#same moon different settings | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ceilidho · 2 months ago

Text

BIRD DOG | Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

MOODBOARD · AO3

A few times a year, Simon goes home to an empty apartment in a shithole city and counts down the days until he can leave. This time, there's someone waiting for him when he comes home.

Convenient. He was already planning on ordering takeaway.

Or: the live-in masseuse au

tags: Size Difference, Size Kink, Explicit Sexual Content, AFAB reader - Freeform, Masseuse Reader, Forced Cohabitation, Strangers to Roommates to Lovers, Porn with Feelings

The mangled hand of fate lets him go but seldomly.

He does, though, get a few weeks off a year. Bids farewell to his captain (the barest hint of a nod after leaving each other on the runway, chopper blades spinning faster and faster, the other man headed back out, his duties never finished; the world can never let them both rest at the same time) and then he’s gone, bags long packed and truck loaded the night before last. He drives a long, circuitous route after leaving the military base, the mask only shed when the paranoid prickle in his head finally abates.

It never quite goes away though.

And then comes the drive back, the road long and the drudgery endless. One hand on the wheel, the other hanging out of the side of the truck, a cigarette pinched between two knuckles. Occasionally, he takes a drag.

This is the part he always hates. The drive back. Roads winding through quiet towns and over hills, blue disappearing into black, streetlights piercing the darkness and demarcating the beginning and end of civilization. Manchester is a long drive north. He stops once for a piss by the side of the road and then carries on.

It’s a wonder they let him go at all. He is violence forthright; setting him free does no one any good. It’s hardly even a reward for him, more of just a pretense of normalcy. A week to stretch his legs, so to speak. If he were anything other than human, maybe they’d force him to stay on base indefinitely, secured and contained behind barbed wire fences and reinforced concrete walls.

But a few times a year, they play this game and send him off into the world.

There’s an apartment in Manchester that he’s rented for as long as he can remember. A shithole flat in a shithole borough, and though Simon’s squirreled away enough money to buy a place of his own, the thought of owning anything makes his skin crawl. It’s not in his blood, he thinks. He’d sooner live in a shack in the woods, no fixed address or way to find him. Even his flat in Manchester is rented under a different name, and he pays his landlord in cash for the year.

It’s dark when he reaches the city, the sky soot black and patchy with clouds. Moon nowhere in sight. Nothing beautiful ever visits Manchester.

But there’s a light on in the window when he pulls up in front of his place.

Odd.

Would’ve remembered if he left the light on the last time he was in town months ago; filament would’ve blown out in at least that time as well. Still, there’s a light on in the living room window and a new curtain pulled across to keep anyone from looking in.

Simon stares at the light while he leans outside against the truck and finishes his cigarette. Stubs it out under his boot when it’s down to the filter and locks the car door behind him. Violence already itches under his skin, knuckles tingling like they know what’s coming if he opens that door and finds some junkie living in his flat. It’ll be worse if he finds out that his scumbag landlord moved someone else in after picking up on him being gone nearly half the year.

His key still works though. Fancy that.

He finds you like that, sitting up from a nap on his couch, sweater slouched down a shoulder and groggily blinking open big doe eyes that widen when you notice him in the doorway, fear making you freeze up.

You’re a pretty little thing; a pleasant surprise to find something like you sitting on his couch. It quells the violence simmering in his belly because it awakens another appetite instead. Like a meal delivered right to his door. He was already planning on ordering takeaway.

He drops the duffel bag by his feet, propping the door open with it. “You lost, bird?”

Terror leaves you mute. He can only imagine; he must seem like something straight from a horror movie—defenceless girl waking up to the dead-eyed stare of a giant dressed in all black watching her sleep and blocking her only way out. That’s not completely true; there’s a backdoor through the kitchen that leads into a laneway behind the house, but the door sticks in the winter, not easy to open in a hurry.

He has as much right to ask as you do to run at the sight of him though, considering it is his fuckin’ flat.

You can’t seem to choke out a single word. Scared stiff, likely, heart slamming against your chest while the worst scenarios possible play out in your mind. Simon nearly rolls his eyes.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” he grumbles, finally kicking his bag out of the way so the door can shut behind him. “Cat got your tongue or somethin’?”

The sound of the door slamming shut must finally snap you out of it because you scramble off the couch, nearly tripping over the arm when you run for the back. Screaming too, just to piss him off extra. His back already aches something fierce from the long drive—he wasn’t expecting a headache on top of everything else.

“Heeeeeeeeelp! Heeeeelp!”

Your screams are borderline deafening, almost more aggravating than finding someone living in his flat in the first place.

You scramble down the hall, so terrified that you go for the first open door, slamming it shut behind you. His eyes follow the shape of your bare legs and the way the muscles in your ass move as you run.

“I’m c-calling the police!” you yell from behind the bathroom door.

When Simon looks back down the hall, he notices your phone on the floor, bright side up. Must have dropped out of your pocket when you bolted like a scared cat.

“No, you’re not,” he says blandly, staring at the door. There’s a pause on the other side like you just noticed your missing phone, then a bleat of panic. “Don’t try going out the window either—thing’s been sealed shut since the nineties.”

On the other side of the door, the window rattles in its frame for a good few seconds before you give up on trying to escape that way. There’s a pause while you consider your options. Simon waits patiently on the other side of the door, his temper slowly but surely getting the better of him the longer he goes without a shower and a beer, locked out of his own bathroom.

What a bloody headache.

He pounds a fist against the door, bracing his feet in case you try to open it and scurry out around him before he’s had a chance to have a chat. “Gonna come out now?”

“Get out of my house!” you shriek instead of being polite.

Figures. He should’ve known his landlord would pull some shit like this. “How long’ve you been living here, bird?”

“I have a knife!”

Pretty thing that likes to lie. There’s not a shot you have anything better than a hair dryer or nail clippers in there.

“Better get away from the door ‘cause I’m kickin’ it in,” he announces, taking a step back to give himself some distance and waiting a few seconds for you to realize that he’s dead serious before you start screaming at the top of your lungs again.

Got quite a set on you. That doesn’t matter much to him though. The door caves in after only a few good kicks, the frame splitting right up through the lock when it finally gives, and the two halves—the door itself nearly snapped in half—banging against the wall when it ricochets open.

You’re trembling between the toilet and the wall when Simon walks in, knees practically knocking together. The crotch of your shorts are wet and there’s a small puddle under you; must’ve pissed yourself in fear, and he’d almost pity you if you weren’t squatting in his flat.

The closer he gets to you, the harder you wail. Full on bawling now, snot and drool dribbling down your face, and Christ, he sure picked a bad time to grow a heart. He’s not immune to a pretty girl in distress, much as he wishes he could be.

He kneels in front of you, purposefully blocking your only way out, before knocking his knuckles under your chin, huffing out a breath when you flinch. “Ain’t gonna hurt you, bird. You’re just in my flat, is all.”

“Your flat?” you repeat in disbelief. “This is my flat. I pay rent!”

“Got a lease then?” he asks, and though your eyes are still bloodshot and your nose is still leaking, you nod.

“Yes.”

“Show me then,” he orders.

And you do when he steps back to give you some space, scampering shamefully to your—his—bedroom to rifle through the dresser until you pull out a handful of papers that look suspiciously like a lease. He skims it with a growing tick in his eye. It looks like one because it is one.

“See?” you mumble. He ignores the attitude in favour of reading until the end, where he finds his landlord’s name, the blotchy signature underneath it unmistakable.

“Bullshit,” he grunts through his teeth.

“It’s not. You can call him and ask! Where’s yours?”

His copy of the lease is tucked away in a drawer in the kitchen, buried under loose rubber bands, old batteries, and takeout menus from restaurants that went under years ago. When he returns with it and holds it up to your nose, you frown.

“Oh. I guess that explains some things.”

“Explains some things, huh? The clothes didn’t tip you off?” Simon asks, referring to the sweatpants and shirts still lining the dresser shelves. Your lips tighten.

“I thought the previous tenant skipped town and left his clothes. I was gonna throw them out eventually.”

“Good thing you didn’t.” His voice is thick with sardonicism.

It’s an interesting standoff to say the least. You, standing there in your soiled sleep shorts with tear-streaked cheeks, and him still decked out in his military gear and boots tracking dirt across the flat. You sway on your feet, the adrenaline crash likely intense. He catches you when you sway too close to him and you flinch when his hand clamps down over your shoulder, a new wave of adrenaline coursing through you.

“I’m fine,” you snap, taking a step away.

For fuck’s sake. His mood darkens at the continued hostility. It’s not like you’re the one who came home to a strange man squatting in your flat—if anyone has a right to be hostile, it’s him.

Skittering back into the bedroom, you shut the door behind you, likely to change into another pair of shorts. Simon’s mood festers the longer he waits for you to come out. The last string of his patience nearly snaps when you finally creep back out into the living room, the sour expression on your face pissing him off even more.

“I’m gonna call Tom,” you mutter, picking your phone off the coffee table.

“Go ahead.” He doesn’t bring up that it won’t change a thing. Not his problem if you’re so green behind the ears that you think your landlord will drop everything to answer a call, especially after dinner.

No one answers when you ring, just as he thought. He plops down on the couch and rests a foot on the coffee table, ignoring the way you pace back and forth waiting for your landlord to pick up.

“No answer?” Simon asks rhetorically.

“Aren’t you gonna try?” you ask.

“Yeah. Tomorrow. When ‘e’ll actually pick up.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do then? I’m not getting a hotel room for the night.”

“Me neither, birdie.”

He meets your stare with one of his own. It doesn’t take long for you to give in.

There’s a pullout bed in the couch that you offer to take and he lets you because he is, at the end of the day, a selfish prick who won’t give up a week of decent sleep for anybody. Not when his back and neck have been acting up for the past month and keeping him from getting more than three hours at a time.

The ache behind his eyebrow throbs as Simon sits on the edge of the bed. A slow exhale.

Tomorrow can’t come quick enough.

In the morning, Simon rings his landlord and listens silently as the fuckhead blubbers on the other end of the phone about late payments and eviction notices.

“This ain’t a charity, y’know,” the other man sniffs. “I gotta pay my bills too.”

He lets the man make excuse after excuse and accuse him of this and that until he finally goes silent when he notices Simon hasn’t said a word in minutes. At which point, Simon icily reminds him of what he does for a living and the fact that he paid him for the year in full just a few months back.

Not much to be done after that. There’s silence on the other end before his landlord tries to hem and haw his way out of it. He offers Simon one of his other properties currently sitting vacant on the other side of town, but that’s not the answer that Simon is looking for.

“If anyone’s moving out, it ain’t me,” Simon growls into the phone.

The wounded look that you shoot at him rubs him the wrong way.

His landlord’s still rambling on about moving costs and lawyer fees when Simon hangs up, no longer in the mood to try and talk things out.

He doesn’t really understand the legalities here, but he knows he can’t just toss you out on your ass when you’ve also got a lease, same as him.

“I have every right to be here,” you start up the second he hangs up the phone, not letting him get a word in edgewise, shoulders rolled back like you’re trying to be assertive. “I’ll take it to court if I have to.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” Simon scrubs a hand down his face.

“I’m serious. Rent is expensive and this is the only place close enough to where I work that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg—and I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer to get my money back—”

“I’m not gonna kick you out,” he finally snaps, fed up with your caterwauling.

You pause, hope warring with disbelief. “You’re not?”

He gives a curt shake of his head. “Too much of a headache. I’m only…in town for a week anyway.”

“Oh. ‘Til when?”

“‘Til whenever I’m back.” Purposefully cryptic. He gives you a flat look when you open your mouth to pry some more.

You reconsider, chewing your bottom lip until a better question occurs to you. “Are you in town a lot? Because I’m not sure how else we could make this work. I could sleep at my cousin’s until you leave?”

“Your cousin live around here?”

You hesitate. “No.”

“Then that ain’t gonna work, is it?”

“At least I’m trying,” you hiss, and Simon has to tamp down the amusement that swirls in his chest at the sight of your shoulders puffing up. “I’m not ripping up my lease and if you’re not either, then we have to figure out something unless you feel like taking this to court.”

While Simon wouldn’t usually take kindly to being threatened, his annoyance never quite develops into anything more substantial.

“Just keep outta my way and I’ll keep outta yours,” he says.

“Fine.”

The agreement you come to is that when he’s in town—seldom and erratic—he’ll take the bedroom and you’ll sleep on the couch, a fair compromise since you have the flat to yourself the rest of the year.

He doesn’t explain himself, of course. Doesn’t explain why he’s allowing this instead of dragging you to court kicking and screaming. It’s no one’s business but his why he chooses not to go down that road.

He tells himself that it’s easier this way; that it’s easier just to run your lease out and spare himself the legal mess. It’s not like he’ll even be around most of the time anyway.

What he carefully side steps, even in his own mind, is the sharp displeasure that accompanies the thought of forcing you out of his flat and onto the streets.

Cohabitation is—

Easy wouldn’t be the right word. He certainly doesn’t make it easy on you, leaving his dirty dishes in the sink and his half-empty beer cans in the shower caddy, his cum drying on the wall over the tub spout. You try to do the same by leaving your dirty laundry on the communal furniture, but it doesn’t have the same effect.

It’s interesting, at least. It’s not as though he’s never lived with anyone before—his memories of his early years in the service are littered with bunkmates packed into every corner of the room, and learning to sleep everywhere from moving caravans to while standing in formation, always surrounded by other people—but he’s paid his dues. Barring deployment, he thought he’d earned the luxury of his privacy.

But it’s not all bad; it’s been years since he had fun like this.

You try your best to annoy him in return, but you don’t realize that you’re playing chicken with a man who’s been buried alive. There isn’t much someone like you could do to break him.

Living with another person doesn’t soften him up one bit. There’s a time for change and it’s not off the back of a four-month covert operation, his nerves still razor sharp and ability to sleep practically nonexistent. He gets precious few weeks to himself and he isn’t going to waste them trying to get in the habit of smoking on the porch instead of in his own living room.

“I’m a masseuse.”

“Oh yeah?” Simon grunts, barely listening. There’s a match on the telly and a beer in his other hand—a perfect afternoon, if only you’d just stop yapping in his ear for five fuckin’ minutes.

“Yes, and I can’t show up to work reeking like a chimney,” you explain, scooching closer to him on the couch while being careful to leave some distance between the two of you. For all your posturing, you’re still timid around him, like a kitten hissing and spitting around a much bigger cat.

“What’s that got to do with me?” he asks rhetorically, not in the slightest interested in how it pertains to him. He takes another drag from the cigarette dangling between his index and middle finger, ashing it over the side of the couch.

“It means I’d prefer if you didn’t smoke in the flat,” you say, hissing the last few words.

He takes another drag, turning to look at you before exhaling right in your face. “That’s a shame.”

You cough and squawk, and he fights down a grin.

For the most part, he leaves you to your own devices, intent only on enjoying his time off. He fixes the bathroom door at least, which you begrudgingly thank him for.

A week and a bit, Simon reminds himself when you come in through the front door chirping into your phone, your voice effectively drowning out the TV on in the background. When you spot him staring at you from the couch, you go quiet as a mouse and slink off to the bathroom, locking the (newly installed) door behind you. He supposes it’s the only place where you feel any semblance of privacy since his bedroom is off limits until he leaves. It does leave him without a bathroom though.

Pissing in the alleyway behind the flat half an hour later, he scowls into the darkness and reminds himself that he has no one to blame but himself for this mess.

When his leave comes to an end, Simon doesn’t bother to give you a heads up. You’ll realize it in a couple of days when you notice his absence around the flat, the siege finally lifted. He supposes you’ll be grateful for his departure and grateful not to make you feign politeness.

Duffel bag packed away in the car, he leaves with the bed still unmade. Knows that’ll ruffle your feathers later on when you come home, but it’s his parting gift. His reminder to you to enjoy the couple months reprieve his job allows you.

And then the road slips away under him and he’s gone.

The months away are just complex rearrangements of the same thing. Each time it drives his soul deeper into the gully, buffeted by katabatic winds.

His daily life on base is split into brackets of time. Wake up, go to the gym, work, clock out, see the captain for a drink. Wash, rinse, repeat. Each day blending into the next. Back where he belongs, under the thumb of a system that he’s long sold his body and freedom to, and sent out God knows where to do God knows what.

Then, again the rooster crows at first light and he lifts himself out of bed.

When he’s deployed, everything changes while everything stays the same. He doesn’t have the same freedom of movement as he does on base, but in truth very little changes from one deployment to the next if you zoom out enough. Limited time to sleep on the chopper before it touches down, body tensed for what’s to come, and then he’s off, his objectives clear.

Driving a knife into a neck to the hilt and pulling it out one inch at a time. It’s the one he knows how to do, and he does it well. He doesn’t have to like what he does; he doesn’t even have to think about it so long as it gets done.

Ghost exhales and slips the mask back on.

In [redacted city] in [redacted country], he sets his scope up in the window of a building across from one where his target is slated to be in twelve hours and then he waits. Flexes his fingers when they go numb and ignores the thirst clawing up his throat. Four hours later, his elbows ache something fierce from digging into the ground for hours on end, a sharp pain shooting up his arms, but Ghost pays it no mind. Mind over matter.

Amidst the hours of laying there and waiting for his target to come into frame, his mind doesn’t wander. That’s a luxury for a different time—when the job is done and his target is executed.

At the very edges of his consciousness though, something flickers. The skin around his eyes pinches as he pushes the half-formed thought away.

Then his target walks into the room and everything else disappears.

You’re still there when he returns months later on another government ordered leave. Same petulant frown and wobbly lower lip when he walks in through the front door, dripping wet from the rain outside. When he tosses his duffel bag onto the couch, you scowl, nudging the bag onto the floor with your foot.

“You could’ve rang,” you mumble, pulling the throw from the back of the couch over your lap to hide your bare legs. Pity to be deprived of a nice view, but Simon doesn’t take it to heart.

“Didn’t think you’d still be ‘ere,” he grunts instead, shrugging out of his jacket and shaking it dry, suppressing a smirk when you start squawking about getting water all over the floor.

That’s partly a lie, though not one he’ll ever admit to. Simon figured there might be a chance you’d be gone, but in the time since he last saw you, he’s done enough digging around online to know that you weren’t kidding about the lack of affordable flats in the area. There’s hardly a unit nearby that isn’t going for double what he pays, some even more.

“Well, guess I’m sleeping out here tonight,” you grumble. You’re on your tiptoes in the doorway to the living room now, the throw wrapped around you like a security blanket.

He doesn’t answer that. No point getting your hopes up when he has no intention of giving up the bed.

In another life, he might be enough of a gentleman to let you sleep in the bedroom while he takes the couch, but in this one, his back is ravaged by sciatica and his dominant hand and wrist twinge with the beginning of carpal tunnel syndrome. Most nights, it’s a miracle if he can get five uninterrupted hours.

So no, he won’t be giving up the bed.

But Simon toys with the thought of dragging you in with him. It’s been awhile since he had a woman, so long that the memory is fuzzy when he dredges it up, and though his hand does the job when the itch grows severe, he’s no monk. He could pull you in with little effort, sweet talk you until your knickers are around your ankles and your legs are in the air, hot cunt steaming when your legs part and he sinks his cock in deep. Wouldn’t take more than a half dozen thrusts before he busted, pretty pussy painted with his cum.

In the doorway, you eye him dubiously, scrunched nose expressing your discontent.

It’s an idea, at least.

He still leaves his dishes in the sink and wakes to you pounding on the bedroom door, whining about having to scrub his plates with a pot scraper, but time and distance have mellowed any hostility in you. You treat him less like a stranger intruding on your space and more like a roommate you’ve grown to tolerate despite his many faults.

The oddest thing is opening the fridge up to more than just a six-pack, a stick of butter, and three half-empty bottles of mustard. Fresh produce and meat spill from the shelves now, leftovers packed in tupperware and neatly labelled. He eats like a king now, takeout relegated to the days when you don’t feel like cooking. On those days, Simon heads down to the chippie a few streets away and gets enough for the both of you before heading back to eat on the couch with you.

He still gets a kick out of leaving his cigarette butts in cups strewn around the flat for you to find.

“So what do you do anyway?” you ask out of the blue.

“What’s it matter?” Simon grunts from beside you. He has to slow his usual gait to keep pace with you—which is irritating as all fuck—but you didn’t leave him much choice when you insisted on going to the store well after dark.

“I’m just making conversation. You always get so squirrely when I ask—what are you, some kind of secret agent?”

He’d roll his eyes if he had any less self-control.

“No way. No way. You are?” you gasp, suddenly glued to his side, hands scrambling for purchase on his bicep and shoulder.

Simon stares down at your hands clutching his arm, unconsciously tucking his bicep between your tits. “Best to not ask questions, bird.”

You pout. He ignores the impulse to lean down and sink his canines into that plump bottom lip.

His nose itches because the world is changing.

He used to catalogue his time off base in much the same way. Wake up, workout, tinker with the junk pilfered from estate sales and scrap yards he’s frequented over the years, then head to the pub for a drink. Wash, rinse, repeat.

That’s changed since you came into his life. Aside from when you’re out working, you unbalance his schedule. Upset his routines. The structure propping up his entire existence gets taken down in an instant when you open your mouth and ask him to the market with you, giving him no choice but to slam the door shut behind him and drive you there.

Each day comes with its new flavour, a new bite to it.

“You’re not eating takeout again?” you ask him, aghast when you come home from work to find takeout containers all over the coffee table

“Always a fuckin’ lecture with you, huh?” Simon grumbles into his curry. Shovels another forkful into his mouth.

Just as he expected though, you don’t let it go. He was a fool to think you would. It’s not so bad at first when all you do is cook for him—with the life he’s lived, he’s never been one to turn down a home cooked meal, so he accepts the proffered food happily—but it’s another thing entirely when you rope him into it.

He’s already pissed off when you wrangle him into the kitchen under the guise of needing his help—absurd after your subterfuge from the day before, his expectation being that you were happy to do all the cooking yourself, not force him to debase himself by chopping up all the vegetables and meat while being ordered around like a line cook.

What really ticks him off though is that—

he grumbles to himself as he chops the mushrooms into thin slices

—you keep getting away with it.

The worst is when you catch the tremor in his hand at the breakfast table, quick eyes picking up on the subtle quiver instantly.

“Something wrong with your wrist?” you ask. Always prying into his business.

Simon closes his hand into a fist. “It’s nothing.”

You frown. “Doesn’t look like ‘nothing’.”

“Well, it is.”

“Can you relax your grip? I just want to see that again.”

How he lets you talk him into massaging his wrist is beyond him. Then you press your thumbs into the meat of his palm and rub in smooth, circular motions, and his brain goes offline for half a second. The relief hits him like a cudgel to the head; knocks him upside.

“Jesus fuck, bird,” Simon groans. His knee bangs against the leg of the table.

“Feels a bit better, huh?” you ask, the corner of your mouth quirking up in a crooked, teasing smile.

And fuck if it doesn’t feel a thousand times better by the time you’re done. He snaps when your thumbs dig in too deep at his wrist and pain radiates up his arm, but all you do is laugh it off, smiling to yourself when you press down on a tender point on his wrist and his jaw goes slack.

Sometimes, he wishes he could study you like a bug. Pin your arms and legs down to get a closer look. Kneel over you and pin your shins down with his to keep you from squirming away, then tuck his fingers into the inside of your cheeks to pull them open.

But he keeps his hands to himself. Just barely.

He doesn’t stay long this time, called back from his katabasis before the week’s even up, Price’s voice urgent over the phone. His duffel bag is packed before the call is even over, boots laced up and mask folded neatly in his pocket for when he leaves the city limits.

“You’re leaving?” you ask when you notice, and if Simon were less of a realist, he might think you sounded upset.

“Need me to take out the trash?” he asks, his answer implicit. Yes, he’s leaving. Even if it weren’t for his job, he’s not the staying type; those kinds of decisions are out of his hands anyway, and even if it were up to him, he’d be long gone by now. Adrift; across the pond or somewhere down in the Balkans, far enough away that you couldn’t find him even if you wanted to.

That’s what he tells himself. Whether he believes it anymore is another question.

You’re quiet for a second. “Sure. Thank you.”

Simon nods. Nothing more to say. The ache in his gut could be anything else.

He lifts a hand on his way out, ruffles your hair once before he’s gone.

Rain soaks him down to his britches but still he stands in it without complaint, watching some of the privates unload a delivery truck parked outside of the commissary. Even the mundane parts of his job are his to attend to and he does so with little complaint.

When they finish around eighteen-hundred hours, he signs out for the day and heads to Price’s office for a drink. It’s so routine it’s practically part of his DNA.

Price already has both glasses poured when Ghost arrives, two fingers each, and it goes down smooth when he rolls the mask up over his nose to take a sip.

“Got out the pricey stuff just for me?” Ghost asks. He can tell by the taste and from the bottle sitting on the shelf behind Price, label facing outward.

“What else am I saving it for?” Price asks rhetorically. “I’m not letting the good stuff go to waste.”

Ghost hums. It’s still raining buckets outside. He watches as it hits the windowpane behind Price’s desk, almost transfixed.

“Got time for a drink before you’re out on Friday?”

He shakes his head. “No time. Gotta be out by six.”

“Six?” Price repeats, a mite surprised. “Why? Something waiting for you back home?”

Ghost doesn’t answer.

Price lifts an eyebrow. “Well, spit it out.”

He shrugs. “Nothing to tell.”

“So there’s no one back in Manchester?”

“Didn’t say that.”

Price’s lips twitch into a grin under his mustache, eyes faintly amused. “Heard.”

Truth be told, he has started to think of you as someone waiting back home. Maybe not for him, but waiting all the same. Why else would you be back in his flat in Manchester in his bed if not to wait for him to come back?

It almost makes him itchy to leave. He can tamp down the urge when the situation calls for it, but it sits right under his skin most days. If he thinks about it for too long, his focus goes razor sharp and the edges of his vision go blurry.

In the present moment, he brings the glass to his lips and tips his head back, letting it pour down his throat.

He has some nascent idea of where this is going.

As always, you’re curled up on the couch watching TV when he walks through the front door, on the verge of sleep. When your eyes land on him, you blink away the sleep and smile so brightly that his chest aches. “Simon!”

In nearly forty years, no one has ever said his name like that. Brimming with brightness and warmth. Like for once someone has longed for him in his absence.

All he can do is stare at you for a time. It should make his skin crawl, and it does, to an extent. He should be out the door already—lease broken, all his shit in the back of his truck, ties cut, and so many kilometers between you and him that he has no choice but to forget your face.

Instead, he kicks the door shut behind him and ruffles your hair when he passes on his way to the bathroom to piss and scrub a towel over his face.

It must be a form of self-punishment. That’s the only explanation for why he comes back every single time when he has more than enough money to fuck off down south for a week instead—he could be spending his leave in Costa Brava or sipping rakija in Kotor, but he chooses to come back to this hovel with its bleak weather and seedy underbelly every single time. What other urge would drive him to abuse himself like this other than masochism?

Any attempt to answer that is swiftly dismissed.

One day. One day is all he manages after promising to keep himself in check this time around. He manages to get through that first day largely because of the physical distance he puts between the two of you, playing chess with a couple old men in the park, rock doves pecking at the birdseed scattered under the wrought iron tables and benches.

His restraint breaks when he catches you dozing off in front of the television, socked feet tucked under your thighs and head balanced precariously on your fist, elbow resting on the arm of the couch.

He sits down beside you and his lip twitches when your head bobs, slumber briefly breached when the cushion under you dips with his weight.

“C’mere, girl,” Simon grunts, pulling you onto his lap.

You go somewhat willingly, only putting up a little bit of a fuss. Grumbling to keep up appearances. But that melts away the second he tucks your head into the crook of his neck, body going lax and fingers burrowing into the fabric of his shirt at his belly, gathering it together in your fist.

Christ, Simon thinks, dropping his head back on the couch. What am I doing?

Even he doesn’t know these days, but his chest aches in a way it never has before. He makes a mental note to see a doctor when he’s back on base.

His back aches too, but you pick up on that rather quickly, hounding him when you recognize the stiffness in his back for what it is. It takes you days to wear him down enough to agree to a massage, but eventually you do. He regrets it the second the words leave his mouth, leery at the thought of putting himself in such a vulnerable position.

You lock him out of the bedroom while you set up your table and do all the little things that you need to do in order to set the mood. His nose wrinkles when the smell of incense hits him.

“You can strip down to your comfort level,” you explain after letting him back into the room, patting the bed as if he doesn’t know where to lie down. “Then get under the blanket and let me know when you’re ready.”

He cocks a brow. “You trying to get me naked, bird?”

“Simon,” you sigh, a touch exasperated, hands on your hips to emphasize your weariness.

His belt clinks as he unlatches it. “Don’t worry, birdie, just gimme a second to get these off.”

A frustrated growl and then the door slams shut behind you when you bolt out of the room.

He spares you the indignity of having to repeat yourself, sliding under the towel and barking at you to come back in when he’s stripped bare and covered. You slip back in quietly and flit over to the dresser to press play on your music.

The first touch of your hands against his bare back almost makes him flinch. All his regret comes rushing back and he very nearly calls it off, and then you press the heels of your palms into the meat of his shoulders and the bottom falls out from under him. Then you drag them down the length of his back and he very nearly bites his tongue clean off.

Simon doesn’t bother muffling his noises when you dig your hands into his back to work out the plethora of knots, huffing and groaning like he’s balls deep. When you get to his shoulders though, he has to fight to stay put,

“Oh, your back is really messed up,” you note, a bit breathlessly.

He doesn’t acknowledge your words, too intent on not vocalizing his pain. Not even a grunt passes his lips.

You work years of hard labour and soreness out of his muscles, leaving behind a new man. The oil coating your palms makes your hands glide across his back.

He must fall asleep at some point because he wakes to the sound of television in the other room. Groggy at first, cotton mouthed and sleep drunk, and when Simon stumbles into the living room, you’re sitting on the couch with your knees drawn into your chest.

“Oh hi,” you say when you notice him standing there. “Sleep well?”

Speech still beyond him, all he can do is nod and plant himself on the couch beside you. Shirtless still. Simon only notices it himself when he tips his head to look over at you and finds that you won’t meet his eyes, gaze steadfast on the TV.

“Shoulda ‘ad you do that when you moved in,” he says.

“I could give you another one before you leave,” you reply, still not looking over at him. He bets that if he brushed his knuckles over your cheeks, they’d be hot to the touch. “Just tell me when.”

Maybe he will. What use is there in depriving himself of life’s little pleasures when his soul bears all of life’s bruises?

He reaches over to pinch your cheek, grinning when you yowl. Just as warm as he thought.

One thing Simon doesn’t take for granted anymore are his scarce moments of privacy. No stranger to a little exhibitionism (barracks walls and tent flaps hardly muffle sound, and he’s learned over the years that men will tolerate anything if it means they can rub one out in peace), he still appreciates the time he gets to himself to take care of things.

He’s only just finished tugging one out, his jeans buttoned back up and his hand still wet with his spend, when you walk in the front door.

You start up the second the door slams shut behind you, steam practically billowing out of your ears. “Well, thanks a lot—one of my regulars just gave me shit because she said I smelt like an ashtray and she couldn’t ‘properly relax’ for the whole hour—”

Afterglow proper scotched, Simon sits there and lets you cuss him out until the pounding behind his eyebrow becomes unbearable.

You go quiet when he rises to his feet, unused to him actually reacting to your whinging. Sometimes you don’t realize how accustomed to him you’ve become—how ingrained he’s become in your everyday life. What continues to elude you for no good reason is that you live with a stranger, and a strange man at that. It would piss him off if it were anyone other than him.

Practically chest to chest now, you nearly go cross eyed staring up at him. Jaw unhinged and mouth dangling loose, just the slightest gap between your lips like you forgot to close them. He lets you size him up for a second before lifting his hand to your mouth and slowly but firmly shoving his cum-covered fingers into your mouth.

Dumbstruck, all you can do is stare up at him with his cum-slicked fingers in your mouth, holding them there for a few more seconds and whimpering when he drags them out and then feeds them slowly back in. You even go a little glassy-eyed.

When he finally pulls his fingers out and lets his arm drop to his side, you sway on your feet a little, at a loss for words. There’s a creamy sheen on your bottom lip that disappears when you suck it into your mouth on instinct, eyes going wide when you recognize the taste on your tongue.

“Thanks for cleaning that up, birdie.” And then he reaches down to zip his fly up, smug when your eyes flit down to his crotch.

The stakes are different now than what they were all those months ago. It can’t be a carefree cohabitation when he’s playing for keeps. Whatever that means.

But his time is cut short again, the world catching up to him and yanking him back. And when Simon goes this time, he can’t help but drag his feet on his way out.

You’re looking good. A comment made in passing, Price’s face barely twitching through it, but Ghost catches it and he lets it sit for a moment before responding.

“Yeah?” he grunts, looking away. The recruits round the part of the track closest to where they stand, panting through their seventh lap.

“Put on a bit of weight since you left,” Price notes.

“Calling me fat, sir?”

He rolls his eyes, huffing out an exasperated breath. “Give it a rest, you fuckin’ muppet. I said you look good.”

Price isn’t wrong though. He both looks and feels different. With increasing regularity, he watches the clock and counts the days down until he’s released from his duties again. His want has him circling like a bird of prey.

All his life, he’s had to live in the moment, concerned only with the immediate, tangible present because that’s all that life let him have. And though it’s been decades since he’s needed to be in survival mode, those instincts have never quite left him.

The shock to his system has left him forward-thinking for once. A girl in his house and food in his fridge; his body feeling better than it has in years—he’s still lucky if he gets more than five uninterrupted hours of sleep, but his expectations are different when he’s not at home. Even the concept of home is foreign, like a language he’s just starting to learn.

The future isn’t some nebulous concept out of his reach but a real place that he gets to walk into.

Desire tips him like a scale. There may not be any coming back from this.

Love shows him no mercy, so he doesn’t show you any either.

Months pass before Simon’s leave comes around again, and when it finally does, he’s already packed and signed out before his last day on base is even up. He says his goodbyes to Price on his way out and the other man visibly suppresses a smile, eyeing the bag clutched tight in his hand.

“Give her my best,” is all he says before getting back to the paperwork in front of him. Simon leaves without another word.

Then the long drive back. A skein of birds in flight follow him for part of the journey. A train running parallel to the throughway follows him for the rest. Tree boughs bend under the weight of the last snowfall.

Then he blinks and when his eyes open, he’s home.

You’re still sitting on that blasted couch when Simon opens the front door, pretty as a peach in August, and his name rings like a bell off your tongue when you say it, summoning him to you. It’s not his fault that his urges prevail, that he has no choice but to throw his bag down onto the carpeted floor and stomp over to you, lifting you up by the collar of your housecoat and dragging you into a scorching hot kiss.

“Mmf,” you squeak against his lips, eyes flying open.

It’s messy and frenzied, spit dripping down your chin and his tongue halfway down your throat. No finesse or skill to speak of, only an incessant buzzing at the back of his head that only quiets when you give a helpless little moan, an instant balm to his suffering.

Simon pulls back for a moment to let you breathe. “That’s my welcome ‘ome?” he murmurs. His lips brush against yours when he speaks.

“W-welcome home?” you repeat, flustered, your lip catching against his. He sucks it between his when it does, cock throbbing in his pants when you gasp, hot breath billowing into his mouth and making his head spin.

This is nothing like being high on pain meds or three sheets to the win. It pulses through him and makes his cock chub up, forcing him to shove a hand down between his legs to readjust himself. That gets you good when you notice.

He kisses hungry and mean, ever greedy for your mouth, fitting his hand over the back of your head and angling you how he likes. Holding the delicate cradle of your skull in his palm and knowing that he could crack it if he squeezed his fingers hard enough. The thought sends a rush right through him, his violent underbelly scratched in just the right way.

“W-where’s this coming from?” you gasp when Simon pulls back. You look thoroughly flustered, but he ignores you to hook a finger in your mouth and wrench it open.

“Open,” he grunts, giving your inner cheek a sharp tug.

You go cross-eyed when he spits in your mouth, the glob of spit landing right on your tongue, and your affronted little gasp hits him like an arrow shot straight through his heart. He’s considerate enough to seal it in with a kiss, making sure not to let you waste a drop. Tongue pushing in right after to lick it up, growling at you to suck it when you only nervously kiss back.

His patience isn’t infinite though and kissing barely wets his appetite. It’s not enough to plumb the depths of his hunger when there’s something uglier down there waiting with its jaws wide open.

He twists you around and bends you over the back of the couch, rucking your housecoat up to your waist. Your knickers get ripped clean off, tearing at the seams, and your ensuing shriek nourishes the hunger simmering low in his belly. Appetite never satiated, belly never full.

He likes that you didn’t expect him back so soon. Fuzzy, unshaved legs and holey socks; pimple patches on your face and nothing under your robe. The lazy domesticity appeals to him in a way he never would’ve expected.

Then his fingers split the seam of your pussy and the runoff of his appreciation cascades down the slopes of his shoulders and his back. Slick drips from your winking hole, gathering together into a tight bulb before a single drop drips onto the couch beneath you.

“Fuck—now there’s somethin’ to come ‘ome to,” Simon grunts, and then drags his tongue between your dew-slicked lips.

His enjoyment was a foregone conclusion when he imagined this back in his quarters in the barracks, cock in hand, but the reality of having his mouth on your pussy exceeds his expectations a thousandfold. It’s all soft, pillowy skin and sweet nectar. He gorges himself on it, an almost pathological need to be tongue-deep in your cunt.

“Wet little gash just sucks ‘em right in…” he murmurs, plunging two fingers into your hole slowly. The soft flesh of your hole bulges around his fingers when they sink in all the way to the knuckle.

“Fuck—don’t call it that,” you bleat, so pathetic that he’s smitten.

“Shouldn’ta wagged it at me if ya didn’t want me to touch it,” Simon teases, then crooks his fingers just so and your leg spasms.

He keeps you stuffed full until your legs shake, on the verge of coming, and then he rips them out.

You practically scream in frustration, twisting to look at him from over your shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Somethin’ wrong, birdie?” He smirks when you arch your back, pushing your ass back in his face.

“I want to come, Simon,” you whine, wagging your ass in his face again. Just his luck that a little slut like you dropped into his life.

“Alright,” he sighs, mock aggrieved. “Lemme see if I can ‘elp with that.”

Ungrateful little thing, he thinks when he turns you over onto your back and heaves you up into the air.

“Simon—” you keen his name when he has you pinned up against the wall, his arms scooped under your thighs to hold you in place.

He plunges into that warm little honeypot between your legs in slow, measured strokes at first, savouring each punctured whimper and hiccup that drops from your lips. Each flex of his hips brings him that much closer to heaven and that much closer to hell.

“Didn’t think you could just barge in without consequences, did ya?” Simon asks rhetorically, voice gone brassy and tiger-stripped, thick in his chest. “Been sleeping in my bed for nearly a year, ‘aven’t ya? Ain’t I owed this?”

He means it too.

“You’re—so full of it,” you retort, hiccuping through your words.

Your arms hang limp around his neck, fingers twined at his nape and nails scratching at his hairline. The low ache in his back is barely a deterrent—he’d hold you up all night if it took that long to make you come. A distant voice at the back of his head reminds him that he’ll suffer for it in the morning, but he shakes that thought away.

He chases the beads of sweat snaking down your chest and tits with his tongue, straightening back up only when that nearly makes you lose your grip around his neck and topple out of his arms.

“Hey,” you pout when Simon chuckles, digging your nails into his back in retribution for laughing at you. It has the opposite effect though, the pain stoking his pleasure and sending a shiver down his back, his next thrust so rough that you bounce in his arms.

Your skin smells like sweat and musk this close, so heady that his head spins. It registers dimly at the back of his mind that he’s still dressed while you’re fully nude, housecoat and knickers in a pile on the floor in front of the couch, but he can’t pull away now, not with the need to come pressing into him on all sides, dick hard enough to split diamonds.

He stares down between your legs where his cock splits you again and again, a ring of white cream at the base. He could paint that little snatch white with his cum or stuff it deep inside, both options appealing to his baser instincts. It’ll be a coin flip in the end.

When the ache in his back grows too significant to ignore, he lifts you up off the wall and drops you down on his cock, burying himself to the hilt before carrying you to the open door to the bedroom.

“Sorry, pet,” Simon murmurs when he feels you clench around the thickest part of his cock, whispering a little oh fuck to yourself under your breath. He kicks the door shut behind him with his heel. “Back’s shit. Mind taking over for me?”

The mattress squeaks under his weight when he sits down on the end. You blink up at him. “You want me on top?”

He nods and hums his assent, digging his fingers into the muscle and flesh of your ass and kneading. “Yeah, bird. Still wanna see all the pretty bits though.”

The pretty bits being the globes of your ass facing him while you ride his dick, his hands pulling apart your cheeks to watch you take it inch by inch, thighs quivering with the strain.

Your thighs are stretched out on either side of him, pretty calves resting perpendicular to his chest and toes curled into the mattress. He eyes those with some interest before your pussy distracts him again. There’s no angle that isn’t nice to look at, but this has got to be his favourite so far, tight bud between your cheeks clenching every time you drop down onto his dick. It’s easy to ignore the ache in his shoulder with a view this nice.

“Fuck, birdie,” Simon murmurs, dragging his hand over your ass and then swatting it, grunting when that makes you clench up around him, inner walls squeezing his length and nearly milking him dry. “Coulda been doing this the whole time.”

You laugh a bit breathlessly. “No—you were way too annoying.”

Smack. You yelp when he backhands your ass and your shoulders go stiff, spine a taut line with your impending orgasm. Simon can feel it like a knot in his throat, pussy so hot that it nearly burns him alive.

“Shit,” you gasp, hands on his legs the only thing keeping you upright. You nearly rip out the hair on his thighs when you curl them into fists.

His hands glide up and down your sides, touching wherever he wants. It’s his God given right after housing you for so long, and though Simon clings belligerently to that belief, like the foundation of his existence is built on quid pro quo, on doing nothing for others unless there’s something in it for him, there’s something else that burrows underneath that maxim. Something far truer and more terrifying, and if he were to look it dead on, it would bring him to his knees.

Simon grunts, lungs pummelled when you squeeze around his length, tight as a vice.

Good thing you’ve got him on his back instead.

In the end, it’s not up to him whether he comes in you or not. When his cockhead bumps against your cervix and he feels teardrops land on his thighs, your shoulders shaking with the force of your sobs, the spigot loosens and his stomach aches with how hard he comes. His heels dig into the mattress, hips lifting up, trying to cram more and more of his cock into your cunt, tendons straining against his neck.

“Take it, bird,” Simon snarls, teeth grinding together, his voice sounding wrecked even to him. “Take it nice ‘n deep, fuck—wanna see it leak from your hole when I pull ya off—”

Your nails sink into his thighs, cutting him off.

He does too, when you flop down beside him onto the bed and he tucks you under his arm, spreading your legs so he can push his cum back into your cunt, fingers pearly white with your mixed juices.

“Oh God,” you whisper, squeezing your thighs together around his hand until he’s forced to wrench them open again, hovering over you this time, the cudgel dangling between his legs already thickening up again.

And that’s how he spends his week, in a suspended state of euphoria, no sense of time passing. It doesn’t matter where it goes as long as you crawl into bed with him at the end of the day, eyes sparkling with delight.

The leaving is tougher than it’s ever been, claws scoring right through his chest when Simon tips your chin up and leans down to slot his lips over yours. He’s not made for this sentimental bullshit, but it finds him either way.

His chest burns on the drive back to base, acid reflux a bitch as always.

The next time his landlord calls, he comes bearing good news.

“I’ll cut you a deal on the first month to make up for the…mix up,” he starts begrudgingly. “But don’t worry—the girl’ll be out of your hair by the end of the month. Gonna tell her today that I can’t renew her lease.”

Simon hangs up without saying a word, swathed in anger. Nearly crushes the phone in his grip when his landlord calls back a second later. He ignores that call too.

If he were a different man, if this was a different world—

No one ever knows when their world is about to change until it does.

But even if his walls have grown barbed wires in the years that he’s been alone, there’s always a way to dig out from under.

The return home is different this time around, the wind under his sails all but lifting him into the air.

A year to the date almost. Another month and time will wrap back around on itself, the seasons changing the same way they have for all thirty-seven years of his life. When fate lets him go this time, Simon heads over to Price’s office before taking off for the week, carving out time for one last drink before he hits the road. Over a whiskey and kretek, he tells Price his plan and only just keeps from rolling his eyes when Price barks a laugh, clapping his hands together.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” he chuckles, shaking his head.

“Shut up.”

“It’s a big step, Simon. I’m proud of you.”

Simon rolls his eyes, pleased despite himself. “Stuff it, old man.”

And then he’s gone again, following the same winding road back, with one stop along the way this time. He stays overnight at a local inn after signing the paperwork, too exhausted to keep driving. Too much on his mind anyway.

It means nothing to him that people do this sort of thing all the time. He has survived the locust years of his life and come out the other side. That should be enough to give himself some grace when he tosses and turns all night, back pain flaring up and immobilizing him for an hour. Only when the first rays of dawn pierce through the threadbare curtains does it finally abate, and he heads out after his morning piss, ignoring the cramp in his belly on the drive over.

You greet him at the door when you hear his car pull up, standing under the door frame while he gets out and rounds the car, bare toes curling at the cold air. And any effort to tamp it down now is in vain, his chest filling with something unspeakable and unsaid.

“Put your shoes on,” Simon instructs, coming over just to pull you in for a kiss before nudging you back into the flat, shutting the door behind him.

“Why?” you ask, lifting a brow. “Wanna go for coffee or something like that?”

“Something like that. Why aren’t you putting your shoes on?”

Herded into the truck after getting dressed, you badger him with question after question the whole drive over while Simon keeps his mouth shut, focusing on the road in front of him. It’s not a long drive at least, but your incessant questions make it last an eternity.

Until he pulls up in front of a house with a short gravel walkway and a garden in desperate need of attention, milkvetch growing near the front step. The outdoor sconces are new though, and though Simon already has a few things in mind to fix up around the house, it’s got good bones. Leagues nicer than the place you just left.

“Are we picking someone up?” you ask when he puts the car in park, confused. You stare at the door as if waiting for it to open.

Simon doesn’t respond.

You look over at him and he takes one of your hands, holding it palm-side up and covering it with his own ugly mitt. You feel something cold drop from his hand into yours and he curls your fingers into a fist to hold it.

“No.”

When his hand moves away, you uncurl your fingers to find a key. It means so little and so much all at once. If he could say it with words, it wouldn’t be the same so there’s no point in trying.

“It’s ours?” you ask.

“Yeah.”

There’s a watery sheen over your eyes when you look up, and your lip wobbles. And in a way different than ever before, his chest grows tight, the ache in his heart a fresh and welcome pain.

#ceil writing #cod x reader #ghost x reader #ghost/reader #ghost x you #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you

6K notes · View notes

itsoutrageouss · 4 months ago

Text

more on the dynamic after Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley saw you cry for the first time…

Things were in fact different from now on. Not in an obvious way but you both noticed it. You had been embarrassed the next day, scared he saw you as weak for crying in his arms like that.

And now his eyes softened a little more every time he looked at you. He remembered how precious and frail you had felt in his hold. He longed for it in a way that made him practice his punching until late in the night, grunting and groaning as the dummy got the best of his strength. His knuckles were bruised, a manifestation of the foreign feelings he tried to let out in the only way he knew- violence.

You were up, snuggly sitting with a mug of tea when Simon comes in, doors swinging open. It was late. Late enough for the owls to hoot and the moon to be at its highest.

He was panting, sweat glistening on the strained muscles of his arms. He stopped dead in his tracks as he spotted you in the corner of the recreational area. You blinked at him, studying his demeanour with intrigue.

It made him shy. He got fucking shy from the way you stared so shamelessly and intensely. He hadn’t noticed it before. The way your eyes lingered on his arms. Maybe it was new thing, or maybe he hadn’t taken the time you really look before now.

“You’re up late.” You whispered, voice small in the silence. His chest heaved as he stretched his fingers, rolled his neck.

“So are you.” He countered. There was a question in both of your statements but none of you decided to answer. Maybe you were awake for the same reasons, he thought. The mere thought was enough for his legs to move towards you, the couch dipping and creaking as it took his weight. You lodt your balance where you sat with your knees tucked to your chest as the seat tilted under you, making you thud into his side, shoulder to shoulder. He snickered under his breath, grabbing you like you were a porcelain doll to help you sit upright. Your mouth dried.

“Do you think I’m weak?” You asked him then, the words bubbling your throat before you could stop them. They had simmered for a whole week now, just under your skin. He frowned, brows set deep on his face as he looked you over.

“Quite the opposite” came his gruff reply like it was obvious. It took him a second to realise what you were referring to. Seeing you cry had made him think so much more of you than before. He saw the insecurity flash in your eyes before you looked away and he tucked a finger under your chin, slowly pulling your gaze back to his.

“Haven’t stopped thinking about it, in fact” he said, confessed it like secret into the night. He tried to keep his voice steady. At least steadier than his heart. Was he sick? Was it weird for him to be so obsessed with that one moment of you… crying?

You exhaled sharply, like his words had squeezed your lungs. Gaze narrowed, head tilted, you tried to figure him out. There was nothing but honesty and a little wariness in his eyes. Had he said too much?

“Me neither.” You replied slowly. It was enough. Enough to know. A cold blow of relief washed over him, his shoulders relaxing slightly. He only now realised he still had a finger under your chin, thumb stroking along your jaw absentmindedly. He withdrew his hand, regretfully.

If he was sick, then so were you.

“You’re hurt” you whispered, staring down at his knuckles. They were bleeding. Your eyes snapped to his, slightly wider than before as his jaw ticked, gaze otherwise unreadable. Was it because of you? The thought made your stomach twist in.. several ways.

“It’s fine.” He insisted, brushing it off and hiding his hands in his pockets. But you were already up, disappearing somewhere. He sighed, leaning his head back against the couch and closing his eyes. This wasn’t calming down his breathing one bit.

Warm fingers gently pulled on his wrist, and you felt how heavy his hand was as you pulled it into you lap, sitting cross legged next to him. He had to focus hard to remain indifferent when his hand rested high on you’re plush thigh. His fingers flexed slightly around it, gripping it with a bit more purpose than necessary. It made you struggle to open the sanitising wipes.

He hissed as you cleaned the wounds, but the care you put into it had his heart stuttering. You looked down at his knuckles, immersed in being meticulous as you wiped the valleys of his knuckles clean. He wasn’t looking down, though. He was looking at you.

“Take this as a thank you” you said just to break the silence before you slowly lifted one hand, almost like you were holding. Fuck it made it easy for him to imagine that you actually were.

“You don’t need to thank me. I’d do it again.” I want to do it again, he should’ve said. He wanted to hold you, and be the one you curled into when you needed it. Needed him.

Carefully you wrapped his knuckles. Your hand lingered around his afterwards. It looked like you were considering something. Slowly you led his hand higher until you lowered your chin and left a barely there kiss on the white bandage. He swore he died. Such a simple gesture and he felt like a madman.

You wrapped the other one. Did the same. He felt paralysed. It seemed you had understood him quite well.

“You can.” You said then, after placing both his hands down onto his own lap, now bandaged and cleaned.

“Can what?” He asked, voice hoarse and weaker than he would’ve liked as he curled his fingers. He swore it was tingling where your lips had touched.

“Hold me. Skin to skin contact can be calming. Mutually beneficial…” you said to try and reason the action, which there was no point in because the minute you had started your sentence he had wrapped his arm around you and tucked you closely into his side, using his other hand to swing your legs over his lap. Your mumbling became nothing as you nuzzled into him. He was scorching hot and you nuzzled into it, shivering.

He had never felt this good in his life. You seemed to fit perfectly into his side, your legs anchoring him down and your head resting over his rapidly beating heart- which was vulnerable as hell to him. But he allowed it when he heard you hum in satisfaction and saw your lashes flutter, eyes closing.

Just mutually beneficial cuddling, right?

series masterlist

5K notes · View notes

madamechrissy · 17 days ago

Text

Just Friends!?

-Art in the banner from nek0zuu_ on X-

Pairings- Former Nerd! Gojo and popular F! reader

Summary - Satoru Gojo was the biggest nerd EVER in high school with you, next door neighbors, study buddies, you were the best friends in the world. Never having the courage to ask you -the 'popular girl' out- you never knew he felt for you. He ended up leaving town, moving to the big city of LA- getting famous with a modeling career, and lost touch with everyone from his old life. While you're working the family pub to help out your parents, years later, he finally comes back to visit, just to have you making his drink. Everything about him is different, aside from those pretty blue eyes and the sweet grin. You feel he's so accomplished now, and you're just a small town girl, but little do you know, you've never left his mind.

Warnings - Will be explicit and smutty (it's me!?) Nerdjo turned famous and cocky, but he's still just a Nerdjo deep down hehe- sexual tension, lots of angst tbh, Gojo finding himself again, but being an ass of a man. Reader has a hard situation (dad has an illness) but nothing too rough! SO MANY feelings, repressed things, pining, longing, say Hi to Nerdjo AGAIN- longer chap this time! (This is a mini series, so expect two more parts maybe hree it's me lol)

Based on the 2005 Rom com Just Friends - part of my amazingg moot @indiewritesxoxo's Friday night flicks! 🌙

<<<Part Two - Masterlist - Part Four>>

Part Three

“Why do I need to do an interview!? And where are you going!” Samantha demands the next morning, pouting as he is about to drop her off with an ‘interviewer’ aka Satoru paid someone to keep her busy so he can meet you.

He wasn’t with Samantha, but she was psychotically obsessed, the few times he’d let her fuck him had been truly terrifying, she’d licked his entire face last time so he’s firmly avoided her. As pretty as she is, psycho is psycho, and it wasn’t even the kind that made her better in bed, it was the kind where you wondered if you’d make it through the night.

He already set it up with an old acquaintance who just happened to be a fan of hers anyway, now they’re setting up for her and she’s refusing to budge, instead reaching up to grab him around the neck, pouting full lips at him. “Satoru, why do you have to go!?”

“Family things, I know, I know I will miss you too.” He pouts all cute, and she finally sighs, dejectedly letting him leave, Satoru runs out in the cold, hurrying to his still warm little car, beginning to drive the way to your place.

How could he forget it, the endless afternoons once you all had gotten home from school, the way you’d run up your stairs and watch the cartoons that came out - Digimon was his favorite, Sailor Moon was yours. In fact your room had been covered with Sailor moon merchandise, he wonders if it still is. He wonders so much about your life.

The heat warms him as he drives through distant but familiar roads, he had ridden them on his bike so, so many times, quiet streets in a town that hasn’t grown very much. He certainly sees new places and a few more cars than before, but compared to LA it was the middle of nowhere. Winding streets, until he pulls up to your parents’ home.

The nostalgia hits when he steps out of his car, leaving it running so it would be warm enough for you, slowly walking up through the snow crunched grass to your wide front porch. Your house hasn’t changed a bit, the same old brick style, smaller than his but still beautiful in its vintage way, unchanged even amongst the newer styles of homes built.

He knocks hesitantly on the burgundy door, faded paint with time, how many times had he done just this? Being a little kid, being a teen and almost an adult, he’s not sure he really was an adult at eighteen really. Satoru pauses and smirks when you open the door, then falters as he sees your mom, who instead of warmly welcoming him like he expects, pauses just a bit.

“Hey there, been a long time.” He greets her, and she smiles then, sighing and opening the door wider.

“It has been too long, Satoru.” You smile gently at your mom, she remembers even years later the heartbreak of losing him, god no breakup could compare to losing your best friend that night. But you also know she loved him like one of her own, just like Satoru’s mom with you.

“I’m gonna grab some gloves and a hat real quick.” You are so pretty he thinks, in this red sweater and what looks like soft to the touch black pants, boots up to your calves, a jean jacket that looks just like the one he remembers you wearing all the time, and your face is bare aside from a little lip gloss, tempting him to no end.

You’re effortlessly beautiful, but then, you’ve always been.

Satoru feels himself flustered, only you do this, unable to answer you more than a nod. You smile a bit, nervously, running to put on your hat and gloves, listening to your mom as she hugs Satoru tightly. He’s in a dress shirt worth more than your car likely, a black overcoat that could have been pulled from a runway. You suddenly feel hopelessly underdressed, but try to shake it off.

“You’re visiting home?” Your mom asks, and Satoru clears his throat, stepping back and rubbing the back of his neck.

“I had a show here, but I figured I’d try to catch up with her a bit. I saw her at the family bar, still running that huh?”

“We are, she’s been a big help for us.” You smile at your mother’s sweet words, you never expected to move back home, even if it’s temporary, but to know you’re helping them too is a huge relief. “We aren’t even paying her to work at the bar, she gets tips of course but… even those she helps with bills which we need, since her dad is still recovering.”

Satoru pauses now, looking at you, seeing the emotion hit your face. “He’s sick, what’s wrong?”

“He had um…” You trail off, and your mom blinks a bit. “We can talk about it on the way, you must be so cold.”

“Yeah, I’m not used to this weather, the car is warm though.” You kiss your mom’s cheek, and follow Satoru out to the fancy sports car, so out of place in the working town you live in. He opens your door, surprising you for a moment, and you murmur a thank you, sliding in now.

Warm and cozy, you try to rest your insanely beating heart, it was just coffee with an old friend, it wasn’t more, you can’t sit there and think suddenly you’ll both be close again. You don’t even know who Satoru is, he feels so foreign to you, sliding in and grinning at you now, so handsome with his straight white teeth, for a moment you remember the colored rectangles that used to align them fondly.

“You look really great, I feel a little underdressed.” Your words should stroke his ego, but he blinks a bit, frowning.

“What, you look hot.” You’re flushed now, looking down nervously.

“You’re just really dressed up.”

“I am everywhere, though baby, gotta maintain a good image.” He’s leaned back, arm over your back seat as he looks back to pull out of your driveway, putting the two of you impossibly close in the little confines of the car.

“Well you definitely dress well. Where is that … your girl?”

“She’s not my girl.” He rolls his eyes as he then reaches for his dark shades, throwing them on to drive through the blinding snow.

“She seems great.” He bursts into laughter then, it’s so warming for a moment you feel transfixed, until it eases and he sighs a bit.

“She’s horrible. Beautiful yeah but jesus that girl. Many screws loose.”

“Yeah she seemed interesting.”

“I hooked up with her yeah but-” He pauses now, you’re just fiddling with your sweater nervously. “Anyway, let’s not talk about her.”

“What do you wanna talk about?”

“Your dad, what’s up with that? He got the flu or something?” Satoru turns on the blinker as the two of you stop at the light, and you take a hesitant breath.

“He had cancer.”

Satoru’s heart sinks, hearing the sadness in your voice, even as you cover it up, clearing your throat, and his gaze goes to you, eyes wide. “What!? He’s so young and healthy?”

“He hasn’t been healthy, he got sick after you left. Um, your mom knew, she came over a lot, I thought you’d… know?” Satoru hadn’t asked a word about you, and any time his mom brought you or anything up, he brushed her off. “You didn’t know?”

“If I knew, I’d have…” What would he have done?

It’s quiet as the green light goes, and the snow gently dusts the windshield, as you realize he likely didn’t know. Why did you assume that perhaps Satoru would have kept tabs like you did, that’s just foolish. But you figured as close as you two were, you certainly thought somewhere he wondered, but as you see the shock on his face, it settles a bit.

The truth.

He never even asked about you.

You feel horrible when Satoru was picked on, but you tried everything to make sure it was not that way. You thought he knew how special he was to you, but now it starts sinking in, he truly did leave it all behind. You’re not sure how that feels, you aren’t so conceited that you thought he still - well, ever - felt what he wrote in your yearbook, but you assumed he cared.

“Shit is he going to be okay?” Zoned out for a moment, you’re brought back to the present.

“He is, he’s cancer free officially. But he’s still weak, the chemo…”

“Fuck. I’m so sorry.” He puts a hand on your thigh then, eyes falling to yours when you all slow down on the road. “I’m glad he’s gonna be okay.”

“Thank you, Satoru, so am I.” You gently touch his hand with your own, both gloved, but it feels good and comforting, it feels like something you’ve missed. “Don’t feel bad you didn’t know. I thought maybe your mom would have told you?”

“I… she probably tried.” He looks back at the road then, and his words hurt you more than they should. “I wasn’t interested in what was going on back here aside from her. So I likely cut her off.”

“Oh.” You blink back hot emotion, Satoru feels it, how tense the air is in the car, feels your thigh tense under his touch even, as he focuses on driving.

“You’re helping them because he’s not feeling good yet.”

“Yes, but also, I needed to come back, we got lay offs where I was, and as a new teacher I had no tenuity.”

Fuck you’ve had it rough, even if you don’t perceive it that way, the guilt eats him alive, no matter what he would have liked to think he’d be there for you during that, something happening to your father. He was close to him as well growing up, and he sees the effects it has, but you hearing his dismissal of you probably made it worse.

He couldn’t care about you anymore, not when you were so deeply embedded in his heart and soul, not when he was in love with you since you were both just kids, the only way to not feel you anymore was to shove you deep down. And make you just a small flicker of memories, while he busied himself with fame, parties, events, anything to feel alive, and not the emptiness.

“I asked about you.” Your voice drags him down further, his hand is still resting on your thigh, squeezing just a bit.

This isn’t how he thought it would go.

He thought he’d bust out a few lines of how sexy you are, give you a charming grin and a brush on your cheek, and you’d melt, all women melt for him. But you’re tense, unsure and hurt, and he can’t help but feel it’s all due to him, as badly as he wants to explain it away.

“I know. Mom told me.”

It’s quiet again.

The two friends that teased and laughed and shared everything were just strangers now.

You’re holding it back, the endless questions in your head swirling, wanting to know why you were left behind, you get everyone else, but why you, Shoko, Suguru? Why couldn’t he have made a little exception for his true friends. Was it too painful, the memories?

“We’re here.” He says softly, and you both step out then, awkward in your shuffle towards the door, which he opens, the little bells jingling as warmth filters out of the cozy place.

Soon you’re both seated across from each other, and a familiar waitress bounces over. “Oh it’s little Satoru! Oh goodness, what a treat!”

Satoru sighs, shoving up his shades, he was hoping less people would recognize him, not understanding how much he stood out as a six foot four man with shocking white hair. Well, it’s lavender a bit in places, isn’t it? Or is it silver? You never could figure out its color, nor the exact shade of blue that made up the eyes still hiding behind the dark glass.

“Yeah, just for a couple days.”

“And with her! Oh you two were always the cutest, I thought you’d be together, it was the talk of the cafe.” She’s giggling as she watches your reaction. “She has been coming here once a week when she’s in town, gets your special order.”

“Maisie!” You’re trying to shush her, but Satoru’s already heard, as she covers her mouth. “I just enjoy those pancakes.”

You order his order?

He’s staring at you across from him, taking your jean jacket off, now he’s sure it’s from high school. He sees the little pin he’d gotten you still on it, a little Sailor Mars pin, faded and worn. You smile nervously as he just stares at you then, putting the pieces together slowly.

You still come here.

You wear his pin.

You ask about him.

You fucking cared for him, didn’t you? He thought it was some pity, a sweetheart of a girl who’s stupidly popular, but always made sure to include him. He didn’t think it was more than that, pity or convenience, but now he’s questioning it, the girl he left behind in his small town, the one he forced himself to never think of, when you seemingly kept thinking of him.

“Are you good with that?” He blinks a bit, looking at your lips, ones he’d die to feel for once, struggling to hear what you said.

“Huh?”

“The usual, Satoru, those fluffy pancakes that look like kittens! And a strawberry milkshake, right?” Maisie asks, eyes all hopeful, but Satoru laughs a bit, shaking his head now.

“Yeah no, I can’t have that many carbs. Just an Americano please.” Maisie blinks a bit now, and you shift in your seat. “I have a body to maintain.”

“I’ll have pancakes.” You say then, making Maisie smile. “And a milkshake.”

“On the way!” You sigh as you look at Satoru across the table, leaning back in the bright red booth.

“She was excited to see you, couldn’t you just split some with me?”

“Do you know how much sugar is in a pancake?”

“What happened to the boy who loved sweets? You’ve always been thin, what’s the harm?” Satoru scoffs, shaking his head.

“You wouldn’t get it.”

“Oh, I guess not.” It’s tense again, as Maisie comes back out, and Satoru looks over at the pancake with two kittens made of whipped cream and berries, two forks and a milkshake with two straws.

“In case you change your mind.” She hands him his coffee with a gentle touch of your shoulder, and Satoru sips it, as you sip your milkshake, leaning forward just so, wrapping your lips around the straw, he nearly chokes on his coffee when you lick your lower lip.

“Yummy.” You say it with a smirk, as if to tempt him into the sugar.

“I bet.”

“I am sure girls you’re used to don’t eat, and don’t get me wrong, I try to be healthy, but a little indulgence doesn’t hurt.” You take a nibble now, sighing and shutting your eyes, doing erratic things to his brain. “We have a lot of memories here.”

“Yeah. I guess we did.” He’s transfixed then, memories making the atmosphere shift, of him giggling, sitting next to you, while you fed him bites, sipping each other’s drinks, Satoru remembers panicking, thinking how it was an indirect kiss. “I was a loser then.”

“What!?” You glare now, fork falling as he sips the hot, dark coffee again.

“I was, what? Gonna act like I wasn’t?”

“You were certainly not. You were smart, sweet, funny…” You feel it now, the hot anger you try to keep buried, as a teacher you’re sweet and patient, you try to see the sides of everything. But you’re so furious at him at that moment, for talking shit about your best friend - him.

“And you’re still sweet.” His words are soft, a quirk of his plump lips now. “Too nice some would say.”

“Well Satoru, I don’t care what people say, and I never have.” You take another bite now, still glaring. “And I won’t let you talk shit about the best friend I had.”

He pauses, snowy lashes lowering, while you chew the bite now, his knees brush yours under the table, spread wide as yours sit between them, brushing just the smallest bit. “The best friend you had?”

“Wasn’t I to you?” Satoru’s eyes lift, the lilting conversations in the room fade away, he sees the tiniest bit of whipped cream on the corner of your mouth then, leaning forward and brushing it away with his thumb. Touching your cheek does more in that moment than the endless nights with women, tilting everything on its axis.

You gasp just a bit, he is pulling it back now, lapping the cream off his thumb, the action making you heat up, pressing your thighs together, heart racing. “It is yummy.”

Jesus christ.

It’s been a long time since you’ve done anything, but there’s no excuse for just what that did to your body, seeing him so casually touch you and lick his finger like that, mind running to things it shouldn’t. You shake that off, feeling the tension weigh even heavier, as you sip on the milkshake again slowly, swallowing before you finally get the courage to ask it.

“Why did you never talk to me again?”

The question hits him hard, what did he think? You'd be so blinded by his good looks, money and fame, that you’d fall? No, you were the girl he remembered, the girl who those things never mattered to, the one yelling at him for being mean to himself, or who he used to be. He leans back a bit, thighs brushing yours once more, hearing the edge to your voice as you study him.

“I didn’t talk to anyone but mom, it wasn’t just-”

“Why me though? I thought we were so close, I…” You’re blinking tears, but you fail, and Satoru’s heart which he thought was good, until this, until the pretty tear glinting off the light ahead. “You were my everything. I… need a moment, I’m sorry.” You go to stand but he grabs your hand then, placing his over yours.

“Don’t go.” His voice belies some of his emotions finally. “I… I had to leave you all behind, that night was a cruel joke in my head, playing over and over.”

You sit back down, swiping at your tears. “I needed just some time to get them out, there were so many of them.”

“But the thing is, they were your people, everyone loved you, and I thought… that I was a ‘pity friend’.”

“A what!?”

“Something cute to tote around, like some fucking… kitten or puppy. Like these stupid kittens.”

“They’re cute, first off. Second off, you were much more. God everything I told you, everything we went through, and you never asked about me?” Satoru’s lips part, you keep your voice low, as others laugh and converse around you all, as the bustling little place that hasn’t changed a bit goes in motion, you’re at a standstill.

“I couldn’t look back.” Satoru’s words are hard for you to handle, he swipes a hand through those locks then, leaning forward. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves at this moment.”

“What?” His hand brushes back your hair, and he smiles a bit, sure he’s charming, but you can’t even believe him.

“Why look on it, I’m here now. I want to catch up.”

“Do you, why when you never did?”

“Because I’m here now, and…”

“Miss me suddenly only when you saw me? Was it because Sukuna asked me out?” He glares right at you now, before relaxing clenched hands, raising a brow.

“Why should that matter? He can’t compete with me.”

“Compete, there’s no competition. You know, Satoru… I liked - no - loved who you were. I loved watching anime with you and going to the arcade, I loved how sweet and free you felt with me.” You’re sniffling, barely able to hold back things you’d hoped you could let go, but the lingering is in your heart. “I loved everything about the boy you were.”

“I…” He’s sputtering, unable to know what to do now. “I’m not him anymore. He was just a-”

“A sweetheart. A good person. There was nothing wrong with him. And I will not let you keep downing him, when I loved who he was.” You’re throwing on your jacket now, Satoru can’t believe the words out of your mouth, words he could never dream would fall, but he knows it too well.

“Loved as a friend?” You laugh without humor, tossing your hair back and pulling it out from under the collar of the denim.

“You never let us find out if there was more.” The words pulsate through him, as panic sets in, but you shake your head, sighing. “I get why you ran, I do, but fuck like you forgot me. It hurt more than any shitty breakup, it meant more than some guy I thought I had puppy love for. We were so close, I…”

He murmurs your name softly, a nickname only he had called you, long ago. “Can you just give me a day with you?”

“I see no reason to keep talking.”

Satoru’s jaw clenches. “Gotta see Sukuna?”

“Yes. I made plans. And since you’re not eating, and I’ve lost my appetite…” He frowns down at the pancakes, swallows the memories, shutting his eyes.

“Yeah, okay, I won’t keep you.” His harsh words and cold gaze make it all shift, and soon you’re back in the car, but this time even the tentative pretense to be friendly was gone. His hand isn’t on your leg, no one is talking at all, and when he pulls up to your home, you pause, as he busies himself looking at his phone.

“Okay…” Your soft words make him pause just a bit. “Satoru I am sorry I unloaded those emotions. I should have just been friendly, I didn’t plan it to go that way.” He eyes you now, sending the text, sighing when your eyes swim once more with shimmering tears.

He wants to hold you.

He wants to hug you.

To bury you against his chest, a longing so real and tangible it’s hard for him to breathe, to not do that. “It’s fine, I shouldn’t have asked you to come out.”

The pain sets in, of his casual words. “Oh?”

“You didn’t want to, and you had plans later.” He’s back poking at his phone again. “You need me to walk you?”

Wow.

You say nothing, glaring now, stomping out of the car into the snow and slamming his fancy fucking door, he feels tears form in his own eyes, cursing himself then. He rests his head on the steering wheel, before he sees your gloves, sighing and grabbing them, walking out of the car and shouting your name.

You turn as he runs up, breath foggy, standing now at your step, for once you’re at face level, as he is several steps down from you, your breath quickening when he holds your gloves out. Your chilled fingers touch his as you grab it carefully, looking down at where they’re joined.

“Thanks.” You manage, trying to understand where sweet Satoru was, and why he’s in the body of a jerk model. “Have a good trip.”

Satoru knows he’s fucked it all up as you just turn away, and he watches you walk to your door. You look at him, and he can’t say anything, nothing at all to the girl he still feels in his fucking heart, his soul, a girl who clearly he’s hurt beyond what he knew, and you were still giving him a chance, but he’s fucking it up. He tries to pull it together, stepping up again, until he’s towering over you, an arm on one side of your door, as you press against it.

“Can we just start over?” He asks then, you shift, his presence is too much, the feelings and pressure overwhelming, to where you can’t think of anything but how badly you want to hug him, be held by him, even now.

Was he there anymore?

“I was rude, I know that. I’ll be here a few days, maybe… we can see like a movie, or just you can come over? Anything.” Finally, you feel it, some of who he was, his genuine voice breaking for just a moment.

“Will Samantha be there? She scares me.” He laughs then, his real fucking laugh, so cute as he rests his head lower, cupping your face, thumb brushing on an overheated cheek. “Satoru…”

“You still wear the same body spray.” You get more heated, he feels it, so warm and inviting, is all of you?

“Not everything needs to change.” He sighs now, knowing the double meaning behind it. “Wait, you remember my body spray?”

Fuck yes he did.

It was so sweet and you.

Any time he inhaled something similar, he’d look around wildly, thinking the sweet teacher was in LA - Satoru always knew you’d be one. He should tell you he’s proud you became one, that he’s proud you help your family. That he missed you, he truly did, even when he’s denied it, hidden it. That he’s sorry.

But the words fail, when he’s this close to you, breath tickling your lips, your eyes dart up, as he bends down now, and dies to think of kissing them, of devouring them, kiss every inch of you. But even if he could get with you, where did it lead? Was it selfish to think this way?

He is selfish.

“I’ll come over tomorrow night, we can do dinner and movies.”

“Shit, really?”

“With your mom.”

Fuck.

He sighs as you press him gently back. “Sound good?”

“Sounds good.” He takes a breath as you walk inside, looking back at him now. “I’ll see you then. Have a horrible fucking date.”

“Really now?” He just sets his jaw.

“Yep really. Hope it sucks.”

You scoff now. “You’re a dick, I swear maybe-”

“No, no shit. Sorry, have a…” Horrible date.

“Can’t even bullshit a fake nice answer?” You ask, stepping inside now, and Satoru chuckles.

“I guess not. Pick you up at six?”

“I can drive.” With that you shut the door, and he palms it for a moment, cursing silently to himself.

God he fucked it up.

Samantha is pouty and all over him as he picks her up, going on and on, when they get ready to hit their actual press junket, but she didn’t need to ever know that. She’s dramatically going on, as Satoru looks at the time, thinking you must be with Sukuna now, the thought making him grip the wheel far, far too tightly.

“Samantha, can you take a xanax dear god.” She gasps now.

“You’re such a dick!”

“Yeah, I heard that.”

*****

As Samantha and Satoru drive and bicker to the press junket, you’re waiting on Sukuna for lunch, peering at the time when he walks into the diner, big grin on his handsome face as he looks at you. You stand up, nervous now, after the emotional strain of Satoru’s date, you’re afraid of what lies ahead for this one.

“Ordered us something, is that cool? I waited a bit.” He puts his hands on your shoulder, leaning down and kissing your cheek then.

“Sorry I’m late, shit, I had a meeting and the guy wouldn’t shut up.” He’s rolling ruby eyes, you laugh a bit, softly.

“I get it. No worries!”

“Sit, sit.” You do just that, across from the tall, broad shouldered man, who is so huge he looks comical in the seat. “Fuck you look pretty.”

“Oh, um… thanks.” You tuck your hair behind your ear, and he chuckles.

“Cute.”

“Am I now?” He nods, leaning his chin on his fist, casually assessing you.

“Very.”

The food comes and the conversation flows, he seems actually interested in your life, asking all sorts of things, shit somehow he heard about your dad now, the town is small and talks a lot. He’s genuine in his concern, in his interest, to the point you start opening up more, laughing with him, asking about his life.

He’s not holding back like Satoru, he’s genuine about the past. “I was a fucking ass to you.”

“Yeah you were.”

“Shit, to everyone.”

“You were such an ass.”

“You could stop me, say I wasn’t so bad.” He leans close over the table, you just laugh then, shaking your head. “Shit, you’re right though. Have I said how good you look?”

“Three times.” You shove playfully at his shoulder, and he takes your hand in his then, making you pause, feeling the rough calluses from years of football, on your tender skin.

“I want to apologize.”

“Tell me this isn’t some death apology tour!”

“No. Just hoped to see you, and I did and… wanted to say I was a dumb little shit. Had you and fucked it up.”

“You needed those college girls.” He sighs, releasing your hand and sipping on his drink then.

“Nothing was like you.”

It’s quiet then, feelings have been going fucking insane all day, to have your ex and your ex best friend suddenly in your life, one avoiding, one apologizing, was difficult to process. Sukuna seems genuine, sweet even despite still being cocky and arrogant, fuck he was… enjoyable. You’re having fun.

“How’d coffee go?” He asks suddenly, as the waiter is grabbing your check.

“God, horrible. Um… I guess I was still upset that he left. But, you had a big part in that, you know.” Your glare makes him fidget a bit, running a hand through pink locks, frowning.

“I know. I was a bully to everyone.”

“If people were nicer, he wouldn’t have left me.” You realize then what you’ve said, looking away and shaking your head. “I’m sorry. That’s mean. I’m being a whole bitch today.”

“You are the furthest thing from a bitch. You should be mad at me, and mad he left you like that, shit you all were stupidly close.”

“Yeah. But still, we were young, so young. I don’t resent you.” Your hand comes over his now, thumb hitting the cool metal of his watch, his breath catches a bit. “I appreciate your apology.”

"Oh thank god.” He’s exhaling in relief, as you giggle.

“Sukuna is scared of something?”

“Saying sorry is like puking, yuck.” You laugh louder then, covering your face just a bit, as he grins at you. “I’m trying, okay?”

“You are.”

“I’d apologize to Satoru if he wasn’t such a punchable asshole.”

“Oh! You made him that way.”

“Apology tour unconcluded.” His grumble just brings you more joy, and he smirks as he studies you, a hand touching your knee under the table, making you heat up a bit. “Can I see you again before I leave?”

You nod then, smiling. “I’d like that.”

*****

Satoru got rid of Samantha, for a bit at least.

The next afternoon he and her had just come back from one of the first walks, he was exhausted and thirsty, pricks in his skin from outfits being pinned up in places, his lips fucking hurt from that look he always had to pull. Satoru had his own ‘blue steel’ that always made the women in the audience wet, and probably everyone horny if he was being completely honest.

But, it takes a toll.

Samantha is especially whiny after they get to Satoru’s mom’s home, and he is trying to think of ways to get her away, since you’re coming over in an hour. He wants real time with you. He wants to show he’s not this… who is he, really? The attention didn’t hit what it usually did, fuck nothing hit well when your teary eyes were burned in his brain.

“My feet hurt! It’s cold. I’m tired!” Samantha is whining and whining that night, when Satoru finally gets a notification.

A hotel room.

He grins now.

Fuck yes.

“Samantha, look baby, a suite!” He cooes to her, and she lights up when she sees it.

“Oh it actually looks nice, especially after this town.”

“It’s perfect, I’ll take you tonight.”

“But, aren’t you staying?” She’s frowning, touching his chest, then lower, until she grips his dick, and his eyes damn near bug out. “Little Gojo, tell him!”

“Dear god, ow.” She’s got a hell of a grip, he struggles to disentangle his cock from her brutal grip, wincing. “I have to spend a little time here, with my mom-”

“Bullshit, it’s the townie with the nice ass.” She glares, pushing him onto his bed then, and he rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “We can bring her in, threesome time. Purr.”

“Stop purring, fuck. No.” He grabs her hips now, yanking her off him, curious how to play this so she will listen, cupping her face now, putting on that smile. “You need beauty rest, you’re just not getting it here.”

“Ugh, true.”

“And there’s a spa there.”

“A spa!?”

“Mmhmm, I’ll pick you up for the next show in the morning, mmkay?” She giggles, kissing up his face until she tries to shove her tongue in his mouth, fuck he supposes he used to not mind, but he hates it, shoving her back. “We’ll miss the suite if we don’t go now!”

Thank god he got rid of her.

His mother also seems relieved, though she’s too sweet to say it out loud, already putting in orders. “Pizza for you two, right? And the cinnamon sticks, it’s what I always ordered. Pepperoni, extra icing-”

“Mom, so many…” He pauses then, remembering how you all were.

Happy.

Carefree.

Nibbling on those cinnamon sticks, you’d dab icing on his nose and giggle so fucking cute, god he would die to see you smile again.

“That sounds good, thank you mom. Any… shit, advice?” His mom starts tearing up now, and Satoru frowns. “Mom?”

“My baby wants advice!” He ends up hugging her, sighing now, god he missed being home, he thought he would hate it, but he doesn’t really. He misses you and her. So much.

Last night had been spent going through it over and over, every single way he’d fucked up, then thoughts of you and Sukuna. Was it a good date? Would your feelings come back? Would he have a chance? And the biggest question, could there be any type of future if you actually did let him have it? What was that like for you two?

He doesn’t know where it will go, but he knows one thing, he never wants to make you cry again, and he has to try anything. “Advice for what, my love?” His mom’s words are soft and sweet, Satoru rubs the back of his neck now, sighing.

“How to be… myself again.” His mom is full sobs now, he has to hold her narrow, shaky form, feeling awful then. “I’m still a model. I’m rich. I’m… famous.”

“You are, and I’m so proud. But I’ve never been prouder than now.”

“Mom, shh. I just wanna try to be who she remembers, a little. Is he still here?” She holds a hand to his chest, nodding.

“He’s here. And all over your room. Find some special things, maybe your favorite movie, a favorite song? Your sweater.”

Satoru scoffs. “That ugly thing!”

“Mmm, it’s a thought. It’s almost six, so get ready.”

Shit.

Satoru runs up the stairs, to his room trapped in time, fingers running across the ugly ass nerdy sweater, folded right over one of his polos. He frowns, staring in the mirror, still in his dress shirt loosely unbuttoned and black slacks, then back at the sweater you got him.

“Fuck it.” He goes to the old cd player now, hitting track number one, your favorite song, the one he was singing the night everything changed, the night he practiced in the mirror kissing. He was a loser then, even if you won’t admit it, but if you want it? He’d do anything.

Just for a chance to make you happy. After being horrible, selfish, cold, he lay in bed all night tossing and turning, thinking of your words.

If you just gave me time.

Time, he didn’t give you time.

Satoru slips on the ugly polo and argyle sweater, before he leans over, picking up the old glasses, then putting them down. He takes out his contacts now, sighing as he puts them on, looking in the mirror, shaking his head. The sweater is small against his buffer frame, the glasses look ridiculous on his chiseled frame, then glares at his retainer.

He still wears one a few nights a week, but…

The Lucemon, huh?

“Gonna go full nerd mode.” He laughs at himself, shaking his head and slicking his hair up, like it was then, with pomade. He cleans the shit out of the retainer then, leaning over the bathroom mirror and snapping it in. “God.”

He looks…

“Satoru!” Your voice makes him pause, as he runs out, and you see him then, pausing at the doorway, plates of pizza in one hand, a bottle of wine tucked in your arm. Your mouth drops, eyes blinking rapidly. “Satoru?”

“I know.” He grumbles, and you hear it then, one of your favorite songs, eyeing his room, realizing it hasn’t changed a bit. “Here.”

You let him gently take the bottle from your arm, setting it on his side table, then taking the pizza gently, as your lip trembles, and you look at him, fuck you stare at him. Is it him!? Is he… is Satoru here? Is it some ruse to make fun of himself, or is it something real, tangible?

He pulls you against him, hugging you so tightly, and you cling to him then, his soft sweater against your cheek now, while he rocks gently side to side, letting you cry, just holding you. Like he used to. He feels so good you sink into him, crying more, his mom walks up, seeing you two, Satoru looks at her behind his glasses, as she sets down the cinnamon sticks and the movie.

She smiles, teary eyed, shutting the door then, making you jump a bit, looking behind you. “Oh god you must think I’m a mess!”

“I don’t.” His hoarse voice, so raspy and deep, sends trembles through you when he eyes you, magnified blue eyes behind thick lenses, and your hand slips up that soft sweater. “I was a dick.”

“Oh, Satoru…”

“I was. And you should be mad, you shouldn’t even come see me. But that’s what I love about you, how kind you always were.” He wants to say more, but for now just that has him overwhelmed. “I got into nerd mode.”

You’re laughing as you swipe your tears, and he can’t help but smile. “Nerd mode!”

“Nerd mode activated. Look.” He opens his mouth, earning further giggles.

“Oh my god! Satoru, it’s the retainer!”

“Mmhmm. I guess I still look hot, huh?” He winks now, and you nod eagerly, grinning now.

“Hot. So hot now.” He rolls his eyes, hugging you once more, leaning back, his lips a breath from yours, and your eyes drift to them, as your heart pounds. “All this for me?”

“The least I can do after…” He still can’t say it.

He was wrong to have left you.

“Your room oh my god, the memories!” You leave his embrace, running up to look at all of his photos, touching your chest then, feeling the warmth in your heart, as Satoru stands behind you, hard body warm behind you. “It’s all me and you.”

“That’s all I needed.” He touches one gently, a hand on your waist as he studies the photo, it was your eighteenth birthday, right before he’d left.

“We look so fucking happy.” Your words almost break him then, when you look back up at him, hair brushing against his soft sweater, he can inhale that shampoo, your vanilla scent, mixing with the cinnamon and pizza in his childhood room.

Every memory is back.

They’re all of you.

“Thank you for coming tonight. I promise, I’m fine being a friend, even though I was so shitty for so long.” You shake your head then, and his proximity makes you question everything.

“You were just… traumatized. I never was angry, just hurt.”

“That’s worse.” Satoru cups your chin, and both of you know, friendship is different than whatever tingles and shocks run through your bodies in that moment, as he watches you behind those frames. “The next couple days, I’d love to try to… get to know you.”

“And get to know yourself?” He nods, when you turn your head back to your photos, and lean back, so that you’re fully against him. He gulps back the hot desire, a hand splaying your tummy, feeling your frame in his arms, dying to never let go.

He shouldn’t have left you.

God he was a fool.

Even after it all, he feels it, your affection, your care, while you delicately touch another polaroid of you two, this one right before graduation. The sadness fills you both slowly. “Um, where’s…”

“She’s got a suite.”

“Oh.”

“Did your lunch date suck?”

“You’re still a dick.” He’s laughing softly, and you bounce off him now, rushing to the dvd, grinning as his eyes light up.

“Not the Holy Grail!”

“Always the Holy Grail. God, I can still recite it all.” You rush now, seeing his playstation and smiling. “This still work?”

“Dusty but yes.” He slides it open, when you both lean down to blow, and he smacks into your head. “Shit!”

“Ow!” He touches a growing bump on yours tenderly, cool thumb feeling relieving. “Sorry.”

“No, I got clumsy, the nerd gear.” He’s smiling watching you laugh again, leaning back over to gently blow, so goddamn beautiful he can’t stand it, especially with your pretty grin.

“The date was good.”

“Date, hmm.” He frowns now, jealousy eating at him. “Did you…”

“Kiss? Would you care?” You ask softly, not meeting his eyes, as you place the disc inside, and grant he remote, turning on his thin black tv, while he curses just a bit. He wants to be cocky, arrogant, conceited. Say no, he wouldn’t care.

But…

He needs to be him again.

“Yeah. I would.” You pause once more, in the quiet room, just the ticking clock and the fan whirling overhead the only sounds, along with your heart thrumming in your ears. “But I get it, if so.”

“We didn’t.” He exhales too much in relief, thank God you don’t see, fiddling with the tv, when Satoru starts getting everything on the floor, and pats it, letting you sit on the soft carpet next to him.

You’re just wearing sweats and a comfy shirt, and you look sexier than any model he saw today, casual, sweet and looking like you just showered. Hair fucking shimmering, skin glowy and dewy, a smile not leaving your lips, especially when you watch him bite the cheesy, gooey pizza, a string of mozzarella that he laps up.

“What?” He asks, wiping his grease from the pizza off his chin.

“Nothing, just… carbs huh.”

He snorts now, rolling his eyes, and leaning closer to you, so close you feel his toned, strong arm against you, feeling so good. “I’ll eat carbs on vacation I guess.”

“It’s on, it’s on!” You’re nibbling a cinnamon stick, a little sugar on your lip he’s dying to lick off.

It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot.

The movie starts, and he realizes you still know the shit word by word, and have no problem acting them out physically either. He’s laughing so hard his cheeks hurt, his tummy hurts, so full of pizza now, and you are popping open the wine as you carry on your quotes.

“Holy fuck, I didn’t know then.” He says softly, when you hand him a glass, and breathlessly sit next to him.

“Know what, Satoru?”

“You’re… a nerd.”

“Hey!” You nudge him, laughing again, sighing suddenly as both of your laughter dies down, and you’re sipping that glass, leaving a pretty, perfect lip print. “I was always nerdy, just… people were cool with it.”

“You were always you.” He brushes his fingers across your cheek, as you see your flushed reflection in his glasses, and he drops his fingers. “I’m sorry for yesterday, I was…”

“A jerk.”

“That.”

You touch his face now, brushing along a jawline that’s just sharpened impossibly, studying the beautiful super model in his old room, in his old clothes. Everything that you’ve missed for so long feels real, tangible, and you don’t know how long this will last, this beautiful feeling. Is it fleeting?

“When do you return?” You ask softly.

“Two days.”

Your heart sinks a bit, but you nod quietly. “I’ll miss you when you go again.”

“Why would you miss me? After…”

“You’ll always be my Toru.” Satoru sips his own drink, gulping down the heavy feelings with it, you all are closer now, so close. His arm wrapped around your waist, you’re almost in his fucking lap. He’s nuzzling your neck and inhaling you, hand slipping up higher, thumb brushing the side of your breasts through your soft fleece, but even then he sees it, your nipples pressed up.

“I missed you too.” His admission shocks you, your eyes meet and lock, the very air crackling between you both, as you lean closer, hand gripping the stem of your glass, as he’s so close, too close. “You shouldn’t even let me close.”

“No?”

“No, not when all I can think of is tasting every inch of you.” His words shock you then, sexy and bold, and terrifying.

You’re so close to kissing him.

But if you do, what does it mean? A fleeting affair? Could you handle the pain of him going back to his world if you let him in? Could you lose him again?

“I missed this.” He’s just looking at you, as the badly dressed knights are fighting, and you want to believe him, fuck you do…

But you’re scared.

“You look like you did that night.” Your words make him smile a bit, leaning even closer, until his eyes are lidded, and his lips are parted, drinking in your gasp when he inhales.

“That’s because that night I had a plan. One I really fucked up.”

“What plan?” Your whisper sends your sweet, wine kissed breath into his, and he’s shaking with how badly he needs you, how badly he hurts for what he’s done, how much he wishes he could have changed that night, changed it all.

Was this finally his chance?

“Let me… show you.”

Mmmkay the drama isn't over, but he's learning a bit. I know he's an ASS but he's traumatized and we can fix him - I think

taglist 1- @pinkyvomit @saitamaswifey @kachowness @vraiao @artbligh @psychoartiste @ghostskilledmyaddiction21 @bsenpai @simp-for-wanderer @rjreins @emonaculate @myahfig4 @casua11ycrying @psycren @blushedcheri @ureuphoriasworld @frozenmallows @kanaojacksonofc @rcveriees @xlilycoco @yukimaniac @sypnasis @tokina @sharkubi @tztuoo @hyori2 @yesdere @gradmacoco @gamerhere @seikamuzu @xinsonyax @vvaoo @angie420 @ria54sworld @blue-musingss @mysticmyth @asimpinamillion @arabellasolstice @ilovebeansyay @notme000 @emochosoluvr @iv-vee @heh123321 @fushikamo @danilovesboba @spookyy-gracee @satorusleftnut @clqxuds @femaholicc

#satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo x you #gojo x reader smut #gojo smut #jjk smut #gojo x reader #satoru x reader #nerdjo #jujustu kaisen #jjk x reader #jjk gojo #satoru gojo fluff #satoru smut #divider by cafekitsune

2K notes · View notes

wiitchkins · 9 months ago

Text

Main fields of mistria takeaway so far is I think.... More so than maybe any other farm-sim/harvestmoon-like since like early early harvest moon- this game places a lot of love and care on its characters & their relationships. It's a town that genuinely feels like a community, the npcs all have their own interpersonal relationships completely unrelated to you.

Repeat dialogue has been so minimal & in fact i keep getting surprised by the townies like. Talking to me about things I've done like hitting certain points in the mine, delivering certain mini-quest items to other npcs, dialogue hinting to/leading up to holidays/special events. Like reacting to my presence in the town.

Like. Even the bachelors/bachelorette have such thoroughly established friendships/relationships already that even if there was a rival system, I'd really have to rack my brain about who'd be paired with who because it could go so many ways because they all act like they know eachother for real! They're not always all in the same exact friend group either like the DnD group is different from who talks in crowds together at festivals (which is also different each festival!) or who hangs out in the evenings at someone's house or who drinks together at the inn or who etc etc!! It varies day by day! Ah! I could not even begin to figure out set schedules for these character because it does genuinely seem to vary day by day so much AND evolved as you go through the year/hit new story points... my god...

#fields of mistria

5K notes · View notes

meowdei · 8 days ago

Text

(temporary) birthday blues — ft. sylus

tara doesn’t mean any harm when she tries to set you up on a blind date—she doesn’t know it’s sylus’s birthday, or that he’s yours. but the thought of you sitting across from someone you’re actually allowed to be seen with hits him harder than he wants to admit

word count. ❤︎ 6.6k words — at least it’s an even number

before you read. ❤︎ female reader ; takes place after sylus bday card but you don’t need it to understand ; reader is a hunter and is implied to have his myth’s lore ; jealous and slightly insecure sylus ; hurt/comfort ; praise (lots actually. almost corny amounts) ; reader wears lingerie ; he picks reader up ; cunnilingus ; hand jobs ; unprotected vaginal sex ; creampie ; painfully soft sex ; not proof read

commentary. ❤︎ happy birthday to my angel boy ever. but more importantly — I MADE IT IN TIME LETS GOOOOO

You and Sylus return home from his birthday date just a couple of hours after the sun sets.

By Sylus-standards, the day has hardly begun—he still has roughly a little under half the day left before it’s his (ridiculously late) bedtime. By your standards, since it’s your boyfriend’s birthday, you have to spend his entire day with him, even if his clock works a little differently than yours.

Will you be staying up until six in the morning? Yes. But you planned accordingly. You took an entire extra day off just to sleep in with him tomorrow and spend as much time together as possible. It’s your first birthday with Sylus. You’re the only one who knows it’s his birthday at all. Work is important, sure, but sometimes you have to reevaluate your priorities a little.

Boyfriends are a pretty important priority—well, only if they’re Sylus. He’s the only boyfriend that matters. The rest of the boyfriends in the world are not quite so impressive, so they don’t deserve the same privileges as your uniquely, one-of-a-kind special one.

“Did you have a good day today?” you ask softly, curling your arms around his neck as soon as you both enter his bedroom. (Your bedroom—you practically share it like it’s co-owned. The only thing that fully stops you from moving in with Sylus is that it would make your work commute a very tiresome one. Other than that, you’re here every chance you get.)

He hums, hands planting themselves on your hips and giving them a gentle squeeze, pulling you close and flush against his chest as he pecks the corner of your mouth. “I did,” he murmurs, “although I don’t think having a bad day is possible with you—unless you’re being moody. That’s another story.”

“I would get moody with you just for saying that, but I am a firm believer in being nice to birthday boys. Wait until I get my hands on you once today is over.”

“Oh?” he grins, chuckling as he kisses along your jaw, “I should prepare myself for the claws of a feisty little kitten, then?”

“You should prepare yourself for some groveling to get on my good side again,” you huff. “And maybe some expensive gifts.”

He laughs—not that low, deep, rumbling sound that sounds like light amusement. It’s that loud, booming laugh that sounds like joy and warmth and falling in love over and over again every day. Feeling it start to bubble and fizz as the sun rises, and watching it overflow from the top by the time the moon is out. You grin at the sound, pulling him into a kiss where you giggle in between the presses of your mouth to his, and he laughs because your joy is too infectious not to fall victim to.

“I have to shower,” you whisper between his hungry bites on your lips. He hums in protest.

“Is that really a necessity right now?”

“Yes, I rolled in the grass with you.”

“Fine, we can—”

“No, no,” you push his mouth away with a palm, feeling his lips practically pout against your skin as you do, “we are not going in there together. That will take way too long because you never behave, and I still have plans we have to get through.”

“What sort of plans,” he grumbles, “surely they can’t be that different from what the shower would bring.”

“You are shameless, Sylus,” you scold, slapping his shoulder with hardly any bite at all, “you don’t get to know until it’s time. Now be good while you wait—and charge my phone while you’re at it. It’s about to die.”

With that, you leave him sulking alone in his room, watching your figure as it retreats into the bathroom without him. Grumbling to himself, he grabs your phone to charge it like you asked—he knows better than to make you hiss at him when he wants things. (He wants a lot of things tonight. Quite a lot of things that require your good side, and he intends to milk this nice, spoiled treatment out of you with that innocent birthday boy charm, so staying in your good graces is his wisest option at the moment.)

He grabs your phone and plugs it in…and then he wishes he didn’t. As soon as he does, and the screen lights up, he thinks his birthday is ruined for the next decade with how bitter a taste the messages on your screen leave in his mouth.

Tara💗: don’t be mad. i set u up on a blind date

Tara💗: well not exactly a blind date. a double date with me and that guy i met when we were out the other day. he has a friend

Tara💗: u can’t say no he’s cute and he has a cat. you’ll like him i promise

It’s official. Sylus does not like this Tara girl anymore.

He’s met her briefly before, and vaguely, he’s introduced himself, too. She doesn’t know he’s your boyfriend because Sylus is at the top of your job’s wanted list. Telling a girl who is, arguably at this point, your closest friend that you have a boyfriend while having to keep that boyfriend hidden to a certain degree is not a plausible set of wishes. Tara will naturally want to know more. She’ll ask to see pictures of your dates, perhaps. She’ll invite him for drinks, and activities, and parties, and after-work events because she’s the kind of person who cares about the people her friends care about. And Sylus? Well…again, he’s at the top of your job’s wanted list. You can’t let Tara, who is your coworker first and foremost, get to know your boyfriend’s voice and face too closely unless you’re asking—practically pleading—for trouble.

So she doesn’t know you have a boyfriend.

It’s a lie that is for the betterment of everything all around. Instead, she meets him once fleetingly, and she thinks he’s your friend who sells fruit and makes a pretty penny off his business that’s taken off. That’s about all she knows.

At first glimpse, she seemed like a nice girl. A friend whom Sylus was grateful you had and could count on if things got heavy in your line of work. She seemed kind. Dependable. Trustworthy. Maybe not the strongest physically, but certainly a good friend to ease his mind that you have good people in your circle. (Although, he does hate your stupid partner—but at least that loathsome sleepy bastard who rots in bed for half the day is strong. If worst comes to worst, Sylus can at least bet that the boy would sooner let his own head get ripped off than let anything happen to yours. He’s at least grateful for that.)

But he hates this Tara girl deeply now, and hatred for someone he hardly knows is not a common feeling for Sylus. That’s irrational, and he’s hardly irrational. In fact, it’s because he is so rational that he’s so level-headed when he deals with threats. He hardly hates his “enemies.” Most of the people who make an enemy out of him amuse him—they don’t particularly pose a threat to him, and he has quite a bit of fun making an example out of them for the next bothersome bunch that wants to try something with him. Being enemies with Sylus is usually a one-sided thing—he may be someone else’s enemy, but they’ll always just be a fool to him. A regular sorry little idiot who got a bit too cocky and decided to try their luck against him.

He barely has enemies. The few people he does hate are people who deserve it. Terrible, evil, sinister people who go beyond an ethical code that even Sylus will not cross.

He barely has enemies. He’s a businessman. A leader. A good fighter. A good boyfriend, too, if he gives himself a little bit of extra (but honest) credit. All of which require a good head on his shoulders, a calm demeanor, and a very, very adequate sense of rationality. Sylus is rarely ever irrationally emotional—unless it has to do with you, of course. And this time, it does.

So he hates this Tara girl. He hates her deeply. She’s landed herself on his enemy list.

Just as he sets your phone down, you step out of the shower, wrapped in nothing but a towel as your skin glistens from the fancy little lotions and body care items he has lying around in his bathroom that you help yourself to. Any other day, he’d tease you about it. About using him for his fancy, lavish lifestyle. About that skimpy little towel that you choose to step out in when half of his loungewear is in that bathroom for you to also help yourself to. About how cute you look when you walk out looking like a small, wet kitten.

But none of those things happen—red flag number one. Red flag number two is that when you go to poke at his side and give it a pinch, he doesn’t stop you right away before you can.

Something’s on his mind. You know that as soon as you see him.

“Hey,” you cup his cheeks, “miss me that bad for fifteen minutes? You look like you’ve aged ten years instead of one with that expression.”

“Very funny, sweetie,” he hums, clearly still distracted, “I thought you made it a point to be nice to the birthday boy.”

“I am being nice to the birthday boy,” you say to him, cheekily leaning up and kissing his jaw, “this is a very nice view to give to a birthday boy.”

He smiles. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Something is wrong—something so, so painfully obvious happened while you were in that fifteen-minute shower. As far as showers go, it might not be the shortest amount of time, but it’s certainly not a long one. What could have possibly happened in fifteen whole minutes to make his eyes clouded with that look? A look that looks so stormy and upset and irritated.

Something’s on his mind. You know it by simply looking at him.

“Hey,” you pull him closer by the hands on his face, pressing his forehead to yours, “Sylus, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, sweetie,” he breathes, hands squeezing your hips as he pulls you close. “Just distracted by what a pretty little kitten I have.”

And then he kisses you. It’s…a kiss unlike any you’ve ever had with him. Not bad, of course, but different. Sylus is a confident guy. A terribly cocky, self-assured, and secure guy. He knows he’s handsome by most people’s standards (and definitely by yours), he knows he’s smart and intelligent, he knows he’s strong and capable, and he knows he’s stable in his lifestyle. He’s a confident guy, and you’ve always known him to be.

But he’s kissing you pretty desperately. Not the kind of desperation when he’s just plain needy, or when he’s been worried about you, and rescues you just in time, or when you’ve been away for too long.

No.

This kind of desperation feels like he has something to prove. Like he needs to kiss you so well, you never want to kiss anything else. It’s a sort of desperation that almost feels…scared.

“You’re not yourself,” you breathe in between presses of his mouth, gasping when he leans down to nip at your collarbone. “Hey—”

“You’re overthinking it,” he mumbles, “just let me have you to myself, sweetheart—”

“Sylus,” you say firmly. He pauses. “No.”

He lets go as soon as you say the word, letting his hands drop while you gently take them off your hips. He looks unhappy about it—maybe even a little rejected, but he doesn’t protest. He never does. Not if it’s something you say. Some boundary you set. Some line you draw.

“What happened?” you ask gently, hands returning to his cheeks and gently rubbing the skin tenderly with your thumb, “this is supposed to be your day. I…I didn’t mean to upset you if I did. I’m sorry. I just…I just wanted it to be special—”

“It is,” he interrupts, planting his hands on top of yours and keeping them in place, “it’s been great. It always is with you—I promise.”

“Then what changed?” you frown, “and don’t say it’s nothing. Don’t give me that unbothered, nonchalant attitude and pretend to shrug it off—I know you. I know you better than anyone else does, so don’t even think about lying to me like I won’t see right through it.”

He’s silent. For a second, you think he’s not going to say a word. That he’s not going to open up and share and trust you like you wish he would when things are clearly sitting heavily on his mind. Sometimes he gets a look—one that feels like he’s lived a life you don’t even know about. Like it haunts him and curses him and weighs down on his chest. He never shares. Not about his burdens—not with you. You don’t think it’s because he doesn’t trust you, but because he thinks he shouldn’t have to. That he shouldn’t trouble you with things about him because he lives for you.

You wish he didn’t do that. You wish he’d change that habit. You wish he’d live for himself and let you live for him, too.

But then, he quietly asks, “Do you ever wish you could tell your friends about…us?”

“Huh?” you frown.

“We go back and forth between the outskirts of Linkon and the N-109 zone, and we don’t ever get to do things that involve the people you care about—doesn’t that bother you?”

“...No?” you say in confusion, “does it…does it bother you?”

“Of course not,” he says instantly. He throws on that smug, carefree face again, even though you see right through it. Some people just don’t like putting their defenses down when they’re cornered, no matter how safe they are. Sylus is one of them. “Now, why would I want to share my little kitten? Not everyone can handle her sharp claws.”

“Sy,” you let out a breath, “you know I can see right through you. Just talk to me—telling me how you feel is something you’re usually good at. It’s what I like most about you…why’s it so different this time?”

Telling you how he feels about you is easy. It comes naturally like breathing. It’s as simple as using his evol to move something through the air, manipulating energy to surround you and show you the depths of his feelings. Telling you he loves you and cares for you is a vulnerability that he takes as a privilege. Telling you that the thought of you being with someone more practical, more fitting than him…it’s not as easy. It’s too vulnerable in a way that makes him pathetic, not devoted. You chose him, after all, didn’t you? Isn’t it questioning your own devotion and your own loyalty to him to tell you: I hate the idea of someone deserving you more than I?

That’s what he’d be doing, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t it be to question you, to doubt you and your love and your choice, all on the same day that you went out of your way to make him feel special?

Telling you this is not so simple. Not to him. Not when you love him, and he knows it, and yet, for some reason, he can’t help but feel like you’re making a mistake by loving him. Him. The top wanted criminal on your organization’s list. Most targeted person in the N-109 zone with the most “enemies” after his back. A guy that, against every principle that tells you: no, you choose to be with.

He should just be grateful that you say yes. And he is. But also, he can’t help but wonder if you’d be happier if you didn’t.

“Don’t you trust me?” you whisper.

He breathes—slow, shaky. “I do,” he mumbles, closing his eyes. “I trust you the most. You know that.”

“Then tell me. Please? I just…I worry about you.”

You shouldn’t. But you also should. You were always meant to, right?—even if it wasn’t always supposed to be that way. You did. Once upon a time, you only worried about him. And you do. And you will. And he wants it. Needs it. Craves it. Craves you and your attention and your care and your concern. He should be the one you’re concerned about—but maybe concern is all he ever brings over.

It’s silent for a moment longer before you gently kiss the tip of his nose and say sweetly, “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I love you, so if you ever want to share something, I will always—”

“Your friend Tara seems to be tired of your stagnant love life, sweetheart,” he interrupts. He doesn’t really mean to blurt it out like that—Sylus is usually rational about what he says and when he says it. But…well, the idea of you sitting across from some normal guy with a normal life alongside your normal friend on a normal date has him acting very abnormal. “She’s…well, you go ahead and see for yourself.”

Your phone is pressed to your hands. You look at him in confusion, but his eyes all but beg for you to just look at the screen and end his pure misery by not making him say the words out loud. So you look. The first things you see are her messages on your screen, sitting there as unopened notifications.

Oh, you think as you read them. Oh.

“Oh, Sy,” you say softly, setting your phone down. “You know I’d turn that date down in a heartbeat for you—”

“It’s not about that,” he grumbles, swallowing thickly. This is a type of vulnerability he hates. The type of vulnerability he doesn’t ever have to feel. The type of vulnerability where he feels less than—not deeply devoted and open, but just…not enough, despite his devotion. He isn’t used to ever being not enough. At least not when it’s with you.

“Then what’s it about?”

“Your friend is a meddler.”

“She doesn’t know about us,” you defend Tara gently, “you know she’d never if she did.”

“Well, sweetie,” he drawls with a tight, bitter smile, “I suppose she never will, so I might have to get used to worrying that you’ll need to save a few dresses for some other blind dates here and there, don’t I?”

“I’d never go on a date with someone else,” you reason, “you know that, right?”

“How long are you going to pretend to be single?” he points out blandly.

“Forever,” you say confidently. He wavers, eyeing you in weariness. You cup his cheeks and squeeze them together as you murmur, “I would pretend to be single for the rest of my life for you if that’s what it takes. As long as you’re mine, as long as you stay mine, I don’t care what I have to tell everyone else.”

“That’s not very practical,” he grunts.

“I don’t think we’re a very practical couple, but I don’t think that’s ever been bad,” you chuckle, “I think we’re good. Really good. As good as things ever get.”

“But not great?” he teases, cracking a small, taunting little smile. You know him well enough to soothe him with another kiss to his nose.

“Perfect,” you hum, fingers toying with the small hairs at the nape of his neck, touching him so casually, so absent-mindedly, it’s almost like it’s ingrained in your nature. In your DNA. In your biology to be his and to want him. “You’re perfect. To me. For me. With me. You’re perfect and I love you. I love us. We are perfect, and it doesn’t matter if other people see that or know about it. As long as you know, then I’m good.”

“I don’t like your friend Tara,” he breathes, burying his head into your neck, “she seems like trouble.”

“She’s harmless, you big baby,” you tease. Because that’s what he needs—to be teased into knowing he’s not so fragile. Too much of it makes him turn around and retreat, like an animal that’s shown its belly for too long and is at risk of its fragile, precious organs being torn apart from limb to limb.

You give him a teasing little nibble on his nose, and he cracks a small smile that pulls him out of that weird space in his head. Because that’s you and that’s him. That teasing banter that folds love and devotion in between every taunting remark and every smart little retort. Every second you spend getting under the other’s skin is spent making home there—nestling under that layer of each other, and crawling into the parts that no one else has ever seen. No one else has ever been in. No one else has ever been allowed in.

“Oh?” he murmurs, “you’d side with your friend over your boyfriend on his birthday? Your priorities are intriguing, sweetheart.”

You’d say something equally as playful back, but instead, you say: “I love you.” You remind him with an awed smile as you take him in. Him and his brute strength and his carefully built empire and untouchable self. Him and his gentleness and all that love he holds in his large hands that no one can take away before he slips it into yours. You remind him. You don’t want him to ever forget.

“I love you, too,” he chuckles, closing his eyes as you press soft, open-mouthed kisses to his jaw. Your hands grab his own from your waist, pulling them up to the top of your chest where the towel wraps around you.

“You have one more present for tonight, you know—if you’re up for opening it.”

“Is that right?” he grins, “I’d never turn something down from my sweet little kitten. I wouldn’t want to disappoint.”

“You’ll like this one,” you beam, “I picked it out just for you.”

“I’m sure I’ll love it,” he eyes the small, peeking bit of red lace as his hands slowly unwrap the towel, pupils dilating as he slowly exposes you from its coverings. “You always do know me so well, don’t you?”

A red lace set that hugs your curves perfectly. The stockings are just tight enough around the middle of your thigh that the skin bulges just a bit at the top, spilling over it with pillowy flesh that he wants to spend hours digging his fingers into as he holds you close. Here. With him, right where you belong. Where, whether anyone knows it or not, you are happiest and safest and tailor-made to belong. You always belonged with him—alongside him, where you can be his and he can be yours, and the world would have to stop spinning on its axis before he was convinced that it was wrong.

“Well,” you pout playfully, “you’re not saying anything—do you like it? There’s still a return period, I think I could make an exchange if—”

“Don’t always be such a tease, sweetheart,” he breathes, leaning down to pull you into a slow, meticulous kiss. Unlike that last one, this one is desperate to know you exist. To be slow and take his sweet time and know that you’re here and you exist in the same timeline as him, and you’re not going anywhere. To rush it would be to waste the seconds he was given to savor.

Sylus is a man who savors things he likes. Good wine. Good music. Good company—he savors every little part of you like it’s a luxury he shouldn’t take for granted.

“Happy birthday, my birthday boy,” you whisper, “I’m all yours tonight. Every night. All yours, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” he groans, nipping at your collarbone. “All mine—aren’t I just lucky?”

Suddenly, you’re picked up with one strong, muscled arm, the bicep curling around your thighs and hoisting you up faster than you can process as the world is suddenly lower than you remember it. Two seconds later, and your world shifts some more as you’re suddenly eye to eye with the ceiling, and there are soft, satin sheets under your back with a soft mattress to curve around your spine.

Sylus is hovering over you, hungry and excited, and his eyes lit up like a kid ready to blow out candles. You giggle, holding his face and bringing him close, pressing a kiss to his nose, to both of his cheeks, to the corners of his mouth before the center of his lips, to his forehead until he’s laughing that sweet, happy little laugh that makes your heart skip a beat.

“I love you,” you confess, so quietly, it’s like you don’t want anyone but him to know because it’s only for him. Only for him to hear those words because no one else should know what your love feels like, what it sounds like. “Love you so much, Sy. My perfect boy.”

“If I told you my birthday was actually tomorrow, would you be this sweet to me all over again?” he grins in amusement. You huff, and he chuckles, leaning down to kiss the purse of your lips before he mumbles against them, “I love you, too. No one will love you as pure as I do, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you say quietly, “I know.”

That’s all it takes for him to finally snap into Sylus. Your Sylus. Cocky, self-assured, confident Sylus. Sylus, who takes what he wants because he knows nothing can stop him from having it. He wants you—and you’ll never tell him no.

He’s moved to bury himself between your legs in a split second, so that you hardly have time to process that he’s moved in the first place at all. By the time you attempt to argue that it’s his birthday, and it’s about him, he’s already huffed something about getting the final say as the birthday boy, and this is what he wants.

And…well, who are you to deny him?

“Fuck, sweetie,” he groans, pressing his nose against your clit through the fabric. He plants a gentle kiss on the delicate bundle of nerves, smiling when you twitch and whimper at the sensitivity. “All this for me? I’m a spoiled man, aren’t I?”

“S-Sylus—”

“You smell good,” he breathes, inhaling the sweet, rich scent of you, “bet you taste even better.”

With that, he gently peels the lace panties down your legs, little by little, inch by inch, discarding them from you before carefully tossing them to the ground as your bare cunt is exposed to him. He runs a large hand up and down your thigh, squeezing the plush skin just where it collects at the top of the stockings.

“Mine,” he breathes, “just for me, huh?”

“Only for you,” you pant, impatiently bucking up into the air and waiting for his touch.

He chuckles, but doesn’t have the heart to tease anymore. With a quick motion, he’s throwing your legs over his shoulders, hands cupping your thighs and holding them in place as he buries himself into your core. You’re dripping—the sweet slick pooling and coating your inner legs that he licks off before licking a stripe between your folds.

“Fuck, Sy,” you gasp, “o-oh—”

He’s good with his tongue. Expert at devouring you the way you need to be devoured and going between fucking his tongue into you and lapping away, and flicking it over your clit and teasing it with his wet, warm muscle. You squeeze your legs around his head, and he groans in approval at the pressure to his skull like it’s a gift to be crushed between your thighs. (It is. To him, anything you give him when you’re pleased is a gift. He likes gifts from you—he takes them readily.)

“You’re sweet, you know,” he sings against your heat, “taste good—we should skip the cake next year. I just want this, yeah? I’ll lick you clean.”

“Stop,” you whine, “you’re being filthy!”

He laughs, the low, deep rumble of his voice vibrating against you and making you shudder. “Yeah? If you don’t like that, then why are you pulling me closer?”

He’s right—you are. Your hands are tangled into his hair and you’re pulling him impossibly closer to your pussy, grinding against his face so his nose bumps against your clit as his tongue fucks into you and explores your folds and licks them from the dripping essence of your arousal.

“S-Sylus, ‘m…‘m s-so close—”

“That’s it, sweet girl,” he groans, “that’s exactly what I need. Can you do that for me? Let go? Let me taste you, yeah?”

Those words against your cunt, spoken through warm breath that lingers over your sensitive heat makes the steadily building pressure in the pit of your belly snap, a soft, delicious ache spreading through your walls as they quiver, through your lower belly as it flutters, through your spine and every nerve as your back arches off the mattress and you whine into your mouth and chant his name.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck—’s so good, make me feel so good, Sy. Hah—”

“My beautiful, beautiful girl,” he moans, licking the last drops of your release and pressing a kiss to your fluttering cunt before the waves of your high finally retreat.

Your ears are ringing, and your eyes are blurry, but you can still hear the praise and make out his contented, dazed expression as he rests his cheek against your thigh and looks up at you. Your fingers card through his hair, smoothing through the soft locks as you ground yourself with the feeling of them while you catch your breath.

“Hi,” you breathe, staring at him in awe.

He grins, lazy, smug, and bright. “Hi. Back down to Earth with us?”

“Don’t be so arrogant,” you huff. And then, with a gentle tug to his locks, you signal him to crawl up, face to face and eye to eye with you as his body hovers over yours.

You reach over, rubbing over his clothed erection and feeling him shiver as his eyes flutter closed and he lets out a soft, breathy moan. He’s so pretty like that—when pleasure is easy to see on his face, and he feels good, and he lets you see it. You love it when you get to see him. All of him.

It’s a slow, intimate thing, removing his clothes. You bring his shirt up over his abs, gently pulling the fabric over his shoulders, before he helps you tug his arms through the sleeves and expose that chiseled, slightly tanned skin (despite never being in the sun) to you. He’s pretty. Gorgeous. You hum in appreciation as your hands run along the planes of his muscles, raking your nails along his abs and rubbing up and down his sides while he breathes heavily over you. It’s slow—there’s no rush despite the lingering, building ache between both of your legs. You want to admire him, and he wants to let you.

You want to feel him, and he wants to bask in the feeling of being wanted.

“You’re perfect,” you murmur, “happy birthday. I’m glad it’s me, you know? That gets to say that. And be here.”

“It was never going to be anyone else,” he pants, groaning as your hand finds the tent in his pants and gives a soft squeeze.

Unbuckling his belt and taking his pants and boxers off is less of a slower ordeal than his shirt—he’s a little more quick to get rid of them and let his hard, leaking cock finally be free of its confinements. He hisses when the cool air hits the warmth of his length, but you’re quick to bring the warmth right back as your hand wraps around him, smearing his pre cum along the tip and shaft, stroking slowly as he shudders over you and moans.

“Feel good?” you kiss his nose.

“Mmh,” he nods, swallowing thickly as you run your thumb through the slit and feel him twitch in your hand. “Y-yeah. Good.”

“Good,” you smile, “it’s about you tonight. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he grunts in time with a squeeze of your fist around him.

He lets you stroke him like that for a bit, just the feeling of you touching him. Just the feeling of you surrounding him and undoing him slowly, gradually, just the way you know he likes. You know him so well, and he likes being reminded. Know what makes it feel good for him and what doesn’t—know that he likes when you speed up and focus around the tip for a bit before switching to long, languid strokes along the entirety of his length before giving his base a small squeeze.

“Ngh,” he pants, shuddering over you as his face twists into a pretty little scrunch of pleasure, “I…I think that’s—that’s enough, sweetheart. I want you now—the real thing.”

He’s close when he says it. You can tell because there’s a small twitch in your hand of his heavy cock that lets you know the build-up is about to hit the crest of good and fall over the edge and into better. You stop, looking at him fondly as he shivers at the feeling of it all coming to a halt before you press a kiss between his furrowed brows to soothe him as he holds onto his composure.

“Then take me, my birthday boy,” you coo.

“You want it, sweetheart?” he asks softly, just to be sure. “Tell me now before I lose my mind.”

“I want you,” you plead, “want you so bad—give it to me. Please.”

He does. As soon as you say it, it’s like a switch is flipped and he can finally do as he pleases—so he grabs your hips and leans in to kiss you deeply, a hot, open-mouthed clash of lips and teeth and tongue as his fat tip presses against your entrance. He’s pressing into you and splitting your folds open—one inch, then two, then three, and slowly, he’s fully filling you to the brim. His tip presses delicately against that soft, spongy part of your walls that’s especially sensitive, and you mewl at the feeling while he groans at the tight fit.

“Fuck,” he pants, “fuck, you’re so tight—take me so well. Fit me like I was made for you. I was, wasn’t I? Tell me I was—that we were made for each other.”

“We were,” you whine, nodding as your fingers dig into his shoulders and leave small crescent indents into his skin, “we were—we were made for each other. You’re mine, Sy.”

“I am,” he inhales sharply, “all yours. Always.”

The first snap of his hips is slow. He pulls out almost fully, until just barely the tip is still buried into you, before he slides back in with a firm, swift thrust of his hips. It leaves you lightheaded, wind knocked from your lungs by how good it feels to be split open by him and feel every ridge of his cock drag along your walls. You feel like you’re floating—suspended somewhere between pleasure and bliss as nothing but his body cages you into the mattress, and nothing but him invades your senses.

Then the second snap of his hips comes in, hard and fast and rougher than the initial, and he starts to set a pace that’s not as gentle. You don’t want it to be—you want to feel him raw and hard and fast.

“Fuck, baby,” you whimper, “like that…just like that—hah.”

“Yeah?” he chuckles breathlessly, “already so fucked out? You feel that, don’t you? How good you take my cock? You’re taking it so well—that’s a good girl. My good girl.”

“S-so deep, Sy,” you sob, “more. Please, more—more!”

“More?” he raises a brow, closing his eyes and inhaling sharply as you clamp down on him at a particularly rough thrust. He groans, the sound tapering off into a shaky little exhale. “You want more, huh?”

“Yes,” you stare up at him with plump, pouty lips and wet, teary lashes. It’s enough to make him snap and lose the last bits of his composure.

Sylus has always needed you.

He was born into this world to find you, and he needs you before he can leave this world, too. He needs you if he wants to find something worth living for. He needs you if his heart wants to find some form of peace and rest. He’s just half of a soul tethered to this planet with longing and no purpose without you. He’s always needed you—body, mind, soul, heart, everything. When you’re gone, he hears the echoes of your laughter in his empty halls. When you’re here, he feels human only when you smile and press your skin to his. It feels like his flesh is not rotten or tainted, only when it has the privilege of touching the soft, precious silk of yours.

Sylus has always needed you. His purpose in this world is to love you. To be loved by you. To do it right because that’s what you both deserve. He’s nothing if not an empty body with a broken soul taking up the space of him without you.

Shakily, he whispers, “I love you. You’re all that I love—I…I love you.”

Distantly, he hears you repeat the words back to him. Soft hands are roaming his skin, gliding along the curves and dips and contours of his body, and mapping every detail to memory through your warm palms. Gentle pressure coaxes his head into your neck, letting him take sanctuary in that spot that lets him hide away and be free of whatever clings to his back like a second, haunting skin.

“I love you,” you both whisper in breathless, heated exchanges. Because there is nothing left in your brains—no other coherent thought besides the fact that there is love and that’s it. You love and he loves, and that’s all that holds you together.

It’s enough. This time, in this life, it’s enough.

You come undone first—when his thumb finds your clit and rubs a few quick circles, you fall apart while whining with your head pressing back into the pillow. Your legs wrap around his hips and pull him forward, further and deeper into you as his thick, blunt tip drills into your sweet spot and pulls yet another orgasm out of you. This one is more devastating—this one makes your body still, quivering under him with a force that almost makes it hard to breathe.

The pressure of your walls spasming around him pulls him into his own release, a low, deep groan that draws out as the first few twitches of his cock start to fill you with thick, hot ropes of his cum. He pants, rolling his hips in messy, rhythmless motions as he desperately tries to work you both through the highs of your pleasure.

“S-so perfect,” his voice comes out strained, “you…you feel so perfect—ngh.”

“S-Sylus—oh.”

He paints your walls white with more of his seed, spilled into you and fucked deep into the back of your cunt with every sharp slam of his hips until finally, with a shaky little breath, he finishes and rides out the last earth-shattering waves of his orgasm.

He slumps over you. You welcome his weight with open arms, rubbing over his back with shaky fingertips.

“I love you,” you remind him again—because really, you can never remind him enough. “Happy birthday, baby.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart,” he mumbles, kissing your shoulder blade, nestled close and deep where only he fits.

Next year, he’ll fit just as well—maybe even better.

FOR ONCE I POST A BDAY FIC ACTUALLY ON THE BDAY HAHAHAHAHA I WIN

#meowdei.writing #meowdei.longfics #sylus x reader #sylus x mc #sylus x you #sylus x y/n #sylus smut #lads x reader #lads x you #lads smut #lads x y/n #love and deepspace #love and deepspace sylus #l&ds x reader #love and deepspace x reader

1K notes · View notes