#order 65 au

[doolallymagpie]

going feral over Padme in the Order 65 AU, like she doesn’t “die of a broken heart” (but it’s a far more plausible thing because I’m also leaning hard on her feeling like she was written as a fair bit older than she was cast, as a post I can’t find claims IIRC), she’s Supreme Chancellor Amidala of the Republic-in-Exile, the brave leader of the true Republic in the war against Palpatine’s so-called Empire, who brought countless Separatist systems back into the fold…

…and in private, she’s barely seen her children since they were born, she hasn’t contacted their caretakers in quite some time, and she often finds herself wishing she had the strength to tell her security teams to relax a bit

[proheromidoriyashouto]

The People VS Gwen Stacy au where Miguel and Jess just picked up the Vulture and left, not stopping Captain Stacy from raising the gun toward Gwen a second time and shooting her on reflex.

Gwen bleeding out on a stretcher to an ambulance, face exposed to the world as a million cameras flash.

Gwen twisted up in the agony of her father choosing to be a cop before being someone who loves her with a bullet in her liver but a hole in her heart.

Gwen Stacy's face posted all over the news before she's even on the operating table at the nearest hospital.

Gwen Stacy arrested for the murder of Peter Parker, handcuffed to the railing of her hospital bed.

Gwen Stacy arriving at the court house in a wheelchair because she is fresh out of surgery and can't walk, meeting her lawyer, Matt Murdock for the first time.

Gwen Stacy villified by J. Jonah Jameson and the police union to the point other heroes, like Daredevil, have to come out of the shadows to protect her from a public lynching.

Gwen Stacy, abandoned by everyone she should've been able to trust.

Spiderwoman alone against the court of public opinion.

[fwtcanimelover]

Star Wars Order 66 au

Where the Kaminioans find out early that Palpatine is planning to eventually betray them. Before order 66 they secretly swap the codes for order 66 and order 65 around without Palpatine or anyone else knowing. So basically now order 66 demands the removal/execution of the Chancellor aka Palpatine, and order 65 is the execution of the Jedi.

So when Palpatine calls every single clone commander, commandos, bad batch, and the entire clone army to execute order 66. He is cracking up thinking that the clones are going to kill the jedi. Only to have an uno reverse card, and have the entire Republic army come after him instead.

[nightingale-fic-recs]

Some things can only be cultivated under pretenses [Satoru Gojo x Fem! Reader]

Summary: You were eight years old again, hiding from Satoru's parents in his treehouse. "Then you can marry me, silly!" You sat bolt upright. "Marry me!"

Author's Notes: My first ever anime/manga fic, 17.1K words of fake dating/friends to lovers/idiots to lovers that no one asked for!! The fic practically wrote itself. If you’re reading, I hope you enjoy it! Being an American, my knowledge of Japanese language and culture is quite slim. The Japanese honorifics and nicknames I’ve used are meant to be affectionate, but I realize that the relationships themselves may have quite an American slant. I did my best, but if you notice anything off or out of line, please let me know so I can fix it!

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or events from Jujutsu Kaisen

Warnings/tags: non-cursed AU, best friend! Satoru Gojo, fake marriage, friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, fluff, angst, VERY suggestive content, language, minor character death(s) (past, mentioned), mention of (medical) drug usage, spoilers for/references to episodes 25-29/chapters 65-79, not beta’d!

You’re half asleep in the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the window when you hear a key turn in the door. Groggily, you sit up and rub your eyes, picking up your phone. 

“Babe? You home?”

You’ve got a missed text from Satoru that probably explains his otherwise unannounced arrival at your apartment. 

“In here,” you call, yawning. His snowy head pokes through the doorway and, despite the wide grin plastered on his face, you can tell something is wrong. 

“Sorry to wake you. Are you hungry? I brought ramen.” He’s disappeared into your kitchen but, despite this fabulous announcement, he comes right back around the corner to throw himself dramatically onto the opposite corner of your couch. 

Something is definitely wrong.

“Satoru?” You lean forward to touch his elbow, but he throws the arm over his eyes. He mutters something you don’t quite catch. “Say again?”

“It’s finally happened!” he shouts, though the sound is muffled by the hands he’s moved to cover his face. The same hands fly up as his head flies back, long legs kicking up to land on your coffee table with a loud bang. He turns to you with a wild, sarcastic smile. “My parents want me married, and by the end of the year. Or else I forfeit any rights to the family business, the house, my apartment, everything else.”

“Oh, Toru,” you breathe. You feel your heart lodge in the back of your throat before dropping to the ground with a dull thump. He shrugs, not meeting your gaze. 

“It doesn’t matter. I can sign over The Amanai Project to Nanami, go back to the Jujutsu Corporation…” But his voice trails off against his will and you’re already shaking your head. 

He’d started at the Jujutsu Corporation, a private security company, straight out of university. It’d been good for him- structure and discipline, and a new best friend you’d spent years convincing yourself you weren’t jealous of. You and Satoru hadn’t lost touch, but there were huge gaps in your days where he should have been. Until that new best friend called you from the hospital after a job gone wrong. 

Satoru had been hurt, badly. Multiple stab wounds, vicious and tearing. He still had scars from shoulder to hip, and a small one on his forehead from the butt of a gun.

Suguru hadn’t seen it happen; he’d watched their charge die. A bullet to the brain. Quick and clean, unlike the shooter. Satoru had sliced him up before collapsing in a pool of his own blood. 

When he woke up, he was different. 

You’d worried you’d lost him for good, for different reasons than the wounds, for months. Barely eating, hardly sleeping, withdrawn and absent. Suguru told you that at the girl’s funeral, carrying Riko Amanai’s corpse, Satoru had asked why they didn’t kill the whole family who’d ordered the execution. 

Suguru had disappeared not long after, and despite getting your best friend back, you still didn’t quite know why. You didn’t want to bring it up. 

You shuddered, remembering how… hollow Satoru had been after the entire incident. Your other friends had wanted you to drop him, offended for your sake that he’d let your friendship slide in the first place, but you’d remained steadfast. Long nights spent holding him, stroking his hair; long days of pulling him gently up to walk, of coaxing him to eat when he had no interest in it; even stripping him down to his boxers to shoulder him into his ridiculously fancy shower, washing his hair in your bathing suit until he halfheartedly pushed you out to wash himself. 

He’d been a shell, until he hadn’t. You’d shown up after work, armed with takeout and romcoms, and he’d been gone. You’d panicked, calling Suguru, who didn’t pick up, calling the housekeeper his mother had hired in an effort to keep you away, nearly breaking down and calling his mother. Then he’d barrelled through the door, smiling wide enough to showcase those tiny dimples, gushing about the non-profit he was going to start and the teenagers who’d inspired it. 

You sucked in a sharp breath. 

“You could lose The Amanai Project.”

He nodded slowly, not meeting your horrified stare. 

“That’s why I’d go back to Juju-”

“No,” you hissed. You weren’t prepared for the hopeless look he turned on you. He loved The Amanai Project, he loved the teenagers he worked with. He reached forward, clutching both of your hands in his tightly.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” he pleaded. And then you were eight years old again, hiding from Satoru’s parents in his treehouse. 

“They said.”

“Grown-ups always say.”

“What if they make me?”

“They can’t make you!”

He looked at you, much too seriously for an eight year old.

“They made my dad marry my mom. They’ll make me marry someone, too. And then what am I supposed to do?” He crossed his arms, pouting, and grumbled “Don’t wanna get married.”

You grabbed his little hand with your own, beaming with all of the sincerity and cleverness of a child.

“Then you can marry me, silly.”

You sat bolt upright. 

“Marry me!” you half-shouted. At Satoru’s flinch back, you apologized softly and lowered your voice. “Marry me,” you repeated. You leaned forward, excitement brewing at the ingenuity of such a simple plan. “We can get married for however long it takes to cement your place in the family business and then get a divorce.” You squeezed his hands. “Whaddya say?”

Satoru spluttered a bit, pulling his hands back to run them through his hair- a nervous habit you hadn’t seen him make since childhood. “Babe, you shouldn’t- we can’t just- I can’t ask you to-”

“You’re not asking me for anything, I offered! Besides, think of all the fun we could have. It’d be just like our sleepovers from when we were kids.” A strange look had crossed Satoru’s face, hesitation and something like pain. You sat a little straighter, feeling heat rise to your cheeks. “U-unless you don’t want to, of course. I just, I thought-”

“It’s a good idea,” he interrupted. He was focused on your hands, intertwined now in your lap. He spoke slowly, measured and thoughtful. “I just don’t want… you know how my parents can be. And what if…” He grimaced. “What if you find someone you want to be with? I don’t want to stand in your way.”

You waved this off airily. “Oh, Toru, you’ll always be part of my life. If I find someone, they’ll just have to accept the situation. Besides, there’s no reason I can’t see someone else, so long as I’m careful. It’s not like we’ll really be married.”

Satoru stood abruptly, pacing to the other side of the room, one hand raised to his chin. He stood, silent, for a long moment. You opened your mouth to say something to fill the suddenly charged space between you, but then he spoke. 

“Let me think about it.” And then in a blink, he was gone, takeout forgotten on your countertop, leaving you to blink in the void created by his absence. 

——————————————————————

The silence lasted about as long as you’d expected it would. Satoru came crashing into your apartment bright and early the next morning, singing your name. You groaned, rolling over to pick up your phone. 6:48. 

You were going to kill him. 

“Satoru Gojo!” you yelled, pulling the covers over your head. You heard him skip down the hallway and into your room. If he noticed that you’d used his full name, it didn’t deter him a bit. He flung himself down beside you, dragging you onto his chest, blankets and all. 

“My future wife!” he crooned, kissing your covered cheek. “How did you sleep?”

“It’s not even seven.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

You fumbled the blankets off your head, baring your face to the weak sunlight coming in through the open window. “How am I supposed to know how I slept when it’s so early?” You rubbed at your eyes while Satoru laughed heartily, making himself comfortable on your mountain of pillows. You paused. “Did you say future wife?”

His smile widened as he sat up, shifting you from your live body pillow. “Well, yeah. That is if the offer still stands.” He twisted himself off the bed to kneel on the floor, turning you to face him all in one smooth motion. Now he held up a small, black velvet box, which he opened the moment he had your full attention. 

A stunning engagement ring glittered up at you, catching all of the light in the room and beaming it upward through the diamond in the center. 

You blanched. 

“Satoru, what is this? This must have cost a fortune-”

“Easy,” he chuckled, setting the box aside to slide the ring onto your left hand. A perfect fit. “If we’re gonna be married, we’re gonna have to put on a good show. Starting with a beautiful ring worthy of the most beautiful woman in the world.” You hadn’t said a word, dumbstruck as you gazed down at your hand. Satoru spoke more softly now. “What do you think?”

“I think you picked my dream ring,” you breathed. He beamed up at you. 

“So does that mean yes?”

“What?” You looked at him sharply, at the hopeful expression he’d turned up to you. “Of course yes, you dork. Remember that this was my idea?”

Satoru launched himself up, bearing you backward onto the bed with his arms around you. “Yay!” he squealed, and then he was kissing your cheek and nuzzling the side of your neck. “I promise to be a good husband,” he mumbled. 

You laughed, somewhat breathless. “I wasn’t worried about it.”

You felt his smile curl up against your neck while he squeezed you impossibly tighter. “You were right, we’re gonna have so much fun.”

You were gasping now, struggling to breathe beneath his weight and in his tight grip. “Toru, can’t breathe.”

He let you go with a soft “oops”, shimmying over to lay beside you with his head propped up on one hand. His eyes shone with something you couldn’t quite place, lips curled in a gentle smile as his cerulean gaze trailed lazily over your face. He finally settled on your eyes, sharing the tranquil moment with you before leaping up. 

“Oh! I almost forgot!” He careened out of your room and down the hall into your kitchen, returning a moment later with a sly grin. “Close your eyes,” he sing-songed. 

“Close m-?”

“Close ‘em, woman!”

With a dramatic sigh, you did. If you hadn’t felt the slight dip in your mattress, you might not have known he’d come back until you felt his hand trace your knee lightly. “Open,” he whispered. 

Your vision was flooded with white and green; Satoru held out a colossal bouquet of white roses and eucalyptus, tied with a fat black ribbon. 

Your jaw dropped. 

Satoru straightened in pleasure. “See, I told you I’d be a good husband!” he crowed. 

You swatted at him playfully before taking the roses out of his hands. “Satoru, you know I don’t need all this.”

He gave you a deadpan look. “I have never, never seen any boyfriend spoil you before. I think it’s time someone did.”

You snorted. “You’re gonna ruin me for all other men if you keep it up.”

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he looked pleased by that. But before you could analyze the thought, he reached a hand out to you. 

“My lady.”

You laughed out loud, but took the proffered hand and slid out of bed, letting him lead you down the hall. You felt your jaw drop again when you stepped into the kitchen to see a silver tray laid out on your tiny dining table, laden with pastries and fresh fruit and a steaming pot of coffee. 

“Consider me ruined,” you mumbled, beelining for the coffee to the sound of Satoru’s raucous laughter. You smiled to yourself, and over your shoulder at him. 

This would be fun. 

——————————————————————

Reality set in slowly over the course of the next few days, for both of you.

Satoru’s parents were furious, as expected, but enough to call you directly, which was not. After all, they had always refused to acknowledge your existence, as though hoping you might disappear entirely if they ignored you for long enough.

“We know that you’ve always had a bit of trouble staying away, dear, but we had never quite expected this, this…”

“Devotion, ma’am?”

“Parasitic behavior from you!”

Ouch. 

“I assure you, Gojo-sama, I’m not marrying your son for money. As you know, we’ve always been close. I’ve always loved him.” All true, as you’d agreed the story should be. The only lie in it lay in the implication of one, tiny word. 

If anyone was close enough to spot it, it certainly wouldn’t be his parents. 

All the same, his mother groaned and his father scoffed in the background. The elder Gojo’s voice was muffled by distance when he said “Of course she has, but I’d expected Satoru, at least, to outgrow it by now.”

What?

You weren’t given an opportunity to question it, though. Satoru’s mother dismissed you, something about “being in touch” soon. Whatever that meant. 

You sat for several long moments, puzzling over that last comment. Outgrow what? His parents couldn’t possibly mean that he’d been in love with you, you would have known. Certainly, you’d had a crush on Satoru for years- your first and most long-standing crush, at that. That must be what they meant. He must’ve had a childhood infatuation, as well. Nothing more. 

You shook yourself, content to be back on solid footing, and dialed Satoru’s number by heart. He picked up on the third ring, yelling to one of the teenagers he was training, before greeting you warmly. When you relayed the conversation with his parents, minus that strange comment from his father, you could feel the waves of rage rolling off him through the phone. 

“They called you a parasite!?” he shouted, and you heard his students drop their voices to whispers. 

“Parasitic, not a parasite.”

“Oh, don’t you bullshit semantics with me,” he seethed. “How dare they, who do they think they are to talk to you that way? I won’t stand for this. They owe you an apology.” You tried to cut in, to reassure him that you were less bothered than you were, in truth, but his tirade went on without any sign of stopping. You could hear him put his phone down, still swearing and half-shouting to himself. You heard something that sounded suspiciously like wood cracking, heard him pick up his phone again, heard the bell on the gym door opening. 

“Satoru!” you shouted. 

“What!?” he shouted back. You waited patiently as he drew in a deep breath. More calmly, he repeated himself. “What?”

“Don’t give them the satisfaction.”

He was angry enough to sputter, his usual cool, smooth speech long-gone. “They can’t talk to you that way! You’re going to be my wife!”

“Fake wife,” you muttered, half amused and half touched by the vehemence of his outburst. 

“That doesn’t matter. You’ve been my best friend forever. It has to stop!”

You sighed. “You know that they’ll only think I’m a whiny, sniveling leech if you say anything.” He was silent, and you could tell from the steady hum of traffic that he’d finally stopped walking. “Go back to your kids.”

“They’re not my kids.” The reply was automatic, an old joke between the two of you about his students. You heard him start walking again, and a moment later, the bell on the door jingled again. 

You heard the students perk up, clamoring and calling to him. 

“Gojo! Is everything okay?” Yuji Itadori, a selfless orphan with reflexes almost as sharp as Satoru’s. Quick to protect anyone and everyone around him. Heart of gold, worn proudly on his sleeve for all to see. 

“Where do you think you’re going? Were you just going to leave us here?” Nobara Kugisaki, a spitfire girl who masked every insecurity with arrogance to rival Satoru’s, though she hadn’t mastered his admirable level of control. 

“What crawled up your ass?” Megumi Fushiguro. You didn’t like to pick favorites, but you couldn’t pretend you didn’t hold a special fondness for him. Unflappable, unshakable. Level-headed and calculating. He reminded you of Satoru the most. Maybe that’s why you liked him best. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, the gym would collapse without me in it. Get back to work.” There he was, all smooth edges and silken confidence. Like nothing ever happened. To you, he grumbled, “This isn’t over.”

Once upon a time, you’d believed that nothing could get under his skin. In all your years of friendship, you’d never seen him lose his temper until after the incident. Even since, it was a rare occurrence, but you’d quickly learned how to reel him back. You breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Not over, but over for now. 

——————————————————————

One thing you hadn’t put much thought into was telling your parents. They reacted about as you’d expected, though- thrilled to be welcoming their bonus child to the family in an official capacity, “after all these years”. 

“Oh, hime, how wonderful! He’s such a sweet boy. I’ll come dress shopping with you!”

Your heart twinged with guilt. Your mother would be heartbroken when you inevitably divorced a year or two down the road. 

“Maybe we should tell them,” mused Satoru. He tilted his head back to look up from your lap. “What are the chances that they’ll ever talk to my parents? Or tell anyone else? They can keep a secret.”

You shook your head slowly, focused on a point somewhere past where your fingers threaded through his soft hair. “I think they’d be more heartbroken to hear that we aren’t really in love.”

When Satoru didn’t say anything, you looked down at him. He was staring at you with an expression you couldn’t read, eyes darkening to a rich turquoise. He’d reached up to loop his hand loosely around your wrist without you noticing, stroking the sensitive skin over your pulse. Something about the look in his eyes had you suddenly incapable of thinking of anything but his father’s strange statement. 

“I’d expected Satoru, at least, to outgrow it by now.”

You swallowed, hard, scrambling for some way to ask without making everything incredibly awkward. You knew you were just friends. Hearing him say it would settle it once and for all. 

“Right,” Satoru drawled. He sat up, rising from the couch. “Better to tell them marriage just wasn’t what we thought.”

Somehow, somewhere, you’d made a wrong turn in this conversation. You weren’t sure what had happened, but something wasn’t right. You were getting to your feet when Satoru turned in the doorway, smirking with that wild spark in his ridiculously blue eyes. 

“You probably shouldn’t say it to your parents, but you can tell anyone else who asks that I couldn’t keep up with your appetite.” His smile only widened when you tilted your head in confusion. “Sexually.”

Your mouth dropped open on a gasp of his name, blood flooding your cheeks. His laughter was pealing off your hallway walls by the time you thought to throw the cushion in your hands. It bounced harmlessly off the wall, falling lightly to the floor. 

You sprinted down the hallway, raining your fists down on Satoru’s turned back as he laughed, before jumping up and locking one arm around his neck. You used the other to ruffle his hair as he instinctively took hold of your thighs, giving you just enough height to lean over his shoulder and bite the lobe of his ear gently. 

You were the one laughing uncontrollably, now, but you didn’t miss his sharp intake of breath or the way he tensed within your hold. Interesting. You tucked that away with every intention of examining it later. 

“That’s it!” His voice was slightly hoarse as he spun, racing across the hall to your living room. You shrieked as he wheeled this way and that, his strong grip the only thing keeping you secured to his back. He turned and abruptly released his hold on you, sending you tumbling back onto your couch in a cacophony of giggles. 

He turned a smug smile on you. “And with that, no dinner for wifey.”

You let out an indignant squawk, scrambling down the hall after him. Despite his threats, he was spoon-feeding you miso soup within minutes, smiling wide as you stuck out your tongue. 

“I’m not telling anyone that,” you muttered. 

Satoru nodded sagely. “You’re right, can’t go tarnishing my reputation.”

You let out a loud, undignified guffaw of laughter. “Reputation? You?”

Satoru pulled back indignantly. “You think I don’t have a reputation?” You leveled him with your blankest stare, but he stared right back, one eyebrow quirked up. You found yourself crumbling first, suddenly unsure of yourself. “You have a reputation?”

That broke his stoicism. He cracked a wide grin, looking down to stir his dinner. “Nah, just wanted to watch you squirm.” You both smiled, shoving each other playfully from across the table. 

“I’m sure there have been… people though, right?”

Satoru’s head snapped up, eyes almost comically wide in some combination of shock and… nerves?

“What?” he rasped. You caught him with a mouthful of miso – he was probably trying not to choke.

“I mean I’m sure there have been girls, or boys…” you trailed off at the puzzled expression he wore. But now that you’d thought about it, you’d never seen him with anyone, not since high school.

“How did you know I’m bi?”

Not the question you’d been expecting.

“Satoru,” you deadpanned. “Do you remember when you got caught kissing Yoshio Kiyama under the bleachers in sixth grade?”

A faint blush rose in his pale cheeks. “Oh, right.”

“Yeah, genius, I’m the one who found you?” You started laughing, memories of your eleven year-old self bubbling to the surface. “I remember I was so disappointed, but then you asked out Akiko Hoshino for the school dance and I-” You stopped speaking abruptly, horrified at your partial admission, and prayed to the gods that Satoru wouldn’t notice. 

Of course where the gods were concerned, Satoru would always find favor. 

You swore you could see his ears perk up. “Disappointed, huh?”

“I didn’t mean to say that,” you mumbled. 

“Oh no no, you’re not getting out of this one.” He stood, coming around to your side of the table and pulling you up. Then he sat in your chair, dragging you unceremoniously down onto his lap. “Disappointed why?”

You threw your hands up in exasperation, turning your face away. “Because I had a crush on you, Satoru! We were eleven years old and I had a crush and I thought you only liked boys and so I was disappointed that I wouldn’t have a chance with you. But then you asked out Akiko Hoshino, so then I knew that you liked boys and girls.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And then you pined away for me for the month that I dated Akiko, right?” he crooned, obviously delighted. 

You scoffed, but felt your throat closing slightly. “No, then I got over you.”

Satoru’s jaw dropped. “That fast, huh?”

“Yeah, it was pretty quick.”

He released you in favor of clapping his hands to his heart, head thrown back.

“My darling wife, you wound me so!” he cried. You laughed, tapping your ring finger.

“That’s fiancé to you, I’m not your wife yet.”

He sat back up, grinning. “Soon enough.” His cerulean eyes glittered in a way that sparked something deep inside you, excitement and anticipation lighting in your veins. 

“Two,” he murmured. 

You blinked. “Two what?”

“Two people.” He reached up to smooth a stray hair from your face, a gesture so tender that your breath caught. “One boy, one girl. And now, you.”

“Well, sort of.” You meant to be teasing, but it came out shakier than you meant. What was happening to you?

And there was that unreadable expression, paired with the slightest of smiles. “Yeah, sort of.”

——————————————————————

“I don’t think you’re supposed to get to see the dress.”

Satoru whines from the other end of the phone. “Why nooot? I’m paying for it, aren’t I?”

Despite your mother’s wish to come dress shopping with you, she’d been unable to make the journey. Despite his protests, she couldn’t bear to leave your father alone. He needed her too much after his accident; slow and unsteady on his best days, bedridden on his worst. So you’d settled on FaceTime instead. Now the four of you were on a call together- you, your parents, and Satoru- as you made your way down the busy Tokyo street to your car.

“You know I don’t actually have the dress with me, right?” you said wryly. Satoru’s confused outburst blended with your mother‘s tinkling laughter, tugging at the little girl deep under your skin. You felt your lips curve up in an involuntary smile.

“Patience, bocchan. You’ll see her on your wedding day.”

“That’s so far, though!” whined Satoru.

“It’s only another month, my dear! So eager.” You heard your father chuckling in the background, making some muffled statement about your parents’ traditional, long engagement. Your mother murmured something sweet back to him, but when she spoke into the phone again, her voice was filled with mischief. “Are you sure you’re not pregnant, hime?”

“M-mother!” you sputtered. On the other end, Satoru howled with laughter. All the same, he composed himself much more quickly than you. 

“Okan, no. That would be impossible. I’ve been a perfect gentleman! Besides, we’re not even living together. 

“Oh!” Your mother seemed genuinely surprised. “Well no, I suppose neither of you have said that you are. I see that I simply assumed…”

“Actually, we haven’t discussed the living situation yet.” You leapt on the opportunity to change the subject, still trying to get your breathing under control. For some reason you couldn’t quite pin down, your mother‘s joke had left your heart racing long after the shock should’ve worn off.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make either of you uncomfortable, we’re just so exc-”

You and Satoru cut her off simultaneously, talking over each other to assure her that she hadn’t.

“We’ll just move into your place, right babe?”

You stopped walking. “Satoru, why would we move into my shitty apartment when yours is twice the size?”

“Because your place is so much cozier!” 

Then there was an almighty crash and Satoru began swearing. A moment later, after making his apologies to your mother, he was saying he loved you and hanging up. Your heart raced a bit, even as you giggled with your mother over “his kids”.

As you walked up to your car, you heard your father ask for a glass of water. “Oh, dear, look at the time. I’m sorry my darling, but I need to go. I have to leave now if I want to get to the bank before it closes, and then I have to go to the shops, and then I have to make dinner…”

You smiled to yourself, sliding behind the wheel of your beaten old sedan. “Have a good night, mama. I’ll talk to you soon.”

You turned the key in the ignition and looked at your watch. Satoru’s class would be ending soon. You could spend that time doing errands, washing your car, or even tidying up your apartment. But you felt lazy and lightweight and you hadn’t seen the kids in some time. 

With a smile, you drove to the juice shop you and Satoru liked, ordering the too-sweet strawberry smoothie he loved and something new for yourself to try. After only a second’s hesitation, you picked out an assortment of treats, putting everything on Satoru’s card. Today, for the kids, you’d let him spoil you. 

Arms filled with sweets and smoothies, you managed to get from the shop to your car and your car to The Amanai Project. The gym was housed in a metal and concrete building on the border of one of the poorer neighborhoods in the city. Posters advertising free self-defense classes, public safety seminars, and charity races papered the windows beside a much more understated plaque offering pro bono legal counsel for kids victimized by violent crime.

Every time you came here, you couldn’t squelch the feeling of your heart growing several sizes. You were just trying to decide how best to manage the door when it swung open. Kento Nanami, Satoru’s somewhat business partner and the lawyer offering his services, held it wide and nodded a greeting as you shimmied through. 

“Thanks, Nanami. How are you?”

“I’d be better if I didn’t have to deal with that crazy man,” he grumbled, and you couldn’t help but laugh. “I hear congratulations are in order, though.”

Startled, you felt heat rise to your cheeks. “O-oh, yes, thank you so much!”

He nodded again, turning to step through the doorway, but paused. “You’re good for him, and you’ll be good for each other.” With that, he turned again and left you staring at the swinging door. That was as much a speech as you’d ever heard out of Nanami, but you didn’t have time to digest it. 

Kugisaki shrieked your name, abandoning her training to race across the room to you. Her squeals drew the attention of everyone else in the room, too. Itadori looked up from where he stood patching a hole in the wall, dropping the putty knife he was wielding into a can of spackle, and made to run toward you before Satoru’s sharp voice cut him off. 

“Itadori!”

“Aww, Gojo, I’ll fix it in a second!”

You giggled at the interaction. Clearly, the source of the sound Satoru had hung up for. 

Fushiguro nodded politely at you from his place in the ring, taking advantage of your arrival to gulp down a bottle of water. 

And then there was the man himself, lifting the blindfold he used when he sparred- “to help him hone his senses”. His eyes looked bluer than ever against the black and white contrast of material and hair. He smiled when he saw you, looking surprised but immeasurably pleased. 

Then Kugisaki was shoveling everything out of your arms, extending her hands to grasp yours. “Let’s see this ring!”

At that, Itadori did drop the putty knife, tuning Satoru’s warnings out with admirable success. Even Fushiguro sauntered over, hands tucked into his pockets, to lean down. You locked eyes with Satoru, cheeks warming under the kids’ attention.

Kugisaki and Itadori took turns bouncing on the balls of their feet, shrieking, alternating between hugging you and each other. Fushiguro studied the ring and then turned back to the ring, tossing a genuinely impressed “Nice job, Gojo” over his shoulder. Satoru sidled up to you, snaking an arm around your waist to draw you close enough that he could kiss your cheek. 

He was still smiling at you when Itadori shouted. “Hey Gojo, what was that? You gotta kiss her for real!”

Satoru whirled. “What!?”

“Yeah, kiss her for real!” squealed Kugisaki. She and Itadori swatted at each other in excitement, eyes glued to you and Satoru.

He pointed menacingly at them both. “You little pervs-”

“You can’t shut up about her all day, and now that she’s here you won’t even kiss her?” You laughed at the deadpan stare Fushiguro gave his teacher, highly amused by the entire ordeal.

With a rush of boldness, you grasped Satoru’s collar, turning him to face you, and pulled him down to your mouth. A bolt of electricity shot through you when your lips touched, and if Satoru’s muffled gasp was any indication, he wasn’t unaffected either. The kiss was brief, a slide of lips that was over much too soon, and then you were releasing him. You heard Kugisaki squealing, a loud clap as Itadori and Fushiguro high-fived each other, their thrilled chatter; it all faded to the background as you looked at Satoru.

Eyes half-lidded, color high in his cheeks, he seemed unable to catch his breath. He stood, still bent to your height, staring at your lips. You felt heat rising in your own cheeks, boldness entirely dissipated as you wondered whether you’d crossed some line or other. His tongue darted out to swipe his lips. The tittering in the background was quickly dying. You’d expected Satoru to have some ready quip, to turn and showboat for his students. It was becoming increasingly obvious that you’d have to be the one to act.

Thinking fast, you reached over to the counter where Kugisaki had dumped the haul you’d brought, fumbling a smoothie into Satoru’s frozen hands. You pasted a smile on and patted his cheek, turning to the collection of treats.

“Alright, you hooligans, I brought something for you. Courtesy of Gojo Sensei.” 

The boisterous sounds of teenagers started up just as quickly as they’d stopped, with Itadori and Kugisaki fighting over who got first pick of the sweets. Fushiguro waited patiently for the other two to dispense with their theatrics, picking up a sweet roll with a quiet word of thanks. You waved it off as you raised your smoothie to your lips, flinching when you tasted how overwhelmingly sweet it was. You turned to find Satoru standing behind you, holding out your smoothie. Besides a slight dusting of pink across the tops of his cheeks, he seemed entirely composed again. 

“Sorry,” you murmured, trading cups with him.

He quirked an eyebrow at you as he raised his smoothie to his mouth. Slowly, deliberately, he licked the side of his straw, finally drawing it into his mouth. He took several long swallows, holding your gaze unwaveringly as he did. Something about the action seemed intimate, provocative, and it was heating your insides. What on earth was happening to you?

“Oh, please.” His voice was lower than usual, husky. “Don’t be.”

——————————————————————

For once, you wound up at Satoru’s apartment. He’d walked you to your car, only half a lot away from his, only to find that it wouldn’t start. Why drive across town to your place, only to need a ride back in the morning to meet the tow truck, when you could simply stay the night with him? You had your laptop, there was no reason you couldn’t work from his home office the next day while he was away at family business meetings.

As he unlocked the front door, you tried to remember the last time you’d been here, rather than having him over to your shabby, cramped shoebox. You never could quite put your finger on why, but he loved your place. Cozy, he’d called it. And you guessed it was, in comparison.

He flipped on the light, the sound echoing down the hall, and stepped over the threshold, gesturing for you to step inside. You toed off your shoes, padding through the house to the kitchen. Satoru followed, stripping off his jacket and the blindfold he’d been wearing like a headband.

“I don’t think there’s much in the fridge, but we can order takeout. You remember where the menus are?”

“Of course.” You opened the right-most drawer in the island, withdrawing a stack of takeout menus with a grin.

Satoru grinned right back. “Order whatever you want, pick something good for me. I’m going to take a shower real quick.” You hummed as he dropped his wallet on the counter, thumbing through the worn pages before you.

When Satoru had first moved into this apartment, his mother had hired a maid and a chef. Only the best for her precious son, you thought wryly. Satoru hadn’t been having it. He’d been polite to them, of course, but kept an impeccable house with nothing for the maid to clean, and ordered takeout every night, leaving the chef’s meals untouched in the refrigerator before insisting she take them home herself. When his mother had shown up to scold him, he’d listened patiently to her lecture and then promptly changed the locks. 

You grinned at the memory, but it was short-lived. Your thoughts drifted to the time after he’d come home from the hospital, silent and uninterested in food, keeping a clean house, or anything else. His mother had hired a housekeeper again, insisting that your presence was unnecessary. In spite of her cold words and colder attitude, you’d stuck around, trying to get Satoru to take an interest in… anything.

He’d lost so much weight in those months.

You shook yourself out of your spiraling thoughts. Whatever had prompted him, he’d bought the gym for The Amanai Project, sent the housekeeper home with her next month’s pay, a bouquet of flowers, and his thanks, and changed the locks all in one day.

His mother had been furious.

That thought made you smile, despite yourself.

You heard the shower start, picked a menu at random, and called the number. You ordered enough sushi to feed a small army- an assortment of maki and uramaki rolls, nigiri, sashimi, miso soup, and two servings of deep-fried bananas- and smiled when you opened Satoru’s wallet to a picture of the two of you.

You made a circuit of the apartment while you waited. It looked just like it had the last time you’d been here, neat and bare. You walked into the home office, the only room with any personality, and smied at the photos scattered over the walls and shelves. You and Satoru as children, as teenagers at prom together, beaming together on the day you’d both graduated university; photos of him standing with his parents and grandparents, more serious than you were used to seeing him; and then, another photo, tucked behind several others. You stopped to pick it up.

Satoru, Shoko, and Suguru sat in a line, all beaming at the camera. Satoru’s arm reached around Shoko’s back, hand resting on Suguru’s shoulder. You could hardly see his eyes behind the dark glasses he wore, but you thought his eyes might’ve been on Suguru.

You swallowed back a painful lump in your throat. You’d lied when you said your crush on Satoru had been over quickly. It had lasted well into your teenage years, only abating when you assumed Suguru had taken your place as his best friend. Tall, handsome, charming Suguru with his smooth voice, soft smile, and never putting up with Satoru’s shit. That was until he disappeared, right when Satoru became a shell.

You knew the events were related, but you’d never found the courage to ask. Now, looking at this photo, you wondered what had happened to him. You wondered what had happened to Shoko, too. You knew she and Satoru still spoke from time to time, but they’d been closer before. Jealousy pricked at your heart before you stomped it ruthlessly out.

It had been a silly crush, nothing more. You were best friends. That was everything you wanted, everything you needed, and more than you could say for the other two.

You scolded yourself for being uncharitable, returning the picture frame to its place on the shelf before stalking from the office to Satoru’s bedroom.

The bed was perfectly made, unrumpled and unslept in. You realized with a jolt that the last time you’d been in his bedroom had been during those awful months, two years ago. You scowled lightly, turning back to the living room, and noticed for the first time that the larger couch looked slightly rumpled, with a throw blanket haphazardly hanging from the back- the only item out of place in the whole apartment.

In the bathroom, the tap turned off. You darted out of the bedroom, opting to sit at the kitchen island, watching the city lights from the picture window. It couldn’t have been more than two minutes before you could feel Satoru behind you, even though you hadn’t heard him approach. 

When you turned, he was smiling softly at you. 

“Have you been sleeping on the couch?”

You knew you’d shocked him by the smile he flipped up. “Whaaat? No, of course no-”

“Toru.”

He glares at you, but doesn’t answer. He’s saved by the doorbell, which he bolts to answer. 

You let out a breath, turning to the fridge to get drinks. You pull out two bottles of tea, along with a glass and a container of honey for Satoru. He’s laying out your feast, eyes pointedly on the food. 

You decide not to push the issue. For now. 

“I left some clothes for you in the bathroom,” he says. 

“Thank you,” you hum. “I’ll shower as soon as we’re done here.”

He hums in return, mouth already filled with food, then swallows. “Sorry about the kids,” he says. 

You grin. “Sorry for rocking your world.”

A strange look passes over his features, and when he speaks, you get the feeling that he’s not saying what he had intended to. “Oh, sweetheart, you’re not that good.” The words drip with his customary, good-natured arrogance, complete with the full-blown smirk you’ve only ever seen on him. He winks, making you laugh, but there’s some tiny part of you that’s oddly wounded by this. 

He’s returned his focus to his meal, but then he looks up at you from under his stark, white lashes. His voice is softer, more sincere when he speaks again. 

“We should practice.”

And for a moment, the absurdity of the statement is so intense that you can’t, won’t understand him. 

“Practice what?”

“Kissing.” He says it so calmly, so matter-of-fact, like it’s the most normal thing in the world to say. 

You choke on your tea. 

“We should practice kissing,” you drone back. 

Satoru throws his hands in the air. “Exactly! I’m glad you agree.” When you continue to stare, he chuckles, going back to his food. “I think the gig would be up if something like that happened in front of our wedding guests.” 

And after a moment’s contemplation, you have to admit that he’s right. You hadn’t considered the way you’d appear to onlookers. Years and years of close friendship had you comfortable with each other, in each others’ space, and you knew you’d look genuine to anyone close enough to see you, because your affection for each other was genuine. You and Satoru had always been touchy- leaning on each other or holding hands, arms around each other or brushing when you walked or talked. Physical closeness was natural to you both. 

But kissing each other was not natural, you told yourself. Even as your mind unhelpfully reminded you that it had felt quite natural to lean up and press your lips to his. You blinked away the memory, pasting on a smile to hide your unease at the way your heartbeat sped. 

“Oh yeah, I’d expected a smoother recovery from you,” you teased. “What did the kids have to say about that?”

He grumbled something that sounded distinctly like “lovesick fool”, but when you asked for Satoru to repeat himself, he said “They said it was so cool.”

You giggled. “It’s ‘cause they’ve never seen anyone shut you up.”

He lay a hand against his heart. “It’s because they never believe me when I say the ladies love me. Victory has never tasted so sweet.” You laughed, Satoru smiled, and what little tension had managed to build dissipated. 

You stood to stretch. “I’ll make us breakfast tomorrow if you do the dishes.”

Satoru scoffed. “I have a perfectly good dishwasher, and we both know I’ll be up way before you.”

You stuck your tongue out, earning you a snicker. “I’m going to shower.” Satoru waved you off, stuffing the last of his deep-fried bananas into his mouth as he brushed off his hands. You padded into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and stripped off your clothes once the door shut behind you. Stepping into the shower, you let the scalding water soothe your muscles as your mind kicked into overdrive. 

Practice kissing Satoru Gojo. Something pooled low in your belly, something hungry and molten.

You knew, logically, that having the friendship with him that you do put you in a position most girls would be wildly envious of. You’d always known that, even if it hadn’t affected you. So why is it affecting you now? 

You knew, logically, that Satoru is insanely attractive. You’d seen it firsthand countless times over the years. Any time you’d go out together, you could feel jealous stares on you, even if Satoru never noticed. It used to make you feel somewhat smug, and somewhat guilty, as though your presence could keep away the girl he was meant to have. You would tease him, shamelessly mocking the fluttering lashes and starry eyes turned his way. So why did you feel so starry-eyed yourself?

You knew, logically, that this was a good and smart plan. His parents would be looking for any sign that this marriage was less than what it seemed, and it was wise to cover your bases. You just had to think about it intellectually. Just had to remember that it was all part of the trick.

Dressing in his boxers and sweats and a shirt two sizes too big, you step into his bedroom to see him reclining on the bed, face flushed and chest heaving, and all wisdom deserts you. 

His eyes are closed. He’s got one muscled arm propped behind his head, while the long fingers of his other hand stroke that damn blindfold thoughtfully. He turns and pierces you with that blue gaze, eyes darker than usual, and inclines his head slightly as he takes in a deep breath. His eyes rake you from head to toe, taking in the way you swim in his clothes. You pad toward the bed, crawling over the expanse of it until you lay next to him, hands laced nervously over your stomach.

He sits up to place the blindfold on the nightstand, then rolls so that he’s hovering over you. “Shall we?” he murmurs. His voice is velvet, soft and rough, and intellectual thought becomes more difficult as you try to remember the last time you kissed anyone before today.

You nod. It feels stiff, and you hope that he doesn’t notice. Hell, of course he notices. You hope that he can’t see why you’re so uptight, and do your best to tuck away your racing thoughts so that you can’t examine them either.

He raises his free hand to brush his knuckles over your cheek, touch so feather-soft that you could’ve almost imagined it. You don’t know which of you moved first, but you’re inexplicably closer to each other now, noses nearly touching. Satoru’s warm, sweet breath ghosts over your lips. His luminescent eyes scan your face, searching for… what? you wonder breathlessly.

It’s an agonizingly long moment in which your traitorous brain chants kisshimkisshimkisshim.

“Relax,” he whispers, and you let out the breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

His lips brush yours, lighter than his fingertips on your jaw. Then again, with the barest hint of pressure. You’ve only just begun, but your heart is already pounding. Satoru kisses you a third time and the trick is all but forgotten.

He moves his lips slowly, carefully against yours. You exercise every last ounce of restraint to move as slowly, as carefully as he does. Gentle as this is, your lungs are burning for air by the time he pulls back, only far enough so that you can both gulp down the warm air between you. He shifts so that his body partially covers yours before descending again. This time, in addition to the soft pressure, his tongue slides delicately over your bottom lip. 

Forgetting yourself, you grip the front of his t-shirt, dragging him down so suddenly that he grunts, mouth parting to allow your tongue to explore. You run it along the back of his teeth, the inside of his bottom lip, sliding it against his as he presses into your mouth for his turn.

His tongue is slow, gentle, as he maps the inside of your mouth. The hand that’s not propping him up is on your neck now, thumb across the front of your throat, caressing the flesh there. You begin to lose patience, unable to grasp how unaffected he is by this when you’re so close to abandoning your dignity for more, more, more. 

With as much self-control as you can muster, you slide one hand around his side under his shirt. His breath catches. Your hands must be cold. You use your grip on his shirt and his waist to pull until he loses his balance, body pressed against you for one short, blissful moment. Your eyes shoot open, meeting a roiling ocean as your hips meet and you feel something hard against your inner thigh. Wait, is he…?

He lifts himself so that he hovers over you, body too far away now for you to confirm what you thought you felt. He kisses you several times in quick succession, lighter than before, as he holds himself up over you. You wonder if you’re imagining the quiver in his limbs; you must be.

Then he pulls back with a crazed smile that doesn’t touch his eyes. His cheeks flame and his blown pupils snap with something you don’t have a name for.

“Well that was much better,” he says. Then you blink and he’s up, sitting on the side of the bed for just a second before standing up. He walks out of the room and you’re left reeling, lifting a hand to your swollen lips.

What just happened?

Anxiety is beginning to build before he’s back in the doorway with a glass of water in hand. He hits the lightswitch before coming in, hiding himself from your searching eyes in the gloom, backlit by the lamp in the living room.

“Here,” he says, handing you the glass. You sit up and take it from his hands, draining the whole thing to wash the addictive taste of him out of your mouth enough to concentrate. It hardly works.

He’s halfway across the room before you realize it, and you find panic flooding your chest again.

“Wait!” you call. He stops, turning so that you can just make out his profile in the dark.

You feel tongue-tied. Against your will, you remember the way you felt at eleven, at fourteen, at sixteen, unable to speak or move or breathe around him, so in awe of his presence.

This would be a really, really bad time for those feelings to resurface.

But you can’t seem to stop them.

“What?” You must have been quiet for too long, because his voice is tinged with worry.

You scramble for any coherent thought.

“Where are you going?”

You see him raise a hand to the back of his neck, a nervous gesture startlingly like one the boy from your scrambled thoughts makes.

“The couch. I figured you could sleep in the bed, and I-”

“You should stay,” you cut off. After what had just happened, after knowing what it felt like to kiss him, if you’d put any thought into anything else first, you’d have never gotten the words out. 

But you couldn't think. Not now, not with the taste of him on your tongue. Regardless of your mounting fear and his being the source, you couldn’t bear for him to be away from you. Not now.

Satoru didn’t say anything. He stood frozen, and again, you began to wonder whether some invisible boundary had been crossed.

Maybe this was why friends didn’t kiss each other.

Shame and nerves choked you. You shouldn’t have touched him, shouldn’t have embarrassed him like that. Of course it was natural for his thoughts to wander, it certainly had nothing to do with you. A natural response, nothing mo-

“Okay.”

You let out a breath and the pounding in your ears subsided. He left the room, returning after flipping off the light in the living room, and lowered himself gently into the bed. He stretched out on his back, hands at his sides, and you lowered yourself to the cushions with yours tucked to your chest.

The silence was deafening. You weren’t used to it, banter flowing easily from both sides for all your lives.

You turned abruptly, unable to bear it any longer.

“Toru, what happened? With Suguru? And with Shoko?”

He sucked in a breath from his place across the bed. You worried again, as was becoming too common, that you shouldn’t have spoken. He didn’t speak for so long that you thought he wouldn't answer you, and then you started to worry that he’d call off the whole fake wedding or, worse, your whole friendship.

You’d never asked, too afraid of sending him spiralling off the precipice and losing him entirely. But you were so off-balance from the raging storm of your emotions that you couldn’t stop yourself. 

“Amanai died.”

You counted several beats before speaking. “I know that part,” you said softly. “Suguru was with her when she was shot, right?”

A long pause. “Yeah.”

“And you were outside.”

“Yeah.”

“Satoru, it wasn’t your fault.”

“We were arrogant.” There was self-loathing dripping from the words. “We shouldn't have assumed the estate would be safe ground.”

You squeezed your eyes shut. This had been a mistake. Damn your curiosity, you should never have dredged this up. 

“I wanted… I killed that guy, the shooter.” You’d known, but the jolt that went through you reminded you that he’d never actually said it out loud. Not to you. “And I wanted to kill the whole group of them, that whole family that ordered the execution. Everyone who stood there, applauding that a fifteen year-old girl was dead. And I would have snapped and done it if Suguru hadn’t stopped me.”

Your heart constricted painfully. Suguru had said, but you hadn’t realized it had been so serious. Satoru let out a long sigh. Subconsciously, you reached out to loop your fingers through his. He squeezed gently.

“Remember the week after the funeral, that day I left you here? When Shoko called?” You nodded. You’d handed him the phone when Shoko asked, watching wordlessly as he stalked out, and then sat in his apartment, drowning in terror until he’d walked back through the door, silent as when he’d left. He turned to you now. Even in the dark, you could make out the faint gleam of his eyes. “Sorry for scaring you, back then,” he whispered. You reached your other hand out to lay it on his chest.

He took in another deep breath. “Suguru went out on a job. He was supposed to bring some guy in for questioning.” You waited with bated breath for him to say the words you didn’t want to hear. “He killed him.”

You sat up, peering down through the darkness. “What?”

“He killed him. Told the board that it was self-defense, but Shoko and I knew it wasn’t. He confessed it to her, and she told me.” You sat in stunned silence. This was so much worse than you’d imagined it could be.

“And you?” Satoru said nothing. Dread pricked your spine. “You… you wanted to…”

“I didn’t, though.” He’d tensed, as though he expected you to draw away at any moment. “Shoko had already built a case against him when she called me. She just needed a confession. So I got it. Even if I thought that it wasn’t fair.”

You scooted the tiniest bit closer. “Not fair?”

Satoru looked at you out of the corner of his eye, seeming to consider his next words. “That he found the absolution he denied me.”

You considered that. “Did you ever find it?” you finally asked. “Absolution?”

He seemed to hold his breath. “I think so,” he said softly. You nodded, and for long minutes, you each sat lost in thought under the cover of darkness. Then, when sleep pressed you down, you closed the last distance between you to lay your head on his chest. You felt Satoru start before carefully wrapping an arm around you. And maybe you were already dreaming, but you thought you felt him press a gentle kiss to your temple.

You wondered again if you were dreaming when you woke, warm and comfortable. You blinked yourself awake, squinting at the clock across the room. Too early. You flopped your head back down and then froze when the arm around your waist pulled you back against a feverish body.

Satoru.

You raised your head, blinking at the clock again in disbelief. Satoru was always up at the crack of dawn. 7:45 was not late, but most days he’d already be out and about. Carefully, so as not to wake him, you turned your head. His brilliant white hair flopped over his eyes, making him look vulnerable. Young, so like the little boy you’d said you’d marry all those years ago.

You smiled at the memory and rested your head back on your pillow. You looked at the clock. 7:46. You’d let him sleep until 8:00. You began to snuggle backward and froze.

You could feel Satoru’s length pressed against the curve of your butt. For one, heartstopping moment, you let yourself melt back. Then you were berating yourself. 

He was asleep, nothing more. No man woke up in bed with any girl without a hard-on and it had nothing to do with you.

The moment you broke contact, that arm tightened again, drawing you back more firmly. You muffled a groan, letting your eyes slide shut. 

A really, really bad time for those feelings to resurface again, you thought dryly, heart speeding against your ribcage. You glanced up. 7:47.

You couldn’t lay here like this for thirteen minutes. You’d just have to slide out from his grasp and hope you didn’t wake him.

Just before you moved though, Satoru breathed in deeply. His arms tightened around you again, one hand lowering to your hip to press you back against him. You held your breath as he nuzzled the side of your neck.

“Hey, baby,” he murmured, voice thick with sleep. He curled further around you, molding your body against his. It made you feel weak. “What time is it?”

You turned to the clock again, cheeks burning. “7:48.”

“Shit!” Satoru flew up, making it from the far side of the bed to the bathroom in one fluid motion. The door slammed and you stared at it for a moment before you started to giggle. Well, so much for breakfast.

It’s 7:51 when the bathroom door flies open to reveal Satoru in all his shirtless glory, muscles rippling as he tears through his closet, toothbrush clenched between his teeth. Then it’s back to the bathroom, door not quite shut, and you have to make yourself turn away from the sliver of pale skin you can see through the crack. You hear him spit, then the door swings open again. 7:53. He’s fumbling the last few buttons on his shirt, long legs carrying him to the mirror in the corner.

“Sorry, babe, I have an errand I have to run before the meeting this morning.” He runs a hand through his hair, turning his head side to side, and then spins and walks toward you. “Tow company will be here to pick you up at nine.” He bends down, planting his hands on either side of your shoulders, and kisses you passionately before sprinting out the door. “Call me if they give you any trouble!”

The front door slams, and seven minutes after waking up, the whirlwind that is your best friend storms out the front door. You raise a hand unconsciously to your lips.

What in the world?

By the time you manage to haul yourself out of bed, after an already eventful morning, you’ve convinced yourself that this is simply more practice. Building habits, as it were, so as not to raise suspicion when you inevitably end up out with his family, out with friends.

It makes perfect sense. 

You brush your teeth and get dressed, in the same clothes you wore here yesterday, and open your laptop to get a little work done before the tow company picks you up. Just as Satoru said they would, they ring the bell at nine sharp. You stuff your laptop into your bag, locking the door with your spare key, and follow the driver to his truck. 

You make polite small-talk with the driver- mostly about your crappy car- for the short drive to the tow yard, thanking him as he holds the door open for you. When you turn toward the office, he stops you.

“Oh, miss, I have your key right here.”

He hands you a key that certainly isn’t yours. You look from it to him.

“This isn’t my key.”

The driver scratches the back of his neck, pointing across the lot. “Well, according to Mr. Gojo, it is.”

You turn to see a shiny new coupe with a massive red bow on the hood. You blink at it, then turn back to the driver. “Where’s my car?”

He shifts his weight nervously. “I don’t rightly know, miss. Mr. Gojo called yesterday and said not to worry about it. Said he’d be dropping off a new one- nothing but the best for his fiancée. Came by this morning, handed me the key himself.”

You turn back to the car in stunned silence.

“I can see about getting your old car back, miss…”

“No, thank you.” You turned to smile at the driver. “I can take it up with my fiancé.” 

The driver nodded, shuffling off to the office in the center of the lot at great speed. You walked over to your new ill-gotten vehicle, circling it slowly. This was a huge gift.

You let yourself into the driver’s seat, reveling in the luxury of a vehicle younger than yourself, let alone one of such caliber. Then, calmly, you dialed Satoru’s number.

The phone rang twice, and then he picked up with a joyous “Love of my life!”

You sucked down a breath, and then roared into the phone. “GOJO!”

——————————————————————

The final weeks until the wedding are so busy that you hardly have time to think about the day itself, but they’re a raging success.

You and Satoru go apartment hunting, despite your protests, and end up with a penthouse apartment with an office, a guest room, and more space than you know how to decorate. He hires a moving company to pack your humble, cozy apartment and his sleek one, refusing to hear any protests about keeping your lease.

“Baby, I’ve been trying to get you out of that shithole for years. You really think I’m letting this opportunity pass me by?” You grumble about making rent and he tugs you close with an arm around your shoulders, pressing a kiss to the side of your head. “Rent, as if. Consider it repayment for going along with all this.”

You don’t bother pointing out that “all this” was your idea in the first place; you know it would be useless.

Your parents fly in the week of the wedding and insist on taking you and Satoru out for dinner “one last time before the big day” as thanks for Satoru’s generosity in putting them up in “such a lovely hotel”.

You go to your final fitting and your dress is perfect, curving and flowing in all the right places. Your mother cries, and that sets you to crying too. 

Satoru kisses you, more than once. He kisses you first thing every morning when you emerge from his room, kisses you each time you pass each other over the course of the days, kisses you last thing at night before making himself comfortable on the couch. You have to force yourself not to ask him to stay in the bed with you, afraid of what you might do if he agrees.

You have to remind yourself that none of this is real.

Shoko comes to town, determined not to miss the big event despite the space that’s opened up between her and Satoru. Seeing them together, you realize that it probably never opened at all. It’s Suguru’s space; a tiny, infinite rift between them. You can see how bittersweet the reunion is, for both of them, and find yourself hoping that it won’t be the last time they meet. Hoping that they can both heal until they can really be friends again.

You have an incredibly tense dinner with Satoru’s parents, made all the more stressful by the agreement to do everything to sell them on the idea that you’re hopelessly in love with each other. At dinner, you hold hands through every course, constantly looking at each other with syrupy smiles and fluttering lashes. When you retire to the restaurant’s overpriced lounge for drinks, Satoru pulls you down into his lap, holding you firmly in place the entire time. He only has one drink, but he gets noticeably more handsy as the contents of his glass disappear.

You ruffle his hair affectionately, leaning down to whisper in his ear.

Only the fact that his parents are sitting feet away stops you from asking whether there’s something in his pocket, or whether he’s just happy to see you. “Lightweight,” you breathe instead, trying not to move too much lest he notice his body’s reaction and push you away. He giggles, dragging you forward to plant a sloppy kiss on your mouth. You allow yourself to relish the moment, embracing the longing you’ve begun to feel. For his parents’ benefit, you tell yourself. You’re only doing your part to sell the lie.

You can practically feel the steam coming from his mother’s ears.

Standing on Satoru’s balcony the night before the wedding, he levels you with the most serious expression you’ve ever seen from him. “Are you sure about this?”

You think back on the past months, comparing them to all the years before. What had even changed, besides the fact that now, you were friends who sometimes kissed? Who sometimes came dangerously close to feeling each other up? What had changed, besides the fact that now, you were almost certain that you’d never moved past your feelings for him?

You forced yourself to relax and smile. “I’m sure.”

Satoru took your hands in his, turning you to face him. “You’re giving up a lot for me.”

That made you laugh. You looked up, pleased to see the curve of amusement on his lips. “What am I giving up? It’s not like I’d be spending my time with anyone else. Besides, you’ve bought me a beautiful ring, a gorgeous dress, and a brand new car. I think I’m actually gonna come out of this pretty far ahead.”

“Don’t forget the penthouse,” he teased, and your smile dropped to a deadpan.

“Satoru, we’ve discussed the penthouse.” He waved this off. “I’m not keeping it!” you protested.

“Yeah, we’ll see.” He grinned down at you, breeze lifting his hair from his forehead. Without meaning to, you reached up to smooth it back, thumb running over the scar over his eyebrow. He cleared his throat, growing somber. “This time tomorrow, we’re going to be married.”

You let your fingertips drift down his cheek, allowing yourself just one more private moment of weakness before your heart ended up on display tomorrow for everyone to see. Hopefully, everyone but him. You nodded, suddenly at a loss for words. For all his sweetness, you’d seldom seen the tenderness he bent on you in the smile he offered. His eyes were liquid, soft as ever, when he raised your hand to his lips.

“Let’s get some sleep,” he murmured, and you agreed, if only to escape before his attention caused you to crumble.

——————————————————————

The wedding day itself is surreal, and it passes in a blur. You wake in Satoru’s bedroom with a bouquet of roses on the bedside, along with a note in his bold writing.

“To the best friend I’ve ever had, thank you for putting up with my shit and having my back. We both know that I’m a treasure. I only hope you know that you are, too. You deserve the world, and I will lay it at your feet. On this, our wedding day, I alone am the honored one.”

The note is signed with a flourish of his name. You smile as you raise it to your lips, taking in the faint scent of his cologne. You are the honored one on this day. You lay the note next to your bra, fully intent on keeping it close, and then you hit the ground running.

You shower and brush your teeth and after that, it’s out the door to the waiting car to be driven to the vast Gojo estate. Despite spending time here as a child, the place is still incredibly intimidating with its marble arches and sprawling gardens. You feel your heartbeat speed as you see the decorations- fairy lights and tulle, vines and roses, black silk ribbons and eucalyptus branches.

It’s more beautiful than you could have imagined.

You make your way to the guest house and sit through an hour of hair and makeup, laughing with your mother about all the childish shenanigans you and Satoru have gotten up to over the years, and calm your anxious hands and stomach by sampling the hors d’oeuvres arranged prettily on silver platters.

Your father sits in the corner, eyes shining with pride and unshed tears. He’s got a cocktail of painkillers ready to go; nothing will keep him from walking with his little girl today.

You would feel guilty if Satoru weren’t already such a fixture in all of your lives. You only hope that your parents won’t be too hurt when this is all over.

It’s only once your parents step out so that you can change into your gown that Satoru’s mother visits you.

“Tell me, my dear, must we really continue this charade?”

You feel your heart prick with ice. “I assure you, Gojo-sama, that there is no charade,” you lie smoothly. “I love your son.” Just enough honesty to ring true.

Her glare is frozen. “I will give you six million yen if you walk out of here and away from my son.”

You raise your chin in defiance. “No.”

“Seven million.”

“You cannot buy me, no matter the price.”

“Ten million yen.”

Your ire has been steadily rising since she stepped into the room. Now, it eclipses your anxiety like a crashing wave. You lean forward, well into her space, and feel a mean thrill when she leans away from you. Your voice is cold. “I do not care what you think of me. But it’s clear that you have no concept of your son’s worth.” You tilt your head, summoning the haughtiest tone you’ve ever used. “You dishonor him.” His mother reels back, scowling.

“You don’t deserve my son,” she sneers.

You laugh at that. “I agree. Yet somehow, he’s decided otherwise.”

She peers down her nose at you. You expect another round of vitriol, but to your surprise, she turns on her heel to leave. Round one, you.

You blow out your breath, shake your hands, and straighten your shoulders. Within a few minutes, your parents are back and then it’s smooth sailing again. 

Right up until you and your father hobble to the door to walk to the ceremony. 

Your father starts to sniffle. You turn and realize that he’s tearing up, putting on his bravest face and doing his utmost not to blubber. 

“Oh, papa,” you murmur. You turn to take his face in your hands. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, hime.” He reaches a hand up to your face, carefully avoiding your hair and touching lightly so as not to smear your makeup. “I am just so happy. Your mother and I used to talk about what a wonderful life you and Satoru would build together and now it’s finally beginning.”

The shock nearly knocks you off your feet. “You… what?”

He sniffles, patting your cheek and lowering his head to compose himself. “You make an old man proud. There’s no one else I’d rather give you away to.”

You move your mouth, but can’t form any words.

And then, it’s time. The great door creaks open and you tilt your head down to hide your expression. You take a few deep, steadying breaths before raising your head… and promptly losing them.

The lawn is surprisingly empty, though you suppose his parents planned it that way. Regardless, every face fades as you set eyes on Satoru.

Satoru, the best and oldest friend you’ve ever had.

Satoru, who’s always been in your corner, no matter what.

Satoru, who looks devastatingly handsome in black and white, with a boutonniere of one, single rose almost the same color as his eyes. Almost, but not quite. Satoru, whose eyes are wider than ever, staring slack-jawed as you make your way toward him down the aisle, moving slowly for your fathers’ sake. Satoru, whose hands drop from where they’d been fiddling with his cuffs.

Satoru, who looks at you with such longing that you nearly collapse.

Your heart stops, and then sprints to make up for lost time.

This day is going to kill you. 

You know that your face is bearing every emotion, that nothing is hidden in this instant. 

And it’s nothing compared to the way he looks at you.

It’s all an act, you remind yourself. Tears spring to your eyes. All an act, but every person in this room is eating it up. Including you. When did he get so good at acting?

The corner of his lip curls in an awestruck smile and you’re a goner.

Who were you kidding?

You let the tears stream, grateful at least that they would lend authenticity to the performance. And for the first time, you feel your heart sink. 

You’re just as in love with Satoru Gojo now as you had been at eleven years old.

You’d been a fool to think you’d get out of this unscathed.

Over the course of your mental collapse, Satoru’s smile widens until you can just make out the tiny dimples at the corners of his mouth that only ever show themselves when he’s at his happiest.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

You just have to remember that it’s all for show.

You force yourself to smile.

And know instantly that you’ve made a mistake.

You had to be twenty paces or more away, but those dimples disappeared the moment your lips spread.

No one else would ever notice, but you did.

Because no one else would ever notice, but he had.

Those cyan eyes narrowed fractionally and you knew that he could tell that something was off. You could see the anxiety surfacing as you got close.

To feel so seen…

You pursed your lips, just by a hairs’ breadth, and Satoru’s face relaxed. The silent conversation you had in those last few steps did wonders to ease your nerves, and you could tell that it did the same for him. Between one heartbeat and the next, your father was kissing your cheek, placing your hand firmly in Satoru’s outstretched one.

You couldn’t hear a word anyone said- not your father, not the priest, not even Satoru. You blinked rapidly, finally locking eyes with your fiancé.

“Baby? Are you okay?” he whispered, and you could tell from the slight strain in his voice that he was repeating the question.

You squeezed his hands. “I’m okay,” you whispered back. You let yourself fall into your role, embracing the fantasy. You felt nearly giddy. “Let’s get married.”

And oh, there was that smile again, canyon-wide and dimpled just for you. “Let’s.”

You could hardly concentrate enough to repeat your vows, too caught up in the way Satoru’s eyes sparkled, locked onto you. Too mesmerized by the way his mouth moved to truly hear what he said. Before your head could catch up with the feelings speeding through your heart, Satoru was wrapping a strong arm around your waist, pulling you firmly to his chest. You couldn’t tear your eyes away from his smile.

“Hi, wifey.” And then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours. You couldn’t stop your hands coming up to cradle his face; couldn’t stop your mad smile when he bent you back nearly parallel to the ground; couldn’t stop the shudder that ran down your spine at the soft moan he let out when you ran your tongue along the seam of his lips. They parted, allowing you to lick along the inside of his lip before you bit down softly.

Only the applause from your guests covered the animalistic growl that tore itself from his throat.

You felt a heady thrill at your apparent power and giggled. After a heated moment and a shaky breath, so did Satoru. He straightened, pulling you up with him, and raised your joined hands overhead for all to see.

Mr. and Mrs. Satoru Gojo.

——————————————————————

For being largely made up of Satoru’s colleagues and the elder Gojo’s business acquaintances, your guests were incredibly gracious. Every person seemed to want to personally convey their best wishes; a happy marriage, good fortunes, continued health. You and Satoru thanked each person in turn, holding hands all the while.

And each time someone new came to express their pleasure, you felt your mind and heart crack just a bit more under the weight of the lie.

“We’re almost done,” he murmured against your ear. You’d finally made your way to the dance floor, taking solace in the security and solitude of Satoru’s arms. You nodded, cheek rubbing against his chest. “You okay?” he asked.

You nodded again. “Just counting down the minutes until we can go home.”

He chuckled, drawing you closer. “Well, tell you what, then. Let me go say goodnight to my parents and then we can leave, okay?” You smiled up at him, grateful.

“That sounds wonderful, husband.”

He grinned at you with a childish sort of glee. “Glad to hear it, wife.” He leaned down, pressed a soft kiss to your lips, and then spun you away from himself. “I’ll meet you by the altar in a few minutes?”

You smiled over your shoulder, turning to survey the crowd. Your parents had left an hour ago with profuse apologies; your father’s medication was wearing off and he was going to need to be off his feet, quickly. You waved and smiled at the few friends of Satoru’s you knew- Kento Nanami, Yu Haibara, Utahime Iori, Kiyotaka Ijichi- and waded through the crowd of celebrating people.

Satoru had asked whether it bothered you that none of your friends had come. The truth was that when life got busy and your friends stopped reaching out, when no one could accept how much time and emotion you put into Satoru after the incident, you’d let most of those friendships slide. Why should you beg for anyone’s attention when the only person whose attention you truly craved centered on you to begin with?

You’d never regretted that conviction, never even questioned it. Not even today.

You made rounds to the tables that gestured you over for long minutes before excusing yourself, breaking for the altar. You were passing an alcove when you heard Shoko’s voice, and you felt yourself perk up. You hadn’t had a chance to thank her for coming, and you wanted to make sure that you didn’t miss the opportunity to talk to her. Even if you didn’t feel the need to have a lot of friends, it would be refreshing to have a girl friend again- and she’d been important to Satoru, once. You wanted to make sure that she knew her presence was more than welcome in your lives.

It was only once you reached the garden wall that you realized she didn’t sound happy.

Then you heard Satoru’s voice.

“I just really don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal out of this!”

“Because, Satoru! I understand that you care for her, but I really think you’re making the biggest mistake of your life!”

“Then let me make it!” Satoru roared, and the words had you breaking out into a cold sweat.

They couldn’t mean…?

He seemed to remember where they were and lowered his voice. “Then let me make it. If it’s such a huge mistake, you’ll be the first to know, alright? I’ll call you myself. ‘Shoko, you were right, I never should have married her.’ Is that what you want to hear?”

Your hands flew to cover your mouth, but they weren’t quick enough to muffle the pained sound that escaped you. You darted to put your back to the bower leading into their little section of the garden, praying to all the gods that you hadn’t been heard. For once, despite Satoru’s involvement, they listened.

Shoko sighed. “No, Satoru, it’s not. I just want you to be happy. I just don’t think you’re-”

You raised your hands to cover your ears and bolted away. You didn’t care how childish it was, you couldn’t bear to hear another word. You ran, heels catching small rocks and roots as you held your breath in an effort not to cry. If the tears fell, your face would puff up and your makeup would be ruined. There would be questions. You couldn’t deal with questions, especially not now.

You tucked yourself into the greenhouse and sucked down mouthfuls of cool air, staring straight at the ceiling. That was supposed to help, wasn’t it?

You couldn’t stay here for too long. You had to get control of yourself, and quickly. You tried desperately to conjure up any happy memories that didn’t involve Satoru and came up woefully short.

Maybe you needed some friends of your own, after all.

You breathed in, held, released. Breathed in, held, released. You repeated this until your hands stopped shaking, and then did it five more times for good measure. You straightened your shoulders. Then you walked back out into the throng. Head held high, smile firmly in place, you strode to the altar, catching sight of Satoru as he stepped out of the shade of a tree and into view.

Your breath caught in your throat. He was so beautiful. He beamed when he saw you, looking a touch deflated, but irritation all but vanished. You knew by the subtle shift of his eyebrows, though, that your own smile wasn’t fooling him.

——————————————————————

The ride back to your new penthouse was blessedly short, and blessedly quiet. With a driver from his parents’ staff, neither of you dared to say a word of meaning, settling on holding hands and whispering to each other about dinner and movies and sleep instead. When the car stopped, Satoru was out in a flash to open your door, handing you out like some Victorian lady. No matter how confused you felt, it made your mouth twitch up in a smile.

He led you through the apartment lobby and into the private elevator to your new home, even holding the door open for the driver following with a cart of wedding gifts. You clutched his hand the whole ride up, gluing yourself to his side even if you couldn’t bring yourself to look up at him. You could feel the worried glances he shot your direction when the driver wasn’t looking, though.

As soon as the elevator door opened, he was sweeping you up into his arms, striding purposefully across the short hall to your front door. You let yourself laugh as he managed to fish the keys out of his pocket without letting you slide so much as an inch, and swooned dramatically as he kicked in the door. He kissed you again and you felt your heart clench painfully. Then he turned to the driver, thanking him for his service and advising that he leave, lest he see something he’d rather not.

You’d never seen someone excuse themselves so quickly.

You both paused once the door clicked shut, waiting for the chime of the elevator, and then Satoru lowered you gently to the floor. You turned quickly, practically running into the living room. You began unfastening your jewelry, anything to keep your hands and eyes busy.

“Sweetheart?” He was worried. You knew better than to try to hide from him, but you’d hoped you could have even a moment longer to collect your thoughts. The drive here hadn’t been nearly long enough. “Baby, what’s wrong?” He was halfway across the room already. You knew that if he touched you, you’d lose your nerve.

“What did Shoko mean by ‘the biggest mistake of your life’?” The words were out before you could think better of them.

Abruptly, his footsteps stopped. The silence was deafening. With shaking hands, you laid your wedding jewelry on the coffee table, steeling yourself for whatever answer Satoru gave you.

You turned to face him and found him looking ashen and sick.

He swallowed hard.

“You heard that?”

Somehow, you’d expected something different. A denial, an indignant retort, even a joke. You scoffed in disbelief, only it didn’t sound much like a scoff. It sounded like a sob.

Satoru took two steps forward before stopping at your raised hand.

“Listen, I can explain.”

“Explain what, Gojo?” A look of profound hurt crossed his face at your use of his family name, but you couldn’t… You had to put some distance between you. You didn’t want to believe that there was any truth to the words, but you knew now that there had to be.

“You didn’t even argue with her! ‘The worst mistake of your life’?” He flinched then, finally breaking eye contact to look across the room past you. You choked on your tears, voice coming out harsh around the growing lump in your throat. “I know you never wanted to be married, but I-I thought I was helping you. I thought you wouldn’t care since it was only temporary. I thought you said this would be fun! You never told me you were having second thoughts!” 

“You’re right, I didn’t,” he said softly. “Shoko thinks I’m making a mistake because… because I’ve been in love with you since we were children.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he was reeling back, breathing ragged as his hands went to his hair, as though maybe he’d never said the words aloud. As though maybe he’d never admitted them to himself. You nearly staggered backward, too. “Please, sweetheart, just let me explain. I swear, I-”

“You’re in love with me?” you whispered. Your heart raced, hope lighting your veins aflame. Tears had been building since the conversation started. They began to run down your cheeks now, and you saw Satoru move as though he was going to come to you, to do anything to make them stop, before forcing himself to stand still. He’d always hated to see you cry.

He clenched his fists. His eyes slid shut, and the pain evident on his face was so great that you flashed, for a moment, to him waking up in that hospital bed; bindings around his wounds and tubing in his arms, oxygen mask on his face, waking so slowly, so grievously wounded that he’d asked you if he was dead.

“I would never,” he began slowly, “have made you stay.” He let that sink in before continuing, so softly that you could barely hear him. “I thought…” His voice trailed off as he sank to his knees, almost as though the words had sapped him of the strength to bear his own weight.

“I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. I tried so hard not to feel the way I felt. I know you never felt the same about me.”

Just like that, all of the pieces clicked into place. Every blank expression at every stupid joke or offhanded comment you’d made about your inevitable divorce; every flash of doubt, of disappointment in his eyes when you brought up that it was only a fake marriage; the way he’d answered Shoko, as if it hurt him to say the words; the fury he’d felt toward his parents; even the way he’d detached himself from you when your kisses had been too heated. He’d been afraid.

You began to shake your head.

Shoko thought he was making a mistake because she thought you didn’t love him. 

Because Satoru thought you didn’t love him.

He hadn’t stopped talking while your world crumbled around you.

“I thought that this was it, my chance for a little piece of all my dreams. I thought that I could have you by my side, just for a little while, that I could kiss you just once, and that it could carry me through the rest of my life.”

Your mind was spinning in a thousand directions, including a hysterical amusement. “You kissed me a lot more than once,” you whispered, a near-automated response borne of your shared sense of humor. 

Satoru let out a strangled noise. “I was selfish.” You opened your mouth to protest, to deny it, to say that you didn’t mean it like that- to tell him you loved him. But he barreled on, voice strained. 

“When you said you’d had a crush on me all those years ago, I thought ‘what if I could make her fall in love with me?’ I thought ‘this could be the rest of my life.’ And then you kissed me in the gym, and I knew that I had to try something, anything, everything. I knew that I…” He sucked in a deep breath and let out a breathless, awful, self-loathing laugh. “I thought that I couldn’t survive on just one kiss.”

He hung his head, burying his face in his hands. “Shoko knew the moment that she saw us together that I’d never told you how I felt. She figured it out so fast, I didn’t even get a chance to deny it.”

You’d unconsciously moved closer as he’d spoken. You threaded your fingers lightly through his hair and the air went out of him. He folded forward, hands coming to rest on either side of your feet.

“Please, baby, please forgive me. Shoko was right, it was unfair. It was so unfair to you. I’m so sorry.”

You tilted his head back to look up at you. He let you do it with a sharp intake of breath, gazing up at you with so much feeling that it nearly swept you off your feet.

“Please, sweetheart, say something. Anything,” he pleaded. He’d leaned forward to wrap his hands around the backs of your knees, drawing you closer to him. “Please.”

You had never in your life, ever heard Satoru beg for anything. Your heart galloped in your chest. 

“You weren’t unfair,” you whispered. You opened your mouth to say more, but he was already stuttering out more apologies as if you hadn’t spoken. If he was experiencing anything like the roaring in your ears, he probably hadn’t heard you.

“Please, please, forgive me. I’ll do anything. We can get an annulment tomorrow if you want, to hell with my parents. Just please, let me make it right. I’ll never say another word about this, not one.” He pressed his face further into your thighs, murmuring against the fabric. “I can’t be without you. I would die without you.”

Everything in your chest constricted violently. 

Of course, Satoru had a penchant for wild dramatics, making insane exaggerations out of anything and everything. A papercut was a mortal wound, a stubbed toe a shattered leg; a few degrees too warm and it was the seventh circle of hell, a few degrees too cool and it was the ninth; a runny nose might as well be a terminal illness, and boredom was just as serious.

This was not one of those exaggerations.

You didn’t want to think about a life without him, couldn’t dream of it, not even in your worst nightmares. Separating the two of you from each other was impossible, in any circumstance, in any world.

You knelt down, slotting your legs with Satoru’s, and tugged him forward by his hair. Your breaths mingled in the infinite, infinitesimal space between you, before you kissed him. The groan he let out was that of a wounded animal- pleading, haunted, and full of despair- as his hands rose to your cheeks. You could feel his restraint in the way his hands held you from coming any closer, in the way he barely moved his slack mouth, letting you kiss him. 

“Please,” he whispered again, and you could hear his heart breaking on the word. “Please don’t leave me. You can’t say goodbye to me. Not like this.”

“You idiot,” you whispered. Slowly, between kisses, you murmured, “Don’t you know I’ve been in love with you since the day we met?” Against all odds, Satoru pulled back from you, holding your face away from his between shaking hands. 

“Say it again,” he whispered, voice shot. 

“I’ve been in love with you-” And then, he’s kissing you, and there’s nothing restrained about it, and you realize just how much he must have been holding back when he’d kissed you before.

This isn’t his stunned inaction from the kiss in the gym; not the gentle exploration of your practice kissing, where it should have been obvious that he meant to memorize the way it felt; not the giddy, showy kiss from the altar and certainly not the chaste, PG kisses you’d shared throughout the reception. 

No. This kiss was all-consuming, desperate. Like Satoru meant to devour you, and maybe he did. He lapped at the inside of your lips, moaning softly. His long fingers roved over your body, pulling you closer until you gasped, and even that seemed to be not enough. 

He let out an impatient noise, low in the back of his throat, before dragging you forward and up in one fluid motion. His hands gripped you with near-bruising force, pulling you by your knees to wrap your legs around him, and then your back hit the cool glass wall of your penthouse with a dull thud.

You half gasped, half giggled through Satoru’s apologies, muffled by the incessant slide of his lips on yours. His lean, hard body pressed fully along yours, moving against you almost of its own accord. You could feel the thundering of his heart against your chest. With his hips pinning yours to the wall, he lifted one hand from its place at your waist to grip the back of your neck. 

Your hands finally, after all of the shock and movement of what was probably only the last 20 or so seconds, landed in his hair to tangle in the snowy strands. Satoru keened into your mouth, pressing even harder against you, a vibrating mass of wiry muscle and lanky elegance. You dropped one hand to squeeze at his bicep and wondered how you had ever ignored how hot your best friend was. 

The hand on the back of your neck tightened, tilting your head to deepen the kiss, allowing Satoru to stroke your tongue with his, gentle and searching and urgent all at once. The hand at your waist pulled you relentlessly forward, molding your bodies together, and you squeezed your legs to keep his hips locked against yours.

Satoru was murmuring against your lips, against the sensitive skin of your throat, against the shell of your ear, hot breath lighting your skin on fire where it touched. You caught only snatches of what he was saying, a litany of praise and pleading.

“I love you, I love you, I want you, I need you, stay with me, don’t leave me, let me please you, my wife, my wife, my perfect wife.”

Your head thumped against the wall as you tilted it back, granting him access to leave a trail of sloppy kisses from your mouth to your ear, down your throat to your collarbone, across the sheer material of your wedding gown to bite softly at your shoulder.

“Marry me,” he groaned.

You couldn’t help the airy giggle that bubbled up. “I already did.”

“Marry me for real,” he whined, breathless.

“Yes. Of course, yes.” “Yes,” he hissed, finally shifting away from your poor living room wall with you in his arms. He stumbled down the hallway, drunk on you, toward your marital bedroom, unable to stop kissing you. “I’ve been in love with you for so long that I don’t even know who I am without loving you. If I’m even a person without loving you.”

“I was so afraid that you didn’t love me the way I loved you that I spent years trying to convince myself that I didn’t love you, but I never could,” you confessed, words rushing out, and Satoru let out a sob against your throat.

“I could never not love you,” he groaned. “Never in a million years, not in any life. I have wanted you…”

He bit the sentence off, stumbling as his knees hit the bed. He lowered you reverently to the plush duvet with an arm braced above your head, kisses slowing and softening as he stroked your cheek. “I’ve always wanted to marry you,” he murmured. “I’ve wanted you for so…” He trailed off, trembling as your hands slid up beneath his shirt to trace the lithe muscles of his back, and nuzzled behind your ear. He moaned brokenly. “Tell me if I’m moving too fast,” he whispered. “Tell me if you want to stop.”

You traced your hands down his sides, revelling as he panted in your ear. You raised your knees to stroke his thighs, his hips, before wrapping your legs slowly, deliberately around his slim waist, locking your heels at the small of his back. He took a great, shuddering breath, instinctively bending toward you when you raised your hands to shuck off his tuxedo jacket. Your fingers danced up to unbutton his vest before moving to his shirt, torturously slowly. You forced yourself to take your time, forced yourself not to yank and hope that the buttons would fly off like in some cheesy rom-com.

By the time you finished, you almost worried that Satoru would shake apart above you. He looked absolutely ruined; jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut, a euphoric pain painted across every feature. You let your eyes rove his beautiful body, tracing scars with sight and touch alike until you reached the waistband of his trousers. All of the breath went out of him in a loud whoosh, and he dropped the hand stroking your face to the mattress to stop himself from crushing you. His eyes snapped open, a brilliant, dark turquoise nearly eclipsed by shimmering black. His mouth hung open, lust and love and disbelief warring as he frantically searched your face.

You crooked a tiny smile at him, and then leaned up until your lips brushed his. “I don’t want to stop.” He whined, surging forward to kiss you, grinding his hips down to yours with delicious pressure. “I think… we’ve waited… long enough,” you panted between kisses.

Oftentimes, Satoru couldn’t shut up. You’d been friends for so long that his incessant chatter ceased to phase you in the slightest. But you’d never heard him talk so much.

Any time his smart mouth wasn’t occupied with you, it was running. He alternated between babbling praise and incoherent adoration and begging you, though for what, you couldn’t be sure, since he was, by his own distraught admissions, getting everything he’d ever wanted, dreamed of, hoped for, waited for. He couldn’t seem to stop, and it stoked your ego in ways you’d never known you’d wanted, never imagined could turn you on so much.

And despite his obvious anguish, despite the delicious agony it took to exert his control, despite fifteen or more years of never daring to hope, or perhaps because of that, he put you first just like he always did, following only once he was satisfied that you had been, too.

——————————————————————

It hadn’t been the wedding night you’d expected- as far from traditional as it was from the plan- but you wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, no matter how it had come about. 

In the watery sunlight, you rolled to face your husband. Husband. He loosened his grip to let you, hand coming to rest on your bare hip as you settled to face him. His eyes bored into yours, sharp and bright as a storm.

“Hey,” you whispered.

“Hey,” he replied, and the low rumble of his voice sent a shiver of pleasure down your spine and straight between your aching thighs.

You reached up, carding your hands through his hair, and marvelled at the way his eyes fluttered closed. He was like putty beneath your touch. He turned to kiss your palm, drawing your hand down to cover his heart. He stared at you intensely.

“Tell me I’m not dreaming,” he murmured.

You raised one eyebrow in amusement. “That’d be some dream.”

“Best dream of my life.” He pulled you flush against him, pressing his lips to yours and sliding his tongue across your teeth, morning breath be damned. “Be better if it never ended.” He kissed from the corner of your mouth across your jaw, to that sensitive spot behind your ear. “Be best if it wasn’t a dream at all.”

You gripped his neck, pulling him closer, drowning in him. “It’s not a dream,” you whispered.

“Thank goodness,” he groaned. He rolled over to pin you to the bed, hands coming up to lace his fingers with yours. “I am so in love with you.” He traced your rings with one finger, lips spreading in a sleepy, adoring smile. “My beautiful wife.”

You giggled, face splitting in an uncontrollable smile, and leaned up to kiss him. “And I am so in love with you.” Another kiss as you stroked his ring in return. “My handsome husband.” And if the curve of his lips against your jaw and the movement of his body against yours was anything to go by, you were about to be shown how in love with you he was all over again.

Yeah, you could get used to this.

[nightingale-ghost-writer]

Some things can only be cultivated under pretenses [Satoru Gojo x Fem! Reader]

Summary: You were eight years old again, hiding from Satoru's parents in his treehouse. "Then you can marry me, silly!" You sat bolt upright. "Marry me!"

Author's Notes: My first ever anime/manga fic, 17.1K words of fake dating/friends to lovers/idiots to lovers that no one asked for!! The fic practically wrote itself. If you’re reading, I hope you enjoy it! Being an American, my knowledge of Japanese language and culture is quite slim. The Japanese honorifics and nicknames I’ve used are meant to be affectionate, but I realize that the relationships themselves may have quite an American slant. I did my best, but if you notice anything off or out of line, please let me know so I can fix it!

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or events from Jujutsu Kaisen

Warnings/tags: non-cursed AU, best friend! Satoru Gojo, fake marriage, friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, fluff, angst, VERY suggestive content, language, minor character death(s) (past, mentioned), mention of (medical) drug usage, spoilers for/references to episodes 25-29/chapters 65-79, not beta’d!

You’re half asleep in the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the window when you hear a key turn in the door. Groggily, you sit up and rub your eyes, picking up your phone. 

“Babe? You home?”

You’ve got a missed text from Satoru that probably explains his otherwise unannounced arrival at your apartment. 

“In here,” you call, yawning. His snowy head pokes through the doorway and, despite the wide grin plastered on his face, you can tell something is wrong. 

“Sorry to wake you. Are you hungry? I brought ramen.” He’s disappeared into your kitchen but, despite this fabulous announcement, he comes right back around the corner to throw himself dramatically onto the opposite corner of your couch. 

Something is definitely wrong.

“Satoru?” You lean forward to touch his elbow, but he throws the arm over his eyes. He mutters something you don’t quite catch. “Say again?”

“It’s finally happened!” he shouts, though the sound is muffled by the hands he’s moved to cover his face. The same hands fly up as his head flies back, long legs kicking up to land on your coffee table with a loud bang. He turns to you with a wild, sarcastic smile. “My parents want me married, and by the end of the year. Or else I forfeit any rights to the family business, the house, my apartment, everything else.”

“Oh, Toru,” you breathe. You feel your heart lodge in the back of your throat before dropping to the ground with a dull thump. He shrugs, not meeting your gaze. 

“It doesn’t matter. I can sign over The Amanai Project to Nanami, go back to the Jujutsu Corporation…” But his voice trails off against his will and you’re already shaking your head. 

He’d started at the Jujutsu Corporation, a private security company, straight out of university. It’d been good for him- structure and discipline, and a new best friend you’d spent years convincing yourself you weren’t jealous of. You and Satoru hadn’t lost touch, but there were huge gaps in your days where he should have been. Until that new best friend called you from the hospital after a job gone wrong. 

Satoru had been hurt, badly. Multiple stab wounds, vicious and tearing. He still had scars from shoulder to hip, and a small one on his forehead from the butt of a gun.

Suguru hadn’t seen it happen; he’d watched their charge die. A bullet to the brain. Quick and clean, unlike the shooter. Satoru had sliced him up before collapsing in a pool of his own blood. 

When he woke up, he was different. 

You’d worried you’d lost him for good, for different reasons than the wounds, for months. Barely eating, hardly sleeping, withdrawn and absent. Suguru told you that at the girl’s funeral, carrying Riko Amanai’s corpse, Satoru had asked why they didn’t kill the whole family who’d ordered the execution. 

Suguru had disappeared not long after, and despite getting your best friend back, you still didn’t quite know why. You didn’t want to bring it up. 

You shuddered, remembering how… hollow Satoru had been after the entire incident. Your other friends had wanted you to drop him, offended for your sake that he’d let your friendship slide in the first place, but you’d remained steadfast. Long nights spent holding him, stroking his hair; long days of pulling him gently up to walk, of coaxing him to eat when he had no interest in it; even stripping him down to his boxers to shoulder him into his ridiculously fancy shower, washing his hair in your bathing suit until he halfheartedly pushed you out to wash himself. 

He’d been a shell, until he hadn’t. You’d shown up after work, armed with takeout and romcoms, and he’d been gone. You’d panicked, calling Suguru, who didn’t pick up, calling the housekeeper his mother had hired in an effort to keep you away, nearly breaking down and calling his mother. Then he’d barrelled through the door, smiling wide enough to showcase those tiny dimples, gushing about the non-profit he was going to start and the teenagers who’d inspired it. 

You sucked in a sharp breath. 

“You could lose The Amanai Project.”

He nodded slowly, not meeting your horrified stare. 

“That’s why I’d go back to Juju-”

“No,” you hissed. You weren’t prepared for the hopeless look he turned on you. He loved The Amanai Project, he loved the teenagers he worked with. He reached forward, clutching both of your hands in his tightly.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” he pleaded. And then you were eight years old again, hiding from Satoru’s parents in his treehouse. 

“They said.”

“Grown-ups always say.”

“What if they make me?”

“They can’t make you!”

He looked at you, much too seriously for an eight year old.

“They made my dad marry my mom. They’ll make me marry someone, too. And then what am I supposed to do?” He crossed his arms, pouting, and grumbled “Don’t wanna get married.”

You grabbed his little hand with your own, beaming with all of the sincerity and cleverness of a child.

“Then you can marry me, silly.”

You sat bolt upright. 

“Marry me!” you half-shouted. At Satoru’s flinch back, you apologized softly and lowered your voice. “Marry me,” you repeated. You leaned forward, excitement brewing at the ingenuity of such a simple plan. “We can get married for however long it takes to cement your place in the family business and then get a divorce.” You squeezed his hands. “Whaddya say?”

Satoru spluttered a bit, pulling his hands back to run them through his hair- a nervous habit you hadn’t seen him make since childhood. “Babe, you shouldn’t- we can’t just- I can’t ask you to-”

“You’re not asking me for anything, I offered! Besides, think of all the fun we could have. It’d be just like our sleepovers from when we were kids.” A strange look had crossed Satoru’s face, hesitation and something like pain. You sat a little straighter, feeling heat rise to your cheeks. “U-unless you don’t want to, of course. I just, I thought-”

“It’s a good idea,” he interrupted. He was focused on your hands, intertwined now in your lap. He spoke slowly, measured and thoughtful. “I just don’t want… you know how my parents can be. And what if…” He grimaced. “What if you find someone you want to be with? I don’t want to stand in your way.”

You waved this off airily. “Oh, Toru, you’ll always be part of my life. If I find someone, they’ll just have to accept the situation. Besides, there’s no reason I can’t see someone else, so long as I’m careful. It’s not like we’ll really be married.”

Satoru stood abruptly, pacing to the other side of the room, one hand raised to his chin. He stood, silent, for a long moment. You opened your mouth to say something to fill the suddenly charged space between you, but then he spoke. 

“Let me think about it.” And then in a blink, he was gone, takeout forgotten on your countertop, leaving you to blink in the void created by his absence. 

——————————————————————

The silence lasted about as long as you’d expected it would. Satoru came crashing into your apartment bright and early the next morning, singing your name. You groaned, rolling over to pick up your phone. 6:48. 

You were going to kill him. 

“Satoru Gojo!” you yelled, pulling the covers over your head. You heard him skip down the hallway and into your room. If he noticed that you’d used his full name, it didn’t deter him a bit. He flung himself down beside you, dragging you onto his chest, blankets and all. 

“My future wife!” he crooned, kissing your covered cheek. “How did you sleep?”

“It’s not even seven.”

���You didn’t answer my question.”

You fumbled the blankets off your head, baring your face to the weak sunlight coming in through the open window. “How am I supposed to know how I slept when it’s so early?” You rubbed at your eyes while Satoru laughed heartily, making himself comfortable on your mountain of pillows. You paused. “Did you say future wife?”

His smile widened as he sat up, shifting you from your live body pillow. “Well, yeah. That is if the offer still stands.” He twisted himself off the bed to kneel on the floor, turning you to face him all in one smooth motion. Now he held up a small, black velvet box, which he opened the moment he had your full attention. 

A stunning engagement ring glittered up at you, catching all of the light in the room and beaming it upward through the diamond in the center. 

You blanched. 

“Satoru, what is this? This must have cost a fortune-”

“Easy,” he chuckled, setting the box aside to slide the ring onto your left hand. A perfect fit. “If we’re gonna be married, we’re gonna have to put on a good show. Starting with a beautiful ring worthy of the most beautiful woman in the world.” You hadn’t said a word, dumbstruck as you gazed down at your hand. Satoru spoke more softly now. “What do you think?”

“I think you picked my dream ring,” you breathed. He beamed up at you. 

“So does that mean yes?”

“What?” You looked at him sharply, at the hopeful expression he’d turned up to you. “Of course yes, you dork. Remember that this was my idea?”

Satoru launched himself up, bearing you backward onto the bed with his arms around you. “Yay!” he squealed, and then he was kissing your cheek and nuzzling the side of your neck. “I promise to be a good husband,” he mumbled. 

You laughed, somewhat breathless. “I wasn’t worried about it.”

You felt his smile curl up against your neck while he squeezed you impossibly tighter. “You were right, we’re gonna have so much fun.”

You were gasping now, struggling to breathe beneath his weight and in his tight grip. “Toru, can’t breathe.”

He let you go with a soft “oops”, shimmying over to lay beside you with his head propped up on one hand. His eyes shone with something you couldn’t quite place, lips curled in a gentle smile as his cerulean gaze trailed lazily over your face. He finally settled on your eyes, sharing the tranquil moment with you before leaping up. 

“Oh! I almost forgot!” He careened out of your room and down the hall into your kitchen, returning a moment later with a sly grin. “Close your eyes,” he sing-songed. 

“Close m-?”

“Close ‘em, woman!”

With a dramatic sigh, you did. If you hadn’t felt the slight dip in your mattress, you might not have known he’d come back until you felt his hand trace your knee lightly. “Open,” he whispered. 

Your vision was flooded with white and green; Satoru held out a colossal bouquet of white roses and eucalyptus, tied with a fat black ribbon. 

Your jaw dropped. 

Satoru straightened in pleasure. “See, I told you I’d be a good husband!” he crowed. 

You swatted at him playfully before taking the roses out of his hands. “Satoru, you know I don’t need all this.”

He gave you a deadpan look. “I have never, never seen any boyfriend spoil you before. I think it’s time someone did.”

You snorted. “You’re gonna ruin me for all other men if you keep it up.”

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he looked pleased by that. But before you could analyze the thought, he reached a hand out to you. 

“My lady.”

You laughed out loud, but took the proffered hand and slid out of bed, letting him lead you down the hall. You felt your jaw drop again when you stepped into the kitchen to see a silver tray laid out on your tiny dining table, laden with pastries and fresh fruit and a steaming pot of coffee. 

“Consider me ruined,” you mumbled, beelining for the coffee to the sound of Satoru’s raucous laughter. You smiled to yourself, and over your shoulder at him. 

This would be fun. 

——————————————————————

Reality set in slowly over the course of the next few days, for both of you.

Satoru’s parents were furious, as expected, but enough to call you directly, which was not. After all, they had always refused to acknowledge your existence, as though hoping you might disappear entirely if they ignored you for long enough.

“We know that you’ve always had a bit of trouble staying away, dear, but we had never quite expected this, this…”

“Devotion, ma’am?”

“Parasitic behavior from you!”

Ouch. 

“I assure you, Gojo-sama, I’m not marrying your son for money. As you know, we’ve always been close. I’ve always loved him.” All true, as you’d agreed the story should be. The only lie in it lay in the implication of one, tiny word. 

If anyone was close enough to spot it, it certainly wouldn’t be his parents. 

All the same, his mother groaned and his father scoffed in the background. The elder Gojo’s voice was muffled by distance when he said “Of course she has, but I’d expected Satoru, at least, to outgrow it by now.”

What?

You weren’t given an opportunity to question it, though. Satoru’s mother dismissed you, something about “being in touch” soon. Whatever that meant. 

You sat for several long moments, puzzling over that last comment. Outgrow what? His parents couldn’t possibly mean that he’d been in love with you, you would have known. Certainly, you’d had a crush on Satoru for years- your first and most long-standing crush, at that. That must be what they meant. He must’ve had a childhood infatuation, as well. Nothing more. 

You shook yourself, content to be back on solid footing, and dialed Satoru’s number by heart. He picked up on the third ring, yelling to one of the teenagers he was training, before greeting you warmly. When you relayed the conversation with his parents, minus that strange comment from his father, you could feel the waves of rage rolling off him through the phone. 

“They called you a parasite!?” he shouted, and you heard his students drop their voices to whispers. 

“Parasitic, not a parasite.”

“Oh, don’t you bullshit semantics with me,” he seethed. “How dare they, who do they think they are to talk to you that way? I won’t stand for this. They owe you an apology.” You tried to cut in, to reassure him that you were less bothered than you were, in truth, but his tirade went on without any sign of stopping. You could hear him put his phone down, still swearing and half-shouting to himself. You heard something that sounded suspiciously like wood cracking, heard him pick up his phone again, heard the bell on the gym door opening. 

“Satoru!” you shouted. 

“What!?” he shouted back. You waited patiently as he drew in a deep breath. More calmly, he repeated himself. “What?”

“Don’t give them the satisfaction.”

He was angry enough to sputter, his usual cool, smooth speech long-gone. “They can’t talk to you that way! You’re going to be my wife!”

“Fake wife,” you muttered, half amused and half touched by the vehemence of his outburst. 

“That doesn’t matter. You’ve been my best friend forever. It has to stop!”

You sighed. “You know that they’ll only think I’m a whiny, sniveling leech if you say anything.” He was silent, and you could tell from the steady hum of traffic that he’d finally stopped walking. “Go back to your kids.”

“They’re not my kids.” The reply was automatic, an old joke between the two of you about his students. You heard him start walking again, and a moment later, the bell on the door jingled again. 

You heard the students perk up, clamoring and calling to him. 

“Gojo! Is everything okay?” Yuji Itadori, a selfless orphan with reflexes almost as sharp as Satoru’s. Quick to protect anyone and everyone around him. Heart of gold, worn proudly on his sleeve for all to see. 

“Where do you think you’re going? Were you just going to leave us here?” Nobara Kugisaki, a spitfire girl who masked every insecurity with arrogance to rival Satoru’s, though she hadn’t mastered his admirable level of control. 

“What crawled up your ass?” Megumi Fushiguro. You didn’t like to pick favorites, but you couldn’t pretend you didn’t hold a special fondness for him. Unflappable, unshakable. Level-headed and calculating. He reminded you of Satoru the most. Maybe that’s why you liked him best. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, the gym would collapse without me in it. Get back to work.” There he was, all smooth edges and silken confidence. Like nothing ever happened. To you, he grumbled, “This isn’t over.”

Once upon a time, you’d believed that nothing could get under his skin. In all your years of friendship, you’d never seen him lose his temper until after the incident. Even since, it was a rare occurrence, but you’d quickly learned how to reel him back. You breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Not over, but over for now. 

——————————————————————

One thing you hadn’t put much thought into was telling your parents. They reacted about as you’d expected, though- thrilled to be welcoming their bonus child to the family in an official capacity, “after all these years”. 

“Oh, hime, how wonderful! He’s such a sweet boy. I’ll come dress shopping with you!”

Your heart twinged with guilt. Your mother would be heartbroken when you inevitably divorced a year or two down the road. 

“Maybe we should tell them,” mused Satoru. He tilted his head back to look up from your lap. “What are the chances that they’ll ever talk to my parents? Or tell anyone else? They can keep a secret.”

You shook your head slowly, focused on a point somewhere past where your fingers threaded through his soft hair. “I think they’d be more heartbroken to hear that we aren’t really in love.”

When Satoru didn’t say anything, you looked down at him. He was staring at you with an expression you couldn’t read, eyes darkening to a rich turquoise. He’d reached up to loop his hand loosely around your wrist without you noticing, stroking the sensitive skin over your pulse. Something about the look in his eyes had you suddenly incapable of thinking of anything but his father’s strange statement. 

“I’d expected Satoru, at least, to outgrow it by now.”

You swallowed, hard, scrambling for some way to ask without making everything incredibly awkward. You knew you were just friends. Hearing him say it would settle it once and for all. 

“Right,” Satoru drawled. He sat up, rising from the couch. “Better to tell them marriage just wasn’t what we thought.”

Somehow, somewhere, you’d made a wrong turn in this conversation. You weren’t sure what had happened, but something wasn’t right. You were getting to your feet when Satoru turned in the doorway, smirking with that wild spark in his ridiculously blue eyes. 

“You probably shouldn’t say it to your parents, but you can tell anyone else who asks that I couldn’t keep up with your appetite.” His smile only widened when you tilted your head in confusion. “Sexually.”

Your mouth dropped open on a gasp of his name, blood flooding your cheeks. His laughter was pealing off your hallway walls by the time you thought to throw the cushion in your hands. It bounced harmlessly off the wall, falling lightly to the floor. 

You sprinted down the hallway, raining your fists down on Satoru’s turned back as he laughed, before jumping up and locking one arm around his neck. You used the other to ruffle his hair as he instinctively took hold of your thighs, giving you just enough height to lean over his shoulder and bite the lobe of his ear gently. 

You were the one laughing uncontrollably, now, but you didn’t miss his sharp intake of breath or the way he tensed within your hold. Interesting. You tucked that away with every intention of examining it later. 

“That’s it!” His voice was slightly hoarse as he spun, racing across the hall to your living room. You shrieked as he wheeled this way and that, his strong grip the only thing keeping you secured to his back. He turned and abruptly released his hold on you, sending you tumbling back onto your couch in a cacophony of giggles. 

He turned a smug smile on you. “And with that, no dinner for wifey.”

You let out an indignant squawk, scrambling down the hall after him. Despite his threats, he was spoon-feeding you miso soup within minutes, smiling wide as you stuck out your tongue. 

“I’m not telling anyone that,” you muttered. 

Satoru nodded sagely. “You’re right, can’t go tarnishing my reputation.”

You let out a loud, undignified guffaw of laughter. “Reputation? You?”

Satoru pulled back indignantly. “You think I don’t have a reputation?” You leveled him with your blankest stare, but he stared right back, one eyebrow quirked up. You found yourself crumbling first, suddenly unsure of yourself. “You have a reputation?”

That broke his stoicism. He cracked a wide grin, looking down to stir his dinner. “Nah, just wanted to watch you squirm.” You both smiled, shoving each other playfully from across the table. 

“I’m sure there have been… people though, right?”

Satoru’s head snapped up, eyes almost comically wide in some combination of shock and… nerves?

“What?” he rasped. You caught him with a mouthful of miso – he was probably trying not to choke.

“I mean I’m sure there have been girls, or boys…” you trailed off at the puzzled expression he wore. But now that you’d thought about it, you’d never seen him with anyone, not since high school.

“How did you know I’m bi?”

Not the question you’d been expecting.

“Satoru,” you deadpanned. “Do you remember when you got caught kissing Yoshio Kiyama under the bleachers in sixth grade?”

A faint blush rose in his pale cheeks. “Oh, right.”

“Yeah, genius, I’m the one who found you?” You started laughing, memories of your eleven year-old self bubbling to the surface. “I remember I was so disappointed, but then you asked out Akiko Hoshino for the school dance and I-” You stopped speaking abruptly, horrified at your partial admission, and prayed to the gods that Satoru wouldn’t notice. 

Of course where the gods were concerned, Satoru would always find favor. 

You swore you could see his ears perk up. “Disappointed, huh?”

“I didn’t mean to say that,” you mumbled. 

“Oh no no, you’re not getting out of this one.” He stood, coming around to your side of the table and pulling you up. Then he sat in your chair, dragging you unceremoniously down onto his lap. “Disappointed why?”

You threw your hands up in exasperation, turning your face away. “Because I had a crush on you, Satoru! We were eleven years old and I had a crush and I thought you only liked boys and so I was disappointed that I wouldn’t have a chance with you. But then you asked out Akiko Hoshino, so then I knew that you liked boys and girls.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And then you pined away for me for the month that I dated Akiko, right?” he crooned, obviously delighted. 

You scoffed, but felt your throat closing slightly. “No, then I got over you.”

Satoru’s jaw dropped. “That fast, huh?”

“Yeah, it was pretty quick.”

He released you in favor of clapping his hands to his heart, head thrown back.

“My darling wife, you wound me so!” he cried. You laughed, tapping your ring finger.

“That’s fiancé to you, I’m not your wife yet.”

He sat back up, grinning. “Soon enough.” His cerulean eyes glittered in a way that sparked something deep inside you, excitement and anticipation lighting in your veins. 

“Two,” he murmured. 

You blinked. “Two what?”

“Two people.” He reached up to smooth a stray hair from your face, a gesture so tender that your breath caught. “One boy, one girl. And now, you.”

“Well, sort of.” You meant to be teasing, but it came out shakier than you meant. What was happening to you?

And there was that unreadable expression, paired with the slightest of smiles. “Yeah, sort of.”

——————————————————————

“I don’t think you’re supposed to get to see the dress.”

Satoru whines from the other end of the phone. “Why nooot? I’m paying for it, aren’t I?”

Despite your mother’s wish to come dress shopping with you, she’d been unable to make the journey. Despite his protests, she couldn’t bear to leave your father alone. He needed her too much after his accident; slow and unsteady on his best days, bedridden on his worst. So you’d settled on FaceTime instead. Now the four of you were on a call together- you, your parents, and Satoru- as you made your way down the busy Tokyo street to your car.

“You know I don’t actually have the dress with me, right?” you said wryly. Satoru’s confused outburst blended with your mother‘s tinkling laughter, tugging at the little girl deep under your skin. You felt your lips curve up in an involuntary smile.

“Patience, bocchan. You’ll see her on your wedding day.”

“That’s so far, though!” whined Satoru.

“It’s only another month, my dear! So eager.” You heard your father chuckling in the background, making some muffled statement about your parents’ traditional, long engagement. Your mother murmured something sweet back to him, but when she spoke into the phone again, her voice was filled with mischief. “Are you sure you’re not pregnant, hime?”

“M-mother!” you sputtered. On the other end, Satoru howled with laughter. All the same, he composed himself much more quickly than you. 

“Okan, no. That would be impossible. I’ve been a perfect gentleman! Besides, we’re not even living together. 

“Oh!” Your mother seemed genuinely surprised. “Well no, I suppose neither of you have said that you are. I see that I simply assumed…”

“Actually, we haven’t discussed the living situation yet.” You leapt on the opportunity to change the subject, still trying to get your breathing under control. For some reason you couldn’t quite pin down, your mother‘s joke had left your heart racing long after the shock should’ve worn off.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make either of you uncomfortable, we’re just so exc-”

You and Satoru cut her off simultaneously, talking over each other to assure her that she hadn’t.

“We’ll just move into your place, right babe?”

You stopped walking. “Satoru, why would we move into my shitty apartment when yours is twice the size?”

“Because your place is so much cozier!” 

Then there was an almighty crash and Satoru began swearing. A moment later, after making his apologies to your mother, he was saying he loved you and hanging up. Your heart raced a bit, even as you giggled with your mother over “his kids”.

As you walked up to your car, you heard your father ask for a glass of water. “Oh, dear, look at the time. I’m sorry my darling, but I need to go. I have to leave now if I want to get to the bank before it closes, and then I have to go to the shops, and then I have to make dinner…”

You smiled to yourself, sliding behind the wheel of your beaten old sedan. “Have a good night, mama. I’ll talk to you soon.”

You turned the key in the ignition and looked at your watch. Satoru’s class would be ending soon. You could spend that time doing errands, washing your car, or even tidying up your apartment. But you felt lazy and lightweight and you hadn’t seen the kids in some time. 

With a smile, you drove to the juice shop you and Satoru liked, ordering the too-sweet strawberry smoothie he loved and something new for yourself to try. After only a second’s hesitation, you picked out an assortment of treats, putting everything on Satoru’s card. Today, for the kids, you’d let him spoil you. 

Arms filled with sweets and smoothies, you managed to get from the shop to your car and your car to The Amanai Project. The gym was housed in a metal and concrete building on the border of one of the poorer neighborhoods in the city. Posters advertising free self-defense classes, public safety seminars, and charity races papered the windows beside a much more understated plaque offering pro bono legal counsel for kids victimized by violent crime.

Every time you came here, you couldn’t squelch the feeling of your heart growing several sizes. You were just trying to decide how best to manage the door when it swung open. Kento Nanami, Satoru’s somewhat business partner and the lawyer offering his services, held it wide and nodded a greeting as you shimmied through. 

“Thanks, Nanami. How are you?”

“I’d be better if I didn’t have to deal with that crazy man,” he grumbled, and you couldn’t help but laugh. “I hear congratulations are in order, though.”

Startled, you felt heat rise to your cheeks. “O-oh, yes, thank you so much!”

He nodded again, turning to step through the doorway, but paused. “You’re good for him, and you’ll be good for each other.” With that, he turned again and left you staring at the swinging door. That was as much a speech as you’d ever heard out of Nanami, but you didn’t have time to digest it. 

Kugisaki shrieked your name, abandoning her training to race across the room to you. Her squeals drew the attention of everyone else in the room, too. Itadori looked up from where he stood patching a hole in the wall, dropping the putty knife he was wielding into a can of spackle, and made to run toward you before Satoru’s sharp voice cut him off. 

“Itadori!”

“Aww, Gojo, I’ll fix it in a second!”

You giggled at the interaction. Clearly, the source of the sound Satoru had hung up for. 

Fushiguro nodded politely at you from his place in the ring, taking advantage of your arrival to gulp down a bottle of water. 

And then there was the man himself, lifting the blindfold he used when he sparred- “to help him hone his senses”. His eyes looked bluer than ever against the black and white contrast of material and hair. He smiled when he saw you, looking surprised but immeasurably pleased. 

Then Kugisaki was shoveling everything out of your arms, extending her hands to grasp yours. “Let’s see this ring!”

At that, Itadori did drop the putty knife, tuning Satoru’s warnings out with admirable success. Even Fushiguro sauntered over, hands tucked into his pockets, to lean down. You locked eyes with Satoru, cheeks warming under the kids’ attention.

Kugisaki and Itadori took turns bouncing on the balls of their feet, shrieking, alternating between hugging you and each other. Fushiguro studied the ring and then turned back to the ring, tossing a genuinely impressed “Nice job, Gojo” over his shoulder. Satoru sidled up to you, snaking an arm around your waist to draw you close enough that he could kiss your cheek. 

He was still smiling at you when Itadori shouted. “Hey Gojo, what was that? You gotta kiss her for real!”

Satoru whirled. “What!?”

“Yeah, kiss her for real!” squealed Kugisaki. She and Itadori swatted at each other in excitement, eyes glued to you and Satoru.

He pointed menacingly at them both. “You little pervs-”

“You can’t shut up about her all day, and now that she’s here you won’t even kiss her?” You laughed at the deadpan stare Fushiguro gave his teacher, highly amused by the entire ordeal.

With a rush of boldness, you grasped Satoru’s collar, turning him to face you, and pulled him down to your mouth. A bolt of electricity shot through you when your lips touched, and if Satoru’s muffled gasp was any indication, he wasn’t unaffected either. The kiss was brief, a slide of lips that was over much too soon, and then you were releasing him. You heard Kugisaki squealing, a loud clap as Itadori and Fushiguro high-fived each other, their thrilled chatter; it all faded to the background as you looked at Satoru.

Eyes half-lidded, color high in his cheeks, he seemed unable to catch his breath. He stood, still bent to your height, staring at your lips. You felt heat rising in your own cheeks, boldness entirely dissipated as you wondered whether you’d crossed some line or other. His tongue darted out to swipe his lips. The tittering in the background was quickly dying. You’d expected Satoru to have some ready quip, to turn and showboat for his students. It was becoming increasingly obvious that you’d have to be the one to act.

Thinking fast, you reached over to the counter where Kugisaki had dumped the haul you’d brought, fumbling a smoothie into Satoru’s frozen hands. You pasted a smile on and patted his cheek, turning to the collection of treats.

“Alright, you hooligans, I brought something for you. Courtesy of Gojo Sensei.” 

The boisterous sounds of teenagers started up just as quickly as they’d stopped, with Itadori and Kugisaki fighting over who got first pick of the sweets. Fushiguro waited patiently for the other two to dispense with their theatrics, picking up a sweet roll with a quiet word of thanks. You waved it off as you raised your smoothie to your lips, flinching when you tasted how overwhelmingly sweet it was. You turned to find Satoru standing behind you, holding out your smoothie. Besides a slight dusting of pink across the tops of his cheeks, he seemed entirely composed again. 

“Sorry,” you murmured, trading cups with him.

He quirked an eyebrow at you as he raised his smoothie to his mouth. Slowly, deliberately, he licked the side of his straw, finally drawing it into his mouth. He took several long swallows, holding your gaze unwaveringly as he did. Something about the action seemed intimate, provocative, and it was heating your insides. What on earth was happening to you?

“Oh, please.” His voice was lower than usual, husky. “Don’t be.”

——————————————————————

For once, you wound up at Satoru’s apartment. He’d walked you to your car, only half a lot away from his, only to find that it wouldn’t start. Why drive across town to your place, only to need a ride back in the morning to meet the tow truck, when you could simply stay the night with him? You had your laptop, there was no reason you couldn’t work from his home office the next day while he was away at family business meetings.

As he unlocked the front door, you tried to remember the last time you’d been here, rather than having him over to your shabby, cramped shoebox. You never could quite put your finger on why, but he loved your place. Cozy, he’d called it. And you guessed it was, in comparison.

He flipped on the light, the sound echoing down the hall, and stepped over the threshold, gesturing for you to step inside. You toed off your shoes, padding through the house to the kitchen. Satoru followed, stripping off his jacket and the blindfold he’d been wearing like a headband.

“I don’t think there’s much in the fridge, but we can order takeout. You remember where the menus are?”

“Of course.” You opened the right-most drawer in the island, withdrawing a stack of takeout menus with a grin.

Satoru grinned right back. “Order whatever you want, pick something good for me. I’m going to take a shower real quick.” You hummed as he dropped his wallet on the counter, thumbing through the worn pages before you.

When Satoru had first moved into this apartment, his mother had hired a maid and a chef. Only the best for her precious son, you thought wryly. Satoru hadn’t been having it. He’d been polite to them, of course, but kept an impeccable house with nothing for the maid to clean, and ordered takeout every night, leaving the chef’s meals untouched in the refrigerator before insisting she take them home herself. When his mother had shown up to scold him, he’d listened patiently to her lecture and then promptly changed the locks. 

You grinned at the memory, but it was short-lived. Your thoughts drifted to the time after he’d come home from the hospital, silent and uninterested in food, keeping a clean house, or anything else. His mother had hired a housekeeper again, insisting that your presence was unnecessary. In spite of her cold words and colder attitude, you’d stuck around, trying to get Satoru to take an interest in… anything.

He’d lost so much weight in those months.

You shook yourself out of your spiraling thoughts. Whatever had prompted him, he’d bought the gym for The Amanai Project, sent the housekeeper home with her next month’s pay, a bouquet of flowers, and his thanks, and changed the locks all in one day.

His mother had been furious.

That thought made you smile, despite yourself.

You heard the shower start, picked a menu at random, and called the number. You ordered enough sushi to feed a small army- an assortment of maki and uramaki rolls, nigiri, sashimi, miso soup, and two servings of deep-fried bananas- and smiled when you opened Satoru’s wallet to a picture of the two of you.

You made a circuit of the apartment while you waited. It looked just like it had the last time you’d been here, neat and bare. You walked into the home office, the only room with any personality, and smied at the photos scattered over the walls and shelves. You and Satoru as children, as teenagers at prom together, beaming together on the day you’d both graduated university; photos of him standing with his parents and grandparents, more serious than you were used to seeing him; and then, another photo, tucked behind several others. You stopped to pick it up.

Satoru, Shoko, and Suguru sat in a line, all beaming at the camera. Satoru’s arm reached around Shoko’s back, hand resting on Suguru’s shoulder. You could hardly see his eyes behind the dark glasses he wore, but you thought his eyes might’ve been on Suguru.

You swallowed back a painful lump in your throat. You’d lied when you said your crush on Satoru had been over quickly. It had lasted well into your teenage years, only abating when you assumed Suguru had taken your place as his best friend. Tall, handsome, charming Suguru with his smooth voice, soft smile, and never putting up with Satoru’s shit. That was until he disappeared, right when Satoru became a shell.

You knew the events were related, but you’d never found the courage to ask. Now, looking at this photo, you wondered what had happened to him. You wondered what had happened to Shoko, too. You knew she and Satoru still spoke from time to time, but they’d been closer before. Jealousy pricked at your heart before you stomped it ruthlessly out.

It had been a silly crush, nothing more. You were best friends. That was everything you wanted, everything you needed, and more than you could say for the other two.

You scolded yourself for being uncharitable, returning the picture frame to its place on the shelf before stalking from the office to Satoru’s bedroom.

The bed was perfectly made, unrumpled and unslept in. You realized with a jolt that the last time you’d been in his bedroom had been during those awful months, two years ago. You scowled lightly, turning back to the living room, and noticed for the first time that the larger couch looked slightly rumpled, with a throw blanket haphazardly hanging from the back- the only item out of place in the whole apartment.

In the bathroom, the tap turned off. You darted out of the bedroom, opting to sit at the kitchen island, watching the city lights from the picture window. It couldn’t have been more than two minutes before you could feel Satoru behind you, even though you hadn’t heard him approach. 

When you turned, he was smiling softly at you. 

“Have you been sleeping on the couch?”

You knew you’d shocked him by the smile he flipped up. “Whaaat? No, of course no-”

“Toru.”

He glares at you, but doesn’t answer. He’s saved by the doorbell, which he bolts to answer. 

You let out a breath, turning to the fridge to get drinks. You pull out two bottles of tea, along with a glass and a container of honey for Satoru. He’s laying out your feast, eyes pointedly on the food. 

You decide not to push the issue. For now. 

“I left some clothes for you in the bathroom,” he says. 

“Thank you,” you hum. “I’ll shower as soon as we’re done here.”

He hums in return, mouth already filled with food, then swallows. “Sorry about the kids,” he says. 

You grin. “Sorry for rocking your world.”

A strange look passes over his features, and when he speaks, you get the feeling that he’s not saying what he had intended to. “Oh, sweetheart, you’re not that good.” The words drip with his customary, good-natured arrogance, complete with the full-blown smirk you’ve only ever seen on him. He winks, making you laugh, but there’s some tiny part of you that’s oddly wounded by this. 

He’s returned his focus to his meal, but then he looks up at you from under his stark, white lashes. His voice is softer, more sincere when he speaks again. 

“We should practice.”

And for a moment, the absurdity of the statement is so intense that you can’t, won’t understand him. 

“Practice what?”

“Kissing.” He says it so calmly, so matter-of-fact, like it’s the most normal thing in the world to say. 

You choke on your tea. 

“We should practice kissing,” you drone back. 

Satoru throws his hands in the air. “Exactly! I’m glad you agree.” When you continue to stare, he chuckles, going back to his food. “I think the gig would be up if something like that happened in front of our wedding guests.” 

And after a moment’s contemplation, you have to admit that he’s right. You hadn’t considered the way you’d appear to onlookers. Years and years of close friendship had you comfortable with each other, in each others’ space, and you knew you’d look genuine to anyone close enough to see you, because your affection for each other was genuine. You and Satoru had always been touchy- leaning on each other or holding hands, arms around each other or brushing when you walked or talked. Physical closeness was natural to you both. 

But kissing each other was not natural, you told yourself. Even as your mind unhelpfully reminded you that it had felt quite natural to lean up and press your lips to his. You blinked away the memory, pasting on a smile to hide your unease at the way your heartbeat sped. 

“Oh yeah, I’d expected a smoother recovery from you,” you teased. “What did the kids have to say about that?”

He grumbled something that sounded distinctly like “lovesick fool”, but when you asked for Satoru to repeat himself, he said “They said it was so cool.”

You giggled. “It’s ‘cause they’ve never seen anyone shut you up.”

He lay a hand against his heart. “It’s because they never believe me when I say the ladies love me. Victory has never tasted so sweet.” You laughed, Satoru smiled, and what little tension had managed to build dissipated. 

You stood to stretch. “I’ll make us breakfast tomorrow if you do the dishes.”

Satoru scoffed. “I have a perfectly good dishwasher, and we both know I’ll be up way before you.”

You stuck your tongue out, earning you a snicker. “I’m going to shower.” Satoru waved you off, stuffing the last of his deep-fried bananas into his mouth as he brushed off his hands. You padded into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and stripped off your clothes once the door shut behind you. Stepping into the shower, you let the scalding water soothe your muscles as your mind kicked into overdrive. 

Practice kissing Satoru Gojo. Something pooled low in your belly, something hungry and molten.

You knew, logically, that having the friendship with him that you do put you in a position most girls would be wildly envious of. You’d always known that, even if it hadn’t affected you. So why is it affecting you now? 

You knew, logically, that Satoru is insanely attractive. You’d seen it firsthand countless times over the years. Any time you’d go out together, you could feel jealous stares on you, even if Satoru never noticed. It used to make you feel somewhat smug, and somewhat guilty, as though your presence could keep away the girl he was meant to have. You would tease him, shamelessly mocking the fluttering lashes and starry eyes turned his way. So why did you feel so starry-eyed yourself?

You knew, logically, that this was a good and smart plan. His parents would be looking for any sign that this marriage was less than what it seemed, and it was wise to cover your bases. You just had to think about it intellectually. Just had to remember that it was all part of the trick.

Dressing in his boxers and sweats and a shirt two sizes too big, you step into his bedroom to see him reclining on the bed, face flushed and chest heaving, and all wisdom deserts you. 

His eyes are closed. He’s got one muscled arm propped behind his head, while the long fingers of his other hand stroke that damn blindfold thoughtfully. He turns and pierces you with that blue gaze, eyes darker than usual, and inclines his head slightly as he takes in a deep breath. His eyes rake you from head to toe, taking in the way you swim in his clothes. You pad toward the bed, crawling over the expanse of it until you lay next to him, hands laced nervously over your stomach.

He sits up to place the blindfold on the nightstand, then rolls so that he’s hovering over you. “Shall we?” he murmurs. His voice is velvet, soft and rough, and intellectual thought becomes more difficult as you try to remember the last time you kissed anyone before today.

You nod. It feels stiff, and you hope that he doesn’t notice. Hell, of course he notices. You hope that he can’t see why you’re so uptight, and do your best to tuck away your racing thoughts so that you can’t examine them either.

He raises his free hand to brush his knuckles over your cheek, touch so feather-soft that you could’ve almost imagined it. You don’t know which of you moved first, but you’re inexplicably closer to each other now, noses nearly touching. Satoru’s warm, sweet breath ghosts over your lips. His luminescent eyes scan your face, searching for… what? you wonder breathlessly.

It’s an agonizingly long moment in which your traitorous brain chants kisshimkisshimkisshim.

“Relax,” he whispers, and you let out the breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

His lips brush yours, lighter than his fingertips on your jaw. Then again, with the barest hint of pressure. You’ve only just begun, but your heart is already pounding. Satoru kisses you a third time and the trick is all but forgotten.

He moves his lips slowly, carefully against yours. You exercise every last ounce of restraint to move as slowly, as carefully as he does. Gentle as this is, your lungs are burning for air by the time he pulls back, only far enough so that you can both gulp down the warm air between you. He shifts so that his body partially covers yours before descending again. This time, in addition to the soft pressure, his tongue slides delicately over your bottom lip. 

Forgetting yourself, you grip the front of his t-shirt, dragging him down so suddenly that he grunts, mouth parting to allow your tongue to explore. You run it along the back of his teeth, the inside of his bottom lip, sliding it against his as he presses into your mouth for his turn.

His tongue is slow, gentle, as he maps the inside of your mouth. The hand that’s not propping him up is on your neck now, thumb across the front of your throat, caressing the flesh there. You begin to lose patience, unable to grasp how unaffected he is by this when you’re so close to abandoning your dignity for more, more, more. 

With as much self-control as you can muster, you slide one hand around his side under his shirt. His breath catches. Your hands must be cold. You use your grip on his shirt and his waist to pull until he loses his balance, body pressed against you for one short, blissful moment. Your eyes shoot open, meeting a roiling ocean as your hips meet and you feel something hard against your inner thigh. Wait, is he…?

He lifts himself so that he hovers over you, body too far away now for you to confirm what you thought you felt. He kisses you several times in quick succession, lighter than before, as he holds himself up over you. You wonder if you’re imagining the quiver in his limbs; you must be.

Then he pulls back with a crazed smile that doesn’t touch his eyes. His cheeks flame and his blown pupils snap with something you don’t have a name for.

“Well that was much better,” he says. Then you blink and he’s up, sitting on the side of the bed for just a second before standing up. He walks out of the room and you’re left reeling, lifting a hand to your swollen lips.

What just happened?

Anxiety is beginning to build before he’s back in the doorway with a glass of water in hand. He hits the lightswitch before coming in, hiding himself from your searching eyes in the gloom, backlit by the lamp in the living room.

“Here,” he says, handing you the glass. You sit up and take it from his hands, draining the whole thing to wash the addictive taste of him out of your mouth enough to concentrate. It hardly works.

He’s halfway across the room before you realize it, and you find panic flooding your chest again.

“Wait!” you call. He stops, turning so that you can just make out his profile in the dark.

You feel tongue-tied. Against your will, you remember the way you felt at eleven, at fourteen, at sixteen, unable to speak or move or breathe around him, so in awe of his presence.

This would be a really, really bad time for those feelings to resurface.

But you can’t seem to stop them.

“What?” You must have been quiet for too long, because his voice is tinged with worry.

You scramble for any coherent thought.

“Where are you going?”

You see him raise a hand to the back of his neck, a nervous gesture startlingly like one the boy from your scrambled thoughts makes.

“The couch. I figured you could sleep in the bed, and I-”

“You should stay,” you cut off. After what had just happened, after knowing what it felt like to kiss him, if you’d put any thought into anything else first, you’d have never gotten the words out. 

But you couldn't think. Not now, not with the taste of him on your tongue. Regardless of your mounting fear and his being the source, you couldn’t bear for him to be away from you. Not now.

Satoru didn’t say anything. He stood frozen, and again, you began to wonder whether some invisible boundary had been crossed.

Maybe this was why friends didn’t kiss each other.

Shame and nerves choked you. You shouldn’t have touched him, shouldn’t have embarrassed him like that. Of course it was natural for his thoughts to wander, it certainly had nothing to do with you. A natural response, nothing mo-

“Okay.”

You let out a breath and the pounding in your ears subsided. He left the room, returning after flipping off the light in the living room, and lowered himself gently into the bed. He stretched out on his back, hands at his sides, and you lowered yourself to the cushions with yours tucked to your chest.

The silence was deafening. You weren’t used to it, banter flowing easily from both sides for all your lives.

You turned abruptly, unable to bear it any longer.

“Toru, what happened? With Suguru? And with Shoko?”

He sucked in a breath from his place across the bed. You worried again, as was becoming too common, that you shouldn’t have spoken. He didn’t speak for so long that you thought he wouldn't answer you, and then you started to worry that he’d call off the whole fake wedding or, worse, your whole friendship.

You’d never asked, too afraid of sending him spiralling off the precipice and losing him entirely. But you were so off-balance from the raging storm of your emotions that you couldn’t stop yourself. 

“Amanai died.”

You counted several beats before speaking. “I know that part,” you said softly. “Suguru was with her when she was shot, right?”

A long pause. “Yeah.”

“And you were outside.”

“Yeah.”

“Satoru, it wasn’t your fault.”

“We were arrogant.” There was self-loathing dripping from the words. “We shouldn't have assumed the estate would be safe ground.”

You squeezed your eyes shut. This had been a mistake. Damn your curiosity, you should never have dredged this up. 

“I wanted… I killed that guy, the shooter.” You’d known, but the jolt that went through you reminded you that he’d never actually said it out loud. Not to you. “And I wanted to kill the whole group of them, that whole family that ordered the execution. Everyone who stood there, applauding that a fifteen year-old girl was dead. And I would have snapped and done it if Suguru hadn’t stopped me.”

Your heart constricted painfully. Suguru had said, but you hadn’t realized it had been so serious. Satoru let out a long sigh. Subconsciously, you reached out to loop your fingers through his. He squeezed gently.

“Remember the week after the funeral, that day I left you here? When Shoko called?” You nodded. You’d handed him the phone when Shoko asked, watching wordlessly as he stalked out, and then sat in his apartment, drowning in terror until he’d walked back through the door, silent as when he’d left. He turned to you now. Even in the dark, you could make out the faint gleam of his eyes. “Sorry for scaring you, back then,” he whispered. You reached your other hand out to lay it on his chest.

He took in another deep breath. “Suguru went out on a job. He was supposed to bring some guy in for questioning.” You waited with bated breath for him to say the words you didn’t want to hear. “He killed him.”

You sat up, peering down through the darkness. “What?”

“He killed him. Told the board that it was self-defense, but Shoko and I knew it wasn’t. He confessed it to her, and she told me.” You sat in stunned silence. This was so much worse than you’d imagined it could be.

“And you?” Satoru said nothing. Dread pricked your spine. “You… you wanted to…”

“I didn’t, though.” He’d tensed, as though he expected you to draw away at any moment. “Shoko had already built a case against him when she called me. She just needed a confession. So I got it. Even if I thought that it wasn’t fair.”

You scooted the tiniest bit closer. “Not fair?”

Satoru looked at you out of the corner of his eye, seeming to consider his next words. “That he found the absolution he denied me.”

You considered that. “Did you ever find it?” you finally asked. “Absolution?”

He seemed to hold his breath. “I think so,” he said softly. You nodded, and for long minutes, you each sat lost in thought under the cover of darkness. Then, when sleep pressed you down, you closed the last distance between you to lay your head on his chest. You felt Satoru start before carefully wrapping an arm around you. And maybe you were already dreaming, but you thought you felt him press a gentle kiss to your temple.

You wondered again if you were dreaming when you woke, warm and comfortable. You blinked yourself awake, squinting at the clock across the room. Too early. You flopped your head back down and then froze when the arm around your waist pulled you back against a feverish body.

Satoru.

You raised your head, blinking at the clock again in disbelief. Satoru was always up at the crack of dawn. 7:45 was not late, but most days he’d already be out and about. Carefully, so as not to wake him, you turned your head. His brilliant white hair flopped over his eyes, making him look vulnerable. Young, so like the little boy you’d said you’d marry all those years ago.

You smiled at the memory and rested your head back on your pillow. You looked at the clock. 7:46. You’d let him sleep until 8:00. You began to snuggle backward and froze.

You could feel Satoru’s length pressed against the curve of your butt. For one, heartstopping moment, you let yourself melt back. Then you were berating yourself. 

He was asleep, nothing more. No man woke up in bed with any girl without a hard-on and it had nothing to do with you.

The moment you broke contact, that arm tightened again, drawing you back more firmly. You muffled a groan, letting your eyes slide shut. 

A really, really bad time for those feelings to resurface again, you thought dryly, heart speeding against your ribcage. You glanced up. 7:47.

You couldn’t lay here like this for thirteen minutes. You’d just have to slide out from his grasp and hope you didn’t wake him.

Just before you moved though, Satoru breathed in deeply. His arms tightened around you again, one hand lowering to your hip to press you back against him. You held your breath as he nuzzled the side of your neck.

“Hey, baby,” he murmured, voice thick with sleep. He curled further around you, molding your body against his. It made you feel weak. “What time is it?”

You turned to the clock again, cheeks burning. “7:48.”

“Shit!” Satoru flew up, making it from the far side of the bed to the bathroom in one fluid motion. The door slammed and you stared at it for a moment before you started to giggle. Well, so much for breakfast.

It’s 7:51 when the bathroom door flies open to reveal Satoru in all his shirtless glory, muscles rippling as he tears through his closet, toothbrush clenched between his teeth. Then it’s back to the bathroom, door not quite shut, and you have to make yourself turn away from the sliver of pale skin you can see through the crack. You hear him spit, then the door swings open again. 7:53. He’s fumbling the last few buttons on his shirt, long legs carrying him to the mirror in the corner.

“Sorry, babe, I have an errand I have to run before the meeting this morning.” He runs a hand through his hair, turning his head side to side, and then spins and walks toward you. “Tow company will be here to pick you up at nine.” He bends down, planting his hands on either side of your shoulders, and kisses you passionately before sprinting out the door. “Call me if they give you any trouble!”

The front door slams, and seven minutes after waking up, the whirlwind that is your best friend storms out the front door. You raise a hand unconsciously to your lips.

What in the world?

By the time you manage to haul yourself out of bed, after an already eventful morning, you’ve convinced yourself that this is simply more practice. Building habits, as it were, so as not to raise suspicion when you inevitably end up out with his family, out with friends.

It makes perfect sense. 

You brush your teeth and get dressed, in the same clothes you wore here yesterday, and open your laptop to get a little work done before the tow company picks you up. Just as Satoru said they would, they ring the bell at nine sharp. You stuff your laptop into your bag, locking the door with your spare key, and follow the driver to his truck. 

You make polite small-talk with the driver- mostly about your crappy car- for the short drive to the tow yard, thanking him as he holds the door open for you. When you turn toward the office, he stops you.

“Oh, miss, I have your key right here.”

He hands you a key that certainly isn’t yours. You look from it to him.

“This isn’t my key.”

The driver scratches the back of his neck, pointing across the lot. “Well, according to Mr. Gojo, it is.”

You turn to see a shiny new coupe with a massive red bow on the hood. You blink at it, then turn back to the driver. “Where’s my car?”

He shifts his weight nervously. “I don’t rightly know, miss. Mr. Gojo called yesterday and said not to worry about it. Said he’d be dropping off a new one- nothing but the best for his fiancée. Came by this morning, handed me the key himself.”

You turn back to the car in stunned silence.

“I can see about getting your old car back, miss…”

“No, thank you.” You turned to smile at the driver. “I can take it up with my fiancé.” 

The driver nodded, shuffling off to the office in the center of the lot at great speed. You walked over to your new ill-gotten vehicle, circling it slowly. This was a huge gift.

You let yourself into the driver’s seat, reveling in the luxury of a vehicle younger than yourself, let alone one of such caliber. Then, calmly, you dialed Satoru’s number.

The phone rang twice, and then he picked up with a joyous “Love of my life!”

You sucked down a breath, and then roared into the phone. “GOJO!”

——————————————————————

The final weeks until the wedding are so busy that you hardly have time to think about the day itself, but they’re a raging success.

You and Satoru go apartment hunting, despite your protests, and end up with a penthouse apartment with an office, a guest room, and more space than you know how to decorate. He hires a moving company to pack your humble, cozy apartment and his sleek one, refusing to hear any protests about keeping your lease.

“Baby, I’ve been trying to get you out of that shithole for years. You really think I’m letting this opportunity pass me by?” You grumble about making rent and he tugs you close with an arm around your shoulders, pressing a kiss to the side of your head. “Rent, as if. Consider it repayment for going along with all this.”

You don’t bother pointing out that “all this” was your idea in the first place; you know it would be useless.

Your parents fly in the week of the wedding and insist on taking you and Satoru out for dinner “one last time before the big day” as thanks for Satoru’s generosity in putting them up in “such a lovely hotel”.

You go to your final fitting and your dress is perfect, curving and flowing in all the right places. Your mother cries, and that sets you to crying too. 

Satoru kisses you, more than once. He kisses you first thing every morning when you emerge from his room, kisses you each time you pass each other over the course of the days, kisses you last thing at night before making himself comfortable on the couch. You have to force yourself not to ask him to stay in the bed with you, afraid of what you might do if he agrees.

You have to remind yourself that none of this is real.

Shoko comes to town, determined not to miss the big event despite the space that’s opened up between her and Satoru. Seeing them together, you realize that it probably never opened at all. It’s Suguru’s space; a tiny, infinite rift between them. You can see how bittersweet the reunion is, for both of them, and find yourself hoping that it won’t be the last time they meet. Hoping that they can both heal until they can really be friends again.

You have an incredibly tense dinner with Satoru’s parents, made all the more stressful by the agreement to do everything to sell them on the idea that you’re hopelessly in love with each other. At dinner, you hold hands through every course, constantly looking at each other with syrupy smiles and fluttering lashes. When you retire to the restaurant’s overpriced lounge for drinks, Satoru pulls you down into his lap, holding you firmly in place the entire time. He only has one drink, but he gets noticeably more handsy as the contents of his glass disappear.

You ruffle his hair affectionately, leaning down to whisper in his ear.

Only the fact that his parents are sitting feet away stops you from asking whether there’s something in his pocket, or whether he’s just happy to see you. “Lightweight,” you breathe instead, trying not to move too much lest he notice his body’s reaction and push you away. He giggles, dragging you forward to plant a sloppy kiss on your mouth. You allow yourself to relish the moment, embracing the longing you’ve begun to feel. For his parents’ benefit, you tell yourself. You’re only doing your part to sell the lie.

You can practically feel the steam coming from his mother’s ears.

Standing on Satoru’s balcony the night before the wedding, he levels you with the most serious expression you’ve ever seen from him. “Are you sure about this?”

You think back on the past months, comparing them to all the years before. What had even changed, besides the fact that now, you were friends who sometimes kissed? Who sometimes came dangerously close to feeling each other up? What had changed, besides the fact that now, you were almost certain that you’d never moved past your feelings for him?

You forced yourself to relax and smile. “I’m sure.”

Satoru took your hands in his, turning you to face him. “You’re giving up a lot for me.”

That made you laugh. You looked up, pleased to see the curve of amusement on his lips. “What am I giving up? It’s not like I’d be spending my time with anyone else. Besides, you’ve bought me a beautiful ring, a gorgeous dress, and a brand new car. I think I’m actually gonna come out of this pretty far ahead.”

“Don’t forget the penthouse,” he teased, and your smile dropped to a deadpan.

“Satoru, we’ve discussed the penthouse.” He waved this off. “I’m not keeping it!” you protested.

“Yeah, we’ll see.” He grinned down at you, breeze lifting his hair from his forehead. Without meaning to, you reached up to smooth it back, thumb running over the scar over his eyebrow. He cleared his throat, growing somber. “This time tomorrow, we’re going to be married.”

You let your fingertips drift down his cheek, allowing yourself just one more private moment of weakness before your heart ended up on display tomorrow for everyone to see. Hopefully, everyone but him. You nodded, suddenly at a loss for words. For all his sweetness, you’d seldom seen the tenderness he bent on you in the smile he offered. His eyes were liquid, soft as ever, when he raised your hand to his lips.

“Let’s get some sleep,” he murmured, and you agreed, if only to escape before his attention caused you to crumble.

——————————————————————

The wedding day itself is surreal, and it passes in a blur. You wake in Satoru’s bedroom with a bouquet of roses on the bedside, along with a note in his bold writing.

“To the best friend I’ve ever had, thank you for putting up with my shit and having my back. We both know that I’m a treasure. I only hope you know that you are, too. You deserve the world, and I will lay it at your feet. On this, our wedding day, I alone am the honored one.”

The note is signed with a flourish of his name. You smile as you raise it to your lips, taking in the faint scent of his cologne. You are the honored one on this day. You lay the note next to your bra, fully intent on keeping it close, and then you hit the ground running.

You shower and brush your teeth and after that, it’s out the door to the waiting car to be driven to the vast Gojo estate. Despite spending time here as a child, the place is still incredibly intimidating with its marble arches and sprawling gardens. You feel your heartbeat speed as you see the decorations- fairy lights and tulle, vines and roses, black silk ribbons and eucalyptus branches.

It’s more beautiful than you could have imagined.

You make your way to the guest house and sit through an hour of hair and makeup, laughing with your mother about all the childish shenanigans you and Satoru have gotten up to over the years, and calm your anxious hands and stomach by sampling the hors d’oeuvres arranged prettily on silver platters.

Your father sits in the corner, eyes shining with pride and unshed tears. He’s got a cocktail of painkillers ready to go; nothing will keep him from walking with his little girl today.

You would feel guilty if Satoru weren’t already such a fixture in all of your lives. You only hope that your parents won’t be too hurt when this is all over.

It’s only once your parents step out so that you can change into your gown that Satoru’s mother visits you.

“Tell me, my dear, must we really continue this charade?”

You feel your heart prick with ice. “I assure you, Gojo-sama, that there is no charade,” you lie smoothly. “I love your son.” Just enough honesty to ring true.

Her glare is frozen. “I will give you six million yen if you walk out of here and away from my son.”

You raise your chin in defiance. “No.”

“Seven million.”

“You cannot buy me, no matter the price.”

“Ten million yen.”

Your ire has been steadily rising since she stepped into the room. Now, it eclipses your anxiety like a crashing wave. You lean forward, well into her space, and feel a mean thrill when she leans away from you. Your voice is cold. “I do not care what you think of me. But it’s clear that you have no concept of your son’s worth.” You tilt your head, summoning the haughtiest tone you’ve ever used. “You dishonor him.” His mother reels back, scowling.

“You don’t deserve my son,” she sneers.

You laugh at that. “I agree. Yet somehow, he’s decided otherwise.”

She peers down her nose at you. You expect another round of vitriol, but to your surprise, she turns on her heel to leave. Round one, you.

You blow out your breath, shake your hands, and straighten your shoulders. Within a few minutes, your parents are back and then it’s smooth sailing again. 

Right up until you and your father hobble to the door to walk to the ceremony. 

Your father starts to sniffle. You turn and realize that he’s tearing up, putting on his bravest face and doing his utmost not to blubber. 

“Oh, papa,” you murmur. You turn to take his face in your hands. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, hime.” He reaches a hand up to your face, carefully avoiding your hair and touching lightly so as not to smear your makeup. “I am just so happy. Your mother and I used to talk about what a wonderful life you and Satoru would build together and now it’s finally beginning.”

The shock nearly knocks you off your feet. “You… what?”

He sniffles, patting your cheek and lowering his head to compose himself. “You make an old man proud. There’s no one else I’d rather give you away to.”

You move your mouth, but can’t form any words.

And then, it’s time. The great door creaks open and you tilt your head down to hide your expression. You take a few deep, steadying breaths before raising your head… and promptly losing them.

The lawn is surprisingly empty, though you suppose his parents planned it that way. Regardless, every face fades as you set eyes on Satoru.

Satoru, the best and oldest friend you’ve ever had.

Satoru, who’s always been in your corner, no matter what.

Satoru, who looks devastatingly handsome in black and white, with a boutonniere of one, single rose almost the same color as his eyes. Almost, but not quite. Satoru, whose eyes are wider than ever, staring slack-jawed as you make your way toward him down the aisle, moving slowly for your fathers’ sake. Satoru, whose hands drop from where they’d been fiddling with his cuffs.

Satoru, who looks at you with such longing that you nearly collapse.

Your heart stops, and then sprints to make up for lost time.

This day is going to kill you. 

You know that your face is bearing every emotion, that nothing is hidden in this instant. 

And it’s nothing compared to the way he looks at you.

It’s all an act, you remind yourself. Tears spring to your eyes. All an act, but every person in this room is eating it up. Including you. When did he get so good at acting?

The corner of his lip curls in an awestruck smile and you’re a goner.

Who were you kidding?

You let the tears stream, grateful at least that they would lend authenticity to the performance. And for the first time, you feel your heart sink. 

You’re just as in love with Satoru Gojo now as you had been at eleven years old.

You’d been a fool to think you’d get out of this unscathed.

Over the course of your mental collapse, Satoru’s smile widens until you can just make out the tiny dimples at the corners of his mouth that only ever show themselves when he’s at his happiest.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

You just have to remember that it’s all for show.

You force yourself to smile.

And know instantly that you’ve made a mistake.

You had to be twenty paces or more away, but those dimples disappeared the moment your lips spread.

No one else would ever notice, but you did.

Because no one else would ever notice, but he had.

Those cyan eyes narrowed fractionally and you knew that he could tell that something was off. You could see the anxiety surfacing as you got close.

To feel so seen…

You pursed your lips, just by a hairs’ breadth, and Satoru’s face relaxed. The silent conversation you had in those last few steps did wonders to ease your nerves, and you could tell that it did the same for him. Between one heartbeat and the next, your father was kissing your cheek, placing your hand firmly in Satoru’s outstretched one.

You couldn’t hear a word anyone said- not your father, not the priest, not even Satoru. You blinked rapidly, finally locking eyes with your fiancé.

“Baby? Are you okay?” he whispered, and you could tell from the slight strain in his voice that he was repeating the question.

You squeezed his hands. “I’m okay,” you whispered back. You let yourself fall into your role, embracing the fantasy. You felt nearly giddy. “Let’s get married.”

And oh, there was that smile again, canyon-wide and dimpled just for you. “Let’s.”

You could hardly concentrate enough to repeat your vows, too caught up in the way Satoru’s eyes sparkled, locked onto you. Too mesmerized by the way his mouth moved to truly hear what he said. Before your head could catch up with the feelings speeding through your heart, Satoru was wrapping a strong arm around your waist, pulling you firmly to his chest. You couldn’t tear your eyes away from his smile.

“Hi, wifey.” And then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours. You couldn’t stop your hands coming up to cradle his face; couldn’t stop your mad smile when he bent you back nearly parallel to the ground; couldn’t stop the shudder that ran down your spine at the soft moan he let out when you ran your tongue along the seam of his lips. They parted, allowing you to lick along the inside of his lip before you bit down softly.

Only the applause from your guests covered the animalistic growl that tore itself from his throat.

You felt a heady thrill at your apparent power and giggled. After a heated moment and a shaky breath, so did Satoru. He straightened, pulling you up with him, and raised your joined hands overhead for all to see.

Mr. and Mrs. Satoru Gojo.

——————————————————————

For being largely made up of Satoru’s colleagues and the elder Gojo’s business acquaintances, your guests were incredibly gracious. Every person seemed to want to personally convey their best wishes; a happy marriage, good fortunes, continued health. You and Satoru thanked each person in turn, holding hands all the while.

And each time someone new came to express their pleasure, you felt your mind and heart crack just a bit more under the weight of the lie.

“We’re almost done,” he murmured against your ear. You’d finally made your way to the dance floor, taking solace in the security and solitude of Satoru’s arms. You nodded, cheek rubbing against his chest. “You okay?” he asked.

You nodded again. “Just counting down the minutes until we can go home.”

He chuckled, drawing you closer. “Well, tell you what, then. Let me go say goodnight to my parents and then we can leave, okay?” You smiled up at him, grateful.

“That sounds wonderful, husband.”

He grinned at you with a childish sort of glee. “Glad to hear it, wife.” He leaned down, pressed a soft kiss to your lips, and then spun you away from himself. “I’ll meet you by the altar in a few minutes?”

You smiled over your shoulder, turning to survey the crowd. Your parents had left an hour ago with profuse apologies; your father’s medication was wearing off and he was going to need to be off his feet, quickly. You waved and smiled at the few friends of Satoru’s you knew- Kento Nanami, Yu Haibara, Utahime Iori, Kiyotaka Ijichi- and waded through the crowd of celebrating people.

Satoru had asked whether it bothered you that none of your friends had come. The truth was that when life got busy and your friends stopped reaching out, when no one could accept how much time and emotion you put into Satoru after the incident, you’d let most of those friendships slide. Why should you beg for anyone’s attention when the only person whose attention you truly craved centered on you to begin with?

You’d never regretted that conviction, never even questioned it. Not even today.

You made rounds to the tables that gestured you over for long minutes before excusing yourself, breaking for the altar. You were passing an alcove when you heard Shoko’s voice, and you felt yourself perk up. You hadn’t had a chance to thank her for coming, and you wanted to make sure that you didn’t miss the opportunity to talk to her. Even if you didn’t feel the need to have a lot of friends, it would be refreshing to have a girl friend again- and she’d been important to Satoru, once. You wanted to make sure that she knew her presence was more than welcome in your lives.

It was only once you reached the garden wall that you realized she didn’t sound happy.

Then you heard Satoru’s voice.

“I just really don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal out of this!”

“Because, Satoru! I understand that you care for her, but I really think you’re making the biggest mistake of your life!”

“Then let me make it!” Satoru roared, and the words had you breaking out into a cold sweat.

They couldn’t mean…?

He seemed to remember where they were and lowered his voice. “Then let me make it. If it’s such a huge mistake, you’ll be the first to know, alright? I’ll call you myself. ‘Shoko, you were right, I never should have married her.’ Is that what you want to hear?”

Your hands flew to cover your mouth, but they weren’t quick enough to muffle the pained sound that escaped you. You darted to put your back to the bower leading into their little section of the garden, praying to all the gods that you hadn’t been heard. For once, despite Satoru’s involvement, they listened.

Shoko sighed. “No, Satoru, it’s not. I just want you to be happy. I just don’t think you’re-”

You raised your hands to cover your ears and bolted away. You didn’t care how childish it was, you couldn’t bear to hear another word. You ran, heels catching small rocks and roots as you held your breath in an effort not to cry. If the tears fell, your face would puff up and your makeup would be ruined. There would be questions. You couldn’t deal with questions, especially not now.

You tucked yourself into the greenhouse and sucked down mouthfuls of cool air, staring straight at the ceiling. That was supposed to help, wasn’t it?

You couldn’t stay here for too long. You had to get control of yourself, and quickly. You tried desperately to conjure up any happy memories that didn’t involve Satoru and came up woefully short.

Maybe you needed some friends of your own, after all.

You breathed in, held, released. Breathed in, held, released. You repeated this until your hands stopped shaking, and then did it five more times for good measure. You straightened your shoulders. Then you walked back out into the throng. Head held high, smile firmly in place, you strode to the altar, catching sight of Satoru as he stepped out of the shade of a tree and into view.

Your breath caught in your throat. He was so beautiful. He beamed when he saw you, looking a touch deflated, but irritation all but vanished. You knew by the subtle shift of his eyebrows, though, that your own smile wasn’t fooling him.

——————————————————————

The ride back to your new penthouse was blessedly short, and blessedly quiet. With a driver from his parents’ staff, neither of you dared to say a word of meaning, settling on holding hands and whispering to each other about dinner and movies and sleep instead. When the car stopped, Satoru was out in a flash to open your door, handing you out like some Victorian lady. No matter how confused you felt, it made your mouth twitch up in a smile.

He led you through the apartment lobby and into the private elevator to your new home, even holding the door open for the driver following with a cart of wedding gifts. You clutched his hand the whole ride up, gluing yourself to his side even if you couldn’t bring yourself to look up at him. You could feel the worried glances he shot your direction when the driver wasn’t looking, though.

As soon as the elevator door opened, he was sweeping you up into his arms, striding purposefully across the short hall to your front door. You let yourself laugh as he managed to fish the keys out of his pocket without letting you slide so much as an inch, and swooned dramatically as he kicked in the door. He kissed you again and you felt your heart clench painfully. Then he turned to the driver, thanking him for his service and advising that he leave, lest he see something he’d rather not.

You’d never seen someone excuse themselves so quickly.

You both paused once the door clicked shut, waiting for the chime of the elevator, and then Satoru lowered you gently to the floor. You turned quickly, practically running into the living room. You began unfastening your jewelry, anything to keep your hands and eyes busy.

“Sweetheart?” He was worried. You knew better than to try to hide from him, but you’d hoped you could have even a moment longer to collect your thoughts. The drive here hadn’t been nearly long enough. “Baby, what’s wrong?” He was halfway across the room already. You knew that if he touched you, you’d lose your nerve.

“What did Shoko mean by ‘the biggest mistake of your life’?” The words were out before you could think better of them.

Abruptly, his footsteps stopped. The silence was deafening. With shaking hands, you laid your wedding jewelry on the coffee table, steeling yourself for whatever answer Satoru gave you.

You turned to face him and found him looking ashen and sick.

He swallowed hard.

“You heard that?”

Somehow, you’d expected something different. A denial, an indignant retort, even a joke. You scoffed in disbelief, only it didn’t sound much like a scoff. It sounded like a sob.

Satoru took two steps forward before stopping at your raised hand.

“Listen, I can explain.”

“Explain what, Gojo?” A look of profound hurt crossed his face at your use of his family name, but you couldn’t… You had to put some distance between you. You didn’t want to believe that there was any truth to the words, but you knew now that there had to be.

“You didn’t even argue with her! ‘The worst mistake of your life’?” He flinched then, finally breaking eye contact to look across the room past you. You choked on your tears, voice coming out harsh around the growing lump in your throat. “I know you never wanted to be married, but I-I thought I was helping you. I thought you wouldn’t care since it was only temporary. I thought you said this would be fun! You never told me you were having second thoughts!” 

“You’re right, I didn’t,” he said softly. “Shoko thinks I’m making a mistake because… because I’ve been in love with you since we were children.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he was reeling back, breathing ragged as his hands went to his hair, as though maybe he’d never said the words aloud. As though maybe he’d never admitted them to himself. You nearly staggered backward, too. “Please, sweetheart, just let me explain. I swear, I-”

“You’re in love with me?” you whispered. Your heart raced, hope lighting your veins aflame. Tears had been building since the conversation started. They began to run down your cheeks now, and you saw Satoru move as though he was going to come to you, to do anything to make them stop, before forcing himself to stand still. He’d always hated to see you cry.

He clenched his fists. His eyes slid shut, and the pain evident on his face was so great that you flashed, for a moment, to him waking up in that hospital bed; bindings around his wounds and tubing in his arms, oxygen mask on his face, waking so slowly, so grievously wounded that he’d asked you if he was dead.

“I would never,” he began slowly, “have made you stay.” He let that sink in before continuing, so softly that you could barely hear him. “I thought…” His voice trailed off as he sank to his knees, almost as though the words had sapped him of the strength to bear his own weight.

“I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. I tried so hard not to feel the way I felt. I know you never felt the same about me.”

Just like that, all of the pieces clicked into place. Every blank expression at every stupid joke or offhanded comment you’d made about your inevitable divorce; every flash of doubt, of disappointment in his eyes when you brought up that it was only a fake marriage; the way he’d answered Shoko, as if it hurt him to say the words; the fury he’d felt toward his parents; even the way he’d detached himself from you when your kisses had been too heated. He’d been afraid.

You began to shake your head.

Shoko thought he was making a mistake because she thought you didn’t love him. 

Because Satoru thought you didn’t love him.

He hadn’t stopped talking while your world crumbled around you.

“I thought that this was it, my chance for a little piece of all my dreams. I thought that I could have you by my side, just for a little while, that I could kiss you just once, and that it could carry me through the rest of my life.”

Your mind was spinning in a thousand directions, including a hysterical amusement. “You kissed me a lot more than once,” you whispered, a near-automated response borne of your shared sense of humor. 

Satoru let out a strangled noise. “I was selfish.” You opened your mouth to protest, to deny it, to say that you didn’t mean it like that- to tell him you loved him. But he barreled on, voice strained. 

“When you said you’d had a crush on me all those years ago, I thought ‘what if I could make her fall in love with me?’ I thought ‘this could be the rest of my life.’ And then you kissed me in the gym, and I knew that I had to try something, anything, everything. I knew that I…” He sucked in a deep breath and let out a breathless, awful, self-loathing laugh. “I thought that I couldn’t survive on just one kiss.”

He hung his head, burying his face in his hands. “Shoko knew the moment that she saw us together that I’d never told you how I felt. She figured it out so fast, I didn’t even get a chance to deny it.”

You’d unconsciously moved closer as he’d spoken. You threaded your fingers lightly through his hair and the air went out of him. He folded forward, hands coming to rest on either side of your feet.

“Please, baby, please forgive me. Shoko was right, it was unfair. It was so unfair to you. I’m so sorry.”

You tilted his head back to look up at you. He let you do it with a sharp intake of breath, gazing up at you with so much feeling that it nearly swept you off your feet.

“Please, sweetheart, say something. Anything,” he pleaded. He’d leaned forward to wrap his hands around the backs of your knees, drawing you closer to him. “Please.”

You had never in your life, ever heard Satoru beg for anything. Your heart galloped in your chest. 

“You weren’t unfair,” you whispered. You opened your mouth to say more, but he was already stuttering out more apologies as if you hadn’t spoken. If he was experiencing anything like the roaring in your ears, he probably hadn’t heard you.

“Please, please, forgive me. I’ll do anything. We can get an annulment tomorrow if you want, to hell with my parents. Just please, let me make it right. I’ll never say another word about this, not one.” He pressed his face further into your thighs, murmuring against the fabric. “I can’t be without you. I would die without you.”

Everything in your chest constricted violently. 

Of course, Satoru had a penchant for wild dramatics, making insane exaggerations out of anything and everything. A papercut was a mortal wound, a stubbed toe a shattered leg; a few degrees too warm and it was the seventh circle of hell, a few degrees too cool and it was the ninth; a runny nose might as well be a terminal illness, and boredom was just as serious.

This was not one of those exaggerations.

You didn’t want to think about a life without him, couldn’t dream of it, not even in your worst nightmares. Separating the two of you from each other was impossible, in any circumstance, in any world.

You knelt down, slotting your legs with Satoru’s, and tugged him forward by his hair. Your breaths mingled in the infinite, infinitesimal space between you, before you kissed him. The groan he let out was that of a wounded animal- pleading, haunted, and full of despair- as his hands rose to your cheeks. You could feel his restraint in the way his hands held you from coming any closer, in the way he barely moved his slack mouth, letting you kiss him. 

“Please,” he whispered again, and you could hear his heart breaking on the word. “Please don’t leave me. You can’t say goodbye to me. Not like this.”

“You idiot,” you whispered. Slowly, between kisses, you murmured, “Don’t you know I’ve been in love with you since the day we met?” Against all odds, Satoru pulled back from you, holding your face away from his between shaking hands. 

“Say it again,” he whispered, voice shot. 

“I’ve been in love with you-” And then, he’s kissing you, and there’s nothing restrained about it, and you realize just how much he must have been holding back when he’d kissed you before.

This isn’t his stunned inaction from the kiss in the gym; not the gentle exploration of your practice kissing, where it should have been obvious that he meant to memorize the way it felt; not the giddy, showy kiss from the altar and certainly not the chaste, PG kisses you’d shared throughout the reception. 

No. This kiss was all-consuming, desperate. Like Satoru meant to devour you, and maybe he did. He lapped at the inside of your lips, moaning softly. His long fingers roved over your body, pulling you closer until you gasped, and even that seemed to be not enough. 

He let out an impatient noise, low in the back of his throat, before dragging you forward and up in one fluid motion. His hands gripped you with near-bruising force, pulling you by your knees to wrap your legs around him, and then your back hit the cool glass wall of your penthouse with a dull thud.

You half gasped, half giggled through Satoru’s apologies, muffled by the incessant slide of his lips on yours. His lean, hard body pressed fully along yours, moving against you almost of its own accord. You could feel the thundering of his heart against your chest. With his hips pinning yours to the wall, he lifted one hand from its place at your waist to grip the back of your neck. 

Your hands finally, after all of the shock and movement of what was probably only the last 20 or so seconds, landed in his hair to tangle in the snowy strands. Satoru keened into your mouth, pressing even harder against you, a vibrating mass of wiry muscle and lanky elegance. You dropped one hand to squeeze at his bicep and wondered how you had ever ignored how hot your best friend was. 

The hand on the back of your neck tightened, tilting your head to deepen the kiss, allowing Satoru to stroke your tongue with his, gentle and searching and urgent all at once. The hand at your waist pulled you relentlessly forward, molding your bodies together, and you squeezed your legs to keep his hips locked against yours.

Satoru was murmuring against your lips, against the sensitive skin of your throat, against the shell of your ear, hot breath lighting your skin on fire where it touched. You caught only snatches of what he was saying, a litany of praise and pleading.

“I love you, I love you, I want you, I need you, stay with me, don’t leave me, let me please you, my wife, my wife, my perfect wife.”

Your head thumped against the wall as you tilted it back, granting him access to leave a trail of sloppy kisses from your mouth to your ear, down your throat to your collarbone, across the sheer material of your wedding gown to bite softly at your shoulder.

“Marry me,” he groaned.

You couldn’t help the airy giggle that bubbled up. “I already did.”

“Marry me for real,” he whined, breathless.

“Yes. Of course, yes.” “Yes,” he hissed, finally shifting away from your poor living room wall with you in his arms. He stumbled down the hallway, drunk on you, toward your marital bedroom, unable to stop kissing you. “I’ve been in love with you for so long that I don’t even know who I am without loving you. If I’m even a person without loving you.”

“I was so afraid that you didn’t love me the way I loved you that I spent years trying to convince myself that I didn’t love you, but I never could,” you confessed, words rushing out, and Satoru let out a sob against your throat.

“I could never not love you,” he groaned. “Never in a million years, not in any life. I have wanted you…”

He bit the sentence off, stumbling as his knees hit the bed. He lowered you reverently to the plush duvet with an arm braced above your head, kisses slowing and softening as he stroked your cheek. “I’ve always wanted to marry you,” he murmured. “I’ve wanted you for so…” He trailed off, trembling as your hands slid up beneath his shirt to trace the lithe muscles of his back, and nuzzled behind your ear. He moaned brokenly. “Tell me if I’m moving too fast,” he whispered. “Tell me if you want to stop.”

You traced your hands down his sides, revelling as he panted in your ear. You raised your knees to stroke his thighs, his hips, before wrapping your legs slowly, deliberately around his slim waist, locking your heels at the small of his back. He took a great, shuddering breath, instinctively bending toward you when you raised your hands to shuck off his tuxedo jacket. Your fingers danced up to unbutton his vest before moving to his shirt, torturously slowly. You forced yourself to take your time, forced yourself not to yank and hope that the buttons would fly off like in some cheesy rom-com.

By the time you finished, you almost worried that Satoru would shake apart above you. He looked absolutely ruined; jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut, a euphoric pain painted across every feature. You let your eyes rove his beautiful body, tracing scars with sight and touch alike until you reached the waistband of his trousers. All of the breath went out of him in a loud whoosh, and he dropped the hand stroking your face to the mattress to stop himself from crushing you. His eyes snapped open, a brilliant, dark turquoise nearly eclipsed by shimmering black. His mouth hung open, lust and love and disbelief warring as he frantically searched your face.

You crooked a tiny smile at him, and then leaned up until your lips brushed his. “I don’t want to stop.” He whined, surging forward to kiss you, grinding his hips down to yours with delicious pressure. “I think… we’ve waited… long enough,” you panted between kisses.

Oftentimes, Satoru couldn’t shut up. You’d been friends for so long that his incessant chatter ceased to phase you in the slightest. But you’d never heard him talk so much.

Any time his smart mouth wasn’t occupied with you, it was running. He alternated between babbling praise and incoherent adoration and begging you, though for what, you couldn’t be sure, since he was, by his own distraught admissions, getting everything he’d ever wanted, dreamed of, hoped for, waited for. He couldn’t seem to stop, and it stoked your ego in ways you’d never known you’d wanted, never imagined could turn you on so much.

And despite his obvious anguish, despite the delicious agony it took to exert his control, despite fifteen or more years of never daring to hope, or perhaps because of that, he put you first just like he always did, following only once he was satisfied that you had been, too.

——————————————————————

It hadn’t been the wedding night you’d expected- as far from traditional as it was from the plan- but you wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, no matter how it had come about. 

In the watery sunlight, you rolled to face your husband. Husband. He loosened his grip to let you, hand coming to rest on your bare hip as you settled to face him. His eyes bored into yours, sharp and bright as a storm.

“Hey,” you whispered.

“Hey,” he replied, and the low rumble of his voice sent a shiver of pleasure down your spine and straight between your aching thighs.

You reached up, carding your hands through his hair, and marvelled at the way his eyes fluttered closed. He was like putty beneath your touch. He turned to kiss your palm, drawing your hand down to cover his heart. He stared at you intensely.

“Tell me I’m not dreaming,” he murmured.

You raised one eyebrow in amusement. “That’d be some dream.”

“Best dream of my life.” He pulled you flush against him, pressing his lips to yours and sliding his tongue across your teeth, morning breath be damned. “Be better if it never ended.” He kissed from the corner of your mouth across your jaw, to that sensitive spot behind your ear. “Be best if it wasn’t a dream at all.”

You gripped his neck, pulling him closer, drowning in him. “It’s not a dream,” you whispered.

“Thank goodness,” he groaned. He rolled over to pin you to the bed, hands coming up to lace his fingers with yours. “I am so in love with you.” He traced your rings with one finger, lips spreading in a sleepy, adoring smile. “My beautiful wife.”

You giggled, face splitting in an uncontrollable smile, and leaned up to kiss him. “And I am so in love with you.” Another kiss as you stroked his ring in return. “My handsome husband.” And if the curve of his lips against your jaw and the movement of his body against yours was anything to go by, you were about to be shown how in love with you he was all over again.

Yeah, you could get used to this.

[wangxianficrecs]

Rewind 2024 - A few more recs...

WangxianFicRecs - Rewind 2024

Before the year ends, here are a few more recs of stories of 2024 that found their way into our inbox! I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope, that we can discover lots of fun fanfics next year as well! - Kay

Follower Recs

~*~

Think I've missed the 2024 Rewind follower recs but I've been absolutely loving this story!

WIP Modern Cultivators AU where WWX and LWJ have just agreed to a betrothal contract - for supposedly purely political reasons but in actuality because they fell hard and fast for each other during the prior fic in the series. POV switches between the two of them as they face up to (and increasingly embrace) the concept of being cared for and loved for being exactly who they are. Beautiful writing and brilliant characterisation, every update feels like a treat ☺️ @slothwithwifi

🔒 I'm Much Older Than I Thought I'd Be

by MajorEnglishEsquire (@chuckwinchester)

E, WIP, 81k, Wangxian

Summary: “Now. Before we break for the evening, as the topic has arisen between Lan Xichen and myself, directly, in accordance with an inquiry from the Lans,” Uncle passes him the copy of a draft agreement. “I wonder if you recall your lessons on the cross-clan arrangement of cultivation partnerships.” Picks up after The Further I Go, The Less I Know.

~*~

Hello! I want to submit this fic for Rewind because I love cherry magic AU and lwj pov is so rare. It’s very funny to listen to wwx pining in his head and lwj panicking over it. - Anon

My Heart is Yours to Fill or Burst

by anancites (@ananc1tes)

E, 67k, Wangxian

Summary: On his 30th birthday, Lan Zhan gets struck by a mysterious curse: suddenly he's a mind reader! As much as he dislikes most people talking too much, hearing their unfiltered thoughts is even worse. To top it all off, he learns that his old friend Wei Ying might not be flirting with him just to be a nuisance. He might be flirting with Lan Zhan because he's actually really into him? (a WangXian AU very loosely inspired by Cherry Magic)

~*~

Delightfully hilarious. I read it over a month ago and still laugh sometimes when I think about wwx in this. @alyseofwonderland

Living Art

by relenafanel (@relenafanel)

E, 8k, Wangxian

Summary: Broke artist Wei Wuxian takes a hard look at his finances and shrugs his way into becoming a content creator on OnlyFans. Jiang Cheng sighed. “These columns are negotiable. If you want to keep this subscription, you have to replace something to break even.” Wei Wuxian stared at the spreadsheet. He hummed in thought. “I need to break even.” “Yes.” “In order to keep my OnlyFans subscription I need $65 a month. On OnlyFans.” “No,” Jiang Cheng said quickly. “If I become a content creator and earn $65 a month--” “I am begging you--” “Then I can keep the subscription. Thanks A-Cheng!” The account in question? Hanguang Jun's Reading Livestreams.

~*~

🔒 Only with Time

by adrian_kres (@Bichen-Suibian)

E, WIP, 66k, Wangxian

Summary: Thirteen years ago, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were arranged to be married as is tradition. Throughout their thirteen-year-long "courtship," things were not always as they seemed. Now, newly married, old secrets have ripped open wounds they thought were closed, and they must work together to rebuild a trust they never had and a love they always did but couldn't see. Told from alternating points of view between LWJ and WWX with frequent flashbacks to memories of their "courtship". Updates weekly.

~*~

Proud Author Spotlight

~*~

I can't believe I almost forgot to shout-out my own fic that I started this year! It's a modern AU with cultivation where Wei Wuxian loses his hand, gets taken in my Wen Qing and her family, starts a prosthetic start-up and schemes to take down Wen Ruohan from the shadows feat. Wen Yuan having a big sister, Wen Zhuliu redemption and all the Found Family vibes!

Black Sun

by thelastdboy (@thelastdboyy)

E, WIP, 51k, Wangxian

Summary: Within one afternoon, the Yunmeng Jiang Clan became a mere branch of the Wen Clan. They lost their estate, all of their assets, and Wei Wuxian – He lost an arm. All to appease Wen Ruohan. To the Jiangs, the name Wen became a curse to be hissed out between gritted teeth. To Wei Wuxian, the name Wen became something dear after Wen Ning and Wen Qing saved his life and took him in. Years later, Wen Ruohan and his sons have long since died under mysterious circumstances and Wei Wuxian has been branded a traitor to the high society of the cultivation world. Together with the remaining Wens, he turned to the civilian world and revolutionized the medical field by developing prosthetics controlled by spiritual energy. Enter: Lan Wangji. After their fight against the Tulu Xuanwu, his leg never really recovered. Years of countless surgeries and feeling as if he was living inside a gilded cage while being patronized by his family passed, until Lan Wangji finally took his chance and absconded. To Yiling.

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for these hard-working authors if you like – or think others might like – these stories.)

[txtaetertots]

hopelessly devoted. — choi beomgyu x fem!reader

status COMPLETE (230619 - 240807)

cw/genre swearing, twt humor bc twt humor, banter, bullying, SLOW BURN, slice of life, romcom, probably gonna be corny hfdjjz, social media au w/ written parts, also pls ignore time stamps they're not important nor accurate lol

synopsis choi beomgyu has spent his entire senior year slacking off and causing mischief. but, due to his inattentiveness, his slacking off went too far and if he doesn't improve the grade in his literature class he'll guarantee himself a seat in summer school. yn has big dreams to be on stage and star on broadway. however, she needs to impress recruiters with one last production as the lead in order to earn herself a spot in a new york based school. when beomgyu's literature teacher makes him join their drama club for extra credit, their futures quickly become intertwined and dependent on each other.

featuring le sserafim members, hanni (newjeans), bahiyyih (kep1er), ocs, and mentions of others

taglist CLOSED

profiles four and a half girls, the nba (benchwarmers), others

note my first social media au on tumblr !! hopefully it's an enjoyable read :')) i have so many ideas for txt aus i can't wait to share them! i'm most excited to share this beomgyu one so i hope you all enjoy ♡︎ - yuri

Acts

01. report and block soobin

02. nyu decision day

03. second review

04. spring production (written+)

05. i'm sandy

06. auditions (written)

07. cast list from hell

08. wtf mr. kim (written)

09. welcome to hell

10. first read through

11. perfect harmony (written+)

12. it’s just a little infatuation

13. it’s just coffee

14. annoying friends (written+)

15. cruel and unusual punishment

16. the deal

17. shameless

18. very interesting

19. it comes so naturally

20. awfully close

21. please believe me

22. predicament

23. nopenopenope

24. i’ll kick you

25. it’s just a kiss (written+)

26. it’s called method acting

27. long time no talk

28. apology(?)

29. focus on me (written)

30. beomie

31. i never said that

32. yeonjun and soojung

33. soulmates

34. you’re the one that i want (written)

35. mixed feelings

36. everybody talks

37. yunjin’s plan

38. baby jungie

39. i don’t feel so good

40. you’re not who i thought you were

41. i’m not a bad guy

42. yeonjun and beomgyu

43. one last date

44. best friends and brothers

45. my love

46. we’re done

47. last day

48. the promposal (written)

49. the aftermath

50. beomgyu’s aftermath

51. friends night

52. hiyyih tells all

53. regroup new plan

54. please forgive me

55. the truth comes out

56. operation: save yeonjun

57. getting ready

58. opening night (written)

59. yeonjun’s aftermath

60. the decision

61. because of you

62. the last curtain call (written)

63. nyu tisch

64. make it count

65. best choice

66. will you help me?

67. dress shopping

68. prom (written)

69. scariest mission yet

70. we go together (written) [end]

Epilogues

summer travels | new york bound | happily ever after

© txtaetertots

[nowimjustastranger]

Character Info

In order to better help folks find any information they need on any particular AU more quickly and efficiently, I've decided to make a character sheet of sorts. I will add more AU's to this list as needed.

Somebody to Call My Own | Lore Page 1 & Lore Page 2

Stanford "Ford" Pines (aka Watchdog Ford) | Dimension 419"3 Age: 57 Official Art: Here, Here, and Here

Stanley "Lee" Pines | Dimension 77/H Age: 28 Official Art: Here and Here

Additional Lore:

StCMO Timeline

Danger Scale

Lee's Nicknames for Ford 419"3

The Abyss Stares Back | Ao3 Link

Stanford "Ford" Pines | Dimension 46'\ Age: 62 according to the creator Official Art: Here! Stanley "Stan" Pines | Dimension M55"0 Age: 19 Official Art: @phoenix-art-official drew quite a bit for this AU, as have other talented artists!

We'll Be Better Tomorrow | Lore Page

Stanley "Stan" Pines | Dimension 90V'1 Age: 20 Official Art: None as of yet Wesley Kash Pines (aka Stanley Pines) | Dimension Theta-44Y Age: 3 Official Art: None as of yet Wilford Lawson Pines (aka Stanford Pines) | Dimension Theta-44Y Age: 3 Official Art: None as of yet

I Promise I'll Do Better | Lore Page

Stanford "Ford" Pines | Dimension Xi11-5 Age: 24 Official Art: None as of yet Thomas Lee Pines (aka Tommy, aka Stanley Pines) | Dimension J0\65 Age: Nine Months Old Official Art: None as of yet

[cryptidclaw]

Fogtalon!

Design Notes:

pretty much just a redraw of my last design for her, only change is that she has two blind eyes caused by different things!

Character Bio:

Fogtalon

(White-eye/One-eye)

Lesbian; Molly; she/her

Age as of 1st arc's beginning: 12 cycles, 3 moons; ~65 Hyrs

Age as of 1st arc's end: 14 cycles, 1 moon; ~72 Hyrs

Title meaning: -talon = a cat who is very skilled in battle; they fight ferociously with their claws

Warrior -> Guard Charge -> Elder of Thunder Order

Mother: Harepounce

Father: Stagleap

Siblings: Specklesnap

Mate: Leopardfoot

Kits (donor: Sparrowpelt): Mousebite; Birdflight

Grandkits:  Sandstorm; Flint; Poppy

Other notable kin: Squirrelflight (grandkit); Leafpool (grandkit); Foxleap (grandkit); Icecloud (grandkit)

Character Summary:

As a kit Fogtalon contracted a horrible eye infection in one eye which left it permanently blind and cloudy. this didnt stop her from becoming one of the best warriors of the Order in her time. She even raised to the rank of Guard Charge before she retired.

Fogtalon's other eye was lost in battle but she was already close to retirement at the time so she chose to just fully retire. "Look i know I COULD still be a better warrior than most of you even if I cant see shit, but im fuckin old and tired so im retiring." - Fogtalon probably

Fogtalon had her first kit, Mousebite, with her good friend Sparrowpelt. They aren't mates, they just both wanted kits!

Fog later became mates with Leopardfoot after Star Pineheart left the Order. Fog decided to have a second litter after this with Sparrow as the sire again, this time however Leopard raised the resulting kit (Birdflight) alongside them!

Fog has a similar personality to Mousebite, they are both tough snarky ladies <3

Fog and Leopard retired to the elders den together and are two of the elders during TPB!

...

[Image ID: a digital drawing of Fogtalon an AU version of One-eye/White-eye from warrior cats. She is sitting with her left side showing and she is smiling with an amused expression on her face. She is a short furred light gray-blue ticked tabby molly with one missing eye and one cloudy white and yellow eye. She is mostly a light gray blue with darker gray blue stripes on her legs, tail and face. She has white on her muzzle, paws, chest and tail tip. She has tears in her ears, claw mark scars over her right eye which is an empty socket, and she has a few scars on the rest of her body. Her inner ears, nose and scars are all light pink./End ID]

[skyward-floored]

Here’s a list I made today of all my Incredibles au fics put in chronological order so it’s slightly easier to figure out what the heck is going on at any given moment!

Fics with numbers at the beginning are chapters from What does anyone in this family know about “normal?!” (which is a oneshot collection), and bolder fics are separate multichaps. You can also find the ao3 collection with all of these fics here.

...

52. Warriors gets his nickname

69. Time receives a card

1. Time, Sky, and Warriors bonding

Lost Time

51. Warriors catches up

34. Sky gets sick

37. Warriors and Artemis fight a villain

4. Malon’s powers

16. The first time Twilight turned into a wolf

66. Twilight plays a joke (and Warriors is skeptical)

55: Sky and Warriors explain

24. Time and Twilight play a song

48. Twilight kisses it better (and chases his tail)

20. The first time Legend turned invisible

50. Twilight doesn’t look both ways

18. Legend has a tantrum

31. Legend tries to fly

43. The first time Wind caused a breeze

Let us catch you

14. Wild finds himself very lost

28. Wind’s announcement

41. Wild has a nightmare

38. Legend gets his hair done

32. Baby Four

15. Wind testing out his powers

33. Wild and Legend argue

49. Legend gets a splinter

53. Hyrule makes some plans

2. Hyrule backstory

Let us find you

30. Hyrule’s scars

7. Hyrule adjusting

71. Sky babysits (and Wind hates peas)

70. Hyrule reads a book, and Four escapes a nap

46. Hyrule breaks a cup

47. Twilight reads a story

29. Aryll

5. Wolfie, Bunny Legend, and Hyrule shenanigans

11. Roadtrip

60. Wild and Hyrule get tucked in

68. Legend gets a fever

12. Oddities of Four

13. Wind and Warriors cause some chaos

35. Four and Sky make a house

23. Sky and Wind go for a fly

26. Talon and the grandkids

36. Four has some mood swings

61. Four has a nightmare

65. Time and Malon get a moment to themselves

8. Runaway

17. Wind quietly saves a civilian

6. Wolfie shenanigans

58. Warriors pushes himself too far

3. Movie night

27. Despair over Sky

9. Memories of Sky

[Movie events here]

59. Sky survives

Plane and simple

44. Split Four

10. Ravio & Legend

39. Marin

62. Glasses

63. Malon and the glasses

54. Time stops a theft

40. Spirit

56: Four stays split a little too long

42. No capes!

25. Warriors loses control

57. Legend sneaks out

22. Forced to fight Twilight

64. Four and Wind eat some fries

67. Dot gives Four a hand

45. Blades of the Yiga

19. Future Wild

72. Four and the triplets

21. Wild loses an arm

[thgfanfictionlibrary]

Mature Rated Fics Masterlist (71)

Part 1 - Part 65 / Part 66 / Part 67 / Part 68 / Part 69 / Part 70 /

Created: May 24th, 2024

Last Checked:------

A Thing to be Achieved-Peetabreadgirl (ao3) Summary: After losing everything, Peeta Mellark goes in search of a new destiny, one that could cost him even more than what he's already lost. A wrong day's journey into right-Pikelet184 (ao3) Summary: Modern AU; They had noticed each other from afar and although they had never spoken, the attraction between them couldn't be denied. Little did Katniss know that she would finally get the opportunity to speak to him, on one of the worst days of her life. Car crash victim Katniss/Paramedic Peeta Birthday Surprises-AlwaysPeetaM, Pikelet184 (ao3) Summary: I adopted this story (from Pikelet184) for the adopt a story event hosted by Love in Panem on tumblr. So now it's mine. It's modern day Everlark. After Katniss' father dies , Peeta approaches her at school and they become friends. It's 6 years since he left and she hasn't seen him since. Birthday's have never gone as planned for Katniss and this one wouldn't either. Christmas 2013 in Forks, WA-oh_so_loverly (ao3) Summary: Peeta has his first Christmas as a Cullen. Closer-oh_so_loverly (ao3) Summary: Seventeen-year-old Katniss Everdeen returns to her childhood home after years of living out of state, only to find that the town, and certain residents in it, are not quite how she remembers- especially a certain boy who she could have sworn once had blue eyes. Dilation and Curettage-papofglencoe (ao3) Summary: The label might as well have said it—might as well have advertised the procedure Katniss was there for in bright neon lights, or painted in smoke across the sky. Dilation and Curettage. She was there to be opened up, to have some part of herself irrevocably hollowed out, and there didn’t seem much point in trying to hide that. Dousing the Flame-oh_so_loverly (ao3) Summary: Based upon Prompt 22 of the Everlark Fanfic Exchange. Anonymous suggested, 'Canon Divergent fic where the Quarter Quell never happens and Katniss and Peeta have to continue living their lives in front of the Capitol.' LBJ-Peetabreadgirl (ao3) Summary: Katniss wants to keep her and Peeta's relationship a secret. Or does she? Love You Long Time-PoppedTheP (ff) Summary: Katniss becomes a mail order bride to feed her starving family. The American husband who chooses her is a war veteran named Peeta Mellark. Will being married to him be as awful as she anticipates or will he surprise her? Katniss/Peeta. Modern AU. Wild-JLaLa (ao3) Summary: “Katniss never wanted children. She’s not maternal; the mom gene never developed in her body and it makes perfect sense that she should not go through with this pregnancy.”

[doolallymagpie]

started charting out the Security Council Coup and, uh oh, Padme’s doing “In the Pale Moonlight”

[catindabag]

TBOSAS on Crack! ✨essential information✨

⭐️❄️⭐️

FIRST off, in honor of the book and its movie release, TBOSAS on Crack is solely (just) created as a JOKE!Alternative Universe that focuses more on the 24 OG Mentors of the 10th Hunger Games. This includes the funny/romantic misunderstandings of Coriolanus Snow and Sejanus Plinth that gave everyone the impression that they were actually “secretly” dating, and are indeed boyfriends (until they honestly were).

In addition, this Crack!AU will tell you the compelling story of how a bunch of delinquents “accidentally” stopped the Hunger Games from continuing, just because of a certain Mentor’s ✨nepotism✨.

MORE or less, most of the characters in the book are the same when it comes to their personalities and backstories. Well, except for our Mentors. They’re a bunch of crackhead Capitol kids with too much fun and stress on their hands. They even almost made Dean Highbottom and Dr. Gaul quit their respective jobs.

ALSO, these young walking disasters are not “all there” in the head. Heck! Half of them went crazy years ago because of the infamous 2 year Capitol Siege by the rebels that almost starved them all to death. Just ask Coryo Snow and Persephone. But as for the other half, let’s just say that all they want to do is eat, drink, party, and ✨graduate✨.

Here is a quick character info: [Read Me]

Here are their visuals: [Read Me]

Here’s the Hunger Games Origin: [Read Me]

Here’s their playlist: [Read Me]

Here are their ✨Code Names✨: [Read Me]

And here’s Dean Highbottom’s take: [Read Me]

Here’s that Epic The Musical Post: [Read Me]

Here’s the fate of District 13: [Read Me]

PS: For sanity’s sake, no Mentor or Tribute will be dying in this Crack!AU. No one gets killed! Bombs will still explode inside the Capitol Arena, but our crazy kids will wear the thickest plot armor EVER, just because I’m their only sponsor!🤣

Read the Cracks here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78,

The cracks are not in chronological order, but someday they will. . .

MOREOVER, this Crack!AU includes the following:

The accidental birth of ✨Snowjanus✨!😘

Also known as Corjanus, SnowPlinth, CabbageBread, The Grandma’am golden ticket to a rich life, and Strabo’s not so secret plan to rule all of Panem through his only son’s marriage to Crassus Snow’s boy.

Coryo Snow malfunctioning for the hundredth time because of how forward and shamelessly romantic Sejanus Plinth is.

“Fine! I’ll marry into money! I’m sick of eating cabbages anyway!”

“Stop throwing bread to the dead, Sejanus Plinth! Throw it to the living!”

The Mentors (intentionally) delaying the Hunger Games from officially starting because of their nonstop shenanigans with their Tributes (much to Dr. Gaul and her Gamemaker’s frustration).🤣

The Tributes slowly accepting (and sometimes rejecting) the fact that their Mentors are just a bunch of “dramatic nepotistic crazy clowns” who refuse to learn basic social cues.

The 10th Hunger Games being officially postponed (over and over again) because of Felix Ravinstill’s ✨nepotism✨ working overtime.😌💅

In truth, the Gamemakers were “forced” to stop the countdown (over and over again) because half of the Mentors illegally barged into the control room without Dr. Gaul’s permission. Afterwards, Felix just used the excuse of “My granduncle is the President of Panem, I can do whatever I want” card to postpone the games.

Lucy Gray ignoring the personal space of her fellow annoyed Tributes (and everyone she meets), just because she’s “Covey” and quirky.

The poor underpaid Capitol Peacekeepers wanting a salary increase, vacation, and promotion because they have been dealing with the Mentors’ extra curricular criminal activities for far too long.

All the Mentors (excluding Livia and Arachne) being genuine ✨Besties✨ to each other since their grade school days.

Livia Cardew only calls her classmates either witches or idiots.

Festus Creed being the real ✨Dumpster Diving Capitol Rat King✨ and the best free cheesecake coupon hoarder of the century.

“Dumpster Diving for free food coupons is a common school activity, officer!”

The Academy? More like ✨The Academy of Arts✨💅.

Everyone wanting to secretly major in ✨Theatre & Drama✨.

Crazy but rich AF Sejanus Plinth and his unhealthy obsession of being Coryo Snow’s beloved boyfriend, fiancé, sugar daddy, baby daddy, and future husband.

Ma Plinth slowly becoming the food benefactor of the Mentors. #feedmeMa

Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray being the best of friends who love to sh*t talk about their boyfriends every time they meet.

Seriously, Coryo and Lucy Gray are just friends here. Everyone knows that crazy Sejanus Plinth will strangle anyone who tries to flirt with his gorgeous Snow Bae sugar baby fiancé.

Lucy Gray genuinely liking the Mentors for their chaotic ✨dramatic✨ personalities.

Sejanus Plinth shamelessly calling his darling Coryo “Babe, My love, Snow Angel, Snow Bae, Snowy, Snow Baby, Sweetheart” in front of everyone and their dogs.

The Mentors randomly coming up to Lucy Gray and asking her to sing banned songs from the early 2000s.

Strabo Plinth’s unhealthy obsession with the Snow family. Apparently, he and the ever gorgeous Crassus Snow were very close “friends” and the best “roommates” back in their military days. They were busy “stargazing” and playing with their rifles all night if you know what I mean.😏

The Grandma’am and Strabo Plinth being the true evil geniuses of the Capitol.😈

Strabo Plinth insisting Coryo to marry into his family and change their surnames to ✨The Great Plinth-Snow Dynasty✨, just because it sounds more powerful.

Coryo Snow accidentally convincing his beloved sugar daddy boyfriend (Crazy Sejanus Plinth) to become the future ✨President of Panem✨ (after Felix).

Tigris and The Grandma’am selling Coryo’s hand in marriage to the Plinth family. They genuinely believe that old man Strabo Plinth will lower the food prices if Sejanus marries Coryo for the sake of Panem.

Tigris Snow finally quitting her job (she got fired for being a weird cheese addict) and happy dancing for a whole week when she heard that her sweet little Coryo will marry into the Plinth family fortune.

Tigris, the Grandma’am, and Ma Plinth planning the ultimate ✨Snowjanus Royal Wedding of The Century✨.

The Grandma’am and evil Strabo Plinth scheming together to rule Panem and its people through ✨The Great SnowPlinth Union✨.

Ma Plinth wanting at least 5 beautiful grandchildren out of The Great SnowPlinth Union, while Strabo and the Grandma’am demanded 2 dozen (and more). #24&More

Lysistrata Vickers being the founder and President of the Capitol’s SnowPlinth/Snowjanus Official Fan Club.

Lucy Gray supporting and promising Coryo Snow that she and her Covey will sing the best banned love songs at his wedding.

Reaper Ash being labeled as the “weird one” by his fellow crazy Tributes.

Treech and Vipsania Sickle being the best gym bros for some unknown reason.

Marcus trying (and failing) to ignore the annoying existence of Sejanus Plinth.

Lysistrata Vickers having dibs as Coryo’s official ✨Maid of Honor✨. Apparently, poor cheese addict Tigris Snow was tragically outvoted by the very influential and powerful SnowPlinth/Snowjanus Fan Club members out of jealousy.🥲

Festus Creed and Tigris Snow fighting for the position of ✨Best Man✨ through an epic ✨Dance-off Battle✨💃🕺.

Apollo Ring being forced to be Coryo’s ring bearer because of his surname. Honestly, Gaius Breen and Androcles Anderson just peer pressured him for fun.

Livia Cardew planning to crash Coryo’s wedding for the expensive wine.

The Mentors and Tributes avoiding the “Arena Bomb Explosion Incident” because of Palmyra Monty’s dangerous existence.

Androcles Anderson being a proud professional kleptomaniac.

Lucky Flickerman wanting to quit his job. Apparently, the self proclaimed magic man was extremely unprepared to face and deal with the Mentors’ collective stupidity.😭

The Gamemakers forgetting to edit out Sejanus Plinth’s little arena stunt.

“Marcus was just sleeping, Sejanus! He’s still alive, you idiot Plinth! We freaking postponed the games!”

“For the last time! Don’t kiss Coriolanus Xanthos Snow on LIVE TV! There are freaking kids and dogs watching!”

Coryo and Sejanus shamelessly kissing, hugging, and being dramatic AF inside the Capitol Arena, while poor Marcus and the others are left sitting on the stands annoyed and confused AF.

Dean Casca Highbottom intentionally calling poor Coryo “Crassus Xanthos Snow” out of spite and out of regret (and because he’s still madly and deeply in love with the ever gorgeous Crassus Snow).

Drunk Highbottom living and swimming in denial since the infamous ✨#Crasca4Ever! University Breakup✨.😔

Coryo Snow successfully convincing a drunk Highbottom not to expel him by pretending to be Crassus Snow. He later regrets doing it.

Drunk!Casca not being able to correctly pronounce half all of his students’ names.

Festus Creed and Androcles Anderson receiving a lot of demerits and expulsion letters from the Dean. However, they still go to school and join their class discussions like nothing happened.

Casca Highbottom banning the Mentors from attending ✨The Academy’s Annual Students Teachers Meeting✨ (forever) because of the infamous Heavensbee Hall Flooding Incident.

Coryo Snow secretly trading his cabbages for banned music albums at the Capitol Black Market.

The banned song “Heaven Is A Place On Earth” accidentally playing on repeat inside the Capitol Arena because Felix Ravinstill forgot to detach his phone from Dr. Gaul’s master speaker.

“Snow On The Beach” stealing the top spot on the Capitol Billboard Hot 100 because of Coryo Snow and Lucy Gray’s final performance inside the Capitol Arena.

The Mentors trolling Lucky Flickerman and Lepidus Malmsey for the hundredth time.

Hilarius Heavensbee secretly collects movie records from the early 2000s. His favorite banned film is ✨Legally Blonde✨.

Io Jasper and Urban Canville being a bunch of shameless nerds who can’t properly communicate with each other.

Professor Sickle trying to convince Drunk!Casca Highbottom to give her a raise and promotion for tolerating the Mentors’ shenanigans and stupidity.

Crazy Palmyra Monty forever mentally and emotionally scarring her classmates (especially Florus Friend) with her homemade poisonous snacks.

Florus Friend fearing and avoiding Palmyra Monty’s accursed deadly bread rolls and expired sandwiches.

Felix Ravinstill being a genuine good friend and great Class President to everyone.

Dennis Fling asking poor sensitive Felix to beg for some illegal ✨Miracle Pills✨ from Lysistrata to cure Hy and Dill’s respiratory related illnesses.

Everyone knows that Persephone Price willingly ate that infamous “Maid Stew” that her father made for them to survive.

Festus Creed’s ✨PerseFest✨ agenda.

Dairy Heiress Domitia Whimsiwick fawning over Tanner’s skills and biceps.

Coral perfecting her somersault to impress the Capitol crowd and her idiot Mentor.

The Mentors pretending to be stupid whenever they attend Dr. Gaul’s class.

Dr. Gaul giving up on grooming poor Coryo Snow to become her successor because she realized that his brain doesn’t work properly whenever he’s with Sejanus.

Poor homeless Hilarius Heavensbee getting disowned and kicked out of the ✨Queen Bee Mansion✨ by his evil weirdo parents for being a loser nuisance towards his smarter and perfect younger brother.

Livia and Arachne convincing themselves that Casca Highbottom is actually Coryo Snow’s true sugar daddy.

Meanwhile, Florus Friend thinks Strabo Plinth is the real sugar daddy of poor Coryo Snow and homeless Hilarius Heavensbee.

Dr. Gaul openly wanting to strangle the Mentors for acting being stupid.

Urban Canville’s secret mission to strangle Lucky Flickerman and his annoying bird.

Felix Ravinstill being the favorite darling grandnephew son of President Gran Gran.

Festus winning the position of ✨Class Representative✨. Apparently, Creed only won because Sejanus “accidentally” locked Urban Canville inside a bathroom stall.

Persephone Price and Mizzen being the best pizza partners in crime. Somebody, these two idiots will rule all of Panem with their ruthless ✨Pizza Palace Empire✨.

Drunk!Coryo genuinely believes that Felix Ravinstill is the current President of Panem.

Drunk!Sejanus, Drunk!Coryo, Drunk!Festus, and Drunk!Lysistrata acting like shameless fools in front of their Tributes. The poor and underpaid Peacekeepers were not amused.

Festus Creed and Sejanus Plinth stripping on broad daylight because of the summer heat.

Reaper Ash praying for some normalcy and mental peace every day.

Jessup and Sheaf talking and singing with the Capitol’s “sacred” rabid raccoons and wild squirrels in order to stay sane.

Mizzen being a terrible little gremlin.

The Mentors trying to recreate The Hunger Games until ✨Panemvision✨ was born.

Livia’s own version of The Hungers Games is basically ✨Love Island✨ on crack and steroids.

Because of the awful “Love Island” idea, the rest of the Mentors had to write a serious 20 page essay on why the Hunger Games should be recreated/revamped into a true reality TV show with a “no killing, no gore, no cannibalism” policy.

The Mentors trying to convince the School Board Members, the Government Officials, and crazy President Ravinstill to change the 10th Hunger Games into a non-deadly talent show to increase viewership and sponsors.

Moreover, Coryo strongly defended the proposal by having Lucy Gray successfully sing in front of a live audience (again) on TV. Billy Taupe was the only one who got offended (again).

Meanwhile, the rest of the Mentors also convinced their Tributes to show off their talents that same day. That was Reaper’s 2nd worst day of the week.😂

Dean Highbottom only supported the proposal because it reminded him of his wild karaoke clubbing days with his drop dead gorgeous lover. You know who it was.😏 #Crasca4Ever #crassusmylove #SnowBottom

Clemensia Dovecote also backs their weird essays by simply stating that killing children will only make the Districts hate the Capitol more. However, if they provide “real entertainment” without the violence, then the Districts might warm up to them.

In addition, Sejanus proposed that the winner of the contest will be made a ✨STAR of PANEM✨! 🤩

And as the ✨Star of Panem✨, he/she will be given monetary support and a lifetime supply of cabbages and lima beans by the Capitol.

Meanwhile, the losers will only get 10 boxes of pizza, 2 gallons of orange soda, one body bag of sandwiches (made by Ma Plinth) as a reward for “willingly” participating.

Juno Phipps then added a “rule” stating that no Tribute shall be punished (or killed) because the losers must live and remember their humiliation on television for the rest of their lives.😈

Coryo and Clemmie also proposed that each Tribute must have a Prep Team and Stylist to make them presentable for Lucky Flickerman’s Late Night Show with Jubilee.

Finally, Felix Ravinstill and Dennis Fling closed their arguments by stating: “That being forced to sing and perform ON STAGE and on LIVE TV, which could be replayed over and over again, even after death, especially for Tributes who couldn’t save their own pride and dignity for all of Panem to remember, is the worst punishment one could freely give to one’s enemy. They won’t even be allowed to forget how they had wronged you.”

After hearing the Mentors’ closing argument, Dr. Gaul was ready to end it all and commit bloody murder in front of everyone.😡🔪

But after some deliberation, President Ravinstill (and his puppies) approved the Mentors’ proposal and changed the Hungers Games into the ✨HGASC✨ (Hunger Games: Annual Singing Contest).

However, the Grandma’am and Strabo Plinth insisted that they should just officially call it ✨PANEMVISION✨.

Meanwhile, Dr. Gaul tried to persuade President Ravinstill (again) to reconsider the Mentors’ stupid proposals.

However, she was outvoted by both the School Board Committee and the Capitol’s highest ranking government officials, just because everyone (but her) wanted to see what “true entertainment” really looks like on screen.

Livia Cardew even defended everyone’s ideas nonstop because, according to her, there was a lack of spicy entertainment in the Capitol. Damn the rules! This is the Capitol! We want ✨Love Island✨ type of dramas! Where are the ✨Real Housewives of Corso✨?! F*ck the Hunger Games! Give us the 90 Day Fiancé from the Districts!

And that’s how the Mentors “accidentally” ended the Hunger Games and gave birth to the most popular and craziest reality TV show in the weird history of Panem.

As for every Quarter Quell, let’s just say, it’s gonna be a true ✨SHOW STOPPER✨!

The first ✨HGASC/PANEMVISION✨ Quarter Quell will have the Mentors reap kids from both Capitol and District. Afterwards, one District Tribute will be paired with one Capitol Tribute to perform a special duet act (whether they like it or not).

[stabbyfoxandrew]

Guardian Angel Neil AU

Neil Josten died at the hands of his father a few months before canon begins. After his death, he was made into a guardian angel. He's tasked with keeping Andrew Minyard safe at all costs. When they meet on the roof for the first time, Andrew thinks he's imagined Neil. And he worries both about his mental health and his love life because this boy is perfect. But he's not real.

Fanart for this au can be found: here, here, and here! <3 Paste this link into your browser to read it from the beginning, in chronological order!

─────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───────────

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, Part 30, Part 31, Part 32, Part 33, Part 34, Part 35, Part 36, Part 37, Part 38, Part 39, Part 40, Part 41, Part 42, Part 43, Part 44, Part 45, Part 46, Part 47, Part 48, Part 49, Part 50,

Part 51, Part 52, Part 53, Part 54, Part 55, Part 56, Part 57, Part 58, Part 59, Part 60, Part 61, Part 62, Part 63, Part 64, Part 65, Part 66, Part 67, Part 68, Part 69, Part 70, Part 71, Part 72, Part 73, Part 74, Part 75, Part 76, Part 77, Part 78, Part 79, Part 80, Part 81, Part 82, Part 83, Part 84, Part 85, Part 86, Part 87, Part 88, Part 89, Part 89.5, Part 90, Part 91, Part 92, Part 93, Part 94

Angel Neil Masterpost Page 2 ->

[scratchtovoid]

📓 DAEMYRA FANFIC RECOMMENDATIONS

• Someone You Knew In Another Life by @spreta-invidia - My current obsession. I made this post just for this story! Time travel fix it fics are popular for a reason with the Dance characters but in my opinion this fic does it best. Told from different points of view, this story centers on Aegon III going back in time to tell his parents about the coming war and their own deaths! What follows is deliciously written political scheming, deep discussions of what parenthood means for Rhaenyra and Daemon, and a tender family story that brought tears to my eyes more than once.

Complete || 65 Chapters || M || 176K || (link)

• The Sacrifice and the Sea Dragon by Fayte2008 - As someone who writes alternative fantasy asoiaf fics, I’m deeply partial to any writer that dares to reimagine these characters in new fantasy settings. So discovering this short but delightful tale of Daemon being sacrificed to a sea dragon made me incredibly happy. Written like a fairy tale, this story would not feel out of place in an anthology of Valyrian legends.

Complete || Oneshot || E || 1.7K || (link)

• your ivy grows (now I'm covered in you) by @charlie-leau - Personally I think anything by this writer is well worth your time! But what I love about this story of Rhaenyra facing an unexpected pregnancy is that it delves deep into both her complicated relationship with being a mother and the stigma of childbirth out of wedlock in a world like Westeros. Despite this series being only five chapters long, the Daemon/Rhaenyra love story feels earned at the end!

Complete || 5 Chapters || E || 87K || (link)

• put down that gravestone by darkgods - This fic will always be special to me because it was the fic that really got me into Daemyra fic in the first place! I don’t think I would even be writing fanfiction if I hadn’t read this series! And that’s because it so wonderfully balances the political intrigue we know so well from canon with a deeply satisfying love story that is all about family. In this canon divergent tale, Rhaenyra gets pregnant from a tryst with Daemon the night of the brothel (unbeknownst to them both). When Daemon is sent away and Rhaenyra is forced to marry Laenor, she raises her sons as true Velaryons. That is until Daemon returns to take his place at court, and Rhaenyra finds she can’t hide her sons’ true identities from the man who sired them.

Ongoing/Hiatus || 28/45 Ch || E || 249K || (link)

• Lavender Haze by madgirlslovesong (sympathy4thedevil) - In this AU, Viserys has a dragon dream of the coming war in which he sees Rhaenyra’s death. In order to change his daughter’s fate, he names Aegon heir and grants Rhaenyra the title of Princess of Dragonstone as a consolation prize. Resigned to a life denied, Rhaenyra finds renewed freedom when Daemon arrives offering her a world of new possibilities. If you want a fluffy, sexy, what could have been for Rhaenyra and Daemon, this is the one! This fic explores life outside of court and allows Rhaenyra to see more of the world than she got to see in canon. It gives the fic a completely unique feeling. There’s also some great fun with Viserys and his reaction to Daemyra’s relationship in a follow up oneshot!

Complete || 8 Chapters || E || 96K || (link)

• Deep Tissue by @luthien-under-bough - Rhaenyra gets a massage that has her feeling especially relaxed! Just trust me on this one, you should read it.

Complete || Oneshot || E || 4K || (link)

• Blood Sweeter Than Honey Wine by Me! - Yes, I’m including my own fic on this list. If you want a taste of my writing or if you’re interested in a completely different kind of fantasy AU, you might like my twisted tale of a Prince who washes up on an island long thought to be abandoned but is actually home to a mysterious Queen with a dangerous secret!

Complete || Oneshot || E || 11K || (link)

[atla-genderbender]

ATLA Gender Bender: Firelord Ozai

"You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher."

The principle behind this AU is to swap the genders of the main cast (Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko) and other characters where it enhances the story. This means that most child characters, like Azula and Suki, are also swapped, but adults are swapped on a case by case basis. This is especially true for characters who had a formative influence on the main characters, like parents and other role models. If you swap a given character and their parent(al figure)s, this alters the character's personality more than swapping that character without swapping their parents. Sometimes this effect is subtle, and sometimes it is large. This is why I would avoid swapping the genders of a character's parents, unless it makes sense to do so.

In the case of Zuko's parents, I do not think it detracts from the story to swap their genders. I would even go so far to say that some things are enhanced by swapping both Ozai and Ursa. Female Ozai fits surprisingly well into the role of an "evil empress". "Urson" also works as a "papa bear" character. A female Ozai would contrast well with a female Zuko, serving as a "good queen" "evil queen" dichotomy. I also find it fascinating to think about what would change and what would stay the same if Ozai's gender was also swapped. 

I picture female Ozai being no less evil or sadistic as normal Ozai. Unlike Ozai, she would have to maintain the image of a good mother to her children, and a good daughter to her father. This is especially interesting if she is the first female Fire Lord in a line of male Fire Lords. She would be a queen who has to strike the perfect balance of femininity and power in order to please her court. A woman who possesses bewitching beauty to conceal a wicked, sadistic soul. I think she would be very narcissistic and cruel, obsessed with being beautiful and powerful at once.

I attempted to convey this through her design, which could be tweaked in many respects. To explain the rationale behind her design, the Fire Lords of Avatar draw from East and Southeast Asian influences. Firelord Ozai's hairstyle is Chinese inspired (see: atlaculture.tumblr.com/post/65…), but his clothing is Burmese inspired (see: atlaculture.tumblr.com/post/63…). As such, I decided to base the hairstyles of female Fire Lords on East Asian hairstyles worn by female rulers.

It feels inevitable that female Ozai would be compared to Wu Zetian. I wanted to minimize these comparisons, and make it clear that female Ozai is not supposed to be a representation of Wu Zetian. Doing so would unfairly demonize a real historical figure. Still, I could not resist including a couple of elements inspired by Fan Bingbing as Wu Zetian in "The Empress of China" (see: dwvyw8kf1avne.cloudfront.net/s…). This is what inspired female Ozai's red makeup, and the stylized phoenix headdress that she wears. Other design elements are not inspired by Wu Zetian, but other portrayals of powerful queens and empresses in Chinese dramas. Namely, Empress Du Feihong in "The Glamorous Imperial Concubine". I hope that the final design is so stylized that it is clear that she is not supposed to represent a real historical figure. I attempted to simplify her headdress in a way that could be easy enough to animate while still making it clear that she is wearing a ridiculous amount of gold and rubies on her head. This is meant to contrast with female Zuko's design. Where female Zuko is humble, female Ozai is vain.

In the end, I am dissatisfied with the design I came up with, for reasons I will explain under "OUTFIT DESCRIPTIONS".

This design approach diverges from the design principles behind the one female Firelord shown in Avatar, that being Izumi. I took liberties with hairstyles, but did not change the masculine style of robes. I felt this would diverge too far from the pre-established rules of Avatar. Additionally, I think it creates an interesting contrast between a feminine hairstyle and masculine robes, especially if Ozai and "Zuka" are the first female Firelords in a long series of male Firelords.

The phoenix imagery actually makes more sense if Ozai was a woman, since the fenghuang is traditionally a feminine entity. I also think it would be cool if she was still named "Ozai", kind of like how "Ty Lee" is very feminine but has a masculine name. It would also imply that "Ozai" isn't the name she was born with, but a name she adopted for its meaning "large presence". 

I picture Grey Griffin as the voice of female Ozai. Specifically, how she voices adult characters, like Ming Hua in LOK and the female Viltrumite from Invincible. I don't think that she should have the same voice as Azula, but Grey Griffin could give her a venomous and vicious voice that would fit her really well.

OUTFIT DESCRIPTIONS:

1: Firelord Costume

I am dissatisfied with the hairstyle I came up with for female Ozai's Firelord costume. I have written previously about my concerns that viewers would conflate her with the real life Wu Zetian. In order to minimize these comparisons, I tried to make elements of her hairstyle abstract instead of authentic to real life costumes. However, I do not think I was successful in achieving my goal. When I first started drawing female Ozai, I knew little about hanfu, and have since learned more about traditional Chinese costumes. The crown that I gave her is clearly inspired by fengguan, which is a distinctly Chinese element. Given Ozai's affinity for phoenixes, I can't not picture female Ozai wearing some sort of fengguan. The design I came up with is flawed, as it is something that "looks Chinese" without being authentic to Chinese costume design. This could come across as offensive. The best approach would be to fuse the Chinese element of the fengguan with other cultural influences, so that the result is something that is not specifically Chinese. I took some time to try to come up with a better design, but to be transparent I am approaching creative burn out with this project and was unable to come up with a better design. I guess this speaks to my limits as an artist.

With all of this said, these designs are best viewed as a first draft and not the final product. These are meant to give an impression of what her character would look like, and could use more sets of eyes to review and improve the design.

2: "Phoenix Queen" Costume

In the second costume, her cape is somewhat inspired by Maleficent's cape in "Sleeping Beauty". Maleficent's appearance also helped inspire female Ozai's widow's peak and facial structure. As I mentioned before, her costume is inspired by the real life apsara. She has dressed herself in the image of a goddess of fire.

3: "Phoenix Queen" Costume, after removing crown and cape

The third costume is supposed to be how female Ozai would appear at the start of her fight with "Aangi". I intended for her to have the same body type as the female Viltrumite "Thula" from "Invincible". I also think that female Ozai's voice would sound like Thula's. I picture her as a warrior queen who spends a lot of time training, giving her an athletic and muscular appearance. I think she would appear more physically intimidating if she has some muscle mass on her frame. This being said, there are a lot of different athletic body types. A less bulky but athletic body type could arguably fit her better.

4: Appearance after being defeated by "Aangi"

The fourth costume is supposed to be how female Ozai would appear at the end of her fight with "Aangi". Since she doesn't have a goattee, I think "Aangi" would grab her by the gold part of her top. I think it would be cool and dramatic if "Aangi" ripped this part of her costume off. In the heat of battle, female Ozai loses the gold parts of her costume, and a waterbending attack by "Aangi" washes off her makeup, exposing her as a false goddess.

Her finger nails and toenails are painted and sharpened, to resemble the talons of a phoenix.

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