

You stretch to kiss him again, your lips soft and warm and everything he loves. “I trust you.”

You shouldn’t, he wants to say. You shouldn’t, and you should run far away from this — from me.

But Sanemi knows you won’t just as much as he knows he doesn’t have it in him to try and chase you away, and so he only kisses you back, slow and indulgent.

He breaks away from you with a soft groan and sits up on his knees. His back straight, Sanemi’s hands curl around your hips and he tugs you forward until your backside is flush against his thighs.

The heat radiating from you pulls him in like a magnet as he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. A vein above his brow ticks, the only outward sign of the battle raging within him as his self restraint wars with his tantalizing urge to impale you on the thick, throbbing length of him, desperate for the sweet relief only your body can give.

Every inch of him trembles as Sanemi presses his hips forward. “Fuck,” he exhales shakily, pushing his tip past your entrance. “Fuck.”

His head falls back and the muscles in his throat strain. Some small, needy sound leaves him and the fingers on your hip tighten nearly to the point of pain.

The noise registers in the back of your mind, and vaguely, you recognize it as a whimper. You wonder whether he makes that sound for the others; somehow you doubt it, given that he does it again, only now in the shape of your name.

The rumors always said he never asked for names; he was a one-and-done kind of man. A great fuck, but not someone to go to if you were looking for comfort; softness.

Once again, Sanemi is nothing but a collection of contradictions, especially where you’re concerned.

Sanemi hisses as he slowly eases into you. Despite your wetness, you’re impossibly tight, and your body is a live wire hell bent on pushing out his intrusion.

With a deep groan, he falls forward, one arm shooting out to land near your head to catch himself before he can crash into you. His weight carefully braced above you, Sanemi shifts, widening the stance of his knees. Your legs slide up his waist, locking at your ankles at the base of his spine.

His cock is barely a quarter of the way inside your heat when he pulls out. A whine of protest mounts in your throat, but it quickly flickers out when he presses his leaking tip to your clit and grinds. A soft moan slips out of you when he repeats the movement again, and your thighs widen, your hips tilting up to allow him easier access.

Sanemi circles the head of his cock once more against your sensitive nub, coating himself in more of your sticky wetness, before he slides back into your entrance. This time, your body parts more easily around him, sucking him in rather than trying to squeeze him out.

“There you go, that’s it,” his breath is hot against your ear, his lips trailing silkily across your jaw. “That’s my girl.”

Halfway in, Sanemi brushes against that thin barrier that separates him from the rest of you, and he stills.

He pulls his head back from your neck, and moves his hand out from between your legs to cup your cheek.

“Ready?” His thumb strokes over your cheekbone, tender and soft.

There is a tightness building in your abdomen, a foreign pressure that isn’t entirely unwelcome, but neither is it wholly comfortable. You brace a hand at your side, balling your sheets into your fist as you steady yourself, flushed and panting beneath the scar speckled man holding rigidly still above you.

Your eyes flick up once, and you see the tightness in his jaw; the tremble in his limbs as he fights against the urge to relief the friction mounting where you are joined.

You swallow around the lump of anticipation lodged in your throat. Your breath is shaky, but at last, you manage a single “Please.”

With a groan, he grips himself around his base and slowly, he presses forward. There is a sharp prick that shoots deep in your lower abdomen as Sanemi surges past that thin inner wall.

You cannot stop your cry of discomfort from ringing out anymore than you can stop the surprised tears which escape the corners of your eyes as the sharp pain between your legs intensifies.

But then Sanemi’s lips are there, kissing away your tears, and the hand he’d used to guide himself into your body skims along the outside of your thigh, hiking your leg higher up his waist before it drops to rub gentle circles into your hip.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between soothing caresses of his lips against your cheeks and across your eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He coos his string of apologies as his cock continues to push into you. On and on he sinks, his length endless, and you begin to think your body will split in two before you find the end of his.

Just before you reach your limit, Sanemi stills, fully embedded in your heat. He pants through gritted teeth, his jaw locked against the way you’re constricting around him so tightly it’s nearly painful.

It’s unreal; not only does Sanemi realize how much fucking better sex feels without the restriction of a condom, but he’s also bashed over the head with the realization that you were made for him. For nothing, no one has ever felt as incredible as you.

Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.

Sanemi has always been someone who fucks fast and hard. He’d had no objective other than to escape for a few, blissful moments in the body of another as he pretended not to feel the hollowness in his chest, or the throb of his own self-loathing.

With you, however, he wants nothing more than to relish every movement of your body against his, to savor your every gasp and sigh; to learn what makes you lose control.

You are no temporary distraction; he wants to know you.

He drops his forehead against yours and waits, allowing you to adjust to the intrusion of him.

He trails his lips across your collar bone and down to the twin swells of your breasts, sucking softly at your plush skin as you fidget and squirm beneath him. One broad hand skirts down the outside of your thigh until he finds your knee, and gently he guides your leg around his hips. The other he leaves relaxed against the bed, your foot resting somewhere against his calf.

When your eyes flutter open and find his, he knows you’re ready. So he moves his arm out from between your bodies and winds it instead around your waist, deepening the arch in your back until his chest is flush with yours.

His lips press to your forehead, a silent warning that he is about to move.

And then Sanemi begins molding your body to the shape of his.

He starts slow. He doesn’t withdraw far from you, instead focusing on rolling his hips against yours. Each churn of his groin pushes his cock deeper into your warmth, and soon, your timid whimpers melt into soft moans as your initial discomfort gives way to pleasure.

Encouraged by the way your body starts to relax in his embrace, Sanemi tests drawing his cock out a few inches before plunging back into you.

Before long, the room fills with the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin, and Sanemi’s moans join yours as he rapidly becomes lost in the euphoria of your wet, tight heat.

One of your arms jumps to lock around his ribs, your nails sinking into his skin as you anchor yourself to him.

His hand snakes across the sheets in search of yours. When he finds it, fisted against your sheets, he pries your fingers loose, winding them with his and he wraps your arm around his shoulders.

“Tighter,” he gasps. “Hold me tighter. Please.”

Your fingers dig into the muscles of his back and Sanemi groans his approval.

And then he’s rolling to his side, pulling you along with him until you’re stretched out across the length of your mattress, chest to chest.

His hand grips under your thigh, tugging it over his hip as he rocks harder into you. “Talk to me, angel,” the hand under your thigh moves to splay across your rear, pushing and pulling your hips in time with his as he grinds. “Tell me how you feel — tell me what you want.”

You cry out, mournful, as Sanemi draws out his cock nearly to its tip before he plunges back into you.

The fullness you feel is overwhelming. You can’t stand that empty feeling, even for a moment. So you hitch your leg higher around his hip, and dig the heel of your foot into the firmness of his ass, limiting his movements.

“Closer!” You gasp. “I — I need you closer.”

He needs that too, he decides; craves it. He doesn’t want to feel any space between your bodies. He wants — he needs — to be so enraptured with you that there is no point in trying to separate. That way, he might get to keep you for just a little longer.

Sanemi’s hand massages your backside, his cock throbbing with every push into you. “Deeper,” he confirms between throaty groans. “You want me deeper?”

You bury your face into his shoulder. Your teeth sink into his skin and with a moan, you nod.

He can do that; is more than happy to, as a matter of fact.

So, with a faint snarl, Sanemi grips the fat of your ass and spreads you wide, and he begins thrusting, hard.

The new angle allows the tip of his cock to bump up against a sweet spot deep inside you. Sanemi’s eyes narrow at the way your head drops back, a loud cry tearing from your throat.

Determined to hit that point within you again and again, he shifts his hips under you while hiking your leg higher up his hip, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass.

It’s a success; soon, your wails echo throughout your studio, punctuated by every punishing slap of his skin against yours.

Really, he can’t give less of a damn at how thin your apartment walls are. The sounds pouring from your mouth are the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever heard.

Something hot and electric mounts quickly in your stomach with each of his frenetic movements. You’ve come before with your own hand, but this — this is something different. Something far more intense, something that threatens to rip you apart from your very sanity until you know nothing but him.

You try and tell him you’re losing control but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.

But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you.” And with that, Sanemi rolls you back underneath him, settling into the cradle of your thighs and pushing his cock faster and deeper into you. His arms gently unwind yours from his shoulders, and he brings them up over your head, one large hand pinning them down.

“I’ll take care of you, sweet girl,” he promises, and he weaves the fingers of the hand keeping you pressed against the mattress with your own. “Just keep your legs around me.”

Your thighs squeeze his waist in silent answer, your mind far too suspended in the throes of your pleasure to do anything else.

With his lips trailing along your neck leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses in its wake, his free hand slides between your sweat-slicked bodies. He wedges it between where his groin is pressed to yours, and he searches along your sensitive, swollen folds, seeking the spot between your thighs that made you tremble and whine for him earlier.

You jolt under him as his fingers find you again, that foreign, electric sensation sparking deep in your abdomen. “Sanemi —“

“It’s okay,” he murmurs sweetly, pressing down on your clit until you arch further into him with a gasp. “It’s gonna feel so good, baby, I promise. Just focus on me.”

Each rotation of his hand against your sensitive bead matched the deep, pointed roll of his groin, with Sanemi capping the end of every powerful thrust with alternating pulses of his thumb. The pressure he uses mounts with every churn of his hips, and the moan vibrating in your chest as another surge of sticky wetness gushes from your thighs is the sweetest sound he thinks he’s ever heard.

A broken chant of please please please stutters its way out of you, spurning him to go faster; hit deeper.

And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.

“You’re doing so fucking good, sweetheart. Just keep letting me take care of you —- that’s it.” He curses as you clench down around him, crying out in approval at his praise. “Yeah, yeah. You’re my fuckin’ girl, aren’t you?”

A single wail of his name is your only response, but it’s enough of a confirmation to damn you both.

“You are,” he affirms, his voice taking on the timber of a growl. “Mine. You’re fuckin’ mine.”

His thrusts grow sloppier with every second, though each is punctuated by a silent, recurring chant of mine, mine, mine. Though your eyes are closed, Sanemi can spy a faint sliver of white peeking out from between your eyelids.

You’re close; he can feel it. And he knows, as the walls of your cunt flutter and tighten around him, that your climax will be his undoing.

The hands he has pinned against the mattress over your head flex as you twist and writhe beneath him. your head tosses from from side to side, and the vibrato of your cries rises octave by octave. Every muscle in your body is tense; you are a live wire thrumming with a need to come apart that he knows you do not fully understand.

Sanemi grunts as he fucks you harder into your bed, no longer concerned with keeping his weight off you. He will show you; he will show you how to shatter, and then he too, will break.

But he needs to see you, first.

“Look at me,” his voice beckons you back from the precipice of ruin. “Look at me, Y/N.”

Your eyes open to meet his and suddenly you’re right back at that edge, only this time, you’re falling freely over it, plummeting down a drop that has no end.

“S-Sanemi —!” It’s all you can manage before the knot steadily building in your stomach unravels. Your back arcs sharply away from your bed, and Sanemi ducks his head to smother his own cry against your breast as he takes its tip into his hot mouth.

Your hips jerk and twitch against his, your cunt seizing around him with force that threatens to squeeze the life out of him. Above you, your arms strain and pull against his grip as you writhe and sing for him.

“That’s it baby, that’s it,” Sanemi’s praise is muffled against your sternum, though it is strangled as he nears his own end. “Fuck!“

He’ll have to buy you the morning-after pill tomorrow, he realizes as you continue to come apart so beautifully on his cock, a soft chant of his name the only thing on your lips. He will not force you to bear the consequences of his own selfishness; he will not saddle you with his burden.

But he’s also not strong enough to pull out; not when your body feels like it was made for him, not when your sweet cunt is gripping him this hard, is this wet — all because of him.

He is selfish and he is weak; it’s a toxic combination, and yet he knows cannot stop.

Sanemi’s hips snap a final time against yours, pushing them up and away from the mattress, pressing deeper than he thought possible. His eyes roll back as his own orgasm rocks through him, powerful and blinding, and the growl that built in his throat melts into a strained groan.

He holds you in place, his cock pulsing in time with your cunt while the two of you ride out the waves of your climax together, his cum steadily filling you with his warmth. Your hands skirt down the length of his arms, blindly searching for his hips. When you find him, you pull and tug, a faint whine sounding from the back of your throat. Sanemi answers your plea with a broken moan of his own and he rocks against you, your hips circling with his until he finally lets you collapse against your mattress, limp-limbed and exhausted.

He follows you down, smothering you with his weight as he clings to you like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of your neck.

“Fuck, you did so good, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good.” He moans into your ear before he pulls back, his eyes searching your face as he pants.

One hand cradles your jaw and his thumb strokes repeatedly over the flushed curve of your cheek. “You okay?”

You don’t answer right away, your eyes shut tight, and Sanemi feels panic bubble hot in his stomach. The hand cupping your face tightens with his worried call of your name, his fear rearing its ugly head, ready to rip him apart, to turn him into the horrid monster he’s always known he was —

“I love you,” and then you’re peering up at him, eyes round and shining with emotion he does not deserve to feel. “I love you, Sanemi.”

It would’ve hurt less if you’d shot him.

Whatever wall remained around his heart cracks and crumbles under the weight of your confession. Sanemi does not answer, cannot find the words to adequately capture the depth of his feelings.

Instead, he snatches you up into his arms, crushing your body against his.

He kisses your lips and then your cheek. One hand cups the back of your head, his fingers burying into your hair as he presses your face into his chest. His arms tremble as he holds you close, every hard ridge of him cradled against your soft curves. He feels your smile against his collarbone, and the way your fingers dance up and down his spine that makes him melt.

It hits him, then. You aren’t waiting for an answer — you said it only so he would know, and you’d not expected anything in return.

All you’d done was give while he took and took. Your body. Your love.

He doesn’t deserve any of it.

Whatever or whomever came after this would never compare to you. Truthfully, Sanemi doesn’t think it would be worth trying anything different. Everything now began and ended with you — including him.

He twists his head to kiss you again and again, your lips meeting his with a sleepy enthusiasm.

He pants as he breaks away. “‘M gonna pull out — might be uncomfortable for a second.”

You wince at the sudden stab of cold left behind by Sanemi’s retreating warmth. He shifts back onto his knees and slides his hands down your thighs, parting them.

A low whistle blows past his lips. “Damn, I made a mess outta you.”

For a moment, Sanemi can’t tear his eyes away from the sight between your legs; the sight of him trickling out you, staining the sheets below. But some of that hot, possessive pride that wells in his chest tempers at the small smear of blood staining your inner thigh.

His fingers massage your legs in silent apology. “Let me clean you up.”

Your hands shoot to grasp at his shoulders, a pleading whimper on your lips. “Don’t leave — not yet.” You bite your lip, your eyes wide and anxious. “Please, can you just hold me for a bit?”

Sanemi’s eyes soften and his heart throbs painfully in his chest. He can’t imagine leaving you; not now, not ever. No matter how stupid and selfish that makes him.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know the source of your anxiety — or that you didn’t have reason for it. Sanemi isn’t known for lingering.

But this is different — you’re different. You’re not some temporary distraction. You’re everything. His everything.

“Shhh,” he maneuvers you easily atop him, settling you in against the length of his torso, his hands smoothing up and down the column of your spine. “I’m staying right here, sweet girl. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He seals his promise with a gentle kiss against your forehead before laying his cheek against your temple, cradling you to his chest.

Finally, you relax against him, convinced. He lays with you for a long time after, one hand on the back of your head, his fingers rubbing against your scalp until you fall asleep on against him, safe and sound and warm.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours. But Sanemi’s head does not quiet, not even under the soothing sounds of your deep, slow breaths as you dream.

He must have lost his mind. There is no other explanation for the way he’s disregarded every rule, every boundary he’s ever made sense of, all in the name of you. In a single evening, you managed to obliterate every last defense, every barricade he’d safely cowered behind, and now that the castle has fallen, he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with the rubble.

What he does know is that there’s no putting things back to how they were.

His eyes search your sleeping face because if you were able to make him question nearly everything that made sense in his life, then surely you must also have the answers he needs to re-strike balance in his tilted world. Maybe they lie among the lashes that tickle your cheek, or in the occasional twitch of your mouth between your deep inhales.

But Sanemi is only left feeling more confused the longer he watches you. Because, despite the way he feels vulnerable and exposed at how easily he has been stripped of his guard, he can’t quite bring himself to believe it was entirely your doing.

His eyes widen. There’s his answer.

Perhaps you are not trying to sink your nails into his flesh to peel it back, to demand he be stripped to the bone for you to inspect, to scrutinize and use as you please.

Perhaps that is what you’ve done to yourself, and you’re waiting to see if you will join you; to know if he can volunteer his vulnerability, rather than wait for someone to come and force it from him.

He cannot make any promises. He has spent so much of his life cowering behind the armor he crafted out of his scars and his sneers and barks that were always more ferocious than his bite, that he does not know how to take it off. He does not know how to navigate the world without its weight, both his safety net and his chain. And there is an understanding in your eyes that signals you know that, too.

But he can try.

He mouths I love you against your hairline — he does not voice it, not yet, though it’s what he feels. But your love is a compass that just might point him down the road the leads to a life he so desperately wants; to you.

And he’ll get there, maybe.

In time.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

[vampiresbloodx]

I've missed you.

pairings: Rio Vidal x Reader

word count: 1.9k

synopsis: Your ex comes back at your doorstep.

warnings: smut, vaginal fingering, face sitting, multiple orgasms, teasing, strap on use, oral sex (r receiving), top!Rio, bottom!reader, modern au without the witch stuff, toxic ex, breakups, slight angst if you squint, squirting, so much porn, a bit of yandere!Rio, possessive and obsessed mention, strap on referred to as a cock/dick, age gap, r is in their early twenties and Rio is older, bit of soft Rio but I love her mean.

It was your usual friday night, the week had ended and work was over for the weekend, you got to relax, do whatever you wanted to do, get things done, it wasn’t like you went out partying a lot like your other friends did, always trying to convince you to join them for a couple of drinks after your shift. You just weren’t always feeling it. 

But tonight you went out. 

Having both Natasha and Yelena talk you into it was easy enough for them, it was hard to deny them both, you loved them, they were complete idiots, matching each others personality perfectly while also being different in their own styles, most wouldn’t even guess they were sisters. 

You actually first met them years ago when the three of you were still kids. Natasha being the oldest and Yelena the baby of the trio. They treated you like you were their own sibling that they looked after, you really did love them a lot and they knew that. 

This week's work schedule was rather intense and stressful, your anxiety building up and getting rather worse, as you probably had to look into changing your meds that you were currently on as they weren’t doing what they were supposed to do anymore. Work has taken up so much of your time that you hadn’t had much of a personal life, you don’t even remember the last time you went out, like actually out, out of the apartment, aside from going for a walk doesn't really count, you felt as though you’ve been stuck inside every time you finish work. Which isn't a bad thing. Rest is good, needed, but for some reason you end up craving to be social and around your friends every so often. 

And tonight you just missed being around them. 

They never failed to cheer you up, make you laugh, they were seriously the best friends you could ask for. 

They were the very friends who convinced you to break up with your ex girlfriend, that was mostly you, but they helped a lot. 

Rio. 

God, even just thinking about her makes your stomach do a flip and your heart skips in your chest, she still has such a strong effect on you that you knew if she was here you’d probably do anything she tells you to do right then and there. 

Shamelessly. 

And willingly. 

She was your first girlfriend that you’ve ever had in your early twenties, she was older than you, which your friends claimed was a red flag alone, with the power imbalance and the age gap, but you didn’t think so. 

Since in the beginning it was paradise. 

She was the absolute best most beautiful girl you had the privilege of calling her yours, sure, she was overly possessive at times, even really protective, always checking everything you do, asking where you went always, no matter the time and place, always just there, it got too much before you knew it. 

She would even threaten some of your colleagues, making assumptions that they were flirting with you, making a move on you, from the way they stared at you, god, it was like no one was allowed near you. 

But you loved Rio. You loved her to death. 

After your rough breakup, you came to wonder if she used that against you, how naive you could be, since she was your first girlfriend, she took advantage of you. 

She knew how inexperienced you were, you had just started your new job when you first met, every time you had an issue with your co worker or your boss, she’d always listen, she was always there, but now when you look back, it felt weird, you couldn’t put your finger on it, but it was like she got off on it. 

How you relied on her so much. 

It wasn’t healthy. And yet you couldn't lie to yourself when you also liked it. 

How much control she had over you, how much of an impact she had, how easily influenced you were by you. If it weren’t for your friends, you’d probably be in a much shitter situation now. 

On nights like this, you can’t help but miss her. 

Your would be anniversary is coming up, you were always the one to plan it, she wasn’t the one to make big gestures, but she did some things. Your heart ached when you had found a sweater of hers she left behind one night as it still smelled like her, you wear it more than you should. 

Your phone suddenly started ringing, startling you as you looked at it, seeing it was Natasha calling, you almost forgot about the plans for tonight as you were so deep in thought of your ex that you realised you should be leaving soon, before you could even answer, there was a knock at your door. 

Weird. 

Natasha was the type to randomly show up even if she called, it didn’t matter, but she’d also just send a text, letting you know she’s here, you weren’t expecting company, you almost wanted to ignore it, there was a part of you that was curious. 

And that won you over. 

Getting up from your couch, you walked towards the door, letting in a breath in and out, your hand reaching out to the doorknob as you twisted it, definitely not expecting her. 

“Rio?” you said, your eyes widening as your mouth hung open. 

She chuckled. 

“Better close that mouth before a fly gets in it” she smiles, you immediately shut your mouth, she used to always say that. 

You noticed the way she was staring at you, the way her eyes roamed shamelessly over your body, you stood there, still not sure what to do. 

“Wow, you look good, going somewhere?” she asks, allowing herself into the apartment as you frowned. 

“Rio, what the fuck?-” you muttered. 

She kept eyeing you up and down, a smirk at her lips as she watched you, you started getting flustered from her gaze, of course, she decided to show up when you thought about her. 

“What do you want” you asked, slightly annoyed. 

She stepped closer, too close, as you licked at your lips, not meaning to, just a stupid habit, and she leaned in, smelling you as you gasped, pushing her off of you. She laughed. 

“Did you miss me, sweetheart?” she grinned, her hand coming up as she caressed your cheek, your body shuddered from her touch, you missed her. 

“Rio, w-why the fuck are you here” you asked, stuttering over your own words as your cheeks heated up in embarrassment. 

She cooed, cupping your face in her hand, gripping tightly, she licked her own lips this time, you stared at her tongue more than you should. She saw that. The smell of her perfume overwhelmed you as she’d always wear that specific one, you wanted to feel her. She got onto that pretty quickly, as before you could ask her another question, she pressed her lips to yours. 

She didn’t even give you a chance to speak, you couldn’t stop yourself from moaning as she kissed harder, her tongue going inside yours, making you gasp as you held onto her, she chuckled, deliberately placing her leg in between your thighs and pressing it against your core, you whimpered from the pressure, you didn’t like all this teasing she does, you missed her too much to tell her to stop. 

You started grinding your hips down on her thigh, as you desperately chased after your high, your entire body burning with want. You didn’t even know what the hell you were doing and why Rio was suddenly in your apartment after a year of not seeing her. Did she ignore the fact that you broke up with her? Why the fuck is she fucking you like it’s a normal friday night. 

Not that you were complaining either way. 

“Hm, I need more of you, baby” she murmured, her voice sending a chill down your spine as you felt her kiss along your neck, sucking at your pulse. You wrapped your hands around her neck, pulling her in closer, afraid if you blinked she’d be gone. “Shhh, I’ve got you, sweetheart, you wanna lay down for me?” she asked softly, pressing a kiss on your lips as she placed you down onto the couch, gently, still kissing down your chest and further. “I’ve missed you.” 

You couldn’t even form a proper sentence or even mumble a reply back, still focused on the way she was touching you. You allowed her to take off your dress that you were going to wear to the club tonight, but you’d much prefer this. She forced your legs apart, taking off your underwear that was already soaked through, she groaned at the sight, Rio grinned, leaning in as she licked up your pussy, causing you to cry out. 

She teased at your clit with her finger, rubbing circles and adding more pressure, pleasure boiling up inside your body as you felt like you were on cloud nine. Your cunt throbbed the more she licked and sucked, she was so good with her mouth, it was one of the things you love her doing to you after the two of you would get into an argument and she’d fuck you with her tongue. 

Your hands gripped at her hair, which was soft, just as you remembered, you were a whining mess, tightening your grip as you rode on her face. She didn’t stop until she got her fill, she easily pushed her finger inside of you, she was always amazed at how wet you were for her. She felt your thighs begin to shake, she watched your face contorted into pleasure as she admired you. It wasn’t long until you broke, you loudly cried out and she still didn’t stop, letting you feel out your high. 

She removed herself from you, immediately stripping herself from her clothes as you watched in a dazed state, she smirked, her hair a mess, Rio grabbed out her fake cock, eyeing you, letting you back out now, when you didn’t, she leaned back in, kissing your lips as she wrapped her hand around her cock, pressing it against your entrance as you whimpered, pushing hips down onto it. Rio used some of your wetness as lube, easily enough the cock eased into your pussy, she groaned, slowly moving her hips as your hands grabbed at her back, your nails digging into her. 

“Fuck baby, you feel so good” she moaned, “You gonna come on my cock? Yeah? No one else can fuck you like I can, this pussy is mine, right baby?” she said, watching as you nod, she loved how she can fuck you sensless to the point where you can’t even speak. 

You held onto her tightly as you came faster than before, you gasped, feeling like you’ve wet yourself, as you opened your eyes, embarrassment hitting you but you were surprised as you saw that you had squirted over Rio’s dick, as it was still coming, she chuckled, looking impressed as her eyes filled with lust. 

“You really missed me, huh?” she teased, your cheeks burned as you couldn’t believe what just happened, all of it feeling like it was a dream. 

And even if it was, you never wanted to wake up ever again.

[novvabee]

Hi,

Could you do a romantic poly!marauder (without peter) x reader where they are in a established relationship and maybe James (I just imagine it coming for him) having baby fever and dropping hint at it to make the others want to a start a family ?

omg! I totally can see James wanting a family like straight away, but the others are kind of hesitant. Hope this fits your vision ❤️

Oh baby, baby fever

summary: james wants a baby

cw: suggestive? talk about starting a family

James had been more needy and cuddly in the past couple of days. He was holding you closer, tighter to his chest in the mornings, being incredibly sweet. And this is James we’re talking about. He normally treated you like royalty, but he had somehow stepped it up after spending the day at work with you.

You had been a nanny for a family for about a year now, and you were loving the job. The family was so kind and generous, and they often felt like an extension of your own family. The children were no different. They were the sweetest kids with the most patience and understanding that you had ever seen in a child. There was a boy, Liam, who was 5, and a little girl named Ruth, 4. They were the reason you loved your job, getting to see them and care for them was the best job you could have ever asked for.

Two days ago, you had planned a trip to the zoo for the two, and were so excited to spend the whole day with them. James, who had the day off, offered to come with. He argued that it would be better to have two adult sets of eyes to watch over the children, safer, and you agreed. You didn’t know how the children would take it at first, him being a stranger, but just like everyone else seemed to, they took to him instantly.

Liam was so happy to have a boy to rough around with (though james was about 3 and a half feet teller and much, much stronger) and Ruth seemed to develop a bit of a crush, having James tie her pink sparkly shoes, hold his hand to cross the street, listen to her jokes and animal facts she had learned, and hold her favorite stuffed animal when she got tired of holding it herself.

James never once complained. He played and laughed with the kids, he carried both, one in each arm, whenever they asked, he bought them each a toy from the gift shop with his own money when they asked. He was doing amazing.

There was a different side to James that you saw. You were used to the kindness and warmth of him, but this was different. He was so gentle with them, it came so easy to him. You noted the moments he would get down to their level to hear them properly, to make sure they felt heard even though they were mostly talking nonsense or silly kid things. He lifted them up to see the animals without them having to ask, he just knew they wouldn’t be about to see over the fence. He made sure they had water and snacks whenever they wanted them.

It took a lot of pressure and stress off of you, put some ideas into your head… you thought that he would make a great dad.

And it seems, James had the same thoughts. The next day he dropped his first hint. All four of you and your boys were lounging about on the couch and watching movies. The day was quite glum out and you all wanted to curl up and use each other for warmth. You were curled into Remus’s side, James laying on you, his head on your chest and body between your legs, Sirius’s head in Remus’s lap. You were a big puddle of happiness. While watching a particularly boring part of the movie, James began running his hands along your sides, under your shirt. You didn’t mind, his hands were always so warm and soft. It gave you goosebumps in the best way. He moved his hands from your sides to your stomach, right under your belly button. He was dragging his fingers along your bare skin before looking at your stomach and kissing it. He laid his head back down and watched the move like nothing, continuing to rub your sides, but you knew what he was after. You knew what he was thinking and why. 

The next hint was dropped while you were all in the kitchen. Remus finishing cooking dinner for you, and the three of you waiting patiently at the table. You had somehow stumbled into the conversation of which teachers you had crushes on when you were younger. 

“Oh come on, Minnie had that authoritative thing going for her.” Sirius confidently announced over the noise of the kitchen.

“McGonagall? Sirius, what is wrong with you?” Remus looked over from the stove, baffled. You giggled and went to stick up for Sirius.

“I don't know,” you joked “She had sort of a milf vibe don't you think?”

The boys all laughed. James replied with a smirk from across the table“You’d know all about that Y/N, wouldn’t you?”

You tilted your head at him and furrowed your brows but chuckled “What do you mean Jamesie?”

“I just mean,” he starts, Remus serving you and Sirius both plates, “It takes one to know one.”

You all started laughing heartily at his comment.

“James mate, I think she’s lacking the main component for that.” Sirius teased.

“What do you mean?” James asked.

“She's not a mother.” 

“She could be,” James said slyly, a smirk cutting across his face.

“Woah woah” Remus said at the same time Sirius laughed a “What are you planning Potter?” you just laughed, you knew exactly what he was getting at. You were letting him have his fun before the seriousness sets in, before that very real, very important discussion happens. 

The next hint was dropped during game night. You had all decided to play a few games like Overcooked and Mario Party. It was quite a fun night full of swearing and playful anger. It was a good outlet to yell at each other without it being serious or mean in any way. A great way to let out all of your competitive energy. You were playing a round of Mario Party and losing, bad. Every mini game the boys seemed to team up on you. “Fuck me!” you let out.

James took this as his sign to slide in behind you and wrap his arms around you “You know that can be arranged, love.” he drawled, nuzzling into the crook of your neck. 

Remus and Sirius shared a look. “What’s gotten into him?” Sirius asked.

“He wants to have a baby.” you explained. You weren’t sure how the other boys hadn’t picked up on it. It wasn’t exactly something that  you had all talked about yet, you just liked being together, the four of you, having fun and sharing a life with each other. You weren't sure about… a baby. 

The whole room turned attention to James, who seemed to have turned shy. “I just-,” he started, “I think that… Y/N would make a wonderful mother, and I think I would be a pretty good dad? And I love children, I want one. I’m not saying, I mean, I-I don’t know…” He finished, unconfident and a little deterred.

You sighed, sitting up and readjusting to sit in his lap, facing him. “Jamie baby,” You said, taking his face in your hands, “look, you would be an amazing dad, the best dad in the world. But honey, I don’t think we are all ready for that right now.” you looked over to Sirius and Remus for agreement, they nodded and encouraged you to keep going. “James, we’re still really young. And I know you had a lot of fun with the kids I nanny, but that is different. Those are someone else's kids. Kids that we can have fun with and do fun things with them and then send them on their way back home where they scream and cry and throw tantrums. They aren’t always so perfect. And you’ve never had to change their diapers or deal with them when they're sick and when they are inconsolable. It was fun, but there is a whole other side to parenting, a hard and serious one.” Sirius opened his mouth to make a comment at that but Remus nudged him in the ribs and shook his head. “So baby, I am not saying no. But I am saying not right now. Is that understandable?” you asked.

James looked at you and nodded, you could tell he knew it wasn't the right time, but deep down that is something he wants. You kissed his cheek to try and cheer him up a bit, you know he would need a little bit to be sad, but that he would inevitably come around.

Remus, noticing that James was still upset, came up with a proposition. “How about we work our way up? We start small and then see where we are after. What if we get a cat or a dog?” He suggests.

Sirius squinted his eyes and said “How about a plant?”

James chuckled, the sound making your heart feel less heavy. “I would like a cat…”

“Damnit” Sirius said under his breath.

[natalchartnurtures]

PAC: What Greek Mythology love story would you and your FS be?

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[pile 1 to 3- left to right]

Just came out of a bone-crushing healing and shadow work period for my Kundalini Awakening going on right now T-T In an attempt to raise my spirits, I created my very first FS reading-

pile 1:

General vibe of your love story with your FS-

This is the movie pile. I see a full-blown movie arc in my mind’s eye for your love story with your FS. I see an opening at- you guys meeting, the middle act- your separation and individual trials, and the final act- the happy reunion! OBVIOUSLY, there's nuance to how all of this will unfold for each of y’all reading since it's real life we're talking about, but your story with your FS is the closest thing to a happily-ever-after if I've ever seen one.

It's like when y’all first met, y’all were young, or maybe some of y’all didn't know how to handle a relationship or didn't have the resources in the 3D (think money or a place of your own, something like that) to make this relationship happen? Maybe it was long distance for a looong time? And so, for whatever reason (along said lines) y’all had to let each other go or y’all couldn't be together. It's like y’all were shown a grand possibility to be together, and BOOM it was taken away.

Then you guys enter a separation period right after, and the length of this period will differ for everybody reading, anywhere between months to a couple of years. After having worked HARD on yourselves ON YOUR OWN to overcome your personal issues, traumas, and suffering, you guys come together. The key to really mastering your obstacles is in the day to day. You will have set routines to tackle your obstacles, such as say you’ve got anxiety or a dys-regulated nervous system, so maybe you'll always have a stress relief meditation scheduled in no matter how your day looks. So on and so forth, fill in the details of this period as it best suits your life. But the common denominator, I feel like, is that y’all really fight to be with one another. The love is so deep here, and that's what motivates each of you to overcome your personal hurdles, yk? And THEN, when it happens, and y’all reunite, it's sooo beautiful. It's like you guys will build a brand new life together where you can put the past behind and finally enjoy the fruits of your labor! Also, I see you guys growing and blossoming over time with your FS upon reunion 🥺✨.

So… which Greek myth sums up YOUR love story with your FS the best?

drum roll

It’s the story of Cupid and Psyche!

From what I’ve read about this story, Cupid and Psyche couldn’t immediately be together after they met. Cupid could only meet Psyche at night AND she’s not even allowed to see him! T-T This was part of what Psyche has to overcome- the challenges put forth by Aphrodite just because the goddess was jealous of Psyche. And poor Cupid had self-esteem issues from what I gather lmao. He didn't even feel worthy to show his mortal wife what he REALLY looked like (which, by the way, is GORGEOUS af?! Like who hurt you, Cupid?) They eventually overcome their odds and reunite. Eventually, Jupiter blesses Psyche with immortality, which allows them to live forever in their new life happily ever after. Ahhh… beautiful.

I encourage you to read the original story (or watch it on YT, do whatever you like :p) to pick up on any additional messages! Buuut that’s all I have for you lovely folks today.

Love and loads of light, sweet pea :)

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pile 2:

General vibe of your love story with your FS-

Reeeeally strongly coming in right off the bat, I feel like both you AND your FS will be turning a brand new leaf in your lives. Think a new job for one or both of you. A major relocation for one or both of you. A major relationship ending for one or both of you. You catch the drift, right?

It feels like y’all will be closing out a cycle and entering into a new era, so to speak. And in this new era, I sense that you'll keep mostly to yourself and aren't all that interested in anybody because you're still processing this BIG shift you just went through and you're reflecting a lot, drawing on your wisdom, staying in your lane. Ngl, you do feel vulnerable and raw too, which is probably why you seem to keep to yourself mostly during the time you might run into your FS. I sense the same from their end too.

You know what this is? Mutual healing. Your future spouse finds you at a time when you're in the dead center of healing and vice versa. You will both be the catalysts to each other's healing! How cool is that? And after y’all find stability in your journey together especially after navigating healing for so long… I see y’all being so comfortable and content and peaceful with one another 🥺 this makes my heart full!! Stop it! Ahhhhhh <3 The vibes are immaculate, it's giving 'comrades in the battlefield' kinda energy. Your FS will stick with you no matter what, literally. And that's the kind of loyalty many people only dream about. Love it 🤌🏾. Y’all will love each other's pain away 🥺😩. Ugh my heart can't take it anymore!

So… which Greek myth sums up YOUR love story with your FS the best?

drum roll

It’s the story of Odysseus and Penelope!

Now in the story of Odysseus and Penelope, both of them undergo significant changes and face major disruptions in their lives. Odysseus’s long journey home from the Trojan War and Penelope’s long period of waiting and dealing with suitors at home. BUT even in Odysseus's absence, Penelope remains faithful and focused on her own survival and household. Similarly, Odysseus endures many trials and tribulations. Both characters are found in a state of self-reflection in the face of personal challenges (in my humble opinion of course). Their reunion symbolizes mutual healing… both of our characters here show incredible loyalty and perseverance despite being apart for 20 years!

-Side note: on a completely different note, your story low key kinda reminds me of the story of James and Claire from Outlander >< shoutout to the Outlander fans hehehehe, I'm waiting for the 9th season to come out SO BAD ughhhh lmao-

I encourage you to read the original story (or watch it on YT, do whatever you like :p) to pick up on any additional messages for yourself! Annnnd that’s all I have for you lovely folks today.

Love and loads of light, sweet pea :)

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pile 3:

General vibe of your love story with your FS-

Ah.. my Pile number 3s.. you guys are afraid to love.. aren't you? You might be blocked off from your heart and as a result won’t be open to true reciprocal and healthy love for a WHILE. But then I see that the divine will enter your life in some way and shake you up in a big way to show you how you've been standing in your own way and keeping love at a distance.. I'm seeing the tower card in my third eye as I say this even though it hasn't come out for you today.

Ah, this is like a personal journey I see you taking before your FS comes in and swoops you off your pretty lil feet 🙃 tehe! Your energy seems quite mental to me. You love living in your head, thinking, planning, analyzing, and just knowing things. But this came at the grave cost of not being connected to your heart.. and when the divine intervenes and helps you connect to your heart again is when your FS comes in flying ✨.

Side note: Ooh.. suddenly I hear Lavender Haze by our queen Taylor Swift? Take that only if it resonates for you :]

But yea, I see you struggling and feeling out of control when all of this happens because you're used to being in control of things usually but now all of this has you a bit overwhelmed I'm ngl.. but you end up navigating this perfectly well! Yay! I'm glad haha 😅🫂👏🏾

So… which Greek myth sums up YOUR love story with your FS the best?

drum roll

The story of Pygmalion and Galatea!

Yup, just like how Pygmalion accidentally manifested Galatea, you kinda accidentally manifest your future spouse too (low key reeeal funny ngl). Because Pygmalion refused to love anybody, he sculpted out his perfect woman and fell in love with his creation. His deep affections attract the attention of you guessed it Aphrodite herself, and she decides to ahem intervene. She brings Galatea to life, which represents the transformation of Pygmalion's mental fixation (and emotional disconnection) TO emotional CONNECTION. How perfectly beautiful. Ugh. Love your story, Pile 3. Gosh.. who doesn't love their FS simply falling into their laps? Haha

I encourage you to read the original story (or watch it on YT, do whatever you like :p) to pick up on any additional messages! Soooo that’s all I have for you lovely folks today.

Love and loads of light, sweet pea :)

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[itsharleystuff]

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ 𝐌Í𝐀 ❜┊˚ ̥۪͙۪◌

Gif not mine!

— 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Javier Peña x afab!fem reader (implied hispanic/latina)

— 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 7.3k

— 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: After a major fight between the two of you, a month goes by in which you give each other the silent treatment, figuring out if you should start seeing different people. However, Javier has a problem: he can’t get his dick hard for anyone that isn’t you. So, when he sees how easily you can move on from him, he gets awfully jealous.

— 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 18+ content (minors dni!), sex, possessive/jealous behavior, unprotected sex, p in v, cuffs, slight dirty talk, semi-public sex, use of ‘slut’, pet names (sweetheart, corazón, cariño, hermosa, etc.), praise kink, come eating, oral sex (f! & m! receiving), mentions of drugs, smoking, a bit of angst, very little plot (mostly filth), weirdly structured plot. I think that’s it.

— a/n: there’s some phrases and words in Spanish, some are translated and some aren’t. Let me know if translations are needed :)

No use of y/n.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Javier Peña has never been a jealous man.

It's simply never been in his nature, not even when he was a child playing around with toys that he loved to share. And nowadays? Well, he had other stuff in mind that didn't leave any room for those pedestrian feelings.

As of now, he -supposedly- didn't have anything to be worried about. Specially not women.

Everyone knew he fucked hookers so good that they'd spill all their secrets in his ear, and that he was attractive enough to leave a bar with company just after a couple of minutes from arriving there. But to anyone observant, it was obvious how bad he had it for you.

Still, that didn't stop him from being an asshole.

You remember the last time you two spoke and how it turned out to be a fucking disaster: basically, he didn't like the idea of exclusivity because it involved feelings that he wasn't ready to admit, so you had called him a slut (along with many other insults) and he'd said that you were childish and sensitive. So naturally, everything went downhill after that fight.

Currently, things were pretty tense with Javier, even at work. But things just got worse when the Colombian police sent you onto an undercover mission, nothing really extravagant but still quite dangerous. And apparently, the DEA knew nothing about it.

The task was rather simple: you'd go to one of Medellin's busiest nightclubs and find out if there was a cocaine distribution line working there. The problem was what the agent had overheard from Carrillo. Not only did he knew now that you were at the place, but he also had word that one of the cartel's most wanted sicarios was about to be there too. And knowing the Coronel as well as he did, you were right in the middle of a crossfire. He arrived at the club earlier than any of them, hoping to find you quickly and draw you out before the asset came in.

But, oh hell.

What he saw the minute he stepped in almost made him lose his shit.

⩇⩇:⩇⩇

You had no business being in there this late. You'd already passed down all the information needed to your boss and now you were just waiting for the cartel's member to arrive so you could call Carrillo and let him finish the job.

But in the meantime, you decided to at least try and have some fun. After everything that went on with Peña, you felt like you deserved a distraction.

The music was loud, reggaetón reverberating in your body as you danced, eyes wide awake in case the target decided to show up. The stranger you were dancing with had his hands all over your body, holding you close to him while you moved in synch. He was handsome in a boyish way, and a bit clumsy, but good enough to take your mind off from the irritating DEA agent. At least for now.

To be honest, you didn't lack any attention at the moment. Both men and women would come up to you, hoping to get a piece of what you had to offer. It came without saying that everything about you tonight resulted appealing to the kind of people that frequented the place, being an undercover assignment you did your best to blend in. And it seemed to work out wonderfully. The flashy makeup and short dress that only accentuated your figure made you stand out amongst the rest; nevertheless, what really attracted everyone's gaze wasn't any of that, but the confidence with which you'd walk around the place like you owned it.

"¿Qué tal si nos vamos pa' un lugar más oscurito, mamacita?" (How about we go to a more private place?) The guy, whose name you didn't even know, proposed. And though the idea sounded nice, your job wasn't quite finished.

"Not yet, papi. Dame un par de canciones más." (Let's dance a bit more). He hummed in response, his hands traveling from your lower back to grab your ass firmly.

"Usted manda." (You call the shots). The answer made you smile cheekily as you lean in to him, hoping to connect his lips with yours.

However, you definitely didn't expect to be abruptly pulled back with force instead, ripping you apart from the man's hold.

"What the hell..." you start to complain and twist in the strangers grasp, who started to drag you out the dance floor and keeping your wrists behind your back.

"Hombre, ¿pero qué diablo' le pasa?" (What's wrong with you, man?). Asked your poor companion, glancing over at the guy that took you away from him.

But you knew exactly who he was even before he spoke. You'd recognize that musky cologne anywhere, mixed with the scent of cigarette smoke. Damn, even your body recognized him so well that the way his fingertips dig on your skin flooded your mind with memories from the past.

"Peña." You mutter through gritted teeth, not bothering to turn your head towards him.

"It's agent Peña to you, sweetheart." He snarls, completely blowing off anyone that would try to get in his way to lug you outside.

A new, fueled up rage crept up your spine while he harshly pulls you to te entrance, right were you see the colonel's target going in.

"Let go of me, mierda!" You struggle against him, not wanting to actually put on a fight but just make him reason. "I have a fucking job to do, so let go of me or..."

"Or what?" Javier spins you around carelessly, leaving your face so close to his that your breaths merged with each other's, chest pressed against your own as he keeps you still, his hands gripping you so hard that it would certainly leave bruises.

"I need to call Carrillo. I'm working, even if you don't believe it." You tell him, letting your racing heartbeat start to settle.

The man's eyes were dark, covered by a shadow of anger that matched his stern expression. He was always handsome, but whenever he'd get mad, Javi was hot. Although it was unusual for you to see him like this, him being always attentive and careful, though still very passionate. He would never explode, not even when the stress and tension became too much to handle. But then, you realize...

"No way..." you scoff, keeping direct eye contact. "You're jealous, aren't you?"

His reaction is immediate, turning your body again and flushing your face against the trunk of his jeep Cherokee, bending you over the car. You gasp audibly, feeling the cold metal under your cheek and his body towering upon you while he holds you down by the back of your neck. Javier's lips brush the top of your ear when he leans down to you.

"The fuck do I need to be jealous about, cariño?" He whispers lowly, his hot breath giving you goosebumps and making your knees tremble. "Eres mía, you've always been."

Ah, fuck.

Despite all the shit that you went through with him, the effect he had on you remained the same. No matter what, the agent was aware of it, conscious of how you'd always melt under his touch, he just knew all your sweet spots by core memory and what'll have you squirming underneath him. Yeah, even if your mind tried it's best to erase Peña, your body would always betray you.

"You lost your chance." You mutter in a bittersweet tone. "Now get the hell off me so I can finish my task."

He doesn't instantly let go, but eventually loosens the grip on your nape. Though right when you thought he'd actually let you free, there's a cold metallic sensation brushing on your wrist and you suddenly can't move your arms from your back. The motherfucker had just cuffed you.

"Malparido, hijo de..." You ramble, straightening your back to glance at him in exasperation.

"Don't move." He growls, opening the driver's door and taking his radio out. The agent starts to talk through it, but you're way too outraged as to pay any attention, your vision going red when you catch your name, the words 'Carrillo', 'sicario' and the place were you're at, figuring out that he's doing the part of the job that corresponded to you.

"You're sick, Peña." There's no reply to the snarky comment as he simply shoves you in the back of his truck, rather carefully, considering the situation.

You watch intently while he gets back on his seat, analyzing every detail about him. It wasn't anything special, you had seen him quite often at work after your fight, and nonetheless, now... Something seemed off.

Javier was wearing a red button shirt under his black leather jacket, from which he drew out a pack of cigs and a lighter. He appeared the same, however, you could sense the tension on his shoulders and back, the kind you'd help him deal with before, and it almost felt like he was holding back from doing something. Heck, you hated it. You completely despised arguing with him, being apart from the man almost made you physically unwell.

But that was the root of this whole problem. You were able to admit it; how much you liked him and didn't want anyone else. Him on the other hand, wasn't ready for all that. Although, despite him implying that he couldn't fully commit or correspond to your feelings... Right now, his actions were very contradicting.

Because Javier Peña never got jealous.

And yet, there he was.

Perhaps, if you spurred him on just enough and cornered him in a trap... Perhaps then, he'd be able to admit it. 

"So what now, agent?" You wonder, laying your back flat on the leather sit, feeling the coldness of the material on your exposed skin and trying to find a comfortable position. "You mind explaining yourself?"

He looks at you through the rear-view mirror, brows furrowed and jaw clenched. A challenging fire shines in your eyes when you lock glances with him. But he doesn't say anything, simply starting the car and getting the windows down before lighting up a cigarette.

"What about you, sweetheart?" He asks, the fag hanging from between his lips as he starts driving away from the club. "Care for elaborating on your actions?"

You snort, gaze diverting towards the window. "I was just killing time."

The streets of Medellin were loud and busy, specially on the weekends. But at the moment, the paths were dark and quiet, as if everyone knew that there was a storm coming and they had to stay out of the hood.

"So that's your idea of 'killing time'?" He comes again, tapping the cigar out his window to leave the ashes behind. "Letting random men grope you in those wrenched bars?" You grin, still defying him with your attitude. "And yet, I'm the slut..."

"You must certainly are, Peña." You reply condescendingly, watching the road. "When I was with you, that was it. No one else even crossed my mind. But then, you? How many other women did you have besides me?"

He grunts, taking a long drag without looking back in your direction. You recognize certain spots and locals, but none of them were anywhere close to your apartment. Instead of asking were he was taking you to, the idea you previously had lingers on your mind.

Red light.

"You know, ever since we... Well, ghosted each other. I've actually had tons of fun." His eyes darkened, but no matter all the warning signs he was sending with his body, you just couldn't hold back anymore, starting to play a game that might get out of control. "Actually, you know that guy working with the CIA? Balcázar?"

Javier looked so gorgeous while driving. His big hands over the lever and muscles flexing whenever he'd make sudden moves. Even now, tense as an arrow an white-knuckling the wheel at your words, he was the hottest man you'd seen.

"Shit, he’s good..." you purr, slightly arching your back so he'll get a better view of your breasts, barely contained in that tiny dress you were wearing. "I really miss him. Hated it when he went back to New York."

His stormy glare was on you, watching closely every single move you made. Your legs were briefly parted, just enough for him to peek a sight of your laced underwear. The agent's breathing became ragged and he had to try his best to stay concentrated.

"Careful, cariño." You hear him rasp out with a hint of danger. "You really don't want to go there."

Green light.

He puts the cigarette out and throws the tail away carelessly.

"Ay, Peña." Your voice goes an octave lower, licking your lips. "Don't act like you haven't been to every brothel in the city trying to fill in my spot."

The man huffs a laugh, shaking his head in disapproval. "I know what you're doing." You look at him through your lashes, faking innocence and confusion. "But if you really want me to say it, there hasn't been anyone else."

"Yeah, right..." That mocking tone was really getting on his nerves.

"Not even when we were together." Javi sulks out.

"Then why was it so difficult for you to be serious with me?" You question grimly. "Do you not like me?"

His eyes bore back into yours somberly, as if you'd just said the stupidest thing in the world despite the graveness in your voice and expression, lazily scanning you head to toe.

"Like you?" It sounded like he was struggling not to come off sardonic, cocking an eyebrow at you. "I can't believe you just asked me that."

You lean in towards him when he takes an unexpected turn, inhaling his particular scent mixed with the leather and smoke. Suddenly, he parks the car someplace dark and empty that resembled an abandoned gas station. Kind of creepy, but you recognized the area now. It was a neighborhood located a couple of blocks away from his apartment.

"Why?" You coo, taunting, patiently testing how much he'd spill. But Javier won't meet your glance, focused on the nothingness ahead of him.

"Because I can't even get my dick hard for any other women, for fucks sake!" He howls, rubbing his face with his palm, clearly pissed.

At first, you thought he must've been joking. But the way he said it came out so frustrated that it made it hard to believe he was lying. His bold statement gave you a rush of power, knowing that you had him in mind and body, the man that made every woman he acquainted feel like a schoolgirl crushing on a senior. You understood why he was so mad right now; it wasn't only cause he was jealous, but because he hated seeing that you could easily move on to the next man while he remained stuck.

Though it was a lie. You only responded to him and you wanted to prove him that. But Javier had to acknowledge the mistake he made.

"Perhaps you're just old." You teased, "Have you tried pills for that?"

His reaction was so unexpected that you had barely any time to process the circumstances. He got out the car and opened the passenger's seat, tugging at your arm to get you out the jeep apprehensively.

"Take a guess, sweetheart." He grits next to your ear, his chest pressed to your back.

"Fucking hell..." you mewl at the feeling of Javier's hard boner firm against your ass. His hands hold your waist for a second before manhandling you to the edge of the back passenger's seat, hunching down in front of you with both hands gently gripping the exposed flesh of your thighs and looking up at you with fiery eyes.

"If you want me to say it, fine." He bites, giving up. "I made a mistake. It was stupid." Then his tone denotes the way he's struggling to contain anger. "I can't bear it. Seeing you with other men... It drives me insane. I can't even think straight- shit, I almost blew a whole ass operation tonight just because I saw you dancing with that guy." You gulp, remembering how furious he was just a few moments ago. "But let's not fool ourselves, cariño. We both know you haven't slept with anyone else either."

How he figured that out was a mystery to you. Maybe he truly was a very good agent.

There isn't a retort in your behalf. What could you possibly say anyway? He had you figured out already, he always did.

Back in the day, when you first started working with him, Javier acted like a complete shithead. Him an Murphy would give you a hard time with the DEA, always getting in trouble, messing up your schedules and bribing confidential information out of you. That's how you grew closer to him. Peña used to invite you for dinner or beers as an apology, granted that he always looked forward to take you back to his apartment, of course. Except you had heard the rumors regarding his reputation, and that was a well in which you weren't particularly eager to fall in, specially since he was a coworker.

Yet, it was all in vain. How could you ever say no to him if he'd look at you with those sparkly, deep brown eyes that resembled a lost puppy? You fell for Javi's smug smirk, the groovy hair, plus that confident and bite-back attitude of his, knowing how it would eventually end. Even so, no one could really blame you. He acted different around you, people were able to tell, brighter, more open and honest.

"See, I'm sorry about what I said..." you start, but he cuts you off.

"Don't be. I deserved that shit." The man stands up, taking a bunch of keys from the pocket of his jeans and going to take off the cuffs. "You should feel sorry for all those poor guys you toyed with while thinking about me the whole time."

You stretch your arms and massage your wrists, unwilling to meet his intense gaze, conscious that you'd fall for his charm immediately. He worked smarter, grabbing your chin to raise your face towards him.

"Did you enjoy it?" He hissed, fingertips digging on your jaw with moderate force. "Having other men grab your ass while everyone watches? Teasing the hell out of me in the office with those obscenely tight skirts and talking to Murphy as if I wasn't right beside him?" Your tongue darts out to lick your lower lip, not breaking eye contact. "Answer me, corazón."

"Yes," you respond cockily, "I enjoyed it." His face swiftly sobered, a muscle feathering in his jaw. "But I didn't think it had any effect on you, so it felt like a waste of time and effort."

Javier laughs huskily, bending forward. You close your eyes, thinking he's going in for a kiss, but instead his lips go to rest on your jawline, pressing open-mouthed kisses along your neck and all the way down to the valley of your breasts. As of now, you're a panting mess, already turned on by his adamant behavior. The fact that you were finally getting to feel him like this after a month or so of completely ignoring each other... It felt divine.

Your tug at his shoulder as he keeps nibbling the sensitive skin. The agent knew your body better than anyone else ever could, he'd memorized all the spots that would have you moaning and squirming underneath him, which was the case just now.

"Javi..." you sigh, running your hand through his hair.

"You're such a fucking brat." He reflects, kneeling between your parted legs. "A month ago I was merely a ghost to you, a few minutes prior I was simply 'Peña'. But when my lips are on you I'm suddenly 'Javi'?" He boasts with a devilish grin. "How convenient..."

"Mmm..." he laughs gruffly at your loss of words, his fingers hooking your underwear beneath the dress and slowly pulling it down.

At this point you're so wet it's embarrassing. It was probably due to the lack of sex you've had recently, or perhaps you were really growing fond of this new phase of his and the idea of Javier being possessive over you.

"Don't you dare look away." He warns roughly, peeling the fabric off you with a tad of your help. "Keep your eyes on me. I'll only tell you this once."

You nod eagerly. "Javi, are we- are we going to do it here?" It wouldn't be a new thing, you've done similar stuff in the past, though never in such an open space, despite appearing deserted. "Your place is barely a few blocks away..." His lips graze the soft skin of your upper leg, the feeling of his mustache raising goosebumps on your body.

"Can't wait." He stated, voice tinted with lust whilst his palm caresses your calf. "Need you now."

Somehow that made the pit of your stomach feel warmer. The rush of excitement coming from that desire he had for you had gave a thrill of control, completely ignoring how he was the one in charge of this situation. Javier carefully slips your dress upwards, taking in every single reaction you had to his touch and cursing at the sight of your throbbing pussy. The heat of his breath against your exposed core only increased your arousal, seemingly encouraging him.

"Shit, this cunt really did miss me, huh?" You nod again, basking in the contact of his nose brushing your clit, sending shivers down your spine.

In spite of your low whimpers of need, he deliberately denied you of his touch were you most needed him, simply roaming his lips and fingers over your inner thighs and pubic bone. Desperate, you scratch his scalp softly, pulling a groan from him.

"Javi, please..." he was definitely going to make you beg for it, regardless of how much he wanted it too. 

"Did you let anyone else do this to you?"

"No." You breathe out.

"Good." His thumb suddenly falls on your clit, rubbing slow circles. You squeal from the spontaneousness of the action, squeezing your eyes shut for a second. "This is mine." Then he slides down his finger to slightly part your swollen lips, coating it with your slick. "All mine."

"Sí, Javi."

"That's right, corazón." He murmurs, slipping two digits into you. "I'm going to fuck you so good that you won't ever think about anyone else." He sets a pace pretty quickly, pumping his fingers in and out, curling them to hit all the right spots. "I'm the only man for you. Understand that?"

"Yes, shit-" you choke down a moan when he mildly pinches your nub. "You are."

He makes a satisfied noise before diving in your pussy, starting to lick and kiss your clit without pulling out his fingers, maintaining a relentless pace and rejoicing himself in the sounds he'd pull from you.

"Fuck, that's good..." you manage to say, knowing how he likes the praise, your hand messing up his hair.

Javier pulls away for a second, grabbing your thighs to part them further and place your legs over his shoulders eagerly, hungrily looking up at you. You arch your back, ever so responsive to him while struggling to maintain a hold of yourself.

"So pretty." He whispers, admiring how your chest goes up and down from your rag breathing, your face contorted by pleasure as his fingers disappear in your cunt, the squelching sounds of your pussy and the moans spilling from your lips making him painfully hard. "Toda mía."

Your legs were already shaking, your body being so sensitive and needy. Specially for him. Always for him. But it wasn't enough and you both knew that. Though before you can beg him for more, his mouth takes place were his digits used to be, eating you out as if you were his favorite meal, lapping you up kind of selfishly, almost like he did it for his own pleasure.

"Javi, that's-" you can't even form coherent sentences without being interrupted by your cries of pleasure. "Too fucking good."

His tongue is hot and soft between your folds, licking up your slit as he rubs tight circles on your clit, fucking you greedily and moaning graciously against your slickness. Also, the image of him between your legs was always a sight to see, adding to the pool of arousal. You start seeing white spots and the knot in your lower stomach starts to loosen as the orgasm approaches, gripping the leather seat as if your life depended on it. It's a good thing that he's holding you, cause in a matter of seconds your whole body starts to tremble and his name leaves your lips repeatedly.

"I can't- shit!" You pull his hair involuntarily and he groans in response, the sound vibrating through your core and pushing you to the edge. "I'm gonna..."

You can't even finish speaking before you're coming undone in his mouth, feeling the hot waves of satisfaction wash over you. He doesn't pull away until you're practically whining from the overstimulation, trying to regain composure as he licks you clean. When he does, his eyes peer at you, intoxicated with desire as he starts to stand on his feet, towering over you.

"I missed that sweet taste of yours." He licks his glistening lips and you wish he'd finally kiss you. "Can't get enough of it."

Your hands reach his belt, trying to unbuckle it, but he takes your wrists to stop you.

"What's wrong?" You question, genuinely confused.

"I'm taking you to my apartment. I'm doing this properly." He retorts. However, you're too turned on now to care about the place.

"Please Javi, let me do something for you." One thing that made him go stupidly insane for you was the way you were never coy when asking for his cock, looking up at him with pleading eyes. As if having him on your throat gratified you. "I need you."

He almost caved in. Almost.

"Stop that or I'll cuff you again." He grumbles, only making you smile.

"Do it. I don't need hands, I can always take you in my mou-" Javier flips your body abruptly, pressing your face against the seat, and you can hear the familiar sound of metal clipping in.

"Such a greedy slut." He fixes your dress, not without subtly smacking your ass beforehand.

"Mm, can I at least get my panties back?" You ask in defeat, turning to face him, but he was already shutting the door.

"No." He quickly starts the car as you settle on the back, catching a glimpse of your reflection in the mirror. Your cheeks were flushed and lips plump from biting them, eyes still sparkling from the high post-orgasm.

"Do you like me like this?" You wonder as he begins driving. "All fucked out, cuffed and ready for you to take?"

Peña doesn't answer immediately, not daring to look back at you but desperately wanting to do it.

"I do." He answers, eyes on the road. "I like you naked. And dressed too, specially with those pretty skirts. I like it when you tell me how your day was, or when you're reading quietly." His words make your heart flutter, blushing harder. "I like listening to your voice, and the way your gaze always seems interested whenever I talk about me. Shit, I even like you when you're ignoring me." You can almost hear his smile, if that made any sense. "I like you all the damn time, hermosa."

Honestly, you weren't expecting such a straightforward answer, finding yourself at loss of words. Nonetheless, you didn't need to say anything, cause sooner than expected you were being taken out of the truck, flashes of the building he resided in passed right in front of your eyes while he dragged you through the dark, silent halls.

"Javi..." despite having limited mobility, you lean towards him, whispering in his ear. "Please kiss me."

He laughs dryly at your plea and struggles to open the door. "You want that, huh? ¿Quieres que te bese?" Then he takes your arm to drag you in, closing the door behind him.

"Yes, mi amor. I missed you so fucking much." You stay close to him, your face nuzzled on the crook of his neck. His hand brushes the hair out of your face and he presses his lips to your temple.

"Hm, is that right?" He hums and you can feel it against your nose. "Didn't seem so."

You back off swiftly, keeping your eyes locked with his. "I'm sorry, Javier. I really am."

Something shifts in his gaze, a possessive, deep emotion takes over him and he decides to take you up on your previous proposition.

"Prove it." He commands, voice hoarse. "Show me how much you missed me." The idea of getting what you wanted pursed your lips in a mischievous smirk. "I'll kiss you afterwards if I'm convinced."

Instead of responding, you start peppering kisses all over his jaw and neck, going as far along his chest as the buttons of his shirt would allow you. He lazily unbuckles his belt and pants while you lower yourself to your knees in front of him, but doesn't bother to go any further. It was going to be difficult, though nothing you haven't done before, nearly forgetting the cuffs as you craved his taste.

You rub the side of your face on his stiff erection, feeling how hard and hot he was under the tight fabric of his jeans and a low groan scratches his throat. You mouth at it before taking the zip between your teeth and sliding it down, eyes peering up at him at the same time. Javier observes every move attentively, his cock twitching at the sight of your lust-drunken gaze, breath starting to become unsteady when you kiss and lick the head of his dick over the thin fabric of his boxers. You taste the precum throughout it, salty and good, before pulling down his underwear by lightly biting the elastic.

Your mouth waters at the view, jaw going slack even before taking him in your mouth. His girth slaps against his clothed belly, tip red and leaking, just as big as you remember. Shit, you really had missed him. Javier's hand tangles in your hair, running his fingers in between the locks lovingly. He gasps when you press your lips to the slit, kitten licking the top and starting to spread wet kisses all over his length, running your tongue along the shaft, his musky scent getting to your head quite fast. He loved how every time you were on your knees for him it felt like you adored him, as much as Javier did you.

And it was true. Knowing how good you made him feel satisfied your senses, every expression and single noise he'd make could turn you on and push you to edge so easily. The man was simply delightful.

“Fuck, sweetheart…” he sighs, caressing your cheekbone with his thumb when you finally suck him in. “That’s it, wrap those gorgeous lips around my cock. So pretty…”

He lets out a gruffly moan as you take him further, watching as he screws his eyes shut and throws his head back, the sound so divine that it immediately makes your pussy clench around nothing. Javier is thick. And it’s always so hard to get him all in your mouth, but this time you make a double effort. You run your tongue against the veins on the underside of his dick, enjoying the weight of it in you, the taste and the admirable sight of him coming undone while he tries his best not to start fucking your face without warning, laying his palms flat on the wall behind you.

“Shit- that’s…” he grumbles, head spinning from pleasure, unable to make up any thought or manifest anything into words. You start bobbing your head up and down his length, hollowing your cheeks to provide more warmth.

You’re dripping, feeling the slick run down your thighs and the ache becoming unbearable. You squeeze your legs together in order to release some of that need, letting out a whine that vibrates through him and makes his hips jolt into your mouth.

“Fucking hell…” Javier’s hand snakes to the back of your neck, massaging the soft skin. “Does it turn you on to get me off like this, hermosa?”

You hum in response and the feeling sends him to oblivion, letting out a coarse moan that shocks another wave of hotness between your legs.

“What a nasty girl you are.” He mumbles breathily, “My girl.” He’s practically shaking at this point, the head of his cock hitting the back of your throat and your nose pressed against his pubic bone.

Air wasn’t a necessity at the moment, your ears ringing and the corners of your eyes watering. He warned you he was close but you didn’t back out, letting him hold you for support. He gasps out a raspy ‘fuck’ when he releases, hips stuttering and back arching slightly as his cum hits your tongue. You pull apart just enough to lap at the tip while he rides it out, feeling him throb in your mouth while you savor him until he’s completely spent, soft moans barely audible.

You wait until he opens his eyes again, brown gaze meeting yours between shaky breaths. “Will you uncuff me now, agent?”

He huffs a laugh, tugging himself back in his jeans before helping you get up and taking the metal cuffs off. For a second, none of you say a thing, simply staring back at each other with a swirl of emotions between you. But then he says your name, merely a whisper that makes you crumble.

“Don’t do that, Peña.” You scold, turning your back to him and walking towards the couch, taking a seat and listening to the leather crack under your weight.

“What do you mean?” He turns to you, hands on his hips, pants unbuttoned and hair messy.

“When you say my name like you need me and give me those puppy-dog eyes, I actually believe that you want me for anything other than sex.” He seems disappointed, mostly on himself. “So can we just fuck and get this over with?”

“Is that what you think I…?” Javier shakes his head and follows your direction, but only observes from above. “It’s not like that.”

You take off the heels, your feet starting to hurt. “Then how is it?”

His hand goes to your chin, urging you to look up at him. “I’m not good with this… I screwed up back in Texas and I did it again with you.” You gulp, your hands tightly gripping your knees. “I don’t know how to handle this sort of things, and it’s been a while since I felt like this for anyone…”

He takes the jacket off and sits on the edge of his coffee table in front of the sofa, cupping your face in his hands.

“All I know is that every time we’re together, nothing else matters. Things feel right. But when you’re not with me… Shit. Life becomes insufrible. I can’t sleep, can’t think, fuck, I can’t even have sex!” He looks genuinely irritated. “Everything’s about you when you’re away. And I can’t tolerate to see you with anyone else. It’s like someone just took a shot at me.”

You inhale sharply, taking his hand in yours without breaking eye contact. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve came back to you.”

“Precisely. I tried not to be selfish and let you go, but I can’t. It hurts too much.” He pouts, as if the mere thought made him sick. “And you deserve better.”

Inevitably, you roll your eyes. “Don’t bullshit me, Peña.” He furrows his brows at your reply, his palm falling from your cheek to his lap. “That’s crap! You think you know what’s best for me?”

“Well shit, I’m sorry for trying to look out for you.” Javier snarls back.

“I don’t need you to do that, you idiot.” You grab his jaw, taking him by surprise. “I know what I want and I was straightforward about it,” His heart starts thumping against his ribs. “So, if you want me, take me. Cause if you don’t… Someone else might.”

Your statement stirs his pot and his expression shifts. “Fuck no. You’re mine and I’m yours. That’s how this is going to work.”

“Yeah?” He lets out a throaty growl and leans down towards you.

“Yeah.” His mustache tickles your upper lip when he crashes his lips to yours and you whine into his mouth.

It was desperate and demanding, ripping all the emotions from you. Javier tasted like cigarettes, a hint of mint and of you. And you tasted like tequila, honey and of him. His cologne was a little faded, but you could still smell it.

“Say you’re mine, corazón.” He mumbles when he pulls back for air, forehead pressed to yours. “I don’t care if you’re lying, I need to hear it.”

You take him by the collar of his shirt so that he’s sitting down next to you, snaking your hand to press the palm against his bare chest.

“Soy tuya, Javi.” You tell him, laying a small kiss to his lips. “I mean it.”

He smiles cheekily as he pulls you on top of him, spreading your knees to each side of his thighs, your dress slipping upwards. Javier tugs a strand of hair behind your ear and his fingers roam your face as if he wanted to memorize every edge of it by tact alone. His thumb sweeps over your bottom lip carefully, parting your lips briefly before going to kiss you again. This time he does it slowly, taking his time with your lips prior to sliding his tongue past your teeth and relishing on your taste, almost like he wanted to lose himself in you.

To him, the world meant nothing if you weren’t by his side. And now that you were here, he intended to make the most of it.

His hands are everywhere: your waist, hips, lower back and butt, grabbing every bit of your flesh that he could, keeping you close. So close that it almost seemed like he wished to merge into you. You made out for what it appeared to be hours, until the kisses got sloppier but never less passionate, and you started grinding against him. You hold his shoulders for support, creating that delicious friction between your naked cunt and his stiff boner tucked in his pants. He jolts his hips up, making you release a whimper in his mouth.

He backed off, his lips now scrape your jawline, neck and collarbones. You arch your back when his hand slithers to pull down the zipper of your dress, granting him a better view of your tits close to his face.

“My room?” He asks, biting your earlobe mildly.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Javi carries you to the bedroom with your legs wrapped around his waist, still finding a way to keep his lips on you in the meantime. Clothes disappear in the blink of an eye and you sit at the end of the sheets to help him take off his pants, kissing his abdomen, your dress now discarded somewhere on the floor.

“Eres preciosa.” The way he says it makes you blush, skin burning under his chocolate gaze. “I’m all yours, mi amor.”

You bring his face close to yours, infatuated with his beauty. “All mine…”

“Yes, corazón.”

You lay down on the mattress, Javier starting to play with your hard nipples, nibbling at them, sucking and kissing with his attention focused on all your reactions. You’re so aroused that you’re quite literally dripping onto his sheets, legs trembling from every light stimulation and skin scorching from desire, already spurred on by the make out and giving him head.

“Please, Javi… I- need you inside.”

He wastes no time to compel, maneuvering a hand to your lower back and aligning himself to your entrance, keeping your legs spread. You feel him inside, splitting you open with no previous warning and the tight grip of your cunt feels like homecoming to him. You hold your breath until he bottoms out, enjoying the sweet stretch he provided. Then your whole body quivers, a sheen layer of sweat covering both his golden skin and yours, a couple of curly locks sticking to his temples from it.

You watch him from below through hooded eyes, every inch of him inside you making you feel so full and complete, the outline of his fingers dig in your waist to keep you angled. You bear down on his cock, enveloping him in the warm, welcoming grasp of your body. He holds your hand above your head and leans down to kiss you again, drowning his own moans in your mouth as he draws out slowly to set a pace with his hips, the wet sounds of you pussy and skin clapping against skin sending a thrill of excitement down his spine.

You get it then, as he pours out all sentiment into you, overcome by passion. He is yours. Even though he just said it, only now does it become evident to you. This is Javier’s way of proving it.

He grabs one of your thighs and lifts your knee to the crook of his elbow, the new angle spreading you further open and allowing him to hit deeper. The impact of his tip hitting every right spot relentlessly forces you to break apart from his lips, your head thrown back into his pillows while practically screaming for more, his face nuzzled in your chest as he melts into you.

“Shit baby, I won’t last.” He warns, sinking his teeth to leave a mark between your breasts. You can feel it too, hot shots of ecstasy creeping up the pit of your stomach every time his cock jumps inside you.

You tug at his hair, a strangled moan escaping his lips. “Do it in me- Please, fill me up.”

Your request sends him right to the edge, his thrusts becoming careless as he starts grinding into you, Javi’s fingers quickly finding your swollen clit. The sole touch made you writhe and reach your high in absolute bliss, clenching your walls around him and crying out from raw pleasure. He fucks you through it, overwhelmed by the sensation. You feel dizzy, barely conscious when he finds his own release, your name spilling from his lips like it was the only word he knew, coming in warm spurts inside you. His spend is dripping from your pussy and thighs when he pulls out and sits up to admire the absolute mess he just made of you.

“Well…” he says, guiding his finger to push his seed back into you, making you whine from the overstimulation. “Hope that made it clear.”

You smile, every muscle in your body weeping from exhaustion. “Yeah… I’ll have to make you jealous more often.”

He groans in annoyance and you pull him back on top of you, spreading tender kisses all over his face, laughing in the meantime.

“Not funny.” He grumbles, despite the grin forming on his lips. Javier rolls to your side, coming to lay down next to you and immediately holding you against his sturdy chest, wrapping his arms around your waist to spoon you. “Stay with me.”

His plead is barely a murmur that filters through your ears and you’re too tired to figure out what those words actually mean. You simply let your eyelids drop and retort with a hardly audible ‘always’.

[sunshineandspencer]

Friendly face (Part 3)

A/N: I know I said I always succumb to peer pressure, but that did not need to be tested. Also if I did a Hotch(or Spencer) taglist, would anyone be interested, also.. how do you do a taglist?? I may be 20 and from the UK, but I have only been using tumblr for about two months, I’m learning (slowly). [I’ve made a form for a taglist!! it’s underneath the parts!!]

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Fem!Receptionist!Reader.

Summary: Little does the team know, their little receptionist and their Unit Chief had been closer for a lot longer than any of them knew. And while he’s brilliant at hiding it, she is now.

Word Count: 825

Warnings: please, stop requesting the fluff it hurts my little heart

part 1! and 2!!

be added to the taglist!!

Honestly, she could come to work with a massive neon sign floating above her head saying ‘stupidly in love with Aaron Hotchner’ and it would have probably the same effect as she normally does to him.

While he goes through the rules, needing to check about whether their relationship - yes, relationship - was actually legal, they needed to keep it secret.

A serious conversation they’d had over dinner well over six months ago, one that she’d seem to conveniently forget whenever they were actually in the office together. Thankfully that isn’t very often, unless he’s personally asked for files she stays by her desk.

Sometimes, he will admit, he requests reports just to get her into the office, but not very often.

However, it seemed to have been just often enough for his coworkers - Emily, mostly - to realise. From there, and after getting everyone else to join her, they were trying to find exactly how much the pair actually cared for each other.

Crowding together at the round table, quickly giving everything they’d noticed before Hotch arrived.

Emily starts, grinning at both Morgan and Spencer, nothing better than a bit of office gossip.

“So, she doesn’t hide anything. But, we’re all well aware that he sometimes uses excuses to get her into his office. But I noticed that she always leaves post-it notes on the files that she does give him, and they do look sickeningly sweet. It’s hard to believe Hotch actually likes that.”

Spencer chimes in, wringing his fingers lightly. He loves gossip as much as the next person, but the receptionist is a sweetheart and treats him so kindly, plus he doesn’t really believe in talking about other people’s business.

However, he’s invested in her happiness, and knows that there’s more to the pair than meets the eye.

“Well.. he smiles at her, more than I’ve ever really seen. And he does things for her that he wouldn’t do for anyone else. He helped her set up her desk and made sure she settled properly with the team.. plus Penelope found the paperwork and he requested her to be moved up.”

“What?! She didn’t tell me that!” Morgan looked pretty dejected, and Emily could only pat his back apologetically. But as much as they want to say that Morgan is her favourite, Spencer is everyone’s favourite.

He just shrugged, and Morgan kept talking, needing to add in what he’d seen - and profiled - about the two of them.

“Whatever. We’ve all seen how smitten Jack is with her, kid practically has hearts coming from his eyes. And I heard them talking about her having stayed over on the weekend. And we all see the way Hotch is with the two of them, it’s like the past decade of the job lifts off him.”

They all eventually came to the agreement that they believed that Hotch and their receptionist were together, and they needed to know more. The achilles heel of most profilers, the desire for gossip whenever they can get it.

Hearing footsteps approaching, they quickly nominated Spencer to ask Hotch, panicking the younger agent as he spluttered over his words.

As Hotch stepped through, with her following close behind, files in her hands as she waited for Hotch to take them. Waving to the rest of the team happily, very grateful the images weren’t on screen yet. Emily booted Spencer under the table and he jolted, getting Hotch’s attention.

“Hotch!” His voice cracked, how cute. “I uh- we, we wondered if you and uhm.. if you two--”

Christ, she wanted to take pity on the poor boy, looking up at Aaron. Thankfully he seemed amused rather than irritated that they’d worked it out. Looks like they got their answers on whether or not the relationship was allowed.

He nodded at her softly and she grinned, leaning up to peck his lips quickly, stuffing the files into his hands.

“Let me know if you take the case?”

“I’ll text you.”

Grinning, she winked at Spencer, which earned her a warning “sweetheart”, which only fed into her giddiness now that they didn’t have to hide it. Loving the surprised looks on their faces, even though Morgan was definitely acting as if he knew the whole time. Exactly as Aaron said he would, god she loves that he knows them so well.

“Stay safe you lot. Bring my boyfriend home safe or I’ll hunt you down!”

As she walked out of the briefing room, she smacked Aaron’s ass and scampered off giggling, being followed with his scolding voice.

“Dove.”

Eventually, he had to turn back around to his grinning teammates - bar a very embarrassed Spencer who now avoided his boss’ gaze - he sunk into his chair. Waiting for whichever one was going to say something first.

Emily, of course, was the one to speak up first, looking at him all innocently as if she didn’t know damn well what she was doing.

“Dove~?”

“Don’t push it.”

Want more?! Good!

[callsign-joyride]

But Daddy I Love Him | J.H.S

Summary: You finally tell your dad and Rooster about your secret relationship with Hangman. Content Warnings: Secret relationship, mentions of food/eating Lyric: "Now I'm dancing with my dress in the sun, and even my daddy just loves him." Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Mav's daughter reader

Buy me a coffee

“I know you like to get involved with what I do for work, but I need you to stay away from Hangman, got it?” Your dad had asked you one night over dinner.

“Why? What’s wrong with Hangman?”

“He’s an asshole, that’s what’s wrong with him,” Bradley said.

“Yeah, okay.”

You just couldn’t stay away. The first time that Hangman got you by yourself was on the patio of The Hard Deck. Everyone was too busy inside to worry about what was going on so close to the water. He did a pretty good job of chatting you up and getting your number before you went inside because your dad was getting worried about you. That was months ago, and you and Jake had done a pretty good job of keeping your relationship a secret so far. You had a few close calls but nothing too serious, mainly just Payback and Fanboy catching you hugging or being too close to each other for “acquaintances”. They definitely knew, but Jake scared them into not telling Mav.

Both of you knew what you wanted out of this relationship. You wanted to marry each other but there were a few things you needed to do first. The most important being that your dad had to know about the relationship, even if he’d be unhappy about it. That was the most nerve wracking part, since he was the one who told you to stay away from the Dagger Squad, Hangman in particular. 

“You should come by for dinner tonight,” your dad had told you over a phone call while you were sitting on your couch with Jake. Jake quickly shook his head and you had to stifle a laugh. 

“I actually have plans with some college friends who are in town,” you lied.

”Oh, which friends?”

”Just some friends from the tennis club that I was in. I don’t think I talked about it that much with you.”

”Oh, okay. Well, have fun.”

”Thanks. Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’ve been seeing someone. He wants to meet you and Penny. Let’s schedule a dinner at my apartment some time in the next few weeks. How does that sound?”

By the end of the phone call, you had dinner scheduled and had told your dad a little bit about your new boyfriend. He didn’t know that it was Hangman, and if he had somehow figured it out, it wasn’t obvious. You spent the rest of the night with Jake, mainly relaxing and watching movies on the couch. As you both climbed in to your bed, you talked about telling everyone else. 

“Let’s tell Bradley on the same day as dinner with my dad. Actually, we’ll call and tell him after. I don’t want him to let it slip to my dad before we get a chance to say anything.”

The next couple of weeks flew by, and there were only a few hours until your dad and Penny would be at your apartment for dinner. You told Bradley about dinner, and he decided to join, so you didn’t have to go to the base just so that you and Jake could announce your relationship. Jake joined you at your apartment while you cooked dinner. You had him set the table and put a bottle of wine on ice. There were plenty of beers in the fridge, since you only had wine on special occasions. (Mainly because you weren’t really a fan of it unless it tasted like jam.)

Bradley walked in with Penny and your dad at the perfect time. You were pulling the lasagna out of the oven and Jake was in the bathroom. You mentioned that when your dad asked you where your boyfriend was, leaving out his name. 

It was a surprise to everyone when Jake walked out of the bathroom and asked if you were all ready to eat. Bradley immediately got a beer out of the fridge, Penny looked impressed, and you couldn’t quite describe the look on your dad’s face. Everyone sat down and started eating, and things were mostly quiet except for the occasional ask to pass something across the table. 

“So, how long have you two been dating?” Your dad asked.

“A few months, and before you get worked up, we’re happy.”

“I’m not worked up, okay? I just wanna know why you kept it a secret for so long.”

“That’s what you’re wondering about?” Bradley asked, “I mean, Hangman, I knew you were seeing someone when you started skipping nights at The Hard Deck. I’m wondering why this, why now, y’know? Like, why get us together for dinner to announce this? Not that I’m really complaining, I get a free meal, but this could’ve been a text, really.”

You sighed and put your head in your hands out of embarrassment. Bradley did have a point, but you were mainly focused on trying not to laugh. 

“We’re thinking of getting married. That’s why you’re all here, because one day, we’re gonna have a big ceremony,” you glared at Jake while he was speaking, “or we’ll head down to the courthouse, and we’ll want you there to celebrate with us.”

“Do you love him?” Your dad asked you. 

“Yes,” you said as you nodded your head.

“And do you love her?”

“Absolutely, sir,” Jake said.

“That’s all I needed to hear. Get married, have fun, do whatever you want. But try not to rush into it, okay?”

“Wait, really?” You asked through chuckles.

“Yeah. If you’re happy, I’m happy. I couldn’t really stop you, anyways, since it is your life.”

“I’ll cheers to that,” Jake said. You clinked wine glasses and beer cans before handing out dessert.You had made a cheesecake before everyone arrived, so all you had to do was pull it out of the fridge and cut it. Bradley stayed a lot longer than anyone thought he would, not leaving until midnight when you pointed out how late it was getting. 

It was somewhat surprising that your dad had approved of the relationship so easily. It was even more surprising that Rooster was okay with all of it. Either way, you weren’t complaining. And since you and Jake were more comfortable with being open about your relationship, you started going to The Hard Deck with him and the rest of the Dagger Squad. You even loudly supported him at the next air show that he had, while hanging out with the other partners of the group.

Taglist:

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[fastandcarlos]

Dating A⇴Z Headcanon ⇴ Charles LeClerc

A ⇴ AFFECTION

Charles is an incredibly affectionate person, particularly when the two of you are behind closed doors. He loves having you as close to him as possible, where his hands can rest on your waist or his fingertips can brush gently through your hair.

B ⇴ BEFORE DATING

You both knew of each other before you started dating, you’d passed each other a few times in the paddock and smiled politely at one another as you rushed around to get all of your jobs done for your teams. However as soon as you’d finished your first conversation, Charles was sure that you were someone who he wanted to get to know and spend a lot of time alongside.

C ⇴ CONFESSION

One night when things were starting to get packed up and everyone was preparing themselves to head home after the race, Charles took a hold of your hand and pulled you into a quiet corner, making sure that there was definitely no one around. He was supposed to be celebrating yet another podium but instead he found himself sat in front of you, pouring his heart out to you as he found himself unable to clear his mind of thoughts of you.

D ⇴ DATES

He treats you like the most important thing in the world when it comes to your dates, Charles pays close attention to the things that you like and organises things that he knows you’ll enjoy. Most of your dates are usually quite private as Charles hates to have your moments together ruined by fans or cameras. Your favourite date with Charles was when he took you out to dinner, with you both dressed up wanting to impress the other, enjoying endless conversation as you sat at a table which always overlooked the beautiful sunset of Monaco.

E ⇴ EXPERIENCE

It was well known that you weren’t the first partner that Charles had, but he was adamant that with you things felt completely different and more special than with anyone else before. At times you worried that you didn’t live up to those who came before you, however Charles was always there to reassure you and insisted time and time again that he was at his happiest whenever he was with you. He didn’t care how many times he told you, whatever relationships he had before didn’t matter to him now that he had found you.

F ⇴ FIGHTING

There are definitely moments when Charles can get quite passionate and sometimes you both tend to get a little bit heated with one another. However, Charles never lets an argument go on for longer than it needs to, mostly because he knows how little time you have to spend together, and he absolutely refuses to leave you for work knowing that the two of you aren’t talking. Even if you don’t want to talk to him, Charles will talk at you and make sure that you know how he feels and how sorry he is, especially when he reluctantly has to admit that he’s the one in the wrong.

G ⇴ GETTING TO KNOW HIS FAMILY

You were like another sibling in his family, you got on with his siblings like a house on fire and they were definitely fond of you. You’d felt welcomed by them since day one and it melted Charles heart being able to sit back and watch as you and his brothers made each other laugh and teased one another at every opportunity.

H ⇴ HOME

There was never any pressure from Charles for the two of you to move in together, but that didn’t stop him dropping hints constantly about how nice it would be. He loved having you at his place where he was able to keep an eye on you, and if he was honest, the day you agreed to move in with him was one of Charles’ favourite days ever.

I ⇴ “I LOVE YOU”

Charles was the first one to whisper those three little words as the two of you reunited at the end of a race. Monaco was special, but when Charles finally won it, he was on top of the world. As his arms wrapped around you, he whispered closely into your ear, wanting you to know how big of a part you’d also played in helping you finally win the race and achieve his dreams.

J ⇴ JEALOUS

He had his moments when Charles would find himself getting jealous, he wasn’t proud of it, but he couldn’t help being so protective of you and your relationship together. If someone started talking to you that left a sour taste in his mouth, Charles would stand a little bit closer to you and usually wrap his arm around you as if he was silently sending a message to the person to let them know that you were his and there was no point them even trying to get to know you.

K ⇴ KIDS

There was no secret from Charles that he wanted to have kids, but he also made it clear to you that he was in no rush and would happily wait. He promised to wait until you were both ready, but that didn’t stop him gushing sometimes about what an incredible mum you would be someday. Quite often you would snap Charles out of a daydream as he found himself wondering about how amazing a family of your own would be.

L ⇴ LAUGHTER

The two of you were a double act together, you knew exactly how to make each other laugh which made others laugh around you too as they watched you both goof around. At times you had quite a blunt humour with one another, your dry jokes would leave you both sniggering and prodding against the other person in fits of giggles. You particularly found yourself laughing at Charles’ silly side, a part of him that he often saved for behind closed doors, not wanting to share that side of himself with the rest of the world.

M ⇴ MISSING

It was tricky for Charles to be away from you, he would always worry about you and want to know that you were safe. In the back of his mind, he’d never quite find himself able to not fret a little bit. Whenever he had a spare couple of minutes he would be trying to get in contact with you, keen to hear your voice and see for himself that things were alright. As much as he wished that you could constantly be by his side, Charles was also very supportive and aware of the fact that you had your own career and that sometimes you needed that time apart in order to both be able to achieve your dreams.

N ⇴ NICKNAMES

Charles was full of nicknames for you, the sweeter the better as far as he was concerned. He loved when his nicknames were able to make your smile turn up and turn the colour in your cheeks into a slight crimson colour.

O ⇴ OBSESSION

He was obsessed with your smile as it filled Charles heart with love. He was always wanting to make sure you were happy, and knowing that he was the reason for that smile made it all the more meaningful.

P ⇴ PDA

Neither of you were huge on PDA, however everyone knew that you were a couple. Charles often held your hand or wrapped his arm around your waist to make sure that you were by his side and didn’t end up getting separated from him, and when he felt his confidence grow, he’d be there to plant a sweet kiss against your lips.

Q ⇴ QUESTIONS

One of the things Charles loved to do was ask you questions about your futures. He was intrigued to know how you saw the rest of your life panning out, particularly when you talked about how you envisioned life with Charles.

R ⇴ RANDOM FACTS

No one aside from you knew this, but in his race boot Charles kept a photo of you so that you were still with him whenever he raced. He slid it in randomly once when he was still a junior and it seemed to bring him luck, and so ever since then it had just continued to be routine for him. He never changed the photo, despite the fact after so many years it was getting damaged, as he never wanted to change his superstition.

S ⇴ SEX

The most important thing to Charles when the two of you have sex is that you feel loved and that you feel adored in his company. He’s surprisingly romantic when it comes to those intimate moments between the two of you, Charles can be quite vocal, whispering sweet nothings into your ear and running his fingers through your hair. He’ll do anything just to make sure that you know exactly how much he loves you.

T ⇴ TEXTS

It’s the first thing that Charles does when he wakes up in the morning, he always sends you a message to see how you’ve slept or wish you good night, depending on where you are in the world and your difference in time zones.

U ⇴ UNIVERSE

You were the centre of Charles’ world and he couldn’t be prouder to make sure that everyone else knew that too. He gushed about you constantly and gave you a lot of credit for all of the amazing things he was doing in life.

V ⇴ VACATION

During the off season Charles loved to go away with you, switching off from everything and forgetting about the chaos that usually followed your lives. Your phones would be off and your attention would solely be on each other as you explored a new place together and made plenty of new memories with one another too.

W ⇴ WHINING

Although Charles was understanding when other people were around, that didn’t stop him from whining when you weren’t paying even just a small bit of attention to him too.

X ⇴ XXXX

You always felt the amount of love that Charles had for you in his kisses. Each one was delivered to you with sentiment and meaning, he never liked to just kiss you without reason. His favourite place to kiss you was against your cheek or against the corner of your smile as when he leaned over your shoulder to place it there it meant that Charles had the perfect view of your smile when he pulled away from you again.

Y ⇴ YOU

You were everything to Charles, he simply adored you.

Z ⇴ ZZZ

One thing about Charles that never fails to surprise you is how cuddly he is at night, he refuses to let you go and makes sure to hold you as close to his chest for warmth as possible.

˗ˏˋ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ! ´ˎ˗

[sadiestarrs]

To Meet A Jinx

this is part one!!

Warnings: none :)) just one mention of a gun

A/N: this is my first arcane/ jinx fic so if it's terrible I'm sorry lol

Plot: You work for Silco and his infamous adopted daughter Jinx, except you’ve never met her until now.

Word count: 1,535

Everybody in the city knew about Silco’s insane, blue-haired, and seemingly manic daughter, Jinx. Working for him meant that you were around his henchmen 24/7 and they definitely talked about her.

Most things said about her ranged from the fact that she looked innocent but could blow your face off or that she did actually blow someone's face off that day.

You had heard Sevika complain, too, especially on shipment days. They were always the busiest and most stressful. Silco made sure to have his trusted members on the ship “just to be safe”. 

He had no reason to make everyone work, mostly because he had Jinx. Everyone knew that she could take on twenty people double her size and still win. You hadn’t seen her do anything remotely close to this but it wasn’t hard to believe.

When more than half of a city knows you for being a bloodthirsty killer, of course, they would be weary. But you still weren’t that convinced.

Some older workers talked about a young Jinx running into Silco’s arms with him hugging back and taking her in immediately. Silco didn’t look like the type of guy to appreciate hugs from anyone but it was clear he loved Jinx. And that had to be for a reason.

“I want you to keep an eye on those two,” Sevika says to you, directing people carrying crates. The two men she pointed at were getting on each other's nerves, shoving and bumping one another for no reason. They must have had other issues away from work. 

Your main job was to solve disputes and help Sevika. It didn’t take much but when there were problems, they were always big.

The two guys had moved out of sight and started bothering each other again, causing commotion and yelling. Before you could get around to them, three shipments were falling on the floor, creating a bright purple pool on the ground. 

Everyone had started shoving, making it too much to handle. People were on the floor, glass was being shoved into the soles of your shoes, and most importantly, nearly 500 coins worth of shimmer had been wasted.

Sevika was definitely going to blame you and no one would fess up. You couldn’t even get to the core of the fight before being shoved to the floor and cutting your hand on a large shard of glass.

It didn’t take much to lose all hope for the future. Not only would Silco fire you, but he would make you pay one way or another. None of those things were appealing, especially considering the fact that you desperately wanted to leave this chapter of your life behind. But not before getting a bit of cash and ditching Zaun.

You were sitting helpless, contemplating your life when a shot was fired. It was hard to see through the crowd but it stopped everyone, all the men scattering and moving away.

In front of you was a, surprisingly short, girl, braids nearly touching the floor, holding a revolver and looking around the ship.

No one made eye contact with her. No one went near her. They all went back to their original places as if the fight never happened.

Jinx.

Just her presence alone was enough to make everyone nervous. You hadn’t even realised that you were still sitting on the floor when she came towards you, holding the gun’s handle out. 

It took you a few seconds before realising that she was helping you up. It was enough to make the workers stop. From the corner of your eye, Sevika stood, arms folded, looking at the both of you. You could have sworn that she was laughing when you held on and got up. 

It brought you extremely close to her face, enough to see her baby-blue eyes glimmer. A smile pokes from the side of her mouth. She stood, analysing your face, eyes, lips. You couldn’t move if you tried, she had hypnotised you.

“What the hell is happening here?”

Silco appeared, frozen on the spot. “I spend half of my life working to make life better for all of you and I’m paid with this?”

It was almost symbolic, the liquid sitting under his shoes, mixing with the dirt and mud on the ground and turning into a deeper purple.

“Jinx?” He looks at her but she doesn’t deviate from you. Her body was rigid, completely cornering you.

Confusion was apparent in his expression, looking over at Sevika who only replies with a smirk.

“Jinx!”

Another glimmer appears in her eyes just before she turns around and walks past Silco, no words said.

No one moves or says anything but everyone was looking at you. Sevika pushes off of the wall she was leaning on, leaving the ship, still laughing.

If it wasn’t for your increased heartbeat, you would have questioned the event but too much had happened. Why did she help you up? Why did she analyse you? Why did she ignore Silco?

The questions rushed to your head faster than you could comprehend and faster than you could move after Silco ordered you to go with him. 

He simply pointed, and yelled, “You!” starting to walk faster than you could keep up with. 

______________________________________

“What relationship do you have with Jinx?”

Standing in front of Silco in his office with Sevika next to him was never a place you imagined to be. It almost felt like being in a principal’s office and getting scolded.

You didn’t have a “relationship” with Jinx. You had only met her a few minutes ago on the ship. Everything that happened was unplanned and, frankly, strange. And being interrogated by both of them didn’t help.

“I-I don’t have a relationship with her.” The words were staggered and hard to come out. Your heart had only slowed by a few beats but you could still feel it against your skin.

“That isn’t what I saw. Jinx doesn’t do things like that, meaning that you must have something to do with her.” 

His reasoning didn’t make any sense. Just because she looked at you for a few minutes doesn’t mean that anything happened. 

“Jinx is like a daughter to me. I would hate to have anything happen to her.” Silco continues talking, fiddling with his shimmer eye injection tool. It was nice seeing how much he cared for Jinx but in the end, nothing would happen between you two for a multitude of reasons.

Besides, Jinx didn’t seem like the type to be in a relationship. She was probably too busy blowing things up and creating gadgets.

“You’ll keep your distance. If it wasn’t for her you’d be paying for the lost shimmer right now. Don’t come in next week.”

If it wasn’t for her? Did Jinx help you? What could she have said to make Silco excuse you? You couldn’t walk out of his office quickly enough when he finished. It had turned into a hotbox with his continuous smoking, and you desperately needed air.

Just as you walk down the stairs to leave through the Last Drop, there she was, sitting at the bar and leaning dangerously far back.

“Heya toots!”

She springs up, walking towards you and trapping you in a tight hug at the waist. It was a stark difference from only an hour ago.

“Hi,” you say, walking down the stairs and stopping, awkwardly waiting for her to speak.

“Sorry about earlier, I just couldn’t take my eyes off of you.” You tell her that it’s no problem, trying to ignore the comment and your heartbeat increasing again. “Thanks for helping me with Silco.” 

She shrugs, crossing both arms behind her back. “Yeah, he gets like that sometimes.” You both stand in the awkward silence. Luckily, the bar was empty but it was surprisingly chilly. All you wanted was to leave and try to forget everything that just happened.

“I’ve been watching you for a while. You seem pretty cool.”

The compliment was nice and well-intentioned but the more you thought about it, the more worried you became. She watched you? 

“Would you wanna go out sometime? It doesn’t have to be out out, but somewhere we can talk.”

All you could do was nod. It was stupid in hindsight. Silco had just spent twenty minutes telling you to stay away from her and but here you were, practically agreeing to go on a date. 

“Cool! I’ll see you here tomorrow!”

Here? Tomorrow? It was too soon and too close to Silco. Whether he would be out or not, Sevika and other henchmen would be nearby, not to mention all of Silco’s other enemies. It was all a bad idea. 

But you still agreed. It would be nice to talk to someone new. And you were sure that saying no would have a painful consequence.

Jinx smiles again, hugging you once more before disappearing up the stairs, leaving you standing at the bottom of the steps.

“Good luck.” You look behind the bar and see Chuck emerge from underneath the counter.

 “She’s a crazy one.”

[mystic-writings]

just a twisted ankle | newt

PAIRING – newt x fem!reader

REQUEST – @heliads - hi monty!! saw you wanted some newt requests so i simply could not hold back. could i please request a newt x reader fic in which newt and reader are both track-hoes and obviously in love with each other but pining in silence? alby and minho are doing their best to get them together but they're both excruciatingly oblivious lmao. thank you so much!!

SUMMARY – you and an overly protective newt are in love. the only problem seems to be that everyone but you and him are aware of it.

WARNINGS – weird behavior, obliviousness, fluff, semi-crack?, friends to lovers, minor injury

WORD COUNT – 3,031

NOTES – AAAA this has been in my requests for forever and i’m just now writing it?? i absolutely loved writing this and a big big thanks to @shmaptainwrites for being my lovely beta reader!

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There were very few downsides to being a Track-hoe. You enjoyed being outdoors all day, breathing in the fresh air and the amazing smell of fresh plants, chatting with your fellow track-hoes and generally enjoying yourself. 

The main issue you had was the dirt. 

Sure, it was essential to your job, but it was the worst possible thing about it. You didn’t even mind the sweat and aching muscles most of the time, because that just meant a job well done. But the dirt? If you could plant and grow things without it, you would. The way it stuck to your clothes, your skin. How it buried itself into your pores and underneath your fingernails and took forever to scrub off your skin. 

The biggest upside, however, was Newt. 

You’d been here almost 2 years, and he was quite possibly your favorite person in the Glade. He was the first person besides Alby to reach out and connect with you, not really caring or fearing the fact that you were, and still are, the only girl. Minho was the second person to do the same. 

Newt, over time, had become your biggest confidant about almost everything. You spent pretty much all of your spare time with him, and he with you. After long days, you’d take the time after dinner to walk around the Glade. Sometimes you’d talk, and sometimes you’d just enjoy one another’s presence. Everyone knew not to mess with you, and the Greenies that didn’t usually learned their lesson pretty quickly. 

You liked to call him your protector with a smile, mostly because he’d always flush bright red at the compliment. 

It’d been a few days since the box came up, and the newest Greenie, Jason, was still getting his bearings around the Glade. He’d only learned his name yesterday, and that was after he threw up watching Winston show him how the slicers do their jobs. Today, he was with you and the other Track-hoes. 

He’d been mostly hovering near Zart and Newt, who were showing him the ropes. You, however, caught him glancing over at you a few too many times. It was normal for a Greenie, and for you, since you were the only girl. But it didn’t stop you from feeling slightly uncomfortable. 

Jason had been staring at you — as Zart was showing him how to de-weed the vegetables — until Newt clapped him on the shoulder. Faintly, you could hear them talking. 

“Stop staring, mate. Focus on the job.” Newt said, his tone laced with that all-too-familiar protectiveness. It made you smile, the way his eyes pierced into Jason’s and struck him with a fear he seemed to make all the Greenies feel when it came to you. 

After a while, you felt Jason resume his staring, even after Newt’s ‘warning’. You knew that he’d learn sooner or later, you just hoped it was the latter. While you were digging up some carrots, knowing it would take you forever to clean under your fingernails before dinner, Newt’s shadow blocked your view of the sun, forcing you to look up at him.

“Come on,” he nodded to the deadheads. “Zart said we need more fertilizer.” 

Extending a hand upward, Newt pulled you to your feet before handing you the second bucket. As you departed from the gardens, you swung the empty bucket and sighed. “I don’t know why he never just sends one of us. There’s no way this is a two person job.” 

“I’ve stopped questioning Zart,” Newt shrugged. “He’s the Keeper, what he says, goes. That’s all.”

Contemplating Newt’s words, you looked up at the leaves for a moment and tripped on a root. Newt barely caught you as you lurched forward, both buckets landing on the forest floor. “Besides, I think if you tried to do this yourself, you’d trip and break your neck.” 

“Well,” you exaggerated a sigh, “can’t have that, can we?”

Newt shook his head, grabbing the buckets. “No, we can’t.” 

After making it to the fertilizer pile and back with no further injury, the day carried on as normal. Newt and Zart continued training and carefully watching the Greenie to see if he was exactly up for the job of Track-hoe. 

By the time the dinner bell rang, you were exhausted. You felt like this most days, but today you had to devote more energy than usual on making sure the Greenie wasn’t staring at you as if you’d solve all of his problems just by talking to him. 

You and Newt took off at the same time, chatting about the Greenie and whether he was good for the Track-hoes or not. “I hope not,” you groaned. “He keeps staring at me. He’d spend more time looking at me than doing his actual job if he got put with us.”

“I know,” Newt chuckled. “I spent the day with the poor shank. You have no idea how many times I had to divert his attention back to his work, it was unbelievable.”

You shook your head. “Trust me, I know. I could feel him staring at me all damn day.” 

The dining hall was already pretty full of Gladers, milling about or grabbing food or sitting down. Quickly, you could smell Frypan’s beef stew wafting from the pots on the table. Your stomach suddenly felt empty, and you couldn’t wait to pour yourself a bowl. You and Newt moved in tandem, pouring out soups into your own bowls from ladles hooked on the edge of the metal pots and grabbing cups of water from the table beside you. 

Minho was already sitting at your usual table, peacefully eating his soup amid the usual chaos. Joining him, you and Newt sat across from him, digging into your food. Minho usually ate in silence, with the exception of joking around when the others got to the table, so you didn’t mind listening to the din of the conversations happening around you for a little while.

Soon, Frypan joined Minho’s side of the table, already boasting about how well received the stew was. Just as he was about to ask how everyone liked it, and as you were spooning more into your mouth, Jason approached your and Minho’s end of the table. 

“Hi.” He said, entire body stiff, as if unclenching his muscles would make him disappear. 

“...Hello?” You replied. “Is there something you need, Greenie?”

Jason laughed, but it sounded more like he was choking. “No, no. I just— I, um, I was wondering—”

“Cool it, slinthead,” Minho interrupted. “You’re not going to get anywhere with Y/n, here. She and Newt are practically married, even if they don’t know they are.”

With a disgruntled air around him, Jason admitted defeat and left the table to go find somewhere to eat his dinner. 

You furrowed your brows at Minho. “Me and Newt aren’t married, what the shuck was that all about?”

As if things couldn’t get worse, Gally stepped up to the table on Newt’s other side. “Are we talking about you and Newt? Have you finally gotten your clunk together and started dating? Because I’ve been waiting for this for almost two years.” 

“Nah,” Frypan said. “They’re too scared to admit something like that, Gally. You know that.” 

“Yeah, and it’s getting on all of our nerves.” Minho said. “It irritates me more than the Newbies do.”

“Could you stop talking about us like we’re not here?” Newt snapped. “It’s really annoying.” 

The group exchanged looks and you couldn’t help but smile. The rest of the dinner passed, and soon Alby joined you at Frypan’s side. The conversation flowed, as per usual, and you were able to let go of the pain your joints carried as you went back for a second helping and relaxed with your friends until sundown. 

It was no surprise that Newt left when you did in order to walk you back to your room in the Homestead, where he bid you goodnight and headed to his own just down the hall. Just as he reached the door, though, he turned back and walked over to you. 

“Just letting you know,” he began, “The Greenie’s staying on as a track-hoe tomorrow. Alby doesn’t want him doing a trial as a Medjack just yet. But I won’t be there either. Me and Gally have to be in the council hall tomorrow to talk with some of the other Keepers about scheduling. Stay safe, please.” 

You giggled. “Don’t worry, Newt, I’ll be just fine. The most that Greenie’s gonna do is stare at me, and I can’t die from something like that. Plus, I’ll have Zart and the other Track-hoes with me for the day.”

He sighed, almost reluctant to go most of the day without you. “I’ll see you at breakfast then?”

“Yes, you will.” You nodded. “And dinner. Now go to sleep, Newt.” 

With another goodnight, you and Newt headed into your respective rooms to settle in and go to bed, an unusual day ahead of you.

Despite waking up and starting your day with Newt as you usually would, it felt odd to split from him after Frypan served breakfast. It felt odd to not turn to him for casual conversation as you de-weeded the tomatoes and harvested carrots for tonight’s dinner — some sort of fried rice, you remember Frypan telling you at dinner last night. 

Your day passed in relative silence aside from occasional chatter with the track-hoes or receiving orders from Zart. You avoided Jason as best as you could, and it seemed his embarrassment from last night still lingered as he was determined to stay on the opposite side of the field, despite still staring at you when he got the chance. 

Sometime near the end of the day, you’d run out of fertilizer, and as usual Zart had sent you with both buckets to refill them. The trek was definitely boring without Newt to talk to, but you managed to fill both buckets and head most of the way back without incident, injury, or going crazy in the silence of the deadheads. 

However, your luck was bound to run out at some point. 

Just as the rays of sunshine were poking out from the field ahead, you tripped on a particularly large tree root sticking out of the ground. Both buckets flung from your hands as you stuck them out, attempting to break your own fall. Pain radiated from your ankle, palms, and wrists as you landed harshly on the ground, staining your clothes and skin with dirt. 

After you processed what happened and pulled yourself up, you first inspected your palms. Wiping away the dirt, several scrapes and cuts revealed themselves, accompanied by irritated and angry skin surrounding them. Taking a moment to catch your breath, you tried your best to stand, but crumbled when you put weight on your right foot. 

Hissing, you pulled up your pant leg and tried to touch around the area, only bringing yourself more pain as you did so. Figuring out how to get out of here was going to be difficult, especially without abandoning the buckets of fertilizer. After some time, you managed to find a particularly large stick to support the weight you would’ve put on your injured foot, hooked one bucket handle on the crook of your elbow, and took the other in your free hand. 

As best as you could manage, you brought the fertilizer to Zart, who quickly took notice of your condition. 

“What the shuck happened to you?!” He exclaimed as you shifted your weight. 

Looking down at your foot, you sighed. “A large tree root got the jump on me, Zart. Now will you please help me to the Medjacks so I don’t have to use this shucking stick anymore?”

Almost jumping into action, Zart wrapped an arm around your torso and pulled your right one around his neck, helping you along to the other side of the Glade. You were beginning to see now why he usually sent Newt with you. 

Upon reaching the Medjack hut, Clint and Jeff took over for Zart, ushering him away to get back to work. You were grateful for the Medjacks and the care they seemed to take with you. They made sure it was relatively painless for you as Clint examined your ankle and Jeff cleaned the cuts on your palms, keeping casual conversation with you as they did so. 

It was only as Clint was wrapping your ankle — Jeff already having done so with the heels of your palms — that Newt came barrelling into the room. 

“We were wondering where you were,” Jeff quipped as he put away the roll of gauze he’d just used. 

Newt ignored the other two people in the room and came to sit on the edge of your bed. “What the bloody hell happened to you?”

“It’s not like I almost died, Newt.” You told him, but let him take your hands into his to look at. “I was getting the fertilizer from the deadheads and tripped on a root. It’s nothing more than a twisted ankle, I promise.”

“You promised you’d be fine today without me.” Newt corrected you, and you couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“And I was. I just lost my footing to a root. I’ll be back up and running in a few days. Right, Clint?”

The boy at the end of the bed nodded, taping the tensor bandages into place. “Exactly. After three days of no work and constant elevation, you’ll be just fine.”

Newt looked back at the boy. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am.” Clint said. “I’ll even have Jeff come check up on her twice a day to make sure her foot heals. Okay?”

Newt considered Clint’s words for a moment before nodding. “Alright.” 

Soon enough, the Medjack’s left you and Newt alone in the treatment room. It was silent, and Newt still held your bandaged hands in his, not daring to say a word. 

“Are you okay?” You asked eventually, feeling that you’d studied the boy’s face enough to gather that he was still deeply upset and in thought. 

Newt’s eyes snapped from your hands to make eye contact with you, and you could see the emotion pooling in his dark irises. “I dunno. I know it’s stupid, you’ll be fine, but… you were hurt. On the one day I wasn’t there with you.”

Turning your hands over in his, you grabbed his palms and squeezed. “But I’ll be fine, Newt. Look, I’m still healthy, aren’t I? Breathing, talking. That’s what matters. And it’s not your fault, it was just a silly accident.” 

“I know, I just… the thought of you getting hurt makes me want to go crazy.” Newt admitted. “You being safe is all I care about.” 

Your heart stuttered in your chest as your face warmed. “I… I didn’t know it meant that much to you.” 

“You do.” Newt stated. “You mean that much to me.” 

“Newt…” you whispered. “I think those slintheads were right.”

His face scrunched up. “What d’you mean?”

“I think… I think I like you. A lot more than I realized.” You gathered more courage with every word you spoke. “Newt… I think I’m in love with you.” 

You watched his eyes widen as you spoke, hands still interlocked. Newt seemed to be stunned by your impromptu confession, and even you were surprised by it. Up until ten seconds ago, you were unaware of how big your feelings for Newt were, but now that they were out in the open, it was easy to see as you looked back on things. Your thoughts ran at a hundred miles a second, flashing with the memories you made with Newt and how close you’d gotten over the past few years.  

It took you a second to pull away from the memories and realize that Newt had yet to respond. 

“Newt?” You called out, trying to get his attention. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Look, we don’t have to do anything about it, we can forget it ever happened—”

“No.” Newt interrupted. “I don’t want to do that.” He adjusted his grip on your hands, stroking your knuckles with his thumbs. “I… I love you, too. I think I have from the moment I met you.” 

Your lips stretched into a wide, blissful smile, and Newt’s expression soon matched yours. Slowly, he leaned in closer to you, shortening the distance until his lips were inches from yours. 

“Can I kiss you?” He whispered.

“I’d like nothing more,” you told him, and in seconds, his lips were on yours and your hand was touching the back of his neck and you were both in a state of bliss you could only dream of until now. 

You spent the next few hours with Newt, who sat next to you on the bed with an arm around your shoulders, talking mostly about how you both failed to notice your feelings toward each other for so long, occasionally disrupted by mini-makeouts. When the dinner bell rang, Newt promised to explain your injury to your friends and bring dinner for you both to eat in the Medjack hut. 

When Newt came back, two steaming bowls of chicken rice in hand, the blush on his face was unmistakable. 

“What happened?” You laughed as he passed you the bowl and sat on the bed. “What did they say to you?”’

“They didn’t say anything.” Newt corrected you. “They heard about my hauling ass across the Glade to get here from the council hall, that’s what. And they basically figured us out.” 

“Really?” You fake gasped. “It’s like they’ve been trying to tell us about this for the past two years or something.”

“Ha, ha,” Newt rolled his eyes. “Eat your rice. After you’re finished, I’ve got to take you to the Homestead.” 

“My hero,” you smiled, and Newt couldn’t help but to kiss you once more before you both dug into your meals. 

Once your ankle was healed, it was no surprise the uproar your friends caused when you were finally able to walk to breakfast hand in hand with Newt. After all, they had been waiting years for this.

forever taglist: @mazerunnerrose @theboldandthebootyful @miraclesoflove @heliads

newt taglist: @superduperswitchbitch @jessimay89 @newtsmyhusbend @hehehehannahthings @fr-ogii @ghostofscarley @badbatch-simp24 @xhenix @letosart13 @erospecies @pariahsparadise @imabee-oralizard @ella33 @ellablossom @bluesongbird @1-800-isabellapotter @ajordan2020 @alexxavicry @uncontainedsmiles @thethreeeyed-raven

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[sivyera]

DATING MALE CELEBRITIES WOULD INCLUDE...

ft. tyler hoechlin, jacob elordi, tom cruise, jeremy sumpter, robert pattinson, cillian murphy, henry cavill, tom hardy, sam worthington, tom felton, rupert grint

a/n: i was focused on actors that doesn't get much attention but if you have any other celebrity in mind, please let me know in the comments! also i don't know if this is good because i included their favourite things, hobbies etc (with you ofc) just to make it more detailed and not boring... so i hope you guys like it:) if you want more detailed fic or just about one celebrity, let me know!

༻♛༺

⤷ Tyler Hoechlin

-Tyler writes you love letters. Pretty often. When he cannot be with you or is busy with his job, he'll sit down at night when he's alone and write you a letter about how much he misses you, how he's doing and about his job.

-Tyler loves sports, mostly baseball. So he'll take you with him to play baseball; he doesn't care if you don't know how, he will be happy when you just throw a ball to him. He'll take you to hockey matching or ice skating, if you don't know how to ice skate, don't worry he'll gladly teach you.

-He can talk a bit Spanish so he'll sometimes call you by Spanish pet names like cariño, mi amor or querida. And he'll be all cheesy about it which makes you laugh but it's also really sweet when he does that.

-Tyler loves his family so he was a bit nervous when he first introduced you to them, because their opinion mattered to him but he also loved you. But his nervousness disappear right after you and his family clicked. His family loves you which makes Tyler so happy.

-He plays guitar so he often plays to you. He loves how your eyes light up when he plays, he just loves making you happy and if he's making you happy by playing on his guitar, he'll gladly play all day.

-Tyler also loves traveling so when he has a week off, he takes you somewhere to the forest camping or to the ocean to relax, depends where you wanna go.

⤷ Jacob Elordi

-Jacob would post you on his instagram like ALL THE TIME. On his stories or just regular post because he loves to show you of. He will also post the most random photos of you that you didn't even know he took. But he loves every single one of them.

-Because of his role on 'the kissing booth' he learned how to drive a motorcycle so sometimes he takes you for a ride, it makes the both of you feel so free and you are with each other.

-No surprise that Jacob loves sports. His most favourite are basketball and surfing. Which means he takes you to play basketball with him or watch him how he plays with his friends, cheering for him ofc. When it comes to surfing he'll gladly teach you but again he prefers when you cheer for him or just watch him after that you two will have a playful fight in water.

-Jacob is a huge cuddle bug and he just loves when you lay on his chest so he can wrap his big arms around your tiny figure. When he cannot cuddle with you he will have one of his arms on your shoulder or around your waist.

-Jacob is actually a fan of poetry so you often find him reading it, but he will be over the moon if you read him his favourite poetries. You two will also have deep conversations about the true meanings of the poetries.

-He's a huge dog lover so it will be no surprise of you two get a dog, maybe two.

-He will get your name tattooed on his chest close to his heart. And you two will get matching tattooes.

⤷ Tom Cruise

-Tom loves skydiving which makes you a bit worried all the time since it's a extreme sport but if you are also a fan of extreme sports than he'll take you with him.

-Tom likes junk food like chips, fries, coca-cola etc. so you two have almost everything that comes to your mind at home. When you two watch a movie and cuddle on the sofa, he always has some chips or popcorn.

-He loves when you read to him and he really appreciate it because he loves hearing your voice and he has dyslexia which makes it hard for him to read. He usually lays on your chest while you read to him and play with his hair.

-He's a pilot and he own several aircraft so when you need to relax and he needs to take a break from his job, you just get into one of them and fly wherever you two wants.

-Tom loves under water scenes, which makes him love water. Like I said when you two needs to take a break from work and the fame, you fly in is aircraft somewhere and the 'somewhere' it's mostly somewhere where is hot weather or beach or ocean/sea.

-Tom is famous for doing all of his stunts because he's a adrenaline junky but it makes you sometimes worried because it can be dangerous. He always make sure that after a stunt he goes to you, tells you he's okay and kiss you.

⤷ Jeremy Sumpter

-Jeremy loves traveling and his favourite color is green, which leads you two take a trip to the forest, pretty often. Just walking around, listening to the singing birds, holding each others hands and having silly or deep conversation, depends on the day and mood.

-Jeremy is a dog lover. He has a dog named Bear and he takes him on the trips to the forest you two go. Bear absolutely loves you which makes Jeremy happy.

-He loves your cooking but he himself is a bad cook so he either helps you, but you have to give him detailed informations or he just hugs you from behind and watch you cook. If you make his favourite food he will be the happiest man alive, his favourite food are spaghetti.

-Jeremy also loves sport and to his favourite ones belongs baseball and soccer. He used to play them when he was a kid so his mom shows you some of his photos where he is in a dress or something. He also takes you on matches and explains you all the rules.

-He also loves water and swimming, so when you two goes on some vacation is usually somewhere to the ocean.

-Jeremy loves the movie called 'The Deer Hunter' so you two watch it like all the time while cuddling on the sofa or bed. His face in your neck, his arms around your waist and your hand playing with his blond curls.

⤷ Robert Pattinson

-Robert is a music lover, he wrote few songs and he can also sing pretty well so it was no surprise when he wrote a song about you, then sing it to you while playing on the piano.

-He's fluent in French so when he's feeling extra romantic or just in a playful mood, he will talk to you in French or call you by some French pet names like Mon amour or Mon chéri, otherwise he calls you darling, my love or baby.

-Robert loves cooking and when is it with you, he's even more happy to do it. Sometimes when you are exhausted from job, he'll prepare you a nice dinner and visa verse.

-You two watch war, drama or horror movies together. For example 'The Exorcist' or 'Come and See' are the type of movies you two watch together, because he's a fan of paranormal same as you, which leads to deep conversations. Rob is hugging you from behind while still laying down on your shared bed. Him kissing the back of your head once in a while.

-Robert is a dog lover, he always helps the homeless dogs but he can never keep them. You two will soon get a dog and it will be one of the best decisions Rob could ever make (the first, best one was to start dating you).

-Rob is literature fan which means picnic dates. You two somewhere private, laying on a picnic blanket with some homemade food, reading books and then having deep conversations about them.

⤷ Cillian Murphy

-Cillian also loves music so it will be no surprise if he will made a song about you and he'll gladly sing it to you. He didn't write you just a one song, you have a full album of his songs that he gave you.

-At nights were you have a trouble to fall asleep, he will read to you. He will read you another chapter of your favourite book or poems he wrote (they are often about you). After he's done reading, he'll hug you tight with your head placed on his chest, rubbing small circles on your back with kiss on your forehead.

-Cillian is also a big fan of literature and he loves when you give him recommendations. He doesn't care what genre the book is (detective, romance, horror,...) if you recommended it to him, he will read it.

-You two end up getting a dog or a cat, maybe both. Because Cillian is an animal lover, you will do most of the job around the dog/cat because Cillian is often really busy but he'll always make a time for you.. and the dog/cat.

-He's big fan of a Liverpool football club so you two will often be seen on their games with matching t-shirts and caps.

-His favourite part of the day will be night (or every day time he can spend with you) because he can read to you, have you in his arms, cuddled up to his chest while placing soft kisses on your forehead, cheek, lips, neck (any part he can reach)

⤷ Henry Cavill

-Henry, to your surprise, loves playing games on his PC. When he plays he'll have you sat on his lap with his arms idly wrapped around you while still having his hands on the controller/mouse. From time to time he'll kiss any part of your skin he can reach (cheek, neck,..).

-He rides a motorcycle and he loves when you wanna ride with him. Your arms wrapped around his waist while just riding around with no care in the world.

-Henry can speak a bit of Italian, French and Spanish and if you will help him to get better in those languages, he'll be so grateful. But this 'learning dates' you two have never goes as you planned, because he is always distracted by your beauty.

-He also loves cooking so if you had a bad day, Henry is already waiting at your house with dinner and fresh flowers.And for dessert, a warm bath with soft kisses all over your face.

-Henry can ride a horse so one of his ideas for date is a picnic at beautiful meadow but getting there on horses. If you can't ride a horse that's fine, you will sat behind him, if you can ride a horse maybe you two will even race who's gonna be there first.

-He loves cuddling you, because you feel so small in his big arms. He loves having his arms wrapped around you because it makes him feel like he's protecting you but when you stroke his hair he absolutely melts into you.

⤷ Tom Hardy

-Tom LOVES motorcycles. And he LOVES you, which means that you and him are often seen by paparazzi on his motorcycle either just for a simple ride or with packed things ready to sleep somewhere in the woods in tent or something similar.

-Tom loves challenges, so on these trips on his motorcycle, he makes sure there are some adrenaline, challenging stuff like jumping off of a cliff to clear cold water.

-Going into the gym together, watching him workout OR workout with him, but if you do work out with him he'll make sure to have easier workout with you because he's much stronger than you and he doesn't want you to hurt yourself.

-Tom loves reading comic books and he has one special comic book with Venom placed in the living room.

-He has a dog named Woody and when he's busy with acting, you will watch after him. Taking him out for walks, cuddling with him, playing with him and when he comes back and makes time for you and Woody, he'll make it up to the both of you.

-Tom has many tattoos all over his body so it's no surprise when one night when you two were making out you find out that he had you name tattooed on his lower belly near to his dick.

⤷ Sam Worthington

-Sam loves rock climbing for two main reasons, it's a excellent way how to relieve stress (besides spending time with you) and he can show off his back muscles, because he knows you love it.

-He's a lover of extreme sports so you can often be a bit worried that something can happen to him, but he always calms you down a bit with a kiss on your forehead. If you wanna try some of extreme sports with him, he'll be so happy.

-He's also a nature lover so trips are usually somewhere quiet and in nature, forest, meadow,... he loves going on trips with you because you two can be alone in peace and he can have you all to himself.

-He's an australian so it's no surprise he loves surfing. If you never tried it he will teach you but he won't be much focused on teaching, he's focused more on you and your beauty.

-Sam loves music AND he can play on the guitar and drums. He will take the guitar on the trips you two have, playing some songs you love on the guitar to you at the campfire.

-He also draws a lot. Many of his drawings are you or for you or of your favourite things. Please don't mind him, he just loves everything about you.

⤷ Tom Felton

-Everyone knows that Tom never left the Harry Potter fandom and you love Harry Potter as well, so it wasn't surprise when Tom posted you and him in a Harry Potter merch (him in Slytherin colors and you in your own house colors) on his instagram.

-He has a dog named Willow so his wallpaper is you holding Willow in your arms with Harry Potter merch on you (Willow has his Slytherin scarf and you have his Slytherin sweatsthirt)

-Again Tom as many other actors, loves music. He writes songs, sings, plays on a guitar. Many of his songs includes you and Willow, your relationship or his emotions.

-He will have your name tattooed near to his collarbone with a little heart next to it.

-Tom will show off his skills on his skateboard. He can skate pretty well and he's always so smiley and happy when you compliment him. If you ask, he'll also teach you few basic tricks but prepare for some bruises from all the falls, he'll kiss you as many times as much bruises you will have.

-Tom loves when you give him back massages, doesn't matter if you massage him with some fancy oils and with you palms stroking up and down on his back with some gentle rubbs or he can lay on your chest and you can scratch his back with you nails.

⤷ Rupert Grint

-Rupert loves ice cream and at one time he bought a ice cream van and gave ice cream to all the actors from Harry Potter with you helping him. He'll often take you on a ice cream date or will cuddle you while watching movies and eating ice cream.

-One of his favourite actors is Jim Carrey, which means you two often watch movies where he played and you somehow managed to get him a autograph form Jim, which made him incredibly happy you can't even imagine.

-If you two are not watching movies with Jim Carrey then definitely MCU movies, because he's a fan of marvel.

-Rupert love Artic Monkeys so when you two bake together there is always one of their songs playing softly in the background. He will often mumble the lyrics without realizing and if you point it out, he'll blush.

-Rupert is a dog lover so you two often visit nearest shelters and play with the dogs there. Rupert and you fell in love with one of the dogs, dalmatian named Teddy, so you adopted him. After a year you bought another dog but this time not from a shelter but from a verified seller.

-He loves photographing and his favourite things to photograph is you and your dogs, no wonder that there are so many pictures of you two or the dogs around the house, but he keeps his favourite besides him on his night table.

[goldenlikedayl1ght]

dress - m. murdock

a/n: i am not proud of this in the way that i will not be claiming it when i am judged by god. warnings: SMUT like real sex!!! dom!matt, p in v smut, matt has a thing for talking in bed, MATT BEING A TEASE!!! many nicknames, pining, praise with slight degradation, fluff here and there, tipsy reader and matt, i'm sure i'm missing one or two word count: 3.3k summary: ten months of yearning wears you and matt down to desperation. pairing: matt murdock x fem!reader now playing: dress - taylor swift "say my name and everything just stops/i dont want you like a best friend/only bought this dress so you could take it off."

Foggy is so mad at him.

You’re a good employee, a great employee even! You’re dedicated to your job, and you bake in your free time, so you bring in all sorts of treats—Homemade bagels, donuts, cookies—His favorite are your cinnamon chai sugar cookies you make.

You’re intelligent, well-spoken, and good at explaining the issues that you run into. And you’re funny, Foggy would argue, you have incredible timing and wit. You always buy a round at Josies. You are an amazing employee and friend, and Foggy adores you.

So why, pray tell, must Matt feel the need to have you?

He won’t say it out loud, not to Karen, not to Maggie, not to Foggy, and certainly not you. But he’s entranced by you. He loves the sound of your voice as you explain things, he loves that your heart always skips a beat whenever you’re about to deliver a one liner that will crack everyone else up, he loves that when you bake, you always make things all naturally out of desire to make the best dessert you possibly can. But most of all?

He loves that your heart rate picks up whenever he enters the room.

You, on the other hand, are pretty much fascinated by Matt Murdock. You love the sound of his laughter, you love his hands, you love his charm, you love that you can see a chain around his neck when the day dwindles and he loosens his tie, and Jesus H Christ, you love that baritone.

So, it’s safe to say you’ve both been smitten since the first day you met each other.

Yet, you spend ten months cruelly dancing around your attraction for each other.

He’s hesitant to want you in any context, he’s your boss, he’s fucking Daredevil!

By then you know—Mostly accidentally on purpose. All his usual people are out of town or busy, so when he gets stabbed, he has nowhere else to go. He winds up climbing into your window, scaring the ever-living shit out of you. It’s not how he wanted to tell you about his alter ego, but he knows he can trust you.

And you hate the site of blood and gore, so you struggle to patch him up that night. And it makes your heart ache, all the ways he hurts from his nighttime hobby. And he decides right then and there that he can’t have you, not now. Not knowing how much you would—and really, will—worry about him.

So, he buries his want in other people that have no real meaning to him. He even goes on a second date with some of them. One of them even comes to visit him in the office to have lunch.

It makes you jealous to the point where you need to take a walk to dwindle your desire to go back into the office and beg on your hands and knees for her to leave so you can have him. What happens instead is that you go get a pumpkin chai latte and take it back to the office, sitting and keeping to yourself, even when the girl comes out of his office giggling as he stands in the doorway as she leaves.

He smells the pumpkin from his office, and it drives him wild. Just from how quietly you dwell in your jealousy, as you mask it with your favorite fall flavors.

He breaks up with the girl the next day.

• • •

And a week later, he gets his official invitation to Marci and Foggy’s wedding—A big to do, full of family, friends and coworkers that make it a real party. Matt will be Foggy’s best man. You and Karen aren’t in the wedding party, as you were good friends with both the bride and groom, but Karen wanted to make sure at least one of them was focused on the firm, and you hated to be the center of attention. So, you shared your love from a few aisles back.

You had gone shopping with Marci for your dress, Karen too. You enjoyed spending time with them—While you had made friends with them easily, prior friends had never really come easy to you.

It was nice to be wanted.

But they had insisted on you trying to find different dresses that made you look amazing. And for the most part, the dresses made you sort of uncomfortable. They revealed too much or revealed too little.

And then you came across this red satin dress. It hugs your curves in all the right way, and it makes you look good. It makes you feel good. You have these perfect black heels to wear with them, and then Karen says it.

“You know, Matt kind of has a thing about textures. He loves silk and satin.” Your face burns. Of course, he does. Why wouldn’t he? He can hear people's heartbeats, tell when they’re lying, why wouldn’t he be keen on nice textures?

“Karen Page, are you insisting I should by this dress to impress a man?” You laugh just to escape your nerves.

“No! But it can’t hurt! It’s not like he’s bringing a date—” She turns to Marci. “He’s not bringing a date, right?” she asks quickly. It makes her laugh.

“No, Murdock RVSP’ed for one.”  You look at yourself in the mirror again, thinking it over. And over. And over. Then you turn to your friends again, and nod.

“Alright. Alright, I’ll get it.” You grin, “And y’know.. Karen’s right, It can’t make the situation any worse.”

“You know what you need now? Good lingerie for after—” Your face is red again at your friend’s comment.

“Shut up, Marci!” You whine, heading back to the dressing room to get changed.

• • •

Matt is sitting with Foggy and his brothers, enjoying a glass of scotch before the ceremony when someone knocks on the door.

And somehow, he’s not shocked to hear your nervous heartbeat when the door opens.

“Hey Fog, Karen said you had scissors—Can I borrow ‘em quick? There’s a tag on this dress I forgot to take off and it’s impossible to reach—”

“Yes, Absolutely, and you know who would be great at helping you? Matt. An incredible knack for… Cutting things.” It’s a poor attempt to get the two of you alone, yet Foggy hands you the scissors and pushes you and Matt outside the room.

“My rooms only two doors down.” He explains, taking your hand in his and leading you there.

After finding out about his super senses, it became clear that he was more than capable of finding his way through places he’s stayed, and that he’s privy to a lot more information than people would give him credit for.

So here you are. In Matt Murdock’s hotel room. A tag itching at your back, with you unable to grab it.

“I’m just gonna—” He awkwardly reaches to the top of your dress, and you just move the hair from your neck and try to ease his anxiety.

“Just go for it, Matt. I don’t care, it’s just annoying.” You promise. And he does.

He folds the top of your dress the best he can and its only enough for the scissors to almost grab the tag without him sticking his hand down your dress. He hesitates for a second before exhaling deeply.

Then, he leans down towards your back, and scrunches the material enough so that he can reach the tag and bites the tag off.

You can feel his other hand on your hip. His hot breath on your back. He hears your heart jump as your breath becomes shaky. He wonders how bad it would be for him to skip the wedding and take you right here, in this room.

He plucks the tag from his teeth and smooths out your dress, as you let go of your hair. He feels this raw need for you.

And you feel it too. Yet he pulls away, taking a step back from you.

“We should get to the ceremony.” he said, trying to catch his breath. He yearns for you, in a way that anyone else would laugh at. It’s the type of yearning you read about in Jane Austen novels. That is the level that Matt longs to touch you. It’s desperation.

“Yeah...” You say softly, trying to recover from what just happened. You drop him back off at Foggy’s suite and head back to the hall, hoping to find Karen and put the moment behind you. And that’s just what happens. You watch the ceremony, and it’s gorgeous. You’re thrilled for Marci and Foggy, and it elates you that they put together such a beautiful ceremony.

And yet, you can’t take your eyes off Matt and how good he looks. He stands tall, and he really does look good. It makes it kind of hard to focus. It makes it really hard to focus. And you think about this all the way through their first dance song, through dinner, through cake and through all the cheesy wedding traditions Foggy insisted on.

You have a few drinks but eventually it all becomes too much, and you take a minute outside of the hall and into the cold air. And you’re thinking about Matt.

“You’re gonna catch a cold out here.”

Speak of the devil.

You turn back to him and smile.

“I’ve been thinking about you.” You say, and he hums. It’s the alcohol in both of your systems, it’s why neither of you run when you say it.

“Same goes for you, sweetheart.” He takes off his coat and wraps it around your shoulders. You note the silky texture of the inside of the jacket. It pushes you further.

“Why do we insist on playing this game? Why do we watch each other go after people who we don’t want when all we want is each other?”

He takes a moment to answer. Because in truth, he’s sure he could tell you why, he could discuss all of the horrible things that have happened to him, and you could share the same sort of stories about your own life. You could sit there and dissect past traumas for hours.

But that’s not really what you’re asking.

“I don’t know...” He says softly. His hands find themselves on your hips, and he rubs small circles into the fabric. “Satin?” You hum, melting at his touch. “Words, pretty girl. You know I like hearing your voice.”

“Satin.” You confirm, your breath catching.

“There she is...” He hums, and leans in. You feel his breath against your lip, and you take it upon yourself to close the gap between the two of you.

It’s soft, full of this hesitation because despite all the flirting, you’re still unsure of yourself. He quickly eases these fears as his hands move and you find his arms wrapped around your torso. He deepens the kiss, and you both lean into it. It becomes more desperate after that.

Your hands find their way to his hair, and you fiddle with the ends, unwilling to break the kiss, even if it means air. He breaks the kiss for a second, only to come back to your lips with more passion, biting your bottom lip, before slipping his tongue into your mouth, taking the more aggressive approach.

And you can’t take it anymore. You need him. You pull away from him, pant softly before kissing his jaw gently.

“Take me to your room.” You request. He obliges.

You find yourself taking off your heels as soon as you get in, your feet aching as you walk further into the room. The context is much different than it was this afternoon—And it makes you nervous.

Matt comes up from behind you and places his hands on your arms, rubbing them gently, before kissing your shoulder.

“You don’t have to be nervous. I’ll be gentle with you...” He says softly. You hum before he continues, “Or do you... want me to be rough with you?” he asks teasingly, landing a quick bite onto your shoulder. You make a noise of surprise and turn to him.

“You’re a tease, has anyone ever told you that?”

“Once or twice.” He begins to loosen his tie, eventually forcing it off and then starting to unbutton his shirt. You begin to help him with this task, eventually getting it all the way unbuttoned. Then you gently push him back against the bed and he laughs, falling onto it.

He thinks it’s cute. Until you sit above him, your dress hiking a bit. You lean down to kiss him as his hands find their way to the back of your thighs, and begin to move up and down, just being the tease, he is.

You whine into the kiss, and it just makes him chuckle further, before flipping the pair of you over, then planting a kiss on your neck.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart? Needy from just a few kisses?” He slips off his shirt as he continues to kiss you. One hand remains on your thigh, travelling up your thigh, eventually finding your panties.

“Mhm...” You hum, your hands wrapping around his neck again to play with his hair.

“Talk to me, sweet girl...” he says softly before he continues his assault on your neck.

“Matt…” You hum. “You know, I only—” Then his fingers find your clit and begin rubbing gentle circles, just teasing you with his fingers. It turns him from tease to cruel. You let out a moan, and he only tuts in disappointment.

“Keep talking or you won’t get anything from me.” He tells you, before continuing to tease you. His fingers begin to work on your folds. You try your best to focus. He takes off your panties and throws them on the ground somewhere.

“Only bought this dress for you... Thought you might like it...” You gasp again as he slips a finger into you, “Fuck—Thought it would make you do something about it.” In fairness, it got the reaction you had only hoped for in your wildest dreams. It makes him chuckle against your skin.

“Only got this pretty little dress for me to touch you like this?” He adds another finger and starts to move. When you don’t answer, too busy getting lost in his fingers, he bites your shoulder again. “Answer me, sweetheart.”

“Yes! God, yes…” You respond. He hums in approval, continuing to curl his fingers inside of you. It only takes a few minutes before you can feel yourself near the edge of an orgasm. “Matt… Baby, please...”

“C’mon, sweet girl... I’ve got you, let go...” And it’s enough to make you, cumming all over his fingers. He lets you ride out your high, out of breath. He kisses your neck again before bringing his fingers up to his lips, tasting your juices. “Sweet girl, still.” He smirks. Your heart skips a beat. He chuckles. Then he continues, “Did so good for me, sweetheart... Wanna keep going?” He asks.

“Yes, please... Wanna feel you inside me...” you confess.

“You want me to fill you up and stretch you out, pretty girl?” You should know better by now, but you just hum in response, gaining another bite to your shoulder. “Try again.”

“Yes... I want you so badly, Matt, please... I’ve been dreaming about it for months now,” You confess, “Need you...”  He seems satisfied by this, and moves back, helping you sit up.

“Well then, we’ll need to get this pretty dress off you.” He says, his fingers working to take off his belt. Your fingers run over his chest. It’s all he can do not to rip the dress off, but he knows how much it means to you and how much it could’ve cost. So, instead, he slips the dress off you and feels you shiver against him. Still so nervous. He tosses the dress in the general direction of his suitcase, so it doesn’t sit on the floor. He leans in and starts pressing kisses to your chest, his hands reaching up to your bra and unclasping it. He throws it with much less care than the dress.

He keeps kissing down your torso as he lays you back on the bed, your hands going again to his hair.

“How come it’s fair that I’m fully naked, and you still have pants on?” You ask. It makes him laugh, and he stands straight again.

“Fair enough,” he says, taking them off. And then goes his boxers. Before you can stare at him, he’s on top of you again, kissing you deeply. You can feel his cock resting against your fold and it makes you moan into the kiss. He pulls away for just a second before asking, “Is this, okay? You’ll stop me if it’s too much?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you.” You respond. He smiles at your words.

“Perfect. Perfect, pretty girl...” He hums as he begins to kiss your shoulders and the top of your chest, before slipping inside of you. You let out a moan, and he groans as well, taking a few minutes to take all of you in. It feels amazing. He begins to move inside of you as he brings you in for another kiss. When he pulls away, he’s talking, “Been thinking about this for... Fuck, so long...” He groans. “Been dreaming of this perfect pussy and how good it would feel around me…” He says, and it elicits a shaky moan from you.

“Faster, please...” You request, and he obliges, picking up the pace. You’ve been thinking about this for a long time too. You never imagined he’d be so controlling about the whole thing. It works you up almost as much as how vocal he is.

He leaves bites and marks down your chest as he pulls you closer to him, knowing he won’t last much longer. He feels you tighten around him and makes another demand, “Tell me how badly you want to cum, and I’ll let you.” He says this before planting a rather contrasting soft kiss to your ear.

“Please... Please, Matt, Fuck... I need to cum all over your cock... Wanna feel so good, baby...” You moan, your fingers pulling on his hair. It excites you when he moans. “And I want you to cum inside me... Fill me up, Baby, please...” You beg. He’s happy with it for now, but he knows he’ll want to hear more another time.

“C’mon, sweet girl. Cum for me…” He pants, and it’s all you need before you let yourself come undone around his cock. He continues thrusting for a few minutes, letting you ride out your high, before cumming himself, and you moan at the feeling. He lays against you for a few minutes, trying to recover, and it’s then that you notice he’s shaking.

“Are you okay?” You ask softly, brushing his hair out of his face. He looks at you with those gorgeous brown eyes. He laughs at your question.

“I’m great... You’re just... amazing...” he says honestly, kissing your shoulder one more time. “Perfect, pretty girl...” He praises. “My perfect girl...” It makes you shudder. He stays like this for a moment more before kissing you softly. Then, he sits up and goes to get a towel to clean the both of you up. And then, he’s back in bed with you. He pulls you close as you both recover from what just happened.

“I wasn’t lying,” You start, “I’ve been thinking about you for months. You’re all I’ve wanted for so long...” You confess. He kisses your head and pulls you closer.

“Me too... I was too much of an idiot to tell you though. Almost let you get away.”

“You got me.” You affirm. He hums and begins to rub all too familiar circles into your hips with his thumbs.

“And now I just want you more.”

The feeling is mutual.