#praying for another slow day so maybe i can leave work early

[virtie333]

Migraine. Sinus congestion. Back hurts. Stressed because I know bad weather is coming.

At least I successfully got the heaters turned on for the automatic waterers at the barn so we don't have to worry about the water freezing.

[jiminzfilter]

slow dancing in the night

→ Pairing. Taehyung x reader

→ Genre. established relationship, fluff, slice of life, model!taehyung, model!reader, taehyung missed you a lot, he is starving (his words not mine), gets a bit hot by the last 40 lines, mentions of oral (f) so I guess this counts as mature content, implied smut, making out (kinda), there is a bit of swearing

→ Summary. what could possibly be better than coming home after a long day of work to someone you love and missed a lot ?

→ Word count. 3.2k (!!!)

→ because I wrote this over a year ago when I still didn't know what I was doing with my writing, I had to go through a deep process of editing and re-writing before posting it. This might not be my best work but it's still a fic that I really really like :,)

→ song rec. slow dancing in the dark, Joji// still with you, Jungkook

Fridays have always been exhausting days for both you and your boyfriend, especially on runways weeks. As models, you were put under a lot of pressure.

Pressure to be perfect, to smile but never smile too much, to look good, to not fall on stage.

Falling has to be the most tragic thing that can happen to your carreer as a model, the hungry stares of thousands of photographers and reporters ready to share the latest news to the press.

Yeah, it was exhausting.

This week was no exception... or maybe it was since, this time, you were the only one working until late.

It’s four in the morning and you’re already on your way out - kind of running late, oBviOusLy - quietly wishing your boyfriend a good day.

He is not working today.

That lucky bastard.

He gets to enjoy his free day in bed, lazing around, while you work your ass off all day. He mumbles something that you assume is a sort of goodbye. He is still asleep.

You look at him one last time before leaving the room and smile. He looks so peaceful.

You still remember the day you met, by pure luck even though you both call that fate. That was 5 years ago, when you just debuted your career as a model and were not that comfortable around high heels.

Okay no. Let’s be real.

You hated wearing them because you couldn’t walk in heels higher than 5 cm.

It’s still a wonder how you managed to make it in the first place.

Were you wearing flat shoes for the audition ? Damn you really must’ve done an impression on the judges if they made you pass without the heels try-on.

Your first day at the agency was chaotic to say the least. Your manager made you walk around the building, to visit she said. She made you wear heels. HEELS. That devilish person.

But, thank to that, you got to meet Taehyung. Your eyes landed on him as you were visiting the lounge and couldn’t tear them away from his figure. The poor man had to witness you fall down because you weren’t watching your steps anymore.

I mean.

Who could blame you ??

That was Kim frEaking Taehyung

!!!

He even came to help you get back on your feet and asked if you were alright, kind of amused.

It’s not everyday you see someone falling down in here, let alone a newbie

Let’s be honest, you were so embarrassed.

First day of work and you’re already failing falling.

That night when you came home, you spent the night wearing heels and prayed really hard you’d never have to face him again. After all, the building was big enough and there were enough workers that you could avoid Taehyung easily

If only

The NeXt day, you were told that you had a couple shooting, with none other that Kim Taehyung.

GreaT

He would occasionally tease you about your fall and check on you to see if everything was alright. He watched you carefully as you were walking around with heels.

From up close he looked even more handsome.... :)

After this day, you started talking with Taehyung more and more. He introduced you to everyone around the agency. You met outside of work, got to know each other. You both became regally good friends but there was something lingering in the air, in the way you’d look at each other or stood so close to him after a couple glasses of wine that you could breathe his air.

So what was bound to happen happened and you went from friends a to lovers without really noticing it.

He was still your best friend...somehow

Eventually, you took things to the next level and moved in together... maybe a half and a year ago or so ? You’ve never been happier in your life

And, well, you’d actually be happier if you could spend the day with boyfriend instead of running around trying to find god knows which accessories you need for the rehearsal.

8 in the morning is noT a time to be doing cardio.

Especially while wearing heels

Become a model they said, it’ll be fun they said

“Y/n! Come here please I need you to try on this dress before you go!” Your personal stylist calls “I made sure to fix it yesterday so it’d be a perfect fit for the show”

You stop your tracks and go to her “make this quick i have to go get changed before 9 otherwise I’m screwed. Why did they even decide to do the rehearsals so early today ?” You sigh, frustrated, and put on the dress she’s handing you “thank you”

“Okayyy...it looks great. Gold looks amazing on you.” She smoothes the dress and gives an approving nod, visibly satisfied ; “You’ll look perfect for the Grand Finale. Oh god it’s already 8:30 you better go before Mr.Kim throws a fit because you’re late”

You both giggle ; “thank you for fixing the dress Naeun, see you later today. Well, probably tonight. Byeeee”

The rehearsal seems to never end. You’re squeezed in dozens of different outfits, gorgeous for sure but sO tight. Mr. Kim, the one who organised the runway, is such a perfectionist that you have to re-do some things multiple times before he’s satisfied. One time the lighting isn’t right, the other the models are walking too fast, not on beat and so on.

Everyone hates him for that but he always makes the best shows so you just follow.

After multiple tries, the rehearsal finally comes to an end. It’s already 4PM. You barely get time to breathe and go pee before you’re back into the ‘running-around-to-find-my-dress-and-fix-my-makeup-oh-god-i-gotta-be-on-stage’ crazy mess.

Walking on the runway feels amazing, running backstage is terrible.

It’s so hot and small back there you can hardly move around well.

It takes 2 hours for the whole fashion show to be over, one more for pictures outside the catwalk and chat with reporters. Since you’re kind of a famous model now, you get invited to the afterparty and spend few extra hours interacting with some celebrities that attended the show. Other models were invited and you’re happy to see familiar faces amongst them. Jimin, an old colleague and friend of yours, comes your way and compliments you. You chat with him for a while before deciding you’ve had enough for the day and leave the party. A few more people greet you on your way out.

A taxi takes you back to you company, where you left your stuff in the morning. You spend an extra thirty minutes getting rid of your heavy makeup and striping off that gorgeous but awfully tight golden dress you’ve been wearing ever since the end of the runway.

Now, you can FinaLLy go home. yassssss

It’s almost 12am when you leave the agency and climb into yet another taxi. The ride is quiet, background music playing over the car’s radio, and you take some time to look at what you were gifted for your performance : fancy makeup products, accessories, pieces of clothing-but not those from the runway, you sadly never get to keep those. Being kinda famous has its perks :,)

You then decide it’s time to warn Taehyung you’ll arrive soon and send him a few texts. As if he was waiting for them, he instantly replies saying he’ll be waiting for you and proceeds to spam you with heart emojis. Sometimes, it looks like this man just discovered what emojis were and is trying to use them as much as possible. What a child…

It’s way past midnight when you finally step into your duplex and the first thing you notice is that the place is way too quiet.

Maybe Tae went back to sleep, who knows, it’s super late after all…

:(

You remove shoes and jacket and drop your bags in the entrance before going further and you call out quietly “anyone here? Tae, you sleeping?”

There is a faint glow from the tv on your right but the sound has been muted.

Weird…

“Taehyung ?" You call one last time

Suddenly, two strong arms wrap themselves around your waist and you’re pulled into someone’s chest. You gasp, almost scream, but soften up when you feel the warmth on your back

“Hi baby” a deep voice says in your ear, sending chills down your spine “I missed you”

You turn around and are very pleased to see a handsome face and a warm exposed chest your boyfriend smiling at you.

“Mhm, missed you too” You wrap your arms around him and rest your head against his chest, happy to hear his heartbeat. Taehyung places his head atop of yours and gently strokes your hair. You tighten your grasp around him and hum.

Few seconds later, he lifts your chin up and gently lays a kiss on your lips.

“How are you doing?” He asks, his right hand cupping your cheek. The warmth of it is comforting.

“Exhausted, but you know how it goes” You shrug and he smiles

“Not too tired for dinner ? I could cook something if you want”

“Mhm... let me just go shower and put something else on” You sadly let go of him

“Sure, go ahead” he whispers and you give him a kiss before regretfully tearing yourself away from him.

You walk up the stairs to your bedroom, where you find the bed undone. You smile, Taehyung never really liked making the bed and, very honestly, neither did you. You slump onto the mattress and bury your face into the pillows, inhaling his scent. Lavender. Relaxing. Just like he is.

After a warm shower, you find a t-shirt Taehyung left on a chair in the room and wear it. It’s big enough to reach your thighs and, if you were more energised, you’d probably stay like this. You grab large pants and put them on.

Once again, you smell lavender all around you.

When you’re back in the living area, you see Taehyung busying himself in the kitchen. He hears your steps and his eyes find yours as a smile appears on his face when he notices that you’re wearing his shirt

“My shirt looks better on you than it’d ever do on me” He teases, his gaze longing on your frame.

“maybe I should keep it then” you smile and ask ; ”Do you need any help?”

“no no no no no, you’ve worked enough already. Go and have some rest. I'll call you when everything’s ready okay?”

Too tired to argue on this anyways -and thankful for the given rest-, you go lay down on the couch, your body oriented to let you look at Taehyung.

As he hums and moves to the chill music that was playing in the background, you start to detail his beautiful figure. From the curl of his dark hair (which you knoW are so so soft to the touch) to his beautiful profile and his nose you love so much down to his broad shoulder and then his tanned abs you see from time to time when the opened shirt of his pyjama moves according to his steps.

oH! Let’s not forget his perfect hands gripping at the pan’s handle while he cooks… vegetables? Something like that yeah.

Taehyung is giving his best into what he’s cooking. Vegetables with rice, that’s the only thing he could do quickly.

Quickly as in less than half an hour, unlike his friend Namjoon who’d take this time just to cook the rice.

The music he put earlier is slowly starting to bore him. After washing his hands, he reaches out for his phone and plays a different playlist. It’s one you name yourself when the two of you were still friends (aka not dating yet). “Taetae fm” because you once joked he should have his own broadcasting channel on the radio. He’d always criticise the music playing so why not have his own channel 👀

“You know Y/n, I actually watched the fashion show live this afternoon. I mean, of course you know because I always do that haha. Anyways, you really were the highlight of the runway tonight. And I’m not saying this in a biased point of view. Okay I might be a bit biased as your boyfriend but I swear that it’s true!! You literally shone back there, especially in that gold dress you were wearing and even the audience was impressed by your looks maybe you didn’t see it on stage but some cameras filmed their reactions and everyone was looking at you. Really, you were so gorge-oh” Taehyung looks at you and smile fondly “Of course you’re asleep, baby”

He lets his phone aside and checks the now cooked food before making his way to the couch. There’s a blanket on the sofa, he covers you with it, scared you might get cold. Taehyung put a loose strand of hair behind your ear and places a kiss on your chin.

You slowly open your eyes and find yourself face to face with him. You both smile.

“Hi there beautiful” He whispers

“what time is it? Did I sleep until the morning?” You’re scared of having slept through the entire nap without realising

“almost 1:20am, I just finished cooking. I thought you might be cold so I went to cover you with the blanket. You should go enjoy the food while it’s still hot, imma go to the toilet”

You nod as an answer and watch him leave upstairs. Getting up from the warmth of the couch is the hardest part so you keep the soft blanket draped around your shoulders and walk towards the kitchen. You grab two bowls and two pairs of chopsticks that you place on the counter along with glasses and a bottle of water.

You then go take care of the rice and the vegetables, which you mix in the pan. The song playing changes and your favourite nighttime tune starts.

“I don’t want a friend, I want my life in two” you sing along

“Waiting to get there, waiting for you” Taehyung’s voice startles you as he grabs your wrists and pulls your back close to him. You smile as he makes the both of you dance slowly. You put his arms around you so it’s like he’s hugging you from the back. You swing around for a little while, enjoying the close proximity as you both softly hum the song, making your body vibrate against each other, moving in perfect coordination.

“I love you” he whispers in your ear and then kisses it, sending chills down your spine, before lifting one of your arm up to make you turn so that you’re now facing him “did my baby sleep well?” You nod as you place your arms around his waist, paying attention to go under the shirt so you’re touching as much skin as possible.

Taehyung chuckles before asking you in that same, chill-sending, low deep voice ; “Still hungry? Because I’m starving”

If you didn’t just wake up, you would’ve definitely caught that lust in his eyes and also the fact that this wasn’t as innocent as it seemed.

As an answer, your stomach growls pretty loudly, making Taehyung laugh . “I’ll take that as a yes. Sit down, princess. Let me take care of you”

You do as he says, jumping on a stool, detailing all of his moves. You only realise how hungry you actually were when you start eating. Rice with vegetables has never tastes better. You eat everything in less than 5 minutes when you’d usually take your time to finish your plate.

“Damn, that was a well needed dinner! Thank you Tae” you mess a bit with his soft locks

“Imagine me who was waiting for you all evening!! I was hungry too” He pouts.

“Oh come on, I was working today. Cardio in heels isn’t the best way to wake up, let alone spend the whole day standing in tight clothes. When I think you has a day off… pfff. I saw the bed, I’m sure you stayed there all day, you lazyyyyyyyyy ass.”

He mumbles some gibberish and you giggle, knowing that you're right. He looks away, crossing his arms and obviously sulking. You leave your stool and stand behind him, wrapping your arms around his neck. You leave a few kisses on his cheek and neck

“- Don’t be such a babyy. You know I love you.

- You do?

- of course, you dummy” you bop his nose "Sooo, what do we have for desert?

- You. Uh I mean!! Yoghurt, fruits, cakes, fruits…anything” he clears his throat

“Great! What do you prefer?” You open the fridge

“ I’d very happily eat you out honestly but an apple sounds good”

“Oh sur- wait whaT!?” You snap your head to him, eyes wide open

what did he sayyyyyyyy?????

whaT am I even supposed to say noW oh my goddddd

You close the fridge’s door, suddenly not so yogurt-hungry.

There’s a sudden silence between the two of you, only disturbed by the music still playing in the background.

“Mhm? What is it?” He turns around to face you, asking so innocently “did I say something wrong ?”

This man knows what he is doing for sure. Has he ever been that straightforward before ?

Taehyung stands and closes the distance between your bodies, now towering over you.

He lowers himself slightly to speak in your ear “what is it baby? Mhm?” You feel his smile on your cheek when he lays a kiss on it “what happened to my all proud and fierce y/n who was so confident telling me I was being lazy all day, huh? Tell me” He lays another kiss on your temple

OkaY

now he’s being a tease

Great

1 A.M. fluffy and bare chested teaser Taehyung

gReAT

Anyhow, it’s a good turn on.

Really.good.freaking.turn.on

Being tired and turned on was definitely not a good mix for you. You could feel the heat rising in your body and hear your heart pounding in your ears.

“Tae…”

He laughs gently seeing you silently begging for more, brushing your face with his lips, teasing another kiss.

“Tsk tsk, you gotta speak darling, I cannot guess”

You should calm down and go to sleep, it’s 1am and you have work tomorrow you should definitely-

“Fuck-“ You sigh and grab his face, sealing your lips together while closing your eyes.

It doesn’t take long for that kiss to turn into a heated make out session.

You grab and pull some of his dark curls while his hands travels under his your shirt.

You break the kiss just a second to catch your breath.

“Have i ever told you you have the perfect body?” Taehyung asks

“Did I ever tell you how perfect you are??” You reply

He laughs, deep raspy laugh.

You’re too tired for this

And because you’re tired, you’re even more horny :D

Taehyung puts his hands behind your thighs and you jump, locking your legs around his waist, hands still in his hair, lips against his while carries you to the bedroom.

He leaves your lips to travel down your jaw and then collarbone. You throw your head back.

Taehyung gently lays you on the mattress of your king sized bed and makes it his personal mission to pleasure you tonight.

[mercy-burning]

Pretty Please

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Reader hears something surprising from her next door neighbor, and it throws her off. Category: Smut 18+ (masturbation, thigh riding, penetrative sex, oral sex-male and female receiving, semi-rough sex, dom!Spencer) Word Count: 6.9k Warnings: Nothing except the smut listed above and strong language. As always, if there’s anything I missed, let me know what I should include in the warnings! I want to be as mindful as I can about what I post. Thank you!

PART 2 / PART 3 / PART 4 / EPILOGUE

***

There's no way she heard that right.

In fact, she was pretty sure she'd made it up. She was tired, delirious, and she'd only imagined hearing what she heard.

Right?

Just to be sure, Y/N sat up in bed, put her ear against the wall just above the headboard, and listened, concentrating as hard as she could to confirm or deny.

And sure enough, the next thing she heard was, "Fuck, yes!"

It was muffled, definitely not as loud as it could have been, but if things continued the way she thought they would, it was going to get louder. Unless, of course, her neighbor was mindful, knowing that someone could probably hear what was going on. Though, for some reason Y/N doubted that.

Just to be extra sure what was happening, she stayed glued to the wall, listening carefully.

There was some muffled movement, but it could have been just about anything. Nonetheless, her heart was beating so fast, and it beat even faster when she heard what came next.

A loud female moan, unmistakable and utterly pornographic, made Y/N close her eyes immediately, her heart practically jumping out of her chest. Her first thought was Okay, he's watching porn. Everyone does that. Not without headphones, but it's completely normal and I should stop eavesdropping and go about my own life because this is an invasion of privacy.

Her second thought was ...Oh.

Because she was dead wrong.

The next thing that sounded through the walls was, "Yes, Spencer, just like that!"

Y/N's eyes shot open and she almost had a heart attack.

Her next thought was Good for him...

She and her neighbor hadn't really gotten to know each other that well. All she knew was that he had a job that kept him away from home quite a bit, either from travel or just late nights. He was shy and rarely talked to her when they met in the halls or in the parking garage, or even in the laundry room. Which is why it was so surprising to Y/N that he was having sex—and decent sex at that, from what she could hear—right next door.

Not that it would have been impossible for him to get it, of course. He was hot as hell, and it shouldn't have surprised Y/N as much as it did that she was hearing what she was hearing. It had just never happened before.

She was about to let it be, glad that her neighbor seemed to be having some fun, and it truly wasn't any of her business what he decided to do in his spare time. Though, the next thing she heard sent her into a tailspin.

"You like that, baby? You like when I hold you down and fuck you?"

Y/N almost hit her head against the wall. Instinctually her legs crossed, as if it would prevent her from being turned on. Which was stupid, considering every nerve in her body was on fire hearing those words come from Spencer Reid's mouth.

No fucking way, Y/N thought, slowly shifting her position on the bed.

It was a stupid idea. Probably one of the dumbest things she's ever done. But she closed her eyes, and as the woman's moans became louder through the walls, every slap of skin on skin getting louder with them, Y/N's right hand drifted under the waistband of her panties and got to work.

She couldn't help imagining what was going on. And it was rare that she could get off on just imagination alone, but this time she had the helpful addition of sound to aid her. Every time the woman moaned Spencer's name, she moved her fingers faster, alternating between rubbing her clit and completely fingering herself. And sometimes Y/N would make inevitable tiny whimpers of her own, careful not to give herself away.

She was almost to her climax when she heard it. The thing that pushed her over the edge.

"Fuck, you take it so well, pretty girl."

That one sentence, added to the impending orgasm Y/N was experiencing and the fact that she was picturing Spencer's face so clearly in her head, caused her to let out a loud moan and throw her head back against the wall with a loud thud.

So many feelings happened at once. Pain, because fuck, hitting her head on the wall without expecting it hurt like hell. Pleasure immediately after, because despite everything, her fingers stayed working, instinctively nursing herself through her orgasm. And finally embarrassment, because she definitely shouldn't have been eavesdropping on her neighbor's sexual encounters and she's positive they'd heard her intrusion.

All noises ceased for a total of two seconds before Y/N came down from her high and the sex next door resumed like nothing had happened.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck, no, Y/N thought as she scrambled out of bed and ran to the bathroom. Her head still hurt from hitting it against the wall, but that was the least of her concerns. More than anything she wanted to crawl in a hole and never return. And sure, maybe there was a small chance Spencer and his.. friend hadn't heard you, but it was practically impossible. There was no way they hadn't heard it.

Y/N peed and washed her hands, tapping her foot nervously against the cool tile the whole time. Eventually she calmed her breathing and decided that she'd just have to live with it. I mean, it's not like I'm friends with him anyway, she thought. I barely see him enough as it is, and I can ignore him like there's no tomorrow and nothing will change. Right?

And so she washed her face and got ready for bed, trying desperately not to think about how badly she'd embarrassed herself.

And then as she curled under the covers (with earbuds in just in case) she thought, Maybe I'll make him some muffins tomorrow and say I'm sorry.

The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was Spencer's face.

***

"What's wrong? Can't take it?"

She practically burned with pleasure, every inch of her body overly sensitive and completely fucked out. But she'd let him have whatever he wanted.

She cried. She tried to tell him that yes, she could take it. But tears and strangled moans were all she could manage as he continued to fuck her into the mattress.

"You gonna cum?" He asked, like she could form words.

She cried out again in answer.

He leaned forward, wiping tears from her face, and whispered, "Go ahead, pretty girl."

That was the last thing Y/N heard before she woke up, eyes shooting open and hands clutching the sheets so tightly her fingers ached. She let them go and tried to wiggle them back to life, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a deep breath.

"Oh, dear Lord," she muttered, stretching out and realizing that the past 10 hours of her life were going to haunt her for a long time.

I'm gonna have to move, aren't I, she thought sarcastically, sitting up slowly and rubbing her eyes. Though, right now it sounded like a good idea.

Y/N gathered some clothes and went to the shower, refusing to think about last night or the dream she'd woken up from. Instead she lasered all her attention to thoroughly washing her hair, body, and face. By the time the water was running cold, she stepped out, dried off and got dressed, brushing her teeth and then leaving the bathroom to turn on the coffee pot.

Before she could, there was a knock on the door.

Oh no, was her first thought, because naturally the first thing you do at any minor event after severely embarrassing yourself is panic. What if that's him? He's going to get mad at me for eavesdropping. The first thing I'm going to do when I see him is blush and panic. Fuck.

Y/N thought about ignoring it for a second. For all Spencer knew, she could still be sleeping. She could have fled the country immediately after giving herself away. She could have died from a heart attack, literally embarrassing herself to death. She could ha—

Knock knock knock.

"Shit," Y/N muttered to herself, adjusting her freshly-washed hair and praying she looked okay. If it really was Spencer at her door, she wanted to at least look like she was moving on with her life and not thinking about last night every waking second.

She ran to the door, took a deep breath and opened it, sure enough revealing Spencer Reid in her doorway, wearing a kind smile and holding a small something in his hand.

"Oh... Spencer, hi," Y/N said, pretending to be happy. Not that she wasn't ever happy to see him, but today of all days was most definitely not a good time. She only prayed he wouldn't get mad at her for eavesdropping.

"Hi, Y/N. Sorry for being here so early, but I, uh... thought you might need this."

He handed her what was in his hand, and it rattled, confusing her. She took it and flipped it over in her hands, studying the bottle.

"Advil?"

"Yeah. Seems like you hit your head on the wall pretty hard last night, I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Her stomach dropped. "No."

"No... You're not okay, or no, you don't need it?"

Heat rushed to Y/N's cheeks and all she could manage was another, "No."

She only sounded slightly terrified.

But before Spencer could say anything else, Y/N looked up at him and almost started to cry. "I'm so so so sorry, Spencer, I didn't mean to hear, it just happened, and I couldn't help it, and I tried to be quiet, I really did, but it just slipped, and I feel really bad, I'm so sorry, I—"

"Whoa, whoa, Y/N, slow down. It's okay, really," he laughed. "I'm not upset or anything, I just... Truthfully I feel kind of bad for not thinking of anyone hearing. I didn't realize the walls were so thin, and had I known I probably would have... Gone about things differently. I didn't mean to embarrass you."

Y/N's heart raced, but she was even more shocked by the fact that he was apologizing. "Spencer, don't be sorry. I embarrassed myself, really. I shouldn't have been listening anyway— what you do in your apartment isn't any of my business, and I messed up."

He smiled and shuffled on his feet, trying to avoid looking at you but failing. In the end he shrugged and leaned against the doorframe. "Well, in any case, I really do hope your head doesn't hurt too bad. That was a loud thump."

Y/N laughed nervously, turning the bottle over in her hands while looking at the floor. "It doesn't hurt anymore. Feels better now that I've slept it off... Thank you, though. I... I appreciate it."

"You're welcome."

She looked up at him and almost started crying again, still completely embarrassed over the whole ordeal. In an attempt to not cry, she cleared her throat. "Um, I was just going put on some coffee if you... wanted to come in? I can make some eggs or something too, if you're hungry. Y'know, to say I'm sorry?"

Spencer looked like he was about to tell her not to be sorry again, but she gave him a look that said don't you dare, and he settled on nodding instead. "Sure, I'd like that."

***

"Wow. These are great."

Y/N smiled, watching Spencer eat a bite of the eggs she'd made him. "Thank you. It's a family recipe. Nothing too special, but my mom always made them for my brother and I before our first day of school every year."

He smiled. "That's nice. Really, they're great. Thank you."

"Yeah, no problem... Look, again, I really am so—"

"Y/N, stop. It's okay, really. It... happens. You don't have to be sorry."

She nodded before taking a sip of her coffee. Spencer ate some more of his eggs and the two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, before it got completely unbearable.

She didn't want to keep bringing it up, but something forced the words out of her mouth. "So, your... guest... Is she your girlfriend?"

It took Spencer a minute to realize what she said, but eventually he cleared his throat, some color forming on his cheeks. "Oh, uh... no. No, I'm single. She and I had just met at a bar downtown. I don't usually do that. Go to bars, I mean. Though I suppose I don't really have one night stands all that often, either, but my co-workers and I were out last night after a... pretty rough day at work, and... before I left we met at the bar and it just kind of went on from there."

"Oh... Well, I... I'm sorry work was rough. Seems like you... handled it, though. Got over it... I mean, like, you knew how to take your mind off of it, or make it better or whatever."

Y/N froze after she said it. Immediately after, she shook her head. "God, I'm sorry. That was dumb. I shouldn't have said that."

"No, I get what you mean, it's okay, really," Spencer said quickly, seemingly amused. "It, uh... It really did help. You know, sex is a good stress reliever. The endorphins it releases puts you in a better mood and calms you down, and studies show that regular sexual activity can aid in decreasing high blood pressure during stressful situations."

"I... didn't know that. Sounds helpful. Especially with your job, I imagine."

He nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. "What about you? Is your job stressful?"

Y/N shrugged, kind of glad that the conversation moved away from sexual nature. Though, she supposed the reason it was there in the first place was kind of her fault. In any case, she told Spencer about her job. "It's not as stressful as other jobs can be, but I just got a promotion so all the responsibility is a little daunting, I guess."

"I'm sure you're fine," he complimented, setting his mug down. "Though... If you do ever find yourself beginning to buckle under the stress of your job, sex is a good way to keep your spirits up."

It was a joke. A reference to their conversation, the whole reason they were in this moment in the first place. So why did Y/N respond with, "What, is that your way of offering?"

I'm just full of stupid shit lately, aren't I, she thought, immediately hating herself for saying it. Things were going well, and Spencer didn't seem mad or annoyed after the whole incident, and now she was positive she'd made everything worse.

But nothing could have prepared her for what came out of his mouth next.

"Maybe it is."

She looked up at him and saw that he was completely serious. His eyes bore into her, staring her down like he was trying to compel her to say something, to do something, to put her under his spell. Y/N swallowed, trying to speak, but nothing would come out.

Oh, now you have nothing to say? Good going, Y/N...

Nevertheless, he waited. His eyes remained glued on her, tilting his head to the side and raising his eyebrows as if to ask her, well?

Eventually, she settled on, "You mean it?"

Spencer nodded slowly, staring at her with an intensity she hadn't experienced in forever. "Only if you want to."

Immediately Y/N thought back to last night. His nasty words replayed in her ears over and over again, repeating themselves like a mantra— You like that, baby? You like when I hold you down and fuck you?

And under his burning gaze, Y/N felt like she was on fire. Her lower stomach bubbled over with desire and she imagined him fucking her like he had in her dream.

It's almost like he knew what she was thinking about. Because right before she could tell him she wanted him, he laughed softly to himself. "What are you thinking about, Y/N?"

Her name on his lips sent shivers down her spine. "W... What?"

"Tell me. You're thinking about having sex with me right now, aren't you?"

She could barely breathe. But she managed to get out a strangled, "Yes."

Spencer smirked and stood up, walking around the table but never taking his eyes off Y/N. She swallowed and stood up too, meeting his eyes and tilting her head up to look at him— really look at him. His pupils were full-blown, his lips formed into an amused smile as he reached out to touch her face. She fluttered her eyes closed and leaned into his touch, a small sigh involuntarily escaping her lips.

"How long have you been thinking about me?" Spencer asked quietly, yet the tone in his voice rather demanded an answer more than asked for one.

Y/N opened her eyes to meet his, and almost crumbled under the weight of their intensity. "S-since last night."

He hummed in response, running his thumb over her chin and up to her lips, just barely touching them. "Have you ever thought about it before then?"

She couldn't lie to him. "A few times."

That got a full smile out of him, but it disappeared rather quickly as he stepped even closer and gripped the side of Y/N's face in his right hand, his fingers barely weaving through the hair behind her ear. She gasped and looked up at him, silently begging for him to kiss her. To push her onto the table, or choke her, or something.

"Tell me what you want," he demanded, keeping that even, soft tone. It sent another chill through Y/N's body.

She could hardly breathe. Could hardly form words.

Spencer slipped his hand behind her head and gripped the underside of her damp hair, tugging slightly as she whimpered. "What do you want?"

"I want you to fuck me," Y/N gasped out, completely and utterly entranced by his looming presence.

"Now?" he asked, his own way of really making sure she wanted to go through with this.

"Yes," she breathed. "Yes, please, fuck me. Please."

The look he gave her after she said it was purely dirty and unlike any thing she'd ever experienced. She decided then and there that if that was the reaction she'd get from him for begging, she would beg him for anything any time.

Not to mention, the way he kissed her was enough to make any man or woman fly into the sun. Both of his hands found themselves lost in her hair, pulling her head to his and practically massaging her scalp as he glided his lips across hers with a slow burning fever that made Y/N's body completely succumb to him. She melted into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer, reaching up to twist her fingers through the ends of his hair, admiring how soft and perfect it felt on her skin. Once Spencer's tongue swiped over her bottom lip and softly pushed into her mouth, it was well and truly over. Y/N was done for. He could do anything he wanted and she wouldn't turn him away.

He pulled away for a moment, taking her bottom lip between his teeth before moving back in and angling his head in the other direction, kissing her deeper and causing a groan to slip from her throat.

Y/N desperately clung to his neck, wishing he could do this to her forever, but then he took one of his hands away from her head and brought it to her lower back. He completely pulled her against him, one of his legs slipping between hers and putting the slightest bit of pressure to her crotch.

She whimpered, causing Spencer to push himself against her harder, the two of them completely attached. He brought his knee up just a little, and Y/N instinctively ground against it, desperately wanting to feel any type of friction she could manage. It warmed her whole body to the core, being completely embraced by him, and in a matter of seconds she was more desperate than she'd ever been.

She pulled her face away from his reluctantly, breathing heavily and still grinding against his leg. "Please," was all the could think to say.

"Such a needy little thing, aren't you?" Spencer whispered, peppering her neck with wet kisses as he brought his leg up higher, giving her more access. He leaned his butt against the table for support, until eventually he gave in and sat down on it, bringing her down to sit on his thigh.

Y/N hesitated, halting her movements for a second before he gripped her hips and moved them forward. "Go ahead, pretty girl. Ride my thigh."

She groaned at the nickname and obliged happily, grinding down and rocking her hips against him. He continued to kiss her neck, occasionally biting down and sucking at different spots, sure to leave marks.

He hadn't even really touched her yet, and Y/N was absolutely dizzy, high on kisses and his hands burning into her hips. She felt her stomach start to coil as an orgasm came to the surface, her legs clenching tighter around him.

"You close, baby?" Spencer muttered against her neck, right under her ear. He took her earlobe between his teeth for just a moment before rocking her hips faster, bringing his leg up just a bit higher to aid her. She shoved her head into his neck and cried out his name, somewhere between a whine and a moan.

Within a matter of seconds Y/N was shaking around him, panting his name over and over while he brought his leg just a tad higher, bringing her over the edge. Her mind raced, coming to terms with what just happened and what was about to happen, and it made her tremble again, sending one more shockwave through her lower body before her hips slowed to a stop.

Spencer slid his hands back up to her head, bringing her face to his once more and kissing her. As if she wasn't already so out of breath. But it didn't matter. She only cared about his mouth and the way it captured hers like it belonged there, like it knew she was his for the taking. And she really believed that was true.

Y/N still straddled his leg, but she wanted to give him the same release he'd given her, so she attempted to climb away and moved one of her hands down to his belt.

Spencer stopped her hand and pulled his face away from hers. For a moment she thought she'd done something wrong, and she was about to apologize, but he pulled her close and stroked her hair with his hand, tilting his head to meet her gaze. "Not yet, pretty girl. I want to taste you first."

And without another second passing by, he moved the hand that grabbed her wrist between them and snuck it into her shorts and panties. Y/N jumped a little, but only because it felt too good for her own good. Her eyes fluttered shut when his middle finger grazed her clit, but his other hand gripped her chin and forced her to look at him. "No. I want you to look at me, okay?"

She nodded, and then whimpered when he slipped a finger inside of her. She lifted herself up just a little so he had more access, and sure enough his finger slipped in and out with ease.

She wanted more, but he took his hand away, and the glimmer in his eye when she pouted, visibly frustrated, sent her into another small fit of tremors.

"So antsy, pretty girl," Spencer laughed, slightly amused. Y/N would have said something, but all words escaped her when he brought his fingers to his mouth. His tongue poked out to taste-test before he completely took them in, holding eye contact with her the whole time. As he sucked his fingers clean, Y/N felt herself growing desperate again, and she ground against his leg once more.

Spencer laughed and brought his fingers out of his mouth, resting them on her hips. "You're being awfully quiet, Y/N."

"I... I don't... Is that a bad thing?"

"Not necessarily. But you didn't have a problem being loud last night."

It brought color to her cheeks. Her first instinct was to apologize but she knew he'd chastise her for it, so she didn't. Rather, she embraced the opportunity and pulled herself closer to him. "Is that what you want, Spencer? You want me to be loud for you?" Her voice was soft, somewhat contradicting what she was saying, but she looked at him through her eyelashes, biting her lip as if asking for permission.

And now it seemed like it was his turn to groan, though it came out as more of a growl as he pushed her away from him, grabbing her arm and leading her through the apartment. All the rooms were built the same so he knew where to go. He didn't take the time to scan her room, though if he did it was fast. Y/N barely had any time to react before he pulled her to him again and kissed her roughly.

As his fingers weaved through her hair again, Y/N decided to take a chance, snaking her hands down to his belt. This time he didn't stop her, his lips opening and granting her access to his tongue as she unbuckled the belt. She unzipped his pants and pushed them down his hips, but they only got about an inch down before he pulled away from her completely, leaving her empty again.

She whined, and he smirked.

"What is it, Y/N?" he asked. "What do you want?" His tone was almost condescending, like he knew exactly what she wanted.

She didn't like being teased. "I just want you," she stated, whining a bit to prove her point.

He seemed to contemplate his words for a moment before he spoke. "And... you think I should just give you what you want? After I caught you eavesdropping on me last night?"

He was only saying it to see her flushed. To embarrass her and make her shy so he could make it better in the end. She knew that, knew better, and yet it still worked. "I'm sorry," she pleaded, getting down on her knees in front of him and looking up at him with just as much desperation as she could manage. "You know I feel really really bad about it, just please let me make it up to you. Please, Spencer."

When all he did was look down at her, amused and still, Y/N batted her eyelashes and grabbed the waistband of his pants and underwear. She waited to pull them down until he did or said something, but all he did was stare. She couldn't tell if he was making her wait or if he was waiting for her, and she was afraid of making the wrong decision. But, deciding that she'd been in enough trouble in the past 10 hours to last a lifetime, Y/N took a chance yet again and pulled Spencer's pants all the way down.

Still unsure of what would happen if she continued, Y/N scooted closer, but kept her eyes locked on his. She batted her eyelashes and ran her hands up his thighs, eventually wrapping around to his ass. She brought them up his lower back and around to feel his stomach before sliding down to the front of his hips. She stopped them there, gliding her thumbs over his skin in small circles as she pleaded once more for good measure.

"Pretty please."

Spencer gave in, bringing his hands to her hair and pulling her close. "It's all yours, baby."

The words sent heat straight to her lower half as she flicked her tongue out to taste the head of his cock. His eyes fluttered shut at the contact, and Y/N took that as her opening. She looked down and marveled at him as she took him completely in her mouth, slowly but surely, getting herself acquainted with his size.

Once she set a steady pace, she looked up at him and found that he was absolutely wonderstruck. His eyes practically sparkled as they fixed on her, his bottom lip tucked between his teeth in pure adoration and fascination. Y/N took this as encouragement, bobbing her head faster and slacking her jaw as she let him hit the back of her throat with each thrust forward. She gagged once and pulled herself off, bringing her hand up to jerk him for a few seconds before using her mouth again. This was a cycle that continued until tears were streaming down her cheeks and spit was leaking down her chin, and every time she looked up at him, Spencer would groan and tighten his grip in her hair.

Eventually he stopped her, pulling her off of him and panting. "Come here," he whispered, and Y/N got up off her knees, standing up and wiping some of the spit from her face. It didn't feel all that sexy as she was doing it, though the way he looked at her made her feel like she was the only thing in the entire world that could bring him joy.

He reached forward and wiped some of the tears from her cheek before kissing her, groaning into her mouth as he did so. His still hard cock pressed against her leg, and she groaned, too, before he pulled away.

That dark glimmer returned in his eye when he spoke. "Take your clothes off."

Y/N didn't have to be told twice. Immediately she threw her shirt off over her head and tossed it to the ground as Spencer stepped out of his pants. His eyes travelled down to her breasts and she noticed him swallow, his Adam's apple bobbing a few times before he looked back up at her face. Keeping eye contact and softly biting her lip, Y/N hooked her fingers around her shorts and underwear and slid them down her legs until they reached the other clothes on the floor. She kicked them to the side and tilted her head up.

She thought he might kiss her again, but instead he nodded his head towards her bed. "Lay down on your back."

As Y/N had learned pretty early on, she was quick and eager to obey, and so she did as she was told, laying down in the middle of the bed, her head resting on her pillows and the rest of her body laying flat, eagerly awaiting Spencer's next move.

She watched him as he took his shirt off, leaving him completely bare, and before she had time to admire him, he bent down and grabbed something from his pants.

A condom, Y/N realized as he made his way to her.

"You really came over with the intent to fuck me, didn't you?" she mused, unable to stop herself.

He laughed at her words, climbing over her and leaning down to press his lips to her neck in a soft kiss. "Wasn't it obvious?"

No, she thought to herself, but she didn't say anything. Though even if she wanted to, she couldn't have, because Spencer's mouth moved down her neck and to her chest. He licked a small circle over her right nipple before enclosing it entirely in his mouth, and Y/N arched her back off the bed, running her fingers through his hair.

He laughed again, taking her nipple in between his teeth before releasing it and saying, "I love how fucking responsive you are, pretty girl."

Everything about what he was saying and doing to her sent Y/N into a tailspin. Before she had time to respond, he moved his mouth to her other breast and got right to work, repeating the process.

One of his hands trailed down her body, just light enough to leave goosebumps it its wake, until it reached where she really wanted him. As if to prove his last statement, Y/N's hips bucked upwards to feel more of him, and Spencer laughed against her chest, removing his mouth from her and using both of his hands to steady her hips, pushing them into the mattress. "Can you be still for me? Use your words."

Y/N sighs and bites her lip before answering. "Yes. I can be still."

"Louder, Y/N. You promised you'd be loud for me, remember?"

If she wasn't wet before, she definitely was now. And she thought about just repeating her words louder, like she was expected to, but then something in that stupid part of her brain said to push her luck. And so she laughed back at him.

"No, I didn't."

Spencer seemed shocked. This was the first time she'd blatantly disagreed with something he said. "What?"

He seemed a little mad, but Y/N acted innocent. "Well, I asked you if you'd like me to be loud for you, and you just pulled me in here. You didn't answer me, and I didn't promise anything."

She was scared of what he would do or say, but that turned her on even more.

And without warning, Spencer jammed two of his fingers into her mouth, forcing it open and pressing them down on her tongue. "Well, sweetheart, this is me telling you. You're gonna scream my name until the whole city can hear how needy you are for me."

She almost choked on his fingers, but he took them out and slid them down her chin and neck, leaving her completely breathless. He waited a beat before laughing to himself. "Aw, see? Look what I do to you, pretty girl," he mused. "You're so submissive."

Y/N wanted to argue, but she wanted him more, so she whined and tried to move him closer, to which he laughed again and caressed her face. "That's what I thought. Now be a good girl and wait a second while I put this on, okay?"

For fear of disappointing him, Y/N replied with, "Okay," loud and clear.

He smirked, unwrapping the condom and starting to slide it over himself. "Fast learner."

And in an attempt to patch things over even more, she batted her eyes like she knew he liked, acting patient and innocent though she was pretty sure they both knew she was the exact opposite.

It paid off in the end though, because Spencer rewarded her with a sweet kiss as he ran the tip of his cock over her pussy, just barely entering. He teased her like that for about a minute before she started to get antsy, and yet he didn't let up. He raised an eyebrow at her, and catching on she reached up, grabbing the sides of his face and blinking once before talking. "Please, Spencer. Fuck me."

"Atta girl," he praised before moving forward and entering her. Immediately Y/N moaned, her mouth open and eyes just about rolling to the back of her head. Her hands slid up his face and through his hair, weaving her fingers through the soft waves as he set a steady pace, letting themselves get used to the feeling of being wrapped up in each other like this. For a moment it seemed like he forgot his promise to fuck her so hard the whole city would hear her screaming his name, but after a while, he apparently decided that she wasn't being loud enough.

"Come on, Y/N. You can do better than that."

She wanted more than anything to tell him that if he fucked her harder then maybe she would be louder, but infinitely realized that A) that was a surefire way to get chastised, and B) if she was louder, he would fuck her harder. He was going to make her work for it, and in the end she didn't mind that at all.

So she told the truth. "Fuck, Spencer, you feel so goo— ahh!"

Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, he quickly adjusted and fucked her faster, and aside from the overstimulation, it was starting to feel reminiscent of the dream she'd had last night. She wasn't crying but she felt like she could, every fiber of her being burning alive with pleasure. She felt her orgasm rising to the surface, but she didn't want this to end yet. Maybe if she was lucky Spencer would keep going after she'd finished, though at this point she was just happy to let him fuck her for any period of time.

That being said, he slowed his movements, making each stroke harder and more deliberate, and Y/N yelled out his name, hoping to get more.

"You close, pretty girl? Hmm? You wanna cum?"

The strain in his voice sent another wave of pleasure coursing through her body. He was close too, she just knew it.

"Yes," she breathed, before repeating it louder and louder. "Yes, yes, yes!"

She was just about to fall over the edge when Spencer laughed and pulled out of her, leaving her unsatisfied, empty, and confused.

"What?" she breathed, looking up at him.

He slid the condom off and tossed it aside before jerking himself off over her stomach. "Only good girls get to cum. You should have thought of that before you eavesdropped on me."

And then he came all over her stomach and chest. She would have been more angry, but the whole sight in front of her was hot as hell. Who was she to complain? She watched as his face scrunched up in pleasure, his mouth agape and eyes squeezed shut. His hair faintly stuck to his face, and his hips jerked into his hand until eventually he was spent.

Y/N whined at the sight, completely turned on feeling his warm cum coating her skin and also utterly frustrated for not getting off.

Spencer opened his eyes to look at her, and she thought in that moment it looked like he would burst into flames. As his gaze raked over her body, covered in his cum and so obviously desperate for release, he licked his lips and got down, spreading her legs wider and opening her up to him.

"Wha—"

Y/N didn't get to finish her thought, because Spencer was immediately eating her out like a man starved, running his tongue through her pussy, occasionally flicking it over her clit. As expected, the louder she got the more he gave her, and at one point he started fingering her at a relentless pace, curling his fingers up against her g-spot while circling her clit with his tongue.

He brought his head up and looked at her through his eyelashes as best as he could, barely catching a glimpse of her face, completely contorted in pleasure.

"You wanna cum, pretty girl?" he teased, slowing his fingers torturously.

She whined and then threw her head back, pleading. "Spencer, please!"

He only got a little faster and then gently flicked his tongue over her clit again, to which she yelped and fisted the sheets.

In turn he moved faster. And she got louder. Faster and louder, faster and louder, until finally he gave her what she wanted.

"That's it, pretty girl. Cum for me."

Right after he said it, Y/N arched her back off the bed and fisted the sheets even harder, actually screaming his name until it came out as incoherent sobs, eventually dwindling down to whimpering and panting as he aided her down from her high.

Spencer's movements slowed to a stop, pulling his fingers out of her and pressing one final kiss to her clit before removing himself from her completely and coming up to lay down beside her.

She stayed there on her back, arms clutched at her sides, breathing deep and eyes almost heavy like she was about to fall asleep. He brushed her hair away from her face and pressed a kiss to her lips. She could taste herself on him, and it excited her. When he pulled away, she turned her head to look at him and smiled.

"I'm definitely going to have to invade your privacy more often if this is what the end result is."

Spencer laughed, his hand brushing lightly through her hair. "So that was okay? I'm sorry if I was kind of mean, I—"

"I'm gonna stop you right there. If I was really truly mad about anything you did, I would have screamed at you, not for you. Trust me. You're just fine. That was... perfect."

"Good... And you know I was just teasing you about eavesdropping, right? I'm not actually upset about it."

"No, I know. I still feel kinda bad about it though."

"Well, you shouldn't. If anything... something good came out of it, right?"

Y/N laughed, scrunching her nose as he looked at her. "Right."

After a moment, Spencer sat up and looked down at her stomach, a smirk on his face. "I'm gonna go get you a washcloth."

"Good thinking. And while you're at it could you also grab the Advil?"

He was on his way out the bedroom door, slipping on his underwear before stopping in his tracks. "Oh no... I- I didn't hurt you did I?"

"Oh! No, you didn't. I just know that I'm going to be sore, and walking will most definitely be a problem. And I am not getting out of this bed for the rest of the day, so Advil will definitely help. Thank you for that, by the way."

Spencer laughed, leaving Y/N to admire him as he walked away.

[softomi]

I bet my wife is scarier than yours.

Kuroo Testuro

He was always lectured by you to take off his wedding ring when he went to the bathroom, but he was never worried about his ring. It would pass over his head as he washed his hands, urging to himself that the next time he’d do it. But today, his face fallen and pale; it didn’t help that you were already currently angry with him for forgetting to move the wet clothes from the washer to the drier; and now he watched in horror as his wedding ring slipped off his finger and into the drain.

“What are you doing?” Your hands on your hips when you see his hand stuffed into the sink.

Kuroo laughs, “Just thought I’d fix the drain.”

You eyed him before moving your way to the laundry room. Kuroo whips out his phone, emergency texting his friends who gave zero decent input into his situation. He fears that he may have to spend another week sleeping on the couch; or worse, kicked out of his home until he can replace his ring.

But he wasn’t going to let that happen, even if it meant they have to hire a plumber later to fix what he breaks, then so be it; as long as you never find out.

“You lost your ring didn’t you.” Out from under the kitchen sink, Kuroo watches your facial features frown, arms cross, and a deep irritated sigh.

“I swear honey, I’ll get it back. It’s in the stupid drain. Just don’t be mad.” When Kuroo finally manages to unscrew the bottom, he feels triumphant. He shakes the ends a bit and out falls two rings. Kuroo curiously picks up the band that was clearly not his, staring at it until he realizes, it was your ring, “What the? You lost your ring!” Kuroo is using his shirt to clean the diamond, “This cost a fortune and you let it fall through the drain!”

Your hand collides with his head, your lips twitching, “Were you not digging in the drain for yours too?”

Iwaizumi Hajime

Many thought that there was nothing that could scare the man. He was immune to bugs, horror films, even when his friends try to surprise him; it never really works. Nothing scares him; or so they thought. It was one thing for him to bring his kids to work, sure, he’s done it hundreds of times on days when he knew it was going to be slow; but you specifically told him to keep the children off the court. Has he ever listened; no because in his mind, what could go wrong, apparently everything.

“Now what are we going to tell mommy?” Iwaizumi has stopped the car now, parked right in front of their home, he turns to his two children. His beautiful six year old daughter and his two year old son.

The little girl has remnants of ice cream still on her face, “I fell!”

He should have known better than to trust a six year old, the moment she walked through the doors and saw her caring, beautiful, loving mother; she began to bawl uncontrollably. Incoherent crying mixed with child snot, Iwaizumi was praying that you couldn’t understand her and would ultimately just make her stop crying.

“What!” You stood to your feet, “You let her go out onto the court! You know how dangerous that can be with all the guys spiking volleyballs all over the place.” You step forward but he’s using his two year old son as a shield, “Hajime!”

“She was just playing with Atsumu and then she fell!” Your eyes narrow on the male and he concedes immediately, “Okay so Atsumu set the ball, Bokuto spiked it, it landed right in front of her and might of hit her face for a second.” You let out a large gasp, “But I checked! She doesn’t have any major injuries! Right?” Iwaizumi attempts to pat his daughter on the head but she sinks behind her mother’s legs; the ultimate betrayal.

“Hajime.” You take a step forward but he uses his son as a shield again, “Hajime!” The male side steps you, practically skipping to the bedroom with his son, “Don’t even think that you’re sleeping in our bed tonight!”

Bokuto Koutarou  

Bless his soul, somehow you’ve thought it would be the most fantastic idea to leave him alone with his one and a half year old daughter. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been alone with her before, but this would officially be the first time that you actually spend a full twenty-four hours away from the house, the baby, and your husband. You had left him a list of instructions on how to feed her, different house chores needing to be done, and even a detailed timetable of your daughter’s day.

“Oh no, please don’t cry. If you cry, then daddy’s going to cry.” Bokuto sits on the living room floor, his daughter sat right in front of him with the worst cry on her face.

It’s two hours until you said you’d be back and Bokuto is just realizing now that he hasn’t done anything you asked. He thought that if he put his daughter to sleep just an hour earlier, perhaps he’d have enough time to finish the chores; what he discovers is that his daughter wouldn’t sleep, instead she continued to bawl in the bed and even when it neared her nap time; Bokuto made the mistake of letting her have a sugary treat, obviously she wouldn’t sleep.

“I’m home?” Your words are drawn out when you step into the living room, your daughter and husband on the floor just on the verge of tears, the living room a mess with toys all over the floor, the laundry sprawled out onto the couch, and for some reason there’s paint on the floors and walls, “Koutarou!”

You pick up your daughter who crawled to your foot, her crying slows down when she’s in your arms and Bokuto sheepishly looks to you, “Welcome home honey!”

“Do you want to explain?” Your hand gestures to the entire house that is a mess, “I gave you a very detailed list Kou!”

He stands, arms encasing you into a hug, “I’m so sorry!” He’s peppering away your angered expression with kisses and you can’t help but to smile. His hands are leading you to the bedroom, “I’ll clean everything up, just rest!”

He wasn’t able to clean everything up, when you emerged from the bedroom with your daughter napping, you saw that somehow the mess got bigger. Your hands on your hips, a scowl on your lips, when he tries to skip to you with puckered lips, you throw a pillow to his face. Maybe he’d be better off sleeping at Akaashi’s place.

Kita Shinsuke

It hadn’t been long since the both of you tied the knot let alone since finding out you were expecting his first child, so there were many changes in his routine. He’s persistent though, if he could do it one day then the next day he could do it too. Ever since you’ve entered the stage of pregnancy where you want to eat everything and anything, Kita finds himself at the grocery store more often than he would routinely like to.

“Yes dear.” Kita listens to you ramble a list of things you would like from the store, he was absolutely tired and wasn’t writing anything down. You had been in a bad mood all day due to your sore lower back and anything Kita has tried hasn’t worked.

“Are you listening? Honey, I really want watermelon, that’s what I want the most. I don’t want the prepackaged ones, I want an entire watermelon.”

He insists he was listening but when faced with the two different type of watermelon, all Kita can remember is you saying prepackaged. So the frown you have on your face when he pulls out a little clear container of watermelon, his memory rushes back to recall that you specifically asked for a fresh watermelon.

“I’ll go back to the store.” He gulps.

“No.” Your words are sharp, the smile on your face sends a chill down his spine, “It’s okay, maybe our son will be happy that his father has given him poor watermelon instead of listening to his loving wife who asked for a fresh watermelon. Shinsuke! You said you were listening!”

He was dejected to sitting outside, pulling at the random grass as he looked over his rice field. He turns when he hears footsteps, you were pouting while looking down at him. If there was anything that he was glad about with your mood swings, it was that your anger left as quickly as it came. He stands, a hand supporting your back to lead you back to the house.

“Why don’t we go to the store together? I’ll buy you everything you want.”

Oikawa Tooru

It was no secret that the two of you were angry with each other, the restaurant was awfully cheery compared to the silent treatment that you were giving Oikawa and the one that he was giving right back at you. So you two settled on just not talking to each other; but the more you stayed silent, the more Oikawa felt uneasy. Because now you were reaching an entirely new type of mad, one where you looked calm and collected but deep down in your eyes, he was screwed.

“I’m sorry.” He finally spits out in the middle of the meal.

“For what?” You inquire, sipping the soup from your spoon slowly without looking at him.

He lowers his head, “I’m sorry I decided to go hang out with the guys instead of coming home to you, my lovely and adorable wife who I adore and love.” He tries sending you a sweet smile, hoping that his sugarcoated words would bring you back to smile for him.

“Not good enough.” Your words stab him in the back. You set the spoon down, opting to finally look at him before lifting your hand. You place a finger down, “I told you to come home early tonight so we could clean the house.” Another finger down, “You lied to me saying you had to practice longer.” Another finger, “You go over to Iwaizumi’s place because he just got the PS5 and you just had to play.” Another, “You forgot to take out the trash this morning which I told you to do before you left.” One more finger, “If you want to play with Iwaizumi so much then go sleep at his place.”

His heart is wounded, still, he tries to be sweet and caring, “You shouldn’t be so stressed honey, it won’t be good for the baby.”

Your glare causes him to retract in his seat, “Oh! So when it’s convenient for you, you’ll use the baby.”

“No that’s not what I meant.”

You begin to spew more words that dagger into his heart, he’s finally concluded that he can’t do anything to cease your anger at him and as he trudges behind you into the shared home, he can already feel the loneliness of the spare bedroom he’ll be sleeping in tonight. As he turns to head straight for the room, you groan.

“Where do you think you’re going?” You stand at the doorframe of the main bedroom. Your voice suddenly changes, “Sleep with me.”

[lieutenant-simp]

Felt You When I Needed It Most

F!Reader x Wanda Maximoff

Warning: Attempted bank robbery? I guess like also guns and knifes, mentions of blood. FLUFF AT END I PROMISE.

Summary: Whenever someone touches your soulmate you also feel it on your own skin.

Not my Gif

A/N: I still would like some requests please :) I am an absolute sucker for tropes and clichés. Soulmate AUs absolute *chefs kiss* Also this was not proofread.

Words: 1,547

Since you were young, you’ve never had the best track record with injuries and pain. It was awful at first, but as the years went on you had to get used to it. The pleasant experiences all your friends had with their soulmate touch never seemed to match your own. They got the feeling of warm hugs, and you got punches to the face.

To counteract your soulmate, you made it a mission to provide comfort. Clearly, they weren’t getting any. You’d be extra affectionate to your friends, always giving hugs goodbye, and platonic cuddles. It was what you were known for. You liked to think that your soulmate would enjoy it.

Unbeknownst to you, it did. Wanda, your soulmate, would relish the feelings of love. Love she didn’t get. Her guilt would eat away at her every time she would get hurt. When she was tortured by HYDRA, she would cry, not for her, but for you. She, of course, felt horrible when she went on missions for the Avengers, the pain being much less frequent but just as awful.

Your hugs, providing the warmth she never allowed herself to have with anyone. At night she would sometimes feel the warmth of someone next to her, and it was one of the few nights she slept well. Knowing you were safe and loved. She loved you, the constant feeling of warmness and love showing you were there with her. She has always been yours, maybe that's why she never let anyone get close, never go on dates when she had left HYDRA. She certainly had people wishing they were her soulmate, but her heart belonged to you.

-

Your job is much less exciting than Wanda's. Being a bank teller had its perks, you met lots of people every day. Silently praying that one of them was your soulmate. As well as the pay, being the bank that worked for Stark was pretty good. Free coffee at the coffee shop inside while you were working was phenomenal. You never met any of the avengers but you would see them occasionally come in.

-

When Wanda had first come to work for the Avengers, she was new, to well, everything. She hadn’t had a bank when she first joined, and Tony being Tony recommended his own that he used. It was a nice bank, she never had to go in, as Tony’s numerous assistants took care of all the work for her.

However as a gift, Tony had given everyone checks and Wanda went to deposit hers. She would probably donate hers to a local orphanage as she always did with her bonuses. Tony had offered to get someone to do it for her, but Wanda wanted to get out of the compound, especially when she heard about the amazing coffee that was there. She had lunch later with Nat and Bruce. As it was fairly early in the day when she decided to leave, she wanted to get all her errands done beforehand.

Walking into what she thought was one of the safest banks was quite alarming when she saw what was going on.

-

Being at work at 7 in the morning was the one thing you hated about this job. It was always slow in the mornings as well, waiting for people to help was bringing your attention to your fatigue. Although wanting people to come in was even less appealing. But when seven or so men came in, you were eager to help them all.

You smiled and said hello before they quickly showed you their guns. You didn’t even get the chance to press the panic button as one pointed a gun at you. You looked towards where security normally was a curse to yourself as they had been busy, they sat against a wall with guns pointing at them.

You heard the door open, and you look briefly at who came in, but the man pointing the gun at you thought you were trying to run. He grabbed your arm roughly and grabbed his knife. He pulled you towards you and held the knife against your neck stopping you from moving altogether.

He dragged it against your face slowly, scratching into your skin, enough for you to bleed. You cry out in pain.

-

Wanda steps in and sees people attempting to rob from the bank. They quickly noticed what was happening. She grabs her face feeling pain, your pain, which was extremely unlike her soulmate to get hurt. She looks at you and sees the blood trickling out of your cheek. She watches you get slapped and the knife digging into your skin, and she feels it too. She wanted to find you, but not like this. Not when she desperately wanted you safe, to see only the joy in the world which she never got to see much of.

“I suggest you stop now before you get into more trouble than you need to,” She shouts. The men point their guns at her quickly. But her eyes stay on you, she sees the fear in your eyes, the tears threatening to pool, she heard your cry. Wanda focuses her eyes back on the men, her eyes start turning red as she focuses on her powers. Willing the men to drop their weapons and kneel and inhibiting them to move. She didn’t try to control the man that had you, she was too scared that the sudden jerkiness from their fighting would hurt you.

“If you let her go now, you’d make your life so much easier” He merely laughs in her face, before pulling you closer to him the gun pressing roughly to your temple. You look at Wanda, the way her head moves slightly, the same side yours does, as if she could feel it.

Wanda already had alerted the rest of the team as soon as she saw what was happening, so she knows you’ll be okay soon, but she had just found you and she can’t help but worry.

You do get put into a worse situation, the man, that was holding you, decided to try and use you as a bargaining chip. Deciding if he hurt you enough Wanda would let him leave. He started constricting your oxygen take, slowly at first, but now it was getting hard to breathe and see. Wanda wasn’t doing much better than you but the man holding you didn’t have to know that. Slowly you slump against the man, he was startled that you were now unconscious and let you go suddenly, Wanda took this as an opportunity to restrain him as well.

The other avengers had just gotten there when you had fallen. Wanda rushed over to you and put her hand on your chest. She relaxed slightly when she saw you were still breathing.

-

You woke up to bright lights as you opened your eyes slightly. It didn’t look like the normal hospitals that were around you. Your breathing picks up slightly as you remember what happened. You remember men coming in and hurting you but you don’t remember much after.

Wanda looking up and seeing you were awake she makes her way over to you.

“Hey” You turn to look at her, you recognize her from somewhere but you can’t remember where. But holy shit is she beautiful. “Who are you?”

Wanda laughs, “We met at the bank and well, I think I’m your soulmate” She walks closer to you and grabs your hand, and you feel it. You stare dumbfounded at your interlocking hands. “I’m - I’m sorry if this isn’t what you want- This might be too soon I just I don’t know, I was so scared I had just found you and I-“

“No- no, this is exactly what I wanted. I’ve been dreaming of when I’d meet you since I knew what soulmates were. You’re so breathtaking. I-I just I don’t know, uh I don’t know what to do” You look up at her and laugh, “I’m Y/N by the way”

“Wanda, I don’t know really, um I don’t really know how to do this relationship stuff” You squeeze her hand slightly

“Me either, I guess we can figure it out together” You lean up slightly, inviting her to lean closer as well. When she gets close enough you kiss her. Slowly, taking your time, relishing the feeling. Everyone always said that kissing your soulmate was indescribable. The best feeling, something that you crave, they say you love your soulmate the moment your lips first meet.

“I, We should, we should get to know each other first before we say I love you” You stare at her dumbfounded. “You’re at the Avengers compound by the way” You look around and again notice where you are. You look back at Wanda, as if finally recognizing her.

“You’re the, you're the, you’re an Avenger” She laughs at you, “I see you on TV all the time, OH my that’s why you’re hurt all the time” She smiles sheepishly

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that” You squeeze her hand that’s still interlocked with your own.

“I’ll forgive you if you give me another kiss” You grin at her before she laughs and leans forward again.

[solarwonux]

41.  “Dance with me.”

59.  “I’m still sore from last night.”

ceo!yoongi x reader

w.c: 1.6k

warnings: a little suggestive if you like squint, sweet teeth numbing fluff

note: please please let me know your thoughts, it helps me out a lot. Also send in a drabble request hehehe.

masterlist || drabble game

Yoongi loved mornings. 

Yoongi loved mornings more, now that the two of you had finally moved in together after years of dancing around the subject. He loved waking up next to you, with your face buried into the side of his body and your tiny snores escaping your dry chapped lips, echoing against the eggshell walls of the room. He loved the way the thin rays of the morning sun peek through the slits of the blackout curtains. The light dancing against your body, illuminating all his favorite features. Which was all of you. He loved the way you would stir, and he would race against time to shut his eyes before you could catch him starring at you. 

You always did. 

You will never let him know that you knew he always woke up first to love you silently without you or anyone in the world there to interrupt him. It was his most valuable and cherished secret, the only one he kept from you. So, you vowed to take the fact that you knew about it to the grave. 

Today though, you had beat him at his own game. You had woken up first, silently watching as his breath was calm and concentrated. The minuscule stress lines that had appeared throughout his face over the years of overwork, nowhere to be seen. He looked peaceful, younger; like he didn’t carry the entire weight of the world on his shoulders. 

Despite cherishing his sleep more than anything in the world, you understood now, why he always woke up first. He looked so beautiful, so raw, so intimate, so vulnerable, like a work of art. And you could hope that he felt the same way.

You found yourself never wanting to take your eyes away from his sleeping form, afraid you would miscount the intervals between his inhales and his exhales. Afraid you would miss the way his lips parted in inaudible snores or the way he would pout whenever he moved. Yet, the clock on his bedside table thought otherwise. 

8:30am

Last night, you had made a promise to yourself before falling asleep, that you would wake up early to make him breakfast. It was his day off, the office didn’t need their big bad CEO that never once seemed to crack a smile, even if he was impressed or excited. You never understood why he kept such a fake front for his employees when they knew that he was the biggest softy on the planet, especially when it came to his loved ones. He would turn heaven and hell over  if it meant he could protect everyone he loved. He would even sacrifice himself to ensure that nothing ever happened to his friends, family, and you. But you supposed that his fleeting image was all part of his job, so you let him be. 

You took one last look at your sleeping boyfriend, biting your lower lip, contemplating on whether you should just stay in bed until he woke up. Or get up to prepare him a whole breakfast feast just like he deserved. You almost picked the first option until your stomach grumbled lowly, indicating that the second option was the better option, unfortunately. So, you got up silently, and carefully, afraid that any wrong move would wake him up and ruin your surprise.

The air in your lungs got caught in the back of your throat as you saw him stir slightly. Sleepy incoherent mumbles fell out of his lips. You froze in fear, your robe midway on, watching as he tugged the sheets up to his chin and sunk further into the bed. When you realized he wasn’t getting up anytime soon you finished putting on your robe and quickly made your way into the kitchen. 

“You know it’s my day off right?” Yoongi mumbled as he walked into the kitchen, sweatpants low on his hips, his messy hair sticking up in all different directions. A slight blush appeared on your cheeks when you remembered how your fingers had been tangled up in it, as you screamed out his name like a mantra, while he made love to you until the late morning hours. 

“And you don’t have to be at work for another three hours.” He wrapped his arms around your waist and gave your temple a sweet kiss, “good morning honey, how’d you sleep?” He rested his head against your shoulder, clinging onto you like he was afraid you would vanish.

“I slept like a baby.” You smiled cutting the last stem of the strawberry you had diligently been working on before he walked in. “Morning to you too sleepy head.” You turned your face, leaving a delicate kiss against his bed head. Yoongi smiled, he loved waking up next to you, admiring you silently as you slept. But he also loved being wrapped up in your warmth as you went around doing your daily morning routine. You always complained about how he never let you get things done. That the extra weight clinging onto you like a koala was only slowing you down. He knew you secretly loved it and would not be able to go about your day peacefully if he just stopped. 

In fact, he had tested it out once after the two of you had gotten into a petty fight. You had called him that day at lunch time in tears, claiming that everything had gone wrong because he had ignored you all morning. Truth be told he had felt the same way. That was the day he truly realized that he could never live without you.

“I was hoping you would wake up after I finished making breakfast.” You pouted putting your knife down and gathering all the strawberries you had tentatively cut up putting them into a bowl. 

“And I was hoping we could spend the entire morning in bed, but we can’t always get what we want in life can we?” He mumbled against your clothed shoulder. His fingers cheekily playing with the knot of your robe.

You turned in his arms, “all morning? Doing what?” Your arms made their way around his neck pulling him closer. 

Yoongi smirked, his fingers itching to untie your robe praying you weren’t wearing anything underneath. “I have a few ideas, some good, some bad. But I mostly just wanted to keep sleeping with you in my arms.” He shrugged, running his tongue along his bottom lip, wetting it before closing the distance and planting a soft, intimate kiss against your lips. 

It was savory, enough to keep you on your toes, wanting for more when he pulled away. “Good because I’m still sore from last night.” You said pointedly. Yoongi threw his head back laughing, his chest swelling up with pride as he remembered how you didn’t want to stop after three rounds. Even begging him, getting down on your knees for him in the shower. The two of you still hadn’t christened your newly shared apartment but he was positive that last night would’ve been the night if you hadn’t fallen asleep. 

“That’s on you my little minx, you didn’t want to stop, I just fulfilled your desires.” He winked, kissing your cheek and moved aside, an arm still around your waist as he reached over for the Bluetooth speaker he kept in the kitchen. 

“Hey!” You scoffed, hitting his chest lightly, “this isn’t completely on me, you came home and didn’t even let me greet you properly before you were carrying me off to our room.” 

“Honestly babe, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He smirked as he scrolled through his phone. His eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he looked through his music selection. 

“We’re going to have to work on that memory of yours. It's starting to worry me.” You said in fake concern and circled your arms around his waist pulling him close, “I can help.” You whispered before planting a small kiss on the blooming flowers you had left on his chest last night. You could never get enough of him. 

“Mhm, I’ll take you up on your offer later.” He set his phone down on the kitchen counter, the soft melody of an unfamiliar song sounding through his Bluetooth speaker. “Right now, dance with me?” He tilted his head to the side. He didn’t give you enough time to answer when he was already leading you to the middle of the kitchen, his arms finding their perspective place around your waist as he started swaying the two of you in place. 

You wrapped your arms around his neck, giving his nose a tiny peck, earning a boyish smile from Yoongi. “What is this?” 

“A song Namjoon and I are working on...for our wedding.” The afterthought falling out his lips before he had time to stop it. It wasn’t until he felt your body go rigid in his arms that he realized what he had said. “Um, forget I said that.” 

“We just moved in together and you’re already planning our wedding playlist, I didn’t think you would be the type. What’s next you’re going to show me the Pinterest board you created?” You joked ignoring the way your heart was racing, hoping he couldn’t feel it through the thinness of your silk robe. 

He groaned, annoyed. So what? Maybe he did have a Pinterest board with ideas for your wedding. He had been adding pictures to it since he met you five years ago at Junkook’s grand opening for his art gallery. The second he spotted you laughing along with his best friend, hard enough for champagne to come out of your nose. The ice around his heart melted and he knew he would be spending the rest of his life with you. He’s been writing songs about it ever since.

“Maybe another time, we have enough time for that, right now we have two hours before you have to go to work and I plan on milking every second of it.”

[lovenona]

lotus eater

synopsis; heaven always tasted bitter against the roof of your mouth. or – part eight of the odyssey, a pirate! jujutsu kaisen cinematic universe

contains; a rather depressing reunion, depictions of blood + violence + death, reader has many injuries, flashbacks and contemplations of Life, many mentions of alcohol, there is a slimy gross drunk man that briefly bullies reader, the weather sucks, bad vibes as per the usual, can we get everyone a therapist i'm begging 

word count; 15.0k

it was a cold summer that year. the winter chill never left, not really, and so the frost stayed into springtime, and the sugar never grew the way it was supposed to, and everything was wet with rain.

in town, merchants’ carts and housewives’ carriages sank like stones in the muddy streets while shopkeepers failed to keep the mess away. no one could escape the summer cesspool. the wet sand and the mud took up residence on everyone’s floors, in everyone’s boots, on everyone’s clothes. at the pubs, the ground blanketed in a layer of dirt, the air thick with the smell of stagnant water, sailors mourned the sorry state of their shirtsleeves over pints of beer and ale.

no one knew where to wander that year. the merchants worried they’d lose their fortune without any crops to sell and the sailors thought they’d never find another job. it was slow going, that tension between coming and leaving, building and decaying. the shopkeepers salvaged what they could and prayed for the rest. maybe next year, the hopeful said. until then, we can live off of last year’s grain.

the printing master lived in perpetual fear that his paper would mold. there could be no escaping it during a summer like that, when the freezing rain dripped in through the ceiling and summer warmth never came to dry it. that summer you spent every morning and every night checking and rechecking the supply. you opened boxes and rubbed the blank pages beneath your ink-stained fingertips to ensure they were still decent. the household was obsessed with it, with the sanctity of the paper and the press, the insurmountable quest to keep the mud off the floor.

he never seemed bothered by it, though. whenever you saw toji on the street he seemed as sullen as ever, his only good sweater sporting a hole in the sleeve, his boots so dirty you never could remember what color they were supposed to be. when the mist drifted in off the tide in the early afternoon he never cursed and went indoors. he just kept moving, from odd job to odd job, cleaning horse shit like the weather never mattered. perhaps it was because he didn’t notice it. perhaps it was because he was only ever cared about the moment he’d leave.

but that was life, then, at the edge of the world. you lingered beside the press and brought the finished products to the harbor. on breezy summer nights you found a home in the raucous hum of the pub and convinced yourself you liked the taste of ale. you remember how toji always used to laugh at you when you scrunched your nose in distaste, his shoulder pressed against your shoulder, his body rumbling with delight.

on sunnier days you finished your work early to wander by the sea. with the last of your allowance you found the old woman near the harbor, her humble shop weathered by rain, her usual wares diminished by the unwelcome chill. her fruit was always too bitter. still, you bought it anyway, because she never minded gifting it all to you.

“you like to listen,” the woman croaked, mouth wide with her missing teeth, “and that, i think, is payment enough.”

she always told you a story in exchange for her food. sometimes it was her days as a girl, when the world was smaller and no one dared look too far beyond the horizon. sometimes it was about her first lover, who she swore fought the cursed gods of the sea before dysentery finally dragged him under. she had been here forever, the old woman always said, and she remembered when the universe did not always look like this port.

you would listen, you would thank her, and then you would all but stumble towards the beach. toji was already waiting for you, seated lazily on the sand, his eyes half-closed as if in slumber. he never cared if the sand was still muddy or if the water was too cold. whenever you were with him, you didn’t either: like toji, you cared only if the sun was out, if the summer breeze was blowing, if you could really pretend you were anywhere else.

“sorry i’m late,” you said, breathless, waving the basket in your hand as you threw yourself down beside him. “she kept talking to me about the time a boar tried to eat her father.”

toji rolled his eyes, but he shifted closer until your shoulders kissed when he snatched the basket from your hand. “i don’t know why you keep amusing her. her fruit tastes like shit.” from within the basket he summoned what you thought might have been an apple, once, before it adopted a strange and unusual color and a distinctly uncomfortable smell.

“and yet you keep eating it.” you took his apple and a dull kitchen knife from the basket and mindlessly sliced the sad fruit into pieces. when toji eyed them, you offered, and with the same greedy impatience of the dogs behind the butcher toji tossed a few slices in his mouth.

“i’m not going to say no,” toji retorted. “just know that it’s fucking bad.”

you laughed then, playfully, resting your head on his shoulder while you ate. the sun flickered brightly against the sea, but you felt none of its warmth. when toji dipped his feet into the water, you did too, and you did not wince when the ocean froze your ankles. it was silent between you save for the sad apples and the current and the wind. you liked the summer when it was like this, when you could pretend it was beautiful. you liked when it was you and him against the world on your back.

(buccaneers, was it? a future fit for kings? a fortune built on loneliness, on strength, on needing? oh, yes, that’s right: they would write stories of him, the beast of the high seas, stories composed for you like rare and delicate gifts. and you, ever the clown, could bring yourself to believe that there was pleasure in existence, that with the caress of calloused fingers on your skin, you could be reborn, over and over again.)

“oh, look,” you broke the silence gently. “there’s boats today.”

out on the horizon, nestled like ducklings in the waves, lived a family of small sailboats, their white sails hopeful and proud against the mid-afternoon sky. they circled each other slowly, children at play, timeless and cool and unburdened. at such a great distance you could not see the sailors directing them, and so the boats themselves took on a godlike quality, as if they themselves were their own deities on the water.

you studied them quietly, your eyes wide, eager to memorize the course of their movements. the fruitbasket sat forgotten on the sand, and you would have forgotten toji had you not been so enamored by the sheer feeling of his body beside yours, of the steadiness of his breathing, of the warmth of his heart.

“well, would you look at that,” toji mumbled diligently in reply, but he was never so delighted as you. still, his gaze followed the sails, studied the way the light reflected off them, a light which gave them the impression of being carefully manmade clouds. he bit into another apple and licked his lips to savor the taste.

“what do you think they’re doing?” you never tore your eyes away. you tried to picture it for yourself, like always, but you liked it better when toji found the words. you always wanted him to tell you, because life sounded better on the lips of someone else.

he shrugged, rolling the half-eaten apple between his fingers. “fishing, probably. they’re small. boats like that can’t go much further or they’ll get pulled out by the current and never come home.”

you let him wrap his arm loosely around your shoulder and rest his cheek against your head. he smelled like toji, like lightning and firelight, like facing danger without worry. you pretended it did not hurt you a little when he held you like this. you pretended you were not memorizing the very weight of his head for the day when you would not feel it.

“i’d like that,” you said as the brisk summer wind ripped a hole in the tide. a seagull dove elegantly across the water and cried as it flew away. the seaweed gathered dispassionately at your ankles, but you lacked the resolve to push it back. instead it stayed, slimy chains and slimy weights, kissing your toes with the same insistence that it kissed his.

toji hummed. “what, fishing or being stranded forever at sea?”

you huffed indignantly into his shoulder, but you held him closer all the same. out on the water, amidst the blue sky and the hearty gale, the sailboats quietly circled each other again. it was as if they wanted to tell you something important but simply never knew how. it was as if they were writing a letter that no longer needed you to know the language.

“you know what i mean,” you said, your cheek pressed against the rough knit of toji’s sweater. you know we’d never want to stay at a place that’s not home.

he sighed, that bitter sigh you and he knew all too well, the one that said more than he ever could with words. it was the sigh that followed you both into the evening and napped beneath the table at the pub. it was the sigh that could only be angry, could never be still. it was the sound that broke beneath the weight of the world but always begged for more.

a few heavy clouds began to gather on the horizon. the boats would come back to the harbor soon, swiftly, before it began to rain.

“yeah,” toji conceded, “i know.”

but now the rain falls eagerly, thick and unrelenting. it does not hesitate to soak through your clothes and cling to your skin. it falls into your eyes, and even when you try to brush the raindrops away, the wind blows them back to you. the waves sob against the coastline; behind you, the trees bend obediently in the gale. you wonder if their branches will snap. you hope you do not stick around long enough to find out.

your tongue catches between your teeth. you stare across the empty space to the place where he stands, unencumbered and cool as always. he does not seem to mind that the rain has soaked him to the bone. he looks only at you, his once-emerald eyes tainted onyx by nightfall. he looks at you expectantly and still you do not know what to say. what can you? your hands twitch helplessly at your side and you let yourself fall prey to the vision.

“hello?” toji tilts his head, casually waving an arm to catch your attention. “you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

the statement shoves you back to your senses. you frown, heart flailing, and try to remap the scar on his lip and the playful nature of his eyes. you’ve never seen this shirt of his. when did he get a sword? has he somehow gotten taller, or are you merely shrinking? has he ever looked at you like that before?

“i–” you pause, the statement caught in your throat. should you cry? throw your arms around him and beg to be forgiven for a sin you didn’t commit? what is the guidebook for meeting an ex-lover after murder? whatever you thought you might say, it dies as you ramble, “what – what are you doing? how did you get here?”

toji shrugs with the same fluid, composed, infuriating ease. “the same way you did, i presume. by water.” his lips curl into a halfhearted smirk when he nods his head towards the howling, untamable sea. it might have been humorous, once, but it chills you now in ways you cannot name. he meets your gaze again, and your lungs deflate beneath the pressure. did you always remember him this way?

toji steps forward. you drink it in, all of it, the familiar gait and the wet hair plastered to his forehead, the muddy boots and the unfamiliar sword tucked safely into his belt. he is so painfully similar and yet he is not the same at all. your head buzzes and your rational mind threatens to burst. you do not know what to do with him, with this, so you watch lamely as he approaches, your feet rooted firmly to the sand, boots sinking slowly with the rain.

“you’re bleeding,” toji observes suddenly. you note the new crease in his brow when he says it. you look down to find thatindeed, toji, i am, thank you for noticing, the wound on your abdomen dripping precariously down onto the stones and the weeds. you don’t have to investigate much further to know that it is everywhere, that even with the rain soaking you through you will never be able to hide the stains of your victory and your failure.

to match toji’s uneasy cool you shrug nonchalantly, but the action awakens some new and unwelcome pain in your arm. “oh. yeah. i, uh,” you lose your thoughts and struggle to find them. your forehead begins to ache. “i got into some trouble.”

toji’s expression contorts with concern. his gaze flickers between your tired eyes and your bloody fingers as he assesses the wounds he cannot see. he reaches out worriedly, flexes his fingers and opens his mouth as if to say something useful, but he pauses on that precipice, words empty, actions dead; in another moment, with great perturbation, he retreats back into his shell. instead, without meeting your eyes, he says, “come on. let’s get out of the rain.”

you, bleeding, unsure of what else to do, nod warily and follow. your feet slide against the wet stones, and it takes every bit of your determination not to fall over again. ahead of you, toji calmly leads the way down the beach. he doesn’t complain when his boots sink into the muddy sand or when the rain drips down his matted hair and nestles under the collar of his shirt. you watch the way his muscles flex and the way his back moves, the way his sword sways ever so elegantly at his belt.

(did he always walk like that? so lost in your fantasies, you could never quite remember. there are many things about fushiguro toji you find you did not know.)

the wind hurls frigid cold into your ears and threatens to blow you away. shivering, you wrap your arms around yourself to staunch the bleeding and give yourself the semblance of warmth. with commendable focus you trace toji’s nonexistent shadow as you wander through the sand. your teeth chatter violently, and you wonder pathetically whether it’s actually going to be the shitty weather that finally ends you.

as if he could read your thoughts, toji calls, “it’s not that far from here, promise. it’s outside the barrier, so we shouldn’t be able to hear the ghosts.”

you cannot quite identify the strange feeling that grows in your ribcage. it twists, much like a fog or a poison, and threatens to purge whatever you had eaten for dinner a thousand years ago in the dark. you know it is going to consume you, but there is nothing you can do about it. you say nothing, your tongue trapped, your bones aching, and continue to walk in his footsteps.

(toji, you would say, perhaps, if you had the words for it, if you didn’t have the fear, how do you–)

“here we are,” toji announces too proudly. “i told you it wasn’t far away.” he gestures to his left, towards what looks to be a giant boulder nonchalantly nestled beneath a few dying trees, comfortably far from the broiling surf. time or determination or both once hollowed out the inside, and it exists now as a sort of makeshift cave, a little house just large enough to shelter you both from the rain.

“there should be some dry wood in here,” toji reassures, more to himself than to any other, crouching down and crawling into his sad excuse for a haven. you watch him haphazardly search for said wood before he organizes it into an even sadder little pile. the rain falls in painful sheets on your back, but still you pause as he kneels over the wood, as he digs for old matches in his pockets.  

how long ago did you store that in here? you want to ask, but you don’t know if you would ever get a real answer.

“are you coming in, or are you planning on standing out there?” toji glances up briefly, expectant, waiting. you nearly shudder beneath his gaze. too quickly for comfort, you obediently crawl into the cave and sit back against the cool stone walls, all too aware of the way toji blatantly shuffles away when you try to sit beside him. you close your eyes, your breathing uneven. outside, the wind cries furiously. inside, toji’s wet hands try to light the fire.

(but he was always like that, you know: always so impatient when he wanted you to listen.)

“hey,” toji said, a little too abrasive to be flirtatious, “are you going to open this, or should i just let myself get eaten?”

you never moved so fast in your life. the printing master had gone to bed early, sure, but when toji wanted something, he was loud. you prayed furiously that his aggressive knocking hadn’t woken up the entire household and raced out of bed to pull open the window. the evening breeze slunk in like an array of seductive tendrils and there toji stood, a canvas bag thrown over his shoulder, his emerald eyes much too lit up with mirth.

“what the fuck?” you hissed, but still you took the bag and helped guide toji through your bedroom window with dreadfully gentle hands. “do you want me to get fired?”

“you worry too much,” toji fluidly brushed away your hatred. “i’m sure you saw those fucks down a whole bottle of shitty whisky before they finally passed out in bed.” he stood up, brushed the wrinkles from his shirt, and grinned at you with that crooked smile that he knew would always win. you hated when he smiled like that, all playful and amused, because it lit you up like a firework and turned you into a fool.

like now, for instance, as you stood awkwardly with a man much too large to fit properly into your room.

you sighed as a last-ditch effort to regain your composure. “fine. but at least take your shoes off. i spent hours trying to get all the mud out of here.”

“yeah, yeah,” toji rolled his eyes but listened all the same. he flung his muddy boots into the corner with infuriating nonchalance and made a home for himself on your floor, resting his back against your bed and spreading his limbs as if hewere not the unexpected visitor. you watched him with his eyes closed, the scar on his lip and the midnight shine in his hair, and committed him all to memory.

“i’ve got to get out of here. imagine staying in a place where the most exciting thing to happen to anyone is that the floor is fucking clean. how do people live like this?” he cracked open an eye to watch you, still standing by the window, still holding the bag in your hand, curious as to why you hadn’t yet joined him.

(we didn’t, you know. we pretended.)

you melted beneath that look of his, but instead you quipped: “there’ll be dirt on everyone’s funeral clothes after we all die of boredom.”

he smiled. that undid you. toji gestured seductively to the ground beside him as he said, “i’ll have failed if i don’t get buried somewhere better than this shithole.”

“me too.” you fell neatly into his side, his arm wrapped around your shoulder, your thigh against his thigh, as if you were never quite whole until you were together. “the view here is terrible.”

“this view?” toji leaned in, lips ghosting against your cheekbone, his free hand dancing dangerously along the hem of your nightshirt. “really? terrible?”

“toji,” you warned, but you let him do it anyway, run his lips from your cheek until they reached the corner of your mouth, let him turn your face towards his until he could capture you properly in a kiss. you always let him. there was no way you could stop. you could never do anything when his tongue was electric, when it built you and broke you, when brought you to the edge of heaven and back again.

you only pulled away when you couldn’t hold your breath anymore, and even then, toji’s mouth followed you relentlessly, pressing a sloppy kiss against your jawline until he could finally pretend he’d had enough.

you breathed in ragged turns, your heartbeat loud in your ears, your lips parted with a look of eternal surprise. you were still staring at toji’s scar when he reached over to take his bag from you, his hair mussed, his expression ecstatic. you were still thinking about the flavor of his tongue when he pulled out the bottle of rum, the label smudged from his haste. you knew better than to ask how he got it. toji was always borrowing things like that, always letting his hands wander until something precious went missing.

(outside, the summer wind swirled on, and from somewhere off in the distance echoed the sorrowful lamentations of a boar. you hoped everyone in the world was sleeping. you thought it would make toji’s actions more romantic that way.)

you studied the bottle with an air of distaste, but you couldn’t help the blissful, helpless smile on your face when you said, “and just where did you get this one?”

“i was unloading cargo this morning, thank you,” toji retorted, his fingers dexterously removing the cork without trouble. “consider this my salary.” since they’d never pay me anyway.

“how considerate of you,” you said, but your compliment carried no weight as you watched toji tilt his head back to drink, his face tinted blue by the moonlight filtering into the room. there were still remnants of the sea and the harbor on his shirt, and his body was warm, and his hair was beautiful. you didn’t realize that you hadn’t blinked once until toji waved the bottle before your eyes and invited you to have a taste.

the bottle tasted like toji and like rum, like the shitty alcohol from the storage deck on a nameless ship and the tumultuous thunder on toji’s lips. it burned when you swallowed; you closed your eyes when they watered. all the while you felt toji’s gaze on you, far too perceptive and far too sweet, trying to read your mind without asking.

(you always pretended you didn’t notice when toji memorized you that way. it would feel better later, you told yourself, if you could convince yourself that he had never paid attention at all.)

“fuck, that’s strong,” you said instead of i wish you’d look at me forever.

but i was looking, you know. toji chuckled and brushed his thumb gently across the excess at the corner of your mouth. “exactly.”

you fell into an easy silence after that, distant echoes emanating from the breeze outside, from the boar in the woods, from the slosh of the bottle as you solemnly passed it back and forth. it did not take you long to grow dizzy and eager from the taste of toji and fermented sugar. your mind was slick and smooth, your limbs like water, your heart like air. you fell further and further into toji until he was lifting the bottle to your lips himself, until he was tossing it away to kiss you. you could never be sure where he ended and where you began, just like you could never be sure where time started and where it stopped.

“and how’s that old fuck of a printing master?” toji was saying, his eyes bright with an artificial confidence. you felt his breath on your neck and could not remember the rest of the conversation.

“first of all, he’s sleeping in the other room,” you reminded him, “and second of all, he’s fine. he just gambles too much.”

but toji was never convinced. you could feel it in the way his body tensed, in the way he controlled his breathing to keep himself together. he wasn’t looking at you, but somewhere at the wall behind you, absent of anything save one measly print of a boat you found in the trash bin and decided to keep.

“yeah? and has he let you do anything yet? write a story or something? teach you how to publish and trade?”

“well, no,” you admitted, “he hasn’t advanced me further, but the stories i read are still good.” so at least there’s that. you wouldn’t look toji in the eyes because you knew it was shameful. you knew your life was inescapable and disappointing and boring as sin. you knew that, you knew it, but in front of fushiguro toji you were always ashamed to make it true.

and as usual, toji would not relent. “stories? you mean the garbage he prints, all of that boring shit we already know? those stories?”

your downfall was in your hesitation. you never could rest easy without defending your case. “well, i mean, on sundays he prints that section about life overseas–”

toji scoffed diligently, razor-sharp. “by the time you actually hear about any of that, it already happened months ago. it’s hardly a story at all.”

the room was too stifling for you both when you replied, “i know. but at least i get to hear it.”

together you sat in an untamable quiet. it swept through the stale air in the room, through the walls with no pictures, into the yard outside. the world was so small, it could wander from one end of town to the other in just under a minute. the port was a fence that caged you, but you could not afford to pay for the exit. you did not know what hurt you more, then: that you could not make it happen or that some already-defeated part of you did not even wish to.

toji turned his head and pressed his lips to your jaw in a silent apology for whatever he might have said that you did not want to hear. you accepted it, as you always did, and let your eyes flutter shut at the feeling.

“for me, at least,” toji whispered huskily against your skin, “i don’t think i’ll ever be satisfied unless i can see all that shit for myself.”

you, against your better judgement, tilted your head to give toji better access. he took it gladly, pressing kiss after kiss at your jawline until he planted a generous garden at your pulse. you savored it, that immediacy, that feeling, terrified you would suddenly wake up from the most pleasurable dream.

“i know,” you agreed, your voice a little too breathless for your liking, “but i don’t know how to leave. my parents left me behind, so i can’t ask them, and i’ve got no salary, so i can’t just pay my way out like everyone else. the only way i’d be able to go is if–”

“if some kindly old pirate let you stow away on board their ship?” toji moved from his home at your neck to meet your eyes. he was smiling when he leaned in, all dangerous and composed, his fingers like hot coals at the edge of your shirt. “a possibility. but you don’t strike me as the type for that.”

indignant, you turned away. your face warmed, held in perpetuity over a burning fire, and you clenched your fists to dull the pain spreading through your chest. not the type, you scoffed. sure, what toji said was true, you told yourself, but still: could you not lie to yourselves, if only for an instant? you studied the cracks in the floorboards and pretended there was no one seated beside you.

“i know,” you hissed quietly under your breath, but the words carried no venom. “i know.”

you felt him lean in and press a kiss to the back of your neck, his chest warm against your body, his arms ensnaring you insistently in his touch. even with your displeasure you could not deny him. he pressed a chaste kiss to the sacred place beneath your ear, and you bit your tongue to stifle a sigh.

“that’s not what i meant,” toji said in lieu of i’m sorry. “only because i see you as the captain, not the person who follows behind.”

you turned back to face him in an instant. “you’re lying.” you could not find any humor in his statement.

toji’s fingers pressed lovingly into your hip as he grinned at your confusion. “never. i don’t care who it is, your goddamn sukuna or whoever-the-fuck, you’re too smart to be in their shadows. i’ll vouch for that forever it i have to.”

your face was much too hot, and the butterflies in your belly were much to potent for your liking. you could not help but bashfully look away, turn your gaze to study some empty space over toji’s ear, and pretend that his words weren’t the closest thing to heaven you’d ever come. you could still feel those confident eyes on your face, on your lips, and you wondered what you would do with yourself the day he finally looked away.

were you supposed to say that? was i supposed to believe you?

“i’m not sure about that one,” you said, finally, “but i appreciate your faith in my nonexistent abilities.”

toji’s hand encased yours, warm and calloused and inviting, as he guided it across the space between you to his hips, to his thigh, to the annoyingly pleasurable landscape between his legs. he was grinning with the expression he knew would always win against you. you were silently collapsing into ashes and stars.

“hey,” he said, his lips close enough to brush against yours when he spoke, his hand guiding you further, further, “you’ve always had big dreams, haven’t you?”

“toji!” but you could not help it: you followed him into the fire.

it doesn’t take toji very long to light his matches. you watch his calloused hands coax smoke and flame with an enviously casual ease. the fire blankets you both in its orange glow, strange against the indigo night, and crackles to life with a fistful of warmth. despite your desire to lie down and perish, you hunch greedily over it, holding your hands above the flames in the hopes it will cure you that way.

you are much too aware of toji’s body on the other side of the cave. once he deems the fire sufficient he flattens himself against the wall and splays his limbs out to dry. he is careful not to touch you. you do not know why he runs away with such determination. you do not even know if you should look at him anymore, and so you study the flames and wipe the blood from your rain-soaked fingers.  

(were you always so far? is it the other?)

“it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” you jerk and nearly smash your head against the cave’s roof when toji’s unfamiliar voice breaks the silence. you look up at him. his expression is unreadable, his face cloaked in shadow, but his question carries with it a sort of painfully tender ache.

awhile, he says, but a lifetime. because you and i are no longer the same; because you and i could have never seen it coming. does he count the days in sunsets or in the movement of the tides? how long have you mourned for a fruit that could not sustain you?

you look back towards the campfire. “four or five years at least, but it was hard to tell without a calendar.”

silence drowns you both again. you pretend to examine the dried blood under your fingernails and will your clothes to dry before you gather the courage to steal another glance at toji. he is watching you with that bottomless complexity, the force of his mind hidden beneath his dark eyes. so much to tell him still, once upon a time; but now, here, sorrowful, everything you ever wanted to say burns like saltwater in your throat.

so, finally, as a half-assed effort to dispel the tension, you gesture to the pitiful island of tengen’s nest as you say, “i see you’ve been around since then.”

(everywhere, even, if i had to guess: but i was never there with you, and you liked it that way.)

toji shrugs. he gazes out towards the dark waves hurling themselves against the shore, to the wet sand and the unfavorable wind that calmly tears large branches from trees. it’s the sort of storm that won’t let up until morning, that would never dream of listening to prayers for relief. it is the sort of weather in which no self-respecting sailor would ever make a voyage. whenever they did, you would not find the wreckage or the bodies for days.

“i guess so,” toji answers, finally. “but i could say the same for you.” he raises an eyebrow at your dreary state, at your bloody clothes. you resist the urge to curl in on yourself and pretend that you do not exist. “never thought i’d catch you stumbling out of a place like tengen’s nest.”

you do not know if you like the way that name slips off his lips. something obscene constricts your insides and, despite your desire to scream it, to mourn it all with all your might, you hold your breath. you do not want to acknowledge it yet. you take toji’s lead and dance around the question when you say, unfeelingly, “i had a debt to pay.”

the fire casts a warm glow on the sand. it would have been beautiful, once, a lifetime ago, but now you are merely attempting to drown yourself in the hypnotic wood and embers when toji asks, “so? did you kill the guy?”

you freeze. you look up, frowning intensely, but toji’s expression is as plain as ever, eyes regarding you with nothing more than a passing curiosity. how, you want to ask, but you know better. when, you think, but you do not want to know. why, the world begs, but that is the worst of them all. instead, you give in, hold yourself over the fire, and respond, “no, but someone else did.”

toji nods. “i see.” he does not offer a second question. he is vacant of every story, every conversation, weathered away and eroded by mystery until only the bones remain. you miss the sound of his voice and yet you cannot bear to hear it. the rain pours; the storm rumbles on.

you cannot deny the ice that festers in your lungs. despite the fire’s tepid heat, you shiver, caught between the thing you wanted and the thing you know. despite the proximity you are so far away, fighting the tide against years of distance, against leagues of time. with your own shallow strength you cannot drag yourself and proteus out of this torrid shadow.

outside, the rain falls sideways, and you cannot see the horizon.

on the other side of the cave, toji clears his throat. “so how’d you finally get out?”

you shrug noncommittally beneath the weight of the question. through death and through sulfur. “just like you said. i had to wait for some kindly old pirate to take pity on me.” you try to smile, but it reeks of banal humor and sour pity. the joke falls short, like everything else. there is no use in hiding the flames on the backs of your eyelids.

“sukuna?” you do not miss the way toji’s eyes darken a thousand degrees, or the way his voice drops with gravity, or the way his body turns to stone. as much as he attempts to hide it, the displeasure breeds a palpable unease in the little room, not unlike the nights in which the hungry boars did not scream before they struck.

you bite your bleeding lip and taste the iron. the wicked night, it follows you, but you brush it aside with wounded fingers. “how’d you know?”

toji raises an eyebrow. you catch a harrowing glimpse of the story inside him, of the anger and the interest and the comfort, before he swallows them all up and renders himself devoid of incriminating feeling. he does not speak until he is empty again. you wonder where he learned this. you do not want to find out.

another lackluster shrug, but it prickles your spine. “lucky guess.” but you are not appeased by this and some older part of him must know it. you keep your eyes trained on his impossible face, staring into what you hope might be his soul, until toji adds, “well, you always said you liked him.”

you always said. but the cynical air with which toji speaks warns you not to push it further. you always said, but you do not know if he is ready to hear about the adventures, about the midnight dreams, about the promise you made that you hope will not crumble. you do not know if that unusually troubled expression wishes to hear about what it is like to live in his shadow. you are not sure if the new toji wants to hear you at all.

so you do not tell him, whether from fear or from compassion, you could not say. you hum some kind of reply that you do not know the meaning of. you wonder why you have not yet stopped shivering.

(and has he always been seated so far away? can toji hear you on the other side of the fire, can he recognize your eyes? what do you do with an insurmountable barrier: cry? scream? smoke it out? you were ready for murder but you were not ready to see him like this, not now, not ever. but still you stay; you would always stay. it is your weakness and your vice.)

“so, toji,” you begin again, your voice delicate, as if scared to brush a dandelion, “what about you? where have you been since you left?”

toji does not answer right away. he does not know quite what to say when he considers his recollections and carefully decides what to tell you. you watch him shuffle through his discarded memories and practice the echoes of different words on his lips. you watch him struggle against himself and give you nothing at all.

“i’ve been around,” toji responds eventually, elusively. his careless expression has not changed. “left home, did a couple of projects with some merchant ships, but they never paid me much money for it. after awhile i quit trying to play nice and got caught up with a few fucked-up pirates and now,” he gestures to the rain outside, “i’m here.”

so much to tell you, still. you try not to cry when you press, “and megumi? what about him? where does he fit into all of this?”

for the first time all evening, toji is surprised. raw shock overrides his expressionless face and molds him into the perfect model for discomfort, for panic, for fear. you do not miss the way his breathing hitches or his fists clench. you do not miss the caged and wild animal hiding behind those dark and tragic eyes.

“megumi...” toji echoes, his voice strained against invisible strings. there is a poem he writes, but he does not recite it. “oh, megumi. i met his mother on a whim when i went to shore once. couldn’t tell you the town. i wanted to stay, but the money ran out, so i left again.” he looks unusually distraught when he adds, “i still haven’t been able to make it back.”

(he was a blessing until he became my curse; until i lost it all because i couldn’t carry it with me, until the moon rose and the moment died.)

he studies the invisible sea, disturbed by his own admission. you observe him, tight-lipped, unsure whether you’ll make him cry or scream if you continue. so you, experienced, hold your tongue, the subsequent pain manifesting in your stomach, and wait for the silence to choke you. you know the questions but you cannot voice them. outside the barrier, the noise is too loud.

“and you?” toji changes the topic, throwing the interrogation back in your direction. “what have you been up to with your favorite overlord sukuna?” somehow, the question is not so kind when he says it. he pronounces sukuna’s name with dissension, with distrust, as if the mere word alone put a thorn in his side. he is not looking for what you did or what you know; he searches for something else, deeper, more profane, like a lover with a vengeance.

“oh, you know,” you echo, trying to shake the sensation of some unwelcome spider crawling up your spine. “we’ve just been around, seeing different ships and islands, taking treasure, the like.” the lie is poison. “i think i met a family member of yours along the way – a zenin? she looked just like you. why didn’t you ever mention them?”

(why did you return to them when you left? with a child? with her? why did you pretend it meant nothing to you?

bastard son of a faraway family? did you mean it when you said it?)

toji readjusts himself to sit in a more comfortable position. his eyes look unlit, murderous even, filled with a lifetime of childhood anecdotes he would burn at the stake if given the chance. “they never saw me as real family. i left when i was young, and i didn’t want anyone to know. fushiguro was just a flower that used to grow by the house, that’s all. i wanted my own name or nothing.”

“but you still left your only son with them?”

toji does not look at you when he replies, “his mother died, and with no money left there was nowhere else to bring him.”

you swallow your sharp tongue when you recognize the ancient pain in his eyes. indeed, terrified of the funeral, you fall back into the sound of the fire and the rain, the roar of the waves against the shore and the eager crackle of burning wood and embers. you dig your boots into the sand and breathe slowly in a feeble attempt to hinder the spread of your migraine. you close your eyes and lean back against the wall and will your bleeding to stop.

(the mother died: and he is alone now, so truly and utterly alone. no wonder the light finally died in those fiery green eyes.)

you had hoped, once, that you might meet under different circumstances, that you would simply float back together and share stories for a lifetime. you should have known there was someone else always waiting. you should have known that time would suffocate you both until you had nothing left to say to each other.

you should have known it all sooner. but you did not expect it, and it kills you the way the waves corrode the shore.

you attempt to shift your body to appease the irritable pain in your awkwardly bent legs and the growling ache in your back; but to do so awakens each and every wound you had gathered in battle, reminds you of all the places the blonde prince had dared to touch. against your will, you curse, wincing, holding a trembling hand against your torso. for a moment you see red: for a moment you wish you could see nothing.

on the other side of the fire, toji fixes burning green eyes onto your palm splayed across your bloody shirt. he wakes up briefly, ignoring the flames as he leans in closer to assess the damage in the subpar golden light. you watch those green eyes grow colder, angrier, as they put two and two together, as they realize what your injury might mean.

“fuck, hold on, that’s a lot worse than i thought. why the fuck didn’t you say anything? did you plan on just dying here?” but you can do nothing but look back at him, your lip quivering, your blood congealed with heartache and pain. even against your better judgement you are ready to open your arms to him the way you always used to. you see it, just barely, his hands fluttering weakly, palms desperate to touch.

you shiver when he asks, brutally, his sword sharpened against the world, “who did this to you?”

you could never remember for certain. despite the evening chill, it was still unbearably humid in the pub. nothing would stay dry, and so fingertips remained sticky with whisky and sweat, and a layer of musk hung tightly on everyone’s clothes, and the tables smelled like wet wood and dissatisfaction. with the failed crops and the unstable deals still prescient in the august summer, hope quickly fell through. unemployed sailors flocked to the pubs but they still could not find a reprieve against nature. so they sat, their destitution as bitter as their smiles, and waited for a moment to surrender.

the one-eyed pirate pretended not to notice. he clutched his beer enthusiastically, his body leaning over the table to be heard among the disheartened din. he was telling you about sukuna that night, about sukuna and the story he’d heard from someone else who swore he knew another captain that had met the god, but no one was entirely listening. it was difficult when every other table was grumbling, when everyone else knew they didn’t have enough money to pay for their women or their meal.

“but that’s what he said,” the one-eyed pirate nodded solemnly. “said he knew a captain who wasn’t afraid to strike a deal with sukuna. looked him right in the eye and nearly shot the king to death when he didn’t uphold his end of the bargain.”

beside you, toji wasn’t listening. his body was warm beside yours, his hand resting lazily on your thigh under the table, but his mind was elsewhere, perhaps out the door, perhaps on the horizon. you knew he only listened to the one-eyed pirate’s stories to appease you, but you liked the comfort of him anyway, the knowing looks you shared when drunk men embarrassed themselves, the kisses he pressed to the back of your neck when no one else paid attention.

“they didn’t shoot him,” the second pirate quipped. “they used a sword.”

“yeah, yeah,” the one-eyed pirate dismissed him. “no one cares about the details.”

you noticed toji’s cup, which often doubled as yours, was empty. in the hopes that maybe something else would revive him, you stood up, stating, “i’m headed back to the bar. anyone else want something?”

“another beer, if you can.” the one-eyed pirate held out his empty mug with a thankful grin. “i need to clear my throat before the next story. it’s hard work, you know.”

you rolled your eyes, and, taking the cup, turned to a quiet and disinterested toji. “any preferences?”

he shrugged, but you felt the sweetness when he added, “whatever’s cheapest.”

ungluing yourself from toji’s side, you weaved through the tightly-woven collection of mismatched tables, sagging chairs, and uncomfortably sweaty bodies to reach the bar on the back wall. the bar never carried options other than whatever came by on trading ships, but you liked to pretend it did, liked to pretend that you had a choice between shit beverage one and shit beverage four. you always asked even when you knew what the answer would be. you all pretended you could develop a taste for the poison, whatever it was.

the heat of the crowded room clung to your back and your cheekbones. it covered you in a layer of ash or film, the sort of discomfort you’d never be able to scrub away in the bathtub. you blinked it out of your eyes, tried to shake it from your skin, but that oppressive feeling could never really go away. it was the stillness of summer, the knowing that death bloomed even in the peak of the season.

and then, clutching the cups without looking quite where you were going, you ran into the man.

you knew him without actually knowing him. his name did not matter. it had always eluded you, like one of those casually unimportant things, but you had frequently seen him bumbling around with women and drinks at this end of the port. the rumors said that he was insatiably angry. the cold summer meant that he had not had a good job in a long, long time, and so he was very bitter, and very afraid.

“watch where the fuck you’re going,” he spat before he saw who he was speaking to. they were slurred words, unsteady, flavored with one too many pints of ale and self loathing. he tried to shove you before he recognized you, but his hand stayed steady on your shoulder, his grip tightening once he realized he’d found good prey.

“god, you–” he began, swaying on his feet, expression rancid, “it’s you–you fucking, useless shit, don’t do fucking shit around here and just, just–” he paused, too enraged to find the words– “take our drinks and our food without even working for them–” you tried to wrestle your way out from under his drunken grip, but to no avail– “just sit on his fucking dick all day, why don’t you, what’s his fucking name, fushi–”

the punch came before either of you were ready. toji’s fist emerged from somewhere behind your ear and then he was in front of you, pulling you out from beneath an unwanted hand, and glaring without mercy as the nameless sailor tried to staunch the blood leaking from his nose.

“pull that shit again and see what happens.” toji was rough, unbeatable, and there was no playful taunt in his voice that time. the bar was, to your chagrin, deathly silent. you felt one too many pairs of eyes on you, eager, finally, for the tension in the air to manifest. no one ever looked away when fushiguro toji came to fight.

the other sailor wiped the blood off his chin. he sized toji up, pure muscle and victory, as if he had never heard of the goliath you currently stood behind.

“yeah?” he spat. he looked over toji’s shoulder to you, with your forgotten mugs and your lumpy sweater. “like i said, why don’t you just go home and sit on his–”

he never finished the sentence. you watched, as if in a dream or a myth, as toji threw another punch, and another, each one more precise than the last, each one accompanied with the sickening crack of cartilage and bone. there was blood, but no one could be sure where it came from. there was a bitter grunt as the sailor caught toji under one eye and another groan as toji caused the sailor to lose his teeth. together they were ares unending, the culmination of the mud and the stillness, the remnants of troy blowing over the doorstep. you were not sure it would stop.

it took five sailors and the barman to pull toji and the other man off each other. both heaving heavily, a fresh layer of sweat stuck to toji’s shirt while the blood would not come off the sailor’s. there were murmurs and sighs but you could not hear them. whatever the one-eyed pirate was telling you became water in your ears. he pulled the cups gently from your hands, but you were not empty for long, because you were soon holding toji by his arm and leading him towards the door before you knew otherwise.

(you never found out what had happened to the other man. a few days later he sailed away on the first ship he found and never came home again.)

the others gossiped inside. outside the pub it was quiet save for the occasional burst of laughter or the artificial mewl emanating from the brothel nearby. a light summer breeze wandered down the street and disappeared behind the buildings, the sort of wind that felt like heaven on your sweaty skin until you overstayed your welcome. everything languished beneath that grey-evening glow. the sun had long died behind the ocean and the stars were still too nervous behind the clouds. across the street sat the harbor, all of the docks empty save for one, their lamplights burning in vain for a nonexistent visitor.

toji was sullen and silent. you did not know where to take him, so you went to the harbor. at that hour, there was no one left to protect the waves. the lamps, mere glorified torches with petite little flames, burned at regular intervals along the dock so that sailors would know where the land ended and the sea began. on such a still evening, the water was an endless black mirror, the lamps reflecting against its surface like a galaxy of lonely fires.

you sat toji down at the end of an empty dock. you hoped, blindly, that the sound of the tide might bring him back to you. you worried somewhat that he had not spoken since you gently escorted him from the pub. he stared down at the ocean, at the place where the shadow of his foot met the slippery reflection of the fires, and said nothing. shoulder to shoulder, you watched the tired waves sway in and out and back again. nothing stirred beneath them.

“you didn’t have to do that, you know. he was piss-drunk anyways.” your voice sounded strange in the quiet; too loud, almost, to be welcome near the sea.  

toji grunted. “of course i did.” he did not look up.

you wondered, momentarily, if you should push toji into the water. clenching your jaw, you continued, “contrary to popular belief, i can defend myself against drunk assholes–”

“i know that,” toji interrupted, which silenced you. you did not know this vigor in his voice, this urgency that overtook him, as if he were fighting for words on borrowed time. “that’s not the point. i don’t care. i’ll fight anyone who has the fucking balls to look at you wrong. nobody fucks with you while i’m here.”

(this is not the script, though. this was not the line you were supposed to say. say something else, anything else. make me hate you. i beg you, make me look away. but he couldn’t. he would never.)

“nobody?” you echoed, half-heartedly playful. you had to ignore his admission. you had to pretend that toji wasn’t deadly serious, like he would not have happily murdered that sailor for placing a sweaty hand on your shoulder and that he would never have lived to regret it. it was the truth that hurt more than the threat in his statement.

toji wouldn’t relent, and that scared you. “no one.”

you pressed in close against his shoulder, the way you always did when you thought you could change the subject. he did not look at you, but you traced his profile, the powerful curve of his nose, the silvery scar on his lip. this was not the script: but you would bring him back and make him recite it. “okay. let’s say, i don’t know, sukuna is real and he actually shows up and tries to kill me or something. what then? you’d really fight him?”

“of course.” the answer came to toji as easily as breathing. “i’d kill him if i had to.”

you paused, your eyes trying to catch his eyes, your lungs deflated, your insides akin to something like molten fire. still not your lines: and yet, i think i… “wait. really?”

he looked at you then, called out from his reverie by the disbelief in your voice, the delicate fear that someone actually saw you when you did not see yourself. you were terrified of it, even when you prayed each night that his tender eyes would reach you. you wanted him and you did not. you knew that the moment it ended, everything you told yourself wouldn’t matter; but still you craved it, this brutal thing other people called love.

and now, with the fire reflecting bravely off toji’s determined eyes, you could not do anything but accept it. you could have devoured him whole, and he would have let you.

“yes,” toji repeated. held still in his gaze, you drowned. “i’d fight anything that tried to hurt you. i’d fight them and i’d win.”

life caught in your chest. you were looking at him, and he was looking at you, and you could not breathe for fear that you would wake from some inescapable paradise. in his eyes, you saw yourself and the heat, the violence and the affirmation. he’d fight them and win. he always did; you simply could not comprehend that someone would care enough to try.

(but how can you? you nearly asked. when both of us want to run away? but you said nothing. you trusted his meaning.)

“okay now. it’s your turn.” toji’s hand lazily crept up your knee. the solemnity was slipping from him, evaporating from the bruise forming under his eye and cascading into the black sea below. you could see his old self beneath the exterior, the one that grinned too easily and wickedly and always tore off your clothes like his entire life depended on it.

“excuse me?”

“it’s your turn. come on. i kindly fuck you senseless and you can’t even swear undying loyalty to me?”

“toji, you arrogant fuck–” you shoved him, but you could not wipe the amused laughter from your face or stop your cheeks from burning incessantly. you tried in vain to hide the embarrassment deteriorating your entire body and soul, but it was no use; toji was already your victor.

“you can’t die anyway,” you protested instead of do not talk about our sex life in the fucking harbor, you idiot, did you not just get in a fight over this? “you’re toji. who’s the one convinced he’s going to become a famous sea captain? ‘challenge the strongest and win?’ ‘old man of the sea?’ ring a bell?”

toji rolled his eyes. he leaned into you, his face dolled up with mock-seriousness, as if you and he were engaged in the most important conversation of your lives. he smelled like saltwater and lightning. he was looking at you, but you were looking at his lips. it was the sort of thing you could never forget.

“okay, fine,” toji conceded boldly. he tilted your chin back to meet his sultry gaze. “sure. i’ll take that. but let’s pretend for a moment that i don’t. what if, by some fucked up design, the world finally gets me? what then?”

you could have lived forever in those eyes, eager and waiting, drowning in hubris and lamplight, callous and certain. when toji looked at you it was like the whole world sat at your fingertips. it was like the universe would bend for him wherever he went. you did not know what it was that he saw in you, but you figured that whatever it was, it must have meant something great. you had never seen eyes quite like toji’s. you knew when he left you would never see anything like it again.

the dark waves were eerily still beneath you. behind you, along the empty docks and the lonely harbor, the lamps blinked sleepily in the evening breeze. the port and its familial collection of pubs, brothels, trading posts, and dirty houses breathed insistently in the darkness, as if, even on such a silent night, the island refused to fall asleep.

something howled in the distance; a bird called back in reply.

you bit your lip before you said, softly, with the tender care of one setting the type, “well, in that case, i guess i’d fight the world in your honor.”

“who did this to you?” toji repeats, agitated. his fists are electric, as if the culprit were hiding behind you and toji only needed to strike. his green eyes speak of nothing but fury, irises swimming with violence, desperate for a fact. tell me now, he’s crying, and i will end the world that broke you. he sees nothing but the enemy and the blood on your hands. he is the strongest; he will finish them.

but he can’t, and you know it.

“it doesn’t matter. he’s dead now anyways.” you try to appease him, gently, fighting back the urge to brush a piece of stray hair from his eyes. “he’s dead. we killed him. it’s okay now.”

the revelation seems to soften’s toji’s rage. his eyes darken again, onyx irises blending back into the purple dark of the shadowy cave; and with a great sigh, retreating back into himself, toji says, “still, it looks bad. we should go back to my ship – i can help you.”  

“your ship?” your question spills into the cave before you realize you’ve spoken.

“i told you i came by sea, didn’t i?” toji rustles uncomfortably and sits back on his heels. his humor is strained, predetermined, as if it was a joke he repeated that someone else thought was funny. “i’ve got a rowboat planted further down the shore that we can use to take back.”

a scorched wave hurls itself against the beach. something like a large tree or a skeleton blows across the sand and disappears out of sight. torrential rain drowns the island, pummels the water, shields the sky. it is as if, over the course of one brutal evening, the storm itself hoped to wipe tengen’s nest clean off the map.

so you say, as kindly as you can: “i’m not sure we should go out there.” we actually should not, for multiple reasons, but hey, you were never an expert at arguing with fushiguro toji.

“it’s fine,” toji repeats with that feverishly humored voice that is not his own. “trust me, yeah? i can get us there. we’ll bandage you up.”

we should not, you want to say, there are others to wait for, but something about the dark cesspool in toji’s eyes keeps you rooted to the floor. you cannot leave him. you do not wish to. you must follow him to the end, wherever he goes, chained to his body’s shadow, because you would rather die than lose fushiguro toji in bloom.

(you left me, once, but even now i will not go. you were looking for me: and i ask you to search no longer.)

“okay,” you say, nausea growing tenfold. “okay.” but you do not know if it is meant as an agreement or a comfort. toji smiles without teeth and, in one fluid movement, gets up and exits the cave. he disappears immediately into the rain, cloaked by a storm determined to forget you existed.

you watch the campfire for a moment longer before throwing a pile of sand over the wood to douse the flames. the shadows that had waited patiently outside crawl back into the little cave and nestle back into their rightful corners. you remain paused, entranced by the lingering smoke and the dying embers. it is so dark now; but outside, the night is darker still.

you move, slowly, carefully, so as not to anger your wounds any further, brace yourself, and step back into the rain.

you would have thought the weather to be quite fitting for the occasion were the wind not blowing pointed raindrops directly into your eyes. you hold out your hands to block it, but everything seeps through, the cold water and the gale, destroying whatever bit of warmth toji’s campfire had given you. the storm asks to throw you off the edge of the world. you resist the urge to shiver and squint your eyes in vain to find the man of the hour on the beach.

you can only see the space right in front of you; had the waves not been so large and so loud, you’re convinced you would have walked right into them. there is nothing but water and wind, apocalyptic daydreams and retribution. you stand lamely, your boots sinking pathetically into the muddy sand, and wait for some great gust of wind to find the courage to blow you away.

“come on,” toji calls, but you still can’t see him. it is the half-humored ghost, the revenant, who speaks to you instead. “let’s go before you catch a cold.”

(and you? and you?)

you find his silhouette a short ways down the beach, imposing and impassable even against the melodramatic woes of nature. toji stands proudly in the furious tide and holds a rather pathetic rowboat calmly in the surf. you watch the boat sway, raindrops trailing down your cheeks like a litany of freezing tears. you do not sit inside it.

(can you? will you? will you face history? will you face the moment to come?)

toji, cool and well-intentioned, grows impatient. he glances between you and the still-empty boat and back again before he quips with failed friendliness, “you’re coming, right? or will we just stand here forever?”

you cannot answer that question. your words are frozen. he does not understand. he was not there in the autumn or any of the months that came after. he does not know what it was like when the summer chill left and there were a few fleeting days of golden bliss before winter moved in. everyone had rejoiced then. it was the warmest weekend in months. even the printing master and his wife took the days off to wander down the beach and hunt boars in the woods. sailors cried and filled the pubs with their stolen money. those were beautiful days, before winter. so many people fell in love.

but that was the thing. he never came knocking. you waited up that night, and the night after, and there was no call at your window, and no lover at the pub. whenever you turned a corner it was empty. it took you hours to bring yourself to buy that damned fish and, because you were late, the printing master never let you try it. it wouldn’t have mattered, anyways. nothing you ate made you whole.

you used to collect stories like butterflies and press them against the discarded paper beneath your bed. you memorized them carefully, practicing your intonation and your emphasis, always ready for his arrival. but then dinner would come and go and you would not have a visitor. and then, clutching the unspoken words to your chest, you would remember.

there was only your set of footprints on the beach and only your eyes making up myths about the waves. when you turned around in the hopes that the thing out of the corner of your eye was a body, no one was waiting. there never would be. every call of your name was an illusion, a story you told yourself to keep your heart from caving in.

he was not your great lover, you insisted. you always knew you were lying.

the worst was when they looked at you with such pity when they thought you wouldn’t notice. at the pub, the empty seat beside you stood like an omen: here lied the one who took his money and ran. he brought nothing with him but left everything behind. he would never know the way the one-eyed pirate always looked like he might mourn for you, poor thing, the one who could never follow. when he told his stories there was a sort of delicacy in them, as if he knew his words were the only thing that still held you together.

but then he left, too, and you were alone.

but that is how it always was at sea. just passing through faces on your way to somewhere else. you were used to the transience, watching time pass in changes and transformations; in the arrival of a ship and its departure; in the cycle of the sun, with its blood-red light illuminating the harbor. he placed his loyalty at your feet, but in the end, only your stagnation was constant. you never advanced in your practice beneath the printing master. you wavered outside bars and brothels, but someone or something never came home.

you learned to live with it, eventually. you had to in places like that. when you bought those bitter apples, you fed the extras to the waves. sometimes you told your shadow about the sailboats moving in circles or the gulls that loomed overhead, but it was never a terribly good listener. when you went to bed, you learned how to sleep better when the other side was empty.

but he never would have known any of it; not how you wept, or how you hated yourself for weeping, or how you told yourself stories with the sole comfort that they still might come true. he would never have seen you learn to stand by yourself again. he never would have seen the way you tried to convince yourself you didn’t need a future at all.

that empty space became a weapon, once, until you went and lost it.

“are you okay?” toji asks again. you wish you could tear apart his concern, his lightheartedness, his ease. “don’t worry about the weather. i’m a good sailor, i promise.”

(he doesn’t know. how could he? about all the weeks you wanted to die because he did not take you with him and did not want to come home?)

“yes,” you say, empty. “sorry.” but you are not sorry, and you are not shaking from the cold. with movements beyond understanding you heave yourself defeatedly into the soggy boat, and in the next instant, toji pushes you both out to sea.

you watch, sickened, as the coastline disappears behind a curtain of rain. water collects in the bottom of the vessel, but no one pays it any mind. the boat rocks dangerously against the knife-sharp waves when they drench your face and your clothes. you perish; toji does not care. he dips his oars into the water and out again, methodically, distantly, locked in an unforgivable trance. if the boat threatens to capsize, toji wordlessly rights it again. he keeps his gaze trained on the space behind you; you watch the last threads of safety disappear beyond his shoulder.  

your grip the rowboat so tightly you reckon you might break your fingers. it sways like a pendulum, a powerless victim of the iron sea, and you close your eyes as another wave crashes over the side and melts through your bones.

“it’s not too far from here,” you think toji calls, but it’s hard to discern the sound of his voice from the screech of the wind and the roar of the rainfall.

you watch the rhythmic motion of his arms to ground yourself. you are scared to look into those dampened eyes because you are no longer sure what you will find there. you brace yourself sorrowfully as another ghastly wave says good evening to your boat. had you not spent the better part of a year on the water, you would have thrown up everything you had over the side; but you, harder, wiser, know better now. these days, the sickness stems from a different source.

“so you have your own ship now?” you yell over the storm to distract yourself from the encroaching fear of your impending doom.

despite his intense focus, toji rigidly shakes his head. “no, it’s not mine. i’m not the captain.”

“what?” but you always said differently. you were the old man of the sea for me. you would make a name for yourself, own the water, wrap your stories around yourself like a comfortable scarf. you were the strongest; there was nowhere you wouldn’t go, nothing you wouldn’t capture, to make sure the legends bowed at your feet. but you say none of it, your reservoirs empty, your body shivering and cold. you do not ask him why his aspirations were wrong or why he ever decided he could settle. you bite the dream; it tastes sour. “i always imagined that you owned your own ship.”

toji smiles ruefully, the sort of heartbroken grin that one achieves only after their back has been broken by time. “me too. but reality always hits a lot different than myth, you know.”

you say nothing. the sound of rain piercing the water amplifies until you hear nothing else, until you know nothing else. you cannot see anything beyond the edge of the boat. for all you know, tengen’s nest finally sank into the sea. somewhere off in the distance, you catch the distant rumble of thunder as it reverberates across the waves.

you ignore the uncomfortable, sliming, slithering feeling of your wet clothes on your back. everything slides away from you; your blood mixes with rain, your hands find no purchase. you are dissolving, disappearing, a ghost without tangibility and a love without a partner. if you let go of the boat you would simply die in fragments the way petals fall from flowers when they are tired of being in bloom.

(and him? and you? and the silent space between it?)

“so,” you yell over the rain, ignoring the ice that clenches your chest and asks you to stop breathing, “if you’re not in charge, then who’s your captain?”

toji does not respond. he does not even bother to look at you. he rows faithfully, oars cutting the petulant waves, continuing straight ahead as if he hadn’t even heard you. he keeps his head down and his expression hidden. there is nothing that could stop him from reaching his vessel; not you, not tengen, not dying.

you frown and lean forward. perhaps he will answer to a different question. “what does your ship look like?”

but there is still no reply. another stony wave cracks and dissolves against the side of your frozen face. you know he can hear you; that he is listening; that he knows. but his silence tortures you. his resistance to your curiosity tells you more than any story could ever reveal. still you writhe in agony, a prisoner to the emptiness, caught on the other side of a barrier you cannot shake loose.

“who is your captain?” you repeat, calmly, but you are terrified to cross the threshold.

toji doesn’t look at you when he assures you, calmly, rehearsed, “don’t worry about it. there’s medicine on board, and i’ll get you dry clothes. sit back and rest, okay? i’d feel bad if those wounds got any worse before we get there.”

but that’s not what i wanted, and you know it, and you know you aren’t listening. your migraine intensifies the more you look at him, but you no longer possess the courage to ask the question and you do not have the strength to hear the answer. to pursue the thread might break the silence that sits between peace and reality. are you ready? toji rows the boat through the storm and you inhale smoke and saltwater, heartbreak and helpless desperation.

i’m not dead yet, you see, i may not even be bleeding, you want to comfort him, but your words would mean nothing. you’re not even sure if toji would hear them. still, the longer you watch him sail and the more the water gathers in the bottom of the boat, you cannot help it. you blurt, against your better judgement: “are you sure about this?”

“why wouldn’t i be sure?” the response is indignant, grasping at straws, huffed by lips that aren’t his own. you think there’s a visceral fear in toji’s eyes that you’re going to jump overboard and leave the whole mission behind. he pauses for only an instant.

(but why would he fear it, when he never did before? how do you leave home and then refuse it in another?)

toji sounds too imploring when he asks, “don’t you trust me?”

that’s not it and it never was. you do not appreciate the accusation on his lips, but you say nothing about it. you bite your lip as water trails down your cheeks and kisses your teeth. “i just–” you pause. how to go about it? “you know, i just wonder if we should…look for my friends instead? i lost them back on the island…if we could find them, they’d be able to help us – and if everyone’s held their word, sukuna should be there for us too…”

but, just as you expected, toji nearly loses his shit. one of the oars threatens to snap beneath his fury. he turns into stone, eyes stormy and morose and troubled, a pair of haunted narcissus pools. he breathes fire between clenched teeth and holds himself like a dying animal still feral for life in a cage. the name is poison to him. you had to make sure.

“absolutely not,” toji insists with newfound aggression. there is no room in his answer to argue; he is a man prepared to kill. “we are not going to that fucking bastard, absolutely fucking not, no, not after all this time, i’d rather capsize this fucking boat–”

“toji,” you prod gently, “but don’t you want to see your son again?”

the world stops. there is no wind, no wave, no rain, not anymore; though it cuts you and assails you, you no longer notice. toji’s oars lie limp in his hands. he stares at you, emerald eyes vacant and empty, as if you had just summoned a ghost. you do not know if he wants to cry with you or kill you or both all at once. you watch toji wrestle with the other thing and you watch him tell himself not to crack.

toji says, quite slowly, the words dangerous to him, “what do you mean?”

there is no hope in being soft. being silent never got you anywhere. “why else did you come to tengen’s nest, if not for me or for him?”

vacancy and restraint melts into genuine confusion. “what?”

you see red. you see the bodies on the floor, all of them, everyone between you and the blonde man’s surrender. you see hot sand on the beach, tears you did not shed, lives you could not beg for. you see yourself in the looking-glass, tattered and bloody and forlorn, the weight of the future still too heavy on your shoulders. there is all of it: every moment you bled through since you decided not to stop.

but he would not have known that, either, not the fear or the dying. he never would have known the self you gave up just to be seated in his boat. still, you cannot help it: you barely keep yourself from crying.

“megumi, your goddamn son, was in tengen’s nest. that’s why i came here. to save him, not you, not anyone. i’d been chasing your kid for fucking months until i finally found you.” you fight the hot sickness bubbling in your stomach when you push yourself over the edge. the words, loud and raw and wet and angry, roll off your tongue before you can stop them. “why, toji? why did you leave him? where the fuck did you go?”

it is always difficult to fathom the look of a man whose entire world has collapsed before him, who watches the universe he knew bleed out on the floorboards with no hope of resurrection. only by sheer miracle does toji prevent the rowboat from completely turning over as another great wave smashes against the side. neither of you care about it. his body is moving the oars, but his mind is trembling, trapped in another place, grasping for a memory he previously could not reach.

fushiguro toji frays at the seams, unravels limb by limb until there will soon be nothing left of him. there is a great fear and a great uncertainty in his onyx-emerald eyes. you have never seen toji look so defeated or so afraid. he is barely in control of his voice when he protests, “no, no. that wasn’t him. megumi’s dead. that’s what they told me. you saw someone else, that’s all.” he rows on with impassioned vigor, pulled forward by some pair of invisible strings, called forth by a siren you cannot even begin to hear.

nothing can stop it, now. still, even as the destination approaches behind you, you call out to toji, unsure as to whether you are blinking away raindrops or tears, “but toji, i saw him just a few hours ago. he looks just like you. he has your eyes.”

you see the sorrow clearly; you watch the thing that fights you, the toji that must refuse everything you tell him if he has any resolve left to survive. he is strong but not strong enough to deny the truth which ails him. although he sails onward he looks confused, lost, his face drenched with the apprehension of one wandering through an unintelligible fog without direction. you do not know how to guide him. you hope your insistence will be enough.

“that can’t–” toji repeats. for once, he sounds uncharacteristically unsure. “no. they told me–” but whatever he was going to say dies in his throat. he wants to say it, his eyes illuminated with something like violence, but nothing emerges when he opens his mouth. instead, eyes dark, he clears his throat and announces, “we’re here.”

you know better than to look too closely at the ship. toji silently sails alongside it, and, with easy and familiar movements, connects your drowning sailboat to the unintelligible system of ropes and pulleys some stranger let down so that you could be lifted back up to the deck.

silence falls, the sort of silence that permeates a room before a killer dismembers their prey. it tastes like blood and it chokes you. there is no hope in waiting now, in dreaming. the headache ravages your whole body the further you climb, spreading eagerly through your bloodstream until it nestles behind your eyes. you follow toji all the same. you are beholden to a flower you used to claim as your own and a memory of a life you could not escape. they will all understand, later. there was no way you could outrun it.

you wait until the boat is halfway to the deck before you speak again. toji fidgets across from you, his mouth moving silently in words you do not understand. he looks between his hands and the rainswept horizon and massive ship by your side. he is unreadable and beyond you; you wish you could take his hand.

“toji,” you repeat softly, the way lovers once did, “what did they tell you?”

he does not answer. the boat arrives at the deck. to your discomfort, there is no one standing where there should have been another sailor handling the pulleys and the ropes. there is no one in the watchtower and no light emanating from the captain’s quarters. the entire deck is empty, slick and shiny with a thick layer of rain. overhead, thunder rumbles lazily, as if it were only just now stretching its limbs and saying good morning to the night. other than the growl, you find nothing but a deadly quiet.

unwillingly, knowingly, you follow toji out of the rowboat. the deck sways gently beneath your feet, rocking like a child to the sordid rhythm of the waves. a bright flash of lightning illuminates the massive black sails overhead before they disappear into clammy darkness again. you struggle to tear your eyes away from them as you follow toji across the floor.

“who told you, toji?” you try again to no avail. he is beyond you, body and soul. toji does not even acknowledge your presence, but whispers agitatedly to himself, his hands shaking violently as he opens a nondescript door and begins to descend a narrow staircase.

inside, even footsteps do not echo off the walls. the air stagnates in a silence so great, an emptiness so vast, that sound does not survive and natural light does not enter. there is no awareness of the body and no respect for the mind. there is no past and no future in the hell outside of time.

the wind pushes the door shut behind you and you are left in total darkness save for a handful of dimly lit ruby lamps. beneath their tepid burgundy glow, you cannot see the stairs; when you hold out a hand in front of you, you can barely count your fingers. ahead, toji’s broad shoulders just barely brush against the narrow walls as he descends, tense, rotten. you do not even know if he remembers you anymore.

“toji,” you try again, your voice firmer in the confined space. you sound damned against the walls. “who is your captain? what did they tell you?”

“you don’t understand,” toji spits, but he is talking at you, not to you. his words are disjointed, rough around the edges, spoken through an echo and reverberated back again. he continues to descend, bypassing the equally vacant sleeping quarters and dropping further, further, into the pit. you do not know how far you follow him. it is only after a lifetime that the staircase finally throws you out at the very bottom of the vessel.

although you can hardly see shit in the lamps’ wine-red glow, judging by the multitudes of crates and unopened boxes crowded against the walls, you think it’s the storage room, no medicine in sight. toji wanders between piles of unmarked boxes but does not touch them. he has not touched anything all evening, and you think you know why.

you watch him meditatively before you try, “toji–”

“no.” toji’s eyes are wild, dilated, haunted. “that couldn’t have been him. you’re lying. he said that sukuna killed me and that megumi died not long after.” he steps towards you and away again, unteady on his feet. a layer of sweat bleeds through his soaked clothes. “he killed me, and megumi’s dead, and now he’s going to get you too. that’s what the captain said– that’s why –” his hands are shaking. he cannot even begin to open his mouth, to form the sentence. he chokes on his own misery. “i had to find you– to bring you here, to stop you– no, he said, to save you…”

he does not look like himself. he is, trembling, aching, collapsing, the automaton that threatens to snap in opposition to the laws of physics. the red lamps cruelly highlight toji’s incoherently forsaken face; his eyes are green and dark and bloody, his body beyond his control, his consciousness melting. he does not see you or the ship or any of it anymore. you do not know where toji is, what he sees, but he repeats it to himself like a mantra: he’s dead, he killed me, he’s dead. that’s why, you see, that’s why he said i had to claim my vengeance–

he’s dead, but he’s not, he killed me, but he couldn’t. there was a world beyond you both, once, one with a diamond treasure and a future. you remember often the times when you dreamed. those were beautiful reveries, of walks on the beach, of making love beneath the stars, of holding someone with the same grace that they held you. sometimes, in those narcotic fantasies, you swore your love with a passion that could have swallowed any star.

you cannot wish for it, not anymore, not when there lies the space between you with a silence beyond measure. there stands fushiguro toji, hollowed, quaking, and you will dream of him no longer. you reach out and grab his arm, your icy fingers digging into his wet shirtsleeves, your palm pressed firmly against once-familiar skin.

be still, you beg, be still: for i am your anchor, and i will bring you home.

beneath your touch, like a glass under too much pressure, a curse fractures. you feel it slither through you before it leaves the room, that foul thing which shrivels inside him. the longer you hold him, the more toji empties. his emerald eyes widen with the sort of dismay of one awakening from a nightmare, and, for the first time in years, you find toji, the old pink scar and the determination, the reckless nature before a fall.

(proteus, you had whispered, once, when you played the fool. you’re almost proteus.

old man of the sea, he had repeated, once, when he was whole. has a nice ring to it.)

you know him, you know. there was never a time you could escape it. there was never a time you would not have followed the strongest to see where he goes. you know the price, though. the lotus always tasted bitter against the roof of your mouth.

“toji,” you repeat, “who is your captain?”  

toji opens his mouth to answer, to recognize you for the first time, to reclaim the self he once thought he had lost: and then, with the turn of the hours, with the culling of time, the arrival of the suitor smothers you both from upstairs.

[hansolmates]

shiver | 02

banner done by the wonderful @dnrequests

summary; jungkook changed since he moved out of his small town church community and attended college. when he returns for a christmas mass, you suddenly crave a taste of his fun and carefree life. in exchange, jungkook craves a taste of you pairing; bad boy!jungkook x church girl!reader genre/warnings; childhood friends to lovers, brief childhood friends to enemies, fwb!au, catholic guilt, jungkook is a meanie who eventually turns into a soft tsundere, bicuriosity, sexual exploration, virgin!oc, eventual smut—in this installment: mentions of sex w/c; 1.2k a/n; thanks for the overwhelming amount of love for pt1! now that the plot is p much set up in this installment, the drabble updates will be a lil shorter (around 400-1k) i hope that doesn’t deter anyone. hope this is a good start to your weekend babiesss, next installment will be jjk’s pov! [shiver masterpost]

“You live here?” 

“You’re moving in here?” 

Since the boxes started to pile up the doorstep, Jungkook was wondering all day who’d be occupying the room next to him. It’s a corner room, which made Jungkook doubly jealous because they had a great view of the city. Who knew his new neighbor would be the bobbing bunny who’d chase him in childhood (and all the way to adulthood, apparently.) 

Conversely, you’re also shocked. Your parents checked out this place, and said nothing about Jungkook also living here. Then again, not mentioning it may be the point.

It’s the start of a new semester, and you haven’t talked to Jungkook since that whole Christmas fiasco. You avoided Jungkook for the rest of the holiday, refusing to let him play with you like this. No matter how big your crush may be, you have dignity and five minutes of fondling will not change that. 

“Yeah, finally picked a graduate school.” you drop your last box on top of the pile, “this was the only school my family could compromise on.” 

“Congrats,” his eyes flicker over to the boxes, stacked higher than you, “you need help moving in?” 

You weren’t about to refuse free labor, so you open your door and let him set up. Jungkook knows your tastes, years and years of study groups having you and your friend visiting each other’s rooms up until high school. He color-codes your closet for you, diligently making sure to avoid your delicates and unmentionables. The frames are put up at straight angles, not a corner out of place. While the apartment is small and old, it’ll be your new home for the next year. You’re excited. 

“Still needs that touch,” Jungkook holds his hand out like a frame, going over the blank nooks and crannies of your apartment, “something’s missing.” 

Jungkook sees things you don’t see. You heard one Sunday lunch that Jungkook’s studying to be an architect. To you, whatever’s missing in this apartment is miniscule, even nonexistent. 

You think the missing thing is him, although Jungkook doesn’t know it. He’s poking and prodding around, moving small furniture to different corners and then surveying the corners. Jungkook is the bit of home you’ll get when you’re tired and stressed over work. Maybe you two can be study buddies, or get lunch together on campus. The thought has you warm, wondering if Jungkook will be able to see you anything other than a childhood friend turned pretty. 

“I won’t be bringing much here,” you say reluctantly, running your fingers over the polished kitchen counter, “I still have to go home for church every weekend.” 

Jungkook’s eyes quirk at the revelation that you can’t stay in the city due to hometown obligations, and within reason. Jungkook doesn’t go back every weekend, yet your family expects you to. It was the compromise when you decided to go to graduate school here. 

“Well, not this weekend though right?” Jungkook rocks on his heels, black toe socks rubbing against the dark hardwood floor as he meets you behind the counter, “since your parents think you’ll be too busy unpacking?” 

“Maybe?” you throw the question right back at him, unsure of where he’s going with this. 

“There’s a party at my friend’s house Saturday night. There could be some classmates in your major, meet some new friends?” 

Jungkook’s inviting you to a party. Jungkook’s going to take you to a party to help you make new friends and socialize with people other than your nosy uncles and aunts. You don’t even have to answer, the adoration on your face evident. Jungkook will introduce you to people, show you off, get you drinks. 

(Maybe he’ll even kiss you goodnight.) 

You shake that thought off quickly, knowing that kind of desire will get you in trouble. You need to take things slowly if you have any chance of being with Jungkook. Going to the party as friends will be more than enough. 

He tucks his finger under your chin, forcing you to look at him. There’s nothing romantic about the action, no matter how you spin it around. Your eyes are perpetually glued to the floor, painfully meek, “I’ll pick you up at eight.” 

“She’s so weird!” 

You stiffen at the exclamation, clutching your red plastic cup with both hands as you lean against the wall that connects the kitchen to the hallway. They can’t see you if you act like a wallflower, so you hold your breath and wait for the blow. 

“C’mon, church girls are like that,” that’s Park Jimin’s voice, the first friend Jungkook introduced you to when you walked in the house. His voice sounds kind through the R&B music blasting through the flat screen television, yet it still rubs you the wrong way that he refers to you as a “church girl.” Jimin’s no better than the girl who’s talking about you. 

“But Jungkook isn’t like that,” It’s Nayeon that starts this, and it saddens you slightly because you wanted to be her friend. She was all smiles and sweet stares when Jungkook was by your side, but you suppose none of that kindness was directed towards you. “He’s cool. She dresses like a fifties school teacher and has barely said ten words all evening! I don’t know what Jungkook was thinking.��� 

Speaking of, where is Jungkook now? It’s been twenty minutes since you’ve last seen him. Twenty minutes of taking sips at a haphazardly mixed drink and twiddling your fingers as you try to insert yourself into a puzzle that you’re not cut into. 

“Besides,” Nayeon’s voice twinkles through the room, clear as day, “He only invited her out of pity. I’m pretty sure he’s fucking Jungyeon in the bathroom right now.” 

Bile rises though your throat like rain in a well, threatening to spill over and embarrass you further. Your fingers crush the plastic slightly, curling and bending at your whim. 

To torture yourself further, you take slow steps towards the bathroom. What you hear has tears spilling over your eyes. Jungkook’s heady voice, a girl’s soft cries that penetrate through the walls and into your ears. It’s not the sex that gets you upset, nor Jungkook’s desire to leave you for another girl. 

You’re not a charity case, you’re not an object to be pitied. You’re not a sheltered church girl. Sure, Jungkook may not feel that way. Yet Jungkook put you in an environment where others are typecasting you, making you feel like you don’t fit in. Jungkook didn’t even warn you when he ditched, a common courtesy that you know for a fact friends do for each other, even though this is your first real college party.

When you bolt out of there and drive home, you don’t go to your apartment. You set the GPS to take you straight home, back to your tiny town. You begin your recovery process early Sunday morning. 

A scalding hot shower, to scrape away the smell of alcohol on your body. 

You spend early morning cleaning the storage room and the classrooms, scrubbing away until everything’s shining. 

You pray and apologize for the pleasure and pain—for giving into temptation on Christmas Day and the toppling results of that. 

Once you get home, you spend a pretty penny on decorating your apartment. Clashing art pieces—anime posters, random florals, a cat mug. Things that you like, things to make yourself happy. 

These are steps in the right direction. You need a cleanse. Specifically a cleanse for Jeon Jungkook. 

[anythingwriter]

How Could You?

Bonnie Gold x reader

Warnings: death, angst, probably lots of swearing, teeny tiny bit of sexual assault. Requested by @soggypancak

Word count: 2,515 of pure trash

*My first imagine in over a year! Feedback is always welcome. I’m sorry if this sucks lol, it’s been a while!*

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

The cold morning air made y/n shiver as she snuggled closer to Bonnie. Unintentionally they both fell asleep by the fire the night before, looking up at the stars as they talked about their love for each other, and how they hope to have a future. Aberama came out of his caravan that night going to put the fire out, but when he saw both the young adults curled up together asleep being warmed by that exact fire, he didn’t have the heart to wake them, so instead he put a blanket over them and admired their peaceful faces as they slept, praying nothing would ever corrupt them. Oh how he wishes he prayed harder.

“Bonnie,” y/n mumbled, she didn’t want to wake yet, but she was too cold to sleep.

“No.” Bonnie said.

Y/n giggled at her boyfriend, knowing he was tired as well but if she couldn’t sleep neither could Bonnie, she wouldn’t allow it. “I can’t sleep Bonnieeee.” She violently shook his shoulders with each word, hoping he would at least open his eyes.

“It’s pretty easy babe, just close your eyes,” Bonnie said with a smirk on his face.

Y/n gasped, and rolled over so she was laying on top of Bonnie and she pinned both his arms above his head. He finally opened his eyes and looked up at his girlfriend with his sly smirk on his face, one of the reasons she fell in love with him.

“That was pretty rude babe,” she mocked him. She stared down at him, admiring him, making sure she would always remember his face and every small detail about it. She let go of his arms and caressed the almost faded bruise on his chin from one of his previous fights. She loved him, and she knew the feeling would be forever. The moment didn’t last long enough for her though, Bonnie almost immediately reached up and grabbed his girlfriend's waist and quickly flipped them over so he was on top. Y/n let out a shriek at the sudden movement and couldn’t help the giggles that slipped out.

Bonnie too looked down at her like she did him, his eyes looking down at her with nothing but love and adoration for his girl. He smiled at her and she smiled back. “ I love you,” he told her. Y/n felt her heart swell at the declaration, knowing by the look on his face he truly meant it.

“I love you too.” She leaned upwards and gave Bonnie a kiss, it was slow and lazy because of the morning still clouding their judgement, but they both felt the love the other poured into it. Bonnie gave y/n’s hips a tight squeeze and when she gasped he took the opportunity and caressed her tongue with his. Y/n leant into the kiss even more, and moaned when their tongues met again, Bonnie winning the fight for dominance. The two broke apart with a jolt when they heard someone clearing their throat, and looked up to see Aberama looking at the two with a smirk. Y/n blushed and hid her face in Bonnies neck, while him and his father let out laughs together.

“Mornin’ love birds!” Y/n groaned at Aberamas loud voice, it still being too early for her. “Jesus Abe, could you be any louder?” “Course I could sweetheart, but I don’t wanna scare off all the deer,” he smiled down at her. Y/n rolled her eyes and pushed Bonnie off of her to sit up.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” She asked. Bonnie stood up and dusted off his clothes and looked at his father, wondering the same thing.

“I’m not sure, we have everythin’ we need for a while, maybe a relaxing day? Sound good?”

Bonnie and y/n both nodded their heads, needing a break from the gypsy life. And with everything going on with helping the Blinders, they were both exhausted. Especially Bonnie. Bonnie looked down and smiled at y/n, reaching out a hand to help her up. She gratefully took it, and stumbled when Bon pulled her up with unnecessary force. He quickly steadied her and let out a quiet laugh, and gave her a peck on the lips. He turned and smiled at his father and led her towards their caravan.

When they both were inside Bonnie shut the door so they could get changed in fresh clothes for the day. Y/n undressed out of her clothes from yesterday and looked around to see one of Bonnies sweaters. She reached for it, knowing it would keep her warm for the day.

The man she loved was staring at her, admiring how beautiful she looked in his clothes. She could feel him staring, and she smiled to herself.

“It’s rude to stare Bon.”

He shook his head with a fond smile on his face and spoke back to her “It's hard not to when you look so beautiful in my shirt.”

She turned and looked at him, with a look of disbelief on her face, “You flatter me Bon.” They both let out a laugh. He reached forwards and pulled her close to his chest. He looked down at her smaller frame and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. He loved her so much, he didn’t know what he would do without her, and neither did she.

She looked at him like he hung her the moon and the stars, and he looked at her like she was an angel from above.

“I love you Bonnie, I don’t know what I would ever do without you.”

“Luckily for you hun, you’ll never have to know because I’ll be with you forever.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep Bon, especially now with you working for that bastard Shelby.” Y/n could feel rage slowly boiling inside of her, she loved Bonnie but she hated him working for the Thomas Shelby. And he knew that, he knew the pain and anger he was putting her through, and he had his reasons why. He was doing it for them, to secure a future for them. A future they dream about, a future they pray for.

“I can keep this one babe, you know I would never leave you. Not until my last breath, and that’s years away from now!”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

The two embraced each other in a hug, and then they finished getting ready, for a day of relaxing.

~~~~~~~~~~~Time Skip~~~~~~~~~~~

Aberama smiles as he listens to the laughter of his son and his girl echo through the woods. Never had he seen his son so happy, never has he seen his smile so big. And it was all thanks to her. The girl Aberama grew fond of, even thinking of her as his daughter. He knew nothing would break them apart, even if they were just young kids.

Their moments of peace were interrupted when a gun shot rang through the woods, piercing Aberama in the shoulder and he fell with a thud. Y/n let out a scream and jumped, Bonnie quickly shielding her with his own body. He wanted to run to his father and check on him, but his instincts took over and he needed to protect y/n from whoever was there.

“Hello, hello, we are the Billy Boys,”

Bonnie looked and saw men emerging from the woods, and he panicked not knowing who they were. How did they know where they are? Who are these men?

Y/n peaked out from Bonnies chest and saw the men and her heart sank. She was scared. A feeling she hadn’t felt since she got with Bonnie, always knowing he would protect her. She gripped on to Bonnies shirt tighter, and whispered his name to him.

“Shhh,” he turned around and shoved her in their caravan and grabbed his gun. “Stay here,” he ordered.

She didn’t want him to go, what if he got shot like his father? She couldn’t lose him, he promised.

“Bonnie please don-”

She was interrupted as he grabbed her face and kissed her. He needed her to be quiet, he didn’t want them to find her. He had to protect her.

“I’ll be back, don’t worry.”

She looked up at him with tears in her eyes and asked him “you promise?”

He looked at her tear stained cheeks and hesitated before answering. He reached forward and wiped another falling tear from her eye,

“I- I promise.” He gave her the best reassuring smile he could and walked back out.

Bonnie walked out with his gun raised at the singing men. Why are they singing?

“Drop the peashooter son,” the one in the front said. Bonnie assumed he was the leader, and so did y/n from her spot in the caravan, watching through the small window.

He did, knowing it probably wouldn’t be good if he didn’t listen.

The men walked over to Aberama and stomped on his chest, close to where he was shot. Y/n audibly gasped from her spot and immediately cursed herself. Bonnie heard her, and he prayed that these men didn’t.

“Who the fuck are you?” He asked.

The man smiled a Bonnie, a smile of nothing but pure evil. “Who am I is the wrong question son, who do we have hiding in the wagon?”

Bonnies prayer wasn’t answered, because obviously the man had heard you too.

“Open the door lads!”

“No!” Bonnie scrambled towards the door as fast as he could, only for the men’s leader to grab Bonnies dropped gun and brutally hit him in the jaw with it. Bonnie could feel the bones break and immediately tasted the blood. Aberama groaned from his spot on the ground, trying to reach his son.

Two of the men opened the caravan door and reached for y/n, who had tears running down her face at the sight of Bonnie and Abe, having seen everything from her useless hiding spot.

“Bo- Bonnie.” She cried. He looked over to her and tried to give her his best smile, even with his broken jaw.

The men forcefully yanked her out and threw her to the ground. She whimpered and tried to crawl to Bonnie, only to be kicked in her back and fall to the ground.

Bonnie saw red, he tried to stand up just to be pushed down again. The leader of the group laughed.

“I see, she’s your gypsy whore isn’t she? How did scum like you,” he paused and reached for y/n and pulled her up to his chest, “pull a fine piece of ass like this?” He reached down and grabbed y/n’s ass, and she cried as more tears fell.

Bonnie now had tears falling too, he tried so hard to get back to her. But every time, he was forcefully kicked back down.

Y/n zoned out, too focused on Bonnies face. The only words she managed to make out were Thomas Shelby, fighter, and over.

She looked up when she heard the last word. Over? What did they mean over?

She screamed and tried to break free when they hit Bonnie again, her and Aberama could do nothing but watch. They both screamed and cried Bonnies name as the men tied him to a post, and y/n realized it was a cross. Her heart sank, she knew what was happening.

Bang

She jumped and fell to the ground when she heard it, knowing her Bonnie was gone. She knew what they had done, he was dead.

The man stuffed a paper in Bonnies jacket, his lifeless body just hanging there. A message, for Thomas Shelby. She knew something was going to happen when he hired Abe and Bonnie, nothing good comes from the Brummie Gangster. He brings death to everyone he meets.

The men walked away, singing their song again.

Aberama was the first over to Bonnie, screaming and crying his sons name. Yelling at him as if he could hear. His son. It was the worst pain he had ever felt.

Y/n was still on the ground, shaking and crying for her loss. She couldn’t look at him, it wasn’t her Bonnie anymore, it was just his shell. His soul and spirit were gone, there was no bringing him back.

Aberama looked over and his heart broke for the young girl. He may have lost his son, but she lost her everything. Her boyfriend, her best friend and all her firsts. Abe untied Bonnies body, and carefully laid him down on the ground. With tears still streaming down his face, he walked over to y/n and gently helped her up and walked her over to Bon. She may not of wanted to, but she needed to say goodbye.

Y/n sat next to Bonnies body, too afraid to look just yet. As soon as she looked at his lifeless face she turned the other way and hurled up everything she had eaten that day. She began to dry heave, unable to breathe from crying. Aberama rubbed her back and soothed the young girl. It felt like hours but after only minutes, she had calmed down and thanked Aberama. He walked away, giving her a moment alone.

She looked at his face, almost unrecognizable from all the blood. After moments of just staring, a new feeling took over her body.

Anger

She was angry with Bonnie for dying, angry at the stupid fucking singing men, angry at herself for making the noise in the caravan.

Maybe, just maybe if she was silent this never would of happened, he would still be alive.

Y/n reached for his shoulders and violently shook him, just like she had that morning, only now the shakes were full of anguish and not love.

“Ho- how could you Bonnie! You promised me, you said you would never leave! Y- yo- you promised! HOW COULD YOU?!”

She screamed and cried, her yells slowly turning to whispers. Her energy drained. The days events taking their toll on her.

Aberama heard her screams and rushed to the young girls side. He looked at his sons body and closed his eyes as he scooped y/n into his arms, slowly rocking himself and the girl. His shirt became damp, and he didn’t care.

For hours they sat there, in each other’s arms crying for their loss, both vowing to get revenge for their Bonnie.

As Aberama stood up to leave, y/n did as well. Abe left to do something and she had a feeling she knew what, but she wasn’t going to question it.

As his figure faded into the woods, y/n’s hand reached down to her stomach, feeling the ever so small bump…

[tojiverse]

JUST FOR FUN pt 2

read pt 1 here part 3 here

toji fushiguro x f!reader

warnings: smut degredation swp creampie uhh just rough sex in gen overstim (lmk if i missed any!!)

After what you would like to call an incident, things between Toji and you weren’t the same. He now had a habit to quickly put you in your place, all with a smirk which was irritating to say the least. You found yourself trying to avoid him, any time he came too close you’d quickly put distance between the two of you, not wanting to deal with him yourself. Toji made it difficult for the distance to be kept, he truly enjoyed being able to make you squirm with just his presence. You were locked away within your office, which was the only moment you were Toji free.

“Come in,” You said softly as you filled out paperwork from your latest bounty, which was a success.

“Who knew you’d be stuck here all of sudden,” Toji said in a playful tone and you continued to do your work.

“What is it that you want Fushiguro?” You said, making sure your tone was dull, as you didn’t want to entertain him any longer.

“Why so cold all of a sudden? Am I bothering you that much?” He asks, faking a hurt look as his hand went over his chest, a small frown on his face.

“Truly, if you have no business with me then fuck off, God you’re annoying,” You said dismissing him with a small shoo motion and going back to work.

“Someone must need an attitude adjustment again, you’re being such a fucking brat,” Toji said in a growl, and you felt your face warm up.

A quick flashback of your previous intimate moment with him replayed in your head causing you to clench your thighs together.

“You’re a pervert Fushiguro, now get out. Don’t make me repeat myself,” You said, quieter than you had planned but you still meant it.

He smirked and went towards the door turning around to face you once again.

“I do hope I get to hear you whine and beg for me again,” He said before exiting your office.

You put your head in your hands groaning as he had worked you up and you weren’t going to chase after him. You sighed shifting into a comfortable position and then finishing for the day.

Several days went on like this, he’d invade your personal space, fluster you only to leave before you could think of a witty comeback. You took in a deep breath as you heard footsteps approaching your office once again. You got ready to pay him no mind, keeping your eyes focused on your work as he approached you.

“What do you want?” You said sternly, obviously not in the mood for his antics.

“Aw, come on don’t be a brat now, do you need an attitude adjustment?” He asked leaning over your whispering into your ear.

Your face flushed and you focused on your work, which led to Toji letting out an amused laugh. You felt his hand grip your face firmly and tug your face up so you’d look at him. He loved the innocent look you had in your eyes, doe eyes brimming with need and confusion. Toji could only smirk, seeing how much you needed him he leaned down slightly.

“You’re such a brat, but I know exactly what a needy slut like you needs, isn’t that right? You just want someone to break you until you’re crying fat tears isn’t that right sweetheart?” Toji asked and you found yourself nodding slightly. “Ah, use your words.”

“Yes, that’s what I want,” You said quietly and Toji only looked at you.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t quite hear you, speak up, and maybe, I’ll reward you,” Toji said and you flushed.

“Please Toji, that’s what I want,” You said a bit louder this time, it seemed to satisfy him.

He quickly picked you up, placing you on the desk, grabbing your wrists, and pinning you down. You remembered what he said last time and you kept your hands there. Toji noticed and smirked while calling you a good girl. Toji began to give you rough kisses on the neck, making sure your neck would be painted in a dark purple. You left out soft whimpers which only served to fuel his pace. He moved between your legs and you could feel his hard-on pressing against your core. Your back slightly arched, wanting to feel him more but a quick slap to your thigh and you stopped.

“You’re such an obedient whore for me, isn’t that right? My cute little fuck toy, that’s all you’re good for anyway,” He said in a condescending tone, and you felt it go straight to your core.

Toji’s hand slowly made it down, teasing touches along the way until he got to your pussy, which was already wet in anticipation for him. He ripped your stockings down the center and your eyes widened in shock, you were upset he had ripped them but knew better than to say anything. Toji moved your underwear to the side and began by easing a finger in, prepping you. You loved but hated the way his fingers made you feel, full —he managed to reach spots you couldn’t even dream to reach, on your own. Toji eased another finger in curling them slightly against your sweet spot, which caused your walls to flutter around him. You were babbling nonsense, nothing that came out of your mouth was coherent, just pleas for more.

“You need to lower your voice, or else someone might hear you and come in, oh? You must like that, you just clamped around my fingers,” Toji said and your eyes widened before looking away.

Toji quickly forced you to look back at him, eyes glaring down at you.

“Look away from me again and I’ll ruin every one of your orgasms, do I make myself clear?” He asked and you nodded.

“Yes, yes yes I’m sorry Toji,” You stuttered out remembering what he told you before.

“Good whore, You must love the idea of being found out hm? Anyone could come in at any moment and all they’d see is your gushing all over my fingers, maybe even creaming around my fat cock,” Toji whispered in your ear, which caused you to moan out softly.

Toji continued to finger you by using his thumb to play with your clit, causing your abdomen to tighten. Toji could tell you were close and only looked down at you with the same shit-eating grin as the last time.

“No, please, please, please, I promise I’ll be good please let me cum,” You pleaded with a whine following and his fingers only began to slow down.

“Who does this pussy belong to, hm?” “You!” “Oh? And who’s the only person who makes you feel this good hm?” He asked while picking up the pace.

You choked on your saliva, his fingers hitting the perfect spot.

“You! Only you Toji please,” You pleaded desperately, stuttering his name as if though you were praying to him.

“Yeah, that’s right you whore, I’m gonna wreck yer cunt to the point where only I can pleasure you, you’ll only crave me,” He said, and he meant it as not only a threat, but a promise as well.

Right after, you reached your peak, gushing all over his fingers as your hips shook slightly from the overwhelming amount of pleasure. You only whined and mindlessly babbled incoherently, words not making any sort of sense to you while drooling slightly. Toji helped you ride out your high, taking his fingers out and tasting you with a smirk.

“Always so sweet for me,” He said and you whimpered.

Toji pulled his pants down followed by his boxers and your eyes widened. You honestly didn’t remember him being this big. His cock had a bit of precum flowing out as it slapped his stomach.

“Aw come on, don’t tell me you can’t take me? Such a shame too isn’t it?” He said going to pull his pants back up but you quickly shook your head.

“No, no I can I promise, please,” You pleaded and he smirked.

He lined himself up with your core before slipping himself in a fluid motion causing your back to arch, you swore you could see stars. He gave you a second to adjust to him before he began to just abuse your pussy. All that could be heard within the room was skin slapping and your whines. Toji quickly stuck his fingers in your mouth in order to silence you, as he didn’t feel like getting caught. You could only whine as he hit your g-spot repeatedly, you felt your orgasm rushing at you.

“‘M so close Toji, please,” You pleaded and he shook his head.

“Aw, it’s too early for that isn’t it? You cum when I allow you to,” Toji said and you let out a desperate whine.

This only further encouraged him to bring his thumb over your clit and began to play with it which caused you to clench around him even harder.

“So tight for me, fuck, your cunt was made for me and only me, shit, so good for me baby,” He said and you whined softly.

He began to pound roughly into you while gagging you with his fingers, ensuring that you wouldn’t get loud. You felt your high quickly approaching as you clenched around him tightly causing him to groan.

“Yeah, that’s it slut, cum all over my cock, wanna see you gush all over me,” He said, and with that, you squirted on him while moaning loudly.

Toji looked down in shock, soon smirking and looking at you. He continued to thrust roughly through your high helping you ride it out. As soon as you stopped twitching he began to thrust again causing you to look up at him.

“Aw, you didn’t think we were done did you? I know you have one more in there for me, now be a good fuck toy for me,” He said and you nodded.

Toji picked you up from the desk and put his hands on your waist and began to fuck you while standing up. You felt like he had somehow reached deeper into you and you dug your nails into his back as you moaned quietly.

“So good Toji, so so so good!” You said loudly at the end when he had reached your g spot.

You quickly took this opportunity to leave him with the same hickeys he gave you which caused him to curse under his breath.

“You’re such a bad girl hm? I guess I should fuck you like a whore then,” He said and you tightened around him, aroused by the idea.

He only smirked and began to thrust harder into you, your eyes rolling to the back of your head. You began to chant his name like a mantra, not caring who could hear you at this point, you were too lost in what he had to offer. You quickly felt your third high approaching and Toji could also feel his.

“You cum when I do, don’t forget that,” He growled and you desperately nodded.

Toji’s thrust became sloppy and you both reached your highs at the same time, you gushed around him as he looked down watching his load seep out of you with a smirk. You both caught your breath and you quickly realized the situation you were in. Your eyes widened as you quickly put both your hands against his chest and you pushed against him.

“Let me down, you have to leave,” You said quickly while Toji only smirked.

He pulled out stuffing his cum right back into you with a smirk, before slipping your underwear back over. You whimpered at the empty feeling and carefully unwrapped your legs from his waist, your legs shaking as you stood. Toji could only laugh which caused you to glare at him, eyes swimming with hatred once again.

“Get out Toji,” You said firmly and he only looked at you.

“You have to admit it, you don’t really hate me, you love the way I fuck you, I can tell,” He said and you rolled your eyes.

Before leaving he grabbed your neck and leaned down giving you a rough sloppy kiss, which only left you wanting more. He left throwing a wink in your direction and you felt like screaming. God this man frustrated you but he fucked you so well you couldn’t help but want more. When you got home to your estate, your clan advisors were waiting for you. Your heart was in your throat as you quickly walked in with them and they began to prep you for your meeting. When you walked through the doors in there waiting for you was Kai Satoru and a representative of the Zenin Clan. You felt your heart drop, as this only screamed some sort of marriage proposal. You sat down across from them, your advisors behind you, and the meeting began. You felt as if time had dragged on, it honestly felt like the meeting had gone on for hours when in reality you were only one hour in.

“(y/n) we want to offer an alliance between the Satoru clan and yours, but it would have to be fortified through marriage,” Kai said and your eyes widened.

If you were to get married Kai would become the head of the clan and you’d be fucked over for good, being stripped of all power and forced to be some trophy wife, and you would rather die than let that happen. Kai noticed your hesitation and spoke up before you could object.

“I know traditional marriage laws would imply that I would become head of your clan, but we can alter it completely so that you remain in power,” Kai said quickly and you stared.

“Although both offers I have been offered are enticing, I need time to work them over with my advisors, it’s getting late and I would hate for anything bad to happen,” You said and both men nodded.

All of you got up bowing and then two of the advisors helped the men find their way out. You followed and noticed a white-haired boy quickly join Kai, who only stared at you. It quickly clicked who the boy was, Gojo Satoru. You soon were dragged back into the room and sat in front of your advisors.

“So, which deal are you more inclined to take? Both the Zenin and Satoru clan are highly powerful, and marriage with either of them would clean the clan name,” One of them, Kaisa, said quickly, the others nodding.

“I don’t know the offer the Satoru clan ensures that I remain as head of the clan until an heir is produced and of age, but marriage right now is scary,” You said and they nodded.

“You’re going to have to get married soon,” One of them spoke up and you could only nod.

[forzalando]

goodbye kiss | s.r.

pairing: steve rogers x fem!reader word count: 1.2k warnings: mentions of anxiety (briefly), mentions of a head injury (briefly), cursing, mentions of food/eating a/n: this is a fluffy steve fic i've had finished for literally forever and i just never posted it bc i thought no one would read my marvel stuff hahahaha here it is. maybe there will be a part 2 to this....if anyone wants it :)

summary: Steve and Y/N are so clearly infatuated with one another, but oblivious as can be. One morning, Steve's shocking behavior may shift their relationship.

“Good morning, Y/N,” Steve and Bucky called out in sync as they barreled through the doorway of your shared home.

Every morning was practically the same; wake up at 5:00am because Bucky couldn’t be quiet if his life depended on it, start breakfast at 7:00am right as Steve and Bucky get back from their run (and pretend like you just woke up), shower at 7:40am, and start heading to the compound at 8:30am.

The consistency helped with Bucky’s anxiety, as well as your memory issues from a head injury you had sustained a while back on a mission.

Steve was just Steve, and he ran a ship tighter than his ass and his workout shirts that you knew for a fact ripped after their third or fourth wear.

The three of you worked and lived together, mostly in tandem, but occasionally something would happen that derailed the balanced home life you all strived for. It was usually minor; ‘accidentally’ eating someone’s leftovers, leaving dirty dishes in the sink, playing music too loud at night, etc.

But sometimes…sometimes it was the way Steve looked at you across the dinner table that made you nervous around him for days. Sometimes it was the way your fingers found their way into his sandy blonde hair after a stressful week. Once, about a month ago, it was because he walked into the bathroom not knowing you were taking a bath. And most recently, it was the casual comment made by Bucky about how he was sick and tired of you and Steve dancing around your feelings for one another like “the fuckers in the Russian Ballet”.

Eventually, the awkward period would fade away and things would return to their normal, harmonious ways, with Bucky grumbling all the while about your cowardice.

“What do you have for us today, doll?” Bucky called out as he exited his bedroom.

“I think I have a cold so you and Steve are getting scrambled eggs and toast because it requires minimal effort. Also, we’re now out of eggs. And bread.”

“I just bought three cartons and a loaf two days ago,” Bucky groaned as he slumped against the counter.

“You and your buddy Steven consume a carton each so either eat less or shop more. Take your pick, Barnes.”

He walked behind you and snatched the spatula from your hand, scooping some eggs into his mouth with a cheeky grin.

“I choose to shop more.”

You quickly grabbed the spatula back and shooed him away before he turned your pristine kitchen into a crumb filled nightmare.

“Steve,” you shouted indignantly, “breakfast is ready and I do not have time for your slow ass today.”

Bucky grumbled something unintelligible under his breath, and immediately after, a loud crash echoed from across the house. Bucky shrugged his shoulders in response, pretending to be unaware of whatever could have caused Steve to wreak accidental havoc so early in the morning. It certainly was not his whispered comment, loud enough for only a super soldier’s ears, about how you surely had time for anything to do with Steve’s ass.

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve huffed as he shuffled out of his room.

“What the hell happened in there?”

“I, uh, mis-stepped and tripped over my bed frame, no big deal.”

You rolled your eyes playfully and graciously stepped away from the stove, accepting Steve’s good morning hug and forehead kiss with a dopey smile.

A strangled gag interrupted your precious moment, and you shot daggers at Bucky while he shoveled his breakfast into his mouth like he was starved.

“Sorry, egg must have went down the wrong pipe. Continue your love fest.”

“It’s not a love fest, Buck,” Steve mumbled as a heated blush crept up his neck.

“Then how come I don’t get tender hugs and forehead kisses every morning?”

“Because you don’t cook me breakfast and Y/N is much more kissable.”

Steve froze while Bucky, the cheeky bastard, chuckled into his perfectly buttered toast. You quickly composed yourself and patted Steve reassuringly on the back, laughing along with Bucky.

“I wouldn’t want to kiss Bucky’s ugly mug either, Rogers.”

The rest of breakfast was silent; the sounds of clinking forks and satisfied sighs seemed like exploding C4 and gusts of wind in the cozy kitchen. After finishing your breakfast of hot tea with lemon and honey, you wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed. Before, you felt that it was just a little cold, but the longer you were upright and moving around, the more sick you felt.

“We don’t have anything important planned today, do we?” You asked while hobbling towards the couch.

“Not that I know of, are you alright, doll?” Steve inquired, concern evident in his eyes.

“It’s probably just a head cold but will you tell Stark I’m calling in sick today? I don’t even have the energy to send him a text right now. Plus, I don’t want to deal with him telling me this wouldn’t happen if I took his prototype horse pill, super food vitamins.”

“I’ll let him know,” Steve mumbled affectionately as he draped a blanket over your shivering frame.

In a matter of minutes, he and Bucky were headed out the door; Steve with his briefcase and Bucky with his reusable grocery bag he deemed secure enough for sensitive documents.

When the door shut, you closed your eyes, relishing in the quiet, empty space you would have to yourself for the next 9 hours, until a sharp ringtone pierced your eardrums and ignited a monstrous headache.

Steve’s phone buzzed upon the kitchen table and you groaned; his forgetfulness never ceased to amaze you. You dashed across the room, hoping and praying that he and Bucky hadn’t already driven away. After flinging open the door to your house, you crashed directly into what you knew to be Steve Rogers’s insanely muscular chest.

“I forgot my….” He trailed off, noticing that you had it in your hand while simultaneously taking note of the annoyed expression on your face.

“You’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached to your shoulders, Steven. I feel incredibly overworked and under appreciated looking after you.”

He threw his head back and laughed, the sound momentarily easing the pounding headache behind your eyes.

“You’re definitely not under appreciated doll,” Steve murmured as he took his phone from your outstretched hand. “Don’t forget to take some cold medicine, it’s in the hall bathroom cabinet behind Bucky’s aftershave. I’ll bring home some soup and a movie.”

Before you could thank him, he dipped his head and captured your lips in a delicate kiss. However, all too soon, he backed away with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

“Did you just…” you gasped.

“I’ll see you tonight, bye!” He shouted before taking off in a sprint and bounding down the front porch steps.

You watched him from the window as he awkwardly ran back to his car. Just before he opened the door, he turned around and locked eyes with you. You blew him a kiss, as dramatically as you could, and smiled as he laughed and ducked into the driver’s seat.

The sensation of vibrating pulled your attention away from Steve and you reached into your pocket for your phone, swiping across the new text message.

From: Bucky Barnes

I. Saw. Everything.

taglist: @gredmforge @vogueweasley @gcdricreads @nuttytani @kaye-lantern @barnesjamcs @thisuserlovesyouandyouandyou @fallingforyou123 @phoenixes-and-wizards @gloryekaterina @hannahmeyer1999 @beautyschoo1dropout @loonylovegood13 @saara-sanders @le-weasley-simp @peachypotter @omghufflepuff @weelittleweasley (if your url has a strikethrough, I was unable to tag you! please let me know if you would like to be added to my marvel taglist and thank you for reading!!)

[watchmegetobsessed]

Another love by Tom Odell. Tell me that Bucky wouldn't send this to his girl when things were getting difficult for him emotionally

ANOTHER LOVE

a/n: no idea if this was meant to be a prompt but i couldn't stop thinking about it so i wrote it lmao

pairing: Bucky X Reader

word count: 1.9k

masterlist

Life hasn’t been the fairytale either of you deserved. Things just don’t turn out as perfect as they to in movies and sometimes you fall for the wrong person, too deep probably, and it makes you feel like you will never find the right one.

After everything Bucky had been through he fell for a woman for the first time in decades and though he put all his faith in her, she wasn’t the right person for him. He was ready to give her everything he had and love her with all his heart, but she didn’t want it. She didn’t deserve it. Leaving him heartbroken when she left, thinking that maybe loving someone and be loved by someone is just not meant to happen to him.

Then you came into his life.

Being a nurse working beside Dr. Cho at the Tower, you ended up stitching him up quite a lot following his missions. Bruises, cuts, even bullet holes, you’ve seen them all on his body and though Bucky hated to appear vulnerable, you somehow made him feel at ease when you were cleaning him up, humming whatever song you had stuck in your head that week.

You bonded over music from day one. As a person who likes all kinds and genres, you were his number one source when it came to modern music. You made him Spotify playlists every week, making him listen to the best songs in your opinion and he listened to them all. Not just because they really were good songs but because he was ready to do anything you asked him to. You had him wrapped around your finger in a blink of an eye, but when things were about to take a turn, he backed out. At first, you just thought you misread the signs and that he didn’t even like you like that. But then you heard Banner and Nat talk about how Bucky keeps talking about you and that everyone in the Tower thinks that he is in love with you. So instead of letting him get away with it, you confronted him.

That was when he told you about the woman that hurt him before. The way she broke his heart and made him think that he is not worthy of being loved. And you listened to his every word patiently, though you wanted to smack that woman so badly for hurting such a wonderful man.

“Just because she couldn’t appreciate your love, it doesn’t mean that you are not worthy of receiving or giving love. Because you are,” you told him as your hands reached for his metal one, taking it between your palms. You knew how insecure he felt about it and you wanted him to know that you loved every part of him, even the ones that wasn’t entirely made of him.

“I don’t know if I’m the right guy for you, Y/N,” he shook his head, doubting his worth once again.

“You are, because I want you. And I know that you’ll try your best to be the right guy for me even though you already are,” you chuckles and reaching up you cupped his face in your palm.

That day you made a silent promise to take it slow and just find your own pace with each other. You knew it wouldn’t be easy, loving is already complicated enough, but Bucky’s state of mind was an even messier issue. However you refused to give up on him.

Weeks went by and your usual routine started to change slowly. Bucky didn’t only come to see you when he had an injury to take care of, you went on dates or just hung out after your shift. You were always there when he returned from a mission and he never let you leave the Tower without him, he always walked you home, even if he had work to do.

Everything seemed to be on track. Right until one stupid fight ruined everything.

Sam always had a flirty manner in his act. He liked to chit-chat, compliment you, but it was always just friendly. However, when one day he and Bucky returned from a mission, both of them with quite a few injuries, they ended up under your hands as you worked on their wounds, cleaning and bandaging them.

“Darling, your hands are gifts from God,” Sam sighed when you applied a cooling gel to one of his burns before you covered the injured skin. “Or maybe you are an angel yourself,” he then added, making you chuckle.

“Stop it, I’m just doing my job.”

“And you are so damn good in it. I’m one lucky man,” he grinned at you, but before you could say a word, Bucky jumped off the stool beside him and marched out of the room as if he was just triggered into being the winter soldier again. The door shut close behind him, he walked out without even glancing in your way and he left you all confused. You exchanged a look with Sam before you finished up his wounds and mumbling an apology you went after the grumpy soldier that just left.

Stepping out of the room you spotted him at the end of the hallway, sitting all by himself.

“Hey, why did you leave?” you asked, sitting next to him.

“No reason,” he answered without even looking at you, keeping his gaze at the tiled floor.

“That’s so not true. I know something is wrong. Please, just talk to me!” you pleaded, placing a hand to his arm, but his eyes snapped at it right away and made you think you did something wrong.

“I was just not in the mood to listen to Sam flirting with you,” he hissed.

“Then why didn’t you just tell him to stop?” you asked, knitting your eyebrows together.

“Because… I don’t have the right to act all possessive over you.”

Technically, he was right. You weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, but everyone in the Tower knew you were something. You wanted him to be possessive, to make men stop flirting with you because he thought of you as his. You were so close to it too, but now you felt like you were going backwards again.

“Well, you can easily have the right, Bucky. You know that,” you told him, praying he would take the desperate hint you’d been trying to send him these past weeks.

“Y/N, stop,” he breathed out, closing his eyes.

“Why? Would it be so hard to be more than just friends? Am I not good enough for you?” you asked, speaking thoughts you’ve been harboring these past times even though your rationality knew they weren’t true.

“You know that’s not the case!” he snapped, standing from his seat so you did the same. “It’s me, Y/N. I’m the problem and you know that.”

“You are not a problem, Bucky! How many times do I have to tell you that? I’m not the one who broke your heart, I want to be whatever you need me to be, Bucky, but you are shutting me out! I’m getting tired of telling you the same thing over and over again, because you don’t seem to be listening!” you replied angrily, letting out all the pent up tension you’ve been carrying around. “I feel like I’m talking to a wall, you just keep ignoring what I’m saying. And I want to be patient with you, I would do anything to make you happy, but I can’t do this if you don’t cooperate with me.”

You turned around and marched back into the room before he could say a word, leaving him completely stunned and in panic that he is losing you.

That day you went home without him for the first time in months. Not because he wasn’t there to walk you home, Bucky waited for you at the hall, but then he was informed that you left early. It was a clear message to him that he needed to get his shit together if he didn’t want to lose you.

Eating all your feelings away, you sat on your couch that night with your favorite ice-cream, watching reruns on TV, hoping to take your mind off of a blue eyed soldier, but you didn’t succeed. He was all you could think about and the thought of losing him made you want to cry yourself to sleep and never wake up.

When your phone’s screen lit up with a message, you were shocked to see a text from Bucky. Only that no words were in it, just a link that led you to a song on Spotify.

Another Love by Tom Odell.

Even though you knew the song well, you still listened to it, tears rolling down your cheeks as you focused on the lyrics, because you knew it had a message from Bucky. A quite emotional one. You listened to it again and again as the singer sang about feeling like he put way too much of his energy into another love and that he fears that he won’t love his current one the way she deserves. You knew that this was exactly how Bucky felt like, he was scared he wouldn’t be able to give you everything you wanted because he had been hurt so badly before and it broke your heart to know that he was ready to live a lonely life because of his misbeliefs.

Eager to see him as soon as possible, you grabbed your bag and was about to head out, but when you tore the door open you found the man you were looking for already standing on your doormat.

“Bucky!” you breathed out with teared up eyes. “How long have you been standing here?” you asked, holding the door open for him to come in.

“Since you started listening to the song,” he answered with a soft, tired smile. “Like a hundred times,” he then added, making you chuckle even through your tears. “Y/N, I’m sorry for the way I acted today. It’s just so hard for me to put myself out there again. I know that you’re not her, that you’re different, but still, I can’t help but think that it will happen again,” he told you, his voice dying down at the end. Stepping closer you cupped his face in your hands as you stared back at him.

“Putting yourself out is never easy, but you have to do it sooner or later, Bucky. And I promise you, I won’t do the same thing that she did. She didn’t deserve your love, she didn’t deserve you. Don’t punish yourself for her faults,” you pleaded as he leant into your touch, his eyes fluttering closer, his thick eyelashes fanning on top of his skin under his eyes.

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” he whispered, his hands finding your waist as he pulled you closer to him.

“You are not a mess,” you shook your head. “But even if you are, we can be a mess together,” you chuckled and his eyes finally opened as a small smile stretched across his handsome face.

“That sounds good,” he nodded softly as he leant closer and rested his forehead against yours. “Will you wait for me? To fix myself so I can be the man you deserve?” he asked, so out of breath as if he just ran a marathon.

“I’ll be right here, listening to all our playlists until you’re ready,” you chuckled softly, as he smiled back at you, pressing a kiss to your cheek as a silent promise.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed it!

[mercy-burning]

Second Nature

Part of Mercy’s 1k Celebration: A collection of Spencer Reid x Reader requests to celebrate 1,000 followers.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Spencer and Reader share some realizations after one of them has been kidnapped. Category: FLUFF + ADDITIONAL SMUT ENDING (18+) Warnings: Language, brief mentions of kidnapping and injury, bruising, sex (penetrative sex, protected sex, dirty talk, lowkey hand kink—i’m not sorry) Word Count: 6.1k

Full Request: “...Congratulations on your 1k! I have  request for your celebration, if possible. Spencer/Fem Reader. Post prison Spencer, instead of him being taken by the cult, the reader is, making hi realize that she’s Love of life and they get together. Smut,preferred, if possible. Thank you.” — @dreatine 

NOTE: I had a little conversation with @ssa-m-187 about a post which discussed that trope where Person A caresses Person B’s cheek, and then Person A leans into their touch and holds their arm to keep them there for comfort.. I mentioned that I might add it into one of my requests, and this is where it ended up! 😂❤

I also decided to add an alternate/additional smut ending in case anyone wanted only the fluff. It will be clearly marked when the smut starts if you choose not to read it!

MASTERLIST | 1K MASTERLIST

***

Nothing bad ever happened to her. Spencer wished that was an exaggeration but it wasn't. In all the years he'd known Y/N, she was never kidnapped, no one she loved ever got kidnapped, and she never even got sick. Her moods were always visibly happy, no one had ever seen her with so much as a sprained ankle, and even bad hair days always seemed to escape her grasp.

So naturally, when she got taken by Ben's Believers, it came as no shock that Spencer was losing his mind.

Everyone kept telling him that they'd get her back, and that they all knew what to do, but it didn't stop the sinking feeling that weighed his heart down, far away from the surface where she was safe and waiting for him.

Guess it's safe to say, this whole situation stirred up some feelings he hadn't even known existed.

The first thing that came to his mind, aside from the initial shock of her being gone, was the first moment they met.

Y/N and Ashley Seaver had both been added to the team around the same time, and after losing Emily, the three of them had practically become inseparable. But that first meeting, the very second he laid eyes on her, it was something purely magical.

She was trying to open a jar of pickles in the break room, breathy and aggravated curses spilling from her mouth as if she were a sailor.

"Do you need any help?" Spencer asked, not intending to scare her.

But alas, she jumped, dropping the jar of pickles and causing it to shatter everywhere. "Shit!"

He offered to help clean it up, and she accepted, sighing about how everything she had was going to smell like pickles for at least a week. And once everything was picked up, she grabbed a pickle that had landed on the counter and took a bite, promptly saying, "Well, at least I got it open," with a mouth-full of pickle. "Thanks for scaring me, bud."

It was amusing to say the least.

And every time they'd gone out for food since then, Spencer made sure to order something with a pickle every time, just so he could offer it to her and hear her laugh about that day. Every time, she mirrored that moment, taking a bite and saying, "Thanks, bud."

Of course, back then he hadn't realized he did it because he liked her. He just thought it was nice to see her smile, to hear her laugh. That's what friends did, right? Made each other laugh?

That's what kept him going as they searched high and low for answers to get her back. Her laugh. It was there, replaying on a loop in his brain as if he could ever forget it.

And when he got her back, he vowed to make sure he made her laugh for the rest of time.

When they knew where to find Y/N, Spencer made it his mission to be the one who got her out of there. He wanted to be the one she saw when she was being rescued. He wanted to be the one who made sure she was finally safe again and out of harm's way.

And most importantly he wanted to tell her that he loved her. And he didn't want to spend another day without being next to her.

But first he had to get her out of there.

The second he saw her, it was like everything moved in slow motion. She was strapped to some type of mechanism that kept her hands at her sides and her head facing forward. And despite the fact that she'd never been held hostage, she looked very calm. She looked like exactly what the cult wanted her to be: a sacrifice.

It made Spencer's stomach churn. And it felt even worse when they moved in. Because everyone was getting down, and the cult leader jumped for Y/N, striking to kill.

The gunshot stunned him. He stopped in his tracks, hoping and praying that she wouldn't be hurt, and for one final time before he actually moved, he replayed her laugh in his mind. He briefly held on to the image of Y/N smiling at him without a care in the world before he inevitably saw her face to face for the first time in days, most likely without said smile.

But of course, the second it was safe and he ran to her side, she looked up at him and smiled anyway.

As Emily got the final restraints off of her, Spencer took a huge sigh of relief and welcomed Y/N into his embrace.

"Hey, bud," she breathed into his neck, letting him squeeze her tightly. He could practically feel her smile burning into his skin, tattooing itself there for all the world to see, and he squeezed her tighter, thinking of how he wouldn't have it any other way.

They clung to one another the whole plane ride home, curled up into each other and falling asleep after all the stress they'd been under. And it was no surprise to anyone that they even held hands while they did.

Y/N dreamt of him the entire time.

Specifically, she was remembering the day she almost quit. It would have surprised anyone to know she'd felt that way considering she never let her bad days show. But in those particular few months, she had really missed her family—and Ashley,—the cases were getting more and more stressful, and it all seemed to really take a toll on her emotionally.

But that one fateful day, she walked into the round table room, expecting to find no one since she always showed up early, and instead she found Spencer with a large wicker basket.

"What are you doing here so early?" Y/N asked, raising an eyebrow.

He smiled shyly. "Oh, um... I know your birthday was last week, and I feel bad I missed it since I was visiting my mom, so... I wanted to celebrate with you when we had a little bit of time."

He handed her the basket, and she marveled at all its contents, ranging from a few of her favorite books in different copies she hadn't owned, an array of her favorite candies, and most exciting, a jar of pickles.

"Oh, before you break the jar, I have something else for you," he said with a small laugh, pulling something out of his jacket pocket. "I've read that these are good for helping you open jars, and I even got myself one because we all know you're way stronger than me, so if you can't open a jar of pickles, I probably couldn't either..."

She would never know this, but in that moment he was kicking himself for being so awkward, even though the two of them had been friends for years. And he'd never know, but she hadn't even recognized it as awkward. She was incredibly thankful and endeared by his thinking of her, and it was the one thing that made her realize she could never quit her job.

She loved him too much too leave.

So she didn't. That morning she'd been planning on telling everyone her plans to find another job somewhere else, maybe closer to her family, and that night she walked out of the office feeling loved and thankful for her friends, and one friend in particular.

Currently, said friend was sitting quietly in the parking lot of her apartment while she dug up the courage to ask him inside for the night. Her plans consisted of sleeping in for as long as she needed thanks to a well-deserved few days off of work, and though Spencer would most likely return earlier, she desperately hoped she could convince him to stay.

It was quiet for a while and the lights in the car had long since turned off, leaving them in darkness as well as silence. Despite that fact, it wasn't eerie in the slightest... It was comfortable.

Even more so when Y/N reached over and grabbed his hand.

And then she spoke.

"Can... Can you stay? I'm fine, I promise, I just... I could really use some company, you know?"

"Of course," he answered almost too quickly. It made her laugh, and though it was small, he felt a weight lift off his chest at the sound.

The two of them walked up to her apartment in more of that comfortable, dark silence. The only light source to be found was within the dim lights of the hallway, though they'd made the walk so many times it was like second nature.

That familiarity followed them through her doorway, Y/N taking off her jacket and instinctively handing it over with her to-go bag, where Spencer's arms were already outstretched. He took them and removed his shoes, then transported their belongings to the chair in the corner of her living room, maybe five or six steps ahead from the entryway.

Y/N took a large breath and smiled as she flipped on the lights.

Spencer noticed, turning to her with a smile of his own. "Good to be home?"

"Mhm," she responded with a nod. "But you know what would make it even better?"

The knowing smile they shared brought warmth to her chest as he made his way to the kitchen, saying, "Peppermint hot chocolate, coming right up."

As her best friend made noise in the kitchen, Y/N padded over to her couch, flipping on the table lamp next to it and sitting down with an over-exaggerated humph. Her legs curled off to the side as she leaned against the armrest, taking a deep breath and breathing in the warm comfort of home, only amplified a little while later by the aroma of soft peppermint.

She could hear Spencer humming quietly to himself in the kitchen, the sound bringing a smile to her face. He always absentmindedly hummed her favorite song when he was making them food or something to drink, or even when they were just hanging out together in comfortable silence. She wondered often if he ever sang it to himself when he was alone.

And she was going to ask, but before she got the chance, he came up behind her with two mugs of hot chocolate. She took hers gladly with a smile that perfectly matched the warmth of the mug. And while she took the first sip as he walked around the couch and took his regular spot on the cushion next to hers, that warmth spread to her chest. She sunk into the couch as her eyes fluttered closed.

Beside her she could hear Spencer laugh. "That good, huh?"

"You're an expert hot chocolate maker, don't let anyone tell you any different."

Another laugh came from him, and the sound bought warmth to other places.

They sipped their hot chocolate together, once again basked in silence that was only disrupted by the distinct ticking of Y/N's cuckoo clock, a Christmas gift from Spencer one year after she'd mentioned how much she was oddly fascinated by them. It sat on the wall across from them, next to the TV and right above a DVD rack with her favorite movies. She stared at the clock fondly as she drank her way through the hot chocolate, and Spencer did the same.

Eventually they were out, and once their mugs were placed on either side table, they found themselves turning to each other with more of that second nature pulling them together like the moon pulling the ocean. Once their knees touched it was like the ocean dragged them under, only rather than suffocating, they found themselves breathing easier, like they were finally at peace.

The clock rung out, and only after it finished echoing did Spencer initiate conversation. He examined the bruise right under her eye, and once again the gravitational pull was too much, his hand reaching out to touch it with curiosity as well as concern. "Are you feeling alright? Do you need some ice or anything?" he asked softly.

Y/N felt her heart stutter at the featherlight touch of his fingertips, and despite herself, she blushed. "No, I'm okay. Better now that I'm home. With you."

His eyes flicked up to meet hers at her words, and the softness and genuine relief he found in them made him melt.

He moved to take his hand away, but Y/N reached up and gently grabbed his wrist, bringing it back to her face pacing his palm firmly against the whole surface of her cheek. He watched lovingly as she closed her eyes and leaned into his hand further, bringing her hand to wrap around his forearm and hold him there. And in that moment, he had to wonder if she could hear the loud, intense beating of his heart as it drowned out the clock's ticking.

"I... I was so scared," Y/N whispered, keeping her eyes closed. "I mean... In the back of my mind I knew you guys would come for me, but... That was... my first time ever being in a hostage situation by myself, let alone at all, and I..." She paused, stumbling on her words before exhaling a breathy laugh. "Those people were creepy."

Spencer laughed with her, his hand still resting on her face. When she finally did open her eyes again, she looked up at him through her eyelashes, and in that moment she looked so soft and vulnerable that he couldn't help but finally tell the truth.

In a whisper so soft she almost didn't hear it, he confessed, "I was so afraid that I lost you..."

"Yeah, but... You found me," she returned with a smile as she nuzzled into his hand further. "You always do."

Something in the way she said it made him bolder, and he realized then that that's what she always did.

She strengthened him, made him more bold and determined... And she gave him something to hold onto when he was lost. When things felt impossible, Y/N always said the one thing that put him back together and made him feel whole again, whether it was a few sentences, or in this case three little words: "You always do."

Completing him was her second nature, something he wasn't even sure she was aware of.

But now that he knew, he had to tell her.

"Y/n..." Spencer traced his thumb along the underside of her bottom lip, and he could have swore he felt her sigh out. He stayed paused, reveling in the way he seemed to have an effect on her, his thumb longing to slide further and trace her entire mouth.

Nevertheless, he continued. "You are... Everything to me. And I don't tell you very often how much your friendship means to me, but I... I can't keep going forward without you knowing just how much I care about you. Really, it..." He huffed a laugh, hoping he wasn't making an utter fool of himself and that she wouldn't push him away at this confession that was dying to escape. "It's embarrassing how much I love you."

He couldn't tell if it was exhaustion taking hold of him, or the relief he felt at finally getting that off his chest, but he held his breath as he studied her eyes, which were glassy like she was on the verge of tears. Her grip around his forearm tightened and she turned, kissing the inside of his palm and keeping her lips pressed there for what felt like forever, until he started to feel his skin go numb. Realistically he knew it was only a trick on the brain, how such a simple affectionate gesture like that had the most heart-swelling and mind-numbing effects on him because of how much he loved her.

But damn it, he didn't care.

She murmured his name into his palm, and her eyes flicked up to meet his again. That's when he noticed a tear fall from her eye and down her cheek, right into the side of his thumb.

Finally, she responded, "I love you, too, Spencer. I... I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to tell you, but... After what just happened, I don't know if I could ever spend another day without loving you."

His heart absolutely burst at the seams, warmer than before, and most certainly not from the hot chocolate. That warmth only spread, turning into a raging wildfire when she let go of his hand and moved forward, practically tackling him and wrapping her arms around his neck, hugging him and pressing her face to the crook of his neck. His arms wrapped around her back, hugging her close as she straddled him and continued to nuzzle into his skin, his presence...

They held each other like that for a good minute before Y/N finally gained the courage to pull back and look into his eyes. They were just as glassy as hers, just as filled with love and comfort and home as she could ever have dreamed. Her hands slid down to rest on his shoulders for a moment before one of them cradled his face.

And then she kissed him.

She knew he loved her, he told her as much, but in case this was already going too far, Y/N kept it light and hesitant, desperately hoping it wouldn't make things weird.

But of course, there was nothing to worry about. And Spencer showed her that as his lips pressed deeper into hers, his hands on her back pushing her closer to him and seeking as much contact as possible.

She brought both of her hands to gently run through his hair, and at the sigh he let out against her mouth, Y/N tugged harder, pulling herself up so she could get into a better, more comfortable position on his lap.

They shared peppermint hot chocolate kisses until the clock rung out again, both of them pulling away with a little surprise.

"Has it really been an hour since it last went off?" Y/N mused in a whisper, taking in the swollen state of Spencer's mouth. The sight sent a course of butterflies through her stomach.

"I guess it has... It's um... It's late, maybe we should get some sleep."

"Only if you come with me," Y/N offered, running her fingers through his hair once more.

Spencer nodded with a small smile, his thumb tracing the bottom of her chin. "Of course."

They pulled themselves off the couch and, hand-in-hand, navigated their way to her bedroom. And even though they'd never actually done it before, sleeping in her bedroom together, the whole journey was so familiar it was like they'd done it a million times over.

SMUT ENDING BELOW

Y/N didn't know what time it was, only that the sun was brightly peeking through her sheer curtains, basking her bedroom in a warm glow that made it almost impossible to be comfortable under the covers. When she moved to take them off of her, she felt a hand snake around her waist, pressing firmly against her lower stomach and holding her in place.

"Are you awake?" she asked aloud to the air, softly in case Spencer was, in fact, still asleep.

"Mhm," he mumbled behind her, his breath softly fanning out across her shoulder. "Have been for about an hour."

"You could have woke me up," she said, turning around to face him. His hand lifted and then settled on her shoulder when she was in position.

"You deserved the rest," is all he offered in explanation as his hand gently brushed the hair from her shoulder. It tickled as it fell behind her, dropping off her body and across the back of her neck. Spencer trailed his fingers lightly up her neck until they reached her ear, and then he trailed them back down and over the curve of her shoulder, and then down her arm. He continued this and smiled as he took notice of the goosebumps that formed all over her skin. The thin tank top she'd changed into before bed left most of her exposed, each little freckle and hair that adorned her skin on display in the warm sunlight.

Meanwhile she smiled, heat slowly rising to her cheeks as she recalled their kisses on the couch. Needless to say, her dreams that night were rather scandalous, something she wasn't unfamiliar with, though given these new circumstances she was more than a little hot right now.

Spencer noticed, his hand halting its movement on her skin and resting itself on her waist over the blanket. "You're thinking about it, too? Last night?"

Y/N looked him in the eye and swore she saw them dilate when she responded. "Yeah. Among other things..."

"What... kind of other things?"

She would have told him, but since it was obvious they were both feeling the heat she bit her lip instead, a teasing look in her eye. "You're a smart man. You tell me."

"What if I... show you instead?" he whispered, his voice broken and obviously a little shocked that this was finally going to happen.

"Take it away, Doc."

His first kiss was sweet, reminiscent of the first one they shared on the couch, and his second was a little deeper. Y/N gave her stamp of approval by sighing, bringing a hand up to play with his hair again, and it was the trigger that shot him forward, his lips working hers with more passionate, methodical precision. Meanwhile his hand dipped under the covers and pressed firmly at her back, slipping under her shirt and bringing her closer.

She wrapped her leg over his waist, pulling herself forward to get as much contact as she could while he swiped over her bottom lip with his tongue. The small whimper she let out at his kisses made his hips buck forward involuntarily, to which Y/N clenched her leg tighter around his waist and tugged a little harder at his hair.

He tipped them over then, rolling so that he was hovering over her while their kisses only grew needier. His hand slipped under her shirt, feeling the expanse of her stomach and her sides. The low hum that came from her throat at his touches drove him half wild, so he boldened them, slowly sliding up and up until he reached her bare breasts. Her legs came out immediately and hooked themselves around the back of his thighs as she whined at his touch.

With curious kneads of her chest and even more exploratory kisses that were reciprocated with an equal hunger and passion, it didn't take long for Spencer to feel his insides churn with a desire that could possibly never be satiated. Even if Y/N was the one who kept him whole, he also knew she would be the one to completely wreck him to pieces. He'd rarely ever felt this type of desire before, especially not towards someone who took up every crack and crevice of his mind at any given moment. And now that he had it, he never wanted to let it go. She was going to utterly ruin him, and he'd never been more welcoming to that type of damnation—the type that was also his salvation.

Because she was everything all at once, devastatingly beautiful in every imaginable way.

Her hands tugged at his tee shirt, punctuating her urgency with a needy little whine into his mouth. He pulled back then, tugging off his shirt at the expense of taking his hands away from her. But from his higher position now, he took her in in all her wild glory, lips swollen and a little red, hair splayed out across the pillows, and her breathing visibly heavy. Even with the bruise under her eyes, she was the most breathtaking person he'd ever seen. She marveled up at him, willing her gaze to trail down his chest and stomach, her bottom lip tucking itself gently between her teeth as she stared at where his sweatpants hung low on his hips.

Y/N reached out and grazed her middle finger across the waistband of his pants, gently feeling the fabric and his skin at the same time. He was still, continuing to watch her explore his body the way he'd done hers, always amazed at the curious look in her eye— the one that was now swimming in a pool of lust. Her hand trailed upwards, feeling the soft planes of his torso until she couldn't reach any higher.

"Having fun?" Spencer mused with a smile as she rested both her hands on either side of his waist.

She sat up then, pressing a kiss to his neck while her hands travelled south, under the waistband of his pants. He sucked in a breath as she palmed him through his underwear, gently nipping his shoulder before she answered. "Oh, I'm having so much fun."

He was going to say something, but words escaped him as she sat up on her knees and continued tracing the outline of his dick through his underwear. He was painfully hard in an instant, a fact at which Y/N gave a low, amused laugh. Once she found the underside of his tip, she gently rubbed it through the fabric with her thumb, and the broken whine that he let out delighted her in every way. Her tongue traced his collarbone and the contours of his shoulders and neck until she reached his jawline. She licked him there too, humming as her thumb worked faster at his dick.

"Mmm, I've wanted this for so long," she told him softly, bringing her lips up to his ear. "Do you know how many times I've thought about us? Dreamed about us?"

"Not as many as me, probably," he choked out with a small laugh, audibly trying to keep it together as his stomach burned with every languid stroke of her thumb over his most sensitive point.

Y/N returned his laugh and sensually kissed his jaw before saying, "I doubt that." Then she dragged her mouth up to his lips and brought her hand out of his pants so she could thread all her fingers through his hair. Though they were kneeling, he was still taller than her, so his hard erection pressed firmly against her stomach as he brought her closer, gripping her hips and melting into her.

When his right hand slipped into her sleep shorts, she whined out and pressed herself harder against him, reveling in the way the heat from his hand practically burned into her ass. He kneaded her there as well, groaning into her mouth when she tugged on his hair and turned her head to deepen their kiss.

It was obvious that she was trying to feel some type of friction— her knees were willing her to get up higher, to feel him hard against her, but alas she wasn't able to reach. She showed her frustration by whining into his mouth and trying to pull herself up, the pressure of her arms around his neck getting stronger with every passing second.

"Spencer pulled away laughing a little, removing his hand from her shorts and bringing it to the front, dragging along the inside of her thigh. "Is there something you want from me, pretty girl?"

The nickname sent a fire through her veins that set off every smoke detector in her brain, the alarm coming out in the form of a whimper. "I want to feel you inside me," she whispered, nuzzling her nose to his and reaching down to guide his hand farther up. When his middle finger breached the fabric of her shorts, she whimpered again, willing herself closer to him. "Please, Spencer."

He hummed lowly, drawing circles into her skin. "Are you prepared? Like, do you... have condoms or anything, do we need one?"

"I have some in my top drawer if you want me to get it," she said quickly with a nod.

He laughed a little, amused at her eagerness, before pulling away from her and helping her off the bed. Once she was feet-first on the ground, she strode over to the dresser where she opened a small drawer on the top left and rummaged through it. Meanwhile Spencer followed her and came up behind her, pressing his front to her backside and making her tense. He brushed her hair aside and brought his lips to her neck, his hands resting at her waist.

She slowly rolled her hips against him, sighing out when his hands gripped her tighter. One of them slipped down into her shorts again, this time coming around front and resting over her clothed pussy. His fingers explored her like hers had explored him, teasing her in the same way that made her want to burst into flames.

"So wet already, pretty girl..." he mused, sighing and attacking her neck with more kisses. "I bet I'll be able to just slide right in..."

She outwardly moaned this time, clutching a condom in her hand and then slamming the drawer shut. "Alright then, Mr. PhD, why don't you put that theory to the test?"

He loved how eager she was, and a little impatient. Something told him that if he teased her enough, she might have just begged him for anything. But he didn't want to do that right now. No, right now he was planning on showing the love of his life just how much she meant to him. He was going to give her everything he had, and then some.

So he turned her around and kissed her, walking them backwards until his legs hit the foot of the bed. He almost went down, but before he could, he turned them around again. Y/N's body hit the bed, her legs immediately opening for him to stand between them. Rather than leaning down to kiss her again though, Spencer ran his hands tugged lightly at her shorts, to which Y/N gladly lifted her hips and allowed him to pull them off. Her underwear weren't too far behind, and then she lifted her shirt over her head, tossing it aside and leaning back on her elbows.

Seeing her fully bare like this was enough to drive him mad, but he held on, spreading her knees apart and sliding his hands along the insides of her thighs. "Y/N, you're perfect..." As he marveled at her and showered her with love and praise, he slid his hands further and further up her body until they reached her arms.

She helped him remove his pants and underwear, and once they were off, Y/N tore open the condom and handed it to him. He rolled it on and then leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. Then her temple, then her cheek... Then he pressed the softest kiss to her lips and looked her in the eyes. "You really want to?"

She smiled at him and nodded, bringing one of his hands to her entrance and pressing his fingers to the wetness that pooled there. "You feel how bad I want it?"

He groaned and kissed her then, circling his middle finger over her clit and making her cry out against him. After a few more seconds of this, Spencer positioned them at the head of the bed and angled his hips forward, the head of his dick coming in contact with her pussy.

He slid in slowly, reveling in every pure, blissful second that went by as he gradually became completely enveloped in her. Once he was buried to the hilt, Y/N threw her head back and bit her lip, her hands reaching out to play with his hair again. He ground himself into her for a few seconds before pulling back and then starting a slow, steady rhythm.

"God, Y/N, you feel so good... So... perfect for me."

"Funny, I was just going to say the same thing about you," she breathed. Her eyes trained themselves on his, and though there was a lot of love there, she saw something else that she recognized, something hesitant. It was close to the same look he gave her last night, after she'd explained to him that she was fine after he examined her injury.

He was going easy on her. But she wanted more.

Y/N reached up to tug his hair gently, biting her lip and batting her eyes. "I'm not made of glass you know... You can fuck me harder if you want to."

Everything from the look on her face to the way she said it to the way she clenched around him as she did made him half feral. He smirked at her without thinking, a natural reaction to her challenge. "Oh, you like it a little rough, huh?"

She smirked back at him and nodded, tugging his hair harder. "Uh huh."

Though he started fucking into her harder, his pace remained slow,  accentuating each rough thrust with a huff through his nose. Y/N's mouth opened involuntarily, the power of his movements rendering her almost speechless. Eventually though, she let out one large moan as her fingers even further tightened their grip in Spencer's hair.

Taking note of her reactions, he felt pleased with himself. "You like that, don't you, pretty girl? You like it hard and deep..."

Her hands dropped from his head and rested at the sheets, gripping them instead as he worked his hips a little faster. "Y—yes, baby, I fucking love how hard you fuck me."

The words tumbled out of their mouths so easily, each syllable spoken with the right amount of lust and truth, it was like their conversation was a dance. Their bodies and their words melded together in a perfect number that brought them further towards the climax.

But, as every dance does, their needed a little flourish.

Spencer reached out and caressed her cheek again, his thumb going straight to her lips. Y/N opened her mouth and sucked it in, swirling her tongue around it and groaning at the way he bit his lip when she did so.

"Fuck, pretty girl, you're gonna ruin me if you keep that up."

She smiled at his words, which allowed him to press his thumb flat down onto her tongue. Her mouth remained open as he held it there, her pants and moans coming out clear as day. And as if that wasn't hot enough, she batted her eyelashes up at him, and he fucked her even faster, both of them starting to feel the signs of impending orgasm.

He could have kept his thumb in her mouth forever, but to aid her in pleasure, he removed it, dragging it down her chin before bringing it to her clit and rubbing in tight circles.

"Fuck, Spence, that's it," Y/N moaned, looking down between their bodies and almost losing it at the sight that beheld her. "Don't stop, don't fucking stop!"

He leaned forward to kiss her then, the new angle finally bringing her over the edge. She cried out into his mouth as it explored her own, soaking up all the sounds she made and using them to fuel his own release.

They came together, and it felt  like years of tension and anticipation and love finally culminated into one giant explosion that enveloped them whole. It felt like, for a moment, nothing else in the world existed, only Spencer, Y/N, and their palpable connection that felt very much like a home in and of itself.

Even as they came down, their breathing slowing down and their touches becoming gentler, that explosion quieted right alongside them, an echo of love and warmth lingering in its wake.

Spencer pulled out and laid beside her, reaching out and gently touching the bruise under her eye. "You okay?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "Yes. I'm more than okay... I'm perfect."

He smiled at her, pure, true comfort settling in his bones. It was a rare feeling, but he was glad that it came with her presence. "Me, too. And I... I meant what I said last night, Y/N, I... I love you. More than words could accurately describe."

Her heart swelled at his words. "I love you, too, bud. More than anything in the world."

He contemplated for a minute, a smile forming as he said his next words. "More than pickles?"

Y/N threw her head back in a boisterous laugh that made Spencer's heart beat a little faster, before playfully hitting his harm and snuggling up next to him. "Yes, definitely more than pickles."

"Good. That would have been embarrassing."

"I don't love you more than peppermint hot chocolate, though. Or that cuckoo clock."

Spencer pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Yeah, but I got you those things, so technically that means you have to love me at least as much as them..."

"Okay. That's fair, I'll give you that one."

With an over-exaggerated, "Phew," Spencer smiled and pulled her closer, the warm sunlight from the windows giving him the most clear view of their legs tangled together over her lavender-colored comforter. It was so domestic, so perfect and loving and real that he never wanted to forget it.

He was thankful that he never would.

***

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[tonesplash]

Bikini Lunchtime Part 2 (18+)

pairing: edward cullen x reader

warnings: smut ;), vaginal fingering, slight choking but not really he just puts his hand on ur throat, uuuuh getting caught kinda, reader has a mom

a/n: maybe a part 3 bc ed boy did get cucked

read part one here

"You're speeding." Edward lifts his mouth from the space behind your ear to remind you, and then goes right back to drawing your attention away from the speedometer.

"This is aAh-" You lose your concentration when his tongue swaths hotly up your throat before flicking back into his mouth when it reaches your earlobe. You can feel his smile against your skin. "A lot coming from the guy who hates driving below the triple digits."

One of his heater-warmed hands comes down to knead your thigh as he continues in his effort to wrap the both of you around a tree. "There's just one more turn, (Y/n), I'm sure you can manage." 

Yeah, that and like thirty-something trashcans you want to say, but then he's leaning in again, and without thinking, you clasp your non-dominant hand over his forehead to stop him long enough for you to concentrate. You weren't strong enough to hold him still, but Edward relents nonetheless and allows you to keep him in place as you do your best to park with one hand while he helpfully manages the parking brake. 

"You better make this worth my time, Cullen." You smile in anticipation as your seatbelt whips back into its holder. "It's cold as hell today, and I don't feel like fronting for the electricity bill."

”If you feel cheated at the end of the day, I'll pay it for you.” Edward grins as he kisses your temple and sits back in his seat to disembark.

He's lucky your neighbors aren't nosy because he appears at your car door in a flash, already reaching to help you out with your school bag slung over his shoulder and food trash neatly tied off in the bag it came in. You turn off the engine and hop out to meet him on the sidewalk as you trail towards the front door. You take quick notice of the extra weight in the bag.

"Why won't you just let me trash my car the way I want to? I saw the fries from under my seat were also gone this morning." You squint suspiciously at him over your shoulder as you blindly attempt to unlock the door while simultaneously intimidating him. 

”It was starting to smell like a compost bin.” Edward can only stand you fumbling with your keys for a few seconds before he just takes them from you and opens it himself. Once inside, he hangs your bag on the hook by the door while you slip off your shoes and shrug off your jacket in a vain attempt to make it upstairs before him.

”Well, I think your car smells like a Bath and Bodyworks, what do you think is worse?” You take the stairs two at a time while he effortlessly matches your pace, one hand on the small of your back to keep you from slipping.

”I’d say the health hazard. Without me, you'd definitely have roaches by now.” His dry laugh echoes from behind you and makes you giddy with anticipation. You playfully roll your eyes and shuck your shirt over your head as he opens your bedroom door. The way you eagerly shove and tug off your clothes down to your underwear is hardly a striptease, but it doesn't bother either of you as you scamper over to your underwear drawer to grab your new attire.

"Okay now you-" You hold the bundle of cloth under one arm as you grab his shoulders and guide him to sit on the end of your bed. "-stay right here, I'll be right back!" 

His chuckle follows you out into the hall as you scamper over to your bathroom and shut the door behind you. Your foot misses the leg hole of the bottoms three whole times before you have to stop yourself and take a steadying breath to calmly step into them like a normal person.  

Despite your clear excitement that he can no doubt smell in the air and read in your mind, you decide to tease him a bit as you approach the bedroom. You balance on one leg against the door, gripping the knob as you creep it open and stick your leg through the opening up to your knee. 

"Is this doing anything for you?" You giggle and wiggle your toes in the general direction of the bed.

"Be careful, (Y/n), when you fall through that door you're gonna be very embarrassed." You can still hear the smile in his voice as you almost immediately prove his point by taking an awkward hop forward to balance and accidentally exposing your entire leg at once in your effort to stay upright.

"I'm trying to think of what my entrance song would be but I'm coming up blank. You're gonna have to fill it in yourself." When you peek through the door, you can see his eyes have a laser focus on your thigh. 

"Cellophane." Edward replies without blinking. 

Confused and a little offended, you shove the door open all at once.

"That is so rude! What exactly are you tryi-"

Without warning, Edward crowds you against your door, one hand already lifting your leg to curl around his hip while he covers your mouth with his own. His tongue sweeps from your bottom lip to the roof of your mouth, sucking your tongue and making you shiver between the cold wood of the door and the hard plane of his chest.

His opposite hand strokes down your side, trailing lightly around your breast and ribs until it comes down to cup you through your bottoms. You gasp and break the kiss to bow your head into his shoulder and watch but he won't let you, the hand at your hip leaving to cradle the side of your neck, thumb resting over your windpipe, holding you steady against his mouth while teases you through the nylon.

You arch your hips into his hand and lose yourself in his taste, careful of his teeth lest you prick yourself and have him swear off frenching until the end of time.

Edward releases the kiss with a wet smack, the trail of spit still connecting your lips sticking to your skin as he dives lower to worship your throat.

Pausing his ministrations, he adjusts his hold to be firmly under your ass, his tongue gliding up your sternum as he lifts you above him in one smooth motion. You squeal and cling to his shoulders as he smoothly carries you across the room and gently lays you out amongst your pillows.

Edward climbs to kneel over you, ravishing your mouth with his own, one knee between your legs to grind on as his fingers creep up your sides to tease your breasts, kneading at first, then extending each thumb to play with the bud of your nipples when they strain against your top. The kiss becomes sloppier, spittle trailing down your cheek as you both lose yourself in the sensations.

Your growing desperation overcomes you when he lightly pinches the tips of your breasts, pulling away to shove the thin fabric under your chest, exposing yourself to the open air and his wanton gaze.

“So impatient.” Edward huffs a small laugh, spreading his cool breath over your chest, further pebbling your nipples. He maintains eye contact as he trails slow, reverent kisses down and over your breasts until you can feel the presence of his lips just beyond the skin. 

“For someone with super speed, you sure like to take your time.” You quip and arch yourself into him just as his tongue creeps out to flick against your nipple, eliciting a whimper before it grinds into the sensitive skin, pressing it flat before he snakes an arm under you to further prostrate your chest and sucking your teat into his mouth.

Your reaction is immediate and involuntary, a sharp gasp, spine arching to the nth degree, toes curling against his slacks until he releases you with a pop and pushes his leg harder into your slit, going back to sucking, licking, laving your bud against the cold slick of his tongue until it glistened between you.

You could hardly keep quiet now, moaning and squirming, tugging his hair as he switches sides,  hoping, praying that no one would come home early to find you like this. Edward sweeps his tongue over your neglected breast, bathing it in his spittle and sucking until the buildup of sensitivity becomes too much and you have to shove him away before you cum on his thigh and embarrass yourself.

“I would've liked it, at least.” He smirks before leaning in for another kiss, and laying down next to you, your core disconnecting with a wet smack from the stain that had soaked through to his pants. Your face burns red and your pussy almost feels numb with neglect until his lips are on your throat again and his unused hand pushes past your bottoms, gathering your abundant slick.

He scoots closer to your side, his arm a stark white contrast against your skin with his hand shoved into your bottoms, knuckles straining against the fabric while he rubs your clit into a frenzy.

"Oh, fuck," you moan and toss your head against his shoulder, sensations overwhelming. 

You feel dazed, unfocused, and you can't decide if you want to watch the near frantic movement of his arm or lose yourself in the dirty sounds and sensations and let your eyes glaze over. You think you can hear the front door open, but you're far too wrapped up in him to care.

Edward moans against your temple, empathetic to your pleasure as he switches tactics, two fingers slipping in, while his thumb continues stimulating your clit. It's a tight fit at first but the mild sting adds to your pleasure, and you raise a knee to give him a better angle. The fingers inside of you begin to curl, teasing that spot deep inside, and one of your hands immediately shoots down, death gripping the wrist working at you as you begin to throb.

"You're so wet, and warm." His words are breathless against your temple, straining to not groan full volume into your ear. You involuntarily clench around him.

"I can taste you in the air, and you're so sweet and soft, do you think I'll have time to taste you before anyone gets home, sweetness?" At the last word, he openly moans with you as his thumb rubs upwards, bypassing the hood of your clit while curling his fingers against the softest spot inside of you.

The effect is immediate, your cresting shout is hastily muffled by the palm of his unoccupied hand bracing over your open mouth, and you whimper when he doesn't stop grinding his fingers against that spongy spot on your inner wall, wringing as much cream as you can give onto his hand, even as whoever just came home pauses at the top of the stairs at the sound your blankets rustling when your leg jerks out with overstimulation. You reach out and hitch your knee upwards again to hold it still.

"Can you cum on my hand, darling? And not make a sound?" You sob against his palm. "I want to feel you cum on my hand again, but I can't do that if you're too loud, alright?" 

The nod you give is shaky and stifled by the restriction of his hand, but he has mercy as his fingers start to curl again, and you both watch them writhe under your bikini bottoms in the low light of your covered window, as they disappear in your heat and come up again with the slickest of sounds.

When your thighs stop twitching and the overwhelming stings of overstimulation build into a pleasant hum, Edward pulls his hand out and pulls away to undress, before disappearing in a blink when your bedroom door dents the wall, revealing your very pissed off mother.

Later that night you'd argue whether the loud schlick of your cum on his hand or the ensuing slap of your thighs slamming shut with your ruined orgasm is what got you caught playing hooky on a autumn weekday alone in your bedroom in nothing but an askew bikini.

[clarawatson]

It Only Takes A Taste (2)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x [Fem]!Reader (GN pronouns, fem coded) Summary: it’s your second time meeting Aaron. He’s still flustered and precious but he (might) manage to give you his number. W/C: 2113 Warnings: none yet! A/N: i haven’t got chapter names yet, just accept they’re all called ‘it only takes a taste’ haha. AO3 tags: @willowrose99 @genevievedarcygranger @maryosprinkle @kleff03 (if you want to get added, lmk!!) Where am I in this series? 01 | 02 | 03 | 04

The next time you meet him, it’s 2am. Rita’s three weeks off her due date. She’s been staying at Joe’s place, with his wife, because the heating’s gone out in her apartment and her super is a foul man. If you were inclined to murder, he’d be first on your list. Right now she’s out the back, trying to wipe chocolate sauce off her uniform. The baby’s been kicking for hours and knocks things around the counter sometimes. At least it isn’t throwing her ribs out this time. 

There’s a couple of teens drinking milkshakes in the window, they’ve snuck out after bedtime and they’re giggling to each other about how bad they are. You’ve seen their parents drive by twice (they’re regulars after school) but no one’s come in yet.

The agent drives by, and then does a u-turn and comes back. It was literally a double take, no matter how you look at it. You clearly saw him slow down and try to look in the window as he tried (desperately tried) to stay on the main road. And then he’d turned around and come back. 

He’s even prettier dry than he was wet. (Your mind spirals to where that could have gone, which is not something you expected from a 2am shift). He’s loosened his tie and his hair is falling free of the gel. He looks less tired, and yet more tired. A different kind of tired. This one would be fixed by a good night’s sleep.

“Hi,” he says with a little quirk in his lip that could be him fighting off a smile.

“Hi,” you return with a full smile. He sits in front of you and steeples his fingers under his chin.

“I’m Aaron.”

A fortnight you’ve been wondering his name and he just swans in and hands it to you on a silver platter. Bless him and his beautiful brown eyes.

“Y/n,” you introduce. “And what can I get for you tonight, Aaron?”

“Maybe not a coffee.” He doesn’t break eye contact with you. He has such a cheeky smile you almost want to reach over and wipe it off his lips. “A hot chocolate would do. I’ve got to sleep enough to take my kid to school.”

“Have here?” Your hands hover over the in-cups and the out-cups. He taps his finger against his chin.

“In.” He folds his hands and you notice he’s not wearing a wedding ring. Kid, no wedding ring, weird hours. Could be a score, could be a serial killer. Could be both! No. Not both. There will be no fraternising with serial killers. Not if you respect your life. 

Would it be weird to ask him where he works? If he works for one of the alphabet soups, will it get you in trouble? Maybe. People don’t like you poking around when sensitive information could be involved. You still ask anyway while the coffee machine has it’s little dummy spit at having to work at two in the morning.

“Quantico,” he says. He probably saw you trying to figure out how to ask. And that’s really all he can say. Maybe. He waggles his eyebrows just a little and you think he’s maybe a little too cheeky for this early in the morning. If Rita was working she’d be swooning all over him. 

“That’s very prestigious, but, sir, I don’t think you have the security clearance to be in this diner if you only work at Quantico. We deal with Area 51.”

“Long commute,” he teases.

You raise an eyebrow. “That’s what the uneducated think. I can break a few rules as long as you don’t start asking questions. No asking about where they keep the aliens, okay?”

“Never.” He wraps his hands around the mug as you push it to him, absorbing it’s warmth. 

“Did your son like the cookie?” you ask. Is it weird to remember he has a son after one interaction? Or the cookie? But he smiles. It’s okay. 

“He’s actually in love with it. He’s not stopped talking about it. I think my sister-in-law might kill me.”

“Joe’s magic in the kitchen. I’ll save a couple of cookies if you know when you’ll be in next?”

Is that too forward? Maybe. He pulls out a little day book and places it before him.

“Is Thursday too soon?”

“No,” you say, shaking your head. You make a note to tell Joe you’re working on Thursday. “Sounds like a good day to collect a cookie.”

“If someone could cut this monster out of me, that would be GREAT!” Rita yells in the kitchen. Her voice is still far too loud out here. Aaron finally drops his gaze from yours, grinning into his hot chocolate.

“Shit, babes, I’m serious. I’ll got for a pocket knife at this point. I’m hot, and it’s not hot, I have to piss every four minutes, I can’t even sit in a car properly and taking the MET is stupid because I still have to pee!” She stops up short, seeing Aaron, and blinks as if she could erase her last comment. “Hi, sorry, you’re rain boy.”

“I prefer Raymond.”

There’s a beat where you try to figure out what the fuck he’s talking about. The cheeky demeanor falls from his face.

“Rain Man! Tom Cruise! Smile." Aaron has no option but to smile at Rita. Too late you realise she's checking the alignment of his teeth to actually equate him to Tom Cruise. "Raymond, for sure. Shit, that’s funny,” Rita laughs, groans, and turns on her heel out the back. She needed to pee again. Aaron smiles just a little.

“Want some pie?” you offer. There’s still a bit left. Joe won’t be in for another hour or so, but there’s some in the oven to take out just before three. Aaron nods.

“Yeah, please.” He puts too much money in the tip jar again. Hands you the exact money for the pie. Had he looked at the menu online? Maybe he had. You take a slice out for him, then a slice for yourself. No harm in that. The whipped cream goes on his like a mountain. You put a bit beside your own pie slice, but Aaron’s grinning. 

He looks like he may do something childish. He doesn't, though, as you join him in pie eating. The teenagers start giggling about something they're watching on their phone. 

Rita comes back looking more tired than usual. Her whole body looks tired as she gets her purse and rubs her belly.

"Say bye to Rita," she says without much playful effort.

"Bye Rita," you return and kiss her cheek as she lifts it to you.

"And to Baby." 

"Bye Baby, be good for Mom." 

Rita snorts. Joe gives you a list of things to do while he's taking Rita home. Apparently Lola's coming in to replace Rita, but that's only going to be proven by Lola actually turning up. Aaron raises his hand around his fork and waves. Rita waves back and waddles out the back.

"Is she okay?" you ask Joe, and he nods. He waves goodbye to Aaron, even though he hasn't introduced himself yet. Aaron waves too. 

"That's a lot to worry about," Aaron says. You shrug and reach over the counter to Aaron's plate, taking some of his cream. He laughs and puts his arm around it to protect it.

"They're family. Less worrying, more caring." 

He nods as if he understands. "Might use that sometime."

"You're welcome to." 

He gives you a smile that only uses half his face. Gosh, he's cute. But it’s nothing more than fleeting night time visits, right? Okay, maybe not, he clearly turned his car around because he saw you working. You catch him staring at your left hand, studying it intently. No one wore rings at the diner, just because everything got stuck underneath them and there was nothing worse than having a maple syrup adorned wedding ring.

“There’s no one,” you tell him, which flusters him entirely. He smiles and looks down at his pie, blush creeping over his face. “Weird hours in a place like this? Hardly a brilliant base to build a relationship on.” 

“Yeah.” He might want to say more, but he’s smiling at you again. “Weird hours, strange place, know that story.”

“Sucks, hey?”

“Oh yeah.” 

The teens from the window go home when they’ve finished their milkshake. You tell them to get home safe and pray their parents don’t come in asking where they went. Aaron scraps his plate, scooping up the cream and pie soupy mess. 

“I have to go,” Aaron sighs. He runs his hand through his hair and his fingers get stuck in the left-over-gelly-mess. You smother a giggle as he rolls his eyes and pulls his hand out with tiny little crack-crack-crack’s. It sounds painful.

“I’m going to shower and get this shit out of my hair.”

“It’ll look nice without it in.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

He blushes, returning to the man you’d met coming out of the rain. 

“Well I’ll remember that for next time.” 

Your heart jumps. Next time! There’ll be a next! Time!

“Listen, hey, um,” Aaron says as he stuffs a couple of bills into the tip jar. “Here--” he stops again, then shakes his head like he’s giving himself a vote of confidence. “This is…” he stops again and licks his lips, then pulls out a business card from his suit pocket. He scratches his number onto the blank back, and then Aaron at the top. “My number,” he managed to finish.

“Thanks,” you respond before wanting to smack your head onto the counter. Thanks?!?! There are a hundred better things to say. “W-when do you want me?” When do you want me??? “To be here, on Thursday, for the cookies.”

Aaron’s gone red. Your face is hot. This is a disaster. There’s no fixing this disaster. There’s no fixing it at all. But Aaron smiles all the same.

“U-uh. I’ll text you?” he looks so flustered. 

“You haven’t got my number,” you giggle, because he hasn’t. You’ve got his. He looks like a tomato as he blushes even more. “How about I text you my number, and you tell me when you’re free, and I’ll make sure there’s three cookies set aside for you that no one else buys.”

“Three?”

“You, your son, your sister-in-law.”

“I could really use you at work,” he laughs and… sits back down. Four seconds ago he was in such a rush to leave, and now he’s looking at you like you’re his whole world. He’s so precious, you wish you could just put him in a jar and protect all that goodness from the evils of the world. Surely he couldn’t have met too many of them just yet? He’s still got a smile that could brighten up the night sky, people who’ve seen all the hurt and pain in the world can’t smile like that.

“I don’t think I’m clever enough to get into Quantico. Unless they like people serving them coffees,” you smile gently and he tilts his head while looking at you. A curious puppy. You want to lean over and squish his cheeks for thinking you could be anything more than a server at a roadside diner.

“You’d brighten the place up.”

“You brighten my place up.” Corny, highschool grade flirting. He smiles all the same. Can he smile any more than that? Probably not, he might combust and become a star. “You know you don’t have to keep putting money into the tip jar, right? Not the amount you do. Most people just put in their change.”

He looks at the tip jar. “It’s for Rita’s hospital bills, right? It’s why she won’t look at it, because she’s embarrassed, but also why you and Joe count every bill that goes in it.”

“Alright, Sherlock Holmes.”

“It says on the jar,” he jokes, and points to the permanent marker that’s bled through the otherside of the tip jar. You laugh. Aaron laughs.

“I do have to go.”

“Go,” you laugh. “I’ll text you when I’m off my shift.”

He nods, looking a little sad to go, but also a little excited. He must really love his son.

“I’ll see you on Thursday, Y/n.”

“I’ll see you on Thursday, Aaron,” you return and watch him leave. Shit, he’s even cuter leaving. He even waves from his car before he drives off. You’re close to squealing when the bikie gang pull up, flooding the carpark, then all come in ready for their coffee. At least Aaron’s hot chocolate warmed up the machine for them.

[crescentsteel]

Keeping a Secret - Part 2

pairing: Tsukishima x f!manager of Sendai Frogs genre: sexual tension/crack/fluff/slow burn warnings: lots of swear words, tsukki being a a closet softie wc: 6k (lol no chill as always)

[a/n]

Sorry for the delayed update. I added almost 1k words just to solidify the characters to give depth even more to the story. Feel free to reread. (It's totally not because I started a different series altogether.)

When I say this is slow burn, I meant sloooooooowww burn. 

Let me know if you want to be part of the taglist. :)

AO3 

Part 1 || Part 3 || masterlist

What were you even thinking? Actually,  why weren’t you? Had you used at least two brain cells of yours, you wouldn’t have momentarily lost your mind and kissed Tsukishima. You could’ve justified your actions if you were drunk, but you ingested not even an ounce of alcohol that night.

History will remember yesterday as the day a a sober you and a very displeased Tsukishima who found yourselves smooching publicly in the middle of a club. You’re just glad that no other member of the team goes to the same university you both go to. Else, you'd run the risk of getting seen.

Were so touch-deprived that you couldn’t resist even Tsukishima? And what about him? Why did he get along with it? You don’t think he actually hates you. Hate is such a strong word. He just exceedingly dislikes you. So why would he make out with you? Maybe he thought of it as a way of finally standing up to you?

Ugh.

You’re thankful that you didn’t have training yesterday. You were a mess the whole day trying to make sense of what happened. Not that you’re any better today; you’re still baffled as fuck. But you’re glad you had that day off so you wouldn’t have to face him immediately. 

For the first time ever, you’re dreading going to the gym. Even if you’re tired or you lack sleep, you’ve never felt distressed as the manager of the Sendai Frogs. All this because of Tsukishima. But can you really put the blame on him when it was you who initiated it?

“Good morning, y/n,” Eiji, the captain of the team greets you.

“Morning, Eiji,” you say back. Even though he’s older than you, you dropped the salutations already, same with everybody else. 

“You okay?” he asks worriedly. 

“Oh! Yeah, absolutely! When am I ever not okay?” You toughen it up and erase the troublesome kiss in your head. You are their ever shining manager, first and foremost. Anything outside of that has no place in this gym. 

“Never. It’s almost scary actually,” he answers with jest.

“Right? ‘Cause I’m a freaking goddess.”

He gives you a noble bow. “Indeed, you are, my lady.”

You giggle softly. Your players really are the best on and off the court (except for Tsukishima). “Go do your drills instead of buttering me up, ‘captain.’” He gives you a mock salute then jogs off towards the net. 

“Y/n!”

You saunter off to your coach after you were called. “Yes, Coach?”

“Can you help tape the blockers?” You nod willingly, quickly discarding unnecessary thoughts of Tsukishima. 

“Tsukishima’s free. Go start with him.”

You almost flinch upon hearing his name.

‘Great,’ you groan internally as you get the wrap from your kit and drag your feet toward the source of your uneasiness. But what did you expect? Of course, you’d have to deal with him sooner or later.

“Morning, Tsukishima,” you greet him with forced normalcy, acting like nothing’s wrong. As you take his left hand and you’re instantly reminded of what happened the other night -- how this hand gripped your waist while his mouth moved against yours… how his skin felt against the palm of your hand as he towered over you, body against body in a dance so dangerous and so hypnotizing that you lost yourself in the moment.

You tried your best to calm down yesterday, but seeing him right now makes you want to smack yourself from your momentary insanity that led you to kiss him.

Instead, you give him the nicest, brightest smile to channel your frustrations as you start taping his fingers. You just hope and pray that he doesn’t bring it up.

“Morning,  manager .” It was an indirect jab at you. Even when he says it with a dead tone, you know he’s taunting you by addressing you as manager - a tortuous reminder that what happened last Saturday night wasn’t forgotten.

Instead of yielding to the provocation, you respond with your own. You might have messed up, but you’re not letting him get the upper hand. “How was your weekend, Tsukki?” 

“Horrible,” he quickly answers without even thinking.

“Ditto. What happened to yours?” you ask with fake curiosity, already knowing why. Even if you didn’t kiss him then, he was already acting up like an angsty teen forced by his mom to attend a children’s party within the neighborhood.

“Went to a disgusting party.”

You nod pretentiously. “Mine’s horrible too. I got g-”

“I didn’t ask,” he interrupts.

“Well, you’re still going to hear it,” you respond just as distastefully as he cut you off. “I got groped by some perv, but I kinda punched some good manners unto him.” You release his left hand and take his right one to tape it as well. 

“And?” He asks.

You shrug your shoulders. “That’s it. After that, I just went home from how  horrible  the experience was.”

You look up to him, meeting his sardonic gaze paired with a raised eyebrow from what you just said. You know that he understood that you were referring to something else other than the perv incident as horrible.

“How about you? What happened to that disgusting party of yours?” you press on.

“I bumped into someone I didn’t really want to see.”

“And?”

“Do you really wanna know how horrible it was for me?” A smirk creeps up on the corner of his mouth as he asks. There were many times before that you’ve wanted a taste of Tsukishima’s vile sarcasm, just to know what he’d say to you. Today is not one of those times. You don’t want him using that reckless kiss against you. 

“Actually, no. I don’t really care.” You let go of his hand you just finished working with and look around to look for anyone you could use as a distraction from Tsukishima’s attempt to retell the kiss from his perspective.

“Kogane!” you brightly call the setter as you bounce cheerfully towards him. 

Even if you don’t show it, Tsukishima knows he’s gotten under your previously impenetrable thick skin. He detests what happened last Saturday. The more he remembers it, the more he abhors it. The only reason he’s not totally hating himself for getting swept along with your shit is because he knows you hated it too, probably more than he does since it was you who kissed him first.

His smug grin only spreads when you march to Kogane with that cutesy act you only show to players from opposing teams to unsettle them before matches. You take both Kogane’s hands and beam at him. “Do you want me to tape your fingers?”

“Y-you don’t have to, y/n. I can do it myself!” Kogane blurts out, panicking at your sudden closeness and physical touch.

“But I love taking care of you guys,” you pout at Kogane, which only makes the setter blush a shade almost close to red.

Tsukishima follows you to help his babbling, flustered teammate.

“You’re going to kill him, y/n,” he says as he passes by you and Kogane who now looks like he stopped functioning.

You blink at Kogane, realizing what you’re doing to the poor guy.

You must have been really bothered by Tsukishima and unknowingly projected it to someone else.

Tsukishima sneers as he sees you try to ease Kogane from his severe fluster but only make it worse by rubbing his shoulders. 

A dash of pride and satisfaction swells on Tsukishima’s chest as he watches you get agitated with the situation you, yourself caused. Getting back at you feels even better than he imagined it would be. 

--

Even though you and Tsukishima are in the same class, you don’t really notice his presence. Sometimes you’d even forget you’re classmates. Now, though, you are more aware of the fact that he’s actually there than you ever have.

“Alright, class. For your main project this semester, I’m going to have you partnered up. You need to come up with a comprehensive report on mating behavior of reptiles. I’ll randomly generate your assigned reptile.”

You groan. Another collaborative work in the same subject. You don’t like working with others because you don’t want to adapt to anyone’s schedule. You like to get things done ahead of time. You hate procrastinating because you don’t want your uni requirements getting mixed up with potential tasks from your managerial job, especially whenever tournament seasons come. 

The last collaborative work you worked on is a group project where you did most of the work yourself. You wouldn’t have minded if you didn’t have fucking freeloaders as groupmates.  The little shits made you do 90% of the project because you wanted it done early.

You just pray that this time, you get to be paired with someone responsible. You tap your pen on your desk while you wait for your name to be called.

“L/n and Tsukishima.”

You drop your pen at your professor’s announcement. It bounces twice on your desk before rolling to the floor, but you don’t move to pick it up. Your gaze immediately flies to where Tsukishima is seated and find him glaring at you already. You almost want to laugh at how ridiculous this entire situation is.

Seriously? Were you a serial killer in your previous life or something? Did some higher power decide to punish you for your grave sins like this? 

Whatever. You’re not having any of this shit. 

You wait until the class is over and approach your professor. “Sir. I’d like to do this project alone.” Or at least with someone else. 

He continues to type something on his laptop, not bothering to look up at you, as he asks, “Why is that?”

“I just feel more comfortable doing things on my own, Sir. Please.” You try to give him your nice student smile but his eyes don't leave his screen.

“Then what? Have you increase my workload?”

Shit. You forgot that this particular professor of yours is known to not budge to anyone. You scramble your brain for another excuse.

“Sir. Can I do this project alone?” you suddenly hear Tsukihima’s voice behind you.

Finally, your professor closes his laptop and eyes you two unenthusiastically. “My answer is no to miss Y/n, so my answer to you, Mr. Tsukishima, is also no. I don’t know what the deal is between you two, but you’re doing this together.”

You can’t help but scowl despite being right in front of your professor. If it wasn’t for that darn kiss, you would’ve loved working with Tsukishima. Even though you don’t have the same classes, his schedule won’t be that hard to match up with because you two have the same training days. Secondly, he’s smart. You won’t have to carry the whole weight of the project. 

“You know what, I’ll reconsider.” A glimmer of hope lights up in your chest as you hear your professor’s words. “I’ll allow you two to work individually — but with an automatic ten point deduction for this project.”

“No,” you and Tsukishima respond at the same time. 

“Great! You’re already getting along swimmingly.” Your professor picks up his stuff and stands up. “Enjoy,” he waves a dismissive goodbye and leaves.

You slowly turn around to face Tsukishima and find that you share the same lour that he has. You cross your arms and lean on your professor’s desk. “Guess we’re together, Tsukishima.” 

--

You allowed yourself one week to compose yourself before you agreed to start the project with Tsukishima. You still saw him at training days, and even then, you tried to have the least amount of interaction with him so the ‘incident’ wouldn’t be brought up again. Meeting him for a project where it’s just you two is different and you needed time.

As much as you don’t want to be with him, you told yourself that it’ll be over soon. You just pushed the kiss in the back of your head and convinced yourself that it was just a stupid kiss. It didn’t mean anything. He probably just went along with it out of spite, so it’s best you think of it as a spur of the moment madness. That way, you won’t be bothered if he sordidly brings it up again. At least now, you can go back to your usual, cheeky self around him.

You’re about to text Tsukishima that you’ve arrived at the station you agreed to meet up at but you already see him there standing while he’s scrolling his phone with his usual white headphones on.

Unfortunately for you and him, the reptile assigned to you two are crocodiles. It’s the worst possible assignment you could get among the roster of reptiles assigned. You need to travel all the way to Wakabayashi for a legitimate crocodile farm to observe, compared to other reptiles which are easily accessible with nearby zoos in Miyagi. You just pray that you’ll only need this one trip to get all the data you need for your report.

You walk towards him and instantly regard how he looks. Despite being in the same university, you don’t see him around much. Even in your sole class together, you’re seated way too apart from each other to even look at each other’s direction. Not that being seated beside each other would’ve made a difference. You’re not friends. There’s no need to talk to him since everything that’s volleyball-related is relayed through line. To you, he’s just one of your players. As far as you’re concerned, the only Tsukishima you’re aware of is the one sweating his white shirt and training shorts during practice. 

To have this much involvement with him outside the gym is throwing you out of your usual loop. You continue studying him at a distance. Today he’s wearing white plaid pants, black turtleneck (probably long sleeves) with a lighter shade of black coat on top, and a brown wool scarf. He also has a gray bonnet that makes his blonde locks frame his face nicely. 

What the heck? Did he always dress like this even in class? How come you never noticed? 

He finally notices you. He puts down his phone and removes his headphones. “How long have you been there?”

“Wow, Tsukishima. You look kinda hot,” you blurt out without thinking.

His eyes expand at your statement that came out of nowhere. “Huh?!”

“Oh, sorry. That must’ve been random. But you look really good though. I kinda feel like I’m meeting a date,” you say with objective candor as you continue to stare at him. 

That catches him completely off guard. The other day you’re on the edge around him. You weren’t even paying much attention to him during training, but now you’re back to being a headache whose mouth knows no bounds as you faze him with your unfiltered thoughts. Now, it’s him who is uncomfortable again with your thorough eyes scanning him approvingly. 

“As if I’d ever date you,” he snaps back at your remark to which you scoff at.

“I didn’t say you would. Maybe you’re forgetting, I’d never go out with a member of the team.”

“Right. But kissing one is totally fine, huh?” he retaliates in an instant with a condescending look. He waits for your reaction, eager to see you distraught and bothered by it. To his dissatisfaction, you don’t behave in such a way. Instead, you sigh defeatedly.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I got a little crazy that night,” you say casually to a degree that you sounded like it was just a petty accident. “You kissed me back, so I’m sure you were too. Right?” 

The last word is conniving, and he can tell why you phrased it that way. You’re leaving him no choice but to disregard what happened or else it’s going to seem like it meant something to him. The hell it does. It simply resurfaces back on his mind sometimes because of how unpleasant the memory is. 

‘Devious woman,’ he snarls in his head.

It should be okay. Your reason for what you did can also be his excuse for how responded to it. What he didn’t like is that he hasn’t even managed to make the most out of that incident, while you immediately found a way to undo the grave you dug for him to bury you into.

Plus, the only advantage he sees out of partnering with you for this project is the possibility of being able to pester you the way you pester him during practice. Obviously, that’s already thrown off the window. Now, there’s nothing in it for him for the duration of the project. He is left with nothing but the fact that he has to endure your company. To think that he’s already so miserable when this afternoon has barely even started.

“Yeah,” he answers with contained resentment. “Can we go on the bus now?” He asks to deviate away from the topic already. He was hoping he could still use the incident to unnerve you, but it’s for naught now. 

He enters the bus first and assumes you’ll follow him, which you do as you take your seat beside him. You get your shoulder bag and take out a notebook.

“Can you take a look at this outline I made for our report?” you ask while you hand him your notebook opened at a certain page.

“I can’t read while the bus is moving,” he says then waits for a lame comeback from you. But you don’t comment about it. Why must you keep on being such a wildcard?

“Ah, okay. I’ll just tell it to you then,” you smile at him. “This trip is going to take long. It’d be a waste of time to not make use of it, right?”

He groans internally. Why must you be right all the fucking time?

He also made an outline last night, but he didn’t tell you because he thought it’d be better if he just did the data-gathering himself and let you take the pictures the report should have. He forgot that you’re not as irresponsible and carefree as you present yourself to be.

He listens to you explain your outline, looking for flaws in it for the sake of his grade and also for his self-satisfaction. And he does find a few.

“You should have separate discussion points for mating characteristics for male and females. I’m sure they have distinct traits. Also, I think we should include more than just one species, preferably three if the farm has it.” He continues, “Maybe we can note certain unique behaviors per species. It would be inconclusive, but it would still be nice to include it as a commentary.”

He hopes to extract even just a tiny hint of embarrassment from you for he’s thought of it better than you did. But you just stare at him for a good few seconds before you break into a dazzled smile.

“Oh my God. Yeah, you’re absolutely right!”

You open your notebook and scribble the changes in your drafted outline. “Is there anything else?” You consult him genuinely. You accept his criticisms with an open mind, which vexes him even more. 

“Nothing,” he grumbles.

“Alright. Let’s just revise it again once we see what’s on the farm.”

He doesn’t bother replying anymore since you’re once again right.

He puts on his headphones again to drown out whatever chatter you plan to have with him since you’re done discussing the project for now. Instead of bugging him, you take out a bunch of readings and focus on them intently, completely ignoring him. 

With nothing to entertain him aside from the music on his ears, his peripheral keeps going back to you and how hard you’re concentrating with the papers in your one hand and a pen in the other. 

He removes one muff of his headphone from his ear and asks you, “Don’t you get motion sickness?”

You really must be into what you’re studying because you flinch when he speaks, causing you to drop your pen. 

He feels responsible for it so he leans down to pick it up, but you also do the same. As you both reach down to grab your pen, your temple collides with his. 

“Ow,” your fingers go to massage the spot, failing to notice as he does that your faces are too close for comfort. He watches you wince for a quick while before looking at him, finally realizing that he’s within a proximity familiar to you both. 

It’s reminiscent of that night except this time, the natural light affirms that it wasn’t just the ambiance of the club that made you attractive enough to pull him in and share that heinous kiss. With your well-lit features, he can see that you’re thinking about the same thing he is.

Your eyes fall on his lips and for some illogical reason, he does the same.

Like last time, you’re the first to act on it. The major difference is, instead of leaning in, you retreat. You sit up straight with your fingers still on the side of your head and smile graciously at him. “It’s fine, Tsukishima. I’ll get it,” you say, which he finds half-witted because he’s still bent down and he can already grasp the pen.

He sits back up and hands you your pen. You use the hand on your temple to get it.

“Oh, thanks.” You stare at the pen for a second, then tuck it in your pocket. “Anyways, yeah. I don’t have problems reading in a moving vehicle.”

You dive back to his question and disregard what just happened. It works for him. He’d rather not think about it as well. 

“Have you not seen me scrambling paperwork on our bus rides to and from tournaments?”

“No.” He prefers not to pay attention to you. Hell, he pretends you don’t exist when he can. So naturally, he doesn’t know what it is you do when you’re not being your pestering self. It pains him to admit it, but you do get shit done -- efficiently, too. He should be glad because at least, you won’t be like his previous groupmates.

Still, just you being … you, ticks him off.

You laugh out of nowhere. “For someone who doesn’t speak much, you’re so fucking transparent.”

He frowns, not being able to grasp what you meant.

“Okay, look. I like pissing you off. I really do. And you, you don’t like me a lot. But for this project. Can we pretend that I’m not your annoying manager and you’re not the nasty Tsukishima I know?” 

“How the fuck can I do that when we see each other almost everyday as such?”

You roll your eyes and smirk. “Right. What was I even thinking? Go ahead and be emo with your music over there while I study here, yeah?” You pat him on the shoulders twice with that patronizing grin you always give him before pulling your pen back from your pocket and focusing once more on your readings, completely paying no attention to him for the rest of the trip.

—

As soon as you reach the crocodile farm, Tsukishima suggests that you two roam the area separately to cover more ground. In reality, he just wanted to get rid of you even for just a few minutes. He needed a break from you.

He does so by taking his time strolling around the place, observing how the area is situated. It looks like a park with its vast lush green environment and man-made waters to habituate the crocodiles. There are four main areas: the museum, the hatchling house, the zoo, and the breeding pens. He first goes to the museum, looking at the skeletal structure of some crocodiles. It isn’t really significant to the project but he can’t help admire it.

When he realizes that he’s taking longer than he initially thought, he starts looking for you. He sends you a text, but you don’t reply. You had gone to the zoo’s direction so he assumes you’re somewhere around that area. 

When he does find you, you’re not alone.

There you are near a crocodile pen, getting friendly with a guy he’s sure you just met.

It’s so familiar. The only difference is that you’re not wearing the Frogs’ jacket and you’re not in the Sendai gymnasium. He walks towards your direction, not caring if he’s going to cut off your little chat. You’re there for the project, not to snag some random bozo.

As he closes in behind you, he hears your conversation.

“Actually, birds are more closely related to dinosaurs than crocodiles. You couldn’t tell, right?” you explain with zeal. 

Tsukishima stops in his tracks at the foreign feeling in his chest. Wait a minute. Is he actually impressed? Moreover, what the heck is he impressed for? You should know that. You are both in a higher herpetology class. Even though it hasn’t been discussed during lectures, it’s natural that you know that. However, the guy you’re talking with isn't as enthusiastic. 

“Can’t blame you though. Crocs and dinos share the same sexy vibe with those chill eyes and scaly skin. Also, look at those smokin webbed feet. Fucking work of art, dude. You feel me?” you press on fanatically.

The stranger looks at you with a forced smile, obviously weirded out by your ‘passionate’ description of the reptile. “Yeah, sure. I have to go now. Bye,” the guy bows and storms away from you. 

You turn your attention back to the lowered pen in front of you with a satisfied smile and shudder when you see Tsukishima already there beside you. 

“Gah! You scared me. Why didn’t you say anything?” you ask with your hand still on your chest.

“I didn’t want to interrupt you creeping out that stranger.”

You tither at his answer. “Glad you didn’t. It was fun seeing him all freaked out.” 

He finds it weird. He thought you just had an aversion towards athletes. That’s why you keep driving away anyone who’d approach you during matches. Apparently, that’s not the case.

“He looked like he’d follow you back to Miyagi if you didn’t go all freaky nerdy on him.” 

You jeer at his comment. “He could follow me to the ends of the Earth and I still wouldn’t give him my number. I’d rather date Mr. Crocodylus siamensis over here than boring dum dums blinded by how hot I am.” 

“Then why do you entertain them?” he follows up.

“Caaaauuusse it’s fun to see them squirm,” you declare cheerfully as you veer your gaze at him. “Why the sudden interest with the way I handle men, Tsukishima?”

You raise an eyebrow, the corner of your lips tugging up to form a playful smirk. “Don’t tell me you suddenly find me interesting?”

You really do know how to push the right buttons to provoke him. He grits his teeth from your audacity.

“I’m joking for fuck’s sake! My god. I already know that even if it’s just the two of us on this planet, and we’d have to procreate to restart the world population, you’d rather choose to doom humanity than have anything to do with me.”

Among all the correct things that came out of your mouth, that was the only thing he could verbally agree with. “Good you know,” he retorts. 

You don’t seem to take offense though. You still keep your unwavering smile as you get your phone out and take a picture of the Borneo crocodile. 

“Should we go see the breeding pens now?” you ask nonchalantly, dismissing the previous conversation like it was nothing. 

--

You both decide to hire a designated tour guide to assist you while you observe the crocodiles, particularly the ones for breeding. 

“Hi, Ms. l/n. I’m Sara and I will be your guide for today,” she introduced herself with a dedicated smile.

“I’m so thrilled that you and your boyfriend decided to learn more about crocodiles for your date,” she adds. 

You and Tsukishima glance at each other before turning back to her. 

“She’s not my girlfriend.” “He’s not my boyfriend.”

You both say simultaneously, except yours sounded like a friendly correction while his sounded like a dead announcement. 

“We’re just classmates for a project,” you correct her.

She bows apologetically with embarrassment and worry. “I’m so sorry for assuming that.”

“No worries, Sara,” you reassure her before Tsukishima says something unnecessary. “Can you lead us on the breeding pens? We’d like to observe the whole thing.” 

“Of course. Right this way.”

Aside from the mishap earlier, you find Sara competent at her job as she fills you in with details not included in the sign boards in the pens. She gives you information about the mating process that you didn’t find when you researched about the subject. You assume Tsukishima’s thinking the same because he doesn’t say anything out of the blue.

“By any chance, will we see a pair mating today?” he asks after a while.

“I’m not really sure, Mr. Tsukishima. It’s really up to the animals.”

You tug on Tsukishima’s sleeve when you catch sight of one crocodile latching himself on top of another.

“What?” he asks irritatedly, but follows your line of sight. 

“Oh, lucky. There you go.” Sara announces with a pleasant smile.

You get your phone and your notes. You multitask listening to Sara, taking photos, and scribbling notes on your paper pad. 

On the other hand, Tsukishima multitasks observing the crocodiles in action and observing you. 

You’re asking important questions to the guide while juggling other tasks. Yes, he doesn’t like you and loathes being partnered with you. However, that doesn't mean he won’t cooperate with you. He won’t mind if you ask him for help, but you seem to have even forgotten that he’s there. 

He grabs your phone from your hand, garnering a confused look from you.

“I’ll take the photos. You take down notes.”

You flash him an honest, grateful smile. “Thanks, Tsukishima.”

Then, you proceed with the things you’re doing more at ease. 

He can’t tell who he’s more pissed at, you or himself. Something about that display of productivity and wit unnerves him. It’s as if it’s telling him that his chagrin over you is unreasonable because you’re actually reliable when it counts. What’s worse is you’re completely oblivious to it. In fact, you’re almost ignoring him.

Goddamn it. What’s he doing? He’s completely distracted now from the project and is solely focused on you. He quickly shakes it off and calms himself down. His attention should be on the reptiles, not you.

He turns his attention back to the crocodiles, but the mating act only lasted a few minutes. After that, you both barrage Sara with an array of questions that she looked too overwhelmed by the end of your tour. 

You’ve covered almost everything for the day and it’s already around 6 in the evening when you get on a bus on the way back to Miyagi.

“That was fun!” you comment ardently with an abnormal shine on your face when you sit down on the bus on the way back. He wears his headphones on before you start a conversation he’s not willing to have. From his peripheral, he sees you turning to him and as he predicted, your mouth begins moving while you animatedly narrate words he could not hear. 

He’s already acting as if he can’t hear nor see you, but you still don’t stop. Knowing you, you will not stop until you make sure he notices you. He wearily removes his headphones only to see you not saying anything and only mouthing words with hand gestures. 

“Seriously?” He scowls at you. He’s already exhausted at having to deal with you even for just half a day, but you still have the energy to mess with him. 

You cover your mouth with your hand as you snicker but it erupts into a hoot of laughter shortly. You gasp ridiculously after you ride out your stupid amusement from poking at his patience. “Tsukki, I swear to God. You make the best faces,” you say while wiping away your joyous tears.

“Were you even going to say something worth listening to?” he questions sourly.

You study him then shake your head. “I think you’re tired, so let’s just discuss what we gathered next time. You can go ignore me now,” you tell him with an understanding smile despite the slight banter.

You tilt your body in his direction and hoist yourself up a bit to put his headphones back yourself like it’s no big deal.

You settle back into your seat while he stills on his seat, stunned with what you just did while you get your readings again and shrink to your own bubble. You don’t seem to make anything of it, so he doesn’t as well. It was very you to mindlessly get on anyone’s —  particularly his — personal space anyways.

He increases the volume of his headphones and tries to relax. Yet, his attention keeps swerving back at you every now and then. You’re really concentrating hard with your brows burrowed while you stare at your hand-outs. After a while, he notices you bobbing your head from the corners of his eyes.

He can tell you’re as tired as he is and trying hard to fight the sleep that’s taking over you. The bunch of papers you previously held are now clutched on your lap.

On the last bob of your head, you snap out of it. You blink repeatedly and return your eyes to your readings again. To no avail, you’re shutting down with your eyes fluttering when you try again. You look like you decided to give it a rest and put your papers back in your bag. You cross your arms and lean back to your seat. 

He feels relieved that you finally yield to your physical exhaustion. He doesn’t need an additional bullet point to his list of why he can’t fully hate you. Also, you won’t run your mouth at him if you’re asleep.

He feels the soft thump of your head on his shoulder. You probably did too as you suddenly bolt up and tell him ‘sorry' which he only understands based on how you mouthed the word. You lean back again and try to settle back to sleep. But when you start dozing off, you sway to the other side of your seat which is the aisle of the bus.

He grabs your shoulder to prevent you from tumbling down to the aisle. Your disoriented self looks around, alarmed at his sudden touch.

“Just fucking lean on me,” he spits out, irked that he has to say it out loud. It’s not like he pushed you away. You could’ve just stayed as you were and he would’ve turned a blind eye at it out of recognition of the effort you put in today. He’d just consider it one of those times that you do something annoying and he just ignores you as a response.

You regard him with dazed eyes. You open your mouth as if you’re about to say something but decide against it as you shut your eyes again and you let your head rest on his shoulder. But even then, your head still falls forward from time to time. He puts a hand on your forehead to settle you back on his shoulder and slides a bit downward on his seat to accommodate you. 

Jesus Christ, you can study in a moving vehicle but can’t even do a simple thing like sleep properly on it. Why does he even have to adjust for you?

He heaves furiously in contrast to your steady breathing, letting him know that you’re easing deeper to your sleep. 

He distracts himself by looking at the window, witnessing the unmoving dark sky and the changing scenery below. He lets out a sigh.

Maybe he should’ve just accepted the ten point deduction.

Part 1 || Part 3 || masterlist

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