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aealzx · 5 months ago

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(This one is pretty long info dumping. Warning: mention of mild gore)

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Prologue

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With the state of the one named Danny, the safehouse Barbara directed the group to was one that was a little more well stocked than the others. It was only because of Jazz that they were able to reach it, being the one to accept all of them being blindfolded after Jason had suggested they could hold each other’s hands the whole time and let the rest of his team put the blindfolds on. It made walking a little awkward with Jazz firmly hanging onto her unconscious brother’s hand, but it was an annoyance Jason was willing to accept for the comfort it gave them. It was only when they were in a room without windows that they took the blindfolds off, and pulled chairs over for the kids to sit on.

“Don’t touch me,” Sam hissed when Cass took her arm to start cleaning a cut she had, snatching her limb back and glaring.

“If it gets infected and you get sick then you’ll have one more of your team in need of care. That seems detrimental to your state of affairs,” Damian commented after catching sight of Cass’ sad expression.

“Robin,” Tim hissed, not wanting to stress this group of teenagers out more than they already were.

“He’s not wrong,” Jason interjected, keeping a hold of Danny not only because there was only one table open that he’d directed Stephanie to set Danielle on, but also because he knew the others would behave better with their seriously injured friend in obvious custody. “You guys should take care of yourselves too, otherwise no one will be left to look out for him.”

It was effective. Sam flinched before lowering her head and hunching her shoulders like a scolded puppy, then offered her arm back to Cass.

“Dude,” Tucker protested weakly, but didn’t say anything else and aso looked to Tim to accept his own check up. He had to wait for Tim to stop facepalming first though, a heaved sign from him before he decided not to further comment on his two brothers’ unnecessarily blunt comments.

“Are you feeling a little better sweetie? Sorry we roughed you up so much, but you were quite the fighter and it was hard to deal with you,” Stephanie decided to also ignore her brothers, resting Danielle on the table while Dick was clearing the other.

At first Danielle was about to be snarky about whose fault it was that she wasn’t feeling okay, but Stephanie’s expert inclusion about her fighting ability effectively changed her thought process. “Heheeh. And don’t you forget it,” Danielle chimed with a proud giggle. “I’m feeling much better now. Thanks for carrying me all the way.”

“No problem! Thanks for listening to your sister and not fighting us again,” Stephanie returned. “Jazz said you’re different from the others. Do you need anything? It doesn’t look like you’re injured anymore.”

“I heal fast, so I’m okay. But do you have any food? We haven’t really gotten much lately,” Danielle asked shamelessly. She didn’t need any bandaids or antiseptic like the others, but fights had still taken a lot of energy on top of being short supply of food for the past few months. If they were willing to finally give her a good meal then she was going to take advantage of it.

“Sure thing,” Stephanie giggled, appreciating the honesty. “I’ll be right back,” she bid, leaving Danielle on the table and heading to another room where they kept food supplies.

Letting Stephanie pass by them, Jason shifted towards the remaining table where Dick was finishing clearing the surface of spare parts and supplies. “Get two blankets, he’s cold as ice,” Jason directed Dick, the concern in his voice being the only hit to his hidden expression.

“...Still breathing?” Dick asked after obediently pulling a thick blanket from a nearby cupboard and spreading it on the table first. They were both keeping their voices on the quieter side, letting Stephanie and Tim take care of keeping the other three occupied. Jazz was the only one staying near them, having not let go of Danny’s hand just yet.

“Yeah, it’s weak though,” Jason confirmed, carefully setting Danny down and helping Dick spread the second blanket over him. “How long has he been like this?”

That question was directed to Jazz, who pursed her lips both in reluctance to answer and to fight back more tears. “Since we got here. He collapsed and hasn’t woken up since,” she admitted, almost a whisper.

“What?” Dick smothered his outburst so the others didn’t notice, but couldn’t keep it quiet completely. “He’s been comatose for months without life support?”

Jazz flinched and shrank back slightly at the outburst, but Jason rested a hand on her shoulder to keep her from fleeing. They needed her to talk if they wanted to be able to help them. “He’s not a regular human, remember?” he reminded Dick, speaking up to try and help Jazz feel a little less interrogated.

Jazz didn’t offer any further information, just pulled her gaze back to look up at Dick, lip wavering despite her trying to keep a defiant expression. She wasn’t looking for pity, but she wasn’t good enough at pretending to be a tough girl that Dick didn’t notice her distress. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to... I know you were doing your best,” he apologized, pulling back a little as well.

“Dr. Thompkins has reached you guys. Penny-one opted to call her after hearing Danny's initial condition,” Barbara’s report came over all of their comms, able to keep tabs on everyone through secure video feeds of the inside and outside of the safehouse. And as each of her team members got DNA samples from their captive rescuees she was also starting an identity analysis for each of them in the background.

“Robin?”

That was all Dick had to say, calling to the youngest who was leaning against the frame of the only door. Damian simply raised his hand in a brief acknowledging wave before he left to let Leslie inside. As he left Stephanie returned a moment after, a plate of warmed up frozen burritos in her hands and a bag of bottled water over her shoulder. The bag caught Jason’s eye, and he moved over momentarily to grab one of the bottles and bring it to Jazz.

“Our medical contact has arrived. We’ll have her look at your brother first. Just make sure you stay hydrated,” he commented, handing her the bottle and letting her open it so she could see it was still sealed and therefore wasn’t contaminated. If that was even a concern that crossed her mind. It was starting to quickly seem like these kids weren’t criminals at all, and many of them were starting to have a hard time treating them as such.

“...Thanks,” Jazz responded, taking a moment to be willing to let go of Danny to open the bottle. It was much needed, and she ended up drinking half of it before lowering it again.

Jason watched her for a moment, noting how tense she was and her reluctance to speak with them. He couldn’t blame her for being secretive, having no idea what had driven them to where they had been. But he couldn’t help notice it was strange they were all still distrusting of the group they were with. Didn’t they know Batman’s group of birds were a trustworthy lot? Were they still hiding something illegal? Or maybe… they simply didn’t recognize them. Where were these kids from? “Before the Doctor gets here, I just want to strongly recommend that you don’t keep anything from her, alright? I know it’s scary to reveal things about your brother to a stranger, but the more she knows the better she can help. Got it?”

Jazz looked up at him at the half request half demand, eyes trying to see him beyond the mask as she considered his words. She hadn’t thought about that yet, being so used to keeping everything about what Danny was a secret from everyone. But what Jason said made sense, and she wasn’t going to risk Danny not getting better just to stay paranoid. Two months was a long time for them to have tried to figure things out for themselves, only to have every attempt fail. But if there was one thing they’d all learned in the past months, it seemed ghosts were practically nonexistent in Gotham. So perhaps there was much less risk than back home. “...Okay,” Jazz agreed, giving a small nod.

“This way Doctor. The young meta is over there,” Damian was quick to return, refraining from entering the room for a moment in favor of allowing Leslie to get by, but still gesturing his open palm towards the group of four to the right side of the room from the entrance.

“Thank you, Robin,” Leslie responded, stepping into the room and heading over to them. She didn’t sound too happy to be there. But considering the circumstances it was hard to be joyful about it. She did end up pausing when she laid eyes on Danny though, momentarily taken aback. “If I didn’t know any better I’d be questioning your ability to tell when someone was still alive,” she commented, looking at Dick and Jason for a moment before setting her medical case on the edge of the table with a small sigh. “Let’s take a look. What kind of injury is under the wrappings, dear?”

Her voice had softened, being able to recognize each of the kids who were there from the rundown Barbara had given her on the way there. As she gathered her tools Jazz watched her, hesitantly nudging herself to respond honestly. “...Burns,” she said quietly, willing herself to move as she saw Leslie pull out some scissors to cut the bandages with. “From here to here,” Jazz added, rising from the stool to gesture the entirety of Danny’s left side of his torso, and onto his shoulder somewhat.

“Thank you, dear,” Leslie hummed, slipping the scissors under the bandages on the opposite side to make sure she didn’t aggravate any of the injuries. It only took a moment to cut through the stolen wrappings, and then she was very gingerly peeling them away.

Jazz still felt nauseous whenever she saw the blaster inflicted burns marring a good portion of her little brother’s body, and was glad she was already sitting. Leslie didn’t seem too phased though, simply humming once the wounds were revealed even as Dick and Jason made tense noises. “Hmm. Those are definitely third degree,” Leslie commented, slowly cutting away the rest of the bandages around Danny’s shoulder. But then she noticed something unusual that caused her to look closer. The tissue that wasn’t destroyed appeared irritated, as if exposed to an allergen or poison. “What caused them?” she asked, looking closely.

“...A shot from a Blood blossom blaster,” Jazz almost whispered, clenching her hand as the memory of her brother screaming when the red tinted blast had caught him in the side made her feel even more sick. She wasn’t sure if that was worse than seeing him stand up afterwards with a gaping hole in his side dripping green blood. At least in his ghost form there hadn’t been much to see in terms of insides. But after having expended all his energy to take out the GIW’s machines he hadn’t had any left to heal, and the injuries had carried over his human half.

“Wait, you said third degree?” Sam suddenly spoke up, the whole room having stopped conversations when Leslie had come in. “You can’t see his ribs anymore?” she continued, standing up and intending to check for herself before Cass stepped in her way.

“Don’t interfere. You’ll get in the way,” Cass directed, holding her hands out to block Sam’s path and ignoring the glare directed at her.

Tucker made a gagging noise at the question, covering his mouth for a moment. “Dude, could you not remind me of that?”

So Sam wasn’t just being dramatic? Dick and his team ended up looking at Jazz when they heard her draw a breath of realization, turning from Sam back to check for herself. “Oh-... Oh thank goodness. You’re right,” she breathed, sagging to her knees and letting out a sob of relief. “We were right. He is still healing.”

It was a strange thing to hear, but for the first time since they’d caught them Sam actually gained a small smile. Danielle also ended up giving a short giggle too, kicking her legs once. “Told you,” she commented.

It was admittedly a very confusing conversation, but Dick had to just remind himself once again that Danny wasn’t completely human. Following Cass’ lead, Dick gently helped pull Jazz back to the stool she’d been on. “Let’s keep out of the Doctor’s way,” he suggested.

“Can you guys explain a little more though?” Tim spoke up now, trying to piece together everything that had been hinted at. Apparently Danny had actually had fourth degree burns, but they had healed despite him not having proper medical care other than clean dressings, and having been asleep for months. “I’m having a difficult time understanding how he’s not…. in worse condition,” he added, catching himself from being too blunt like his siblings had been before.

“You mean how he’s not dead?” This time it was Danielle that was strangely blunt with a calmness that made the others think she didn’t fully understand what she was saying. “That’s easy. He and I are both halfas. It’s harder to kill someone who’s already half dead.”

Tim’s brow twitched, and Jason didn’t miss the few glances taken at him. He doubted they were the same as him, considering he unfortunately couldn’t phase through solid objects or fly like they had seen Danielle do many times already.

“Halfas?” Stephanie repeated, pulling her gaze from Jason and looking back to Danielle.

“It’s short for half human half ghost,” Sam answered, as though it was an obvious connection to make.

“Yup. See,” Danielle confirmed, pushing off the table midmorph and floating in the air instead of landing on the floor as her now stark white hair wisped gently in a soft wind unfelt by anyone else. It didn’t look like much of a change other than she had different hair and eye colors now. But it definitely felt different. That eerie skin crawling sensation that people usually associated with ghosts that almost never actually existed.

‘...Huh, I guess it’s kind of like Captain Marvel, but with their ghost half as the other side,’ Tim thought after a moment of consideration after watching Danielle. “And being halfas give you guys accelerated healing, but… Danny’s is… hindered?” he asked next, clarifying that they were on the same page.

The nod from Danielle turned into a grimace, and she floated back to sit on the table once more. “Something like that. We have to have enough energy for it to work, and he used up a lot. This place kinda sucks too. There’s no natural portals to the Ghost Zone, and no ecto hot spots that we can gather energy from either.”

“The closest supplement we could find that we thought would work was the Lazarus water. But after getting a hold of some we decided we shouldn’t risk using it,” Jazz added, feeling the despair starting to sink into her shoulders again.

“Yeah, that stuff is freaky bad. I only took a little bit and it was horrible,” Danielle agreed, shuddering and wrapping her arms around her knees.

The others weren’t sure how to answer that fully, most of them being lost in thought about the unfamiliar data they’d been given. Eventually Jason shifted with a short comment. “We’re not too fond of the stuff either,” he huffed, then switched his gaze back to Leslie. “Have you finished looking him over?”

While they had been discussing half ghosts Leslie had continued her exam and treatment of Danny, having cleansed the obvious injuries, rebandaged them with Dick’s help, and added a simple saline IV, oxygen mask, and heart monitor. When Jason addressed her she was making notes about her results. “Mm. Aside from the burns it looks like he’s been exposed to an allergen or toxin as well,” she began, turning to face them.

“That’s the blood blossoms. They’re poison to ghosts,” Jazz supplied quickly, then looked apologetic for interrupting.

Leslie didn’t seem to mind though, just nodding and continuing her report. “There’s also the expected signs of malnutrition. If the human half still needs regular human nutrients then Vitamin IV therapy would be of benefit. The strange part is it looks like all of his bodily functions are significantly slowed, similar to that of cryogenic stasis. That could explain why he’s still alive after so long.”

“That also explains why he feels like an ice cube,” Jason noted, “Could you tell what’s causing it?”

“It seems to be self generated. I imagine this ‘meta’ potentially has ice related abilities,” Leslie answered. None of the teens said anything, but their tight lipped reactions and expressions of sudden understanding were enough to confirm Leslie’s guess.

“Do you have the details of the Vitamin IV needed? We can get that brought here,” Dick requested, moving closer to Leslie to look over her shoulder at the notes she’d taken. Leslie just shifted the tablet slightly, letting Dick get a good look since it seemed he was trying to formulate the next steps of action.

“Alright, it looks like everyone is stable for now. We’ll keep two people here at a time to keep an eye on everyone, and make sure people get fed and taken care of. Unfortunately none of you are allowed near any of our technology still, so we can see about bringing you some books or something to keep from being bored,” Dick started to plan out, giving a sympathetic shake of his head when Sam and Tucker groaned about not being let near technology. Jazz felt like it was fair enough, she wouldn't trust them either and at least they were going to make sure they had food and water. Plus they seemed to be pretty serious about taking care of Danny. Even after learning about the unique difficulties in his condition they hadn’t abandoned them yet. “The rest of us will work on getting the rest of what Danny needs, that we know of so far. Something to neutralize the blood blossom residue, IV vitamins, and ectoplasm. Does anyone else have any unique needs?”

At that point Sam raised her hand, letting Dick gesture to her before speaking up. “Vegetarian,” she said simply.

“Not a problem. I’ll make sure everyone in charge of food knows.” Dick nodded, noticing how Damian very subtly gained a smile about that. “Do any of you have a picture, or description of the blood blossom plants? It doesn’t sound like anything I’m familiar with.”

“The only ones we’ve seen look like rosebuds, red with black leaves and stems,” Sam spoke again, seeming to be more favorable to them now. The same care for Danny that was winning Jazz over was winning the rest of the team as well.

“Got it,” Dick nodded, gaining a pleased smile when Leslie also passed over a sample of the blood blossom affected tissue that she had taken from Danny before covering the wounds again. A tiny sample encased in glass, but it should be more than enough for them to figure out how to neutralize the remainder of the toxin without hurting the lad further. “Orphan, Spoiler, are you okay with taking the first shift?”

“Sure thing,” Stephanie agreed, giving a thumbs up along with Cass.

“I’ll stick around too for now,” Jason added, for no other reason that he felt like he should stay there for a while. At least until they knew for sure who these Phantom kids were.

Dick seemed surprised, but didn’t argue. “Fine. Keep in touch, we’ll let you know as soon as we find anything,” he nodded, motioning for those who weren’t staying to head out. He knew Leslie would stay to double check their work on the other kids, so it ended up being just him, Tim, and Damian filtering out the door.

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I actually had this one all typed out before I even started the prologue one. So I just had to draw something today to get it all up.

Drawing this I looked up canon heights for the first time and found out that Danny is a tiny lil nugget, and that's adorable X'D

I also complained to Na about "having to draw Jason's stupid helmet instead of his pretty face" and she gave me the suggestion of having his face on the side.

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Tag list: @galaxy-sharks-and-bottled-ships, @starscreamlover, @nerdynonnativenarnian, @dragongoblet, @zeestarfishalien, @bellathecatastrophe, @cj-ghostemoji-destielpie, @asexual-insomniac, @wolfeyedwitch, @tkiesai

#my art #phantom rogues #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #dpxdc #writing #long post #fanfic #mentions of gore #tw medical devices

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loserlvrss · 6 months ago

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꒰ 𝐍𝐎 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 ꒱ 이민형

summary : one thing about your boyfriend, mark, is that he would always take care of you — even if you were annoyingly drunk — and he was embarrassingly in love

genre : fluff, mark x afab!reader, slice of life tws : language, kissing, mentions of alcohol, pet names author notes : oh he’d be a good boyfriend i just know it word count : 1k

it’s a good thing the elevator in your apartment hadn’t gone out yet, otherwise the man on your arm would’ve been upset—though he’d never let you know that.

he just loved you too much for that. and you kept telling him about how much of a good night it was for you; he’d never dream of ruining that.

“baby,” he stated quietly, pulling your arm around his waist higher, as it kept slipping. “hold on, just a little longer… why’d you have to live on the 10th floor? thank god the elevator isn’t out. is the view really worth it though?” he watched the numbers climb, illuminated electronically above the door.

your eyebrows furrowed, and though you were hunched against him, you willed your head up. deadpanning, you replied. “duh.” to which he just laughed at. “you just don’t get it mark! have you seen it? it’s beautiful! not more than you, but you know.”

“many times—actually, i helped you move in, baby.”

you giggled, head falling into his side. “y-yeah, you did… do you remember haechan falling up the stairs? he wasn’t even carrying anything heavy! oh my god, it was so funny i swear i peed my pants!”

mark thought that, for a drunk girl, you were very good at not sounding slurred with your words. however, standing or walking in a straight line were two very different tasks for you to accomplish in this state. but he thought it was cute that you thought of him to pick you up and make sure you got home safely. he loved that you loved him so much; shared so many memories with him and were still willing to make more. and truthfully, he loved you more.

the elevator dinged, the voice telling you that the doors were now opening. mark braced his arm around you tighter, hiking you up to be, at least a little, straighter.

you trudged along, holding him back with his attempts to keep a steady pace. you knew it was difficult to move on your own accord in your current state but, honestly you could’ve just fallen asleep on the floor if you fell.

“work—with—me—here, y/n. please,” he gritted, practically dragging your giggling figure. “do you even want to sleep in your own bed?”

your eyes narrowed soberly. “are you staying?”

“will that make you walk faster?”

as if possessed, the thought alone was enough to make you straighten your back and begin willing your legs to move—clumsily, but you knew your boyfriend was still a crutch to make sure you didn’t hit the floor.

he laughed in disbelief, then relief once you two finally had made it to your numbered door; mark putting in the passcode and it chiming with satisfaction.

“you scare me sometimes, baby.”

you hopped in place, the door swinging open with the length of his arm. you slumped against the wall, unhooking the strap of your heels and kicking them off.

“let’s go to bed!” and when you were about take off down the hall, a hand grabbed yours and stopped you—your feet comically still stomping in place. your eyebrows furrowed, and you looked over your shoulder in confusion.

“first,” he started, leading you down the hall; for a moment you thought he just didn’t want you to run, but he turned off into your bathroom. he hit the switch and illuminated the room, your eyes shutting instinctively. “your makeup.”

you whined, trying to get out of his grip. “no.”

“you’ll kill me in the morning, babe,” he grabbed your waist, hoisting you onto the counter and trapping you with his body. “it won’t take long.”

your pinky swung from the porcelain and into his view, “promise.” you weren’t asking, and that made him laugh.

his pinky connected with yours. “promise.” he replied adamantly, mimicking your movement and kissing the end of his balled fist.

he got to work, grabbing the remover and a couple cotton rounds. he gently swiped your skin, and you swear your head kept drifting to the side with tiredness. you couldn’t help that your boyfriend was the sole reason you could get a good-nights sleep. instead of trying to keep you up, he grabbed it, huffing out another laugh at your antics, but letting you fully fall asleep in his hand.

mark admired you as he tried his best to get the mascara off, smudging it and making you look a little foolish. he thought you were cute; the way your lips were parted, small snores leaving them. the slight crease of your brows as he put your moisturizer and serums on. he swears he could feel his heart swell, knowing you were just that comfortable around him—so adamant to have him by your side—to have him love you.

and he did.

he loved you so fucking much. his future was you. if he was your world, you were his sun. you were his lifeline. you were the one person he knew he could rely on without contest. if he was a producer, you were his muse. everything revolved around you. even if his thoughts weren’t originally for you, they’d eventually make their way back to you. he was excited to talk to you about anything and everything. he was blindsided by a love as strong as this mutual one. he’d die for you, and that’s why he lives.

honestly, he was so embarrassingly emotional right now for you, he could feel the tears welling up.

he swallowed the lump in his throat, grabbing the other side of your head and watching as you blinked blearily.

you smiled sleepily. “when’d you get here, baby?”

he could feel your arms climb to be around his neck, pulling him and simultaneously pushing yourself to get body-to-body. you always craved the warmth (even without thinking) like you were cold-blooded.

“i’m always here.” he kissed the side of your mouth, whispering against your lips. “now, let’s go to bed?”

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blueparadis · 4 months ago

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What would umemiya or sugishita reacted when you interrupted them in the middle of gardening with a kiss?

separate readers. wriiten with fem!reader in mind. wc- 1kish.

The sun is shining like the end of the world. The summer heat has been excruciatingly painful. Everyone is sweating like buckets, drinking water— bottle after bottle and then there is Umemiya sitting in front of his plants on the rooftop of his school, Furin High School under the scorching sun. Sturdy and well-built hands tending to the soft green saplings and stems. Thank God, he is using gloves otherwise his palms have been soiled by now. A low yet consistent hum can be heard from him suggesting he is quite comfortable in his posture even though it looks painful, an invitation to back aches and leg cramps.

But Umemiya does not have an instance to spare any side effects. Why? Because you are there to worry for him, aren’t you? You always do. You always worry. Just like he can not separate his gardening hobby from himself, you can not stop worrying for him, especially when he is under the influence of love shown by God Apollo. You stand in the corner, just at the doorway of the rooftop with an umbrella of course, and watch him as he smiles, hums, and talks to his plants.

On the other side, there is Sugishita busy watering the plant saplings that have been set by his mentor, Umemiya Hajime. You are sure that if a tiger walked passed by these two men, they would not grace a single glance and if the tiger is in their way, they would certainly shoo it away like some local stray cat.

SUGISHITA KYOTARO

Sugishita is a little hunched. He is holding the spray gun and moving his hand from one side to the other with the nozzle on as you watch him. Thank God, he is wearing a hat. Actually, Umemiya gave his to him saying he had a spare one which surprisingly he has. He was not lying so Sugishita accepted it without any resistance. He has been watering the plants for a while and he has not spoken a word to you yet you can feel him acknowledging your presence from time to time. He glances in your way. what even goes on inside his head? maybe he is thinking about what else he can do for Umemiya-san before going home. He turns his back to you to water the other section of plant saplings. Now, you are watching his back. Summer sure is slow, you think as Sugishita wipes of his face with the towel that curled along his nape.

Ah! He is sweating again. His cheeks now have a reddish tinge. You can only see one side of him. Did that cheek change color too? You jump on your feet and hit the ground with a flop. You forgot about those slippers that Sugishita gave you. Thank God, the sound of water masked your footsteps as you approached him. But before standing by him you paused behind him and a moment later you encapsulated your arms around his waist, stored on your toes to place a kiss on his cheek from behind. His skin is hot as if he is burning.

"umemiya-san is right by the corner," He grabs your wrist and pulls you in front of himself so effortlessly that it takes a moment for you to stand still. "what're you doing?" he whispered, a soft scolding tone hidden underneath.

"aww, can't you tell? shall I do it again?" without giving him a moment of reprieve you grab his face and pull him into a kiss. The water pipe hits the floor of the rooftop, his hands go under your top while he twists your other hand in the back along your waist. He gives in to the kiss but suddenly a scream startles both of you.

Thank God! Umemiya-san is not peeking so giving you a nod he went to investigate the source of such a life-threatening scream with pinched eyebrows.

UMEMIYA HAJIME

It is a good thing that Umemiya lets Sugishita help otherwise he would be stir-fried till now. Well, look at you, he does not let you help even if you keep insisting. He keeps joking by saying, “You’re sensitive, baby. The heat will get to you,”

“you can’t take the heat.”

“you’ll get heat fever.” and as such, always with a cackle;

So when Umemiya is immersed in his small world of gardening that took a mere square feet of Bofurin’s rooftop you slowly tip-toed your way to him, holding the umbrella in between your neck and shoulder to gather your skirt up under the back of your thigh, and finally took a seat beside him. He still has not noticed you yet. If he did, he would have kept shouting and panicking for sure. You watch him meticulously, beads of perspiration settling on his skin making him glow like a diamond. His t-shirt has turned from light grey to dark gray and the back portion is sticking against his skin. It is marvelous how he does not notice you, alive and breathing.

Umemiya let his arm graze his forehead once and now it is filthy but when he does there, a certain mischief flamming up inside your brain. There is an opening. You are sitting and there is an opening for you to explore. Here comes the payback. You lean into his side more and blow air into his ear. Umemiya’s head turns to you, his mouth parts in an attempt to scream but you were quick enough to create a better diversion for his brain to focus. Placing a soft kiss on his lips you walk away. It was just a graze, so tender yet so intangible and it let Umemiya’s world ablaze. He looks at you, aghast and in shock for a few seconds.

Sugishita hears a scream and comes hurridly for rescue. He sees you and Umemiya-san standing poles apart. He does not say anything, just gives a scrutinizing look at Umemiya-san.

“There was a bug,” Umemiya tries to explain but what a blunder it was when you joined in.

“It bit me.” You are not convinced if he bought your act or not so you murmur, “I’m fine though. Thank you.” Sugishita does not poke the matter anymore. He turns and walks away with a long “Hmm”

“Bug my foot.” he says under his breath.

“I heard that,” Umemiya and you both exclaim in unison.

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familyvideostevie · 1 year ago

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october twenty-sixth

day twenty-six: remus lupin you’ve been on three dates without a kiss. will today change that? | first kiss, early relationship, fluff | 1k

Three dates and Remus hasn’t kissed you.

Though your friends insist otherwise, you can’t help but wonder if there is something wrong with you.

He’s respectful, they tell you. He’s shy! You want to believe it. He’ll kiss you today.

God, you hope so.

Obviously, you could kiss him, but something in your gut tells you to let him make the move. It’s hard to resist though, as Remus is very kissable. He’s handsome in a way you don’t know how to describe. The scars on his face make him seem a bit severe but it’s cancelled out when you see the soft kindness of his eyes. He looks like someone who would give you directions in the middle of a rainstorm. He fills out his sweaters like they were tailor-made for him and his hands are huge.

And he’s tall, which you’re never opposed to.

And he likes to touch you. This is the main reason you haven’t given up hope on the kiss.

On your first date — a long afternoon of conversation at a coffee shop — he’d put his hand on your back on the way in and out, helped you take your coat off and held it out for you to put back on, and gave you a very lovely hug when you parted ways. On your second date he’d linked arms with you as you walked through a museum and held your hand when it got a little crowded.

He definetly likes you. Right?

Date three finds you at a bookshop. You’ve actually planned to go to a pub quiz down the road but you got the timing wrong and it doesn’t start for an hour, so you’re killing time.

There aren’t that many people milling around the stacks. Remus squeezes your hand and leaves you to browse on his own, which you appreciate. It can be kind of overwhelming to be under his gaze all the time, you’re learning. Maybe it’s just the force of your fancy, which is a bit outrageous after only three dates. You find yourself imagining him in your life — a couples Halloween costume, a fall weekend away, holiday parties and on New Year’s Eve.

Remus just makes it easy. He’s so…lovely.

So how can you get him to kiss you? It’s far too early for mistletoe. The bookstore is instead decorated with leaves and skulls and pumpkins. Maybe you’ll float the idea of a Halloween party, use some liquid courage to kiss him.

“Are you going to get anything?” Remus’s voice snaps you out of your thoughts. He looks at you patiently.

“Oh,” you say. “Not sure, actually.”

He hums. “I think I’m going to grab this.” He holds up a book you’ve heard of but not read. “If it’s good I’ll pass it along to you. You sure I can’t get you anything?”

Of course he’s offering, of course he’s ready and willing to share with you. He’s infuriating. “No,” you say, smiling. “Thank you, though.”

He squeezes your hand. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

True to his word, which you are learning he tends to be, he’s back quickly, grabbing your hand once more and leading you back out into the cool evening. “Is there going to be food at this quiz?” he asks. “I’m peckish.”

“’Course there is,” you say. “I’m not taking you to a pub without food, Remus. I’m not that bad of a date.”

He laughs. It’s quickly becoming one of your favorite sounds. “I’d never think that. I hope you don’t expect us to win, though, because I’m hopeless at these.”

You scoff. “I don’t believe you.” Remus is very smart and very modest about it.

“No, I really am!” he says. “I know useless things only. You’ll have to come to one with me and James and Sirius —” you know them as his best friends based on how he talks about them “— because they get really into it. I know you’ll being them to victory where I always drag them down.”

“You don’t know that I’m good at pub quizzes, Remus.”

His eyes twinkle under the streetlights. “I’ve got a hunch.”

He wants you to meet his friends. The thought warms you.

The light on the crosswalk changes and you stand, hands clasped, waiting.

Fuck it. You’re going to do it. You’re going to kiss him. You take a breath and turn to him, lean in before you can second guess yourself —

Remus turns his head to say something and your foreheads smack together.

“Oh my god,” you say, rearing back. “Oh my god, I’m so —”

“Are you okay?” he asks, hand on his own forehead. “What just happened?”

He releases his grip on your fingers to gently grab the back of your head, tilting your face this way and that as if he’ll find a wound.

You flop your face onto his shoulder. “Please, leave me to die of embarrassment,” you mumble.

“Never,” he says. “Really, darling. Are you alright? Didn’t hit you too hard?” His tenderness is making your stomach do something funny. Darling, darling, darling.

“No, Remus,” you sigh. You pull back to look at him. He really does look concerned, bless him. “I’m fine. I was trying to kiss you.”

“Oh,” he says, looking slightly surprised. “Sorry, I suppose. That’s my fault.”

“Yes,” you grumble. “It is, considering you haven’t kissed me yet, which is why I was trying in the first place.”

Your embarrassment is making you brave.

His eyes light up again. “Do you want me to?” His tone is slightly teasing.

“Remus!” He laughs and cradles your face in his warm hands. This man always has warm hands even when it’s cold out.

“Alright, alright, let’s try this again, hm?”

He leans in slowly. Your eyes flutter shut. When he kisses you it’s a light press of his lips at first and then a firmer pressure as he slots your mouths together properly. You let him do the work and you sigh into it until he pulls away

Your foreheads press together gently this time. “Let’s try to avoid any more injuries, alright?”

You smack his chest. He laughs.

thank you for reading <3 reblog, send feedback, general masterlist here! promptober masterlist, find all fics under #fvspromptober23

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haztory · 9 months ago

Text

[seagirl]

⤷ kuroo tetsurou x f!reader; spider-man!au, mentions of violence, brief gore mention, exes to lovers arc, p in v smut, fingering, praise, a lot of descriptive language

⤷ summary: her underwater ecstasy, you could easily be the death of me, i swim through/ he comes to me, stuck on his knees, asking for better days

(w.c: 9.5k)

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He stands in your living room like an ill-timed memory.

Whole and vivid, he’s a flash of overdue colors and a crashing tide that overwhelms you. You blink a few times in hope that this may still be a dream; That his image will turn bleary and you’ll close your eyes enough times to realize they were never really open. That you’re in your bed waiting for the alarm to ring and the day to start as it always does.

It doesn’t happen.

The person ambling around the room is not a figment of sheepish delusions, or the product of late night fantasies, but him— a heart-wrenching familiarity in a room that has been home to him so many times before.

It’s been three months since a hue of red has disturbed your home.

He’s lit only by the warm lowlight of your lamps as the sun returns to its place of rest. The dark bruise on his face looks gaunt, and his cheekbones arch higher in the shadows. He’s hauntingly beautiful, always has been, and yet, this beauty is unfamiliar to you. He looks nothing like you remember.

Kuroo walks slowly in your living room, his trained steps light and deft on tile as he practically tiptoes around the room. As though a guard dog were sleeping in the corner of the room and one slight misstep would awaken the beast, disturb the peace and replace it with snarling roars and gnashing teeth. Force him out of the apartment entirely.

Maybe there is one—a silent protector lying in wait for the chance to jump out and bite; Chains wrapped tightly around its neck, made bloodied and raw from how tightly it’s leashed. It watches with focused eyes ready to ring the alarm at any second. It must sit largely in the corner, its presence so unmistakable that Kuroo must see it otherwise he wouldn’t be so diligent in trying to avoid the furniture. He circumvents the rug underneath your coffee table, hunches his shoulders and makes his body smaller as he sidesteps the loveseat to look quickly out the balcony sliding doors. He briefly pushes the curtains aside with one finger, surveying the darkening city with little more than a nod of acknowledgment before he returns his attention back to the room, looking around once more to see if anything has awoken by his doing.

He stills— amber eyes meet yours and he waits. Watching and waiting, waiting and watching. Stilling his movements as the predator watches its prey. Hoping for the acceptance in your space yet preparing for the barking.

It’s only when you break the gaze that he breathes. The dog rests its head on the floor.

The walls of your apartment have seen and felt Kuroo Tetsurou many times before; They have tasted his spilled blood, remain stained from it, and know of him in whole and scattered fragments—and yet he stands as a man seeing it for the first time. Perusing trinkets he knows too well, and focusing a little harder at the ones that have found their place during his absence. Acting as a stranger in the garden he helped grow.

Do you—can we do this someplace more… private?

N-no, I can’t do this—

Please? You can ask me anything, yell at me, whatever, I swear. I want to explain things, just… not here.

He had begged in the pharmacy.

All reservations you had leading up to this moment crumbled alongside the shopping basket laid abandoned by your feet—much like everything else belonging to him and you. He’s in your home and it feels like both the violation of a boundary that you have rigidly put up for safety and the final piece to a puzzle. You try not to choke around a lump in your throat.

You fight to ignore the whine of the dog and the ache that pulses your fingertips with the remembrance of him beneath your touch. A tired and worn body held tightly by lithe and lean muscles adorned with the kisses of blue and purple. Valleys and bumps, heartbeats pulsing beneath skin, it shouldn’t have changed that much in such a time— it couldn’t have. But, he looks so different in the passage of such a brief time.

Maybe his heart beats differently now, but you suppose yours does too. You hardly feel like the same person that held him close on a thundering night. Was it even you who held a warm hand under violet flowers? You wouldn’t know.

(It was you. There’s no way you could ever forget, no matter how hard you try.)

He’s standing by the coffee table when he reaches out to pick up an item on the glass surface; Some coasters lying stacked on top of each other, well loved and stained with drink. They’re recent additions to your home, hand painted and gifted by a friend from work after the success of one of your reports, but you suppose he must know that they’re new with the way he fixates.

He looks at them intently, fingers gently brushing over the acrylic surface. Tracing over the painted image with reverence, holding it tightly with a look in his eye that you can’t quite make out. But, he’s thinking— maybe too much as a minute, then two, passes. And still, he stares.

It is only after he speaks that you remember the coasters have wisteria painted on the surface.

“These are pretty.” He says, quietly.

It’s a decoy—a false coercion to ease. A knock on your door with a whisper behind its asking sound, a quiet plea to join him. You’ve already let him in, isn’t that enough? What more could he want? It’s bait.

You take it anyway. “Aoi made them.”

He nods, impressed. He holds the coaster up, waving the handiwork of your coworker gently in the air between his pointer and thumb. “Compliments to the chef.” He says, before setting it back down on the table. A gentleness in the action as though an actual flower were between his fingers, threatening to rupture at any sudden movement. “How is she?”

“Good.” You supply, simply.

He nods again. “And the job?”

“Good, too.” Even simpler.

Silence encumbers the space once more. Red, scabbed knuckles make a flash appearance that you stare at, swallow a little too thickly at. Words live and die on your tongue, the urge to break fickle silence seemingly impossible.

What could you ask him that you didn’t already know? What answers could you beg for that you weren’t already sure of? Spoken in the thick of his betrayal, truth settled on the guilt that hunches his shoulders. You don’t want to know about his life and the things he’s been up to because then it needs to be discussed.

But it ravages within you; the glaringly obvious, the bleeding heart of truth. The whining dog foams at the mouth as it barks for the taste of spilled ichor, the feel of the bone cracking between jagged teeth, and the savor of the split marrow. The dark, apoplectic fit of a yearning so deep that it tears the seams of you, screams to be held. Your want of knowing is equal if not more to the anger that has simmered within you for so long.

You could demand an apology. It would be the appropriate thing to do.

(It wouldn’t solve anything. Because he still left, and you still know why even if you lie to yourself and say that you don’t, and you both end up in the same place that you started. The hideous silence drowning you in the sanctity of your own home; Two familiar strangers trapped on a deflating raft wondering what there even was to say.)

“I read your articles.” He says, after a moment. Eyes flicker to yours, a slanted smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Genuity etched into the cracks. “The one about the wisteria tunnels was good. Really good.”

Hook pierces through you and tears through skin. Bait, bait, bait—

“Not too cheesy?” You offer quietly, eyes following red knuckles down to their place beside his body. If only to avoid his gaze.

“No.” He says earnestly. “The right amount of cheese. It was amazing. You’re amazing.”

Your body stills, rigid. You sigh and he knows. The barking commences.

“Kuroo—”

Lolling his head forward, shaking the mess of his black hair as he tries to roll the discomfort off of his body, he meets your gaze with a grimace of his own. “No, c’mon. Don’t—don’t do that. Please.” His lips are drawn in a tight line, some kind of debate playing over his features as he weighs the pros and cons of this—whatever this is. It’s infuriating, it’s misery, it puts you right back into the hole of devastation that you just finally started to see a way out of.

Eyes of deep sorrow meet your angry ones.

“That’s not my name,” Tetsurou breathes out in the empty space of your living room. He’s quiet with his words, convinced in them despite how gentle he says it. “Not with you.”

You shake your head bitterly, “You don’t get to do that anymore.”

His face furrows with a register of injury, but he doesn’t fight it. He does not mean to challenge you. He did not come with the intention to wage a war and emerge victorious— he didn’t really have much of an intentioned plan at all. Only knew that his mind froze at the sight of you and his heart lurched in a need long left unsatisfied.

The frigid cold of your stare meets the charged electric of the tense room, the atmosphere turning white and hot as it bolsters through the already fraught room, unspoken words feeding the collision of the two forces. Your breath draws more ragged, the floods rising to your neck; Kuroo stands still, certain that his next step forward will be on the wire to the ticking bomb in the room—the cause of the implosion.

(Kuroo thought he knew what the aftermath of an imploded life looked like— capitulating anger molding with deprived sleep left him a hollowed mess; Locked knee-deep in an endless vortex of must-do’s and must-be’s that resulted in nothing but a blank wall to stare at as fingers attempted to clean a mess that had no resolve. A fool tethering the same wounds, with the same tools, with the same outcome.

This is a different kind of hurt. Where home spits a poisonous rejection and burns through the still raw stitchings of patched skin. Comfort turned caustic, the remnants of good intentions showing him just how well they turned out to be. His name is no longer the reason for an amorous love, but instead the code to a blaring, bright red warning.

Bloodied and broken fingers inch forward, doing as they always do and try to fix. Like a fool.)

“Okay.” He nods in acquiescence, placating but still firm. Determined, even in the threat of your gaze that tears him apart, to mend this. He hasn’t been imagining this day for three months now to fuck it up at the slightest sense of your anger. No, he’s handled worse than this. He would handle much worse if it guaranteed him this moment, this chance. Straightening his shoulders and standing tall before you, he readies himself for impact. Bracing himself for the explosion.

He takes the step forward.

“How do you want to do this?” He says, staring a kind of serious in you that is unsettling. As though something snapped into place within the brief second, a resolve solidified. This isn’t the Tetsurou you once knew, the one who made a fool of himself in his youth; This is the one you had the unpleasant encounter with—where lightning cast a sharp silhouette around with blood pouring from gaping wounds and fear filled the room with an impenetrable stink.

That Tetsurou stands before you. Your bitterness settles like a pill stuck in your throat. “Hm, I don’t know. Maybe you should start with an apology?”

“An apology won’t fix this.” He says succinctly, a knowing within him that he has deemed unnecessary to expand on, and it infuriates you.

“Well then maybe you should have thought of that before you left.” Rage stirs your appetite. Teeth growing, snarl rising, bite less of an inhibition and much more of a possibility as you thrash against rising waters. The taste of the marrow is thick on your tongue, its source right in sight. “No phone calls, no texts, nothing. You threw me away—”

He seems affronted, as though that insinuation were an insulting one, but he has no right. It only drives your anger further the more he seems to hunker down. “I was trying to protect you.”

“You don’t protect someone by leaving them in the dark about something. By abandoning them.”

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, but you need to understand—”

“No, you need to understand what you did. The last time I saw you I thought you were going to die.”

It’s the opening of the Pandora’s Box; Hurt and all of its tendrils that you tried to shove so deep within the confines of hiding crawl up your throat, wrapping around vocal chords and choking. They weave the familiar narrative and it is as vivid as you remember it to be. The pains and aches of an abandonment that dug into the depths of your soul, the heartbreak that comes when your great love has removed himself from it entirely. Rage tainting all that you have known, a rage that you were just starting to overcome. It’s hard to tap into the person you were earlier, the one that sat at lunch smiling and light-hearted and somewhat healed from the atrocities of lost love.

Your guard has risen before the man you’ve entrusted the entirety of yourself to, its fortified walls shaking with each knock of hurt he brings to your door. “And then you left. You swore Kenma to secrecy. He wouldn’t tell me more than if you were alive or not. You could’ve given me something, anything. But you decided to act as if I didn’t exist—how could you do that to me?”

His jaw clenches, the skin above pulsing with the movement. Darkness seems to swirl around him as he says, “I told you. I put you in danger.” But you hardly notice; Hardly care to. You plow forward.

“And I told you I was safer with you. You had no right to make a choice for me, especially not one that I didn’t want. And what’s worse is that you didn’t even have to think twice about leaving me behind.”

Kuroo takes another step forward, truly insulted as he crosses the expanse of your living room in quick steps— the speed in his movements still an alarming sight even after all of this time. He’s an arm’s distance away suddenly, intensity in his stare as he defends against your jabbing strikes, defense webbed against your venom.

“That’s not even remotely true. It hurt me to let you go, more than you could ever know.”

“Did it? More than not knowing anything? You had no problem staying away.”

“I did it to save your life.” He says, firmness beneath his in the tone, his own ire rising to match yours and you roll your eyes.

“From someone who was already in police custody. Don’t say it like I should be grateful to you for it. Maybe if you involved me in the first place, maybe if I knew a little more than just you bleeding out on my couch, I’d have a little bit more sympathy for you right now.”

The explosion happens, then— the bomb sets off. Only, it was you who stepped on the wire.

Series of images that only he knows intimately flash through his mind in quick succession—hideouts, trails of blood, dirty men with dirty intentions that filled Tetsurou with a vengeance that broke Hell and lit every fiber of his being aflame. It bursts from him at that moment.

“He knew where you lived. He knew your schedule, he had a whole fucking hideout with photos of you on the walls! I was compromised and because of that, you were a target. So yeah, I made a choice for you. I cut all ties and made it clear that you and I were done so that I could make sure he and anyone else he was working with were off of your scent. So that I could protect you.”

His lived nightmare—the one he worked so hard to shield you from for the past three months— spills from his lips in a frenzied shout. There is no hesitation to his tone, conviction bleeds through and you are taken aback. He is pulled taut, a rope fraying at the edges, unraveling right before your eyes.

Tetsurou continues, “I didn’t know who was involved or how long I had so I— I panicked. I should have told you, I know that. I’ve spent the past three months knowing I did it wrong but, I’m outside your window most nights just so I can make sure that you’re safe. And you are, so far as I can tell. So that means I did what I was supposed to do and I did a good fucking job at it.”

You stare at him, wide eyed and silent. It’s all you can think to do.

It was always a possibility. One you ran through in your mind, held quietly when Kuroo’s own worries about his other job came to the forefront. Someone knowing you, knowing about your ties to him and using that against him; But a year had passed with him as Spider-Man and for all of its ups and downs, Kuroo was careful. Nothing ever came of it.

But, a hideout? Enemies, plural, knowing who you were and seeking you out?

Even if doubt wanted to wiggle within the expanse of your mind at the admission, disbelief and all of its synonymous cousins working overtime to protect you from an unfathomable reality, it’s quickly squashed at the sight of Tetsurou’s haunted eyes. Caged fear and all of its tattered belongings veiled within his gaze. And while this transgression of his is large and looming, you believe it’s cause entirely; Because Kuroo may have broken your heart, but he’s never lied to you before. He couldn’t even think to lie to you about the symptoms of a spider bite, he certainly wouldn’t lie to you now about this.

You believe him, unquestioningly. And it clicks then, like a light switch flicking, that as you have been wallowing in the ache of your loneliness, he has been navigating a world that has threatened him and you all on his own. That your life was in more danger than he had initially let on when he stumbled into your apartment, worried and frantic for your safety and he knew nothing more in his injured state other than the fact that he had to fix it.

His stupid senses of righteousness, his assumed burden to protect; Taking on the world at the tender age of twenty-three. Atlas, with his dark eyes and bruised skin, believes the threat of your safety to be his sin. One that he has exiled himself for, that has him stepping tentatively closer to you, until he’s right in front of you. And he doesn’t want to tell you these things that have kept him up at night, he hardly wanted to tell them to himself, but he knows if there is any way for him to win this—to make you see— then he’ll have to concede something.

“I’m not— I’m smart but I’m not—I’m not good at this stuff. Okay? I don't know how to be him and also be yours. But, he knew your name.” Tetsurou’s voice cracks with desperation. “And yeah, I could’ve done a hundred things differently, but it wouldn’t have mattered because of how scared I was. I was willing to do anything to make sure you were safe.”

The first piece to your cracked walls falls.

His fingertips lift up, padded fingers tracing your jaw, and it’s exactly as you remember. Heavy and sweet, the familiar touch satiating a dormant urge that has awoken only at his doing. You lean into it without realizing, the feel of his comfort sticking to you like caramel. The sticky sugar of him pulls in closer no matter how hard your mind tries to chew your way out of it. You're stuck in the tar, mouth closed, voice silent, heart fluttering.

His thumb sweeps across your cheek, his hand fitting against your skin like it never left. Warmth seeping in, blending the eternally blurred lines. A gentle force has your chin pulling upward, amber eyes meeting yours, like they always do. Finding you in a crowd of hundreds just as they do in the darkness of your living room. Meeting your gaze with little effort and boring into you, giving you ample opportunity to witness the throes of the brewing hurricane in his irises.

Its hurtling towards you, the arms of its winds already wrapping around your wrists, your neck, your lungs. You’re inhaling its scent—musky and warm, the fading smell of a well-loved aftershave and damned latex. Tetsurou stares at you, and you stare at him, and it’s a fool’s game to think you’re anywhere but knee-deep in the eye of the storm.

“I will do anything to keep you safe.” He says, determination and all of its implications weigh on you.

His stare trails. Skirts across the features of your face as though he’s studying. It’s a quick flicker down to your lips and your heart leaps emphatically. He hears it, he must, because he’s then looking back to you and stops there. Parks his wandering gaze right into you and waits. He’s unconstrained, open, pleading for you to look and see; Find the answer in the ways that only you can find within him.

“I couldn’t lose you.” Tetsurou brushes the underside of your lip with his thumb. His voice is low, low enough to rumble through his chest and into you. “I can’t lose you.”

You knew the moment he left why he did. Remember his words like a repeating lullabye as you run over them in your mind before bed, the desperation in his tone withering away the stone walls of your heart, the begging crumblings of letting him back in. Forgiving him is excusing the pain and the anger that tore through you, that left you cracked open and raw. You try to insist that within you, hammer that truth in with rusty nails in hopes that it will stick.

But you're drowning in the deep waters of anguish that he has flooded your apartment with, fighting life and limb against the beatings of caged desire that begs to reach out to him. Maybe, if you close your eyes hard enough you can shield yourself from the certainty of his gaze that the whimsies of romance try to convince you of and you can stand firm. You can open them and realize that this is all a dream that you had hoped it was at the beginning of this whole thing.

Maybe you could believe in that harrowed truth enough to have it buoy you to safety. A life preserver that whisks you away from the familiar touch of his hands that meld into your skin and drag you into the depths of his waters.

You can remember his wrongs and try to do right by the girl that sat hurt and alone for three months. (Not alone, never alone. He was there; Watching, waiting. Ensuring your safety from a distance, checking through a widow.

Loving you from afar in the only way that he could.)

“I wish you trusted me.” You whisper, and it’s not an invitation for forgiveness, but he shifts closer anyway. Lowlights of the room dance across his features, the shadows suiting him as they blend him half into the light and half into the darkness. What isn’t spoken is the hearty truth that lingers in the air. I wish I trusted you now.

Suddenly, his nose bumps into yours. Lips brush against yours and they part on instinct, puzzle pieces inching to find their unity once more. Mouths dancing, breaths mingling, one push and it would be the reunion of a past that is held up only by the misery of yearning.

You want it, know deep within the parts that belong to him that he does too. He’s chasing it, looking for what once was his. His alter-ego isn’t one of the past, not one that he intends to give up anytime soon. Kuroo has never been a quitter, and you doubt as he pushes past blurring lines and unspoken boundaries that this is the indication that he’s willing to turn over a new leaf.

He still wants both, still wants to be in the light and the dark, wants the normalcy of a life with you with the suit of red and blue. (And maybe, just maybe, a compromise could be struck; Balance could be found, with the growing pains. He could do both, don the mask and make time for you. You could enjoy the moments with him without pouring so much of yourself into him, the tiny voice of your heart whispers in your ear.

Maybe.)

“You should go.” You say, lips brushing his as your mouth moves to draw the line in the sand. The shattered pieces that were begging to finally be glued together drop to the floor.

It’s hard to convince yourself that this is what you want, especially when he feels like sweet release in your hands, your mind finally feeling quiet in the warmth of his touch. It’s a betrayal against the deepest parts of your romantic self to deny this homecoming, but you do it anyway. Pulling away from his touch just slightly to stay firm.

It’s a minute before he finally nods. It’s absent of surety, instinctual almost, as he collects himself amidst the swarming tides of his thoughts. He parts, feet taking slow and heavy steps away from you. His thumb rubs across scabbed knuckles, hardly minding the pangs of pain that accompany as he picks and prods at his peeling skin. The jabs of sharp hurt macabrely steadying him as he wades through the sea of his own longing— intently hoping to push it to the side for this, for you.

“Yeah. Okay.” He says quietly, like he too has forgotten himself and is trying to piece himself together once more.

His departure is slow moving, the disentangling of an entwined tar removing itself from the tether, an even harder fest the second time around— but he manages. Gathering himself, he steps towards your apartment door, opening it before halting and sparing one more glance towards you. Searching for something, trying to find it in your apartment, in you.

But you steel yourself, hold firm on this. Forgiveness is not given, it is earned—even for him.

“I want—” He begins before grimacing and shaking his head, “I would like to explain more. If you want. I know we’re not— I have to put the work in to get you to trust me again, and I want to do it.”

He shuffles in place, door adjusting with his movement, “Can I take you out for dinner? Try to do this the right way?”

And you should say no, should slam the door in his face for coming into your home, touching your things, yelling at you and crossing boundaries all within the same night. But even as your anger has risen at the confrontation of the past, at the poor attempts of mending, he has equally placated them. And you hate him for it, hate the fact that even though you haven’t seen him for three months, you’re still just as in tune with him as you were when he left.

This is a fine line between healing and dangerous territory— it could be the closure you need, the step forward to clarity. Or a warning. You fold your arms into yourself, deciding on the boundary at that moment, as shaky as it may be within your mind.

This cannot happen again; He cannot come into your home, touching you, breathing life into you when you have been wasted for so long. Pieces of the past cannot be picked up after they have laid abandoned for so long. For as long as you continue to look at Kuroo and see the wreckage that lies between you, things cannot be as they once were. Where you were a silly girl in head over heels for a stupid boy, reactionary to the ebbs and flows of a relationship that hadn’t known what steady ground was since the bite of the spider. It wasn’t a way to live, it wasn’t the way to be with someone.

Things need to be rewritten, dismantled and put back together. Etched anew. You are not who you once were three months ago, you look at him with too much distrust to be. He is not who he once was, his eyes are too sad to be.

“I won’t promise you that I’ll trust you again.” You tell him and a deep breath racks his shoulders, “But I want to hear you out. As a friend.”

Tetsurou stares for a moment, understanding the words written between the lines of your statement. The line drawn in the sand. He weighs the options for a moment before eventually nodding, seemingly satisfied with that answer. Better to have you than not at all. “Yeah, that’s… that’s good. I’ll text you, we can figure out the details later.”

“As friends.” You repeat, unsure if it was meant to be a convincing reminder to him or yourself.

“As friends.” He confirms. He gives you one last long look before he leaves your home. The water that choked you all evening receding with his exit.

You had hoped in the crevices and cruxes of your mind as your entire world was tilted on its axis the moment that Tetsurou made his appearance, that you would be able to find your footing once he left. That your breath would come back to you in a way that it was pointedly thinned from your lungs— that peace could be found in the same way that you were just starting to become acquainted with it without your ex. This does not happen; As the apartment is submerged in silence, leaving only you in its embrace, you find that air doesn’t come back to you. If anything, you choke even more. Stand achingly still as your apartment becomes as it once was and settles emptily.

Even with the fire that he dredged forth, even the hurt that beat against the cages of your chest, even as you found the urge to yell and yell and never stop yelling at him—you can’t deny the truth that remains and rattles in the hollows of your mind.

You missed him. The way he spoke, how he filled your room, how his eyes found yours and stared an eternity into them. And maybe that’s the problem with first loves— the ghosts of them will always haunt the space of your heart, phantoms entwining around arteries and veins, infusing in your blood. But this is more than a rose-tinged ardor and a childish squabble; This is life and death, his and your own. And it cannot be regarded as anything but that, even if you want nothing more than to run out into the hallway and call after him.

You put that desire down, leaving it in the cage with all the other locked up hurts you hold of he and you, deciding it is a problem for another day. You force yourself to shift gear, turning to your bathroom in need of a shower to wash away all of the strain of the day, all of its exhaustion—

A knock resounds throughout the apartment. A beat passes, then two as its echo rings throughout the space.

You stare at it, wondering for a moment if it is your brain playing with you. If somehow you hadn’t locked that desire up tight enough and it was now at your door, toying with your hearing. A shadow filters underneath the door, a shuffling of feet.

You know what’s on the other side without having to look.

There’s a million reasons not to do something, pages and pages of entries in your castaway diary that depict the woes of your heart in the time that Kuroo had abandoned it—all of it’s waxing poetry serving as a poignant explanation as to why you should not open the door. But something tells you to open it, something smaller and sanguine—plumes of billowing hope that curdle in your stomach and float through you like an intoxicating smoke. Filling your lungs on the inhale, decadent exhaust that burns the nicotine, spreading the burning high.

Your hand is on the knob before you have much of a realization.

And he’s there.

Eyes inked with a steady fortitude, filled with an intensity saved for moments where you imagine the other guy comes to play, saved for the moments when he’s hellbent on getting you to see him. He stands at your doorway, lit under the harshness of the fluorescent hallway lights, chest rising and falling with the heaviness of his breaths.

And it calls to you—that craving for the marrow, the barking that rings throughout your ears. It isn’t for the truth of words—it’s for him.

Really, he should be a better person and commit to the drive that led him to leave for three months, his need to keep you safe; Commit to the boundary that you have placed, the one that says I’m not ready to forgive you, the one that dresses you in caution tape and blinks in flashing red lights to avoid lest he do as he’s done before and try to fix things like a fool.

(A fool in love.)

But it tugs at him, pulls him to his knees when you meet him with your eyes wide and eyebrows furrowed. Confusion, curiosity, and something pouring into you. He’s neck deep in the throes of longing just at the sight of you and that third element, that fickle something that he knows better than anyone else. He should be a better person and walk away, do as you have asked and respect boundaries. But then you say his name, a whisper on your tongue, like how you used to speak to him. And he realizes that he’s already done his time in being a better person. Three months of denying all he has wanted for the sake of protection.

He’ll indulge in selfishness, just this once.

Greedy with his intentions, desperate for you; Ready to drown.

His hand is on the wood veneered door pushing it wider. His heart races in his chest as he realizes you put up no resistance in his doing so. A decision is made, absent of logic, truant of any remorse.

“We will never be just friends.” He says, voice laden and heavy with that third thing that sparks a glint in your own eyes—want.

His lips are pressing to yours, rushing forward and slamming the door closed behind him in quick succession. A muffled whimper escapes your lips as you fall into old habit. The rough parting of plushness for a ravenous taste that stokes the embers of a desire hardly contained. And suddenly, his waters are rising around your ankles again, his own feet dragging against the force of its push and pull. Salty spray splattering against him, his clothes heavy with the damp and he’s sinking.

(Even if you hate him, even if you push him away, at least you’re there—alive.

He should fight and climb his way to survival, it’s the one thing he’s good at after all. But he doesn’t. This could easily be his death, headstone laid at your feet, the key to his coffin in your palm.

There is no part of him that hasn’t been tethered to you in the formations of love and remained resilient in the absence of you; He is and has been yours, entirely. And that was precisely the issue; For where he ended, you began. There was no better danger to him than you. And now, there is no greater danger to you than him.

The taste of you is just as he remembered.)

Kuroo kisses as if this is how he could explain things.

He pours all of his ferocity into the action, eagerly laps up the savory of the needing touches and the sweetness of bared soul, as it pours out and in. Joined into one, lines blurred, delineation a fool’s game. When wrapped in the throes of your embrace, the parting of your lips is all too addicting, and submission isn’t a threat but a promise of more.

He digs his teeth into the plump and pulls, losing the fight with his feelings when a whimper erupts from your mouth and even more lost when you push into him with equal fervor. Your hands are rushing up to his hair and tugging on the strands, pulling him closer into you if that were even possible. His hands find their place on your waist, finding solace when you fit against him in the exact way that he remembers. Joy coursing through the rushing blood when his fingers dig into plush skin, craving hardly satiated but instead, amplified.

It’s desperate, and mean, and hard, and consuming and it's the greatest thing he’s ever had. Flurried limbs pulling each other together, gripping on skin in calloused moans and tugging movements. Your tongues taste one another, licking into the open in wet fervor. A whine is exhaled when your mouths pull apart that is quickly replaced with bliss when his teeth sink into your neck, lapping over your tender pulse point in the way he knows your body responds best. Your nails dig into his biceps, the fabric of his shirt tugging upward.

This dance is familiar and that makes it that much more exciting, like an inactive muscle being stretched out. He’s pushing you both further into the room, fingertips trailing at your waistband, silently asking as he sucks another mark into your neck. You beat him to it, pulling pants and underwear down in one quick movement, your heart pumping erratically as you fall on the couch, onto the buoy keeping you above the rising tide. He’s moving in tandem, your own shirt falling to your floor in abandon.

Revealed to you is a pantheon of scars that decorate the lean and lithe muscle of his chest as you settle on the sofa. Some old, faded to the color of his skin, others new, pink and raw. Your fingers are drawn to them, running over the numerous marks that bisected skin, that make constellations against his ribcages.

Atlas stares down at you, deep breaths racking his chest. “What happened to you?” You ask quietly, fingers finding a particularly jagged mark that runs from the right side of his ribcage down to his belly button. Two pale pink scars lining either side of its division— claws. His stomach tenses beneath your touch.

The worry seen in your eyes ignites a heated passion in him, the held suppression that you still care driving him forward once more.

“Later. We can talk about it later.” Invigorated, he leans back down, capturing your lips in another kiss and running his tongue on the curl of them. His hands move on their own accord, long fingers gripping beneath your knees and hiking your legs upward, exposing the wet and slickened part of your sex to the eager grind of his hard length poking through his jeans. Denim meets your sex and the rough fabric pulls a broken moan from your occupied lips as it grinds against the wet of your folds. Rubbing coarsely into your sensitive bud. His fingers find their place there soon after, splitting your seam and gathering enough wetness at your entrance to roll it over your clit, swirling his finger around the pearl in the way he knows you like it best.

There comes great advantage to being with a man for as long as you were with Kuroo. His expertise ignites the beginning rapture with a speed unlike any other. Fingers playing with your sex in ways that you’ve never been able to replicate on your own, driving your want higher, tightening the coil that burns with delectable heat in your stomach as his tongue licks into your mouth. Your breaths are heavy, lips disconnecting with him as you find yourself distracted in pleasure, a trail of spit stretching between you.

It’s when he slips a long skilled finger inside of you that you throw your head back. He makes quick work, attaching with eagerness to the column of your throat, suckling marks into the juncture of your jaw and neck. He knows where the spot lies, knows how to have your mind fogging up and your mouth opening in stupor.

And you hate it; You hate that he knows what to do and how to do it to get you so malleable underneath him. You’re putty in his hands and it's the essence of everything that you have been warning yourself of. He could ask you anything, tell you anything, and in the embrace that has been yearned for, it wouldn’t take much for you to do whatever it is that he asked.

You would do more to stop this were you not locked in the throes of pleasure—but he feeds the beaten dog so well.

A second finger enters you and you moan.

“That’s it. I wanna hear it, baby.” The huskiness of his voice pants a hot breath against the side of your neck. “Please let me hear it.”

“Tetsurou—” You manage to bite out just as his fingers curl upward, stroking against the spongy spot of your front wall. A dull fuzzy pressure begins to fill your body.

“You gonna cum for me, pretty girl?” He asks, his thumb working in tandem with his two pumping fingers to rub hard circles against your clit. “You gonna let me taste it?”

His nose presses into your cheek, lips placing a loving kiss against the surface as you nod, emphatically. He breathes, enamored with the feel of your walls clenching around his fingers, drunk off of the faint smell of your perfume, and the salt of your skin. He knows an orgasm is hardly the way to fixing things, but he’ll be damned if he won’t try. Rising on his unoccupied arm, he hovers himself above you, studying the contortion of your face. Your face, gorgeous as it scrunches in response to his ministrations; Beyond beautiful in all of its existence, when you're smiling, skin pushing on the apples of your cheek; In sleep, resting and relaxed; In your fury, furrowed and gritted as you yell at him, give him your poison and vexation, deliver an acrimony that he can only kneel before— entrenched in all of your holy.

Your eyes remain closed, sealed in bliss as he strums the familiar crescendo and as satisfying as it is to see, he wants more. Wants to see you.

He says your name in reverence, “Look at me.”

Blown pupils meet his own and it's the final stretch. Heart escalating, fingers clenching, your thighs closing around his forearm to stave off the impending blow and all of its glory. He doesn’t stop, instead he keeps your gaze, dropping his mouth to your chest and sucking a nipple into it. Laving over the sensitive skin, setting nerves tender as he maintains his steady pace with his fingers.

And it comes; The sharp inhale of breath, the tumbling of his name, the peak of the long awaited happiness. Your fingers find home in gripping his arms, the one beside your head and the other between your thighs, still stroking an even stride through the pulsing of your gummy walls and the gush of wetness from you.

It's convulsing and dizzying, you almost don’t believe that it's happening as euphoria washes over you. Tetsurou hovers over you, sliding his fingers from you and immediately putting them in his mouth, sucking the taste of you off of the digits.

Were you not already pulsing with the aftershocks of an orgasm, the sight of his eagerness would have pushed you over the ledge. It's pathetic really how Kuroo does to you what no other person can. Set you aflame with the paradoxical sisters of lust and anger. The emotions of Mars, emboldened in intensity by his doing, are further impassioned as he stands on his knees, stare blown wide as he pushes your thighs apart once more. His gaze transfixed on the mess he’s made of your sex, the length of his cock twitching in arousal the longer that he looks.

“There she is,” he says to himself, adjusting your knees further up until they’re hitting your chest. His hands grab underneath you, pulling your exposed pussy closer to him. He fists himself, a pearly bead of precum smearing over the red and leaking tip, pushing it forward so that the head of his cock bumps into the sensitive nub of you with each swipe against his length. Shocking you into the desire, building the anticipation once more. “This perfect pussy.”

He’s lost, stuck in the reverie as he stares at you and it eats you alive. To be so desired, so wanted by a man you were convinced hadn’t wanted you anymore.

“Tetsu,” Your voice is ragged and broken, propriety abandoned in the glow of the coital haze. You breathe and he seems reminded of where he is, a glaze in his own eyes. Kuroo leans down after a moment, reminding himself of what he’s meant to do. His lips find yours in a gentle peck as he breathes in your exhale.

“Tell me. Please.” He swirls the head of his cock at your entrance, gathering your slick on him but waiting. “Tell me what you want. Tell me you want this.”

It feels like you're floating in the waters, no longer drowning or at risk of sinking, but instead light and loose on its surface. No longer made an enemy of its tides but the lover, kissed with each lap of its waves. If you close your eyes you can hear the water crashing against the shore. The waves that crumble the high rise of your stone walls, their wreckage falling into the sea. You can feel that it's Kuroo’s hands underneath you keeping you afloat, holding you still. Can pretend that everything is right once more.

Your eyes shut in hope, the promise of tomorrow within reach. The words are spoken before you have any sense otherwise. Sober wants and the repressed truth voiced in a split second.

“I want it so bad. I want you. Please, please—”

It’s all he needs, all he wants. Not the sex, forget the sex, but you—wanting him, asking for him. A revival of the shredded beating threads of a tender heart. He pushes into you, the hefty weight of his member filling you in the ways that are so familiar yet need the most adjustment. The burning stretch, the feeling of being whole as he moves forward, inch by aching inch. Slowly letting you adjust, slowly giving himself the time to fit.

He pauses his movement, a grunt, heavy and man, releases from his mouth. The wet heat of your walls choking him, wrapping around him like a vice that sets every neuron, every pathway alight. He digs his fingers into the soft of you tugging you closer in search of the home he knows, the one that will bring him to his death. In your embrace, it would be kind, long-awaited, the better alternative to the threat that he faces every night on the street.

He stills his hips, letting you acclimate to the feel of him inside of you. Conversely, he tries to catch his breath, tries to not burst at the first feel of your tightness around him.

Tetsurou looks down at you, his hands smoothing up and down the expanse of your spread thighs as he watches the quick flicks of emotion on your face. Waiting for the signal, the green light to roll into you.

Your chest heaves with a stuttered breath, your breasts rising and falling and he falls into the impulse to bring his hands to them. Palms cupping the skin, thumbs brushing over peaked and taught nipples. Your skin is dewy with sweat, eyes blown with lust, and hair messy as you lie beneath him. Beautiful, beyond beautiful. He takes a snapshot of you in his mind, folding this image in the file for the late night thoughts, for the reasons to keep living.

Your face contorts into one of shock, eyes darting to his own, disrupting the image of ecstasy you were once so lost in. He mirrors your surprise with a look of confusion, unsure what happened in the split second to cause such a look from you.

“What did you say?” You ask, rising onto your elbows, shifting his place inside of you ever so slightly.

He hisses with the movement, hands rushing down to your hips to hold you still. He can’t think with the jolting, the hot lick of pleasure that burns within him at the slightest of shifting from you, but he tries anyway. Recalling the previous couple of seconds, wondering what could have slipped out of his mouth in the few moments that he was gazing down at you, staring in awe as you writhed underneath him.

“I’m so in love with you.”

It isn’t the most jarring of things to have ever been said by him, this evening alone enough of a reminder of the kinds of outrageous that his occupation can bring, but it’s the breach of a reality. The actualization of something fragile that lies between you two. It is easier to be abhorrently angry at him rather than violently in love with Tetsurou, and yet it remains.

Like a hidden secret, you kept it locked in you. Tried to stampen it out, snuff it with hands around its throat. But here he is, on his knees, just as victimized by the truth, begging for better days.

He rolls into you, then. Energized by his own admission, eager at the locking of your eyes. He pumps a steady rhythm, cock bullying against tight walls and rubbing in all the right ways, revitalized at the moans that spill out of you.

“I said I’m in love with you,” Palms release your breasts and find your own hands, intertwining fingers together and leaning close to you. Chest to chest, mouth hovering above your own, chasing the home of sweet release but making sure you’re right in front of him. “So fucking in love with you.”

It happens in quick succession. Pressure erupting, tide pulling you in and under, his voice the only tether to the surface as your orgasm reached you in record time. Brought asunder by the turmoil, the anticipation of him, and then finally having it. You can’t tell if it's because of the ministrations of his hips that know you so well, that know how to bring you forward— thighs pressing into yours, skin clapping at the repeated meeting of him into you, the tightening of the burning coil— or the confession. Spoken just as he has said everything else to you—

With conviction, firmly believing the words he has uttered. Kuroo has never lied to you, he wouldn’t do it now.

The blooming fire in your core spreads throughout the entirety of you; Your head throws back in a cry and Kuroo takes it as permission to follow you. Drops his head into your neck, thrusting with deep abandon as he finds his own peak. He digs and digs, burying himself to the hilt as he reaches it. His stomach tightening, his body going rigid as the high he seeks renders him still deep within you. A guttural moan leaving his mouth, unintelligible whispers, low muttered honesty that he means for himself.

He holds you close to him in the wake of the decrescendo, all but collapsing on top of you. Limbs gummy and soft, minds sluggish as he keeps you connected to him, for as long as you’ll let him.

Time passes like this, held close to him, sweat gluing you back to him in the way it was always meant to be.

And it's sticky, this mess that you're in, body and mind. Clinging to one another, your hands unthread with his fingers to run through his hair, his lips plant soft kisses to the skin that he can reach, and the fragments of uncertainty between you lay shattered in their great glory on the floor. The tide slowly rises, washing away the scattered pieces, returning it back to its sea, promising to take care of it all with a loving whisper.

You don’t know where to go from here. The abated fear that was put to rest in the heat of his touch slowly inches forward. He knows it must, can probably sense your rising apprehension before you even realize it. Spider senses, and whatnot.

His head rises from laying in the space between the couch and your neck, ambers looking into yours. Honestly, carefully, lovingly.

He brings his hand up, brushing a flyaway from your face. “What are you thinking about?” The quiet plea from before.

Let me in.

“Are you going to leave when I go to sleep?” You ask, and even if you had the energy to muster a kind of bite to your words, you don’t have the desire to.

He wonders for a second, voice soft when he finally questions, “Do you want me to?”

Old habits beat the familiar song, and you fear waking up again to an empty apartment after having him so close. No, you don’t want him to leave; But admitting that is jumping four hundred steps ahead in a wasteland now imploded from your coupling with him. Nothing about this is normal, even as you try to grasp some semblances of it. You shouldn’t have slept with your ex-boyfriend, not when you told yourself things needed to be patched up first, not when you were still hurt inside, but falling into the cycle, the old song and dance of before has thrown a wreck into the healthy attempt at boundaries.

It’s just made everything so much worse. Your head hurts, your heart pounds and all you can do is cover your face with your hands. Hiding the frustration before him.

“Hey,” Tetsurou coos, admonishing you gently from your secreting. His hands pull yours away from your face, voice guiding the quieting din in your mind. “I’d like to stay. We can talk all night or not at all. I just want to be next to you. But only if you want me.”

It’s up to you; All of this is up to you, now.

“And if I say ‘no’?”

“Then I’ll wait until you’re ready. Even if you’re never ready.”

You hum, a means to fill the space. Uncertainty lingering.

He calls your name quietly, the same seriousness that has been following him all evening in his gaze again. The kind that pointedly was not apparent three months ago before the rainy night. “You need to know though, before we start anything, before you make a decision, if it comes down to it—if your safety is on the line—I’ll do it again. I’ll do whatever it takes. And you can’t change my mind on it.”

It’s then that you realize even in the height of your argument, in the consuming of one another, Tetsurou never gave you an apology. Said to your face it wouldn’t fix anything because he wasn’t going to apologize to you. Saying he’s sorry would be a lie, and he doesn’t lie to you. He’ll hurt you both again if he needs to. If it comes to pass, that’s his answer; Wherever you’re concerned, if your safety is at risk, there isn’t much Tetsurou wouldn’t do to protect it—protect you.

A knowing that you are going to have to accept. And quickly.

Your eyes see only but the honorable truth in his. Your heart pumps erratically and your mouth craves the taste of his once more.

“Stay. I want you to stay.”

a/n: its here. two long years later. big thanks to everyone who loves this series and has been interested even after my long ass hiatus. you guys are the reason i kept going through it even through the worst of things. love you all! btw i made a whole ass playlist just for this chapter so let me know if that's something we are interested in

#haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #kuroo x reader #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo smut #kuroo tetsurou smut #kuroo tetsurou angst #hq angst #hq smut #spideroo!

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steviewashere · 4 months ago

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Please Don't Go Away (Is This How It's Supposed To Be?)

Rating: General CW: Death of A Pet, Animal Death, Original Animal Character Death, Cancer in a Pet Tags: Post-Canon, Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Grieving Steve Harrington, Dog Owner Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has a Senior Dog, Grieving Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson Takes Care of Steve Harrington, The Lord of The Rings References Title from "Upside Down" by Jack Johnson. Something something, you can't save people, you can only love them. For @steddieangstyaugust Day 3: "The sunset looks lovely, don't you think?"

🦮—————🦮 Steve Harrington has a heart too big for this world. It beats with love and passion. He cares too much about any living thing he comes across. Seen in his friendships with everybody in the party, with his platonic soulmate relationship with Robin, his polite kindness to Nancy, and his deep and all-encompassing infatuating love for Eddie.

Then, a newcomer is added to his roster.

A golden retriever. It’s a senior dog, roughly eight years old. Shaggy yellow fur that’s half-white. Dark brown eyes, almost like Eddie’s. He likes to prance around, play fetch from dawn to dusk, swim in the pool, and get cuddles between Steve and Eddie in bed. He loves sitting outside with them as they smoke cigarettes. Loves being a part of their day to day lives. Sitting on the porch of their two bedroom apartment, gazing at the sky, as the sun dips low and lower. He rests his heavy head on Eddie’s bare foot and huffs in his sleep, drools onto the wood of the porch, and when he wakes up from his little nap—he always gazes at the stars, too.

His name is Sammy—Samwise, otherwise. And he’s Steve’s best pet friend. The first pet Steve has ever had. The one that earns all of his love.

——— “Eds?” Steve calls out, voice soft, near empty.

They’re sitting at their dining table. Eating from the same pot of macaroni and cheese. Both their faces the pure definition of melancholy.

Sammy’s got a tumor, the vet had said just a few hours ago. It’s cancerous. It’s aggressive.

It’s terminal.

“Yes, sweetheart?” Eddie speaks just as quietly. His throat hurts from the cigarettes he just suckled down not too long ago. Pinched inside from the little amount of talking he’s done today. He was driving the car back home, Steve in the passenger seat crying, and himself holding back tears—he had to see the road.

Steve sniffles. His fork is stirring around in the macaroni. He hasn’t had a bite of it yet. “Do you think…” He stops moving his fork. Eyes clouding, glistening as they look down at the dinged up surface of the table. Swallows, the saliva clicking. “Should I just give him one more good day and then…send him home?”

Eddie reaches for him at that. Taking Steve’s right hand in his. The skin he touches is cold, rough, and clammy. His thumb scoots to the pulse point on Steve’s wrist, it beats slow against him. “That’s up to you, baby. He’s more your dog than mine. I can’t make that decision.”

“But I…Eds, I love him so much,” Steve states, warbling, “he’s my baby. I don’t want him to suffer, but I don’t want to let him go.”

He quickly drops his own fork in the pot of food. Slower, though, he rakes his hand over the top of Steve’s head, fingers idly tangling in his hair, scratching at his scalp. “Sweetheart,” he whispers, “look at me.” Steve does, raising his heavy head, eyes miserable and dark and red, shoulders hunched to his ears, and that frown of his low to his chin. Eddie hates this. “I’ve lost plenty of pets before,” he explains, voice low in his chest, “some of them passed with old age. Some of them escaped through the door and I never saw them again. But I’ve had two that died because they were sick; one of them I had put to sleep.

“And let me tell you, honey, in a case like Sammy’s, he’s only going to break your heart everyday. Sometimes you’ll think your Samwise is better and ready to play. Then, the next morning, he’ll be back to laying down all day, barely eating, mostly sleeping.

“I love him, too; to bits and pieces, to crumbs, to atoms. But you love him more, Stevie. You love him so much, I see that. I know you do. Listen to me, though.

“You can only love him, Steve. He’s terminal, sweetheart. You can’t save him from this. I think, in this case, it’s best to love him as hard as you can, give him the paradise of his dreams, and then let him…send him home.”

Steve’s face isn’t dark anymore. Just morose. Eyes heavy and exhausted. Tears glistening down his cheeks. Face splotchy red and warm when Eddie brushes his knuckles over it. His lips and chin are wobbling. Eddie hates this.

He cups the back of Steve’s head and brings it to his shoulder. And feels more than sees the way Steve weeps and sobs and gags into his neck. His back is bouncing up and down, choppy with each of his shaking breaths. And on the bare skin of his shin, Eddie feels Sammy brush against him. He blearily reaches down and pets the dog’s back, grounding himself for the last few days to come.

——— They’ve got the van set up for the day. Sammy’s dog bed set up in the back, where the seats usually would be. Pillows upon pillows, the comforter from their bed, and a few of their sweatshirts cushioning Sammy on all sides. There’s a greasy paper bag from the diner in the front seat, a cheeseburger without all the fixings, and a small French fry waiting for their buddy. Windows rolled down for fresh air to hit Sammy’s fur. His face is of pure contentment, eyes wide and giddy, panting heavily. Eddie wonders if this is what he’d look like as a puppy, without the grey fur.

Steve’s quiet in the passenger seat. Head looking over his left shoulder, between the seats. His hands twisted in his lap. Smile small and wobbling and deeply remorseful. Eddie offered to let him pick music; packed up several of Steve’s cassettes, but he didn’t even look at them, didn’t even care. They’re his favorite albums, too. Which makes it worse.

The silence has been one of the worst parts of all this.

After the other day, Eddie had been the one to schedule the euthanasia appointment. For just after sundown. One more sunset before their boy goes.

He drives through backroads, between long stretches of nothing but field, and after some time, he parks at the base of a steep hill. And when he gets out, Steve is already scooting out of the back of the van, Sammy in his arms, curled up tight in a ball, clearly too heavy to be moved like this—if the awkward ambling in Steve’s legs says anything—but he just carries on. One slow step at a time until their little hike ends at the top.

Eddie brought up the dog bed and their comforter, the bag of diner food, and the sweatshirts. He lays it all out. Lets Sammy curl up in the bed, covers him with the blanket, stuffs the hoodies on either of his sides, and then hands the food over to Steve to unwrap and feed. He does it slowly. Tears little chunks off of the cheeseburger. Holds the fries two at a time between his clenched fingers. And when it’s gone, he settles his upper body on Sammy’s back, lays his arm between the dog’s legs, and rubs his cheek atop Sammy’s head.

Then, they watch.

The sky shifts from baby blue. To yellow, like Sammy’s young fur. A muted pink, the color of Steve’s cheeks when he laughs—when he cries. And then a mirage of all of the colors, blending and mixing into one saturated thing. The sun dipping low, just the upper third of it still visible. Stars already poking from their hiding spots.

It’s the best sunset Eddie thinks he’s ever seen. But he looks over to Steve anyway. Watches him pet fur under his hand, twirl it between his fingers into tight twists. His eyes spilling fast, fat tears. Barely making a sound, just the stuttering of his breath. Nasally and sharp through his nose. Lips pinched tight, rolled into his teeth. Eyelashes clumped together and darker than Eddie’s ever seen them. He lays his right hand on the back of Steve’s head and pets him, too.

Steve clears his throat. Rough and raw and probably painful. “The sunset looks lovely, don’t you think, Sammy?” He asks quietly, burrowing his head further into the fur. The only response he gets is a snuffle, to which he chuckles at. It’s short lived and terribly bittersweet. “What about you, Eds?” Steve whispers.

He digs his fingers deeper into Steve’s hair, running them all the way down to the ends and then back up. It’s all sorts of tangled from not brushing it this morning, all in his haste to make this a good day. Eddie heaves a small sigh through his nose. “I think it’s the best one I’ve seen,” he answers honestly, the words crackling.

A dissonate grunt.

Steve shifts his head again, his fingers making circles over Sammy’s heart. “How much time do we have?”

His watch is three minutes behind, 8pm, it reads.

“Roughly fifty-seven minutes. But they told me as long as it’s before ten, they’ll be able to do it.”

“And we can be there with him?”

“They said we can be there if we want. From the moment they do it to the moment he closes his eyes. Told me we could stay for a little while after, too. For us to really say…y’know.”

His fingers shift as Steve nods. Heart breaking at the sound of Steve’s stifled small cries. In a strained, quiet voice, Steve admits, “I don’t want another one after him, I think.”

“That’s okay, sweetheart.”

Another, though less stifled, sniffle. “You’ll cuddle me tonight, right?”

“Don’t even have to ask,” Eddie breathes.

“I’m gonna miss him.”

“I know,” he whispers, “I will, too.”

Sammy snuffles deeper again. The sky dark and stars endless. It’s quiet, really.

Until, Steve half-sobs, turns his head, and looks up to Eddie. His eyes wide and deep like abysses. Shiny. Blurry with the tears. “Will you read The Fellowship of The Ring tonight?” He asks in this heartbreaking, tiny, wet voice.

“‘Course, sweetheart,” Eddie agrees immediately. Because he can’t take this, but he isn’t running.

“Okay,” Steve murmurs, tears spilling over again, “I wanna know what Samwise does next. Where he goes.”

Eddie gives a soft smile. A small one. “I think you’ll like where he ends up.”

Steve mirrors his expression, however miserable he is. “Good,” he whispers. He closes his eyes, swallows deep. “I think I’m ready to go. Are you okay to leave?”

“Yeah,” he whispers, “and Steve?” He traces his fingers on Steve’s hairline, down the side of his face, mapping carefully over his cheek, brushing under his eye. Taking in this calmer moment before the true storm tonight.

“Hm?”

He clears his throat, it’s tight and aching. Then, quietly, “Sammy understands, okay? He loves you. And I love you. And whatever comes of this tonight, just know that it’s not your fault tomorrow. You loved him, you’ll always love him, and that’s all you can do.”

Steve exhales slow through his nose and swallows hard again. His eyebrows furrow very briefly before he relaxes. “I love you so much,” he breathes, “thank you.”

“None of that. Now…” He stands up from his spot, knees aching and back pinched, he offers a hand down for Steve to take and hefts him up, too when he grabs on. “Let’s go, love. I’ll be right here the entire time.”

And he is. Holds Steve’s hand. Pets Sammy’s head.

And he wraps his arms around Steve when he breaks down in their bed later, holding the tagged collar to his chest, wailing straight into Eddie’s heart. But Eddie’s got him, he loves him. It’s all he can do.

🦮—————🦮

#steddieangstyaugust #stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #original animal character #death of a pet #animal death #tw animal death #angst and hurt/comfort

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sunboki · 1 year ago

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002. THE MOVING IN DIARIES — ANTHOLOGY

PAIRING. Lee Minho x gn. reader | WORD COUNT. 2.3k & 12 minute read | SERIES PLAYLIST. | WARNINGS. cursing, anxiety, metaphor referring to getting high, talk of sex & implied smut | TROPE. friends to lovers, angst, fluff, suggestive, comfort, basically moving in together au!

( ✉️ ) — although this fic turned out shorter than expected, i have to remind myself this is a “mini”series 😭😭 please leave a reblog or comment if you enjoyed it! love you guys!!

Playful banter while driving to your new home is a must, but upon opening the door to your first home together, the big moment truly sinks in — especially when he wakes up beside you the next morning. Wow.

Heaving the massive brown boxes through the door with your boyfriend right on your heels, you practically slam the box labeled “Kitchen” in neon tape down, wiping the sweat off your brow before looking up.

It’s one thing to sign the papers to a new home, but another when you actually realize the reality of it all.

Minho seems to be in the same state of awe as well.

New. Everything is new. Your new home, a new chapter in either of your lives.

Together.

. ..

People genuinely underestimate the entire process of buying a house.

In other words, the entire daydreaming phase disappears instantly once finances, planning, and packing are introduced.

And it’s a fucking nightmare.

From initially digesting the prices to agreeing on a house in general, you’re certain gray hairs are mere days from appearing atop your head. Although, your boyfriend was here too, every step of the way.

My god were you grateful for that.

He handled the stress like a pro, picking out certain flaws in layouts you’d been completely oblivious to and always leveling you out when you got overwhelmed with things. Plus, you got to witness him looking illegally attractive in his glasses more than ever over the four-month long house-buying hell.

“And what about option two?” You ask, referring to your boyfriend currently calling about some new places he’d scoped out.

You swear this same conversation has popped up almost every day over the past month and a half. At this point it’s instinct going through the bottomless list, crossing off place after place, neverending.

Like you said, house-buying hell.

“Pretty spacious except the kitchen takes up half of the house,” Minho grunts, and you envision his glasses-clad self hunched at his desk with Dori on his lap, likely dozing off.

Before you can reject though, he huffs a chuckle, one filled with nothing but mischief.

“Hey, kitchen sex would be great.”

Thank god you weren’t drinking something or it definitely would’ve come out of your nose.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Awe, you love me sweetheart. And you know it's true.”

As much as you’d like to deny it, he’s no fool. Because kitchen sex with Minho is heavenly, and you’d be a liar to say otherwise. Unfortunately, your lack of reply evidently stroked his ego to no end, cocky giggle rumbling through the call.

Asshole.

You love him.

Reminding him you’d send a text while on your way home, you, as per usual, clock in for your shift after his whining and many repeated goodbyes. Yet you can’t seem to let go of the thought, plaguing your mind like an infectious virus.

Doubts.

Doubts about things working out, about your relationship working out, about your love working out. Especially once you move in, if you move in, no, of course you’ll move in, right? Where it came from you’re not sure, only aware of the tightness of your chest when you step outside for a breath of fresh air.

Suffocating. You feel suffocated.

Reaching into your pocket, moments of hesitation keep your thumb lingering longer over his number, regrettably stuffing the forsaken device in your pocket.

Not now, maybe later. It’s just a thought. Nothing serious.

Except you were a hypocrite, and it was serious, because by the time you stepped from the building you practically cried in the middle of the road, barely able to contain the frothing wail that left a nasty aftertaste burning your tongue.

Fuck it. You’re calling him.

Not until he attempts at getting out a full sentence without you dissolving into sobs does an audible phrase leave your mouth, pitifully curled up atop your bed after charting the messiest walk home in history.

“But– But what if the something happens and the agent messes up and–”

“Baby.”

The voice, the subtly stern tone immediately stops your fervent ranting. Your chest feels seconds from exploding, stifling every pained sound clambering to escape.

“This is our journey, our struggles. Don’t put so much stress on your shoulders when I’m here to help you carry it, okay? I love you, and I need you to know you’re not handling this by yourself.”

He’s speaking so quietly, so kindly, and you can only hum to keep from breaking into tears again while leant against the wall, phone pressed against your ear.

He’s said those three words more than ever in these past few weeks—knowing that he needs to hear it, that you both need to hear it. “I love you”.

It never gets old.

Also, once you're officially homeowners, you won’t have to constantly call each other anymore. It brings a watery smile to the corner of your lips.

“Hey Min?”

“Yes?” He hummed, mirroring the same sound made when he ate a good bite of food. It’s the cutest thing in the world.

“Yes?”

“Can we.. stay like this? I just want to know you’re there.”

A breathless laugh utters through the line.

“I’m right here all night sweetness.”

And like he promised, he stayed, the call ending almost seven hours later. Having fallen asleep a mere two hours in, Minho spoke all the while, mumbling to both himself and you. Plans for the future, his current grocery list, and, while deep in thought, how he so badly wanted to marry you.

He wouldn’t mention the last one when you woke up.

Eventually, he too began drifting off, and it wasn’t without telling you good night that he let himself fully travel to dreamland, whispering: “Good night baby, ‘sleep well.” Before clicking the red icon, signaling the end of the call.

Call Ended: 6:43:17.

. ..

The clock hung on his wall reads 2AM and his hand ferociously maneuvers the mouse, eyes practically bloodshot. You’re behind him on his bed, immersed just as intensely on the blinding screen.

Yesterday you’d received the best kind of news, but the trial was far from over, and you couldn’t quite celebrate till the keys came in—the exact thing you were religiously looking into right now.

He’s relentlessly scrolling through emails, running a hand through dark brown hair with prominent dark circles shadowing beaneath his lower lashes.

Having met with your agent that afternoon, you were nearly finished with the entire closing process when ding! A notification buzzes.

Scrambling, you jump off his mattress, both blinking dumbly, mouths agape.

Hello, I am pleased to inform the Minho family (you laughed at the name) your keys will be available at 8am tomorrow morning. Thank you for your cooperation, I was delighted to be the agent you chose for your first home purchase!

Oh my god.

Slowly turning to face one another, huge smiles grow at your cheeks while the boy’s apartment erupts in loud, victorious screams. He pulls you into a big hug and you do the same, mimicking his bouncing excitement.

He can’t even describe how happy he is.

This is really happening.

Your boyfriend hides himself in your chest and you gently pat his head, allowing the thundering of his heartbeat to calm.

Surreal.

Nonetheless, he couldn’t seem to stop kissing you. Perhaps it was the aftermath’s effect, too intoxicated by happiness to think sensibly. Not that he didn’t constantly kiss you normally, but this time it was different.

Plus, how could he stop when after the third kiss your lips were all puffy and glossy, begging to be kissed.

Holding your wrists, he tips his head to an angle, nipping the swollen skin of your bottom lip and ushering a deep sigh from you.

So when he does let go, you effortlessly hold his face, falling back onto the bed without a second thought other than having Minho as close to you as possible.

To say the least, fucking at almost 3AM was criminally underrated.

Towel hanging around his neck after his shower (and the euphoric afterglow), he took on the job of coordinating how each item was organized, deciding to worry about packing up your flat after coming to the conclusion trying to sleep at this point was futile.

“We’re such good adults.” You satisfy, popping the cap off the Sharpie and being sure to label the box in front of you as “Cat toys'' (Minho’s instructions).

”Please don’t ever say that again.” He leans down, stealing a peck for the nth time off your pout. You don’t complain.

You groan. “What? We just bought a house all by ourselves y’know.”

He busies himself in the bathroom, fetching additional toiletries while wearing the horrifically ugly slippers Changbin gifted him last year.

“After four months,” He says, tone laced with bemusement.

“Hey! It’s about the journey, not the reward,” You point an accusing finger his way, him responding with a rather unimpressed expression.

“You’re a loser.”

“Your loser.”

He wrinkles his nose, appearing disgusted.

Typical Minho reaction.

To no one’s surprise, you spend the remainder of the night scurrying around the place, too high on anticipation. Although, even after countless nights of no sleep, you don’t feel exhausted. You feel alive, relieved.

And it’s when he rolls over to face you, smiling so faintly you can barely make out the shadow lining his usually furrowed exterior that you realize he’s just as ecstatic as you are.

. ..

“Oh please, Lee Minho, you’re already hot, and we’re gonna be late!” You holler from his complex's parking lot, shutting the trunk filled to the brim with luggage. Of course, your boyfriend takes his sweet time sauntering over, placing the keys in your open palm and sending you a sarcastic grin.

“Never knew we booked an appointment with the house,” He scoffs, and you slip your index into his belt loop, tugging him closer with a shared sneer.

“Well now you know,” You cockily tilt your head, a sudden tension overwhelming the minimal space between you two, testing each other's teetering resolve using a mere stare and your finger still wedged in his belt.

He steps closer, you hold your breath.

So it takes you a moment to realize he said “I’m driving” till the keys were snatched from your grasp, leaving you to scoot your legs away and side-eye him the entire ride. Worst part? By the look of his stupidly-handsome-no-good-please-stop-so-I-can-despise-you smile, he enjoyed every second.

Yet, opposed to the cold-shoulder attitude on the drive there, you’re giggling like idiots upon pulling in the driveway. Your poor neighbors have to be terrified at this rate, worried their new next-door acquaintances are some deranged circus clowns or something.

They’re not half wrong.

After your starstruck admiration opening the door though, you get to work arranging things. Assembling shelves, cleaning floors, washing windows, you name it, the first half of the house was spotless.

First half.

As for now, you sprawl in Minho’s lap, a fan replacing the lack of air conditioning and a mandatorily delivered magazine fanning your sweaty faces. Any other situation you would’ve been miserable, but there’s no other contentment better than this.

Because it’s not much, but it's yours.

And that’s enough.

Despite the blinds pulled tightly closed, peach rays of light strayed through the crevices, painting the room a warm glow. You stirred awake, genuinely shocked with, one, this bedroom not being your own, two, the subtle wondering of how you ended up here from the living room, and three, a presence pressed against your back, hand slipped between your legs to hold the soft skin of your inner thigh.

“Minho. Minho!” You poke, jabbing an accusing finger against his jaw. His brow twitches, slowly blinking up at you. He grumbles, squeezing the supple skin there as if you weren’t staring at him incredulously.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Glaring into his genuinely innocent eyes, he purses his lips with a very kissable pout, appearing completely confused before noticing where his hand lay.

Compromising. Quite compromising.

“It’s warm and soft, why not? Or is it that I’m turning you o—“ Words cut short from you muffling him with a pillow, he squirms, infectious laughter radiating through the silk fabric.

Clad in basketball shorts and a plain white t-shirt that rose up just enough to grant a peek of his soft tummy when he stretched, your boyfriend padded through the hallway, approaching you only to scoop you up into his arms from behind—hand slipping beneath your top.

Before you can interfere though, he mumbles beneath his breath, voice hardly audible after just waking up.

“Don’t move, ‘wanna stay like this.”

Ah.

Morning Minho. You love morning Minho, especially now that you’re living together.

Before now, the only time you’d ever get to wake up beside each other was after, well, that. So to think about tomorrow where you'd get to do this again and again and again felt like a daydream.

Relaxing into his touch, he presses his nose into your neck, eyelids fluttering shut to simply bask in the atmosphere, the quietness occupying the home, your home.

Standing there motionless for a few moments, he takes you in, the softness of your skin dappled in sunlight filtering past the window, the rise and fall of your chest. Beautiful.

“So what’re we supposed to do now?” You aimlessly ask aloud, avoiding eye-contact with the massive amount of boxes stuffed in the corner—too exhausted to continue unpacking the night earlier. Save for another time.

“Fuck?” He mutters, but it comes out more muffled, more gravelly. Ungodly attractive.

“I…” Sentence getting caught up in your throat, you move equally as fast toward the bedroom, his nimble fingers pulling the straps of your top down your shoulders, chasing after you.

“—Hate you.” You finish, simultaneously trapped between him and the door.

Nevertheless, you give in. With Minho, you always give in.

You love him.

He knows.

> SERIES TAGLIST. @phtogravi @liknws @luckieleaf @jhstayy @meloncremesoda @chans1aptop @eternitywaveshello @meanergreener @ladylexis @love-gy-u @hanjingin @idkluvutellme @dark-anxel @yubinism @rachabreathing @seung-scrittore @fylithia @skzsupremacy @alrm02 @ener-energy @koliki @anskiiz @dprkbyn @bellamuerte1987 @ylixbok @hanjisung-enjoyer @youngunknownwitch @hwangflora @starlost-andfound @taeriffic @flwerfield

sunboki, may 2022 ©

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fandom-monium · 1 year ago

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Sweet Poison - Part 5

Summary: In which you avoid Zagreus, until one day you can't. "What can I say? The life of a demon is a hard one."

WC: 2.4k

TW: Zagreus (Hades Video game) x Succubus!Reader, GN!Reader, a succubus AND an artist bc sex is just work and food, au where in game Zag commissions the paintings using gems, what if boons actually affected Zagreus, slow build, strangers to friends to lovers trope, sex work, fluff, fluff and humor, mutual pining, idiots in love, mild angst, pheromones (technically it’s succubi magic aura), Zagreus is at least 6 ft convince me otherwise, eventual smut, MINOR descriptions of blood and injuries. Physical touch, affection. Just Zagreus being soft and doting and kind to you this chap

Damn her, damn her, damn her, damn—

Teeth clenched, your vision swims as you grip the rim of the basin for balance, washing off the blood as red drops swirl and mix like watercolor paints before the water clears again. It’s days like this where you wish you can get stronger, more powerful, but there’s a limit to everyone’s full potential, and unfortunately you met yours a long time ago.

Still, it’d be nice.

Contrary to popular belief, succubi can be vicious warriors, they’re simply in their own class. Their abilities, their magic, while never measuring up to gods, could ruin an army in a master’s hand, but it has its limits. Especially amongst demonkind.

As the water calms, you grind your teeth at the sight of your reflection, assessing the damage. Blood and darkness, that’s going to bruise, that one’s definitely going to scar, and you curse the universe because your job’s about to get that much harder now that you may have to use a glamor. Oh, you swear next time you get your hands on her, you’ll—

A resounding rumble quakes the room.

Your chamber door.

You curse. But you're sluggish from the blood loss, and before you can hurl yourself out the balcony, Zagreus steps in without his usual greeting, panting and laurels slightly askew, like he rushed in knowing you’re here. Wild eyes dart to every corner of the chamber, as if he half-expects you to be hiding, until they fall on you, embarrassingly hunched over your healing fountain.

One glance at your battered face, he’s beside you in a flash.

"Zag—”

“What happened?” His tone is surprisingly strained as his hands, clean of blood and gore, reach for you. Then something flickers across his face that makes him hover, his eyes—red and green and wide—taking in your new wounds with horror.

If only you had the energy to cower, shield your bruised face. He’s the last person you want to see right now, and your vision blurs, hating how he of all people is seeing you like this—broken, imperfect.

“I’m fine, Zagreus,” You croak, your voice quiet as you swallow your insecurity like bile. A poor attempt to put some distance between you, you try to step aside, but your knees buckle, and before you know it, you crumple like a house of cards.

Of course, Zagreus catches you—asshole—strong, lean arms gentle as he hugs you to his chest, holding you up as if you’re the most precious of gems. Hate how quick you are to relax in his hold, clay in his hands. Blood and darkness, it’s so easy, so quick, so… right.

You squirm against him, but his grip tightens slightly, mindful of your injuries.

“Sure you are,” Zagreus snorts, though he gazes down at you so soft and sweet you want to shout, wondering if he tastes the same. “Come on, I’ll patch you up.”

Unable to protest, you let him carry you like a rag doll, limp in his hands before he gently props you up on the lounge chair. You lean against the back with a groan. “Really, I'm—”

“'Fine', yes, you’ve said that,” Already, he’s rummaging through your cupboards, at least the ones he knows aren’t filled with art supplies. “Do you have bandages?”

“… Second last cabinet on your left.”

Without a word, he walks through your chamber with self assurance, maneuvering around your easel and stepping over splayed out canvas as they finish drying, careful where to leave his burning footprints. He finds what he’s looking for easily enough, a moment later pulling up a chair and plopping down in front of you. His hands are methodical as he lays everything out; two bowls of water, a small cloth, and the saddest little first aid kit.

In your defense, you hardly end up like this.

You watch his hands as he dips the towel in the water then wrings it out, before gently dragging it across your exposed arms. You flinch as he begins wiping off the grime.

“I know,” His tone is soft, terribly understanding as he continues. “Give it a minute, you’ll feel much better soon.”

You want to snort, snap at him that you’re fully aware of how it works, but the cool sting of water, the mild burn from the open gashes and cuts along your skin, is quick to clench your jaw shut. Pain ebbs across your body, and you watch him speechless, the rhythm he follows, painfully gentle as he drags the cloth across your skin, careful not to aggravate your wounds. Clean water, wring out, wipe, rinse, repeat; he even goes out of his way to change the water, and the relief that comes after would make you sink into the couch, if not for Zagreus's silence.

He's yet to say a word since he entered. He'd asked you already, yes, but you take him for someone who doesn't give up that easily. You expected more of a fight. Now, you're not so sure.

"Zagreus, I… I—" It's hoarse, hardly above a whisper, but it's a start.

You feel him pause before choosing to lay into your newfound cowardice like a wet blanket, avoiding his eyes. Who knows what you'll do if you meet his gaze.

Sensing your hesitation, Zagreus clears his throat, "Perhaps you should save your energy. We can chat when you're healed."

You shake your head, though it only makes the room spin. "No, I need to tell you this now. Before..."

"Before what? You start avoiding me again?" He resumes, wrapping gauze around your forearm, his touch ghosting your skin as he holds your arm out. There’s no malice or respite in his tone, soft and withdrawn as it comes, but you wince. If anything, it’s bittersweet, with an acceptance he long held before he approached your chamber, and it leaves your heart clenching. You don't know how to respond. Are you that obvious?

"(Your Name)... did I do something wrong?"

You blink, whirling to face him.

Zagreus bites his lip, emotions he can’t fathom threatening to spill out of him. That's always been his flaw, according to Father. He's attuned to his emotions, more than Nyx, Father, literally any of the chthonic gods. He stares as his hands tremble, attempting to knot the bandage. "Because if I did, please just tell me what it is so I can make things right between us."

"No-no, you've done nothing wrong," You assure him, sitting up through the pain even when Zagreus protests. When he raises a brow at your answer, you rush to add, "I swear! I've been busy with... work." Technically, this isn’t a lie.

"... 'Busy'. Is that how you got these?" Zagreus holds out your mangled arm by your hand, flicking his eyes over your body in the way you hate most. You'd take aura-induced desire over this: pity, disgust.

You wrench your arm away, cradling it in your lap and shrugging. "What can I say? The life of a demon is a hard one."

"(Your Name), who did this?"

You freeze. Nerves go haywire, and you squirm under his piercing gaze, burning through you as you contemplate lying to him, but you know better. At this point, you know each other too well, and—blood and darkness—he'll see right through you. There’s a defeated sigh, then a quiet, "Alecto."

Zagreus's eyes darken, but you wave him off. "Don't worry. In her defense, I kind of deserved it."

Zagreus sputters, taken aback, staring at you as if you offended him. "'Don't worry'? Don't—how can you say that? First I've seen you in days, and you're—" A sharp intake of breath, and he clenches his jaw so hard you're surprised it doesn't break.

"It's not a big deal. I disobeyed direct orders, and..." You trail off, thinking back.

Since meeting Zagreus, seeds of doubt sprout in your chest, in your lungs, suffocating you as you question the system you’ve worked under for so long. You’ve never questioned who you are and what you do, not to say you love your job, but it’s your life. Yet who’s to say there aren't poor souls sentenced to the wrong level? Genuine and kind, noble and passionate—people who don't deserve eternal damnation.

The possibility of your victims being innocent and undeserving makes you want to hurl, tortured shrieks and endless tears flashing across your memory and echoing in your ears. Your stomach clenches just thinking about it.

"(Your Name), I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Zagreus starts, mouth opening and closing like he can't find the words, his breaths coming quick and ragged. He just stares at you, eyes gleaming with an emotion you can't quite place—as if your virtuous act breaks his heart, crushes his soul. Then he blinks, and it's gone, shaking his stupor. “This is my fault…”

You raise an eyebrow, “How is this your fault?”

“I… I just… you shouldn’t have…” You frown as Zagreus struggles, brow furrowed, clearly pained as he thinks over his answer, like whatever he says next determines your fates. Seeming to think better of it, he shakes his head and brings your hand to his lips, and you flush, your heart skipping as his lips graze over the bandages, warmth seeping through the material and into your wounds like a healing salve. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” He rasps between each kiss, trailing up the back of your hand and up your forearm, like they’ll heal the wounds faster. Like this is the best he can do, like this is all he can do. Not that you plan to stop him.

Your face burns, but you let him apologize, though you’re not sure what for as he stops before your shoulder. At some point, he slotted himself between your thighs, and now face to face, he studies your cuts and bruises, already fading away as his eyes, soft and glistening, flick over your features. Like he’s debating if his kisses will help them heal faster too.

Gods, if he brings those lips anywhere near your face, you might combust.

You meet his gaze, “What—”

“I lied.”

It comes as a whisper, his voice dry and low that you tilt your head, urging him to continue.

“I’m not some mortal soul, dredging their way through Tartarus,” Zagreus grinds out, scanning your face as if committing you to memory one last time. Then he sits back and stares at the floor, still gripping your hand as he rubs circles over the bandage. “I mean, it’s true I intend to escape the Underworld.”

“Zagreus—”

“And yes, I’m searching for my mother—”

“Zag—”

“But I’m really—”

“My prince.”

He flinches, his eyes shooting up to meet yours. “What?”

“None of this is your fault, my prince. With or without your influence, I’d have done the same thing anyway.” He gapes at you and you smirk, using the little strength you’ve recovered to squeeze his hand reassuringly, “Or would you rather I address you as Your Highness instead?”

Zagreus shakes his head, black hair flopping out of his shocked face. “I don’t understand. You knew?”

“For a bit now, yes,” You shrug as you turn his hand over, large and calloused in yours, swiping a thumb over one of his healed blisters, probably from gripping his weapons. “Took me a while to figure it out, but I can’t say I was surprised. It explained some of your funny behavior.”

He scoffs, the corners of his lips twitching slightly, “What sort of funny behavior?”

“Pretend all you like, but you can’t suppress those noble habits,” You chuckle, eyes crinkling seeing him cheer up. “All your mannerisms screamed ‘royal’, I just didn’t realize we were talking Underworld royalty.”

“Seriously?” Zagreus gazes at you in disbelief. “I thought I did a pretty good job acting—”

“Like a commoner?”

“Like a mortal,” He shoots you a pointed look, and you snort, relaxing into the love seat.

“You were okay.” You purse your lips, “While we’re on the subject of identity reveals, you should know I’m—”

“A succubus?”

You blink before pouting, snatching your hand away to cross your arms over your chest. “You only say that because I was about to tell you…”

“Not true,” Zagreus grins, leaning over to give your thigh an affectionate squeeze. “I knew from the beginning. Succubi magic doesn't affect gods, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel it.”

“And you still stayed? Knowing what I am and what I do?”

“And you still treated me as any other friend, knowing who I am?”

“That’s not the same, and you know it.”

“I disagree,” He coaxes your hands into his, prompting you to meet his gaze as his expression shifts into something more earnest. “We both tried—and failed miserably—to hide a huge part of ourselves in fear of what we’d think of each other, am I wrong?”

You shake your head.

“Exactly. (Your Name), I hope you know not once did I think any less of you for your work, much less your species.”

You respond in kind, “And not once did I consider bowing down to the Prince of the Underworld, especially not after seeing him stuff his face with wraps he picked off the ground.”

He guffaws. “Good, then we’re in agreement?”

“I guess...”

“Just what every man wants to hear from a beautiful creature.” Ignoring the burn in your cheeks, you roll your eyes, and he adds, “But we’re okay? You won’t avoid me anymore?”

“I wasn’t avoiding you.”

“Sure you weren’t.”

“Keep that up, you won’t be seeing me for another couple runs.”

“I was agreeing with you!”

“Your tone said otherwise.”

By the time your shared laughter dies down, the atmosphere clears, leaving a comfortable silence settling in the small space between you. In that time, he’s yet to let go of your hands, your thighs brushing as he rubs soothing circles against your hands, and while he insists on staying until he’s sure you’re better, acceptance rushes over you like the oncoming tide, because try as you might, Alecto’s punishment was nothing in comparison to Zagreus’s absence. These fleeting moments he stops by your chamber, whether to recover, commission a painting, or to simply have a chat, you appreciate each and every one of them. If that’s all you’ll ever have with Zagreus, you decide, your chest tight with a melancholic warmth, then that's okay.

This is enough.

—

Soon after Zagreus reluctantly leaves you once more, he enters the last chamber of Tartarus.

“Redblood! What say you—ack—hey, I wasn’t done talking!”

If he prolongs their time together, allowing him to indulge his cruelty, then consider it time well spent.

—

AN: One of my biggest peeves in media tropes is the betrayal and angst as a reaction from hiding identities from s/o, like in superhero media. It's overplayed, overdone.

A good, recent example of this is the new animated Superman show, My Adventures with Superman, where (SPOILERS) Lois forces the truth out of Clark, and is pissed when he confirms he is Superman. Bro, you literally said to his face how you'd reveal his identity to the public, can you blame the guy? Idgaf you think he's lying ab his feelings omfg he's protecting his idenity (its a good show tho pls watch it!!)

However, a cartoon that does the scenario right is in the old Nickelodeon cartoon, Danny Phantom (some of yall may be too young to remember), the older sister, Jaz, of the mc, Danny, quietly realizes he's the superhero of their town, and decides to patiently wait for him to tell her when HE'S READY. Like askjgdaksjhf yassss we love patience and understanding.

Which is why I like to imagine while Zag didn't outright tell you who he is, he didn't try to hide it either. The underworld's a big ass place, he's got no control over who and what ppl say and do, so however you find out, whether in passing or of your own sleuthing skills, you both wait.

Ty for coming to my ted talk :D

#zagreus #hades supergiant #hades game #zagreus x reader #zagreus (hades games) x reader #hades

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itscatchyouintherye · 17 days ago

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hopedrunk

A pipe breaks in your neighbor’s apartment, flooding your bedroom. House, selflessly, lets you crash on his couch.

“You’re late.” House says while writing on the whiteboard, his back to you.

“Since when do you have a concept of early and late?” You ask while you sit down, out of breath.

Leaning on his cane, he turns around and raises an eyebrow. He’s wearing a dress shirt today, blazer thrown aside, first two buttons undone, sleeves rolled up to his elbow. The arm he rests his weight on bulges and strains the fabric. His hair is also a little chaotic; apparently, he ran his fingers through it several times. His eyes are bright and pierce into you. God, he’s attractive…

“Interesting.”

“What?”

“You rarely deflect.”

“And you are shit at psychological profiles.”

“We all know that’s not true.” House replies, unimpressed.

“Saying that everybody lies does, in fact, not make you a member of the BAU.”

“Ayo!” Chase gives you a high-five.

A smile spreads on House face: “Now that’s a deep cut.”

You think that might be the end of it, but after Chase and Foreman left the room and you’re hunched over files, House says: “You didn’t answer my question.”

“You didn’t ask a question. You made a statement.”

“Don’t sass me.”

Your eyes flick up: “I know you like it.”

“So?”

You sigh: “A pipe broke in my neighbor’s apartment and flooded my bedroom.”

He begins to grin widely.

“Yeah, exactly.” You go on. “I know what that sounds like.”

“Did ‘his pipe’” He makes quotation marks in the air, “burst this morning or was it late last night?”

“Her-“ You immediately realize that that makes it not one bit less suggestive.

“Nice!” House winks and offers you his hand for a high-five like Chase did earlier. “So you made her-“

“House!”

“So, you’ll ‘sleep’,” He makes quotation marks again, “at her place tonight?”

You’re very close to flipping him off when you realize what he’s asking indirectly.

“I’ll probably get a hotel room.”

“You can have my couch.”

Stunned, you find his eyes. They suggest that he’s actually serious.

“I- oh, erm.” You try to win time to not immediately blurt out an enthusiastic YES, but don’t know how to stall. “Sure, okay.” You say instead.

House nods and then says something about a new symptom that manifested itself this morning. You’re too astonished to react.

Thank fuck, Chase reenters the room and declares: “Petechial rash in reaction to the antidote. Otherwise no-“

“What?” Your voice shoots up, alarm bells going off in the back of your head as at least part of your mind is capable of doing your job.

“Petechial rash.” Chace repeats. “Otherwise, no reaction.”

“Have you taken their temperature? Just now, I mean.”

“No, why would I do that?”

Your head snaps around and you look at House, wide-eyed.

“Ice bath.” He says. “Now!”

House pushes the door to his apartment open and lets you enter first. Yawning, you walk past him and look around. The only reason you’re not completely losing it at the fact that you’re in House’ apartment, is that it’s two in the morning and you’re exhausted beyond belief.

You throw your bag on the ground and take your shoes off while House locks the door.

“You sure you want to take the couch?” He suddenly asks.

“What?” You turn around, irritated. “You said I could crash here. Do you want me to-“

“Had I known you would end up here, I had thrown out my couch in the morning to leave you with no choice.” He appears nonchalant and joking but clears his throat twice while he hangs up his jacket. “Now I only can offer you the bed.”

“Yeah, right.” You scoff and trudge to the living room and sink into said couch with a groan.

“Beer?” House pipes up from the kitchen.

“How do you still have energy?” You barely lift your head off the backrest to look in his direction.

“Sleepovers are exciting.”

“I cannot tell if you’re making fun of me or…I don’t know.”

“Well, after what you did with your neighbor…I wouldn’t be surprised if my pipes would be broken by the morning as well.” He wiggles his eyebrows while he limps towards you.

“House!” You shout. “I didn’t fuck my neighbor! And what are you even- What is wrong with you!?”

He sits down at the other end of the couch and offers you a bottle, showing little reaction to your outburst. You roll your eyes at him but take the bottle and say: “If I weren’t about to pass out, I would leave.”

“I heard that one before.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” You run your hand over your face and take a big gulp of the beer.

Make no mistake, you do enjoy the banter. But it’s getting inherently difficult for you to not bluntly flirt back and see if he goes through with it or if he’s only being an ass.

“You’re very attractive when you curse.”

Your head snaps around and you stare at him, not sure if he actually said that.

“I don’t think I heard it before.” He goes on, licking his lips before taking another sip.

“Stop messing with me.”

His eyes dart over your face.

“I’m vulnerable when I’m tired.” You add.

“I heard-“

“Yeah, yeah, you heard that one before.” You sigh and get up. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“End of the hall.”

You walk up to it.

“House!” You call. “That’s the bedroom.”

“Oops.”

You open the door to the right and find the bathroom. Quickly, you slip inside, more hiding from House than anything else. With a groan, you rest your forehead against the wood. You knew he would mess with you. It’s House. However, you don’t think he realizes how badly you want to take any of his comments serious and jump him. Or he does and is consciously using it against you.

When you exit the bathroom, somewhat freshened up and ready to just get this over with and go to sleep, House is coming out of the bedroom, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. You enjoy his night-attire a little too much to immediately notice the blanket, well probably bed cover, he’s holding out towards you. His face is actually somewhat serious now, which confuses you even more.

“Thanks.” You say quietly when you finally take it.

He nods, one hand resting on the doorframe. Behind him, you see the very large, very comfortable looking bed and…don’t even think about it.

You look at each other for another long moment. His mouth opens like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t.

“Night, House.” You give him a half-smile and make your way back to the living room.

You haven’t really thought about if you should just sleep in your clothes, or partially undress, or- A shirt lies on the backrest of the couch.

You look back in House’ direction, but the door to the bedroom is closed.

Stunned, you take the neatly folded, black t-shirt. It’s clearly House’. And it’s clearly for you.

You smell it. Of course, it fucking smells like him and makes you smile like an idiot.

You’re half asleep, huddled up under the blanket, hugging yourself, when steps in the hallway drag you back into full consciousness.

You hold your breath, listening. You expect House to simply go to the bathroom, but his steps get too loud. You freeze, doing your best to pretend you’re fast asleep and not have your heart beating in your throat as he approaches. Maybe, you think, maybe he’s going to the kitchen instead. To get water or something.

“Hey.” House’ voice is gravelly.

You don’t dare to react.

He puts his hand on your shoulder. You flinch.

“Hey.” He chuckles and you look up at him.

In the darkness of the apartment, you can just barely make out his face.

“Hm?” You’re confused as much as you are enjoying his hand on your shoulder.

“Come on.” He says softly and nods towards the bedroom.

“I-“

“It’s fine.”

That’s pretty much all it takes to convince you.

Slowly, you sit up and get to your feet. House does not take his hand away but moves it to your back instead. You let him guide you. All the way over the threshold of the bedroom and to his bed.

He lifts the blanket for you, and you crawl into the sheets. The soft fabric on your naked legs makes you remember that you’re wearing no bottoms besides your panties. Well, that’s really not what is tilting this situation towards inappropriate…

You let out a relieved sigh when you sink into the mattress, head hitting the soft pillow. It’s so much warmer, so much more comfortable, and smells so much more like House and feels so much more intimate.

And that is before he even gets into bed on the other side.

You know he’s tall, but now you, for the first time, get to witness what that translates to when he lies down in a bed. How it feels to have his weight dent the mattress. What it sounds like when he scoots closer and pulls the blanket over himself.

A little stiff, you turn to your side and try to find a comfortable position without accidentally touching House. You try to will yourself back into your sleepy state.

“Comfortable?” He asks after a minute.

“Hmh.” You hum. “Definitely more comfortable than the couch.”

“Good.”

After another pause, he speaks up again. His voice is closer now, meaning he has his head turned towards you. “I wasn’t making fun of you.”

His words hang heavy in the air. Your thoughts race without going anywhere.

“I know.” You whisper.

“No, you don’t.”

You laugh quietly. “Night, House.”

He doesn’t reply.

You remember a few half-conscious gestures of caring less about touching House’ arm or rolling towards his side. You do not, however, remember that he more than welcomed it.

So, it comes as quite a shock to you that you wake up with his arm around you. Actually, he is pretty much draped over and around you, face buried in the crook of your neck, lightly snoring into your ear.

It’s light out, but in the position you are in, you can barely see anything of him. You do, though, feel most of him. His warm chest, his heavy limbs, his soft skin, his scratchy beard.

You enjoy his closeness for a bit, even though it threatens to overwhelm you, to make you overthink and overanalyze.

“House.” You eventually whisper into his ear.

He inhales deeply and shifts but does not seem to really wake up.

You move your head and manage to reach his cheek. You press a kiss to it and murmur: “House.”

“Don’t want to wake up yet.” He sighs.

“Why not?”

“Nice dream…” He mumbles and shifts again, holding onto you tighter before apparently drifting off. You smile and for another minute you allow yourself to feel happy and content about this absurd situation. And maybe a little aroused.

Then you turn in his arms to get into a more comfortable position and hug him back, fearing this might be over any moment now.

You can hear his breathing pattern change and suddenly he presses kisses to the side of your neck, making you gasp.

“Now that I think about it,” His voice is raspy, “this is nice too.”

You shiver, running your hand over his arm, lightly squeezing it.

House hums and lets his hands wander too; over your sides, down to your outer thighs, back up, lightly skimming over you half-exposed ass. It makes you smile, and you huddle up closer into his arms. He presses a kiss to the crown of your head before he begins to play with your hair. You highly enjoy it and kiss his throat before sinking into his embrace, eye-lids heavy again.

You lie there for a while, House continuously caressing you and clearly basking in your closeness.

Suddenly, it occurs to you how haven’t kissed yet what you most desire: his lips. Timid, you lift your head. House shifts and gives you the room, arm around your back instead your shoulders.

When you make eye-contact, you smile. House does too, but he seems nervous. Very nervous and unsure.

“You okay?” You whisper.

“I-“ He seems to try to come up with a sarcastic reply, but the words get stuck in his throat.

Gently, and a little impatient, you rest your hand on the side of his face and pull him in. For the fraction of a second, House hesitates, but then he smashes his lips onto yours. You sigh and press your body into his. He groans and pushes his tongue into your mouth, grabbing the back of your knee to make you drape your leg over his hip.

Soon, you’re grinding against him, hands in his hair, House devouring you.

Panting, you suck on the skin below his jaw before you come back up to kiss him as deep and hard as you can. He groans loudly, flipping you over to fully lie on top of you, your leg still around him.

House yanks the blanket aside that was bunching up between your crotches and grinds down on you, making you inhale sharply when the tip of his hard dick hits your clit.

“Jesus, House…” You breathe out.

“I’ll be honest…” He murmurs, “My pipe is already about to burst.”

You snort.

“Oh god, just like in my nightmares…she laughs at me.” He adds.

Which only makes you laugh harder.

Leaning his forehead against your shoulder, he lets out a chuckle as well.

Then he trails kisses over your jaw and asks quietly: “Can I go down on you?”

You clench around nothing and are about to agree, but then say: “I always liked your hands…”

“Did you now?” He leans up to find your eyes, a smirk on his lips.

“And want to see your pretty face for a bit longer.”

House lets out a little huff.

“I’m not making fun of you.” You whisper.

He slithers his hand down your side. “I know.”

“No, you don’t.” You laugh and move your legs so that he can reach your crotch easier.

“Maybe I don’t.” He agrees quietly and kisses you again while running his middle and ring finger through your audibly wet labia.

Before he can comment on it, you say: “If you make another burst pipe joke, I will fucking leave.”

“Oh, no.” He sucks on your bottom lip. “Making you wet and moan is no laughing matter.”

“Go-arrghh, shit.” Your head falls back when he pushes two fingers into you.

House tilts his wrist to massage sensitive spots deeper inside of you, making your moan and clasp his face to pull him in for messy kisses. He is quick to lean on his side to be able to fully kiss you whilst keeping his hand between your legs.

“Good?” He asks, peppering your cheek with kisses to let you breathe.

“Yeah, I- very.”

House smiles against your skin and sucks on the side of your neck. After another minute of making you writhe and roll your hips into his hand, he murmurs: “Harder or faster?”

“Faster.” You sigh, head thrown back, arms around him.

“What else? What do you need?”

“Just don’t stop.”

He finds your lips again, kissing you surprisingly softly; nudging your nose with his, spreading more kisses over your neck…and back to your mouth to greedily swallow your gasps.

“Fuck, House…” You warn, body stiffening.

“Please…please cum for me.”

You never heard his rough voice sound so needy.

With another groan, your hips lift off the mattress, and you cum around his fingers. He slows down, taking his hand away to caress your thighs while you shake, eyes pressed shut to enjoy the relief.

“You’re so pretty when you cum.” House whispers into your ear.

It sends a jolt down your spine, and you basically melt into him.

Panting, you bury your face in his chest. He rests his cheek on the top of your head and makes sure you’re fully covered by the blanket while you come down.

He’s being so sweet, it almost irritates you. Obviously, you imagined sex with House a lot. But, somehow, your phantasies never included how he would be afterwards.

“How’s your pipe?” You mumble.

It makes him chuckle: “I thought no more pipe jokes.”

“Not a joke. Serious question.”

“Painfully hard.”

You lift your head and finally look at his face again. His cheeks are flushed, and his eyes focused on you.

Holding the eye contact, you slither your hand down his body to find his dick. It is, in fact, rock-hard. House inhales sharply when you touch it.

“Aw, that bad?”

“You have no idea.”

You give it a few careful strokes, which is already enough to make House thrust his hips upwards and curse into your ear.

“Where would you like to cum?” You whisper.

His lips part. “My god.” He breathes out.

“What?”

“I’m trying really hard to neither cum nor say something stupid right now.”

“But it would feel so good, wouldn’t it?” You purr into his ear, adjusting your grip of his cock, running your thumb over the tip.

House makes a choked noise.

“It has to hurt by now, doesn’t it? You’re so fucking hard and dripping…all the penned-up tension…”

“I-“ He bites into your shoulder. “Yes, yes…”

“So, where would you like to cum?”

“It- I feel-“

You lean back to find his eyes. You can tell that he’s about to lose it and wants nothing more than to cum, but it takes him another two, three strokes until he says: “Your thighs. I always liked your thighs. God…” He groans. “Your fucking dress pants that accentuate them…How the fuck do you make dress pants slutty?”

You smile and scoot down, throwing the blanket aside, to lay fully on your back and expose your completely nude lower body to House.

He manages to move and crawl onto you, straddling one of your legs. You rake your eyes over all the naked skin you get to see. The building upper arms, his clenched fist around his cock, his scarred leg.

You put one hand on his thigh, covering the scar with your palm and use the other to pull on his balls. Rigorously, House keeps jerking himself off, his eyes darting between your face and your thighs.

Then he grunts as hot ropes of cum begin to cover your thighs, some of them reaching up to your hips.

“God, fuck…” He breathes out, eventually toppling over and sinking into the sheets next to you. You grin to yourself and turn towards him, wiping his cum off with the blanket.

House rests his arm on his forehead, eyes closed, taking deep breaths. You lean in, kissing his neck and behind his ear. It makes him hum and blindly reach for you to put his arm around you and pull you in.

“I don’t like this.” He suddenly says, voice hoarse.

“What?” Bewildered, you look at him.

“You’re too good at this.”

When you don’t reply, he turns his head to see your confused face.

“I haven’t even cum inside of you yet and I already don’t want you to ever leave this bed.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“Careerwise? Yeah. Otherwise: my refractory period is about ten to fifteen minutes.”

#fanfic #reader insert #smut #female reader #fluff #reader x greg house #gregory house #house md #sleepover #sleep on the floor

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eksvaized · 10 months ago

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[ Previous ┃ Next ] [ All In One ] part 4, MDNI

You and Simon are eating dinner. The curtains are drawn shut, but the living room is littered with flickering candles. Their soft glow bounces off the walls and casts dancing shadows around the floor. The crackling fireplace provides a soothing background noise on an otherwise quiet evening. You nestle on the couch, feeling the softness of the plush pillows against your back as your legs cross. Meanwhile, Simon sits on the carpet, engrossed in his meal. His body is hunched over the low coffee table, his elbows placed on its wooden surface.

In your hands, you cradle a simple white bowl, its edges worn from years of use. It’s filled with a warm porridge, with the steam rising in gentle wisps from its surface. Your fingers curl around the handle of a spoon. Its metal is cold against your skin. You drag the spoon around in a slow, circular motion. With detached curiosity, you watch as the thick, brown mush whirls around in the bowl, creating an odd yet mesmerising pattern. You’ve never been one to turn your nose up at food. Especially in a world where each meal is a blessing and food scarcity is a harsh reality. Yet, right now, despite the gnawing hunger that tugs at your stomach, you can’t seem to muster the will to finish the dinner before you.

“I’m full,” you declare with a sigh. The bowl in your hands feels heavy as you set it down. The spoon clinks against the edge before sinking into the porridge.

“You barely ate anything,” Simon shoots back, his words muffled by the food in his mouth. “Finish it.”

You shake your head. Your gaze darts between him and the food; though to label it as food feels like trying to sell a pebble as a diamond.

“Not hungry.”

“Either you eat it yourself, or I’ll feed you,” he threatens, fixing his eyes on you. You study his face, trying to decipher if he is serious or not. His expression is unreadable. Yet something about his countenance tells you he isn’t joking.

“I don’t want to. It’s disgusting.”

You feel like a spoiled child refusing to eat something they don’t like. But given that your stomach refuses to cooperate, you resolve that you’ll finish this unappetising meal in the morning.

“I miss the salt. This… this—” you pick up the spoon once more, scooping a portion of the gruel, holding it up for inspection, and then turn it upside down, allowing the mush to drip back into the bowl. “… is not good.”

Simon rolls his eyes in exasperation and stands up. Holding his bowl in one hand, he sits on the couch next to you. You watch him with curiosity. When he tries to feed you, you jerk back and break into peals of laughter, shaking your head in adamant refusal.

“No, no, Simon. Please,” you keep giggling as he chases your mouth with the spoon.

Eventually, Simon concedes defeat, relenting in his pursuit after you assure him you will eat later.

“But it’ll get cold,” he points out. “It won’t taste as good anymore.”

“It already is terrible. It’s hardly possible for it to become any worse.”

Once Simon finishes eating, he tells you he has a surprise. He retrieves his worn duffel bag from the room’s corner and rummages through it. Your curiosity peaks as you watch him, wondering what he will pull out. Unable to resist, you ask him what he’s searching for, but he remains silent, increasing your suspense. Finally, his hands emerge, cradling a small, wrinkled napkin as though it’s a precious gem. He unfolds it and shows you what is in his palm: five cigarettes. You wrinkle your nose in distaste and your body recoils. You’ve never been a smoker, and to be honest, you’ve always considered it a rather nasty habit. The smell of tobacco is unbearable for you, as repulsive as the stench of rotten eggs. You’ve never actually tried it; you suspect the taste is equally off-putting.

“You’re joking, right? This is an awful surprise,” you tell him with a hint of disappointment in your voice.

Unfazed by your response, he shrugs and replies, “If you don’t want them, I’ll happily keep them all to myself.”

You nod your head.

“Where did you even find them?” You ask, puzzled because you don’t recall him ever leaving your side when you were out scavenging for supplies.

“In your brother’s room. They were hidden in the nightstand, tucked behind a pile of notebooks,” he says, standing up and walking towards the fireplace, which is still crackling with warmth. He kneels and uses the flickering flames to light one cigarette, all the while avoiding the hot pot hanging above the fire.

“My brother doesn’t smoke,” you say, rolling your eyes at his explanation. But then, a sudden realisation strikes you. You remember several instances when your brother would lock himself in his room. When he finally emerged, he and his bed would reek of cheap spray deodorant.

You can’t help but stare as Simon positions the lit cigarette between his slightly parted lips, inhaling deeply and unhurriedly. An almost ecstatic expression sweeps over his face as he savours the flavour. A sound similar to a moan or a satisfied groan escapes his mouth when he exhales. He sits on the couch and spreads his legs, tossing his head back into the pillow behind him.

Your mouth is parched. The dryness makes your throat feel rough, like sandpaper, as you attempt to swallow the saliva that has accumulated in your mouth. The once bothersome smell of smoke now seems insignificant. An ominous grey cloud hovering above your head, which you once detested for fear of its lingering nicotine scent permeating your house, fades into the background. Your gaze fixates on his lips. You notice the half-smoked cigarette precariously hanging between his index finger and thumb. In this moment, Simon exudes an irresistible allure, emitting raw, undeniable heat. Though you’ve always found him handsome, an abrupt shift occurs within you, as if a switch has been flipped. Suddenly, you see him in a new light. A desire to snatch the cigarette from him, pull him close, and kiss him sparks within you.

The sensation of heat, like a fervent flame, courses through your body. It’s an intense, unignorable feeling that causes you to curl your body tighter. Your thighs squeeze together, a subconscious reaction to the warmth spreading within you. You bite your lower teeth, sinking your canines into the soft flesh, only stopping when it starts to hurt. Suddenly, the room, which was just a moment ago cool, feels hot. The surrounding air becomes dense and heavy. It presses you down into the plush cushions of the couch. Your chest tightens, and it’s hard to breathe as if all the air has been sucked out of the room. You realise that you’re behaving like a nerdy schoolgirl with a crush on a jock. But you try to rationalise that it just has been a long time since you were in the presence of a handsome guy. You tell yourself that your body’s reaction is natural.

Yet, you don’t want to think about it. You don’t want to acknowledge the feelings coursing through your veins. So, in an attempt to distract yourself, you point at the lit cigarette in his hand.

“You know, I think I’d like to give it a shot,” you say, extending your fingers towards him.

He raises an eyebrow at you. A playful smirk forms on his lips.

“I thought you don’t smoke,” he teases you and takes another deep drag from the cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs for an extended period, longer than necessary, just to provoke you.

Your response is a glare, and he can’t help but chuckle at the intensity of your gaze. Still entertained, he passes the cigarette over to you. You inhale. The unfamiliar sensation triggers a coughing fit, which only causes his laugh to increase in volume. After your second attempt, it becomes obvious to him you don’t have a clue how to smoke. So, Simon decides to teach you, insisting that if you want to smoke, you at least should do it right and not waste the precious cigarettes. He positions himself in front of you, his body mere inches away from yours. With a confident gesture, he plucks the cigarette from your grasp and demonstrates how it’s done, showing you the proper way to smoke.

“Your turn,” he says, exhaling a plume of smoke into the air. Instead of handing you the cigarette, he raises it to your mouth. Your lips part instinctively, as if drawn by an unseen force, and your eyes stay focused on his face. Intrigued, you watch him as his gaze travels along the contour of your lips.

“Inhale, slowly. Don’t rush,” he instructs, his voice barely above a whisper. As these words leave his lips, you feel his hand brushing lightly against your jaw. The brief contact sends shivers down your spine. You follow his instructions, and as you do so, he pulls the cigarette away from your lips. The taste of nicotine lingers on your tongue, bitter and harsh. You force yourself to suppress the instinctive urge to cough.

“Now,” he continues, “take a deep breath, let the smoke travel down your throat, feel it filling your lungs.” As you obey his command, the smoke burns in your throat. Yet you’re so focused on Simon that you barely notice the discomfort. “Hold it in for a couple of seconds and exhale. Slowly.”

As you exhale, the smoke billows out and hits his face. Simon scrunches his nose but says nothing. You both remain frozen, looking at each other, lost in a moment that seems to stretch on for an eternity. Your distraction worked, but now that it’s over, your desire to kiss him hasn’t waned. You move closer to Simon. When he doesn’t back away, you lean in further. Yet, as soon as your nose brushes against his, he pulls back and coughs. The sudden realisation of what you were about to do hits you like a wave. You blush, diverting your gaze to hide your embarrassment.

For the rest of the evening, neither of you dares to bring up the fact that you almost kissed. As you sit on the couch, side by side, your leg brushing against his from time to time, you’re both aware of the tangible tension that has settled between you. It’s a shame that the two of you stay silent because you are thinking the same thing: you shouldn’t have pulled away. He wanted to kiss you just as much as you wanted to kiss him.

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charliehoennam · 1 year ago

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The Conception

A/N: another request by the lovely @juniebugg ❤ didn't have time to proofread so sorry for any mistakes!

Pairing: Dark!quentin beck x f!reader

Summary: quentin concocts a plan to test his precious technology (takes place before he goes rogue)

Warnings: smut, dub-con/non-con, sex without protection (wrap ur willy when it gets silly), rough sex, language. 18+ ONLY.

SHARING IS CARING, SO PLEASE REBLOG

Obsession can lead to either one of two ways. It can take you on the path of success or it can take you to dark journeys with lasting consequences. Quentin was – with no doubt – an obsessive man.

The long working hours he had dedicated into developing his technology is a result of his obsession. And now that he has you, he can finally bring together the only two things that satisfy him.

You find yourself walking on eggshells again as your high heels clack their way through against the white marble floor. Quentin had forgotten a briefcase at home, containing some important blueprints. He politely demanded asked you to bring it into the lab for him. You call for him as you quietly walk inside. There are dismantled drones crowding the work stations. The lab looks a mess with small bolts, screws and motherboards everywhere.

You don’t know to expect or what state you’ll find him in. Granted he had always been self-centered and short-fused – you wish you had noticed the red flags before you said the official “I do” – he could be worse when he worked on his projects. Far worse.

“About time. What the hell took you so long?” he sighs setting the tools in his hands down on the glossy white table in front of him to walk over and rip the briefcase from your hands.

“I’m sorry. I got caught in traffic. It’s not like I wanted to be late” you retort. “I know how you get” you add with a mumble.

You freeze the second the words leave your mouth. You realize you were thinking out loud when you catch Quin’s scowl.

“Oh? And how exactly do I get?”

“N-nothing, Quin. I didn’t say anything.”

“So now I’m hearing things? I’m going schizo?”

He takes a threatening step towards you, his broad size shrinking you in comparison. His shoulders stretch as he stands up straight. He wants to remind you that you are essentially powerless against him.

“No. That’s not what I meant. I-I didn’t mean it.”

“Obviously, you did. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have said it. So, enlighten me, princess. How do I get?”

You gulp heavily as you lower your fearful agaze. His sights are locked on you like a wolf circling its prey. You’re in for it now.

As you open your mouth and try to build the courage the speak, the words seem to get stuck in your throat.

Frighteningly calm, his hand wraps around the underside of your chin. His fingertips press into one cheek as his thumb sinks into the other, forcing you to face him.

“I asked you a question, princess. It’s impolite to leave someone hanging.”

“Just a little s-scary sometimes, Quin. That’s all.”

He doesn’t need to feel your trembling to know that you’re afraid of him. As he smirks to himself, his fingertips ease the pressure they’re applying to your cheeks. He caresses them, soothing the red indents on your skin.

The change of his persona is almost too eerie.

“You’re not wrong about that. I know sometimes I can get a little impatient. I think I just need a break.I think I’ve just been in here on my own for too long. But now that I have you here...” He trailed off as he kisses you.

Slow, repeated, tender kisses that make you bubble from the inside. You can’t deny him. You fear what he’d do if you did and you find him oddly irresistible.

The small of your back is guided by his hands on your hips to meet the table as he entraps you against it with his hunching frame. His feet stand firm on either side of you, locking you in.

As his kisses grow hungry, you cling to the edge of the table to steady yourself from his mauling. His lips connect to your neck, nibbling and sucking your skin. His 5 o’clock shadow grazes you roughly as his fingers work the buttons on your shirt to reveal your black lace bra.

Your eyes dart towards the one-sided wall of glass. An office of busy workers and overflowing desks lay just outside. Even though you know they can’t see in from the outside, your cheeks still flush warmly at the sight of his co-workers.

“Quin, maybe we shouldn’t. You’re at work. Someone could see us.”

“And what’s the problem with that?” he mumbles against your flesh, too busy savoring the fullness of your breast in his hand after he shoved it under the black garment.

You hold his wrists trying to resist him as you struggle to ignore how good they feel.

“Quin, we can’t.”

“Who the fuck says when I can and can’t fuck my wife. If I wanna fuck you right here and right now, I’m gonna fuck you.”

“I-i just don’t want anyone to see, Quin.”

“Don’t worry. No one will see” he smiles darkly as a light bulb lit up upon his head. His hand retracts from your breast, rendering you confused. Had you upset him?

“No one will see. You’re for my eyes only, princess.”

You gasp when his hand reaches under your skirt and squeezes your pussy over your panties. You close your eyes to steady yourself, but they shoot open when you hear a faint blip. Closing them again, you ignore it thinking you might have imagined the sound.

“You don’t wanna disappoint your husband, do ya?” His voice is low and soft, manipulating you into surrendering to him.

“N-no, I don’t.”

“You don’t what?”

“I don’t want to disappoint you, sir.”

“That’s my girl” he chuckles dimly.

While one hand teases your clothed pussy, his other hand pulls your bra down. As the garment bunches under your fully exposed tits, it pushes them up and perfectly displays them to Quin.

You can hear a very low hum vibrating around you but you assume it’s only the AC kicking in.

“So fucking beautiful for me” he mumbles.

He’s quick to wrap his mouth around your nipple, kneading the tender flesh in his large hand. His tongue twirls around your hard nipple, stopping only to greedily suck on it. You moan as he alters. Left to right, right to left; giving them each the attention they deserve.

You watch him ravage your tits. His hand slides out from under your skirt and assists him in taking off your shirt. He leaves the bra on. He loves black on you, but personally he’s already thinking about how white they’ll be when he stains them with his cum.

“You know how much I fucking love your tits, princess.”

A telephone rings from a desk outside the lab and catches your attention. You look to the glass wall and are quickly reminded how many people are just on the other side.

“You’re such a filthy fucking whore for me” he grumbles groping your chest roughly with his hands and mouth.

“Quin, someone could walk in on us” you plead trying to remind him. He feels so good on you, but you don’t want to do this right here.

“They could” he nods looking up at you. “They could see the little slut you are for me.”

“Quin, please. Not here.”

He ignores your pleads to stop. He knows you’re turned on by it. The wetness sinking through your panties was the only confirmation he needed.

Pushing your skirt up to expose your dampening cunt, he sits down on a rolling stool and wheels it closer.

He sits you on the table behind you and your legs spread open on their own to allow him access. You hate the puppet you become at his fingertips.

“No, Quentin. Stop it” you plead trying to get his attention.

He responds with a hard slap on your breast. The sting sends sparks straight down to your core, fueling the fire that burns in your womb.

“What’d ya call me?”

“S-sir. Please.”

“I’m gonna fuck you right here, you got that? I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Ripping your panties to the side, he buries his face between your thighs. Any shred of resistance you have melts away. Your eyes squeeze shut, but you’re reminded you have to watch the door since Quentin doesn’t seem to care at all about the people working behind him.

You alter between watching his co-workers going about their day - without the slightest knowledge of the filth going on so close to them- and his mouth as it engulfs your juicy lips. It’s almost exciting to think about. You feel so dirty and yet, so fucking good letting him use you so openly.

Your muscles burn as Quin shoves your knees apart. His lips hungrily wraps around your lips, letting his tongue lap up the wetness building up. You lean back on your elbows to let him get more of you.

You moan at his tongue swirls around your sensitive nub, sending sparks of electricity throughout your body. How can you resist him when he feels so good?

“Sir, feels so good” you whisper.

You lick your dry lips as you lay spread with his head between your legs. He hums with delight as he catches you watching the glass walls.

“You like it don’t you?” he mumbles sliding two fingers into your hole.

You hear the vibrating hum again, but nod at his question. Why is the AC so strange here?

His fingers push into the sides of your entrance, prying your hole open with the most delicious burn. His tongue slides into the hole, eagerly lapping up your sweet juice. He fucks you with his tongue and you finally surrender yourself to him completely.

There is no use in fighting back. He wins. Quentin always gets what he wants when he wants it. And he wants you now. His only argument is devouring your pussy with a hunger so deep that you’re not sure if you’re enough to satisfy.

“Pussy so juice, baby” he mutters to your cunt. “Gotta fuck it with my cock now. Need you so bad.”

His cock feels as if it’s about to break through his pants. He wastes no time and stands up between your legs, quickly unfastening his belt and pants.

His cock springs free from it’s confines, hard already. You wince biting your lower lip. The low hum that you’ve been hearing seems even closer now. You frown and try to find the source, but you’re forced out your thoughts when Quin’s tip glides up your swollen folds and pokes at your nub.

Your eyes roll to the back of your head. Your cunt is soaking wet as he lathers his cock with it. You watch his face contort from the pleasure. He moans and rolls his head back. He could cum just from the feeling your puffy lips hugging his dick.

He looks back down to watch himself penetrate you. His cock feels so big in you. It parts you in half as it pushes in deeper. The stretch hurts a bit, but he’s not going to ease up. This isn’t about your comfort; it’s about his need for release.

You remind yourself to breathe. The tightness around his cock feels heavenly to him, but you force yourself to relax to make it less painful.

As he hooks one of your legs over his shoulder, you reach down to caress your sensitive clit to try and enjoy it more.

“Such a dirty fucking slut. Look at you. You wanna cum on my cock, princess?”

“Yes, sir.”

He chuckles and delivers a couple more slaps to your exposed breasts, leaving them red and warmly tender to the touch.

He orders you to lie on your back and squeeze your own tits. His cock bottoms out inside of you. From some reason, the deep humming seems to be coming from right above you. You look up at the ceiling trying to find the source again, but there’s nothing there.

As his hips move back to retract from your cunt, he pushes your knees to your chest. Just when you think your pussy couldn’t be anymore exposed.

With his hands on the back of your thighs, he leans down to spit on your cunt. It’s spread so open; he doesn’t even need his hands to guide his head inside your hole. His dick glides into your stretched wetness.

He fucks so rough and hard; you know you’ll be sore for days.

The panties bundled into a string rub along the side of your cunt. It burns your skin, but all you think about is how good his cock starting to feel.

Your clit trembles at the pleasure.

“P-please, sir. Can I touch myself?”

His dark smile grows wide.

“Only ‘cause you remembered to ask, princess.”

You quickly reach down to your cunt to rub yourself where you need it most. It finally feels so good.

“Pussy so fucking wet. Make yourself cum on my cock.”

You can hear how wet you really are. You can feel your slick spread all around and stick to his groin. You wish you weren’t as wet as you are. You know he takes so much pride in knowing he makes you that way.

His balls thump faster against your ass as he picks up his pace. You’re so full of him; it’s pushing you over the edge. The bundling pressure finally bursts inside you.

As your walls contract and tighten around his pounding cock, you keep your eyes locked on the glass wall praying no one would hear or enter the lab. He wishes he could spend all day doing this; just fucking you silly until he’s too spent.

His throbbing cock shows he’s so close.

Leaving you aching to be full again, he pulls himself out and finally cums. He coats your swollen pussy lips with his warm string of white beads, painting you like a canvas. He haphazardly pulls your panties back over your drenched cunt to pump his final load over your panties.

He chuckles tiredly feeling his cum quickly soak through the lace with the tip of his cock. The idea of you walking out that door and down the building, all the way home with your pussy and panties coated with his cum excites him.

“Stay dirty until you get home.”

You nod as he lets you climb down from the table. You both redress and adjust your clothes to return to your day. Your legs feel like they barely hold you up.

“Give sir a kiss goodbye” he smiles enjoying the power he has over you.

You obey and press your lips to his, letting it linger for as long as he wants.

“We having steak for dinner tonight?” he whispers holding your hips.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I’ll be home early.”

You smile as he reaches up your skirt to confirm his cum is still where he wants it.

“Keep ‘em on all day. I’d better come home and find this still on my pussy.”

“You will, sir” you nodded obediently. Your pussy tingles at his touch, anxious for more.

He gives you one more kiss to let you go and slaps your ass as you turn to walk to the door. With your pussy beyond soaked, your wetness mixes with his cum and trickle down your inner thighs. It makes your walk a little difficult as you pray it doesn’t drip out.

You make your way out of the lab and walk towards the elevator, hoping no one will notice. You feel a few pairs of eyes on you. Whether they know or not, you can’t be sure. So, you just smile shyly at them and keep your gaze down.

Quentin watches you step into the elevator from the lab. Finally sitting back at his station, he lifts a thin tablet from his desk and presses an icon.

The drone, which is controlled by the tablet, reveals itself as it deactivates its cloaking device. Now fully visible, he lands it on the table to deactivate the drone entirely.

Quin leans back in his chair with a mischievous grin as he raises the tablet. Pressing a few more icons on the touchscreen tablet, he smirks grimly as he watches the previous recording saved on the device. With the touch of a button, he expands the video into holograph mode.

His technology finally worked.

The holograph shows you with your cunt fully exposed, being fucked by him on the table. He rewinds it to watch it from the start, laughing to himself proudly.

“Thank you, princess.”

#quentin beck #quentin beck imagine #quentin beck x reader #quentin beck x you #quentin beck x y/n #quentin beck x f!reader #jake gyllenhaal smut #jake gyllenhaal x reader #jake gyllenhaal imagine #jake gyllenhaal fanfic #jake gyllenhaal

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ashlingiswriting · 10 months ago

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do i know you? chapter nine

gifsource

[ chapter nine — 8.5k words ] [ masterlist ] [ prev chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight ] "i never fucking asked you to!" richie jerimovich x reader, past mikey berzatto x reader, slow burn

just outside your apartment building stands mikey, hunched against the wind and smoking. he gives you a friendly nod and you grant him a nod in response, guarded but polite.

you never know what you’ll get with this guy. he alternates between foul moods that verge on frightening and a brilliant good temper that tempts you to shine your phone in his eyes to see the confirmation of pinprick pupils. he has moderate nights, but they’re becoming rarer and rarer.

still, his company beats the emptiness of your apartment. like a creature taken to a faraway zoo, you haven’t acclimated to your new environment in chicago, haven’t learned how to take this much loneliness; that’ll come later.

for now, you’re still standing on your separate little patches of sidewalk, familiar strangers engaged in tacit truce, when it comes flying out of nowhere.

fuck.

mikey snarls it so savagely that you look over for threat assessment, just quick enough to catch him looking up at the pitiless hard sky, profile: once-broken nose, twisted mouth, adam’s apple. wild gleam of desperate dark eye, more startling than the snarl. sudden rage from a man is no surprise, but this one looks worse. this one looks caged.

you can sympathize with that.

what? you say gruffly.

his eyes shutter, his jaw pulses. nothing.

you shrug, turn away. resume the truce.

in your peripheral, you can see him looking down and firing off a text. and you think that’s it, that’s all, but then he turns to you and says, you’re good at getting people to fuck off, yeah?

his voice is the voice of a friend, low and familiar, warm and a touch wry. his dark eyes the same. you’re looking at each other directly and it feels like a touch.

a laugh startles out of you. you’ve been pretty direct about rejecting his attempts at conversation, belligerent, sweet, or otherwise. but here he goes again, trying, and you’re tempted.

mikey turns so he’s facing you, chucks his cigarette, and sticks his hands in the kangaroo pocket of his big gray hoodie. for some reason, that does it.

yeah, you say, i’m a world-class expert at getting people to fuck off. they should be giving me tenure, the way i could teach that shit.

then you’re the one i wanna talk to.

you’ve got nobody else in this godforsaken city except patients and threats, and so it’s probably a side effect of loneliness, nothing to do with the man himself, but still: it feels good that somebody wants to talk to you.

you hesitate, fighting it. he exhales.

who’s after you? you say. debt collector? ex?

my brother, actually. there’s an odd space, flicker grimace, between brother and actually. he’s not proud of this. again, you can sympathize.

why do you want your brother to fuck off?

he says nothing, rubs his shoe against a lump of hardened gum on the asphalt. ‘s complicated.

with that, your sympathy—never in abundant supply to begin with—goes down the drain. if he’s gonna play the whiny teenager, making you beg him for his deep dark secrets, fuck it. compassion isn’t your style anyway.

okay, you say flatly. you turn towards the street, keeping him in your periphery just in case. the silence grows heavy, but you ignore it.

fuck it, he mutters. then, louder, it’s not that complicated. carmy’s the baby, and ma was always telling us to keep him out of trouble. i guess it stuck.

that’s such an innocuous way to put it, pulled from childhood. what about the rage from earlier, his trapped eyes? sense tells you to end things here. don’t be a trash bag for this man’s problems, whatever they are.

the thing is, though. it does feel good to have somebody talk to you like you’re a person.

what’s the trouble? you say.

he sighs, settles in. you ever seen a house on fire?

no, i’ve seen a helicopter on fire, but that’s…you look over at him, and you can tell it’s not the flames he’s talking about. no. you?

sort of. he pauses, and the silence is full enough that you know to wait for the coming story. so when i was little, i used to sneak down to the basement, right? i was supposed to be babysitting carmy and sugar, putting them to bed and all that good shit, but some nights i’d get bored. and they never got in much trouble without me.

they must’ve been pretty well-behaved kids, you say.

he laughs. he’s beautiful when he laughs, you can’t help but see it. not exactly.

i’m just saying, if my brother told me to stay anywhere, i would’ve been out the window by the time he’d gotten down the stairs.

mikey gestures with his cigarette at exactly the wrong moment, and the wind snuffs out his cigarette, but he’s so caught up in his story, he doesn’t even notice.

nah, i knew how to play it. sugar was going through this phase where she was fixated on us taking her seriously, so she loved the responsibility. and what was carmy gonna do about it? he was like five. he smiles, remembering. so anyway, before i would go down there, i’d put on my little light up sneakers, cause the stairs to the basement were dark and scary.

you find yourself smiling too. you can picture it.

and my mom would be down there in the dark, watching the tv, sitting in my dad’s old chair. she was usually drunk or sleeping, but sometimes i think she noticed i was there with her and she was okay with it. or, i don’t know. he laughs, short and sharp. she definitely never changed the channel on account of me. i saw all kinds of crazy shit on tv before i was twelve.

mikey pauses, then looks to you. what the fuck am i even talking about? there’s no real embarrassment in it, only appealing self-deprecation.

it works on you. you do want to know where this is going. house fire.

house fire, he echoes, pointing at you. okay, so one time i’m sitting on the floor next to dad’s chair, leaning on it, and i fall asleep. i wake up to this woman screaming. at first i think it’s real, but then i realize it’s from the tv, right? there’s a house on fire. the whole neighborhood is standing there watching, and there’s this old woman screaming, but they don’t look sorry for her. and after a second i figure out what she’s saying. she’s screaming at the firefighters to go in. and i didn’t get it, like, why is no one listening to her?

it scared him, you think. it must have. someone was in there?

i don’t know, i never found out, mikey says. mom woke up, and she saw that i was freaked out, so she got super fuckin angry and, uh. made me go to bed and all that. standing there and holding a cold cigarette, he looks tired. but when i was walking to the stairs, the woman stopped screaming. so i looked back and i saw on the tv that the house was gone. the whole thing collapsed. the roof must’ve caved in.

the silence lingers, then mikey looks across at you like a question. why should it matter whether you understand? why should you care? but your heart is in your throat.

it was right for the firefighters to stay outside, because if they’d gone in, they would have died. the roof was always going to crumble. whatever was inside the house, it was already gone.

you think you understand. so you’re inside the house.

nah, mikey says, i’m the house.

in the aftermath of christmas eve—gold chain, two generations, soup—christmas itself passes quietly without hurting much.

save for a handful of texts, completely unexpected.

> what’s the fastest way to infect people with food poisoning?

richie, of course. you don’t even bother to play coy by letting a few minutes elapse, like you had something better to do. he wouldn’t be fooled by that. he already knows better.

> it’s that bad?

> not fatal food poisoning, just the regular kind.

> it’s that bad? x2

> i think if we all threw up a lot we’d be having more fun.

> you want me to fake an emergency? pull a fire alarm, stage a bomb threat? i’ll drive the getaway car.

> your mind jumps to terrorism way too fast. you’re just looking for an excuse, aren’t you.

> seriously.

> you’re the third guy. it’s al qaeda, then isis, then you.

> seriously, get out of there. come get an unfrozen burrito, if you’re hungry.

no reply. not even three dots to show he’s drafting. with your left hand, you drum a nervous beat on your kitchen table, and with your right, you send another text.

> you can bring sugar and carmy with you.

and there they are, those three dots. you don’t know if you’re more worried about what will happen if he takes up your offer, or what will happen if he turns it down. you don’t talk about carmy to richie, though richie talks about carmy to you. he knows that. you like tina and you don’t mind his other coworkers, but you avoid the berzattos like the plague. richie knows that too. your reasons are your own, but if it really comes down to it—

> it’s fine. all the people i want to save wouldn’t fit in the car anyway.

relief. yeah, that’s relief, and you feel a little guilty for it, but it’s just easier this way: you in the kitchen and no one else.

> you have jumper cables in your trunk, don’t you? just tie pete to the top of the car like a christmas tree

> like i’d bring pete.

> cold hearted, that’s what you are.

nothing. no typing, no read 7:12pm, nothing at all. after fifteen minutes, you give up and toss your phone on your bed. drink your tea, though it has gone cold. try not to think about whatever’s happening in that other kitchen. try not to think about how close by it is, or how far.

the day after christmas, you’re so busy thinking about richie that you almost deliver yourself to the feds on accident.

walking to your boss’s house without an invitation is never a good idea, doubly so when your boss deals his displeasure in blood, but after so long without pay, work, and news about your carbon monoxide poisoning patients, you’re desperate. the idea is that you’ll barter your knowledge of howie and kevin’s stupid shenanigans in exchange for information. maybe you’ll even ask for severance pay.

that’s why you’re thinking of richie. you’re trying to keep calm, and he’s something to look forward to. you wonder how he’s doing ice fishing with carmy. will they get frostbite? maybe. will they catch anything? doubtful. will they end up shouting? definitely. will—

you’re just about to take a left onto the caruso’s street when you see it: about nine or ten houses down, there’s a gaggle of suburban moms gawking at the caruso house, and beyond them, cop cars.

this is it.

your stomach drops, and you look away immediately, heartbeat going full jackhammer about to drill through your concrete chest. keep walking straight, past the scene. you only got one glance before the instinct to flee kicked in, but you’re pretty sure that the cops were carrying heavy cardboard boxes out to their cars. you’re not worried about what evidence they might find—tweety bird wouldn’t let contraband be stored in her pantry, not in a million years—but you are worried that the cops were all a matched set. the navy windbreakers? that’s fed fashion. that’s.

yeah. this is it.

when you get on the bus, some part of you is surprised the driver even allows it. the end’s not here, but it is coming. only a matter of time.

as you get off one bus and get on another, taking a circuitous route in a useless effort to try and allay the feeling of being hunted, your dread coalesces into nausea, the kind you get when a headache or period cramps are left untended too long. it’s physical. you focus on the fraying cuff of your hoodie, and all you want to do is lie down.

you’ve expected the world to end for a long time, so you know exactly what to do. you’ve done research. you’ve imagined it all in excruciating detail, and you’re not bothered by the unknown, except for richie.

richie’s the one unknown. imagining the end of the world with him was so unbearable that you could never force yourself to go through with the exercise of imagining it, and you kept him at arm’s length just enough to pretend that the end of the world would somehow leave him untouched. now that shit’s real, you can’t pretend anymore. when it comes to richie, you’ll be flying blind. you could kick yourself. you could k—

your work phone rings. it’s your landlady. you ignore it, but she rings again and again and again. finally, she texts you.

> please come up to the office as soon as you can. we have discovered irregularities with your october and november payments, and unless this is fixed soon, we’ll have to explore our legal options.

your landlady was not the one who typed that message. if she’d been the one typing, it would’ve looked something like get your ass up here, give or take a few typos.

so yeah, there’s cops after you. this is it.

when you call your brother from a newly purchased burner phone, he answers immediately. what’s up?

it’s julie.

okay, he says very flatly. one nice thing about your family: minimum talking, minimum fuss. he doesn’t say a thing about the years past. he just repeats, what’s up?

i’m probably going to prison for a while, you say.

how long?

should i be insulted that you’re not surprised?

he says nothing. you don’t know what you expected, really, but you hate that you’ve become the talkative one.

stifling your annoyance, you say, like ten years max? it’s not like i killed someone, but i’m in with some assholes. i don’t know, i haven’t talked to a lawyer yet.

silence on the other end.

you pinch the bridge of your nose, nausea swelling. you can picture him, your one and only sibling, even though you know the picture must be outdated: broad-shouldered like you are, annoying, tall, decked out in some kind of colorless athleisure and the eternal baseball cap, slanted eyes narrowed even more than usual in judgment and exasperation.

are you there? you finally say.

you need bail? he says abruptly.

god, you want so badly to give him a shove, knock the stiffness out of him. no. no money. not from you, not from mom, not from anyone. that’s why i’m calling. if anyone finds out about this, just keep them out of it, yeah?

yeah.

that’s where you should shut up, unless you want feelings leaking into it, but today’s a day of helplessness and this conversation is no exception.

you say, a little desperate, i don’t want anyone near this one.

i got it, pebbles. with his particular mix of sardonic affection and condescension, the fog around you lifts, and there he is standing in front of you. you can see him clearly: pissed off at you now and probably forever, but still family. not much. but not nothing.

suck my dick, you say, awash with relief.

he snorts. and adieu.

you hang up on each other at exactly the same time.

i’m not telling you that.

you’ve worn your lawyer down to a thin veneer of professionalism through which her palpable annoyance has begun to show. and you’re not even sorry. it gives you a certain satisfaction, a sense of getting your own back—her steely, emotionless affect was getting on your nerves before.

you put all your remaining money into her retainer check because she’s not just a lawyer, but an effective one, according to your research. so it shouldn’t matter that you don’t know what she thinks of you. shouldn’t matter, but it does. you want to know her judgment, one way or another. maybe it’s because this is the first time you’ve told the full story to anyone.

or at least, as close as you’re ever gonna get to the full story.

i’ve already explained confidentiality to you, she says.

i already knew that you’re not gonna snitch on me unless i’m about to commit another crime, you say. but i’m still not telling you.

all right. let me get this straight. she spreads her hands out flat on her desk, and her wedding band clacks against the dark wood. there’s not a strand of her gray hair out of place, and her brown eyes have lost their annoyance. back to professionalism. disappointing. you’re here because you believe you witnessed federal agents bagging evidence at your employer’s house, and you believe your employer has been arrested. your employer is giovanni caruso—

hold up, you interrupt. giovanni? that’s his name?

you call him old caruso, son’s name is jack, there’s a limited number of organized crime families in the area and i happen to be acquainted with that landscape, generally speaking.

you snort. that’s so fucking funny.

if your lawyer finds you more annoying than before, she doesn’t show it. you have been working for caruso for over a year and a half in an off the books capacity as a doctor. you received biweekly payments to be on call between the hours of eight in the evening and eight in the morning, and during that time, you treated multiple gunshot wounds and other injuries, including broken bones, stab wounds, and carbon monoxide poisoning. while your clients were cautioned not to tell you their names or explain how they received their injuries, you do feel that you know enough information to be of interest to the police. you are not willing to testify.

on account of not wanting to die, yes, you say, adopting a professional tone to exactly match hers, dangerously close to mocking. you’re being an asshole for a reason. she’s tried to persuade you to testify before, and you don’t want her to try it again.

she continues unperturbed. you have been threatened with violence on multiple occasions to that end, sometimes with a weapon. so far, understandable.

now the lawyer spreads her hands out on the desk in a summary gesture.

now all of this is not necessarily as dire a predicament as you thought when you said you might ‘get ten years’. if you had proof you were coerced, i could get your sentence reduced even more, but as things stand this seems like a set of offenses that would land you around two or three years, five at the worst. you do have a medical license, so they can’t get you on practicing without. you never directly participated in any of the presumably violent crimes leading to the injuries, and you never procured the drugs and medical supplies yourself. other than the payments to your bank account, there’s not much of a paper trail because you took no notes, used neither laptop nor smartphone—yeah, you didn’t tell her about the michael and richie phone, because that would require telling her about michael and richie—and cycled through burner phones instead. so again, it will be hard for them to nail you on specifics, unless they have multiple witnesses.

i sense a ‘but’ coming, you say.

but i need to understand why you got into this in the first place.

with that, you snap. it’s been a day, and she’s using the words of a counselor with the expression of a robot. why the fuck do you care?

ma’am, she says, that glimmer of irritation just barely showing, you are paying me to defend you. i would rather not enter that fight with one hand tied behind my back.

you’re an idiot.

of course she doesn’t care about whether you’re good or bad, clever or stupid. there’s no judgment to be had. all she cares about is how defensible you are. you really are an idiot, and you’re so relieved.

with that, it flows freely.

i fucked up, you say. i was a resident at ui—university of illinois—and i was on my second to last year, everything was good. but then the carusos tried to blackmail me into getting them the medical files of one of my patients, so i freaked out and quit. it’s hard to convey to her just how much your world ended, without sounding melodramatic. in the end, you keep it brief. i burned all my bridges. but then i had no job and nothing else to do, and they knew it. shit happened, and now here we are.

she doesn’t hesitate. caruso tried to blackmail you with what?

no. that’s all, that’s it. she only gets the one word.

i can’t do my job if you’re being obstructionist.

i’m not tell you that—i’m not telling fucking anyone that. i’d rather go walk onto state street bridge and blow my brains out. there’s no way she knows what you’re talking about, but some of it must creep into your voice, because she does stop for a moment and think before pressing you again, this time with a slightly milder tone.

is it sex, violence, or money? she says.

none of the above. some money was involved, but not more than a month of rent.

you paid, or someone else paid?

all right, that’s it. you charge by the hour, right? you say.

in your current arrangement, yes.

well, the retainer’s all i got. so. you pat your hands on her desk in a brisk, final gesture. i’m gonna fuck off now, you have a think, and then tomorrow i’m gonna swing by and you can tell me what i need to know about turning myself in. in the meantime, i’m gonna go get a burrito.

for a split second, you think she’s going to argue with you, and you can pinpoint the exact moment when she resigns herself to having an unreasonably stubborn client.

you do that, she says.

as far as you’re concerned, she got the whole story. it ends with prison, the way it was always going to end. it starts the way it was always going to start too: you fucked up.

so you’re inside the house.

nah, mikey says. i’m the house.

he immediately goes digging in the pocket of his sweatpants to get his lighter, refusing to look at you. the shame is how you know this is real.

it hits you then: he’s the one you want to talk to. you distrusted him before because he was so transparently on the brink of falling apart, but now you can see that that’s just something you have in common. you’re the house. you’re the fucking house. and here he is, someone who knows what that feels like, and there’s nothing else between you. what are the chances?

what about you, mikey says, relighting his cigarette. do you have any younger siblings, or is it just the one?

the question comes unexpected, and you realize that he knows you have an older brother—that you’ve talked about your family, that you’ve been drawn in that much and that easily.

just the one, you manage to say.

ping, goes a little notification sound, and there it is, saved by the bell. he gets out his phone, and you point at it.

what? he says.

i got good news and bad news.

he looks back down at his phone, grimaces at the text, then puts it away. okay. what’s the good news?

you can’t help yourself. who asks for the good news first?

he shrugs, smiles, wide open and easy. i do.

for a second, you’re both smiling at each other. but then comes your next words.

good news is, i haven’t spoken to my family since 2019. when you say it like that, you can almost make it sound like something to be proud of. so. i really am the one you want to talk to.

shit, mikey says, looking at you.

it’s the first time you’ve thrown him off kilter, and you enjoy it.

you really are the one i want to talk to. he switches his cigarette from his right hand to his left so he can shake yours. i’m mikey.

his hand is callused and cold, but his grip is firm. it doesn’t feel perfunctory. it skitters electricity up your arm that you promptly ignore.

i know, you say.

his smile is harder to ignore. you never said what your name was, though.

you only vaguely remember rebuffing him the first time you both smoked outside together. it feels so far away now.

julie, you say. you only realize that you gave him your real name once it’s too late to take it back. his hand is warm, engulfing yours.

good to meet you, julie.

likewise.

he lets go first.

you wanna hit me with the bad news? he says.

you stick your hands in your coat pockets. bad news is: if you want him gone, you have to want him gone. you say you want him gone, but you’re still texting the kid. what’s he supposed to think?

so you’re saying i should block him? you can tell from mikey’s voice that he already hates the idea.

i’m saying you already know what to do.

i don’t! he’s almost laughing, like the whole thing is so desperate, it’s funny.

yes you fucking do, you say. you just haven’t ended it because you don’t actually think things are over for you. there’s a chance that you wake up a different person tomorrow, and that’s enough reason to postpone the end of the world, right?

he’s not laughing now. he’s not angry, either. the whole weight of his attention is on you, and he’s gone so perfectly motionless, you know you’ve hit bullseye. yeah. you really are the one he wants to talk to.

so, you say, the reason you want your brother to fuck off is not because you think you’re gonna sink to the bottom of the ocean and drag him down with you. it’s because you don’t want him to watch you floundering around, gasping for air, trying to survive. cause it’s fucking embarrasing.

okay, he says slowly, so you think i’m, what. being dramatic? it’s not a rhetorical question. he’s locked in, he’s really asking. you think the house isn’t on fire here?

you lift your shoulders an inch, wound tight, focused. honest, but not only honest. trying hard to say it right so he understands.

i don’t know you, you say. i don’t know the situation. all i’m saying is, if it’s only shame, then you’ll stay floundering in the in-between forever, fuckin miserable, never in and never out.

mikey is listening so intently, you think maybe he does hear you. maybe he does understand.

and, you know. don’t do that, you say. just let the kid in, if it’s shame. it’ll hurt, but it won’t kill you.

what if it’s not shame? mikey says. what if the house is on fire?

you hesitate. you love him?

he’s my brother. there’s years in his voice, decades. you can hear every second of them, and all you can do is nod.

yeah, you say. look away. take one last drag on your cigarette, then snuff it out before it can burn you. chuck it in the makeshift ashtray, and throw away your empty cigarette box too.

wordlessly, mikey passes his to you. you’re used to menthols, not whatever the fuck these are, but you take it because he offered. the taste is his, and the slow exhale.

is watching you, but before you can gather up enough courage to look back—he’s close now, which makes looking at him feel like a risk—his phone goes off and you try to tell yourself that that feeling is relief.

this fuckin guy, he mutters, then types a reply.

you smile to yourself over the rough affection in his voice. a private smile, all yours. you’ve lost track of time out here with him, and you’ve got no desire to find it again.

carmy’s not giving up, huh, you say.

what? it takes a second for his mind to catch up. oh, that’s not carmy. that was richie.

he’s so funny. you know you just say random names sometimes like i already know who they are?

richie’s my best friend, he explains.

and are you shaking him off too? you’re aware that this is a lot to ask, and you want the answer precisely because it’s a lot to ask.

to your surprise, mikey laughs.

richie? no. he holds out his hand, and you pass the cigarette back to him. richie’s not a guy you can shake off. his wife’s been trying to leave him for like a year, but he keeps hanging on. he’s that kind of guy.

you attempt to withhold the judgment from your voice when you repeat, for a year?

he shrugs. on and off, but it takes two to tango. it’ll work out.

okay, companionship only goes so far, no matter how much you like mikey. you’re not about to stand here and let a man tell you that keeping a woman in a marriage against her will is a good fucking thing.

it takes two to tango, but it only takes one to leave, you say. and i bet she has her reasons.

look, whatever she has, richie’s not a quitter, mikey says. fuck, i couldn’t shake the guy if i had a gun to his head.

you smoke in stony silence, thinking to yourself that this richie sounds like an absolute fucking nightmare. for a while, your thoughts and mikey’s veer off on such diverging paths that you’re almost about to make your excuses and go back upstairs, the feeling of camaraderie gone. and then.

hey, mikey says. there’s an odd note to his voice, nearly gentle. how did you shake your family, can i ask? what did you do?

you look over at him and hold that look for a long moment, fighting the urge to swallow.

there’s a lot you can give to mikey, and you’ll find out just how much in the coming year. but that. you’ll never give him that.

instead, you give him what you think he needs, what you’ve turned over and over in your mind during so many sleepless nights: the conclusion you finally came to, long ago.

you gotta make absolutely sure the house is on fire, you say. because if you’re not, if you leave your brother and live on, then you’ve done something unforgivable and you’re not even dead enough to escape.

there’s only one more thing you need to do before you turn yourself in, and despite the overwhelming urge to duck it—be a coward, find a way—you force yourself to walk all the way to richie’s apartment building. the exercise is supposed to wear you out, take some of the fight out of you, but it fails. now you’re just waiting for him with sore legs and recurring nausea.

you don’t have to wait long. one second, you’re grimly watching the smoke from your cigarette drifting upwards, and then there’s a flicker of motion down the street. you look, and there he is. richie’s coming towards you in long strides, his hands shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket, a man on a mission. he’s clearly spotted you.

hey, he calls, when he’s still stupidly far away. what’s going on?

it’s okay, you want to say, but the words won’t come. as much as you’ve kept hidden from richie, you don’t like lying to him much. so you just put out your cigarette in case you need to leave quickly, and you wait.

when richie finally reaches you, he’s evidently curious, but you speak first.

how was ice fishing?

not too bad, weirdly enough. he settles in and lights himself a cigarette before continuing. maybe he’s under the illusion that this is one of your normal companionable nights, just happening in a different location. turns out carmy still sleeps better in a moving car, so i actually drove the long way home and i think it did him some good.

feels like it did richie some good too. he tried to take care of somebody and for once, it worked. you’re glad. he needed it, after that hell of a christmas.

you can sense his weary contentment, and you know you’re about to ruin it.

that’s good, you say quietly, and at the same time, richie says, what?

looking up into his face, your heart sinks right along with your hopes. his blue eyes are sharp enough.

goddammit, but he’s caught on. he knows something isn’t right, and you’re not asshole enough to try and claw back an ease that’s gone for good.

i gotta go away for a while, you manage to say.

how long is a while? he says, uneasy.

you can’t do this.

hey, he says, a little softer, and you have to look away. you shouldn’t have even come. you shouldn’t have even fucking come. five minutes with him, and you’re already fighting to keep your face under control.

can we go upstairs? it’s fucking cold. you feel exposed, visible to anyone who might drive by, and you can’t shake the rising urge to hide.

yeah, richie says. yeah, we can go upstairs. it’s not that cold out compared to your countless nights spent outside together, and he knows it, but he just opens the door for you.

the elevator ride is long and painful. you can practically smell the worry coming off him in waves, festering, so you don’t make him wait. as soon as his apartment door is shut and locked behind you, you say, how long i’m away kinda depends on the prosecutor.

you, uh. he runs a hand over his mouth, thinking. fuck. what are the charges?

we’ll see. i, uh, i have this feeling there’s feds involved. tomorrow i’m going to turn myself in.

fuck, he says again, hard. he runs his hand from his forehead back over his skull, then just stands there for a second, head half bowed and hand gripping the back of his neck. you want to comfort him, but shouldn’t. you want to run, but can’t.

instead, you take this opportunity to get in one last long stare. richie is the same as ever. his hair is dark and close-cut, his beard too. his eyebrows are scant, and there’s a ridge on his forehead as if to make up for it. his nose is straight and straightforward. there are bags under his eyes, because of course there are, but his eyes themselves are as blue as summer, so blue they’re barely believable. that’s him, that’s his face.

then there’s the eternal black leather jacket, oversized and complete with unnecessary shoulder straps for all the bags he’ll never carry. he smells faintly of smoke. he’s allowing you to stare at him, an indulgence that you can’t question without being a dick. he makes you want to not be a dick. all this is here, all this is real.

richie says, what can i do?

he looks at you, and though his voice is subdued, you can tell he’s dead serious. thank god. you thought you’d have to beg for it, but here he is, offering. you really want to know?

he nods once, tight. anything.

that one hurts, because he knows just how much a person can ask of him, and he’s standing there offering it anyway.

i want you to stay out of it.

dead silence. a muscle tics in his jaw. why?

i don’t want to make things messy. i don’t want to cause trouble, and there’s—you try to eke out a laugh, downplay it. but your laugh is raw and you can tell in his eyes that you’ve only made things worse. there’s some fuckin trouble in this.

okay. he digs out his phone, swipes a couple times, and then points at the round blue logo of the jpay app. you see this? his voice is tight. i don’t know what makes you think you’re so special, but this isn’t the first time i’ve had a friend catch a charge and it probably won’t be the last. so you don’t need to look so freaked out, you’re not gonna infect me. i’m fine. i can help.

fucking richie. the one night you need him to be unreasonable, and here he is making arguments, using logic and shit. exasperated, you try to argue your way out of this.

you were dealing coke just a few months ago.

richie scoffs. so what?

fak found out about that, didn’t he? you give him a look. fak, richie. fak. fucking—

he raises both hands, palms spread in irritation, voice rising. would you stop saying fak?

irresistible. fak.

i don’t—

come on.

okay. he gestures widely, in an exaggerated motion used to indicate he’s the sole light of reason in a dark world of total bullshit. maybe i've been exaggerating a little. maybe fak’s not the worst guy in the world. i mean, he can be a lot. clingy, sure. but a snitch? nah. he told carmy, but carmy’s not a cop, so that's different. it’s fine. we’re fine.

i'm just saying. if fak knows and carmy knows, other people probably know too.

it’s not even relevant, richie says. so i moved a little weight, who cares?

look, i’m not trying to be a dick, but i don’t think the cops were were hunting that hard for you. if they start digging into me, that’s gonna change. cause i’m not a snitch either, and i know they’re gonna want me to flip, so they’ll leverage whatever against me, and… yeah, you can tell he’s not finding this convincing. a bad feeling is growing in the pit of your stomach. just get it over with.

there’s one surefire way to make him flinch, and you push that launch button, voice casual.

you helped michael get painkillers too, right? you say.

takes a second, but he finally admits, yeah. i knew a guy.

michael was not keeping it neat and tidy, you know what i mean? it takes so much effort to seem this careless. but it works. he looks a bit more like he should—guarded, almost suspicious.

what are you saying?

i’m saying i knew he was using within a month of meeting him. and. you can tell you’ve hurt him a little, but still, your arguments aren’t working, your wild swings aren’t working, he’s not listening to you, nd desperation wells up in you. is there nothing you can do? just, can you please stay out of this. you didn’t mean to say please, but it burst out of you. i don’t know what’s gonna go down, and i just want everyone clear of this. i know they’re coming for me, i know i’ll lose, and i don’t—i don’t want you anywhere near it all.

richie is silent for a moment, thinking hard.

you rub your thumb over your wristbone. can we just…

what’s your plan? he says. that’s what i wanna know. like, you’re not fighting here, and i don’t get it. what happens after you turn yourself in? you’re not gonna get a deal if you don’t talk, so what? you’re just gonna sit there and take the twenty-five to life?

twenty-five to life? you echo. richie, what the fuck do you think i did?

after one long moment of the both of you staring at each other, he hums a little james bond.

your face lifts into a wide, incredulous smile. you think i’m. he does. he absolutely does, look at him. you could kiss him. you could shake him. you start to laugh.

his face twists like he just got pinched hard. no, i—what do i know, man, i don't know that much about the law or whatever, i just—

twenty-five to life!

—don't get fucking offended, okay?

i'm not offended.

i'm just a well-read guy with a very active imagination, and maybe i got a little carried away, but—

his shoulders are up by his ears, he’s so defensive.

richie, you say firmly. i'm not mad.

what? there he is. finally listening. eyes looking directly at you, electric blue, raw current.

you hold that silence a little longer than you need to, just to feel it. then, deliberately giving each word its own due weight, you say, you thought i’d killed somebody, and you were gonna help me?

richie shrugs helplessly.

i thought you had your reasons, he says. i always think you have your reasons.

that shakes you to the core.

goodwill, you already knew you had his goodwill. but faith? jesus. you’re the last person on earth that anyone should believe in, but richie doesn’t know how wrong he is and you can’t tell him, so you just to stand there under the weight of his belief and try not to crumble. at this point, prison would be a fucking mercy.

you have to get out of here.

it'll be five years at worst, you say. your voice sounds strange even to your own ears, but you keep going. the feds will be shaking me like a fruit tree hoping some juicy information tumbles down, but everything i did was pretty boring. you think of the factory, the bodies laid out like so many logs. nonviolent, anyway.

doesn’t seem very james bond to me, he says you fuckin drama queen.

bottom line, you say, the thing is enough of a mess already, so just let me do my time and we can hang out after. i don't want you anywhere near this. you start heading for the door. i gotta go anyways, i have—

you serious? he cuts in, suppressed and flat. warning bells are going off in your head, but you walk on.

dead fucking serious, you say, unlocking the front door. i don’t even want anyone to know that we’ve met.

dead silence, and then, richie says, well maybe you don’t get a fucking choice.

you turn and meet his eyes. there it is again, that stomach-churning nausea that you thought you’d managed to quell. the plummeting feeling of having no control. it stops you in your tracks.

what? you say.

i mean, i’m not going anywhere, so fucking deal with it? the life has come back to his voice, and with it, all the anger. his blue eyes are sparking with it, he’s gesturing, he’s gathering momentum, and you try to stop him but you already know it’s useless.

richie—

look, i don't run when things get bad, i’m not that guy. i’m here. he smacks one hand into another. like i’m in it. that's the whole fucking point.

the point of what?

you know what i’m trying to say.

the point of what, richie?

his face twists. oh, don't do that. don't do that thing where you act like you know everything that goes on in my head.

but i fucking do, though.

yeah, well i fucking hate it.

if you hate it so much then why did you give it to me then?

his voice goes higher. i'm not just gonna drop you!

i am literally begging you to drop me. somehow, you’ve crossed the room, you’re up in his face and he’s not backing down and the words are flying so thick and fast as you talk over each other that you can barely make out yours, much less his. i want you to drop me, i specifically—i did so much shit so that you could drop me, i was so fucking careful—

i never asked you to!

i got rid of my phones and i stuck to my rules and—

i never fucking asked you to!

if you get involved, it's gonna be fucking awful and it won't help, it won't even help, if that's what you think—

i can help! i'm not, fucking useless, like. you guys always—

that one, you hear. you guys?

why don't you ever fucking talk to me? he says, like the words are getting torn out of him.

who the fuck do you think you’re talking to right now? for a second, you just look at each other. breathing hard. when you finally speak, your voice is quieter. richie, you are the only person i ever fucking talk to. but it doesn’t matter. there’s nothing anyone can do.

i don't believe you.

you don’t know how to get around that. after a beat, you say, okay, what is it, richie. cruel. what is it you're gonna do that's gonna help. you asked me to explain my plan, now it’s your turn. you tell me how you’re gonna help me with this.

fucking…he looks up for a second, and then back at you. i know what you’re doing.

you don’t even know what the fuck you’re doing at this point, but the way he’s looking at you is frightening. you could almost believe that he knows. and honestly, you don’t want to find out.

what am i doing, you say.

he turns and walks away, towards the bed. after a second’s hesitation, you follow. he sits down on the bed so he can crank open the window, light up, and smoke out of it. you stay standing. you really don’t know why you haven’t left yet. you were supposed to ages ago.

sit down, he says.

fuck you.

fucking sit down.

no.

jesus. he exhales, slow. you can see him settling a little. do you know why carmy was opening the tomato cans?

what is this, storytime?

patiently, he repeats, do you know why carmy was opening the tomato cans.

to make spaghetti.

he points at you. exactly. but the reason he was making spaghetti is cause he’d just gotten mikey’s note. deep breath. this isn’t a story he’s happy to tell you. see, mikey had left him this note on the back of a the spaghetti recipe, but i—i didn’t give it to carmy until there was this day. syd and marcus were gone. shit had gotten bad.

i remember, you murmur.

i was in the front, and i heard people yelling fire, so i came running into the kitchen and carmy was watching it all burn. just standing there. not moving. his eyes were open, but it was like he was asleep.

and that’s why you gave him the note?

yeah. i know i should’ve done it before. but.

he looks up at you, and you can see him appealing to you for some kind of mercy. maybe comfort. this is the thing he’s ashamed of. you understand that, you understand him, you understand shame better than anyone else, and there’s a sick comfort in it, knowing he’s that much more like you. at least he was able to change course in the end. you never did.

you don’t tell him that, though, because you’ve realized something else.

this is the thing he’s ashamed of, which makes it usable.

so i’m carmy, in your off-base and condescending metaphor, you say, callous. you're gonna come and save me? you're gonna put the fire out.

his eyes darken. no, you're not carmy.

no?

you're mikey.

fuck you.

so fucking selfish, he says bitterly. it’s as close to hate as you’ve ever heard from him. but you’ve gone so far, you’re not stopping now.

richie, what the fuck do you want from me?

you know what i want! his voice goes quiet when he adds, did really you think there’s anything that could keep me away from you for five fucking years?

you know what he means.

can’t put words to it, can’t accept it, can’t fucking bear it—won’t—but you do know, you know exactly what he’s trying to say to you, what he’s trying to give.

you don’t deserve it, but it’s not for you anyways, it's for michael. it's all for michael, and it would be beautiful if it wasn't such a fucking waste to love a man when he's dead. richie’s gonna throw everything he has onto the fire in the hope that it will quench the flames. that just makes it his pyre, but he’ll never see it.

okay, you say. my turn at storytime.

you sit down next to him on the bed, accept his cigarette. take a drag, then lean on the wide wooden sill as you breathe smoke out into the cold. lull him into it. relax his guard.

you thought you inherited me, right? you say. conversational. no heat. you were gonna take care of me for him, that was the plan. i’m mikey.

that’s not what i meant.

you have it backwards, is the thing. you can feel yourself sinking into it, talking like you have time, matter of fact, cruelty showing at the edges. like you’re an entirely different person, which is, of course, your goal. michael didn’t give a shit about me. i was just there. i was just a woman who happened to be conveniently close by, and lonely, and he fucked me. and that was fine, that was convenient for me too, but he got worse and it got out of hand. he got hard to be around. i found out he’d started stealing from me, so i broke up with him. he found a way to get back into my apartment anyways, and he guessed the code to my safe and stole pretty much everything. so i told him tina shouldn’t call me for help next time he overdosed. i told him he could finally die, for all i cared. and he did.

you’re looking at the sheets. you’re still able to talk, somehow. you feel numb, detached, like you’re watching yourself say it.

the only reason you know me is because i felt guilty. i was gonna take care of you for him, that was the plan, but now this is getting out of hand and i’m fucking done with it. so here goes. it wasn’t just money he stole out of my safe. go take a look in the police report. i’d bet my life that there was a sig p365 in his hand when they found him. that was mine. i’m the reason he’s dead. you want to be loyal to someone? be loyal to him.

you crush the cigarette against the fake wood of the headboard. ash falls on his pillow.

playtime’s over. stay the fuck away from me.

this time when you leave, he doesn’t stop you.

on the train, hollowed out and swaying, you are approached by an elderly woman. her eyes are rheumy, concerned.

are you okay? she says.

hm?

you’re shaking.

you look down at your hands in your lap. she’s right.

there’s nothing else to say.

[ next chapter ] [ masterlist ]

a huge thank you to all readers.

taglist: @garbinge, @narcolini, @drabbles-mc, @beingalive1, @eternallyvenus, @cerial-junkie, @jackierose902109, @shinebright2000, @scorpiolystoned, @fancyvoidtragedy, @justficsandstuff, @fromirkwood — if anyone else wants to be tagged, let me know.

#richie jerimovich x reader #richie jerimovich #the bear fx #the bear fanfiction #the bear fanfic #mine #readerfic #do i know you?#the bear imagine #diky

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still-breathing-au-p3r · 2 months ago

Text

It’s really nothing new to have a flood of texts and emails spamming his phone after class. The fact that it’s nothing new these days is very new. It’s such a wild change from how things were before he came to Iwatodai that sometimes it’s overwhelming. Minato actually kind of enjoys it despite that– or maybe a little bit because of it– even if he does leave most of them on read.

He’s never had so many friends before. If he’s completely, brutally honest with himself about it, he’s really never had any friends before. None that really counted, anyway. None that had stuck around after one too many conversations where he said too little, or worse– said something they didn’t want to hear.

Now he has a whole compendium of people who know exactly what he’s like and still not only tolerate his company, but actively seek it– and all of them want to hang out at the same time. So now it’s the opposite problem, maybe?

Most of them understand and don’t take offense. Sometimes Tomochika and Miyamoto are a little pushy– or very pushy in Miyamoto’s case– but otherwise it’s fine. It’s a much nicer problem to have, all things considered. It’s been what’s kept his head above water for the past two weeks.

Minato scrolls through his phone, reading through today’s invitations. The track team does have practice today, and lo and behold, there’s Miyamoto’s trademark capslock enthusiasm right at the top of his inbox– but that’s not what grabs his attention. Just below Miyamoto’s is a message from someone he definitely wasn’t expecting.

It’s Aragaki. The subject line reads “Need a favor”.

Minato can count on one hand the number of times Aragaki has messaged him personally, so it must be important. But then why not say something about it when everyone had visited yesterday? He opens the email, curiosity climbing.

Sorry to ask, but I need you to grab something from my desk and bring it to me. You’ll know it when you see it. Door should be unlocked.

Straight and to the point, just like always. He can practically hear how Aragaki would say it, the exact matter-of-fact tone he’d use.

He’s got no proof, but Minato has an inkling as to what Aragaki is referring to. Or at least, he knows what he hopes that Aragaki means. If his hunch is right, then it explains perfectly why he’s asking Minato for this favor instead of Sanada or Mitsuru, and why he wouldn’t have wanted to bring it up in front of everyone else.

He’ll be missing track practice today, it seems. Minato can’t turn down this request for anything. He hopes Miyamoto and Yuko will understand.

–

He finds exactly what he’d been hoping to find in Aragaki’s desk drawer.

He can’t help the soft smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth at the sight of the familiar envelope. On the paperwork inside, the date and reason are blank, but…

The signature is unmistakable. That’s Aragaki’s handwriting.

His smile falters. A part of him wonders if this is just some kind of mind game. Maybe Aragaki just intends to tear the form up, and he knows Minato is the only one who would blithely bring it right to him. He doesn’t want to think that Aragaki is that cruel, but…

Well. Okay. Minato knows he isn’t. While that’s certainly the sort of sick prank that the world might play on him, it’s not something Aragaki would ever do. He’s kind of surprised that such a vehemently bitter idea even crossed his mind.

So maybe he is still… a little miffed… that Aragaki so blatantly lied to him. And went off to die without a word. And catapulted him into the nightmare memory of another hospital bed, another figure being consumed by wires and machinery. That last one isn’t really Aragaki’s fault, but Minato still can’t help being upset.

It really is the lie that bothers him the most, though. It’s a little unnerving, how much it’s getting under his skin, when normally Minato wouldn’t be this upset, or even upset at all, about being lied to. Minato hadn’t felt this way when Yukari confronted Mitsuru about all the secrets she was keeping. He hadn’t cared what Mitsuru had been hiding. Honesty just never has been a sore point with him. So…why does this feel so different?

The only way he’s going to get any real answers or closure is to see this favor through to the finish. Minato pockets the envelope and makes his way back to the hospital.

The smell of antiseptic hits him like a truck as soon as he crosses the threshold into the lobby. How does Junpei stand spending so much of his time here? Or Sanada, for that matter, who had come here every day since Aragaki was admitted. It makes him want to sprint right back out into the open air just thinking about doing the same.

He arrives at Aragaki’s door. He seems to have skipped a few steps– he’s gone straight from the entryway to the patient wing without a single recollection of speaking to the receptionist or walking through the halls. Aragaki is awake in there, Minato sternly reminds himself. It’s his friend on the other side of that door, not an empty shell that used to be him.

He knocks, and obeys when he’s bid to come inside. Aragaki regards him quietly for a few seconds. There aren’t any other visitors right now; Sanada must still be in practice.

Minato nods and produces the envelope from his pocket. Aragaki nods as he takes it, but his expression is subdued and unreadable.

He tucks it away into the drawer on the small side table to his left. He looks back at Minato and frowns.

Minato doesn’t respond. Aragaki blinks, surprise softening his features for half a second before the scowl settles back into place.

Minato doesn’t feel his face doing anything in particular. He wonders vaguely what Aragaki sees in his expression, but decides it’s better not to ask. Time to move on.

Minato must be making another face, because Aragaki rolls his eyes.

He’s got permission to leave if he so chooses. That’s clearly what Aragaki expects, but leaving things like this on such a sour note doesn’t sit well with Minato at all.

Neither of them are good at talking, but there’s quite a bit Minato knows needs to be said. As leader, it really is his job, and… it’s his job as a friend, too.

Aragaki must take his silence the wrong way again and scowls at him.

Part of Minato does really want to tear into him, craves the catharsis of it. Aragaki even seems to want him to as well, as if to prove some kind of point to himself. But Minato doesn’t think there’s anything he could say that Sanada wouldn’t have already.

Besides, being angry is exhausting. Minato’s already tired enough.

He settles himself in one of the chairs at Aragaki’s bedside and folds his hands in his lap.

“I…want to apologize,” he says.

“Huh?” Aragaki looks surprised again. Minato wonders if having his emotions put on shuffle like that is as draining for Aragaki as it would be for him.

“Everyone else visited you at least once before you woke up, but… I didn’t. I was too scared. I didn’t want to see you like that, Senpai.”

Aragaki just blinks at him, as though Minato’s apology is so far from what he’d been expecting that he’s stuck in a frozen state as he tries to process it. Minato wonders if this is what people mean when they tell him that his long silences and stares make them uncomfortable.

“You…” Aragaki shakes his head, exasperated.

Minato pushes forward. “So… I’m sorry. For being such a coward.”

“Cut that out, seriously. You don’t need to– I wasn’t even awake. S’not like I would’ve known if you were here or not.”

“Still.”

“The hell d’you mean, ‘still’? Just forget about it. It’s fine.” Aragaki sighs hugely, and his voice softens when he speaks again. “I mean that. It’s fine.”

“It’s really not though. Not to me. I don’t want you to think I don’t care.”

“You’re really sayin’ that like it ain’t your catchphrase?” Aragaki scoffs.

“Got me there,” Minato says with another ghost of a smile. Now that he’s on the other end of it, Minato suddenly has a better appreciation of what Aragaki said to him a month ago at Hagakure. It really is refreshing to have someone say something to you straight instead of beating around the bush. “But I’d like to visit now, if that’s okay.”

“...Look, that’s real sweet and everything, but I ain’t really in a chattin’ mood right now.”

“That’s fine,” Minato replies. “Neither am I. I pretty much never am.” He digs into his bag and pulls out a book, opening it across his knees. He runs his thumb over the edge of the pages, worn to moth-wing softness by age. “But I’ll still be here.”

Aragaki doesn’t answer, so Minato shifts his attention fully to his book. He only gets through about a page and a half before Aragaki’s grumbling voice cuts into the silence again. “...Anyone ever tell you you’re a goddamn weirdo?”

“Junpei says that a lot, actually.”

“Hmph. Well don’t tell Junpei I agree with him on that,” Aragaki says, his mouth twisting wryly to one side. “It’ll go to his head.”

“You got it, Senpai.”

Aragaki makes a sound that might be a scoff, but might also be a suppressed laugh, and just like that the tension in the air dissipates. The next couple of hours pass mostly in silence, but pleasantly. Minato doles out books to Aragaki, and to Fuuka and Sanada when they arrive. They have occasional fragments of conversation amongst themselves, particularly after Mitsuru arrives near the end of visiting hours.

It feels comfortable, normal. The smell of old paper and bookbinding glue overpowers that of medicinal sterility. Minato even manages to forget, for just a moment, that they’re in a hospital at all.

#minato arisato #shinjiro aragaki #persona 3 #p3 #persona 3 reload #still breathing au #sbau main plot #sbau canon #sbau october #sbau october 19 #talksprites and fic #(THEY'RE BONDING YAY)#(sorry for the delay on this post)#(some dlc for some game dropped about a week ago and we've been preoccupied lol)#(it's the answer you may have heard of it :3 )#(it dropped especially for us on our wedding anniversary lmao)#(edited to correct the moon phase in the header)#minato pov

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moonbeamwritings · 2 years ago

Text

next time

wc: 1.9k

warnings: dabi being a menace (as always), injury and violence mention

PART 2 →

You’ve been in a lot of hairy and otherwise life-threatening situations as a pro-hero. There’s the time you got pinned under a car, and that other time you were held at gunpoint. Oh! And there was even one afternoon where you’d ended up strung up by your ankle from a skyscraper window. Dangling 400 feet above cold, hard cement really encourages a person to reconsider their life choices (but apparently not enough to make you quit your job).

So curling up against the cool, stinky metal of a dumpster in some back alley in Hosu City with notorious League of Villains member Dabi crouching in front of you like the cat that got the cream, all things considered, really isn’t that surprising.

Your leg is busted, so you can’t run. And with the heavens above as your witness, you’d tried. The only good it served was to send bile up your throat and white hot pain shooting through the meat of your thigh. Not smart. Your side burns and blood bullies through the gaps between your fingers, sticky and wet from the blast of a scummy criminal some ten minutes earlier. You hunch further against the dumpster, the adrenaline racing from your bloodstream leaves your body feeling tired, limbs leaden. You can’t fight anymore.

Feeling defeated, you huff a sigh and close your eyes. “Here to cut off all my limbs, leave me for dead? Isn’t that what you villains get up to on Monday nights?”

“Dismemberment isn’t really my thing, doll.”

“Arson then? That seems to be more your speed.”

Dabi offers you a lazy smile. “Arson’s fine.”

“Mmm, nice,” your side throbs and you wince. “Well? Hero barbecue tonight? ‘M sure the League would love that.”

Your comment goes ignored. “It’s nice to see you again, little hero. Rough night?”

“Weren’t you taught not to play with your food?”

He shrugs, rocking on his heels like he’s having fun with you. “I could’ve killed you the last…” he stops, pretending to think. He makes a show of counting on his fingers before he invades your space, grin morphing into a smirk. “Three times we’ve met like this. Don’tcha think I would’ve done it by now?”

You groan, head lolling back until it makes contact with brick. “Touché.”

“Who did this to you anyway?” Dabi punctuates the question with a curious prod at your thigh. You slap his hand away with a hiss, and when you do, he’s quick to switch focus. Not one to be deterred, his hand moves to grip your chin, tilting your head to one side and then the other, eyeing you carefully as if he’s looking for something. You let him.

“Some criminal we’ve been after for the last few weeks. Serial murderer, all around bad person. The usual. Pretty nasty quirk, too.” You bite back a smile. “You know him?”

“Sounds like me.”

“Ha ha. Very funny.”

He leans closer, hand stilling along your jaw. “I could find out for you, but it’ll cost ya.”

The offer hangs heavy in the air. He looks so honest, so earnest despite the smirk that sits on his lips and the teasing glint in the turquoise of his eyes, that you feel a tug in your ribcage. You want to take the bait. You shake your head to remind yourself that this is probably exactly what he wants — some hero like you to owe him a favor so he can exploit you later. A win-win for him and, ultimately, a crash and burn, win-lose for you. You humor it, though, if only to see what that cost is.

“Oh yeah? What do you want?”

A hum, and then silence. Your heart leaps into your throat, goosebumps rising across your flesh as Dabi shrinks the gap, closer now than he’s ever been. So close you can feel the movement of air with every exhale, can smell the cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey that cling to his clothes, his breath. If he’s trying to do what you think, you’re not sure you’ll have the strength to stop him. Realization sits heavy on your chest as your hand curls around the collar of his leather coat — you don’t want to stop him.

His lips are a hair’s breadth from yours, one tiny push would be all it takes to finally connect them, when he pauses. You feel his lips quirk up. A ghost of a smile. Dabi chuckles somewhere deep in his chest, voice barely above a whisper as he tells you, “I don’t know if you can afford it, little hero.”

You don’t know if you can either, but the heat settling in your cheeks and the half-lidded gaze staring back at you is enough to make you want to try. Anything to close that gap. And still, you can’t bring yourself to move, to even speak. You must look like a deer in headlights as Dabi’s eyes flicker between your eyes and your lips.

With the words caught in your throat, Dabi takes the opportunity to break the silence. “How ‘bout this, sweet thing,” he croons, hunching closer so his lips brush against the shell of your ear. “You go home, lick your wounds in your pretty little penthouse apartment, and I’ll take care of the dirty work, hmm?” He presses a featherlight kiss to the space beneath your ear. “He’ll never touch you again.”

His palm cups the curve of your jaw, fingers brushing against the baby hairs at the nape of your neck. “And next time, when you’re feelin’ better, then we’ll talk about…” He pauses to bring his lips close to yours again, scarred skin hovering over your mouth, but never quite touching. He’s teasing. “... this. How does that sound?”

Next time. The phrase rings in your ears, and you’re sure it’s more than your injuries that are making you dizzy. It sounds good, really good, but the voice in the back of your head screams as you think it over. This is dangerous. It’s bad enough you’ve met him more than once and have only half-heartedly tried to restrain him one time, but now you find yourself dancing in a moral gray area, hand-in-hand with one of Japan’s most wanted criminals.

You chuckle, little more than a weak exhale that sends a splinter of pain shooting between your ribs. Your hand doesn’t move from the collar of his jacket. The dance continues. “I don’t know if I can really condone the whole murder part of that plan.”

Dabi laughs and pulls away, thumbing at your jaw before finally dropping his hand. “You heroes and your damn moral compasses.” A smirk follows a beat of silence. “But the other part you’re okay with?”

“Mmm,” you hum, eyes shut and teeth clenched. “Ask me next time.”

Next time. You’ve sealed your fate with one simple phrase. A promise written in the air between you.

Dabi scoffs, but his smirk doesn’t falter. “You’re certainly something, little hero.”

He eyes you again, though you don’t see it. A look mirroring care, concern, crosses his features as he takes in the hole in your hero costume, exposing a mess of crimson that mingles with black and blue. Blood pools beneath your thigh. He could kill you. You’ve laid yourself bare for him, injured and alone. Too trusting. All it would take is a flicker of his quirk and there’d be one less hero running around, one less loose end to worry about. But as he crouches in front of you, he can’t bring himself to do it.

He’ll let himself stew about all of these bullshit emotions later, but for now, he moves to stand, holding an open palm to you. You blink up at him dumbly when you drag your eyes open, and he sighs, pretending to be exasperated. “What? You wanna sit here in the trash all night?”

“Hey,” you moan teasingly, dropping your hand in his. “These trash bags are actually quite comfy, given the circumstances.”

“Just,” he rolls his eyes and pulls you to your feet as gingerly as he can. When he gets you standing, he takes your weight, wrapping his arm around your waist. He’s careful to watch the wound in your side. “Shut up already.”

As he guides you to the mouth of the alley, he continues, “Your friends make a habit of leaving you behind?”

“Solo job tonight,” you suck air through your teeth as another wave of pain rolls through your muscles. “No one to leave me behind.”

“Just our luck then, huh?”

Your arm curls a little tighter around his shoulders. “Just our luck.”

Dabi shoots a look up and down the street, and once the coast is clear, guides you over to a bench on the sidewalk. His arm lingers around your waist for a moment, warm palm pressed into the curve of your hip. Hesitant.

After a beat, two beats, he lowers you onto the bench, and without so much as another glance, turns heel down the sidewalk and disappears into the shadows again.

“See you around, little hero.”

Everything hurts and the smell of blood hangs in the air as you sit on that steel bench, letting the chill of the metal seep into your tired muscles. You pray that it steals the warmth that Dabi has left in his wake. Your fingers shake as you pull out your phone to call for an ambulance, a feeling stirring somewhere deep in the pit of your stomach.

Tipping your chin up to the sky, you watch as your exhale creates a fleeting, misty cloud in the cool night air. “God, I really hate Mondays.”

Given your injuries, it’s easy to talk your agency into giving you the time you need to recover, and you relish in it. Days off are rare, rarer still as a pro, so you spend them lazing around your apartment and nursing yourself back to health — just as Dabi suggested. On this particular day, your movements are slow, lazy as you make your way to the kitchen. In your haze, you almost don’t notice the single red rose sitting on your counter, a note tucked gently under its petals.

“You’re welcome.”

Though you’ve never seen it before, you know that handwriting as if it’s your own, and without a second thought you scramble towards your living room, practically falling over yourself to turn on the news. Has the story even broken yet? Who knows about this? Just you… and Dabi?

They cycle through a few other stories and you bite at the skin of your lip until a familiar face flashes on screen. Your mouth hangs agape, heart thundering against your ribcage and pounding in your ears as the news anchor describes the warehouse fire that killed the fucker your agency had been chasing, the one that had left you in that alley last week. No one knows how the fire began, she explains.

But you know. The note, your gut, tells you as much.

The rest of the report falls on deaf ears as you sit frozen on your sofa — rose hanging from your fingers, tea kettle whistling on the stove.

Despite the myriad of unanswered questions that itch at your skin, you know four things with certainty. First, Dabi, despite having ample opportunity, has not tried to kill you. Second, he definitely killed that guy on your behalf. Third, he knows where you live.

And above all else, you’re undeniably, irreversibly fucked.

#dabi x reader #dabi imagine #touya todoroki x reader #touya todoroki imagine #touya x reader #touya imagine #bnha x reader #bnha imagine #mha x reader #mha imagine

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