#she seemed surprised i was interested in her at all and that's a pretty common way for people to react to me

[goofyguppy]

.

[foxy-eva]

Cuddle Buddies

Summary: Spencer misinterprets the meaning of the term friends with benefits – but having a friend who will cuddle with him is, in fact, highly beneficial

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader 

Category: Fluff

Content Warnings: suggestiveness (referenced/implied sex), embarrassment, awkwardness

Word count: 1k

Author's Note: I wrote this for @imagining-in-the-margins FWB writing challenge!

Masterlist

“Tell me, pretty boy. What’s going on with you and her?” Derek teased his coworker while motioning towards your desk.  

Acting like you didn't hear him, you kept your eyes focussed on the paperwork in front of you. But of course you were interested in Spencer’s answer too. For weeks you had been trying to figure out the nature of your relationship (or friendship?) with him. 

“We’re friends,” Spencer said and thought about his own response before adding, “With benefits.” 

Spencer, oblivious as ever, had heard that term before but didn't know its true meaning. The two of you were friends who occasionally cuddled with each other – something Spencer would consider as highly beneficial to the wellbeing for the both of you. 

His words caught the attention of everyone in the room. The snickering and whispering followed the second he finished his sentence. You could no longer pretend you weren't listening as you felt your cheeks heating up.  

“Excuse me?” You squeaked, clearly embarrassed by what he had just stated. 

It was not like you hadn’t thought about it before. In fact, most nights when you ended up cuddled up with Spencer under a blanket while continuing your Doctor Who rewatch, it had crossed your mind. But it had never happened and you weren’t sure why Spencer would lie about it. 

Spencer found your eyes, immediately noticing the horror written all over your face. “Did I say something wrong?”

“We’re not friends with benefits,” you mumbled, still in disbelief about what was happening. 

Derek couldn't hold back his chuckles anymore but JJ seemed to feel sorry for you and chimed in on the conversation. “Spence, I’m not sure you know the actual meaning of that term.”

She stepped closer to him before whispering what you assumed was the correct definition of friends with benefits. Once he realized his mistake, his facial features changed and could only be described as panicked. 

“That's not what I meant,” he stated what already was obvious. To deflect from the awkwardness, he started doing what he was most comfortable with - rambling. “I’m sorry, I just assumed that's what it meant. Our friendship does have benefits though, specifically the cuddling aspect. Did you know that nonsexual physical contact is very common among social animals? There are many health benefits to it, like lowering blood pressure, the release of oxytocin and –”

Your unit chief stepped into the room to interrupt Spencer and finally end your misery. “Guys, we have a new case.”

Spencer had to hold back a sigh of relief that this painfully awkward situation had come to an end. Both of you tried your best to not let it affect your workday, keeping up your professional demeanor in front of your coworkers. But neither of you could hold back the occasional glance at the other. 

It was hard to interpret Spencer’s expression when his eyes met yours. He had an apologetic look but there was also something else. Almost as if he had trouble holding back his thoughts from wandering to places that were completely inappropriate at work. 

You were very familiar with those struggles. 

It didn’t surprise you to hear him knocking on your hotel room door once your workday had come to an end. Spencer was predictable and you knew that he was about to apologize for embarrassing you earlier. 

When you opened the door, you immediately stepped aside to let him into your room. He had already shed his work attire and changed into sweatpants and an old Caltech t-shirt – a look not many people beside you got to see on him. There was a moment of silence between the two of you before Spencer finally found the courage to talk. 

“I’m sorry about what I said,” he mumbled. 

You showed him a soft smile and responded, “Yeah, I know.” 

“Are you mad at me?”

The question amused you. To you it was almost impossible to be mad at Spencer. You were aware that he never had any intention of hurting you. In fact, looking back you almost found his innocence and lack of discretion endearing. 

You shook your head. “Of course not.” 

Spencer sighed when you reached out your arms to hug him. He reciprocated the contact, immediately pulling you into his arms and holding you closely against his chest. There were many things left unsaid but talking about your feelings wasn’t really one of your strong suits. So you decided to suggest what the two of you seemed to be most comfortable with. 

You motioned over to your bed and said, “Do you maybe want to stay and watch a movie with me?” 

His smile was genuine when he responded, “Yes, I would love that.”

It was almost like the two of you followed muscle memory when you slipped under the duvet and turned on the TV. You found your place inside Spencer’s arms, your head resting on his chest, listening to the steady thumps of his heart. His fingertips gently brushed over your arm, leaving goosebumps on their path. 

Despite the positive effects Spencer explained about cuddling earlier, it was impossible for you to fully relax that night. He noticed it, too. 

“You okay?” He breathed as he turned down the volume of the TV. 

Before you could think about it too long, you heard your mouth spill out the question that had been nagging you all day. “Do you sometimes think about those other, more exciting benefits?” 

Spencer audibly gulped before clearing his throat. Instead of answering your question, he retorted, “Do you?” 

You shifted your position until you sat beside him and said, “Would it be weird if I said yes?” 

It seemed like your confession took him by surprise. Spencer took a moment to think about his response. First his eyebrows furrowed, then his facial features softened again. “It’s not weird. I think about it, too, sometimes.” 

That was all the confirmation you needed to boost your confidence for once. With your hand gently placed on his jaw, you leaned closer to him until you could feel the heat of his breath against your mouth. Spencer didn’t hesitate to close the gap between the two of you, finding your lips in a tender kiss. 

Please like, reblog and leave a comment! I need your lovely words to stay motivated to write more stories.

Taglist: @nomajdetective @reidsbookclub @gspenc @samuel-de-champagne-problems @matthew-gray-gubler-lover @malindacath @reidselle @alexxavicry @frickin-bats @spencersprettyslut @sebs-oxygen @happymangospot @cynbx @hotchandspencearedilfs @emiliaserpe @velvetthunder93 @saturnstringz @missabsey @guacam011y @hugyourlungs @reiderwriter @loaksulluyswife @xserenax-13 @grumpyy-bearr @luredwithpretzels @castiels-majestic-wings @super-nerd22 @pleasantwitchgarden @yeonalie @r-3dlips @evvy96 @torigorie @meyaareads @luvdella @bunnylovesani @spenciesslut @billie-lover8 @indyvelazquez @evrmorets

[radawaycunt]

Veni, Vidi, Amavi

Also on AO3

Part I // Mini-Series Masterlist

Pairing: Lucius Verus Aurelius x Fem!Reader

WC: 2.8k words

Summary: After your first encounter, you attend the next games to watch Lucius fight, and celebrate his victory with him after.

Warnings: SMUT (18+ ONLY MINORS DNI), canon naval battle with some canon divergence, graphic depictions of violence, mentions of blood and death, reader is a courtesan (so SW), some angst, mutual pining, semi-exhibitionism (there are guards around), sort of audio voyeurism, unprotected p in v, aaaaand I think that's it but lmk if anything else!

---------------------

The roar of the crowd was near deafening as you made your way to the Emperor’s box behind Queen Lucilla, General Acacius, and Senator Gracchus. Hundreds of feet pounded in a war-like rhythm, all eager — or more like absolutely salivating — for a good spectacle. Snapping and jeering like rabid, bloodthirsty dogs.

You would never understand that insatiable, sadistic need to see another’s brutal destruction. Nobody ever thought they would watch somebody they loved be subjected to it, just strangers who weren’t really people in their eyes. But it was more common than most would like to admit, the sand forever stained not just with crimson, but also with the salt of mourning tears.

You hid your unease behind a cool, placid mask, smiling back at Senator Gracchus as he glanced at you over his shoulder. He had been curious when you had first requested to attend the games with him, but having just found out about Prince Lucius’ return and rising fame in the arena, he was amused at your antics. 

Your patron might be old, but he was no fool. Gladiators always caught the eyes of pretty, young girls like you, especially ones such as Lucius. It was really no wonder you’d want to see his glory for yourself, so he had conceded if only to indulge you.

And when he’d helped you off the litter that had carried you to the Colosseum, he had not been surprised to notice you were hiding a garland of myrtle inside your sleeve. A common enough offering to Venus, goddess of love. He made no mention of it, though, content to just watch how things played out. 

Once you’d arrived at the box, each of you knelt in front of the twin emperors and kissed their rings. Emperor Geta smiled down at you in that enigmatic, impish way of his, but his brother mostly ignored you. Not that you really minded escaping his notice, though. Better than his scorn or, worse, his interest.

“Let us begin,” Geta said, his excitement palpable as he rose to address the crowd. “We are all in for a real treat.”

You went to stand next to Queen Lucilla, sensing that her tension matched yours, even if she was perfectly poised and regal. She’d had many more years of experience hiding her true emotions, after all. You shared a small smile with her, both silently recognizing it as a moment of solidarity.

“Citizens of Rome!” Geta called out, his voice rising above the crowd. “Today, in honor of General Marcus Acacius' triumph in taking over Numidia, you will be witnessing no mere games!”

A heavy, metallic noise resounded throughout the arena as it seemed to shift, the ground underneath you shaking fiercely. But what you heard next made dread sink into your stomach like a heavy stone – rushing water. A flood’s worth of it. Soon enough, the arena was immersed and massive sharks were fed into it, menacingly circling about. At opposite sides, great iron gates groaned open to reveal two war vessels flying different colors – Roman and Barbarian.

And captaining one of them was a figure you recognized all too well, even at a great distance. You felt as if a fist were closing in around your throat, robbing you of breath. Instinctively, you stepped forward to try to get a better look, but Senator Gracchus put a hand on your back to stop you from going past the thrones. 

This seemed to anchor you back to the present, and you reminded yourself that the Lucius that you saw in the arena was not the tender one, but the fearsome warrior.

Let him live, you thought pleadingly, clutching the garland tighter. Oh, Gods, please let him live.

General Acacius waved at the crowd, muscles tensed even as he smiled, thanking them for the great honor. Emperor Caracalla, infected by the madness of bloodthirsty enthusiasm, jumped to his feet. 

“It is war!” he cried, smiling sadistically from ear to ear. “Real war!”

If it was even possible, the crowd roared louder, the cacophony railing against your eardrums. Queen Lucilla clenched her jaw, gripping the headrest of one of the thrones tightly. With a shaking hand, you accepted the wine Senator Gracchus offered you and clinked your glass against his.

The two vessels circled each other closely, quickly searching for any weaknesses and readying to strike. The Roman fleet was cocky, though, moving in without a shred of uncertainty. The Barbarian vessel narrowly missed their initial attack, but they came close enough that a few Roman fighters jumped onto their boat.

The loud clash of swords followed, a few bodies falling overboard, some still living. The waters bloomed crimson, the sharks going into a frenzy at the scent of blood. You spotted Lucius again in the chaos, driving his sword through the last invading Roman fighter and yelling out commands to his fellow gladiators. 

Both Emperors leaned over the edge of the balcony, shouting and jeering along with the rest of the Roman populace. General Acacius hovered near them, but he watched as somberly as the rest of you. The vessels came close again, but in a cunning move, Lucius made his rowers pull the oars at the last moment before impact. 

The oars of the Roman vessel tore into the side of the Barbarian one, tipping it sideways but effectively getting them both stuck together. Fighters from both sides clashed once more, desperation seeming to take place as both boats were threatening to capsize. 

Without noticing, you grasped Senator Gracchus’ arm as you waited for the outcome. He placed a hand over yours, watching just as raptly. Numbers dwindled quickly in favor of the Barbarian fighters, and you felt like you could almost sight in relief. But what happened next was so fast that you almost thought you’d imagined it.

Before anyone could actually be declared victor, an archer loosed an arrow that sailed towards the emperor’s box, landing between their thrones. Chaos ensued, the two of them crying in outrage and surprise. Immediately, General Acacius and the Praetorian guard moved to safely evacuate them. 

“Let’s go, all of you!” he commanded, voice booming.

Senator Gracchus ushered you and Queen Lucilla to follow as some guards encircled the three of you. You tried getting one last look at the arena but saw nothing more than the splintered masts of the vessels. Thankfully, Lucius was still alive, at least for the time being.

But just in case, you sent a prayer up to the Gods that nobody else noticed he was the one to shoot the arrow. 

—--------------

A small torch was your only source of illumination as you navigated through the streets of Rome to the prison where Lucius and his fellow gladiators were being kept. After relaying Lucius’ demand to see you, Queen Lucilla insisted on sending one of her guards with you. He marched at your side, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, ready for any possible assailants leaping forth from the dark. 

You hid your face under a hooded cloak and let your companion speak to the jail’s guard as you arrived at the iron gates. The jail was cavernous, damp, and cool, and oppressive in the darkness of night. You shuddered, unable to fathom being imprisoned in such a place, even for a day. Your heart ached for those who already were, ignorant of when – or if – they might be released.

He guided you to Lucius’ cell, opened the large, heavy padlock, and let you in. Both guards waited outside of the cell to give you some privacy, and you removed your hood so Lucius could see you. He stood up from his cot, a smile slowly breaking out on his handsome face.

You let him take you into his arms and kiss you, leaving you swaying on your feet. You pulled away just enough to look him over as if reassuring yourself he was alive and all in one piece. His smile didn’t falter under your assessment – in fact, it seemed like he was proud to have proved himself to you, keeping the promise he’d made at the bathhouse. 

“Today was… I don’t even have the words to describe it,” you said, hugging him close. “When I realized it would be no ordinary fight, I feared for you… I still do.”

He placed one of your palms on his chest, right over his heart. “You have nothing to fear. I’m here.”

You glanced over your shoulder to make sure the guards weren’t watching, then lowered your voice to a whisper.

“What you did at the end, it was beyond foolish,” you said, shaking your head slightly. “I made an offering to Fortuna for all the favor she bestowed on you today. I do not think anybody else realized, or else we would not be standing here.”

“Another reason to celebrate,” he said, not bothered in the slightest. “Perhaps it was even luckier that the arrow didn’t strike true.”

“You really meant to kill one of the Emperors?” 

He shook his head. “Not them. Acacius. But in reality, I wouldn’t have minded if either of them had fallen.”

“I suppose it was a good thing the rest of us were out of range,” you murmured, looking down.

“I would never harm you,” he said gravely, grasping your chin and making you look him in the eye. “Never.”

You were nearly floored by the sincerity in his gaze, but even more so by the passion you found there, as well. It went beyond lust, even. Nobody had ever looked at you in such a way. You leaned forward and kissed him gently, letting him know that you trusted him.

“I know, Lucius,” you said.

“Then, let us not concern ourselves with anything, or anyone, else for now,” he said. “Tomorrow, the sun will rise and Rome will still be Rome. In the meantime, there is only us.”

The echo of his words at the bathhouse made you smile softly. A part of you wanted to ask more questions about his wanting to kill Acacius, but there was a slight edge of finality to his tone. Regardless, it wasn’t like you wanted to waste what little time you had together lecturing him. 

You reached up to undo your cloak, intently holding his gaze, and let it fall on his cot. “Claim your prize, then, fierce warrior. I am all yours.”

With a glance outside, he extinguished the torch in his cell and closed the distance between you. His lips melded against yours desperately, tongue slipping into your mouth. With ease, he lifted you into his arms, your legs wrapping around his waist.

He sat on the cot so you could straddle him, his hands wandering down your back and settling on your ass, giving it an appreciative squeeze. He groaned into your mouth, his chest rumbling against yours. He pulled your dress over your head as best as he could, leaving you in your thin shift. 

His hands traced the curves of your hips and waist, like a sculptor working clay into a masterpiece. He cupped your breasts, your nipples poking through the fabric, and you leaned back to give him access. He managed to pull the shift down to your midsection, revealing your chest. He trailed open-mouthed kisses on your sternum, moving lower. 

His tongue teasingly flicked one of your nipples, making you suck a breath through your teeth. He lavished them both with attention, the graze of his teeth and the pinch of his fingers igniting a fire within you. You continued trying to be as quiet as possible, even if he made it extremely difficult.

You reached between your bodies to palm his growing erection over his tunic. His hips bucked upward, seeking more of your touch. One of his hands cupped the back of your neck, leaning your forehead against his.

“How does it feel,” he rasped. “To be the only one who can disarm me so completely?”

You felt a heady, triumphant rush, nipping at his bottom lip. “I’ll keep the secret for you.”

He chuckled, surrendering to another fervent, dizzying kiss from you. You hiked up your shift as he lifted you slightly so he could free his cock from beneath his tunic. You spat on your hand and reached down to spread it on the sensitive head, moving to grip the base so you could line it up with the entrance of your cunt. You sank down slowly, your face so close to his you seemed to share breath. 

“Just like that,” he groaned, hands gripping your hips tightly. “I needed this more than you know…”

“Let me take care of you,” you whispered, letting out a breathy moan, head tipping back in ecstasy. 

You felt like you were filled to the brim by him, clouding all your other senses. He slid in and out of you easily, your arousal dripping down his length and pooling on his sac. His mouth was on your chest again, your fingers weaving through his hair. 

“Oh, Lucius…” You sighed dreamily. 

He pulsed at the sound of his name on your lips. In order to prolong the pleasure for both of you, he rolled you onto your back on the cot, keeping himself sheathed inside of you. He pushed your legs back, driving your knees past your elbows, his weight pinning you down. 

His thrusts were deep and hard, but not fast, intent on letting you feel him in his entirety. Your face contorted with pleasure, the intensity of it all nearly too much for you to bear. He groaned your name with the intensity of a supplicant. His sac tightened as he felt you squeeze around him, knowing he wouldn’t last too long no matter how much he tried. 

“Say my name again,” he said, eyes blazing. “Say who you belong to.”

“Lucius,” you panted deliriously, tears gathering on your lashes. “Ah, Lucius!”

His thrusts picked up the pace, frenzied, the sound of flesh slapping together unmistakable. You cupped his face in your hands as you felt yourself coming apart under him, trembling. A cry threatened to escape you, but he covered your mouth with one hand, muffling it. 

He shushed you gently, but his breathing became ragged as he reached oblivion himself. You felt warmth flooding your cunt, his last thrusts shallow, fucking his spend deeper inside you and making sure no drop was wasted. He uncovered your mouth and kissed you as if in apology, both of you dazed and content.

He rolled over to lie very closely at your side, the cot barely big enough for the two of you. His strong arms enveloped you once more, making you feel safe perhaps for the first time in your life. There were still a few hours before sunrise – before Rome and everything else that came along with it became real again – so you could languish with him for a little while longer.

The last thing you wanted was to untangle yourself from him, anyway, instead nuzzling closer. Your fingers softly traced patterns on his forearm as you pondered what this might mean for the two of you.

“Do you… really intend to stake your claim on me?” You asked tentatively. “Outside of this?”

You deliberately avoided any specific labels, not foolish enough to presume anything. Things were still precarious and new, but you already felt bonded to him in a way you couldn’t truly explain, and a part of you had to believe he felt the same way.

“Of course,” he said, but seemed hesitant to say more.

You shifted onto your belly to look at him, his fingers now tracing up and down your spine lazily. 

“Are you certain?”

He nodded, sighing deeply. You’d already known there was a lot weighing on him that he did not speak about, and while you didn’t want to add to his burden, you needed to know this. If only to save yourself some pain.

“There are a great many things at stake right now, including my freedom,” he said, looking up at the ceiling pensively. “Much of what I still have to do is dangerous, and only the Gods know the outcome of it all. I intend to do everything in my power to protect you, in the meantime, and I cannot allow you to become a part of what must happen. I cannot risk losing you.”

You weighed his words for a moment, then nodded in understanding. “You are lucky, patience is a virtue I possess in great quantities.”

He looked back at you and kissed the tip of your nose affectionately. 

“I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep,” he said, lacing his fingers through yours. “And I can promise you that as soon as I walk a free man, the first one I will run to is you.”

-------

[dirtyvulture]

15 Minutes

Natasha Romanoff x Reader*

18+ only, read at your own risk

Word count: 2430

Requested by abyss anon (and other anons): here me out. i've been listening to 15 minutes by sabrina carpenter and the lyrics “i can do a lot with fifteen minutes, only gonna take two to make you finish” is stuck in my head.

what if masc!r with innocent!shy!nat who is completely and utterly inlove with reader but too afraid to make a move? and when she finally does... *wink* but we all know baby natty is going to make up for it all night.

AN: This basically became pure filth with like a sprinkle of plot so...enjoy!

*Reader has a penis, no pronouns used.

The first time Natasha met you, she knew she was in love with you. Which really sucked for her because you were the type of person who didn’t look at her twice. You were constantly surrounded by people who were prettier, better, and more important than her. Natasha felt so insignificant around you, and whenever she tried to make her presence known, it always ended in a colossal and embarrassing failure.

She had exactly three conversations with you. The first was just an exchange of names, so she didn’t count that. But it was the first time she got to touch your hand and look into your eyes, and she almost physically fell for you right there.

The second conversation was at the dining hall’s salad bar, where the two of you had reached for the tongs to the romaine at the same time. You had insisted she go first, and Natasha had tried to make a joke about lettuce that fell so short it kept her up for three nights. 

The third conversation took place on a basketball court, where you were playing a scrimmage with a few friends. Natasha emboldened herself to approach, which she immediately regretted when you passed her the ball and asked if she could sink a shot from the three-point line. She stumbled through a pickup line about if you could show her, but you and your friends had only laughed. Naturally, she had missed, and she went home in shame, promising to never speak to you in front of others again.

She always told herself that if she had 15 minutes alone with you, she could get you to give her a chance. But getting those 15 minutes was an impossible task in itself.

Or so she thought.

She finds you sitting alone in the common room, staring at the television, but you hardly look interested in the James Bond movie playing.

Fifteen.

“Y/N?” Natasha whispers. Your head shifts in her direction, but you don’t say anything to acknowledge her. “Is anyone sitting with you?” You grunt, which Natasha cannot determine as a definitive yes or no. “Can I sit with you?” She holds her breath, surprised by her own confidence but fully expecting a denial.

“Sure,” you say, to her shock.

Natasha rounds the couch. You make no effort to move and she settles on the cushion next to you.

Fourteen.

She isn’t sure what to say next. You seem incredibly absorbed in the movie, and she’s nervous to break your focus.

“Natasha,” you say, still not looking at her. “That’s your name, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a pretty name. For a pretty woman.”

Natasha’s heart thunders in her chest. Did she hear you correctly? “You think I’m pretty?” she asks.

“I think you’re beautiful.” You look her in the eye now, and Natasha has to catch herself before she falls off the couch.

“I…Um…Wow. Thank you. That’s…really nice of you to say,” she stammers.

“I’m not just saying it. I mean it.”

Thirteen.

Natasha stares at you, trying to read your passive expression. Maybe you were just messing with her, or took a bet from your friends to flirt with her. No one–not even Bruce–wanted her. So why would you? 

“You’re especially cute when you’re nervous,” you say.

“Nervous? I’m not–”

You chuckle. “I know the effect I have on you. And most people. But I hardly notice any of them when you’re around me.”

Natasha feels like she’s in a dream. Are you really saying these words to her? And you mean every one of them? She pinches her thigh, but the sting doesn’t do much to clear her head. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you,” she admits in a rush.

“Is that so?” Your right eyebrow lifts and Natasha squeezes her thighs together subtly. “I never approached you first because…well, I didn’t think you’d be able to handle me.”

Twelve.

Natasha leans forward, resting her hand lightly on your upper thigh. She’s determined to prove you wrong if that’s the only thing she succeeds in tonight. “And what makes you think that?”

Your expression changes to one of surprise. “You’re cute, but way too innocent–” The words die in your throat when her hand slides up to cup the bulge in your sweatpants. 

“You were saying?” she says, turning her voice into a huskier tone. 

“Natasha,” you grunt, and she can tell you’re fighting to keep your hips pinned to the couch, “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

“I don’t plan on it.” She grips onto you and wonders if the fabric is thin enough for you to feel the heat of her palm. 

“Someone can walk in at any moment,” you warn her.

“Good. Then they can see you’ve always been mine the whole time.” She feels you twitch and start to harden. She wonders if she can get you off with her words alone, but quickly decides she’d much rather have you inside her instead. 

Eleven.

“I didn’t take you for an exhibitionist,” you comment. 

“What do you know about me? Besides my name,” she counters.

“That you’re awful at flirting–oh shit.” Natasha pushes her hand past the waistband of your sweatpants and it closes around your hot and hard flesh. She rubs you up and down, her thumb brushing the underside of your tip with every stroke and she grins when she starts to see your thighs tremble. “You ever done this before?” you gasp, your hips rocking off the couch to push yourself through her hand. 

“You tell me, baby.” 

You grunt at the term of endearment. “Not quite what I expected from you,” you say. 

“In a good or bad way?”

“Hmm, well…” You look down at your crotch, frowning because you can’t see any of the action under your sweatpants. Natasha uses her free hand and tugs them down, and you lift your butt up to slide them to your knees. Your cock bobs out and Natasha subconsciously licks her lips, knowing she is that much closer to having you the way she always dreamed of. “Are you gonna keep staring at it or do something with it?” you ask suddenly.

Ten.

“I don’t want you finishing too early,” Natasha says, right as a bead of pre-cum leaks out of your dick.  

“I won’t,” you say, although for once, your voice lacks confidence.

“I bet you can’t last two minutes in me.”

Your eyes narrow at the challenge. “And what if I can?”

“Then I’ll let you take me back to your room and fuck me any way you want.”

You inhale sharply at the filthy thoughts her words inspire. 

“But if you can’t…” Natasha squeezes your cock for emphasis, “Then I get take you to my room and fuck you any way I want.”

You snort. “That’s not really a bad deal either way.”

“You’ve hardly seen what I can do,” Natasha warns.

“So show me more.”

Nine.

“Be careful what you wish for.” Natasha leans over and takes the head of your cock in her mouth.

“Goddamn,” you mutter, pumping your hips up into the new heat of her mouth. You had severely misjudged Natasha in her innocence, but you weren’t upset to be wrong. Her tongue flicks against your tip and you’re practically squirming in your seat when she presses down and takes you into her throat.  

“Fuck, your mouth feels good,” you pant, your hands coming to the back of Natasha’s head and gently pushing on it to keep her in place. “This is hardly fair,” you whine.

Natasha releases your cock and it slaps against your stomach, glistening with her saliva and your pre-cum. “You want me to stop?” she asks.

“Not really.”

Eight.

“Then be quiet,” she says, and her dominance surprises you. It also makes you even harder, which you didn’t know was possible at this stage anymore. “Besides, we aren’t even at the main event yet.”

“Main event?” You have to bite your lip to distract yourself as her mouth descends on you again. You squeeze the muscles in your thighs to keep them grounded, not wanting to show her how close you are. 

“Mhmm,” she mumbles around your cock, and the vibrations have you holding on the couch cushions for dear life. The pounding between your legs heightens, spurred on by the fact that the prettiest girl around has her head in your lap, her mouth bobbing frantically up and down your dick. 

Seven.

“You’re cheating,” you whine, but you totally love it as you jog your hips up a few times. 

“I’m what?” Natasha draws back fully and the cold air that hits your cock makes it visibly twitch. 

“Ugh, fuck,” you mutter. “Never mind, baby. Just put your mouth back and–”

“No,” Natasha says, and you shrink back into the cushions just a little. Maybe you should have kept your mouth shut like she said. “I can tell you’re about to cum, and I don’t want you finishing in my mouth.”

“Oh.” Somehow, despite every skill she’s just showed you, you’re surprised she won’t swallow. But you won’t hold it against her. She’s already doing better than most of the girls that sleep with you.

Six.

Natasha leans towards your face, her lips brushing your cheek on her way to your ear. “I want you to finish in my pussy,” she whispers, and the words alone nearly send you over the edge. 

“Oh.” You don’t even realize you’ve reached down to grip the base of your cock, squeezing hard to quite literally prevent yourself from finishing all over your sweatpants. 

“But…I don’t know if you can last that much longer,” Natasha says, pulling away from you. 

“Yes, yes, I can,” you plead. You would do everything in your power to please and if you couldn’t…what was really the worst that could happen? 

“Hmm.” Natasha tilts her head, as if seriously contemplating ending things with you right here.

Five.

“You started this,” you protest. “You can’t leave me hanging.” Literally.

“I didn’t expect you to be so whiny,” she says.

“I didn’t expect you to be this mean,” you counter.

Natasha chuckles. “And you’re the one who said I couldn’t handle you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you say, happy to eat your words if she’ll ride you. Natasha stands up, and for a moment you think she’s going to walk out on you, but she shimmies down her jeans and you drool at the sight of her lacey red panties. You drop your sweatpants to your ankles so you have more room to move as Natasha swings her leg over your waist.

Four.

You can see the damp patch of her arousal and it hardens you further to see she’s just as excited as you are. 

“Two minutes,” she says, humping you slowly. 

“Easy,” you promise, but you already know you’re going to lose. You reach for her hips, happy that she doesn’t swat you away, and pull her towards yourself until her stomach presses against your cock.

At first, you had been genuinely concerned that someone would walk in on the two of you, but now you couldn’t care less. You were about to get with the Natasha Romanoff, someone your friends had told you would be untouchable. 

Your hands wrap around to her butt and squeeze teasingly. “I’m ready for you,” you remind her, as if she forgot what she was supposed to be doing.

Three.

“I can see that.” She reaches down to grab your cock and drags it along the wet patch of her panties. You groan and dig your fingers harder into her butt. She was far more of a tease than you had ever imagined.

“Come on, baby,” you beg as your cock rubs against the smooth fabric of her panties.

Natasha pulls her panties to the side to reveal her glistening center. Your eyes widen and your hips jerk up to brush through her wetness. She puts one hand on her shoulder to steady herself and uses the other to finger herself. The slick noises she makes are downright sinful and you’re practically vibrating with excitement.

“Let me,” you say, eager to get any part of you inside her and trying to replace her fingers with your own. 

“I think I’m ready,” she says, lifting herself up high enough to position the head of your cock with her opening.

Two. 

Both of you inhale sharply at the first contact. You’re certain you’ve left your marks on Natasha’s butt as she slowly sinks down, taking your entire length in her molten heat.

“Fuck, oh, fuck,” you gasp as you feel yourself twitching inside of her. Natasha rests on your thighs and rocks back and forth. A moan rips out of your throat and your head falls back on the couch. The tightness surrounding your cock is too much. 

“Don’t let me down,” Natasha teases, raising a few inches and falling back down again. Her hand slips around your throat possessively, but even that isn’t enough to bring you back from the brink.

Your bodies move together in a calm rhythm that does not match the emotions racing inside of you. While part of you wants to jackhammer into her like an animal, part of you also wants this feeling to last as long as possible.

Which, to be perfectly honest, wasn’t going to be more than another minute. 

“Do I feel good?” Natasha whispers, threading her fingers in your hair and pulling your head back so you have to look her in the eye as she fucks you.

“You feel perfect,” you grunt, your lower body starting to shake, but you give up trying to fight it off.

One.

“You’re lasting longer than I thought,” she hums, clenching around you with the tightness of a vice and you arch your chest into her, slipping your hands under her shirt to clutch at the warmth of her skin.

“Not for much longer,” you admit, feeling a thin layer of sweat forming on your forehead. The band in your stomach finally snaps and your thighs lock in place as you spill your seed into her, but hardly feeling relieved. Natasha circles her hips to coax out every last drop, leaving you shaking and begging her to stop. 

“I think I won our bet,” she says, finally climbing off your cock. 

“Whatever,” you mutter, your cheeks tinged red. 

“I want to claim my prize now,” she continues, pulling her jeans back on and offering you her hand.

You don’t protest and go to follow her back to her room.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN: Thanks for ideas, anons! Hope you liked it. :)

Please like, reblog, and comment! Follow for more content. 🥰

[prettyboykatsuki-moved]

ANOTHER WORD FOR HOMESICK (I WANT TO SAY YOUR NAME AGAIN) | M. BACHIRA

☼ tags ; omegaverse, afab + fem!omega!!reader, alpha!bachira, childhood friends to lovers, established reader backstory, coming-of-age, romance, mutual pining, implicit sexual content (virginity loss to an oc), explicit sexual content ft. bonding, knotting, penetration, oral (f!recieving), fingering, praise, lovey dovey dirty talk, petnames (mostly baby) 18+

++ notes: readers appearance is mostly non-descript but they are shorter than bachira and have several piercings and a tattoo which are explained in story.

☼ content warnings ; lore applicable sexism, sexual harassment of reader as a minor (details in authors note, explained further in extended authors note), lore applicable homophobia, implied bisexuality + referenced mutual queerness queerness, underage drinking, heat / estrus as a symptom of puberty

please thoroughly read content warnings and tags before clicking read more.

☼ ao3 link | extended authors note | fics for gaza

THIS IS PART TWO. CLICK HERE TO HERE PART ONE.

☼ wc ; 16.8k / 33.2k

☼ a/n ; sorry for the incredibly long wait. as always i got extremely carried away. but cheers for fujoneet reader coming after this! written as part of the @ficsforgaza intiative

☼ synopsis ; you spend the next four years of your life pining miserably and trying to get over your first love. it all comes crashing during the year you turned twenty-one, fresh out of a break-up and forced to reconcile with your estranged childhood friend.

PART TWO: LIGHT MY WAY BACK HOME.

Freshman orientation seems less like an orientation and more like a social gathering.  

You’re not really sure why you didn’t think of that. This one is being held by seniors in your department, so you figured they’d talk to you about things like majors or clubs or general campus life.  

The presence of alcohol and cigarettes after only thirty minutes is what alerts you of your doom. You’re screwed.  

For many reasons and in many ways.  

For starters, you’re all the way out in Hokkaido, which is a 19 hour trip from your hometown. You don’t know anyone at school except that one alpha you keep bumping into, and more importantly - you wouldn’t know of any good ways to excuse yourself to leave. You don’t even know where to go if you did.   

Secondly, you’re really not interested in drinking again. At least, not for now. The memory of Bachira is strangely fresh despite it being over a year since, and you’re afraid a drop of alcohol is going to make you spiral out and humiliate yourself in front of your peers.  

Third, most of the people here seem at least somewhat acquainted with each other. From the introductions at the start, there’s only one other freshman here and he’s already friends with a bunch of people. On top of that, he’s the rowdy alpha type you have a hard time with so you’re not sure what you’re supposed to do other thank stick to the wall and hope for the best.  

You text Miki-chan as you sit in the corner. Were you always this poor at socializing?  

After a few minutes, someone comes and plops themselves next to you. You’re mildly startled by her presence, jumping in your skin. She smells sweet,  a mix of overripe mango and something floral. You startle as she crowds in your space, eyes widening.  

“You’re the new freshie, right?”  

You blink at her then nod. She’s extremely pretty and not entirely Japanese which is common for this campus. “Uh, yes. Nice to meet you…”  

“Hira,” She says easily  

“Nice to meet you, Hira-senpai.” You bow.  

“Oh, how formal! Sure, call me that if you want.” She moves in even closer. You feel your heartbeat skyrocket and feel thankful you’re wearing a scent patch. “You looked a little lonesome in the corner, so I thought I’d come save you. First party like this?”  

You’re surprised. “Is it obvious?”  

“Mm, not really. But I can tell at least. I’m good at reading people. And I was interested in you,” 

You stare at her as she leans against the wall. Long lashes, dyed hair, full lips and a scent so intoxicating you could drown. You feel flush just looking at her, attracted to her undeniably. The look she’s giving you is making you a little delirious.  

Your eyes go wide. “Sorry?”  

She beams but doesn’t repeat herself. “Are you a beta?”  

“An omega,”  

You feel her nose brush against your covered scent glands and feel a jolt up your spine. “Oh, you are. You smell good.” 

You blink slowly, hesitating. “Thanks.” 

“Which way do you swing, then?”  

Is she… hitting on you? Then again, she could just be the touchy type like Bachira.  

“I prefer omegas. I’ve never dated an alpha seriously.” But I was in love with at least one.  

Her eyes light up. “So you swing both ways, or at least you like omegas. Good. My radars rarely wrong. Ever been in a relationship with anyone?”  

“Just for a few months in highschool.” You admit.  

“Right. Got any experience then?”  

She’s…  

“Uh, not really no. Kissed and stuff but that’s about it.”  

“Eighteen, no experience, and into other omegas…that tracks. You’re not having much fun at this party, either. So, how about…” You feel her hand on your thigh and nearly choke on air. “We change all of that in one go?”  

You feel a little guilty. You’re not sure what you should be doing. You never really thought about losing your virginity when you were in school for obvious reasons, and thought of it even less so when you were with Bachira. It’s not like it’s of incredible importance to you. Is it something you should let go of easily? Does it matter?  

On the other hand, are you ever going to have a beautiful omega girl older than you offer to take your virginity and it not be an illusion? You’re not really sure if it’s possible. And you’re a lot of things, but you’re not a eunuch. Some part of you hopes it’ll get your mind off of Bachira.  

“I really don’t know what I’m doing, just as uh. As a prerequisite.” You say stiffly.  

“Are you a quick learner?”  

Your breath hitches. “Yeah,”  

“Then you’ll be just fine! Sooo… wanna get out of here?”  

Shit. “Uh, y-yeah.”  

“Great!”  

She grabs your hand, hauling you up and dragging you along with her. Some of the seniors in your department shoot you a look like they’re impressed and you’re not sure if you should be mortified or flattered. “Taking the freshie with me.”She turns to someone who’s name you don’t remember. “Don’t wait up! And don’t come home either.”  

Said friend sighs. On the way out, you hear them ask around about sleeping over and feel a little guilty.  

__  

She tells you about herself on the way to her place. A short walk from campus, you spend most of it wondering if you’re in some kind of dream. Hira-senpai is mixed but she’s grown up in Sapporo for most of her life.  

Half-north indian and half-japanese. Tan skin, brown eyes, and long hair - something about her looks straight out of a dream. She holds your hand on the way to her apartment and talks to you so casually it makes you feel like friends. She’s good at conversation in a way that’s familiar to you, reminds you a lot of Bachira no matter how much you hate making the comparison.  

Most of all, she’s an incredibly attractive distraction. She’s just a touch taller than you but she’s got long legs and nice assets, with curves in all the right places. She’s toned too. She dresses nice and smells so good. Has all the flair of an omega that makes your heart race.  

Once you get up to her apartment, she wastes no time in getting you into her bedroom.  

Kissing someone with the intention of having sex is different than whatever you were doing in highschool. Hira is well practiced in how she touches you, strips you naked, admires you. 

She’s aggressive with you but you don’t mind. You end up in her bed faster than you thought you’d be. She kisses with with tongue, teeth nipping at your lips and neck as she whispers to you all sorts of things about likes and dislikes. You learn how to use your mouth and how hard to suck, and smooth your tongue along her scent glands in the ways to turn her on.  

You find you don’t mind touching her. You like making her feel good. She gets wet for you and talks to you sweet. Intoxicating, you let her play with you as she pleases without words of complaint. You make her cum once, then again because you like how she grips onto your hair. Her praise is nice when you make her cum. It feels good when she returns the favor even though you feel embarrassed the entire time.  

You fuck until sunrise and sleep in her bed. When morning comes, you find her wrapped around your with your body covered in unfamiliar nips of teeth. She tells you to stay for breakfast.  

You feel like you walked the stairwell to adulthood a little too quickly. But it’s the longest you spent not thinking about the past 

So you stay with her. You sit up and open your phone.  

(sent 9:34am) just lost my virginty to my omega senpai. uni is weird  

9:35am: You have 24 new notifications.  

__ 

[ NINETEEN ] 

“Do you wanna become club manager?”  

You shoot a surprised glance at Satou-kun, one of your only alpha friends on campus and captain of your university soccer team. You’re currently in the club room, reviewing footage of their opposing team before they start training for the inter-collegiate tournaments.  

This is a favor you’re doing for Satou-kun as a part of him helping you find board and housing all the way out here. Your current university had been your last choice despite being incredibly prestigious as a result of extra-curricular and exceptionally good marks for years of highschool.  

 You were supposed to be staying in a dorm room but there was some trouble in the office and no space left in the omega-beta dorms for you to stay at.  

You met Satou-kun crying outside of the 7/11 near your campus, dropped down to your knees in pre-heat distress. Satou is from the countryside. A big, lumbering 6’4 alpha who apparently can’t leave people alone in times of need, especially not crying omegas. He bought you a meal and helped you find room and board temporarily before later finding you an apartment near campus.  

In short, you owe him a lot. Insistent on paying him back, you’ve spent a lot of time helping out their soccer team doing this and that. Once, off-handedly during their practice, you’d helped one of their other team mates out with their dribbling and have since then become a psuedo-member.  

You don’t really have any interest in soccer. Or at least, you didn’t for the first eighteen years of your life. Maybe it’s because you’re so far from home, but there’s something about seeing them play that feels familiar and fulfills an old itch.  

Still, you’re not really expecting the offer. You’ve only known Satou-kun for a few months and you’ve known his team for even less.  

“Uh. I’ve never been a sports team manager, so I don’t know if I’d be any good.”  

“Seriously?” He sits next to you in a chair backwards, pushing his hair back with his hand. “You know a lot about soccer though?”  

You swallow. “A friend—sorry, an old friend of mine plays. My nii-san did too but that was way back. I’ve just been around it a lot.” 

He gives you a long look, brushing past the very obvious shake in your voice. You like that part of him, you think. “I think it’s fine. The team likes you. You’re meticulous and do well under pressure.” He takes a drink from his water bottle. “Plus I think the guys would be more motivated with a pretty omega manager. At least they’d wanna impress you.”  

You blink. He says it so neutrally you almost don’t catch it.  

“Thanks?”  

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just an observation,” Satou says, shaking his head. “I think you’d be an asset to the team. There’s no one else who can mediate with coach like you can.”  

Your lips twitch in the ghost of a smile. “That’s true,”  

Your thoughts end up at Bachira as you consider the offer. Lips furled into a frown, something heavy weighs on your heart. You’ve gotten better at not letting him consume your every waking thought. Being busy has helped. But soccer is the one thing that reminds you of Bachira most. You’re not really opposed to being manager. You just don’t know if it’ll be too much. You’re not enough of a masochistic to say yes without hesitation. The painful, constant reminder of him through being manager just feels overwhelming.  

You haven’t seen him in nearly two years, except on T.V. or in the news, doing exactly what you thought he would. You’ve put so much effort into getting over him but it feels like you’ve hardly made progress.  

You sigh.  

“Can I give you my answer later? After I consider it more?”  

“Sure. If it isn’t too invasive though,” He leans into looking closer. “Can I ask what’s making you hesitate? I’d guess it’s that childhood friend but,”  

You blink in surprise. “Yeah. That obvious?”  

He shakes his head. “Got a nose like a hound, granny always said. Could feel the change even with the strong patches and inhibitors.”  

“Ah,” You look down at your lap. “My friend and I had a pretty bad falling out. Think it was two years ago now, but I’m just worried it’ll bring up bad memories.”  

“You cared about him a lot, huh?”  

You aren’t sure what brings you to say it out loud. “I was in love with him. Basically my whole life.”  

It’s the first time you’ve ever said it to anyone. It doesn’t feel as horrible as you expected.  

“Was he an omega?”  

You give him a humorless smile, shaking your head. “An alpha.”  

He blinks in realization before nodding.  

“Must’ve been someone special then,” Satou scratches the back of his neck. “I can’t tell you I understand it but you know. Maybe being our manager can help give you some better memories than what you left with. With time.”  

“I know it probably sounds ridiculous. Two years is a long time.” You reply back. 

“Huh? Hardly.” Satou looks at you directly when he speaks. “Don’t force yourself to get over it. I know you’re the worrying type, but sometimes it’s fine to just let things go as they are.You have to keep living your life right?”  

“Right,”  

“So don’t think of it in negative terms like getting over it. Do it if it’s something you might want to do. If it gets too much I’ll support you as captain or let you leave. You can make new memories here. It’s an opportunity, that’s all”  

You give Satou-kun a small smile. “Satou-kun…you’re a good guy. You’ll find a good wife.”  

“You sound like granny,” He says. “If you’re ever interested in becoming farmers wife in the country side, you’re always welcome to take the position up.”  

“Are you joking?”  

“No.” He says, standing up. His tone is unreadable. “You’d be good at it. You’re strong with good attention to detail so I think the work would be easy for you. Plus you’re after a quiet life, aren’t you?”  

“This is a bad proposal,” You deadpan, shaking your head. “And most omegas would be pissed if you told them they look good to work on a farm.”  

“It’s a compliment.”  

“This is why you’re not popular.” You retort with a small chuckle. “If I ever decide to marry an alpha and give up on everything, I’ll find you. For now, I’ll have to decline the proposal. But I’ll accept becoming manager.”  

Satou-kun claps your shoulder. “Eh. I’ll take it,” Your eyes meet. “If you change your mind on either thing, just let me know.”  

“Of course. Thanks, captain.”  

“Anytime.”  

__ 

“Are you sure you want this?”  

Hira-senpais roomate, Shinohara, busies himself with sterilizing needles. You glance at yourself in the mirror in their bathroom, red-rimmed eyes making you feel pathetic. You really want something to do.  

Drink, smoke, something. But you’re not trying to start on using substances when thinking of Bachira since you’re sure it’ll kill you. You just need the distraction. The game is still playing in the background in the other room, so when you hear the channel change and feel thankful to whoever shifted it.  

You rub your eyes with the end of your hand, voice hoarse. “Yeah. And I’m gonna get a tattoo.”  

“You’re still this hung up on that kid? Whatever his name was,” He snaps his fingers. “Bee boy.”  

You huff. “Yeah.”  

“Have you tried dating other people?” He suggests.  

Shinohara pours rubbing alcohol onto something before wiping your ear with it on both sides. It’s cold and makes you shiver. “No. Never been interested,”  

“Don’t you think it’s about time you get interested?” He uses a marker next, placing a dot carefully before assessing it. He repeats the process on the other side. “I mean, if just seeing him on T.V. is enough to do this to you after all this time… You barely react to anything, like a damn stone statue. Yet, here you are.”  

“It’s not just that,” You sniffle again. Shinohara-kun gives you a disbelieving look in the mirror, shaking his head. It’s not just the fact you saw Bachira, but that you keep seeing him exceed your expectations. In news magazines, in articles, in ads for sports drinks. What broke you was seeing him on the news after seeing him earlier in a magazine for the greatest talents to come out of Bluelock, with speculation in his potential to become the greatest striker alive.  

You’ve done a good job not thinking about him. You even got used to the press when you went to your hometown and saw him plastered on posters. But it dawns on you he’s still living his dreams and he’s not even twenty yet.  

And you play no part in them. You bite your lip trying not to cry.  

“I’m not piercing you if you keep shaking,” Shinohara says with no real bite. A gloved hand wipes your tear. “So toughen up, brat.”  

“Stop calling me that. You’re only a few years older than me,”  

“Stop acting like one and I’ll consider. Now take a deep breath. It’s gonna hurt pretty bad, alright? If you jolt I’m gonna kill you.”  

“Stop worrying about me.” You sniff, wiping your nose. “I’m fine”  

He rolls his eyes. “Then count to three and take a deep breath.”  

__  

[ TWENTY ] 

“I’m home!”  

Your face is cold from the winter air as you step inside. You shake off the snow from your body as you wipe your face, exhaustion settling in from the long travel. It’s not your first winter break home but even after two years you can’t get used to the distance  

You leave your bag and luggage at the door as you strip out of your jacket, hanging it on a nearby hook. You sigh in relief, mind drifting off to thoughts of sitting in the kotatsu and warming up while you let your brain rot from television. You only have so many days break before you have to travel back to Sapporo. You glance at the shoe rack and notice a single pair of loafers. Your parents are probably grocery shopping. You always have hotpot the day before New Years.  

There’s only one other person that leaves. You raise your voice louder as you call out again.  

“Nii-san, I’m home.”  

“In the living room,”  

You stretch your arms over your head, sweater sliding over your stomach as you walk into the living room to see him spread over the couch watching something on the T.V. Looks like some kind of comedy variety show.  

“Hey,”  

You make a noncommittal noise, beelining to the kotatsu in the center of the room, sliding yourself underneath with a long sigh. Nii-san laughs behind you.  

“Still snowing?” 

“Got worse in the last hour,” You prop your elbows on the table, laying on your arms with a loud yawn. “My bags wet so I left it in front of the door.”  

He hums as the two of you continue to watch T.V. in comfortable silence. You feel his gaze on your back for a while before turning around slightly to look at him. “What are you looking at?”  

“Did you get your ears pierced?”  

You blink. “Yeah. My helix and upper lobe on both sides.”  

He stares at you for a long while after you tell him, leaving you confused. It’s rare you see your brother these days. He’s twenty-nine this year. He’s scruffy, face prickly with hair and hair grown out longer than normal. Eyes squinted, you feel his hand pull at the collar of your sweater before peering down at your back.  

“When did you get a tattoo?” 

Surprised, you pull away from his grasp frowning. “Same time I got my piercings.”  

“What for?” 

“I just wanted to get them,” You say, fidgeting with your. 

“Well, it’s fine.” He says after a while, voice softened. His hand comes up to your head, patting it like you’re a kid again. You squirm away from the touch and sudden affection. You don’t know if you’ll ever properly figure out what’s on his mind. “You’re such a goody two-shoes kid a little rebellion won’t hurt. Kaa-san’s gonna freak over the tattoo though.”  

“I won’t be here long enough for her to find out I don’t think. And even if she does, it’s not like I can get it removed now. It’s usually covered up enough that no one noticed.”  

“I saw it cause of the way you were sitting, so don’t worry about it.” He says, patting your shoulder. “What’s the tattoo of?” 

You frown, turning away with a flush. “…A bumble bee on a kuroyuri flower.”  

“A bee huh? Should kill that stupid brat.”  

“Nii-san!” You shake your head. “I already told you the fight was my fault. Don’t use it as a reason for your grudge, okay?”  

He sighs, shaking his head. “You’re twenty right?”  

You nod. Nii-san grabs a beer from the plastic bag besides him, cracking the top open before handing it to you with a long look. “Here,”  

You take the beer from his hand and take a drink from the top, malt hitting your lips and warming you up from the inside. “…Thanks.”  

“If you’re gonna go out of your way to defend him even now, just text him and make up already,”He says, shaking his head. “The piercings, the tattoo… all that was to get over him, huh?”  

You feel embarrassed. Was it that obvious you were hung up on Bachira this way? He always had a weird sixth sense about things, so maybe not. “It doesn’t matter.”  

He sighs. “It does matter. If you care this much, there’s no way it doesn’t. Don’t be obstinate and figure things out with him.”  

“Even if I could do that,” Which I can’t, ever. “He’s rarely home anyways, and I don’t want to have that conversation on the phone. Plus, he’s probably forgotten all about it.”  

“You’re a smart kid but sometimes you’re so oblivious it makes me feel bad. Was it because you’re sheltered? You have no common sense.”  

“Hey!”  

“I know you’re just being careful but there’s no need to this extent. You two were attached at the hip for almost two decades. There’s no way he’d forget even if he’s a famous soccer player right now. Just make up with him.” He says, then sighs before giving you a serious look. “But seriously don’t marry him. I’ll kill you both.”  

“I told you he likes alphas.”   

“And you like him, despite liking omegas, right?”  

You make a noise of indignance “That’s different,”  

“It’s not. I don’t care about him but don’t be a coward. You’re a lot tougher than that as is and it doesn’t suit you at all.”  

You turn your eyes to the T.V. pretending to watch it while deep in thought.  

You don’t know. It’s been three years since you and Bachira stopped being friends but the wound doesn’t feel any more healed than it did last time. There are longer stretches of time in between that you can without feeling like the world is collapsing underneath you, but you’re not over it despite your best efforts. Maybe it’s true you haven’t truly tried hard enogh. Your last conversation was messy at best, a rushed outro to a life long friendship without any real closure.  

But you don’t think you’re owed closure. What’s more, you don’t even know what you’d say. There’s both so much and so little you want to tell him.  

I’m proud of you. I’m sorry. Who takes care of you now that I’m gone? Do you miss me as much as I miss you? 

But how do you have that conversation? You’ve never been good at being upfront with your feelings. You keep to yourself, keep your head down, and get lucky to be around people who do it for you.  

Even if you were to get closure now, could you handle it? You were never under the impression Bachira could love you, but at least now you can be open about it. At least now, you can tell people when they ask you about love and confess it like some sort of sin. The first time you told Satou-kun that truth, it felt like a weight had finally been unburdened. To become friends again now would mean you bear that silence of that again while you try to fall out of love, or you confess to it him and make things hard on you both.  

You don’t want either outcome. You just want Bachira to be your friend. And you want things to be easy. You’re not seventeen anymore.  You have school, work, clubs - things that you still need to be present for.  

You can’t handle the heartbreak of that loss twice. It’d kill you.  

Maybe, someday, when you’re really over it - you’ll reach out to Bachira as friends. Another two years so it’s been at least five, and you’re closer to graduation than you are to highschool.  

For now though, the idea of seeing Bachira again is painful at best and stupid at worst.  

“I need more time,” You reply after a while. “To get over it more. I don’t want to meet him when I’m still this… emotional about it.”  

Nii-san sighs, over you. “Fine. If you say so. Drink your little heart out over it but when the time comes, dont’ miss your chance alright? Promise me.”  

“I thought you didn’t like him.” 

“You little—just promise.”  

“Fine, fine,” You fall forward again on your kotatsu - waving a dismissive hand. “Promise.”  

__  

“I can’t believe my favorite heat partner went and got a boyfriend on me,” 

Hira-senpai slides herself across from you in the booth in front of you. You glance up from your laptop just barely too greet her as Shinohara joins the both of you. Shaking your head, you take stock of your surroundings quickly. The cafeteria at the bottom floor of the  mathematics building is still just as empty as it was when you came in.  

“Where did you two just back from?”  

“A seminar thing for senior capstone.” Shinohara answers. You make a short ahhh sound before continuing on with your typing.  

“Don’t just ignore me, both of you!” Hira insists. Your lips quirk up at the corners.  

“Stop announcing that we have sex so loudly and I’ll consider it.”  

“Fine, fine. I just can’t believe you got confessed too and you said yes! And you only told me through text!!”  

“What was I supposed to do? You weren’t even on campus so I couldn’t tell you in person.”  

She pouts, dipping a fry into ketchup as she props her elbows up on the table.  

“Whatever. I want details!”  

“It was that huge omega guy on the soccer team, right? What was his name again…?”  

You furrow your brow. “How do you know that?”  

“I know everything.” He says seriously. You roll your eyes.  

“Yeah it was. Takahashi-kun. He confessed to me as soon as I got back from visiting home over winter break in the club room. Gave me flowers and everything.”  

“Flowers? What a serious guy. Are all the soccer club guys like that?”  

You grimace. “I think all soccer players are predispositioned to have something just a little wrong with them. Him being chivalrous is fine, all things considered.” 

“Hm. True.”  

“Sooo, did you just say yes right away? That’s super unlike you!” 

“Huh? No, of course not. I told him upfront that I’m still getting over someone so I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” You say, typing away at your computer. “But he said he didn’t care and wanted to date me anyways.”  

“What a weird guy.” Shinohara hums thoughtfully.  

“He’s that into you?!”  

You nod. “I guess so. I asked why it had to be me and he said something I didn’t catch. Just that he thought I’d be a good partner and accept an omega like him. Which I guess is true.”  

Shinohara chuckles. “You sound so enthused.”  

You shrug. “It’s not like I lied. He’s a good guy, I know that. And I mean. Not like I have anything to lose. You guys are the ones telling me to try and move on.”  

They both say “True,” at the same time, making you shake your head.  

“So you’re gonna date him seriously?”  

“I’m gonna try,” You reply with a long sigh. “I really just want to move on.”  

__ 

You date Takahashi-kun for a year.  

It’s a good year, and a good relationship.  

He’s good to you in all ways that matter. He still believes in old timey traditional of courting and courts you like an omega might an alpha despite you not being one. Brings you food he’s made and other handmade ornaments. He’s taller than most omega men. A little over six feet and muscular with a sharp jaw but the roundest, brownest eyes you’ve ever seen. 

Often, he asks you if you’re fine with him. Comes into your arms and weeps into your neck, scent sweet like fresh cream as he apologizes for not being cute. Takahashi is more omega than you are. Shows submission and pleasure in the textbook ways you see only in books and pornography. He’s kind and doe-eyed and timid. He’s easy to talk to. He’s attractive. Sharing heat together always feels pleasurable and warm. 

Alphas like him. Mostly alpha women. And you like Takahashi too, while you date him. He’s tender and thoughtful - easy to read and easy to treat well. The relationship is never something worthy of complaint.  

Which is why you break up with him before you leave for winter break the next year.  You explain it  all to him and feel incredibly disheartened when he cries. Takahashi is the poster image for what makes a good omega. And because he is so good, so kind, so caring - it’s unfair to continue to be with him when you know you can’t grow to love him the way he loves you. 

If a year in your ideal theoretical relationship can’t be enough to cauterize the wound of your heartbreak, there’s probably nothing else that will except time. Even hysterical, you relay all of this to Takahashi as best you can. You don’t regret being with him, because he’s taught you plenty of things. 

It’s because he’s taught you so much that you’re able to break up with him at all instead of remaining comfortable and impassive. Because you know the depth of another persons unconditional love and because you also grow to love Takahashi. You love him in a different way than he loves you, and you leave because it’s unfair. It’s the first year of your life that has felt long and meaningful since you and Bachira parted ways four years prior.  

So you split with him, and tell him everything on your mind. And because Takahashi is a good person who loves you unconditionally - it hurts you both, even though he accepts. He asks that if someday, you think you might change your mind to call him. He asks to be friends.  

You promise to him both, and then tell him again that you hope someone better will be there for him and that you love him even if it’s not like that.  

The day you break up with Takahashi, you have to take a train ride three hours long to get to the airport where you’ll board a short flight, then make the hours long venture back to your hometown.  

You’re fine for the duration. You don’t cry often anyway. It’s fine until your phone buzzes with the notification that F.C. Barcha has won a tournament match and will proceed to the next World Cup Qualifiers.  

And then, like clockwork, you sob into your hands on an empty train - heart so full of longing you could nearly throw up.  

You think, breaking up with Takahashi-kun was the right choice.  

You think, I miss him.  

You heart doesn’t name who exactly you miss. That name is written all over it anyways.   

__  

[ TWENTY-ONE ] 

For the first few days of your winter break, none of your family is in your house for you to hang around.  

This is something you’ve always been used to. Your parents have been on a trip in Kyoto and won’t be back until after new years and nii-san is working a lot of overtime until about the same. You have a copy of your house keys so you have a place to stay, and you’ve made some shrine plans with Miki and Sasaki since you’re back home.  

They’re both still busy until the thirtieth though, so until then you have nothing to do.  

Today is the twenty-sixth, the day after Christmas. You’re home early since all of your classes finals lined up in the short-span of three days. It was stressful but you’re thankful for the extended few days that allowed you to go home early.  

Yu-san has insisted you spend some time with her instead of being by yourself. You always spend a day or two at her house during your winter breaks and have since you left for college. After your eighteenth birthday, it just felt like the right thing to do.  

You bring her something every year when you visit, and sometimes you stay over night. She treats you like her own, and fills you in about Bachira from time to time.  

In honor of upholding tradition, you decide to go see her a little early this year. Before you enter the familiar and cramped space of Yu-sans apartment - you always buy her a nice bouquet of flowers, a box of sweets, and an expensive bottle of sake. You have a gift for her too, some souvenirs from Hokkaido like always.  

You stop by your house first to drop off your things and lock up before walking the short distance to your childhood friends home in the winter air.  

You’ve been too often to knock after all, instead opting to text Yu-san and let her know that you’re there. You wait outside until she responds, giving you the go-ahead. 

yu oba-san (sent 9:57pm): the door is open but i had to step out for  a bit. make yourself comfortable.  

You gather your things up in one hand and tucking the flowers carefully in your arms to open the door. Your bag of gifts and drinks lands on the floor with a soft clunk as you set it down besides you, balancing flowers on the small cabinet near the entryway. Sliding your jacket off your shoulders and hanging it, you force your feet out of your winter boots, eyes searching around for the right pair of slippers.  

When you go to put your boots up on the shoe rack, you notice that there’s an unfamiliar pair of sneakers. You notice it too late. Mens sneakers. 

 A faint scent of burnt honey.  

You shake your head trying to shake the thoughts away. The likelihood of it being Bachira is so slim you wonder why you’re considering. The match for F.C. Barcha took place in Spain. It takes a day of travel to get to Japan, so you guess it’s possible. Even so, you think it’d be more likely he comes during New Years. It’s not guaranteed he’ll have enough time to even come home every year. He did two years back from what you know but not since then.  

You gather your things again. First the small bag you keep your personal stuff in, then the bags you’ve brought for Yu-san, and finally the flowers in your arm.  

You decide against announcing yourself since you suspect you’re the only there. 

Except you’re not.  

The whole world feels like it’s collapsing underneath your feet to see Bachira in flesh, tucked into the couch of his childhood home the same way he used to when you were kids - with both legs folded up and his chin resting on his knee.  

A shock of yellow hair, eyes gemstone gold and a stronger scent. Bachira. Meguru. 

You startle and think of what to do. What excuse you can make. How you can tiptoe your way out of the room and catch the breath that he steals away from your lungs.  

No such luck. Bachira is perceptive as always, noticing you before you get a chance to slip away.  

“Oh,” He murmurs. He’s taller. Just a bit, you think. “It’s you,”  

Your heart is thudding, blood rushing to your ears and face as you stare at him. You can barely feel your legs, weakness in your knees nearly making you buckle. Frozen stiff in place, you blink once, twice before nodding. You force yourself to swallow the lump in your throat.   

“Uhm,” You don’t know what to do. “Yeah. I came to visit Yu-san.”  

He nods back.  

“She told me I should come over as soon as I can.” Bachira says. He feels unfamiliar. His hair is longer, but styled up and his ear lobes are pierced. He looks so much older yet so much the same. “My team mate dropped me off with his jet so I made it in a day.”  

Ah. Was it planned? She’s like your nii-san in how much she wants you two to reconcile. “Makes sense.” You flounder. Awkward silence falls so you try to come up with anything to say. Your hands are sweaty. “ Uh..Congratulations on your win, by the way.”  

He looks surprised. “Do you keep up with soccer these days?”  

Just for you. “A bit. Out of habit, I guess. And I’m the soccer teams manager at uni.”  

Surprised, he blinks in silence for a while.  

 “Oh. Well,” Suddenly, he beams. It’s no doubt forced and it breaks you into a thousand pieces though you try not to let it show on your face. Try not to let the omega part of you whimpering for approval too obvious. He smiles at you “Don’t be a stranger on my behalf! You should put your stuff down and sit. We should uhm..catch up!”  

You make a face at him that you know is pained, but nod anyways. The tension in the air is so thick as you slide to the other side of the room, putting the flowers and other gifts on the kitchen counter.   

Four years. Four years. How are you supposed to act?  

“Uh,” You call from the kitchen, hoping the nerves in your voice aren’t obvious. “Do you uhm, maybe want something to drink? I brought alcohol and I think there’s beers in your fridge.”’ 

Your eyes meet from the living room to where you stand behind the counter. He shrugs, giving you a lighthearted smile.  

“Mm. My nutritionist might get pissed but whatever! Why not you know? A beer would be good, thanks!” 

You nod and try to do the same - keeping the conversation as light as you can. You repeat that it’s fine like a mantra.  

“Is beer not too bitter for you? I bought chuhai cans. There’s a pineapple flavor,”  

The question is innocent enough to you, but you realize seconds later the intimacy of it. Four years or not, you were Bachira’s friend your entire life so it’d be weirder not to know and even weirder not to at least ask. It’s an extension of courtesy no matter how unnecessary, and plus - you’re known for being a little too obsessed with the details.  Bachira prefers sweet things and likes canned pineapple. You’re sure you picked it up out of habit.  

When you look up at Bachira, he looks nearly ready to cry. It startles you so much you jolt out of your skin. He turns away. “Haha…You remembered,”  

A pang of concern makes leaves you standing in place. There’s no way you would’ve forgotten. “Oh uhm. Sorry. Is that weird for you?” You explain, trying not to overstep any boundaries. “If me being too familiar is making you uncomfortable then—“  

“It’s not that,” He insists seriously. “I was trying to keep it together but I can’t after that,” He lets out a loud sob suddenly. Your eyes widen. Several waves of emotion pass over you at the same time. “I missed you…hicc, why would you remember that…sniff,”  

You soften, shoulder slumped with endured longing.  

“I missed you too,” 

“Liar,” He hiccups again, crying in full hysterics this time. You shuffle back to the living room to join him on the opposite side of the couch, placing the bag of drinks on the coffee table and reaching a hand over to squeeze his knee. “You haven’t talked to me in four years. You didn’t miss me at all but you remember something so dumb. You’re always like that. You’re so….”  

You frown. Does he really think you didn’t miss him?  

“It wasn’t like that,”  

“Then explain it to me now! Hasn’t it been long enough…dont you…!” He exclaims, pulling his hands from his face. You can’t contain your surprise about the reaction though you understand it completely. You feel similar. You’ve convinced yourself the entire time that any relationship you had with each other was completely one-sided. Assuming he would move on fine without you now that there were people in his life he could call friends. Still, it’s so unusual to see evidence of it not being true. “You never explained anything to me you just..” He sniffs “Left me. I thought you didn’t care anymore but…”  

His display of genuine sadness makes you feel horrible.  

You press your lips together in a thin line, reaching into the bag for a tall can of beer and cracking it open before having a drink so it numbs your nerves.  

Your stomach is twisted up in a knot so tight you kind of feel sick. There’s no way around the conversation now. You can’t bear to see him cry so much, so you should at least clear up the understanding. 

 Leaned forward, elbows on knees - you keep your eyes focused in front of you, keenly aware of Bachira adjacent to you on the couch wiping his eyes.  

“It wasn’t that I didn’t miss you, I just uh,” You swallow a lump in your throat until it smooths out. “I just have stuff I want to get over before we could be proper friends again. I wanted to reach out to you a lot. It wasn’t like I stopped caring about you after we fought,”  

“You hated me for lying to you and being an alpha right? Wasn’t that what you had to get over in the first place?”  

Your eyes go wide. “No, uh. It’s complicated. I didn’t uhm, hate you for lying about it. I was shocked sure but you are—were my best friend. I did distrust alphas for a long time and I still don’t really like them… but it didn’t matter to me. I told you then too but I didn’t hate you it was just,”  

You chuckle nervously, running your thumb on the rim of the can. “It felt wrong to keep being your friend. Not knowing something so basic. The fact you felt like you couldn’t tell me. It was more like I was too ashamed to keep calling you my best friend.  

“You… Really?”  

You nod. “And uh, I didn’t want to reach out to you again until i got over some personal stuff.”  

“You big dummy,” He wipes his nose with the back of his sleeve. “It wasn’t like that at all…. Even back then, I knew you wouldn’t have hated me just for being an alpha,” He hiccups another sob. “I was just so scared you would that I didn’t want to tell you. I thought you would start treating me different and we’d stop being close if you found out I wasn’t an omega. You’re such a good person, how come you think of yourself like that? Why do you think…hicc”  

“Sorry,” You mumble, unsure of what to say.  

It feels like a great weight has been lifted up off your chest.  

“Stop apologizing, dummy. Stupid.”  

You give him a wobbly smile.  

“What did you have to get over that you couldn’t talk to me for four years?” He huffs. “If it wasn’t me being an alpha, what was it?”  

Your eyes widen, heart rate picking up so rapidly you can only pray he doesn’t hear it. You swallow spit, teeth sinking into your cheek. You close your eyes and take a deep breath.  

You’ve thought about this conversation before hundreds of times. Often. How it would go, what you would say if you ever got the chance to say it. But having the opportunity to confess right in front you makes it all feel hundreds of miles away. 

Your mind has filled in the details each time with it going so badly. Bachira’s face, disgusted with you or otherwise unsettled always sears itself in your psyche so strong you  bite your tongue. You always found him a little unsettled by you in you thoughts. Disgusted with you for liking him so much even knowing he’s not into omegas. You don’t want your own cowardice or misunderstanding to get in the way of being honest with him after so long. 

You would’ve waited two more years to even speak to him had you been given a choice. But now with him in front of you, how could you possibly do that? It’s the universes way of ripping the band-aid off, you think. Such a tricky outcome can only being ordained by faith.  

“Well, I uhm, I was—am, in love with with you. Since we were kids so uhm, after we split ways I couldn’t really apologize. I w-wanted to get along with you again for a long time but I couldn’t…” You shake your head, refusing to see his expression. Terrified that what you’ll see is disappointment. “I wanted to sort my feelings out first so I could approach you honestly, I guess. I k-know you like alphas, so I’m not expecting anything really! I just wanted t-to ease the burden on myself a bit instead of hiding.”  

There’s a long, long stretch of silence. It feels like forever.  

“You’re in love with me? But you like omegas don’t you?”  

“Not exclusively I guess? I h-haven’t figured it out yet. I’ve never been with another alpha but my feelings for you are real. I know it’s burdensome to hear that but—”  

“It’s not burdensome,” He cuts you off instantly. Your eyes widen slightly. His expression has completely changed. “Are you being serious? You’re in love with me? Since we were kids? Even after finding out I’m an alpha?”  

You nod slowly. “Yeah. That was also part of the reason. Learning you were an alpha brought up questions. Uhm. Anyways. It’s been four years and I still can’t get over it so I didn’t want to put myself through that again. I hope it’ll make you believe that I don’t hate you at least,” 

“You still love me, then.” He says softly. “Right?”  

You flush, wondering why he’s asking. “Yeah. Same as always.”  

He covers his face with his hands, suddenly grinning. Your eyes grow wide at that openly. “Aaaah!! I’m so happy I could die right now.”  

“Bachira?”  

“You big dummy. You should’ve told me before. How come you’re the only one in the entire world who didn’t know?” 

“S-sorry?”  

For the first time in this entire conversation, you let yourself look at Bachira who’s positively beaming at you. You blink rapidly, feeling suddenly deeply unsure of yourself and your surroundings.  

“I love you too, stupid,” He says, sniffling. “Since we were practically babies.” He sniffles again, more tears streaming down his face. “Uwah, I can’t stop crying, I’m so happy.”  

“But you…don’t you also like…?”  

“Alphas? Yeah I do,” Bachira hums happily. “I’ve never been with an omega. And I’m not really that interested in them, either. I’m clingy you know? And selfish. You were the exception. My one and only omega.”  

You cover your face with your hands. 

“What’s wrong?” Bachira asks.  

You laugh. “I’m so happy I think I could die.” You mimic. Tears wet your lashes with unusual swiftness. “I never thought in a million years you would ever like me back. It wasn’t even a possibility for me.”  

It feels completely surreal. You want to pinch yourself. If it’s a dream, you want to thank whatever power is responsible for making it such a pleasant one and you never want to wake up from it. He…Bachira loves you. The way you love him. It feels so impossible. Your mind can’t catch up, leaving you slack jawed.  

“Me too,” He hums lovingly. “Ahh, I don’t know if I should cry or shout.”  

“You’ll disturb the neighbors.”  

His grin is crooked. “Then you should do something to keep me quiet,”  

Your face grows hot at the sudden implication. You’re not a virgin but the idea is immediately too stimulating for you to act normally. “What’s with that…”  

“You’re acting like you’ve never kissed anyone before.” He teases. You shoot him a sharp look.  

Your eyes go down at your lap. “Don’t tease me. I want too, I just don’t know if I can,”  

You feel Bachira move over to you. He sits himself besides you on the couch, tucking himself against your side and moving himself to look at your face where you’re ducked down. You can feel the tingling in your skin at the proximity. Overbearing alpha scent that feels like a tight hug only because it’s Bachira.   

“How can I not tease you when you’re being so cute, hm?” He hums. He’s so close to you. “You normally don’t react to anything but then you behave timid like this. It’s so cute. Don’t act shy and kiss me already. Or at least let me kiss you,”  

“Bachira…” You murmur, trying not to explode.  

“Ehhh?? That’s not my name.”  

You laugh a little, picking your head up. “Meguru,”  

“Better!”  

You laugh again, helplessly happy. There’s no word in any language tantamount to what you feel - this much you’re sure of. Embarrassment doesn’t subside quickly but seeing Bachira in front of you makes you happy enough to try look forward. He looks older, somehow. His smile is familiarly boyish, sharpened teeth and piercing eyes even stronger than before.  

Pointed, predatory - lidded eyes meet yours. “Let me kiss you.”  

You nod, unable to form words to say yes but wanting it so terribly.  

The second kiss you ever share with Bachira in your life is exactly like him. Overwhelming. A hard press of lips followed by his tongue sliding across the soft seam of your mouth, coaxing you open until he can slip his tongue in. Immediately salacious and hot, the kind of kiss you can only have in total privacy. The intentions of it are obvious. Your body singes at the feeling, immediately burdened with the weight of life-longing wantings as you kiss him. Deep and melty, your hands reaching for his waist body urging you to pull him closer.  

You feel something tingling at the base of your spine as Bachira slides his tongue against yours hotly. Wet muscle tracing your mouth, drawing lines over every inch like he’s trying to devour you whole from the inside.  

The scent of him drives you insane. He’s so close. It’s suffocating - rich, homey burnt honey and amber with something spiced clouding your mind as you breathe him through hot panting breaths and kisses and kisses. Wetness grows between your legs, the skin under your clothes starting to itch.  

You’ve had years now to understand your heat. You know exactly when it’s coming, when it starts and how it feels. You’re not due for another few weeks but you know what your body is experiencing like the back of your hand. Bachira won’t stop kissing you long enough to let you warn him, tongue busy lapping at your lips. He swallows the little noises you make. You put your hands on his shoulders as you push him away, chest heaving through unbearably labored breaths.  

A whimper in your subconscious - animal in nature, whines at you indignant. Inner omega burdened with desire and overwhelmingly craving the alpha so readily available. Estrus symptoms rush you strongly as your eyes droop, pressing your legs together hard so no slick makes a mess on the couch.  

“Meguru,” You breathe out, barely. “My heat.”  

“Was it soon?”  

You shake your head. “I t-think you triggered it,” You huff, keeping your hand on his shoulder and wincing at the way your body keens.  

His eyes fill with excitement. “Are you saying you wanted me so bad I made your heat come early?”  

“Don’t say it so..haah… blatantly.” 

He shivers, scent and pheromones releasing even stronger than before. You gasp, nails digging into his shoulder as he overwhelms you. He leans in close to you, teeth nipping at your jaw - fangs dragging feather light on your scent glands.  

“It doesn’t seem like you want to stop you know?” He murmurs the words against your neck, eliciting a low whine.  

“Yu-san is supposed to be coming back.”  

“She won’t for a while. It’s already this late, I bet she’s doing something else,” 

“You don’t know that though,” You reason. He hums happily, nonplussed about all of it.  

“Are you worried she’ll walk in? I can always fuck you upstairs. In my old room. She won’t catch us if you’re quiet,” His voice has a rasp to you you’ve never heard before. It’s usually smooth and upbeat, but there’s grit to it now that has you buckling at the knees. “I’m your alpha right? I should take care of you.” 

“Who said you were my…?”  

He gives you a serious look before you can get the rest of the words out. “Do you really think I’d let you be with somebody other than me now that I know? Don’t you think that’s silly?”  

The predatory hunger in his gaze makes your breath catch. A gazelle in the maw of a lion, you wonder if all prey animals tremble violently when they at risk of being eaten. There’s such a thing as survival instinct, but there are abnormalities and exceptions. Bachira bears his fangs you, a blatant claim of his possession - teeth nearly drawing blood on the thin skin of your neck and you think to yourself you want him to eat you. To split you apart and lick you up down to bone, until your vision clouds with nothing but the sight of his hunger.  

You want it so much you gasp, a bolt of lightning crackling through each of your veins. You shake your head obedient to your own want.  

“My alpha,” You try the words out, heaven on your tongue. A claim. “My Meguru,”  

“Yours forever. Always yours,” He hums, contented with the show of submission. “Oh, baby. I’ll take such good care of you know? Knot you nice and pretty. You’ll like I promise. Even alphas like taking my knot,” His hand slides under neath your sweater, slides just between the edge of your stockings and your bare skin. “But you’re an omega—my omega, and you’re perfect so you’ll love it won’t you?”  

You feel drunk on the euphoria. Lust, lovesickness, lenience, all of them make you want to melt entirely. It’s so unlike you. During other heats with other people, you always managed to anchor yourself somehow. You want to blame it on your biology.  

You’re  hardwired to want this in some ways.  

But now you’re old enough to know there’s more to it. More to why his touch is safe. What’s etched into your bones is Bachira’s name only. Only him. His knot, his alpha instinct, his fangs - they’re what transforms you into something beyond yourself. You want the alpha in Bachira, want him to sink his teeth into softness you’ve always kept inside of him only.  

“Want you,” You confess between bitten lips “Meguru, want you so bad,” 

 Nothing in your life has ever been so true. No words you’ve spoken have bore as much weight as that admittance. Bachira licks onto your mouth without subtlety, fangs sinking into the plush of your bottom lip with lustblown out in eyes.  

“Come on, then baby.” He tempts. “Let me give you whatever you want, mmkay?”  

Your agreement comes out more like a whine than a firm yes. Bachira laces his fingers together with yours in the way he used to when you were kids walking across the road. You can barely feel your legs as you hurry up the stairs, worn but loved photos of childhood life and home. There’s pinned up medals and photos and each step you climb makes your heart race a little faster.  

It dawns on you too late that Bachira is the love of your life. Your omega pines for it, longs for the intimacy of it. Alpha, alpha, alpha - Meguru. A hymn etched into your heart.  

He tugs you into his room and locks it quick, groping desperately for the lights before pinning you up against the door in one swift motion. You feel your back against the wood as his hands move all over you. He squeezes the soft curve of your hips, nails dragging light against your stockings as he hitches your leg up kissing you more. Sloppier, messier - breathlessly chasing your lips and never pulling away. Always running after you when you stop to breathe like he’s destined to be your only source of oxygen. You claw at him, your eyes fluttering shut, rolling your up against him as slick wets the inside of your tights.  

It’s embarrassing how wet you really are. It’s never been so bad So blatant. He laughs a little, the hard press of his cock against your core making you sputter. Giggly as he feels it, hand squeezing your knee tight where he holds you up.  

“So wet,”  He murmurs against your mouth. “You’re so wet baby. It’s making a mess you know? You’re not usually this messy are you? You’re not one for bad manners.”  

You whine against his lips. “Don’t make fun of me.”  

“Stupid. I’m praising you,” He replies. “Praising your perfect pussy the way it deserves. Always giving so much to me. Don’t you think it’s mean if I don’t give back just a little?”  

“Touch me,” You beg slowly losing your sense of shame. “Knot me. Fuck me. Wanna bond with you.” You sniffle, overwhelmed as you plant your face against his neck “Wanna be with you forever,”  

A low growl slips from his throat, makes you so weak you could break with the slightest touch. “Don’t say that lightly.”  

You claw at your sobriety. Overtaken with emotions or not, the desire to bonded—mated isn’t a suggestion from thin air. You want proof of him in your life forever, the shape of his teeth in your neck. It’s been so fucking long. You’ve pined for him for nearly your entire life. Clutching onto him is the only thing you can think to do.  

Pulling away, you search desperately for your reflection in his eyes, trying to show your utter sincerity.   

“I’m not,” You say with as much conviction as you can. Embarrassment makes your face hot. “I know I’m in heat but I…” Your lip trembles. “I’ve thought about it. I won’t regret. aI want you so much, Meguru. Bond with me.”  

He whines. “You’re so unfair. You can’t just say that and expect me to be fine. You don’t know how bad I want it. Want you. For so long.”  

“You have me,” You whisper, trying not to look away. “It’s hard for me to say stuff like that, alright? So if you get it bond with me.”  

“You’re so fucking cute.” He praises. “Of course I will. How can I say no when you ask me like that? So pretty, so,” He takes a deep breath. “So sweet. So perfect.”  

Your lungs expand with a breath. “Meguru,”  

“Wore something so cute only to get it all messy,” He hums. His hands pulling up on your sweater. “Who got this for you?”  

“Uni friends,” You mumble, heart picking up speed. Bachira draws the long sweater up on your form, sliding it up over your ass and waist. It’s shaded enough that the large wet spot isn’t obvious. His hands grip your ass, moan slipping from his mouth in appreciation for the touch. “T-they told me it’s in style.”  

He tugs the sweater off of your body and tosses it somewhere on the floor, leaving you mostly naked aside from your underwear. You paw at his shirt making he laughs warmly.  

“Wanna get me naked so bad?”  

Yes. You feel ashamed thinking about how much you wanna feel his skin. Bachira is all sinewy muscle under his clothes. He’s grown a little over the last four years, even though you used to be the same height. It’s a touch of it everywhere, broader shoulders and deeper musculature, a physique carved from so much training. The muscles of his torso make you swallow thickly, the promise of dark hair trailing from his stomach at the top of his pants.  

“You’re staring so much. I’ll get embarrassed.”  

You find your hands smoothing up his chest and feel aroused about how good it looks. Weird gratitude settles over you seeing your manicured nails on Bachira’s strong chest. Too pretty for an alpha, but sharp enough that you believe it. The thought of the two of you together sends you reeling with thoughts. You’ve always wanted it. Always wanted him.  

He only lets you admire him for so long. His hands go around to your back, unclasping your bra in one go. You let him take it off you - self-conscious in how he zeros in on your chest. Nipples hardening in arousal, his hands cup them and squeeze. The rough feeling and grip of his palms makes you gasp - harsh in the way you can only imagine someone who fucks alphas can be. Keening, you watching Bachira lean back in to kiss you briefly before leaving hot, wet kisses down your neck and chest.  

Before he gets any further, he drags you along to his bed. Manhandling you until you’re laying on your back on his sheets, he climbs over you with appreciation. His eyes trace your body before landing at your core, sopping wet from heat-addled arousal. You cover your face with your hands.  

Wordless, he grabs your tights and pulls them down from your body hard.  

There it becomes obvious, your wetness. Humiliation blooms in the pit of your gut as Bachira sits between your legs, pulling your them apart at the knee with complete and utter fascination. You’re wearing light colored panties - plain with silly patterns, pale yellow. Your arousal is no doubt visible, soaking beyond just the inset of your panties but the entire thing. Slick runs down your thighs, down your ass. It’s egregious, excess appropriately reflective of how you ache. Your body is wholly for a knot with how much of it there is.  

The longer Bachira stares, the more it pulses and throbs under his vision. You feel soaked from the waist down. “Is it always so wet…?”  

“It’s not… usually this bad.” You admit. Bachira growls something deep in his chest.  

Before you can protest, he rolls soaked underwear off you in one go and leaves you completely bare.  

He’s imposing, stood on his knees over you - nearly in a trance. Bachira pulls you up by your waist, his thigh supporting  your spine as he folds you up until your legs are in the air - bending down until your cunt is directly in front of his face. You gasp seeing his face between your legs. Both of his arms are secured around your thighs as he takes a sharp inhale. Slick drips down towards your belly because of the way you’re angled and bent. It’s humiliating seeing your legs overhead. He presses his cheek against slicked-soaked inner thighs.  

Holding you still like that, back off the bed nearly folded in half with only his own body to support you - he dives face deep into your cunt without a second of forewarning. Your whole being lurches at the sensation, the lacking of build-up going straight to your tender core.  

Bachira laps at your cunt like he’s starving for it. There’s no technique, nothing but sheer animalistic hunger as his tongue dives furiously into your sex - nose bumping and brushing your clit with each wet, forceful slide of his tongue, swallowing down as much of your slick with each go. You feel your body go weak, lightheaded at being held and ate so viciously. Arousal comes in waves until finds a pace for himself with little word of instruction other than desperate keening and vague asks for more. Your eyes are closed as tension draws in your stomach. His mouth finds your clit, sucking gently and letting the flat plane of his tongue smoth on the sensitive bundle of nerves over and over - sucking carefully.  

His face is red when you open your eyes to look at him slurp your pussy, slick up and into his throat as if its a life force. Your eyes lock and you whimper at how he smiles into your pussy, keeping rhythm. He hums against you as the feeling builds and builds and builds. Heat makes you lightheaded, your thighs trembling, feet pointed with your toes curling as you reach the inevitable end of your first orgasm. His arms are securing holding you and taking the weight off of your spine - both of them holding you tight. You see the veins flex in his forearms as he grips you. Something about it sends you careening off the edge.  

The first orgasm Bachira gives you happens like that. He makes you cum with your spine halfway up in the air, tension in your body going so tight before releasing all at once. Orgasm makes you crashland. You cum so hard, you’re blindsided. Tugging as from his grip, your thighs squish his face as you squirm, all the muscles in your lower body tremoring from release.  

“M-meguru, can’tcan’tcan’t,” You feel his mouth follow you through orgasm in what reverence. His tongue dips inbetween your folds, the only mercy you receive.  

All at once, he lets you down gently until your laid limp in his bed. His face is covered in slick and drool as you lay there gasping and twitching erratically in the aftermath of your first induced heat orgasm. You stare at him, dazed as he wipes his face with his hands then licks them clean.  

“You taste so fucking sweet,” He mumbles, awestruck. His hand comes down next to your head, nothing but pure adoration in his vision - fangs bared. The yellow gold of his eyes pins you to his bed. “I can’t get enough of you. Didn’t know anything could taste that good.”  

He presses his mouth to yours in a way that’s almost violent, holding your jaw so you can taste yourself on his tongue. When he’s pleased, he kisses the corner of your mouth, then your cheek and all over your face. You can’t think of a single coherent string of thoughts, even after your first orgasm.  

Like a livewire, every place Bachira touches, lingers for minutes. Just his name, just his knot - the only things your brain can make space for so aroused.  

“Did I already fuck you stupid?” He asks, breathless laugh on his lips. “Aw, baby - we just got started you know? You can’t tap out so early,” He pats your thigh with sticky hand making you yelp and waking you up form your haze. “How can I make you my mate without your full attention, hm?”  

You blink at him, tears at your lashes at his face. Your heart feels strange, so relieved, so pleasant, you think you could die. The smallest, soberest part of you is happy to be with Bachira but your instinct is practically clawing at your chest begging for more.  

“Meguru,” You want to burst into tears but settle for soft sniffles. “Meguru, I love you. Love you, love you so much. I love you.”  

“Ehh? Why’re you crying dummy?” His voice is tender, so thoughtful. Bachira is so selfish while being so loyal at the same time it makes your heart sing. “I love you too, so so much. Are you crying ‘cause it felt good?” 

He leans into your space, letting your arms wrap around his neck with a sniffle. “It felt so good it was scary,”  

He smiles at you - beaming. You want to hold onto him forever. Your soul has never ached so much for another person in your entire life, You press onto him tight, chest squeezing against his as you pull him in for a hug.  

He laughs then, squeezing you in his arms before rolling around in the bed. The innocence of the gesture brings a quiet giggle to your lips as Bachira presses kisses all over you. Soft pecks on your shoulder, on your nape, at the crown of your head. “Wanna look at me this time, hm? Would it make you feel better?”  

You nod in his arms and he smiles at you again, so sweet. He’s different. His egoism is so present, so there - selfishness carving him into the man he is now. Bachira does as he pleases with you, but gives you these little mercy’s admits his ruthlessness that make you want to fold under his touch.  

He lays on his back and drags you along with him. You’re laid ontop of him, chest to chest - and he keeps you like that before gazing into your eyes so adoringly, you urge to look away. He holds your gaze, not intending to let you.  

“You’re staring too much.” You murmur.  

“I can’t look at you even though you’re so pretty? Unfair.” He says back just as fast.  

“You say embarrassing stuff so easily…”  

He smiles at you. “Because I mean it, dummy. There’s no one prettier than you,”  

“That’s not,” Your breath catches as you feel his hands grab your ass, pressing your face to his neck, scent glands next to your nose. “…ngh, it’s not..”  

“Don’t say it’s not true or I’ll get angry,” His voice is sing-songy as he gropes you with both hands, content to feel you as you rub your body against his desperately craving more touch. You want to be in his skin. “You’re prettiest to me.”  

“Meguru,” You whimper. “Meguru,”  

“Begging for my knot with such a sweet voice. How deceiving.”  The contrast in the tone of his voice versus his touch makes you long for him. “Do you want my cock so bad already?”  

You frown feeling bashful as you nod.  

“Ah, but you’ve never had a knot in here before have you? Not a real one,” He hums, voice thick with amusement. “So I have to open you up nice till you’re nice and soft on my fingers mmkay? Here, turn this way.” 

Bachira lays you on your side, letting you adjust so your arm can slide under him comfortable. He lays facing you, pulling you towards him until your legs slot together - one of your legs locked between his with the other on top. He’s face to face with you like this. He slides one of his arms under your back to pull you to him even further, the other reaching over around your thighs and sliding his digits against your slick cunt. Your own arm bent at the elbow, you hold onto Bachira’s face locking eyes with him. Hands splay at his face, hoping your expression is enough to get the points across. He smiles at you, fangs glinting out shiny as he stares back.  

No words are shared between you but you get the feeling he knows exactly what you want to tell.  

You feel his middle finger slide down until it catches on your entrance making you whine. He hums sogtly, forearm pressed against your thigh as he pushes his first digit into you slowly. Your lips meet again in something softer, heat stricken pining you moan as he sinks into your welcoming heat. His voice is a whisper against your skin.  

“Fuck, nghh - Meguru,”  

“Your body is made for this,” He says, awestruck and giggly. “It’s going in so easy. Needs my knot so bad it’s getting impatient and ready. So fucking wet,”  

You huff impatiently. Rarely are you so petulant and impatient. You want more, need him inside so much deeper. From the first time you had sex to now, you’ve never experienced this much longing to be penetrated. To be fucked hard and deep, hardwired in your subconscious.  

 It’s never been important until now, until Bachira. His first slides in and out so easily, you only start to feel it at two. You tuck against Bachira’s neck, feeling the shape of his fingers. They’re angular, bony but long and pretty. They reach into you deeper than you’re own even with just two.  

“There’s a spot that makes you feel good, right?’ He hums. You can feel the reverb of his voice from his chest. “Where is it… here?”  

He hits it almost instant, rubbing your gspot - lightly swollen from heat. You arch against him as Bachira places an appreciative kiss on your shoulder. “It’s there. I’ll touch it more for you, ‘kay.”  

So he does. He angles his fingers, his wrists in such a way that he can rub up against it in a beckoning gesture. Your clit throbs in response to the stimulation - sticky, honeyed want coiling in your gut and abdomens as you sensitivity skyrockets even higher. Pressure builds slower with his fingers, just two - pumping in and out of your soaking wet pussy noisily as Bachira concentrates, low lidded eyes. Pressing his lips to yours and swallowing your tiny whimpers. You feel like you’re going to burst when he adds a third finger in. You’re not expecting the stretch - not painful but full. Makes you feel even needier, canting your hips against the motion of his fingers.  

You cum again dully throbbing all over your body - the sensation snapping like something brittle - clean and even but obvious. Your cunt tightens, clamping down on Bachira’s ring, middle, and pointer and how deeply they reach inside of you. You’ve never cum like this before, never cum from the inside even during heat. Silken walls clamp down on his thick fingers never wanting him to go, only wanting more.  

The arousal is just strong enough to make you snap. You gasp, nearly biting his lips as you shudder and rut - trembling in the strong grip of Bachira’s arms. The praise he whispers against your hot skin makes you feel so wanted. Your brain chants for his cock, his knot so eagerly you don’t know how to get it across other than begging him until your voice gives. The omega in you whines, sniffles brattily when Bachira pulls his fingers from you leaving your cunt so sorely empty.  

“Fuck me,” You express, trying to keep your composure as best you can. “Can’t think.”  

“Eh? That’s a first,” He hums. He draws your hips to his, hand on your ass as his clothed erection is pinned up against your sticky sex. “You’re always overthinking with this pretty face but now you want my knot so much you can’t?”  

The words make you want to collapse, how mean he says them while still being sweet. 

“I’m sorry,” You hiccup. “I love you  

“Shh, shh - it’s okay,” He murmurs. If you were more there you’d know he’s merely teasing. “Don’t cry. Just have to stick beside me from now on okay? All mine. Gonna bite you and make it permanent so you can’t run away.”  

“Okay,”  

“And you can’t show how cute you are like this to anyone else, okay?”  

You sniffle. “Okay,”  

“Say it baby,” He echoes. “Say I’m yours and you’re mine.”  

So you repeat the words as best you can in this state, slurring your words. “I’m yours and… you’re mine.”  

He grins. “You’re so cute. So perfect. Ah, I’m getting jealous of other people just thinking about it.”  

You blurt the words out drunk off of the sensations in your body when you hear Bachira talk of jealousy. “I broke up with my last boyfriend because of you,” You mumble, inhaling his scent “He was really nice to me but I couldn’t get over you even though we were together for a year,” You let your eyes flutter shut. “It was just a few days ago. So, there’s nothing to be jealous over,”  

A long silence stretches between you at the confession as you listen to Bachira’s heartbeat pick-up pace until it’s a loud pump. The sudden change makes you concerned, pulling away to see what he’s thinking. You assume it was going to be something cheeky and playful like always, but when you look at him - he’s blushing full red. Completely bashful, eyes blown wide and blinking rapidly. You feel oddly amused at it as he presses his lips together, hugging you until you laugh.  

“You’re soo unfair. Ugh, how could you…ugh” He trails off to stare at you. “You love me?”  

You smile at him breaking out into a giggle. “A lot. It’s embarrassing.”  

He sighs blissfully content.  

“I can’t look at you while I bond with you but I want to when I knot you ‘kay? Wanna hold you really close.” 

“Meguru,”  

He whistles at the sound of his name on your lips, like it’s all you need to say. “Lay on your tummy baby. “ 

He moves aside to let you flip over until you’re laying flat on your stomach. You lift your hips up slightly to make yourself more accessible, burying your face in your arms crossed in front you. You feel anticipation build up in your body, thoughts complete clouded. Your incisors sink in your lower lip as you listen to Bachira unzip and take off his pants, wiggling your hips lightly to tempt him. His hand comes down to swat your ass in a playful gesture. You yelp.  

He’s quiet for a while, his hands coming onto your back. “What’s this?”  

Your eyes widen as his fingers brush over the spot. You hadn’t thought about it. Your tattoo. Shit.  

“…A tattoo,”  

“Of a bumble bee and a flower,” Bachira repeats, shit-eating grin audible. “What kind of flower?”  

“Kuroyuri.” You say, embarrassed. “Stands for love and curse.”  

“Oh you’re really that in love with me, hm? How old is this? It’s healed. You missed me so much? I’m so happy.” He says breathlessly, elation so obvious in his voice it makes you shy. “Tell me all about when I’m done fucking you, okay baby?”  

You bury your face away from him, feeling shy as he kisses the placement before moving along.  

The position doesn’t let you see Bachira’s cock. Instead you feel it, which makes it much more imposing than you ever thought possible. The weight, the heft, the thickness of it is makes your breath hitch as you finally feel it outside of the confines of his boxers. You don’t need to look at it, you can feel how massive it is. He slides it along the curve of your ass and you can sense it so obviously it makes your stomach churn. He slides it between your ass, pushing it through both cheeks but not penetrating and it stretches you. You can barely contain the shock in your voice, pussy throbbing at the idea of him being inside of you with something so unbearably big.  

He hasn’t even knotted you. How can he possibly be that big without a knot. Your voice trembles.  

“Meguru… you’re huge.”  

He laughs, breathless. Cocky and egoistic that sends your spine tingling like a solar flare. “You don’t like it?”  

“I’m a little scared,” You admit. “But I want it at the same time.”  

“Don’t be scared,” His voice is tender but his words are filthy. “You’re made for me. Your cunts all split open and soaking wet because it’s begging you for my knot, pretty. Just mine. You’ll feel so full with me. So don’t be nervous and let me in okay?”  

You breathe deeply shakily, eyes fluttering closed at the promise of it. “Okay, Meguru.”  

You find yourself thankful that you’re not looking at him, but at the same time - you’re unsure if it’s better. You have to focus in on the sensation. There’s nothing but posters on the wall for you to look at and your eyes are barely focused it. Every inch of your skin is dry kindle and Bachira is the lighter - the match, the spark that sends you reeling in the midst of your heat.  

Your heats are always drunken stupors, messy hormonal sessions. To you they’ve always been akin to intense inebriated sex that’s painful unless you cum a few times.  

But with Bachira your heat is all encompassing flame. It’s like letting the sun swallow you whole, sweat dripping down your spine. When Bachira pushes the fat head of his cock into your tight, wanting, needy fucking cunt - you cry so loud you might scream. Whats left of your sense snaps as your body throbs for cock, you push yourself back onto him with a groan. You want him to knot you, want him to fuck you full and cum deep inside and plug you up. Want him to make you so whole and he’s so good because he is. 

 You feel your fists tangle in the sheets, and then feel Bachira’s body slump over yours from behind. His hand falls over yours, squeezing it as the thick swell of his shaft pushes into you your pussy painfully slow and stakes its claim. You feel like an animal the way you give way to your desires.  

The sensations and scent in the room is so strong your eyes sting and your mouth waters, drool pooling at your lips as Bachira splits your pussy open completely on his fat cock. Everything is sweet,  coats your mouth as you take in a sharp gasp of air. You choke his name out from your lips, whimpering at the soft growl in his voice when he finally bottoms out. Inch by inch, veins of his cock throbbing and pulsing inside of you.  

Your body is hypersensitive. You’re so wet, so out of your mind with that your thighs are trembling at the edge of an orgasm. If he moves the right way, you know you’ll cum instantly.  

He leans over your shoulder and you pick your head up weakly letting him lick into your mouth. “Gonna bond you. Gonna mark you and mate you and making you all fucking mine. Sink my fangs into your pretty neck, my pretty omega. You’re so precious baby. Make me so hard. I love you, I love you so much.”  

“Bite me,” Is all you can get out, your brain can barely think hard enough for anything else. “Please. Please bite me,”  

It’s sudden. Sharp. Exactly what you want.  

You feel the sensation of teeth in your neck and everything around you halts to honor it. An orgasm shatters you in the process of it as Bachira pulls out and thrusts his hips and you cum so hard you shake violently - hands fisted in the sheets and pussy spasming as you cum relentlessly. Bottomed out, you allow your body to take it all in before the feeling your bond starts to draw in so much clarity. Belly fully, muscles tight - everything slows the the whirring blades of a fan coming a halt or a car worshiping a red light. The world stops spinning, briefly - mind and soul and spirit melding together his fangs descent into your neck. You feel the sharpening teeth sink into the soft flesh of your nape and cry out at the dull sensation of pain, outweighed by the out-of-body euphoria.  

It’s like everything makes sense. Every moment, every concern, every heartbreak - every minute apart. Love like a nerve split raw, open, tender - make tears pool at your lashes and spill down your face as Bachira bonds with you and stays there long enough to penetrate. All endorphins, pleasure, pain. Something clicks steadily into place inside of you and makes sense of all of your mess. Everything you are. 

A sense of completeness like nothing you could ever know without him. You love him so much it swallows you whole.   

Bonding, a mark of permanence - can be rejected by the body. Bred into your secondary sex after years of evolution. A unique trait to alpha and omega sexes, whether same or opposite sex pairs. Bonds are equivalent to sharing yourself with another person. Weak bonds can be broken, and some bonds won’t take at all.  

When your bond with Bachira takes so easily some part of you just knows. Some place beyond instinct, beyond every thing in the world that defines you. All of you has always existed in part with Bachira. And this pleasure, this desire for closeness can only be derived from years of unconditional love.  

Whatever would happen of you, had you been born an alpha or beta, Bachira would be born alongside you and make you complete or you, him. The way the sensation connects you like an invisible thread is proof of that.  The ease of it. The desire between you is greater because of it’s exclusivity, because you prefer omegas and always will - but no one compares to Bachira regardless of sex or anatomy. He is yours because he is him, sweet smells and soft eyes and need.  

You can’t help but weep about it as you know he feels it too, secretions from his teeth dulling the pain from the wound as he finally pulls out from the mark and laps at the blood.  

You feel such intense relief, heat subsiding leaving only pleasure and warmth. .  

You love him so much you could stay like this. You love him so much nothing else in the world could ever sway you from it. You don’t care what it makes you. What it means. You love Bachira as he loves you - conventionally unconventional. Beautifully imperfect.  

Tears slip down your face as Bachira licks your wounds for you like always.  

“I’m yours, baby.” Bachira says, soft. Whispers your first name as he says it. “I love you so much. My whole life. Since I was little. Since you called out to me and let me show you my dribbling. I can’t stand being without you, you know? So don’t ever leave me,”  

You laugh a little, sobering. “As if I could.”  

“Wanna knot you and hold you, kay? Gimme a sec.”  

Your body whines at sensation of Bachira slowly pulling out before flipping you onto your back in missionary. He’s quick to do it. You glance at his shiny cock , light throb in your neck as he shoves the whole thing back in one go and making your sensitive hole cum all over again. Your own body is ridiculous to you. You’re making a mess on his cock and definitely of his bed in the process, gasping as your muscles spasm in your waist. 

“S-sorry,”  

“Don’t apologize for that, dummy.” He kisses you. “Here. Hold onto me.”  

You wrap your arms around his shoulders and let yourself slump into bed, whining as Bachira fucks you a few times - sloppy, wet thrusts noisy in the room around you. You feel them in your exhaustion, another wave of tension making your stomach burn. 

“Gonna, fuck—knot you, gonna knot you, ‘kay? Touch yourself for me.”  

“Knot me, Meguru.”  

Bachira bottoms out. You feel his cum flood your cunt - so thick it’s in a stream as the base of his thick cock swells inside your pussy. You’re already so stretched by his dick on its own, you can’t imagine the sensation of the real thing until you feel it.  

It throbs hotly inside of you, deep. The knot swells up until it’s fat enough to stretch your open, slick pussy even further. You feel it in spite of how wet you are, the sensation rubbing on your walls raw punching all the air out of your lungs as he cock fills you completely. You feel it in your throat, his knot in your belly plugging you full as you breathe.  

“Fuck,” Your voice breaks. “You’re so huge, what the fuck.”  

He pauses then laughs hysterically as he sinks into you unable to move. “Thanks! I’m pretty proud of it.”  

You chuckle tiredly. “How long does this last?”  

He hums. “An hour-ish?”  

Your eyes go wide. “Shit. Really?”  

“Uh-huh,” Bachira says happily, collapsing ontop of you. “And when it goes down I’m going to fuck you some more.”  

“Mercy… my stamina… Meguru I’ll die.”  

“No way. I’ve waited too long.” He says with a deep breath. “But I’ll let you rest for now.”  

You close your eyes, smiling. “Pfft. Thanks.”  

__  

Your back is going to give out.  

Athletes are frightening. Your body is covered in bite marks underneath the collar as you peel out of Bachira’s arms in the morning after. It’s 7am, and the sun still hasn’t risen since it’s the dead of winter. You stare at him, kissing his cheek as he lays - completely rested and healthy. Bastard.  

“Meguru,” You hum, stirring him awake. “I’m gonna run to the store and pick us up something to eat.”  

“Noooo,” He says, half asleep trying to wrestle you back into bed. “Stay here. With me,”  

“No,” You reprimand, peeling away from him. He whines out loud. “I’m sticky. I’m gonna borrow your loose clothes okay? I’ll be back soon.”  

“Booo,”  

Ultimately too tired to protest, you yawn and crawl out of your bed, scrambling to the shower after rummaging through tubs of clean, old clothes in Bachiras’s room and picking whatever you think will fit.  

You shower, scrubbing yourself inside and out. You feel apologetic using the products in the shower as you scrape cum out of yourself as best you can and scrub your body. Layers of sweat and slick between your thighs have dried down and feel incredibly unpleasant now that your sober and your heat is mostly settled or it will be for another few days. You’re thankful that Bachira’s childhood home is the second most familiar place in your life as it allows you to get clean in hot water without feeling awkward.  

Once you’re cleaned, you dry off and borrow Bachira’s lotion - rubbing into your skin and taking care of your appearance best you can. You examine yourself in the bathroom mirror, feeling sudden humiliation at your face. You’re practically glowing, and you reek of Bachira and fucked out omega even after the bath. You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose and thanking all higher powers that you don’t have to see your parents for a few more days.  

After gathering yourself in the bathroom, you check on Bachira one more time in his room and smile as sleeps softly before slipping downstairs. 

His mom hasn’t returned yet. Her shoes, jacket, and other belongings aren’t in the house and her gifts are where you left them. You feel thankful about that as your eyes search for your bag, still sitting on the couch where you left it. Shuffling through it, you pop some heat medication dry before doing anything else.  

You grab it. It still has some battery left, left on DND. You check the time only, deciding you can swipe later. Heading out the door quickly, you make sure to lock up using the key underneath the mat for your quick trip to 7/11.  

A brisk walk later in the frostbitten air, you enter the convenience store. A bored looking cashier nods at you as you smile flatly in return.  

You pick up a couple of things. XXL condoms, juice and soda water, some snacks and ramen - along with some easy hot foods that can keep you both alive until you can get a better meal. Bachira has a decent appetite but you don’t think he’ll be up for a while to eat proper. He likes to sleep in during vacations.  

“Ah, excuse—Bachira?”  

Your eyes widen as you meet eyes with the familiar stranger and his friend. You know both of these people.  

You could not have possibly met them at a worse time.  

“Isagi-kun…” You bow, awkwardly thinking of what ways you could end your life right there in the 7/11. “And this is…?”  

“Rin Itoshi. He prefers Rin,”  

“Rin-kun,”  

The taller, brooding one gives you a look, crinkling his nose a little. You want to die. Your gaze turns to Isagi which is not much better as he’s wearing the worst shit-eating grin you’ve ever seen in your life.  

“I see. Nice to meet you Rin-kun,” You say, looking away, “What are you two doing here? This is me and Bachira’s hometown.”  

“We’re supposed to visit him in a couple of days actually but decided to do a little sight-seeing first. There’s more of us but they’re asleep at the hotel.”  

You just nod, silence stretching between you before Isagi breaks it.  

“I’m glad the two of you made up,” He says. “When did you guys start to reconcile? I always felt really guilty after the whole mall incident. Glad to see you  both doing well,”  

Your brain moves too slow to lie. “Uh. Last night was the first time we saw each other in a few years,”  

His eyes widen. “So the picture he posted was…?”  

You squint. “What picture?”  

Isagi makes a guilty face, unsure of what to do. Before you can ask, Rin, pulls his phone out and shows you something.  

It’s you and Bachira in bed with you asleep in his arms - your bitemark and visible tattoo showing in the image as his hand cradles the back of your head while you’re cuddling him in your sleep.. You’re both mostly covered by the sheets. The only caption is an emoticon and you’re not tagged. You blink, wiping your eyes. It’s so like him, you aren’t sure if you should laugh or cry. You sigh deeply instead.  

“You didn’t know?”  

“Haven’t checked my phone since..” You trail off. He’s so reckless. “Thanks for uh… showing me. I’m gonna head back but you and your team mates should come visit sometime. I cook hotpot for New Years so it’d be nice to have you all.”  

Isagi smiles amicably, politely ignoring the situation. You’re thankful your partners friend has so much tact unlike he himself. “Of course. I’ll ask Bachira for your info. Keep in touch”  

“Of course. Good luck on the World Cup qualifiers.”  

They both thank you for that before you turn and depart with whatever left of your dignity.  

__  

You check your phone on the way back to his place, seeing your notifications in shambles. Fifty messages total, some from family and most from friends congratulating you. You ignore all of them for now, especially the ones from your brother - not willing to know what they say.  

In your despair, you don’t notice the new pair of shoes when you open the unlocked door of Bachira’s childhood home either.  

“Oh!” Yu-sans voice is just as welcoming as it always is as you stare at her in the doorway awe-struck. She smiles at you incredibly knowingly as a new wave of mortification sinks in. “You’re back. Meguru is in the shower.”  

“Ah,”  

She gives you a long grin, letting the silence settle first before breaking out into laughter so loud it startles you. You can feel your body grow hot with shame, wishing the world would open from the ground up and swallow you.  

“You know I always thought something like this would happen eventually,” She hums, prepping the flowers you bought last night for a vase. “I’m grateful it happened when you were both adults at least.”  

“Yu-obasan..”  

“Oh don’t be so cold. Yu-san is fine. Or maybe kaa-san now that you’re both together.” She hums. “Anything but oba-san is fine. Makes me feel old. You know that.”  

You make an embarrassed face, sighing as you set your things down at the couch. You wanted to do stuff like this in order. Though you never really imagined you and Bachira together, you always thought for a serious relationship you’d have more of yourself together.  

“Uh,” You flush as you sit at the counter. Yu-san gives you a small smile, head tilted to one side as she arranges the flowers you’ve bought her. “It’s late to do this, but uhm… thank you for giving birth to Meguru and for taking care of me as if I were your own child all this time.” You feel your ears turn hot as you say the rest. “I promise to take good care of Meguru and you for as long as I live, any way I can and I hope you can accept our relationship and give us your blessing.”  

You pause, afraid to look up for a minute until the silence stretches on for a touch too long. When you look up, she’s smiling. Grinning. Meguru looks so much like her. Her laughter bubbles through the room airily like champagne.  

She comes around to hug you tight, startling you from where you sit, her hand on your head. “Asking my blessing… I don’t know how my Meguru got so lucky to find such a responsible kid. Of course you have it. As if you need to ask. Please do take good care of him and yourself. This is your home too, okay?” 

You smile before being startled by another familiar voice. “Uwah, I go shower and you’re having a hug without me.”  

“Come join us then!”  

“Yay! Group hug!” 

Bachira hollers as he squeezes you and his mom in a hug, suffocating you. It’s incredibly embarrassing so in some ways it feels incredibly familiar. They’re really too similar some times.  

When they pull away, Yu-san plays a motherly kiss to both your face and Bachira’s. “I’m going to go put these up in my room and hang out in the studio for a bit. You two should have a date, alright? It’s rare you have time like this.”  

“’Kay,” Bachira says, watching her walk up stairs before shouting. “Love you!”  

“Love you too!”  

You watch her disappear up the steps before seeing Bachira again sobered.  He smiles at you lovingly, but you pout - suddenly remembering this morning.  

“Ehhh?? Why are you making that face? Shouldn’t we be super lovey-dovey right now?”  

“The picture you posted,” You say, tugging at his shirt with your head down. “That’s too sudden. You’re a big athlete now, and—“ 

“So? There’s no one for me but you. I don’t care who knows. I want everyone in the entire world to know even though I don’t want them to actually see you.” He murmurs, crowding into your space. “I want everyone to know you’re mine. Don’t be mad, okay?”  

“I spoil you too much,” You say, because it’s true and it’s enough to make you not mad at all.  

He kisses you then. He tastes like the fruity toothpaste kids use and home when he does pulling back with a warm smile. You feel flush but keep your eyes on his face.  

“It’s the first time we’ve kissed just to kiss,” You hum. He smiles mischievously.  

“The second time, silly.”  

When the realization dawns on you, you gasp - smacking his chest in shock in dismay.  

You thought he blacked out for that kiss when you were seventeen! Bachira breaks out into giggles above you.  

“Meguru!” You exclaim, feeling huffy as he pulls you into his arms and begs for forgiveness. 

Meguru. Homesickness makes you ache, his name in your mouth the only remedy.  

Meguru. Your one and only.  

[srslyblvck]

a dare too far, james potter [ part I ]

pairing: james potter x fem!reader

synopsis: james was dared to make you fall in love with him. unknown to him, he was falling for you too. But soon the truth comes out, and you are left heartbroken.

genre: angst

warnings: mentions of y/n, heartbreak

word count: 1k

part II

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ JAMES POTTER AND HIS friends, the infamous Marauders, were no strangers to trouble. Challenges, dares, and pranks fueled their Hogwarts days. This particular afternoon was no different as the four of them lounged on the couch in the Gryffindor common room.

"I dare you, Sirius, to go two whole weeks without getting detention," Remus said, a sly smile on his face.

Sirius scoffed, dramatically putting a hand over his heart. "Two weeks? You’re a sadist, Moony. But fine, I’ll take that bet."

Peter snickered. “It’ll be a miracle if you last even a day.”

With a smirk, Sirius turned toward James, mischief sparking in his eyes. “Alright, James. My turn. I dare you to… make her fall for you.”

James raised an eyebrow, confused. “Who?”

Sirius grinned wickedly and pointed in your direction, where you sat quietly in the corner of the common room, engrossed in a book. “Her. Y/N. The one who barely talks to anyone except her friends. The shy, sweet one. I dare you to make her fall for you.”

James followed Sirius’s gaze, frowning slightly. You were the girl who had always intrigued him—pretty, kind, and gentle, but mysterious in your quietness. You had rejected plenty of suitors over the years, always softly turning them down without ever coming off as harsh or rude. You weren’t one to make waves, yet people admired you for your kind heart.

Remus immediately sat up, his brow furrowed. “Hold on, Sirius. That’s not funny.”

“Yeah, Moony’s right,” Peter chimed in. “You can’t mess with her like that. It’s just… wrong.”

Sirius waved them off. “Oh, come on. It’s just a bit of fun.”

But Remus wasn’t laughing. “It’s playing with someone’s feelings.”

“James can handle it, can’t you, Prongs?” Sirius grinned, looking over at James.

James hesitated, glancing at you once more. The truth was, his heart still ached for Lily Evans, but she seemed as unreachable as ever. Maybe, just maybe, if he made you fall for him, it would make Lily jealous. Maybe she’d finally notice him.

With a shrug, James smirked. “Challenge accepted.”

Remus and Peter exchanged a look of disapproval, but Sirius clapped James on the back. “Atta boy.”

Over the next few weeks, James started finding ways to enter your life. It began with simple things—sitting near you in class, offering to carry your books, sharing small jokes, and asking you questions about yourself.

At first, you were surprised. James Potter, one of the most popular boys in school, was paying attention to you? You’d seen his confidence, his charm, and his easy smile, but you’d never been interested in boys like James. You preferred your quiet life, far away from the chaos that seemed to follow him and his friends.

But James… was persistent. And he wasn’t the show-off you thought he was. He was funny, thoughtful even, and when you talked to him, he made you feel like the only person in the room. Slowly, you found yourself opening up, and soon, you began looking forward to your time with him.

Your friends noticed the change. They teased you about the time you were spending with James, but they could see you were happy. You were falling for him, even though you had tried to keep your heart guarded.

What you didn’t realize was that James was falling too. Somewhere along the way, the dare had stopped being about a challenge, and it had become about you. The warmth of your smile, the way you listened to him, the gentle kindness you always showed—James found himself craving more time with you. Even Sirius, Remus, and Peter had come to adore you. You were, after all, impossible not to love.

One late afternoon, you decided to surprise James at the library, where you knew he often went to meet Remus. As you approached the table where they were sitting, you overheard their conversation.

“Mate, how long are you going to keep this up?” Remus asked, his voice tense. “It’s not fair to her. You’re playing with her feelings.”

Your heart froze. Her?

James shifted uncomfortably. “I—It wasn’t supposed to go this far.”

Sirius chuckled lightly. “Come on, Prongs. You’re doing her a favor. She’s having the time of her life.”

You took a step closer, straining to hear, feeling a knot form in your chest.

“But I didn’t mean for it to—” James started, but Sirius interrupted.

“You’ve done your job, mate. If it gets Lily jealous, then it’s all worth it, right?”

Your blood ran cold. The realization hit you like a wave crashing over rocks. The time spent with James, the laughter, the shared moments—it was all a lie. A dare.

You couldn’t breathe. Everything between you and James had been fake. He had never cared. He had only been using you to make someone else jealous.

Tears pricked the corners of your eyes as you stood there, frozen. You didn’t even realize James had spotted you until his voice cracked through the air.

“Y/N…”

You shook your head, your vision blurring with tears. The betrayal cut deeper than you could have imagined. You took a step back as James stood up, his hand outstretched.

“Please, Y/N, let me explain—”

But you couldn’t bear to hear it. You turned on your heel and fled, leaving James calling your name behind you.

James stood in the library, watching you leave, a sinking feeling in his chest. He wanted to chase after you, to explain, but how could he? The truth was out now, and he knew it. He had hurt you in the worst possible way.

For the first time in a long while, James Potter didn’t have the right words. He had lost you, and it was his own fault.

Sirius, Remus, and Peter sat in silence, the gravity of what had just happened settling heavily around them.

Remus sighed, his voice soft but firm. “I told you. You were playing with her heart.”

James slumped back into his chair, guilt gnawing at him. He didn’t care about the dare anymore. He didn’t care about making Lily jealous. All he cared about was the girl who had just walked out of his life—the girl he had fallen for without realizing it.

[bellatrixscurls]

two ghosts | part 1

pov : lily rejects james many times, until he finally gives up. but y/n and sirius are there for him, in more ways than one.

warnings : smut (next part), mentions of ex!bully!james, fluff (it probably sucks cus i only know how to write smut), sub jamie if you squint, pet names, established relationship between reader and sirius. please lmk if there are more! <3

part two

“I’m telling you, sweetheart. It’s nothing your pretty cunt can’t fix” Sirius winks at you, shoving a piece of bread in his mouth, causing you to roll your eyes. He obviously notices, as he is sat across from you, and smirks.

Remus is eyeing you both suspiciously, and clears his throat. “I can think of more situations you,” he looks at you and you blush slightly in embarrassment, “cannot fix. So what is it now?”

Sirius giggles like a little kid, and you shake your head, your cheeks way too red by now. “I think Prongs needs some.. relief. Poor thing is so crabby these days, and it’s all because of that stupid mudblood.”

“Sirius!” you shriek, kicking his foot under the table. “Okay, alright! I was just looking for something bad to say about her.”

Remus rolls his eyes and Peter places his fork down, blue eyes wide as he stares at you, clearly interested. “What do you mean by relief? I mean, he’s been refusing to tell me what’s wrong and yes, he is acting a bit strange, but I can’t think of anything that could help him. Unless you want to get him a date with Evans, which is not an option.”

Peter’s speech leaves all of you speechless. You’ve looked at the situation as more of a joke, not realising how sweet Jamie turned to grumpy, fussy James. “I mean, not that I would want to get him a date with that one” Sirius scoffs, his hands raising in surrender as you and Remus glare at him.

“And why would that be, Sirius?” you find it’s your turn to tease him, to which he scoffs again, giving you an wide-eyed look when he spots James approaching the ton of you.

His head is a mess of curls that bounce furiously as he walks messily, his eyes are bigger than usual and his face seems to scream ‘I’m tired!’. His clothes, surprisingly, are not wrinkled. Well, it’s a surprise to anyone but you, cus you are the one who prepared them for him the night before.

“Morning” his voice is thick with sleep, barely gazing at you as he wraps an arm around your shoulders, squeezing you into his side only for a few seconds. “Thank you for taking care of me” he says softly, obviously referring to his robe, shirt and trousers.

Your eyebrows shoot up, clearly surprised by the little gesture, and the guys seem to be as surprised, if not more than you are. “No bother, Jamie.”

The atmosphere in the common room is tense, and you all can sense it. Even James.

“You can talk to me, you know” he scoffs, slightly annoyed as he looks up for merely a second, eyeing Sirius, and his face somehow softens.

Sirius looks at him sadly. “We are worried about you, we don’t want you to lose yourself just because some red-headed chick doesn’t want you.”

And then, you all know that he screwed up.

James stands up abruptly, and looks down at Sirius, his usually gentle blue eyes now a few shades darker. “She’s not- You don’t know what it feels like, Sirius” he calls him by his first name, not Pads, and not Siri, and you can see Sirius’ face soften and his bottom lip jutting out just slightly. “You’ve found Y/n a long time ago, and even before you didn’t have a problem with girls ever refusing you. You don’t know how it feels.”

You all fall silent, your hand coming up to gently rub at his back, his head leaning into your neck as he nuzzles against your skin. “We just want our Jamie back, honey. I promise you so many other people in this school want you for you.”

“You promise?” he looks at you with those doe eyes that always make you melt.

“I do. And maybe it’s best that you didn’t get with Lily, who knows what would’ve happened. I promise there is someone there for you.”

By the end of your speech, you can only hear James hum softly as you continue to rub his back. A few minutes pass by, and Remus whispers to you, letting you know that James is sleeping. And so you sit more comfortably against the sofa, allowing yourself to rest for a little bit as well.

♥︎

Shifting pulls you from your deep slumber only a few hours later, and you find your arms empty, no trace of James anywhere. You sigh softly as you move to stand up, taking the blanket, that you were not aware was there, with you.

“Sweetheart, you’re awake” Sirius beams when you stand up, and you almost have a heart attack when you hear his voice, being pulled away from your thoughts.

You turn to look at him, lazily dragging yourself and finally throwing yourself into his arms, the boy taking that as a sign to sit down, with you still in his arms. “I missed you” you smile into his chest, engulfed by his intoxicating scent. He smells like he always does, but to you, it’s much more than that.

“Me too, sweetheart” he kisses your forehead, his eyes closing and so do yours.

But little do you know, James is watching the two of you the entire time, and his heart drops and swells at the same time. He wants that, but he is glad that his best friends have it.

♥︎

The next day, you walk with Sirius, hand in hand, towards your Herbology class. He is telling you about his new partner in partner in Potions when you spot James leaning against the wall, talking to Lily.

“Siri, he’s doing it again” you pout, looking up at your boyfriend as he looks in their direction, his eyes darkening at the sight.

“Oh fuck” he swears under his breath, and you frown. “I can’t hear him cry for the entire night again, breaks my heart” he gulps and you brush your hand against his cheek gently, making him look st you.

“Maybe it won’t be that bad. Maybe he is okay now” you try to reason with him and he seems to soften for a moment, not long though, cus James is messily walking away from Lily, his eyes red and lips puffy. You look back at him, his eyes not once leaving yours as he walks away, heading towards the Gryffindor Tower.

“Yeah, he seems pretty content” Sirius scoffs to himself, running one of his hands through his hair as the other holds your waist.

“Bring him to my dorm” you tell him, your eyes widening before you continue. “I- I mean, both of you. We can take care of him, make sure he doesn’t feel alone and maybe forgets what happened for the night.”

Sirius looks at you like you are his Moon, the one who always brightens his path when it gets dark. I mean, he’s told you that before.

“You are a genius!”

♥︎

After classes, you went to find James, but found him in the worst situation you thought possible.

He is with Lily. Meanwhile the red-head is reading her book on the sofa, James is knelt in front of her, gently tugging at her delicate arm, but she pays him no mind. “Lily, I just- please, just a date, just one” he whispers softly, not wanting to disturb her more than he already does.

She rolls her eyes, and sighs. “James, I don’t know how many times to tell you that I’m not interested” she says sadly, and you can see his bottom lip quivering. “I don’t.. you were mean to my friends, James. Mean to me. For a very long time, and even though it was long before you liked me, I can’t” she finally confesses, cupping his cheek with her palm.

Your eyes widen and so do James’.

He lets out a soft ‘oh’ and quickly wipes his tears, baby blue eyes blinking in shock. He didn’t know.

“Oh okay... Okay then, that’s fine” he nods frantically, slowly standing up from his knees and brushing his hands over his robe. “I’m sorry, Lily” you see him pout slightly before he practically runs away.

You wait until Lily stands up and finally follow James upstairs, not wanting to make it seen like you were eavesdropping. You were, but.

Knocking gently on the door, you are met with a muffled and small ‘yes?’

“Jamie, it’s Y/n” you lean your head against the door, your eyes closing as you listen to the shuffling in the room.

Moments later, he opens the door and your shoulders drop when you see his state. He hasn’t been himself for weeks now, but he has never looked this way until now. He looks a mess, and his bed is the same.

“Darling” you frown slightly, not touching him because you don’t know if that’s okay yet. “D’you wanna go to my dorm? You can stay with me tonight, Siri will be there too.”

You try to soothe him, explaining that you will listen to him as much as he needs, but when he hears ‘your dorm’ and ‘Siri’, his ears perk up and he starts nodding fervently, grabbing his blanket and shutting the door behind him.

You give him a small smile before you guide him to your dorm, where your boyfriend is waiting for you. He probably doesn’t expect you to manage to get James to come, so his eyes widen a little bit when he sees him, but he clears his throat and stands up from your couch, greeting you. Sirius’ arms snake around your waist as he gives you a sweet peck on the lips, before he moves to James.

The bespectacled boy’s back is glued to the door, sitting there timidly as he tries not to look at you both, but he fails miserably. “Hi there, Prongsie” Sirius teases him and James smiles a genuine smile, his eyes closing as Sirius brings him into his arms, the long-haired’s boy scent just as intoxicating as it is to you.

“Do you want to talk to us, babe? Tell us what happened?” you quip as you take James’ hand in yours and you usher him to sit on your perfectly made bed, the sheets soft beneath him.

He looks up at you, then at Sirius, and sighs softly. “I used to be a bully” he confesses, as if it is a secret, “And ‘s why she doesn’t like me... Lily.”

Sirius’ grimace is more than present on his face. He remembers those times, up until third year, when he met you. You’ve changed him, and them, for that matter. James has always been a sweet boy, but he used to think that he was superior to the others. Not now, though.

“That was way too long ago, though. We were kids” Sirius whispers defeatedly, he knows that’s not an excuse.

“I was terrible” James says and a sob catches in his throat. Your heart almost breaks and then you understand what Sirius meant when he said that James crying made his own heart break. “I regret that, I don’t want to ever do that again.”

You pout, inching your hand closer to his as you slowly caress it, your eyes moving from him to your boyfriend. “It’s been age, Jamie” Sirius speaks softly, “you have changed, that’s not you anymore. Sure, you cannot erase your past, but you cannot let it define you either. That’s. not. you.”

James looks up at him with hope, and Sirius grins widely. “Look at you, you are the sweetest boy I’ve ever met. So pretty as well” Sirius’ tatted hand cups James’ soft, pale cheek and the younger boy melts against his skin. “Yeah?” he breathes, batting his eyelashes at Sirius, who nods proudly.

But when Sirius notices that James’ hand is moving up his thigh, he removes his hand from his hand from his cheek and stands up, walking towards a smaller chest of drawers, where you keep his clean clothes for when he comes over.

James’ breath hitches and tears start pooling at his eyes. He tries to be quiet, but you are still beside him and hear it. “What is it, sweet boy?” you ask, frowning.

He just shakes his head, burying his face into your soft pillow. “M sorry” he sobs, his tears most definitely soaking your pillow.

“Sorry?” you ask and he hums, still not looking at you. “Tried to touch Siri” he admits, “you have.. you’ve just been so good to me, I-”

“Oh, love, I’m not upset with you. I mean, who wouldn’t want to touch Siri?” you joke and he giggles softly, lifting his head from the pillow.

“Okay I’m back and I got you my shirt and this pair of boxers, I hope they fit you- Hey, why are you crying?”

─

next part will probably be just a little bit of fluff and smut, but i thought i’d share this little thought with you guys. i will write the other fic ideas soon, please bear with me <3.

[aur0ral1ghts]

ᴀᴍᴏʀᴛᴇɴᴛɪᴀ ❧

ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴍᴀᴛᴛʜᴇᴏ ᴀᴄᴄɪᴅᴇɴᴛʟʏ ᴄᴏɴғᴇssᴇs ʜɪs ʟᴏᴠᴇ ғᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ..

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs; sᴏғᴛ ᴍᴀᴛᴛʜᴇᴏ, ғʟᴜғғ, ᴋɪssɪɴɢ, ᴛᴇᴀsɪɴɢ, ғʀɪᴇɴᴇᴍɪᴇs.

Me and Mattheo Riddle have never gotten along. We are what you call frienemies, we are not exactly friends, but we aren't enemies. We just like to tease and pick on each other. Me and him are in the same friend group, so that's when we kinda get along. Maybe once or twice a month, we would actually have a normal conversation without insulting each other. Another reason why we don't get along is his personality. He flirts with even damn girl in this school, it's annoying honestly. He's also the schools playboy, every week he brings a new girl to his dorm, and fucks her then kicks the girl out of his dormitory like she meant nothing to him.

But we do have a few things in common, like to my surprise, we both like to read. I found this out because one day I was heading to the library to find a new book to read, and I saw him. I saw Mattheo sitting down, reading a book that wasn't a textbook made for studying. His eyes gleamed with curiosity as he flipped the page, his eyes tracing over the words written among the page.

I couldn't help but admire him for a quick moment. He looked so cute and focused, and, wait, what am I talking about..?

I walked up behind him. He turned around, his breath hitched.

"Who knew I'll see the day to find Mattheo Riddle reading a book and enjoying it?" I chuckle. He scoffs as he closes the book. "Well, I do infact read, and I enjoy it." He mutters, blinking up at me.

"Shocking." I say, exaggerating my tone. "Why are you here?" He asks, standing up, leaning on a bookshelf infront of me.

"Choosing out a new book to read." I shurg. "Not surprised." He chuckles under his breath. "Also, I've read that book you're reading right now." I say. "Spoilers; I cried at the end." I exclaim, running my finger along the spine of a book. "Don't spoil it for me, dumbass." He says, nudging me. I giggle to myself as I find a book I like, I pull it out and examine the corver. "Anyways, bye Riddle." I say, walking away to check the book out. "Right, uh, later." He mutters clearing his throat.

But that's pretty much the only thing we have common, besides having the same group of friends and both being in Slytherin.

[Mattheo]

I heard some footsteps enter the libary, I knew it was Y/ns, I could tell by her shoes, she wears these loud black shoes they have a certain sound. You just know it's her when she walks into a room.

I pretend I don't notice, I can feel her eyes upon me, she then sneaks behind me. She leans down and says close to my ear, "Who knew I'll see the day to find Mattheo Riddle reading a book, and enjoying it." She chuckles, I look back at her pretty and perfect face.

A few months ago, I randomly fell in love with y/n. It all kinda happend, one day, I was pissed off at her for something, and then the next day, I found myself staring at her and admiring her. I hated myself for it. It took me at least a whole month to accept my feelings. I've never loved a girl before, sure I had a small crush on Pansy Parkinson in first year, but that doesn't count. It only lasted a week or so.

A few weeks ago I saw Y/n read this book, she seemed really interested in it, so i got the book out, which is the book I'm currently reading.

I didn't mean to be creepy or anything- but I wanted to get into what she liked. So once told me she enjoyed Astronomy the most, so i decided to read a little about it.

[Y/n]

We are all sitting in the great hall, chatting amongst ourselves and eating the food provided in front of us.

"Are you guys going to try out for Quidditch?" Blaise Zabini asks us. "Hell, yeah!" Mattho answers, as Blaise and him clap hands together. "Me and Y/n are just going to watch the tryouts, right?" Pansy says, nudging me with her elbow. "Right." I say giggling.

-

The next day, I enter potions, excited to see what we are going to do. I use to not be that interesting in potions due to Snapes boring lessons, but ever since Slughorn starting teaching potions, I've grown to like it more and more.

I stand next to Pansy as I see a red-pinkish liquid on the table, brewing. I could smell a faint smell of..

Cigarettes, rich colange, and books.

Why did I smell that?

"Pansy, do you smell that?" I ask. "Smell what?" She whispers, clenching her book to her chest. "Cigarettes, and colange." I mutter under my breath. "I don't smell that? I smell apples, mint, and fresh air?" Huh? That's werid. I definitely wasn't sick, my nostrils were working fine.

"Ah, girls, it seems you have discovered Amortentia."

Amortentia, i repeat in my head. I heard of this potion, but I forgot what it is, it's on the tip of my tongue.

"Professor, what exactly is Amortentia?" I question. "Great question, Y/n, you'll find out soon enough." He chuckles. I nod.

"Alright, alright, everyone, please settle down and gather around this table." He clears his throat as students gather.

"So-"

The door slams open as a messed up Mattheo enters, looking undeniably hot. His hair was slightly messed up, his tie on his uniform was not done properly, and a cigarette was placed in his mouth. I'll hate to admit it, but he looked awfully hot.

Slughorn clears his throat. "Mr. Riddle. You're late."

"Yeah, I've noticed." He scoffs. A few students giggled.

Slughorn eyes Mattheos cigarette, he looks down at it and mumbles an "Oh." Then places it in his pocket, probably saving it for later or something.

Mattheos walks behind me, his breathing loud and hot.

"Anyways." Slughorn says.

"Gosh, Y/n, how much perfume did you spray!?" He whispers a little to loud as most of the class begins to laugh. I turn my head to face him. "I didn't spray any." I mutter. His face twists into confusion.

"Ahem, as I was saying before I got interrupted, So this lovely pink potion we have brewing over here is Amortentia, which is known to be the most intense and most powerful love potion in the world, it's rumored to smell like whatever you're attractive too."

I turn to Mattheo again to see his red flushed face. It's almost cute.

"I guess we all know who Mr. Riddle is attracted, too." He chuckles. Suddenly, Mattheo scoffs loudly before storming out of the room, slamming the door behind him. It's almost like a child throwing a taturm.

Pansy comes closer to me. "What the heck was that!?" She whisper yells. "I dunno.."

Slughorn sighs, before looking back at me. "Y/n, if you will." He motions to the door.

"Uh, sure profosser." I nod, walking towards the door. This was unfair, why'd I had to to get him after his outburst? Why couldn't one of his minions go fetch him?

I headed to go to see if he had gone to the bathroom because in previous instances, he was often caught skipping in that bathroom. No one really uses it because most teachers won't allow you to use the restroom during class. You would have to wait until break, plus no one really used that bathroom due to it not being properly taken care of. There was always a bunch of cobwebs all over the celling.

I walk up to the door, and I almost hesitate to knock. But I give in and do it.

No reply.

I wanted to check anything place, but I had this werid gut feeling telling me to check inside just in case. So I opened the door as I looked at the ground.

"Mattheo..?" I ask softly, still looking down. I wait a full five seconds before he answers. "What?"

"I'm coming in." I call out, my voice echoing within the massive bathroom. I scan the room before laying eyes onto Mattheo. He's to my left side, sitting down against a hard brick wall, smoking a cigarette. (Probably the same one he stuffed into his pocket earlier.) He's also writing in a black journal. He looks up at me, lips parted, his messy curls laid perfectly upon his face.

I slowly approach him. I sit down next to him, hugging my knees, letting my back fall against the harsh brick wall. He closes his journal quickly before placing it next to him.

"Uh. Just so you know, Slughorn is looking for you." I mutter in a low tone, fidgeting with my fingers. I felt almost nervous being this close to him. I felt a wave of butterflies wash over me.

"I don't care about that jerk." He mumbles, leaning his head back, fidgeting with his wand.

"He had no right to expose you like that." I say. "Thanks." We both sit there awkwardly for a few seconds before he calls out.

"So..what did you smell in the Amortentia?" He says, looking at me, obersving me.

"Oh, um. I smelt cigarettes, rich colange and books." My face then turns red once I've realized what I've just said. I have smelt Mattheo in the potion, and I know I have just realized. I guess when I smelt him, I guess I just didn't expect it at first, I denied it. I just convinced myself I smelt someone else. But in reality, it was him.

He smirks to himself.

"Hey, Mattheo?" I question trying to avoid the subject.

He doesn't reply back, but he looks at me. My heart pounded out of my chest.

"Why do you hate me? Or at least act like it."

"I dont really hate you. I've never had. I guess I hate you because I love you."

My mouth opens but doesn't make any noise. I can't believe he just said that. Mattheo Riddle actually loves me? Sure he was attracted to me but loves me?

"Wanna know something?" He smirks. I nod helplessly. "I think you smelt me in the Amortentia."

"I think so, too." I admit as he leans in closer.

"Can I kiss you?" He says as I smile widely. "Please..?" He asks. "Yes, you can." I answer. And with that, he kisses me.

The kiss is everything I've ever wanted. It's soft, gentle, and passionate. Usually, when I imagined Mattheo kissing me, i would imagine it to be rough and lustful.

He cups onto my check, his other hand wrapped around my waist, as he pulls me in closer to him.

"Mm, you have no damn idea how long I've been waiting for this exact moment." He whispers, pulling a piece of hair behind my ear.

"Me too." I say, looking at him, as our foreheads touch.

"So, will you be my girlfriend?" He asks me out of the blue.

"Yes." I whisper back.

"Good." He smiles, as we kiss again.

A/n; this was fun to write! :)

Masterlist link

[i9messi]

Sweet — Ollie Bearman

You have a blind date in a coffee shop, but you sit at the wrong table and end up on a date with a guy who has a smile that lights up his whole face.

Word count — 1,2k

note —okay, so my little crush on Ollie is getting bigger now. More stories coming soon!

MASTERLIST

You were practically running on the streets. You were late for your date with a guy you actually didn’t know. And you were so worried about causing a bad first impression.

It all started when your best friend insisted you meet a friend of a friend. You had never seen him before and didn’t know anything about him, only that his name was Oliver and you apparently shared things in common.

You were in such a hurry to get there, that when you saw a guy sitting alone at a table, you thought he was your date. You started to walk in his direction, while smiling. He paid attention to you, looking at where you were.

“Oliver?”

He nodded. If you hadn’t been so distracted you would have noticed something was wrong, as the way he was looking at you with confusion.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

His eyes were brown and his brunette hair was a little messy, as if he had passed his hands several times for his hair.

“Sorry for being late— my best friend got the time mixed up and told me we had to meet later. But I spoke to her again and then she told me it was earlier. Sorry to keep you waiting, Oliver.”

There was a strange silence. You thought he was angry or pissed off but a couple of seconds later, he smiled nicely.

“No problem, really. I already ordered my coffee, I hope that didn’t bother you.”

“Oh, no worries.”

“By the way, my friends call me Ollie.”

He smiled at you and you smiled at him. Maybe it was too fast to make statements, but you could already sense that he was a kind person. There was something in his generous smile and look that invited you to want to share your time with him.

“Nice to meet you, Ollie.”

You introduced yourself, just in case he forgot your name or if your friend had not told him.

"Oh, sit, please."

Ollie got up from his seat and moved the chair you were sitting in, like a gentleman.

“Thank you, Ollie.”

While you were giving him a look, a staff member came up and you made an order. When the coffee came to you and you started sipping, you filled the silence.

“Your face sounds familiar, I swear I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

He had a pretty face and a boyish look. You swore that his face had appeared on TV, or maybe on your social media, but you couldn’t remember where.

“Maybe your friend once showed you a picture of me and that’s why my face sounds familiar, I guess.”

“That may be.”

He nodded, “In my case, you took me by surprise.”

You bite the inside of your cheek.

“I hope it’s a good surprise, not a bad one.”

”You’re a very good surprise, I swear.”

You took another sip of your coffee, while Ollie looked into your eyes. You spoke again, only because he seemed to hesitate to ask you something.

"What do you do for a living?"

“I work with cars.”

“Oh, are you a mechanic?”

He smiled lazily, and corrected himself.

“My job is to drive cars.”

“So you’re an Uber driver.”

Ollie tried to hold back a laugh and you looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“What? Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no. Sorry. I’m an Uber driver, you're right.”

There was something suspicious but you didn't want to be too curious.

When the awkward conversation ended, he was interrupted by a call from a friend. You encouraged him to answer, even when he didn't want to bother you.

“Kimi? I'm busy right now— I'm on a date. Yes, with a girl. What surprises you? I'm on a date with a real person.”

He listened to his friend, then Ollie talked again.

“Oh, shut up. Goodbye.”

You tried so hard to not laugh, but you failed miserably.

“What? He was being annoying.”

“He was interested in our date, I think.”

“Is he the friend of my friend? The one who connected us?”

He seemed hesitant, but then he said no. “No, that's my other friend.”

Minutes later both of you talked about your lives, about things you liked and about everything you could think of. Ollie was an attentive person, someone you could talk to for hours.

It was so nice to be by his side that when you noticed the coffee shop was ready to close, you felt a little sad.

“It's time to go, I guess.”

“I could walk you home,” he offered.

“Sure? I don't want to bother you, Ollie.”

“I insist.”

You agreed, and you walked by his side. His hand brushed yours for a brief moment and both of you felt warm in your cheeks. Blushed and silly, neither Ollie or you said a thing. But to be fair, both wanted to know what It would feel to hold hands.

Your house was close to the coffee shop so when you stopped in your doorway, he stopped too.

"This was nice,” he said, his gaze looking at you. His hands were in the pockets of his jeans, he seemed to not know what to do next.

So you took the next step.

“We can kiss, Ollie.”

You really wanted to finish your date with a kiss, he seemed special. He was not like the other dudes you spent your time on dates, most of them only thought with their dicks. He treated you correctly, he listened to you and he was attentive. And he was attractive, he was gorgeous. Beautiful to see.

“I was hoping you said that but I need to confess something first.”

Okay, now you were worried. What if he had a girlfriend?

“I lied.”

“You lied about what?”

“I'm not the Oliver you were looking for.”

“That makes no sense. Ollie, what are you talking about?”

He came a step close to you.

“I am not the Oliver you were having a date with. I was in the coffee shop waiting for a friend but a couple of minutes before you came, he said he couldn't come. It was Kimi, the guy who talked with me on the phone. When you came and talked with me, I froze.”

Then it all started to make sense. He had told you that it was a surprise to find you there. Ollie hadn’t expected you to show up and tell him you were late for your date, because in first place, he was not part of the date.

“You lied.”

“I lied because I didn't want to miss a chance to meet a beautiful girl like you. I apologize, honestly.”

He looked at you, with worry.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No, I'm not. I'm just… confused, because I really enjoyed our date.”

“I enjoyed our date too, and I really want to repeat it.”

You couldn't be angry with him, not with his puppy eyes.

“Are you going to lie next time?”

“No, I promise you. I'm not going to lie to you anymore.”

“Okay, Ollie. I'm not angry with you, I honestly think that maybe it was good to cross paths. Maybe the other Oliver was a dick.”

He smiled full of happiness, “Poor Oliver.”

“Instead I met you.”

“I could not ask for a better thing.”

You were so close, only millimeters separated you from him. He smelled so good.

“When can we meet again?”

“First kiss me, then we can schedule or date.”

And so he did, he come closer to you and his lips joined yours.

Next thing you knew was that he drove race cars.

[ashotofogdensoldfirewhiskey]

Can you please write a fic for the prompt “late night chats”?

The sound of Ron’s footsteps treading up the stairs to the dormitory slowly fades, and they’re finally alone in the Common Room. 

Ginny makes a show of checking to make sure the coast is clear, and then she burrows happily into Harry’s side, snuggling deeper into the squashy sofa by the fire. His arm snakes around her waist to pull her in closer. They should probably go to bed, too, but it seems wasteful not to eke out every moment she can, to wring this weekend completely dry of moments with him. 

“Thought he’d never leave,” Ginny says with a sly grin. “I was ready to sit on your lap just so he’d get the hint.”

“Were you?” Harry says with interest. Then, he turns his head toward the stairs, and calls, “Ron?” as though to summon him back. 

Ginny snorts and pokes him in the side, and he turns that devastating smirk back at her - flashing green eyes, crooked lips, the hint of a dimple - the one that’s had her slowly losing her mind for months. 

She still can’t quite believe she’s allowed to kiss the smirk off his lips, now. She does, just to prove it’s real. 

Every moment alone they’ve stolen has taken on this oxymoronic tone: bodily tangible, like she can reach out and grasp their growing tangle of feelings as easily as a Quaffle, but wholly surreal, like they’re some elaborate daydream snatched from her subconscious. Both, and neither. 

She pulls back and smiles at him, and he does too, something wry creeping into their expressions, something that seems to say, we’re nauseating but I can’t help it. 

He’s made her so quickly greedy for more, the git. It’s been two days of kissing and banter and touches, overwhelming and not enough. 

“Tell me something,” she says, suddenly, “that you haven’t told anyone before.”

His eyebrows raise slightly in surprise, and Ginny’s plunged immediately into the vulnerability of her question, the implication of it. I want to be closer, she’s asking, do you? But, she’s not in Gryffindor for nothing, and so she holds his gaze and withstands his onslaught of silence. 

“Hm,” he says, looking thoughtful. “About what?”

“Anything,” she shrugs. “Whatever.”

Harry furrows his brow, stares ahead into the middle distance, and Ginny holds her breath, waiting to find out whether he’ll hand her a key or if she’ll have to keep knocking, knowing already she’s succumbed to knocking at his door until her knuckles bruise. 

“I dunno if my dad was a good person,” Harry says without preamble. 

Ginny doesn’t know what she’d expected him to tell her, but it hadn’t been that. “What makes you say that?”

He stares at his knees and explains about the Occlumency lessons with Snape. The memory he was never supposed to see. His father, every bit the bully Snape had always claimed. 

“--that’s why I wanted to talk to Sirius, last year,” Harry admits. “When you helped distract Umbridge. Stupid, I know–”

“It’s not stupid,” Ginny says fiercely. She feels the weight of it, what he’s told her. Wondering about someone who isn’t around to ask. Grieving someone and the idea of them at once. “What did Sirius say?”

“He said he grew out of it,” Harry says, though his tone says loud and clear that this explanation hadn’t been satisfactory to him. “But, I dunno. Means he was still a git before, doesn't it?”

“Maybe,” Ginny agrees. “Or maybe that was his worst moment.”

“Pretty shit moment.”

“Yeah,” Ginny admits, leaning her head on her hand, propped up on the back of the sofa so that she’s turned to face him. “Pretty shit. But I’d hate it if my future children only got to see me… oh, I dunno. Hex Zacharias Smith. Or slip that itching powder into Romilda Vane’s pumpkin juice.”

Harry shoots her a look. “When did you do that?”

“She tried to give you a love potion and got my brother poisoned, Harry.”

Harry snorts. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

“Well, that’s what I mean. We’ve all had shit moments that’d look terrible without proper context. My future children wouldn’t have any idea what Romilda had done to get on my bad side, would they?”

“I suppose,” Harry says, though he still sounds unconvinced. “But I don’t reckon there’s any context that’d make him look much better. I’m not saying Snape was a saint, I’m sure he gave as good as he got. But it… my dad was humiliating him. On purpose.”

“Mm,” Ginny hums slowly, mulling it over. “Do you reckon Sirius was right? That he did grow out of it?”

Harry swipes a hand through his messy hair. “He must’ve. My mum married him. Sirius and Lupin said he was better. But, I dunno. Maybe he did. I’ll never know, anyway.”

Ginny reckons that’s the real problem - the never knowing. Forgiveness is a difficult thing to offer when the person isn’t around to ask for or receive it. 

“I wish,” she says wistfully, “you’d got to see more. People can’t be all bad, I don’t think. I’m sure Sirius and Lupin have hundreds of memories that you would’ve liked him in. Makes it easier not to like him in that one.”

Harry’s lips part, and then he nods. “Yeah. Me too.”

She’s still thinking about it when Harry shocks her. “What about you, then?”

“Hmm?” she asks, confused. 

Harry jerks his head at her and nudges her knee with his own. “Your turn. Something you’ve never said to anyone.”

Ginny meets his eye, the warmth billowing through her chest like a cloud of candyfloss. He wants to know her, too. The thought - I like you more than I’ve ever liked anyone - threatens to spill from her lips, but she holds her tongue, wanting to offer him something of equal weight. 

“I use the bathroom on the second floor whenever I can,” she says, knowing he’ll understand which one she means. “Just to prove I’m not bothered by it. Only, it does bother me. Maybe that’s why I keep using it.”

He looks stricken. “Do you still think about it a lot? The Chamber?”

Ginny shrugs, perhaps a bit more nonchalant than she actually feels. “A bit. Still get nightmares sometimes, but not as often as I used to.”

“Yeah,” he says, and she’s struck for a moment by the fact that they might be haunted by the same ghost. “Me, too.”

She shoots him a commiserating look, and continues. “But it’s not about… about Riddle, really. I mean, it is. But it’s more about… me.”

“What do you mean?” His stare is so piercing, like he’s trying to see straight through to her soul. She imagines he can. 

“I dunno. It was awful, obviously, what happened. But when I think back on it, what actually bothers me…” she chews on her words, trying to articulate the vague shame that always clings to these memories, “is that I was so stupid.”

“What?” Harry says sharply. “You were eleven. That diary… it’s… you weren’t stupid.” His words are so firm that it steals her breath. “That was a powerful bit of Dark Magic, you couldn’t have done anything.”

“No, I know that. Logically, I know that. But, I dunno. I wrote so many pathetic things in that diary.” She tries to laugh, but it comes out a bit scratchy. “I was so lonely, after Ron left for school. So desperate to go off to Hogwarts and have mad adventures and play Quidditch and… meet you.” She stares down at her hands, the embarrassment threatening to overwhelm her. “I just hate that he knows all that, that I was this pathetic, desperate little girl–”

“He doesn’t,” Harry says. “The version of him you wrote to is gone. The real one doesn’t know any of it.”

“Oh,” she replies, coming up short. “How do you…? Well, never mind, you haven’t got to answer that, I suppose–”

“It’s not that I don’t want to–”

“No, I know,” Ginny says quickly, unable to bear some platitude, not from him, “Really, you haven’t–”

“Whatever you wrote in that diary died with it,” Harry says firmly. “I promise.”

Ginny nods, and lets the words sink in. Ever since Riddle had come back, she’d wondered whether pathetic little Ginny Weasley was somewhere in the back of his mind. Weak. Stupid. An easy target, close to Harry. The relief that she might just be anyone – no one, even – to this version of Riddle, is palpable. 

“Thanks,” Ginny breathes. “That makes me feel a bit… better.”

“You weren’t pathetic,” Harry says, like the thought is so absurd he’d never considered she might feel that way. “It’s quite impressive you managed to resist it for so long, actually.”

Everything that had happened with that diary has been so tinted with shame, with weakness, that Harry might consider her brave for it… it feels so antithetical to everything she’d ever thought, she nearly laughs. 

“Right,” Ginny says, deflecting away with a joke. “I’m sure all those roosters thought I was very impressive.”

To his credit, Harry doesn’t laugh. “That wasn’t you. It was him.”

Easy to say, harder to feel. “The Department of Mysteries wasn’t you, either.”

Harry stares at her, and she holds his gaze unwaveringly. She can see she’s made her point, can read in the pull of his brow that Harry understands exactly the weight of a guilt so heavy that words can’t lighten it. Just as plainly, though, she can see that he hates that she’s carrying it at all. 

Fair enough, really. She hates that he is, too. 

She breaks eye contact and nestles back into his side. She lifts up his hand with hers, plays absently with his fingers. “Why haven’t you ever told Ron and Hermione about your dad?”

He considers for a long moment, letting her play with his hand and pulling her in closer with the other. “Dunno, really. Just felt… defensive, I suppose. Like whatever they’d said, it would’ve bothered me.”

“I get that.” She winces. “Did I upset you?”

“No,” Harry says quickly. “It’s not like that, with you.”

The words melt in her heart like honey, covering everything in sweet, sticky warmth. She ceases her mindless fiddling with his fingers and looks up at him, knowing her face must be an open book, knowing it must be apparent that he’s got her whole honey-coated heart in his hands. “It’s not like that with you, either.”

He stares back at her, deep into her eyes, and for the first time it occurs to her to check her own palm for his.

He leans down and kisses her deeply, and she pulls herself up and snakes her arms around his neck. This thing has always been irritatingly there, for Ginny - the way she can read exactly what he’s thinking without even trying, the way she trusts him absolutely, the way he makes her heart skitter like she’s in a free fall. 

It’d never honestly occurred to her how powerful it would be to have it reciprocated. To have him understand what she’s saying so completely, to have him offer her something vulnerable just because she asked, to feel his heart hammering against her own. 

It’s been two bloody days, and yet she’s slipped past the point of no return with him already. Perhaps she’d started there. 

She pulls back from the kiss, feeling breathless. Harry looks a bit winded, himself. 

“We should probably go to bed,” he mutters, eyes still locked with hers. 

They should, probably. 

And they will. Eventually.

[yumeka-sxf]

Japanese Linguistic Observations in Spy x Family - part 2

Part 2 - Anya's "Anya-isms"

I think Anya has one of the most interesting ways of speaking out of all the SxF characters. But like with Twilight's dialogue that I previously discussed, it can only be fully appreciated in the Japanese version. Probably the most noticeable thing about her dialogue is how it's written compared to the other characters.

Written Japanese is comprised of three different alphabets: ひらがな (hiragana) and カタカナ (katakana), which together are referred to as "kana," and 漢字 (kanji). Kanji are the characters that hold the meaning of words, while kana simply represent the various Japanese syllable sounds and don't have any meaning on their own (much like the letters of the English alphabet). There are only about 100-ish total unique kana symbols, however, there are over 2,000 kanji in common use today. So Japanese children will start out learning kana and then learn kanji gradually during their school years. This is why Japanese children's books are typically written only or mostly in kana. This is also why manga and books aimed at a younger audience will have kana "translations" of kanji written above kanji characters, which are called furigana.

With that in mind, it's not surprising that all of Anya's dialogue in the Japanese version of the SxF manga is written entirely in kana. Even though using kanji in her dialogue wouldn't necessarily mean she knows kanji, reading a character's dialogue only in kana definitely gives off childish vibes – it conveys feelings of youthfulness and innocence, like "they're speaking only in kana because they don't know the kanji for these words…they're just a little kid, after all." At least, that's the feeling I get when I read Anya's dialogue. Though I haven't read enough manga in Japanese to say for sure, it seems like this concept of making little kids speak only in kana is not unusual, as there's at least one other example I know of: a manga from the mid-2000s called Yotsuba also has a titular 5-year old whose dialogue is written only in kana.

What's also interesting is that all of the other Eden kids speak "normally," using kana and kanji properly in their dialogue. This helps to convey the fact that, despite Anya being roughly the same age as them, their "rich family" upbringing has forced them to grow up faster. In the below panel, you can see how Damian's dialogue uses kanji (with furigana translations) while Anya's uses only kana, even for words that have kanji.

Interestingly, I found at least two cases where Anya does use kanji in her dialogue: when she's calling out the name of her big "Arrow of Light, Seize the Star" move during the dodgeball game, and when she calls out her "Lighting Bolt, Deliver my Aid" move when she tries to throw Yor's weapon back on the deck in the cruise arc. As you can see in the below panels, the names of these "moves" is written in kanji (with furigana translations). This makes sense not only because this is parodying shonen series where the characters shout out the names of their moves, but because it emphasizes how determined Anya was at these moments.

But going back to how Anya's speech compares to the other kids, another thing that stands out is that she speaks very "plainly." Her grammar is (mostly) correct, except for a few mistakes you'd expect a little kid to make. But she uses pretty much no colloquialisms, almost as if she knows the language but lacks the experience for using it in normal social interactions. I don't think this is unusual for a kid her age who's still learning, but it definitely stands out when compared to her classmates. For example, in the below panel, Becky uses normal interjections and other colloquialisms in her speech, like "ne" (ね), "wa" (わ), and "yo" (よ), which are all standard Japanese linguistic devices for softening or emphasizing your sentences. However, Anya doesn't use things like this in her speech. Again, this makes her speech come off as very plain and abrupt, almost like she's not a native speaker.

She also refers to herself in third person all the time in the Japanese version. In fact, I don't recall her ever using an "I" or "me" pronoun. I don't know why the English version of the manga doesn't keep this characteristic of her speech. I think it's very important in highlighting the childish aspect of her personality.

Putting all this together – the fact that she doesn't use typical colloquial speech and refers to herself in third person – really emphasizes the childish, naive, and almost baby-like nature of her character. I'm curious if Endo made her speak this way simply to show what a little kid she is compared to her classmates, or if it will somehow tie back to whatever roots she has in classical languages that he keeps hinting at. Regardless, as I mentioned in my full Anya analysis, what she lacks in speech and school smarts, she makes up for in empathy and resourcefulness.

Besides all this, Anya does make typical speech mistakes a normal kid would make, like mishearing words or saying things wrong. She mostly uses casual speech, but does try to use keigo (polite speech) on occasion, though not always correctly. For example, she says "ohayaimasu" (おはやいます) for "good morning" instead of "ohaiyou gozaimasu" (おはようございます).

But the most consistent "mistake" she makes (though it's not really a mistake) is what she calls Loid and Yor – "chichi" (ちち) and "haha" (はは) respectively.

Japanese has many different words for relatives depending on whether you're talking about your own relatives or someone else's, and whether you're talking to them or about them. "Chichi" and "haha" are the general, neutral terms for "father" and "mother," and are also used when talking about your parents to someone else. However, they're not used when talking directly to your mother and father. There are many other words for that, the usual ones being "o-tou-san" (お父さん) and "o-kaa-san" (お母さん), or some variations of these with different honorifics. Damian refers to his dad as "chichi-ue" (父上) which is very formal, while Becky calls her dad the actual English word "papa" (パパ) which is very informal and normal for kids to use. But again, "chichi" and "haha" are typically only used when talking about your parents, not to them the way Anya uses them. This started from the very first chapter where Loid asks her to call him something that sounds "elite." He originally suggests the very formal "o-tou-sama" (お父さま), but when Anya says "chichi," he doesn't bother to correct her.

Hearing a little kid call her dad and mom "chichi" and "haha" is kind of like calling them "my father" and "my mother" even when speaking to them directly – it's not wrong necessarily, just strange. But again, this serves to further emphasize the childlike nature of Anya's character.

<- Return to Part 1

Continue to Part 3 ->

[misspelledwordswizard]

How about a reaction from the Chain to a witch Reader, but in a Harry Potter style?

Reader, in addition to being scared at first, would undoubtedly be confused by the blatant display of magic without punishment. It doesn’t help that she quickly mistakes and identifies Twilight as an Animagus after seeing Wolfie just once. It would definitely lead to an interesting conversation where Reader reveals herself as a witch and explains how, in her world, the Statute of Secrecy exists, along with the reasons it was created.

The Chain would be horrified not by the massive concealment of magic itself, but by the reasons behind it, with the main one being the indiscriminate hunting of magical beings.

Hey, I'm back baby! After a while on vacation and having to deal with the return of my classes, I was finally able to organize myself to return fully, I hope. But hey, I'm sorry for the huge delay with the requests, and happy new year to everyone, considering that this is my first post of the year!

Oh, thanks for the request, I really love crossovers, and I love Harry Potter!

I’ve been here for a few weeks, traveling with this group of men who claim to be heroes of the realm, or something like that. I’m not sure how I ended up here, but it was obvious that this was a different world from mine. For starters, the humans here have pointy ears, like elves. Okay, I can deal with that. And then there are other races, which I’ve never seen anything like in my world. I mean, a race of stone men, seriously? Not to mention the totally different monsters. 

But none of these things surprised me as much as the lack of care with the exposure of magic. Everyone, even the supposed “muggles” who don’t have magic, are fully aware of its existence. It’s natural, it’s normal. But it’s also strange that they don’t have any organ that regulates its use, considering how much it is used. 

From what I could see, one of my traveling companions, who took me in for some reason when I fell on top of them after passing through a strange portal, has magic and uses it medicinally.  I don’t know if the others can do things like that, but from what I’ve noticed, most of them have some object that has some magical property and makes things easier. That boy with the rings – I think his nickname was Legend – has one for every situation. 

Well, okay, I know they’re all called Link, confusing, even more confusing when I found out they’re from different timelines. Is temporal magic really that normalized around here? I’ve only been with them for a short time, and I still find it hard to associate them with their nicknames, because not only are they all blond with blue eyes, which doesn’t help much, but each one seems to have about three different nicknames, and each one is weirder than the last. 

Okay, I’m in a different world, where magic is common and doesn’t need to be hidden. I’m traveling with a group of heroes from different eras who consider themselves brothers, and are, from what I can understand, reincarnations... so why are they acting like this wolf that appeared is some kind of pet? 

— Soooo... you know that this wolf is one of you transformed, right? – I ventured to say. 

Everyone’s eyes turned to me, surprised. They didn’t know? Seriously? They looked at each other momentarily before someone finally answered me. 

— Well, we do know, but how do you know? – The long-haired hero spoke, the Cook, if I’m not mistaken.  

— And how could you not know? It couldn’t be more obvious, I mean, even the markings on his face are the same as the wolf’s, they’re never seen together in the same place, and, to tell the truth, Twilight kind of smells like dog. It’s pretty obvious that he’s an Animagus.  

— Animagus? Huh, Wolfie, are you that thing she said? – The youngest of the group spoke, and the wolf just tilted his head in confusion.  

— Oh, great, it takes her three minutes to figure that out while eight heroes took months to do the same. – Legend complained.  

— Speak for yourself, I knew from the beginning!  

So, they already knew about it, and were just pretending so I wouldn’t find out? Strange people.  

 While the others debated who had been the first to find out about Wolfie, he retransformed, without having to worry about hiding his secret, and approached me, visibly confused and curious. 

— So, in your world, it’s normal for people to turn into animals? 

— I wouldn’t say it’s common, but it’s possible, and all wizards know about it. 

— Wizards? What about people without magic, don’t they know? – The hero with magic joined the conversation, visibly curious. 

— No, of course not. We can’t let the Muggles find out about magic! 

— Muggles? – The little boy asked, interested in the way I called the non-magic users. 

— They’re the non-wizards, we keep magic hidden from them, or else we’d go to war... it’s very dangerous, that’s why the Ministry of Magic exists, to make sure wizards don’t reveal themselves. 

— For Hylia, your world is confusing. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to live in a society as segregated as this one... – I heard the comment coming from one of the quieter boys, the one called Sky. 

 — Yes, well, but it is necessary, or else wizards would still be burned at the stake for using magic to this day. 

— WHAT?! – Everyone gasped as they heard my last statement, shocked by the brutal concept. Oh man, I think this conversation will go on for much longer than I had imagined. 

[botanyshitposts]

Hey! I'm not a botanist, but I'm in circles where it's a bigger thing and I'm kind of curious about something.

So, from an outsider's perspective, the genus Garcinia has a lot of weird and messy classifications. For example, common species like G. intermedia and G. gardneriana are really similar to Garcinia brasiliensis, to the point that it's pretty controversial if they're actually separate species. The Garcinia species colloquially known as "achachairú" also appears to bear a lot of similarities to that trio (although much less than they share with each other), HOWEVER it's almost exclusively referred to (in cultivation and in studies) as G. humilis, a Carribean species with small oval-shaped leaves, despite actually having very long lanceolate leaves and being exclusively found in the Andean foothills of Bolivia. Also, multiple frequently cultivated species like Luc's garcinia and Russell's sweet garcinia haven't actually been described yet, despite for example the former having a decent amount of scientific interest and frequent genetic testing done on it.

All of these odd classification things and even more others have been pretty well known in my circles for the past 15 years-ish, but still nobody seems anywhere close to a conclusion for them. How long does it usually take for a genus to get organized when it has as many species as Garcinia does? And how do they do it? Do they go around testing every single species or only a few at a time? If a species is currently not named, do the same people usually describe them as part this endeavor, or just leave them for somebody else? I saw Plinia and Artocarpus recently got reshuffled a lot because of some prominent genetic studies on them, and several new species and even genera were added, but it just seems alien to me how stuff like that even ends up happening. There are so many plants out there!

Sorry if I'm asking the wrong person here, but I've been wondering about how this stuff will eventually be resolved for yeeeearrs

There are so many plants out there!

ok im kind of surprised i can offer a few possible answers to this question despite having never heard of this but i think i can. if the question is 'why aren't some plants actually described', this is the primary reason why.

when i was in plant anatomy class in college, the person teaching us was a plant anatomist who assigned us different plants from the greenhouse to dissect and describe in a paper for her, and she told us that we might find something that hadn't been described before, which was pretty shocking to me. what do you mean i could potentially find a new-to-science thing? has nobody in history looked at this plant that's just growing in the greenhouse upstairs??

what she said was that no, sometimes not. there are so many plants out there that it's difficult to do one exact in-depth description and published examination of each species, so what botanists end up doing is doing or finding one in-depth examination of one species in a specific group and assuming that all the others in the group are at least similar, if not the same. which is good because it saves time and works as a shorthand, especially if there's not much funding, but also sometimes it has the potential to overlook more nuanced differences that can go undiscovered for a long time. but that's just botanical species in the conventional sense, which i don't think is as straightforward in what you're describing.

another answer to this question that's more specific to the species you're talking about here is that plants are having sex. they have so so so soooo much sex. few things they enjoy more to be honest. and given that the most conventional (but not only) definition for different species is 'can't have sex with other species because it's too different from them', the lines get blurrier to deal with, and one thing botanists do when the lines between species get too blurry (because of all the sex) is to just assume that they're all part of some kind of hard-to-describe genetic soup with individual plants falling along gradients or spectrums of similarities or differences, and in this case you'll see botanists just name the most prominent species among them and call it the '[most common suspect] complex', which groups together all the ones that happen to be having sex with each other at the same time, just to make them easier to talk about. this typically doesn't mean that they're species-less, but more that they can be thought of as a group with a few distinct points where they can look very distinct, and those points are the species, if that makes sense; see the citrus sex graph at the end for an example.

i also see from a cursory google search that people seem to be planting and eating these in a more widespread way, and people are talking about them on forums and stuff. this is one of the cases in botany where things get tricky, because a person looking for traits in a fruit that's having tons of sex might not actually be looking for the same things botanists are looking for when describing a species-- it might seem easiest to just find which species or few species are the tastiest and grow those, but if it's a genetic soup then all you can really do is do it the old fashioned way and breed individual plants for the traits you want. which, who knows, could end up being a hybrid between all of them.

case in point: again i am not completely up to date with the lore here but i found a forum thread where people were debating which species to plant and the consensus was just to plant multiple species at once, which is fine but is also really funny given that it DOES facilitate even more sex, thus blurring the lines even further and-- if the posters decide to plant the resulting seeds from the fruits-- will create even MORE hybrid plants of no discernible concrete species in the plant soup. the hybrid of a hybrid of a hybrid of a hybrid or whatnot. when does one stop calling it a hybrid between two species and start calling it 'the tree in grandma's backyard that's the tastiest of the berries i've tried'? that is the question, truly, one humanity has had for millennia in the search for the tastiest berry, and at that point it might just be easier to call it a variety or cultivar, which are horticultural terms for just that-- a distinct 'kind' among the same species that taste good subjectively and can be reliably rebred and harvested, like all the apple varieties people debate about.

another reason is that plant phylogenies are hard and brain-twisting and plant taxonomists and systemisists are among our strongest warriors. it's not uncommon at all in botany to be researching something and to find out it's been reshuffled because of a new breakthrough on the case a bunch of people more qualified on the subject decided made more sense like a decades later. sometimes species themselves will even change names multiple times if it turns out that it was described earlier by someone else considering the new circumstances. if you're a really unlucky or just controversial plant all this can happen over and over again until, finally, the trees of math have been resolved in a way that makes sense. how long will it take? surely there is a concrete end to the madness? nah. lol

finally, if you're looking into studies on this, you should know that some phylogeny stuff is opinion-based or subjective, especially at first. what counts as a new group for one group of researchers might not count as one for another. so when you see stuff where people are inventing new categorizations or genuses or whatnot or merging multiple ones together spontaneously, it'll depend on how well supported their reasoning is and what the evidence seems to show, and the larger community of plant taxonomists will, overtime, decide what they want to do with that information-- which may include verifying it or refuting it with more evidence. what researchers are proposing when they split stuff off or merge it together is a new or updated model for thinking about existing information, and that model may be more or less useful than the existing one for the means of actually learning more about the plants.

anyway in short there are lots of reasons why this might not be sorted out and the more sex these plants have the longer it's gonna take. i'm strongly reminded of that one citrus sex graph (its this one) (screenshotted to see it on night mode):

[velvetvisionsaurora]

Pairing: Hongjoong x reader, Seonghwa x reader, Yunho x reader, Mingi x reader, Wooyoung x reader.

Summary: Five eight-year-old boys aboard the slave ship Crimson Serpent form an unbreakable bond with five-year-old y/n. before she's sold at auction. Despite their failed rescue attempt, they swear a blood oath on her teddy bear to find her. Fifteen years later, now feared pirates leading the ATEEZ

Warnings: Slavery/Human Trafficking, Separation/Loss, Violence, Eventual Smut. SA(not by any main characters) y/n gets switched to a real name but it has a purpose. More warnings to be updated.

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Masterlist

Chapter 5

Echoes and Whispers

The officers' mess fell silent as Ella's footsteps faded down the corridor. For several long moments, no one spoke, each man lost in his own thoughts as the encounter settled in their minds. It was Wooyoung who finally broke the silence, unable to contain himself any longer.

"It's her," he declared, voice pitched low but vibrating with certainty. "You all see it, right? It has to be her."

Seonghwa raised a cautionary hand, his expression carefully neutral. "We need to be methodical about this. Confirmation bias is a powerful force."

"Confirmation bias?" Wooyoung scoffed, leaning forward intently. "She breaks honey cakes in half before eating them—exactly like she did on The Crimson Serpent. That's not bias, that's observation."

"A common eating habit," Seonghwa countered firmly. "Many people break food into manageable pieces. It proves nothing."

"She recommended cardamom in the compote," Wooyoung pressed, frustration coloring his voice. "The exact spice I used to grind up for our 'magic potions' when we were children. And you should have seen her face when she first tasted the tea this morning—recognition, clear as day."

"Or simply appreciation for good tea," Seonghwa replied. "Cardamom is hardly an obscure spice, Wooyoung. It's commonly used in Halazia and throughout the southern territories."

Hongjoong studied the remnants of dessert in his bowl, his expression thoughtful. "Each of us has noticed something," he acknowledged. "Moments where she seems..." he hesitated, choosing his words carefully, "...familiar with our habits."

"The stars," Yunho added quietly. "She knew exactly where Orion would be positioned tonight, despite it not being visible in daylight. And she mentioned Canis Major with Sirius—the same constellation I taught her about during night watches on The Crimson Serpent."

"Self-taught astronomy, she claimed," Hongjoong noted, glancing at Seonghwa. "Through a window in her quarters under Blackwell."

"Convenient explanation," Wooyoung muttered.

"But entirely plausible," Seonghwa reminded them. "Many captives develop intellectual pursuits to escape their circumstances mentally. Astronomy requires minimal resources—just consistent observation and perhaps access to a basic text."

Wooyoung opened his mouth to object, but Seonghwa continued before he could speak.

"Consider this logically: how many young women her age would recognize constellations? Thousands of educated people study the stars. It's compelling that she shares this interest with y/n, but far from conclusive."

His methodical dismantling of their evidence created a moment of uncomfortable silence. Wooyoung's shoulders slumped slightly, the wind taken from his argumentative sails.

Mingi, who had remained silent throughout the exchange, suddenly spoke. "She makes me feel.." He taps his chest. Trying to make his point. "Same as y/n did."

The others turned toward him, surprised by both the contribution and its significance. The gunner rarely participated in group discussions unless specifically addressed.

"Mingi that could be just a feeling because a pretty girl is around. A crush, or simply lust" Seonghwa counters, though his conviction slipping slightly. 

"Mingi doesn't get crushes. Having a crush would require him to speak with them! And he doesn't he's too scared!" Wooyoung exclaims pointing to Mingi like it’s a critical point in his case. "No offense Mingi." He says with a sympathetic look. 

"Offense taken." Mingi says looking down. Yunho chuckles and pats his friend on the back in sympathy. 

"What I mean is, he doesn't get close to women to speak to them because he's scared, but he's not with Ella!" Wooyoung clarifies. 

The implication hung in the air between them. Hongjoong looks at Mingi contemplating Wooyoung's observation. 

"There is how she arranges objects," Seonghwa admitted after a moment, surprising the others with what seemed like supporting evidence. "This morning in the chart room, she aligned the navigation tools in perfect right angles—identical to my own organizational pattern."

Wooyoung perked up immediately. "See? Even you've noticed these things!"

"But," Seonghwa continued deliberately, "when I mentioned it, she seemed embarrassed, as if caught in an unconscious habit. She quickly explained that order and precision were valued in Blackwell's household, with severe consequences for disorganization."

Wooyoung throws his head back in a dramatic groan at his friend’s thought process. Earning chuckles and an eye roll from their captain.

He leaned forward, meeting each man's gaze in turn. "Again, an entirely rational explanation for behavior that superficially resembles y/n's. We must consider that slaves often adopt the preferences of their owners as survival strategy."

Hongjoong nodded slowly, absorbing this analysis. "And the way she watches the horizon," he added thoughtfully. "It's reminiscent of her expression during our stargazing lessons as a child—that specific combination of wonder and calculation."

"Memory does play tricks," Seonghwa noted quietly. "Especially with someone we've been seeking for fifteen years. We've conjured y/n's image in our minds countless times, possibly distorting our recollection of her actual mannerisms."

He paused before continuing, his voice gentler than before. "I want her to be y/n. We all do. But wanting something doesn't make it true."

"So you're convinced she's not y/n?" Wooyoung challenged, frustration evident.

"I'm not convinced either way," Seonghwa replied with careful precision. "I'm simply urging caution before we emotionally invest in a conclusion that might prove false. We've experienced disappointment before."

The reminder of previous false leads—young women who had initially seemed promising but ultimately weren't y/n—created a somber atmosphere. Over fifteen years, they had followed countless rumors and possibilities, each failure leaving fresh wounds.

"I still believe it's her," Wooyoung stated, though with slightly less certainty than before.

"As do I," Mingi added quietly but firmly.

Hongjoong glanced between them, then toward Yunho, who appeared troubled by the conflicting perspectives.

"Seonghwa's points are valid," Yunho acknowledged reluctantly. "Maybe I've been projecting meaning onto ordinary behaviors. When she identified the stars' positions, I felt certain it was her. But that knowledge isn't rare among educated people."

"The timing is suspicious though," Wooyoung interjected. "She's exactly the right age. She was owned by Blackwell directly after our separation on The Crimson Serpent."

"Hundreds of children were sold that season. Many to Blackwell himself." Seonghwa countered. "The timing proves nothing except that she was unfortunate enough to be captive during the same period."

"So we're all in agreement?" Wooyoung asked, looking around the table with disbelief. "After everything we've observed, we're still doubting?"

"Not agreement," Hongjoong clarified, studying his quartermaster thoughtfully. "Seonghwa is advocating caution, which has served us well in the past."

He turned to Seonghwa with unusual directness. "Though I wonder if your insistence on alternative explanations stems purely from logical analysis, or if something else influences your perspective."

Seonghwa held his captain's gaze for a long moment before his carefully maintained composure softened slightly. "Is it so unreasonable to protect ourselves from potential disappointment? We've followed this hope for fifteen years, chasing shadows and coincidences that led nowhere."

His voice remained measured, but emotion threaded through his words. "Each time we believed we'd found her, each time we were proven wrong, something broke a little more. I cannot—" he caught himself, rearranging his features into practiced neutrality. "I merely suggest we gather more concrete evidence before drawing conclusions."

Hongjoong nodded slowly, understanding flowing between them. "Your caution comes from care, not skepticism."

"As it always has," Seonghwa acknowledged quietly.

Wooyoung huffed exaggeratedly, earning a scowl from Hongjoong. 

"But if it is her," Yunho wondered, returning to the original question, "why hasn't she acknowledged us? Why call herself Ella instead of y/n?"

"Protection," Mingi said softly.

Seonghwa nodded agreement, finding common ground despite his reservations. "Fifteen years in captivity would teach extreme caution. Even if she recognizes us at some level, openly acknowledging the connection would make her vulnerable."

"To what?" Wooyoung demanded. "We're not a threat to her!"

"She can't be certain of that," Hongjoong reminded him. "Think of it from her perspective. If we are the boys from her childhood, why didn't we find her sooner? What took fifteen years? Those questions would naturally create suspicion."

"We searched everywhere," Wooyoung protested, genuine distress in his voice. "Every port, every slave market, every rumor—"

"She doesn't know that," Seonghwa interrupted gently. "She only knows she endured fifteen years of captivity before our paths crossed again."

A heavy silence settled over the table as they absorbed this perspective. The thought of y/n waiting for rescue that never came, possibly believing herself abandoned or forgotten, weighed on each of them differently yet equally.

"There's another possibility," Yunho suggested hesitantly. "Perhaps she doesn't consciously remember us at all."

"That's impossible," Wooyoung objected. "We spent three months together. She gave Hongjoong her teddy bear. How could she forget all that?"

"Trauma," Mingi said, the single word carrying significant weight.

Yunho nodded. "Exactly. Trauma can fragment memory, especially in children. The separation might have been so devastating that her mind protected itself by burying the memories."

"Which would explain the unconscious behaviors," Hongjoong realized, his expression thoughtful. "Habits and preferences that survived when explicit memories were suppressed."

"If that's true," Seonghwa mused, momentarily setting aside his counterarguments, "then her reactions to us would be based on emotional echoes rather than conscious recognition—familiarity without understanding why."

"Or," he added, returning to his role as devil's advocate, "she simply has habits that coincidentally resemble y/n's. We must consider that possibility, however painful."

The concept created a moment of solemn reflection around the table. The possibility that y/n might never fully remember them—or that Ella might not be y/n at all—represented a form of loss none had anticipated when pursuing their oath.

"What do we do?" Wooyoung asked eventually, his usual exuberance subdued by these considerations. "Tell her directly? Show her Mr. Hugs? Try to trigger her memories somehow?"

"No," Hongjoong decided firmly. "If she's concealing her identity deliberately, forcing a confrontation could destroy any chance of rebuilding trust. And if she genuinely doesn't remember, overwhelming her with information could cause more trauma than healing."

"And if she's not y/n at all," Seonghwa added quietly, "we risk creating profound confusion and false connection."

"So we continue as we are?" Yunho asked. "Observing and waiting?"

"For now," the captain confirmed. "We create opportunities for familiarity to grow naturally. If she is y/n, whether she remembers us or not, she deserves the chance to choose when and how to acknowledge that connection."

"And if she never does?" Wooyoung challenged, the question giving voice to their collective unspoken fear. "If Seonghwa is right and she's just a woman who happens to share some habits with the girl we knew?"

Hongjoong's expression remained resolute despite the doubt now visible in his eyes. "Then we honor our oath in a different way. We ensure her freedom and safety, provide her with resources to build whatever future she chooses, and accept that the little girl we knew might remain lost to us, whether this woman is y/n or not."

The others absorbed this possibility with varying degrees of acceptance. Yunho nodded slowly, his gentle nature naturally aligning with the compassionate approach. Seonghwa's expression revealed calculation—already planning how to implement this strategy with maximum effectiveness and minimum risk.

Mingi, as usual, offered no visible reaction, though the slight tension in his shoulders suggested internal conflict. Of all of them, he had been most devastated by y/n's loss fifteen years ago, his already limited speech becoming nearly nonexistent in the months following their separation. The possibility of having found her only to maintain artificial distance—or worse, to be mistaken entirely—clearly troubled him deeply.

Wooyoung appeared ready to protest further but stopped himself, respecting the captain's judgment despite his evident frustration, getting up and storming out. 

Hongjoong let out a deep sigh watching Wooyoung's dramatic display. 

"We need to address practical considerations as well," Seonghwa noted, redirecting the conversation toward manageable problems. "If she is y/n, then her connection to Blackwell takes on new significance. It can't be coincidence."

"You think he knew who she was?" Yunho asked, brow furrowing with concern.

"No, not when he purchased her. A least he didn’t know she had a connection to us. We were children when he purchased her." Hongjoong replied. "But something seems suspicious. After we claimed the ATEEZ and began targeting slave ships, Blackwell would have had reason to investigate our backgrounds."

"Could explain—," Mingi took a breath to speak more. “Why he kept her for so long” He look at Yunho who smiled in support and continued for his friend. "Leverage against potential threats."

"Or insurance against future encounters," Seonghwa agreed. "Though if he knew her significance to us, why transfer her to an associate 2 years ago?"

"Maybe so we wouldn’t find her," Yunho suggested. "Maybe we were getting close to finding her and we didnt know, or the connection to us is pure coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences of that magnitude," Hongjoong stated firmly, then hesitated, glancing at Seonghwa. "The man from the Southern Trade Company did seem more angry than disappointed when they lost at the auction. As if he was the one meant to win.”

“You mean the auction was staged? That she was planned to go the someone from the Southern Trade Company?” Yunho said, confusion written on his face as he looked around.

“Many resources went in to education and training for her. Makes sense why he wouldn’t want her to go too far out of his grasp.” Hongjoong said grimly, his fist clenching.

"We need more information," Seonghwa concluded. "About her specific position in Blackwell's household, how she was treated, what she might have overheard about his operations and motivations."

"Precisely the details she's been most careful to avoid discussing," Yunho pointed out. "Her descriptions of Blackwell's organization have been remarkably comprehensive while revealing almost nothing about her personal experiences within it."

"She's protecting herself," Hongjoong acknowledged. "Compartmentalizing trauma is a common survival strategy."

"Then how do we earn enough trust for her to share those experiences?" Wooyoung asked, walking back in after taking a moment to cool down. "If we can't tell her who we think she might be, how do we convince her we're truly on her side?"

"Through consistency," the captain replied. "We demonstrate through actions rather than words that her safety and agency are genuinely respected here. We create an environment where disclosure feels like a choice rather than an obligation."

"And meanwhile," Seonghwa added, "we continue gathering intelligence about Blackwell through other channels. Wooyoung's contacts in Halazia might provide context for her acquisition and subsequent transfer."

"I'll send messages with the morning supply boat," Wooyoung confirmed. "My usual sources at the harbor taverns might know something useful."

"Good," Hongjoong approved. "Yunho, continue with the stargazing plan tomorrow night—it clearly resonates with her and might naturally prompt further disclosure."

"What about Mr. Hugs?" Wooyoung asked. "He's still locked in your sea chest, right?"

Hongjoong nodded, his expression softening at the mention of the teddy bear he'd carried for fifteen years. "For now, he stays secured. Presenting him too soon could seem manipulative rather than sincere."

"Doesn't feel right," Mingi murmured. "Keeping him hidden."

"I know," Hongjoong acknowledged, genuine understanding in his tone. "He's been our talisman for so long. But now he may belong with his true owner again—when she's ready to reclaim him. If she is his owner," he added, Seonghwa's caution influencing his phrasing.

As the meeting concluded and the officers prepared to return to their duties, Seonghwa remained behind with Hongjoong. The quartermaster waited until the others had departed before speaking, his voice pitched for the captain's ears alone.

"Thank you for understanding my position," he said quietly. "It's not that I don't want to believe."

"I know," Hongjoong replied, studying his oldest friend. "You're protecting us the only way you know how—by preparing for disappointment."

Seonghwa nodded, grateful for the understanding. "There's another factor to consider," he continued. "One we haven't addressed directly."

Hongjoong raised an eyebrow in question, though his expression suggested he already anticipated the topic.

"The emotional complications," Seonghwa clarified. "We swore an oath to find y/n, to bring her home. But we were children then, with children's understanding of what that meant."

"And now?"

"Now we're men," Seonghwa stated simply. "Men who've carried the memory of a lost girl into adulthood, transforming that memory in ways we might not fully recognize. I've observed certain... reactions among the crew that suggest our childhood protection has evolved into something more complex."

Hongjoong's gaze sharpened. "What exactly are you suggesting?"

"Nothing improper," Seonghwa assured him. "Merely that our collective oath to protect y/n might now be complicated by individual feelings that extend beyond that original promise. Feelings that could potentially conflict with each other, or with her best interests."

The captain was silent for a long moment, considering this assessment with characteristic thoroughness. "You mean romantic attachment," he said finally, making explicit what Seonghwa had delicately implied.

"It's a natural human response," the quartermaster acknowledged. "We've carried her memory for fifteen years, elevated it to almost mythic significance. Now, confronted with the reality of her as an adult woman rather than the child we lost, certain... adjustments in perspective are inevitable."

"Have you observed specific evidence of such adjustments?" Hongjoong asked, his tone carefully neutral.

"Nothing definitive," Seonghwa replied diplomatically. "But I know our crew, Captain. Better, perhaps, than they know themselves in some respects."

"Including me?" Hongjoong asked, a rare note of challenge in his voice.

Seonghwa met his gaze steadily. "Especially you."

"And that's yet another reason for your caution," Hongjoong realized. "You fear we might be seeing what we wish to see because of these... adjustments in perspective."

"It's a consideration," Seonghwa acknowledged. "Human perception is easily influenced by desire."

Another silence fell between them, heavy with unspoken implications. For fifteen years, their shared purpose had aligned perfectly—find y/n, fulfill their oath, rectify their childhood failure. They had never needed to consider what might follow success, what complications might arise once that unified goal was achieved.

"I appreciate your candor," Hongjoong said finally. "As always, your foresight identifies potential problems before they materialize."

"It's my function," Seonghwa replied simply. "To consider factors you might overlook while focused on broader strategy."

"And your recommendation?"

"Caution," the quartermaster advised. "For all of us. Whether she is y/n or not, she has endured fifteen years of captivity where her autonomy was systematically violated. The last thing she needs now is to become the object of inappropriate attachment from men who should be focused solely on her recovery and reintegration into freedom."

Hongjoong nodded slowly, acknowledging both the wisdom and the implicit warning in Seonghwa's counsel. "I'll speak with the others individually. Discreetly."

"And yourself?" Seonghwa pressed gently.

A flash of something—perhaps defensiveness, perhaps simple recognition—crossed the captain's features before his expression settled into resolute determination. "My only priority is fulfilling our oath. Everything else is secondary."

Seonghwa accepted this declaration without further comment, though his eyes reflected knowing awareness that some questions remained deliberately unaddressed. Their partnership had always balanced Hongjoong's decisive leadership with Seonghwa's meticulous consideration of complex variables—a dynamic that had served the ATEEZ well through countless challenges.

"One final thought," the quartermaster added as he prepared to depart. "Whatever her true identity, whatever her level of recognition, she has already endured profound trauma. We must ensure she never experiences another—regardless of how her presence affects us individually."

"On that," Hongjoong replied with genuine conviction, "we are in complete agreement."

As Seonghwa departed, leaving Hongjoong alone with his thoughts, the captain moved to the small cabinet secured behind his desk. Unlocking it with a key kept on a chain around his neck, he retrieved a compact sea chest inlaid with navigational symbols—a custom piece Mingi had crafted years earlier for a very specific purpose.

Hongjoong opened the chest with careful reverence, revealing its solitary contents: a worn teddy bear missing one eye button, its fabric patched in multiple places, stuffing periodically renewed over fifteen years of constant handling. Though faded and repaired, Mr. Hugs remained unmistakably himself—the faithful companion of a little girl long lost, preserved through years of searching by five boys who refused to forget their promise.

For a long moment, Hongjoong simply gazed at the teddy bear, his expression revealing emotions he allowed no one else to witness. Then, with gentle care, he straightened the worn bow tie around Mr. Hugs' neck—a ritual he had performed thousands of times since that fateful day in Halazia's harbor.

"Is it really you we've found?" he whispered, words meant for the teddy bear alone. "Or are we chasing ghosts again? I wish I knew."

Closing and securing the chest once more, Hongjoong returned it to its cabinet before moving to his navigation table. Whatever the truth about Ella's identity, the ATEEZ still had a mission—undermining Blackwell's operations, disrupting the slave trade, fulfilling the larger purpose that had emerged from their childhood oath.

As the ship sailed onward through darkness, its captain plotted courses both literal and figurative, balancing multiple objectives with the strategic brilliance that had transformed five orphaned cabin boys into the most formidable crew on the seven seas. On the deck below, four officers returned to their duties, each carrying private thoughts about the woman sleeping in the guest cabin—the woman who might or might not be the fulfillment of fifteen years' searching, the living embodiment of their shared defining purpose.

And in her small cabin, Ella slept soundly for the first time in years, unaware of the currents swirling around her, the whispered conferences and careful observations, the complex emotions and doubts her presence had awakened in five men bound by blood oath and shared history. Whatever memories might lie buried in her consciousness, whatever name she might claim as her own, her arrival aboard the ATEEZ had irrevocably altered its course—creating ripples that would eventually touch every aspect of life aboard the black-sailed ship and the men who commanded it.

The compass that had guided them for fifteen years now pointed in new and uncharted directions, leading them all toward a future none could fully anticipate or control.

Morning found Ella waking naturally to sunlight streaming through her small porthole—another luxury after years of schedules dictated by others' convenience rather than her body's needs. For several peaceful moments, she simply lay still, absorbing the gentle rocking of the ship and the distant sounds of morning activity on deck.

The previous day's events replayed through her mind, a collage of interactions that continued to puzzle and intrigue her. The consistent consideration she'd been shown by the ATEEZ's officers defied her expectations based on fifteen years of calculated subjugation. While she maintained healthy skepticism about their motives, she could not deny the growing evidence that these pirates operated according to principles beyond mere self-interest.

Most unsettling were the persistent echoes of familiarity she experienced in their presence—not just collective déjà vu but specific resonances with each officer. Wooyoung's infectious enthusiasm and culinary "magic." Seonghwa's meticulous precision and careful planning. Yunho's gentle guidance and star knowledge. Mingi's quiet competence and protective vigilance. Hongjoong's strategic thinking and subtle leadership.

These qualities seemed fundamental to their characters rather than recently acquired traits. Which suggested either remarkable coincidence or some connection predating current circumstances—a possibility both tantalizing and terrifying in its implications.

If these men were somehow connected to her past before Blackwell, what did that mean for her present situation? Was her "rescue" from the auction house part of some larger design? Were they manipulating her toward purposes she couldn't yet discern?

Or—most unsettling possibility of all—could they possibly be the boys from her most treasured memories? The five children who had protected her aboard another ship, whose nicknames she had recited nightly for fifteen years, whose attempted rescue had failed so catastrophically that she'd been sold into captivity despite their efforts?

The thought seemed simultaneously too coincidental to be probable and too specific to be impossible. Five boys, five men, five names preserved through fifteen years of determined recitation: Joongie, Hwa, Woo, Yuyu, Puppy.

Hongjoong, Seonghwa, Wooyoung, Yunho, Mingi.

The parallels were undeniable once she allowed herself to consider them directly. Yet the implications seemed too vast, too significant to accept without absolute certainty. If these pirates were indeed her childhood protectors, why had they not found her sooner? What had occupied the fifteen years between her sale at auction and their current encounter?

And if they recognized her, why maintain the pretense of her being merely a valuable intelligence source about Blackwell? Why not acknowledge their shared history directly?

Unless—and here her thoughts turned toward darker possibilities—they didn't actually care about her specifically. Perhaps she represented merely a symbol to them, an oath unfulfilled, a mission uncompleted. Perhaps their interest lay not in her as a person but in what her rescue represented to their collective identity.

Or worse, perhaps they blamed her in some way for the consequences of their failed rescue attempt. Children's thinking could be surprisingly concrete; perhaps they had interpreted her sale as somehow her fault rather than circumstantial tragedy.

These spiraling speculations led nowhere productive, Ella realized with practiced mental discipline. Without more information, she could not determine the truth of her situation. And information gathering required continued interaction, careful observation, and strategic disclosure.

For today, she would maintain her established approach—providing valuable intelligence about Blackwell while revealing minimal personal details, observing the officers' reactions for additional insight, and remaining alert for opportunities to discover their true motivations.

A knock at her cabin door interrupted these reflections. "Breakfast in the officers' mess whenever you're ready," came Yunho's gentle voice. "No rush—it's deliberately informal this morning."

"Thank you," she replied, appreciating both the information and the implicit respect for her autonomy. "I'll join you shortly."

As she prepared for the day, Ella made a conscious decision to continue the small openings she had begun the previous day—allowing glimpses of her true self to emerge as strategic disclosure rather than vulnerability. If these men were indeed connected to her past, such glimpses might trigger reactions that would confirm or refute her emerging suspicions.

And if they weren't—if all these parallels were merely remarkable coincidence—then she had lost nothing beyond slight emotional exposure that could be recalibrated as necessary.

Either way, the mystery of the ATEEZ and its officers demanded resolution. Fifteen years of survival had taught Ella patience in gathering intelligence, persistence in seeking answers, and caution in forming conclusions. These skills would serve her well as she navigated the complex currents surrounding her unexpected "rescue" and the five men who had orchestrated it.

Whatever game was being played aboard this black-sailed ship, she intended to uncover its rules, identify its players, and determine her own role within it—before committing to any irreversible decisions about her future course.

With that resolution firmly in mind, Ella completed her preparations and headed toward the officers' mess, ready to continue her careful investigation into the mysteries of the ATEEZ and the men who commanded it.

Taglist: @hopeless-lovex0 @frankielou02 @jilxxasu @kur0kki

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

A Touch of Sweetness 8

Warnings: non/dubcon, mentions of crime, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Character: mob!Loki Laufeyson

Sister series to mob!Thor

Summary: you make a new friend, but that’s not all. (short reader)

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️

"Wow," you let out the syllable in a gasp as you lean forward.

"What is it?" Loki asks as his hands firmly grip the wheel.

"It's so... big," you bat your lashes at the grand facade.

"You were here only yesterday," he girds.

"I know and it's still just as pretty as I remember," you preen.

"Mm, you should lean so far forward. You could hit your head," he warns.

"I'll survive," you assure him but sit back anyway. "Do you live here too? It's so big, I bet your whole family could live in there. And mine. And Queenie's and... oh, what about dogs? You could adopt."

He makes a clicking noise. "No, it is my brother's house. I retain a much more... refined and modest abode. Not so ostentatious."

"Oooh, I bet it's so nice. Is there lots of green? Like your car?"

"A touch," he intones as he steers along the curving drive. "It's hardly relevant." He stops and shifts into park. "We've arrived."

"You could have like six puppies," you open the door and try to step out, only to be pulled back by the seat belt. You giggle and unstrap yourself, not missing the glance from the drive. You smile at Loki then bounce out, turning back to retrieve your bag. "They would love it. Running all around."

"Dogs are a lot of work," he sniffs as he gets out and shuts the door.

"But so cute!" You give a small hop. "I'll ask Queenie. Maybe she could get just one."

"Cute, indeed," Loki agrees and beckons you toward the house.

You stop to smell a plinthed vase of flowers and hum. "Mmm, they are fresh."

"Yes, lots of flowers," he muses. "Come."

"Smell it," you turn to see him. "It's nice."

"I can smell them from here," he insists.

"Oh, but look," you peer back at the vase, "there's a little bumblebee in this one. He's all fuzzy."

He comes closer, slowly. You hear his reluctance. Well, he should stop and smell the flowers more often. He seems very uptight.

"Interesting," he remarks as he leans in to see the insect.

"I think so," you pout. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he waves you off. "I only mean to deliver my quarry."

"Yes! Queenie," you clap and turn up the steps. "I'm so excited."

"You are fond of her?" He follows just behind you.

"Yes, and you, and Thor, and this whole place," you say as you get to the door. You stop and turn back to him.

"You may enter," he gestures with his palm.

"Oh, okay," you turn back and twist the handle. You push but the door doesn't budge. He snickers as he catches up to you.

Loki surprises you as he comes close, almost right against your back as he puts his hand over yours. He pulls and guides your arm out as he opens the door easily.

"Oops," you babble.

He lets you go and you spill inside, nearly toppling onto the glossy floor. Your eyes roll all around as you try to take it all in again. It makes your family house look like a box.

"Shall we go find her?" Loki suggests.

"Yes, please." You cheep.

He waves you on, in a completely different direction than the day before. You walk beside him, buzzing. You didn't expect to see Queenie so soon but you're happy for it. Maybe she'll know what to make of your sister's odd behaviour.

"I do apologise if I've been dull company," he stops by a door and knocks. 

"Not at all." You assure him. "You're... interesting?"

"Interesting?" He wonders as his eyes narrow.

You smile and the door opens, just an inch or two, then falls back all the way.

"Oh," Queenie utters in surprise, "I didn't realise..."

"And there you are," Loki backs up. "I need to find your other half."

"Right," Queen accepts and her tired eyes list over to you, "I didn't know you were coming."

She spins and drifts away in her silken robe, over and equally satiny nightgown. She sits with a wince and stares towards the window. You look around at the sitting room with the wall of glass panes letting in the sunlight and another wall of bookcases filled to the brim. There's a book on the floor by her foot but she doesn't seem to notice. Or the overturned teacup behind the end table.

"Is everything okay?" You ask.

She nods and doesn't say much else.

You go to pick up the book and the cup. She flinches and sniffs, "I should've done that..."

"It's okay. We can all be clumsy," you assure her.

She sighs, "yes, we can."

You set the cup and book on the table and sit next to her, "are you sure you're alright?"

She doesn't answer. You gently reach to put your hand on hers. She shifts but doesn't pull away.

"I'm just tired," she says. She hides her face and shudders. "You shouldn't have come here."

"What? But... we're friends. You don't want me here?" You ask.

She shrugs, "I like you but..." she looks at the door. "You should be careful."

"Careful? Of what?"

"Just careful," she shakes her head. She moves her hand on top of yours and grabs it. She stands up and suppresses a grunt. She turns to you. "Want to go outside?"

"Okay," you agree. "But if you're too tired, I can go home."

"No, please," she squeezes you. "If you're here..." she blanches and seals her lips. "Well, it's nice to have a friend."

She keeps a hold of you and drags you toward the sunlit wall. She opens a door and pushes through, tugging you with her. You let her drag you away. If being there helps, you'll stay as long as you need to. Seems like she needs a friend just as much as you.

[urbaebarnes]

unethical

summary: you hadn't figured your life after the breakup would be so weird, after all, who expects all the men they date to disppear?

bucky barnes x fem reader

warnings: jesus christ how do i even tag this - kinda dark bucky (?), stalking, swearing, obsessive bucky, jealous bucky, nonuse of y/n, she/her pronouns used, thisnis weird af okay

okay so im pretty sure this came to me in some weird dream (a nine hour flight) and honestly this is fucked up and weird im slightly embarrassed but here we are. also sorry for being so inactive im honestly being slow af cause im in florida atm anyway ignore this monstrosity that was written on my notes app or not i guess ahh

word count: 2.3k words

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that you’d had many interested men since your breakup.

You were a hot, single, 20-something year old who had every man and woman’s eyes on you. The only problem was that every single one of them seemed to disappear.

You weren’t saying it was a pattern that every man who showed the slightest interest in you seemed to quit his job and move or skip town in the dead of night, but granted, you were the common factor here.

Your breakup had been around 10 months ago, and your ex -James Barnes- had also seemingly disappeared since you’d said your final goodbyes and taken your stuff from the apartment. He’d always worked for long periods of time, which wasn’t an issue at the beginning of your relationship when you were clearly his priority, but after 6 years together, it was clear that this couldn’t go on.

Yes it was sad, and yes it felt selfish when you told him you wanted to end things, and yes, of course you missed him dearly, but your lives weren’t compatible and you couldn’t be the girl at home anymore. You were sick of bringing up excuses when you’d planned couple activities with your friends but he cancelled last minute because he volunteered to do a last minute mission. 

You’d told Bucky you’d always be friends, that at the end if the day, you cared about him above pretty much everybody else, but as much as he nodded and muttered a yes, you hadn’t heard a single thing from him since.

When you’d been together, you and Bucky had shared an apartment in New York, but you’d moved away back to your childhood hometown since. Within a month, you’d happily settled in to your faniliar small town life, and there were plenty of familiar faces from school that were more than happy to see your return.

It started off with Bryan, a brunette that was heavily invested in Jurassic Park. He was funny and kind and would stutter over his words when you’d bump into him down the milk aisle. And even if he wasn’t quite Bucky, he plucked up the courage to ask you out 3 months after the end of Bucky and yours’ relationship, and you said yes.

Throughout the date, it became obvious that your shared interests ran thin, although you had promised that you’d rewatch his beloved dinosaur movies with him for a second date. You’d hugged him goodnight but couldn’t quite get the feeling of reluctance out of your chest.

By the next morning, you’d were slightly confused by Bryan’s lack of appearance down the milk aisle, but shrugged it off. It was your unofficial meeting place anyway. You messaged him that night, only to find that he’d blocked your number, and after a week, it seemed that he’d told his parents he decided to move out of state.

If being with somebody so heavily involved in spy work, you didn’t buy it for a second, but what could you do. Maybe he really did decide to move at 3am.

Next, a month after Bryan’s last sighting, came Richard. You’d known him in high school as a cocky arrogant arsehole, but he’d seemingly changed for the better as he sent you sweet smiles and flirty comments.

He’d just come out of a long term relationship and wasn’t looking for something very committed straight away, and thankfully, neither were you. So when he walked you home one night, he asked if you wanted to spend the day with him as something a little more than platonic, and why wouldn’t you?

The day was brilliant, filled with laughter and ice cream, and you didn’t mind the nagging in your heart this time as much because apparently you were both feeling it. He even got a kiss on the cheek by your door as you pressed a hand to his torso and pecked the side of his face.

That time, a second date was scheduled for two days later in the coffee shop down the street. 

With Richard, you didn’t have his phone number or an unofficial meeting spot, just right person right time. Although, maybe you’d gotten the time wrong or he’d chosen the wrong person since you were promptly stood up.

You had bumped into him a few days later only to find him with a black eye. As you spotted each other across the street, he quickly scurried away before you could even tilt your head.

Then, there was Denis. He was a dickhead, there was no redemption ark or sweet story for him, he was just a dick, However, he was an attractive dick at that.

The two of you had spoken a maximum of three times but his hand had been resting on your thigh at the bar for a good hour. Your friends had created a night out with the sole purpose of getting you laid, after all, it’d been months and months since you’d last actually had sex, and Denis seemed like the perfect no strings attached opportunity.

All you needed was one night, just one to forget your troubles and the ache in your heart at the moment of even kissing a man who wasn’t your Bucky.

But the curse struck again as Denis went to the toilet and never actually returned. Your hopes sank further and further as you swilled your drink, glancing over to the restroom every few minutes until you left with the rest of your friend group.

The next morning, it was the talk of the town, Denis had quit his job- left for good. He didn’t have any family ties here, but his job had good pay especially for a man with so few qualifications. It was obscure and strange, but stranger things had happened.

However, you’d had it. Three potential suitors and every single mother fucking one of them just… left. So that was it, no more men. And maybe, just maybe, this was the universe’s way of telling you that you weren’t ready for a relationship, that even though you suggested the breakup, maybe you’d just wanted to have your Bucky back. Maybe he was the only one you could picture spending your life with.

Or less so the universe, and more Bucky.

It was shameful, and he knew that, he swore he did, but the very thought of you on your own terrified the living shit out of him. He had a duty to protect you, not just from the organisations that had threatened the ones he held dearest over and over again, but also anybody. Everybody. The world was dangerous and you were so helpless and selfless, you’d help anybody you could and that scared him beyond belief.

So maybe it was weird to buy a house in your hometown, maybe it was weird to make sure that nobody ever bothered you when walking home alone, and maybe it was weird to be insanely jealous of the glances you just gave out to anybody like free testers at the supermarket.

Yeah, it was a little weird. But Bucky Barnes had lost a lot in his life, and he couldn’t lose you to this world or the cruel people in it. 

He could barely stand to be apart from you, but he knew he had to respect any of the boundaries he could, so he kept his distance, only there to observe, only interfering if it meant keeping you safe and happy. 

At least, that was the plan until the man that you exchanged pleasantries with in the milk aisle seemed to want to exchange numbers too. That was too much, a step too far, it’d only been a few months, it was too quick and you were too perfect, too pure for just some guy.

So yeah, it was definitely weird when he sat across from the two of you in the restaurant, keeping his head low.  But this guy seemed like a fucking idiot, and how could he protect you from any danger? How could he make you smile in the same way Bucky could?

He even managed to catch this dude trying to go in for a kiss, but you took it as a hug and wished him a goodnight in the same way you used to whisper sweet nothings to him as you both used to fall asleep, limbs tangled together.

Now what he did next was definitely weird and wrong and horrible, and he knew that, but there were far better people he’d pushed up against walls and threatened before, and this one, well this one was flirting with his girl, had the audacity to take her out.

It wouldn’t last anyway, he told himself. At the end of the day, your souls were surely bound together, intertwined by fate. Bucky hadn’t allowed himself to do anything selfish in years, but you were his, his selfish little delight, because you were his.

So, as he pushed the guy against the brick wall, taking him by his collar and making sure to push against the wall with enough force to convey the message, Bucky told himself it would all be okay because he loved you and you loved him, he knew it. He just needed time to prove it to you, and this guy- well he was in the way.

Fucking ‘Bryan’ didn’t even put up a fight. In fact, he’d only threatened the dude to stay away from you, not even telling him to leave town, he was that much of a coward. And you didn’t need a coward, somebody who wouldn’t go down without a fight. You needed somebody who would rather die for your love than give it up

After that, Bucky kept a close eye on you, but an even closer eye on everybody around town. The old women around town had declared you the town’s most eligible bachelorette, obsessing over your perfect features and perfect manners and just perfect you.

After a few long weeks, Bucky had been called back to New York by Fury. He’d pretty much told everybody to screw themselves and that he was taking a very long, very well needed a vacation and left before anybody had time to argue. But seemingly, they couldn’t spare him for long enough to come up with a fully prepared plan.

By the time he got back, Bucky could feel his blood boiling as he drove into town and spotted some weird shit holding his hands with his girl. The park looked perfect as a picture except for the fact that some stranger was swinging your intertwined arms back and forth, your cheeks a little dusted with pink.

Honestly, he leaves for a few days and by the time he’s back some slimy looking jock has slithered his way into your life.

So that night, he swears it’ll be the very last time that he does this, it’ll be the last time before he wins you back. He just needs a little more time, just a smidge.

Now this one, and he’ll give credit where it’s due, does put up a little fight. When Bucky corners him, grabs his shoulder a little tighter than necessary and warns him that nobody is allowed near his girl, and this motherfucker protests- well, Bucky can’t be faulted for the punches that get thrown. He shouldn’t be held responsible for the black eye he gets.

Look, maybe that one went a little far, but it’s fine! He got the message and now he knows to stay away from his perfect sweet girl.

After that, he puts every bit of work into preparing the perfect surprise for you. He’s got it all sorted out, candles in a field, your favourite food ordered in advance from your favourite restaurant, he was going to be perfect from now on and so was everything in your life.

In his downtime, when he knew you were safe from the big scary world, Bucky often found himself at the bar near the centre of town. The bartender was a guy named Lucas with long hair and a southern accent who didn’t ask questions about what a guy like him was doing in a small town out here, or why he always wore gloves even in the heatwave that was occurring.

But tonight, tonight it wasn’t a place to unwind or relax, tonight Bucky figured Lucas could see the steam coming out his ears as he watched some man’s hand rest on your thigh. Look, holding hands was one thing, but how dare he manhandle you like that, a grip so tight like he was a child gripping a stuffed toy.

He watched as he leaned in to your ear, whispering something that had your pretty lips curving into a smirk as you looked down, slightly flustered before getting up and strolling to the bathroom with unheard of confidence.

Bucky couldn’t hold back for any longer, he downed his drink, kissing his teeth before storming into the bathroom, pausing as he saw the guy smoothing over his hair in the mirror. He quickly put an end to his preening and yanked him outside through the backdoor. Maybe this threatening was a little extra, and sure maybe the knee in the groin was a little much, but every time the voice in the back of his head told him to stop, all he saw was his hand on your thigh.

Either way, he left and after that, the town’s most eligible bachelorette seemed to swear off dating. That was until Bucky pretended to bump into you one day, and surprised you with the candlelit dinner with flowy table cloths as the sun set and wept you right off your feet.

Yes, maybe some of the ways he went about getting you back were slightly unethical, but it’s not as though you’d ever find out. Either way, he wouldn’t fuck it up this time, he loved you far too much for that.

anway im sorry for this-